by G R Jordan
The man was shaking again. “I hardly think we should be speaking of this in a house of God.”
And you certainly should not be lying in here either. “Having been playing away from home, I don’t think you should be preaching at me. Now Marie said she liked on top, a lot.”
“Right. Err... yes that’s right. On top.”
“You’ve been most helpful, McKinney. Now I think I shall retire and let you get back to your wife.”
Macleod opened the door for the man and let him exit first, before following back into the main hall. He watched the man go to his wife and embrace her before glancing back at Macleod with almost pleading eyes. He’s never played away in his life. Look at him. Marie Smith has no real alibi but let’s let her think she does.
There was a small commotion at the far end of the hall and he could hear a few men and women tutting about something. Then there were voices raised, in indignation more than anger but raised all the same. And then through the small gathering he saw the problem. A red haired woman with a pony tail stood in her jeans, and crop top with a blouse lying open. She cut a figure not seen that morning during the service.
Macleod laughed inside and also felt buoyed that his colleague was well enough to be out of hospital. She had a dark bruise on her chin and other marks around her eyes. She also looked exhausted. But amidst the cavalcade of disgust at her attire, she was standing proudly.
“Can we kindly let Detective McGrath through, please? This way, McGrath,” shouted Macleod over the small hubbub. He watched Hope make her way over. Taller than most of the women and quite a few of the men, he saw disgust, jealousy and even a few glances of appreciation. His face remained serious but inside he felt a joy that she was back with him.
“What are you doing out and about? You need rest,” said Macleod, with a chastening tone.
“No rest for the wicked, sir, isn’t that what they say in these buildings,” retorted McGrath.
“Well now you are here, you can make yourself useful. Here, take this photo of the mysterious man on the wall and see if anyone here knows him. Quite a few of the congregation will already be outside. And next time, you might consider something a bit more, mundane, for church.”
“Something wrong with what I’m wearing?”
There’s everything right with that outfit, thought Macleod. It shows your figure but doesn’t make you look like a tart. But it’s something else for in here. “Frankly, to a church crowd like this, you’re probably looking like a Jezebel.”
“Well then, she must have looked damn fine!” With that Hope took a photo from Macleod and made her way back to the front door and began asking if anyone had seen the man in the photograph. Macleod was briefly accosted by an older lady who tacitly gave comment on Hope’s outfit but he was not listening close enough to catch the detail. Instead, Macleod was watching some of the reactions Hope was getting from her questions.
There seemed to be an air of avoidance, a gradual drift away from Hope, almost a bypassing. It was not so blatant as to be obvious but if you watched for a time, you could see how certain people were avoiding the question, or shaking their heads before looking. One elder, a man probably in his fifties and who Macleod had seen sitting at the front of the church, was a prime example of this. Giving Hope a wide berth, he also looked away from her when it would have been normal to take a glance, especially at a woman who looked like Hope.
Macleod put a hand in the air and caught the attention of his red headed colleague. With a point of a finger, he singled out the elder and nodded when Hope mouthed “apprehend”. Her blaze of hair stood out above the other heads and Macleod watched her move swiftly and deliberately into the man’s path. But he turned away and seemed to be interested in a collection of psalm books on a table.
As Macleod made his way to them, he saw Hope ask the same question she had been asking other people but the man did not even look at the photograph before shaking his head in the negative. Approaching the man from behind, Macleod surprised him.
“If you want we can take you down to the station and make you look at the photograph.” The man turned towards Macleod and then desperately scanned around him. A hand was placed on Macleod’s shoulder and a voice he recognised from the sermon spoke out in firm but threatening tones.
“I doubt we want to be doing anything rash on the Lord’s Day, Detective, probably best we all wait until tomorrow.”
The hand on the shoulder was what did it. He remembered such a hand when he had been spoken to about his wife, and her behaviour on a Sabbath Day. It had been hot, a rare occasion and she had been seen on the beach, in a skirt above the knees. It was a skirt he had loved, one that suited her but one that became the subject of nasty finger pointing. He did not take kindly to hands on his shoulder.
“Why exactly, Reverend?”
The man who had laid his hand on him was a couple of inches bigger than Macleod but was also broader and well built. He stepped between Macleod and the shy man and Macleod saw Hope raise her eyebrows.
“This is the Lord’s day, Detective, as I know you are aware and I think it best that the day focus on Him and not turn into a charade, a day when the misfortunes of a girl of questionable morals takes centre stage over our Lord’s sacrifice. I’m sure if you come back tomorrow...”
“You will move aside or I will have McGrath here, book you for obstruction. The girl of questionable morals is dead, murdered. And at the moment, I have serious suspicion that someone in this building is hiding something from us.” Macleod glared at the minister but the man just smiled back.
“They said you were weak in bringing your wife into line, letting her dress as brazenly as your colleague here, and look what became of that. Leave it alone today and enjoy your Sabbath, Detective, I think that would be wise.”
If there would have been no repercussions, Macleod would have killed the man. He saw himself burying punch after punch into the man’s face, breaking his sanctimonious jaw. How dare he talk about her! How dare he!
“McGrath, kindly escort our silent friend outside the building and have him wait there for me. I need a few words with this man of G..., well, this man.”
Macleod was not looking at the minister but he could see from Hope’s corner of the mouth smile that his words had had the desired effect. As Hope exited with the silent elder, Macleod rounded on the minister.
“There is something unholy in here and you cover up the stink at your peril. Call yourself a man of God and then attack a widower still in his grief. And worse still, cover for a murderer. As the good book says, you brood of vipers. Next time you get in my way, I’ll throw everything in the book at you. And it’s Detective Inspector.”
Macleod walked off without another glance at the minister and met Hope outside where the man was standing with many of the congregation watching from a distance. Macleod pulled out a copy of the photograph and thrust it in the man’s face. “Here, or down the station, you decide. But who is this?”
The man hesitated, looking towards the door. “Forget him,” said Hope, “if you don’t willingly give us this information when you know who this man is, you can be implicated and charged. So please, do yourself a favour and tell us.”
The man’s head fell. “It’s Iain Murdo. He should have been here today.”
“Who’s Iain Murdo?” asked Hope.
“He’s my brother.”
Chapter 20
The car raced through the town but Macleod knew he was going to be one of the later arrivals at the house. Hope was driving with due diligence but still pushing the car as quick as she could.
“Iain Murdo Macaulay. Been a member in that church for the last twenty years. Married too. But it seems he has been playing away from home. What is it with these people? I’m sure there’s a perfectly normal crowd of people living here but at the moment we keep getting all the randy ones.” Macleod shook his head but his chatter was covering a sinking feeling inside. He still had a girl missing and he needed to ensure her
safety. It seemed Macaulay was the man after her.
“The uniforms will be there first. Let’s hope he was at home,” said Hope.
As the car pulled up in front of the town address, Macleod saw the stereotypical Scottish home. Two floors and a grey pebble dash that made sure any drabness inside the house would be reflected on the exterior.
Stepping out of the car, he met a police constable. “Sir, the suspect was not at home but his wife and kids were. PCs Ross and Maclean are interviewing her now. She’s not in a great way.”
“I’m sure,” said Hope, “This is going to be all over the community.”
“No, ma’am. He hit her. Badly.” The young PC looked at Hope and saw her bruised face. “Even worse than you got it, Ma’am.”
“Okay, Constable, thank you. Hope, you go in and see how our uniformed colleagues are doing. Get an address for any friends. Also where does he go on his own? Does he have any lock ups? The usual stuff. I’ll make sure Allinson’s got the word out to everyone.”
“Sir,” responded Hope and disappeared inside the front door.
Macleod rang into the station on his mobile but Allinson had everything underway. He was proving to be thorough. Macleod took a piece of paper showing a photocopy of the book in the massage parlour. One of the more expensive accounts had an IM initial with it. Well that tallies, he thought, but there will be another two if I’m not mistaken that will tally with his cohorts from last night.
“Constable, is the car gone?”
“No, sir. Both family cars are here, his and hers.”
“Okay, we need to keep an eye on any stolen vehicles. Call into the station and tell them the murder team want to know if there are any stolen cars reported.”
“Yes sir, it’ll stand out, we don’t tend to get any stolen vehicles here. There’s nowhere to go. You’d have to book it on the ferry.”
“Good, and car hire?”
“Advised, sir. Going to call us with any new bookings.”
It was all being covered, bit by bit. The whole thing seemed open and shut. Macaulay had started seeing Sara and then couldn’t let it go. Wanted more than what he paid for. Very neat. Too neat. And then there was the whole cover story for the councillor, one that patently was not true.
Macleod had a feeling the answer was not in the here and now but rather in the past. He still could not get over Sara’s tactic of a massage parlour, keeping a boyfriend oblivious to her true feelings for women and yet making money off men when she was not of that persuasion. He couldn’t imagine himself entertaining men to make money when he was interested in women. Surely it would work the same the other way round. Wouldn’t it?
As he looked about the street, he saw the house being sealed off and teams arriving to search it. The day was damp and drizzling now, the earlier bright of the day overtaken by grey cloud and a stickiness closing in. Macleod remembered days like these in summer and of how a mist formed around the harbour. These were days when you had to just get out and about and hope the dreaded midge did not appear, days when you prayed for a little wind.
Hope appeared through the front door of the house and seemed excited. “I think we might know where they are. Apparently he has two buddies, been close since their young days. Angus “flower” Fraser and Donnie Smith, also known as Donnie “Youngs” for some reason. They apparently have a small hut up by Ness on the Westside. Has a boat he takes out sometimes but it’s laid up now for repair. Hut belongs to Donnie who’s single and a real loner other than with these two. Apparently she was asking him where he’d been last night and got a battering for it.”
“Okay, but does she know that’s where he has gone?”
“Not for definite,” said Hope. “But she did hear him on the mobile and reckoned he was going there.”
“Okay, so it’s not a definite and it’s a fair way away. Take some of the uniforms from here, the big ones that look like they can handle themselves and check it out. That’s if you’re okay?”
Hope looked at him as if he had asked a daft question. But her face was bruised, deep red in paces, turning purple. And if she felt as sore as he did then it was a more than justified question. “Okay, but look after yourself, let the uniforms take the lead, yes? You’re still injured.”
Hope nodded but Macleod had the feeling that his ideas might just be ignored. As he watched her rounding up the troops, he was caught up in her positivity and sheer directness. That’s how his wife would have been, he was sure of it. Without all the pressure borne on her by this place. Then a thought struck him.
“McGrath, before you go.” Hope came over. “How easy is it for a lesbian to be with a man and make it seem normal, in fact as if she’s enjoying it. “
Hope stared at him. “How easy would be for you to be with a man?”
“That’s what I thought, yet Sara managed it. There’s something deeper. I need to do a bit of digging. Go get our man.”
Hope nodded and Macleod noted the arrival of Allinson behind her. He also saw the longing look at Hope as she got into her car. Poor lad, thought Macleod.
“Allinson, take charge here and ring me with any details. I’m going back to base to search something, okay. Hope’s on her way to our man with some heavies. Might be done soon.”
Allinson seemed a little surprised but he nodded and headed into the house while Macleod got a lift back to the station from a constable. What was bothering him was the information Hope had given him about Sara’s mother and how she had disappeared abroad. If his instincts were right and Sara was somehow conducting a trawl through various men to find someone who had harmed her mother then he would need to find some evidence to back this up. It would certainly give some motive to silence Sara.
Macleod sat in front of the PC and fought hard to search his way through to the case file for Sara’s mother. It was a simple entry in many ways, after all she had died whilst abroad so there was little else to be said. But Macleod wanted more, needed to know if there was any rumour around at the time, something more than a daughter’s intuition or wild thoughts. The file showed a DC, who was on secondment at the time, as signing off on the issue and Macleod recognised the name.
Norman Lovett. Four years retired and thank goodness for that. He could not handle the new style of policing, the new style of life, gender equality and all the rest of it. And he had been a bit of a brute too. But not dirty, not dodgy, just very heavy handed. And someone who did not like Macleod with his church background. Still, this was business and the number needed to be called.
Macleod was somewhat apprehensive as the telephone rang but it was a woman’s voice that greeted him.
“Hello, this is Detective Inspector Macleod, I’m looking for Norman, would he be available?”
“He’ll be available for a drink and that’s about it.” The woman sounded disgusted.
“It really is quite urgent ma’am, would you have a number I can contact him on?”
“Do you know the Drum on the west side of Glasgow? If you get their number they might have him. That’s where he’s been falling over lately. And tell him from me, he can bloody well sleep there in his own shit. If he comes near my bed I’ll brain him.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” And with that Macleod hung up the phone. He knew the pub, he’d seen many a good officer end up in there on a bad day. Macleod was probably one of the few who had ever ordered an orange juice in there without something potent in the glass as well. After checking the database, Macleod found the pub’s number and called. A rather dubious sounding individual told him to wait a few moments before a voice he recognised came on.
“Macleod you old shit, what do you want with me? I think I’m a bit beyond your salvation these days.”
“Norman, I need your help. About a case you ran up in Stornoway when you were up here.”
“For frig’s sake man, I can’t remember last week let alone ten years ago.”
Macleod shook his head at the telephone. “Try. Have a dead girl on my hands. Name of Sara
Hewitt. You looked into her mother’s death. Died abroad. No body returned. I was wondering was there anything untoward.”
“If she was anything like her mother she probably deserved it. I’m sure she was banging different blokes or something. Tasty looker mind from the photographs. But she pissed away off on holiday and didn’t come back. Left the wee girl behind with the stepdad. I thought he might have had something funny going on but he was sound. In fact I reckon the mother had been playing away on him. She had a name.” Macleod could hear a drink being consumed.
“Anything concrete?”
“If there was anything concrete I wouldn’t have signed it off as nothing, would I?”
“But any rumours about the mother, like who she was seeing? Who was the other guy?”
A snort came down the telephone. “Guys, frigging hundreds of guys. Like I said, a slapper. But there were other rumours, rumours which in that place were dynamite, especially back then. Not like the dyke friendly days of today.”
Macleod rolled his eyes. He struggled with the new genders and openness but it was this sort of abusive thinking that caused the drive for openness.
“You think she had a female lover?”
“That’s what they said. Maybe that’s what did it, the scandal of being found out. Maybe that’s why she went away.”
Macleod felt that this would be it, the total sum of information from a drunk man. “Okay Norman, well, I hope retirement’s suiting you.”
“Retirement, like you give a shit about my retirement. The day we stopped beating the scum on a Saturday night was the day this Police force died, the day...”
Macleod hung up. He recognised the tale that was coming and wanted no part of the obscenities that would no doubt follow. He had an idea but he also had no proof. Looking around the investigation room, he sought someone enterprising. He did not know most of the officers but he decided his intuition would work its magic.
There was a rather chubby faced policewoman at her desk, who seemed to be scanning through a multitude of things on her computer. Anyone that could use these instruments of the devil shone high above others in Macleod’s opinion. She would do.