Taking Pity Read Online Free PDF Page B

for walks . . .”
    “Yeah? Does he make you wear a collar or are you allowed off the lead?”
    “Could we use indoor voices, please, guv? He’s a light sleeper.”
    Pharaoh points at the snoring child. “Does he know that?”
    They stand, a few feet apart. McAvoy’s mouth twitches and then he lets himself smile properly. It’s a nice feeling. He feels almost immediately guilty for it, but for an instant it’s a simple, uncomplicated pleasure.
    “Can I make you a tea? There’s some fruit, in a bag. Oh, it was London today, wasn’t it?” he asks, agitated and gabbling. “The Met’s symposium?”
    Pharaoh mimes cutting her own throat.
    “Nothing earth-shattering to report on that score,” she says with the air of somebody who expected nothing and got less. “It’s what we thought. Headhunters are moving up. Hopefully they’re moving out. The Met’s going to liaise with Interpol and all the big boys to see if the nail-gun and blowtorch thing has been used overseas. Bloke from Liverpool reckoned he’d heard about something similar in Eastern Europe, years back. They’re checking it. Anybody with informants inside the major gangs is getting their palms greased to listen twice as hard. A lot of scary people are feeling scared, which is no bad thing. The Headhunters may have picked a few bad apples who are causing them headaches, but other than that, we’re no further on. I’m not running it. Never thought I would be. This prick Breslin from SIS had the chair. Seriously, you’d have loved him. Three different types of notepads and his ballpoint pen matched his socks. Reminded me of what you’d have become if I hadn’t dirtied you up a little.”
    McAvoy plucks at his eyebrows, listening hard. He is desperate for new information. Desperate for Pharaoh to tell him that the gang is about to be taken down, and that Roisin and Lilah are safe. It takes him a heartbeat to register the faint praise in Pharaoh’s words. He doesn’t know what he would have become had Pharaoh not spotted his potential, shortly after taking over as head of Humberside CID’s newly formed Serious and Organized Crime Unit. Before that, he had been a pariah. He’d been the cop who helped push out Doug Roper: the slick, Machiavellian, coldhearted media darling who had let murderers walk free and locked up any innocent on whom he could pin a charge. Roper had been a popular man. McAvoy could never claim to be similarly appreciated. But at least as Pharaoh’s right hand, he has earned back some respect. Taken his lumps and his broken bones and bleeding sores, and worn them like badges of honor.
    “Were there awkward questions?”
    Pharaoh holds her hands wide, as if hosting the Last Supper.
    “Some shit about Colin Ray. Few questions about how we failed to capitalize on the info we got from our traveler friends. Some raised eyebrows about the way we let our big, brutish sergeants swan around like pirates, getting themselves stabbed. I told them the slogan’s right: ‘It’s never dull in Hull.’”
    McAvoy nods. Wonders if she’s popped in just to keep him in the loop, or whether she’s going to deliver bad news. The last time she came over it was to inform him that, despite her best efforts, the Police Federation rep was refusing to put him and Fin into one of their rental properties. Apparently he didn’t fit the hardship criteria. In truth, the rep had served under Doug Roper and was simply enjoying saying no to the man who had spoiled his comfortable life.
    Pharaoh looks at her sergeant. At the state of him. He looks broken. Looks ill. Looks like he’s had his heart torn out and replaced with cold stones.
    “How are you coping, Hector?” asks Pharaoh, softening her face and perching her rump on the windowsill. “Seriously?”
    McAvoy looks as though he is about to say something glib in reply, but he stops himself and sinks slowly onto the foot of the bed. He pushes both hands through his hair, and when he withdraws