Standing Still

by Caro Ramsay

Sandra reddened.

  ‘And I saw you sneaking down the stairs,’ added Norma.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘I bloody saw you.’

  No. No. No. No. No.

  ‘Seriously, Sandra? Don’t do that. It’s private what goes on downstairs.’ Lisa smiled mischievously. ‘I noticed you had your hair coloured and red lipstick on. You won’t get him that way, you’d need to be seventy years old and speak Italian, and sing Italian like a bloke with his nuts in a liquidizer.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Sandra quietly, letting the conversation move on to more familiar topics.

  Lisa was back looking at the face of Paige Riley, saying that she had probably been killed ages ago. Norma was chattering on about the minimum wage. Alison about the car park being too small and how they were always having to move cars about to get in and out, they left their car keys on a hook. It was all residential parking permits up here, so the care home allowed them to park on a small patch of gravel that was always full, so no wonder Sandra forgot where she had left the Panda.

  ‘Did you read that arse Kirkton in the WestEnder yesterday, wittering on about the safer society. And I got my bike stolen for the third time,’ complained Lisa.

  ‘You mean that was the third bike you got stolen.’

  ‘No, it was the same bike; I got it stolen three times. Next time I am going to tie my husband to it and hopefully they will take him as well.’

  There was a contagious snort of laughter.

  ‘Well I don’t like it. The cops were in here yesterday. And Sunday. That Pippa is the procurator’s missus you know.’

  ‘Fuck, that’s all we need, cops in here every two minutes.’

  ‘The management won’t like it either given what goes on downstairs,’ said Janis, who talked like she knew.

  Sandra fingered her lips as she listened to Janis yabber on, imagining herself living in that book with the gold-leafed drawings and the beautiful artwork. She could lose herself in the pages of that book, she could be the enchanting princess in search of her prince in the forest.

  She excused herself, rinsed out her cup and left the staff room, seeing the owner, Dr Pearcy and the matron outside the door of the dayroom and stopped dead. She was scared? Too strong a word. She was caught standing in the hallway, hidden behind the main support of the stairs. She could see them clearly, but they couldn’t see her. The matron looked her way and checked that the door to the staff kitchen was closed. The doctor went into the day room while the matron stayed in the hall. Sandra had noticed them doing that before and it had struck her then, as it did now, that the matron looked as though she was keeping guard. She looked at her watch, it was still break time for the staff. What was Pearcy doing in there? He played no part in the personal care, and in any case, any resident would be taken to their own room for that.

  Paolo kept the management in line, maybe she should tell him about this clandestine behaviour outside the door of the main day room. He was good that way, Paolo. The management knew that they walked a thin line between the support for the independent lifestyle of the aged and turning a profit. If their families couldn’t care tuppence for them, it was up to Sandra to do her best, and nick what she could or be nice and see what she might inherit.

  She stayed still, thinking that she couldn’t move now without the matron knowing that she had been watching them. And she knew guilty behaviour when she saw it. She leaned forward into the white pillar, placing her forehead against it and watched as Dr Pearcy came out of the day room, quiet words were said. He slipped something into his pocket, Matron looked one way then the other, a casual look up the stairs. Sandra took a breath in, kept stalk still, scared to breathe too loudly. She waited until they were out of sight through the fire doors and probably back in the office. Then she made her way down the stairs, her Crocs quiet on the side of the stair carpet, then she bounded into the day room, and looked around, looking for what had changed. Kilpatrick was glaring at her as he always did. The rest of them were totally out of it. Pippa Walker slumped to the side, fast asleep, her book still open on her lap, upside down.

  ‘Are you still on duty?’ It was the matron, behind her.

  ‘I finished my tea break.’ Sandra had always been a very good liar. She had her hands on her pockets ready. ‘I am looking for my car keys, I’m sure I had them down here last. Not seen them have you?’

  Matron shook her head slowly, and stood to one side, wafting Sandra out the room. ‘That’s why there is a board for the keys, you should have left them there.’

  ‘I thought I had.’

  ‘Better go and see that the Duchess is OK. That is what you are paid to do.’

  ‘And write up my notes,’ she added in what she hoped was a friendly, helpful and explanatory way. She held her head high as she went back up the stairs. That was a habit of the Duchess she admired; holding the head high, being above it all. And that had rubbed off on Sandra, she was the Duchess’s carer. Not one of those wee girls who wiped the backsides and blew the noses of the guests on the first floor.

  Sandra was back at her small flat, lying in her bed, alone at night staring at the light blue paint on the ceiling. Three different colours of test pots before she lost interest. She had lost interest in the flat totally now. She had run out of food, all her credit cards maxed out. She had even nicked Lisa’s contactless card and bought some stuff from Starbucks before dumping the card. Lisa would think she had lost it.

  She had her heart set on a future elsewhere. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish, as the song said. That was one of her mantras.

  She wondered what the Duchess’s husband had been like, the dark-eyed man in the photographs. Roman-nosed and strong-jawed, saved from being ridiculously macho by the long wavy hair and fine, elegant fingers. She wondered about any history between Kilpatrick and the Duchess. He was an ugly toad now but might have been a handsome prince once. Was he the jazz saxophonist in some smoky underground nightclub as she sung her heart out to earn any pennies she could, killing them with her fabulous voice; torch songs from a tortured soul.

  They must have lived around the West End, she would have grown up around here. They would have moved and lived within the same square mile so it was likely they would have come across each other at some time, moving in the same circles. Whatever had happened, there was still a great deal of ill feeling. Had it been something romantic, Sandra wondered, as she snuggled into her bed. Had the Duchess broken his heart, or had he betrayed her. He looked the type. The bigger issue was that Paolo was an only child. And only children tend to inherit everything. Well anything that was left after years in the Athole House Secure Living Facility. So, she reckoned, the quicker the Duchess was out of her way, the better.

  FOUR

  Wednesday 8 June

  The call came through at half past one; Anderson had been half asleep, despite his intention to read On Liberty by John Stewart Mill, and trying to find some hope for a humanity that seemed obsessed with stick-thin, thick-eyebrowed celebrities, their low morals and lower IQs. He picked up his phone and listened. OK, it was five minutes away. The sirens had registered somewhere deep in his psyche, but he had tuned it out, digesting the book and dozing with thoughts of utilitarianism. He had been far, far away.

  He went upstairs to say goodbye to Claire but she was fast asleep, curled in her bed like a child, her hands clasped in the sincere prayer of the subconscious. So he scribbled a note for her and left it on the table downstairs where he had all his favourite photographs, Brenda and the kids, their wedding day and, on the wall, his favourite picture of Helena. On the panel of the door, the stained glass showed the goddess Ceres keeping an eye on them. She was already twinkling with the lights of the cityscape outside.

  There had been a fire in the West End, some building that was being restored and a workman had maybe got a bit too handy with a welding torch, left it lying around when it was still hot. The flames could have been brewing for the last few hours in an old building
stripped back to the original wooden infrastructure. And it had simmered before taking hold. It wouldn’t be the first time. And it wouldn’t be the last time if it was an insurance job. So God knows why they had phoned him. He was head of a major incident team … unless somebody had died in the fire and then, maybe, the fire was not so accidental. He couldn’t think of any other reason why he would get the call.

  Twenty minutes later, the car that had picked him up at the house on the hill was dropping him off behind a fire appliance. It was gridlock already, despite them trying to keep the area clear of any vehicles that weren’t directly involved in fighting the inferno.

  The car quickly pulled away, waved through a gap in the traffic by a cop in high-vis who was trying, in vain, to keep the access clear.

  Anderson stood back and assessed the situation, people everywhere in hard hats, burning bricks and smoking black wood stinking the air out. He placed the crook of his elbow over his nose and looked back down the main road. This was Vinicombe Street, right where the boy had gone missing. Was that the connection that the fire officers had made? And then they felt the need to call him this early in the morning? He felt that sickening feeling drop inside him. David? He turned round; he could see the Zeitgeist Café from here, through the drifting smoke. Had they found a body in the flames? To pre-empt a rerun of Sunday he pulled out his mobile and rang Irene. She answered instantly, her voice tense and reedy.

  ‘I am telling you that there is no news, Irene. We have been called out to another incident purely because of its location.’

  ‘Where? Athole Lane?’

  ‘No, down in Vinicombe Street.’

  There was silence on the line.

  Eventually: ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The computer flags these things up. We need to check out if there is even a remote chance of a connection. I don’t want your friends Facebooking you and texting to ask if the incident is anything to do with your son. And God forbid if the press get onto you.’

  ‘Oh thank you, thank you very much.’

  He winced at the relief in her voice. ‘If it is anything to do with David, I will tell you personally. Don’t believe anything that anybody says until you have spoken to me.’ He rang off hoping that his gut feeling was wrong. This was the less cruel of the two options.

  The Zeitgeist Café was on the corner of Vinicombe Street. The ball in his stomach tightened.

  ‘Interesting,’ said the fire officer, walking up to Anderson but looking beyond him, to where the tail lights of the car had driven into the darkness. ‘It’s the refurb of that nightclub Insanity. It didn’t last long enough to get its doors open.’ He seemed casual, amused even.

  Anderson had to ask, ‘Do you have a body?’ He couldn’t look at him, he didn’t want to hear the words. He didn’t want to call that driver back and ask him to drive out to Irene’s house and tell her face to face. I have some bad news for you.

  Somebody shouted. The roar of the fire and the reverberating rumble of the hose spray crescendoed, as if somebody had opened a door in the sky. Anderson saw the grimy face of the fire officer and his blackened mouth opening and closing but Anderson couldn’t hear, not now. The fire officer turned round and was pointing up, describing something that had happened, like in a silent film all the information came through with gestures.

  ‘Sorry.’ Anderson tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to his ear. ‘Can’t hear you. Is there a fatality?’ he shouted.

  The fire officer shook his head.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he shouted back in confirmation. He took Anderson by the arm to the back of the appliance where they stood in a slow-flowing puddle that made little waves as it met and ran round the toes of Anderson’s shoes.

  He had to repeat it again, to make sure. ‘No fatalities?’

  ‘Nope. Close though.’

  ‘Not the missing boy, David Kerr? Nineteen years old …?’

  ‘It’s the owner of the club. Kenny Fraser. He’s already been identified. We suspect a wee bit more than smouldering insulation left after a welder who skived early. That was off the record by the way.’

  The noise died down again, a crisis had passed. The firefighter looked up at the sky as if he had willed the wind to change direction and help them out. Conversation became possible again. ‘Two takes on it, either the campaign to stop this Insanity nightclub opening has taken a violent turn, or Kenny Fraser has really pissed off somebody – which is more than possible. He was lucky to get out alive. He’s at the Queen Elizabeth and has two of your boys with him. From the look of him, he was tied onto a pipe and the place was set on fire. Plastic ties, not nice. But functional. That poor bastard has got on the wrong side of somebody. Heard there was a bit of a turf war up in Castlemilk recently so that might be a connection. But we wanted to show you the film of the fire. This is, or was, the old Vinicombe Street Theatre.’ He pointed. ‘I’m told there have been shitloads of protests about its change of use. Christ knows why, it’s been empty for years.’

  ‘Oh right,’ said Anderson, thinking that this had the sound of protection about it and it was not something his team could get involved in right now. Or was he being taken off the David Kerr case and nobody had had the balls to tell him yet. If this was organized crime then there was no connection with David Kerr.

  Nothing at all.

  ‘Fortunately we got to Fraser before the flames did.’ The firefighter looked high into the flames. ‘He fought a few legal battles to get this nightclub. And a few illegal ones.’

  Anderson looked questioningly.

  ‘Paid off a few folk, so the rumour goes …’

  ‘Anything more than a rumour?’

  ‘Not that you will hear from my lips.’

  ‘Why was he here at this time of night? Of the morning?’

  ‘The premises were broken into earlier.’ He looked at his watch, his thick gloves pulling back the cuff of the faded yellow jacket to see his watch. ‘Well, yesterday. I think that cop Graham said it’s been broken into five times while it was lying empty.’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing worth nicking. So we have no idea why he was here. Fraser’s story was too garbled but it’s obvious he was attacked and was attached to the pipe. But he was dressed, you know, like he was going out on the town; with some lassie probably and he didn’t want the missus finding out? That’s what I think.’

  ‘Your sins will find you out. How bad was he?’ Anderson asked.

  ‘His breathing was bad, the air is toxic in there. It’s not too good out here either.’

  Anderson looked round the end of the appliance and up to the overhead gargoyles and wooden straps and beams, the front glass smashed, the tiles up over the old theatre door, disrupting their sunflower pattern. The rafters, blackened and exposed, became visible through the drifts of smoke. It came back to him, as clear as day, a memory of it when he had been a kid, the front window with its red curtains and the Christmas display. Puppet reindeers and Santa belly laughing, a hundred moving pieces. How they animated the marionettes was a wonder to him as a boy and it still puzzled him now. It had enchanted him as a kid, it was a favourite stopping point as much as the Christmas lights and a visit to Santa’s Grotto. He hadn’t even noticed it had closed.

  ‘Oh, the building will stay up. It has to, it’s listed.’

  ‘The old theatre? I remember looking at the big front window and my mum saying it was too expensive to go in.’ Anderson turned round trying to get his bearings, through the swirling soot, the watchers, the emergency vehicles, the dying smoke that burled and clouded in the sky.

  ‘Well, you can go over all your yesterdays in the pub later.’ The fire officer nudged Anderson’s arm. ‘This is what I really wanted you to see, the video record of the fire. They stream it nowadays as well as film the things, everything in triplicate so we can’t be criticized by everybody for not doing it right. First in the queue will be the right dishonourable tosspot Klingon Kirkton, I presume.’

  ‘Join the club.’
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  ‘We’ll either be done for wasting public money by protecting a listed building. Or not doing enough to protect a listed building.’

  ‘Probably both. There are so many cops now investigating themselves it might be easier if everybody locked up the station and went home instead.’ That was on the schedule for tomorrow, yet another meeting about cuts and funding while trying to keep a workforce awake for thirty-six hours a day with no loss of cognitive power.

  ‘We suspected arson, wilful fire raising. So we filmed the crowd as well as filming the incident. Standard procedure nowadays.’

  ‘As the arsonist very often comes back to view the outrage he has caused? A theory I’ve heard many times,’ acknowledged Anderson.

  ‘Truth be known, we film the crowd more than the fire these days, for all kinds of law and health and safety reasons.’ The fire officer held up a smart phone, pulling his gloves off to reveal two very clean hands with neatly cut nails over delicate pink skin. He tilted the screen for Anderson to see. They leaned into the shadow of the fire appliance as the water jets cooled the sizzling rafters and bricks that had been destined to be the new nightclub. ‘One of your guys spotted somebody in the crowd and we took a closer look. He said you had actioned a lookout for a blonde. We knew about the derelict buildings memo, thinking that wee Paige might be somewhere. But she’s not here.’

  Anderson looked at the sizzling shell of the building and hoped he was right.

  ‘But who we do have is this lady, so we thought you might want to see this sooner rather than later. She was standing right up there. Wearing sunglasses at night.’ He pointed a little up Vinicombe Lane. ‘Watching everything that was going on.’

  Anderson said, ‘Not uncommon, rubberneckers on a hot summer night when the festival is on. But in sunglasses?’

  ‘Look carefully, DCI Anderson.’

  Colin nearly missed it, or nearly missed her, nearly swiped on too early. Then he saw it. She was crying, in tears. Terrible, terrible pain was etched in every inch of her face that was visible. The younger woman next to her turned round on the film, obviously asking her if she was OK. Anderson zoomed in on the image, seeing her face, black tear streaks down her cheek. The blonde bob cut that never changed. The lower part of her face covered by a scarf, her hand up over it, pressing it to her mouth, supposedly to keep the smoke out of her airways, the upper half covered by the glasses. She was hiding her face. Or wiping her tears.