The Unburied Dead

by Douglas Lindsay

  The Great Detective, Glasgow's one time police hero, lies in the morgue at the Victoria. Died on his way to hospital, and they brought his body up this morning; died at the hands of Detective Sergeant Hutton. Said to someone that he was the first man I'd ever killed, but not with any conviction.

  Checked out some things this morning. Our suspicions were pretty close to the mark, and anything new we've discovered has confirmed our theory.

  Found out from Josephine Johnson that she spoke to Bloonsbury first on Saturday. He told her to call Herrod the following day. Set him up right from the off. Poor lassie unknowingly played her part, Herrod walked straight into it. Bloonsbury knew his man, knew he would charge round there on his own. White knight. Waited for him, then butchered him. His own man. Can't understand it, because I would've thought Herrod would've been all right to keep his gob shut. But who knows what was going through Bloonsbury's mind the last few weeks?

  Found details of a car stolen from Dunoon late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Turned up in Arrochar. Fits the bill for Bloonsbury having dealt with Crow.

  What else do we have? They're going back over the body of Bathurst, see if they can find any trace of Bloonsbury on there; now that they know what they're looking for.

  Taylor interviewed Healy for a couple of hours. Didn't sit in on it. He wavered all over the place; psychotic to reasonable to switched-on lawyer to deranged killer. And through it all, an obsession with Josephine Johnson. To hear him speak, their relationship bordered on Romeo and Juliet for tragedy, and to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for longevity. An obsessive personality which had needed an outlet, and had found it in a woman who had run away from him. He didn't seem to think she had run away. He seemed to think that at any moment she might be coming back. He seemed to think that there were a variety of reasons why she had left, but had admitted that there was a possibility that she had chosen to leave because she was a 'bitch-slut intent on fucking as many other guys as possible' which was why he'd had to punish her.

  Can you believe anything such a man tells you? Said that he was taken by Bloonsbury after he blundered into the flat of that stupid tart in Rutherglen. Thought he must have been followed. Pretty messed up in those manacles, so he lost track of night and day, but we know how long he was there.

  Ian Healy should be locked up for the rest of his life, but who knows these days? Gets a decent lawyer and he'll probably have the jury feeling sorry for him because he was kidnapped by the police; and they'll let him off. We'll get enough evidence on the guy to convict a multitude of murderers, but you never can tell. Fucking lawyers.

  Found Bloonsbury's prints in Crow's house and on the car that was used in the Edwards hit and run. Drunk Jonah; didn't even think to wear gloves. You just don't think to do it as an officer, do you? When you get prints, you check them against those of known criminals – not against your own men.

  So Bloonsbury is guilty as charged on all counts. And dead with it, which is good. All the best scum get killed at the end. Saves on the trial costs, and means there isn't going to be any screw-up in the courtroom with some bloody awful jury.

  Which leaves us where? Bloonsbury's gone to Hell and taken his secret with him. Charlotte Miller.

  She sat watching it all in the middle of the night, as the ambulance arrived and whisked away the dying man. Guzzled expensive brandy; bottled in Roman times. Hid behind her masque of wealth and shock, all carefully constructed. Safe in what knowledge? That there was no connection between her and Bloonsbury, or this: every step of the way, after every action she has taken, she has wiped the board. There will be nothing out there to point the finger in her direction.

  Can you convict anyone on the actions of someone like Jonah Bloonsbury? Maybe it was the final act of petty revenge from a dying man. To make it look as if she'd colluded with him all along. That she'd let him into her house at the end, rather than him letting himself in or breaking in. The front door was left open, remember, but that could point either way.

  Yet what other proof do we have? We had our suspicions before we went down there, and the way Bloonsbury acted suggested she was part of it. But that was it. It could be that our continuing investigations will unearth something, but we both know she'll have been more thorough than that.

  And so, today, she left us to it. No attempt at interference. Appeared at the station for twenty minutes. The Chief Constable turned up – all shiny buttons and stinking of drink – then left with a smile far from his face, ten minutes later.

  She called me into her office just before she went. Stood in front of her in that office for the fifth time in a week. Wary rather than nervous. Wondered if I was going to hear a confession.

  Not a chance.

  'I'm going away for a few days,' she said.

  Just a few days? I thought. Those days will likely stretch to weeks.

  'Need time to think. Get my head together. Chief Constable thinks it would be a good idea. Let things settle. The last few days have been rather hard on the station,' she said. Rather hard? Go on, Charlotte, tell it how it is. 'It all seems like some great conspiracy.'

  That's exactly what it is, darlin'. And there's a good chance you're at the centre of it all.

  She looked at me for a few seconds. Don't know what she was expecting me to say. Was she looking for sympathy? But I didn't give her anything. There was nothing to say. Taylor and I both suspect her of involvement and we'll do everything to get evidence of it. And fuck it if that drags me into it as well, because of what's been going on between me and her. I'll deal with that if it comes.

  My bet, however, is that there'll be no evidence to find.

  We're left to wonder what went on between her and Jonah Bloonsbury. Maybe it goes back all the way. Sixteen years ago to his first moment of glory and a chase across open moorland. Must have started sometime. Maybe the two of them have been in it together all along, riding the back of the other. And while Bloonsbury couldn't cope and floundered in an ocean of whisky, Charlotte Miller rode the high seas. Was going to go all the way.

  'Would you come with me?' she said. A quiet, nervous voice, but I wouldn't believe that voice now no matter what the tone. Still, that request was out the blue. An electric shock. But whereas before it would have been a shock from an entire power grid, now it was like static off a jumper. 'Now that it's over, you should be able to get some time off. I'm sure Dan wouldn't mind.'

  Dan would go fucking mental. But there was nothing to worry about. There was no way I was going anywhere else with Charlotte Miller. Standing in front of her desk was as far as she was ever going to take me.

  'Don't think so,' I said. Still too many things to sort out. And even if there weren't...

  She swallowed. Took it well. Knew what I was thinking, I'm sure.

  And that was that. She didn't say anything else, I turned my back on my infatuation of the past week and walked from her office. Closed the door behind me.

  A couple of minutes later she swept out of the station. No goodbyes. We couldn't exactly lock her up just because Bloonsbury tried to kill her, but I would bet now if we find something and want to bring her in, she'll be very difficult to get hold of. It might not just be weeks that the few days turns into, but months and years. Off somewhere with her bank account and silk pyjamas.

  And that's just about it. Some questions answered, some not. A few leftovers, such as the man who currently rots in prison on the Addison murder charges from last year. The crimes of Gerry Crow – although that's all hearsay. Maybe it was Bloonsbury all along. Who knows? It'll be for someone else to work out what to do with the guy.

  We're done, and I'm left sitting across the road from my ex-wife, waiting for something. Maybe it's for one of them to take the decision out of my hands. For one of them to look out of the window and notice the car parked across the road. For one of them to decide whether to draw the curtains or come over and invite me in.

  At the back of my mind – despite all the stupidity of being infatuated
with Charlotte Miller – I was presuming that I'd end up back here, that I'd be walking in through that door. But last night I killed a man, and it wasn't the first time. It was the first time in seventeen years. And while seventeen years is a long fucking time, it's not long enough.

  I always thought that when I met the right women I'd talk to her. My part in the Balkan war. I'd let it all out, a great tumble of awful reminiscence, spewing forth, unstoppable, ending with me in tears and a wreck on the floor. And for years I thought it would be Peggy. For years. And maybe even this past week I'd thought it would be Peggy, that she was the one I could talk to.

  But sitting here, across the road from her house, I know. I don't think I was lying to myself when I first thought she'd be the one. I genuinely believed I could talk to her. Now, however, I know for sure. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week. And some time soon, after I move back in, I'll wake up jabbering and sweating and panicking in the middle of the night and she'll look at me and be afraid and hope that I'll talk to her, and I'll see it in her eyes. The sure and certain knowledge that I won't. The sure and certain knowledge that there probably is someone out there in whom I'd confide, but that it's not her.

  I see a movement in the front room, and suddenly I know that I can't be sitting here waiting for them to make the decision for me. I have to leave.

  Engine on, into first, and smoothly away from the side of the road. Grasp the steering wheel firmly because my hands are shaking. Look at the clock. Must have been an hour that I sat there. Late afternoon, New Years day.

  Automatically flick the music on. Bob. Idiot Wind.

  I haven't known peace and quiet so long I can't remember what it's like. Time for me and Bob to hit the nearest pub.

  ***

  About the author

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