Artefacts of the Dead

by Tony Black

  ‘Oh, no?’

  ‘Definitely not . . . By all accounts he went ballistic.’

  ‘So what? Paulo’s on the record with the finger pointed squarely at Sinclair.’

  Coreen sniggered. It was a fake laugh, more for effect than anything. ‘If I know Cameron Sinclair, he’ll have a bloody great hard-on for all of us now, Bob . . . Don’t expect we’ve heard the last of him.’

  ‘Just you let me know the second he comes anywhere near you with that hard-on, love . . . You hear me?’

  As Valentine lowered the phone, the computer screen lit up and little icons formed themselves into neat rows on his desktop. He clicked on Internet Explorer. When the search engine appeared, Valentine dragged the drop-down menu to select his daughter’s Facebook account and waited for the page to appear. The network was slow, but he conceded that might have something to do with the number of pictures on Chloe’s timeline. His daughter was sixteen and not quite an adult, but seemed to be living a kind of sophisticated social life that he couldn’t comprehend. He justified the intrusion into her life as a necessary evil in today’s world. Valentine no more wanted to snoop on his daughter than anyone else, but it was a means to an end: the conclusion of a nagging feeling that something wasn’t altogether right with her.

  He checked her posts, all innocuous enough: pictures of puppies with pop-philosophising captions, links to music videos, adumbrations on the week’s highlights to come. Only one remark struck him as worthy of closer scrutiny: ‘Daddy’s becoming a popular man . . .’ A hyperlink followed. Valentine clicked on it and was brought to the website of the Glasgow-Sun. As he scrolled down he quickly identified Cameron Sinclair’s byline on the article his own name featured in.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ He couldn’t understand why anyone would post the link on his daughter’s timeline, but conceded much teenage behaviour was inscrutable to him. Then a thought struck him. He returned to his daughter’s stream and checked for the post’s author. Hot needles pressed on his eyeballs as he took in the almost unidentifiable thumbnail picture of a blurred male. As he read the same name he’d seen on the byline only a few seconds ago, his hand constricted tightly round the mouse.

  ‘You’ve crossed a line, Sinclair.’

  The DI closed down the webpage and rose from the chair. He surmised that the Facebook post was some kind of mocking taunt: parents were good value on the embarrassment scale for youngsters, and seeing Dad on television or in the paper was something like incitement; it invited attention from other teenagers. It was a move meant to embarrass his daughter and create some tension at home for him. But Sinclair was sailing close to the wind assuming he wouldn’t check his daughter’s web usage. Either that or he was a more reckless idiot than he had previously given him credit for.

  As Valentine opened the door and made his way to the chief super’s office, he hoped he hadn’t misjudged Cameron Sinclair. If he was as rash as his latest action indicated then he would need even closer scrutiny than he had afforded him so far. If it was simply an escalation, an act of desperation, then this was, he conceded, perhaps even more concerning. The thought that his daughter was now seen as a legitimate pawn by Sinclair was something else altogether. If the hack’s intention was to blunt his edge, he was in for a shock: it would have the opposite effect.

  He knocked on the door, twice, and took firm hold of the handle as he stepped into the chief super’s office. Dino was standing by the window with a coffee cup in hand; in her other hand was the elbow of a young woman who she seemed to be keen to impress. She threw back her hair and laughed as if the scene merited a kind of cocktail-party bonhomie.

  Valentine took two steps and coughed into his fist. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Ah, Bob . . . Thought you’d lost your way.’ The thought was there to confirm that he may indeed have lost his way, but not in the manner she meant. He let the rejoinder lie.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’ He found his gaze shifting towards the young woman, who turned to face him and nodded. It was a polite nod, almost conspiratorial in its suggestion that she had the chief super’s ersatz demeanour in hand.

  ‘Oh yes indeed, Bob, I want to see you.’ CS Martin motioned the young woman to the front of her desk and walked round the other side herself. ‘I’d like to introduce you to Sylvia McCormack if I may . . .’

  Valentine put out his hand. The woman reached out and shook it enthusiastically, a wide smile filling her face. ‘Hello, sir.’

  Dino stepped between them and made her way towards the coffee pot for a refill. As she poured, she spoke loudly, her words bouncing off the wall. ‘Sylvia is one of Glasgow’s finest young detective sergeants . . .’ She continued on, but by the time Valentine had heard the words ‘Glasgow’ and ‘detective sergeant’ he knew exactly what was afoot.

  He cut in. ‘Am I to assume Sylvia has been seconded to Ayr?’

  The chief super turned round, held up her coffee cup and dipped her head towards it. ‘You assume correctly, detective.’

  Valentine’s pulse jolted; his heart rate increased. His jaws clenched and the familiar taste of a bitter pill being swallowed passed down his throat. Martin had gone behind his back; she hadn’t consulted him but instead had presented the solution to Paulo’s absence as a fait accompli. He knew it was her right to do so, but he also knew better people would have played it straight. He ran a finger down the crease of his shirtsleeve as he tried to find his response. DS Martin walked before him and the light from the window silhouetted her frame on the grey wall.

  ‘The investigation is at a crucial stage. I’m not quite sure how an officer from another force will improve the dynamic,’ said Valentine.

  The young woman stepped forward. ‘I’ve been brought up to speed.’ She snatched a blue folder from the desk and opened it up. ‘I’ve sketched out a profile on the kind of individual that might . . .’

  Valentine cut in. ‘That might impale a man through his arse with a piece of 4x2?’ He had tried to ruffle her, but was unsuccessful.

  ‘I have profiling experience, and I’ve worked a number of similar cases in the Central Belt.’

  ‘Similar?’ His intonation suggested the idea was ludicrous, that it resembled reality in much the same way as a model aeroplane aspired to manned flight.

  ‘By that I mean serial mutilation.’ The young woman lowered her head and stepped back. It was a retreat that signalled she thought Valentine’s truculence was insurmountable.

  The chief super pitched in with an act of consoling deference to the DI. ‘Bob, I think Sylvia is trying to say that her experience might be useful to the team. A fresh pair of eyes and an outside perspective may pay dividends.’

  ‘This is not a serial killer we’re dealing with here: there’s no trophy taking, there’s no mutilation, sexual interference or anything else to suggest we’re dealing with an abnormal psychology. This is calculated and precise, yes, but it’s not a pattern killer, and I’ll stake my reputation on that.’

  Valentine sensed the air being sucked out of the room. His voice seemed to have risen higher than he’d intended; he was playing to the gallery and when he stopped speaking the audience fell into a stunned silence.

  CS Martin fanned the lapel of her jacket in an animated manner. She turned to DS McCormack and made a lullaby of her voice. ‘Perhaps you’d like to go and acquaint yourself with the incident room, Sylvia.’

  The young woman’s stone-grey eyes flashed. ‘Yes, of course.’ She was bright, had caught the hint immediately, and gripping the folder she eased herself towards the door with a smile for Valentine on the way out.

  The DI felt a pang of guilt: she was an unwilling pawn in Martin’s machinations and he’d been harsh on her, but life was harsh, and life on the force as harsh as it got.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at, Bob?’ Her sweet tone evaporated as quickly as a morning mist.

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t play wide with me, pal, I’ll give you your hea
d in your hands to play with if you start that patter in here.’ She pointed to the floor as if it indicated a marker of her territory.

  Valentine brought his hand up to tap a finger on his cheekbone and affected a look of stupefaction. ‘If you’re referring to the fact that you’ve parachuted a new DS into my team with no prior notice then I’ll put my hand up to not being overly chuffed about it.’

  ‘I gave you plenty of notice: how many times did I tell you, now let me see?’ She walked over to her desk and opened her diary. She was hiding behind the rulebook, a favourite tactic of all bureaucrats.

  Valentine turned where he stood and marched towards the desk. He leaned forward and directed his rant towards CS Martin. ‘I’m referring to specific discussions, not veiled threats to pull the rug out from under me.’

  The chief super’s eyes narrowed, her mouth opened and closed like she was exercising her jaws and then her lips formed themselves into a thin pout that precipitated a gale-force blast to come.

  Two loud reports on the door shattered the momentary silence.

  The officers turned to hear the hinges creaking and saw Jim from the front desk bounding in like a tired marathon runner. ‘I think you should see this . . .’ He held out a copy of the Glasgow-Sun.

  23

  Leanne Dunn eased her hands beneath the tabletop and fixed her stare on Danny Gillon. As their eyes met the pimp smiled, and then the action seemed to prompt a hacking cough that ended with him reaching for a cigarette. When he brought the filter tip to his mouth, Leanne seized the moment and leapt from her seat. The sound of the chair’s back clattering off the wall startled her, she shot her arms towards her ears, but her mind was set and she ran from the kitchen with wailing, frightened screams. As she moved, her vision started to blur; she was light-headed and nauseous and each barefooted step on the floorboards sent a jolt of pain through her ankles that fled all the way up her leg to her hip bone. She was unsteady and nervous, and when she looked back to see Gillon jumping into the hallway, her balance deserted her. Leanne fell to the floor, her knees taking the brunt of the impact before she crashed onto her front and smacked her head off the wall with a solid thud.

  Gillon halted where he stood and laughed. ‘Oh, dear, Leanne . . .’

  Her position on the floor beneath Gillon made her feel even more vulnerable, but the stinging pain that had begun deep in her brow was somehow working its way into her stomach. She raised herself on one arm, but as the weak elbow buckled beneath her there was a turn in her intestines and she vomited where she lay.

  ‘Oh, man . . .’ Gillon was laughing harder now. He walked towards the tangled mass of limbs and grabbed a handful of Leanne’s lank hair. ‘Going somewhere?’

  A long trail of bile spooled from her mouth; she tried to speak, but her words were in competition with the vomit and the blood evacuating from a burst lip. ‘No, Gillon . . . no.’

  ‘What? What you saying?’ He leaned forward, made a show of bringing his ear towards her mouth.

  Leanne tried to speak again, only one word came: ‘No . . .’

  ‘No? I’ll give you fucking no. You don’t say no to me.’ Gillon yanked Leanne from the ground, and the movement caused her to grimace as she was pulled skywards by her hair. Another scream bounced off the narrow confines of the hallway and Gillon brought a fist up to her face. ‘Are you going to make me belt you, Leanne . . . Is that it? You want a belt, want reminding who you’re dealing with?’

  Leanne’s eyes followed the left-to-right of her pimp’s balled fist, she started to tremble, tears ran down the sides of her face. ‘Please, please, Gillon.’

  The fist disappeared from her line of view and for a split second there was a sense of relief, but it was soon replaced with the agonising realisation that Gillon had buried his fist in her stomach. Leanne folded over and tasted the salty blood in her mouth; then she started to panic as she was dragged towards the bedroom. Her knees were torn on the uneven floorboards, but the pain didn’t seem to matter now that she saw what was coming. As Gillon threw her on the bed she tried to curl over, even though she knew it was a futile act: there was no escape, no avoiding the inevitable.

  ‘Get on your back,’ he roared.

  Leanne was too weak to move, holding her stomach where the blow had toppled her.

  ‘On your back!’ Gillon grabbed her and slapped her twice across the face. Leanne felt her legs rising. She bent her knees and tried to kick out, but he was too strong for her, pinning her legs down to the bed and ripping open her dressing gown.

  ‘You’ve got scrawnier than I remember,’ said Gillon as he stood unbuckling his belt. ‘Have to get a few burgers or that into you . . . Nobody likes a scrawny whore.’ He rolled down his jeans and underwear and eased himself over Leanne. ‘Not heard that the bigger the cushion the better the pushing?’

  Leanne shut her eyes tight and felt her throat constricting as Gillon raped her. She was frozen, unmoving, like someone tied to the bed. She imagined herself as another person, as if she wasn’t Leanne any more, as if she had somehow left her body and was standing in the corner watching Gillon thrust himself into someone else. She heard his guttural heaving, the shortness of his breath, the belt buckle banging off the bed frame and the floorboards with a metronomic rhythm. She felt the dampness of his sweaty brow on her cheek and the tightness of her lungs as he laid himself heavily into her, but she wasn’t there. Leanne had long ago learnt to disengage herself from the physical act, the violence, the pain . . . If she didn’t acknowledge it to herself then it didn’t happen. She had told herself that as a child – it could be blocked out. Everything could be blocked out if you tried hard enough.

  When Gillon raised his jeans and belt, his lower lip drooped and sweat hung from his eyelashes. He ran the back of his hand over his brow and smiled towards Leanne where she curled up on the bed. He pointed towards her as he spoke. ‘You need to get your act together . . .’

  She didn’t reply, just moved herself to the edge of the bed and fastened her dressing gown.

  ‘You hear me? You need to start paying attention to your punters . . . I wouldn’t pay for a ride like that.’ He shook his head as he fastened his belt. ‘No way would I pay for that . . . You need to start thinking a bit more about the punter and a bit less about scoring.’

  Leanne stared out the window; the gloom of the early evening sky had settled above the flat rooftops and a small white moon sat low and stark in the sky. It seemed shocked to see her.

  ‘You hearing me?’

  ‘What?’ She turned towards Gillon, who had his hand out to her as if offering to help her from the bed.

  ‘Come on, get yourself dressed,’ he said, nodding towards the door.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re going out . . .’

  Leanne rose from the bed and tightened the dressing gown around her waist. ‘Going out?’

  ‘So you’re not deaf then.’ Gillon clapped his hands together. ‘Come on, move it, move it, move it!’ He pulled her towards him by the shoulders, then spun her to face the wardrobe in the corner of the room; the dressing gown was yanked clean from Leanne’s back as she took her first step.

  Gillon laughed. ‘Christ almighty, need to put some meat on those bones . . .’ A faint gleam entered his eyes as he made for the door. ‘Going for a fag, be dressed and ready by the time I’ve finished or I’ll drag you out in the buff and show the world that skanky arse!’ He was still laughing as he made his way to the kitchen.

  Leanne’s mouth drooped. She wanted to speak but was too clogged with emotion to utter words. Her eyes studied the wardrobe: the hangers and few items of clothing inside were like alien relics to her; for a moment she wondered about the concept of clothing, of life, and then as she swayed the bare boards beneath her feet cried out as if to issue a reminder of herself. Her eyelids twitched, jerking her gaze towards the rail; she reached out and began to dress for Gillon.

  In the hallway, Leanne leaned against the wall and listened to her pimp stubbing
his cigarette; the ashtray clattered off the tabletop as he dug the butt into the glass. When he was finished, he started whistling: his mood was light, and Leanne knew that was something to hold on to – she didn’t want to be around him when his mood was dark. If she could keep him this way then Leanne knew that she would likely avoid any more conflict, any more kicks, punches, or any of the kinds of actions that reminded her of her lowly station. She was a tart, Gillon’s tart, and when she forgot that she felt pain. It was better not to think about those things, though.

  ‘Right, you set?’ said Gillon.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To see a man.’

  Leanne’s pulse jerked. ‘Who?’

  ‘Who . . . ? Are you questioning me?’ His bottom row of teeth were bared. ‘Eh?’ He reached out and grabbed Leanne’s face in his hand and squeezed it. ‘Eh? Is that it, you’re questioning me?’

  ‘No. No . . .’

  He pushed her head away; she stumbled.

  ‘Good. Just keep it that way.’

  Gillon went for the door and Leanne trailed behind him. Her heels clacked on the concrete steps of the stairwell and she wondered if the noise would set Gillon off again. She toyed with the idea of removing her shoes and walking in her bare feet, but she worried that he might object to that; he didn’t like seeing his girls barefoot, she’d seen others slapped about for being outdoors in bare feet before.

  ‘Come on, move yourself,’ he yelled as he reached the bottom of the steps.

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘Aye, not bloody fast enough . . .’ He held out his hand and grabbed Leanne’s arm when she came into reach. ‘Move it.’ He pushed her towards the door.

  Gillon’s van was parked on the other side of the road, she recognised it at once. As they headed for the van, she wondered if she was going to be forced to turn tricks in there; he had made her do that before. There was a mattress in the back of the van, an old, dank-smelling item that had been out in the rain once, before Gillon had found a home for it. The thought of spending the night on the mattress made Leanne’s stomach lurch. She looked down the street and thought about running but at once knew she had nowhere to go. She was trapped.