Val McDermid - The Wire in the Blood

‘Meaning what?’ he asked, his face giving nothing away.

‘Sympathy without pity?’

He nodded, as if satisfied. ‘The nurse reckoned it was because you fancied me. I knew she was wrong.’

Micky shrugged. It was all going so much better than she’d anticipated. ‘Don’t disillusion her. People distrust motives they can’t understand.’

‘You’re so right,’ he said, an edge of bitterness in his voice that she hadn’t heard there before, in spite of the ample reason. ‘But understanding doesn’t always make it possible to accept something.’

There was more, much more behind his words. But Micky knew when to leave well alone. There would be plenty of opportunity to broach that subject again. When she left that day, she was careful to make sure the nurse saw her kiss him goodbye. If this story was to be credible, it needed to leak out, not be broadcast. And from her own journalistic experience, gossip spread through a hospital faster than legionnaire’s disease. From there to the wider community only took one carrier.

When she arrived a week later, Jacko seemed remote. Micky sensed violent emotions barely held in check, but couldn’t be sure what those feelings were. Eventually, tired of conducting a monologue rather than a conversation, she said, ‘Are you going to tell me or are you just going to let your blood pressure rise till you have a stroke?’

For the first time that afternoon, he looked directly into her face. Momentarily, she thought he was in the grip of fever, then she realized it was a fury so powerful that she couldn’t imagine how he could contain it. He was so angry he could barely speak, she realized as she watched him struggle to find the words. At last, he conquered his rage by sheer effort of will and said, ‘My fucking so-called fiancée,’ he growled.

‘Jillie?’ Micky hoped she’d got the name right. They’d met briefly one afternoon as Micky had been leaving. She had the impression of a slender dark-haired beauty who managed sultry rather than tarty by an inch.

‘Bitch,’ he hissed, the tendons on his neck tensing like cords beneath the tanned skin.

‘What’s happened, Jacko?’

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, his wide chest expanding and emphasizing the asymmetry of his once perfect upper body. ‘Dumped me,’ he managed at last, his voice thick with anger.

‘No,’ Micky breathed. ‘Oh, Jacko.’ She reached out and touched the tight fist with her fingers. She could actually feel the pulse beating in his flesh, so tightly was his hand clenched. His rage was phenomenal, Micky thought, yet his control seemed in no real danger of slipping.

‘Says she can’t cope with it.’ He gave a grating bark of cynical laughter. ‘She can’t cope with it? How the fuck does she think it is for me?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Micky said inadequately.

‘I saw it in her face, the first time she visited after the accident. No, I knew before that. I knew because she didn’t come near me that first day. It took her two days to get her arse in here.’ His voice was harsh and guttural, the heavy words falling like blocks of stone. ‘When she did come, she couldn’t stand the sight of me. It was all over her face. I repelled her. All she could see was what I wasn’t any more.’ He pulled his fist away and pounded it on the bed.

‘More fool her.’

His eyes opened and he glared at her. ‘Don’t you start. All I need is one more silly bitch patronizing me. I’ve had that fucking nurse with her artificial cheerfulness all over me. Just don’t!’

Micky didn’t flinch. She’d won too many confrontations with news editors for that. ‘You should learn to recognize respect when you see it,’ she flared back at him. ‘I’m sorry Jillie hasn’t got what it takes to see you through, but you’re better off finding that out now than further down the road.’

Jacko looked astonished. For years now, the only person who’d spoken to him with anything except nervous deference was his trainer. ‘What?’ he squawked, his anger displaced by baffled astonishment.

Micky continued regardless of his response. ‘What you have to decide now is how you’re going to play it.’

‘What?’

‘It’s not going to stay a secret between the two of you, is it? From what you said, the nurse already knows. So by teatime, it’s going to be, “Hold the front page.” If you want, you can settle for being an object of pity – hero dumped by girlfriend because he’s not a proper man any more. You’ll get the sympathy vote, and a fair chunk of the Great British Public will spit on Jillie in the street. Alternatively, you can get your retaliation in first and come out on top.’

Jacko’s mouth was open, but for a moment no words came. At last, he said in a low voice that fellow members of the Olympic squad would have recognized as a signal for flak jackets, ‘Go on.’

‘It’s up to you. It depends whether you want people to see you as a victim or a victor.’

Micky’s level stare felt as much of a challenge as anything that had ever faced him on the field of competition. ‘What do you think?’ he snarled.

‘I’m telling you, man, this is the sticks ,’ Leon said, waving a chicken pakora in a sweeping gesture that seemed to include not only the restaurant but most of the West Riding of Yorkshire as well.

‘You’ve obviously never been to Greenock on a Saturday night,’ Simon said drily. ‘Believe me, Leon, that makes Leeds look positively cosmopolitan.’

‘ Nothing could make this place cosmopolitan,’ Leon protested.

‘It’s not that bad,’ Kay said. ‘It’s very good for shopping.’ Even outside the classroom, Shaz noticed, Kay slipped straight into the conciliatory role, smoothing down her hair as she smoothed down the rough edges in the conversations.

Simon groaned theatrically. ‘Oh please, Kay, don’t feel you need to glide effortlessly into bland womanly stuff. Go on, make my night, tell me how terrific Leeds is for body-piercing.’

Kay poked her tongue out at him.

‘If you don’t leave Kay alone, us women might well consider piercing some treasured part of your anatomy with this beer bottle,’ Shaz said sweetly, brandishing her Kingfisher.

Simon put his hands up. ‘OK. I’ll behave, just as long as you promise not to beat me with a chapati.’

There was a moment’s silence while the four police officers attacked their starters. The Saturday night curry looked like becoming a regular feature for the quartet, the other two preferring to return to their former home turf rather than explore their new base. When Simon had first suggested it, Shaz hadn’t been sure if she wanted to bond that closely with her colleagues. But Simon had been persuasive, and besides, Commander Bishop had been earwigging and she wanted to avoid a black mark for being unco-operative. So she’d agreed and, to her surprise, she’d enjoyed herself, even though she had made her excuses and left before the nightclub excursion that had followed. Now, three weeks into the Job, she found she was actually looking forward to their night out, and not just for the food.

Leon was first to clear his plate, as usual. ‘What I’m saying is, it’s primitive up here.’

‘I don’t know,’ Shaz protested. ‘They’ve got plenty of good curry houses, the property’s cheap enough for me to afford something bigger than a rabbit hutch, and if you want to go from one part of the city centre to another, you can walk instead of sitting on the tube for an hour.’

‘And the countryside. Don’t forget how easy it is to get out into the countryside,’ Kay added.

Leon leaned back in his seat, groaning and rolling his eyes extravagantly like a terrible caricature of a Black and White Minstrel. ‘Heathcliff,’ he warbled in falsetto.