Field of Blood

“His stepson?”

“Yeah. He didn’t like that boy, it was obvious, but he loved his son, the wee one. He was torn apart.”

“Is there a chance he did it?”

“Oh, Dempsie was i

Pete’s chin hardened a little. He lifted his glass of beer, raising his eyes to the door as someone came in. She turned back to see Father Richards standing at the door, looking over at him, furious. Dr. Pete stared back, daring Richards to come over and make him care, but Richards ordered a drink and sat down at the far end of the bar.

“No one really believed Dempsie’d done it, but it had been four months and no conviction. They needed someone. He didn’t have an alibi, and these things have a life of their own. The only person who half believed he was the killer was Tracy. She tried to sell her story after he was convicted, but no one would buy. That was then, of course. They’d buy it now.”

“I heard the Yorkshire Ripper’s wife got ten grand.”

“I heard twenty.” He drank the half-pint of beer in one tip of the glass, put the empty on the table, and looked suddenly younger. He licked his lips, managing a playful eye roll. “Different days. Back then there were about three crime reporters working the city. We could go for a pint together and just decide to leave things alone if we wanted. It’s a different game now. It’s all circulation wars and young bucks. They’d cut the arse off their own mother for a byline. It was about finding the truth and checks and balances when I was starting out.”

“Woodward and Bernstein and Ludovic Ke

He winked at her. “Exactly, wee hen. Exactly. We were a proud people back then. Not like now.” He gestured around the room. “A troop of whores.”

Paddy smiled. She was enjoying herself, surprised that he was such good company. He had hardly even sworn at her and was going to the trouble of making her feel as if they were in the same business, instead of being a big brainy journalist and a daft wee copyboy.

“The woman,” said Paddy. “Tracy. What did you make of her?”

“Ah, Tracy. Walking wounded, one of life’s casualties. She was loyal to Alfred until he was taken in for questioning, and then she wanted to drop the dime on him. I don’t know what she was like before the baby died, but when I met her she was all over the place, mad with grief. She’d have said anything the police wanted her to say, they only had to ask. She gave them an excuse to arrest him. Told them he wasn’t really home when he said he was, cut an hour out here and there.”

“How do you know that? Did the police tell you?”

“Aye, well, we were all on the case together. They became good friends, those coppers, we grew up together.” He smiled at his drink. “It wasn’t a good thing, though. Makes it harder to question a conviction if your pals won it. It takes an outsider to do that.”

“Tracy can’t have been that soft. She left her previous man.”

“I think Alfred Dempsie came and got her, which is different to leaving. Then Dempsie killed himself.” He raised his beer glass. “Large ones all round.” He looked at Paddy’s glass and twitched the corners of his mouth down. “You’re not drinking. The news trade works on alcohol. You’d better learn if you’re as ambitious as you seem.”

She wasn’t halfway through her first drink yet but accepted another to please him, and McGrade brought it over. She took a slurp and Pete checked the level in the glass again.

“Not so good this time.”

She tried again.

“Better,” he said, lifting the fresh whisky nearer to his hand.

“But if you all knew it was wrong, why was Dempsie in prison for five years before he killed himself? Why didn’t anyone question the conviction?”

“Weight of evidence. Heavy-handed policing. They’d planted everything on him to get the conviction. You can overturn one bit of evidence, but not three or four. Then it hints at police corruption, and the courts don’t want to get into that.” He nodded at her. “See, there was only one bit of evidence planted in the Meehan case.”

“I know.”

“The paper from the Rosses’ safe found in Griffiths’s pocket after he was shot. You interested in Paddy Meehan?”

“A bit.”

“I know him, by the way, if you want to meet him.”

It was a bit sudden; Paddy didn’t have her defenses up. “Oh,” she said. “No. No, not really.”

“He’s a tricky bastard. Always a

“I heard that.”

Pete bellowed in a rich baritone: “Are you going to talk to me?”

Startled, Paddy sat up before she realized that he was talking to someone behind her. Richards was walking towards them, his face thunderous.

“You’re wasting your time, Richards. I don’t give a monkey’s anymore.”

“You phoned in sick.” Richards sneered. “And then coming in here? What’s wrong with you?”

“Liver cancer.” Pete drank down his beer and set the empty glass to the side. “I’ve got cancer.”

A horrible hush descended on the room. Paddy could see Richards processing the information, thinking it over, wondering whether Dr. Pete would dare lie about something like that.

“Balls.”

“I got the word yesterday, and this bar is where I want to be.”

Richards paused momentarily and then backed off, walking slowly back to his seat at the bar, checking Pete over his shoulder to see if he was joking. Everyone in the bar pretended they hadn’t heard him and turned the pages in their papers or placed their glasses back on tables, muffling the silence.

When they were left alone, Paddy thought she should say something. “That must have been a blow.”

“It’s one way to get the word out, eh?” Pete looked at his drink and nodded dreamily. “This bar,” he said slowly, “I like this bar.”

McGrade scurried over with a fresh round of drinks from Richards, who stayed far away and nodded to them both. Paddy looked at her new half-pint. She had three glasses in front of her and hadn’t finished the first one yet.

“Those Baby Brian Boys,” said Pete, trying to get back to the conversation they were having before the bomb. “The police’ll get a conviction. They’ll have to.”

“Could they have planted evidence on the Brian Boys?”

Pete curled his lip. “I’d put money on the evidence being good. If you know how to watch for the pattern, planted evidence only comes out weeks later, when they’re getting frustrated. They don’t start off with a plant in a big case. They might put corroborating evidence down, though. It goes on more than you think.”

The bar was starting to fill up. Behind Pete a man passed on his way to the toilet, undoing his fly before reaching the door. She didn’t belong here and wanted to leave. She lifted her sleeve and carefully checked her watch as a preliminary move.

Pete spoke quietly. “Please don’t go.”

“But I need-”

“If you go, Richards’ll come over here. It’s been a long day, and it’s hard work being pitied.”

So they sat together, a man facing the end of his life and a young girl struggling to kick-start hers. They drank together, and then Paddy started smoking with him. Cigarettes and drink complemented each other perfectly, she discovered, like white bread and peanut butter. She drank an all-time personal best of four half-pints.

They talked about anything that came to mind, their thoughts swimming sympathetically, barely co

Dr. Pete talked about a wife who had left for England years before and how she would cook a leg of lamb for special occasions. She stuck the meat with rosemary she grew in their garden and sat potatoes under it to roast in the lamb fat. The meat was as sweet as tablet, as moist as beer; it lingered on the tongue like a prayer. Before he met her he had never eaten food that made him feel as if he had just woken up to the world. The way she cooked that lamb was beautiful. She had black hair and was so slight he could lift her up and swing her over a puddle with one arm around her waist. He hadn’t talked about her in a long time.