Carefully, he sealed the letter from ‘Andy’ in an envelope and wrote on the front, ‘See what you make of this – are there any hidden clues???’ He left if tucked into Annie’s typewriter. It pleased him to have any opportunity to show that he took her seriously, that he valued her mind and police skills, that he saw her as an absolutely integral part of the team. Looking at the envelope left in the typewriter, it occurred to Sam that it was almost a love letter, from him to her.
It’s the first time I’ve left a bloodstained love letter! he thought.
A bloodstained love letter. All at once, the humour of the phrase curdled within him. He felt an icy coldness in the pit of his stomach, as if he was suddenly aware of being watched by malevolent eyes.
Sam glanced anxiously about, but the CID office was empty. And yet the fear remained. He knew that somewhere out there, hiding in the shadows but drawing steadily closer, was something evil. He had sensed it first as a vague apparition on the very margins of perception, and tried to dismiss it as a figment of his subconscious. But then, later, he had somehow recognized that same spectral presence reflected in the monstrous tattoos of bare-knuckle boxer Patsy O’Riordan. At the fairground, pursuing Patsy into the ghost train in an attempt to arrest him for murder, Sam had encountered an even stronger manifestation of that same horror – a rotting corpse, standing upright and seemingly alive, dressed in a sixties Nehru suit. The vision had vanished almost at once, but it had struck Sam with more immediacy and reality than just a trick of the mind. Whatever it was, it had been real – and it had been aware of both him and of Annie.
‘The Devil in the Dark …’ Sam murmured to himself. It was the name he had given this abominable thing. And briefly, after Patsy O’Riordan’s death, he had heard its voice, issuing momentarily from the mouth of a young scally Sam was passing in the street:
‘I’ll keep coming at you, you cheating bastard. I’ll keep coming at you until I’ve got my wife back – my wife – mine.’
‘You won’t mess with my mind,’ Sam said out loud, as if the Devil in the Dark could hear him. ‘I’m strong. Annie’s strong. And all your lies and mind games will get you nowhere. Our future is our own – and there’s nothing you can do.’
He found himself holding his breath, waiting for an answer. But there was nothing, just the sound the of the night cleaners starting up their hoovers in nearby offices.
Sam looked back down at the letter resting on the typewriter, silently wished the absent Annie a good night, and then headed out. He’d go home, alone, knock back a couple of bottles of brown ale and fall asleep. A dull, lonesome end to yet another chaotic day on the force with Gene Hunt.
In a corridor leading to the main doors, Sam came across Chris and Ray. They looked red-faced and out of breath. Ray was reviving himself by drawing heavily on a cigarette, wiping the sweat from his blonde moustache with a rough, fag-stained finger. Chris was finger-combing his hair and readjusting his knitted tank top, which had been pulled askew.
‘I hope you two haven’t been fighting,’ Sam said, striding towards them.
‘Not with each other, Boss, no,’ Chris said. There was a zip-up sports bag at his feet, which he picked up gingerly.
‘We just been banging up a poofter,’ announced Ray with contempt. ‘A right little pervert, Boss, delivering filth to some other pervert. We caught ’em at the handover. Show him the bag, Chris.’
Chris thrust the sports bag at Sam.
‘Take a gander inside that, Boss – if you dare,’ Chris said, backing up as if the bag might go off at any moment.
Sam looked into the bad and was confronted by a messy stash of photos. It was all boys together – in bed, in the shower, on a grubby sofa, on a bare floor – with masses of pallid, spotty male flesh on display. The harsh flash used to take the pictures did the models’ skin tone no favours at all.
‘It’s baffling!’ put in Chris. ‘Why would a fella want to look at other fellas’ meat-’n’-two? I mean – a bird wanting a look, yeah, I can get me head round it sort of – but a bloke?’
‘It’s a sickness, is what it is,’ opined Ray.
‘Oh, grow up,’ said Sam, zipping the bag shut. ‘It’s just a bit of gay porn – get over it. And from what I’ve seen, it’s not exactly top quality.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ muttered Ray, uncomfortable with the whole situation.
‘Why’d you even bother nicking somebody for carrying this stuff?’ asked Sam. ‘It’s hardly the great train robbery.’
‘We saw this lad carrying that bag, Boss, acting shifty,’ Ray explained. ‘So we followed him to the park. It was obvious there was going to be a handover, so we waited to see who turned up. We concealed ourselves cunningly in a shrub. But then the lad sort of … spotted us.’
‘What do you mean, “sort of” spotted you?’
‘It weren’t me, Boss, it were ’im!’ Ray jabbed a thumb towards Chris.
‘I’ve got a problem that needs tablets!’ Chris protested. ‘I can’t help meself. The gas builds up and it hurts me tummy. I got no choice but to …’ He mimed a vile pumping action with his fist. ‘If I don’t let it out I could do meself an injury. Blokes die. It’s medical, Boss. I tried changing me diet, but it sent me the other way, all bunged up and solid, you know what I mean? Like trying to drop a lump of coal.’
‘I get the picture, Chris, thank you,’ said Sam.
‘I’m on charcoal tablets,’ Chris went on. ‘They turn your tongue black, but it’s a price worth paying.’
‘I said I get the picture, thank you. Okay, so Chris quite literally blew your cover and the suspect spotted you. What happened next? Run off, did he?’
‘Like a shot,’ said Ray. ‘I shouted at him to hold up but he kept legging it. So I brought him down with a rugby tackle and there was a bit of argy-bargy.’
‘And that set me off again,’ Chris grimaced. ‘Like flippin’ Hiroshima.’
‘We had to nick him, Boss, he was acting so suspicious,’ Ray went on. ‘And besides, we didn’t know what was in that bag. Could’ve been drugs. Could’ve been guns.’
‘Them photos could lead us to an international porn ring,’ said Chris, pointing at the bag. ‘This could be big, Boss!’
‘I doubt it,’ said Sam. ‘These pictures were probably snapped off locally. Look at them, they’ve been taken in somebody’s crappy little flat. It’s small beer. Amateur night. Let the lad go and get back to nicking real villains.’
‘He is a villain, boss!’ Chris insisted. ‘A jail bird. He’s done time before. He told us on the way in here. He did a stretch at Friar’s Brook and he begged us not to send him back there. Practically crying he was.’
‘Like a nancy,’ growled Ray.
Sam’s ears pricked up: ‘Friar’s Brook? He’s done time at Friar’s Brook borstal?’
‘That’s
