Blood Salt Water

by Denise Mina

  Iain nodded, encouraging. ‘Ye OK?’

  ‘Oh, man… ’

  ‘Know? For the wee hen.’

  Murray shook his head. He was sad, he didn’t want it this way, financial security for Lea-Anne, riding lessons for Lea-Anne, maybe a private school when she got to secondary. He whispered, ‘D’ye set a fire for him, Iain? Don’t do that. They’ll Carstairs ye for that, man.’

  Iain got up quickly, his back pain stabbing him, making him bend sideways and shut one eye. ‘Whoah, fuckinghell. No. No fires, bud. Just… Fuck that’s sore.’

  Murray stood up. ‘Hurt your back?’

  ‘Don’t know how I did it.’ He pointed Murray to the door. ‘Go on and fuck off, OK? I’ll go and check it’s clear with Wee Paul.’

  Murray opened the door to the close and stood, looking at Iain. He meant to say something, thanks or something, but none of the words he could think of were big enough.

  ‘I was wearing a “Yes” badge when Tommy saw me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. Tommy’s a “Yes”.’

  Murray nodded. ‘I know, but would he grass us to Mark?’

  ‘No,’ said Iain. ‘He’s para about Mark finding out about him.’

  ‘You registered?’

  ‘Aye.’ Iain wasn’t.

  ‘You “Yes”?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘It’s for the weans. For their future.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK.’ Murray pointed a finger up at Iain’s nose as he shuffled out of the door. ‘Don’t smoke.’

  ‘I’ll not smoke any more.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Iain,’ said Murray. He had never said anything like that to Iain and it made Iain want to cry.

  ‘No, I’m not. Go on away with ye.’

  He closed the door after Murray and listened to his fading steps. The pain throbbed in his back. He shut his eyes and saw Murray standing in a pew at Sheila’s funeral, two rows behind, little wave. Iain was not a good man. He deserved nothing in this life.

  They rolled her body over the side. The water folded in softly around her and they stood, looking, unable to see deeper than half a foot down. Iain imagined her falling, falling through the black to the deep bed of the loch, to keep company with bits of thousand-year-old boats and beer cans and langoustine.

  The skin on his hand was tight and dry, stained with brown bloody water. How to get blood out of material: salt, cold water and soak. Advice from Sheila during his baffling tumble into adulthood: When a girl becomes a woman, she said, as if Iain was a girl, the very first thing you learn is how to get blood out of clothes.

  A basin of water on their old bathroom floor. Green tiled floor, the same dirty green as the sea after a storm. The basin had a scum on the surface, salt crystals clinging together in drifting clouds, blindly feeling for the edge. Sheila’s underpants, fibres swollen from being left to soak. Salt lifts blood. It made him flinch away from the basin. He didn’t understand why she had blood on her pants. He knew later, of course, but not at that time. He wondered now: if she had a brain injury would she be able to remember how to get blood out of pants? He didn’t know. But giving her son advice about periods, that sort of suggested that she did have a brain injury. The trail of thoughts took him back to Susan Grierson.

  When Susan Grierson taught him to sail he didn’t even try. She squeezed his arm: Don’t worry about it, you’ve got a lot on your mind, just enjoy the water. Susan wanted him to think her kind and good. Iain refused to think that because she was pushing it so hard. It was the only power he had back then, refusal.

  Now he thought of Susan Grierson, across the sea for twenty years, washed back up here like salt-dried wood. Where had she been all this time? Not Chicago, they’d established that much. Iain didn’t care who she was then and he didn’t know who she was now but he knew that she was different. The Susan Grierson then wouldn’t buy three grams of cocaine at once. She wouldn’t live in a dust-dirty house or wait outside a newsagent or show you a plastic bag full of biscuits. Everything about her was off. Maybe everything about him was too. Maybe that’s just what time did to people, time in the water.

  He opened his eyes and felt lighter, physically weakened, but clear. He’d go to Mark Barratt’s house and ask Wee Paul about Murray and the Sailors’. Just to be sure.

  18

  Morrow and McGrain had trouble getting in to see the local cops. The station was locked up. They banged on the door to get access but no one heard them. The number for it went straight through to an answerphone. Eventually, they called London Road Station, got them to call direct and tell them to let them in. Stations were shutting everywhere to save money. Points of contact were fewer and fewer. Police cubicles had been set up in A&E wards, in twenty-four-hour supermarkets, mobile units were parked near streets of drinkers at closing time but, for Morrow, that wasn’t real policing. Real policing meant being part of a community.

  A surly uniform opened the door to let them in, warming up when they showed him their badges and asked to see the officer in charge. He told them to wait at the old front bar.

  It was a small cop shop, old-fashioned and, typical of the town, was partly functional, partly museum piece. A high, dark-wood counter formed a barrier between the back office and the waiting room. Displayed around the walls were the same posters they had up in the London Road Station. Alcoholism. Burglary. Be Theft Aware! Crimestoppers. No photofits here though, no appeals for public help or participation, because the public weren’t allowed in.

  Morrow had been warned that Argyle and Bute were spread thin. They had a rota of six staff covering a very wide geographical area, one DI and two cars.

  The uniformed young man came back out. He led them into the back office and sat them down while he went to look for his boss, DI Simmons.

  Inside, the office was small and cluttered. Three desks were piled high with papers and forms and leave slips and case files. Boxes of papers were stacked up on top of one another against the wall under the window. There was no one else there. A computer at the back of the room showed a game of solitaire in mid commission; right next to it was a pile of paperwork. Bad discipline.

  The uniformed officer came back and his boss came around the corner.

  DI Simmons was a nippy-faced woman. Her hair was short and sternly set, her lips pursed. The skirt and blouse she wore were so functional they made her look as if she craved a uniform. She gave a stage sigh and stomped towards them.

  Morrow stood up, using her height for once, and held her hand out. Simmons shook it, squeezing too hard.

  ‘And what can I do for you today?’ she snipped, as if they’d wasted a grotesque amount of her time already.

  ‘We’d like to ask you about the local vicinity, wondered if you might help us with a missing persons inquiry.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The missing person phoned a local from Halliday’s Field.’

  Simmons frowned. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Can we talk in your office?’

  A tidy room, small, stacks of boxes in a neat brick-like arrangement against the wall. She explained to Morrow that a pipe had burst upstairs and they were only using half of their accommodation, presently. She spoke like a rookie on their first time in court: precise, wordy, jarringly immellifluous.

  Morrow dropped her open handbag to the floor, half spilling the contents, knowing that Simmons would disapprove–Be Theft Aware!–and stepped over to a map of the local area on the wall.

  ‘So, we’re looking for this missing woman.’ She handed over the photo of Roxanna at the Botanics. ‘The last time her phone was picked up it was on this hill, by Lurbrax Farm. A Silver Ford Fiesta was spotted nearby.’ She pointed to the map. ‘The chief’s office are involved and we need a bit of background on this area. Do you know a man called Frank Delahunt?’

  Simmons gave a slow blink at the map. ‘The chief?’

  Morrow didn’t have time for this. The chief of Police Scotland was now everyone’s chief but o
ld habits of divisions and factions and geographical resentments would take longer to shuck. No one was happy, no one liked change. Some good people got their books, some bad people got promoted and everyone blamed the chief, especially people who had never met him.

  Morrow leaned forward aggressively. ‘Can we get on with this?’

  Simmons was a big fish here and annoyed at being stood up to. She sat back, defensive. ‘‘‘Police Glasgow’’, they call it.’

  ‘Aye, well, I just call it my work, Simmons, and I’m at it now. Can we get a move on?’

  Simmons sat down and Morrow caught a waft of smell, a sour something, coming from a white mark on the side of her skirt. Simmons smelled it too and covered the mark with her hand. Her face hardened. ‘Chief’s an arsehole.’

  Morrow was genuinely shocked. ‘Whoa! Mind your fucking language there.’

  Simmons was surprised at the challenge. ‘Well, it’s what we’re all thinking, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not what I’m thinking.’

  ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t think he was an arsehole?’

  ‘I’ve just met you and I think you’re a fucking arsehole.’

  They stared at each other.

  Intermittently, officers were sent on training courses about particular topics. Often, they would be shown videos of actors in scenarios illustrating how not to do things. Morrow was very much aware that, if this was a training video about establishing inter-departmental co-operation, she was the bad officer. Having run up a steep hill and taken the moral high ground, she had then thrown herself off, face first. Looking into Simmons’ eyes, as she was now, she could see the woman formulating ways to fill out the complaint form.

  ‘I’m sorry for saying that.’

  A tiny movement on Simmons’ lap caught her eye. She was tapping the tip of her forefinger on her knee, a slow rhythmical tap. Morrow smiled inadvertently. Finger taps to distance the anger from the heart. It was an exercise from an anger management course officers were sent on if they’d had a certain type of incident.

  ‘What’s so fucking funny?’ demanded Simmons.

  Morrow nodded at her hand. ‘“Mindfulness At Work”. Does it help?’

  Simmons looked accusingly at her now still hand. ‘Sometimes. How do you know about it?’

  ‘Been sent on that course, twice.’

  Simmons looked at Morrow’s hand. ‘You don’t do the finger taps?’

  ‘No. It makes me angry. I’m sorry. I have an anger problem. It is my problem—’

  ‘—not yours and I apologise for my behaviour towards you.’ Simmons finished the anger management course mantra for her.

  They both relaxed.

  Simmons gestured to the sour-smelling stain on her skirt. ‘My mother… ’

  ‘Not well?’

  Simmons half shrugged.

  ‘I’ve got twins,’ confessed Morrow. ‘Thirteen months.’

  Simmons looked her over for signs and couldn’t see any. Morrow slipped her coat off her shoulders and turned to show a slash mark of milky vomit down her shoulder.

  Simmons smiled and softened. ‘What do you need here?’

  Morrow pointed at the map. ‘What information do you have about that area?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s not known locally as “Halliday’s Field”?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘And you’ve been here, how long?’

  ‘Eight years. What else d’you want?’

  ‘A lawyer called Delahunt—’

  Simmons rolled her head away. ‘Frank Delahunt. Lawyer, retired from practice. Old-town money. He’s a front for the criminal element out here. Sets up phony companies and winds them up.’

  ‘“Winds them up”?’

  ‘You know, to muddy where the money’s coming from.’

  ‘I see.’ Morrow made a note to check Delahunt’s MO later. ‘And who is the “criminal element” out here?’

  ‘Mark Barratt. Used to be an upholsterer, suddenly he’s mega money, but he’s quiet. It’s as much as you can ask, isn’t it?’

  Morrow thought about Danny for the first time in hours. She realised that he might have died in the interim and felt a spark of hope. She hated herself for it.

  ‘How does Barratt keep it quiet?’

  ‘He makes it pay for everyone. No real trouble. If anything’s kicking off he goes away—Oh.’ Something had occurred to her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Barratt’s away just now.’

  ‘So his mob could be involved?’

  ‘Could be.’

  Morrow pointed to the map again. ‘She’s from Madrid, lives in London and she’s suspected of cocaine importation from Barcelona—’

  ‘That’s… ’ Simmons held a hand up and nodded. ‘Barratt. That’s the connection. He’s over there all the time. Lots of money. We know it’s coming from him but we can’t prove anything yet.’

  ‘OK. Might be how they know each other. She moves up here and seems to know this field as “Halliday’s Field” but no one else has heard of it. What about the Ford Fiesta?’

  Simmons looked sceptical, ‘Silver? No reg number?’

  ‘No, I know,’ said Morrow hopelessly, ‘there’s a million of them. Keep an eye out anyway.’

  Simmons’ phone rang and she looked at Morrow before picking it up. She said hello, listened, nodded and paled. She said she’d be there in twenty minutes and hung up.

  ‘DI Morrow.’ She stood up and spoke formally, as if she was giving a report. ‘We have a female body coming out of Loch Lomond. She’s not been in there for long.’

  19

  Iain walked along the street, keeping close to the back wall of the houses, his face down. His chest felt heavy. He was breathing as if he had stones in there. He could almost hear his ribs straining apart to inflate his lungs. A car drove past him slowly, a 4x4, black, old and boxy. He scratched his forehead, covering his face. Mark didn’t like them coming to the house but Iain had no option.

  He saw Mark’s gate up ahead. High steel gates with a door cut in one. Iain knew he was being watched. Two bulbous cameras were placed high on the garden walls, each giving a 180-degree view of the street. He’d been inside a couple of times and Mark made a deal of showing how impenetrable the house was. Iain thought Mark probably showed the camera room and security sensors to everyone so they’d tell each other and word would get about.

  As he approached the gates, the inset door sagged on its hinges. He pushed it open and stepped through.

  A bricked forecourt with a triple garage to the left, small outbuildings to the right. One of the buildings was full of weight-lifting equipment. Mark didn’t lift weights. Maybe he had meant to when he had the room designed and built, Iain didn’t know, but he liked to show the guys the room and the en suite sauna. It was a big sauna, for eight people. Mark had it built but he never seemed to have used it. The bench still looked a bit skelfy.

  Wee Paul stepped out of the far-away outhouse. ‘What you doing here?’ His voice was comically high but no one laughed about it because he was a good guy and reportedly quite handy. Iain had never seen him hit anyone but that was his rep.

  Iain walked over and glanced at Paul’s ‘Yes’ wristband. ‘What you doing wearing that?’

  Paul shrugged and smiled. ‘Not here, is he?’

  They went back in. It was a small room, freshly plastered and floored, but bare. The only things in it were a chair and a table with a large computer monitor on it, showing feeds from all the cameras around the property. A separate monitor showed the sensor net as an abstract of red lines, all unbroken.

  It was very cold. The walls on these old building could be a foot thick. Cold seeped in through the plasterboard and varnished black floor tiles.

  Paul shut the door firmly and turned to looked at Iain. He nodded at Iain’s chest, asking if he had a microphone on him.

  Reluctant and annoyed, Iain took his jumpe
r and T-shirt off, dropped them on the table and undid his belt and zip, letting his jeans slide to his ankles. He held his hands up so Paul could give him a good look-over.

  ‘Mobile?’

  ‘Left it at home.’

  Paul looked at him, sceptical. There was something a bit gay about standing there in his Ys while Paul examined him. Maybe it was because the room was small and they were quite close together. Maybe it was that Wee Paul only came to Iain’s nipples, or that they were alone, but it felt a bit gay and they were both glad when it was over. Paul gave him the nod and Iain pulled his trousers up. He picked his T-shirt and jumper up and put them back on, enjoying the residual warmth clinging to his clothes.

  ‘So?’ said Paul.

  Iain pinched his nose. ‘Sorted that thing out.’

  ‘We know,’ said Paul. ‘You don’t need to come here and tell me that.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Iain, ‘I sorted that thing out.’ He thumbed to the house. ‘Said Murray Ray’s clear if I did. And I did.’

  Paul, assuming they were being taped by someone, somewhere, held his hands out and shrugged, humming a prompt at him to continue.

  ‘Murray met a friend of ours yesterday. He’s concerned. But it’s clear.’

  Paul nodded at the floor. He nodded at the screen. He looked at Iain. ‘We’ll sort this out… ’ and he thumbed at the house, meaning when Mark gets back.

  ‘Sort it out’ meant Mark would have to intervene. ‘Sort it out’ meant it wasn’t yet decided whether Murray was in the clear.

  ‘T.’ Iain looked paranoically around the room. He shouldn’t have said that and Paul eyed him a warning. Iain nodded. He knew he’d broken a rule. He held his hands out in front of him, as if measuring a yard of Tommy. ‘Was outside the Sailors’.’

  Paul pretended not to understand the significance of that. ‘It’s a wee town. People go places.’

  ‘Deliberate.’ Iain was getting desperate.

  Paul shrugged. ‘Well… ’ He wasn’t going to discuss it any more. Iain knew he could see how desperate he was, how tired and fucked up he was. Paul nearly smiled and that sealed it.

  In defiance of the unseen audience Iain grabbed the neck of Paul’s hoodie, twisting it into a knot to get traction, and pulled him onto his tiptoes so that his ear was touching Iain’s lips. ‘I cleared it. I did it and cleared it.’ And then he let go, slowly lowering Wee Paul back to his feet.