round and she’s in a lot of pain. I’ve given her something for that but she has lost a lot of blood and there’s always so much you just can’t know when someone’s been so badly hurt…’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Inspector, she’s lucky to be alive.’ The doctor took a few steps down the corridor, turned. ‘Don’t spend more than five minutes in there — she needs to rest.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
Brennan walked back to the room. The WPC was sitting down beside Melanie McArdle; the woman’s head was turned towards the window. She seemed to be strapped in by the tight white sheets and blankets.
McGuire spoke first: ‘Melanie, my name’s DC Stephen McGuire and this is Detective Inspector Brennan. We’d like to talk to you about what happened.’
Brennan waved the DC away, moved round to the other side of the bed and sat down in front of Melanie, blocking her view of the window. He could see her eyes were bloodied, dark fraught tangles of ruptured capillaries. There were tears too, welling below the irises, waiting to roll down her face.
‘Hello, Melanie,’ said Brennan. ‘Can you speak?’
She opened her mouth slowly, a whisper: ‘Yes.’
‘I don’t want to tire you out, so let me know if I am asking too much… Can you tell me, did Devlin do this to you?’
She seemed to sink deeper into herself at the mention of her husband’s name. Her eyes misted some more, then a tear ran down her cheek. ‘He… stabbed me.’
Brennan watched her slow breath; each gasp seemed to be an agony. He edged closer. ‘What happened?’
Melanie’s breathing reached a sibilant wheeze. ‘The baby…’
‘What about the baby?’
She looked directly at Brennan. ‘Where is she?’
Brennan caught McGuire’s eye. He turned back to Melanie. ‘We don’t know.’
She curled her lower lip; it trembled for a second or two and then her whole body seemed to shake as she descended into tears.
The WPC leaned over, touched her hand. ‘It’s okay, Melanie, it’s okay.’
‘No, he’s taken her… He’s taken her.’
Brennan spoke: ‘Where’s he taken her, Melanie?’
She paused. Then: ‘I don’t know.’
Brennan watched her in misery. He could see it was painful for her to think of what McArdle must have done with the child. ‘Do you have any idea?’
‘No. No.’ The tears continued.
‘Melanie, you must have heard something. You must have seen something… Who was he holding the baby for?’
Melanie pushed away the WPC’s hand; she brought her fingers to her eyes, wiped away the tears. ‘The news… he saw the news on the television and went mad. He was panicked.’
‘Then what happened?’
She seemed to be trying to retrace her steps. ‘We fought, over the baby. I had the knife — he took it off me.’
‘Go on.’
Melanie’s words gathered power. ‘He came after me, stabbed me.’
‘Then what?’
Her breathing seemed to have stilled. ‘I fell. I lay on the ground. I could feel the knife in my stomach.’
‘Where was Devlin?’
‘He was in the kitchen, then the living room… He was shouting, speaking to someone on the phone.’
‘Who was he speaking to?’
Melanie curled her fingers, touched her lips with the tips of her nails. ‘It was the German… Gunter.’
Brennan nodded to McGuire; he wrote down the name. ‘Carry on, Melanie, you’re doing fine.’
She removed her hand, looked at Brennan. Thoughts and memories seemed to spark behind her eyes. ‘He said… he was going to… Liverpool.’
‘Liverpool?’
Melanie turned her face towards the pillow. She looked exhausted now. ‘Yes. I heard him say it — he was meeting the German in Liverpool.’
Brennan got out of the chair. He touched Melanie’s hand. ‘You’ve done very well, love. Now get some rest.’
She opened her eyes again; they were thin slits as she spoke: ‘What about the baby?’
Brennan couldn’t answer her.
Chapter 46
Devlin McArdle had driven through the night with a screaming child and a sense of the world closing in on him. In the space of a few hours the comfortable life he’d known in Edinburgh had ended. He knew there was no way back; even if he offloaded the baby, took full payment and moved on he would be running for years. The plea on the television by the minister played over and over in his head. ‘Fucking telly,’ he roared. ‘Fucking telly’s onto me.’
He gripped the wheel tightly. There was a hint of rain in the air, the sun was up and that made him feel even more nervous. In the dark, at night, the blackness made you feel safe. He’d never understood people who were afraid of the dark, he thought; dark was good. No one could see you in the dark. It was when the place was all lit up, when people started to take to the streets that you got nervous — that’s when you got caught.
‘Bastards stitched me up!’
He cursed Tierney and Vee for getting him involved; it was all their fault. He’d told Tierney if he was up to something it would be the last trick he ever pulled and he was right about that. ‘Told you, didn’t I, Barry? Told you nobody messes with the Deil.’
Tierney got his, and Vee, he thought.
Stupid pair of bastards, out on the razz when the television folk are all over them. Out drinking it up, smashed out their heads. What were they thinking?
If the police had got hold of that pair, they’d have been coming down with the sweats in a few hours, begging for a hit. They’d have told the filth anything they wanted to know. They knew he wasn’t going to take that chance.
‘No way. No way.’
The road ahead narrowed as McArdle came off the motorway; he kept his eyes alert to the signs for the turn-off he’d been told about. There was a service station, a Little Chef, with a big car park and a BP garage somewhere on this road. If he could find that, one of his problems would be solved.
‘Shut the fuck up!’ he yelled at the child in the back seat.
The baby screamed louder, kicked her feet.
Did she know? Had she been listening to all his talk on the phone with Gunter?
‘What you on about?’ McArdle wondered if he was cracking up, losing his mind. Of course the baby couldn’t understand — she had no idea what he was doing.
But he knew.
‘Not my problem. No fucker looked out for me.’
Life was hard, you had to be hard. He couldn’t afford to think about what he was doing; it was survival of the fittest. He’d heard that phrase once before and it made sense to him. Life was survival — it’s what his had been all about.
When McArdle spotted the sign for the turn-off he dropped a gear, went into fourth and brought the needle under fifty. He was surprised to see so many cars, and trucks. Lots of truckers. Lazy bastards, truckers, he thought.
