Cold Cuts

by Douglas Lindsay

  Pereira stood in the middle of the sitting room. She was tired, but, as usual, just not ready to go to bed. She needed the downtime, the space. Sitting on her own, with her own thoughts, no time pressure, no one to please, no one to answer to. Even if it was just half an hour, although the half hour would invariably become an hour, or two hours.

  What was her life when the best part of her day was sitting on her own, late in the evening, with nothing to do?

  Not so different from everyone else’s, she thought.

  Into the kitchen, fridge door, glass of Pinot Grigio, back through to the sitting room. Some nights she didn’t drink once the kids had gone to bed. Some nights she thought about it, and then drank. And some nights there was barely any thought process involved. It was automatic. And it was usually automatic when there was a case to be solved and her department was in the spotlight.

  Her eyes fell on her bag, and in that bag were the three porn movies that she hadn’t got round to watching the previous evening. Was there anything to be gained by looking through them? That, of course, like most police work, was an answer she’d only get once she’d looked at them.

  She didn’t really think she’d find anything, but maybe that wasn’t really why she was watching in the first place.

  Sip of wine, a sigh, and she took the DVDs from the bag. There was nothing to distinguish one of them from the others. She picked one and put it into the player, then sat back with the video remote, pressed play, and let her finger hover over the fast forward button.

  *

  It was forty-five minutes later, finding herself watching more, fast forwarding less, when it came. Second glass of wine, second DVD. The biggest scene she’d seen, in terms, at least, of the number of people. And not filmed in the usual, awful factory location. Perhaps this was one of the company’s newer films, when the budget had increased a little. Perhaps they’d already moved their studio away from the factory, leaving behind, as they had, the soiled sofa and bed.

  A large room, two double beds, maybe fifteen or sixteen people. Two-thirds women. This didn’t seem to be grime porn, if that was even a thing. This was just an orgy scene, like any other, the camera moving around the room, stopping to linger every now and again. Glass of wine to her lips, finger a little more detached from the fast forward button than it had been previously, when the camera came to linger on a woman entertaining two men. One behind, one in front.

  Pereira paused the DVD as the woman took the man’s erection from her mouth and smiled up at him, her lips moist.

  And there it was.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Pereira.

  Another couple of seconds, and then she turned off the player, ejected the DVD, put it back in the box, the three boxes back in her bag.

  She lifted her phone, two calls to make. Bain answered after one ring.

  “Boss,” he said.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked.

  “Watching TV. What’s up?”

  “Can you drive?”

  “I have been able to up until now,” he said.

  “I meant, have you had anything to drink?”

  “Just a beer. I’m good. What d’you need?”

  “We need to bring Hannity in,” said Pereira. “Just been going through the last of Moyes’s porn stash. She’s been lying to us.”

  “What? She’s not in a porn movie?” said Bain, astonished.

  “Oh, yes,” said Pereira.

  “Holy cow!”

  Pereira laughed, the words so incongruous.

  “Yeah, that’s about it, Marc. Holy cow. Can you go and get her? I need to call Mum, then I’ll be up. I don’t care about the time, I want to get into this right now.”

  “Sure. I’ll let you know when I’ve got her.”

  “Thanks.”

  She called her mum. As the phone rang, she looked at her wine glass. She’d had a glass and a half. Probably shouldn’t drive, but she’d have to be all right. She’d just have to be. She’d have a cup of coffee and two glasses of water while she waited for her mother to arrive, assuming she’d be able to.

  Didn’t want to think about what she could possibly do if she couldn’t. Would there be any option other than calling Lena?

  “Mum, sorry,” she said, as way of hello.

  *

  A quick unfolding. She got the call from Bain as she was settling in behind the wheel of her car. The snow was still lying, although it had not been added to for some time. Temperature due to climb during the night. The thaw would be in full force by early morning.

  Hannity had left the hotel about fifteen minutes before Bain had arrived. It was apparent that she hadn’t decided to check out, informing reception or otherwise, as her overnight things were still in the room. The boy, Kingdom, had accompanied her.

  “Crap,” Pereira had said. “We need to know where she’s going. Can you go to the station and get on it? We need sight of that licence plate. Can you get to the station?”

  “Already there, boss,” said Bain.

  “Thanks, Marc. On my way.”

  *

  By the time she arrived, they had Hannity passing traffic light cameras on her way out to Cumbernauld. The task of identifying the car had been much easier, given the relative lack of traffic on the road at this time of the evening. Once they had her in view, they had the surveillance capacity to keep hold of her.

  Pereira did not get out the car. Bain was waiting for her, and joined her, as she turned around in the car park and headed back out again.

  “You know exactly where we’re going yet?” she asked, turning right and heading towards the motorway.

  “She’s still on the move, but we’ve got sight of her. She’s been picked up by an unmarked on the other side of the town.”

  “Excellent.”

  “They’ll call it in as soon as she stops. Assuming she stops.”

  Pereira smiled.

  “Yes. Given how much a freak that weird boy-baby is, she might just be driving him around trying to get him to go to sleep, the way I used to with Robin.”

  “Is that a thing?” asked Bain. “Driving your kid around to get them to go to sleep?”

  “Yes, Marc, it’s a thing.”

  “What happens when you stop driving?”

  “There’s a one in five thousand chance you manage to transfer the baby successfully back into the cot.”

  Bain smiled. They drove along the wet road, the snow bright beneath the orange streetlights.

  CHAPTER 14

  They were now on a street of large homes set back far from the road, behind fences and walls and big front gardens. With fewer cars here during the day, there was still some snow on the road.

  “Next one on the left,” said Bain, “and there’re our people.”

  There was an old Ford Escort sitting on the opposite side of the road, a few yards back from the house, two women inside, keeping watch.

  Pereira slowed to a stop as she drew alongside, and lowered her window. The window of the Escort’s passenger door was lowered at the same time.

  “Hey,” said Pereira. “Thanks for waiting.”

  “That’s all right, ma’am,” said the sergeant. “She got here about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “And she went straight inside?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the boy?”

  “He went inside too, then she brought him back out a few minutes later. He’s in the car.”

  “OK, thanks,” said Pereira. “If you don’t mind waiting here a bit longer, we’ll try to get this cleared up as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  An exchanged smile, windows raised, and Pereira turned the car up the driveway.

  Past a snow-covered bush, and an ornate lamppost, the house was in front of them, elevated above the sloping front garden, with a central double door, two cars parked in front. Ellen Whittaker’s Aston Martin, and Hannity’s Ford Fiesta.

  Pereira parked the car behind the
Fiesta, the driveway not wide enough to drive around or park beside the other two cars. There was a light in the doorway, picking out the snow in the trees, and low light from one of the downstairs windows.

  They closed their doors quietly, and then walked round the Fiesta.

  There were footfalls in the snow from the driver’s door into the house. A further confusion of footprints on the steps, leading to and from the passenger door.

  “Jesus,” said Bain, jumping, as he walked ahead, looking into the car. “I mean, I knew the boy was going to be in there, and he still gives me the creeps.”

  Pereira looked down into the front passenger seat. Kingdom Hannity, asleep. Head resting back, but facing forward, upright, his eyes closed. She watched him for a moment, wondering if he really was asleep, then turned her back and followed Bain up the steps.

  “Ring the bell, or walk in unannounced if we can?” said Bain.

  Pereira stood by the front door, thinking it over. Not a decision to be made, really, until she knew whether they could just walk in. She reached forward and tried the handle. The door clicked open, and she looked at Bain and shrugged. Then she knocked on the door and pushed it further open. As they entered the house, she glanced over her shoulder, looking back into the car.

  Their eyes met. Kingdom, the boy in the front seat, wide awake, staring at her. She held his gaze for a moment, as disconcerting an experience as she could imagine, the cold, unfeeling eyes of the child looking right inside her, as though he could see and read her every fault as a parent.

  “Jesus,” said Bain again, as he followed her eyes. “Can we arrest that kid for being, like, super weird or something?”

  “Come on, we’ll worry about him in a minute,” said Pereira, and she turned away, knocked again on the door, and entered the house.

  Bain followed, took one more glance over his shoulder at the boy, and then closed the door behind them, shutting out the night and the snow and the eyes that looked into your soul.

  A hallway in a silent house. A Gauguin, of a woman lying on a bed, hung to the left of the door into the sitting room.

  An original? The house seemed opulent enough to support it. But would you hang an original Gauguin in your hallway, wondered Pereira. Only if you had something even better in the direct line of your favourite sitting room chair or your dining room table.

  There were lights on in the room to their left, and they turned in there, Pereira in front, pushing the door open. A warm room, an open fire with a moderate flame, a recently placed block of heavy wood at its centre. The room was illuminated by the flame and one other lamp at the rear, which was on a small table beside the figure of a stuffed fox in a peculiar upright stance.

  A loud tut of disappointment came from beside the fireplace at their entrance.

  Pereira stopped just inside, Bain walking around her and standing to her left. A moment, and then he walked quickly to the body slumped in the armchair to one side of the fire. There was no need to check for life. The throat had been slit. Blood had spilled in a great wave down the chest and stomach, so that the front of the body was soaked in dark red. A large, blood-soaked knife lay on the floor, almost as though it had fallen from the right hand.

  The figure sitting in the armchair on the other side of the fire looked up from her phone.

  “Didn’t expect to see you two. I’d have left earlier if I’d known.”

  “Why haven’t you already left?” asked Pereira.

  “Seemed a shame to waste the fire, you know? Dom still sleeping, by the way? Did you notice?”

  “Put the phone down,” said Pereira.

  Hannity looked curious, then slightly offended at the idea, and then turned the phone round for Pereira to see.

  “Just playing Mario,” she said. “I’m not filming you or nothing, don’t worry. You’re not going to be on YouTube.”

  “Put the phone down,” said Pereira, as Hannity turned it back round and continued playing.

  “Seriously, just let me get to the end of this level. I don’t want to pause it.”

  In the old days, thought Pereira, we could have been over there and whipped the damn thing out of her hand. Now just the act of doing so would give her grounds for complaint, and who knew how far it would go? In the old days, of course, she wouldn’t have had a damn mobile phone in her hand in the first place.

  “Turn the phone off,” snapped Bain, and he took a step towards her, so that he was now standing directly in front of the fire.

  She looked up, seemingly unsure on whether or not she should be smiling, then she looked past Bain at the corpse of Ellen Whittaker.

  “Wait, d’youse two think I did that? Seriously? That totally wisnae me, by the way.”

  Pereira held her gaze, dropping her head slightly as she did so. Time for someone to be a grown-up. Not so different from when one of your children, with crumbs around their lips, was denying eating the last piece of toast.

  This time she didn’t even have to say it, and finally Hannity clicked off the phone and placed it down between her thigh and the arm of the chair.

  “Wisnae me,” she said again, then she looked away, into the fire.

  “You want to tell us what happened here?” asked Bain.

  Hannity at first responded with a small grunt, an equally small movement of the head. Her arms, which had seemed restless since she’d put down the phone, as though they didn’t know what to do with themselves without technology to hand, folded across her chest. When she finally spoke, she did so without taking her eyes off the fire.

  “Nothing. Nothing to do with me.”

  “That’s what you said about the porn business,” said Pereira.

  A moment, then Hannity realised what she’d meant, and she smiled.

  “You saw that, eh? Enjoy yourself, love? Have a good watch? Not many of your type in those videos, mind.”

  “You want to tell us what happened?” asked Bain again, and Hannity rolled her eyes and shook her head, as though there was something incorrigible about Bain’s persistence.

  “Moyesy and Dirk were dead, and I thought, well if someone’s wrapping this whole thing up and running off with the cash, then I’ve a good idea who it’s going to be. And this crap with the body meat? Seriously, human flesh? Fuck would want to eat Moyesy, anyway? He was a fat, ugly prick. So I figures it out. Must be this eejit here. Her and that wee slapper Chantelle were wrapping up the porn business, they got rid of the men, they set the meat company up to fail, and they were getting the fuck out of Dodge.”

  She paused, looked between the two of them, then said, “I comes in here, found her like that. Must’ve killed herself. Felt guilty probably.”

  “Chantelle said she was taking revenge on the men for the way they’d treated her,” said Bain. “If Whittaker was part of the operation, why wasn’t Chantelle taking revenge on her too?”

  “I don’t know, do I?” said Hannity. “Ask her yourself. Maybe she was giving your dead friend here a pussy exemption,” and she smiled.

  “And Dirk’s wife?” asked Pereira. “Don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

  “She killed her,” said Hannity, pointing at Ellen Whittaker’s corpse. “Told me just before she killed herself.”

  “You just said you found her like this.”

  “Aye, well that didn’t happen. We chatted a bit first, she confessed to everything, then she killed herself. That is some fucked-up shit, by the way. Never seen anything like it.”

  “So, you’re just an innocent player in the whole sordid drama?” said Pereira. “You two were just sitting here, chatting, and then Whittaker was overcome by guilt, and decided to slit her own throat?”

  There was a noise behind them and they all turned. Kingdom Hannity was standing in the doorway, staring at Pereira. Hands at his sides, face expressionless, the same piercing eyes as before.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  He didn’t seem particularly interested in the blood-soaked corpse by the fire.
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  “I think you should wait in the other room,” said Pereira, then she looked at Bain.

  “Take the boy next door, and call this in, please, Marc. But first, get the two officers from outside in here.”

  “Sure,” he said, nodding.

  “I want to see Mummy,” said the boy.

  “Of course, Hun,” said Hannity. “Come over here. You want your supper?”

  The boy walked over towards her, and as he approached she lifted her top, moved the strap of her bra from her shoulder and pushed the cup down below her large right breast.

  Bain and Pereira held each other’s gaze for a moment, the words unspoken, then Bain nodded and left the room.

  Pereira turned back to Hannity, as the boy squeezed in beside her on the seat, took her breast in his right hand, and began to suck on the nipple. He kept his eyes on Pereira the whole time.

  “That’s about right,” said Hannity. “Actually, she called me over to confess everything, then killed herself. Such a shame, really, she seemed nice. Apart from, you know, she was a cunt.”

  CHAPTER 15

  12.59 a.m.

  The open plan office at the heart of the Serious Crime Unit was no busier than normal for the time of night, despite what had unfolded. There were, of course, a hundred thousand things to do as part of the investigation, and putting together the full story of the case and tying up the ends was likely to fill up much of their time from now until Christmas.

  But right now, at one in the morning, Pereira had decided there was no need to have all hands on deck. The drama had unfolded. As far as they were aware there was no one else involved, or at least, no one who was under threat, and beyond ensuring the various murder sites were secure, there was little else that couldn’t wait until morning.

  Standing in front of Cooper, who looked tired and dishevelled, having gone home and then been woken thirty-one minutes into a deep sleep, she outlined her reasons for not calling all hands in the middle of the night, rounding off with the fiscal considerations, which was at least going to play well, following his earlier five-hour budget meeting.