Oak and Stone

by Dave Duggan

  ‘So, you don’t think she knew Anderson?’

  ‘Why would you think that, Slevin?’

  ‘Well, she seems so interested in the case. She asked me to keep her informed, via yourself of course.’

  ‘Protocols, Slevin. Always the correct protocols, that’s my man. If it’s something I don’t need to know or that I would be better off not knowing, I’ll tell you. Up to that point, I have to know everything. Why don’t you ask the CC herself? Maybe it’s like this? It’s you, not Anderson that really interests her. She doesn’t want to see you swamped in the weedy waters. Like Ophelia.’

  He smirked, as if to say ‘two can play at the literary illusions’. Turning once more, he called back over his shoulder.

  ‘Bring Hetherington and all your speculations. If you have evidence and leads, they would be particularly useful.’

  I ordered the Todd Anderson archive from Maydown. I unpacked it immediately, adding items to my plexi-glass display panel. I laid out artefacts on a foldaway table I took from the conference centre and put in front of the window. Most of Anderson’s personal effects had been returned to his family. What was left were items considered still necessary to the solution of the crime. Scanning the table and its paltry display I felt, not for the first time, that we had let a lot of the good stuff go.

  Colleagues looked at my display, sighed and went to their desks.

  Goss and Doherty ambled in together. Doherty was telling a football story.

  ‘Two minutes. Two minutes to go and he lets in the equaliser. That bollocks Simpson couldn’t keep nets on a fishing trawler.’

  ‘Holy God, Slevin,’ said Goss. ‘What have we here? A jumble sale? Some of your choicest personal items as a “once-in-a-lifetime” offer? Pardon me if I don’t buy any of it. You must be desperate, kiddo if you’re resorting to “show and tell” for the boss.’

  ‘Ah, come on, Edmund,’ said Doherty. ‘You’re after blocking the only view we have.’

  Sharon arrived and stood beside me.

  ‘Great to see the men happy at their work,’ she said.

  ‘Sharon, sort this out,’ said Goss. ‘You’re supposed to be in charge of this floor. If Slevin wants to look at evidence, he can do it in an incident room or in the conference centre. He’s only cluttering up the place here. And all this stuff is in the way too.’

  Doherty wagged a finger in my direction.

  ‘Health and Safety. Health and Safety. What happens if we need to get out quickly? Say there’s a terrorist attack? Will you get a heads-up Slevin?’

  ‘I’m glad I’ve got the three of you together,’ said Sharon. ‘Saves me sending threatening messages. Today’s the last day for expenses’ claims that might make it into your December pay. Have them with me before twelve.’

  Doherty nudged Goss and they headed for their desks, with Doherty looking back over his shoulder, mouthing ‘Health and Safety! Health and Safety!’

  ‘They’re right, Slevin,’ said Sharon. ‘How long do you plan to keep this here? The evidence table, these boxes, the display board. You could do with your own office.’

  ‘That’s a good idea, Sharon. Thanks. Will I leave you to sort it?’

  ‘No. The only thing you need to leave with me are claim forms.’

  ‘I mightn’t make that deadline.’

  ‘No worries, Slevin. Money in the bank for next month. You probably have your Christmas sorted, same as meself.’

  She grinned. She has two children and a large extended family.

  ‘The full tribe is coming to our house this year. The eldest’s working out a seating rota for the turkey.’

  ‘Good luck with that. Give me a couple of days with this, Sharon. We need another hard look at it.’

  ‘Long as DI Hamilton is happy, it’s fine with me. And will be fine with everybody else. I see you’re still on great terms with Goss and Doherty. Who else have you fallen out with?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Not yet. Filling my car earned you some credit. Two days. Then I’ll run this by The Sheik. Oh, a message came from a fella in Dublin. He said you had a mutual friend, Professor De Lorenzo. Are you working with the Italian Mafia now, Slevin? I’ll message over his name and contact details.’

  She went back to her own desk, hung her coat on the stand behind her, checked her hair and make-up in the mirror she’d rigged inside the door of her stationery cupboard, then sat down, an Office-Amazon, beaming health, light and sanity through the grime of our work-place. I hadn’t the heart to tell her there was no way I was going to reply to the message from the Professor’s Dublin colleague. Last thing I needed was a forensics expert getting excited over the intricacies of the Todd Anderson case.

  I viewed the items on the evidence table. The clothing and the shoes radiated dampness inside their plastic coverings. The coagulated blood on the club scarf protruded its crusts like escarpments on a model mountain range. Everything looked like it could have been disposed of, with Anderson’s corpse.

  The murder book sat closed on my desk. I had cleared all other papers and stationery. I returned to it and opened it once more, gazing at the set of bullet points Hetherington had generated on the image of the skeleton seated on the rock. What linked it to Dalzell, to Anderson? What did it mean that Teresa’s grandfather had a trophy sporting it? Dead ends? Buffers you’d run a train into to bring it to halt.

  I prised the business card Dalzell had given me from the plastic sheath in the Murder Book and fixed it to the plexi-glass display, beside his name. I used a white marker pen to link it to Anderson, to Teresa and back to Dalzell. I was staring at it when an epigram of Jung’s came to mind.

  ‘The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.’

  I was wondering how it might apply to the Anderson case, when Hetherington sat at his desk across from me.

  ‘No need for all that stuff. I’ve got new evidence. An ace.’

  I stared at him, fearing what he might say next. When he didn’t announce that he had the gun that killed Anderson, I strained my jaw muscles to keep the glee from my face.

  ‘I’ve been going over the lab stuff. I’ve always felt they missed something. I’ve got a hair.’

  ‘Not Anderson’s? Not Teresa’s?’

  ‘No one’s. Yet.’

  ‘Good. Hammy wants us, front and centre. Leads and prospects only.’

  ‘No bother. I’ve got this hair thing.’

  Hetherington had adopted a work-to-rule civility, since the bomb. He acted as if he was suspicious of me. He knew he should trust me, his senior colleague, but he didn’t. I think that upset him. I was forcing him to behave badly. I had become a bother to him, which is what he had become to me and, though he might wish to be rid of me, I couldn’t afford that, not with the gun still in question.

  ‘What have you got?’ he asked.

  ‘I pulled everything in.’

  ‘I can see that. It’s a bit … cramped.’

  ‘You were right. We’re missing something.’

  ‘You’re not. You’ve got everything here, except the body.’

  ‘And the gun.’

  He went quiet. I wondered if he was trying to protect me. Or, like the Professor said, he was no less driven by fear than me. He had questions he didn’t want to ask, even though he knew he should.

  ‘No sign of the gun, still,’ I pushed, but he didn’t take me on.

  ‘What time are we with Hammy?’ he asked.

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Hang on. Let me finalise this expenses’ claim.’

  ‘Sharon nabbed you too?’

  ‘Yeh, she’s beating the drum.’

  We could go on like this, all day, swopping civil, workaday banter in a game of heading tennis that had no aim but the wasting of time, keeping us focused on the ball in the air rath
er than on the dead body at our feet, as we waded through his blood.

  ‘I’ll lead with my hair thing. You give him what you’ve got,’ Hetherington finished, pulling his keyboard to him, to focus on Sharon’s deadline.

  ‘Okay, Hetherington. That’s it. You’ve got a hair. One single strand. Not something Samson could make a wig out of, but a start. Finally. And being the diligent boy I know you to be, you’ll go the length of it to tie it to Anderson’s killer.’

  ‘Yes, I will sir,’ said Hetherington.

  ‘And the gun, my young Sherlock? Still no leads on the murder weapon?’ continued DI Hamilton.

  I got in then.

  ‘The ballistics were inconclusive, sir. Further tests may be called for.’

  ‘Call for what you like, Slevin. Just get it sorted.’

  Hetherington got ahead of me again.

  ‘I’d like to send the ballistics, the bullet, everything we’ve got, to the lab in Dublin. They can get finer resolutions than we can achieve locally. And they have access to bigger, national and international, databases.’

  ‘You think Anderson’s killer was foreign?’

  ‘No, sir. But I think the gun might be an import. And used before, perhaps by paramilitaries.’

  Hetherington was being more open than I thought he would be, so I interjected.

  ‘Let me handle that, sir. As you know, I had dinner with Professor De Lorenzo at the conference recently. I spoke to him about our Anderson case. He said he’d have an associate from Dublin give me a call.’

  Hetherington’s look of surprise pleased me. It reassured me that I had my fears in hand, that my defences were working.

  ‘That’s grand then. You, Kenneth, on the hair. You, Slevin, on the bullet and the gun. Let’s see if we can make something stick.’

  Hetherington gathered himself sufficiently to say,

  ‘Sir, if you wouldn’t mind, I could work on the gun. As well as on the hair. I’ve been making some progress.’

  ‘Good. Lay it on me Kenneth.’

  ‘Well, I … I’ve been cross-referencing the bullet with guns in the system and …’

  ‘You’ve got a match?’

  ‘No, sir. I’ve eliminated a large number of them.’

  ‘Let me tell you about elimination, Kenneth. I eliminated a deal of urine and faecal matter earlier this morning. I wouldn’t claim it added to the world’s store of knowledge or to my understanding of the meaning of life. Or indeed increased our chances of solving the Anderson case, though that’s what I was cogitating during that particular sitting.’

  Hammy glanced at the clock on the wall behind us, stood up and reached for his jacket, thrown over a nearby chair. The 11 o’clock meeting upstairs put an end to his riff and he got to his main reason for calling us.

  ‘Elimination? You find you’ve only got to do it again and again. Slevin has a personal connection, so he’s on the gun. You’re on the hair. Now, it pains me to say this …’

  He began to gather papers together and put them into a folder. They looked like budgets and sheets of financial analysis. Meetings upstairs were mostly about money.

  ‘ … but you two desperadoes are the best out there in that room. Karolina and Josh are ace, but still young. Doherty and Goss are hitters but they’d wear the patience of the Prophet. The others can kick up the sand but they won’t build us any castles. You two, now, you’re cooking, so don’t go off the boil on me. If you’re pissing each other off, get over it. Do whatever it is you do nowadays. Get drunk. Kick the shite out of each other at five-a-side. Take each other away for a romantic weekend. Let me ask you directly, Slevin, as you’re allegedly the senior desperado, do you want me to split you up? Get you someone else?’

  I couldn’t guess how Hetherington might react to such an offer. I feared he would continue going after the gun, even if he was taken off the Anderson case. I didn’t want anybody going further on the gun, until I had finished my own enquiries.

  ‘Thank you, sir. We’re still very much on the boil, as you say. Sharon will be forwarding closed files to you today. Hetherington is due in court with another arrest he made. We remain resolved to close the Anderson case. No, I don’t want you to split us up, sir. Hetherington’s work is vital to the solving of the Anderson case. And to the others you have allocated to us.’

  ‘Great. Hetherington, hair. Slevin, gun. Has a ring to it. Now, let me walk you back to your desks. I’ll be smiling. I want you two smiling as well. The happy couple. I want you both beaming, in actual fact.’

  We all left Hammy’s office and processed across our floor. When we sat down, he surveyed the display I had arranged, then loudly said,

  ‘Impressive, Slevin. Impressive. Feels like the foundations of an Empire. I’ll be watching you. Sharon, short lease only. If there are no results soon, back to Maydown it goes. And Slevin along with it. Via the river, if necessary.’

  He continued to the lifts at the end of our corridor. I kept on smiling. Hetherington hid behind his computer screen.

  I stared at Dalzell’s card, fixed to the plexi-glass display. The skeleton on the rock stared back at me. The caverns of his eyes held a vacancy that echoed in my stomach. The empty ribcage was as hollow as my own.

  ‘I’m away out for something. You want a coffee? A sausage bap?’

  Hetherington didn’t take his eyes off his screen.

  ‘Eh, naw. I need to get …’

  ‘Yeh. The expenses. Want anything back?’

  ‘Eh, I’ll get something on me way up to court.’

  I buttoned my jacket. The early morning radio forecast had said ‘dry and chilly’. Hetherington, in summary. I was three steps passed his desk when he called to me and I went back towards him. It could have gone a couple of ways, depending on what he said next.

  ‘I … thanks for speaking up for my work just now.’

  ‘No bother, Kenneth. Your work’s fine. Always was. Just, I don’t know if it was the water you drank in Manchester or the company you kept there, but you’re seeing evil spirits here, ever since you came back.’

  ‘Jesus, Slevin, me seeing things? That’s your trick. Fucking ravens in the trees.’

  ‘The ravens saved your life, don’t ever forget that.’

  ‘And you brought me there. Don’t ever forget that.’

  ‘I won’t, never you worry.’

  I was standing over him and, though neither of us had raised our voices, colleagues began to look up from their desks. Goss shouted over.

  ‘Go on, Kenneth, give him a kiss. Go on. Kiss and make up.’

  I walked across to the desks shared by Goss and Doherty, keeping my eyes on Doherty, who stared at me with his mouth open and a ‘what’s up, brother?’ grin on his face. That way, when I clouted his buddy under the chin, Goss was blindsided and didn’t have a chance to come back. Then I strode to the lifts. I felt Sharon’s eyes burning into my back and I welcomed them as a heat-salve for my weary heart.

  EIGHTEEN

  I took the lift and composed myself as it descended. I was licking the rawness on my right knuckles when I stepped out on the ground floor. The officer from Vice I’d almost shared a room with at the conference made to board, but stopped when he saw me.

  ‘Detective Slevin, can I have a quick word, please?’

  We moved away from the lift doors and the uniforms at the front desk, beside the exit.

  ‘Something happened at the conference I wanted to tell you about.’

  ‘Listen, about turfing you out of the room, sorry about that.’

  ‘It’s not that. You behaved like a prick every time I saw you, but that’s okay. Jesus, you had IS and the CC on your case. Any wonder you were acting like a pig facing the bacon slicer. Naw, it’s about that woman you had the wee runabout with. The shooter.’

  ‘Christ, does everyone know my business?’
>
  ‘Of course. We have to be good at something. We’re the cops.’

  I could like this fellow, I thought. Maybe I should transfer to Vice?

  ‘You got sorted then? For a bed, I mean?’

  ‘Never worry. Let’s say, you weren’t the only one running about.’

  I remembered him laughing and finger-pointing with a woman at his table. He continued.

  ‘It made for funny sights on the corridors and out in the carpark when the fire alarm went off and we all had to get out. It wasn’t a drill, so there we were, in various states of undress, in various unscheduled combinations, some of us a little under the weather, when the weather itself took a sleety turn. For your information, the CC and your other dinner mate looked well in matching dressing gowns.’

  ‘The Professor had a dressing gown?’

  ‘No. The woman. The Professor had an aul’ surfing t-shirt and a pair of Bermuda shorts would have scared the sharks off the beach and out to sea. We were about to go back to the rooms, when the shooter came up to me, all guns blazing.’

  ‘Amy Miller, she’s with WART.’

  We both smiled.

  ‘Well, she’s no wart, let me tell you,’ he said. ‘She’s a dynamo. Nearly went through me for a short-cut. Eyes like lasers. “Where is he?” she demanded. “Haven’t a fucking clue,” I said. I knew she meant you.’

  ‘Aye, we’re the cops. We know everything.’

  ‘Come on, fair game. I’m giving you a heads-up here. Think of my position. I’m standing in my boxers and overcoat, with my section head beside me in her camisole and my suit jacket.’

  ‘I see it now. That’s why ye call it Vice.’

  ‘Don’t get high and mighty with me, Detective Slevin. You’re a bit of a lad yourself. Listen, be warned. Ms Miller is not one bit happy. She told me to tell you that you’d be hearing from her and that you mightn’t like what you heard.’

  ‘Grand. Thanks.’

  ‘Listen, maybe I didn’t make myself clear.’

  ‘I get it. She’s going to give me a bollocking. Or a grim message on my phone.’