‘Sorry. My mum needs me. I’ll get back to you later, if that’s ok?’
Then a message came up to say that Simon was now offline.
* * *
Ale parks the car, pulls on the handbrake and looks over at Daryl Drain.
‘Ready for this?’ she asks.
‘What else should you be doing at eight o’clock in the morning, other than arresting the twin brother of a drowning victim?’ He adds as an aside, ‘In front of his grieving mother.’
‘When I come back, I’m coming back as a nail technician,’ Ale says, ‘cos to hell with this shit.’ She can already see Helen Davis’s face twist with grief when she delivers the news that her son is in fact a murder suspect after all. Just a couple of days after her other son dies. She’d asked Peters for a day’s grace before she arrested Simon Davis. Hoping for a couple. But Peters was under pressure from the suits, and they wanted this case put to bed long before now. Any delay when there was an identifiable chain of events was just not feasible. He finished with a withering look and the command: do your job.
‘Ale, you didn’t make the world. Nor do you make people do the things they do,’ says Daryl.
‘The world is populated by bloody idiots, if you ask me.’
‘Right,’ says Daryl. ‘No time like the present. Let’s go.’
Ale’s legs feel like they’ve been coated in fast-drying concrete as she walks up to the front door. Daryl knocks.
Helen Davis answers even before the sound stops reverberating. She must have noticed them waiting and deduced why.
‘You’re not taking my son,’ she says.
‘Can we come in, please, Mrs Davis?’ Ale asks. ‘We can’t really discuss this on the doorstep.’
She turns to the side and allows them entry. Closes the door behind them. Crosses her arms. ‘There’s something you should know, before you speak to Simon.’ Her face is lined and grey. Her eyes are heavy and their light is dim. She looks about ten years older than the last time Ale saw her, just a few days ago. ‘Aileen Banks was having a thing with both my boys. Playing one off against the other.’ She pauses. Steels herself against what she is about to say. ‘Matt was with her on the night she died. Not Simon.’
‘Just what are you saying, Mrs Davis?’ Ale asks.
‘Simon did a DNA test? The results are in, yes?’ She sticks her chin up, challenging us for the information.
‘We can’t divulge that information at this stage,’ Ale says, suddenly doubting whether or not this was the case.
‘Well, let me save you the trouble of arresting my son.’ She gulps back some tears. ‘Identical twins have identical DNA. True? Yes? The result you have matches with Simon. But it wasn’t him who left the…’ her expression sours, ‘…sample. It was Matt. Because, if you were listening earlier, Aileen had both my boys twisted round her finger. And that night, she was with Matt.’
‘Mum,’ says a voice from the top of the stairs. ‘What are you doing?’ Feet drum down the stairs and Simon is beside her mother. He looks as if his eyes have slipped half way down his face. He’s wired, anxious and utterly fatigued. He tugs at her sleeve. ‘Mum,’ he admonishes her.
‘On the day after … the day after my son dies,’ she draws herself up to her full five feet. ‘The police have arrived to arrest my son. I’m finally … finally telling them the truth. Can’t hurt Matt now, eh?’ Her smile is twisted with determination to protect her one surviving family member, and Ale wonders if the truth has also been twisted to help.
‘Tell them, son. Tell them,’ Helen speaks quieter now.
‘Tell them what, Mum?’ Simon takes a step back as if he wants to run back upstairs to the safety of his room.
‘That Aileen was playing you off one against the other.’
‘Mum, please,’ says Simon. Ale’s reading of this is that the boy is clearly conflicted. But is it with this version of events, or does he want to protect the good name of the girl he was in love with?
Helen is in his face now. ‘Was Aileen seeing Matt before she died?’
Simon is a study in pain and silence. He looks like a man about to be placed in front of a firing squad.
‘Simon,’ Helen says.
A whisper. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you see Aileen on the night she died?’
His voice remains low. ‘No.’
Helen is almost at breaking point but manages to ask, ‘And did Matt see Aileen on the night she died?’
Simon’s silent response stretches on for more seconds than is comfortable. Helen doesn’t press him this time. She simply places a hand on his forearm. Simon almost slumps at the touch.
Then.
‘Yes. Matt told me later…’ Simon looks from Daryl to Ale. ‘But you have to believe me. Aileen was alive when he left her.’ He stares his certainty into her eyes. ‘You have to believe me. Matt didn’t kill Aileen.’
48
Ale and Daryl are on the way back to tell Peters the news. Both processing the information as presented by Helen and Simon Davis.
‘What do you think?’ Daryl asks.
Ale takes her eyes off the road for a moment. ‘If the two of them are singing the same tune, there’s little we can do, unless we have some kind of evidence to the contrary.’
‘Aye, but do you think they’re lying?’
She sees Simon Davis in her mind. The way his eyes flick from his mother to the floor and back. She read a reluctance to answer, and her gut is telling her this was coming from a need to protect Aileen.
‘I think Helen would do and say anything at this point to protect her boy. Simon? I’m not thinking “liar” when I see him speak.’
Back in the office, and Peters is duly apprised of the recent information. He gives a single word response.
‘Shit.’
‘We’ll need to get them both in for statements. Get it on record.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. The thought heavy on his mind. ‘Let’s give them a break for a day or two first.’ He looks over the office towards John Harkness’s desk. ‘Foreman was clearly the ringleader of this wee barney on the bridge. He needs to be charged with manslaughter. Harkie, see to it, there’s a good lad.’ Then he walks out of the room like his work is done for the year.
Ale is at her desk. She checks her emails. Nothing needs to be done. She checks her phone. Same story there. She pulls open her top drawer and sees Ian Cook’s phone. Thinks, this needs to be returned to evidence.
On a whim, she pulls it from her drawer and switches it on. She checks Facebook. Another couple of friend requests. Ghouls and trolls. The internet does bring out an interesting side of people, she thinks.
She thumbs the icon on the phone to see Cook’s photographs. Some selfies of him and Jack, their smiles large and completely unmindful of anything other than the moment. And perhaps getting pissed and then laid. Poor fucker, she thinks. Nobody deserves to have their throat cut and to be just left like that, like trash.
Next she finds one of Aileen Banks.
And another.
And another.
Seven in total.
Thinks, whoa. Haud the bus.
In all of them, she’s been taken unawares. No duck-face pouts. No side-on, chest out, stomach in, poses. She’s at a table. She’s walking down the street. She’s talking to someone off camera. In all of them, she doesn’t know she’s in focus. Ale shivers. She counts the photos in the thread. Yup, seven. What the hell is going on here?
She examines her thoughts in more detail. Sees where the link might be. But something’s missing. She picks up Cook’s phone again. Scrolls through more images until one appears like a gift.
Interesting. Very interesting.
‘You coming?’
‘Where now?’ asks Drain and looks in the direction of Peters’ office. Asking, should we check with him first?
<
br /> Ale makes a face, saying, to hell with him. She sends the photographs on Ian’s phone to her work email. Registers that they have arrived and presses print. She stands up.
Says, ‘Right.’
‘What?’ asks Drain.
‘We’re off to see that daft wee bint Karen Gardner.’
* * *
Leonard’s laptop alerts him to a message. He feels a charge in his gut. Hopes it is Simon Davis.
‘Can we talk?’ It is Simon.
‘Sure’, he answers. And a moment of elation threatens to blow the top off his skull.
‘Not here. Can’t type fast enough. AND I need to get out of this house. I can’t look at my mum for another second.’ There’s a pause for about thirty seconds. ‘I can’t handle her upset and mine.’
‘Same place we arranged last time?’
This time the pause is longer.
‘Please. Yes. Promise me you’ll be there this time?’
There’s a world of vulnerability in this last question, and Leonard feels himself respond, but not in his usual way.
‘Of course I will. Last time was about me and I’m not good when it’s about me.’ Leonard pauses in his typing and tries to name the emotion he is experiencing. Could he be feeling something for this boy? They arrange a time to meet and sign off.
He gives the feeling a name. Affection. Drags it into a corner of his mind and imagines huge metal studded boots stamping on it with heart-thrilling abandon.
He thinks, that’s a first.
And the last.
49
I can feel Kenny’s eyes on me. He’s not left my side for hours and it’s beginning to get on my last nerve.
‘You can relax. The moment’s passed.’
‘So you admit you were going to top yourself?’ he asks, eyebrows almost at his hairline.
‘It’s like there’s this voice. My voice. But I can’t control it. Can’t shut it up, you know?’ I say and search his eyes for understanding. He nods, but he clearly has no clue what I’m on about. ‘But it starts with a feeling. My hands sweat, my heart feels like it’s being squeezed, my breath … I find it difficult to breathe. And the lights go out. I can barely see.’
‘Right,’ says Kenny. No judgement, but little understanding. He’s always had a healthy conceit of himself. Control over his mind. It’s like trying to explain nuance to someone whose worldview is made up entirely of black and white.
‘And I can’t control it. Don’t know when it’s going to hit next. Don’t know how to stop it when it happens.’ I shake my head. ‘I’m not losing my mind. I’m not.’
‘Didn’t say you were, mate,’ he says, and I can feel his frustration. He has two weapons: his tongue and his fists. He’s equally dexterous with both. If the first doesn’t do the job, he can bring in Hurt and Pain. Those are the nicknames he jokingly gave each set of knuckles. And he’s in a position now where neither will do the job. Maybe he’ll discover that his ears are the necessary tools this time around. ‘Another coffee?’
Oh good Christ, he’s got his fingernails working through the bottom of that barrel.
‘If I have another coffee, I’ll burst.’
His phone sounds an alert.
‘It’ll keep,’ he says.
Then another. And another.
He waves it away, his hand pushing through the air. ‘It’s just work shit.’
Another alert sounds.
‘For fuck’s sake, Kenny. I’m not going to go rifling through the knife drawer while you look at your phone. Just answer it, eh?’
He makes a dismissive noise. ‘I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t listening…’ he tails off as he picks up the phone. Reads the alerts on the screen.
‘It’s Ale. Four texts.’
Then the phone rings. ‘Surprise, surprise.’ He smiles. ‘It’s Ale.’
He answers. ‘Were you wearing out your thumbs?’
He listens to her answer, says, ‘Wait a minute, Alessandra. I’m putting the phone on speaker.’ And her voice comes through.
‘I hope you are on your own. I wouldn’t want DI Ray McBain to be hearing any of this.’ Meaning, I want Ray to hear all of this.
‘I’m totally on my lonesome. Thinking of you, as it happens. And those beautiful brown eyes of yours.’ He chuckles.
‘They’re amber, by the way. And another by the way? In your dreams, big guy.’
‘Just you keep on fighting it, honey,’ Kenny says.
‘If you two would stop trying to wind each other up,’ I interrupt.
‘Sorry,’ says Ale. Coughs. ‘You can’t help the company you keep.’
Kenny chews on his retort. ‘See my increasing maturity, Ray?’ he asks. ‘I’m totally letting this moment slip past.’
‘Congrats,’ I say. ‘Now kindly shut the fuck up and allow Ale to speak.’
‘Thanks,’ says Ale. ‘And yes, I was getting sore thumbs typing out all those texts. Thought I would do it the old fashioned way and actually use out loud words and shit.’
‘So, speak.’
‘You got the message about the DNA match? But they found another sample. In her fingernails.’
Interesting.
Then I have a moment of appreciation for Ale, and emotion robs me of speech. We both know she shouldn’t be doing this. And we both know I can’t act on any of this information. She’s letting me in on this to make me feel involved. There’s a silent acknowledgement that work is the one thing that is keeping me going, it’s the one thing that is being denied to me. This time, I’m out. Once and for all. Or the suits will fire my fat arse.
And I acknowledge, the fight has gone out of me.
I get my voice back. ‘Sorry could you say all that again, please?’
‘Ma Davis and her son, Simon, are saying that the semen on Aileen came from Matt.’
‘Convenient. Do you believe them?’
‘Actually I do. And,’ I can hear a note of excitement in Ale’s voice, ‘Ian Cook has some interesting photos on his phone. Feels like he was stalking Aileen Banks.’
‘Really?’ And I imagine his corpse, throat cut, under a tree, behind a wall just across the road from the Davis house. We’re missing something.
‘We’re on our way to bring in Karen Gardner. There’s something in that head that will give us the key to all of this. I’m sure of it.’ She hangs up with a cheery ‘See ya.’ And I quash the faint twist of envy forming in the line of my jaw. I can trust Ale to get the job done.
I’m out.
‘What’s going on in that fat, ugly head of yours, McBain?’ Kenny asks.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Kenny. But you need to fuck off.’ I put my hand up to silence his ensuing note of protest.
‘I’m officially letting you know I’m off the suicide watch list,’ I say and offer him a smile by way of apology. Probably comes across like a grimace. I make a decision as I articulate it. ‘I’m going to see the doc. Get proper counselling and…’ it chokes me to admit I need them, ‘…maybe some happy pills.’
He stands up. Smooths down imaginary creases on the front of his trousers, not successfully hiding his relief.
‘You know I’m only at the end of the phone. And if you need me. Any time, day or…’
‘Yeah, yeah. And I love you too, big man.’ Can’t remember if I’ve ever said that to Kenny before. Sober or drunk. Fuck, I am losing it. I put my hand on his shoulder. I’m not saying it again, but I’ll allow the feeling to transfer through my touch. I squeeze. ‘Take me home, Jeeves. I’ve got legally available drugs to arrange.’
50
Simon is across a small table from Leonard. They’re back in the café of the big bookshop on Argyle Street. Leonard has a black coffee. Simon has a glass full of Irn-Bru and ice that he’s swirling around with a straw. Apart from an almost si
lent, ‘Hi,’ they’ve barely spoken to each other.
Leonard isn’t worried. The boy is here. He’ll speak when he’s good and ready. Silence has never been a thing of threat to him. Some people act like it burns their ears, and they rush to fill it with any old nonsense. Whatever comes out of his mouth, Leonard thinks, matters. Is leading somewhere.
He looks over the boy’s shoulder, out of the window, at the grey building across the street and beyond that, a blue spotted sky. A large gull cuts through the air. Even from here, Leonard can see the glare of focus in its small, dark eyes. On the scavenge. A smile flickers on and off Leonard’s face. He can relate.
‘Can you remember how you felt when your twin died?’ Simon asks.
‘Like it was yesterday,’ Leonard answers, leaning back in his chair.
‘It hurts,’ Simon leans forward, tears brimming in his eyes. ‘How do you get it to stop?’
‘It never goes away,’ he says with an expression he hopes conveys solidarity. ‘You just learn to accept there’s permanent pain there. Just within reach. And you get on with the rest of your life.’
‘I can’t imagine life without…’ he says, and his head falls forward. He places his elbows on the table and hides his face behind his hands. His shoulders move in time with his grief. ‘Why me? What did I do to deserve … First my girlfriend and now my…’ His sobs take him off to a place that Leonard knows he will never reach.
He’s aware now that people are staring. Perhaps it’s time to take this somewhere else. With care, he reaches forward. Touches the boy’s arm.
‘Not here, Simon. Best not give these people a show,’ he says, and to his shock finds that his concern is genuine.
* * *
By the time they get Karen Gardner back to the station, Jack Foreman has also been brought in. Peters meets her outside the interview rooms. He gives her a nod.
‘Foreman has been charged already. He’s in Room One. We’ll put Gardner in Two.’
‘OK,’ Ale says, wondering where this is going. No need to tell her the bleeding obvious.
‘I want you to lead on this,’ he says, and Ale takes a step back. Reading her surprise, he continues, ‘You seem to have more of a handle on this case than anyone else.’ To which Ale silently adds, apart from Ray.
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