Blood Salt Water

by Denise Mina

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Morrow hummed non-committally and held his eye. ‘Roxanna drove to London the day she disappeared. Then she drove back up, overnight, past here, and on to Helensburgh. The only reason I can think that she would do that is that she felt she was in danger. She didn’t want to put you in danger by coming back to the house.’

  He was listening intently. ‘What was she doing in London?’

  ‘She went to see Maria Arias.’

  ‘Maria? I called her three times. And I called her yesterday. She said Rox hadn’t been in touch, she hadn’t seen her–she said she’d call me if Rox contacted her. Why would Rox go there?’

  ‘Hasn’t Martina told you this?’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘They had a fight in the car on the morning Roxanna disappeared. Martina mentioned that Vicente Miguel called. He casually said something about Maria Arias. For some reason it made your wife very angry—’

  It made him very angry too: Robin stood up and shouted, ‘That’s… interfering little bitch… she’s talking SHIT!’

  ‘Why is it shit?’

  ‘Maria and Vicente don’t know each other. They can’t fucking know each other, for fuck’s sake.’ Winded, he sank back onto the couch.

  ‘What if they did?’

  He looked terrified.

  ‘If they did know each other,’ continued Morrow quietly, ‘If they did, then Roxanna has been set up in a dodgy money-laundering scam by friends of her spiteful ex-partner. What was the exit strategy?’

  Walker stared blankly at the carpet.

  ‘Roxanna was going to put the company to sleep and what?’

  She could see that he did want to speak. He wanted to tell her so much that he covered his mouth with his hand, afraid he’d blurt it out.

  ‘You were all going to disappear? Get flown somewhere in their private plane and start afresh? With a big bag of money for your troubles?’

  He looked at her, pleading for compassion. ‘They’ve done it before.’

  ‘You have to trust them for that to work, though, don’t you?’

  He nodded softly and dropped his hand.

  ‘Because the alternative,’ she continued, ‘if you can’t trust them, is that they get rid of Roxanna some other way. If she’s arrested the company goes dormant too and they save on the pay-out. The property reverts back to the investors in just the same way. Same if she’s killed.’

  ‘Vicente and Maria don’t know each other,’ he insisted. ‘They don’t know each other.’

  But they both knew they could. And if they did then Roxanna was in a nastier game then she’d realised.

  ‘How did you meet Juan and Maria?’

  ‘At the kids’ school.’

  ‘Roxanna and Maria became friends?’

  ‘Good friends.’ He stalled and thought about it. ‘Very good friends.’ He glanced at the Larkin & Sons cabinet. ‘They bought us that.’

  ‘That wall unit?’

  He didn’t like that term. ‘It’s actually a free-standing display cabinet.’

  ‘Quite an odd present, isn’t it?’

  Robin waved a hand. ‘We were at an auction, a charity dinner thing. They invited us, we didn’t really know them. We were looking at the catalogue and saying, you know, how nice it looked and they got a friend at the table to bid in our names.’ He was still impressed. ‘They paid in cash.’

  Morrow didn’t look impressed enough apparently so he added, ‘Sixty-four grand.’

  She did act impressed then and so did McGrain, but she was thinking about the cynical couple. They must have been setting Robin and Roxanna up right from the beginning. They probably knew that they were being watched at the auction because the Met were famously leaky. It was so obvious, so public. It drew the police’s attention completely and exclusively to Roxanna and Robin. The disappearance strategy depended on Roxanna being invisible. They’d been setting her up for an arrest from the start.

  ‘We have to consider every possibility, Robin.’

  ‘Rox and Vicente are in dispute about custody of the kids. He’s a total fucking bastard.’

  She wanted to warn Robin, hint and give him a chance to mitigate his sentence by opening up. She wasn’t allowed to. The Met report had warned her. She shouldn’t even have mentioned Maria Arias because Walker might phone her and give them advanced warning. Compassion was in no one’s interest, because of the proceeds.

  ‘Would Vicente conspire to harm her?’

  Walker was too distracted to answer.

  ‘Let’s take it back a bit more: would Vicente collude in setting her up in a criminal enterprise, one that could result in her imprisonment?’

  Walker looked straight at her, eyes wide, and gave a terrified little nod.

  ‘At the moment we’re working on the assumption that Roxanna heard about the connection between them. That she panicked and went to London to confront Maria. We need to find her to keep her safe. Her mobile phone was traced to a field on the outskirts of Helensburgh the morning after she went missing. We went there and found her Alfa Romeo, unlocked, parked by a field.’

  He sat forward hopefully. ‘Delahunt, our lawyer, lives in Helensburgh.’

  ‘We’ve already interviewed Mr Delahunt, he hasn’t seen her. Did she know anyone else out there?’

  ‘No. No one.’

  ‘We found a bag of cocaine in the car.’

  ‘That’s not hers.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Roxanna doesn’t use cocaine.’

  ‘Robin, she drove all the way up from London overnight, maybe she was using it a little bit?’

  ‘No,’ he said, certain. ‘Rox has a heart murmur. She doesn’t even drink coffee. If it was in the car and it’s definitely her car then someone else left it there. They’re trying to get her arrested, aren’t they?’

  She nodded, lying to comfort him. The motive seemed a bit more sinister to her now. Iain Joseph Fraser, a known local criminal, had left clean prints on it but that was unprofessional, inconsistent with the wipes and the vacuumed floor. It looked like a misdirect, a magician pointing at a dove while an assistant scrambled out of the back of the box. There had never been any suggestion of drug misuse or dealing in the family. They kept regular hours, both parents exercised regularly, they had very little company. It was a clumsy plant but Morrow couldn’t fathom what she was being directed away from seeing.

  She stood up. ‘OK. I want you to think about where she might have gone. In the meantime, I’m going to go and talk to Martina.’

  McGrain stood up with her, nodded his sympathies to Walker and followed her to Martina’s room.

  They knocked. They waited. Morrow was about to knock again when Martina came to the door, blocking the room with her body.

  ‘What?’

  Morrow pushed the door open and walked in, looking around like a suspicious mother. Martina had been packing her school bag, it bulged on the bed.

  She was indignant. ‘Excuse me! You can’t just barge into my room.’

  Morrow sat down on the desk chair. ‘Sit down, Martina.’

  Reluctantly, Martina sat on the edge of the bed and Morrow examined her. ‘We are police officers, Martina, do you understand what that means? I’m not your mum or your stepdad or a teacher. Something has changed. What’s happened?’

  Martina feigned confusion.

  ‘Since yesterday? You were so worried about your mum that you phoned the police. Aren’t you worried any more?’

  She welled up and nodded. ‘No, I’m still… my mum… ’

  ‘Has she phoned you?’

  ‘No.’ It seemed sincere but Morrow made a note to check her phone records. ‘If you hear anything I want you to call me.’ She gave Martina a card. ‘Will you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  They left and shut the door, knocking lightly on Hector’s. He called ‘Come in’ and they found him lying on his side on the bed, red-eyed and dressed for school. The curtains were shut, the room gloomy.
His mobile, a round-edged early model iPhone, a parental cast-off, sat on the pillow. It was next to his face, as if they’d been whispering secrets to each other.

  ‘Can we talk to you for a minute?’

  He nodded. He must have heard them, knew they were there.

  ‘Aren’t you going to school today?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked teary. ‘I’m going.’

  Morrow sat on his desk chair and McGrain stood at her shoulder. ‘Have you heard from your mum, son?’

  He shook his head.

  The iPhone lit up, bright in the gloom. Morrow glanced at it. It was a text from Mart. One word: Callate. Hector saw it, startled, and turned the phone on its face.

  ‘What’s callate?’

  Hector pulled the covers up over his mouth as if he was afraid. ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Why’s she texting you from across the hall?’

  ‘I asked her not to come in. I don’t know anything about it,’ he said and began to cry again.

  Back in the car Morrow looked up the word callate on her phone. It was Spanish for ‘shut up’.

  She had a voicemail: Hester Kirk’s family had been shown a picture of the dead woman’s face and confirmed it was her. Family Liaison was there now. Three daughters remaining in the domicile, ages fourteen, sixteen and eighteen. No father.

  The woman had been missing for four days. Morrow counted back. That meant she had been missing for two days before she was killed. If the same people had taken her, Roxanna might still be alive.

  They drove onto Clydebank and she called the office as they were pulling into Hester Kirk’s estate. She got a male DC she hardly knew and whose name she didn’t catch.

  ‘PINAD: did we ask for a trace on the Fuentecilla kids’ phones?’

  ‘We did, yeah.’

  ‘Can you open it and see if the children have received any calls from their mother?’

  ‘Open, ma’am.’ He hummed as he read down. ‘Ah! Martina: no calls from her mum. But has been getting calls from an unlisted number over the last two days. The phone is turned off now but the last location was in Helensburgh.’

  ‘Frank Delahunt?’

  ‘Let me see.’ He clacked his tongue as a filler while he looked. ‘Nope. Triangulated to number seven Sutherland Crescent, Helensburgh.’

  Morrow said they were going to question Hester Kirk’s family and would head out there afterwards. Notify Kerrigan and Thankless that they were on their way.

  29

  Iain walked the town, uphill, downhill, while he waited for the medicine to kick in. He didn’t want to go and see the grannies until he was calm. He was scary. He didn’t want to scare them. People shopping, people visiting, people walking dogs. On the esplanade the mobile police unit had emptied the street of its usual traffic. Even the cars were avoiding the road in front of it.

  Crossing Colquhoun Square, Iain stopped: coming uphill in a clean car were two mismatched people, man and woman. They were driving too slowly, paying close attention to the faces in the street, and they weren’t from here. They were police and they were looking for someone. Iain ducked down a lane, towards wee Asda, around the corner to the big bins where a car couldn’t see.

  ‘Hello.’

  He looked up.

  ‘Susan.’

  ‘You’re very dirty, Iain.’

  ‘Fire,’ he said.

  She tipped her head like a seagull eyeing a chip. ‘Are you upset?’

  He didn’t like her at all today. She must have followed him in here from the street. ‘The fuck is it to you?’ It was too much. He should have toned it down.

  But she didn’t react. He wondered if he had actually said it, she was so unperturbed. She was holding something out to him. Something white. An envelope. She had gloves on. It was a warm day. He didn’t know what was going on.

  She waved the other hand, with no glove, at the wall of the alley. ‘Upset because of that fire? Dreadful.’

  Iain’s eyes were blurry. He waited for them to clear. But he could feel the medication pumping around his body. Now he was holding an envelope. He felt so sleepy so suddenly he thought he could lie down and sleep right here, next to the bins. God, it was lovely. He waited for a minute, savouring it. Susan waited with him.

  When the calm paralysis was past he found Susan smiling at him. She hooked her arm through his, comradely now, leading him out of the lane and into a newsagent’s.

  She left him inside the door, went over to the counter and bought a chocolate bar. Iain didn’t think she really wanted it. She seemed to pick it at random, pay and then drop it thoughtlessly in her bag.

  ‘Tobacco?’ she said, as if they’d had a conversation about it in the alley. Maybe they had. He stepped forwards anyway and seemed to be buying some. He tucked the envelope in his back pocket to free his hands so he could get his money.

  Now he had papers and tobacco and was paying when the shopkeeper asked Susan if she’d heard about the fire at the Sailors’ Rest. Wasn’t it awful? His wee granddaughter was at school with that girl who died.

  Susan agreed that it was terrible.

  ‘Aye,’ said the shopkeeper, snarling at Iain. ‘And every bastard in this town knows who did it, but no one’ll say.’

  ‘Why?’ Susan looked innocently from one to the other.

  Iain was picking the right change out of his cupped palm slowly so that he didn’t have to look up.

  The shopkeeper hissed at Iain, ‘Well, why don’t they?’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ Susan was talking to the man.

  He blushed. ‘It’s not for me to say—’

  ‘You’re reproaching him for something you won’t do yourself?’

  The shopkeeper huffed.

  ‘Do you know what I find revolting about this country?’ said Susan, her accent rolling into something else, ‘All the fucking cant.’

  The shopkeeper was out of his depth. ‘What? Like “we can’t”?’

  ‘Cant. Self-righteousness.’ Her accent sounded much more American now. Iain was in a medicated fog but even he could hear it. ‘It’s repugnant.’

  Iain knew that she had let her mask slip. This was the real Susan and she had only let them see her because she was leaving. She was smart. She was disgusted. And she was leaving.

  The shopkeeper was determined not to admit he was wrong. He shrugged. ‘That’s just people, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ said real Susan. ‘It’s here.’

  Iain was having trouble counting the money. Susan leaned over and pecked a five pence piece from his hand and dropped it on the pile on the counter.

  Iain didn’t want to be here any more. He kept his head down and picked up the pouch, heading for the door.

  They walked back out into the street. Iain thought how little Susan understood the town. It wasn’t about being sanctimonious. Nobody would tell on Mark or Tommy because they all got a wee dip here or there, all got a bit of work or had a cousin who did. They were all involved with each other, wrapped up and tangled, because it was such a small place.

  ‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?’ He said.

  Susan looked surprised. She squeezed his forearm. ‘The envelope.’ She nodded to his pocket. ‘Andrew Cole has been arrested for murder.’

  He looked at her. He must have misheard. He nodded an urgent prompt at her mouth and she said it again: ‘Andrew Cole. Got arrested. For murder. Golf course.’

  ‘The fuck?’ he asked her lips.

  ‘The police. Will let him go. If you. Give them the envelope.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s from his mother but you mustn’t tell them. They know how protective she is. Give it to the police. Tell them Tommy Farmer gave it to you.’

  ‘Tommy?’

  ‘Tommy, yes. Tommy doesn’t know Andrew’s mother.’

  ‘How do you know Tommy?’ Actually, how did she know Andrew? ‘How do you know Andrew?’

  ‘I don’t. I know his mother.’

  Iain looked at her perfectly composed face
. She gave him a smile. Warm and motherly, a good friend, a reliable neighbour. Not-real Susan again.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Susan.’ She gave a patient smile. ‘Remember? Akela in the Scouts.’

  ‘No,’ said Iain, for once not doubting himself, ‘no you’re not.’

  She smiled again, waiting for the moment to pass.

  ‘The widow Grierson died two years ago. That’s not why you’re here and who are you?’

  Hand forward, elbow cupped, warm hand, head tilt. ‘I’m so sorry. You’re having a hard time, Iain. I want to help.’

  Her mask was very good. She had a banal gesture rehearsed for every eventuality but he knew he was right about this. ‘You’re no better than me.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  She muttered something pleasant to him, her face blank, and turned, walking away. Shunt? Was that what she had said? She didn’t call him a cunt, did she?

  She was walking casually away down the street now, glancing into shop windows, skirt swishing at the ankles, rich-woman hair catching the wind. He felt the paper of the envelope crinkle in his back pocket as he shifted his weight.

  He blinked hard. Susan Grierson was a broken jigsaw. It made no sense.

  Annie and Eunice. They were what was left. This he had to do. He turned and headed east, to their house. He could feel the energy going from his feet, the need to move leaving them and the pain from the night’s walk. Baffled momentum took him up to Hardy Hill.

  Small grey box houses with mean high windows and nowhere to keep the smelly wheelie bins but right outside the front door.

  Iain banged and leaned against the cold concrete and waited. The door was PVC plastic but still the skin on his knuckles sang a tender reprise of the knock. He half wondered if his hand was burned but didn’t care enough to look. He was concentrating on getting in, seeing them, because then he would feel better. They always made sense.

  A bus passed by in the street, the engine growl reverberating against the concrete façades of the houses. Passengers looked out at him, slack-mouthed, faces indistinct.

  The front door opened and there stood Annie, eyes as raw as fresh oysters. At the sight of Iain she retreated back into the dark hall. But then her hand came out, calling him in. Iain tripped across the step.