Denise Mina - Field of Blood

Up on Tracy’s landing the suction weight of wind pulled the landing door so tightly closed that it took both of them to lever it open. The deafening wind flattened her hair and tugged at her heavy coat. Terry clutched the neck of his heavy leather jacket as they crept along the inside wall of the balcony. Paddy knocked heavily on Tracy Dempsie’s door.

She had raised her hand to knock again when Tracy opened it, wearing yesterday’s makeup in all the wrong places. She had taken an extra pill or two, and her housecoat was buttoned one step out. She blinked slowly when she saw Paddy and raised her cigarette to her mouth. The hot ash tip flew into her hair, singeing it.

“You’re not Heather Allen.”

Paddy hoped Terry hadn’t heard.

“I saw her picture in the paper. You’re not her. She’s dead.”

Terry looked curious. Paddy could feel his eyes on her face.

“Tracy, I heard Henry Naismith was arrested.”

At the mention of her ex-man the fight went out of Tracy. Her head dropped forward on her neck and she turned and walked away down the hall. A swirling gust of wind jerked the door open. Paddy wiped her feet before stepping in. Shutting the door carefully behind him, dulling the noise, Terry looked from the busy carpet to Paddy and let off a silent scream.

Following the trail of smoke through the hall and into the living room, they found Tracy slumped on the settee, staring blankly at her knees. The angry wind hissed outside the window.

“Henry,” she said quietly. “They said he confessed to killing Thomas as well. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have.”

Paddy sat down on the edge of the settee next to her, their knees almost touching. She desperately wanted to say something kind and helpful, but there was nothing to say. As if she could see it in her eyes, Tracy reached out and took Paddy’s hand, holding it by the thumb, absentmindedly lifting and dropping it as she took a draw from her fag.

“He was a hard man, though, wasn’t he?”

Tracy sucked smoke through clenched teeth and tipped her head back. “Henry’s a good man. He was in the gangs when he was younger, aye, but the gangs just fight each other. And anyway, he’s a born-again Christian now, he’s not going to attack a wean.”

“But he confessed, Tracy.”

“So what?” She looked up at them, pleading, as if they had any authority in the matter. “They could just be saying that.”

Paddy had almost forgotten Terry was standing behind her until he hovered into her line of vision. He cleared his throat carefully before he spoke.

“Mrs. Dempsie, why would he confess if he didn’t do it?”

Tracy shook her head at the carpet and looked bewildered. “They’d mibbe make him?” Her medically dulled eyes slowly traced the dervish pattern on the carpet as she thought back. She blinked slowly at the floor and then blinked again, her eyebrows forming a plaintive little triangle. “Henry won’t kill hisself like Alfred did. He’s got religion.”

Paddy watched Tracy bring the cigarette to her mouth and knew in a sudden, chilling moment that she was staring at carnage she had created. She was the policeman who had planted paper in James Griffiths’s pocket. She had never in her life wanted to go to confession, but she did now.

She squeezed Tracy’s hand hard. “I’m so sorry for all your troubles.”

Bewildered but touched, Tracy squeezed back, shaking Paddy’s hand awkwardly by the thumb. “Thanks.”

“I mean it.” She clasped Tracy’s hand tightly in both of hers as shame overwhelmed her. “I’m really so sorry. Honestly.”

Tracy Dempsie was on long-term medication and had treated herself to a little extra dose today, but even she was finding Paddy’s behavior odd. She smiled uncomfortably and wriggled her hand free.

Terry stepped forward.

“Mrs. Dempsie, I wonder if you would have a photograph of Henry? We don’t want to use the police photo, we want a nice one for the paper.”

It was a smart lie. The police hadn’t released a photo of Naismith, and they weren’t likely to either, but Terry had guessed that Tracy didn’t know that and would want Henry to look his best in the paper. His professionalism was a reproach to Paddy, who sniffed and dabbed the damp tip of her nose with the back of her hand.

“Aye.” Tracy bumped her bum to the edge of the settee and stood up awkwardly, tottering a step to the side before shuffling out into the hall.

Terry waited until Tracy was out of earshot. “Fucking hell,” he murmured. “What is going on with you?”

She tried to breathe in but her chin crumpled. Terry kicked the underside of her foot and growled at her. “Go to the toilet and sort yourself out.”

She stood up. “Don’t you be cheeky to me.”

“Don’t act like a silly cow, then.”

She kicked him hard on the ankle bone, leaving him panting and cursing her under his breath.

Out in the dark hallway she could hear Tracy raking noisily through papers behind one of the doors. The bathroom had a little ceramic sign on the door, a picture of a toilet with a wreath of roses around it. The room had been decorated in the same era as the hallway. Orange wallpaper was blistered at the edges, pleading to be pulled off. The fixtures were a clashing pink, the bath stained rusty brown where the cold tap had dripped and corroded the plug hole. An orange bar of soap was welded between the sink taps, and the pale lemon carpet smelled of dust and bleach.

Paddy locked the door and pulled down the toilet lid, sitting down and curling over her knees. She tried to think of something Terry had done wrong to mitigate her offense to him. She thought through her night in his bed, this morning, his behavior at work, but couldn’t think of anything. She knew she had to phone the police and take the blame for the ball of hair in the van. She could feel it as a vibration, but every fiber of her being balked at the prospect of owning up. She’d lose everything, but it was right that she should: she’d killed Heather and framed Naismith.

She made herself sit up straight. In the dock at the high court Paddy Meehan had given a dignified speech after his conviction. He must have felt more beleaguered than she was now. She stood up and looked at herself in the cloudy mirror. “You have made a terrible mistake,” she whispered quietly. “I am innocent of this crime and so is Jim Griffiths.” She sniffed hard and straightened her duffel coat, ruffling her black hair to make it stand up again. She looked herself in the eye and saw nothing but guilt and fear and fat. “You have made a terrible mistake.” She had integrity. She wouldn’t sacrifice a man’s life for her career. She might contemplate it, and she knew that was terrible, but she wouldn’t do it.

Flushing the toilet for effect, she drew a deep breath, unlocked the door, and stepped across the hall to the living room.

Terry had taken her place on the settee next to Tracy and was smiling dutifully at an open photo album. It was bound in red plastic with gold trim around the edges. She had stored it under something heavy, and some of the cellophane sheets had been flattened the wrong way and were hanging out.

Tracy had a new fag lit and was pointing at a picture. “Me on holiday. Isle of Wight. Good legs, eh?”

“Yeah,” Terry said, looking up at Paddy as she came in and giving her a conciliatory smile. “Look,” he said. “Tracy in a swimming costume.”

Paddy walked over to Tracy’s arm of the settee and looked over her shoulder. The Tracy in the picture was younger and quite pretty, posing carefully on a bank-holiday-busy beach, one foot propped in front of the other like a fifties model. Paddy nodded. “Great.”

On the opposite page Henry Naismith was dressed in drainpipe trousers and a powder blue drape coat. Hanging on his arm was young Tracy in bobby socks and a pink shift dress, her hair in a high ponytail, her eyes accidentally closed at the moment the shutter blinked.