Read Online Harrigan and Grace - 01 - Blood Redemption by Alex Palmer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alex Palmer
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the present, he closed his eyes again. For whatever reason, at the trial the jury had accepted his father’s plea of an accidental killing. Standing in the dock after the verdict, Jim Harrigan had said in a clear, if shaking voice, ‘I never meant to kill Helen. I wish I was dead along with her.’
No, father mine, it wasn’t going to happen like that. I made sure you got to live with that memory for the rest of your life. The way I still do. That was the point.
Harrigan drew in his breath too sharply and noticed Grace glance at him curiously. He came back to the world, clearing away his thoughts, that memory. He didn’t want to start another day this way again in a hurry. The events he encountered as part of his job didn’t usually trouble him like this. He watched and dealt with them as objectively as McMichael dissected his subjects, with a meticulous, almost gentle and uninvolved touch. His approach was like his careful dressing every morning, matching the right colour shirt with the right cut suit, dabbing on the Givenchy aftershave lotion, making sure the exterior he presented to the world was faultless. It was nothing essential to himself, just something to keep out the daily dirt. Today the boy’s shock had been too close to the bone. Harrigan’s careful separations were contaminated, by the dead man’s face painting itself in reverse onto his blue handkerchief (burned to ashes, he hoped, in some incinerator in the morgue) and the streaks of blood down his newest recruit’s black coat. As the car came to a smooth halt at a set of lights, he said to himself, as he’d thought at the time: We’ll find this person, Matthew, this girl, whatever she is. I will get her. Whatever it takes, I will get her. I will see her locked away for as long as I can.
‘Once you’ve dropped me off at this press conference, Grace, take the car and get over to the hospital again. See if you can find out how the doc’s going, and check up on Matthew as well. He felt safe with you. I’d like you to keep an eye on him over the next few weeks. See if you can help him stay with it.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Poor kid. Having to live with seeing that for the rest of his life.’
Her words matched the anger he felt within himself. Often anger just left him drained, but today it’d had a nice clean feel to it. In his own territory, almost under his eyes, someone had blown away two people going about their daily business and left it to him to pick up the pieces.
He could see it as an insult to himself as much as anything else if he chose to, an affront to the order he liked to see kept out there. He remembered his own advice to his recruit: see it that way and it can’t hurt you.
The lights changed, the traffic moved. He looked sideways at Grace; as she glanced around to check the blind spot, he studied the scar down her neck. A neat scar and a neat cut. Put there, in his opinion, by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. A millimetre to the right and she wouldn’t have been driving this or any other car right now. Why would anyone want to do that to her? You have a lovely face, he thought. Not many people who come knocking on my door look anything like you. So why are you bothering with this shit job? You could do anything you wanted. And why do you bother with all that paint? How long did it take her to put it on in the morning? Her hair was braided back from her face, her white make-up picking out its shape like some finely made china mask. Her eyes were dark brown, the eyebrows equally dark, a little thicker than they should have been, her mouth dark red with lipstick. He’d watched her back in the café as she ashed her cigarette and noticed that she hadn’t left a mark on the filter or on the rim of her coffee cup. He disliked the imprint of a woman’s lip on leftover butts or china, the sight of it left him with a sense of sleaziness he could not shake off. No, she needed a little less paint and some more
No, father mine, it wasn’t going to happen like that. I made sure you got to live with that memory for the rest of your life. The way I still do. That was the point.
Harrigan drew in his breath too sharply and noticed Grace glance at him curiously. He came back to the world, clearing away his thoughts, that memory. He didn’t want to start another day this way again in a hurry. The events he encountered as part of his job didn’t usually trouble him like this. He watched and dealt with them as objectively as McMichael dissected his subjects, with a meticulous, almost gentle and uninvolved touch. His approach was like his careful dressing every morning, matching the right colour shirt with the right cut suit, dabbing on the Givenchy aftershave lotion, making sure the exterior he presented to the world was faultless. It was nothing essential to himself, just something to keep out the daily dirt. Today the boy’s shock had been too close to the bone. Harrigan’s careful separations were contaminated, by the dead man’s face painting itself in reverse onto his blue handkerchief (burned to ashes, he hoped, in some incinerator in the morgue) and the streaks of blood down his newest recruit’s black coat. As the car came to a smooth halt at a set of lights, he said to himself, as he’d thought at the time: We’ll find this person, Matthew, this girl, whatever she is. I will get her. Whatever it takes, I will get her. I will see her locked away for as long as I can.
‘Once you’ve dropped me off at this press conference, Grace, take the car and get over to the hospital again. See if you can find out how the doc’s going, and check up on Matthew as well. He felt safe with you. I’d like you to keep an eye on him over the next few weeks. See if you can help him stay with it.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Poor kid. Having to live with seeing that for the rest of his life.’
Her words matched the anger he felt within himself. Often anger just left him drained, but today it’d had a nice clean feel to it. In his own territory, almost under his eyes, someone had blown away two people going about their daily business and left it to him to pick up the pieces.
He could see it as an insult to himself as much as anything else if he chose to, an affront to the order he liked to see kept out there. He remembered his own advice to his recruit: see it that way and it can’t hurt you.
The lights changed, the traffic moved. He looked sideways at Grace; as she glanced around to check the blind spot, he studied the scar down her neck. A neat scar and a neat cut. Put there, in his opinion, by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. A millimetre to the right and she wouldn’t have been driving this or any other car right now. Why would anyone want to do that to her? You have a lovely face, he thought. Not many people who come knocking on my door look anything like you. So why are you bothering with this shit job? You could do anything you wanted. And why do you bother with all that paint? How long did it take her to put it on in the morning? Her hair was braided back from her face, her white make-up picking out its shape like some finely made china mask. Her eyes were dark brown, the eyebrows equally dark, a little thicker than they should have been, her mouth dark red with lipstick. He’d watched her back in the café as she ashed her cigarette and noticed that she hadn’t left a mark on the filter or on the rim of her coffee cup. He disliked the imprint of a woman’s lip on leftover butts or china, the sight of it left him with a sense of sleaziness he could not shake off. No, she needed a little less paint and some more
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