Beneath the Bleeding Read online

  ‘Phil Campsie, you mean? Yeah, he’s ugly.’ Kevin stretched, yawning. His four-year-old daughter had recently lost the knack of sleeping through the night. His wife, not unreasonably, had pointed out that when Ruby had been breastfeeding, she had been the one who had had to deal with broken nights. Now it was Kevin’s turn to soothe his daughter back to sleep. It didn’t feel fair, not when he was going out to work and Stella was staying home. But it was hard to argue against without sounding like he didn’t love his daughter. ‘He’s very ugly,’ he said through the tail end of the yawn.

  ‘So it’s not just teenage girls who pair up according to looks.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pretty one, ugly one. Symbiosis. The pretty one gets to look even better next to the ugly one, and the ugly one gets the pretty one’s cast-offs. Win-win.’

  Kevin tutted. ‘That’s not very sisterly of you.’

  Chris gave a derisive snort. ‘See, Kevin, you keep conflating lesbian and feminist. Try lesbian and pragmatist next time.’

  He grinned. ‘I’ll try and remember. So, you think that’s what was going on with Robbie and Phil?’

  To some degree. Of course, Phil is also rich and famous, which trumps ugly every time. But I bet it didn’t hurt, going out on the town with one of the most recognizable, handsome and eligible men in Europe. Not to mention sexy.’

  ‘You think Robbie’s sexy?’

  ‘Sex appeal is gender blind, Kevin. Don’t tell me you don’t think Robbie is sexy, deep down.’

  Kevin flushed. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’

  ‘But you like the way he looks. The way he moves. The way he dresses,’ Chris persisted.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘It’s all right, it doesn’t mean you’re a poof. All I’m trying to say is that Robbie’s got sex appeal, charisma, call it what you will. David Beckham’s got it, Gary Neville hasn’t. John Lennon had it, Paul McCartney doesn’t. Bill Clinton has it, Dubya definitely doesn’t. And if you don’t have it, the next best thing is to hang around with somebody who does.’ Chris put down the dumbbell as the door opened. She turned on her best smile. ‘Mr Campsie. Thanks for making the time to talk to us.’

  Phil Campsie hooked his ankle round the chair and pulled it a couple of feet further away from them before he sat down. ‘It’s for Robbie, innit?’ His London accent was almost as strong as Chris’s own. ‘Do anything for him. He’s me mate.’

  Kevin made the introductions. Close up, Phil Campsie was even more unattractive. He had pale, mottled skin like a scrubbed potato, a flat nose that looked as if it had been broken a couple of times. His small grey eyes were set wide on his cannonball head. His reddish hair was cut close and already the shape of male pattern baldness was etched into his hairline. But when he smiled, as well as uneven yellowing teeth he revealed a genuine spark of cheeky warmth. Kevin led off. ‘We hear Robbie probably spends more time with you after work than any of his other team-mates.’

  ‘SS right. Me and Robbie, we’re like that-’ Phil crossed the first two fingers of his right hand.

  ‘So, what kind of stuff do you guys get up to?’ Chris raised her eyebrows, as if to suggest that nothing he said could shock her.

  ‘This and that. I got a place outside the city. Bit of land, couple of miles of trout stream. Me and Robbie, we do a bit of rough shooting-rabbits, pigeons, that kind of thing. And we go fishing.’ He grinned, looking like the small boy he must have been not so long ago. ‘I’ve got this woman comes in from the village, cooks and cleans for me. She deals with the stuff we kill. Cooks it all up, sticks it in the freezer. There’s something really cool about eating something you’ve killed yourself, know what I mean?’

  ‘Impressive,’ Chris said, before Kevin could put his foot in it. ‘And what about a social life? What do you do for fun when you’re not slaughtering the wildlife?’

  ‘We go out in town,’ Phil said. ‘Nice bit of dinner somewhere smart, then on to a club.’ He gave a curiously self-deprecating little shrug. ‘The clubs like having us. Gives them a bit of a profile. So we get taken to the VIP areas, free champagne, very tasty girls.’

  ‘We’re interested in Robbie’s movements on Thursday and Friday,’ Kevin said.

  Phil nodded, rolling his big shoulders as if squaring up to someone. ‘Thursday after training, we went back to Robbie’s flat. We played on the PlayStation for a bit. GT HD, you know? The new one, with the Ferraris? Well cool. We had a couple of beers then we went out for dinner to Las Bravas. It’s Spanish,’ he added, apparently trying to be helpful.

  ‘I hear it’s very nice there. What did you have to eat?’ Chris asked, mild as milk.

  ‘We had a load of tapas between us. We kind of left it to the waiter and he brought us a right old mix of stuff. Most of it was lovely, but I couldn’t be doing with some of the seafood.’ He pulled a face. ‘I mean, who wants to eat a baby squid? Yech.’

  ‘Did you both eat the same things?’ Kevin said.

  Phil thought for a moment, his eyes turning up and to the left. ‘Pretty much,’ he said slowly. ‘Robbie didn’t have the garlic mushrooms, he doesn’t like mushrooms. But apart from that, yeah, we both gave everything a whirl.’

  ‘And drink?’

  ‘We was on the rioja. We got as far as the second bottle, but we didn’t finish it.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘We went on to Amatis. D’you know it? Dance club the far side of Temple Fields?’

  Kevin nodded. ‘We’re police officers, Phil. We know Amatis.’

  ‘It’s a nice place,’ Phil said defensively. ‘Nice people. And great music.’

  ‘You into music, then? You and Robbie?’

  Phil blew out a big breath, making his lips flap. ‘Me, I’m not bothered as long as it’s got a decent beat. But Robbie, he’s well into it, yeah. He used to be engaged to Bindie Blyth.’ Seeing their looks of incomprehension, he gave them more. ‘The Radio One late-night DJ. It was music what brought them together.’ He shifted in his seat, sticking his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. ‘Wasn’t enough to keep them together, though. They split up a couple of months back.’

  Chris could feel Kevin come alert beside her. She tried for nonchalant. ‘How come?’ she said.

  ‘Why d’you wanna know about Bindie?’

  Chris spread her hands. ‘Me, I’m just interested in everything. Why did they split?’

  Phil looked away. ‘Just wasn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘Was he messing around behind her back?’ Chris asked.

  Phil gave her a cagey glance. This doesn’t go no further, right?’

  ‘Right. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,’ Chris said.

  ‘It’s the world we live in,’ Phil said. For an insane moment, Chris thought he was going to make some philosophical point about the human condition. ‘Every time we go out the house, we’re surrounded by people who want to make an impression. Women who want to shag us, blokes who either want to buy us a drink or fight us. And if your girlfriend’s a couple of hundred miles away most of the time, you’d have to be a saint. And Robbie ain’t no saint.’

  ‘So Bindie got the hump and gave him the elbow?’

  ‘Pretty much. But they didn’t want the tabloids all over them, so they both agreed they’d just say it was a mutual thing, too hard to keep it going with them both having high-pressure careers. No hard feelings, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And were there any hard feelings?’ Kevin butted in. Chris wanted to slap him for breaking her flow.

  Phil cocked his head. ‘No.’ It came out firm and defensive. Then a frown slowly furrowed his forehead. ‘Wait a minute. You’re not thinking Bindie had anything to do with this?’ He gave a roar of laughter. ‘Fucking hell, it’s obvious you’ve never listened to her show. Bindie’s got balls. If she was that pissed off, she’d have sent Robbie home with his nuts in a paper bag. Bindie’s the kind of woman who lets you have it to your face. No way she’d be sneaking around
with poison.’ He shook his head. ‘Mental.’

  ‘Nobody’s suggesting Bindie had anything to do with this, Phil. We’re just trying to get a picture of Robbie’s life. So, Thursday. Tell us about Amatis.’

  Phil shifted in his chair, a man preparing to be less than candid. ‘Not much to tell. We was in the VIP area mostly, drinking champagne. There was a couple of the lads from Yorkshire Cricket Club there, that geezer that presents the TV show about making a mint from what’s in your attic, some twat that was on Big Brother a couple of series back. I didn’t recognize any other blokes. And the usual sort of birds. Tasty but with a bit of class. That’s the sort of bird you get at Amatis.’

  ‘Was Robbie with anyone in particular?’

  Phil thought for a moment. ‘Not really. We was both up dancing, but he wasn’t with the same bird for long. He kept chopping and changing, like he couldn’t find one he really fancied.’ He smirked. ‘Not like me. I pulled practically right away. Jasmine, her name was. Legs up to heaven, tits out to here.’ He mimed substantial breasts. ‘So I wasn’t paying too much attention to Robbie, if you catch my drift. He went down the vodka bar for a while after I clicked with Jasmine. Me and her, we decided to go back to hers, so I went looking for Robbie. Found him on his way back from the toilet. I said I was going back to Jasmine’s, he was cool with that. He said he’d run into somebody he was at school with and they was having a drink.’ Phil shrugged. ‘Next time I saw him was training on Friday and he looked rough as a badger’s arse. I said he looked like he’d made a night of it. He went all sheepish, said he couldn’t actually remember. Well, that’s the way it goes sometimes, innit? You get so wellied, it’s all just a black hole the next morning.’

  Chris realized she was holding her breath. She let it out and said, ‘This old school friend. Do they have a name?’

  ‘He never said. He never even said if it was a bird or a bloke.’ Phil looked upset. ‘I should have asked him, shouldn’t I? I should have taken better care of him.’

  Chris hid her disappointment behind a smile. ‘Nobody’s blaming you, Phil. We don’t know when Robbie was poisoned. But in my experience, when somebody is determined to attack another person, it’s very hard to stop them succeeding.’

  ‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he? I mean, the doctors know what they’re doing, right?’ He bit his lower lip. ‘He’s strong as an ox, is Robbie. And he’s a fighter.’

  Kevin looked away, leaving it up to Chris to decide which way to go. ‘They’re doing their best,’ she said. ‘You guys’ll be out on the town again before you know it.’

  Phil pursed his lips and nodded. He looked close to tears. ‘You’ll never walk alone, innit.’ He got to his feet. ‘Right then. I better get back.’

  Chris stood up and put a hand on his upper arm. ‘Thanks, Phil. You’ve been a big help.’ She watched him go, broad shoulders bowed, all spring removed from his step. The door closed behind him and Kevin turned to her.

  ‘I’m guessing you don’t have him down as number one suspect?’

  Chris shook her head. ‘He probably thinks ricin is something horses and greyhounds do. At least he gave us something.’

  The old school mate?’

  The very same. Lots of potential motive there. Was the golden boy a bit of a bully? Did he seduce somebody else’s girlfriend? Did he commit a dirty tackle that ruined somebody else’s chances of stardom?’

  Kevin headed for the door. ‘Definitely a bone for the DCI to chew on.’

  ‘Just what she needs. Something to take her mind off the fact that nobody told her Tony was in hospital.’

  Kevin winced. ‘Don’t. I tell you, if it had been anybody except Paula on duty this weekend, there would have been blood and teeth on the floor.’

  ‘What is it with Tony and the guv’nor? First time I met them, I was convinced they were an item. But everybody says no, nay, never. I don’t get it.’

  ‘Nobody gets it,’ Kevin said. ‘Least of all them, I suspect.’

  If Sam Evans had a motto, it was that knowledge is power. His application of the aphorism was indiscriminate; he worked at acquiring information about and ahead of his colleagues as thoroughly as he did against criminals. So, after Carol had left Robbie Bishop’s apartment, he decided to sneak a quick look at the footballer’s computer ahead of Stacey. He knew there were good reasons why he should leave it alone, but from what he had gleaned of Robbie Bishop, Sam didn’t expect his computer to be equipped with a logic bomb primed to destroy all data if a stranger attempted to access it.

  He was right. It wasn’t even password-protected. It was tempting to start opening files, but he knew that would leave the sort of traces Stacey couldn’t fail to notice. But he reckoned he’d be safe enough copying files on to the blank CD-ROMs he’d found in one of the desk drawers.

  It didn’t take him long to realize there wasn’t much worth copying, at least from an information point of view. There were thousands of music files; according to Robbie’s iTunes software, it would take 7.3 days to listen to them all. A serious amount of music, but not likely to shed any light on Robbie’s murder. Also unlikely to serve any useful purpose were a few dozen saved game files, further evidence of his recreational software habit. Instead, Sam concentrated on the emails, the photos and a handful of Word files. Even with such ruthless culling, it still took three CDs to download what he wanted for himself.

  Then he closed down the machine, confident that he was bomb-proof. Let Stacey play with it as much as she wanted. He had the head start he needed to make sure he was right out in front of the rest of the team.

  Satisfied, Sam turned off the computer and returned to the desk. Now he had something solid to work with, he minded less that he was stuck here when he should be out on the front line interviewing the key players. Bloody Jordan. It didn’t matter what he did, she refused to be impressed. He was going to have to figure out a way to go round her if he was going to make the headway he craved. Sill mildly pissed off, he reached for his cigarettes and lit up. It wasn’t like Robbie Bishop would be back to complain.

  Carol stood in the shadows, watching the final act of Robbie Bishop’s tragedy play out before her. Not even the machines could keep him alive any longer. Denby had explained it to her when she’d arrived at the hospital. ‘As I told you before, ricin stops the cells manufacturing the proteins they need, so they start to die. We can compensate for that to some degree with machines, but there comes a point where the blood pressure falls so low we simply can’t get enough oxygen to the brain, and everything begins to shut down. That’s the point we’ve reached now.’

  He was, she knew, in no pain. There was morphine to take care of that. And prophanol to keep him asleep. Although he was still technically alive, there was nothing left of what had made Robbie Bishop himself. It was hard to believe that the man she was watching die had inspired his team-mates to a memorable victory only days before. He didn’t look like an athlete any longer. His head was swollen to twice its normal size, his body bloated and distended. Under the thin bedclothes, his formerly beautiful legs looked like twin pillars. Robbie Bishop, sporting hero, idol of millions, looked utterly pitiful.

  His mother sat by his side, both hands clutching limp fingers turned black from the lack of peripheral circulation brought on by the very drugs they’d given him in their attempts to raise his blood pressure. Silent tears coursed down her cheeks. She was only in her late forties, but the past couple of days had turned her into an old woman, hunched and bewildered. Behind her stood her husband, his hands tight on her shoulders. The resemblance between him and his son when healthy was striking. Brian Bishop was a living reminder of what Robbie would never become.

  On the other side of the bed, Martin Flanagan stood, head bowed, hands clasped in front of him. Carol could see his face was screwed tight with the effort of not crying. After England’s last dismal World Cup exit, Carol had thought it was acceptable for real men to shed tears. Perhaps not for those of Flanagan’s generation, s
he thought.

  As she watched, Robbie’s chest seemed to seize, his body to spasm. All over in seconds. When it was done, the heart monitor’s numbers were plummeting, the blood pressure sinking like a stone, the blood oxygen saturation falling in a blur of digital display. ‘I’m very sorry,’ Thomas Denby said. ‘We need to switch off the life support now.’

  Mrs Bishop wailed. Just one long keening cry, then she fell forward, her head against the side of her boy, her hand clawing at his bloated chest, as if she could somehow thrust life back into him. Her husband turned away, his hands over his face, his shoulders shaking. Flanagan was slumped against the wall in a crouch, his head on his knees.

  It was too much. Carol stepped away. When she emerged into the corridor, Denby was at her shoulder. ‘We’ll have to issue a statement, hold a press conference. I suggest we make it a joint one.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour enough for you to prepare?’

  ‘I’m not sure we should…’

  ‘Look, I’m going to have to tell them what we know, which is that Robbie Bishop died from ricin poisoning. They’re going to want to know what you people are doing. All I’m trying to do is to make sure the whole story comes out at once, rather than have a raft of speculation floating around any announcement I make.’ Denby sounded irritated, a man unaccustomed to being challenged.

  Carol had never had any problem standing up to men like Denby, but she had learned to pick her battlegrounds. ‘I suppose I’ve had more experience than you at trying to do my job in the midst of a hostile media rattling their sabres,’ she said sweetly. ‘If it makes it easier for you to have my support at the press conference, I’m sure it can be arranged. Where will we be meeting the press?’

  Thoroughly wrong-footed, Denby said curtly, The boardroom on the second floor is probably the best place. I’ll see you there in twenty minutes.’ And he was gone, his white coat so starched it barely stirred in the wind of his passage.