My head’s sore, knuckles too. No blood though – that’s good. I’m breathing so hard, like I’ve run around the garden, not walked. It’s so hard. I’ve got to tell her. Tell Dr Mara, it wasn’t me. It was never me. But they won’t believe me. They won’t, I know they won’t. I’m breathing too fast. My eyes are all misty. I can’t move my legs. I can’t keep walking. I fall to the grass, it’s wet, because the hose has been out. I don’t care.
My hands are out of my pockets and I’m punching and punching and punching my head, my face and I’m yelling and yelling, ‘It wasn’t me. It wasn’t ME. It wasn’t Me!’
Thump, thump, thump! Every punch makes me yell louder; I can’t stop myself. Bernie’s there, he’s trying to grasp my arms, but I’m crying and the salt from my tears nips the cuts on my face. Thump, thump, thump!
‘It’s OK, Jimmy. It’s OK, lad. We’ve got you.’
I look up at him as the liquid peace floods through my brains. He’s smiling at me. Bernie’s smiling, but he’s also frowning. I grab his hand, my eyes flutter. ‘It wasn’t me, Bernie. It wasn’t me. It was never me.’
‘I know, Jimmy. I know. I’ve got you now.’
Chapter 58
Scotland
‘How’s your mum taking it?’
Glad of the privacy after the long car ride, Gus lay on his bed in the hotel, speaking to Alice on the phone. ‘I’ve not told her yet. Thought I’d let her settle in her room. Sadia’s with her and Carlton and I will head along in a bit. I just wanted to touch base with you before I did. This is bloody crazy, Alice. What the hell is going on?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Two damn suspects who look really good for this … except…’
‘Yeah, except the fact they’re both locked up in a psychiatric unit and definitely not our killer.’
‘Now we know that both Jimmy and Rory are linked to your mum, we might be able to find out more. Sadia didn’t check out Jimmy’s visitors, or even try to talk with him – I mean why would she? We’ve got them working on checking the visitor log. They’ll have that information available for you when you arrive. We were focussed on Rory and how the hell his drawings made their way from a secure facility in Scotland down to Bradford.’
‘Have you got anything else on Jimmy?’
‘Compo’s been performing all sorts of magic. Jimmy apparently strangled his own wife to death and landed ten years in Barlinnie Prison. But get this, Gus – looking at the crime scene photos, after he strangled her, he hung her from the ceiling and left her there – maybe he thought the police would think it was suicide, but they were too savvy to fall for that one.’
‘Can you get the PM report sent to my dad – I want him to check for any sort of similarity between that murder and the two we’ve got.’
‘On it. Jimmy had two sons, they were only ten and twelve when he killed their mum. Jimmy had lost his job at the shipyards and, so the report says, his wife was feeding her drug habit through prostitution. Jimmy found her in bed with a client and … well as they say, the rest is history. I reckon that’s why his sentence was so lenient.’
‘Poor sod. What happened to the sons?’
‘Well … they were put into foster care and the eldest, Ben, was eventually adopted by his foster parents and by all accounts made a success of his life. He’s apparently living the good life in Oz as some sort of computer whizz kid. Nancy’s trying to contact him right now.’ Alice lowered her voice. ‘Anything to get her out of my hair, she’s driving me bloody wild with her demands.’
Gus subdued a laugh. Nancy could be over enthusiastic and demanding and while Gus was used to it, he’d always been the buffer between Nancy and Alice. He wished he was a fly on the wall right now.
Speaking normally again, Alice continued, ‘The younger son, John, wasn’t so lucky. After doing the rounds with a variety of foster parents, he became a bit of a handful. He managed to get himself on the straight and narrow after a few years of being a toerag, you know shoplifting, stealing cars etc.? He lives in Glasgow.’
‘Did Jimmy reconnect with his kids after his release?’
‘Well, that’s the thing. Apparently, he did – or rather tried to. On his release he tried to meet with the boys, but they wanted nothing to do with him. The brothers had lost touch over the years, but when Jimmy started stalking them on his release, they each separately took out a restraining order. Ben still lived with his parents, but John was married, and his wife was pregnant. Police records show that neither of Jimmy’s sons wanted to reconnect, but Jimmy apparently became increasingly persistent. So…’
With a sinking feeling, Gus thought through what Alice had already told him. ‘Jimmy killed the younger son’s wife, didn’t he?’
‘Exactly. When they caught him, he didn’t even try to deny it. Instead, he insisted it wasn’t his son’s wife but his own mother he’d killed. He stuck to that story consistently, saying the devil was in her and she needed to die. As did Coco. He was deemed too fragile to remain in the main prison population and was admitted to Bellbrax psychiatric facility.’
‘Shit, Coco was what they called my mum. He wants to kill my mum?’
‘I wondered about that. Thought the similarity in their names was too coincidental for him not to be referring to Corrine. What are you going to do?’
‘She protected him – she was only a kid herself, but she protected him. She put
