Carroll saw what happened – or at least, he saw Gould arrive and attack Walsh. What guise did Gould take? Did he appear to them like the Devil in the Dark? No wonder Gould’s holed up in a church – he must feel he’s got the Prince of Darkness coming after him!
‘Tyler! You bloody well turn round and answer me!’
‘Carroll, Walsh, Darby,’ Sam said, suddenly facing Gene. ‘Three bent coppers, Guv. Three members of CID back in the sixties, all of them corrupt. Walsh is now dead, and Carroll only narrowly avoided the same fate. The third of them – Darby – he’s in line for the same treatment too, you mark my words. They’re all connected, Guv! Each one of them’s connected to –’
He broke off. He’d already said too much.
‘Connected to what, Tyler?’
‘To a … a murder, back in the sixties.’
‘Whose murder? What’s the matter, Sam, why are you being so chary about this?’
Sam sighed: ‘There was a man. PC Cartwright. No relation to Annie.’ He swallowed down that lie, and completely glossed over the death of James McClintock at the same time, and kept talking. ‘Cartwright was murdered in the early sixties. His death was covered up by DCI Carroll, DI Walsh, and a man called DS Ken Darby. They falsified reports, brushed the whole thing under the carpet, because they were paid to do it. There was a villain, he had half of CID in his pocket – including Carroll, Walsh and Darby. That’s what Annie’s unearthing in those old files.’
Gene’s face was very pinched and serious. Slowly, he said: ‘Do you remember our little chat in my office? The one about letting sleeping dogs lie?’
‘I do, Guv. But the dog isn’t sleeping, is it. It’s up and about and running round town biting ex-coppers.’
‘And your soppy tart with the files, she’s the one what woke it up. Just like I said.’
‘Annie’s not responsible, she’s just uncovering the back-story.’
‘Oh aye? And she just happened to uncover that back-story about a bunch of ex-coppers right before somebody pops up and starts knocking ’em off? Or are you going to tell me it’s just a coincidence?’
Sam looked for an answer, but couldn’t find one. He knew that Gould was drawing closer and ever closer to Annie, and that Annie – with all her researches and her slowly recovering memories – was drawing steadily towards him. Gene was right; it was no coincidence. But it was too complicated and too cosmic and too damned surreal for Sam to have a hope of explaining to him.
Trying to sound like he meant it, Sam said: ‘It’s a coincidence, Guv.’
‘And the fact that this copper whose death got covered up was called PC Cartwright, that’s just a coincidence an’all, is it?’
Feebly, Sam nodded.
‘Then why, Tyler, did she say this private investigation of hers was – and I quote – personal?’
Gene was edging towards violence. His rough, unshaven cheeks were flushed red, and his eyes were glittering dangerously.
‘Why didn’t you step in, Sam? Why didn’t you stop her before she sparked this whole thing off? Thinking with your dick, that’s what you’ve been doing!’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’
‘So you keep telling me!’
‘Guv, I … I don’t think right here, at the bottom of a bloody great chimney that’s about to come down, with a flayed corpse grinning at us, is the time and the place to have this conversation.’
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