Flesh and Coin (The Mulrones Book 3) Read online

  The thing was, this felt honest to Jim. Felt like real work, like he was doing something important. Following things, hunches. Making connections. Seeing where things led. Like a treasure hunt, kiss chase…the good stuff.

  So, he didn’t tell anyone. He looked through his files, saw some familiar faces, some he didn’t know. He’d worked in East Anglia a long, long time. He knew faces, names. Some personally, some from briefings and some in passing.

  Plenty of criminals called Paul, and Small. Only one Paul Small. Mother, Pauline Small, née Mulrone. Father Freddy Small.

  Traveling families are by and large left alone by most of the population.

  But something tickled Jim at the mention of the name Mulrone.

  Turned out there was a file just for them. For most of the family. Pauline, no record. But there were plenty of other records for Mulrone, for Freddy Small, too. And a last-known address, which when Jim checked, turned out to be a field in the middle of fucking nowhere, way up north.

  He sat back and buzzed for a cup of tea. Watched his assistant till she reached the door.

  “Do me a favor?” he said, though he didn’t need to ask.

  “Of course.”

  “Got bad guts. Reckon I’ll be off a couple of days. Let people know, eh?”

  His assistant wasn’t his assistant for nothing.

  “Couple of days?”

  “No more. No worries, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  She left, and he smoked a cigarette while he looked at the file on his PC. Then he shut down and left, too, with a little nod to his assistant as he passed her desk on the way to the elevator.

  Part Two

  No Coming Back

  VII.

  Lockdown

  Winter nights are long and hard in Britain. Longer, the farther north you go. Colder, too. Old Oak was in East Anglia, on the borders of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. Not north, but wide-open ground, open to the wind and frequent, heavy snows.

  Night shift was the hardest for Cathy. Hard in the summer months, when the nights were balmy and warm, walking in the evening sun.

  In the winter, with the wind blowing through her, chilling her to the bone, walking the long walk from the bus stop in the cold and the dark, it was a kind of hell. The wind was harsh, in from the north and into Cathy’s face, so cold it hurt her teeth. Her feet hurt, too, her eyes were pinpricks as she walked the last mile of her journey to work. The morphine was in her system, her nightly dose. She wasn’t even a little high, though. The biting cold was sobering, as was the walk through the woods at the border to Old Oak. Cedar and spruce, elm and birch. A towering chestnut over the driveway that led to the front door. The chestnut was barren. No rustling, but whistling softly in the wind, which cut through the trees and Cathy both.

  The driveway was lit up sporadically along her route. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, but she was afraid of what might happen with Hattie tonight, because she knew for the good of her soul, for her self-respect, she’d have to say something, anything, to let the girl know she couldn’t get away with what she’d done.

  Maybe the Cauldens’ knew the extent of Hattie’s misdemeanors and the truth behind her greater crimes. Maybe if she shone a light on the darkness within Old Oak, she’d catch herself in the glare.

  She thought she could bear it. Maybe she’d lose her job. She’d almost be certain to lose her morphine. The thought of living without its succor was terrifying, but the thought of living with the stain on her heart of letting Hattie remain unpunished was so much worse.

  Whistling trees behind her and Old Oak ahead, Cathy set her shoulders as best as she could and aimed straight for the door, thinking things through, obsessively, trying to decide what to say.

  But Hattie took the luxury from her, waiting for her there at the front door.

  *

  Suddenly, the impetus was Hattie’s, though she was motionless, blocking the door. She wore a smile on her face like another’s skin.

  “Cathy,” she said, “I meant to talk to you.”

  “What?” said Cathy, kicking herself, because now she was faced with Hattie, younger, stronger, possibly quicker of wit in the same way small animals possessed quick cunning, she was lost for words. The things she’d thought to say were lost in the wind.

  “I’m sorry,” said Hattie. “I should’ve been more careful with the infusion pump. I made a mistake. Unforgivable.”

  Like, give me your forgiveness, we can move on. Give me your approval…

  Cathy was nearly wrong-footed. But she was cold, the wind clearing her head of the gentle morphine fugue she’d been in and under on the walk to work. The dark at her back, the light behind Hattie. It was all wrong.

  I should be in the light, she thought.

  But that was wrong, too. She wasn’t some shining example of decency, was she?

  “Forgiveness isn’t mine.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You religious? Some God thing?”

  Cathy smiled. Hattie was back, within less than a minute. She couldn’t hold it together for longer than that. As though being civil burned her, like sunlight might a vampire.

  Hattie stepped back as she saw the expression on Cathy’s face, perhaps more effective than even a slap might be.

  “The only person you need forgiveness from is the poor man you killed. Now, it’s cold and I’ve got work to do. Excuse me.”

  Hattie nearly hissed. Cathy was good and ready to slap her if she did, whether it hurt her old hands or not. But Hattie stepped aside. For a moment the girl was at Cathy’s back, and for some insane reason she thought Hattie would shove her over onto her face.

  But she didn’t, and Cathy went to her locker unmolested. Then, because so many staff were at home, chained to their buckets and their toilets, victims of the norovirus, she went to work. In some indefinable way, she felt lighter. A load lifted from her shoulders, something said she wished she’d said long ago. Might be that it wouldn’t make one whit of difference to Hattie’s behavior, or attitude…but it would to Cathy’s. She was sure of it.

  *

  Cathy sat with Charlie at five in the morning, after a tough, long shift. Harder than usual. Staffing was below acceptable standards, but unavoidable. Caulden could’ve called in agency staff to cover the shortfall, but he was, frankly, a tight bastard.

  Staff down, patients sick or suffering with the runs. It was one of the worst shifts Cathy had had in years. At the end of it, jobs done for a time, she sat with a sigh beside Charlie, even though he was sleeping soundly after a rough night.

  He had dark, almost black rings under his eyes. Shadow on his cheeks and chin that a razor couldn’t touch. He was achingly thin. A man, in short, who looked not so much dying as dead. If she didn’t know better, Cathy would have sworn he’d died in the night and no one had noticed until now. But he opened his eyes and saw her and smiled. She smiled back, genuinely pleased he was awake, so she could have this time with him. Aware, too, that she was mad, but with that smile on his face? The smile on his face bordered on daft, but it was endearing. To be in such constant pain, dying, afraid, and still have a smile for her?

  You’re insane, honey, she told herself. But it didn’t matter. Even her mother’s voice in her head, so long passed, couldn’t shift the sense that the Charlie on the bed was a real man, a real patient. A dying friend in need of comfort.

  She could put no value on such a thing as his smile, especially as he gave it freely. But smiling as he was, his dark eyes were sharp as a cat’s, even in the low nightlight within the ward.

  “Are you okay? You look…angry.”

  Cathy sighed. She didn’t suppose it mattered much.

  “There’s a girl here, Hattie. She…well, I guess she got to me tonight. Honestly? I’m wound so tight I don’t know how to come down.”

  “You want to talk it through?”

  “You know what, Charlie? I’d just like to sit a while. With you. Read, talk. I don’t know…sometimes you need to tak
e your mind off things. Does that make sense?”

  “I like the idea,” said Charlie. He winced, a little, like he’d had a sudden pain. But he didn’t cry out. Not like the others on the ward. He never did.

  “How are you, Charlie? I mean, really. Not the usual bravado. Really.”

  “Same as you, Cathy, I think. I could use the company. It’s pretty boring being stuck in this bed.”

  “You want to…” Cathy almost offered to take him outside for some air. See the sun. But that would break the spell, wouldn’t it?

  “You want to talk about something? Like, I don’t know…your life?”

  “Maybe we should talk about yours, Cathy. We always talk about me. Me, me, me. Talk about me so much I get…” For a moment, Charlie’s eyes seemed to focus on something distant, not behind Cathy, but in his mind’s eye. A memory from a long time ago.

  He looked lost in that moment, and she felt afraid. She didn’t know why. The fear hit her hard, right in her stomach. Down low, almost like she needed to empty her bowels.

  But then he was back, and everything was right. Maybe just for an hour or two, but right enough.

  “I’ll talk, Charlie. You rest. You look really tired.”

  “I am, Mum. I am…” he said, and closed his eyes.

  “I grew up on a little farm in Norfolk,” she began, with tears, for some reason, at the corners of her eyes. He’s confused enough to call me mum, she thought.

  But then, aren’t we both just as messed up and mangled as each other?

  Of course they were. Cathy knew herself well enough to understand perfectly that she had a large spot of insane on her no amount of rubbing would get out. She knew the man was dead. She knew he wasn’t Charlie Dawes. But between them, this time was precious, special. Essential.

  *

  At six, after a long, hard shift, Hattie stood at the doorway before the ward, her coat on and ready to leave. Cathy was by the bed, the empty one. Talking to herself. Softly, so no one would hear but her “ghost.”

  What the fuck was that about, anyway? Caulden, the old bastard, wouldn’t talk about it. Nor would anyone else. Like Cathy was special. More special than she was.

  “Nosy bitch,” she whispered.

  I’ll sort her out, too, she thought.

  She turned, stopped, because something was off. Sounds, coming from the ward, out of place. Not the sighing and moaning and groaning she’d all but learned to ignore. Someone speaking.

  No, that’s not right.

  They were all speaking. Whispering. Conspiring.

  Get a fucking grip, you loon.

  Not conspiring. Saying something, though, for sure.

  All of them?

  She took a step into the ward, and suddenly, as though she’d stepped through a closed door (though the door was always open) the sound became more real, powerful, though whispered. Hoarse voices from dying men. All sounding out the same word, over and over.

  “Shadowman.”Like a chant, an incantation. Like they were…summoning someone. Something. Chills ran down Hattie’s spine. She even looked to Cathy for support, but the old bitch was asleep sitting up in her chair.

  “Shadowman,” they said, again and again.

  “I’m hearing things,” she told herself, just to hear her voice, to settle.

  “Shadowman.”A kind of groan, a kind of warning. She didn’t know.

  Her knees were weak. Her right knee even buckled.

  “Shut up!”

  Cathy woke, jumping up and looking around. “What? What, girl? Christ, you don’t shout like that on the ward.”

  “You shut up, too,” said Hattie, to cover her fear, and dashed from the suddenly silent ward. No dying sounds, no Shadowman, just silence. Silence from the dying, from Cathy, even from the fucked-up ghost on the bed, followed Hattie to the door like an admonition.

  VIII.

  A Mother’s Pride

  The muddy ruts of many wheeled vehicles jounced Jim’s car badly enough for him to stop and walk the rest of the way across one damp field and onto the other. It was a small encampment, set well back from the road. A settlement of sorts, made entirely of caravans. There were only seven of them, but for some reason Jim had the sense of a fort or palisade. A couple of horses roamed the field and pulled up long grass from the base of the hedge. Mangy dogs lying in the mud, and the caravans gleaming, freshly cleaned. A classic Land Rover, rusted and muddied. A couple of estate cars, a large BMW, a few kids’ bikes, useless in the mud.

  A sense of winter in the country deeper than any scene Jim Wayne had ever seen. Blistering cold, barren trees, mud and dirt and pale sunshine. Birds wheeling in the air above, crows maybe. Pickings must be slim this time of year.

  An angry man missing his front teeth emerged from the nearest caravan and stood, arms crossed, in front of his home. Not especially big, but shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal thick, tattooed forearms.

  As Jim left the first field and entered theirs, or some farmer’s or Lord’s or the bloody Queen’s, more men joined the first. Rough, tough-looking men. Hard stock, used to a hard life, maybe, and settling things with a fist.

  “Morning, chaps,” said Jim as he reached the group. Six men and a small kid—Jim wasn’t sure if the kid was a boy or a girl. Looked like the youngster had been playing already, at…Jim looked at his watch and was surprised to find it was ten in the morning.

  “What do you want?” said the toothless man. Only about thirty or forty, by the look of him, but a man who’d come up the hard way. And was still ticking.

  His words were heavily accented. A peculiar cadence of traveling people all over the country. A hint of Irish and something else, something akin to singing, with his voice rising, dipping, unlike the flatter, duller, English that Jim spoke.

  “I’ll keep it short. I’m a policeman…”

  “No shit.”

  “…I’m not here to kick up a fuss. Just looking for someone.”

  “They’re not here.”

  Jim smiled and ignored the man. The kid was getting bored and restless already. Maybe deciding there was a better show to be had elsewhere. Jim wondered where. There was nothing around here but mud and pets.

  He was, however, tired after a night in a motel’s hard, cramped single bed. His back ached and his haemorrhoids were giving him hell from being in the car so long both the day before and to get to his filthy field and getting horseshit and thick, heavy mud on his leather shoes.

  “Good one,” he said. “Pauline Small. Just a couple of questions and I’m out of your hair, sunshine.”

  “Pauline? She’s no Small. Not no more.”

  “Mulrone?” said Jim.

  “Aye.”

  “Then Miss Mulrone. Just a couple of questions.”

  “’Bout what?”

  Jim considered, figured he was pushing his luck. He might be the big cheese back in his world. Here? He was surrounded by, he guessed, the Mulrone family. What happened from here on out was, by and large, down to them.

  “Paulie Small.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Died natural,” said the man. No one else spoke. They let the man, arms still crossed, answer.

  Easier talking one-on-one anyway.

  “Mr.…Mulrone?” The man nodded, his long fringe fell over his eyes. He flicked his hair to move it back. Didn’t uncross his arms for a second.

  “Mr. Mulrone…I don’t quite know how to put this, but I’m going to throw it out anyway. Paul Small died naturally, yes. But there’s something not quite right, still. Something…unnatural. I need help. I’m here asking for help. Don’t rightly know why. Can she help, do you think?”

  The man seemed to be thinking. His eyes were bright. A smart man. Maybe not educated with soft leather shoes like Jim, but smart enough. Maybe, thought Jim, smarter than most.

  He turned and spoke to a couple of the men in an even harsher dialect, fast and low. Jim couldn’t have understood had he been able to hear. He didn’t
strain himself. The Mulrones would help or hinder. Little he could do about it but ask. If not? He’d have to try something else. He didn’t have the faintest, though, as to what that would be.

  A couple of minutes passed, then men speaking among themselves like Jim wasn’t there. He didn’t look at them, but took a cigarette out and smoked calmly while they talked about him, or the Smalls, or the weather. He didn’t have a clue.

  Eventually, the man with the large quiff and missing teeth and blue-ink tattoos turned back to Jim.

  “Paulie weren’t right,” said the man.

  “No?” said Jim, his heart ticking a little faster, because he hadn’t thought for a minute the Mulrones would talk to him…let alone tell him anything.

  “Did some…wrong things. Ma sorted him.”

  “Sorted him?”

  “Weren’t Pauline.”

  “Who’s Ma?”

  “You’re not stupid. My ma. Our ma.”

  Jim cursed himself for being a sight less clever than he thought he was. He’d thought Ma was a name, the way the man said it.

  “Can I talk to her?”

  The man nodded again and walked farther into the camp. Jim followed. He was aware he was entirely at the mercy of a traveling family named the Mulrones. Entirely aware, after reading about them, what they were capable of. But you couldn’t feel menace through a computer screen.

  You could feel it just fine, however, out in a muddy field surrounded by them when no one, not even your assistant, knows where you are.

  *

  The caravan was old and small and perfectly maintained, and when Jim’s escort opened the metal door, it didn’t squeal, but moved smooth on the hinges.

  “Ma…” he called, but he needn’t have—the caravan was tiny, and anyway, his ma was right there, with a cup of tea for her, and one ready for Jim.

  “Hear you a mile off,” said Ma. She shooed the toothless man out with a flap of one thin-skinned hand and he left without a word.