by Stuart David
‘Get on with it, then,’ he told me. ‘Whatever nonsense you’re trying to pull won’t wash, Peacock. I’ve got you fair and square. But ask me your pish and then let’s get going.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing fancy, Duncan. Just answer me this. One simple thing: are you a reader of the books of Ian Rankin by any chance?’
He frowned at me.
‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’ he said. ‘Is this a wind-up?’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Just answer the question. Do you read them?’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I read them.’
‘Right. And you’ve read that one he put me in? A Question of Blood?’
‘I’ve read them all. Cover to cover.’
‘Right. So when did you first read the one he put me in? When did you get round to that one?’
He hummed and hawed for a bit. It’s always the same when you ask a member of the constabulary about the boy Rankin – all other thoughts head north, and they’re totally lost in their fanboy obsessions.
Try it some time.
Never fails.
‘It must be about a year and a half ago,’ he said. ‘I don’t read them in order. I think I read that one in Spain with Liz. Just after Christmas. The Christmas before last.’
‘I knew you must have read it,’ I told him.
He seemed to snap out of it then, a tad embarrassed he’d taken his eye off the ball, and the face flushed pink as his blood got up.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he said. ‘What’s this got to do with anything? What’s it got to do with the fact that you’re the murdering bastard that killed wee Dougie Dowds?’
‘It’s got plenty to do with the fact that you think I killed Dougie Dowds,’ I said. ‘Plenty. Look at it this way, McFadgen. We’ve never been the best of pals. Fair enough. But up until you read that book, you knew the kind of thing I got into. You were clear-sighted enough about where I drew the line, and how far I’d go beyond it at a push. But for about a year and a half now you’ve been hounding me about shite you’d never have thought twice about connecting me to in the past.’
‘Bollocks!’
‘Bollocks it’s bollocks. It’s that book to blame, McFadgen. The book’s a fiction. The Rankin boy blew me up out of all proportion – took a few rumours he’d heard here and there and exaggerated me beyond belief. That’s their job, Duncan. Writers, they write fiction. But a wheen of folk’ve been treating me differently ever since they read that book, you included. I’ve been smeared. Look at last month, when you were hounding me non-stop about that stolen painting. You’re developing an unhealthy obsession with me, McFadgen. It’s getting to the stage where I’m starting to wonder if I should be having a quiet word with your superiors.’
‘Johnson,’ he said, closing his notebook and putting it back in the pocket it had come from, ‘you’re a bullshit merchant – always have been, always will be. You know you stole that painting from Pollok House. I know you stole that painting from Pollok House. And you know that I know that you stole it. You also know Dougie Dowds was about to hook me up with the final bit of evidence I needed to prove it, and that’s how come he ended up lying on the concrete two floors beneath his veranda.’
‘You’re living in a fantasy land, Duncan,’ I said. ‘How could I possibly have got that painting out of Pollok House?’
‘You’re the only person who could have got it out of there,’ McFadgen said. ‘And on Thursday morning Dougie Dowds phoned me to arrange a meet-up to fill me in on just how you managed it. For a fee. But you found out about that, and you got to him before I could, and this receipt in my pocket proves that cause it puts you within a five-minute walk of his flat five minutes after he was killed. Miles away from where you claim you were at the time. Add to that the fact that his living room was liberally sprinkled with your fingerprints, and that there were even traces of your DNA on the jacket he was wearing, and I don’t see how you can stand there in front of me spouting the pish you’re spouting with a straight face.’
I took a good hit at my beer.
‘Here’s how,’ I told him. ‘For a start, Dougie was a pal – of course my fingerprints were in his living room. And what the fuck would I be doing buying a packet of chewing gum and a porno mag five minutes after I’d whacked a guy? Is that normal behaviour? “Okay, deed done, Peacock. What you really need now to calm yourself down is a right good chew and a quick wank.” Are you mental, McFadgen?’
There was a brief interlude at this point. Before the detective inspector could expound any further on his theories, the kitchen door burst open and we were suddenly treated to an explosion of pink chiffon as the wife came stoating into the room, still worked all the way up to high doh.
‘I thought you must still be here, Duncan,’ she said. ‘I think I need your opinion on something. Have you got a minute?’
McFadgen, God bless him, managed to disguise his initial reaction to her costume before she’d quite had time to clock it. But it was still somewhat obvious that he was badly shaken by the vision that had appeared before him.
‘Tell me what you think of this dress, Duncan,’ she said. ‘Your honest opinion, mind, no holding back. How does this look to you?’
‘Eh . . .’ he stammered.
‘It’s bloody awful, isn’t it?’ the wife demanded, and I saw the relief in McFadgen’s face. He’d been fully engaged in trying to find something positive to say about the thing, and it was perfectly obvious he’d been coming up with absolutely nothing.
‘This is what Wilma Caldwell wants me to wear to her wedding. I’m a bridesmaid. I’d been looking forward to it too. I’ve never been a bridesmaid before – maybe once, when I was a wee girl, at my Aunt Carol’s wedding, but I don’t even remember that. This is my first time as an adult. Somebody told me you’re not supposed to be a bridesmaid if you’re already married. Do you know if that’s right, Duncan?’
‘It might be,’ he said. ‘I don’t think there’s a law against it, though.’
The wife laughed a bit too much at his lame witticism, and then carried on with her monologue.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I said to Peacock earlier that I think Wilma’s trying to make me look bad, so’s I don’t take any of the attention away from her. Not that I’d even want to. It’s her big day. But how can I even go out in public in a thing like this?’
She stopped for breath and turned her back on McFadgen, turning her head to look at him over her shoulder. ‘Look at my bum,’ she said. ‘Look at it. Can you even see it? All this material here. What’s that even for? Have you ever seen anything like that in your puff? It makes me look totally arseless. And look at these sleeves. What’s going on there? Is the whole thing as bad as I think it is, Duncan? Tell me the truth.’
McFadgen looked to me for help, but I was hardly likely to bail him out on this one, given the current state of our relationship. He was on his own as far as I was concerned. And I have to hand it to the guy, given the delicacy of the situation, he manoeuvred himself out of the danger zone quite admirably.
‘Put it this way, Beverley,’ he said in the end, ‘at least at the wedding your husband won’t be sticking out like a sore thumb, embarrassing you with the tackiness of his outfit.’
He was fair taking a liberty – considering I was sitting there in my best vintage Hawaiian shirt and a pair of Versace jeans. But his kowtowing to the wife cheered her up considerably, and the fact that somebody was putting the boot into yours truly had something of a knock-on effect. Like a shark smelling blood, the mother-in-law was suddenly on the scene, deeply impressed as always by anyone who’s in the business of sullying my good name. That’s pretty much all it takes to win her over to your cause.
‘Let me ask you a question,’ she said as she struggled past Bev’s dress to get into the room and into the detective’s line of sight. ‘Are you single?’
The wife took a deep breath. ‘That’s my mum,’ she sai
d to McFadgen. ‘Mrs Cuthbertson.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Cuthbertson,’ McFadgen said, but the mother wasn’t in the mood for formalities.
‘Call me Mary,’ she said, ‘and answer my question. Are you single?’
McFadgen shook his head. ‘I’ve been happily married for fifteen years,’ he said, well aware that he’d totally lost control of the situation for now, and that all he could do was wait and see how things panned out.
‘That’s a pity,’ the mother-in-law said, ‘a real pity. I’m disappointed to hear that, Duncan. I really am. You’re exactly the kind of man Beverley should be looking for, in my opinion. I keep telling her – kick that idiot to the kerb. Am I right? You’re still a good looking girl, I tell her. That won’t always be the case. Find yourself something better before you start going to seed. But will she listen to me? Still, maybe she’ll see sense when you’ve tucked this one away safely in the jail. Have you got him on something this time? Tell me you’ve got him on something that’ll put him away for a good long time.’
‘Mum!’ the wife shouted. ‘For God’s sake. Peacock’s only helping Duncan with his inquiries. Get back into the living room.’
The mother-in-law gave McFadgen a conspiratorial look and then started fighting her way past the dress and towards the door again.
‘Lock him up and throw away the key,’ she shouted as she departed. ‘That’s what I’d do with him. You’re complicit in destroying my daughter’s future if you don’t, officer. Keep that in mind.’
Bev looked up towards the ceiling and shook her head, muttering something under her breath to try and keep a lid on it. ‘She’s a constant embarrassment,’ she said. ‘Sorry about that, Duncan. I’ll go and keep an eye on her.’
But your man McFadgen had different ideas. ‘Hang on a wee minute, Beverley,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking maybe you could help me with something yourself. Close the door there and tell me about your dinner at Rogano’s with Peacock the other night. Is it worth the money there? I’ve been thinking of taking Liz for her birthday, but I’m swithering. How did you find it?’
He shot me a look, no doubt keen to see if I seemed nervous, knowing I was on to his game. But he’d already confirmed the whole thing with her the other day, and I knew he was on to plums if he was hoping to lead her into slipping up on times, or the sequence of events, or my presence in the restaurant for the duration. I shrugged back at him to let him know he was wasting his time, as well as everybody else’s – but as it turned out, he got more than even he’d been bargaining for. You pretty much always do with the wife. Standard practice.
‘Oh God, I didn’t tell you what happened, did I?’ she said. ‘Will I tell him, Peacock? Have you already told him?’
‘Go ahead, hen,’ I said. ‘Wire right in.’
‘You got there about half past seven?’ McFadgen said. ‘Is that right?’ But his line of questioning was entirely lost on the wife; she was off on her own track, and there was no stopping her.
‘It was so embarrassing!’ she said. ‘Wasn’t it, Peacock? It’s hardly the sort of place we’re used to anyway, Duncan. I was already feeling a bit self-conscious as it was. I didn’t think I would be – I was looking forward to it for ages and I thought I’d really enjoy myself, but I could feel people in there looking at us right from the start. We were probably a bit overdressed – Peacock especially. I thought everybody in there would be done up, but everybody else looked quite boring really. Then I could tell that people thought we were probably talking too loud. I was just that excited, but I could feel myself getting a few looks. And the menu was a bit confusing. I kept making a fool of myself in front of the waitress, pronouncing things wrong.’
‘You did fine, hen,’ I told her. ‘They’re a bunch of stuck-up bastards in there, McFadgen. I’d give it a body swerve if I were you.’
‘Don’t listen to him, Duncan,’ Bev said. ‘Your wife’ll love it. And in the end they were lovely to us, absolutely lovely. I was just that embarrassed. Tell him what happened, Peacock.’
‘You tell him, Bev,’ I said. ‘It’s your story.’
‘Oh God!’ she said again, and her face flushed a colour close to that of the dress. ‘We’d just finished our pudding, and I was absolutely stuffed, and we ordered some coffees and asked for the bill, and – I’ll never forget it – I was just looking about in my bag for my lipstick when Peacock leant across the table towards me and whispered, “Have you got your purse in there, Bev?” “I thought this was your treat,” I said, because that’s what he’d told me. “This is my treat, Bev,” he’d said. “Have whatever you like. Happy Anniversary.” Now it turns out he’s asking me if I’ve got my purse, and when I looked up at him I could tell he wasn’t joking. “I’ve been dipped, Bev,” he said. “My wallet’s gone.” Oh, Duncan! I could have ended myself. I really could. At first we thought he’d maybe just dropped his wallet, but he looked all over the restaurant and there was no sign of it. He’d paid for the drinks in the pub we went to before Rogano’s, and that’s the last place he’d had it. Somebody must have pinched it in there. And I didn’t have my purse. I hadn’t brought it with me. I thought I was going to boak my dinner back up right there and then, I really did.’
McFadgen’s face was a picture. I gave him a wee wink, but he was far from amused. He looked as if somebody had just dunked his head in a bucket of cold water. Not too different from how the wife had looked in the very scene she was describing, in fact. That was McFadgen’s wee porn-mag-receipt angle well and truly busted.
‘You have to admit the staff could have been a lot worse about it, though, Peacock,’ Bev said. ‘I was sure they were going to think we were a couple of chancers, after the way we’d been sticking out like sore thumbs all night. I thought they’d imagine we’d pre-planned the whole thing. But when it came right down to it they were lovely. I’d had the idea that I could phone my pal Caroline to come round with her card and pay the bill for us. She just lives near by, on Ingram Street – you know the fancy flats up above the Italian Centre? I didn’t even have a phone with me, but the waitress lent me hers and everything. I was nervous in case Caroline wouldn’t be in, but she was, and she was there in a jiffy. Thank God. Oh, but what a night, Duncan. I was a nervous wreck by the end of it.’
You have to give it to McFadgen – defeated as he appeared to be, he was still doing his job all the way to the end.
‘And what time was this, Beverley,’ he said, ‘when you finally got out of there?’
‘It was nearly half nine,’ the wife said, finishing him off completely. ‘I felt bad about bringing Caroline out as late as that, but she was fine about it. And we went for a quick drink with her before we headed home, and she gave us some money for a taxi. We paid her back everything the next day, right enough.’
‘Beverley!’ the mother-in-law shouted from the living room then. ‘Come and see this!’
The wife rolled her eyes and gathered up her skirts. ‘You’d better excuse me,’ she said. ‘But take your wife there, Duncan. Really. She’ll love it. Just remember to bring your wallet.’
She tugged at the door and set about bundling herself through it. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘and see if you can have a word with the fashion police about this dress, Duncan. See if they can’t do anything about closing that wedding of Wilma’s down. You press him on that, Peacock, do you hear me?’
And then she was gone.
‘Are you wanting that beer now, Dunkie boy?’ I said. ‘I have to admit, you’re fair looking as if you could use it.’
But he was already buttoning up his jacket, looking for the emergency exit.
‘This is a stitch-up, Johnson,’ he said. ‘You know I know it’s a stitch-up, and you know I know I’ll get you in the end.’
I held the door open for him, and guided him out into the hall with a light hand on the elbow.
‘It’s certainly an attempt at a stitch-up,’ I told him, ‘but you’re the one holding the needle, pal. You went through the records to f
ind out that was my bank card without even bothering to notice I’d cancelled the thing on Thursday night, as soon as I realised it was gone. That smacks of a man trying to back up his prejudices at any cost if you ask me. Have another swatch at the data when you get back to the station. You’ll see the cost of that transaction you’re carrying the receipt for has been repaid into my account in full, reimbursed by the bank themselves.’
‘Aye,’ he muttered as a burst of madness came floating out of the living room, ‘very convenient, Peacock. Very convenient indeed.’
It wasn’t entirely clear what the wife and her mother were getting up to now. From the sounds of it, they were possibly chasing a bird that had flown in through an open window, hurling abuse at it, while it knocked down everything in its path. Either that, or the mother was trying to help Bev remove the bridesmaid’s dress and it had all gone distinctly pear-shaped.
‘You’ll probably be doing me a favour, McFadgen – if you ever manage to put me in the jail,’ I said. ‘Listen to what I’m going back in amongst now. The peace and quiet of a prison cell might come as a welcome relief.’
‘I’ll be obliging you on that front soon enough,’ he said. ‘Watch and see if I don’t. I’m on to you this time, Johnson – big time. And there’s no way I’m letting go.’
He pulled the front door open and started clattering his way down through the close while I stood leaning over the banister, watching him go.
‘McFadgen,’ I shouted, when he reached the first-floor landing, and he stopped briefly and looked back up at me. ‘Do yourself a favour, pal – lay off those Ian Rankin stories for a while. You’re driving yourself daft, son. They’re just books. Fairy tales for grown-ups. You’ll end up giving yourself a cerebral haemorrhage.’
He shook his head and carried on his merry way, his big mad shoes echoing like gunshots in the close. Then he disappeared from view and I headed back inside at a leisurely pace, not in any desperate rush to find out what pandemonium awaited me.
3
I have to admit, this upcoming wedding is a godsend for me. I’m over the moon that it’s happening, even if it does mean a fortnight of bedlam in the run-up to the wife’s debut as a bridesmaid.