Absolution

by Caro Ramsay

  ‘I’ll let him know his carriage awaits.’ She walked out of the kitchen, leaving Anderson munching hot granary toast and melted butter, his feet stretched out to the Aga. He could have sat there for ever, but the peace was shattered by McAlpine coming down the stairs, stuffing the day’s mail into his breast pocket while shouting down his mobile at Costello.

  Anderson got to his feet. ‘Another day, another dollar,’ he sighed.

  The word ‘tenement’ is often misused and misunderstood; the term ‘vertical village’ coined by some social anthropologists is much more apposite. At that moment, standing on the marbled floor, feeling the curve of the tiles at her back and marvelling at the Rennie Mackintosh stained glass, Costello wondered if she would ever be able to afford a place like this. The ground-floor flats with their own front steps and the use of the Victoria Gardens were going for more than a quarter of a million. So much for housing for the masses. It was all architects and surgeons up here now. How on earth, she wondered, did a minister and a man who’d presumably had to pay off his three wives manage to afford it?

  Costello leaned against the wall, waiting for her superior officers. Again. McAlpine had said noon. She sighed, wondering what the hell she was doing here. At least she was out of the drizzle. She gazed at the stained-glass window, Mackintosh’s fallen roses, the light spiralling down towards her in a kaleidoscope of colour. She climbed the stairs up to the half-landing, the stone worn down with a hundred years of feet. At the window she checked her phone; no messages. Anderson and McAlpine had been held up somewhere. She leaned against the windowsill, looking through a panel of clear glass to the back of the tenement beyond, across the midden, as she would have called it. Fine for Castlemilk but not for Partickhill; they probably called it the courtyard or … the patio? She smiled to herself. It was still a midden; no matter how many little wooden gazebos they had, how pretty they made them, they still housed the bins. Here the paving stones were laid out in neat geometric patterns, a yellow-brick road to follow while hanging out the weekly wash. The weather was clearing at last, the sun coming out from behind a cloud highlighting the rain as it fell and pooled, a slight wind eddying in the back court making the border of pyracantha tremble. It caught her eye, the way the yellow berries danced; she had seen that before. On the loci photographs. The block of flats on the right-hand side was cut off by the shrubs; on the other side was Victoria Lane, the leafy grass way from Victoria Crescent to Victoria Gardens, the last walk Lynzi Traill ever made. Costello felt an eerie shiver creep up her spine. Why would Lynzi walk from Central Station and pass so close to her boyfriend’s house without going in? Why go up the lane, across a road to the garden and … well, maybe she hadn’t been conscious. The lane wasn’t often used; it was more a narrow garden running between the blocks, and most people walked round on the pavement. The grass was thick and full, no mud for footprints. Costello sighed. She was the same age as Lynzi, give or take a year, and she couldn’t think whether she would trust anyone enough to follow them up a lane on a dark Saturday night.

  So who had Lynzi trusted? The boyfriend, the elusive Ian Livingstone, who’d had three wives already and him not yet forty? Yet his life had been turned upside down far more effectively than he could have managed himself. He was a womanizer, yes, she thought, but not a murderer. She knew he had been in the Rock Pub all Saturday night, in the company of some respectably solid citizens. To judge from their signed witness statements, Ian Livingstone hadn’t even gone to the toilet on his own. Costello looked at the stairs, imagined Livingstone and Leask going up and down them. Strange bedfellows, those two, the minister and the womanizer. She wondered about the relationship between them.

  She heard a car pull to a halt. She went to the door, to see McAlpine and Anderson get out of the battered Astra, not bothering to park. She could tell McAlpine was in a mood, scowling at the sky, daring it to rain on him. He banged the door hard, and Anderson glared. Costello presumed there had been words in the car.

  There were no pleasantries. ‘We want to interview Livingstone.’

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said politely. ‘His alibi has checked out.’

  ‘Twice,’ said Anderson, dusting crumbs from his jacket.

  ‘Three times, to be exact,’ stressed Costello. ‘It’s watertight. He was with eighteen scouts and five parents, two of whom ran him home and then went into the Rock with him to watch the footie. He even went to the loo with his disabled friend to help him with the door,’ Costello added drily.

  ‘And what idiot looked into that? Was it thorough? Was it precise?’

  Costello stood her ground. ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘And I checked it,’ Anderson confirmed. ‘Independently.’

  ‘Right.’ McAlpine sighed.

  Costello and Anderson looked vaguely up the stairs, waiting for orders.

  It was Costello who spoke first. ‘I think we need to get a feel for him first, sir. I’ve just realized how close we are here to Victoria Gardens; the lane runs down this side of the flats. I’m going to go out and have a look.’

  ‘And?’ McAlpine was interested but not quite following.

  ‘Maybe she was lured here. She wouldn’t come out this way for nothing.’

  ‘Livingstone must be involved somehow,’ agreed McAlpine. ‘Bait? I’ll run you to Ian’s type of thing?’

  ‘Don’t forget the minister lives here too,’ said Costello, twisting the doorknob again, holding the door open with her foot. She pointed at the aluminium entry box, with six neatly typed names behind glass. Two were covered by greying white stickers; one said LEASK, G. ‘He lives right across from Lynzi’s boyfriend. And he knows Elizabeth Jane’s parents. So he has a connection with them both.’

  ‘But he wasn’t Elizabeth Jane’s minister; somebody called Shand was, if you remember,’ McAlpine said irritably. ‘And Shand is the minister who’ll be officiating at the wedding where Elizabeth Jane was going to be a bridesmaid.’

  ‘I know I said there was a religious slant to this,’ Anderson said. ‘But a minister, cutting up women and arranging them as if they were on a cross?’

  Costello reached for her notebook, thinking about what McAlpine had just said. ‘But Shand is away on holiday. OK, Reverend Leask knows the parents. But do we know for certain that he knew Elizabeth Jane?’

  McAlpine cut her short impatiently. ‘He was quick enough to the parents the minute she died. Where’s Livingstone’s flat?’

  ‘Third floor, right.’

  ‘And the minister’s?’

  ‘Third floor, left.’

  ‘OK. You go out, have a poke around.’ McAlpine went to move up the stairs. ‘Come on, Colin.’

  The grey storm doors over the third right were locked. Anderson pulled a letter from the brass opening. ‘No post on a Sunday, so this is yesterday’s. He’s not here now, but he was until recently.’

  ‘And when did you get your degree in stating the bloody obvious? Where is he? Now, I mean.’ McAlpine looked round, as though expecting Ian Livingstone to jump out behind him.

  ‘Don’t know. Leask is in, though.’ Anderson gestured at the stained glass of the left-hand flat. ‘The hall light is on. Strange for a minister, to be in on a Sunday morning. But they’re friends, sir. You said so. We could ask him maybe?’

  ‘I’ll do it. You phone the station, find out if Livingstone said he was going anywhere. He should have told us.’ McAlpine lifted his own phone from his pocket. ‘I’ve got no signal in here.’

  Anderson scanned his own mobile round the landing. Nothing. ‘Me neither. I’m waiting for a call to bring Batten in from the hotel.’

  ‘He can walk. It’s only round the bloody corner.’

  ‘Beautiful glass, that, isn’t it?’ Anderson observed, trying to change the conversation.

  McAlpine ignored him. Their house up on the terrace was full of stuff like that. It meant the insurance premium went up with every door-slamming argument. What’s the background on Leask? Do we have any?’ he aske
d quietly.

  ‘West Highland Presbyterian Kirk.’

  ‘Never heard of them. Who are they in the great scheme of things?’

  ‘A little less tolerant than the Gestapo, from all accounts,’ said Anderson, adjusting the collar of his jacket. ‘This phone is hopeless. Hello?’ he said to nobody in particular.

  ‘Worse than the Wee Frees?’

  ‘Much. But Leask checks out OK,’ said Anderson, slapping his phone with the palm of his hand. ‘I’ll try again in a minute. He’s from Stornoway, a bright pleasant man from all accounts. Burns has been doing some digging. One half-brother, a sensitive soul, apparently. Mother married twice. First hubby – Leask’s dad, Alasdair George Leask – killed in a farm accident, no great loss from the sound of the local gossip. Mother was a long-suffering soul. Apart from reading theology at Glasgow Uni, George worked locally, looking after things at home when his mother was widowed a second time. He was the dutiful elder son, leaving his brother free to move down here. But the brother passed away …’ Anderson paused to listen to the phone, then shook his head. ‘Still nothing. Anyway, once the mother died, there was nothing to keep Leask in Stornoway, so he took the chance to get back to the big city. He’s helping out at Beaumont Street Church, but he works mostly in that place for the homeless, the Phoenix Refuge, Father O’Keefe’s place, looking at how we cope with drugs down here. Seems a nice guy, quiet. He’s never married. Spends any free time with his uncle in Ballachulish.’

  ‘How did you get all that?’ asked McAlpine, impressed. ‘Burns got some super-duper search engine?’

  ‘Burns may look like a woolly mammoth, but he’s a terrier when it comes to finding things out. However, in this case his search engine is his Auntie Dolina, who lives at Back, near Stornoway. Leask used to be the local eligible bachelor. Do you think it’s worth asking the local nick for a background search?’

  McAlpine smiled. ‘What for? Convictions for sheep-shagging?’

  ‘That’s not an offence up there; it’s compulsory. I’m going outside to get a signal.’ Anderson dropped his voice, in case the door opened. ‘Might be worth digging a bit deeper. He could be stoating about at all times of day and night. They would trust him.’

  ‘They would have to know him, DI Anderson.’

  ‘Well, he has a connection with Elizabeth’s family, and a connection with Lynzi’s boyfriend, DCI McAlpine,’ said Anderson cheerily.

  The door opened before McAlpine could reply.

  If the Reverend Leask was surprised at finding the police on his doorstep, he didn’t show it. His face took on a slightly quizzical look as he glanced at Anderson’s warrant card.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’ He stood to one side to let them in, but Anderson hung around on the landing.

  ‘We’re looking for Ian.’

  ‘Mr Livingstone, I presume?’ Leask smiled a little. ‘Sorry, old joke. Ian isn’t here. He’s gone down south to stay with his mother. Come in.’

  Anderson stayed put.

  ‘When did he leave?’ asked McAlpine.

  ‘Come in. I’ve just put the kettle on.’ Leask walked into a long hall with a beautifully polished wood floor; it struck McAlpine that Leask must have a cleaner.

  Anderson tapped his phone again. ‘I’ll go down and make that call now, sir.’

  McAlpine nodded and followed Leask inside. ‘When did he go?’

  ‘He left sometime Friday. I was busy, but he put a note through the door saying that he was going away and asking if I would feed the cat. I didn’t see it until I got home yesterday.’

  ‘That usual?’ McAlpine asked.

  ‘Yes. He would have let you know. He’s’ – Leask stopped at the living-room door – ‘keen to get all this sorted. What do you want to talk to him for? Could I help?’

  ‘One of those scenarios where he probably knows more than he realizes he knows. We’ll show him some pictures, Elizabeth Jane’s friends, see if the two women have anybody in common.’

  ‘He told me you’d already phoned him about Elizabeth.’

  ‘And we will speak to him again. And again.’

  ‘I see. Do go through.’ Leask walked over to the bay window and closed the sash as McAlpine looked around the room, thinking that Helena would approve of the polished floors, the oriental rug woven from fine silk, the dried grasses in the pitchpine fireplace. He placed his hand on the radiator. Warm. Such easy comfort wasn’t where he would have pictured Leask.

  ‘Have we met before, Mr Leask?’ asked McAlpine. ‘I mean, before this inquiry? You look familiar.’

  ‘Yes, we have.’ The minister smiled, a wry regretful smile. ‘I’m not one for forgetting faces. The minute I saw you, it came to my mind. The girl from the bedsit? She had an accident.’

  McAlpine thought he had heard wrong. Somebody suddenly speaking of her, sparking her to reality. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘When I was a student, years ago, I lived in a bedsit on the Highburgh Road. A girl upstairs had a terrible accident. You were there. We met on the stairs.’

  ‘On the stairs … yes.’ McAlpine’s fingers curled round the radiator, as he remembered why he was on those stairs that day more than twenty years ago. ‘You’ve changed a bit since then.’

  Leask rubbed at his chin. ‘A car dashboard and I had an argument once, and my face came second. The NHS provided me with new teeth, did a really good job. Not that I’d go through it again: too painful. I must be one of the few men whose looks have improved as the years have passed.’

  ‘You knew her, though? The blonde girl upstairs?’

  Leask nodded. ‘I should never have walked away from you like that. I confess it’s one of the few times in my life I have lied. I still feel terrible about it.’

  McAlpine raised an eyebrow but stayed silent.

  ‘The thing was, I was very young, studying to be a minister, and well … she was nice. Very nice indeed. Always pleasant, with such a friendly smile, and I thought rather lonely for one so young. My faith has obvious problems with unmarried mothers – how pompous that sounds now – so I tried not to speak to her because she was pregnant. But when I did I found her enchanting.’ Leask had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘A beautiful woman. She had the most amazing grey eyes. A face that wasn’t easy to forget.’

  ‘Not a face I ever saw, not in the flesh.’

  ‘She taught me a lesson in tolerance,’ Leask went on. ‘And, unwittingly, she taught me a lot about myself. I knew her better than I told you. I wanted nothing to do with the investigation. If people had found out … I felt really bad about it. Every 26th of June I think about her wee girl …’

  ‘How did you know she had a wee girl?’

  ‘I went to the hospital a few times, just to see how she was. They knew me slightly, as I was assistant to the chaplain, so they were happy to tell me she’d had a daughter. It had to be by Caesarean, she was in such a bad way. Just two days after my own birthday, so I always remember it. Then later all sorts of things came to light, and the police turned up mob-handed at Highburgh Road and really tore the place apart. I’ve no idea what they were after.’

  McAlpine remained silent, thinking of the little drawings of Steve McQueen, fluttering in the draught.

  ‘Well, it’s in the past now. She gave me a taste for good coffee, I remember.’ Leask smiled at the memory. ‘I was skint. I went to ask her for a tea bag. In that little hovel, she gave me the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. Dutch stuff it was, her one pleasure, she said. Would you like a cup of coffee? Mine’s only instant.’ Leask smiled. ‘She wouldn’t have approved.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ McAlpine replied, a thousand thoughts racing through his head.

  Leask left the door open, leaving McAlpine to walk slowly round, looking at the pictures on the wall, trying to keep his mind on the job when all he wanted to do was to sit down and say So tell me about her, how did she sound, what did she say? He hoped she had laughed, and laughed often.

  ‘What do you want to know
?’ said the detached voice from the kitchen.

  How did she sound when she laughed? ‘When did you last speak to Ian?’

  ‘I rang him this morning. He said he had already phoned the police about it. I had tried to call him last night, but he wasn’t in. And it’s not the sort of message you’d leave with somebody’s mother, is it?’

  McAlpine coughed slightly, clearing his mind more than his throat. ‘We just want to talk to him. DS Costello was going to take him down to the station to look through photographs – places, people, Elizabeth Jane’s family album, people he knew, people Lynzi knew …’ He realized he was rambling, but he wanted to stay, wanted to talk. About her.

  ‘DS Costello? The blonde girl?’ Leask sounded surprised.

  ‘Yes.’ McAlpine looked to the kitchen, alerted by Leask’s tone.

  ‘It’s not a job for a woman.’

  ‘Not a popular opinion these days. So you think they should still be nurses and typists, and leave work when – ’

  ‘There’d be less trouble in the world if women remembered their responsibility to their children.’ Leask held out a Millennium china mug full of Nescafé. ‘You have no children, have you?’ He stated it as fact, but he was smiling as he spoke. ‘It would make your job quieter.’

  ‘Indeed.’ McAlpine leaned against the radiator, placing the cup down. ‘Do you mind if I …?’ he asked, rolling a Marlboro between finger and thumb. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Smoke if you want. There was a piece about your wife in the Herald supplement. She sounds like a fine artist, a talented woman. Too busy for children, I suppose.’

  McAlpine noticed an implied criticism. ‘I didn’t read that article.’ He moved along the wall, looking at a photograph of an owl. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Scops Owl, photographed in Beith in 1995, very rare, not found on British soil much.’ Leask was rubbing the bridge of his nose with each forefinger, as if he could easily have slipped his hands down to prayer. He changed the subject. ‘You have me thinking that maybe I should remember something, and I can’t.’

  McAlpine let his eyes flit around the room, trying to concentrate. He eyed up the bookcases: some books in Gaelic, a selection on the flora and fauna of the British Isles, a fair smattering of science fiction and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. The man of God reading the man of science. ‘You said, yesterday, that you didn’t know Lynzi. Could you clarify that? Are you sure you didn’t ever meet her? Here, perhaps? You know Ian well enough to feed his cat,’ he said casually.