Gallery Whispers

29

'Let's promise each other something, eh?'

'What's that?' she whispered.

'That this is going to be the last time that either of us visits the other in this bloody place.' Mario McGuire had never been more sincere in his life.

As his wife looked up at him, the thought came to him that she had never looked more lovely. Her red hair had been brushed by a recovery room nurse, and was spread softly on the pillow, her eyes were still slightly hazy from the anaesthetic, and her appearance was one of gentle vulnerability. Her right arm lay above the covers, encased in a huge, thick bandage from just above the elbow to the wrist.

'Life is the scene of one continuous accident, my dear,' she mumbled, with a light half-stoned smile. 'But yes, let's both do our best to make sure we don't.'

'What the hell was that boy Steele thinking about,' McGuire growled, 'letting you get into a situation like that. When I see him, I'm going to'

She squeezed his arm, lightly with her left hand. 'You're going to thank him from the bottom of your heart, and buy him a great big drink. You couldn't have kept me out of there any more than he could.'

She grinned again. 'Who's the ranking officer here? 'When it came to the bit, Stevie was brilliant. He flattened the guy and secured him inside ten seconds, then took care of me like an expert. Deacey went for me because I was nearest. If he had got to Stevie first…' The smile left her face, and she shuddered.

'Shh,' he soothed her. 'Let's not talk about it any more. All things considered, let's just thank our lucky stars.' He looked at her, at her heavily bandaged right arm, and at the tube which ran from her left arm to a drip set up by the bedside. 'I've talked to the guy who operated on you,' he said. 'There was quite a bit of tendon and muscle damage, but they've been able to sew everything back together. They're confident that everything will sort itself in time and that you won't have any impaired movement in your hand. You lost a lot of blood, though. They're going to put a couple of pints into you.'

She frowned at him. 'You mean I'm not getting home tonight?'

'Nor tomorrow night, nor the night after that. They're going to keep you in until Friday at the very least.'

'Oh shit. It's only a cut.'

He sighed. 'Mags, love, it's one of the worst wounds of its type that your surgeon has ever treated. To guarantee a full recovery they have to keep your arm immobilised for a while. So do what they say, if you want to be able to button up your shirts with your right hand.'

Her grin returned. 'Or unbutton yours,' she chuckled, woozily.

He could tell that she was ready for sleep. 'I'm going to go now,' he said. 'They're going to move you to a ward in a minute. I'll look in tomorrow morning. We're working up here just now.' He leaned across the bed and kissed her. 'Sleep tight, — and watch that arm.'

'Mario,' she whispered as he made to stand. The heavy sedative was kicking in, with a vengeance.

'What?' He smiled at her, amused. He had never seen her as intoxicated.

'Wrong bloody Deacey,' she murmured. 'But he's the only one…'

Her voice trailed off, as the drug drew her into sleep. He kissed her once more, on the forehead, stood, and turned to leave. The surgeon stood in the doorway. 'You sure she'll be all right, now?' McGuire asked. Something in his voice made it clear that there had better be only one answer to that question.

'Yes, if she does what she's told for the next few days.' He sighed.

'Rough job for a woman.' Suddenly Mario, felt a lump in his throat.

He looked back over his shoulder, towards the bed, so that the man could not see his eyes.

'Some woman,' he said, lost in love and admiration.

He shook his head as if to clear it, zipped up his Barbour and headed out of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, into the night. The clock in his car, which was parked near the AE entrance, thanks to his Special Branch clout, told him that it was just after eight thirty.

Instead of heading home, he swung right out of the hospital gate and drove off in the direction of the St Leonard's divisional headquarters.

The officer on duty at the entrance nodded an acknowledgement as he walked into the building. 'Mr Mackie still here?' he asked.

'Yes sir,' said the man. 'Up in his office. DS Steele's still here too.'

McGuire trotted upstairs, gave a brief knock on the divisional CID commander's door and walked in. Mackie and Steele were seated at a long conference table, shirt-sleeved. The superintendent held a mug of coffee while the sergeant was sipping from a can of Sprite. They stood anxiously as he closed the door behind him.

'How is she?' asked Mackie.

'Drugged up to the eyeballs, and having blood pumped into her; but she's going to be all right, thank Christ.'

'Mario, I'm sorry' Steele began.

'What for? Saving her life? We owe you one, son. Thanks from both of us.'

'But I should have held her back,' the young sergeant protested.

'That place was a snake pit, I should have gone in first.'

'Stevie,' said McGuire steadily. 'If you had held her back, even now you'd have been shaking the mothballs out of your uniform.' He peeled off his Barbour and the jacket of his suit together, and threw them across the table. 'What's the Deacey story then, Brian?'

'He isn't one,' the superintendent answered sourly. 'We printed him, then ran a PNC check. The guy's real name is Winston Joseph; he's a pimp, from Birmingham. He's been wanted for four years, since one of his girls was murdered, cut to bits. He was the only suspect; witnesses saw them together at the scene. The other tarts in his string said that the dead girl had been doing freelance jobs and he'd found out. He hasn't been seen since; the CID down there assumed he'd gone back to the Caribbean, but now it turns out that he got himself fixed up with a new identity. We were put on to him by the DSS people. He was the only Deacey that their records showed up.

'It's obvious that when Maggie told him that she wanted to talk to him about the death of a woman, he jumped to the wrong conclusion, i.e. that he'd been rumbled, and that she and Stevie were there to lift him for killing the girl.

'We've charged him with attempted murder. But as soon has he's been up before the Sheriff tomorrow for a formal remand, we've got to send him down south for questioning there. Our Brummie colleagues are very grateful to us.'

'That's good. Mags'11 be pleased too.'

'Yes, but he was our only Deacey, and no way was he Gaynor's boyfriend. We can be sure of that much. So the Weston investigation's at a dead stop. She won't be so chuffed about that.'

'I suppose not,' McGuire grunted.

'Coffee?' asked Mackie.

'Please.' He paused. 'I'll just go for a piss first.'

Still in shirt-sleeves, his warrant card hanging on a chain round his neck, he left the room. He walked straight past the male toilet, which was not far from Mackie's office, then downstairs and along the corridor to the station's holding cells.

'Hello Davie,' he said to the custody sergeant. The man looked at him for a long time, unsmiling.

'Remember that night in Muirhouse, when those three guys had you trapped?' McGuire asked, meaningfully.

The sergeant reached a decision. With a grim nod, he rose, and led him along the row of cells, until they came to the last door on the right. 'It's Tuesday, the night,' he said at last. 'Quiet. Naebody else in yet.' He turned his master key in the lock.

Winston Joseph was squatting on the bed against the far wall of the cell when the black-haired, shirt-sleeved, thick-necked figure stepped into his world. He jumped to his feet. 'I told y'all already. Ain't got nothin' to say, mon.'

'That's fine,' McGuire growled. 'I don't want you to say anything.

I just want you to scream for a while.'

He stepped forward, reaching out with his left hand as if to clip the man on the side of the head. Instinctively Joseph leaned back; as he did so, the swarthy detective shifted his weight and smashed his right fist into the fleshy triangle just below his rib cage. The smacking sound seemed to bounce off the cell's tiled room.

For a moment, the bizarre orange dreadlocks stood out straight, as if their owner had been struck by lightning. Indescribable bolts of pain flooded through the bulky body of the former Malcolm Deacey, as his legs buckled beneath him and he slumped to the floor. He did his best to scream, but found that all the air seemed to have been driven from his lungs; they burned, adding to his agony, as he gasped for breath.

His smiling nightmare allowed him squirm on the floor for a few seconds, then hauled him upright, held him by the throat with his left hand, and hit him again, in the same spot, but even harder. This time, Joseph lost control of his bladder, as well as his legs.

'Just in case you were wondering,' said Mario McGuire, conversationally, as he dug his left thumb, agonisingly, into the bunched nerve endings at the base of the man's neck, 'that was my wife you cut this afternoon. I wish I had more time to get to know you, but still, I've got enough. You, my man, are in for the worst few minutes of your life.'

Somewhere in his befuddled brain, Winston Joseph knew that the smart thing to do would be to pass out. Unfortunately, he never had been very smart.