by Ed James
‘Back-up’s here, Sundance.’
Cullen clamped his jaw shut, his stomach lurching. What the fuck?
DS Brian Bain leered at him from the doorway. He’d regrown his moustache, thicker than when Cullen worked for him. His hair had filled in from a skinhead, enough for a little flick at the front. Still the same reptilian menace in his dull eyes. He handed a coffee to Methven and sucked on his own. ‘What’re you fuckin’ up now?’
‘Jesus Christ.’
Methven nodded thanks. ‘DCI Cargill went cap in hand to DCS Soutar. She got Glasgow South MIT to free up DS Bain and DC McCrea—’
Cullen shifted his gaze between Methven and Bain. ‘With all due respect, sir, what the hell are you doing?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Come on, Sundance. Haven’t you missed me?’
‘This’ll just throw petrol on the fire, sir.’ Cullen couldn’t look at Bain, locked his eyes on the floor. ‘He’s the reason Thomson sued us, sir.’
‘Can’t you fuckin’ look at me when you speak about me?’
‘This is me trying.’
‘Sergeants!’ Methven held out his free hand. ‘You are to work together, do you understand?’
Cullen finished his coffee and dumped the container in the basket. ‘Sod it. I’ll go see Thomson myself.’ He stabbed a finger at Bain. ‘Keep him up here.’
Thirteen
Rob Thomson stretched back in his chair, headset clamped to his skull. Still looked like he would know his way round a combine harvester.
Cullen let out a deep sigh and shut his eyes for a few seconds. He reopened them and sucked in a breath as he knocked on the door.
‘Come!’
Cullen pushed through the door, heart fluttering.
Thomson switched his focus from the Caffè Nero across the wide corridor to glance over at Cullen. He did a double take. Then held out the microphone. ‘Sorry, Pauline, something’s come up and I need to dial out. I’ll catch up offline.’ He stabbed a finger at the phone, tossing the headset onto the desk as he stood. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
Cullen raised his hands. ‘The alternative’s much worse, believe me.’
Thomson slumped down in his chair, the leather creaking. He focused on the floor and raised his gaze. Shot it back down again. ‘Why the fuck should I help you?’
Cullen collapsed into the seat opposite. ‘Because I fought tooth and nail to clear your name.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Almost lost my job over it. I found out who killed your fiancée and ex-wife. That got you off. Because of what I did, he’s over in Shotts for the next forty years.’
‘They’ve got names. Kim and Caroline.’
‘I know.’
‘You expect me to believe this tale?’
‘I don’t care if you do or don’t. It’s the truth.’ Cullen took out his notebook. ‘Do you ever visit him?’
‘Every month. On the third. Just to see that fucker inside there, suffering. It’ll never be enough but it takes a tiny bit of the sting away.’
‘How’s your son?’
Thomson picked up a packet of Rizlas from his desk and rolled a cigarette, tipping in tobacco from a pouch. ‘Jack’s living with Caroline’s folks up in Carnoustie. I still see him when I visit my parents.’
‘It’s good you’re back at work.’
‘Only way I could cope.’ Thomson licked the underside of the paper and folded it over. ‘You can’t act like we’re fucking mates, pal.’
‘I’m sorry about what happened.’ Cullen gazed at the smooth ceiling for a few seconds, then focused on Thomson, his eyes watering. ‘I was involved with a girl at the time. He took her and tortured her. I saved her, but it broke her apart.’
Thomson put the roll-up in the pouch. ‘Am I supposed to applaud you?’
‘I lost a colleague.’
‘Well done, hero cop. That’s what the papers called you, right?’ Thomson pushed his cigarettes away. ‘You never reached out to me. Why bother now?’
‘I need to speak to you as part of our investigation. Got a few questions about Jonathan van de Merwe.’
‘That wanker.’ Thomson shook his head. ‘Good riddance.’
Keep him talking… Cullen narrowed his eyes. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Friday’s status meeting.’ Thomson rubbed his neck. ‘Had a big ding dong with him.’
‘About what?’
‘Usual shite. Guy was a complete wanker.’
‘So you’ve no idea why he’d be in his underpants on Dean Bridge at—’
Thomson burst out laughing. ‘What?’
‘You think it’s funny?’
‘I’ve got a different view on the world these days.’ Thomson fiddled with his headset, righting it on the desk. ‘Look, I hated the guy. He was a bully and a liar, but I didn’t kill him.’
‘Why all the antagonism?’
‘Because that daft bastard kept pushing things too far. Kept cutting our budget and headcount. They gave us shite requirements and we were supp—’
‘Who did?’
‘That American prick Broussard. Has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.’
‘What’s a requirement when it’s at home?’
‘It’s how the business tell us what they want the system to do.’
‘The business?’
Thomson flicked up his eyebrows. ‘It’s what we call the end users.’
‘I see. Go on.’
‘It’ll be things like, it must let them search by name, put a valid postcode in, validate age from date of birth. All that stuff.’
‘With you now. What do you do with them?’
‘We use them to design and build a system. We try to do things properly here, but IMC and the previous idiots were complete cowboys. No requirements or just the most minimal rubbish you’ve ever seen. ’
‘Why is that bad?’
‘Because they cut corners. Speed things up.’ Thomson jabbed a finger in the air. ‘And don’t get me started on Schneiders, either. They’re a bunch of yes men charging three grand a day for the privilege of lying to us. If you wonder why we’ve overspent, look at them.’
‘You’ve overspent?’
‘I haven’t. Van de Merwe had. I know a few people in the PMO—’
‘That’s Michaela Queen’s team, right?’
‘Good luck getting hold of her.’ Thomson flicked up his eyebrows. ‘She gave him some bad news, so he told her to go on holiday.’ He reached for his tobacco. ‘The IMC bill was higher than he’d expected. Like, a lot. I heard Van de Merwe was thinking about sacking IMC, even though they’ve only been here since January.’
‘What?’
‘Yup. They’re supposed to save money and deliver faster. What these clowns never get with offshoring is you can’t replace one UK-based guy on four hundred quid a day with an Indian guy on a hundred. You need at least four offshore for every one they replace here. You need more guys onshore to manage the whole process. My costs have doubled.’
‘Really?’
‘Aye. And those Indian clowns are utter shite. Look, I’m not being racist here, okay? If you tried to offshore from India to here it’d be the same. It’s a fool’s game.’
‘So why offshore?’
‘Because it worked for some American bank in 1996, when it was ten quid a day for Indian resource. And you could get the pick of them. Ever since then, it’s been a law of diminishing returns. Unless you throw something massive at them, you’ll get piss-poor resources back.’
Cullen jotted it down. ‘While we’re talking about rumours, I heard your position’s under threat.’
‘That’s bullshit. I’m a permanent member of staff and my boss knows how much of a disaster this programme is.’
‘Thought it was a success...’
‘Pissing four hundred million against a wall isn’t success.’
‘Alan Henderson told me the total budget was three hundred million.’
&n
bsp; ‘So, you see what I’m dealing with here.’ Thomson rolled his eyes. ‘They’re rushing things and it’s just not working. Why do you think this programme keeps slipping? They’ve massively overspent and now they’re forced to do it on a shoestring. It’s completely fucked.’
‘Yardley suggested you had a grudge against Mr Van de Merwe.’
Thomson bellowed with laughter. ‘That’s brilliant. The only thing I’d do is go to Private Eye about this clusterfuck. Tell them how much money we’ve pissed up the wall on this disaster.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Because I believe in this bank. I want to do everything possible to deliver this programme.’
‘So who’d want him out of the way?’
‘Vivek Sadozai.’
‘Why?’
‘If they lose a fifty million quid contract, it’s his bollocks on the chopping block.’
* * *
Cullen got back to the meeting room and opened the door so hard he hit the wall. No Bain or Methven, just Buxton fiddling with his phone. ‘On your lonesome?’
‘You’ll break the glass if you’re not careful.’ Buxton dropped his mobile on the desk. ‘Bain and Crystal are speaking to Henderson again. Get anything?’
‘A few nuggets. Second time Vivek’s name has come up.’ Cullen checked the seats for one to collapse into.
A knock on the door followed by the carpet digging up.
‘Morning, boys.’ James Anderson scowled up at Cullen, a good six inches shorter than him, patches of stubble along his jawline flanking his greying goatee. His curtains haircut needed a good wash. A SOCO suit hung from his waist, flapping behind him. ‘Heard you were here. Quite the big boy, now you’ve got your extra stripe.’
Cullen tried to stand up even taller. ‘Found anything in his office?’
‘Might get some DNA and prints. Sent the computer off to Charlie Kidd.’
‘He’ll love that.’
‘Your wee Indian lassie’s been nipping my boys’ heads.’
‘That’s what I asked her to do.’
‘You’re a fu—’
Another knock on the door, still open. Vivek. He stepped into the room, his hair now dry. ‘Sergeant, you called me?’
Cullen motioned towards a seat. ‘We’ve got some questions, if you don’t mind?’
‘Right.’ Anderson wandered off.
Vivek sat in the chair, arms folded. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘We understand IMC were in danger of losing the contract here.’
‘That’s incorrect. We’re the only ones VDM could rely on to deliver.’
‘So why am I hearing these rumours?’
‘That’s what happens here.’ Vivek took off his glasses and misted the lenses, rubbing them against his shirt. ‘The programme is red.’
‘Red as in red, amber, green?’
‘Like traffic lights. Red means it’s in bad way.’
‘So, it’s stopped?’
‘It’s in danger of slipping. All the milestones are red.’
‘What’s a milestone?’
Vivek snorted. ‘We mark out tasks on the plan. Some of them we call milestones. It lets us track progress. The key dates have delayed at least six months since we started here. It’ll take another year, at least. Which means a lot more money.’
‘Why?’
‘The requirements we got from Cranston were terrible. We couldn’t do anything with them. I called it out at VDM’s status meeting. He told us to just get on with it.’
‘Have you got any proof of this?’
‘I could dig out the minutes.’
‘That might help.’ Cullen made a note — Follow up. ‘Was there any other reason?’
‘The environments from IT were always late.’
‘Environments?’
‘I mean the server where we do our development. IT provide these to us. Supposed to be on Alba Bank kit, but we had to use the cloud to meet the timescales. Bringing them back in will add months to the programme end date.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. Did Rob Thomson handle this?’
‘Yes.’ Vivek shook his head. ‘He kept blaming us. VDM just told us both to shut up and get on with it.’
‘You seem to have a lot of resentment towards him.’
‘VDM said do things cheaper and faster. All the time. Every single assumption we’d made blew up. Everything took longer. There’s no governance on this programme.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Someone has to look after all the cowboys. Make sure milestones are met. Manage the risks and issues. Deliver dependencies on time.’
‘Whose job should that be?’
‘Michaela Queen.’
‘And she’s not around.’ Cullen made a couple of notes next to her name, just about running out of space. ‘So you’d say she’s not doing her job?’
‘Van de Merwe and Yardley got in her way, put so many obstacles in the way that she couldn’t do it.’
‘Why didn’t you mention any of this earlier?’
‘I can only apologise.’
‘We’ll need this in a statement.’ Cullen handed him a card. ‘I trust you can find your way to Leith Walk police station?’
‘Of course.’ Vivek left them to it, eyes locked on the card.
Buxton sat on the edge of the table. ‘What the fuck’s going on in this place?’
‘They all hate each other. And they’re all covering their arses.’
‘You got any suspects?’
‘I’ve not ruled anyone out yet.’
An alert chimed on Cullen’s phone. He checked it — Lunch with Sharon at 1. ‘Ah, shite.’
Fourteen
‘You missing the beard?’ Cullen marched down Leith Walk, flickers of sunshine clearing the mid-May gloom.
Buxton ran a hand across his smooth face. ‘I’m just glad it’s not December, mate.’
Cullen passed the posh furniture shop and café, glimpsing the station round the corner, the glass and chrome glinting.
Sharon stood outside, a brown paper bag in her hands. ‘Get away from me!’
‘Let him go!’ A woman in her early twenties stabbed a pudgy finger in the air at Sharon. She wore a tight dress, white with red polka dots, hugging her chubby body. Barely five foot tall, she looked at least that wide. ‘He’s done nothing!’
‘I’m warning you, I will arrest you for assault if you persist with this.’
The woman slapped a hand across Sharon’s face. ‘You bitch!’
‘Shite!’ Cullen sprinted down the street.
‘That’s it.’ Sharon dropped her shoulder bag and grabbed her attacker by the wrist. She pushed down with her other forearm, digging into her triceps. The woman swivelled round in front of her, landing face down on the ground. Sharon put a knee in her back. ‘I warned you!’
Cullen stopped a few feet away. ‘Do you need any help?’
Sharon pointed at two nearby uniformed officers with her free hand. ‘Arrest her!’
They jogged over and hauled the woman to her feet. ‘Come on.’
Sharon dusted herself down and crouched to collect both bags. ‘Shite, I’ve got tea all over my bloody sandwich.’
‘Let’s go to a café.’ Cullen helped her up. ‘My treat.’
‘Fine.’ Sharon nodded at Buxton. ‘Weird seeing you back in a suit. I miss the beard.’
‘Don’t get used to it.’ Buxton grimaced as he took the spoiled bag from her. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
‘Bin it.’ Cullen pointed up at the station. ‘Get the team together for quarter past two, will you?’
‘Sure thing, boss.’ Buxton trotted up the steps.
Cullen gripped Sharon’s hand and led her back up the street. ‘Who was that?’
‘Beth Graham. Kyle’s darling wife. Doesn’t believe her husband’s been raping young men.’
‘That’s a hard message to take.’ Cullen opened the door to the café and clocked a pair of stools in th
e window. He offered her the pick of the seats and sat next to her, grabbing a menu. ‘This where you got your lunch from?’
‘Last ham salad, too. Think I’ll have a soup.’
Cullen checked the sign above the counter. Tomato and bean. He caught a passing waitress’s eye. ‘Two soups, please.’
She scribbled in her pad and walked off.
Cullen put the menu down again. ‘How’s it going?’
‘We’re not getting anywhere with Graham.’
‘He’s still denying it?’
‘Until the end of time. I agreed an extension with Campbell but we need to arrest him today. Methven got round to telling me you’re off the case.’
‘Doesn’t waste any time, does he?’
Sharon reached into her bag and took out a wad of papers. ‘Finally got a profile of our rapist.’
He flicked through the pages. ‘Wouldn’t mind having a look at this.’
‘Even though you’re no longer on the case?’
‘I’m still interested.’
‘What’s Crystal got you working on?’
‘This banker’s death.’
‘Must be hard to have sympathy for the victim.’
‘Sympathy for the devil, more like. Spent a morning up at Alba Bank getting the square root of hee-haw done. They all hated him.’
‘Least you’ve got Budgie back, though.’
‘Keeps me out of mischief, I suppose.’ He took his bowl of soup from the waitress. Beans and sprigs of parsley sat on a red splurge, a slice of seeded bread hanging off the side of the plate. ‘When I was there, I met Rob Thomson.’
She dropped her spoon. Red splashed up. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘Nope. Brought a lot of stuff back.’
‘You okay?’
‘I’ll live. And Crystal’s rustled up Bain.’
‘Scott, quit it. I don’t believe you.’
‘I’m serious. Him and McCrea, though I’ve not seen him yet, thank God.’ Cullen dipped his bread into the soup. ‘When do you think you’ll finish tonight?’
‘Next Wednesday.’
* * *
Buxton waved a hand in front of Cullen’s face. ‘Thanks for turning up on time, Sarge.’