Kiss and Die

Chapter 74

Shrimp came to find Mann on the roof. ‘What would we do if we couldn’t stand on top of the world like this?’ he said, looking out over the evening sky. The eight o’clock night-time display was starting.

The bowlights of giant tankers were blinking on the horizon.

‘Thought you might like to let off steam.’ He handed Mann the urumi. ‘I caught the boss practising with it.’

Mann smiled. ‘Knowing how competitive she is she’s bound to have mastered it by now.’ Mann took it from Shrimp. It was light. Its handle was the same as a sword. ‘Yeah, it’s a beautiful weapon, hard to defend against.’ Its three blades uncurled, shimmering in the laser lights that lit the sky around them, vibrating like a metal snake as it clacked against the roof tiles. Mann lifted it, felt its weight and balance in his hand. He whirled it overhead and brought it down, wrapped around the dummy. Bits of Hawaiian shirt and stuffing flew out.

‘It’s a hell of a weapon.’ Shrimp looked at him. He waited. Mann knew he had come to the roof to say something. He was rubbish at hiding anything. ‘What is it, Shrimp?’

‘You all right, Boss?’

He turned to look at Shrimp and smiled. ‘Sure. I will be okay. Just do your job and do it well, Shrimp, I’m counting on you. We’re still the same team we always were. Isn’t that right, Mia?’

Mann knew she was standing watching. She came towards them,

‘Yes. It’s true. We’ve always been a unit.’ Shrimp left. ‘You can take a lot worse than that, hey, banana boy?’ When he looked up Mia was smiling and frowning at the same time. ‘I used to call you that – for slightly different reasons. Do you remember?’

Mann smiled. ‘I remember. Shall I tell Sheng or will you?’

‘Yeah. I’ll save it for the right moment, I think.’ They stood in silence for a moment.

‘You’re my boss, Mia. What do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to do what you’re good at. Use your instincts and keep pushing, Mann. Nothing else matters at the moment but getting to this killer. I can’t force Sheng to do anything. He’s the SIO in this. But we have our own investigations and I need you on that. But…’ She smiled, concerned. ‘Do one thing for me first; go home, get some rest for a few hours. Take a day looking over your father’s affairs, make a start on it. This might be the calm between the storm.’

‘Before.’

‘Before what?’

Mann smiled across at Mia. ‘If you’re going to talk to me in your perfect schoolgirl English get the idiom right – it’s before the storm.’

‘All right, smart arse.’ She smiled back but her eyes still penetrated, searched for the answer inside him. ‘You afraid to go home, Johnny? I’ve seen you sleeping in the office a few times recently.’

He screwed up his face, shook his head, but hesitated too long.

‘Bullshit. Yes you are. You prefer to sleep here. You prefer to sleep sat up in your chair, don’t you? What is it? Ready to run at a second’s notice?’

He shrugged.

‘Where you going to run to, Johnny?’

‘Shit…’ Mann smiled ruefully as he shook his head exasperated. ‘I hate it when that happens. Why are women always right?’

‘It’s just a con.’ She smiled back at him. ‘Fortunately for us women it usually works.’ She held his gaze and her eyes were full of sympathy.

‘Okay, you’re right, Mia. I feel like shit. I haven’t slept properly for weeks and I don’t want to go home. I really am thinking of taking some time off. In fact I might take the rest of my life off. I’m thinking of handing in my badge. Sheng is only saying what others are thinking.’

‘That’s crap. I trust you more than any officer in this department. You will always be the best man for the job, Johnny.’

‘Why? Because it takes one to know one? Haven’t you heard all the shit going round this building? The whole station is talking about it.’

‘Since when did you care what people say? I have known you all my police career. I have never wanted anyone else on my team. You’re the best the OCTB has to offer, Mann. Don’t fall apart over this; you’ve weathered bigger storms. You know what you have to do, don’t you? You have to prove them wrong.’ Mia shook her head as she gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Anyway, this is your life.’ Her eyes searched his; they were full of sympathy. ‘What else would you do?’

‘I don’t know, lie on a beach somewhere, be a professional surfing bum, find myself one of the six thousand islands in the Philippines and disappear for a few years?’ He shrugged. ‘Try and feel human. Maybe try and start again. I seem to have made a mess of the last thirty-seven years and now it’s catching up with me. I can’t close my eyes without seeing people that I haven’t managed to save. I am afraid to go home because I wait at the apartment door for Helen to shout hello. I wait for her to come out of the bathroom with a towel round her, I wait to hold her in my arms and smell her hair, feel her soft skin. Instead when I close my eyes I see her being tortured.’

Mann knew what she was going to do, she was going to say she knew how he felt and that time would heal as it always did. But time didn’t heal; it just papered over the cracks. Now Mann felt that there were only cracks left. And he felt his life was falling between them, seeping away. Mann shook his head and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

‘Maybe it’s all for a reason, Mann. Maybe this is your time to put all your ghosts to rest.’