Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,52

closed behind me. As I trotted down the stone steps leading to the garden, I told myself off for being childish enough to give away my secrets to Helen Maitland just to score a cheap point because she'd made her way under my skin. It was hard to resist the conclusion that she had learned more from our interview than I had.

I didn't think she had lied to me. Not in so many words. Over the years, I've developed a bullshit detector that usually picks up on outright porkies. But I was fairly sure she wasn't telling me anything like the whole story. Whether any of it was relevant to my inquiries, I had no idea. But I had an idea where I might find some of the facts lurking behind her smoke screen of half truths. When I got back to the car, I switched on my mobile and left a message for Shelley on the office answering machine. An urgent letter needed to go off to the Land Registry first thing in the morning. The reply would take a few days, but when it came, I had a sneaky feeling I'd have some bigger guns in my armory to go after Helen Maitland.
Chapter 13
In an indictable offense to say it, but Sean Costigan didn't have to open his mouth to reveal he was Irish. I only had to look at him, even in the sweaty laser-split gloom of the nightclub. He had dark hair with the sort of kink in it that guarantees a bad hair life, no matter how much he spent on expensive stylists. His eyes were dark blue, his com-plexion fair and smooth, his raw bones giving him a youthful, unformed look that his watchful expression and the deep lines from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth denied.

I'd got home around nine after fish and chips in Leeds's legendary Bryan's, making the mistake I always do of thinking I'm hungry enough for a jumbo haddock. Feel¬ing more tightly stuffed than a Burns's Night haggis, I'd driven back with the prospect of an early night-all that was keeping me going. I should have known better, really. Among the several messages on my machine-Alexis, Bill, Gizmo, and Richard, just for a kickoff-there was one I couldn't ignore. Dan Druff had called to say he'd set up a meet at midnight in Paradise. Why does nobody keep office hours anymore?

I've never been able to nap. I always wake up with a thick head and a mouth that feels like it's lined with sheepskin. I don't mean the sanitized stuff they put in slippers-I mean the stuff you find in the wild, still attached to its smelly owner. I rang Alexis, but she didn't want to talk in front of Chris, whom she was keeping in the dark about Sarah Blackstone's murder on account of her delicate condition. Richard was out-his message had been to tell me he wouldn't be home until late. We'd probably meet on the doorstep as we both staggered home in the small hours. Bill, I still wasn't talking to, and Gizmo doesn't do conversation. So I booted up the com¬puter and settled down for a serious session with my foot¬ball team. Not many people know this, but I'm the most successful manager in the history of the football league. In just five seasons, I've taken struggling Halifax Town from the bottom of the Conference League up through the divisions to the Premier League. In our first season there, we even won the cup. This game, Premier Man¬ager 3, is one of my darkest secrets. Even Richard doesn't know about my hidden nights of passion with my first team squad. He wouldn't understand that it's just fantasy; he'd see it as an excuse to buy me a Manchester United season ticket for my next birthday so I could sit next to him in the stands every other week and perish from cold and boredom. He'd never comprehend that while watch¬ing football sends me catatonic, developing the strategies it takes to run a successful team is my idea of a really good time. So I always make sure he's out when I sit down with my squad.

Around half past eleven, I told the boys to take an early bath and grabbed my leather jacket. When I stepped outside the door, I discovered the rain had stopped, so I decided to leave the car and walk to the Paradise. It's only fifteen minutes on foot,