The End of the Wasp Season

by Denise Mina

  Thomas grinned and looked down at Squeak’s dad, looming over him, aware that he was frightening the powerful man. He reached over slowly and slapped the table himself, loud, the flat of his hand bzzbzzing with the force of the blow.

  Hamilton-Gordon stood up to meet him. But he wasn’t as tall as Thomas, only came to his chin and Thomas looked down at him. It wasn’t even an analogy. He had been waiting, somehow, to see another wasp, as if when they came back it would all go away, this bubble of time, make sense, but the wasp was just a wasp. It wasn’t epiphany, it wasn’t an analogy.

  “Thomas!” shouted Mr. Hamilton-Gordon. “It’s just a wasp.”

  Thomas began to laugh. It meant nothing. It was all just random stuff and deaths. He laughed and laughed until Squeak’s dad banged on the door and asked to be let out. He laughed all the way back to the library.

  And even lying in his bed that night, as he fell asleep, a fat warm smile nestled on his face because none of it meant anything else. It was all just random stuff that happened.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Leonard’s friend had taken months to draw up her initial findings over the blood splatters. She had submitted them on a DVD with a forty-page explanation that amounted to a thesis. Every point was footnoted, every authority cited. She had even put a cover letter in with the DVD and the thesis explaining that her graphics had been borrowed from the computer games department and she would, in the fullness of time, devise her own graphics, but, for the sake of time efficiency, for the benefit of the particular case in which they were engaged, she had resorted to—

  Morrow left the letter in her in-tray with the thesis and put the DVD into her hard drive.

  A screen, offering her a selection of episodes, all blank blue except the first one marked “Case I*.” She clicked it with her mouse.

  A photograph of the stairs at Glenarvon, seen from the foot, a doctored version of the scene-of-crime photos with Sarah’s body wiped out and replaced with a graft of green from further up the stairs. The screen was still for a moment, and then an aerial view of the stairs with three sets of feet at the top, imprints of feet. Bare feet, Sarah, next to the banister, toes deep in the carpet, quite distinct from the soles. At the other side of the stairs, next to the wall, one pair of shoes with the three circle marks of the St. Augustus shoes. A slash across one sole, the left sole. Slightly behind Sarah, between her and the slash shoes, another pair. This pair had a distinctive dot at the heel. Morrow knew what it was: a black pebble from the Glenarvon driveway. They’d found it in Thomas’s right shoe, the pair Jonathon had bagged carefully and hidden in his room.

  She wasn’t ready for it when Sarah’s feet took off down the stairs—jumped slightly in her chair, glanced, embarrassed, around the office.

  When she looked back at the screen it was happening in slow motion: Sarah’s feet flew down the stairs, two at a time and then, out of nowhere, hair fell from her invisible head, she didn’t see it but Morrow felt Sarah’s head yanked back as someone grabbed her hair and pulled out chunks, letting them drop gracefully to the ground. The slash shoes had grabbed her hair and then Sarah’s invisible bottom impressed itself on the carpet, her feet twisted against the green and then her back landed on the steps, like a ghost sinking into green marzipan.

  Feet were by her, kicking, sending graceful red splatters over the carpet, settling like scarves over one another. And one set of feet moving by her, keeping balance by shifting their weight, taking a stair, going back up, holding the banister. And the other set, creeping down, keeping by the wall, tight to the wall.

  Jonathon Hamilton-Gordon’s heels clung to the skirting board, keeping as far away as he could, trying to pass at one point, and retreating, as Thomas Anderson kicked and kicked and kicked the red out of Sarah, until she was wiped out.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Kay waited in the outer office, sitting on a settee that was too low to the ground for there to be any dignity on it. The receptionist was nice enough but Kay knew and she knew that she was better than her: better dressed, nicer hair, better clothes. They were about the same age, 45–60.

  “Could I get you some tea? Some coffee?”

  Kay waved her away. “Fine, thanks.”

  She wanted to get in and out and away.

  It was a nice office anyway, wood paneling everywhere and the carpets were nice, plain. The place seemed very quiet, which Kay liked, everything seemed muffled. It had taken so long, she was pleased. She’d have a reprieve to enjoy the bowl. She had stopped using it as an ashtray.

  She slipped her hand into her open handbag, face still pointing innocently up to the window but her mind and heart were with her fingertips. She traced a snaking silver coil through pools of brilliant blue and red, red as deep as an embrace, as deep as blood, as deep and luminous as love. Her fingertips bumped over the round dots around the top and she thought of a woman, a washer-woman or a farmer, coming home with cold tired hands and sewing that pattern on their runners and looking at them in the morning and knowing they were beautiful, that they had made something beautiful. She thought of a big woman walking along a mud track, in big boots and gray clothes, a long skirt trimmed with heavy mud and a beatific smile on her coarse face because she had wrought something beautiful and it meant something about her. She knew it was a good and godlike thing. And she loved what it said about her, because she was more than the beasts of the earth or the indignities of being alive. This woman wouldn’t mind that her work was copied by others and that she was forgotten, she would glory in the journey of her creation. She didn’t need to own it for it to continue to exist. She had brought a beautiful thing into an ugly world.

  Kay withdrew her fingers from her bag, and she hid her face at the window until the sadness had passed. Cars passed below the window, a bus, a man on a bicycle struggled up the hill and panted as he stopped at the lights.

  “Miss Murray?” Kay turned to the receptionist. “If you’d like to go through now.”

  She gathered her things, her ever-present poly bag, her coat and handbag. She wanted to touch the bowl again, just once more but told herself that was enough now. The receptionist stood at her desk and held out a hand to the wood-paneled corridor behind her.

  “First door,” she said, watching Kay, making sure she found it.

  The door was open and Mr. Scott was standing by his desk, looking himself, a neat wee dick, expression hidden behind his stupid wee glasses.

  He shook her hand like a doctor. “Miss Murray, won’t you sit down?”

  Kay didn’t. She dropped her bags on the chair and reached into her handbag, bringing out first the watch. She’d wrapped it in kitchen roll so she wouldn’t have to see it again, because it reminded her of Joy and the Day She Died. She didn’t think she would feel so sad about the watch here, in the dark wee office, handing over that last thing of Mrs. Erroll’s. She didn’t even like that fucking watch.

  And then she took a deep breath, saw the coarse Russian farmer woman smile a consolation, and reached into her bag for the bowl. She put it on the desk without looking at it. She tore her hand away and picked up her things, cleared her throat.

  “’S that it?”

  “Miss Murray.” Mr. Scott seemed pleased it had gone so smoothly, that there had been no tussle for the goods. “Miss Murray, I have some surprising news for you.”

  She looked at him, saw the dawn of a happy smile break on his face. He took a deep breath. “Joy Erroll left you everything.”

  She didn’t understand. “Everything what?”

  “Oh, the house, the money, Sarah left a lot of savings, a very large amount of cash was found in her house, all the movables, the ownership of the land leased to the kennels, the balance of Joy’s savings which again, were not inconsiderable…”

  Kay busied her face with the far wall as he spoke. She was crying, her face awash, blinded and seeing nothing but the face of Joy.

  “Joy’s will—in the event of Sarah dying intestate, the entire estate defers to you.”


  No. No, no way was that possible. “Joy Erroll was nuts. How does that work?”

  “Sarah had power of attorney and she co-signed the will in the first year you were there. Everything comes to you.” He slid into his seat, a hungry little smile on his face. “Aren’t you lucky?” He had a page in front of him and his index finger was drawing an eight in the top corner.

  Kay pointed at the bowl. “That?”

  “Yes, that’s included in the estate.”

  Kay reached out, her hand hovering over the rim. She picked it up without looking at it and held it tight.

  A coarse Russian woman collapsed on a dirt road, buried her face in her mud-splattered skirts and sobbed.

  Acknowledgments

  A great many thanks to Jon, Jade and Reagan for sorting out the second half of this book, which was, ahem, a bit messy. Also everyone at Orion for generally jollying me along and Peter and Henry for all their hard work and support.

  Also thanks to Stevo, Edith, Fergus, Ownie.

  To the Jocks in their eyes: may you burn in hell for what you done to me.

  About the Author

  Denise Mina is the author of Slip of the Knife, The Dead Hour, Field of Blood, Deception, and the Garnethill trilogy, Garnethill, Exile, and Resolution. She won the John Creasey Memorial Award for best first crime novel. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with her family.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-one

  Fifty-two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Denise Mina

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2011 by Denise Mina

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Reagan Arthur Books / Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  www.hachettebookgroup.com

  First eBook Edition: September 2011

  Originally published in Great Britain by Orion Books and in Canada by McArthur & Company, May 2011

  Reagan Arthur Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Reagan Arthur Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-12570-3