64
Five minutes later, Healy finished his cigarette and flicked it out into the bushes running along the back of the hospital. He immediately felt like another. He was angry. Pissed off. He’d allowed himself to be manipulated, persuaded that Wren wasn’t a part of this, and had then spent two days chasing his tail. Not any more. F*ck Raker. F*ck them all. He was going to take what the girl had told them – and he was going to put this to bed.
He moved off into the rain, pulling his jacket up over his head and making a break for it. But then, in his peripheral vision, he saw someone approaching and getting closer.
He slowed down. Looked around.
And his heart sank.
Sallows.
‘Well, well, well,’ Sallows said, thirty feet to Healy’s right, under a Metropolitan Police umbrella. In his left hand was a set of car keys. In his right was a digital camera.
Healy didn’t say anything, his eyes flicking to the camera.
‘Didn’t think this was your part of the world, Colm.’
Healy was about to form a lie, about to pretend he was visiting a relative, when he stopped himself. See how much he knows first. ‘It’s not,’ he replied.
‘So what are you doing here?’
‘Following up a lead.’
Sallows smirked. ‘Did someone steal a chocolate bar from the gift shop?’ he said and then stepped closer, eyes fixed on Healy, watching for any shift of expression.
‘That’s more your area, Kevin.’
‘Is it?’
‘You don’t play with the big boys any more, remember.’
But Sallows didn’t react at all. No change in his face. No change in his stance. A fizz of panic stirred in Healy’s guts: the only reason Sallows wouldn’t take the bait was if he had something better. Healy glanced at the camera. Something like photos.
‘You’re a clever bastard, Healy.’ Sallows smiled, humourless and knowing. ‘Only you could pull off all that shit last year and still be standing here in front of me eight months later working the biggest case going.’ He made a soft sound, like he was still having a hard time believing it. ‘But here you are. Mr Squeaky Clean. Except, of course, we both know it’s all another lie.’
Healy didn’t respond. Sallows just looked at him.
‘Well,’ Healy said finally, ‘as nice as this has been, I’d better be going.’
Sallows suddenly made a move forward, right up close to Healy so they were only feet apart. Rain slapped against the umbrella, like a drumbeat, running off into the space between them. Sallows was completely dry. Healy was soaked through to the bone. ‘When you got me kicked off the Snatcher, you f*cked with the wrong guy,’ he said, his voice suddenly laced with venom. ‘Colm Healy dropping me in the shit? Even you must see how f*cked up that is? Everything about you, your situation, your lying and your back-stabbing, it boils my piss. I mean, you’re the guy who thinks it’s okay to wave guns in the faces of the people you work with. You’re the guy who worms his way back into the big time, who puts on this show for people – this f*cking show that no one else is capable of seeing through – and you’re still here working it off the books.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kevin.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘I saw you with Raker this morning. I’ve been watching this hospital every day since they brought that girl in here, because I know Raker was the one who made that call the day she was found and I know he was the one who dumped Gaishe at that warehouse.’
‘What Raker does has nothing to do with me.’
‘There you are again, Colm. Lying.’
‘It’s not a lie.’
‘It’s a f*cking bare-faced lie, just like everything else in your shitty little life. You and Raker have cosied up again, doing whatever the f*ck it is you two do together. I saw it coming a mile off, so when the girl was found, it was just a matter of being patient. It was just a matter of waiting here for you. And I thought to myself, “What’s the best way of making sure that everyone knows just what a lying sack of shit Colm Healy is?” ’ Sallows held up the camera. ‘Your time is up, Healy. You’re done.’
Healy tried not to show emotion.
But it didn’t work.
Sallows broke out into a smile. ‘I’m realistic. I don’t expect Craw to take me back and, to be honest, I wouldn’t want to go back. I can’t work for a malicious little bitch like that. But I’m going to enjoy hearing about the moment she asks you to clear your desk.’
‘What do you want, Sallows?’
‘What do I want?’
‘There must be something you want.’
Sallows was still smiling. ‘I’d forgotten about your legendary sense of humour, Colm. What I want is for you to get what you deserve. And then, once I’ve done you, I’m doing Raker as well. You’re both going to get what’s coming.’
Healy imagined going for the camera, imagined grabbing Sallows by the throat and ripping him to pieces. He realized he was opening and closing his fists, all the anger and frustration and desperation channelled through his fingers. If he didn’t get the camera, everything was over. He was done. His life, his career, whatever semblance of normality he’d managed to claw back. But then Sallows glanced down, as if he knew what was going through Healy’s head, as if he could read the movement of his hands like words being spoken aloud, and he handed Healy the camera.
Except it wasn’t the camera.
It was just the case.
‘The camera’s in the car,’ Sallows said, watching the rain run down Healy’s face, hair matted to his head, clothes stuck to him. ‘I don’t know what concern that girl is of yours, I don’t know what you’re even doing here, or what you and that other prick have got planned. And to be honest, I don’t really care. Honestly, I don’t. What I care about is seeing you go down in flames – and if you take Raker with you, all the better.’
Healy scanned the car park, desperately looking for Sallows’s car.
‘A guy who waves guns in people’s faces can’t be trusted,’ Sallows said, reading the situation again. ‘So while the camera’s in the car, and the photos are still on it, I also took the trouble of emailing myself the pictures. Just to make sure they’re nice and safe.’
‘Look, Kevin, we can work –’
‘You’re done.’
‘There must be –’
‘You’re done, Healy,’ he said again, and as the gentle sound of rain settled in the silence, Sallows headed back to his car, leaving Healy alone.