Captives

TWENTY-THREE

The wound was big enough to push two fists through. Portions of ribcage, shattered by the shotgun blast, protruded through the mess of pulped flesh gleaming whitely amidst the crimson.

Gregson looked long and hard at the photo, then slipped it carefully, almost reverently, on top of the others.

The baby had been practically cut in two by the blasts that had ripped through its pram.

Gregson looked at the tiny form, his face expressionless. There was another shot of it from a different angle. The angle made no difference to the massive damage that had been inflicted on the tiny child.

The DI took a swig from the glass of whisky he held in his other hand and pulled another photo from the pile on the table.

Before leaving New Scotland Yard he had collected the files on all of the victims of the gunman whose identity still remained a mystery.

There was a picture of the head of the motorcyclist the man had shot outside the bank.

The wound in the base of the skull looked relatively small, no larger than a ten pence coin. It was the other photo that showed the exit wound which caused Gregson to drain, a little more quickly than he would normally, the last dregs in his glass.

The bullet had exited just below the motorcyclist's right eye, shattering the cheekbone and dislodging the eye from its socket.

Although, Gregson reasoned, it hadn't been the shell itself that had blasted the orb free but the gases, released from the high velocity round as it had powered through the man's head. The eye was intact, still attached to the skull by the optic nerve.

Gregson dropped the picture down with the others and got to his feet, crossing the room to the sideboard. He opened it and took out the bottle of Teacher's. He poured himself a large measure, thought about adding some soda then decided against it. For long moments he stood by the sideboard, his breath coming in low, deep gasps, as if he'd just run a great distance. He rolled the glass across his forehead, his back still to the sitting room door.

He heard the door open but did not turn as his wife entered the room.

Julie Gregson was wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She muttered something about the diamond in her engagement ring coming loose and gazed across the room at her husband.

'Dinner's ready,' she said.

'I'm not hungry,' Gregson said flatly, his back still to her. He took a swig from his glass.

'Did you have any lunch?' she wanted to know.

He shook his head.

She moved towards him, passing the table where the photos were spread out.

'Jesus Christ,' she muttered, noticing the topmost of them. She moved a step away, her eyes still fixed on it mesmerised for a moment.

Gregson finally turned to look at her.

No. Not at her. At the table. The photos.

'What are they?' she said, the colour draining from her face.

'Isn't that obvious?' he said acidly, sitting down and looking at the photos again.

'Who are they?' Julie enquired, still keeping away from the table.

'Is it important?'

She moved the dishcloth from one hand to another, gazing at her husband then looking swiftly at the pictures once more.

She was a couple of years younger than him, her face etched with lines a little deeper than a woman in her late twenties would expect. She was slim, almost thin, her small breasts hardly visible even beneath the tight T-shirt she wore. Her jeans were faded, one knee threadbare, her skin showing through the narrow rent in the material.

'Why did you bring those home?' she wanted to know.

'It's part of my job,' he told her without looking up.

She balled up the dishcloth and dropped it onto the table beside the pictures. Then she sat down on the edge of the chair opposite him.

'Your bloody job,' she said quietly, but with anger. 'Everything is part of your bloody job, isn't it?'

'It pays the mortgage. Perhaps you should remember that.' He looked at her impassively.

'I work, too, Frank, in case you hadn't noticed. I do my bit towards the running of this house.'

'But it's my bloody job,' he said contemptuously, 'that pays the bills, isn't it? Perhaps you should think about that before you start moaning. What do you want me to do, give it up? Find something else to do?'

'When you're like this I wish you'd never joined the force,' she told him. 'Especially not the murder squad.'

'When I'm like what?' he said, that note of contempt still in his voice.

'You know what I'm talking about. This case, the last few cases, they've been getting you down badly.'

'Bullshit,' he sneered.

'It's not bullshit,' she rasped. 'It's true.' She glanced down at the photos briefly, revolted by them. 'Look at yourself, Frank, dwelling on what this man's done even when you're at home.'

'Do you think I can just wipe it clean when I leave my office?' he said, with scathing contempt. 'Do you think my mind is like a fucking blackboard? You scratch things on it, words, sights, you scratch those on it during the day, then at night I just forget about them? Is that what you think?' He picked up the next picture. It showed what was left of the skull of the cashier who had taken a blast from the Spas in the face. Gregson shoved the picture towards Julie angrily. 'Can you expect me to wipe something like that from my mind so easily?'

She looked away from the picture, feeling her stomach churn.

'I see things like that every day and every night,' he continued vehemently. 'And you expect me to forget them? Have you any idea what goes through my mind? What thoughts are in here?' He prodded his temple with his index finger. 'No, you haven't. You could never understand.'

'Then make me understand,' she said, tears welling in her eyes.

'You really want to know? You really want to hear about my work?' His eyes were blazing now, fixing her in an unflinching stare.

'You should talk about it more often. You bottle things up too much, Frank.'

'Okay, where would you like me to start?' he said, glaring at her. 'Would you like me to tell you what the inside of that bank looked like after that fucking maniac had finished using the shotgun? How there were brains spread over the road when he shot the motorcyclist? Or perhaps you'd be more interested in another case. The one where the woman killed her husband with a carving knife because she'd found out he was having an affair. There were so many knife wounds in him it took us over an hour to count them all. And blood. You want to hear how much blood there was? She severed both his carotid arteries, you see. The ones in the neck. Nearly cut his fucking head off, in fact. She said later that all the time she was stabbing him he kept saying he was sorry. He kept saying he didn't want to die.'

Gregson was sucking in breath through clenched teeth now.

'What else would you like to hear?' he taunted. 'About the four-year-old who'd been sexually abused by her stepfather? He'd used a bottle on her. A beer bottle. Shoved it up her arse. The only problem was he didn't expect it to break. He didn't expect her to scream quite so loudly, so he jammed the rest of the bottle into her face until she shut up. That would have been bad enough but she'd been dead for three days when we found her. He'd put her in the attic. She was blue where she'd lost so much blood, apart from the bits of her that had turned gangrenous. Jesus, it stank in that fucking attic.'

Tears were rolling down Julie's cheeks now as she looked at her husband, the words pouring forth from him with a kind of monstrous glee.

'Is this what you want to hear?' he chided. 'Is this what you want to know about my job? What about the drunk that was mugged in Piccadilly the other night? I mean, there was nothing for them to take so they just beat him to death. They used his head like a football, took runs at him. Two would hold him down while the other one kicked him. Kicked him so hard that three of his front teeth were driven up into the roof of his mouth.'

She got to her feet.

'That's enough,' she sobbed, wiping her eyes.

'I've hardly started,' he said, looking at her. 'I thought you wanted to hear all about my work.' He smiled humourlessly.

'I wanted to help you,' she told him, sniffing.

'How can you help?'

'You should talk to me more.'

'I've just been talking to you and you can't fucking take it. You ask me what I do, you ask me to tell you what goes through my mind, and when I do you can't take it.'

She wiped more tears from her face.

'Can't you see what it's doing to you, Frank?' she asked.

'That's my problem, not yours.'

'It's not just yours. I can't stand to see what this job is doing to you.'

'Why?'

'Because I love you,' she snapped, a note of anger joining the despair in her voice. 'Christ knows why, but I do. Let me help.'

He shrugged.

'You want to help me? Leave me alone. That would be a great help. Get off my fucking back.' The words were spoken without a flicker of emotion.

She turned and headed for the door, turning as she reached it to look angrily at him.

'I tried. Don't ever say I didn't try to help you,' she said tearfully.

'Who asked you to help? Mel No.' He shook his head.

'Frank, please…'

He cut her short. 'You want to help? Then leave me alone.' He looked away from her. He didn't see her leave the room, only heard the door slam.

Gregson took another swallow from the glass. Then he picked the photos up and carefully began to go through them again, one by one.