Alex Palmer: Blood Redemption

‘No, Matthew, that doesn’t affect me one way or the other. I don’t think about it.’

‘Mum’s been getting this really gross hate mail lately — it was disgusting, it was death threats and dead babies. Dad kept saying to her, you’ve got to go to the police about it. But no, she said she wasn’t going to do that, because you wouldn’t do anything about it if she did.

Then last night they had this incredible argument. He told her, you’ve got to go to the police because it’s just the same — ’ He stopped, briefly.

‘We were in the States a couple of years ago when Dad was over at Berkeley, and Mum was working at this women’s clinic. She got the same crap from some mad pro-life group over there and it was so dangerous for her. They had her picture all over the Net and they told everyone where she lived. They put these crosses on the front lawn for all the babies they said she’d killed. They’d camp out beside them and when she came out in the morning, they said to her she was going to end up dead herself one day, maybe today. She used to ask the people she worked with, do they mean it? And everyone told her, yeah, these people are psychos, you’ve got to be so careful about them. She had to wear this bulletproof vest when she went to work, and they had armed guards all over the place. Last night Dad said to her, it’s like it’s the same people and they’re dangerous. You’ve got to go to the police.

Call them now, he said. Oh no, she wasn’t going to do that. I’ll go to work and I’ll call them tomorrow. That is just so like her. That’s what he was doing out of the car. He was saying to her, are you going to call them? She said, yes, I’m going to call them. It was too late, wasn’t it?’

Grace sat and let the boy hold on to her while he regained some calm. As she did, she saw Harrigan again wait and watch and then pursue his point.

‘Do these people who stalked your mother in the States have a name?’

‘I can’t remember. I can tell you where she worked over there, they’d know all about them.’

‘We’ll talk to them. What about the ones who hang around the clinics here?’

‘I don’t think they’ve got a name, they’re just loonies. But you might know something about them. They used to take pictures of women going into the clinics and Mum used to call you in when they did. You’d come down sometimes and move them on. But that’s all you ever did.’

The accusation glanced off Harrigan’s hide.

‘We’ll check it,’ he said. ‘Did you see anyone else this morning, Matthew? We found some used syringes in the back of the shop and we’re pretty certain there was at least one other person inside at the time. Did you see anyone else near that shop, before or afterwards?’

‘I’ve seen smackheads come out of there sometimes. I know it gets used for that, but I didn’t see anyone today other than her.’

The words sounded strange in his mouth, Grace thought, his nerve was about to break. There was a brief silence.

‘Are you going to find her? You said you would.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Harrigan replied.

‘Because she’s a coward and she’s a cold-blooded murderer and you’ve got to find her and put her away, you know, for ever.’

As he spoke, his grandmother leaned forward with her eyes closed, then sat upright again, appearing to force herself to listen. Grace’s miniature cassette player, balanced on the low table, kept on recording.

‘We’ll find her.’ Harrigan sounded disinterested. ‘I don’t want people like her out on the streets. I want her in a cell where she belongs for a good long time.’ He paused. ‘I’ve got some people outside who are going to stay with you both for a while. If you want anything, you just ask them for it. That’s what they’re here for. Do you want to get changed now, Matthew? Your grandmother brought these clothes in for you. You should get out of what you’re wearing.’

‘I’m not going to do that. You see this?’ The boy let go of Grace’s hand and held out his arms where the blood had dried to fine caked dark crimson dust on his school blazer. ‘This is real. This is what happened. I’m not going to change.’

‘That’s not going to make any difference for you, Matthew,’

Harrigan said quietly. ‘It’s better if you clean away what you can. Why don’t you let me and your grandmother give you a hand?’

There was a change of quality in the atmosphere; Grace felt a sense of the boy taking on an imposed restraint. He sat still for a few moments and then shrugged his acquiescence. She said her goodbyes to him, which he received with a confused vagueness, and waited outside while he changed. A little later, Mrs Tsang appeared in the corridor with Harrigan.

‘I’ll give you these now, Mrs Tsang. I think you’ll want them,’ he said and reaching into his inside jacket pocket handed the elderly woman a plastic bag with the dead man’s effects: a gold watch, a tiepin, a wallet and a wedding ring.

‘My husband gave Henry that watch. When he and Agnes were married,’ she said in an ordinary voice, taking the package from him.

Harrigan was guiding her gently back into the room as she spoke.

‘Don’t forget you can call me. Any time. Any of the numbers on my card.’

Grace, watching the waiting room door close on both Matthew and Mrs Tsang, allowed herself to breathe.

‘Is that what he told you?’

They were on their way out to his car. She had stopped outside the hospital entrance to put on her coat against the wind, and stood in the wintry weather feeling stretched and dirty. Just then she would have paid good money for a cigarette but she had none with her, a self-imposed self-denial she was regretting badly. She frowned as she replied.

‘Yeah, pretty much. He made a lot more sense that time around, he really lost it in the ambulance. Anyway, I’ve got it all on the tape. Both times.’

‘Good for you, Grace.’

Neutrality gone, he snapped his reply at her. Grace felt the expression on her face harden as she looked at him and did not reply.

What do you want me to do? Cry for Matthew? I can do that if you want but what’s the point? He was watching her.

‘You’ve cleaned your coat up,’ he said.

She touched the still warm and damp black wool and felt a shift in her workaday realities. All the usual boundaries had been negated by a single morning’s work.

‘The hospital did that for me. It was nice of them to take the trouble.’

‘Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? Okay, we can’t hang around here having a good time all day, we’ve got places to go. You drive, I hear?’

He was looking at her speculatively with the ghost of a grin.

‘Of course I drive.’

‘Yeah, I heard on the grapevine you were pretty speedy. You can drive me in that case.’ He tossed her the car keys and she caught them one-handed with a perfect cricketer’s catch. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

She almost said that the grapevine was more speedy than she could hope to be. That morning, early, Grace had slipped her much loved car, her 1971 red Datsun 240Z, her stylish piece of retro culture on wheels, into a vacant parking space, zipping in ahead of a clapped-out Ford Cortina. The driver, a man of about fortyish or so with pronounced veins on his forehead and eyes popping with anger, had leaned out of his window and yelled at her that this was his spot, he always parked there, get out of it. Other spaces were vacant nearby and her stubbornness came up like a wall. ‘Too late,’ she’d said to him with her sweetest smile as she got out of her car and walked away.

That was Jeffo, someone had told her later, he was on the team with her. He’s nasty, you watch out for him.

‘I don’t care at all. Where to?’ she replied honestly, with edge, tossing back some irritation of her own.