David Jackson - Marked

‘Steve,’ she says. Calm. A whisper. ‘That’s not the answer. It won’t change anything.’

He looks at her, but seems blind to what he sees. It’s as if he doesn’t recognize her. She wills the tension to leave his body, the coldness to leave his eyes. She needs him, and she longs for him to need her in return. Because what are they without that?

‘I need a shower,’ he says, and he walks away, and she stays in the kitchen and stares at the space where he stood and she wonders why everything she holds dear in her world is being taken away from her.

LeBlanc sits at his desk, staring at Doyle, who is pouring himself a coffee on the other side of the squadroom. He’s still not sure what happened at the tattoo shop. What got into the man? Why was he behaving like that?

Or maybe that was the true Doyle. Maybe that’s the way he is with people.

‘How’d it go this afternoon?’

The voice is low. Conspiratorial. LeBlanc turns to find Schneider watching him. Schneider is a bull of a man. Stocky and menacing. His steel-gray hair is cut close to his skull, giving his head the look of a bullet. He chews his gum behind a smile that doesn’t ask you to be his friend.

‘How’d what go?’

Schneider chin-points toward Doyle. ‘Working with Irish. You two get along?’

LeBlanc looks at Doyle again. He would like to say yes to Schneider’s question. He would like to say that, contrary to all expectations, Doyle is beyond reproach. An upstanding cop of the highest caliber. A true team player who sticks to the rules.

But he finds that the words catch in his throat. They linger there so long that Schneider makes up his own answer, and his smile broadens into something that could stop a heart.

‘A piece of work, ain’t he? You want my advice, you should ask for another partner on this case. Doyle is no good. He’s a bad cop. Working with him is like walking through a minefield. Just make sure he doesn’t make you go first.’

Schneider sidles away then, but he leaves his thoughts behind. They trickle into LeBlanc’s head and begin to simmer.

Doyle opens the first of the files on his desk. It’s the autopsy report. Pages of medical jargon, plus some photographs. The parts of the report that Doyle is able to decipher tell him nothing new. The photographs, on the other hand, mesmerize him.

He starts with the head. Placing his hand over the area beneath Megan Hamlyn’s chin, he tries to imagine her whole. Tries to picture her as the young pretty girl that she was just a few days ago. It’s difficult. The face in front of him is a mess. God knows the pain she went through.

He flips through the other photographs, then pulls out one which gives a close-up of the tattoo. It’s superb work, all right. You can see the serenity in the angel’s face. The wings have a soft, fluffy quality to them that makes them look like they’re made from real feathers. The angel’s robes have pleats and folds that make them seem as though they could really move. Whoever did this worked for a long time on it. They spent ages staring at this young girl’s flesh. Touching it. Talking to her. Getting to know her.

But this whoever has a name, doesn’t he?

Stanley Proust.

Oh yeah, a name to remember. A name seared into Doyle’s brain. A name that causes Doyle to clench his fists and grind his teeth every time he thinks of it. He’s like Pavlov’s dog with that name. The mere mention of it causes him to salivate at the thought of eating Proust alive.

He lost it in that tattoo shop. In the cold light of hindsight he accepts that the way he acted there was unprofessional. God knows what LeBlanc must have thought.

In fact, he realizes, it’s probably a good thing that LeBlanc was there. I don’t know what I might have done to Proust if I’d gone there alone. It wouldn’t have been pretty and it wouldn’t have been right. But damn it if that man doesn’t deserve a little harsh treatment. If LeBlanc knew what I know. .

‘Doyle. LeBlanc. In my office.’

Doyle raises his head to see Lieutenant Cesario looking straight at him. Set against his permanently tanned features, Cesario’s teeth light up the room with their whiteness. But this is no welcome smile, no invitation to a coffee morning. It’s more the rictus of the big bad wolf inviting two little piggies into his den.

Doyle closes the file, sighs and gets up from his chair. He sees the questioning looks from LeBlanc as he joins him.

Doyle says, ‘What have you done this time? Don’t be looking to me to save your ass.’

They get into Cesario’s office, and the lieutenant motions LeBlanc to close the door. Cesario is as smartly turned out as he usually is. Not an unintentional crease anywhere. Doyle would be willing to bet he irons his socks. His undershorts too.

Cesario is a recent addition to the precinct, and Doyle still finds it difficult to take him seriously. Not that the guy’s done anything wrong — after all, he’s the one who gave Doyle the opportunity to work on the homicide of the bookstore girl — but something about him doesn’t sit right. He’s a little too perfect, too glossy. His hair doesn’t move. His eyebrows look drawn on. It’s like he’s an actor playing the part of a cop in one of those ridiculously glitzy TV shows.

Doyle snaps a glance at LeBlanc, who is also impeccably attired, then drops his gaze to his own garb. Okay, he thinks, maybe I’m the odd one out here. Maybe if I dressed like these guys I wouldn’t attract so much flak.

His sartorial musings are interrupted by Cesario: ‘I just had a very long phone conversation. A conversation I’da preferred not to have. You wanna guess who it was with?’

Doyle can guess. He decides it’s wise not to admit it.

‘I’ll tell you,’ says Cesario. ‘It was from a man called Stanley Proust. A man I’d never heard of before today. But I think you know him, don’t you, Cal?’

‘We’ve, uhm, crossed paths.’

‘Uh-huh. Care to tell me why you went to see him today?’

‘He’s a suspect. On the Megan Hamlyn case.’

‘I see. And why is he a suspect?’

Doyle sees the files in front of Cesario. He reckons the lieutenant already knows the answer to his question. Doyle figures he’s got nothing to lose.

‘Because he’s a murdering scumbag. Because he puts tattoos on young girls and then he abducts them and rapes them and tortures them and kills them. That’s why.’

‘Hold on. Rewind this for me, would you? You know all this how?’

‘I know it because I’ve investigated him before.’

‘Yeah, that’s all on your record, Cal. Remind me how that went again. You must have got the goods on Proust that time. I mean, for you to be so sure about him on this occasion. How long did he go down for?’

Doyle shifts uncomfortably. ‘He didn’t go down for it.’

‘Oh? And why was that? A technicality in the court case, maybe?’

Doyle says nothing.

‘There was a court hearing, wasn’t there, Cal?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Not exactly. You mean no. In fact, Proust was never even formally booked, was he, Cal? And the reason he was never booked was because you couldn’t produce any evidence he did something wrong.’

‘It was him,’ says Doyle. ‘He did it last time, and he did it this time. I know it.’

‘Nobody else knows it, Cal.’ He turns to LeBlanc. ‘Do you know it, Tommy? You were there today. Did you come to the same conclusions as your partner regarding the guilt of Mr Proust?’

LeBlanc clears his throat. ‘I, uh. . this is all new to me, Lieutenant. I don’t have the same background knowledge of Proust that Cal has.’

‘Oh, really? You mean your own partner hasn’t even brought you up to speed? He hasn’t made you privy to all the important information on someone he regards as a key suspect in this case?’