Blood Salt Water

by Denise Mina

  The body-

  ‘Would you,’ Delahunt was asking her, ‘come through?’

  She looked up. McGrain had run out of moves and Delahunt wasn’t taking his eyes off her.

  ‘Of course,’ she said and followed him.

  Delahunt led on and she glanced down to the main heading at the top of the page: Succession: General Issues.

  The hall was dominated by a wooden stairwell that had been stripped and then glossily over-varnished.

  ‘We could sit here.’ He waved them to a seating area under the stairs.

  McGrain and Morrow sat next to each other on a padded bench that was slightly too small. Delahunt pulled over a chair. They were sitting in the void under the stairwell, a small cubbyhole in a massive, apparently empty house. It felt strange. It felt suspicious. Roxanna could be tied up or hiding. Morrow found herself listening intently.

  Delahunt raised his eyebrows expectantly, reaching into his trouser pocket to take out a cigarette case and a slim gold lighter.

  ‘You’re not local police officers. Are you from Glasgow?’

  Morrow nodded.

  ‘Hm. Not a spate of break-ins then?’

  ‘No.’ Morrow watched him flick the lighter, waiting until he was touching the flame to the tip of his cigarette. ‘Roxanna Fuentecilla.’

  Delahunt’s hand shook, but only a fraction. He exhaled and raised an eyebrow. ‘So sorry. What is it you’re asking me?’

  ‘You know her.’

  He gave a little nod.

  ‘She’s disappeared.’ Morrow met his eye. ‘No one knows where she is. We know that she phoned you yesterday.’

  She waited for him to speak. It took longer than she expected. He leaned carefully over to a small table, picked up an ashtray and set it on his knee. He looked up at her, as if surprised she was still there. ‘I don’t know what you want.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  He mumbled, ‘Thursday. In Glasgow.’

  They had been seen together in Byres Road. It was at least partly true.

  ‘Mr Delahunt, as far as we know, you’re the last person to have contact with her before she disappeared. What happened yesterday morning?’

  Delahunt tapped his cigarette into the ashtray, blinking in time as he did. ‘Phone call,’ he muttered.

  ‘Speak up, please.’

  ‘I got a phone call. From her.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Fiveish.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She asked me to come and pick her up.’

  Morrow waited again. Delahunt waited. McGrain shifted in his seat. If Delahunt was a practiced conman he would have known how to fill the space, but he didn’t. He tried smoking and tapping non-existent ash before he blurted, ‘I went. But she wasn’t there. Then I came home.’

  ‘What did she say on the phone, exactly?’

  ‘“I’m in Halliday’s Field. Come and get me.”’

  ‘And you said…?’

  He held her eye as he raised a hand to the ceiling. ‘“I’ll come and get you.” And then I went and she wasn’t there and I came home.’

  ‘What sort of car do you have?’

  ‘Jaguar SX.’

  ‘What colour is it?’

  ‘Burgundy.’

  Morrow was conscious that she had taken quite an intense dislike to Frank Delahunt. She had a chip on her shoulder, was more comfortable interviewing working-class people. She was frightened about Danny. She’d just paid six quid for a bacon roll. But over and above all of that there was something about the precision of Delahunt’s mannerisms and his dress, about the smallness of his physical gestures that made her slightly furious.

  She tried to read him carefully. It wasn’t just class resentment that made her angry. It was his disdain. She saw him take in her cheap coat and patent leather shoes, rimmed with mud. She saw him glance towards McGrain’s bitten nails and iron-shiny trousers. She saw him think they were cheap and stupid. She wanted to prove him wrong.

  ‘Halliday’s Field, where is that?’

  ‘It’s up the coast road, towards Glasgow.’

  ‘What was she doing there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t ask?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you knew where she was talking about when she used the expression “Halliday’s Field”? Why?’

  ‘It’s just… it’s a known place.’

  ‘She’s Spanish. She moved to Glasgow from London a couple of months ago. It must be very well known.’

  He shrugged and smoked, legs and arms crossed in a posture so defensive she felt certain she’d be back here with a warrant.

  ‘Did you ask why she was phoning at five a.m.?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was it an expected call?’

  ‘No.’

  Morrow looked around the hall: everything was tidy, symmetrical. A bowl of tiger lilies on a table by the front door had the orange stamens pulled off so that they couldn’t brush against a sleeve and stain a shirt. Everything was precisely placed in here, no piles of coats, shoes, nothing by accident. Frank Delahunt wasn’t the guy you phoned when something unexpected happened at five in the morning.

  ‘Were you having an affair with her?’

  ‘No.’ Calm at the suggestion. Not even suppressed desire simmering there.

  ‘After the phone call, what did you do?’

  ‘I got dressed.’ Pause for a draw on the cigarette. ‘I came downstairs.’ Exhale. ‘I put my shoes on.’ Tap on the ashtray. ‘I got in my car and I went there.’ His eyes came back to hers and narrowed.

  ‘This was at five in the morning?’

  He nodded. ‘Five thirty. I got there and she’d left. I called and she’d switched her phone off.’

  ‘Was there another car there?’

  That made his right eye twitch. ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Absolutely, there was no one there. She’d just driven away.’

  He hadn’t seen Roxanna’s car.

  ‘Where did you think she’d gone?’ An awful stillness had come over Delahunt. ‘Mr Delahunt?’

  ‘I thought she’d run off.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know her personal affairs. I work for her company.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘General legal advice.’

  ‘Her car was found near the field this morning. She must have left with someone else, in another car. Do you know who that would be?’

  ‘Robin? Her partner could have come and collected her. He has a car, I believe.’

  ‘She wouldn’t leave her own car, hidden behind a shed and wiped for fingerprints, though, would she?’

  He was shocked by that. ‘It might have… ’ He broke off and she saw that his forehead was suddenly a little damp.

  ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘Her car might have broken down? But that doesn’t explain… ’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Morrow as if confiding. ‘It doesn’t explain. You can see why we’re worried. Does she know anyone else in Helensburgh?’

  ‘No.’ He seemed very sure.

  ‘How did you come to be her lawyer?’

  ‘Bob Ashe recommended me.’

  ‘He owned Injury Claims 4 U before Roxanna?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s Mr Ashe now?’

  ‘He retired to Miami. Grandchildren.’ His lip curled in a sneer.

  Morrow didn’t think Frank Delahunt hated grandchildren. He was shocked and a little bit frightened for Roxanna and it was making him behave strangely. ‘Where is she, Frank?’

  He looked out over the lawn to the sea, sucked hard on his cigarette, so hard that his eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t know.’

  Morrow pointed back to the study door. ‘In there. There’s a textbook. Can I look at it?’

  He huffed a nervous laugh. ‘Textbooks are in the public domain, aren’t they?’

  Pre-empting any ob
jections, she got up and walked quickly into the study. Delahunt followed swiftly behind.

  The section headed ‘The body’ outlined the legal requirements for disposal of a dead person but the mobile phone was not placed to let him read that. It was balanced precariously over the top of the page, clearing the paragraph below. She put her finger on the section and looked at him.

  ‘That’s,’ he was flustered, ‘that’s not about her… I’m not… ’

  Delahunt ran out of bullshit.

  Morrow read it out to McGrain standing in the doorway: ‘If a person simply disappears, so that there is no body… ’

  Delahunt couldn’t look at her.

  ‘Where is she, Frank?’

  He mustered all of his disdain to look at her through half-shut eyes. ‘As I said: I’m legal advisor to the firm she owns. It’s my job to be aware of the legal implications of any developments and anticipate them.’

  ‘She wasn’t there when you went to meet her and that prompted you to look up the legal conditions for the property of a dead and missing person? You’re all heart, Mr Delahunt.’

  He looked at the floor.

  ‘As a matter of interest, Mr Delahunt, what are the legal implications of a person “simply disappearing”?’

  He shrugged as if he wasn’t really all that interested. ‘Well, it tells you there.’

  ‘What does it tell me?’

  He didn’t want to say it. But then he did. ‘If they’re still missing after seven years they can be declared legally dead.’

  ‘This book is about succession. What happens to her property?’

  ‘Just–normal. Her family inherit her property. Just normal stuff.’ He smiled miserably. ‘You can buy the book yourself, if you’re that interested. It’s widely available.’ He smiled at McGrain, looking for an ally. McGrain looked away.

  ‘But you’re not the family lawyer, Mr Delahunt. You’re the company lawyer. What happens to the property in the company?’

  They both knew the answer. It reverted to the investors. And if it took seven years to declare Roxanna dead the money would be held for seven years, her property, untouchable, unconfiscatable, until there was a declaration of death. Seven years was a long time in the memory of the criminal justice system. Arias might have everything but the filings in his mouth confiscated, but they wouldn’t get that seven million because, wherever it was, it wasn’t his. Yet.

  ‘I’m afraid I have a client arriving shortly. I’ll have to ask you to leave, officers.’

  17

  The fly-zapping electric buzz from the intercom startled Iain so much he almost threw up. He wasn’t used to the sound, had few visitors, and he was feeling fairly seasick anyway. Marooned on his bed after a long night of broken sleep and unaccustomed smoking, he had been up since four watching house improvement programmes, drinking pint after pint of tap-water and wishing he could stop smoking. He was looking forward to the tobacco running out.

  The buzzer sounded again. Zzzb zzzb double buzz. Two dead flies and Iain thought shit as he edged himself to the end of his unmade bed. He used the remote to shut the telly off and stood up.

  His flat was on the attic floor of an old tenement block. The ceiling was head-skimming. It hadn’t been a flat before the housing service renovated the building. It had been empty roof space but dormer windows and insulation meant that they had no reason to ignore the hollow corridor above the proper flats. Plastered and partitioned, it had been developed into a tiny, easy-to-manage studio flat. The dormer windows were unforgiving though, the daylight relentless. Iain stood up into a viscous swirl of suffocating smoke.

  He shut his smarting eyes against it, felt himself drowning and swooned forward, catching himself before he fell.

  Zzzzzzzzzb

  Shit shit shit.

  Hands out in front of him like a B-movie mummy, he waded to the window and opened it. Wind from the hills stormed the room, chasing smoke into corners, sucking it out of the window. Iain backed up to the intercom by the front door.

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Iain? ’S that you? It’s Murray.’

  ‘Murray who?’

  A moment’s hesitation. ‘“Murray who?” What fucking Murray do you think it is, ya dick?’

  Aye, right enough. Iain pressed the buzzer and let him in. He waited at the door to save himself coming all the way back over here again.

  Murray. Nice one.

  He was glad that it wasn’t yesterday when Murray came up, glad it was today. Murray wouldn’t like the smoking, that was for sure, but Iain would be able to look him in the eye today because overnight, in the long hours of smoking, Iain had come to a truth about yesterday: he killed that woman. There were no softening justification, no narrative antecedents. When he saw her scream and run he gave her a massive head injury.

  Massive head injury. Iain understood his place in the story, this circular story, and knew he had found it overwhelming because of Sheila. He was the bad man who hit women’s heads, and the pity of his background didn’t fix any of that today. His sad childhood and what he did, they were bits of two different jigsaws. Plenty came from worse than him. Murray came from worse than him. And the pain in his chest, that wasn’t her. It was himself struggling not to admit it all. He admitted it now though, and there was a peace in that. He might be a piece of shit, but he wasn’t a lying piece of shit.

  Iain answered a flurry of knocks on the door. Damp and breathless from the six-flight climb, Murray fell into the room, swiping and cursing at the stinking air. He went over to the window and opened it wide to the heavens.

  ‘Fucking hell. ’S absolutely fucking honking in here!’

  Iain couldn’t really move very well, stiff from the bed and smoking and lack of sleep, but he smiled as he watched Murray slapping at air.

  Murray was Iain’s lifelong friend and here is the story of Murray: Murray went with a girl and she had a baby and that baby was Lea-Anne. Lea-Anne’s mother went to Bristol to live with a man that she met on the internet. She left the baby with Murray.

  Lea-Anne was the making of all of them.

  Murray brought her to visit Iain in prison when she was a baby, when she was a chubby toddler chewing the edge off the table, when she was a girl dressed in the pink puffs and frills of prettier girls. Iain was a doting ne’er-do-well, her cautionary-tale uncle. The mother’s mother, Eunice, and Murray’s mother, Annie, became the best of pals. From these discarded bits and unravelled scraps Murray pulled a family together to form a wall around the child. Lea-Anne was growing up with never a cause to doubt that she was the absolute fulcrum of every life around her. They were all performing the same miracle: repairing the insult of their own childhoods by making it all right for her.

  Murray was looking at him: ‘The fuck you doing smoking?’

  Iain shrugged. ‘Just smoking… ’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ ordered Murray.

  Iain couldn’t think what to say to that. Murray was right so he said, ‘OK. I’ll stop now.’

  That settled, Murray waved at the air in front of him again, but it wasn’t that smoky in the room any more, just windy. He just did it for something to do. ‘Where were you yesterday?’

  Iain didn’t want to talk about the morning. ‘’Member Susan Grierson?’

  ‘No.’ Murray kicked at a dirty plate on the floor. ‘State of this place.’

  ‘Her that took the Scouts years ago. Went to America?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, she’s back. I met her.’

  ‘Well, I still don’t remember who the fuck she is so I don’t know why you’re telling me about meeting her.’ He wasn’t in a very good mood.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Murray slumped down on the edge of the bed. ‘Tommy fucking Farmer came to see us there. Hanging about, waiting on us coming out the Sailors’.’ He looked up at Iain, red eyed, and Iain felt as though his lungs were turning to stone. ‘D’you know?’

  Iain was looking for disgust in Murray�
��s face, he’d be furious if Tommy had told or hinted, but all he saw was fear.

  ‘Mark’s away.’ Murray’s chin convulsed. ‘He’s in Barcelona.’

  ‘No.’ Iain sat down next to him. ‘No, man, that doesn’t mean that. Murray, it’s clear. That won’t happen.’

  ‘Tommy’s as good as said it’s happening—’

  ‘Murray!’ Iain touched him on the hand, skin to skin, uncomfortably intimate. They both winced away. Iain curled his fingers into his palm. ‘No, no, no.’ Soothing, calming. ‘It’s… I’ve cleared the debt with Mark. It’s good. It’s sorted out.’

  Murray owed Mark five grand. He should have paid it back by now. He planned to remortgage the pub once it was open but the building work had dragged on and on. Murray got a last warning but Iain had cleared it. Murray was in the clear.

  Knowing Mark, knowing Iain, Murray looked scared. ‘What?’

  Iain sucked a click through his teeth. ‘Nothing, man, nothing.’

  ‘Iain, what have ye done?’

  High voice, guilty face. ‘I’ve did nothing.’

  But Murray wasn’t stupid and five grand was a fuck of a lot of money. He knew Iain had done something, five grand’s worth of something. Murray was overwhelmed, frightened for Iain, teary and spluttering, ‘Iain? Man, what’ve ye fucking done?’

  ‘I’ve did nothing.’ Iain’s voice came out so strangle-high he sounded like the small scared boys they had been, hiding in muddy ditches from bigger boys, boys with dads and brothers, boys with dinners on tables and sheets on their beds.

  They cowered under the pitiless wind from the hills reeling above their heads.

  Murray bit his lip hard to stop himself crying. Iain had sorted it out for him, made it safe for him and he didn’t have the words to express what he felt. Iain understood. He’d always understood Murray. Iain had the brawn and the courage but Murray was the warm heart of their ramshackle family. Iain knew what he was feeling.