Then back again, slamming his foot into the nearest file box – sending its contents spraying out across the dusty floor.
‘Something foolish.’ Yeah, like battering Powel’s head in.
His shoulders dipped.
There were files and evidence bags everywhere.
He sighed, squatted down, and cleaned it all up.
Powel might have been an adulterous two-faced slimy scumbag, but he was right about one thing: the case file was virtually useless.
Callum flipped to the end of the file and back again. Which didn’t take long as it was only two sheets. They had Mum, Dad and Alastair’s names, the date they abandoned Callum, a brief note about social services taking him into care, and scribbled on the back in pencil: the name of both officers who worked the case.
No interview notes, no witness statements, no sightings. Nothing of any practical use whatsoever. Not even the name of the rest area they’d left him in.
Either the Great Clear-Out of Ninety-Five was incredibly efficient, or PC Gibbons and DS Shannon hadn’t bothered their backsides doing any investigating at all.
Callum jotted their details into his notebook, stuck the file back in its box, and the box back on its shelf.
He signed himself out of the archives and collected his bin-bag full of wet suit. Draped it over his bad arm, freeing his good hand to pull out his phone. Dialled as he slogged up the cabbage-scented stairs. ‘Brucie? It’s Callum. Do us a favour and run a check on a couple of oldies for me: PC Gibbons, DS Shannon.’
‘You got shoulder numbers?’
‘Nope. But they worked here twenty-six years ago.’
‘Give us a minute …’
Callum paused on the landing. Rain battered the window, rattling it in its frame. The flickering blue-and-white lights of a patrol car faded in the distance, siren wailing. A double-decker bus grumbled past, going the other way.
‘Right, you got Police Constable Maggie Gibbons – transferred to Strathclyde in 1999. And Sergeant Robert Shannon. Retired twenty-two years ago.’
‘You got an address on Shannon?’
‘What did your last slave die of?’
‘Come on, Brucie.’
‘You’re lucky I’m in a good mood. Won fifty quid on a scratchcard this morning.’ The sound of a keyboard being tortured clattered through the phone. ‘Here you go: Robert Michael Shannon, seventy-one, lives at Canaries Cottage, Leveller Road, Fiddersmuir.’
‘Thanks.’ Now all he needed was a car.
Callum eased through the double doors into the corridor. Wandered down to the manky little offices of the Divisional Investigative Support Team, nice and casual. Mother’s door was closed and so was McAdams’. No sound of voices coming from within.
The main office was quiet too.
Which was nice.
He eased open the door.
Empty. They’d all be out trying to track down Imhotep.
Good. That meant no awkward questions, forced sympathy, crappy haikus, or complaints about him nicking one of the pool cars.
There was a little whiteboard, over by the kettle and microwave, no bigger than a sheet of A4 – split up into three columns. A magnetic hook sat at the bottom of each one, a printed number plate at the top. And a bit in the middle to write your name and why you were taking the associated car.
Dotty’s wheelchair-adapted Vauxhall was checked out, as was the battered Audi, leaving just one set of keys dangling on its magnetic hook: the ancient dirty-brown Ford Mondeo estate. And it was an automatic, not usually a plus point, but perfect if you only had one working hand to drive with.
Callum liberated the keys with a ‘Yoink!’ then scrawled something unintelligible in the details section. Probably wouldn’t fool anyone for long, but it was worth a go.
He would’ve got away with it too, if it wasn’t for that pesky DC Franklin.
She was marching down the corridor, clutching a sheet of paper when he slipped out of the office. Stopped and stared at him. ‘Callum.’
He wheeched his hand behind his back, hiding the car keys. Pulled on a smile. ‘Thought everyone was out.’
‘Had to hang about, waiting for this.’ Franklin held up the sheet of paper. ‘Warrant forcing Strummuir Smokehouse to hand over all their employees’ details. I’m off to serve it.’
‘Right.’ Sod. That meant she needed the last pool car. ‘So they’ve not recovered the body yet? From the river …’
‘Could you look more shifty than you do right now?’
‘I don’t—’
‘And you’re meant to be on compassionate leave.’
‘What happened to “get off your moaning backside and do something about it”?’
Franklin narrowed her eyes. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Me? Nothing. Nothing at all. Just changed out of my damp suit.’ Callum forced the smile a little wider. Jiggled his bad arm and its decorative bin-bag. ‘Tell you what, as I’m not doing anything right now, how about I come with you? You know: keep myself occupied. I’ll drive if you like? Not a problem.’
‘Hrmmm …’ Then a nod. ‘OK, get the keys.’
‘Way ahead of you.’
41
Rain. Rain. Rain. It pattered on the pool car’s roof, rippled the windscreen – shifting everything in and out of focus.
The Strummuir Smokehouse car park was nearly empty. Six o’clock on a Friday night. The staff and visitors would be long gone. All except for the owner of the white BMW, parked in a spot marked ‘RESERVED FOR MANAGING DIRECTOR ~ MR FINN NOBLE’.
Callum had a scratch at his thumb, where the skin poked out of the cast.
Clicked on the radio.
A weird dirge-like groan filled the speakers, slow and dark. ‘And I burn inside like the stars, / A million thoughts and pains and scars, / Running away from you, Angelica …’
He turned it down a bit.
Should’ve brought a book.
How? How was he supposed to do that when they were all back at the flat?
Yeah, well, should have thought about that before he stormed out yesterday, shouldn’t he?
Sodding hell …
Callum thumped his head back against the rest, then peered through the window.
What the hell was taking Franklin so … Ah, there she was.
Franklin pushed out through the smokehouse front door and into the rain.
‘See me burn, / See me run and hide, / See me dying, / See me cyanide …’
She hunched her shoulders and ran for the car. Clattered into the passenger side. ‘Gah … Does it never stop raining here?’
‘You get the names?’
‘I swear to God, it’s like Oldcastle’s cursed.’
In so many ways.
‘But no, / You can’t see me, / You can’t breathe, / You can’t hear me …’
She shook the rain from her hair. ‘And what are you listening to? Sounds like a funeral for depressed monks.’
‘No idea.’ He cranked the blowers up full, drowning it out. Turned the car around and headed back along the road, through Strummuir. Driving with one hand in a cast wasn’t so bad when you didn’t have to bother changing gears. ‘So: names?’
‘Yup.’ She dug out her phone and poked at the screen.
‘Planning on telling me at any point?’
‘Hold on.’ Franklin put her mobile to her ear. ‘Mother? Yes, it’s Rosalind. I got the employee details from the smokehouse … No, rolled right over soon as I flashed the warrant … Uh-huh.’
A right at the roundabout took them out past the rows of little Scottish houses with their grey-harled walls and slate roofs. Fields of green and grey on either side of the road, streaking past as Callum put his foot down.
‘According to Mr Noble, the man Watt tried to save from the river was one Tod Monaghan … Hold on, I’ll put you on speaker.’ She held it in the middle of the car and Mother’s voice fought against the blowers’ roar.
‘Monaghan, Monaghan … Right, here we go, Andy’s just bringing it up now. Tod Monaghan, thirty-five. AKA: Toby Hutchinson, AKA: Timothy Liddell, AKA: Todzilla. Did six years for attempted murder. Released on licence eleven months ago … da, da, da … Oooooh: form for indecent assault. That’s interesting, isn’t it? And there was a rape case, but the gentleman he attacked didn’t want to go to court.’
‘Sounds lovely, doesn’t he?’
‘You know what I think, Rosalind? Violent sex offender, attacks men, works in a smokehouse, does a runner soon as John and Callum show up. I think we might have found our Imhotep. Isn’t that …’
Silence from the phone.
A little graveyard slipped by on the left, its church a crumbling ruin. Woods on the right.
Some auld biddie, walking her dog in the downpour, clambered onto the grass verge as they approached. Stuck two fingers up as they passed.
And finally Mother was back: ‘Rosalind? Why did you put me on speakerphone?’
Franklin glanced across the car.
Callum put a finger to his lips and mouthed, ‘I’m not here!’
‘I’m … driving. Don’t have a hands-free set. Safety first.’
‘Oh, yes. That’s a good idea.’
A right at the junction with the main road took them back towards town.
‘Just in case, I’m going to run everything past Dr McDonald. And we better get a warrant sorted for his home address too.’ Mother’s voice faded, as if she’d turned away from the phone. ‘Can you sort that for me, Andy? Top floor left, thirty-nine Bellfield Road, Cowskillin. Thanks.’ Then she was at full volume again. ‘Good work, Rosalind.’
‘Thanks, Mother.’ The line went dead and she slipped the phone back in her jacket pocket. Then frowned as Callum took the next left onto a country road. ‘I thought Division Headquarters was that way?’
‘Ah, yes. It is.’ He gave her his best smile. ‘Just got a quick stop-off to make on the way. Ten, twenty minutes tops.’
Franklin’s head fell back against the rest, eyes screwed shut. ‘Not again!’
‘Knew I shouldn’t let you drive.’ Franklin scowled out of the passenger window.
‘Hey, you told me to get off my backside and do something. Remember?’
The pool car crested the hill and there was Fiddersmuir, sulking at the bottom of a wide dip in the landscape, bordered on one side by a dense swathe of dark-green woods. An irregular grid of streets sat around an oversized town square with a dirty big monument in the middle. A church and town hall on opposite sides, facing each other down in a competition of who could look the most joyless.
The dour grey buildings got smaller the further away from the square they were, three-storey merchant houses giving way to austere Edwardian terraces, and finally miserable wee cottages. Someone had stuck a small housing estate on the far side, all pantiles and cream harling. Looking about as out of place as a vegan in a slaughterhouse.
Franklin kept her face to the glass. ‘I meant on your own time.’
‘This is my own time. I’m on compassionate leave, remember?’ Callum checked the address and took them down a wide road lined with unhappy buildings, around the horrible monument to Prince Albert, and onto Leveller Road.
‘You’re impossible.’
Right at the end, just before the limits sign, was a large cottage set behind a long stretch of drystane dyke. A small conservatory sat out front, along with a collection of water butts. Tidy garden, thankfully devoid of gnomes. The words ‘CANARIES COTTAGE’ sat in bright-yellow letters on a green sign.
‘Ten, twenty minutes tops.’ He pulled up onto the driveway.
‘You said that twenty minutes ago!’
‘Well, there you go then.’ Callum grabbed a high-viz jacket from the back and climbed out into the rain, holding it over his head like a cape. Hurried up the path.
A little laminated notice hung in the glazed panel by the front door: ‘IF YOU’RE DELIVERING PARCELS, TRY THE POLYTUNNEL ROUND THE BACK.’
Fair enough.
Franklin appeared with her Crimestoppers umbrella, following him around the side of the house. ‘This is a complete waste of my time. I should be back at DHQ, working on—’
‘Oh stop moaning. It’ll take McAdams at least an hour to get a warrant sorted. Probably longer on a Friday night. All you’d be doing is twiddling your thumbs, listening to Dotty and Watt snipe at each other.’
The back garden was huge: a vast expanse of neatly mowed lawn, peppered with trees and bushes, meandering paths and flowerbeds. Off to one side, the grey arched shape of a polytunnel sat beside a row of beech trees, the plastic quivering in the downpour.
Callum jogged along the path, feet crunching on bark chips. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t you be more worried about missing your boyfriend’s work’s do?’
‘Ten minutes, then we’re heading back to headquarters if I have to drag you there by the balls. Understand?’
Music oozed out through the plastic, something old-fashioned and familiar, turned up loud.
He opened the door and bundled into the warm moist air, full of the toasted bready scent of soil and compost.
Dear God, this thing was bigger than his whole flat. It stretched on and on and on, full of green. Raised beds ran down both sides, packed with sprawling courgette plants, trailing cucumbers, dreels of tatties, rows of spinach, ranks of fancy lettuces …
Come the Zombie Apocalypse you could feed a family of four for a year in here.
Inside it was obvious why the radio was turned up so loud – the whole tunnel rang with every raindrop that thumped into its plastic skin. Thrumming and vibrating like an outboard motor. Fighting against a soft-edged bouncy song about some woman wanting to be with Callum everywhere. Which was a lovely offer, if a bit presumptuous.
Unless she was singing about the only other person in the polytunnel?
He was halfway down, on his knees, footering about with some sort of bean plant. Blue jeans, trainers, grey T-shirt with ‘1902’ across the back in big letters, a swathe of pink skin showing through the top of his close-cropped grey hair.
Callum reached out and clicked the radio off.
The guy stopped footering and turned, frowning at them through a pair of gunmetal-framed glasses. A well-spoken English accent cut through the rain’s drumming din, slightly higher-pitched than expected. ‘I was listening to that.’ His beard was every bit as grey and short as the hair on his head.
‘Robert Shannon?’ Callum dug out his warrant card. ‘We need to talk to you about a child abandonment case you worked in CID.’
‘CID?’ He levered himself to his feet, brushed the dirt from his hands on a little paunch belly. ‘I haven’t worked CID for … ooh, has to be twenty-five years now. And it’s Bob, not Robert.’
‘I was the child.’
‘Ah.’ Call Me Bob nodded. Turned. And pointed down to the far end of the polytunnel. ‘You’d better take a seat.’
The cast-iron patio furniture was comfortable enough: a small round table and four chairs – each with a green-and-yellow cushion, bordered by some recycled chests of drawers on one side and a row of beetroot on the other. Above their heads, the plastic skin trembled.
Franklin checked her watch. ‘Why didn’t you say this was what we were here for?’
‘Would you have come?’
‘You should’ve told me.’
‘Blakey hadn’t even looked at the crime file. I checked the archive register. He’s meant to be SIO and he can’t be arsed to read the file?’
Not that it would have done him a lot of good, given how little was actually in there. But he could have put the effort in.
She puffed out a sigh. ‘Don’t suppose your ex-DS Shannon’s done a runner, do you?’
Callum leaned forward in his seat, staring at the polytunnel door. ‘Speak of the Devil …’
Shannon hobbled in from the rain, cardboard file box in one hand, brolly in
the other. ‘Here we go.’ He limped his way down to the table and stuck the box in front of Callum. Shrugged his way out of his jacket. Eased himself down into his seat. ‘Sorry it took so long; it was right at the back of the attic.’
Franklin raised an eyebrow. ‘Sore leg?’
‘Hip replacement. Doesn’t usually bother me, but all this rain?’ A shrug. He took the lid off the box and dumped it on the empty chair. Smiled at her. ‘Have a look in the chest of drawers behind you, should be a bottle of red and some glasses.’
‘I’m on duty.’
‘I’m not.’ Callum dipped into the file box, coming out with an overstuffed Manilla folder held together with elastic bands. They crumbled beneath his fingers.
‘Men.’ She shook her head and went rummaging. Came back with two large wine glasses and a bottle of Malbec. Folded her arms and sat back.
Inside the folder were a bunch of statements from what looked like Dad’s work colleagues and the neighbours. More from people who’d been at the caravan park that week.
Shannon opened the wine and poured out two hefty measures. Held one glass out. ‘They were going to destroy everything, so I took it home.’
Callum accepted the glass and took a sip. Soft and jammy. ‘The Great Clear-Out of Ninety-Five?’
‘No.’ He settled back in his seat, swirling the wine round and round the glass. ‘We’ve met before, do you remember? Maggie and I interviewed you about a dozen times after it happened. She had a sort of giraffe glove-puppet for you to talk to?’
‘I don’t …’ A frown. There was something there: a soft kindly face with a beauty spot on one cheek. A splotchy orange-and-white animal that talked with an Irish accent. ‘Sort of.’
‘We spoke to everyone we could think of, put adverts in the papers, posters everywhere, appeals on the radio. I’m sorry, Callum. If we’d had even one witness, maybe we could have done more. I suppose we’ll never know what happened to them.’
Franklin scowled at him. ‘We know what happened to Callum’s mother.’
‘Wow.’ A chuckle rippled free, bringing a smile with it. ‘That’s great news. Where has she—’
‘Her severed head turned up in Holburn Forest.’
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