In a Place of Darkness

56

Some manky sod had dumped a half-eaten doner kebab in the bin, filling Observation Room B with the sharp-sour scent of raw onions, congealed lamb, and sweaty garlic.

Which begged the question: had it been there all night, marinating away, or did someone have a really weird breaktime snack this morning? What was wrong with a doughnut, or a couple of biscuits with your cuppa? Or, in Angus’s case, a Tunnock’s tasty Caramel Wafer, discovered at the back of a cupboard in the Operation Telegram incident room.

Which wasn’t technically stealing, because whoever hid it there hadn’t included a Post-it-note-proof-of-ownership.

He shifted on his plastic seat.

Surely there had to be one position where his leg didn’t ache the whole time.

Not that the rest of him was much better.

OK, so the bruises had faded to a wash of pale-yellow stains, but the stitches in his chest and shoulder itched like absolute bastards, the microporous tape holding the dressing in place kept ripping hairs out every time he reached for something, and his left arm was ‘full of Meccano’ and still in a cast.

At least the sling made a convenient hidey-hole for a bag of sherbet fruits, keeping them from the thieving fingers of his fellow officers.

Angus stretched the offending leg out, knocking his NHS-issue elbow crutch off the end of the worktop to clatter against the floor. Where it could bloody well stay this time.

The room’s trio of monitors each showed a different view of Interview Two: Gillian, in prison blues and no make-up, sitting next to the crumpled Mr Coulter, who seemed to get less and less healthy every time he was called in as duty solicitor. He should probably see a doctor. Or an embalmer.

Stripped of the lipstick and eyeliner and all the rest of her armoury, Gillian looked more like a secondary schoolgirl than someone charged with three murders and conspiracy for six others.

She pulled a shoulder up to her ear, picking away at the nails on one hand as her voice crackled through the observation room’s speakers — the vowels flattened and elongated by Gillian’s newly acquired American accent. ‘I guess? I mean, I suppose we were... trying to do something positive for the world. You know? Gonna shake it out of its complacency, before it’s too late.’

Sitting opposite, DI Cohen placed a photograph on the table. ‘For the tape: I’m showing Miss Snyder item three-nine-four-dash-two. Is this what you call “something positive”, Daisy?’

She pulled back in her chair, scowling down at her twisting fingers, avoiding the picture of Leonard Lundy’s remains. ‘That ain’t my name.’

Mr Coulter sounded as if he hadn’t slept in a year. ‘Can we please just use my client’s preferred name, Detective Inspector? Or we’ll be here all flipping year...’

‘Fine.’ He poked the photo. ‘Is this what you call “something positive”, “Gillian”?’

Angus checked his copy of Behavioral Analysis for Law-Enforcement Personnel (Crime-Scene Indicators, Forensic Red Flags, & Interview Guidance) — open at the chapter titled ‘DELUSIONAL CONDITIONING IN RELATION TO PATTERNS OF REPEAT OFFENDING’ — and added a new box to the analysis matrix he’d drawn up on a spare yellow legal pad. Wrote ‘MASKING & AVOIDANCE’ inside it, then underlined it twice.

Had to admit, the book was finally starting to make sense.

Sort of.

There was a knock at the observation-room door, then in hurpled DCI Monroe, leaning heavily on a crutch of his own. His suit was sharper and more expensive than Angus’s, but he held a pale mirror to the man who’d led the inquiry.

His hair was shorn to the scalp, where a handful of gauze pads hid his own crop of stitches. A black patch covering one eye. Plastic guard shielding his reconstructed nose. Bandages and splints encouraging his fingerbones to knit together in the right shape. The last hints of purple fading away across his face.

‘Boss!’ Angus hit ‘MUTE’ and struggled upright. ‘Didn’t know they’d let you out.’

‘Sit down, you idiot. Before you fall down.’

Thank God for that.

Monroe pointed at the monitors. ‘Any joy?’

‘Kind of.’ He hooked a thumb at the wall, towards Observation Room A. ‘DI Tudor and the Tulliallan boys are next door, pulling the strings.’

‘But...?’

‘Yeah.’ Angus frowned at his legal pad. ‘Far as I can tell, the whole thing was a weird mixture of conspiracy cult, revolutionary cell, exploitation broadcaster, property developer, and troll farm. But they seriously believed they were saving mankind from “the Great Reset” by standing up to some nebulous “Global Cabal”.’

‘Hmm...’ Monroe nodded. ‘So: nutters.’

‘According to Gillian-slash-Daisy, she stopped taking her medication sometime before Christmas — defence claims everything she did after that was one hundred percent down to a massive psychotic episode, and she’s not responsible for any of it.’

His good eye narrowed. ‘Tell me we’re still doing her for killing Ryan Miller, Christine Douglas, and William Baird. Plus the two counts of “attempted” on you and Dr Fife?’

‘And joint enterprise on all the other murders and assaults.’

‘Then diminished responsibility’s her best bet, if she wants out before her ninetieth birthday.’ He winced. ‘Can’t believe these bastards were fitting my kitchen.’

‘Not your fault, Boss. They targeted you, just like they did the Lundys.’

‘Yeah. Still feel like an idiot, though.’ Monroe cleared his throat, then reached out and squeezed Angus’s good shoulder. ‘I didn’t get a chance, back at Mains of Inverminnoch, but thanks for saving my life. Getting me out of that cell.’

Heat rushed up Angus’s cheeks. He reached up and patted DCI Monroe on the back. ‘Thanks for not letting her shoot me.’

Onscreen, Gillian burst into tears, covering her face as she sobbed.

Mr Coulter rolled his eyes.

Outside in the corridor, someone let rip with a coughing fit.

But Monroe and Angus just stayed where they were.

Then the observation-room door opened and DS Kilgour popped his head in, lips pursed as he watched them standing there. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’

Monroe let go of Angus’s shoulder, and Angus pulled his hand from Monroe’s back. The pair of them shuffling apart, as if they’d been caught doing something naughty.

Kilgour waggled his eyebrows. ‘Was this what we call “A Touching Moment”? Literally and figuratively speaking.’

No answer.

He grinned. ‘The Chief Super’s ready for you, Boss. Boardroom. Rumour has it they’ve laid on the good sandwiches.’

‘Thanks.’ Monroe turned to go, then stopped. Hobbled back around again. ‘Meant to ask: how’s Dr Fife?’

Difficult to tell, because it very much depended on which doctor you spoke to.

Angus went for the simple version. ‘He’s still in a coma. They tried withdrawing the sedatives yesterday, but he wasn’t responsive. Going to try again today. Who knows: they might even get him off the ventilator.’

A nod. ‘If he does wake up, tell him I said thanks. For everything.’ Monroe’s crutch thunked against the observation-room floor as DS Kilgour held the door open for him. ‘The good sandwiches, eh?’

‘So they tell me.’

Monroe hobbled off down the corridor. ‘How come no one ever lays on a platter of pies, chips, and Quality Street? The occasional mug of Bovril wouldn’t go amiss.’

DS Kilgour went to follow him, but Angus got in first:

‘Sarge? Is he OK?’

‘Course he is.’

‘Only, you know, if there was a video of me being tortured, doing the rounds on the dark web, I’d be a bit... unhappy about it.’

‘The Boss is a big boy, Constable. He knows we’ve got a crack team of experts working round the clock to get it taken down and trace all of the cult’s nasty little customers. This is what we call “Taking Care of Business”.’

Angus grimaced. ‘This “crack team of experts”, it’s not the Forensic IT Unit, is it?’

DS Kilgour threw Angus a little salute. ‘Angus the Terrible.’ Then stepped out, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Angus sniffed.

Sighed.

Yeah, they were all doomed.

Right: back to work.

He hit the ‘MUTE’ button again and Gillian’s voice burst out of the speakers. ‘Did you know that the Global Elite wanna farm our kids for their adrenaline? That’s how come so many children go missing every year...’

‘Because you’re a bloody idiot, that’s why.’

Angus limped into the stairwell, phone pinned between his ear and good shoulder — freeing up his right arm so the elbow crutch could keep him upright. Which meant having his head bent all the way over to one side, pulling on the stitches in his left shoulder, while that horrible microporous tape yanked out chest hairs with every step.

Through here, the grey terrazzo floor was worn down to the concrete in patches, the handrail scratched and scarred, the walls dented and scraped.

‘Ellie, it’s not like—’

‘The doctors offered to sign you off on the sick for months, and there’s you hauling your scarred arse into work every day, like a total bloody numpty!’

He hobbled to a halt in front of the battered lift doors and pressed the button. Then leaned back against the wall to catch his breath. ‘You know, I think you were nicer to me when we weren’t going out.’

‘Don’t change the subject.’ You could pretty much hear her scowling down the phone at him. ‘Come on, Angus! I could really do with a juicy exclusive. Slosser the Tosser’s doing a thing about that strangling in Logansferry last night, and I need a bit of oomph or I’ll be lucky to make page twelve.’

The button still hadn’t lit up, so he pressed it again. And again. Six or seven times in quick succession. Click-click-click-click-click-click... Until, finally, the ‘DOWN’ light flickered on.

Of course, in the good old days, he’d have just walked. It was only four flights. That’s what being shot in the leg got you.

‘I haven’t got anything oomphy to share — I’m helping build the case against the cult members. All the exciting stuff happened weeks ago, with the guns and the bloodshed.’

‘But there must be something that—’

‘And even if it was oomphular, I couldn’t tell you. Bad enough my girlfriend’s a journalist; if people think I’m giving you stories they’ll crucify me.’

The lift mechanism clanged and rattled, like an ancient fairground ride. On its way.

‘Urgh... You’re no fun!’

‘Yup. Probably all those worms I ate as a kid.’

A sneaky tone crept into Ellie’s voice. ‘How about we swap? I may have accidentally found out who’s been leaking stuff to Slosser. About Operation Telegram?’

Hold on a minute.

‘Ellie? When you say “accidentally”—’

‘Well, he should have a better email password. And not write it down on a pad in his desk. A desk that wasn’t what anyone would seriously describe as “properly locked”.’

Oh, for God’s sake.

‘Ellie!’

A grinding squeal rang out from the lift shaft, followed by a rumbling series of clunks, then a half-hearted ding, and the doors rattled open.

DS Sharp and DS Massie were in residence, the pair of them wearing heavy coats over their fighting suits. Heading out.

He nodded at both as he lumbered his way into the lift. ‘Sarge, Sarge.’

DS Massie nodded back. ‘Angus.’

Inside, someone had been at the graffiti with a wire brush or Brillo pad, leaving shiny patches on the stainless-steel walls. But the words ‘SGT. SMITH IS A WANKER!!!’ still stood out clear as day.

‘Urgh...’ DS Sharp slumped. ‘I’m just saying: we always go out for noodles.’

‘Who doesn’t like noodles?’

Angus limped into the corner. Staying well out of it.

‘All that stuff about Satan’s Messenger, and the Post-its, and Dr Fife growing up in a cult? He paid some serious wedge for it, and I know who to.’

The doors juddered shut, and the lift clattered, creaked, and clanked on its way to the ground floor.

DS Sharp pointed in the vague direction of town. ‘What’s wrong with a baked potato from time to time? Or... sushi?’

‘I am not eating raw fish.’

Angus propped himself up against the wall, taking the weight off his throbbing leg. ‘Thought you journalists were all about protecting your sources.’

‘Yes: our sources. Not other people’s.’ Ellie’s voice went from sneaky to devious: ‘You want to know or not?’

‘Oh, come on, Rhona.’ Sharp buttoned up her coat. ‘There’s a nice Italian opened up on Jamesmuir Road, opposite the florist’s?’

‘I just want to know what you’ve got against noodles all of a sudden.’

Angus groaned. ‘But I’ve got nothing I can swap!’

‘Then you owe me a curry.’ Ellie left a long dramatic pause, milking the moment. ‘Ever worked with a detective sergeant called Laura Sharp?’

‘Because we always have noodles! Every Wednesday lunchtime for the last Christ knows how many years: noodles, noodles, noodles!’

DS Massie threw her hands in the air. ‘Fine, we’ll have Italian. You happy now?’

The lift lurched to a stop with a metallic screech.

‘They’re only noodles!’

‘I’ll call you back.’ Angus hung up as the lift dinged and the doors grumbled open.

He reached past DS Massie and pressed the ‘→I←’ button.

The doors grumbled closed again.

Both detective sergeants turned to stare at him.

‘Listen up.’ Massie stuck her chin out. ‘If this is the start of some weird sexual fantasy you’ve got, trust me when I say it won’t end well.’

But Angus kept his eyes on DS Sharp. ‘I know who’s been selling stories to the Castle News and Post.’

Sharp pursed her lips. Drew a breath in through her nose. Then closed her eyes. ‘Ah... shite.’

57

When it wasn’t hammering with rain, you got a pretty decent view from up here on the station roof. A gleaming sun shone down from the pale-blue sky, making the surrounding buildings glow. Bit of a nip in the air, but after Storm Findlay anything was an improvement.

The crumbling castle took centre stage, atop its granite mohawk, but the rest of the city was spread out around it, reaching up the valley walls in all directions. Even Kingsmeath didn’t look too bad today.

Kind of...

Antennas, pipes, heat exchangers, emergency broadcast systems, wires and ducting made a tangled crown on top of Divisional Headquarters, alongside the cheese-wedge top of the stairwell, and the bulky lump of brick that housed the lift’s mechanics. Complete with heaps of leaf litter; the carcasses of nearly a dozen pigeons; several mountains of cigarette butts; and some crumpled, empty tins of extra-strength lager; all enclosed within a knee-high boundary wall.

As if that was going to save anyone.

By the time Angus had limped up the stairs and out onto the roof, DS Massie and Sharp were standing over at the front of the building. Not saying anything.

He shambled to a halt on the other side of DS Sharp, penning her in. Just in case.

She had one foot up on the wall, leaning on her knee, frowning out at a black Mylar balloon caught in the guttering opposite. ‘SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS!’

She bit her bottom lip. ‘So, what happens now?’

DS Massie sighed. ‘You’ll probably be suspended; then, if you’re lucky, they’ll demote you. Stick you back in uniform and give you a beat in Kingsmeath, till you either learn your lesson or quit. If not?’ A sniff. ‘Depends if they want to make an example.’

‘Buggering hell...’

Angus poked at a mound of leaves with his crutch. ‘But why?’

‘You got any idea how much decent residential care costs?’ She tensed, and for a moment it almost looked as if she was going to launch herself forward, off the edge of the building, on a swift one-way trip to the Front Podium, eight storeys below. Then she straightened up and stepped back instead. ‘Suppose I shouldn’t say anything else without my Federation rep present.’ Turning to DS Massie. ‘But I am sorry.’

A nod. ‘Yeah. Me too.’

They headed back towards the stairwell.

DS Sharp tried for a smile. ‘Angus: I meant to ask, how’s your mum doing?’

‘Yeah, better, thanks. I think it was all just a bit of a shock, you know, with the hospital and everything. They gave her some pills.’

She nodded. ‘I know they can be a pain in the arse at times, families, but you don’t know what you’ve got till they’re gone.’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

And sometimes the opposite was true, as well.

The bag-for-life clanked against Angus’s crutch as he limp-hobbled into Room Four. Closing the door on the muted hummmm of the High-Dependency Unit.

It smelled of old cabbage and disinfectant in here, the air tasting as if it hadn’t seen the outside world in years...

Sunlight struggled to find a chink in the lowered blinds, leaving the private room smothered in gloom, with only the glow of various bits of machinery to illuminate Dr Fife’s tiny kingdom. The courtiers hissing and bleeping to prove he was still alive.

He lay flat on his back, sallow and sunken, hooked up to drips and monitors and the bulging bag full of yellow liquid dangling under the bedframe.

Angus popped his shopping on the wheelie cantilevered table, then untucked the oversized envelope from his sling. ‘You awake? The nurses texted me you’d come round.’

No reply, but one of Dr Fife’s feet moved beneath the blankets, as if he was trying to dig his heel through the NHS mattress.

Angus hurpled over to the bed. ‘Hello?’

Dr Fife’s eyes creaked open — tiny crusty slits in his pale face — then a full-body wince rippled through him. His lips moved, but all that came out was a dry rasp.

‘Hold on.’ Grabbing the plastic cup from the bedside cabinet, Angus added a splash of water from the jug, then slipped a hand under Dr Fife’s head, easing him up far enough to take a couple of sips with a bendy straw.

That done, Dr Fife sank back into the pillows. Three words croaked out: ‘I... hate... Oldcastle...’

‘It grows on you. Like a verruca.’ He slipped the get-well-soon card from its huge envelope: revealing a trio of attractive, athletic, and very well-endowed ladies, in Stars-and-Stripes bikinis, posing with machine guns, in the woods somewhere. ‘Sorry, Monster Munch picked it.’ Angus opened the card. ‘Everyone on the team signed.’ Holding the thing out so Dr Fife could see the whole inside was covered in signatures and extra-special personalized little messages, like ‘GET WELL SOON!’

He propped it up on the bedside cabinet. ‘We weren’t allowed to bring stuff in when you were in the ICU. But...’ He reached into the bag-for-life and came out with a bottle of Lucozade, followed by a large sandwich wrapped in butcher’s paper. ‘Avocado, grilled peppers, smoked halloumi, and rocket, on seeded rye. Cos A: the food in here is awful, and B: it’s the most Californian thing I could find.’

Dr Fife blinked at the ceiling. ‘Feel like... I’ve been run over... by a goddamned... ticker-tape parade.’

‘For a man who’s had about a million blood transfusions, and spent the last seventeen days in a medically induced coma, you look...’ He pursed his lips, head on one side, taking in what was left of Dr Fife. ‘Anyway, a lot’s happened since you got yourself shot.’ Pulling up a chair and creaking down into it. ‘Olivia Lundy’s doing better. Which is nice. She’ll need a wheelchair, but at least she’s alive. Kevin Healey-Robinson’s still under psych evaluation across the road.’ Pointing through the wall at the old Victorian wing, where the Mental Health Services Unit lived. ‘If they don’t medicate the hell out of him he just screams and screams and screams and screams...’ Not surprising, really. ‘They couldn’t save his hands.’

‘Thought you... were dead.’

Angus tapped his chest. ‘Aches a bit, but I get my stitches out next week.’

‘Thirsty...’

He helped Dr Fife take a couple more sips, then made sure he was settled before sitting down again. ‘As it’s the day for it: thanks. You know — for putting yourself between me and the gun.’

‘I’m an idiot.’ A grimace turned into a small smile. ‘But I did... didn’t I?... I literally took... a bullet for you... Turns out I might... not be such a selfish... egocentric... mercenary dick after all... That’ll teach Courtney.’ Those four sentences seemed to take it out of him, because Dr Fife sagged for a while, breathing hard from the effort. Then, ‘What about... Ryan?’

Yeah...

‘Gillian Kilbride blew his head off. Well, not all of it, just the... back half.’ Which was an image that would stay with him for a long, long time. ‘Turns out she didn’t grow up in a cult on Uist, her dad wasn’t murdered, and that’s not her real accent. She’s not even “Gillian Kilbride”.’

A groan. ‘Do I wanna know?’

‘Real name’s Daisy Snyder; she’s from Leeds, originally. Spent most of her youth in residential care after her dad murdered the rest of the family with a sledgehammer. Been sectioned six times since her fourteenth birthday. And she got “the Apostles of the Shining Water” from a short story.’ Shrug. ‘Keeps asking after you every time we interview her, though.’

Dr Fife stared at the ceiling again. ‘Can’t believe I fell for her kindred-spirits-slash-ingénue shtick.’

Eh?

‘On-jen-what-now?’

‘Ingénue: an innocent, naive, wholesome young woman.’

‘Oh.’ Made sense. ‘If it’s any consolation, I think she fell for it too. Turns out Gillian’s personality is kind of malleable, like plasticine. Only been in custody two weeks and she’s already joined a prison gang.’

His eyelids drooped, voice getting fainter. ‘Some people just can’t cope on their own. Gillian needs to belong to something. A perennial cult member.’

The machines around the bed hissed and clicked and bleeped and pinged.

‘Dr Fife?’

He lay there, eyes closed — perfectly still, except for the rise and fall of his chest.

Suppose that was a lot of excitement for someone who’d been in a coma for two-and-a-bit weeks.

Angus pulled out his ‘new’ phone — in a shiny leather case, no less — and checked the text that had arrived in the lift, on his way up here.

MUM:

It was a long way from stovies with no meat in them, or macaroni cheese without cheese.

DS Sharp had been right about the ‘don’t know what you’ve got till they’re gone’ bit, but with Mum it was more like ‘don’t know what you’ve missed till they’re back’. Amazing what a course of antidepressants could do.

He cradled the Google Pixel — that Dr Fife definitely said he could keep — against his fibreglass cast and poked out a reply:

SEND.

The reply was almost immediate.

MUM:

A Mushroom Hamageddon would be lovely thank you

He slipped his phone back in his jacket and reached into Dr Fife’s bedside cabinet, coming out with the breeze-block-sized library hardback hidden away inside: Bloodfire.

That was the only good thing about spending so much time in hospital — sitting here these last two weeks, waiting for Dr Fife to wake up — lots of opportunities for reading.

Suppose they’d be letting him home soon, though, and Angus would have to read the third book in the trilogy on his own time.

All good things come to an end, eventually...

A good thirty pages later, Dr Fife surfaced again. Squinting around at the private room as if surprised to find he really was in hospital. He groaned and slumped back. Voice like a rusty hinge: ‘It’s unsettling... waking up and finding you... sitting there watching me... Like a creepy, oversized... Labrador.’

Angus put his book down. ‘You’re welcome.’ Then helped him take another drink of water. ‘They came past with your tea, but you were asleep, so I helped. Mince and tatties. Bloody awful. You were better off unconscious.’

A disgusted grimace curdled Dr Fife’s face at the mention of food.

Which probably meant that ludicrously expensive sandwich was in play as well.

Raised voices sounded outside in the hallway: one trying to calm things down, one angry and imperious. Then the door thumped open, and a middle-aged man strode into the room: five-eleven-ish; thin, but wiry with it. Broad shoulders and a dour moustache, old-fashioned sideburns mingling with a touch of stubble, lined face, hair greying at the temples. He was dressed in an ancient, heavy, woollen suit with a full-length duster coat on over the top, and a battered wide-brimmed fedora.

The kind of guy who’d heard about smiling, once, years ago, and decided he did not like the sound of it one little bit. But there was something weirdly familiar about him, like a slightly out-of-focus photograph of someone Angus knew.

His voice matched the retro outfit — half teuchter, half old-time preacher — as he looked down his nose at Angus. ‘Leave us.’

Oh, you think so, do you?

Angus stood, shoulders back. Towering. ‘And you are?’

The newcomer scowled at Dr Fife. ‘It’s been a long time, Malachi. I’ve come to take you home.’

Dr Fife’s left heel dug away at the mattress again. His eyes widened, mouth tight. ‘Elijah...’

The brother. The one who ‘fell’ out of a tree. Which explained why he looked so familiar.

‘OK.’ Angus held out his hands. ‘Let’s all just—’

‘I said: leave us!’ Giving it the full fire-and-brimstone timbre. ‘This is family business.’

‘Dr Fife?’

He shrank back into his pillows. ‘Don’t you... bloody dare!... I’m not going anywhere... with—’

‘Silence!’ Elijah slammed his hand down on the wheelie table. ‘It’s bad enough you flee your responsibilities, big brother, but to accept yet more impure blood?’

‘Impure...?’ Angus jabbed a finger at the bed, at the machinery. ‘He would’ve died without those transfusions!’

‘The Brethren have been patient far too long, Malachi. You will come back with me. You have a sacred duty to your family, to your community, to your faith, and to the world.’ His nostrils flared. ‘The time for this self-indulgent... whatever it is, has ended.’

And for the first time since Angus met him, a look of genuine fear spread across Dr Fife’s face.

Angus grabbed Elijah’s shoulder. ‘All right: out!’

‘UNHAND ME!’ Swinging a backhanded fist that smacked Angus across the jaw, catching him off balance. ‘No more discussion. Gather your belongings; Mother and Father are waiting in the—’

The rest of that sentence disappeared, because Angus slapped his good hand over Elijah’s mouth, clamping it shut — fingers digging into his cheeks as Angus shoved him backwards into the wall with a rattling thump.

Oh, he put up a struggle, howling with outrage, but all that came out were mumbles and hisses.

Angus stepped in close, pinning him to the wall, then put a bit of hoomph into it: hoisting Elijah up until his feet dangled a good six inches off the floor.

Couldn’t be very comfortable, being suspended by your face. Probably quite painful, to be honest.

Elijah grabbed onto Angus’s forearm, pulling at it as his whole head turned puce. He tried to kick, to knee, to do some sort of damage, but Angus was far too close to get up any momentum.

Time to drive the point home.

Angus raised his fibreglass cast, index finger extended, and poked Elijah in the forehead — leaving a pale oval imprint on the flushed skin. ‘You listen very carefully.’ Another poke. ‘Because you get one chance at this.’ Keeping his gaze locked on those furious grey eyes. ‘Dr Fife, do you want to go with this man?’

‘Hell, no!’

A nod. ‘Want to say anything before I throw him out of here?’

There was a rustle of bedclothes. ‘You’re an asshole, Elijah... Always have been... always will be.’ Voice getting stronger with every word. ‘I am not your goddamn Chalice... Find some other poor bastard... to make the prophecy come true... because I am done.’

Poke. ‘Did you get that?’

Whatever was mumbled behind Angus’s hand, it sounded far too angry to be an agreement.

This time, when Angus poked Elijah, he kept the finger there, pressing hard, as if trying to drill the digit through Elijah’s thick skull. ‘Let me put this in language you can understand: thou shalt go forth from this place and multiply.’ Throwing in an ominous pause as he leaned in close, till their noses were almost touching. ‘And if you ever come back, I will personally crucify you.’

One last squeeze and Angus removed his poking finger. Then let go of Elijah’s face.

He dropped the six inches to the hospital floor, then sagged even further as his knees buckled. It took a couple of seconds before he straightened up, one hand working his jaw from side to side while the imprint of Angus’s fingers faded away on those flushed cheeks.

Could almost see the cogs whirling behind his eyes, wondering if he could take Angus in a fight — fair or otherwise — or if Angus would paint the walls with him.

Which, let’s be honest, would be a pleasure.

In the end, common sense must’ve prevailed, because instead of throwing the first punch, Elijah stuck his nose in the air and brushed imaginary dust from his antique suit’s lapels. ‘This is not over, Malachi. This is not over at all.’ Then he turned and swept from the room, duster coat swirling out like a cape.

A crash sounded in the corridor, followed by an avalanche of metal things that clanged and rang as they hit the floor, then an angry nurse’s yell: ‘Hey!’

‘Stay out of my way, woman!’ The preacher’s voice fading as he stormed off to a ringing cry of:

‘Wanker!’

Angus closed the door. ‘Well, I can see where you get your winning personality.’

‘He’ll be back.’ Dr Fife’s heel dug at the mattress again. ‘My little brother might... not be too bright... but he’s a persistent son of a bitch.’

Yeah, he looked the type to hold a grudge.

‘I’ll have a word with security.’

‘And he’s gonna bring more assholes with him... Been over forty years... God knows how many Brethren there are now.’ Dr Fife looked up at the bank of machinery surrounding his bed. ‘Soon as they discharge me... I’m outta here.’

Couldn’t blame him, really.

And they’d caught the Fortnight Killer.

Well, Fortnight Killers.

Most of them anyway.

If you didn’t count the ones Gillian had shot.

The point was: they’d stopped Ryan’s cult from claiming any more victims, so DCI Monroe couldn’t possibly object to Dr Fife going home.

The forensic psychologist picked at his blankets, head turned away as if Monster Munch’s bikini-clad card was the most interesting thing in the room. Voice light and nonchalant, in a gravelly sort of way. ‘You could come with me, you know... To the States... If you like.’

‘America?’

Bloody hell...

‘Why not?... If there’s one thing we got in spades... over there... it’s guys who make dead bodies... There’s more work than I can shake a severed limb at... You and me could team up... help the FBI catch serial killers.’ He pointed at his chest. ‘Brains.’ Then at Angus. ‘Brawn.’

Cheeky sod.

Angus gave him a glare.

‘OK, OK: brawn... and also some brains.’

It was tempting, obviously: escaping Kingsmeath and Oldcastle for a life of adventure. Solving crimes and saving lives, like something off the telly.

And the portions over there were huge.

But still...

He sank into the plastic seat. ‘I took your advice, about Ellie? We’re... you know.’

A smile. ‘She popped your cherry?... Good for her. Welcome to being a man, Angus.’

Heat popped and crackled across his cheeks. ‘And things are going well at work: they’re talking about putting a team together, doing behavioural evidence analysis. I’ve been reading that book you gave me, so I’m in with a shout. And Mum’s doing much better, now she’s on the pills. She had a bit of a turn, on account of me nearly dying, but it’s like she’s... my mum again. The one I knew before Dad died.’ A wee shrug. ‘And now that we’re not donating every single spare penny to charity, we can afford to live like normal people.’ Angus picked at the fraying end of his fibreglass cast’s lining. ‘I know it sounds like a really weird thing to say, but I’m actually sort of happy for a change.’

A long breath rattled out of Dr Fife. ‘Yeah.’ His head drooped. ‘I suppose you’ve gotta do... what’s best for you.’ The machines pinged and hissed. ‘Shame, though... you made a pretty good sidekick.’

Angus picked up the get-well-soon card, with its pneumatic, gun-totin’, yee-haw ladies, and grimaced at them. ‘America. I mean, what would I even do there?’