A Deviant Breed (DCI Alec Dunbar series)

by Stephen Coill

‘Hence she’s riding shotgun for you and it’s the perfect case for her to cut her teeth on, Alec, and the perfect job to test your template for the NHSCU I’d have thought.’

  Dunbar cringed, ‘N-H-S-C-U, bit of a clunky acronym don’t you think?’

  Watt shrugged. ‘Until ye come up with a better one. Look! Give her a chance, mon’. Jobs like this are slow burners. It’ll allow her time to digest the nuances of a major enquiry and learn the craft from a master.’

  ‘Flattery’ll get ye’ naewhere,’ he grumbled.

  ‘She’s on the team sheet, get used to it.’

  Dunbar nodded reluctantly. ‘Policy Book?’

  ‘I’ll run that, best that I keep an eye on the purse strings. I know you – you’ll be doling out overtime hand over fist.’ At that Watt strode away.

  Dunbar shrugged then nodded, quietly relieved that his boss had opted to run the enquiry’s policy book; he had always hated the administrative side of his job.

  ‘Ancient blood feuds, skulls, archae-friggin’-ologists!’ He grunted, eyeing his briefing notes before slapping them against his palm. ‘Why do I always get the weird ones?’

  ***

  Dunbar entered the incident room and scanned his team. All were busy bar two DCs whose names escaped him, one winding up the other about Hearts’ precarious financial problems, form and precarious position in the Scottish Football League.

  ‘Falk,’ Dunbar barked. His trusty Glaswegian DS snapped around.

  ‘Take DC Hibs there with you and remind him what can be achieved whilst wearing a green and white shirt.’ Diehard Celtic fan Falk chuckled. The DC opened his mouth to object then thought better of it, ‘Inspector – you’re with me,’ and after a beat, ‘Heart of Midlothian.’

  ‘Greg Reece, sir,’ the other DC snapped back nervously.

  Yes, of course it was, he remembered now. ‘Bodies that have turned up less their heids, that’s men only – between the ages of forty and pensionable age – start looking.’

  The detective constable’s eyes widened and with a sigh he plonked himself in front of a computer monitor. ‘Where sir?’

  ‘National database, I should imagine, hey, Inspector.’

  Briony Tyler nodded unconvincingly, ‘Bit of a long shot.’

  ‘Absolutely, but at least he’ll discover that there’s a lot harder things in life than being a Hearts supporter – and we’ve gotta’ start somewhere.’ DC Reece looked up from his monitor and sneered. ‘Speaking of which, let’s go see our crime scene. Past time we went to see what all the fuss was about, eh!?’ Dunbar was already heading for the door.

  ‘Who do you support boss?’ DC Reece called after him.

  ‘My team kick an oval ball,’ he replied without looking back. ‘And a little too often for my liking last season,’ he muttered as Briony Tyler hurriedly logged off her laptop computer and snatched her coat from the back of her chair.

  ***

  ‘Where did he come from?’ Dunbar asked as he started the car.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Reece! I asked for Bob Little. He’s always been my go-to guy for office manager’s back-stop.’ Dunbar grumbled weaving through the city traffic on his way out of the city.

  ‘DC Little’s tied up with the Monaghan loan-sharking trial,’ Tyler offered gazing out of the nearside window. ‘DC Reece has just finished a Drugs Squad secondment.’

  ‘Explains the ear stud and hairdo. Well, he’s not on Drugs Squad now, so that can go.’

  ‘The hair or the ear stud?’

  ‘In a perfect world – both! But I’ll settle for the jewellery, he looks like a feckin’ rent boy.’ An exaggeration that the newly appointed DI let pass without comment. After a short time stewing over it, Dunbar eventually huffed, ‘Monaghan trial, waste of time.’

  She turned and eyed him quizzically. ‘From what I hear sticking Gordon Monaghan in the dock for anything could hardly be considered a waste of time.’

  ‘In principle but – he’ll walk – he always does.’

  ‘Perhaps not this time.’

  ‘Trust me. He’ll intimidate or buy the jury and witnesses. Either way he’ll walk. And if he cannae nobble the jury or scare off the witnesses, Bull Heid’ll cop a plea and keep his boss out’ve it.’

  ‘Bull Heid,’ she repeated with a scowl.

  ‘Bryan Docherty, aka Bull Heid.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why didn’t Bull Heid cop one from the outset and save his boss the bother of a trial at all?’

  ‘Doc’s playing the odds. He’d rather have his most effective debt collector and jaw breaker-in-chief on the outside but will sacrifice him if he has to.’

  ‘Ruthless.’

  ‘Utterly.’

  ‘Why do they call him, Doc?’

  Dunbar half turned and frowned. ‘How long were you with NCIS?’

  ‘Not long enough to learn everything there is to know about every criminal on the database.’

  ‘Not even Edinburgh’s would-be Kingpin? Tschh!’ Tyler blushed then bristled as Dunbar continued, ‘after making the transition from football hooligan to gangland enforcer his opening gambit was: “Did somebody send for a doctor?” Before cutting some poor bugger. That, and the fact he favoured a surgical scalpel ‘cos it was easy to conceal.’

  ‘Nasty bastard.’

  ‘Very – but sharper than any tool he ever wielded. Never, ever underestimate that mon.’

  They travelled in relative silence until he turned off the A68 onto the 687. ‘So are you going to tell me where Professor Geary knows you from before we get there? Or are we going to have another uncomfortable encounter at the crime scene?’ Tyler eyed him suspiciously. ‘You’re not gonna’ try an’ kid me she was mistaken are you?’

  Tyler let out a low sigh. ‘She and Professor Holmquist spoke at a Gay and Lesbian Police Officers’ Association dinner at Tulliallan Castle during my Inspector’s course.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘So you’re –’ Dunbar bit his tongue.

  ‘Ever been to a gay bar?’ Her question only added to his confusion.

  ‘Err, yes, yes I have.’

  ‘And are you gay, sir?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well – I thought the meeting might prove illuminating, and it did.’

  ‘So you’re not –’ He hesitated again, electing merely to flash a knowing look.

  ‘Currently single,’ she eyed him askance with the vaguest hint of a wicked grin, ‘broke up with my last boyfriend, several months ago, but occasionally I have found myself attracted to women I have met. However, I have never felt a strong enough attraction to another woman to take the next step.’ She glanced sideways and smirked. ‘Yet!’ She saw one of his eyebrows twitch and the slightest suggestion of a smile, he was a hard one to read. Intrigued? Turned off? – Turned on? She couldn’t tell.

  ‘Okay – but Geary and Holmquist are –’

  ‘An item, I know,’ she cut in, ‘or at least they were – it was a while ago and we met all but briefly – the Professor must have a photographic memory.’

  ‘Once seen,’ Dunbar offered with a grin, Tyler smiled back and rather surprisingly he felt a stirring such was the effect of her smile. Little wonder she made such a memorable impression on the professor. ‘So why did you pretend you hadn’t met before?’

  ‘It might have triggered deeper discussion. Shelagh Geary’s a quite passionate advocate of openness in the workplace – which would have led to speculation and we need the team focussed on the job at hand, not my sexuality.’

  Dunbar nodded his agreement, the girl showed promise. ‘I’m afraid, looking like you do that’s easier said than done, lass,’ he added with a wry smile.

  ***

  The deeply rutted track to Braur Glen could be done at a stroll even by a moderately fit person but proved quite testing to a man recovering from multiple injuries. Having been assured his leg would repair relatively quickly if he stuck to the regime the physiotherapist recommended
– which he had, if not quite as religiously as she would have liked, Dunbar was disappointed by how weak his right leg still was. The steady climb from where they had abandoned the car had taken its toll and Dunbar’s limp became more pronounced with each step as they neared the crime scene. For him though, the embarrassment of struggling to keep up with Tyler outweighed the pain. He made a mental note to load up with painkillers for any future hikes up to the glen.

  Fortunately he had had the presence of mind to pop his walking stick in the car and was glad of it when faced by the winding path. Not for him one of those carbon fibre extending jobs ramblers these days seem unable to function without. No. In keeping with his individual sense of style he’d employed a family heirloom after shedding his crutches some months ago. A sturdy length of willow with a palm-sized knobbed head passed down from father to son who in turn had inherited it from his father.

  ‘Braw enough for walkin’ oot’ an’ strang enough te fell a mon’ wi’ yan clout,’ as his grandpa used to say of his trusty ‘kebbie’. And he probably had felled a few poachers with it during his lifetime in service as a gillie on the Duke of Roxburghe’s estate.

  ***

  Professor Geary had watched his laboured approach and winced with pity as he hobbled over to her, which only served to deepen his sense of inadequacy.

  ‘Dear me, Chief Inspector, should you be –’

  ‘No he shouldn’t,’ an equally worried looking DI Tyler cut in.

  ‘Don’t fuss, I’m fine,’ he retorted testily as he scanned the area, aware that the two women had exchanged knowing looks and instantly regretted being so short with Tyler. ‘Always beats me how you people make sense of a few holes in the ground,’ he continued.

  ‘Like you at a crime scene – it comes with practice, you develop an eye for it and this place proved a little easier than some. Skeletons without heads, bodies unceremoniously dumped into pits and no grave goods. A fallow-field now – a killing field back then.’ Dunbar hobbled over to a strange looking wheeled device. ‘Please don’t touch that, Chief Inspector – very sensitive and extremely expensive.’

  He eyed her curiously. ‘One of those thingy-me-bobs for finding stuff that’s buried?’

  ‘Ground penetrating radar.’ His eyes drifted across the site as unconsciously he shifted his weight using his stick and swung his aching right leg back and forth. ‘What happened? A fall was it?’ she asked.

  Dunbar ignored her, his gaze seemed fixed upon one of her students conducting a geophysics survey a hundred yards away. ‘And that?’

  ‘Magnetometer, another essential piece of field archaeology kit.’

  ‘Along with the people who operate it.’

  ‘Of course, Zoe’s very keen on the geophys side of our work.’ As Geary spoke Zoe stopped and turned to face them as if she had heard them but could not possibly have done so. ‘Cue another Sebastian rant.’

  Dunbar eyed the professor quizzically.

  ‘Seb thinks we’re trying to cover too much ground in too little time.’

  At that moment Zoe did a double take and fixed on Dunbar. He smiled, only for her to complete her about-turn and march off in the opposite direction. He turned around to see Professor Geary’s face still furrowed with concern. Why was the cause of his limp of such concern?

  ‘RTA – some months ago,’ he offered, tapping the side of his right leg gently with his stick, hoping that would suffice.

  ‘Road Traffic Accident,’ Tyler added helpfully, seeing her puzzled look and sensing Dunbar held no desire to discuss it. She was right.

  ‘Oh dear, what happened?’

  Dunbar scowled and looked back at her blankly then glanced at Briony Tyler who merely raised an eyebrow. Recalling Terry Watt’s cautionary words after the post briefing exchange he sighed.

  ‘I cannae remember.’

  Tyler eyed Geary knowingly whilst she remained fixed on Dunbar.

  Dunbar cleared his throat. ‘I was driving back from Aberdeen and crashed my – actually it was my wife’s car – tschh! She loved that car.’

  ‘But was relieved that you –’

  ‘Of course,’ he cut in, however, writing off her Mercedes SLK took some getting over. Elspeth plunged into a mini-depression for weeks afterwards; a detail he was not about to share with his two companions. ‘Anyway, it left the road but I have no memory of how or why. One minute I was driving along the A9 – the next week I wake up in ICU.’

  ‘Oh dear – sounds like you were very lucky but – how frustrating.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He eyed the mud caked, long wheel based Land Rover, ‘and now I’m wishing I’d invested in a four-by-four instead of a Beemer.’

  ‘Seb, have you a minute?’ Geary called out over her shoulder. A moment later her colleague stepped out from behind his cavernous finds tent and into the daylight. Dr Vasquez looked the stereotypical field archaeologist from his busy gilet, to his grubby cargo pants worn through at the knees and horn-rimmed spectacles on a cord that was lost underneath his bushy beard and long hair. Vasquez shielded his eyes and scanned the site.

  ‘What is she doing way over there?’ Vasquez asked, and Geary rolled her eyes. ‘Zoe! That will do – I need that data,’ he shouted. Zoe stopped in her tracks and wheeled about.

  ‘This is Chief Inspector Dunbar and Inspector Tyler, Seb, they are tasked with trying to solve the mystery of our rogue skull.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Vasquez responded curtly, as his eyes, drawn to what Zoe was doing, narrowed quizzically.

  ‘Dr Sebastian Vasquez,’ Geary announced. ‘Who, for some inexplicable reason, deserted us during the long vac for Edinburgh University’s campus,’ Professor Geary continued with a grin as the two cops turned to face him.

  ‘It’s called ambition, Shelagh, and better then, than mid-term I’d have thought.’ Vasquez turned to face the detectives. ‘How do you do,’ he said, as he accepted Dunbar’s hand only to see the corner of the detective’s mouth curl into a smile that he clearly could not control. ‘Something amusing you, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just,’ he smirked, ‘Shelagh and Sebastian, it sounds like a folk combo.’

  ‘We are – sort of – well, members of a ceilidh band at least.’ Professor Geary interjected. ‘Seb’s the percussionist and I – the caller.’

  ‘Cool,’ Dunbar offered insincerely as Tyler chewed her bottom lip.

  ‘I suspect you consider us anything but, Chief Inspector,’ Vasquez responded humourlessly.

  Dunbar raised his hands. ‘You got me – not my scene.’

  ‘Any more than three piece Harris Tweed is mine. I wasn’t sure whether the local Laird or local law was paying us a visit,’ Vasquez retorted snippily much to Tyler’s amusement. ‘Nice to meet you, now I really must get back to –’ he never finished the sentence. ‘And, Shelagh, will you please speak to them about wandering all over the place willy-nilly with your bloody gadgets. We cannot excavate the whole damned Lammermuir range,’ he hissed, before wheeling about and returning to his tent, to continue with whatever it was he had been dragged away from.

  ‘Archaeological call, Seb – you stick to historical referencing,’ Professor Geary called after him then waited until he was back in the finds tent. ‘Grouch!’ she added. ‘This is what happens when you let wanabe Deans loose at a dig.’ At that she strolled away across the site.

  Dunbar eyed Tyler, opened and closed his jacket and brushed it down with his palm, ‘designed for this environment as it happens – and he recognised it as Harris Tweed – practical and timeless,’ he added defensively. Tyler silently questioned whether environmental considerations had played any part in his sartorial choices.

  ***

  Zoe unbuckled her harness, gently eased the magnetometer onto a trestle table as Dunbar turned to face her.

  ‘What are the odds?’ She asked before greeting DI Tyler with an insincere, snap smile. Tyler was puzzled by the question and even more by Dunbar’s response.

  He shrugged, ‘Prett
y good I’d have thought. We’re both in the business of digging up the past – you the distant – me the recent and those two worlds collided right here.’

  ‘Yeah! The past, no escaping it is there?’ Zoe huffed. She removed something from the device and headed for Vasquez’s tent.

  Tyler eyed him quizzically. ‘I take it you know her?’

  Dunbar looked at Tyler then turned to see Zoe glance back coldly before the tent flap closed. ‘I thought I did.’

  ‘She seems to know you.’

  ‘No, she just thinks she does.’ Dunbar turned about and hobbled away in the opposite direction. Tyler’s puzzled gaze flitted back and forth between the girl and her DCI as Eugene Grant emerged from the tent. He exchanged a friendly ‘Hello’ with Zoe as she entered it.

  ‘Fascinating stuff – I think I chose the wrong field of forensic science,’ Eugene said.

  ‘That was weird,’ Tyler responded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That student – and the boss. I got the feeling they know each other but he –’

  ‘Zoe?’ he responded brightly, before adding matter-of-factly, ‘his daughter,’ as he scanned the site. ‘Not much more I can do here – can put my time to better use elsewhere.’

  A stunned Tyler turned to watch her boss hobbling towards Falk and a detective constable who had just arrived on the scene.

  ***

  Like him Zoe had grown to accept that her mother’s death had not been an accidental over-consumption of prescribed medication and alcohol; rather, that she had taken her own life, but not before his in-laws’ bitterness had rubbed off on her. Even Elaine, his former mother-in-law, had eventually conceded, although she would never speak the word suicide because of Jim. Maggie’s doting, pious dad, would not – could not come to terms with the truth; could not bear the idea she had chosen purgatory over the life God had ordained for her. Disappointment was Maggie’s cross according to Jim, and Alec Dunbar had been left in no doubt as to who and what lay at the heart of her dissatisfaction.

  ***

  ‘Took your time,’ Dunbar grumbled.

  ‘Took a wrong turn,’ Falk replied.

  ‘The sat-nav said –’ DC Donald began defensively.