we do from now on, no matter what it is, and that includes our social lives. We’ve got someone very sick out there on the streets, armed or unarmed we don’t know, and we have to find her. She is not going to walk away from this. I want this girl. I want her as soon as we can get her.
‘All right. To start.’ He held up the sheaf of photographs. ‘These were all posted in the Haymarket over the last three months. There’s nothing of much use to us here but they are somewhere to start. This is our girl’s mind at work.’
He began to pin reproductions of Dr Agnes Liu’s hate mail onto a cork board that covered half the length of the wall. ‘Oh, gross,’ someone called out as the images began to appear. A display of foetuses in miniature white coffins with the phrase ‘Holocaust Victims’ written across them. Dr Liu’s picture covered with a wash of red ink, the words ‘Satanist Mass Murderer STOP NOW’ scrawled across her face. Then ultrasounds and more photographs of aborted foetuses. A text in what appeared to be a child’s handwriting: ‘ So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. ’
‘How sick is all that?’ someone else said.
‘As sick as the mind that went looking for all that,’ responded an older woman with a cracked and broken voice. ‘Someone who likes to occupy themselves with that sort of thing. A really happy mind, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Louise is still sober and it’s after five. What do you know?’ Grace heard someone mutter. Jeffo, the man who had shouted at her in the car park that morning, was standing a little too close to her.
‘Women do that sort of thing to themselves?’ he called out loudly then, in her ear, ‘Turns your stomach.’
Grace did not bite, she was studying the glossy pictures. She recognised one of them, the mildest, the famous photograph of the tiny feet of a foetus between a man’s thumb and forefinger. Eight months ago, a female protester from a ragged group waving placards on the street had pushed it into Grace’s hands as she made her way into a Whole Life Health Centre clinic to have an abortion herself.
‘I don’t give a shit what they do, mate,’ Harrigan responded with professional indifference. ‘That’s not our business.’
‘They’re fucking asking for trouble if you ask me,’ Jeffo said.
No one replied to him. The gibe had changed the atmosphere, there was a creeping sense of tension and anger in the room. Harrigan paused.
‘Let’s get something clear right now,’ he said. ‘Point one. Like I just said, I do not give a shit what happens in those clinics. That goes for everyone else in this room. Point two. We’re looking for a murderer.
That’s all we need to think about. End of story.’
Grace remembered the woman protester snaring her at the clinic door, ear-bashing her all the way inside until Grace had taken her by the arm and hustled her back out onto the street. There she had flashed her warrant card under the woman’s nose. ‘You see this?’ she had said. ‘Do you want me to arrest you? Do you want to spend the night in the lock-up? Or do you want to get out of here right now?’
The woman had stared open-mouthed at the card for some moments, before walking away with a strange, almost satisfied expression on her face. When Grace went back inside the clinic, Dr Agnes Liu had come to thank her before showing her into the operating theatre. The woman had been bothering them all week, she told Grace, they were so grateful she had moved her on. All facts that Grace had no intention of ever sharing with anyone in this particular room.
‘This is the important bit of mail,’ Harrigan was saying. ‘The doc didn’t get to see this, it was waiting for her this morning at the clinic.
So we can assume this wasn’t for her; it’s meant for us or whoever else was going to
‘All right. To start.’ He held up the sheaf of photographs. ‘These were all posted in the Haymarket over the last three months. There’s nothing of much use to us here but they are somewhere to start. This is our girl’s mind at work.’
He began to pin reproductions of Dr Agnes Liu’s hate mail onto a cork board that covered half the length of the wall. ‘Oh, gross,’ someone called out as the images began to appear. A display of foetuses in miniature white coffins with the phrase ‘Holocaust Victims’ written across them. Dr Liu’s picture covered with a wash of red ink, the words ‘Satanist Mass Murderer STOP NOW’ scrawled across her face. Then ultrasounds and more photographs of aborted foetuses. A text in what appeared to be a child’s handwriting: ‘ So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. ’
‘How sick is all that?’ someone else said.
‘As sick as the mind that went looking for all that,’ responded an older woman with a cracked and broken voice. ‘Someone who likes to occupy themselves with that sort of thing. A really happy mind, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Louise is still sober and it’s after five. What do you know?’ Grace heard someone mutter. Jeffo, the man who had shouted at her in the car park that morning, was standing a little too close to her.
‘Women do that sort of thing to themselves?’ he called out loudly then, in her ear, ‘Turns your stomach.’
Grace did not bite, she was studying the glossy pictures. She recognised one of them, the mildest, the famous photograph of the tiny feet of a foetus between a man’s thumb and forefinger. Eight months ago, a female protester from a ragged group waving placards on the street had pushed it into Grace’s hands as she made her way into a Whole Life Health Centre clinic to have an abortion herself.
‘I don’t give a shit what they do, mate,’ Harrigan responded with professional indifference. ‘That’s not our business.’
‘They’re fucking asking for trouble if you ask me,’ Jeffo said.
No one replied to him. The gibe had changed the atmosphere, there was a creeping sense of tension and anger in the room. Harrigan paused.
‘Let’s get something clear right now,’ he said. ‘Point one. Like I just said, I do not give a shit what happens in those clinics. That goes for everyone else in this room. Point two. We’re looking for a murderer.
That’s all we need to think about. End of story.’
Grace remembered the woman protester snaring her at the clinic door, ear-bashing her all the way inside until Grace had taken her by the arm and hustled her back out onto the street. There she had flashed her warrant card under the woman’s nose. ‘You see this?’ she had said. ‘Do you want me to arrest you? Do you want to spend the night in the lock-up? Or do you want to get out of here right now?’
The woman had stared open-mouthed at the card for some moments, before walking away with a strange, almost satisfied expression on her face. When Grace went back inside the clinic, Dr Agnes Liu had come to thank her before showing her into the operating theatre. The woman had been bothering them all week, she told Grace, they were so grateful she had moved her on. All facts that Grace had no intention of ever sharing with anyone in this particular room.
‘This is the important bit of mail,’ Harrigan was saying. ‘The doc didn’t get to see this, it was waiting for her this morning at the clinic.
So we can assume this wasn’t for her; it’s meant for us or whoever else was going to
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