by James Oswald
Fielding finally stopped staring at Lofty and fixed her with a glare that might have been frightening had she not faced down far worse on football match duty back in her uniform days. Nothing quite like an Old Firm derby to bring out the feral beast in a man, and Janie knew how to deal with it. She smiled sweetly, until he broke the stare.
‘The conference programme starts tomorrow morning, but folk have already started arriving. Those . . .’ he hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the vague direction of outside ‘. . . had better not cause any more trouble. The chief constable will hear of it. Mark my words, Detective Sergeant Harrison.’
The threat in naming her was about as subtle as herpes. Janie closed up her notebook and slipped it into her pocket, never once taking her eyes off the loathsome man, nor the condescending smile from her face. ‘I’ll be sure to bear that in mind, Mr Fielding. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better have a word with the ladies outside.’
The side entrance to the Scotston Hotel took them back out to the small square that some optimistic city planner had shoehorned into the redevelopment strategy for the area. Perhaps in high summer it was pleasant enough to sit on the concrete benches, under the struggling plane trees, and eat a quick sandwich before heading back to the office. As autumn merged into winter, it was a grey and unforgiving expanse, all dark whinstone paving and brutally hard landscaping, what little light there was blocked out by the glass-fronted high-rise office and apartment blocks all around it. Into this forbidding space, a band of women had descended to make their protest at the event being held in the hotel.
They were an odd bunch. Janie scanned the crowd, again looking for the familiar flash of red hair, not finding it. The old grannies seemed to have left, and the whole assembly had the feel of breaking up about it, apart from a core of women who clustered around one of the concrete benches. She approached, expecting hostility, but as she neared the group, one of the women turned and smiled.
‘It’s Janie Harrison, isn’t it? Well, this is a surprise.’
Caught on the back foot, Janie stared at the woman. She was vaguely familiar, but the name remained elusive. Taller than Janie, she carried herself with an easy elegance, and wore clothing that managed to be fashionable in a grungy kind of way, while at the same time being perfectly suited to the cold weather. It was her face that caught Janie’s attention though, or more specifically her eyes. They had a strange, purple tint to them that had to be contact lenses, surely.
‘I’m being unfair.’ The woman held out a slender hand, wrist wrapped in bangles. ‘Meghan Turner. I’m Hattie’s wife. We met briefly at the dig site up in the hills this summer, I think.’
‘I thought you were in Africa.’ Janie took the proffered hand, feeling the warmth and strength in the other woman’s grip. She was an artist, wasn’t she? A sculptor? Something like that.
‘Heavens, no. Hattie wanted me to go, but I’ve had quite enough of Africa for now. And this is so much more important.’ Meghan waved at the crowd, the square, the hotel in one all-encompassing expansive gesture.
‘About that.’ Janie reminded herself that this was police business. ‘We’ve had quite a few complaints, you know? And you’re pushing the boundaries of breaching the peace.’
Meghan stared at her for a while, not unfriendly so much as sizing her up. ‘You know what’s going on in there, right?’
‘A perfectly legal seminar on men’s rights. Morally repugnant as it is, what Mr Fielding is doing isn’t against the law. This, however . . .’ Janie nodded towards the crowd, but said no more.
‘Morally repugnant. I like that.’ The older woman smiled.
‘He called you witches. I take that as a personal insult. Still have to do my job, mind.’
Meghan’s smile grew even wider, and was it just a trick of the light, or did the purple of her eyes seem to deepen? ‘Oh, but we are witches, Janie. That’s the whole point.’
7
‘I’ll no’ be staying long, aye? Get myself sorted wi’ a place soon as all the paperwork’s done.’
Gary stands in the middle of Bazza’s untidy living room and stares at the threadbare couch. He’s been here a thousand times before and never really noticed what a dump it is. It smells weird too, a mixture of stale food, farts and sour, spilled beer.
‘Aye, no worries, pal. You stay as long as you need.’ Bazza slaps him on the shoulder, then seems to notice the few items of clothing spread over the couch. He picks them up one by one, then chucks them into the corner by the door. ‘You want a beer?’
Gary doesn’t answer straight away, which isn’t normal for him. None of this is normal for him. He’s been kipping at his ma’s place since the meeting with the lawyer, but he couldn’t stay there long. Too many pictures of Bella and Wee Mary, and even he could see which side she’d taken. So much for family sticking together.
He slips the strap of his kit bag off his shoulder and drops the heavy weight to the floor. Everything he owns is in that bag, or out in the works van parked outside the tower block. Can’t leave it there long, mind. Bazza’s place isn’t the best part of town, and the last thing he needs is having to explain to the boss why he borrowed it without asking first.
‘Here you go, Gary. Get that down your neck.’ Bazza presses a cold tinny of Tennent’s lager into his hand, the ring pull torn open. He’s already taken a swig from his own can and lets out a belch as he drops into the couch and reaches for the TV remote. Gary looks around the room again, sees his future in its damp-stained walls and thin carpet. Bazza’s got all the stuff that matters; big screen telly, subscription to all the sports channels, fridge full of beer and a half-decent kebab shop across the road from the tower. It’s an existence, just barely.
‘What was the story about you an’ Trish anyways?’ he asks as he self-consciously brushes at the couch seat before settling down into it. Time was him and Bazza talked about shite, got drunk together, fought with the Hibees on a Saturday night and spent Sundays on the X-Box on this very couch. That all changed when Bazza got married. And Gary hooked up with Bella not long after. Thought they’d grown up. Aye, right.
‘Ach, youse know what birds are like. Promise you the earth an’ suck your dick ’til they’ve got their feet under the table.’ Bazza takes a swig of his lager, uncaring or unaware that some of it dribbles down his chin and on to his T-shirt. ‘Soon as the ring’s on, though? That’s when they change, aye? Then it’s just do this Bazza, fetch that Bazza, tidy up after yersel’ Bazza. Nag nag nag.’ He holds up his free hand and taps his fingers against his thumb like a naked sock puppet.
Gary takes a sip of his own beer. It’s too warm and tastes like piss. ‘Thought you shagged that Lisa works in Tesco, an’ her best mate told some friend of hers who was in Trish’s Zumba class. An’ that’s why she left.’
Bazza frowns, belches and thumps at his chest. ‘Aye, well. Mebbe. But what’s a bloke to do if his wife won’t let him shag her? Plenty more fish in the sea, eh? Stupid bitch.’
The two of them fall silent for a while, sip their lukewarm, fizzy pish and stare at the telly. There’s a footie match on – there’s always a footie match on – but it’s two foreign teams with players whose names neither of them can pronounce. Something to look at, take the mind off how shit life’s turned out for the both of them.
‘It’s no’ right, Bazza,’ Gary says eventually, the thoughts that have been sluggishly bubbling away in his head finally breaking free.
‘How no’?’
‘Wee Mary. I cannae even see her. No’ even if she’s wi’ her gran. My own ma. I’ve tae stay away from home if . . . she’s there.’ Gary doesn’t realise he’s clenched his fist until he’s crushed the can enough to spill beer on his jeans. ‘Aw, fuck, man. I need tae wear these tae work. Bitch isn’t even here an’ she’s fuckin’ things up for me.’
There’s another long silence while they stare at the screen. After a
while Bazza gets up and fetches another couple of tins, hands one to Gary along with a cloth.
‘There’s a bloke I know youse should speak to.’
Gary looks at his mate without even trying to hide his scepticism. Bazza’s got form for this kind of thing.
‘No’ like that, man. He’s a lawyer or something. Runs a charity for dads who’ve had their kids taken away. Gets them their rights back an’ stuff.’
Gary holds the can away from himself as he pops the ring pull, but this one’s colder, the beer inside unshaken. There’s a tiny flicker of hope in him as he speaks. The first he’s felt since he signed his name on the papers the last lawyer put in front of him.
‘For real?’ he asks.
‘Aye sure, for real. I’ll gie’ him a call. Set youse up like.’
‘Who is he? Have I heard of him?’ Gary pulls out his phone before remembering that the signal’s crap in Bazza’s flat, and he hasn’t got the password for the Wi-Fi yet.
‘Aye, mebbe. He’s been on the news that many times right enough. His name’s Tommy. Tommy Fielding.’
8
McLean sat at his desk, half reading the case notes for the old woman found dead in her burned out house, Cecily Slater. Not that they were any different from the last time he’d read them. A week on, and they still had nothing. Still, it was good to be back at work, and the small matter of demotion to DI suited him just fine. No more senior officers’ strategy meetings, no more trips across to the Crime Campus in Gartcosh, no more wasting time briefing detective inspectors to brief detective sergeants to send detective constables off to ask questions, the answers to which were then garbled as they were passed back up the chain. He could get on with the job of puzzling out why someone would beat an old woman close to death, then douse her in petrol and set her on fire. And how nobody had noticed until she’d lain there for a week. How very few people had even known she existed at all.
He shuddered at the thought of it, reading Angus Cadwallader’s terse prose in the pathology report again. For once he was glad it had been Harrison and not him attending the examination. The poor old woman had been given the works, for sure. What on earth could have possessed someone, or more likely several somebodies, to do such a thing to a ninety-year-old like Cecily Slater?
McLean frowned at the name as it appeared on the next part of the report. They had put together the basic facts, but there was no sense of the person behind them. A recluse, she’d been living in that cottage for as long as anyone could remember. She was the younger sister of the previous Lord Bairnfather, on whose family estate the cottage lay. Bairnfather Hall was a boutique hotel now, and the current lord lived in London. He’d been informed of his aunt’s death, but as yet nobody had interviewed him about her. That struck McLean as odd, but a note on the file said he was currently in the US on business and would let the police know as soon as he was back. The note was almost two weeks old now.
The whole case had a lethargy to it quite out of keeping with the horror of the crime. Possibly because it hadn’t been uncovered earlier; the first twenty-four hours in any investigation were crucial, and they’d long gone before anyone even knew there was a case at all. Possibly because they were so short of detectives the initial investigation had fallen to a lowly DC. McLean couldn’t fault Janie Harrison’s abilities, but everyone had been working on the assumption this had been a tragic accident until the post-mortem had suggested otherwise. They’d wasted so much time, lost so much invaluable forensic evidence. Now the case was going nowhere, stalled before it had even started, vital clues missed and important avenues of enquiry left unexplored. Almost two weeks since her body had been found, three since she had died, Cecily Slater deserved a lot more than she was getting.
Leafing through the actions that had been carried out so far, he found one glaring omission. An oversight, perhaps, or maybe just something that nobody had got around to yet. He picked up his phone and stared at the buttons on the console for a moment while he tried to remember how the damned thing worked. Too long out of the saddle. It would be easier just to go and find someone to ask.
It took only a few minutes to walk to the incident room, one floor down. Like the case itself, it wasn’t exactly a hive of industry. A few uniformed constables sat at computer screens or talked on headsets as if they were in a call centre, but only one whiteboard had been written on so far, photographs from the scene pinned up alongside it. This whole investigation needed a kick up the arse, and he cursed himself for letting it get so bad.
McLean looked around the room until he finally spied one person not quite managing to hide behind a computer screen. Detective Sergeant Sandy Gregg knew she’d been spotted. Or maybe she’d simply been trying to finish up what she’d been doing before coming to help her DI.
‘I’ve been reviewing the case notes, and I can’t find any mention of a follow-up interview with the person who found her. Just the initial questioning at the scene. You know if that’s been done yet?’
Gregg looked embarrassed. ‘If it’s not on the system, then my best bet is no, sir. Janie would know better, but I think she’s away running errands for the new chief super.’
McLean raised a surprised eyebrow. He’d not seen much of their new boss since their first meeting. Was this Elmwood’s preferred method of working, to go straight to the sergeants? Or was she grooming Harrison for greater things? Neither situation worried him much.
‘Well, if you see her before I do, get her to set up an interview, can you? I think it’s time we pulled everything together with this investigation, before it gets away from us.’
‘I’ll get right on it. Want me to send her up to your office when she comes in?’
McLean checked his watch, remembering the other reason why he’d maybe not given quite as much attention to the case as it warranted. ‘No. It’ll have to be tomorrow. I’ve got to go to a retraining session in half an hour.’
‘Retraining?’ DS Gregg didn’t even try to keep the incredulity from her voice.
‘Retraining, reorientation, whatever you want to call it. All part of my penance. Still, it could have been worse. They could have busted me down to sergeant, and then I’d be back in the CID room with the rest of you.’
It wasn’t until much later that he finally managed to get some time to go over the case notes properly. Deep in concentration, McLean sensed a presence in the open doorway to his office rather than seeing anything. Looking up, he was surprised to find the new station chief standing just inside the room, her gaze taking it all in before finally coming to rest on him.
‘Ma— Gail.’ He scrambled to his feet. ‘I didn’t see you there. Is there something I can help you with?’
The chief superintendent smiled warmly, then turned and closed the door before speaking. ‘Working late, Tony?’
‘Catching up, mostly. I’ve been out of the loop almost three months and the first thing I get handed is a murder that’s already two weeks old? Doesn’t help that I keep getting dragged away on “reorientation” sessions.’ He held his hands up and made little bunny ears in the air around the word reorientation, even though it annoyed the hell out of him when other people did it. Maybe the sessions themselves were worse.
‘Boxes have to be ticked, I’m afraid. You can thank the auditors for that.’ The chief superintendent walked slowly across the room, pulled a chair out from the conference table and then dragged it across to McLean’s desk. Her movements weren’t hurried; the word languorous sprang to mind. As if she were exhausted by the day’s events, which was very possible.
‘Sit, please.’ She waved an elegant hand at him, and McLean settled himself back into his office chair. For some unaccountable reason he felt glad to have the solidity of his desk between him and his new boss.
‘No Mrs McLean waiting patiently for you to come home?’ Elmwood asked after an awkward silence.
‘I’m not married.’ McLe
an held up his hand to show the absence of any rings. Something like surprise flitted briefly across the chief superintendent’s face before she smiled broadly.
‘A man like you? I’d have thought they’d be queueing round the block.’
‘I have a partner. She’s in Africa at the moment, though. Part of a team of forensic archaeologists working on mass graves in Rwanda. She flew out a few weeks back.’
‘So you’re all alone. That must be . . . lonely.’ Elmwood stared at him with her piercing grey eyes and McLean began to understand what the mouse feels like as the owl screeches in from the night sky.
‘Was there something you wanted?’ he asked, keen to get whatever this was over with. The chief superintendent didn’t answer straight away, but instead stared at him, the lightest of frowns furrowing her brow as if she were trying to find the right words.
‘You’ve been a detective here, what? Twenty years now?’
McLean nodded his head once. ‘Something like that. I don’t want to think about it too much, really.’
The chief superintendent’s face lit up with a smile at his joke. ‘We all get older, Tony. But unlike most, you’ve been happy to stick at what you do best, right?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of background reading of my own, and I know you didn’t want to be promoted to DCI. All that nasty business with Forrester and his son. Quick thinking in a crisis, but you got bumped up to where you didn’t want to be.’
‘Well, I got this office out of it, so it’s not all bad.’
Another one of those smiles. The chief superintendent had a way of making you feel like her entire concentration was focused on you, McLean noticed. It should have been pleasant, but he found it deeply unsettling.
‘It’s a nice office. Good view, I’m told. When it’s not dark before six. It’s handy too. Just along the corridor from my own.’