Dance With the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

‘Jeez, maybe you could say a few words at this girl’s funeral.’

‘Well, at least it’s a fresh body for you, Donal. At last …’

‘Yep,’ I said dismissively.

‘Your first since …’

‘Yes,’ I cut in again.

‘Wow,’ he said, his tone of false wonder mocking me, ‘I wonder if you still have the gift?’

‘That stuff’s all in the past,’ I snapped at his hatefully-curled top lip. ‘I had the treatment. I got the all-clear. End of.’

But Fintan could never resist twisting a well-anchored knife: ‘But what if she comes to you, you know, after you see her body this morning? What will you do then?’

‘Well, I won’t be telling you or anyone else about it,’ I spat.

‘God, you still believe in it, don’t you?’ he laughed. Then, all serious: ‘Just make sure you don’t start spouting off about spirits again. That whole thing was a real fucking embarrassment. For all of us.’

‘Like I said, nothing to see here.’

‘Good. Give me two minutes and I’ll drive you over. I haven’t had a decent show in weeks and, as it’s on our doorstep, well … you never know.’

‘Don’t worry Fint, I could use the walk …’

‘Two minutes …’

That was Fintan these days, walking, talking, plotting faster than ever. No time to take ‘no’ for an answer; feeling real heat. God knows what he’d promised to secure promotion to Chief Crime Reporter at the Sunday News. But now he had to deliver, scoop after scoop. ‘Exclusives’ were his crack fix. The pimps on his news desk knew just how to keep him hooked, hungry and hounded so that he’d do anything for the next hit.

What a time to suffer his first barren patch. I sensed every fibre of him rattling, like a desperate junkie. Random parts of his body had taken to pulsating, hinting at imminent combustion; that vein on his left temple, his cheek muscles, a restless right foot.

‘You’re only as good as your next story,’ he’d started to joke, which is why I felt confused right now. The murder of a street hooker – no matter how spectacularly blood-curdling – would never make it into Britain’s bestselling weekly. The Sunday News revelled in its own cheerful, saucy-seaside-postcard venality, boasting a weekly roll call of randy vicars, love-rat footballers, showbiz/royal tittle-tattle, and bingo. Had this victim been a high-class call girl with a black book of celebrity clients, I’d understand his enthusiasm.

I had to assume he was sizing it up purely on spec, out of sheer desperation. And a desperate Fintan spelt atrocious tabloid capers. Last time, it nearly cost me my job. And my life.

‘Come on,’ he barked from the front door of our little rented house in North London. His pallid head protruded from an oversized, crumpled brown mac, bringing to mind a bottle sticking out of a drunk’s paper bag. He smelled like one too.

‘Jesus, you look rougher than a knacker’s arse crack,’ I said.

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he frowned, aggrieved that such a thing could ever bedevil his conscience-light mind.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah, of course,’ he snapped, so I backed off.

He aimed a key at a spanking new red car, which shot back a wink and a robotic whistle.

‘Woah, what is this?’

‘Chief Crime gets a company car. The new Mondeo. Two litre. Sixteen clicks. Fresh off the forecourt.’

‘Wow, did you pick the colour?’

‘Yeah. Hot Rod red. Pretty striking, eh?’

‘Had they ran out of Baboon Arse scarlet then? Jesus, they’ll be able to spot you from space. How will you go incognito on some council estate in this? You’ll stand out like a London bus.’

‘Why are you so begrudging … Jesus. Get in, it’s unlocked.’

He beamed, his restless hands unsure what to show off next.

‘It’s got a built-in car phone. A CD player. Airbags.’

‘And you drove home in this last night?’

‘I know nearly every senior cop in London, Donal. If I get bagged, I just have to make a phone call.’

‘It’s not you I’m worried about. You could barely walk you were so hammered.’

‘I probably still am. Now, do you want a lift or not?’

‘Can we try out those airbags?’

‘They’re for when you crash, you bollocks. They pop out on impact.’

‘Oh, right,’ I smiled, gratified by his low aggravation threshold these days, ‘they should have put some on the front as well.’

‘What?’ he growled.

‘You know, so next time you’re driving around, pissed out of your mind, you don’t pulverise some poor fucker.’

We set off in silence along Drayton Park, turning right onto Gillespie Road. Everything I saw reinforced the absurdity of a vice hotspot nestling in this white, middle-class quarter of London.

Even on a Saturday morning, city types thrusted towards Arsenal tube station, all dreaming of that property upgrade to nearby Islington – two miles up the hill, two hundred grand up the housing ladder.

Along Gillespie Road, slim ‘yummy mummies’ yanked precocious blonde toddlers out of vast 50 grand jeeps.

Even ropey old Blackstock Road, with its tumbledown newsagents, plastic-appointed greasy spoons and sketchy boozers seemed a world away from crack houses, pimps’n’ hoes.

We turned right into Brownswood Road and a scatter of Rover Metro Panda cars. Through twitching blue crime-scene tape, a sprightly forensic tent glared fiercely white, sucking all the pale sunshine out of the sky.

‘Oh dear,’ said Fintan, ‘The guts gazebo. It must be bad.’

Beyond the marquee of misery and more fluttering tape, tired parents dragged their nosy kids away, incapable of even beginning to explain what had probably gone on here.

‘All part of their London education,’ quipped Fintan.

‘I couldn’t imagine bringing up kids in a big city,’ I said, ‘So much madness to explain. Mam and Da never had to warn us about paedophiles or nutcases.’