Artefacts of the Dead

by Tony Black

  The officers stood facing Billy for a moment, Valentine was unsure how to effect introductions: were they even there on official business? He doubted it and knew CS Martin would doubt it too. He was following a hunch that was more visceral than anything else, yet he believed he was in the right place to advance the case.

  The DI dipped his head. ‘Can I introduce myself – Detective Inspector Bob Valentine.’ He turned to face his colleague. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Sylvia McCormack.’

  Billy Cooper took the hands as they were offered, but his face told them that no connection had been made beyond the surface of the skin. He was a man who had cut all ties to the outside world, even the most ephemeral.

  ‘My wife’s through in the front room,’ he said.

  ‘We’d like to meet her, Billy,’ said Valentine.

  As they walked towards the living room at the top of the flat, the detective became vaguely aware that he was not in a home. It was a shrine to the memory of a home. There were pictures on the walls that would have been out of fashion a decade ago: rural scenes of hunting, shooting and fishing set in gaudy brass frames – they were the type of pictures you saw in charity shop windows, or cheap student bedsits, certainly not anywhere where people would want, or choose, to live. The carpets were threadbare and coated with such a heavy layer of dust that they would have greeted a vacuum cleaner as a long-lost stranger. As they rounded the hallway into the living room, a shelving unit made of chrome and smoked glass spied on them from the facing wall. Valentine at once gazed directly at the row of pictures that had been lined up like unholy babushka dolls in ascending height. To a one they contained photographs of Janie Cooper. She had a broad, say-cheese grin that shouted her personality to the world at large. Her round eyes were a violet-blue and shone beneath the shock of white-blonde hair that hung in a heavy fringe and was long enough to be tied in a neat ponytail. In every image the girl proclaimed her love of life, she brimmed full of it, looked in awe of an awesome world where she was happy to exist in the company of her beloved family. The sight of Janie jolted Valentine’s senses and a deep, yet somehow hollow, pain erupted in the depths of his chest, telling him he was in a new place now, somewhere he had never been before. The detective felt like he stood at the threshold of the kind of life discovery that changed a man, made him anew, and not always for the better. He knew this, and yet despite all his reservations, all the consequences he foresaw, he was compelled to cross the line. As Valentine turned to Diane Cooper where she sat huddled on a corner seat, she seemed held together by only a thin thread of life, which, under tremendous stresses already, threatened to snap.

  ‘Hello, Diane,’ he said. ‘The pictures of your daughter are just beautiful.’

  32

  The air in the room was still, almost felt lacking after the musty enclosure of the stairwell, but there was more to it than that, thought Valentine. The atmosphere of the house was different, had the quality of a tomb. Did he imagine it? Was it because he knew he was visiting one of the last places where Janie Cooper was seen alive? He knew there were others who had seen her afterwards, but they didn’t count, not really. The Janie they had seen was not the same little girl. He tried to put out of his mind the degradation, the pain and the hurts that he knew must have befallen her, but he couldn’t do it. Being there, in her home with her parents, made the realities of Janie’s end seem only too real. Valentine felt his connection to the girl’s passing intensify with each new second. He was tense, uneasy; his heart rate increased and there was a dull but persistent drumming beginning in his temples that he had never felt before now. It worried him; would he be able to do this?

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Inspector?’ said Billy. He stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, tipping his head towards a small kitchen where a kettle had just boiled and an assortment of mugs clustered around its base as if interested in the rising steam.

  ‘Erm . . .’ Valentine had no words; his throat tightened like there was a rope around his windpipe.

  ‘Yes, that would be lovely, thank you.’ DS McCormack seized the reins and moved herself between the detective and the deceased girl’s mother.

  Valentine followed her lead and lowered himself onto the couch as Billy went into the kitchen. He positioned himself somewhere behind DS McCormack and tried to listen to the conversation she began, but the words became of little meaning after only a few brief moments. As the trail of slow seconds became more substantial minutes, Valentine removed his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and dabbed at his moistening brow; he was confused and uncertain of himself, like he was not the same man who had passed through the door only minutes previously.

  ‘Inspector . . .’ Billy Cooper held out a mug of tea before him. Valentine stared at the mug like it was an antediluvian conundrum before he was prompted again. ‘Your tea, Inspector.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ His voice came like a low rasp and it shocked him out of his introspection.

  ‘Can I ask you, Mrs Cooper . . . Did you ever have a feeling, I mean an instinct, that there was anyone around you who would harm Janie?’

  The woman’s face tensed and the hollows of her cheeks darkened. Valentine wondered if he had overstepped a mark, gone too far: could it be that after twelve years the woman was still unable to speak about it? She was her mother, though, and what was twelve years or twelve centuries to deal with that kind of grief?

  ‘Did I suspect anyone, is that what you mean?’

  The detective nodded. ‘We visited her school, before we came here; it looks a good school.’ Valentine paused, drew solemn breath. ‘But perhaps there was someone there, or on the periphery of Janie’s life, who would have made you cautious around them.’

  Billy had disbursed the mugs of tea and joined the others in the seating area of the living room, where he stared distractedly at the goings-on. He looked like he had heard it all before, like the officers were going over old and very well-trodden ground.

  Mrs Cooper answered. ‘No. There was no one.’

  Valentine lowered his tea towards the floor and placed the mug on the carpet by the sofa. He had conducted interviews, informal and otherwise, with hundreds, if not thousands, of grieving and aggrieved parents in his time as a police officer, but there was something strange about this encounter. He felt like he was visiting with grief – the actual ethereal body of the pain and misery endured by families of the departed. He saw the injury in their eyes, but beyond that he felt their pained cries ringing in his ears like they were his own. The thought that he would intrude on such a personal hurt filled him with self-loathing, disgust, a desire to abandon himself. As he looked at the couple in their distress he knew they longed for one thing, and one thing alone, but there was no one on this mortal coil who could deliver it to them.

  ‘Why?’ said Mrs Cooper.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t . . .’

  Billy spoke, his voice a lesser force than it had been. ‘She means why did you come here? Has something happened?’

  Valentine froze. He was rigid in his seat; his spinal column was locked to the ground beneath him, immobile.

  ‘We are investigating another case, a murder,’ McCormack’s words were antiseptic, professional. At once the tone of the room seemed to be drawn back to a recognisable place. ‘We don’t know if it’s related, but one of the victims was questioned twelve years ago about the disappearance of Janie.’

  ‘He’s dead?’ said Billy.

  DS McCormack nodded.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You don’t know who it is, Mr Cooper.’

  ‘What does that matter? If he was caught before and questioned about my daughter, he was nothing. Worse than nothing. I’m glad he’s dead.’

  Diane Cooper sat perfectly still, like a pale marmoreal monument to her deepening sadness. When she spoke, the almost imperceptible movement of her lips seemed like a trick of the light. ‘Who was it?’

  DI Valentine sensed some semblance of composure returning. ‘He
was called Duncan Knox.’

  The name sat between them like a small explosion that dictated they wait for the dust to settle before dealing with the fallout.

  ‘We don’t know him,’ said Billy.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Valentine addressed the husband but kept his stare fixed on the wife. She held still.

  ‘Why would we?’

  ‘There’s no reason that you would . . . We just hoped.’

  Billy Cooper’s colour seemed to alter: he became darker. He gnawed on his fingernail for a moment before he spoke again. ‘You’re on a fishing trip?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Valentine.

  Billy rose, his inoffensive demeanour seemed harder now. His jaw jutted as he spoke with a finger pointed towards the detectives. ‘You came here with nothing and now you’re leaving with nothing . . .’ He pointed to his wife, who had her head bowed. ‘And it’s the pair of us that’ll have to pick up the pieces.’

  Valentine stood up. The blood was surging in his veins as he presented his open palms towards Billy Cooper. ‘I’m sorry, I know those words won’t help a lot, but I do genuinely feel your loss.’

  Billy shook his head and shot a hand to the side of his face. His nails dug into the fleshy part of his cheek for a moment and then he lunged forward and closed down the detective. ‘Don’t give me your shite!’

  ‘Sir, can you step back, please . . .’ DS McCormack jumped to her feet and tried to get between the two men.

  ‘Sylvia, no . . . It’s fine, sit down.’

  Billy stepped back, but his chest was still inflated, his eyes burning with anger. ‘You bastards don’t care one jot about our loss; if you did, you’d have caught the freak that took our wee lassie.’

  Valentine was unable to hold Billy’s gaze. He looked away and caught sight of Mrs Cooper, sitting statue still. He wanted to leave their temple to the memory of their daughter, not because he felt unwelcome – though he assuredly did – but because he saw now that it was all they had. Something precious had been taken from them, something more than their daughter, even – their will to go on.

  Valentine motioned DS McCormack to the door as he extended a hand to Billy Cooper. ‘I’m very sorry to have intruded like this, I hope you can forgive us.’ He stood with his hand in the air for a moment and then withdrew it. As he did so, a sharp pain shot up his opposite arm and he jerked to grip his arm tightly.

  As they paced into the hallway, Valentine heard McCormack’s heavy footfalls on the thin carpet behind him, but his eyes were drawn to an open door at the far end of the hall. He tried to focus, but his vision blurred like he was underwater and he grew suddenly cold, as though the temperature in the flat had plummeted sharply. With the next step, his knee locked mid-stride then suddenly gave way; his blurred vision disappeared into blackness as he fell first into the wall and then dropped to the hard floor with a thud.

  Where he lay, Valentine saw the cornflower-blue walls in the facing room reflecting a luminous light that was streaming through the window in denial of the dreich day’s setting. For a moment, his chest tensed to a sharp pain and he heard the blood pulsing in his ears like a cacophonous hammering. He made a deep wheeze of indrawn breath and time slowed to the dull pace of a mill wheel as a small, white-haired girl appeared in the doorway of the room. A deep spring of sorrow was tapped in Valentine as he stared at the girl in a red duffel coat, swinging a doll in her hand. She was smiling at him. Blood ran hot in his cheeks as he tried to speak, but words wouldn’t pass his lips. He turned back to face the way he had come, hoping to see the Coopers, but there was no one there. When he spun back to the front he felt a warm hand on his face.

  ‘Boss.’ DS McCormack was facing him, her voice loud in his ears. ‘Boss, are you all right?’

  He gazed over her shoulder, towards the bedroom with the blue walls. The door was open but the room was empty.

  ‘Boss . . .’

  The Coopers had appeared now. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  Valentine eased himself onto his elbow, then pushed away from the floor with the flat of his hand. ‘I’m fine . . .’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that, sir.’ McCormack placed a palm on his shoulder and withdrew her phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Calling an ambulance . . .’

  Valentine snatched the phone and eased himself off the ground; his head started to spin as he got to his feet. ‘You’re overreacting . . .’

  ‘Sir, you passed out.’

  The DI grabbed her hand and slammed the phone in it. ‘I’m fine!’ Valentine staggered past her and opened the front door.

  As he headed for the stairs, his shaky steps became a brisk duckwalk. By the tenement’s entrance, he was breathing hard and a glaze of sweat had formed on his forehead. He pushed open the door and gulped for air as he flounced onto the front path.

  Valentine was making his way to the edge of the garden as DS McCormack appeared. ‘Wait, sir . . . Please.’

  He carried on to the edge of the road, his legs unsteady beneath him as he glanced back at the deep ploughline of confusion he’d just dug. He could see McCormack sprinting after him and decided he couldn’t outrun her; he stroked his now aching chest as he settled onto the low wall skirting the communal garden.

  ‘Where’s the fire?’ said McCormack as she caught up. A trace of a smile sat on her lips, but a serious tone betrayed her thoughts.

  Valentine cleared his throat and tried to cache his emotions. ‘We should never have gone in there . . .’

  ‘We needed to check it out.’

  He looked away, caught sight of the wind taking an empty takeaway carton down the wide curve of the street. ‘The last thing they needed was us stirring everything back up for them.’

  McCormack joined him on the wall. She unhooked the strap of her bag from her shoulder and balanced it on her knees. ‘We weren’t to know. It was twelve years, sir.’

  Valentine turned on her. ‘Do you think that makes any difference?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  Her cheeks flushed. For a moment she looked like she might answer his question: a reply queued behind her eyes and then she looked away. She clamped her teeth for a moment and then tilted her head back towards Valentine. ‘What happened in there?’

  He didn’t respond. Birdsong sat dulcet in the air between them.

  McCormack tried again. ‘I know something happened, I saw it in your face.’

  ‘Nothing happened.’ His words came like hammer blows on the back of her sympathetic tones.

  She picked herself from the wall and stood before him. ‘I’ll go and get the car.’ As the detective made to stand, McCormack planted her hand on his shoulder. ‘No, you stay . . . You’re in no fit state.’

  ‘I’m perfectly fine.’

  The DS took two steps before she turned and lunged at him. ‘You’re far from fine.’ A curl unfurled itself from her hair and lashed at her brow – it seemed to signal an alteration in mood. ‘I wish you wouldn’t treat me like such a bloody idiot!’

  Valentine watched her heavy steps on the concrete slabs as she went. She wrestled with the strap of her bag and then gave up trying to get it to sit on her shoulder. She was frustrated and angry, and he knew dismissing her questions was not going to be an option. He was acting like a child sticking his fingers in his ears. It didn’t faze the detective that the DS was capable of having his position called into question, because he had already started that process for himself. The thought gripped like a cincture round his chest and sent a spasm into his numbed arm. He gripped his fist above the edge of the wall and tried to hold firm – the short, stabbing pain below his breastbone passed, but he knew it wasn’t going to be the last he had to endure. His breathing constricted and then, just as quickly, eased into a steady rhythm that seemed to calm him. He looked up. A weak sun divided the street into pale light and dark shade. McCormack had turned the corner now, was out of sight,
but he could still see her scowl-crossed face and accusing eyes.

  33

  Cameron Sinclair stood outside the Wellington Café watching the early evening punters shuffling onto the street with their tightly wrapped packages of fish and chips. There was a crowd, a queue out the door, and the ice-cream shop beside was picking up the passing trade of those walking by shaking their heads. Sinclair checked his watch, scrunched his brows to remove the glare of a low and weak but persistent sun from the face. His impatience was a display he couldn’t have compounded with a stamping foot and fist shaken at the heavens. He moved away from the gathering of Ayrshire heifers that barged and bullied their bulk to get to the feed trough. Weren’t they fat enough without all that starch and dripping, he thought. He didn’t like the town, or the people. He had told his boss on the Glasgow-Sun – when he still had his job – that Ayr was too blue-collar for him.

  ‘You’re just a bloody snob, Cam,’ he’d replied.

  ‘Well, what if I am . . . Is there something wrong with having standards?’

  ‘Aye there is, it’s called looking down your nose at people . . . or being a snob.’

  ‘That’s a reductive argument,’ he snapped, he knew at once it was the wrong tack to take with Jack Gallagher.

  The older man laughed in his chair, rocked backwards, and pointed to Sinclair. ‘When you’re at that big dictionary next, look up the word “irony”, eh.’

  Gallagher had laughed him out of his office and the move onto the crime beat in Ayr was no longer up for discussion. Ten months he’d slummed it with the proles now, and all it had earned him was a handful of page-one splashes and a dubious suspension for bending the rules when Gallagher had himself stated the rules were there to be bent.

  ‘Nothing wrong with bending the rules . . . Getting caught bending the rules, now that’s another matter.’ He could still see the ruddy cheeks resounding in broken veins, the raucous half-laugh, half-cough that rattled off the walls every time the editor found himself amusing.