Death Parts Us

by Alex Walters

  Death Parts Us

  Alex Walters

  Copyright © 2017 Alex Walters

  The right of Alex Walter to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2017 by Bloodhound Books

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licenses issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  Contents

  Also by Alex Walters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  A Note From Bloodhound Books

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Alex Walters

  DI McKay Series

  Candle & Roses

  Praise for Alex Walters

  'Alex Walters’ crime debut is a great read, it is exciting and intriguing and I simply loved this detective novel.' Caroline Vincent - Bits About Books

  'I felt like one of Alex Walters victims as before I knew what was happening he had taken my breath away.' Susan Hampson - Books from Dusk till Dawn

  'As police procedurals go, this ranks way up very close to the top of the pile. I found it to be authentically and sympathetically portrayed with superb characterisation of the two lead characters, DI McKay and DS Horton.' Anita Waller - International Best Selling Author

  'Candles and Roses is a gripping crime thriller that certainly kept me on my toes. With a likeable protagonist, you can’t help but get drawn into his life and work and can’t wait to read more about McKay and his team.' Sarah Hardy - By the Letter Book Reviews

  'Candles and roses for me was a spellbinder I absolutely loved it from start to finish. Alex Walters ...a brilliant book.' Livia Sbarbaro - Amazon Reviewer

  To Helen. And to the (increasingly) occasional sons—James, Adam and Jonny

  1

  She fumbled with the key, as she always seemed to these days. Her eyesight was fading, her fingers less steady.

  Eventually, she unlocked the front door and dropped her small bag of shopping onto the hallway carpet. As she straightened, she already had a sense that something was wrong. She couldn’t have said what – a slight unaccustomed chill in the air, an unfamiliar scent or sound. Something she couldn’t pin down.

  Suddenly anxious, she hurried to the door of the living room. The television was burbling away, as always, some mid-morning talk show, the volume too low for her to make out the words.

  Jackie’s chair was empty.

  She took another step into the room, peering past the armchair as if Jackie might somehow have concealed himself behind it.

  Panicking now, she returned to the hallway and checked the bedroom, the bathroom, the room they still called Kirsty’s, even though it was decades since she’d last lived there. Finally, she turned back to the kitchen.

  Where had he gone? These days, she could barely persuade him to leave that chair, even when he needed the lavatory, or when she was faced with the nightly task of getting him to bed. When she was out of the house, he just sat there, his eyes fixed uncomprehendingly on the television screen.

  As she entered the kitchen, she realised why the house felt colder than usual. The back-door to the rear garden was standing wide open. She blinked, baffled by what she was seeing.

  In the days when Jackie had still been prone to aimless wandering, she’d had two deadbolts fitted to the door to prevent him slipping out without her realising. The keys were left hanging from the hooks near the sink, but she knew Jackie lacked the wit or initiative to find them.

  Except that, somehow, he had.

  She hurried over to the open door and gazed out into the garden. It was a decent spring day, the pale sun trying to break through a layer of thin cloud. The garden – little more than a square lawn surrounded by a narrow border of bushes – was empty. She stepped outside, looking uneasily around. ‘Jackie?’

  There was no sound except the faint brush of the sea breeze through the leaves, the cawing of the gulls from the bay. She was genuinely confused now. How had Jackie managed this impossible disappearing act?

  She stepped out on to the lawn.

  It was only then she saw it. The familiar low straight line of the fence at the rear of the garden was broken, the panelling cracked outward as if some heavy object had been thrust against it.

  She remembered Jackie erecting the fence when they’d first moved into the bungalow, all those years ago. They’d wanted something to provide shelter from the winds and weather off the sea, but not so high that it blocked the view. The fence stood a little lower than chest height, and if you stood by it, you could see the panorama of the bay spread out before you.

  In their early days here, she and Jackie enjoyed watching the view together. In the summer, on the rare bright days, the narrow beach would be crowded with families, in from the surrounding villages or up from Inverness. Sometimes, they glimpsed the dolphins out in the firth, playing tantalisingly close to the shore. Outside the short season, the view was more desolate but often just as striking, an endlessly changing pattern of sun and cloud, grey seas washing against the shingle, waves breaking against the seawalls at high tide.

  It was a long time since she’d bothered with any of that. The last few years had offered little but grind. She’d kept her head down and got on with it, knowing there was no alternative, not allowing herself to think how life might have turned out differently.

  Distracted by these unbidden thoughts, it took her another moment to register the significance of the broken fence. Even then, she could barely bring herself to believe it.

  She walked forward across the soft grass. The bushes were sparse at that point, and she had little difficulty pushing her way through them.

  The bungalow, just off the high street, was set on the steep hillside above a row of houses fronting onto the sea. The house immediately below was a small cottage, now occupied only as a holiday let, its banked rear garden some twenty feet beneath her.

  Scared now, she peered cautiously over the broken panelling do
wn into the neighbouring garden.

  And she began to scream.

  2

  Bleak, McKay thought, looking around the cramped sitting room. Nothing but bleak.

  The young man from the agency was still enumerating the bungalow’s many virtues. Closeness to the sea. A decent local pub. Good restaurant in the season. Convenience store. McKay already knew all that and didn’t care much about any of it.

  In his head, he was trying to decide just how bleak the place was. As bleak as Caley’s chances of winning the SPL. As bleak as a Labour politician’s odds of becoming First Minister. As bleak as –

  ‘So, what do you think?’ the young man interjected. He’d finally recognised that McKay wasn’t listening.

  ‘Ach, it’s fine. I’ll take it,’ McKay said.

  Bleak was what he wanted right now. This anonymous bungalow, furnished with shabby, charity shop cast-offs, fitted the bill perfectly. He just wanted out of what had been their home. Give Chrissie the chance to move back in. Let them both have the opportunity to get their heads straight. Then, maybe, there’d be the possibility of giving it another shot.

  Aye, in your dreams, he added silently to himself.

  The young man was still blethering on. There were patches on his face untroubled by acne, but they were relatively few. McKay wondered whether he’d ever been young like that, full of clumsy, well-meaning enthusiasm. No doubt he had, but it was a long time ago. These days, all he had left was the clumsiness.

  ‘I’ve said I’ll take it,’ he said. ‘I’ll come into the office this afternoon to sort out the details.’

  ‘Right.’ The young man looked nonplussed, as if he’d been hoping for some different outcome. ‘Well, that’s grand. I’ll see you later, then.’

  ‘You do that, son. New to the job, are you?’

  For a moment, the young man looked affronted. Then, he shrugged. ‘Aye, just a few weeks. Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Only to a trained detective, son. You did great.’

  The young man laughed. ‘That what you are, then? A trained detective?’

  McKay remained blank faced. ‘Detective Inspector, son. Twenty odd years on the force.’ McKay paused, as if thinking. ‘Bloody odd years, most of them.’

  The young man looked around, clearly wondering why the hell a presumably well-paid DI would want to live in a place like this. ‘Must be interesting.’

  ‘Aye, son. I suppose it must. And now, I ought to be getting back to it. I’ll see you later, then.’ McKay turned and made his way out of the bungalow, pausing briefly to glance again into the bedroom and bathroom, reassuring himself that this place really was as pokey and unprepossessing as he’d thought.

  Outside, he blinked in the unaccustomed sunshine. He was a short, wiry man with slicked back, greying hair. He was old enough to believe that a suit was still the appropriate garb for work, but Chrissie had finally managed to persuade him not to bother with a tie. That had been in the days when she cared about what he wore. These days, most of his younger colleagues looked as if they’d just come in from a night clubbing. Some of them probably had.

  He’d left his car down by the seafront, so he stomped back towards the centre, enjoying the sight of the blue firth spread out before him. The young man had reckoned the bungalow offered a sea view. Aye, maybe, if you stood on your tippy-toes in the kitchen and peered between the rooftops.

  He was halfway down the hill when he spotted the pulse of blue lights. As he reached the beach-side road, he saw that a marked patrol car and an ambulance were parked a few hundred metres along, effectively blocking the carriageway. There were a couple of uniformed officers and a small crowd of onlookers milling about.

  McKay was nothing if not nosey. It was, he told himself, one of the qualities that made him a good detective. He strolled along the street and placed himself in front of one of the uniformed police.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve had to close this road for the moment, sir,’ the officer said. ‘You can walk along the beach or back up along the high street.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ McKay asked.

  ‘If I could just ask you to move along, please, sir –’

  ‘Aye, son. You can always ask.’

  The officer opened his mouth to respond, but McKay was already brandishing his warrant card under the man’s nose. The officer leaned forward, clearly registering not just the rank but also the name. McKay’s reputation tended to precede him.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realise –’

  ‘No bother, son. You were just doing your job. What’s going on?’

  ‘Accident, sir. An elderly gentleman has fallen from the garden up there. Looks like he cracked his skull, unfortunately.’

  ‘Dead?’ McKay had already read this in the young officer’s eyes.

  ‘Looked like it. The medics are with him at the moment. But I think he was already dead when he was found.’

  McKay peered past the young man. ‘How the hell did he manage to fall from the garden?’

  ‘Not sure exactly, sir. The fencing up there was broken. His wife reckons he suffered from Alzheimer’s.’

  McKay was staring up at the rear fence of the bungalow above them. Something was stirring in his mind. ‘Have the Examiners been called?’

  The officer blinked. ‘Well, no, sir. Not yet. We thought, as it’s an accident –’

  ‘How do you know it was an accident?’

  ‘Well –’

  ‘How do you know his wife didn’t just get tired of looking after the old bastard and took her chance to push him over the edge?’

  ‘With respect, sir –’

  ‘Aye, son. Always treat me with respect. You’ll find it pays. Look, most likely you’re right, and it was just an unfortunate accident. But don’t make assumptions. I’m not joking about the wife. These things happen.’

  The officer nodded. ‘Sorry, sir. Wasn’t thinking.’

  McKay looked around them. ‘We don’t want to make a big deal of it. Like I say, most likely, you’re right. But we should get the Examiners in to check over the scene. And we should talk to the widow as soon as she’s in a suitable state.’

  ‘That’s her, sir.’ The officer gestured towards an elderly woman standing further along the street being comforted by a couple of neighbours.

  McKay nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll go and introduce myself. It doesn’t look as if she’s likely to abscond anywhere in the near future.’

  As he moved away from the officer, he felt his mobile buzzing in his pocket. He moved back from the crowd before answering.

  ‘Alec, it’s Helena. Are you still up in Rosemarkie?’

  ‘Aye. Just enjoying the scenery.’ DCI Helena Grant was his immediate superior. She’d allowed him a couple of hours off to view the bungalow.

  ‘How was the house?’

  ‘Ach, you know. Bleak. Soulless. Shabby. Cramped.’

  ‘You’re taking it, then?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘You’re your own worst enemy, Alec, you know that?’

  ‘I doubt it. I’ve made some bad ones in my time.’

  ‘You deserve better than a place like that, though.’

  ‘There’s plenty would disagree with you on that,’ he said. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you?’

  ‘We’ve just had an incident called in up there –’

  ‘Aye,’ McKay said. ‘I think I’m standing next to it.’

  ‘Some elderly gent fallen out his garden?’

  ‘That’s the one. Quite an achievement. To fall out of a garden, I mean.’

  ‘Look, Alec, as you’re already out there, can you take charge? Manage the scene, I mean. At least ‘til the Examiners get there, and we get a better idea what’s going on.’

  McKay held the phone away from his ear for a moment and squinted at the screen, as if that might provide him with more information. ‘Aye, well, I’ve already waded in with my size nines. I don’t suppose the uniforms will object if I take it out of their hands. If you thi
nk it’s necessary.’ He frowned, wondering quite what had prompted Grant to make this call. She didn’t generally do things without a good reason.

  ‘I think it might be a wise precaution,’ she said. ‘In the circumstances.’

  ‘Circumstances,’ he repeated. He was gazing now at the elderly woman across the street, still surrounded by commiserating neighbours. ‘What circumstances are those, exactly?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve enquired about the name of the victim?’

  ‘It wasn’t high on my priority list,’ McKay admitted. ‘I was too busy bollocking the uniforms for not doing their job. I’d assumed the name of some poor old bugger in Rosemarkie wouldn’t mean much to me.’

  ‘Aye, well, always get your priorities right, Alec. But in this case, the name might just ring a bell.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ he said. But McKay was already ahead of her. The half thought that had been buzzing round his brain had suddenly settled, and he knew what she was about to say. And he finally recognised the elderly woman. Before Grant could respond, he said, ‘Jesus. Jackie fucking Galloway.’

  3