Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife

“So you went there yesterday morning expecting Kevin Hatcher to-”

“Would a police officer ever wear a Celtic top?”

“Just answer the question-”

“McBree. He’s an important man in the IRA, very, very high up. International profile. Why does that not interest you?”

No one spoke.

“My family are Irish and my mum thinks the police’ll arrest you for being in possession of a potato. Why am I getting no interest in this guy? If I told you one of the Guildford Four had done it, would you pull them in? A big man in the IRA is in the city and that’s of no interest to you? What, because you already know?”

Before Garrett had the chance not to answer, the door behind the officers opened and Garrett sat up, her face warming. “Afternoon, sir.”

Knox was standing in the doorway, face pinched, shoulders square, ready to make his mark. He turned to the officers beside him. “Wait in the corridor.”

Suddenly sweating, Paddy stood up. “I’m leaving.”

He smiled calmly. “You can’t.”

“I’m not under arrest.”

“I want to talk to you.”

Knox shut the door slowly, listening for the secure click of the mechanism, and turned back to the room. As he sauntered over to Garrett’s seat she backed out of his space, standing subserviently at the side. He sat down, looked out of the window and back at her, overplaying his insouciance.

Paddy took out a cigarette, lit it, and blew the smoke at him.

“No one will believe you,” he said coldly.

“That you brought me to a deserted part of the building to menace me?”

His eyes flickered in Garrett’s direction. “About Hewitt,” he said casually.

Paddy uncrossed her legs. “Terry’s murder.”

“The officers told me what you said this morning. You’re wrong. The IRA have denied responsibility. The gun has been found and traced to a drugs murder in Easterhouse last year. We have evidence that it was nothing to do with the IRA.”

She took another draw on her cigarette, listening to the hum of the buffer slowing to a dying whine. She could hear the plug being snapped out of the wall. The lift tinged and she heard the doors slide shut after the cleaner. They were alone on the floor.

“Why am I here?”

What little color there was in Knox’s face drained away. He craned towards her, the skin so tight she could see the hammering of the pulse in his neck. “You’re here because you ran away yesterday morning. You should have come straight here as the officers requested. It makes police officers suspicious when someone they want to question runs away.”

“If it was such a big deal why didn’t they come to my house last night? Everyone knows where I live. The police found me easily enough on Saturday night. And by the way, where is Kevin? I spoke to all four casualty departments yesterday and couldn’t find him registered as a patient.”

“Kevin Hatcher is dead.”

He watched her face, taking a clinical interest in her reaction as the news sank in.

“When? When did he die?”

Knox cleared his throat, tipping his head back to Garrett. She stepped forward and spoke, her voice softer than before. “Kevin was dead on arrival at the hospital. They register a death differently, that may be why you missed him.”

“No, they don’t. I was on the calls-car shift for six months. I went around the hospitals every night, twice sometimes. They register a death on arrival in the same book as casualty admissions.”

Knox’s face didn’t move, but as he looked at her his eyes softened in amusement. This is how big we are, he was saying: we can make a man disappear. I could make you disappear.

He was expecting her to shout at him, to meet his play and issue impotent threats, but Knox was as hardened as Donaldson and her threats would be just as flaccid. Instead, she made the one move he wouldn’t have an answer to: she covered her face and pretended to cry, muttering about poor Kevin under her breath. She was only acting, and when her face was good and wet she looked up at Garrett, who blinked twice, for her the equivalent of an emotional flurry.

Knox had a stale smile stapled to his face. He rubbed the desktop with his fingertips, trying to worry off a small stain.

Paddy took a shaky draw on her cigarette. “McBree. He killed them both.”

Knox shook his head. “No.”

“How can you possibly know he didn’t?”

“Nothing links the two deaths. One’s a shooting, one’s a stroke, one’s indoors, one’s outdoors, neither man was involved in politics.”

“Why would Kevin leave out a line of cocaine to inhale when he’d swallowed enough to make him have a stroke and vomit? It’s like finding a glass of whiskey next to someone who died from drinking vodka, for fucksake.”

Knox stood up calmly and made for the door. The interview was over, though she couldn’t see what he’d got out of it. She stood up too. “You’re refusing point-blank to look at McBree?”

He stood, rolled his head back, and turned to face her.

“They spent the night before Hewitt’s death at the casino. A lot of strange people visit casinos. We’re interviewing several of the people who were there that night.”

“But not McBree?”

“You will get the wrong end of the stick and keep chewing, won’t you?”

She meant to give a cavalier laugh but it sounded like a hysterical sob. “You’re concerned that I may be slandering the IRA?”

“We’re concerned that you may be spreading fear and alarm, Meehan.”

Paddy stubbed her cigarette out on the desk, picked up her bag, and brushed past Knox at the door. Outside, the two officers turned as she opened it, looking back into the room for guidance. Someone gave them a nod to let her go and she pushed through them.

She didn’t want to wait for the lift and found the door to the stairs, jogging down three flights without drawing a breath. She stopped when she felt sure they weren’t coming after her, leaned her back against the wall, and let herself cry properly.

Her feelings for Terry were complicated. He’d frightened her and chased her and she knew deep down that her life would be easier now that he wasn’t around. But Kevin Hatcher-Kevin was just a nice man.

Blythswood Square was a short, steep street away from the police headquarters and Paddy found herself heading up that way, trying to think of a justification for going into Fitzpatrick’s office and orchestrating a fight with him. She steamed up the hill, her face still puffed and red from crying. At the top she caught her breath, realized she was looking for someone timid to have a fight with. She couldn’t go back to the News offices or Bunty would banjax her into writing about Callum. She found a seat on the square, looking back down the hill to a line of squad cars.

She could write a news piece about Kevin dying and phone it in. Writing things up always made her feel detached and calm. But the editors wouldn’t take it without certain bald facts: she didn’t know which hospital to name-check or even what he died of.

Kevin was dead, Terry was dead and the Strathclyde Police Force weren’t showing a flicker of interest in the fact that McBree had to be involved.

She took out a cigarette and lit it, her throat closing over in disgust as she tried to breathe in. She persevered. The nicotine made her feel more detached, calmer, fed. She sat back on the wooden bench, the heat from the slats soaking into her back, thinking about Father Andrew making a big point of shaking her hand after mass every Sunday and Mary Ann crying at the kitchen table.

Sickened, she threw the cigarette to the curb.