by Ed James
Cullen nodded. "I'll be a few minutes."
Green watched Sharon trudge up the path to the crime scene. "That your DS?"
"Used to be."
"Wouldn't mind a go up that."
"She's my girlfriend now."
"Fuck's sake. Sorry, Scotty."
"You're not any less of a dirty bastard these days, then, Shagger?"
"Aye, well, got to live up to my nickname, somehow."
Cullen laughed.
"Evening, Cullen." James Anderson, one of the lead SOCOs, grabbed the clipboard from Green.
"Evening, James."
Anderson headed over to the group.
Cullen recognised most of them but couldn't place the uniformed male officer chatting to DS Alan Irvine, his current boss and long-term adversary. "Enough banter. Give me a blow-by-blow of what's happened here. Any eyewitnesses?"
"Nope. Local farmer called it in at about half five. Heard a big thump from over this way. We headed out and found the wreckage." Green pointed to a tent, an orange car nestling beneath the canvas.
Bain stood there, arms folded, staring at it.
"Bastard luck, though, Scotty. I was seeing some boy in Kirkliston about a drug deal when I got the call through."
"You still in Bathgate?"
"Aye, for my sins."
"I'll need to pop out." Cullen pointed at Irvine. "Any idea who that is?"
"Some wanker DS from out your way."
"That is my DS. I meant the other guy."
"Fuck's sake, man. Didn't mean anything by it."
"It's okay, he is a wanker." Cullen patted his shoulder. "Any idea who the other one is?"
"Kieron something. First Attending Officer. He's based out at Bathgate, but he covers your old patch of Ravencraig. Seems like a bit of a cock."
Cullen laughed. "So everyone's still a cock, a wanker or a bit of skirt?"
"Aye, well, can't help it if I'm perfect."
"Anything else I should know?"
"Nope."
"I'll pop in and see you sometime, maybe go for a pint?"
"Sounds good." Green looked over Cullen's shoulder at some newcomers.
Cullen headed through the light rain and mud towards the wreckage. The inner cordon was guarded by another uniformed officer. It should have been CID officers managing the process. Maybe Bain wanted continuity from when it had been established.
"Here, wait up."
Cullen looked behind him.
Irvine had finished his chat and was on his way over. He started to jog, his feet splashing in the dirty puddles. "Bain call you out?"
Cullen nodded. "We were at Sharon's parents."
"Christ, it's getting serious."
"Aye." Cullen quickened the pace.
"He caught me just as I was leaving, was going to catch up with you, but you'd already left."
"Had my counselling."
Irvine laughed. "Aye, good one. What a skive that is."
Cullen ignored him as they approached Bain and Sharon.
Bain stretched out. "Here's my dream team. Cannon and Ball."
Cullen smiled, desperate to disarm him. "I'm not going to ask who's who."
"Best leave it that way, Sundance, you don't want another nickname."
Irvine reached into his pocket and retrieved a tub of chewing gum. "I better not be Ball, by the way."
Bain laughed. "Last thing you are is on the ball."
"Speaking of which, who've Rangers got in the next round of the Glenmorangie Camanachd Cup? Is it Forres Mechanics?"
Bain rubbed his moustache. "That's a fuckin' shinty tournament for teuchters like Sundance here, you cheeky bastard."
Cullen grimaced. "We don't play shinty in Angus."
Bain glared at Irvine. "Football is off limits for the next three years, you know that. Besides, a Jambo like you shouldn't talk about the financial difficulties of another club. Paid the wages this month?"
Irvine shrugged his shoulders. "Still in the SPL, though."
"For now." Bain grinned.
Sharon put a hand on her hip. "Shall I leave you boys to talk about football all night?"
Bain held her gaze for a few seconds then smiled. "Right, I'm SIO on this case. We've got Scene of Crime here and Deeley's just been signed into the inner cordon. Thank fuck the pathologist isn't going to hold us up for once." He turned and faced the wreckage of the car. "From what we can tell, the Range Rover rolled off the top. The thing is totally battered."
Cullen glanced over at the car. "What about the victim?"
"No idea who he is. The science boys will be a fuckin' week digging the body out at this rate. From the brief glance I've had through what's left of the windscreen, we've got an IC1 male in his early twenties. Light build, dark hair. Not much blood or brains left."
"So why are we involved?" Sharon flicked her hair over. "This feels like a pretty run-of-the-mill case. Some local ned steals a car and takes it for a run down the bing, ends up getting himself killed."
Bain creased his forehead. "Who said anything about it being stolen?"
"Is it?"
Bain got out his notebook. "Got one of the laddies to run a PNC check on the number plate, even though it was in about seven bits and scattered half across this field. Turns out it was stolen off a boy in Ravencraig."
Cullen winced. "Ravencraig used to be my beat when I was in Bathgate."
"Lovely place." Bain smiled. "Right, well there's a whole heap of fuck all going on here just now." He nodded at Cullen and Sharon. "Can you pair go and speak to this boy?"
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Be just like old times, Butch, before you let Sundance here into your knickers."
CHAPTER 4
"I'm not living here." Cullen pulled in outside the address Bain had given them. A large, modern detached house with the barest of gardens.
"It's cheap."
"For a reason. Most other places I'll consider. I'm practically public enemy number one out here."
"We'll never afford anywhere at this rate." Sharon got out and stormed off up the drive.
Cullen followed, clocking another Range Rover as he walked, before waiting beside Sharon as she rang the bell.
Craig Smith answered the door, frowning at Sharon's warrant card. "Have you found it?"
Sharon pocketed her card. "Can we come in?"
Smith led them inside through the sprawling hall into a large living room, occupying the space of three or four rooms in a standard house. Pride of place was given to a large reclining armchair in front of a flat-screen TV that Cullen guessed must be in excess of sixty inches. A football match filled the screen, the sound muted.
Smith sat and switched off the screen then swivelled the chair round to face Cullen and Sharon on the sofa. "When can I get my car back?"
"I'm afraid it is almost certainly written off." Sharon got out her notebook. "It rolled down one of the shale bings by the M9."
"That's a bloody shame. It's a one-off." Smith's face twisted into a smile. "And not just the paintwork."
Cullen nodded. "The orange?"
"I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Rangers fan." Smith pointed at the wall behind them - a Rangers shirt from the McEwen's Lager days hung above the mantelpiece. "Signed by Mark Hately the day we beat Aberdeen to win the title in ninety-two."
Cullen stabbed his pen into his notebook, not needing reminded of that day. "What can you tell us about the vehicle, Mr Smith?"
"That car cost me eighty grand. Custom suspension, custom body work. I won't bore you with the engine specs."
"I can see why someone would want to steal it, then."
"Aye, well, you'd think it would have been easy for you lot to find a bright orange Range Rover, but no."
"Were you at work when the car was stolen?"
"I was. I've got three Range Rovers. I use that one for the occasional weekend trip up north or something. It was just sitting on the drive outside. I should have locked it away."
Sharon cleared her throat. "What do
you do for a living?"
"I own a garage in Ravencraig. Ranger Rover."
"Could the theft be in any way linked to your job?"
Smith rolled his shoulders. "You tell me."
Sharon leaned forward. "When we found the car, there was a body behind the wheel."
Smith gasped. "You're joking."
"Wish I was. A young man, white, early twenties. Any idea who it might be?"
Smith stared into space for a few seconds before shaking his head. "None at all, I'm afraid. Must be the person who stole it. I went through this with your colleague the other day. He said there'd been a spate of car thefts in West Lothian."
Cullen looked at Sharon - he had nothing further. Neither did she.
***
Cullen stopped outside the mobile Incident Room in Winchburgh, a police caravan at the edge of a muddy football pitch. He pointed at Bain through the window, going mental at someone. "Better give it a minute."
"Who's that?"
Cullen peered in. "I think it's the First Attending Officer."
Sharon leaned back against the caravan. "What do you think of Smith, then?"
"I think he's dodgy."
She laughed. "Is that based on anything he said, or what he had hanging over his mantelpiece?"
"Aye well, never trust a car salesman, especially in Ravencraig."
"Especially a Rangers fan?"
"It's nothing to do with that. It's the fact he's selling cars."
"I can see why you don't trust them." She grinned. "It's time you got a new car."
"We need to have a proper chat about this. Am I saving for our mortgage or spending money on cars?"
The pool Range Rover appeared from the bottom of the bing.
The Edinburgh City Pathologist, Jimmy Deeley, almost dropped his bulging medical bag as he get out. He smiled at them as he approached. "Where's the prince of darkness at this hour?"
Cullen pointed in the window. "Giving some poor uniform a shoeing."
"Why change the habit of a lifetime?"
The uniformed officer hurried past, leaving the door wide open.
"Kieron!" Bain stood in the doorway. "Oh, for fuck's sake."
"Another of your long string of lovers?"
"Shut your face, Cullen." Bain glowered at them in turn. "Going to get your arses in here so I don't lose all the fuckin' heat?"
Cullen followed them in, shutting the door behind him.
Bain stood at his usual whiteboard, already fully populated with a confused mass of doodles. He looked at Deeley then Cullen. "I see you've brought a friend, Sundance."
Deeley smiled. "Nice to see you too, Brian."
"It'd better be good news from you."
"I'll see what I can do. I left the fire service and James Anderson removing the body from the car. I did manage to perform an interim analysis, though it's pretty loose."
Bain snorted. "And?"
"There's maybe a bit too much bruising on the body."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, where you've had someone involved in a vehicular accident with a seatbelt on, I'd usually expect the body to be fairly heavily bruised. With this, though, his face is worse than I would expect." Deeley pulled out a compact camera and brought up a photo of a man's face, his finger tracing an area as he zoomed in. "All that plus there's an imprint of a ring here. I'll need to wait till I can get him on the slab back at the station, but I'd suggest someone's punched him recently."
"We're not wastin' our time with this?"
"I've never seen you spend your time properly." Deeley winked. "I'd suggest it looks sufficiently suspicious to warrant CID investigating. I'll see if I can determine whether he got into a bar fight or whatever. All part of the service."
Bain nodded, lost in thought, before scribbling something down. "Right, Jimmy, I'll not hold you back."
Deeley grinned as he left the caravan, just as Irvine appeared through the door.
"Evening, gaffer." Irvine's jaw pounded on gum. "Got an ID for you. Alexander Aitken." He held up a leather wallet, encased in an evidence bag, before tossing it over to Bain along with another bag containing a set of house keys. "Present from Anderson."
Bain rummaged around in the wallet.
Irvine produced another bag. A high-end HTC mobile phone. He handed it to Cullen. "You fuck about on your phone often enough. You have a look."
"You should get this to Tommy Smith."
"Aye, whatever. You touched it last."
Bain glowered at them. "Seems like the boy was known as Xander."
Sharon folded her arms. "Does nobody like the name Alex or Sandy any more?"
"Nobody under thirty anyway." Irvine shrugged. "There's that sheep-shagger plays for Aberdeen, Cullen's team. Zander Diamond."
"Used to play for Aberdeen."
"Aye. He's a 'z' Zander, isn't he? What makes someone choose between a 'z' and an 'x'?"
"Right." Bain put the cap back on the marker. "Where are we with this Smith boy?"
Cullen shrugged. "Lost his car one day. Seems to earn a packet. It was one of three he had, fairly souped-up model."
"Think he's involved?" Bain casually doodled a note by Smith's name.
"Not sure. Seems dodgy, but we've nothing to suspect him of so far."
"Right, I'm fuckin' enthralled." Bain put the wallet on a table by the whiteboard. "There's an address on his driver's licence. Given that he's a young punter, chances are it's his current one or his parents. Christ knows what address is on mine." He chucked the keys at Cullen. "Can you and Butch head there now?"
Sharon caught the wallet. "Have you got a warrant?"
"I'll get one."
She squinted at the driver's license. "Says he lives in Ravencraig."
"Aye."
"We've just been there, Brian."
"Aye, well you're just going back, then."
***
Cullen pulled up in front of the address Bain had given them.
Sharon tossed the keys to him. "I'm sure there are Acting DCs and uniformed plod who could be doing this."
"Just think of the overtime."
"I'd rather think of my dad's shite jokes as he gets more pissed." She checked her watch. "They'll hopefully still be there by the time we're finished with this crap."
Cullen put a pair of rubber gloves on and took the keys from the evidence bag, before heading across the street to Xander Aitken's flat.
Sharon's mobile rang. "It's Bain." She answered it.
Cullen peered up at the building, an early nineties development with yellowing harling, before trying the buzzer. No answer. He gave it another twenty seconds and tried again.
"Right. Will do." Sharon pocketed the phone. "The Procurator Fiscal's office's just faxed a warrant to Bain's ice cream van."
Cullen laughed. "I'll have to remember that one."
"Said a local uniform was driving it over."
"Think we should go in?" Cullen sorted through the key chain, looking for the most likely suspects.
"Aye, we can blame it on Bain."
The first key Cullen tried worked on the communal entrance. "The address was 'flat 1', right?"
"Think so."
"Should be ground floor. The door on the left has 'Aitken / Souness' on it." Cullen tried another key and lucked out again.
Sharon entered the flat and flicked a switch inside the hall. The place lit up.
It wasn't the grandest residence Cullen had ever been in and it smelled something rotten. "Stinks in here."
"Aye, it's absolutely minging." She pointed to the two doors on the right. "I'll take these two." She headed through the first one, leaving Cullen alone.
His nose started twitching. Flies buzzed around. He went through the first of his two doors, leading into an L-shaped living room-cum-kitchen, fairly spacious and with modern fitted kitchen units. A large sofa sat around the corner in the living room space, tucked against the wall.
Cullen stopped dead. A pair of Nike Air Max.
They were connected to dark blue jeans. Someone was sitting there in the dark. He didn't know whether to go back for Sharon - fuck it, move on. "Hello?"
No reaction.
He reached for his baton, slowly extending it. "Hello. It's the police." He stepped forward, baton poised.
The jeans led up into a hooded top, lying open. Cullen almost lost his dinner.
It was a body. Eyes blank, covered in blood.
Dead.
CHAPTER 5
"Here he is." Cullen tapped the window. "Fifteen minutes from Winchburgh to Ravencraig is Colin McRae standard. Especially at this time of night."
Bain's purple Mondeo travelled far too fast for the residential street, double-parking just by Sharon's Focus.
Cullen put the curtain back before stepping away from the window. "He's going to do his nut. We've no idea who this boy is."
"I presume it's Souness from the door."
"Bit of a leap. Nothing in either bedroom?"
"Loads on Aitken, just nothing on his pal here."
"Assuming he's his pal."
"Quite."
They stood, hands on hips, waiting for Bain.
"Fuck it." Cullen leaned over and started checking the deceased's pockets. He found a wallet in the second, caked in dried blood. He put it in an evidence bag, before opening it through the membrane. He quickly found a photographic driver's license which matched the body. "Kenneth Souness."
"Any relation?"
Cullen shrugged. "They don't usually have relations to famous footballers on driver's licenses."
"Very funny." Sharon added the wallet to the pile of objects she'd already acquired from the kitchen.
"What happened here? Looks like Aitken and Souness were flatmates. One drives off the top of a bing in a stolen Range Rover, the other is dead in their flat."
She shook her head. "No idea what Bain's going to make of this. Aitken killed Souness and then killed himself, probably."
"Bit of an elaborate way to die, though."
The flat door swung open and several sets of footsteps approached. Bain appeared first, followed by Irvine, Deeley and Anderson, all wearing white Scene of Crime suits.
Bain stopped in the middle of the living room and glowered. "I told you to look around the flat, not find another fuckin' body."