Thorn In My Side (7 page)

He slipped his
jacket off and hung it over the side of the chair, sitting down to
take his shoes off, easing his body back into the red settee that
Alicia loved, and he hated with a vengeance. He sighed, and staring
at the clock thought,
Tonight I got off lightly.

Would I do it
again?

Probably.

Shaking his
head at his own stupidity he got up and tiptoed into the bedroom,
because the floor was wood and creaked like an ancient door. Plus
at four in the morning Alicia was never at her best. He reached the
bed.

The empty
bed!

'What?'

Dragging the
quilt off to make sure, he stared open mouthed at the empty
space.

Danny headed
for home, his hands deep in his pockets, his mind on Shelly.
Where the hell is she?

She wouldn’t
have gone home, she hates her brothers. All they ever do is
boss
her around all the time and treat her like a little
kid.

They did, too.
He’d seen it first hand.
Got to admit that Liam’s all right, and
a good laugh at times but Gary, nothing but a pain in the
arse.

The other two
brothers were married with their own families now, but they all
still did what Gary said. Danny knew that they had, in all
fairness, brought her up when their parents died. Really they were
just being overly protective, but Shelly couldn’t see that. She
would do her own thing, whatever the cost.

There was a
wooden bench outside the flat. Sitting down, he pulled out a
crumpled packet of cigarettes, lit up, watched the blue- grey
clouds swirl from the glowing tip in the breeze that had sprung up
from nowhere. Then stared at the sky, which was becoming lighter by
the second. Pretty soon the early morning workers would be heading
off to their daily grind.

He silently
thanked God that he and Evan had another three days' holiday left.
The way he felt today, work would have been impossible
.

He shook his
head and puffed air out of his cheeks. They should have gone
abroad. A few years ago they would have been on the plane and
away.

Bloody
women!

Complicate
everything. ‘Cos they couldn’t all get their holidays at
the
same time, me and Evan are denied our annual trip abroad. No
lying on the beach this year for us, slyly watching the topless
babes.

Blackpool,
Alicia had suggested. A weekend even, as a last resort, just for a
break, she’d argued.

Last resort
all right. Who the fuck wants to go to Blackpool? Full of rampant
teenagers, screaming kids and the bloody blue
rinse
brigade.

Finishing the
cigarette, he stamped it out and was about to get up when he was
suddenly flooded with longing for Shelly. His body sagged. He
flopped back on the bench, the longing becoming an actual pain.

I should
have listened more, not been so bogged down by work.
Gotta
find her and tell her that I do love her.

A ring! That
would make her really happy. Doesn’t mean that we
have to
get married – well, not for a good long time anyway. A long
engagement. Yeah
, he nodded, smiling to himself.
That
would be good. As long as possible. Ten years? Maybes. I could live
with that all right, lots of people have really long engagements
these days.

'I do love you,
Shelly,' he muttered to the newly emerging buttercups on the grass
verge.

Should have
been saying it more often!

Really should
have.

Whatever we
fell out over, it’s all my fault.

Gotta be!

Slowly he
nodded his head. He would look for her today, even if it meant
going back to Durham and facing her brothers. But first he would
try those flaming weirdo friends of hers. His eyelids began to
droop. His last thought before falling into a deep sleep was,
find those weirdoes.

DAY ONE

Danny was woken
up a good hour and a half later by the milkman vigorously shaking
his shoulder. 'Wh…?' he muttered, opening his eyes. The sun was
just coming over the rooftops. He blinked, wondering where he was,
and shivered.

'Somebody nick
yer shirt, son?' the milkman asked, noticing the blood on Danny’s
jeans, but saying nothing.

He knew the
young man well enough, having passed the time of day with him more
than once, but in this day and age it paid to be careful.
Far
too many nutters around
. He stepped away, closer to his cart,
one leap away if needs be.

But he needn’t
have bothered. The guy was his usual amiable self. 'No, no, my
friend got in some bother last night, you know how it is…Never
mind, I’m going in… Bloody freezing.'

'Yeah, you do
that before yer catch yer death, sunshine. It’s a bit nippy this
morning all right.'

Danny hurried
up to the flat, his teeth chattering all the way. His mouth tasted
like a dead rat had taken up residence in there, and he could
murder a cup of coffee. He also needed about twenty-four hours or
more sleep before he could even hope to feel like a human being
again.

Opening the
door quietly, he crept inside in much the same way as Evan had done
a couple of hours ago. Then he remembered there was no need, Shelly
wasn’t here.

'Unless,' he
muttered, ever the optimist. With hope rising, he thought,
she
could have come home last night. Yeah, she might have.
And
at the end of the day I can’t really remember what the hell she was
gone for.

'Well, she
could have,' he argued with himself, then quietly, full of hope, he
opened the bedroom door, ready to jump on the bed.

'Oh, yes!
Shelly babes,' he yelled, seeing a mass of black hair spread out on
the pillow. 'Shelly, I’m sorry, it was all my fault. What ever it
was, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry… I’m sorry, sorry, sorry… Here I
come, babes.'

With a grin
wide enough to split his face in half, he crossed the small space
in four strides, cast off his shoes and yanked the quilt off, his
grin by now even wider. 'Shelly, oh Shel----'

The quilt slid
out of his suddenly slack hands and fell in a crumpled heap on the
floor. Danny gasped. His jaw hung open; not believing what he saw,
he blinked rapidly and started to tremble. His lips moved,
no
no, no
, but there was no sound. His vocal cords were frozen in
shock.

Shelly’s naked
body was covered in blood. Her hair was hanging over her face,
partially obscuring it, and what could be seen was hardly
recognisable. Every single inch of her was red, as if she’d been
painted the colour of death. He looked at his hands, covered in
blood from the quilt. Forgetting that he had no T-shirt on, his
whole body shaking in horror, he wiped his hands across his chest,
leaving large red swathes.

'No,' he yelled
loudly, finally finding his voice and backing away from the bed,
then 'No,' again before turning and running out of the bedroom.
Practically in free fall, he made it down the stairs. His hands
still slippy with blood, he struggled a moment with the lock. Then
he was outside.

He ran in a
blind panic along Mary Street, bumping into early morning shoppers,
scattering parcels of newspapers. A bakery delivery boy cursed him
as a tray of pies hit the pavement, but Danny was oblivious to
everything and everyone around him except the fact that Shelly was
dead. He carried on shouting over and over, 'She’s dead, she’s
dead.'

Fearing this
half-naked, barefooted screaming madman careering along the street
yelling his head off, people scattered out of his way. He saw none
of them. His eyes were full of blood, his mind was full of
blood.

She couldn’t go
on, no matter how terrified she was. She had to stop, or collapse
in this field miles from anywhere, to be found God knows when,
after dozens of crawly slimy creatures had feasted at her body. The
mental picture of it stopped her in her tracks. She shuddered and
felt sick. Gagging, she headed slowly towards a fallen tree.

Shaking with
fatigue, she sat down and took her Nova pen out. After a moment
staring at the pen she hated, but knew was much better than the
needles she’d once used, she dialled five units less than usual,
then injected the insulin into her stomach. Quickly she threw four
fruit gums into her mouth, but almost at once she knew it wasn’t
enough. Sweating profusely, her hands shaking, she managed to get
another three sweets into her mouth when she’d swallowed the first
lot. Then to be on the safe side, she popped another two. She still
had a long way to go, and eyed the half-packet that was left with
dismay.

She knew she
wouldn’t make it without food.

She had walked
most of the night. Kept to the fields as much as possible, ducking
every time she saw the headlights of a car or lorry, fearing a
heart attack at any moment the way it pounded in her ears each time
she saw a light or heard something in the field.

'Oh God.' The
information she carried in her head weighed heavily. She had to get
to safety so that she could pass it on. Everyone should know about
this, but until they did, nothing would be done, these people would
go on forever.

She knew that
she would have to be even more careful now that it was full light.
She needed a phone box. There were two or three small villages
within the next couple of miles. At least one of them should still
have a working public phone. With a deep sigh, and dredging up a
wealth of determination -- a lot of people depended on her without
them even knowing it yet -- and keeping close to the hedgerows, she
plodded on.

After jumping
on the train at the last minute, disappointed that Smiler hadn’t
turned up to at least say goodbye, and having shown the train guard
his badge and assured him that Tiny was a well-behaved police dog,
Mike found a seat in economy.

Thank
God,
he thought, after pushing Tiny as far under his seat as he
could get him, which wasn’t very far – fully half of him was
touching the facing seats. Three hours to Durham was a long time to
stand in the corridor.

Shaking his
newspaper out, he settled himself down for the journey, wishing
that he’d driven down in the beginning. He hated long train
journeys. He felt captive from getting on the train to getting off,
and would much rather travel by car.

A few minutes
later he decided to take his jacket off. Even though it was
lightweight summer wear, he knew he would be more comfortable in
his shirt sleeves.

At last the
train pulled away and he scanned the rest of the carriage. Pretty
full for this time of day, holiday season, families desperate to
get out of the big city, see a bit of green. Although he had to
admit London had surprised him in that respect, more grass around
than he had ever thought. In more ways than one, of course. Apart
from this three-month stint, the only other time he’d been to
London had been a school trip.

A young mother
with three kids under five, all, the mother included, dressed in
yellow T-shirts, caught his eye. The kids were reasonably well
behaved so far, occupied as they were with drawing paper and
colouring pens. He wondered how far up the line they would get
before pandemonium broke out. The mother had piqued his interest
because she reminded him of Kristina Clancy, same short dark bob
and large brown eyes. He’d worked with Kristina on a few cases.
They’d even had something going once. It had petered out though,
probably due to the pressures of the job. They were still friends,
although she had moved further north and married someone called
Timothy Mears, or Myers, he couldn’t remember. He’d never met the
bloke anyhow. The last he’d heard Kristina was somewhere on the
edge of Scotland.

Relegating
Kristina to the back of his mind he opened his newspaper. The first
thing he saw was a full page advert for perfume, the girl with the
red hair and red dress smiling out at him. He’d also noticed her on
just about every billboard in the city on his way over to Kings
Cross.

Well, that
just about explains that
, he thought with a slight smile. Of
course, the other business that was just Smiler’s mind hyper acting
again.

He knew he
would miss the kid, and didn’t even want to admit to himself how
disappointed he was about Smiler not turning up at the station to
see him off.

Although in all
fairness he may not have got the message, in which case he might
phone. Though it had struck him at the time that Rita was so
grateful, she would scour the earth to pass the message on. The
main thing was that Smiler had promised that he would never again
under any circumstances attempt to take his own life, and that
drugs were a thing of the past. Whether these were promises he
could keep or not remained to be seen, but Mike believed that
Smiler would try. All he’d ever wanted or needed was someone to
give him a chance. At least he’d managed to keep off the drugs for
the longest time in nine years, the poor bugger had been smoking
dope and dipping into his mother's other habits before he was even
eight years old
. Yesterday must just have been a flash
back, and I certainly handled that all wrong.

He sighed
inwardly. If there was some way that he could go back and find the
creeps who had used Smiler, Mike would see that they would be
behind bars for life, each one of them with a severe chronic
complaint, after he’d dealt with them himself, of course. But with
Smiler’s mother dead there was no way of knowing who or where they
were, nor even just how many of them there had been. No one to even
ask, as most of those years were blocked to Smiler, his mind doing
him a great kindness by closing over the worst of it. But
sometimes, mostly when it was least expected, Smiler’s eyes would
cloud over. Mike would know that a breeze had lifted the curtain at
the edges and Smiler was peering into the abyss.