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‘Thanks, speak later.’
Max dialled Ross, who quickly answered. ‘You may have no fucking life, Craigie, but I am happily watching a movie with my dear wife, and a very choice glass of red wine, so why are you bleeding bothering me?’ Ross’s voice had a melancholic edge to it, and Max suspected that his boss had consumed more than one glass.
‘Janie’s heard from her prison contact that Jack Slattery has just been murdered in Saughton,’ said Max, without preamble.
‘What?’ said Ross, the incredulity masking the mild slur in his usually hoarse and caustic timbre.
‘Aye.’
There was a long pause on the line punctuated only by Ross’s heavy breathing.
‘Fucking hell, how?’ he said, eventually.
‘Janie only has sketchy details, but blunt force trauma followed by cutting his neck with a tuna tin lid.’
‘I remember Galbraith. A gun for hire, and he’s an evil bastard who was unlikely to see the outside world ever again. Killed two in a gang dispute a decade ago, but I didn’t think he was connected to the Hardies at all. Jack was a dirty, corrupt and amoral bastard, but he didn’t deserve that.’
‘Aye.’ Max felt the phone buzz against his cheek, looking at the screen he saw that there was a WhatsApp from Janie with a photo attached. ‘Hold up, Ross. Janie’s sent a message. It may be an update.’ Max opened the message which had a single line of textunder the photo.Pic from Phil of cell after body removed. The photo was pin-sharp and lurid and showed an empty single cell. The bed was covered by a plain duvet cover that was saturated in blood, matched only by the dark, congealing puddle on the hard floor. There were footprints everywhere in the gory mess and discarded first-aid detritus. There was no body visible, it clearly having been removed. However, it wasn’t the gore on the floor, or the bed, or the discarded first-aid equipment that made Max’s stomach lurch. It was what was on the wall, smeared in blackening blood. Max felt an icy hand grip him, and sweat began to form on his spine.
PIGS WILL BE BLED
Max paused, his heart thumping as he looked at the macabre daubing on the chipped paint of the cell. The post-dream feelings flared in his mind, which he forced down. The sight of blood often did this, and he swallowed against the rising taste of bile in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed deeply, in for four, hold for four, exhale for four.
‘Max? What are you playing at, you fucking nugget?’ came Ross’s tinny voice from the speaker. Max shook his head and forwarded the message to Ross, and then put the phone back to his ear. ‘I’ve sent you a message. Photo from Slattery’s cell after the event.’
‘Fucking hell,’ said Ross. Immediately there were repeated beeps and clicks as Ross tried to bring the message up, followed by a muffled ‘piece of shite phone, why can’t it have buttons that fit my bastarding fingers?’ before there was silence again, punctuated only by Ross’s rasping breath.
When he spoke, his voice was low, tense and almost sad. ‘I’ll make a call and get back to you.’
Max sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the plain white wall in front of him, when Katie came in the room followed by Nutmeg, her soft feet padding on the carpet before she leapt up on the bedalongside him, tail twitching and her cold nose nuzzling his hand. Max instinctively tickled her silky, soft blonde curly ears.
‘Max?’ said Katie, concern in her voice.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Max, but even as he said the words, he knew that they were not true.
‘Max?’ repeated Katie, her tone longer and lower, demanding a response.
‘You remember Jack Slattery?’
‘Yes, of course. The ex-cop who broke in here and planted drugs?’ Her face screwed up with distaste.
‘Amongst other things, yes. Well, he’s just been murdered in prison.’
‘Oh my God, how?’
‘Still working it all out, but he was hit over the head and stabbed,’ said Max, leaving most of the details out. His wife had seen things that she shouldn’t have since she’d become involved in the last big case. Despite his utter respect for her humanity, strength and kindness, he wanted to protect her from the darkness. He wanted to shield her from the prospect of harm coming to them. He wanted to stop his stupid job causing his beautiful, strong and kind wife being exposed to the dark world that he was forced to operate in at work. He looked at her, and felt a surge of overwhelming love. He took her hand and kissed it gently.
‘Oh Max, your job is just so awful. Why was he killed and are you going to be involved in it?’
‘I don’t know. We’re being kept out of it all so far, but maybe this will catapult us back into it.’ He continued to stroke Nutmeg’s ears as he stared at the wall, his mind turning, his thoughts dark. He breathed in slowly and softly for four, paused for four, and let it out again.
His phone buzzed again. ‘Ross?’
‘I’ve just spoken to Miles Wakefield, and he wants to know how you found out about it,’ he said, getting straight to the point.
‘Why the hell does that matter?’ said Max, confusion flaring in his mind.
‘He got crabbit about us interfering in shit that doesn’t concern us, as bloody usual. To be fair, it sounded like he was in the pub, and he sounded pished to me.’
