Dead but not Buried

by Iain North

  A year on there was a news report about Samantha herself. This time she was named, because she was the accused. Her crimes: a catalogue of breach of the peace offences committed during a Friday night out in Oban. She was only 16, but that hadn’t stopped her procuring a bottle of Diamond White cider - high alcohol, low price.

  Jim read the charges - breach of the peace, shouting and swearing, resisting arrest, struggling with police constables and lashing out with her arms and legs at them. The punishment was 12 months’ probation. A week later she was back in court, same charges, same excuse - alcohol. Sentence was deferred for reports. Samantha was remanded in custody. When she returned to court she was ordered to carry out 60 hours of community service.

  Two weeks after that she appeared from custody before the same sheriff: more Diamond White, more disorderly conduct. Samantha was once again remanded for reports, and then given 30 days’ detention.

  Jim checked the date of her sentencing on the cutting. She had been locked up on April 15, which, taking into account the fact prisoners generally only served half their sentence, meant she was released back into the community at the end of the month, just two weeks before the death of Gary O’Brien and her untimely end. It was a short, but ultimately devastating criminal career.

  He cut out his Sunday Mail splash and stuffed it into the envelope along with the photocopies he had taken from George’s office.

  The telephone rang. Jim picked up the handset.

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Jim. It’s Ron.’

  ‘Hi mate, how are you doing?’

  ‘Not bad, at all.’

  The call reminded Jim about his suit fitting. ‘Are you ready for the big day?’

  ‘I can’t wait. I was just ringing to make sure you’ve got your tickets.’

  ‘I think so. I’ve been out of town for a couple of days, but I think Jenny’s done the necessary with the travel agents.’

  ‘Great. Let me know what flight you’ll be on and we’ll pick you up from the airport.’ Jim nodded. ‘Great.’

  ‘Have you got your speech written?’

  Jim had forgotten all about it. But he lied. ‘Yeap. I’ll just recycle the one I did for your last wedding.’

  ‘Fuck of,’ Ron chuckled.

  Ron D’All was marrying his first wife, a second time. They separated several years ago after he caught her sleeping with an architect. But true to form, Debbie returned, cap in hand. The only people to make anything out of it were the divorce lawyers. Now, they were tying the knot again, this time in Majorca.

  ‘I think we’re flying out on Friday. We should be landing at Palma at lunchtime,’ Jim continued.

  ‘See you there, then,’ Ron added. ‘Have a good flight.’

  ‘We’ll try.’

  They had left the booking to the last minute and only managed to get charter tickets, so the chances of that were low.

  ‘Cheers, mate.’ Ron hung up.

  Jim replaced the handset and returned his attention to Samantha O’Brien. That was one thing she would never do; get married, or have a family of her own.

  A minute later, the phone rang again. It was Brian Baxter from the Sunday Mail, in enthusiasm overdrive. ‘Cracking story about the girl, Jim.’

  ‘Thanks. Is the cheque in the post?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Then it was straight to business.

  ‘I know it’s not really in your patch, but I thought you might want to handle this one, given your new found interest in perverts,’ Brian continued. ‘We got a line from George Cameron about the Bennet riot.’

  ‘The Portree Place paeodophi1e?’

  ‘We want an interview with one of his victims for a centre spread we’re doing on paedos. We’ve traced her and she’s still living in Inverness. She’s 16. Do you want it?’

  Inverness was a bit out of the way and this was not Jim’s normal bag. But he looked at the picture of Samantha on the front of the Mail and made up his mind.

  ‘Okay. You want it for this Sunday?’

  ‘Yeap. We’ll pick up your exes. I’ll email the details.’ Baxter rung off.

  *****

  As usual, Jenny had been waiting for five minutes. Jim jogged up to her and offered his apologies.

  ‘You’re here now. Let’s get you suited up for the wedding.’

  He trailed after her into the gentlemen’s outfitters.

  ‘Wedding suits? Follow me.’ The Cooper & Mackenzie shop assistant, a smartly dressed but spotty young man in his early 20s, guided them up a flight of stairs to the sales floor and over to a rail of black tuxedos. He left them to choose one.

  ‘Ron called from Majorca,’ Jim said.

  ‘Yeah?’ Jenny was not really paying attention.

  Making conversation anyway: ‘Seems to be looking forward to it.’

  ‘Here, try this one.’ She handed him a hanger from the rail. ‘Did you bring a white shirt?’

  He knew he’d forgotten something.

  Jenny called over the assistant. ‘Can we borrow a shirt? 15 inch collar.’

  The man scampered off obediently and returned a few moments later.

  ‘I’ve got to go up to Inverness for a couple of days.’ Jim informed his wife of his intention from the relative safety of the changing cubicle. ‘I’m leaving tonight.’

  ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘It’s work. I’ll be back on Wednesday.’

  He could just imagine the look on her face

  ‘But you promised me after the last job you were going to spend some time at home with me and the kids.’

  ‘It’s only for a couple of days.’

  ‘There’s so much to sort out for this wedding.’ There was anger in her voice. ‘And you’re going to leave me to do it all, as usual.’

  Jim was straying towards assertiveness, not a comfortable place for him when it involved Jenny. But it was the only way. ‘Look,’ he said sternly. ‘Two days, then we will have two weeks together in Majorca.’

  Silence.

  Jim emerged from behind the curtain. ‘It fits.’

  Jenny gave him only a cursory glance as she took a credit card from her handbag. ‘I’ll pay for it.’

  They left the shop together, but parted in the street outside.

  ‘I’ve some shopping to do,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you at home in an hour.’ And she walked off.

  Jim was in no mood to go home alone. So he dumped his suit in the boot of his wife’s car and ducked into a nearby cafe for a coffee. It was packed with pensioners queuing up for the £3.50 lunch special – macaroni and chips. He declined the plump serving lady’s offer of a plate and grabbed a table in the far corner of the room where he sat down with his coffee and a Danish.

  He checked his Blackberry. Brian had emailed the contact details for his Inverness trip. He’d go home, make it up with Jenny, then pack his overnight bag and head north. He thought about taking the Mazda, but it was another long trip for an old car and he still hadn’t had the time to take it into the garage for its annual service, despite Jenny’s nagging. The Sunday Mail would pick up the tab for a rental so he made a quick call to Avis before finishing off his pastry.

  Jim had never interviewed the victim of a sex attack before. In truth, he was a little nervous but he hoped meeting the girl would shed some light on Samantha’s inner turmoil. That was the main reason he agreed to do the story.

  ‘Hi Jim.’

  He looked up from his cup to see Amber Harris strolling over with a tray.

  ‘Amber.’ He was pleasantly surprised to see her. ‘How are you?’

  Jim stood up and gestured to the empty seat opposite.

  ‘Thanks.’ She sat down and placed the tray in front of her.

  Jim spotted the macaroni. ‘You’re rave.’

  ‘It’s very good. You should try some.’

  He shook his head.

  She dug a fork into the steaming pile and lifted it to her mouth.

  ‘How’s university?’ he asked


  She chomped on the pasta. ‘I’m working now.’

  ‘Uh hu?’

  ‘Doing what you do,’ she continued.

  ‘Sorry?’ Jim lost the way momentarily. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was he did, other than upset his wife.

  ‘I’m a journalist.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He was back on course. ‘Enjoying it? The job, not the macaroni.’

  She nodded. ‘You inspired me.’

  Jim coughed on the final crumbs of his Danish. ‘I did?’

  ‘I was impressed. The Ballantyne story.’

  Jim cast his mind back a few weeks to the story responsible for his return to newspapers, the supermarket magnate with the secret past. He first met Amber during the final days of his investigation. It was her fault he was smoking again.

  ‘So, what are you working on now?’ she asked.

  ‘This and that. What about you?’

  ‘It’s pretty boring really, cheque presentations and golden weddings.’

  ‘You’ve got to start somewhere.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a comedown, though, isn’t it?’

  Jim nodded. The Ballantyne story was a cracker. A 30-year-old murder, the body entombed in one of the concrete uprights of the Tay Road Bridge. He remembered clearly standing in the car park at the Fife end of the bridge during the early hours of a cold December morning watching the bridge fall victim to a runaway cargo ship. The dead man – or rather his skeleton – was found the next day.

  ‘It was a good one alright,’ he agreed.

  He had almost managed to blank from his mind the bit about his daughter Kirsty being abducted by Ballantyne’s son and the discovery the day after his story broke of Murray Ballantyne swinging lifeless from a rope in one of the outhouses of his country mansion. That bit wasn’t so cracking.

  ‘Doesn’t happen every day, though,’ he added.

  ‘You’re not working on anything I could help you with?’ Amber sounded hopeful. ‘I’m due a few days off.

  The one thing he had successfully managed to put out of his head – until now that is – was the night he spent in Amber’s flat, on Amber’s sofa, with Amber.

  ‘Not really,’ he lied.

  ‘Oh, well, back to the civic receptions,’ she giggled.

  Jim had been honest. He told Jenny about his night with his daughter’s best friend. Nothing physical happened between them, but that was neither here nor there and he and his wife were still not on the best of terms. He remained on probation for the foreseeable future.

  Amber tucked away the last of her cheese-covered chips and set her knife and fork down neatly on the plate. She flicked open a can of Diet Coke with a neatly manicured fingernail and took a sip.

  ‘It’s good to see you again,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Jim added wistfully. He put his cup and plate back on to the brown plastic tray he was issued with at the counter and stood up. ‘It was good to see you too.’

  *****

  Jim tucked his driving licence and credit card back into his wallet.

  The Avis receptionist handed him a set of keys and read out the registration number. ‘Have a good journey.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jim wandered out into the yard and scanned the number plates until he found his car. It was a Vauxhall Insignia. If the Sunday Mail was picking up the bill, he thought he might as well travel in some comfort. He triggered the central locking and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  The rental car pulled on to the gravel driveway beside Jenny’s MX6. She was home before him, and he was well over the allotted hour. But he wasn’t too bothered. He had committed a far worse crime than simply being late, and provided Jenny hadn’t spotted him with Amber in the cafe, he could just about live with himself.

  ‘I’m home,’ he called out as he let himself in through the front door.

  Jenny wafted past him, en route from the kitchen to the lounge with a vase of fresh flowers. ‘I’ve hung your suit up in the wardrobe.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Jim threw his car keys down on the hall table and followed his wife into the living room. ‘Can we talk?’

  She plonked the flowers down on the windowsill and gazed out through the glass.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About us.’

  ‘What about us?’

  ‘The way we are.’

  ‘Things are okay.’ She wasn’t convincing anyone, far less herself.

  Jim sought confirmation. ‘Are they?’

  She turned to face him, her slim figure framed in the window. Her lips were narrow and Jim thought he saw the ebb of a tear in her eye. ‘You can’t expect everything to go back to normal,’ she said sadly.

  Jim dipped his head. ‘I know I let you down.’

  Jenny frowned. ‘You did.’

  ‘And I promised it would never happen again.’ His thoughts turned to the brief meeting with Amber in the cafe.

  ‘It’s not as easy as just promising, Jim.’

  He nodded and wandered uncertainly over to her. ‘What more can I do?’

  ‘You could spend some time with your family.’ Her voice quivered.

  ‘I’ve got to work. How else can we afford to go to Majorca next week?’

  ‘But you don’t need to do what you do.’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation before, numerous times.’

  She turned away from him to look out of the window again. ‘And we’ll keep having it, until you do something about it.’

  Jim backed off and poured himself a whisky from the decanter on the sideboard. He drained the glass in one shot.

  ‘I’m not going to stop working.’

  ‘Well, that’s your answer then, isn’t it!’ Jenny shouted, storming past him. She slammed the door shut behind her, leaving Jim alone in the lounge.

  He poured another whisky and took out his mobile phone.

  *****

  There were no parking spaces in Bellefield Avenue. There never were. Day or night, a solid line of cars, bumper to bumper, occupied each side of the narrow street of red sandstone tenements. Jim prodded the horn again. The light in the flat his eyes were trained upon was snuffed out by darkness and a minute later Amber appeared at the end of the close below, a heavy bag slung over her shoulder.

  Jim stepped out into the cool night air and opened the boot.

  ‘It’s only a couple of nights away,’ he smiled.

  Amber dumped her holdall into the boot. ‘If you think that’s a lot, you should see what I take with me on holiday.’

  He laughed and brought the boot lid down firmly.

  She studied the executive saloon. ‘You’ve gone up in the world. Wasn’t it a rusty old Vectra the last time?’

  ‘If you remember, that was destroyed by an angry widow. This is courtesy of the Sunday Mail.’

  Amber sunk into the passenger seat and pulled on her seatbelt. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Inverness.’

  ‘You sure know how to show a girl a good time.’

  *****

  Chapter 6

  Jim pushed the bell. It didn’t work. He rattled the chipped letterbox instead.

  ‘Maybe she’s out,’ Amber suggested. ‘We could grab a coffee and come back later.’

  ‘No, she’s in.’ Jim had a sixth sense for these things, like when a telephone was ringing out. Somehow he knew whether it would be answered or not. It must have been something in the ring. There was no science to it, just something in his brain, a little corner that knew these things.

  Sure enough, they eventually heard the soft pad of feet beyond the flaking red door. Jim drew a breath. ‘Here we go.’

  A chain rattled and he heard the Yale lock release. The door opened slowly. A small woman in a white tracksuit and matted carpet slippers poked her head out.

  Jim smiled. ‘Hello. Is Katrina in?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’ Parted lips revealed a shortage of teeth on the lower jaw of the tiny freckled face.

  ‘My name’s Jim Buchan. I’m from the S
unday Mail.’

  She flicked her gaze to Amber, then to the empty concrete landing beyond them. She paused for an uncertain second and then drew the door open.