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I always swear I'll never plan again, but I can see the irony
I'm humbled by the passing of time, I am brought down onto my knees
Smell of blood thick in his nose, hands slipping slick in it, half-blind, pumping his hands into her chest at a rhythm only he can hear, he's going to choke any second now, something wrong with his throat, and at a man's hands on him he almost grapples, but the voice in his ear, it's Ciaran, gone soft like he's talking to a horse, like he's talking to a victim, Come on, Cig, come on. Medics are here. Mick.
He sits back on his heels. There are medics here now, crouched next to him, across from him, close enough to touch, but they're recording a time of death. They're loading her onto a stretcher with careful, brutal efficiency. They're wheeling her away. He thinks she was alive when he got there, and she had something she wanted to say. He thinks. The way her hand hangs limp and wrong, the way her arm is strapped to her side, makes him think of her child for no reason. No reason. Four, now? Five? Do they keep memories, that young? He doesn't know. Dizzying. The siren wails away from him, thin into the thinning, watery sky, he's hauling himself to his feet, not quite right, but not wrong enough that Ciaran needs to catch him, either. He notices the small movement of Ciaran's hand at the initial lurch, though. It's a discovery. He needs to be held up now, held up and held back. The wrongness of it like a slap in the face, all the worse because Ciaran's innocent.
It is not Ciaran's job to hold him up, to hold him back. A fresh wave of nausea sweeps over him. He goes to pinch the bridge of his nose, but his fingers are dripping with blood; he's a walking crime scene.
The day is a year, and he's hoping to drink it out of his memory, but some shit you don't forget. He's dealt with enough widows and witnesses that Trish won't leave a mark, or even Warren, but there is a moment. He's in Nidge's office, watching over the shoulder of a tech as she rewinds through footage of Nidge's security camera. They put an alert out on the white van that did the drive-by, of course, but whoever shot must have done recon on the place before, and he'll take any scrap that might point him to who did this. One of them. One of them that did this. He can’t help classifying himself in that number.
What the fuck, says Gavin, over his shoulder; Nidge is looking straight at them. He says, There. Stop it there. Play it back.
Nidge has a cigarette in his fingers, and not for smoking. Looks at his own hand, like he's considering it. Mick knows what he's going to do before he does it, can feel it coming on. Not like a northern wind, or a light rain. Like a blinding migraine, like a cough possessing his chest, something from inside inside his own body. Deliberately, Nidge crushes the end of the cigarette into his open palm, hard, and holds it there, skin tightening around his eyes, jaw set. When Nidge takes the cigarette away, he looks at the camera. Straight through him.
Yeah, he thinks. Yeah.
He knows.
Not for any particular reason. Maybe because the smell of the coroner's office is bringing back nausea and memories. Maybe because he needs a distraction. He takes a head count: Nidge. Siobhan. The two girls that used to work for Janet, Denise and—he should know her name. He doesn't. He should. Janet herself. Dean. Tommy, close enough. Fran, soon, he thinks. And who has he got? Elmo, in for five years. Five years.
Fucking Elmo.
It's simple enough. They trace the van back to to Patrick Ward's younger brother, and with Patrick's own son in the hospital, it all becomes clear. They don't even need to bring him in. Ciaran wants to, of course he does; it's what would be appropriate, a whole team together, tactical gear. But emotions are running high. Pot, kettle, maybe, but true. They'd tear up the place. Maybe shoot a dog. Set the papers howling over racism. Probably deserve it. It is the way it's done. He should bring the world down around their ears, as a matter of protocol. The sheer thought of it makes him want to lie down at the side of the road and never get up.
He leaves Ciaran and the car behind, within eyeshot but no more than that. Walking up the road, he feels like he's walking through water up to his shoulders, head just barely above. If only he could lie down for a little while. Maybe forever. That might work.
Now what would you be wanting with us, the man at the gate says.
He looks up into the eye of the camera above, shows it his badge. Whoever comes after me is gonna be much worse, he says. He can still talk like this. Like things are simple. I have a warrant to look for you, and I'm sure I can find enough material on the premises to take every man, woman, and child here in for questioning. One call, and I can have your wife taken in for questioning too, and your son can wake up to a social worker in his hospital room. And that's just the beginning. Whoever comes after me is gonna be much, much worse.
It's not enough. He doesn't know why, but he knows it's not enough. He wants to say it again, Whoever comes after me is gonna be much worse, but he's still able to see that failing twice is no call to try a third time. Even if it is the truth. If the truth doesn't work, what else is there? He doesn't have a good lie in him. He's emptied out. He drops his gaze.
Abandoned, only a few meters behind the gate, tipped on its side, there lies a bright yellow and red plastic kid's tricycle.
Her name was Siobhan, he says.
The air carries the scent of cut grass, rich earth, manure. Not sunset yet, but a sharp slant of light. He waits. Like a fool, he hopes.