Contents (48)
- PAST LIFE
- David Mark
- PART ONE
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- PART TWO
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
‘Twix, Andy?’
Daniells looks at it. Looks at his husband. He feels like he’s in Sophie’s Choice. Then he gives the chocolate bar to Stefan, and climbs from the car without another word. His posture speaks of catastrophic loss.
He watches Stefan drive away. Looks around for any sign that the uniformed officers have an issue with him being dropped off by his husband, and is a little irked to find that nobody seems to care.
Coldly, hungrily, he picks his way through the cars to where Pharaoh and McAvoy are standing. He notices that Pharaoh has positioned McAvoy in such a way as to block the wind. She huddles in the shelter he creates like a lamb behind an oak tree.
Her words carry. He picks up snatches; files them away.
‘… Jesus, Hector, how do I protect you from this? You have to talk to her. If it’s the same person … if this is like it was before … oh, here comes our defective constable …’
She turns, face flushed. Beside her, McAvoy, white as a sheet, gives him a tight little smile.
‘Morning all. I just saw the BBC arrive. They’re up early, aren’t they? Facebook’s buzzing with it. You’ll have heard already, I’ve no doubt, but there’s some serious conspiracy theory shit going on over at the One Hull of a City page. Do you know about Eva-Jayne Puck? Scunthorpe, years back. She was a palmist. Somebody made a right mess of her at those flats off Kingsway. Anyway, as I say, you’ll know …’
McAvoy and Pharaoh exchange a look. From behind, comes the sound of a reporter and a cameraman trying to be charming to the large police constable who has been given the job of guarding the hedge, and looks as though he will buckle under the pressure.
‘I can’t,’ says Pharaoh, quietly. ‘I need to be sheep-dipped before I can go in front of the camera. You do it. You’re presentable.’
McAvoy doesn’t look up from his phone. It’s buzzing. He can’t seem to bring himself to answer it. Slips it back in his pocket. Swallows as if it pains him.
‘Sure,’ he says, drily. ‘And then the daughter?’
‘Neighbours first,’ says Pharaoh, daggers in her gaze. ‘Then Roisin.’
NINE
Twelve years ago
Aector McAvoy, still as a headstone, sitting in the bay window of his sparsely-furnished bedroom; silver moonlight and the gaudy yellow of the streetlamp casting an eerie light into the contours of his face.
On his knee, the laptop computer, wire trickling down to the socket in the skirting board, a black cable spilling over a column of textbooks and neatly transcribed revision files. He passed his sergeant exams just before he applied for the constable job with Humberside Police. Has kept it to himself. Just because he passed with flying colours doesn’t mean he considers himself ready to take the step up. He’d hate to be accused of arrogance.
On the screen in front of him, two men are fighting. They’re both stripped to the waist, their hands bound in bloodied bandages, their faces pummelled bloody. Around them, a semi-circle of jostling, excitable men, punching the air, yelling encouragement, bawling out ‘fair play, fair play’ whenever one of the pugilists breaks what passes for the rules. McAvoy leans forward and pauses the video just as the camera spins around the dirty, blubbery back of one of the fighters, and rests for a moment on a man with a drooping moustache, porkpie hat and so many gold sovereign rings he seems to be wearing a knuckleduster. He snarls. Swats the camera away.