by Caro Ramsay
Mitchum joined Kirkton, walking down the external steps into the cauldron of heat, envious of PC Graham on desk duty in the cool, quiet station.
The ACC looked out at the gathering press and gave them a hands-up. Kirkton now placed a hand on his shoulder. Mitchum shivered, there was only so much shite a man could take. ‘We will be with you in a minute,’ he called out to the crowd as he turned back to his companion, his words a mere breath from his lips. ‘Helena McAlpine’s relationship with Colin Anderson has no effect on our plans for him to head up this team as part of our cold case initiative. Content yourself that it will be a dead end for his career. And while I have a lot of respect for Colin Anderson, if I was stuck in a lift with DI Costello, I’d take my chances, climb down the shaft naked into a tank of piranhas. But they function well as a team.’
Mitchum was surprised at the glow of pride he felt. He pulled his shoulders up and was flattered to hear a few cameras fire. He wished he could remove Kirkton’s hand with unreasonable force, but the pictures on the front pages of The Scottish Sun would be bad PR. ‘We are here,’ he continued, ‘putting on a united front and getting our photograph taken with the children before they join the parade, so cut the crap.’
Right on cue a couple of children dressed as Munchkins came forward. Mitchum watched as they were organized for the picture. A pretty teenage girl pushed her way through the cameras, and staggered up the steps to the station, either very happy or very drunk, much to the merriment of the onlookers. Her cream dirndl skirt, half gathered up in one chubby fist, dragged on the ground behind her. The photographers stepped aside to let her through.
The group fell silent in expectation of drama.
Mitchum seized the PR opportunity, holding the station door open for the garlanded girl, making a grandiose gesture of tipping his hat. She paused as she passed, asking him, in a perfectly clear voice, if Colin Anderson was in. Mitchum tried not to catch Kirkton’s eye as he indicated that she should go through the door, ‘Look after this young lady will you, PC Graham?’ he called inside, loudly so that the press could hear that she was getting personal attention, a living example of good practical policing.
At the door she turned round to Mitchum, regarding him with big hazel eyes, pupils like huge black holes. She was on something. ‘I have been abducted by aliens and they wanted me to tell him.’
‘Oh well,’ answered Mitchum benignly, ‘you pop in there and we will find Colin for you.’ He closed the door behind her.
‘Aliens?’ mocked Kirkton, loud enough for the nearest reporter to hear.
‘We will make sure that she is OK.’ Mitchum spoke a little louder as the press closed in. ‘Her welfare is our priority. She will be cared for and a doctor will be consulted if we have any concerns.’ He smiled for the camera. ‘We are a police service after all, and it is the day of the big parade. Time to be happy and enjoy a wonderful day, in this wonderful city and keep safe! Enjoy your drink responsibly. I know I’m looking to a nice cold pint the minute I’m off duty.’
‘First round on you then!’ shouted a journalist and there was a ripple of laughter.
Mitchum took off his hat. The chief liked them to do that so the photographs would show off their eyes, rather than have them obscured by the dark shadow cast by the peak. He walked towards the group of children, a Munchkin girl ran forward and he placed the hat on her head. The cameras fired.
James Kirkton moved up alongside him to get in the shot and smiled. ‘And we hope this beautiful day is enjoyed by all here in this glorious city. The police service and the council have worked closely together to ensure that the …’ And he wandered to the front of the group, and the front of the picture, as the children regrouped behind him.
ACC Mitchum threw a quick look over his shoulder, a glance at the front door of the station. He had been a good detective in his day. He still noticed anomalies. A young pretty teenager with her blouse buttoned up incorrectly. Deftly, Mitchum took his phone out of his pocket and turned it on, noting it was six minutes past ten. He dialled the desk that was only a few yards behind him.
Safer society my arse, he thought. It was a bloody jungle out there.
Sandra Ryme slid into the driver’s seat of the Panda, the back of her nylon blue uniform sticking on the plastic. She plonked the Lidl bag into the passenger footwell before leaning over to open the window. The air in the car was hotter than a tropical greenhouse. She had been up most of the night and the daylight charred her tired eyes, the plastic seat was now burning her skin through her trousers and she was going to be late for her work, again. She’d never get through this bloody traffic. It had been a clear run from Govan, but from here, on the south side of the Clyde Tunnel to the secure living facility on the north side where she worked, it would be chaos. The parade was diverting the traffic up tiny side streets and through folk’s front gardens. Every single year for the last twenty years it was the same havoc. Well, except for the first year when nobody bothered and then again more recently when they couldn’t find the funding for the parade at all.
Sandra had been late setting off from her council flat on Copland Road, but then she had a brainwave and nipped into Lidl to buy some Italian cake to appease the Duchess. She could always blame the traffic for her tardiness. Sandra had also bought four salted caramel fudge doughnuts for herself. Pulling an all-nighter always made her hungry, but she had her prize in the boot. Her prize.
She pulled down the vanity mirror and wiggled her face about a bit. Make-up never stayed on her skin, it seemed to have a more ‘free range’ approach, mascara spidering on her cheek, lipstick staining her teeth and blusher that sat in two round blotches making her look like a clown. She pulled a paper tissue from her uniform pocket, spat on it and rubbed at her face. Instead of blotchy and red, it was now blotchy, red and streaky. And covered in spit. She took out some rose Vaseline and smeared that over her lips. It didn’t help the overall look. The overall look was less boho chic, more chronic hay fever.
One day.
One day, she would be beautiful. When she had money.
She stuffed a whole doughnut in her mouth and slurped down some Irn Bru, burped loudly and wiped her lips on her forearm, the Vaseline leaving a sticky snail trail on her white skin.
She put the Panda into gear and pulled into the queue heading out the car park, licking bits of doughnut from her fingertips before pressing play on the CD. The warbling of an operatic soprano filled the car.
It was rumoured the Duchess had been an opera singer. Like Sandra, the Duchess was not pretty and never had been. She was ‘strong featured’ with a long nose and broad chin. People said her face was ‘full of character’. Sandra reckoned if she didn’t achieve ‘beautiful’ she could be, at least ‘full of character’.
She needed to leave this crappy life behind. On her birthday, her last boyfriend had bought her a gift all wrapped up in pretty paper. Inside it was a brown paper bag. He had presented it to her in the pub and, not being in on the joke, she had opened it in front of everybody. They had all laughed. Sandra had laughed. At the time. Sandra had waited a month then keyed his car.
The Panda inched forward by one car length, then stopped. The car was now full of the sound of a tenor, singing like he was in need of a laxative. She looked at the mirror again, pulling at her eyelashes, looking into the red-veined rims of her eyes, the irises of dishwater brown that could never be the deep velvet brown of romantic heroines. Even the Duchess’s eyes had a touch of drama about them, the blue of a faded watercolour seascape framed by jet eyeliner to give her the look of Cleopatra. Hours later, the Duchess’s eyes would still be bordered by a precise line, unlike Sandra’s which smudged to panda eyes with one blink. The Duchess had class, sitting bolt upright, thin legs crossed at the ankles. Sandra thought she wore ten denier stockings until she managed to nick a pair. And realized they were silk. She had told Paolo they were missing because they had laddered in the laundry and she had thrown them out. That had been a difficult moment. Th
e memory distracted Sandra and she nearly bumped the Corsa in front. Paolo had looked confused as he explained that he did all the Duchess’s washing for precisely that reason; her clothes were too delicate to go anywhere near the care home laundry.
Being the excellent liar she was, Sandra had acted upset and said that she would replace them out of her own pocket, knowing well that Paolo would refuse.
Sitting here, looking around Lidl car park, she wondered if that was the start of it. Plan A becoming plan B with plan C slowly cooking in the back of her mind. God, Paolo was never far from her mind nowadays. He was becoming her work in progress. She had even wheedled this car out of him, hinting that she could look after the Duchess better if she could get through the traffic quicker. He had agreed, quickly. Paolo was a nice bloke, and that was a first for her. A nice man was so rare, she was considering having him stuffed and stuck in an exhibition.
She pulled out on to Moss Road, thinking through her route to the care home, via the back streets. The screaming and screeching of the opera continued, reminding her of the Duchess, sitting in her wheelchair like a queen on her throne, looking down on to Athole Gardens from the big bay window with Piero the cat sitting on the window ledge. Both looking very smug as if they deserved nothing less than the most expensive room in the care home.
The old dear never said very much. Occasionally she spoke a small smattering of Italian; an odd vita mia, a hello or a goodbye to Paolo, a thank you when Sandra fixed a hair that had come loose, when she handed her a cup of tea or a piece of Battenberg cake. Generally there was very little response, maybe a wave of the hand like she was dismissing a servant. That and a slow blink of individual false eyelashes – not the long thick tarty sort; nothing was tarty about the Duchess.
She was shrouded in mystique. It was rumoured she had been a famous opera singer in Italy. The home was only for actors and singers, so she had been a ‘somebody’. She had been there longer than any of the staff, always the big room with its en suite. The young man who introduced himself to Sandra said he was Paolo, just Paolo, and ‘this was the Duchess’. Sandra had choked back a snigger when she realized he was serious. He didn’t say, ‘I’m Ilaria’s son’, or ‘this is my mother’, or ‘my mum’. Just, ‘this is the Duchess’.
It must be nice to have a man to adore, Sandra thought and there was no doubt how much the Duchess adored Paolo. She would caress the side of his cheek, as he did up her shoes. He came in every day to help her dress, usually before the morning staff had started serving breakfast. He came again at night, to undress her and put her to bed. Sandra had thought that a bit odd at first, but devotion was devotion and she now ignored the jokes from the other carers about Paolo, Bates Motel and mothers.
Sandra knew that to get to Paolo, she needed to get the Duchess onside. Or get rid of her. Either would do.
The Panda got caught, of course, at the mouth of the Clyde Tunnel. Not the shady bit, but right in the suntrap. She felt her eyes burn. Sandra turned her attention to the CD, trying to listen and learn. She had asked Paolo about this opera and he had sat her down on the Duchess’s big wide bed with its ocean of Italian linen and lace to explain. ‘It’s about a young poor boy who falls in love with a girl, but the girl has already fallen in love with the rich, handsome soldier.’
Sandra had looked back into Paolo’s huge blue eyes but couldn’t pluck up the courage to ask how the story ended. Did he get the girl in the end? Try as she might, she had no bloody idea what was going on in the opera. They could be at a summer picnic or dying of consumption. It all sounded the same to her.
Paolo had given her the CD so now she felt compelled to listen in case he asked. She had Googled but couldn’t find any opera singer called Ilaria Girasole on the computer at the care home, but she must have been somebody. And must have been successful to afford to stay at Athole House.
One day, when she had first returned to work, she had plucked up courage to ask Paolo, ‘So what did the Duchess do?’ and his answer was ‘You mean you don’t recognize her?’ He had smiled as he said it. He was speaking in true wonderment, not arrogance.
Sandra smiled and stayed quiet, hoping she seemed enigmatic rather than secretive. So, Sandra deduced, the Duchess must have been really famous in her day. She was now maybe in her late seventies, or early eighties but if she was an opera singer, which looked the case with her hair and make-up, that would explain why nobody at the home had heard of her. They were all skanks who worked there; no taste, no culture.
The traffic queue moved and Sandra pulled forward into the welcome darkness of the tunnel. Sandra liked the dark. She could always hide in the dark.
‘So you finally decided.’ DI Costello looked out the window of Archie’s Mercedes to admire the ornate front door of Athole House. She knew it was some kind of old folk’s home, having driven past it a hundred times, but she had never had cause to notice the nameplate. Or the huge bay windows that must have such magnificent views over the manicured lawns of Athole Gardens. It was certainly a beautiful setting, high on the hill for those no longer able to look after themselves or a husband getting to the end of his tether.
Like Archie Walker, Chief Procurator Fiscal.
‘She’s in there.’ Walker nodded his head in the direction of the curved sandstone facade. ‘One of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make.’
‘But in the end, it wasn’t your decision, was it? I mean, not after she escaped, running down the road in her nightdress at three in the morning. Anything could have happened to her. You couldn’t watch her twenty-four-seven, could you?’
Walker snorted. ‘Costello? What do you mean “she escaped”? I have been married to that woman for thirty years. She did not “escape”.’
Costello opened the window, the glass dropping with a dignified hum as warm still air drifted into the car. She did not want to think about the wife confined to a home while she, the new relationship, was sitting outside in the car, enjoying the sunshine. Truth be told, it really didn’t bother her. She had not given Pippa the Alzheimer’s. She had not made the decision to put her in a home. Costello was a fatalist not an opportunist. What came around went around, nothing could change that. So she looked at the crescent moons worn on the sandstone steps that ascended to the deep green mat at the front door. Although a five star hotel would be proud of that, it was still a prison by another name. It was HM Prison Barlinnie, with nice carpets.
From the roadside, Costello could see the big brass button of the bell, worn down to dull steel with years of use. The whole place had the look of a tobacco baron’s townhouse, a Downtown Abbey in the middle of Glasgow, each brick paid for by the blood of slaves. She read the wording on the frosted glass, Athole House, in solid, rather stern font. No mention of its current use, a secure living facility.
She looked up. The weather was beautiful, only one small cloud scurrying across the infinite blue sky. It was the first day of the West End Festival and it looked like the weather was going to hold up for them. She didn’t look at Archie when she spoke to him, directing her words instead out into the warm air of a dry Scottish summer. ‘Your wife went AWOL, Archie. She left your house without your knowledge and did a fair impression of Usain Bolt down the street in her Marks and Sparks PJs. And she wasn’t for coming back, was she? She—’
‘Costello …’ warned Walker, turning off the engine and the air con now that Costello had opened the window.
‘Oh no, you couldn’t catch her. You had to call us in and she managed to bite one constable before they rugby tackled her and got her into the van.’ She turned to face him, ‘So yes, she did escape. And no, you had no choice but to put her somewhere secure. Her home is already lost to her, Archie. The woman you married has already drifted off to some other place and that is very sad. But that doesn’t exclude you from making the tough decisions. Or excuse you making the wrong ones,’ she added.
‘I know. You don’t need to be quite so blunt about it.’ Walker glanced at his mobile, wishing
that something might save him from this hard-nosed logic.
‘Well, it’s a subject that people pussyfoot around. And it’s not a subject you can pussyfoot around. That helps nobody.’
‘Most people are sensitive about it. Most people.’
‘Archie, she’s in here getting fed. Getting her medication on time with somebody making sure she swallows it. You don’t need to worry about her every waking moment. She will be well cared for. So instead of going home knackered after a full day – as full a day as you fiscals ever do …’ Costello paused, realizing she was deviating from an unpleasant subject to one of her favourites. ‘You will now get a good sleep. And it’s not as if you haven’t tried every option before this. All those carers. If you can’t trust them with your house keys, why would you trust them with your wife?’
Archie Walker winced at the memory, embarrassed. The last carer had taken a brooch here, a ring there. Nothing that he would miss and no witnesses as nobody believes anything a dementia sufferer says. The guilt still hurt. He had never before doubted Pippa in the thirty years they were married, not once. But he had taken the word of a thief and a liar over that of his wife.
In some ways, he felt more conflicted over that than he did about the fledgling relationship he was trying to have with the woman sitting next to him.
Archie put Costello’s window back up and removed the key from the ignition. ‘Well, do you want to come in and see her and be nice? If you are going to be yourself, you can stay in the car. I need to drop her clothes off. All neatly labelled, like being at school again.’
‘I thought I was only here for a brunch and a wee swatch at the parade. In all these years I’ve never been at it except to arrest folk. Do you want me in there? Moral support?’
‘If you want. I don’t think anybody in a million years would ever think that you and I might be in some kind of supportive relationship. I mean you look exactly what you are.’