by Alex Walters
It was nearly ten. Time to be getting back, even if there was nothing much to get back for. He’d get an early start, throw himself back into work. Just get on with it. It was the only thing to do.
As he moved away from the railings, he heard a sound somewhere behind him, back up the narrow road towards the pub. Some sort of cry. He paused for a moment to peer up the street, but could see nothing aside from the empty roadway past the car park and the pub. Kids, probably, or some animal up by the burn. He turned to walk back along the shore, trudging slowly towards the rising moon.
He had fallen asleep more quickly and easily than he’d expected. The bed was comfortable, and the night was quieter than anything he’d known in Inverness. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the steady working of the sea against the shoreline. The soft rhythm had been enough to lull him gently out of consciousness.
He was woken by the buzzing of his mobile phone. It felt as if he’d been asleep for no more than minutes, but the lightening sky through the thin curtains told him the sun was already rising. He fumbled for the phone, glancing at the screen before answering. Helena Grant.
‘This my early morning call?’
‘Apparently,’ Grant said. ‘I like to make sure my team start the day right.’
‘You driving ‘round with the full Scottish, then? I’ll have my eggs poached.’
‘Your eggs are well and truly scrambled, Alec,’ she said. ‘We’ve another body.’
He sat up in bed, more awake. ‘Even better than the full Scottish.’
‘Ach, Alec. That’s why I called you. I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d be cheered at this time of day by the prospect of another corpse.’
‘It’s all I live for. What’s the story?’
‘That was the other reason I thought of you, Alec. It’s another one up there for you. On your new doorstep.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. I came here for the quiet life.’
‘Like hell you did, Alec. You wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a quiet life.’
‘Okay, what’s the story, then?’
‘Body found this morning. Up in Fairy Glen.’
‘It’ll be the fucking fairies, then. A contract job.’ McKay peered at his watch. ‘How’d the hell anyone stumble across a body before six-thirty in the morning?’
‘One of those young, fit types, out for an early morning run before work. You’ll have heard about people like that.’
‘Aye, mainly from young Ginny.’
‘Body was in the woods, just off the car park. Face down in Rosemarkie Burn.’
‘Lovely. Accident?’
‘Who knows? Call came into Control about half an hour ago. They got a couple of uniforms up there to protect the scene, then the call came through to me. After the last couple of days, I’d asked them to alert me to anything significant in that neck of the woods. Examiners are on their way. All we need now is a DI to take charge.’
‘And your first thought was of me. Aw, hen, you’re all heart.’
‘Just get up there, Alec. See what you think.’
‘I’ll keep you posted.’
The house felt cold, and when he tried the shower, the water was icy. There was central heating, but it had been turned off while the house was standing empty, and McKay had forgotten to look at it the previous evening. Now, too late, he flicked the timer on and heard the boiler kick into action. A great start to the day.
He washed his face in the cold water, made himself a coffee and ate the previous day’s sandwich as breakfast. This might be how things were going to be. A monastic lifestyle with supermarket catering.
The drive to the Fairy Glen car park took no more than a few minutes. The car park itself was deserted, apart from the inevitable German camper van and, at the far end, a marked patrol car. McKay parked beside it and climbed out to greet the two uniforms standing chatting by the entrance to the Glen. As McKay approached, one of them surreptitiously dropped his cigarette butt into the grass, screwing his heel on top of it.
‘Hope you’re not littering,’ McKay growled. The two officers were both young, and though McKay didn’t recognise them, he could see both were aware of his own reputation.
‘Sorry, sir. I was just –’
‘Aye, son. Just hammering another nail into your own coffin.’ To emphasise the point, McKay extracted a pack of his trademark gum and popped a strip into his mouth. ‘Where’s our late departed friend?’
‘Over there.’ The other officer looked less cowed by McKay’s presence. He pointed into the gloom of the woodland. The sun had not yet fully risen over the hills behind them, and it was difficult to make out the prone figure at the edge of the stream. ‘I went over to check it really was what it looked like, and to make sure he really was dead. Yes, on both counts. Other than that, we’ve been careful to leave the scene untouched.’
‘Male, then?’
‘Yes, definitely.’
‘What about the person who found him?’
‘In the car. We assumed you’d want to talk to him.’
‘You assumed right, son. Okay, I’ll have a chat with him. Imagine he’s keen to get away. Any word from the Examiners?’
As if McKay’s words had summoned them, the Examiners’ white van turned into the car park as he finished speaking. It pulled up beside McKay’s car, and Jock Henderson climbed out.
‘Thought you were avoiding me, Jock. Missed you at Chanonry Point yesterday.’
Henderson, his angular body looking as always as if it might topple over at any moment, peered at McKay as if not recognising him. ‘Ach, Alec. They’ve not pensioned you off yet, then? I live in hope.’
‘I know where too many bodies are buried. Speaking of which –’ McKay gestured into the woodland. ‘Looks like you’ll be getting your white suit all dirty.’
‘I’ll leave some crap for you, Alec, don’t you worry.’
‘Story of my life, Jock.’
While Henderson donned his protective clothing, McKay opened the rear door of the police car and slid on to the back seat alongside a young ginger-haired man in a tracksuit. ‘Morning, son. Dare say this has interrupted your routine.’
The young man blinked. ‘It was a wee shock, right enough.’
‘Aye, right enough. You okay now?’
The young man nodded. ‘I’ll survive.’
‘Aye, well, that puts you one up on that bugger over there, anyhow,’ McKay said bluntly. ‘We’ll not to keep you any longer than we need to. You’re expected somewhere?’
‘I’m due at work. In Inverness. I’ve left a message saying what’s happened, and that I’ll be a bit late.’ The young man was talking too quickly, his brain and body still pumped with adrenaline.
McKay took out his notebook, unhurried, allowing the young man time to calm himself. ‘You’ll have given them something to talk about, anyhow. What’s your line of work, son?’
‘Graphic design. It’s a small marketing agency. We do design, branding, all that stuff.’
‘Very interesting,’ McKay said in a tone that indicated his own interest in the matter was non-existent. ‘And your name and address, son?’
‘Redmond,’ the young man said. ‘Jamie Redmond.’ He gave an address at the far end of the village, not far from where McKay was now living.
‘Take your time and talk me through what happened. You were out for a run?’
‘I go out two or three days a week before work, if I can, this time of year. It’s harder in winter because it doesn’t get light in time. But, now, it’s just starting to be possible.’
‘Rather you than me,’ McKay said. ‘Where’d you usually run?’
‘It varies. If the tide’s out, I might run along the beach. Other than that, mostly on the roads at this time of year.’
‘But, this morning, you came up here?’
‘I quite often run up here in the summer. It’s harder if it’s not fully light because the paths are rough, and I don’t want to risk falling or twisting an
ankle. But it was a beautiful morning and already quite light when I set off, so I thought I’d give it a shot. First of the year.’
‘You spotted the body as you ran into the woodland?’
‘No, on my way back. My original plan had been to run through Fairy Glen up to the main road, so I could come back that way. But when I got a little way in, I realised it was still too dark in the woods to run safely, so I decided to come back and try a different route. It was when I was running back towards the car park that I spotted the body.’ He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the memory. ‘My eyes had adjusted to the dark in the woods. I just saw it out of the corner of my eye. It looked – wrong.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I just stopped at first and tried to work out if it was what I thought it was. I didn’t really believe it, you know?’
‘I know,’ McKay said. ‘Did you go closer?’
‘In the end. Close enough to see. Then close enough to check that he was really –’
‘I get the picture,’ McKay said. ‘You could tell it was a man?’
Redmond blinked as if he’d been caught out. ‘Well, I thought so, but I don’t know –’
‘No, that’s fine, son. I just want to be sure what you saw. Better to do it now while it’s fresh in your mind. Memory can play tricks.’ He paused. ‘You didn’t see anyone else around? On your run, I mean.’
‘Not a soul. You occasionally run into dog walkers and the like, but not today.’
‘Okay. Anything else you think you can tell us?’
‘That was it, really. I had my mobile with me, so I dialled 999 and waited ‘til your colleagues arrived, like they asked me to.’
McKay nodded. ‘My Examiner colleague over there will want to take a DNA sample and your footprints, just for elimination purposes, but then, you’ll be free to go. If we need anything else, we’ll be in touch.’
McKay climbed out of the car and made his way back across the car park to the woodland where Henderson, now in his protective clothing, was still crouched over the body. An ambulance had arrived to remove the body once Henderson was finished.
As McKay approached, Henderson looked up from his work. ‘Alec,’ he said, ‘something you need to know.’
‘Oh, aye?’ McKay took a step or two forward, careful not to risk disrupting the scene. ‘What would that be?’
‘Couple of things. First is that this looks to me like an unlawful killing. Subject to whatever the Doc might say, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
‘It could have been an accident, especially if he was pissed. Might have tripped, banged his head, unconscious under water. Blah, blah. But it’s difficult to see how that scenario would have panned out in practice. Looks to me like his head was held under the water. Deliberately drowned.’
‘Doc should be able to confirm that, one way or the other,’ McKay said. Something was beginning to make him feel uneasy. Something in Henderson’s tone, and something in the back of his own head. ‘And the second thing?’
‘The second thing is that I know who our late friend here is.’ Henderson paused. ‘And so do you.’
The suspicion that had been growing in McKay’s mind was beginning to take shape. ‘Go on.’
‘Another ex-colleague,’ Henderson said. ‘Took me a moment to place him, but then, I realised. Another blast from the past –’
‘Rob Graham,’ McKay interrupted. ‘Rob fucking Graham.’
Henderson was staring at him, eyes wide inside his protective hood. ‘How the hell did you –?’
‘Because,’ McKay said, ‘apart from whichever bastard did this to him, I was probably the last person to see him alive.’
16
‘You know I’ve got to, Alec. I’ve no choice.’
‘Aye, I know, but –’
‘But nothing, Alec. Your position would be untenable.’
‘I might agree with you, if I knew what that meant.’
Grant shook her head. ‘You always were the original smart Alec. But you know I’m right.’
McKay was slumped back in his chair, looking as if all the life had been knocked out of him. ‘That bastard Graham. Why get himself killed just then and just there?’
‘I don’t imagine he did it to inconvenience you, Alec.’
McKay pulled out a strip of gum and began to chew on it with a ferocity that made his feelings on the matter more than clear. ‘Bastard, anyway. Always fucking was.’
‘Are you looking to put yourself seriously in the frame for his death?’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake –’
‘Look, Alec. Ginny’s already spoken to the landlord, who’s reported that, in the course of his session in the pub last night, Graham got into a not particularly amicable-sounding conversation with some gentleman who was in there for a meal. Graham seemed to think that said gentleman – I use the term loosely, you understand – was a journalist of some kind. But then, it apparently turned out that this person was in fact a former police colleague of Graham’s, who identified himself as a DI McKay. Am I getting the account right so far?’
‘Aye, spot on,’ McKay said morosely.
‘Graham and this DI McKay then went out, supposedly because Graham wanted a smoke. But the landlord says that, while he was taking a crate of empties out, he saw the two of you standing outside, having a rather intense conversation. He and Graham’s buddies assumed he’d return once he’d finished talking to you, but he never did, leaving them to finish their pints without him. Graham left half his pint unfinished, which apparently was most uncharacteristic.’
McKay shrugged. ‘That all ties in with the statement I gave you, as well you know. I assumed he’d go back into the pub once we’d finished, as well. Don’t know why he didn’t.’
‘He was still outside the pub when you left?’
‘I got fed up with him. He just reminded me of everything that Galloway’s regime had stood for. I left him and took a walk home along the seafront. Like I say, I just assumed he’d head back inside.’
‘But you can see that, for the moment, if it turns out that Graham really was murdered, we’ve got to treat you as a potential suspect?’
‘That’s ridiculous. I left him my sodding business card, for Christ’s sake. Anyway, why the hell would I want to kill Rob Graham?’
‘You’ve just told me how much you disliked him.’
‘Aye, but not enough to kill him. If I killed all the people I dislike, we’d halve the population of the fucking country.’ He allowed himself a smile. ‘I could kick off with a few members of fucking Holyrood.’
‘Jesus, Alec, you really are incorrigible.’
‘I’ve heard you use that one before. You don’t fool me. You know fewer long words than you make out.’ He stopped, his smile fading instantly. ‘You don’t seriously think I’m a fucking suspect?’
‘No, Alec, I don’t. But if you were anyone else, I’d at least be considering the possibility. You knew Graham. There was some needle between you. And you were the last person to see him alive –’
‘Apart from the killer.’
‘Apart from the killer. That’s assuming he was actually killed, rather than just dipping his own head in Rosemarkie Burn. But we have to treat you as a possible suspect, at least until we’ve discounted you.’
‘And how do you propose to do that?’ McKay asked. ‘You can’t prove a negative. Like you say, I’d got at least the means and the opportunity, if not the motive. And you reckon I might have that.’
‘And there lies our problem,’ Grant said. ‘That’s why I’ve got to keep you at arm’s length from any investigation and, if it comes to it, maybe even suspend you –’
‘Suspend me?’
‘For your own good, Alec. If there’s any suggestion we’ve not done things by the book –’
‘Aye, and everyone will assume that there’s no smoke without fire, and what little career I have left will finally be flushed well and truly down the pan.’
�
��It won’t be like that.’
‘It’s always like that.’
She sighed, knowing that, as always, he was at least partly right. ‘Okay, Alec. You’ve got leave owing, right?’ It was a stupid question. McKay always had leave owing. Probably another reason why he was living by himself in the back of beyond.
‘Aye. Couple of weeks or so.’
Which probably meant at least three. ‘Take it, then. You need a break, anyway. Give yourself chance to get your head straight. Maybe sort things out with Chrissie –’
‘Is that any of your business, hen? With all due respect.’
‘With all due respect, Alec, it is.’ She leaned over the desk towards him. Normally by this point, he’d be prowling around her office, dipping his fingers into all manner of things that shouldn’t concern him. It was a mark of his low spirits, she thought, that he couldn’t even rouse himself from the chair. ‘Look, we don’t even know whether we’ve anything to investigate yet. We’re still waiting on the Procurator’s instructions on Galloway and Crawford’s deaths. Until we get the post-mortem report on Graham, we don’t know whether we’ve got an unlawful killing on our hands.’
‘Even the Procurator’s office can’t write this off as a series of unfortunate accidents, surely?’
‘If it had just been Galloway and Crawford, my bet is that they’d have decided exactly that. But if Graham was murdered – well, it puts a different complexion on things.’
‘Aye, I’d say so. Three ex-coppers dead in a matter of days. All recipients of a long-running series of apparently threatening letters. Even the pen-pushers would have a struggle writing that off as Jungian fucking synchronicity.’
‘But, as yet, we have no investigation. So, take yourself off home, Alec. Get yourself well away from here. If it turns out that Graham toppled into the burn while under the influence of an excess of beer and single malts, there’s no harm done. If our suspicions are well founded, we have more of a problem. But we do it by the book, okay?’