Vicious Circle

Sheehan’s eyes widened. I didn’t know if that was my words getting past his guard or just the dim stirrings of memory in whatever he was using now for a mind. His hands twitched again, and this time when he spoke I could hear a dry whisper, like wind through grass.

“Poor—poor—”

Self-pity is something you often get from the dead, and it’s not like you can really blame them for it. It doesn’t look like any of the options are all that attractive; even heaven, if you take the majority view, is a state of oneness with God and perpetual praise of his goodness, which must wear pretty thin after the first few hours, let alone the rest of eternity. On the other hand, this guy was a pusher and a porn merchant and fuck alone knew what else: I wasn’t wasting any sympathy, because you never know when you’re going to run out.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s very much a crock of shit. Some bastard really stiffed you, Sheehan. It’s almost worth believing in hell so you can have the comfort of imagining him roasting in it.”

“Poor—poor—poor—”

“You said that. I agreed.”

“Pauley!” The name was barely audible, but I’ve got good ears and I was listening on all frequencies.

“Pauley.” I turned my back on him: best to distract him as little as possible now, because his attention deficit was probably only going to get worse. “Pauley topped you, did he? Well that’s friends for you. Did it hurt, or was it all over too quick for you to notice?”

A long silence; then a hoarse, almost voiceless whisper. “H-h-hurt. Hurt me.”

“Was this over at your place, then?” I asked, my tone so relentlessly neutral I must have sounded bored to death with the whole subject. “Knock on the door, bang, you’re dead, kind of thing? Or were you out on the town?”

There was a very long silence. I let it stretch. It sounded like the kind of silence that might have a payoff at the end of it. “Bronze,” Sheehan whispered. “Bronze.” He made a sound like a moan stretched thin and hung up to cure—a moan with no bass to it, because the dead tend to have trouble hitting the low notes. “Buried.”

The silence after that final exhalation was different. When I turned around, I knew what I’d see: Sheehan was gone. Exhausted by the effort of speech, his physical manifestation had faded into random motes in the air: not matter, nor energy, nor anything that anyone had managed to trap or measure. He’d be back, given that he had nowhere else to go, but it wouldn’t be soon.

I went to the door and stepped outside onto the narrow ribbon of asphalt that separated the warehouse from the street. The only cars parked there were Coldwood’s tax-deductible Primera and three regular black-and-whites. Coldwood was off to one side by himself, talking on his cellphone. The plods and the backroom boys were in two separate cliques, responding atavistically to each other’s pheromones. There was a brisk wind coming down from the north, but at least it wasn’t raining anymore. The sun was setting behind the brutalist high-rises of Colindeep Lane, and a huge mass of gun-gray cloud was pouring across the sky behind it like water down a drain.

Coldwood finished his conversation, put his phone away, and came over to me. “Anything?” he asked, in a tone that expected so little it couldn’t possibly be disappointed.

“He fingered Pauley,” I said. Coldwood’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “At least, I think he did. And when I asked him where he died he said ‘bronze.’ Then ‘buried.’ ”

“Brondesbury,” Coldwood translated. “Brondesbury Auto Parts. Christ, that’d be a bloody kiss on the cheek from God. If the body’s still there—” He was already heading for his car at a fast stroll, dialing as he went. The uniformed coppers turned to follow him with their eyes, awaiting orders with a sort of stolid urgency unique to the boys in blue, but Coldwood was talking on the phone again. “The bodywork place,” he was snapping. “The one in Brondesbury Park. Get over there now. Yeah. Yes, get a warrant. But don’t wait. Get the place surrounded and don’t let any bugger in or out!”

“I take it this is good news,” I said to Coldwood’s back as he hauled the car door open. Sliding into the driver’s seat he spared me a micro-second glance. “That shop is in Pauley’s name,” he said, with a nasty smile. “We’ve already got probable cause. If we can get a search warrant, and if the body’s still there, we can raid all of his other gaffs and really get some action going.” His gaze snapped from me to a uniformed constable who’d just stepped up behind me—the one who’d had to run outside to be sick. “MacKay, take Castor’s statement and fax it on to DC Tennant at Luke Street.” The car window was already sliding closed as he said it, making any reply redundant. Then Coldwood was out onto the road and gone, trailing a whiff of tortured rubber.