by Chris Dolan
“You look really tired, Louis.”
Between trying to tackle the problem at hand there was small talk and concern for each other. Stroking one another with words. But these felt like caresses of solace, kisses of conclusion. It was only six months ago Skype sessions were a lot bawdier, like horny teenagers with new phones for their birthdays. Funny to think that hot sex fades in long-distance relationships as swiftly as it does skin-to-skin. You’d have thought the sheer abstinence, the imagination necessary, might have lasted longer. Absence makes the libido grow stronger. It occurred to her she could drastically change the tenor of this meeting. A quick repositioning of the camera, a simple tug at a garment or two and instead of these painful negotiations the two of them would be barking and whining like beasts of the wild. Except maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe it would be a truly excruciating decision. God knows she wanted to, or a part of her did, the irrational, non-verbal part that was in danger of drowning out this circular conversation. That line from La Dolce Vita: “We should love each other outside of time … detached.”
“Yeah, like I said, I think maybe I’ve got this virus.”
The thing about virtual sex games – and in real-life down-and-dirty – was they were thrilling and daredevil in the heat of the act. The minute you’re done? Ew.
“You’d better get some sleep.”
“Look, Maddy, I will. I think – we both think, am I right? – we should stop talking. This isn’t a good night for either of us.” They were both on the same page. Could read each other easily. That must count for something, mustn’t it? “Let’s not take any big decisions under the worst possible circumstances.”
They were coming to the end of this particular dirt track in their tangled road to nowhere. But how to sign off? Before, it had been a quick exchange of love yas. Often they hadn’t bothered, there was no need. But if one of them said it now…? And who would go first? And what would it mean? Instead they end with a mutual, You take care. Speak soon.
Blue Nile: “Telephones that ring all night. Incommunicado…” She went to bed. Not sure if they’d tottered forward an inch, or back a mile. Work. Think of work. First World problems: two men blown to pieces, one possibly disabled for life; someone, or someones out there, getting away with it, maybe not even sated yet.
Four a.m. she got up to go to the loo. She’d been dreaming about La Dolce Vita. But not in a good way: “Sometimes at night this darkness this silence weighs on me.” And now, oh great, cramps. They’d been getting worse, and lasting longer, over the last few years. Some kind of body clock alarm? That was the last thing she wanted to think about now. There was a bus she’d almost certainly missed. Fine. She found kids boring and annoying – though, weirdly they seemed to like her. Like cats who make a beeline for the one person in the room who is allergic to them. Just what she needed – Crabbit Week, on top of everything else. God help anyone she comes into contact with over the next couple of days.
She turned on the hall light and there, at the front door, unmistakeable despite the dim light and its size, a bullet.
For once there was no problem her being at the crime scene. She wasn’t there as the fiscal, she was the victim. Or next victim. Or being warned off.
She’d gone back to bed after seeing the bullet. No point in noising all these people up in the middle of the night. If whoever had posted the bullet had wanted to kill her they’d have done so there and then. She made the call at the more reasonable time of 6.30. She’d slept fine for the two hours in between.
“Do you think Miller and Hughes received a bullet through the post before they were shot?”
“If they did, we don’t know about it.” Coulter leaned against the cooker, sipping the tea she’d made. She’d been brewing all morning – for forensics, SOCOs, Adams, Holloway, woolly suits posted outside. Rosa would have been in seventh heaven. She’ll go mad that Maddy didn’t invite her round for the tea party.
They had already confirmed that the bullet was for a Glock 19, and probably from the same box as the others.
“So. Somebody’s trying to tell me something.”
Coulter smiled, ruefully. “That’s really going to piss off my people. We’re the ones who should be getting warned off. Not the bloody PF.”
“I can think of a few who’ll be wishing it had been used, instead of just posted.”
Alan Coulter didn’t dissent from that.
All the usual processes were set in motion: door-to-door, dusting for fingerprints – plus trying out a new process using crystals and UV light – photographs taken, questions asked. (“Why would you be in the hall at four in the morning, Miss Shannon?” “I was on my way to take a piss, Officer.” “Why wait until 6.30 to phone it in?” “Nothing anyone could do.” “Did you check to see if anyone was walking away?” “What, and contaminate the locus? Course not.”)
They let her go before nine, insisting that she be accompanied to work by an officer. (“Constable, don’t take it personally, but I’m not going to say a word to you.”)
At Ballater Street everyone had heard the news.
“You okay, Maddy?” Dan, Izzy, and Manda all rushed into her office.
“Oh hunky-dory. Dan, why don’t you get down to my place? You’re going to get this case anyway.”
“I thought I might try a different tack on this one. You know, play it by the book. Heard of it?”
“New one to me. I really have to take you over the basics of meddling and interference, Mr McKillop. Go. Please. See what they’re saying, doing.”
Dan gave his best camp eye-roll, swivelled theatrically, and left.
Maddy didn’t have to go and see Maxwell Binnie; Max came to her. For the first few minutes of the meeting he was all concern and helpfulness.
“This is most distressing, Maddalena. Anything we can do. If you want to speak to someone…”
“Like a priest?”
“No. Well, I don’t know. Do you?” He was flummoxed, as Scots from Protestant backgrounds often are in this area. “You’re a Catholic, aren’t you? So…”
“Bless me, Procurator, for I have sinned.”
“You could use one of our counsellors.”
“I’m fine, Max, thank you.”
“You know of course that you cannot take anything more to do with this terrible business.”
The look of pity was still etched on his face, and his voice saddened. But the subtext was unmistakeable – she had brought this on herself. Again. Tua culpa.
“I was never going to get prosecuting it anyway, was I?”
“Well, we agreed that, all things being equal, it was time you landed an important case.”
That’s the problem: all things are never equal. Certainly not in Maddy Shannon’s life.
“Maddy,” he drew his seat nearer, his voice as honeyed as he could make it, which was about as close to honey as sour cream, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea, given the circumstances, for you to keep working at all. You’re a strong person, we all know that, but this must be traumatic. I’m given to understand that you’re under a lot of pressure these days.”
“You’re ‘given’ to understand?”
His empathy expired. “Do I need to recite a list? This is just like the Kelvingrove murders all over again. You’re all over this case like…”
“Like … a rash, sir?”
“Talking to witnesses – suspects even!”
“In pursuit of another case! Petrus has never been closed—”
“Even then – not how we do things, is it? Then there’s the distinct possibility of disclosing evidence, even if unintentionally… Furtive meetings with JCG Miller employees.”
“You mean lunch with Samantha Anderson and Douglas Mason? They’re fellow practitioners. Glasgow’s a small city. If we were to look through your social diary!” She immediately softened it: “For that matter, anybody’s here.”
“For heaven’s sake, Maddy. You’re a bloody lawyer. You know exactly what I mean.”
He
meant, live an unsullied middle-class life. Preferably in Newton Mearns, or even better outside the jurisdiction, in Dunlop, like him. Don’t take buses, don’t talk to ordinary smelly people. Drink fifteen-quid bottles of Pinot Noir from Waitrose, not pints in the Vicky. That was all very well – until lawyers from Killearn and the West End started getting malkied.
How did he know all this anyway – about Sam and Doug, about her talking to Cathy and Morag? Max lived a semi-hermitically sealed life. Keep the office door closed: safest form of management. But she could trace the lines of information. Police, like John Russell say, peeved at her intrusions; more peeved by her being ahead of them often enough. That makes its way to Deputy Chief Constable Crawford Robertson, known to play a round or two with Maxwell Binnie, procurator fiscal. All things being equal her aunt Fanny.
“What are we saying here? I take a holiday?”
“For instance.”
“Paid?”
“Naturally.”
“Over and above my annual entitlement.”
“Oh I’m not sure we can…” One look at her expression changed his mind instantaneously. “Of course.” He got up to go. “One week. Then we’ll review the situation. Re statutory leave.”
“Oh I’m sure the boys in blue will have cracked it all by then.” Then she added, “And Dan McKillop will have it all neatly collated.” But he closed the door before she’d finished.
Coulter wasn’t there for Harkins’s departure. He’d been at Maddy’s when the twenty-four hours were up. DS Dalgarno had signed him out.
“Yes, I asked him again. And, not in so many words, but it was obvious what he meant, he had decided not to tell us.”
“Decided?”
“He didn’t incriminate himself, but he made it clear that he wasn’t going to give us the name. He was looking pleased with himself. Like he’d just done a good deed.”
“Maybe, in his world…”
“Can’t we just do him for dealing in prohibited firearms?”
“What good would it do? No proof. And I get the impression that once Joe Harkins has made up his mind nothing on earth will change it.” Coulter had just taken his jacket off. Now he was putting it back on again. “Who is he protecting?”
“Or afraid of.”
“If he was acting like a Boy Scout, he presumably reckons he’s doing someone a favour.”
“Maybe his cockiness was in the hope of some kind of payback? Where are you going?”
“To the Day of Judgement. Lord Forbes Nairne himself. We haven’t got any further on those Glasgow Cally students?”
“Sorry. Nothing either on the origin of the dump photographs.”
Coulter sighed and left. Before he could get out the building PC Eddie Whatshisname shouted him back.
“Sorry sir. But someone here you might want to see.”
Zack Goldie was slumped in a chair, head on the table, in an interview room. “You look like you’ve been through the wars, Zack. Tell me what happened.”
Young Eddie had already briefed the inspector. Goldie had been lifted in the middle of the night, drunk and disorderly. Screaming abuse at danger-level decibels off Great Western Road. Zack lifted his head off the table like it weighed a ton.
“I can’t handle the drink.”
What was Basil Fawlty’s line: “Specialist subject, the Bleedin’ Obvious.”
“Let me guess. This party you got flung out of … your old pal Gabriel Daniels was there, yes?”
Zack nodded, like a gorilla with a disproportionately large, and aching, head. “Stupid thing is, I’d already made my peace with him. We go the party together, buds again, then I start drinking and…” He looked at Coulter, anxiously. “I just can’t stop digging myself in deeper, can I?”
Coulter looked at the notes Eddie had handed him. “Well, I’m not sure that shouting,” he cleared his throat and read in a flat voice, “‘I’ve already killed two men so I can kill you you fanny,’ helps exactly.”
“Did I say that?” Zack scrunched up his face and put his fists to his head.
“‘I’ll be back when I’ve got the gun … then you are a dead man … Prickface.’”
“I haven’t killed anyone. I don’t have any guns. You’ve got to believe me. I’m an arse, that’s all. If you can arrest someone for being a wanker, I’d go quietly.”
Coulter smiled to himself. Zack Goldie had hit on a favourite theory of his. Sane people know they are eejits; they spend their lives controlling their inner eejitness. That’s why he liked Maddy Shannon so much. More importantly, why he loved his wife and kids. They all, like all sane people, put up a front, but scratch the surface and they recognised, and confessed to, their hidden demons and inconsistencies. It’s why he had a problem with the likes of ACC Robert Crawford, DS John Russell and their ilk – they actually believed they were completely sane. Which made them dangerously crazy in Alan’s eyes.
So, although the boy exasperated him, he felt well disposed towards him for the moment. Then again… He checked Eddie’s notes on times and place. Approx. 3 a.m. Great Western Road. Fifteen minutes from Maddy’s house, around the time someone had posted a bullet. He would have liked to pat the boy’s head and console him, tell him everything’s fine. But he couldn’t. Not just yet.
“You’re certainly developing a fine line in self-destruction, Zack. We’ll have to talk to everyone who was at that party last night” – Zack’s groan was almost a wail – “and we’ll need a full statement from you.” He stood up. “But, son. Two things. I’ll give you the name of an alcohol counsellor. But even more important than that – go home and talk to your mum and dad.”
“You’re joking.”
“I really amn’t, Zack. Yes, they’ll give you haw-maw and there’ll be tears and snotters. But once you’ve all got the crap out your systems, they’re the ones who can help you. Believe me. There is no greater healing power than your mammy.”
Alison Morrison had been scribbling down notes all morning, as doctors with titles and specialisms she never quite managed to catch gave their learned opinions on Bill Crichton’s current condition. There was stuff about localised responses, flexion and extension of … things. This was going to be a nightmare to write up after. But it seemed to her that the prognosis was clear as day. The man had opened his eyes for God’s sake. So he was out of his coma. What state he’d be in, right enough, was a different matter.
She could have gone home long before that, or got someone to take over. But she’d slept well enough, her feet up on a second chair. Also, she’d been sitting staring into space for about a week and this was the first time something interesting had happened. And clearly, nobody at the station had noticed she’s done a thirteen-hour shift.
The changing of the guards had taken place round about 7 a.m. The floozy had knocked off – having slept, Alison reckoned, just as long and as deeply as she herself had – and the blushing bride had taken over. So it was Clare, the legit one, who had seen the first signs of life from her husband. The nurses and doctors were acting like it was Lazarus himself, while Clare sat looking on, only vaguely interested. The only thing she’d done was text someone. The first time Alison had seen her do that – in contrast to Marion who never stopped.
She decided that thirteen hours was quite enough and there was nothing more to see. The man was coming round – slowly. As she got up to go, Mrs Miller entered, ignored her as usual and looked directly at Clare.
“Yes?”
So that’s who Crichton must have texted. Marion had been summoned. Clare took her time collecting her things and abandoning her post by her husband’s bed, put on her coat, looked down at him briefly, then made for the door, stopping in front of Marion.
“You can have him. He’s all yours.”
Nairne had arranged to meet him at an unexpected venue, but Coulter liked the streets around the Tron Theatre. An odd assortment of tattoo parlours, old-time pubs, art shops and studios. Transmission Gallery had been made famous by a Franz Ferdina
nd song. Which one he had no idea, just that his daughter had played it to him, and he had this image of a big-mustachioed duke wearing a German spiked helmet singing a rock song about Glasgow.
Spirit Aid is a charity run by one of Scotland’s most famous sons, the actor David Hayman. Coulter admired the guy – great at his job but spent his free time and probably his own spare cash working with kids in the developing world and in his home town. What Lord Forbes Nairne, QC, was doing there was anyone’s guess. Maybe he just likes a bit of star-fucking, though Coulter wouldn’t have thought Nairne was Hayman’s type.
Disappointingly, the actor was nowhere to be seen. To compensate, he found Nairne sitting in the middle of a group of teenagers. The judge nodded to Coulter, making him understand he’d be with him in a minute. He was telling the kids about bagpipe music. “We’ve been playing these things for a thousand years, maybe mair. The skirlin’s handy for dances – and getting rid o’ folk.”
The kids laughed. The man was comfortable with them, in an old-fashioned dominie kind of way. Coulter doubted many of them would give their schoolteachers so much silence and respect. Nairne was a man who expected a degree of deference, and he knew how to use it. He picked up a chanter and played a bit. Coulter knew nothing about bagpipes but it sounded pretty proficient to him. Nairne then gave the instrument to one of the girls sitting next to him. “Try and get a toot oot o’ it, while I talk to this gentleman here.”
While the kids made noises akin to a Highland cow being butchered alive, and laughed uproariously, Nairne directed Coulter to a side room, where the cacophony was only slightly muffled.
“Ach I do this from time to time. We have to keep oor traditions alive, Inspector, don’t you think?”