Troubled Waters

by Galbraith, Gillian

  He held up his hands in a dumb show, letting the drops bounce off the palms, then shaking himself, rubbing his shoulders to let her know that he was not just wet but cold.

  ‘Please, darling. Open the door for daddy, eh?’

  She remained still as a statue as if he was not there, immune to him, ignoring the fact that he, a man, was begging her and demeaning himself in the process. Suddenly, something inside him snapped. Enraged by her disobedience, her blatant refusal to bend to his will, he raced round to her window and banged hard against it with his fist, watching her start in her seat. Fleeing him, she slid across into the driver’s seat. As he continued battering the window, she bowed her head, clamping her hands over her ears and rocking to and fro in her distress.

  ‘Open the door, you stupid little cow!’ he roared, beside himself with rage, hammering on the window with both his fists, then aiming a furious kick at the car door. Bending further forward as if to escape him, her face almost flat against the steering wheel, the girl began to tremble uncontrollably.

  She would not defy him. If need be he would smash the car window to get at her, come up with an explanation to satisfy Lambie about that later. Despite the rain now hammering down, he saw a few metres away a ring of soot-blackened boulders used by some past picnic-maker for a barbecue. Pushing a straggle of wet hair to one side, he strode over to them, already hearing in his head the satisfying noise of window glass shattering.

  As he picked the largest one up, the Escort with his wife and the two policewomen drew up behind a straggle of trees, unseen by him. While they fumbled with their seatbelts, desperate to get out as quickly as possible, he brought the rock down onto the driver’s side-window of his car, turning it momentarily opaque, into a mosaic of a million pieces, before shattering. His wife, the first one out of the police car, shouted, ‘Jimmy!’

  He turned instinctively towards her voice, smithereens of glass falling all around him like drops of water. Immediately, the child in the car rose up through the shattered window and plunged the ebony-handled knife into his chest. Seconds later, a flicker of a smile transforming her features, she withdrew the blade.

  Slowly, the man swivelled back towards his daughter, a look of amazement on his rain-spattered face. The boulder in his hand thudded to the ground and, gradually, he began to sink, his legs no longer made of flesh and bone, collapsing as if shaped out of sand. A fountain of blood jetted in all directions, and as it sprayed over the girl’s face she began to scream, a high-pitched river of sound flowing endlessly from her open mouth.

  Mrs Stimms raced towards the car, looking frantically first at her fallen husband, then at the screaming child. Carefully stepping over the man’s still shuddering body, she opened the door of the vehicle and bent inwards, immediately cradling the child’s head against her breast, murmuring softly, ‘There, there . . . everything’s going to be alright, Diana, my darling! Everything’s going to be fine.’

  Silent, body-racking sobs replaced the piercing scream and in the ensuing quiet all that could be heard above the pitter-patter of the rain was the cry of the gulls as they circled overhead, blowing around like flakes of ash in the storm-darkened sky. Gently, the woman manoeuvred her child out of the car, over the prostrate body of her father and into the shelter of the trees.

  Once they were away, Alice Rice knelt down beside the man on the wet grass and took his hand in her own. DC Cairns approached them, her head bare and her hair drenched in the downpour.

  ‘Is the ambulance coming?’ Alice asked, fumbling urgently on the man’s slippery wrist in search of a pulse.

  ‘It’s on its way – I gave them instructions on how to find us.’

  ‘The forensic team for the car?’

  The constable nodded, then seeing that the door of the Mazda was still hanging open, she carefully pushed it closed with her elbow.

  ‘Have we anything in the car to put over him in the meanwhile?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you take Mrs Stimms and the child to the station? I’ll wait here with him until the medics and back-up arrive. We’ll need to go over the house in Starbank as soon as possible, although between his cleaning and her cleaning God knows if any traces will be left.’

  Elaine Bell was shaking her pedometer when Alice entered her office. The device seemed to have stuck, recording nothing of her return journey from the ladies as if she had travelled on a cushion of air like a hovercraft, or flown. ‘Cheap tat!’ she muttered crossly, dropping it in her drawer and transferring some of her attention to her subordinate. Something radical would have to be tried, as despite sticking to a diet of air, ounces were being gained not lost. Sport of some kind might be the answer.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ she asked.

  ‘He is. He lost a lot of blood, she nicked an artery. The ambulance crew saved his life, the doctors reckon. He was well enough to confess – only too keen once he understood it might have an effect on his sentence.’

  ‘And the child? How’s she?’

  ‘Alright now. She was terrified when we picked her up, wouldn’t let go of her mother, moaning incessantly. The medics checked her out, and she’s with her now, at the granny’s house. Everyone accepts it’s for the best, for the moment at least. A counsellor’s on hand.’

  ‘Why didn’t the child’s school report her missing?’

  ‘It was run by the Elect, one of their schools, and Mrs Stimms told them she was off ill, appendicitis or something.’

  ‘OK. What have you found otherwise?’ the DCI inquired, looking out of her window as if taking in the view, all the while slowly raising and lowering herself on her toes, using her calf muscles.

  ‘Quite enough. We’ve got the knife. Ranald phoned from Stimms’ office, he’s been checking out the factory. There’s a lock-up there and Hamish Evans’ car was in it, so that explains why we never managed to find it. I reckon he transported his daughter’s body in the boot of his own car. There are traces of blood and a woman’s shoe, just the one, was behind the spare petrol can. Her mother reckons it was Miranda’s shoe. The back seat was soaked through with dried blood – all he’d done was lay a couple of rugs over the mess. I’m pretty sure it’ll turn out to be Hamish Evans’ blood.’

  ‘Where did he dump the bodies? Presumably it was him who put them in the sea? Mind you, did he not have help?’

  ‘Have you a sore neck, Ma’am?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘You seemed to be moving your head from side to side – I thought maybe you had a stiff neck.’

  ‘No . . . I’m simply taking in the whole of the view.’ The woman turned round to face her colleague, her head now completely still.

  ‘He’s adamant that they were both dropped into the Forth from the same place, the place we found him with Diana. That makes some sort of sense for her location, but for the Belhaven Bay body it is odd.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he says he dropped Miranda in the water on the Monday night, then went home. That’s where Hamish found him. The boy was stabbed, he says, because he threatened him. Obviously, knowing what he knew, the boy was a threat to him full stop. Supposedly, Stimms dumped the body in the same place early the next morning. Somehow in only, what – less than five full days? – the body travelled all that way down the coast.’

  ‘Too far?’

  ‘Far too far, taking into account the changing tides and the speed of the currents round about. I spoke to the Leith harbour master and he had a possible explanation. He thinks that whilst the body was floating about somewhere near the bridges, some ship with a bulbous bow may have caught him on it – over it. Apparently, it’s happened to small whales before. In the Forth, there are lots of such craft – the ferry, some of the tankers and container ships coming down from Grangemouth.’

  ‘Why didn’t he end up in Zeebruge, Ostend or wherever they’re going, then?’

  ‘It’s all speculation, of course, but his explanation is that it tends to get rougher out of the river,
out of the lee of the land. The transition point is often round about the Bass Rock – you get south-easterly gales blowing up there, making the boat pitch more. That’s not so far from Tyninghame, from the bay.’

  ‘Well, it all sounds a bit far-fetched to me, but we needn’t worry ourselves about it. Not if Stimms has confessed to the killings anyway . . .’

  ‘You’re doing it again, Ma’am. That neck-bending thing.’

  ‘It’s my neck, Inspector, and I can do more than one thing at a time.’

  ‘A 360-degree turn next, maybe. The lift-hitching theory is the only one we’ve got. If you’re interested there’s a Youtube video of a whale, trapped across the projection on a ship’s bow.’

  ‘Have you put your theory to Dr Cash?’

  ‘It’s not my theory. Needless to say she didn’t have a moment to spare to consider it, being “busy, busy, busy”, but in the tick she allowed me she seemed to concede that it was possible. The best I could get out of her was that it would not be inconsistent with her findings.’

  ‘What the hell. As I say, he’s confessed anyway, wherever the dead bodies were disposed of. Others can puzzle that one out if they have to. So you’re satisfied that there were no accomplices amongst the Elect helping him to move the bodies, putting them in the water?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t think he had help. I’m not sure he’d have needed it. Jimmy Stimms is small but fit as a fiddle, whippety-thin, wiry. I honestly think he’d manage on his own. That’s certainly what he maintains. His house was brimming with trophies for cycling.’

  ‘Whippety-thin? Cycling, you say? That’s interesting . . . of course, you have to wear Lycra for it, don’t you? I’m not sure I could get away with that – too skin-tight. Now, I gather you’re off for the rest of the day. Got anything planned?’

  ‘I’m collecting some keys, Ma’am, nothing more.’

  The lock on the faded green front door was old-fashioned but functional. With the turn of the key, the dog rushed straight inside. His tail was wagging furiously as if he was on a hunt, his nose twitching, ready to explore every room and then race out into the garden. Hannibal’s approach was less whole-hearted, more subtle and cautious. Freed from his cage, he patrolled, in a sedate fashion, every available inch of her new property and then lay down in the patch of sunlight on the bare wooden floorboards, rolling onto his tummy in apparent ecstasy. Alice simply breathed in the air, still unable to believe her good fortune in acquiring such a jewel of a place. In time, she would move some furniture, pictures, and crockery there, but in the meanwhile a sleeping bag on the floor would do, plus a few feeding bowls for her companions. She stood in the doorway, looking out over the loch and the lavender blue Lomond Hills in the distance, marvelling at the silence and the newness of it all.

  For a second, her pleasure curdled as a pang of sorrow hit her, coming from nowhere, at the thought that she, and she alone, was enjoying, experiencing, such a wonder. Had Ian been there he would have been pacing about the place, considering where an additional window ought to be situated, designing the layout of the kitchen in his head, mulling over likely colour schemes. And talking to her all the time. Change stimulated him, brought all his creativity to the fore. In his absence, she would have to make do with his pictures, and her memories. This place would not be an amalgam of their tastes as the Broughton Street flat had been, but her undiluted taste for good or ill.

  The sound of car wheels on the sparse gravel leading to the cottage put paid to her musings and she went out to see who had arrived. Maybe it was just the post, or someone lost, in search of directions to somewhere else. Instead, she recognised the small figure climbing out of his slightly battered Polo, a bottle of red wine clutched in his hand.

  ‘Alice,’ Father Vincent Ross said, almost apologetically, ‘I happened to have this rather good Cabernet Sauvignon at home and it suddenly struck me that you might enjoy it. As a house-warming present? Also, if I’m honest, I’m dying to know how you fared with the Elect, my so-called “rivals”. Pah! By the way, is that an elderflower bush by the gate? In the summer we could make the most exquisite champagne from its blossoms. My last attempts exploded in their bottles, I don’t like to think how Satan escaped the shrapnel, but I’ve learnt my lesson. It’s just an idea. What do you think?’

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM POLYGON BY GILLIAN GALBRAITH

  FEATURING DS ALICE RICE

  BLOOD IN THE WATER

  This thrilling police-procedural debut from crime writer Gillian Galbraith introduces readers to Alice Rice, Edinburgh’s latest fictional detective and a new female presence in the macho world of crime detection. Galbraith draws on her own experience to give a realistic portrayal of the medical and legal worlds. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, Alice races against time and an implacable killer to solve a series of grisly murders amongst the professional elite of Edinburgh’s well-to-do New Town.

  WHERE THE SHADOW FALLS

  When the body of a retired sheriff is discovered in his grand house in the New Town of Edinburgh, Detective Sergeant Alice Rice finds herself hunting his killer. The search leads her to an unfamiliar world where wind-farm developers — with millions of pounds at stake — and protesters face each other with daggers drawn. Just as Alice thinks an answer is beginning to emerge, the sheriff’s lover is killed in an apparent hit-and-run accident. An unlikely coincidence or, as the search widens, is Alice now investigating a double murderer?

  DYING OF THE LIGHT

  Midwinter, a freezing night in Leith, near Edinburgh's red light district. A policewoman's flashlight stabs the darkness in a snow-covered cemetery. The circle of light stops on a colourless, dead face. So begins the hunt for a serial murderer of prostitutes in Gillian Galbraith's third Alice Rice mystery. Partly inspired by the real-life killings of prostitutes in Ipswich, this novel explores a hidden world where sex is bartered for money and drugs. Off-duty, Alice's home life continues its uneven course. Her romance with the artist Ian Melville offers the prospect of happiness, but is plagued by insecurity. Her demented but determined neighbour, Miss Spinnell, offers a new challenge to Alice's patience at every meeting.

  NO SORROW TO DIE

  As Heather Brodie kisses her lover goodnight, her disabled husband lies dead, his throat cut from ear to ear. Who wanted Gavin Brodie dead? Many people, including Gavin himself. Devastated by an incurable illness, he had begged to be allowed to die. When another terminally-ill man finds a knife-wielding intruder in his bedroom, DS Alice Rice concludes it is no coincidence and there may be a serial killer with a mission to get rid of the sick. This atmospheric thriller builds on the success of the first three Alice Rice mysteries, and it is a passionate tale of deception, betrayal and the value of life and love.

  THE ROAD TO HELL

  When the body of a half-clothed woman is discovered in an Edinburgh park, a murder investigation is launched. The victim has not been reported missing and there are few clues to her identity. Soon after, the naked corpse of a prominent clergyman is found, also in a park. DS Alice Rice wonders if the same killer is at work, and if so, what is the connection between the apparently motiveless attacks? The Road to Hell, the fourth in the series, takes the policewoman to new personal depths and along a trail that leads to some of Edinburgh's darkest and scariest corners.

  TROUBLED WATERS

  A young disabled girl is lost on a winter’s night in Leith, unable to help herself or find her way home. Someone is combing the streets, frantically searching for her. Within hours of her disappearance, a body is washed up on Beamer Rock, a tiny island in the Forth being used as part of the foundations for the new Queensferry bridge. No sooner has Detective Inspector Alice Rice discovered the identity of that body than another one is washed up on the edge of the estuary, in Belhaven Bay. What is the connection between the two bodies? Is another victim in the killer’s sight and if so, can Alice solve the puzzle before another life is taken? In this novel, the sixth in the Alice Rice Mystery series, appearances bel
ie reality, and truths and falsehoods become indistinguishable.

  FEATURING FATHER VINCENT ROSS

  THE GOOD PRIEST

  In the house of a Roman Catholic bishop a man lies in a pool of blood. Out in the bishop’s diocese the quiet life of parish priest Father Vincent Ross is about to be thrown into turmoil by a terrifying revelation. There are ugly scandals being hidden by the church he has served for so long, and a murderer is on the prowl. The police and the authorities are groping in the dark, but Father Ross has been given special information that he cannot disclose to anyone. It gradually dawns on him that he and he alone can unravel the mystery and bring the nightmare of violence to an end. He must put his personal safety, his reputation and finally his life on the line.