A St Christopher’s cross.
A sock from the boy in Liverpool.
A beanie from the runner who got away.
A tennis ball from the one he met beside the canal.
A shame about him. Such a waste. He’d read the newspaper reports about how he’d died accidentally. Only he knew the truth, of course. It had been so easy to hold his head under the water, watching his feet kick and struggle, fighting to hang onto life. Rolling the dead body into the dark water and walking away without looking back.
Too easy.
Each time his fingers touched an object they trembled slightly, memories of these beautiful times filling his body. Sweet memories.
He closed the drawer slowly, reluctantly.
A querulous voice from the other room.
She should be asleep already. ‘Coming, Mother,’ he shouted.
He mustn’t indulge himself now, save the pleasure of his trophies for later.
Time for her medicine. She liked taking her medicine. It helped her to sleep.
He wondered what she dreamt about. The men she had brought home? Or the times she hadn’t returned at all? Or the ones who thought he was part of the deal too?
He would have to begin increasing the dosage soon.
It would help put her to sleep forever.
And then he wouldn’t have to wait any more.
Chapter 11
It all seemed to be happening in slow motion.
The bubbles rising to the top of the pan as the water reached boiling point.
The sound of muffled voices from the living room.
The rip of the packet of har gau as he opened it.
The ring of the doorbell echoing again and again and again.
Polly’s voice as she ran to open the door – ‘I’ll get it’ – sounding muddied and indistinct.
Leaning over the dim sum to look out of the kitchen window, feeling the heat of the steam rising from the pan onto his face.
A woman at the door.
An old woman at the door.
An old woman he knew.
The slow formation of questions in his mind. Were they expecting visitors that evening? What was she doing here? Was she supposed to come to his house? Had they arranged a meeting?
Mrs Seagram should have been at home mourning the death of her son, not standing outside his front door.
What did she want?
Hearing Polly’s footsteps in the hall, the latch turning, the slight creak as the draft excluder he had installed last winter gave way and the door began to open.
And then it hit him with all the force of a pile driver.
He shouted. His voice echoing around his head again and again and again.
‘Don’t open…’
‘Don’t open…’
‘Don’t open…’
‘Don’t open…’
He tried running towards the hall, but his legs were held fast to the kitchen floor, as if running through a lake of glue.
Then the sound of two gunshots, one after another in quick succession.
And he woke up, sitting upright in the bed, his body and the sheets drenched with sweat. His breathing heavy, as if he had been chasing some nutter through the streets of Manchester for miles.
‘You have to tell her, you know.’
Polly was sitting at the end of his bed.
‘Tell who?’
‘Don’t use your copper’s tricks on me, Ridpath. It’s Polly, remember? Tell your psychiatrist. The one who wears the cheap clothes from Primark. Mrs Underpriced…’
‘It’s Underwood. Doctor Underwood.’
‘Whatever. Tell her.’
It was the Polly from when they had first met twelve years ago, in her dad’s Chinese restaurant. Her hair dyed green, the make-up showing traces of the goth phase she was going through.
‘Not yet.’
‘She has to know. You can’t spend every night like this.’
‘But if I tell her, she’ll put me back on sick leave.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t be working.’
‘With you gone, it’s all I have.’
‘You still have Eve and you still have me. Tell her.’
‘I will… soon.’
‘Tell her today.’
He didn’t answer. There was no point, Polly always had the last word.
And besides, he knew she was right.
On the Second Day
Wednesday, August 5
Chapter 12
The following morning, Ridpath was up early. The day had a perfect clarity to it, with a few fibres of clouds drifting across the sky and the birds harmonising in the trees like an avian barbershop quartet.
He’d noticed fewer contrails in the skies above Manchester recently – fewer puffy, straight lines like chalk on a blue blackboard, a small black dot at the front. People weren’t flying any more, the skies quiet and untroubled. Even the air seemed clearer, or was that his imagination?
He felt tired, the routine of shaving, washing his face and brushing his teeth taking far longer than normal. He put on his suit and was out only a little late to drive to Police HQ on Northampton Road.
He switched on the radio and listened to the news. It was a non-stop litany of screw-ups and mistakes; PPE nightmares, pensioners having to pay for their TV licences, chaos in care homes, and one quango even saying they should close pubs to open up schools, which was as likely to happen as a squadron of pigs taking off from Manchester Airport.
Nothing about the Carsley case. Most of the nationwide news reporters had moved on to bigger and better things, leaving only a few intrepid and persistent local stringers to carry on.
The only time he really listened was when they reported on the lenient sentencing of the killers of a young copper, Andrew Harper. ‘Should throw away the key,’ he muttered before switching off the news and putting on a Bowie CD.
The strident chords of ‘Jean Genie’ filled the car and he found himself singing along with the music. He’d recently found out that Mick Ronson had once been a parkie in Hull. Something to remember for the next pub quiz.
At HQ, he parked up and entered the building, going through the now expected rigmarole of hand sanitisation, temperature checking and social distancing.
Up to the fifth floor where the usual MIT detectives were assembling in the Situation Room. Well, not the usual crowd; there were fewer coppers than normal and they were all spread out around the room rather than being clumped together.
Ridpath waved to Emily Parkinson
