Read Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain for Free Online

Easter traffic—’
    ‘I think,’ Kirsty said, ‘that you know what I’m talking about.’
    ‘I’ve gorra go.’
    ‘The thing is…’ she stood up slowly ‘… isn’t it against the rules? I mean, when it all comes out, won’t one of you have to move to another division? Isn’t that how it works?’
    Bliss had felt the blood draining out of his face so fast that his cheeks actually felt cold.
    ‘Now, look… I don’t where you think you’re going with this, but—’
    ‘Oh, you do, Frank.’
    Bliss’s mind was going like a washing machine: oh shit.
Shit, shit, shit
. Where had she got this from? Which one of his beloved colleagues had sniffed it out? How was this even
possible
?
    ‘You’re mental, Kairsty, you know that?’
    Safest to go on the offensive. An advantage of being separated was the way you could bring a row directly to the boil, knowing you could slip away, with nothing lost, before the first plate hit the wall.
    ‘I don’t think so.’ Her eyes cold as quartz. ‘I mean, I could almost feel insulted if that cow’s as far as your ambition goes, but being I know what a sad little sod you’ve become, it doesn’t surprise me a great deal, Frank, to be honest.’
    ‘I’m going.’
    Bliss’s palms starting to sweat.
    ‘Calling the shots now, is she, on your private life?’
    ‘Think whatever you want.’
    ‘As I understand it, with a male officer and a woman, it’s always the man has to move, isn’t it? Or have I got that wrong?’
    ‘What exactly do you want off me?’
    And she’d smiled. Generously.
    ‘Just want you to own
up
to it, Frank, that’s all.’ Oh, the satisfaction in her eyes. ‘Dad’s solicitor says that makes it a lot easier. Play your cards right, it
might
not come out in public’
    Oh sure
.
    ‘Just makes it easier, that’s all,’ Kirsty said.
    ‘And costlier. For me, anyway.’
    Kirsty had shrugged, Bliss feeling like his insides had been flushed out with cold water. Kirsty blamed the police for everything that had gone wrong between them. She was wrong about that, and she probably knew she was wrong, but this was convenient, and she’d use it.
    ‘Close friend, Billy?’
    Dr Grace, who was
very
well-connected, glanced over his shoulder at Bliss. ‘Not particularly a friend at all, Francis, but everybody’s at least acquainted in this county. Except, possibly, for uncouth incoming Scousers like yourself.’
    ‘You mean a Masonic thing?’ Bliss said.
    Dr Grace declined to reply, turning back to his work, lifting adistended flap of skin like he was opening a Jiffy bag full of blood, and Bliss turned away.
    ‘Big family, mind, Billy. Branches everywhere. The Bulls, Bull-Morrises, Bull-Davieses…’
    ‘Small county.’
    ‘And a big house for one man.’
    ‘Two marriages, Francis. Both childless.
Not
what a farmer wants. Well, now, I’d say that was pointing at him as culprit, but not the kind of man to have his sperm tested. Almost certainly would’ve been a third wife. Never a man to look back, Mansel.’
    ‘He didn’t see this coming,’ Bliss said.
    ‘Ah now…’ Billy Grace turned, beaming, a loose, shambling man with big white teeth, a wild, neon smile. ‘Actually, he
did
. He must’ve been facing directly into it.’
    ‘What you offering?’
    ‘Not a penknife, Francis. Machete, more like.’
    ‘That’s urban, Billy.’ Bliss took a step back. ‘That’s frigging gangland.’
Mr Sollers Bull thinks a gang
. ‘Go on then, doc. Give me the guesswork.’
    Billy Grace lurched to his feet. Thimbles of blood on the fingers of his surgical gloves.
    ‘The neck – one blow, looks like. A single slash. I’m guessing that came first, while he was still on his feet. The blows to the top of the head would’ve put him straight down.’
    Billy took a couple of long strides into the middle of the farmyard, all the uniforms and techies moving away as his right arm went back for role-play.
    ‘If you imagine he’s standing here when the blade