'What's this about then, Mario?' asked the head ofCID. 'Stevie said you wanted me here, and an armed response team, but that was al. I thought I'd better tell the ACC too, then I found you'd phoned him.
You're fuckin' about with the chain of command here. Superintendent, and I don't like it.'
'Easy, Clan,' said Haggerty, calming the belligerent DCS. 'The lads 304 have been operating under my orders. You want to shout at anyone, shout at me.' He looked at McGuire. 'Okay. Tell us al your story.'
The big, swarthy detective nodded. 'We have information that the man who called himself Magnus Essary… his real name is George Rosewell… may be holed up in a flat here; the one next door to where the girl was killed yesterday. We also believe that he killed her; we should be able to prove that when we get hold of him.'
'What else do you know about him?'
'He shot my Uncle Beppe. He also killed the priest Father Green, and the doctor who certified the death; we have his accomplice in custody.
She's spilled the lot.'
Haggerty frowned. 'If he killed the girl, what the hell's he doing hiding next door?'
'We think he probably watched the place,' Mcl henney volunteered, 'and came back here after our guys had finished. Not entirely daft when you think about it.'
'And you think he's armed?'
'We must assume that.'
'Agreed; let's do it.'
The ACC nodded to the uniformed officers; weapons drawn, they led the way upstairs, moving silently until finally they reached the landing for which Ivy Brennan's taped-over apartment told them they had been heading. McGuire pointed to Rosewell's flat, and one of the constables stepped forward. He swung a heavy wooden bludgeon at the door; the frame shattered, it swung open, and the armed team rushed inside, their shouted warnings announcing their presence.
Inside a minute, the sergeant stepped out on to the landing. On floors above and below, they heard doors opening. 'He's in here, sir,' the officer told Haggerty.
The ACC led the detectives into the flat, following the armed sergeant. George Rosewell lay on his back, on a bloodstained rug, with half his face gone; a great silenced automatic hanging loosely in his right hand.
Haggerty looked down at him. 'You've done us a favour then, pal,' he said, as if the man could hear him. 'Good idea, bad bastard that you were.'
'He's had two whacks at it,' Steele murmured, pointing at a shattered mirror, above the cold fireplace. 'His hand must have been shaking the first time he tried.'
'Made no mistake next time,' Haggerty grunted. 'Okay, that's it; cal up the meat wagon, Stevie, and let's have him carted off for post mortem.'
'Are you not going to get Dorward's team in before we move him?' asked Pringle.
'Nah. No need for them. It's clear what happened; we'll do a residue test to prove he fired the gun. That'll be enough for the report to the fiscal.'
He looked at McGuire and Mcllhenney. 'That's it all sorted then, lads is it?' '
'Everything.'
'What about the woman, this Dewberry?'
'She's co-operating, sir. We've got her for the insurance scam, and she'll admit to dropping Rosewell off at Beppe's place the night he was shot.'
'What about the priest?'
'That'l have to stay unsolved. The priest, the doctor, and Rosewell are all dead. No decent brief will let her incriminate herself
'True. Well, come on; let's get moving. I haven't got al day; I'm the only bugger in the command corridor this week.' The squat Glaswegian headed for the door, McGuire by his side. 'How's Maggie, by the way? I heard you called her in sick.'
'She's got flu, sir. She'll be off for the rest of this week, at least, I'm afraid.'
'Not to worry. Manny English is back tomorrow, a bit early, and you've just sorted her investigation for her. Tell her I was asking for her.
In fact, you and Mcl henney take the rest of the week off yourselves. The pair of you look fucking knackered. Anyone would think you'd been up all night.' v
79
He sighed inwardly when he saw her; she lay on the white single bed, on a mound of pillows, staring at the ceiling, as she had done almost two days before. 'Mags?' he whispered.
She turned towards him; she was deathly pale, her eyes were hollow, her red hair was lifeless. 'Well?'
'How much do you remember?' he asked.
Her face twisted. 'All of it,' she hissed. 'Every last bloody second; being paralysed with fear, thinking I was dead, him, the beast, getting down on me. I remember al of it, and I know for sure that I always wil.'
She grinned but there was only bitterness in it. 'Kevin says I'm suffering from some sort of post-traumatic shock. He thinks it might go back to the plane crash. How gallant of you, not telling him what I did
… or what he did, either.'
The brief smile became a scowl. 'You've stuffed me too, you realise, getting me out of there. Nobody took a vaginal swab, nobody went over me for body hair; there was no forensic examination, nothing. I'l have no defence now. Have they decided what they're going to charge me with? Are they going for murder, or will they accept a plea to culpable homicide? Or is Kevin going to certify that I'm crazy? Is that what this is all about?'
He sat on the bed and tried to take her hand, but she yanked it from his grasp. 'We recovered George Rosewell's body in his flat, yesterday morning. He shot himself. We believe that he saw a police car outside his accomplice's house and realised that we were on to him.'
She gazed up at him, her fuzzy brain trying to fol ow what he was saying. 'But he didn't.' Her voice was hoarse. 'I shot him; right in the fucking face.'
'We did a residue test which proved that he fired the gun. Would you like us to do one on you? It'll be clean, I promise. He committed suicide; that's what it says on Stevie Steele's report to the fiscal, approved by the head ofCID in your absence. Accept what Kevin says.'
She resumed her examination of the ceiling. 'And suppose I do?' she said. 'And suppose you're right and my father's death is written off that way? I still don't have a career left, do I?'
'You have flu, which will turn into viral pneumonia, which will require a period of convalescence. The ACC sends his best wishes for your speedy recovery.'
'Does Willie Haggerty know?' she asked him, her eyes suddenly sharp.
'Mr Haggerty knows what I've told him. He didn't get to be an assistant chief constable by asking the wrong bloody questions.'
'You are a cunning bastard, aren't you. I suppose I should be thanking you now.'
He shook his head. 'No, you shouldn't, not now, and not ever if you don't want to. If you want to thank anyone, thank Neil. He put his arse on the line for you and he really didn't have to. He had more to lose than me. I can walk away from the police if I want, and run the Viareggio Trust with Paula. If he was disgraced, al the shit would come down on Lou and the kids, and heavy at that, because of who she is.'
'Then thank him for me.'
'No. You have to do that yourself, when you're ready. Meantime, just get over that flu. While you're doing that, I'm going to give you something to think about.'
He left the room, only to return a moment later, carrying a toddler, a young, fair-haired boy. 'This is Rums,' he told her. 'He's Ivy's wee lad.
She's dead, and he's lost his mum, only he doesn't realise it yet. He has a grandmother in Portugal, but she doesn't want to know about him… not that I'd let her anywhere near him even if she did. That makes him our responsibility, yours and mine… because you see, Mags, he's your half-brother. Who said I couldn't give you a kid?' Mario said, bitterly, and sat the child on the bed, beside her.
