It was all very daunting at first, but he quickly saw that money could be saved, and money could be made. It just took the vision to see it and the nerve, damn it, the balls to carry it off.
The smell was really beginning to get to Darren, and he was sure Mrs Kinross was becoming suspicious. It was getting on for a few days now, and he had spent most of the time in this fucking crappy little guest house room, waiting for Lime to either give him the all-clear or at least give him something to be getting on with. He had taken the odd walk round the block to get away from it for a while, but that made it seem all the more pungent when he had to go back in.
He had tried to open the window, but not only was it freezing cold and raining, but this fucking Jock city seemed to have a permanent gale blowing through it. The only other alternative had been soaking hankies in Brut and putting them over his nose and mouth, which worked for a while, but was giving him a sore throat.
He would have to do something. The last time he had returned from a trip into the fresh air, he had noticed the smell from halfway down the stairs on his way back in. She was a batty old trout, but she might still put two and two together if she was given enough time.
He hadn’t even meant it, really. He had been half asleep at the time, but to be perfectly honest he really fucking hated dogs. Bane of his existence when he was a burglar, and he had never forgiven the cunts for the bother they had caused him. Two separate stretches inside and fuck knew how many bites and scratches.
On the other hand, he might not have learned to handle his knife so well had it not been for the dogs. He had tried to avoid screwing places that had them, but when he found he’d made a mistake – or a place looked just too tasty to pass over – he made his first procedure to slaughter the fucking mutt. He made a special cuff out of two plastic shin-guards he shoplifted from a sports store, and wore that over his right wrist like a falconing glove. When the mutt went for him, he would let it sink its teeth into that, then whip the blade up under its exposed neck.
It had been the morning after the job, lying there sore and knackered, having had a frustratingly restless night. He had drifted in and out of a light sleep, and started having this horrible dream that the stump of his severed finger was being swarmed over and eaten by ants and maggots. He had opened one cloudy eye to see that his arm was hanging off the end of the bed, and the ravaged stump was being solicitously licked by Ruffle, the landlady’s miserable little white Scottie.
In semi-conscious malice he had slowly reached under the pillow for his knife, then leaned over and stuck it between the fluffy little twat’s eyes. Then he had rolled over and slept peacefully for six more hours.
The thought of infection struck him belatedly when he awoke, and in the absence of Dettol or any other recognisable antiseptic, he had to make do with sticking the stump into a cup of bathroom bleach. The pain brought tears to his eyes and made him doubly glad he had killed the yappy little mutt.
That afternoon, through the window on to the back garden, he had heard Mrs Kinross ask her neighbours with increasing anxiety whether they had seen Ruffle. He had kept the room locked when he was in or out, but he knew she would be wanting in to clean the place at some point that day, so he had bought a canvas sportsbag, placed the deceased Ruffle in it and gone out looking for a skip to dump it in.
He had walked for bloody miles and seen nothing but narrow-mouthed litter bins, and on a couple of quiet streets had attempted to stuff the bag through the gap when no one was looking, but the fucking thing just wouldn’t fit.
He had thought about leaving it in a garden or a park, but with the luck he had been having lately, some cunt would see him dump it and come forward with a description when the contents were discovered. He had read about American serial killers getting caught because they were picked up for speeding. He did not want to be the first hit man to get caught because he was picked up for having a dead dog in a sports bag.
In the end he had to bring the fucking thing back to the guest house and stick it on top of the wardrobe, where the old cow wouldn’t disturb it.
However, with Lime hopping about on hot coals after this doctor business, it was looking like he might have to stay in this place for at least a few more days, and he just couldn’t cope with the smell any longer, or the danger that Mrs Kinross might want to come in and find out what was causing it.
Bollocks.
He took the bag down and, covering his mouth and nose with another Brut-soaked hanky, pulled open the zipper. Ruffle was stinking and very stiff, but he was still acceptably fluffy, apart from the big bloodstain over his muzzle. He zipped the bag up again. What would the old bat know about dead dogs.
Darren was woken by the alarm on his digital watch at three in the morning. His initial response was to roll over and go back to sleep, but upon turning away from the wall, he got a couple of nostrils full of the reason he really had to get up.
He opened the back window and climbed down quietly with the Ruffle bag slung over his shoulder. It was a clear night and there was a big moon, but there was no real choice but to go ahead with it. He hopped over the hedge into the garden next door and placed Ruffle out of sight between a row of conifers and the dry stone wall at the back. Then as an inspired afterthought, he removed a large boulder from the top of the wall and placed it on top of Ruffle’s head.
Accidental death.
Darren climbed back into his room and went back under the scratchy blankets with his clothes on, so that he would be warm enough with the window open to finally clear the place of that pong.
In the morning he awoke to find the room breezy and fresh, apart from the smell of dead dog wafting through the open window from next door’s garden.
ELEVEN
This Parlabane was quite definitely trouble. She just had to look at him to see rules being bent, control slipping gracefully away, lengthy and tortuously complicated explanations to senior officers and a run-in with McGregor that would make the one over her most recent haircut seem a fond memory. He seemed to combine an air of conscientious honesty with a blatant, mischievous untrustworthiness, and the resultant effect was like hypnosis. He commanded your attention with knowledge and facts, but you felt you couldn’t take your eyes off him anyway because you feared what he might get up to. He dealt in truth like a drug, but you got the impression that he was cutting every score with about ten per cent bullshit.
And for all these reasons she was very glad he had appeared. He might well precipitate chaos and devastation, see her booted off the force and even drown her in a sea of flames, but at least whatever happened, it wouldn’t be boring.
She liked the way he had been so unflustered and unapologetic about either her finding him in Ponsonby’s flat or the fact that he had slept through such an obviously noisy and prolonged murder. Mind you, she had felt slightly hypocritical about scorning his failure to hear or see anything, as at the time of the killing she had actually been about fifty yards away in a flat in Annandale Street, having a delightfully squishy time with a shy and bespectacled young law student called Angela, who had lost her spectacles, shyness and eventually clothing after some extraordinarily good hash.
It had been a memorable evening all round, really, the frustrating rarity of which was why she kept her profession quiet among her social group. Parlabane had asked what the hell they talked about, and it was true she and Duncan usually did talk about the Hibees when they bumped into each other in the Barony, but she had to admit that she had always steered the conversation away from anything that might bring work into it. She didn’t know Duncan incredibly well, only from the pub and the Blue Moon, but she figured he had picked up on her reluctance to mention what she did and been content never to ask.
It often felt like a guilty secret, but the bare fact was that it was not easy to get laid when everyone knew you were a cop, with the sole exception of a one-night stand with an Aberdonian pillow princess who had a uniform fetish. In fact, the only thing more difficult was getting som
e blow. It was a depressing fact that in the past, when no one would admit to knowing who they could score off, she had had to rely on knowledge accumulated through the job. Of course, the big fear was the embarrassment factor of being present on duty when they busted someone she regularly bought from, but mercifully it had only happened once, and he clearly valued her custom sufficiently to keep his mouth shut throughout.
The Angela thing was promising, and she knew that she would have to tell her soon, but the timing was critical. Too early and she might run off screaming, thinking she was being set up as part of a rather extreme undercover operation. Too late and you risked the question: ‘Why couldn’t you trust me with this?’, or, worse, her finding out herself and asking the same question, but in a much angrier tone of voice.
When Parlabane had called but refused to come to the station, she asked him to meet her in the Blue Moon, partly because the Barony’s real ales would have offered a great temptation to drink on duty, and partly because she hoped it might give her an edge – Parlabane was Duncan’s friend, but still, many straight men were less cockily assured in the context of a gay bar, pointlessly terrified that their usual attention-seeking behaviour would attract a string of burly, unwanted suitors.
No such luck. Parlabane had breezed in looking tired and vaguely rumpled, as if he had been neither into bed nor out of his clothes the night before, but showed no discomfiture about his surroundings whatsoever. He ordered an espresso, turned down her offer of a roll-up and sat back in his chair, pushing his hair back, yawning and opening his eyes wide as if the waking was not his natural state.
‘PM results through then?’ he asked.
‘I thought you had things to tell me, scoop, not questions to ask.’
‘Yeah. I’m just checking how much you’ve seen of this week’s exciting episode. Pro job, huh?’
‘Yes, our pathologists are all highly trained and fully qualified.’
But she knew what he was saying, and he could see that too.
‘Nice to still see quality craftsmanship in this day and age,’ he said.
‘Pathologist was impressed too,’ Jenny remarked. ‘And he believed such a standard of work required the finest of tools. How do you know all this?’
‘I told you the other day. I’ve seen a lot of such craftsmanship. I’ve seen the less refined amateur work too, enough to spot the difference.’
‘Why didn’t you say this before?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to prejudice an investigation with spurious speculation.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Plus I reckoned you suspected it too and I wanted to see if you drew the same conclusion without me introducing the idea.’
‘That’s better. Any other pieces of brilliant deduction you’re holding back?’
Parlabane sipped at his hot espresso and nodded.
‘It was too messy for me to be sure, but did the pathologist say whether the cut was right-to-left or left-to-right?’
‘Right-to-left.’
‘Then your boy’s a Southpaw. Right-to-left would make it a left-handed job.’
Jenny shook her head. ‘You don’t know whether he was in front of or behind Ponsonby when he did it.’
‘Well, I know this guy did wreck the place, but I doubt his fondness for mess would extend to getting sprayed with blood when the blade hit the carotid. It poses problems with anonymity on your way home. People sometimes remember that about you. “Yes, officer, he had black hair, sallow complexion, ear-ring . . . oh yes, and he was drenched in blood.” He tied the guy to a door, propped him up then went behind and . . .’
Parlabane had another sip at his coffee.
‘That finger came from his right hand, didn’t it,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘So the finger confirms it. I’m sure he lost it before he made the cut and it would have detracted from the quality of his work if he wasn’t left-handed.’
‘OK, scoop, very clever. But here’s the problem. If this guy’s such a professional, why the barney? How did he end up wrecking the joint and losing a finger struggling with Ponsonby? There’s a lot of ne’er-do-wells handy with a blade in this city who might bring one along as insurance when they’re screwing a house. How can we be sure that isn’t the explanation?’
Parlabane grinned that utterly unnerving grin. ‘I wasn’t, entirely, until about five minutes before I called you.’
‘Why do I get this feeling things are about to take a sharp turn for the worse here?’
‘The needle,’ he said, ignoring her mumblings.
‘What about it?’
‘Get it analysed? Apart from blood traces, I mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘Potassium chloride.’
Jenny’s eyes widened in increasingly worried surprise. ‘What, have you got a fucking spy camera following me? Have you bugged the station? How the bloody hell did you know that?’
Parlabane just smiled. ‘I’m sorry, but as a journalist I can’t reveal my sources.’
Jenny glowered threateningly.
‘Unless, of course, I get a guarantee that it goes no further than you and that no action is taken regarding the removal from Ponsonby’s flat of an object found discarded amidst a pile of broken glass.’
‘I haven’t heard a thing you’ve said all day,’ she said, her expression mellowing. ‘I’m not even aware that you’re sitting near me in this cafe.’
‘Good enough. Right. The source is the ex-wife. She had a key, she took a look around, she found a drug ampoule your boys had missed. She got it analysed – she’s a doctor too. Potassium chloride. Induces a heart attack in a matter of seconds, and leaves no trace in the body whatsoever.’
Parlabane sat upright in his chair.
‘I think what happened in Ponsonby’s flat was plan B,’ he said. ‘Plan A would have been much less messy and just as effective. But something went wrong, and your boy had to improvise. Hence him not going for the big blade from the kick-off. Hence the free-form furniture rearrangement.’
Parlabane downed the rest of the rich, black but rapidly cooling espresso.
‘So,’ Jenny said, ‘you’re saying someone wanted him killed but didn’t want it to look like murder.’
‘He’d just have been found dead. PM would establish heart attack but there would have been no further explanation. Ex-wife says it would even have been a plausible method of suicide for a doctor. Killer could have wiped his prints from the syringe and stuck it in Ponsonby’s hand. Either way you’ve got a dead doctor and no apparent reason to suspect foul play.’
‘All of which rather rules out my initial drug-dealing idea,’ Jenny stated. ‘Hits in the drug world are usually intended to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that the victim was purposefully murdered. If someone had Ponsonby killed, they weren’t intending to send anyone a message by it.’
‘Just a wee, quiet murder at home.’
Jenny rubbed a hand across her stubbly head.
‘So tell me, scoop. Why was the ex-wife snooping about? What did she suspect?’
‘Nothing. I was the one who introduced the idea that her ex-husband was killed. She was just sort of paying her last respects.’
‘Pish,’ Jenny snapped. ‘You have funerals for that sort of thing, Jack. If someone had Ponsonby shafted it was because he was into something they didn’t like. She must have sniffed something, even if only vaguely.’
‘Possibly. I don’t see her telling you anything, though.’
‘How could I ask her when we never had this conversation? But she might tell you, perhaps. I mean, she must have taken an instant shine to you to entrust you so quickly with what she has so far.’
‘Maybe that’s just part of my journalistic talent,’ Parlabane said dryly.
Jenny snorted. ‘No, believe me, Jack. She likes you. I mean, I’ve known you a few days longer than she has and I don’t fucking trust you.’
‘Yeah, but you’re paid not to trust me.’
‘I wouldn’t trust you in my spare time either.’
Parlabane laughed.
‘So what are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘Need and trust are different things, scoop. I’ve checked out your background and I know how far you’re prepared to go to get to the bottom of a good story. It sounds like you’re on to something, but we both know you’re better placed to follow it up at this stage. So anything you offer I’ll gladly accept. The bigger mystery is what you want from me.’
‘I regard it as my civic duty to assist the police in any way I can,’ he said. ‘I also find it comforting to know that a cop owes me favours.’
Jenny shook her head. ‘I’ll do what I can, Jack, but no promises. I can’t turn a blind eye if you decide to get up to something naughty.’
That unsettling smile, more misanthropic than ever before.
‘Don’t worry, Jenny. If I decide to get up to something naughty, you can look with both eyes wide open through a space telescope, but you won’t see me.’
Jenny said nothing. She was sure she’d enjoy putting it to the test, but she had a worrying feeling he might be right.
TWELVE
Sarah wanted to marry Parlabane.
This was, of course, after she had recovered from a brief moment of (initially) fright and (secondly) wanting to kill him. Wanting to kill him was a reaction many people frequently had to Parlabane, although it had only been recently that anyone had attempted to put it into practice.
It was some vague time of night, that on-call temporal displacement vortex that she got trapped in after one a.m. and before five, when the hours disappear and the minutes stretch like strings of albumen. The evening had dissolved into white walls and theatre greens, time suspended and warped by the cumbersome labours of an infuriating, moustachioed Dutch orthopaedic surgeon named Joost van der Elst, or ‘Joost a couple of hours’ as the anaesthetists called him in reference to the time he took to carry out even the most minor manipulation.
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