‘Over six pints soaked into the carpet.’
‘Was there any human matter recovered from the toilet?’ She didn’t answer. ‘That is the working hypothesis? That he was cut up in the bathtub and flushed down the toilet?’
‘It’s one hypothesis,’ she said. ‘We may never know what became of Mr Blick’s remains because neither you nor Detective Inspector Sutcliffe thought to have those first two dustbin fires forensically analysed. He could just as easily have been dissected and disposed of in them.’ I waited. ‘No. Currently no human matter, but SOCO are still filtering the drains at the Midland. It pains me to ask this, Detective Constable, but are you quite all right?’
‘Never better,’ I said, getting up to leave.
‘I feel like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.’
‘I feel like neither have you. Thanks for your help, Karen.’
2
I knew something was off about Amy Burroughs’ house before I even got to the door. I knocked, waited a minute and rang the bell. There was no answer. I went to the window, made a visor of my hands and looked into the living room. The pictures of her son that I’d seen on the wall had been taken down, but the nail gun’s damage was done. I could see a series of holes in the plasterwork, like five or six full-stops in a row. The bookcase was empty.
I crossed the road to the home of the neighbour I’d spoken with the previous day. I needed a curtain twitcher. She answered the door in the same tired dressing gown.
‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Amy Burroughs.’
She yawned without covering her mouth. ‘Left like shit through a goose in the middle of the night …’
‘Did she say anything before she went?’
‘If she’d come to my door I’d have slammed it in her face. From what I saw, she just rammed some stuff in the back of her car and tore out.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Three or four in the morning. We used to have real families here—’
‘Was she alone?’ I said, already walking backwards to the car.
‘Had her boy with her.’ She drew her gown tight around her. ‘It’s about that prowler I saw looking through her windows, isn’t it? Will he be coming back?’
‘Definitely not,’ I said, grateful that she’d asked the one question I could answer with any certainty. Amy Burroughs had been polite to me, even courteous the first time we’d met, on Ali’s hospital ward. But as soon as I’d arrived at her home with questions she’d become stand-offish, a closed book. Her reaction to the smiling man had been emotional, though.
He was the last person she thought she’d ever see again.
I went to St Mary’s, straight to the front desk. The woman there glanced up and winced at me.
‘That looks nasty …’
‘I’m actually here to speak to someone, Amy Burroughs. She’s a nurse practitioner.’
‘May I ask what it’s regarding?’
‘I’m a police officer,’ I said, digging out my badge. ‘I’ve got reason to believe that Ms Burroughs might be in danger.’ I was hoping to inject some life into her but the news barely registered. She told me where I could find Amy then craned her neck to look at the next person in line. I had a second thought and stopped. ‘Actually, can you tell me which department I can find her husband in?’
3
I found Amy’s office on the Accident and Emergency ward. The waiting room was packed out with people, all sitting round fanning themselves, stupefied by the heat. I stood outside her office and waited for someone to leave. My phone started ringing and I looked at the screen. An unknown number.
‘Waits,’ I said, picking it up.
Bateman, breathing. He sounded drunk. Exhausted and at the end of his rope. I thought about his time in jail. Two decades, disfigured and ageing, with no friends or family outside. With just the imagined contents of a stolen bag to sustain him. The breathing this time was different. More incidental than menacing. It sounded like he’d worn himself out.
Somehow that felt more dangerous.
‘Can’t stop, Aidan. Can’t stop …’
I held the phone away from my ear and quietly ended the call. I realized I was scowling when an elderly man on a Zimmer frame laboriously changed course to avoid me.
A few minutes later the office door opened and a man with an eye-patch emerged. I stepped past him, inside, and closed the door. Amy Burroughs was standing by the far wall, craning her neck to smoke out of a small window. When she saw me she took a final drag and dropped the cigarette outside. She looked pale and blotchy. I realized she was wearing no make-up, exposing deep lines beneath her eyes. Her hair was unwashed. Greasy and flat. I wondered if she’d slept in her car. I wondered where her boy was.
‘Oh, you,’ she said.
‘You’re moving house, I see.’
Her eyes didn’t move from mine. ‘Well, it’s not safe there, is it? I’ve got a boy to think about …’
‘You declined protection, though.’
‘That’s my way of protecting him. That and staying away from the police. No one was breaking into my house and nailing my hands into walls before all this.’
‘Bolting in the night won’t solve anything.’
‘Oh? What will, then?’ she said, dropping into a chair. She sounded absolutely exhausted. I’d noticed her bandaged hand, but it was the other one that caught my eye. Her arm was flat on the table and her sleeve had ridden up. Without the thick, overlapping bracelets she wore off-duty I could see healed, intersecting scars on her wrist.
‘Just tell me what’s going on,’ I said. She was silent. ‘Has running from it really worked?’
‘Until you turned up …’
But her resolve was broken.
I pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Who was the man with the nail gun, Amy?’
‘I don’t know …’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘The problem is you’ve lied about so many other things that it’s hard to tell.’
‘I didn’t know him,’ she said, looking right at me. ‘I didn’t know his shape, or his voice, or his smell, or his anything.’
‘What did he say?’ She looked away again. ‘Did he tell you not to talk to me? Are you going to let someone like that intimidate you?’
‘Right. I should only let someone like you intimidate me. By the way, you’ve gone softly-softly for a minute now so it’s probably time to start up the threats again.’
‘Well, it’s true that you’re not safe.’
‘I know that.’
‘Your son’s not safe, either.’
‘I know that,’ she said, this time with more heat.
We were silent for a moment.
‘What does your husband think?’ When her eyes moved on to mine again they were so altered from the ones I recognized that I almost sat back. They were sharp and cruel. The calculating side-look of a mugger. I thought she might throw herself at me. ‘Can I meet him, Amy?’
‘No, you can’t meet him.’
‘And why’s that?’
She folded her arms. Gave me a smile about as comforting as thin ice. ‘Because I’m not married, Detective.’
‘Who’s the man from the picture? The one on your mantle, you, your boy and another guy …’
‘Fuck knows.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s fake. I don’t know, I never even met him.’
‘Is the boy yours?’
‘What do you think all this is about?’
‘People keep asking me questions like that rather than telling me. You didn’t know the man who attacked you?’
‘No,’ she said quietly.
‘You’re not really married?’
‘No.’
‘You were nervous when I came around asking about Ross Browne. Your husband was due home any minute, you said …’
‘I needed time to think, whether I should just run or not.’ She closed her eyes, toyed unconsciously with her wrist. ‘I thought about killing myself …’
‘Think about your boy.’