Open Writing

14th January

‘What’s up with Mr Happy?’ sniffed Yarrow, as a lazy wind, too idle to go around, whipped at the soreness on already reddened lids and nostrils. That the jacketless man, Yarrow was referring to, was way beyond distraught was obvious to all concerned. Conroy didn’t rise to the bait.

‘Looks like he knew the victim then. Must be. It’s a personal job by the look of him.’ Yarrow’s eyes burrowed into Conroy’s blank expression. No response. ‘The collective view is our token spud picker needs a bit of space. A wide berth’s in order.’ Conroy acknowledged the line of questioning with a nod, but, he wasn’t going to reply to the likes of Yarrow. Yarrow was a nobody just fishing for gossip.

Down wind, self-isolated, DI Tony McGann was holding himself in check: he sat very still evaluating the scene: trying to make any sense of such wanton destruction. He was staring down on his bloodied knuckles and rocking backwards and forwards, his hunched shoulders moving a few inches either way. A looping mantra was running through his head: I am responsible. She’s dead because of me. It’s my fault. I should have had my head on straight: what was I thinking?

Involuntary salty drops were running unchecked down his cheek gathering in a line on the stubble of his jaw and dripping unnoticed on to the front of his shirt where they merged into a patch of spreading dampness, changing the hue of the cotton from washed out grey to deepest black.

Conroy, wished Yarrow would go away. He was flushed with embarrassment right down to his rolling jowls: what a turn up. What should he do for the best? He stared at the bent double figure of his boss. McGann had lost it: perching, head in his hands, on an uneven stack of concrete sleepers at the bottom of the railway embankment. McGann was a right mess. So were the bleeding knuckles on his right hand. Yarrow had noticed.

‘He smacked somebody again?’

‘Accident,’ snapped back Conroy. It didn’t take a newly made-up detective to notice the bloke they were watching was seething. This suspicious death was a personal outrage. This killing was a message.

‘You what? He’s accidentally thumped somebody? Where’s the . .’

‘No. No. He banged his hand on that sleeper.’

‘Christ. Anger management didn’t work then?’

Yarrow got that right. An aura of barely controlled anger was reverberating around McGann’s dark brows like a cloud shimmering round a mountain peak. Those unfortunate enough to be caught up in the immediate vicinity were giving McGann’s pain and loss a wide exclusion zone.

‘Come on open up Bill. You can’t wrap him up in cotton wool. Take a tip from an old hand. Look after yourself lad. To the rest of the lads it looks like McGann has soooo lost his cool over this scrap of imported totty. Just another illegal: heaven knows we’ve all seen enough rough trafficked prossies to recognize the signs.’

Yarrow just didn’t know when to shut up. Always running off at the mouth. Conroy ignored him. His charge still hadn’t moved. The guy with the upside down smile and the fading black eye, who many in the force, those who didn’t really know him, might have had down as a stereo-typical Irishman was still cooling off.

‘He isn’t exactly known for his placid happy-go-lucky nature at the best of times is he? Right now your Gov’nor’s ready to lash out at anybody who looks at him the wrong way. Watch yourself – don’t get caught in the middle. I wish the SIO would get a move on.’

Conroy agreed with that. At any minute the BTP emergency ground crew were expecting an emotional release of such ferocious intensity it could flood over the yard. Or so Conroy imagined, gripped in a flight of fancy: and he should know. As Langworth’s predecessor had once remarked within his earshot, once his Gov’nor let rip the unpleasantness could overflow onto the footpath of a busy street enough to disrupt traffic and spoil everybody’s day.

Sweating profusely, Conroy wiped his face on the cuff of his sleeve. Yarrow noticed. ‘I wish he’d get a move on. Waiting makes me nervous.’ He was switching his weight from one foot to the other and back again. ‘Where’s Inspector Coppnull? It isn’t right me having to cope with all this responsibility.’

‘Coppnull? Who’s that? I don’t know him?’ Yarrow pulled the waterproof closer round himself as the spitting drizzle increased in intensity. He wasn’t overjoyed at Conroy being the only detective on site besides McGann either.

Conroy winced, kicking himself. He’d let out a slip because he was in, what his Aunty Ida would have called a brown study of worry, he shouldn’t have mentioned Coppenhall’s name. Not clever while only he and Yarrow were in loco parentis of the crime scene.

‘Well? Who is he?’

‘He’s just . . . Look, if my Gov’nor’s called in his old mate to help him out,’ his voice tailed off. He’d done it again.

‘Well that let the cat out of the bag. You want it kept quiet! Decision his call, but, our top brass don’t need to know? He plays his pension close to the wind that one.’ A line of drips fell on to the uppers of his mud splattered shoes as Yarrow shook his head in disbelief.

Conroy looked away.

‘I bet it’s hard work covering for McGann when he goes off on one.’

Conroy glared. He’d already said too much.

‘Exactly why, DI, self-styled Super-Dick, is in such a sorry a state this morning seems open to question,’ fished Yarrow. ‘Ruddy Tom Cat! What I wouldn’t give to have his roving commission.’

Conroy turned away, he had a good idea what was up with McGann, but he wasn’t going to mention it to the likes of Yarrow. And nobody in lower ranks in their right mind was openly going to cross-question his charge, not in the DI’s current frame of health and temper.

‘You’re keeping schtum as usual, I see. Please yourself. I’m going back to the car park. It’s not as windy off this bank.’ With that Yarrow started down the treacherous descent shoulders stooped against the breeze. Alone on the ridge, Conroy crossed his legs squeezing plump thighs together. His bladder always played up when he was this rattled. He glanced across at the seated figure, of DI McGann, at least he wasn’t the only one unhappy this morning.