by Helen Fields
Whilst her professional life was being lived in an increasingly public space, her private life had taken on a positively desolate quality. The women and men from MIT felt the distance between themselves and their Detective Chief Inspector was too great to invite her for their occasional trips to the pub, and Ava would have felt obliged to make an excuse even if an invitation had been extended. Her peers were too busy with children or spouses to want to socialise after work. The youngest of her rank in her mid-thirties and as yet unmarried, Ava had no such distractions. Her best friend was in the throes of a new relationship hotter than a Carolina Reaper chilli pepper and would be unavailable until either she or her latest girlfriend remembered that the rest of the world was still functioning beyond their bedroom door. The price of success, apparently, was endlessly long evenings. Ava stared at her office phone, knowing better than to want it to ring, understanding that her need to be occupied could only come at someone else’s cost.
Detective Sergeant Lively, in his late fifties and unaware of the concept of political correctness, appeared without knocking. Ava considered reminding him that announcing his intention to enter was commonly considered good manners, but was too pleased to have company to issue any sort of reprimand.
‘Did you find DI Callanach?’ Ava asked.
‘I did. We checked the men’s toilets first. He’s usually to be found not far from a mirror. Surprisingly though in this instance he was out doing some actual detective work, ma’am.’
‘Thanks for that, DS Lively. If you’ve finished your jibes you might like to tell me what case your commanding officer is attending,’ Ava said.
Lively grinned. He and Callanach didn’t have the best of relationships to begin with although more recently they’d settled for casual avoidance and occasional insults. ‘A body’s been found in the hills up at Arthur’s Seat. There’ll have to be an investigation but initial reports are that no foul play was involved. The pathologist has been to the scene. There are no obvious injuries or signs of violence. The body’s been taken for autopsy. Only outstanding matter is identification. Once the victim’s name is ascertained and the family has been informed, looks like it’ll be a straight forward case. Nothing to bother you with, I’m sure.’
‘Even so, would you ask DI Callanach to brief me once he gets back? I’d like to keep up to date with it,’ Ava said. She looked at the mug in DS Lively’s hand. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance that’s for me?’ She smiled.
Lively took a long sip. ‘Sorry ma’am, I’d have made you one, only I know that’s frowned upon these days. Wouldn’t want anyone to think you expected the rank and file to make you coffee. Flies in the face of modern policing, that does.’ He left.
Ava leaned back in her chair, cursing the adrenalin her body had generated at the mention of a new investigation. It was a sick and sad indictment on policing that they should become bored rather than delighted when they had nothing to do, but there it was. It was tragic that a soul had perished up on Arthur’s Seat, and Ava was grateful there was no suggestion of criminal involvement, but she needed something to occupy her other than signing off on the annual MIT dinner.
Some humorist had arranged for it to take place at a French restaurant this year – a sarcastic homage to DI Callanach, she imagined – his half-French half-Scottish ancestry still the butt of as many jokes as when he’d joined Police Scotland from Interpol a year earlier. Even his accent had paled into insignificance compared to the mickey-taking he’d had to endure when his squad had found out about his history as a model. Callanach had the sort of face it was hard not to stare at, and women regularly did. His dark eyes, long eyelashes, strong jaw and olive skin were never destined to fit in with the crowd, a fact Ava found constantly amusing when they socialised. Or when they used to socialise, Ava corrected herself. Since her promotion they’d played an awkward game of saying they really should do something together soon, never defining what or when.
She had one hand on her phone to call Callanach for an update as it rang in her fingers. She snatched it to her ear. ‘Turner,’ she said.
‘Goodness me, could you not answer the phone like that, please? I’d rather not have people contacting the Major Investigation Team feeling as if you’re mid-crisis before they’ve even introduced themselves. We’re not mid-crisis, are we?’ Detective Superintendent Overbeck asked.
‘No, ma’am,’ Ava said. ‘Sorry. I was just about to …’
‘Good, good. I have the shortlisted applicants for the open Detective Inspector position. I thought you should have a chance to look through them before we interview so I’ll email the list to you this afternoon. If you could let me have your thoughts some time tomorrow that would be helpful. You were invited to drinks with the City Fellows this evening but I gather you’re not attending. Why is that?’
‘Oh, that’s this evening? I’ve got a physiotherapist appointment. Didn’t want to take any time off work for it, so I arranged it in the evening. It’ll be another month if I cancel tonight,’ Ava said, glad the Superintendent was quizzing her by phone rather than in person. In spite of years watching other people lie convincingly during interviews, Ava still hadn’t honed that particular skill.
‘Fucking right you shouldn’t take time off work for a quick massage. Too late to change it now I suppose, but in future you need to remember that this is how the game’s played. Don’t miss the next one. And keep the overtime levels low again next month. We’re within budget for once, which means I’m not getting shit from the board. I’d like to keep it that way,’ Overbeck sniped.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ava said, already talking to a dead line. She dropped Dr Ailsa Lambert, Edinburgh’s Chief Pathologist, an email asking for an update on the body at Arthur’s Seat, then allowed herself the guilty pleasure of checking what films were on at the cinema. She preferred the reruns of old classics that occasionally made the late night showings, but right now she’d settle for anything mindless with a large popcorn. Luck was with her. There was an 11pm showing of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in The West. Ava had a date with Charles Bronson, which was an improvement on another night home alone, and was close to a lottery win compared with the City Fellows’ drinks party. There was tedious, then there was being called ‘dearie’ by eighty-year-old men who felt entitled to ask you to fetch them another drink just because you happened to be a different gender to them, and who wanted to talk golf handicaps while you stood silently and looked impressed. Detective Superintendent Overbeck might have become adept at playing those promotion inducing games, but Ava was both less tolerant and less ambitious.
Her door opened again and DS Lively reappeared.
‘Would you give me a break?’ Ava sighed. ‘If you’ve come to taunt me about the coffee, can I recommend …’ She caught the look on his face. The usually sour, perpetually hard-done-by grimace was slack but his neck was drawn in tight, his throat working hard but producing no sound. DS Lively was, she realised, doing his damnedest not to cry. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘It’s DCI Begbie,’ Lively said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Ava stood up, knowing what the look on her detective sergeant’s face meant, needing to hear him say the words anyway. ‘Stop apologising, Lively, and just say it.’
‘Ma’am, I’m not sure what happened. His car’s been found. Too late to do anything. The Chief’s dead.’
Ava felt a stab of pain in her chest. She was winded, crushed, the sentiment producing a remarkable physical effect. Her former commanding officer and decades-long friend was gone.
Chapter Four
Out at Gipsy Brae recreation ground, north of the city, the wind sliced sideways. It carried away voices and notebooks, whipping hair and leaving the landscape stark. The road had been cordoned off before the entrance to the park. Ava sat in her parked car, delaying the walk to where Begbie’s vehicle was lit up in the distance. The recently retired Detective Chief Inspector George Begbie had been a policeman’s policeman. Crabby at times, long-suffering, s
traight to the point and a champion of victims. In all the years Ava had worked with him, she never once saw him lose sight of what mattered. Somewhere at the heart of every case, someone had been hurt or had lost something. The Chief had fought for those people with all his considerable might, ignoring the brass bearing down from above, paying no attention to the press, oblivious to the politicians. He’d been as sharp as a pin and never expected a single officer to work more hours than he himself put in.
It was Begbie who had saved Ava from the misogyny that might have cost her a career as a detective, giving her a post on the Major Investigation Team, promoting her against more obvious candidates, even suspending her not long ago while her name was cleared regarding a breach of protocol. She knew it had hurt him to do that. They had evolved from colleagues to firm friends over late nights at crime scenes and early mornings when they were short-staffed. Even as a junior officer, Begbie had never excluded her from meetings, seeing her potential. If the rest of the squad liked and admired him, Ava had loved him like a favourite uncle. One who had occasionally shouted at her and made her work three days straight without sleep but, nonetheless, he was most of the reason she’d stuck with a career in policing. She didn’t want to believe he was gone.
Ava locked her car and went on foot, wondering why George Begbie, who favoured warm pubs and comfy chairs, had chosen this barren place to say his final goodbye to the world. Staring out across the North Sea with Cramond Island to his left, Granton Harbour on the right, and nothing but vast grey skies reflected on icy water, it was a horribly bleak ending for such an oversized personality.
Ava hung back at the top of the small road that led down to the sea allowing access for caravans and maintenance trucks, now also to Begbie’s ancient Land Rover. He had parked it away from the footpaths, facing the waves. No one would voluntarily have gone close to a lone male sitting in a vehicle, especially such an intimidatingly large figure. Ava put on a white suit, shoe covers and gloves, for what little good it would do. A determination of suicide had already been made, subject to autopsy. A snake of piping had been disconnected from the car window and lay still on the grass, malevolent even now. Tenting had been erected to protect the scene – more from prying eyes than to preserve evidence – and the busy silhouettes of Scenes of Crime Officers were bustling.
Walking down the gentle grass slope, hands in pockets, Ava was mindful that the light had gone from the day and soon a full lighting rig would be required to process the scene. A young Sergeant, his uniform immaculate, face a picture of concern, walked towards her.
‘Do you have your ID on you, please?’ he said.
Ava handed it over, too tired to explain who she was.
‘Major Investigation Team?’ the officer asked. ‘I’d hardly have thought this was your territory.’
‘Sergeant, if you’ve finished telling a Detective Chief Inspector where she should be and what she should be doing, perhaps you could chase that dog walker over there off this grass. And you address me as ma’am or DCI. Now get going.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, pulling his coat up around his neck and heading off into the wind.
Ava took a deep breath. She hated rudeness, particularly the brand that grew from superiority. If Begbie had taught her nothing else in all the years he’d been her commanding officer, it was that rank came with a responsibility to be kind and to listen. She reined in her emotions.
‘Where’s Dr Lambert?’ Ava asked a passing Scenes of Crime Officer.
‘Busy elsewhere,’ the officer said, stepping around Ava to take a new pair of plastic gloves from a box. Ava took her by the arm.
‘She’s busy? The deceased is a former Detective Chief Inspector. He spent twenty years attending crimes scenes like this and now he’s not a priority? I want to know what happened here. There’s no way George Begbie committed suicide.’
The officer clenched her jaw, pulled her arm out of Ava’s grasp and took a step away.
‘A minibus skidded on a patch of ice and left the road half an hour ago, carrying eight children. Two of those are fatalities. Dr Lambert is making that the priority. If you’ll excuse me.’
‘I hadn’t heard,’ Ava said to the Scenes of Crime Officer’s back. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘DCI Turner?’ a voice said from behind her. A man stepped in offering his hand as the SOCO retreated. ‘I’m Chief Inspector Dimitri. Never had the pleasure of working with George Begbie but I understand he was well respected by his men. Why don’t we let forensics do their bit? I always feel like a spare part while they’re processing. We could wait in my car if you like.’
‘That won’t be necessary but I appreciate the offer,’ Ava said. ‘I’d like to see the body in situ, though. I take it this is your patch.’
‘I was assigned to deal with it, although it seems unlikely to be an ongoing police matter.’ He paused and looked towards Begbie’s car. ‘I’ve lost people I worked with and it’s hard. The trick is not to turn it into a crusade. As soon as you start overthinking it, you lead yourself in all the wrong directions. I’m not trying to put you off, but the best thing to do really would be to leave it to us. You can count on me to look after him, and any information you want, you only have to ask.’
Ava glanced at the Chief Inspector she’d heard of but never met in the flesh. He was so softly spoken that she’d found herself craning her neck forward to listen. Close-up, she realised his eyes were so pale a shade of blue that they were hard to look away from. His hair was white but not by virtue of his age. She guessed him to be in his mid-fifties although his face appeared sculpted from some organic material that didn’t age. Before she could respond to his suggestion, a stretcher appeared from the vicinity of the car with a body bag on it. It was carried to a waiting van for transportation to the city mortuary. Whatever assumptions had been made at the scene, there would still have to be an autopsy.
‘Let me walk you back to your car,’ Chief Inspector Dimitri said.
‘No need.’ Ava shook her head. ‘I’d like to inform George Begbie’s wife myself, if you don’t mind. I appreciate your officers will follow up and take a statement from her. But tonight … I know her. He’d have preferred it to come from a friend.’
‘I understand that,’ Dimitri said. ‘The facts, those few we have, are that a couple walking the coast path were aware of the sound of the engine, walked past to cut up to the road and noticed the hose running from the exhaust. They wrenched open a door – apparently the rear passenger side was unlocked – but by then it was too late. They called for an ambulance and police. The first responders asked for a plate check and that’s how we ID’d him. I’m afraid to say it all looks tragically standard, if you can think of it that way. There’s a bottle of whisky, empty, on the front passenger seat. The radio was playing. No signs of a struggle, broken windows or door locks.’
‘Thank you,’ Ava muttered. ‘I appreciate your kindness. My squad will be devastated. You’ll let me know what you conclude?’
‘Of course. He’s in good hands, I promise,’ Dimitri said.
Ava nodded, shoved her hands down deep into her pockets and walked away, pausing before climbing into her car to look back down towards the crashing sea, a force as destructive and brutal as the news she was about to deliver to George Begbie’s wife.
The Begbies’ house was out east of the city at Portobello, where St Mark’s Place met Argyle Crescent. A traditionally built home, with stone graduating from brown to black by years and precipitation, it stood out from its neighbours by virtue of the miniature turret rising at one side. Ava remembered the Chief joking about how his home was literally his castle, and it looked exactly like a tiny replica of one. He and his wife had loved the place, moving there a decade ago and as far as Ava knew they had been planning to remain there for the foreseeable future. A future that had been stopped firmly in its tracks. The house had been filled with warmth and laughter whenever Ava had visited in the past. This trip would mark the end of all that. It would n
ever be the same again. Not for her, and certainly not for Glynis Begbie once Ava had delivered the dreadful news. She waited in her car a while as Mark Knopfler sang of jackals and ravens, half expecting Begbie’s wife-cum-widow to step out of her front door, a sixth sense leading her onto the street and into Ava’s path. She didn’t appear. Ava clicked off the radio, made sure her clothing was tidy, and walked the few steps up the front path to the door.
‘Ava! How lovely to see you, my darling. George didn’t warn me or I’d have baked. Honestly, that man. So distracted all the time …’
‘Glynis,’ Ava cut in. There was a second when she said nothing, that television moment as Ava always thought of it, where somehow just the physical presence of a police officer unexpectedly on the doorstep was all the omen required to trigger knowledge and grief. It didn’t come.
‘Come on in, quickly now. You’ll freeze out there. Probably just my age but I feel the cold all the time these days. Give me your coat. I’ll call George on his mobile and get him back. He’ll kick himself if he misses you.’