Standing Still

by Caro Ramsay

  ‘Oh he did it. No wonder social services took him away. Hope he never found out what he actually did.’ There was bitterness in his voice. ‘I sent a man in there to look for the kid. He lost his life. The boy wasn’t there. We found Ally’s body in the boy’s bedroom.’ Eddy looked away, slow gentle tears coursed down his lined face. ‘I sent him back in. I had been told the boy was in there.’

  ‘You couldn’t have known,’ Costello said.

  ‘We got the bodies out. Barry McEwan had tried to get out the back door, he was found in the kitchen. The wife was found in the upstairs toilet. Totally untouched by flames, the smoke got her just like Kenny Fraser. It happens all the time. Then Alice Kilpatrick got trapped out on the ledge. She couldn’t get back in, so she jumped. We got Deke out from behind the front door alive. We had to stop Rosemary here from rescuing him.’ A memory halted him in his tracks.

  ‘And Paul?’ Costello nudged him.

  ‘We were led to believe he was still inside. Ally was in there as we heard the roof come down. I tell you, hen, there is no other sound in the world as horrible as that. Terrifying. His fault, you know. That wee lad. He left. And before he left he set fire to the house. Out the front door as smart as you like, started the fire with the candle on the coat stand. His room was downstairs – right at the front door. Oh, I think he did it.’ The old man nodded. ‘Oh yeah, he did it.’

  ‘You can’t mean that.’ Rosemary was shocked.

  ‘So why is he being protected now?’ The old man turned to look at Costello. ‘Find him and ask him.’

  Back in the station, Costello leaned back in her seat and looked at the ceiling. ‘I am trying to follow your thinking here, Colin. You seem to be spending a huge amount of money for no gain. Pietro Girasole was in a nightclub. He left although nobody saw him. He must have gone out a back door, then went up the back alley with or without a blonde who may or may not be our blonde and then his body was found. And the Blonde disappeared into fresh air, the same way that this blonde has disappeared into fresh air.’

  ‘I think that’s what connects it in my mind, now you see her, now you don’t.’

  She turned to look at her boss for reassurance. ‘Is she some kind of White Widow? Colin, can we do a full media blowout? Just find her. Cut the crap. We ask her if she had anything to do with that murder all those years ago. Or do you think she will hurt David if we do that? And David will slip through our fingers?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Costello, I have no idea and—’ The door bounced open. ACC Mitchum came in, closely followed by James Kirkton. The local member of the Scottish Parliament did not look like himself, the veneer of smugness and the arrogance was gone. Costello and Anderson exchanged glances before Mitchum said, ‘You two, Anderson’s office. Now!’

  The four of them squeezed into the small room, Mitchum taking pride of place behind Colin’s desk. He wasted no time in getting to the point.

  ‘Tania Kirkton didn’t come home last night. She was out at a garden party over in Kelvinside and her mother got a text from her about half ten to say that she would be staying over.’

  Anderson had that dreadful feeling of déjà vu. ‘Just a text, your wife didn’t speak to her in person?’

  Kirkton shook his head but didn’t manage to look Anderson in the eye. Mitchum explained that he had already sent out the local police to investigate discreetly and that for now they wanted it all kept under wraps.

  ‘But how can we?’ asked Costello, ‘with all that going on out there. How long has she been away for? Eighteen hours now and there has been no sign or sight of her?’

  ‘I think we have to prepare for the worst and presume that she has come to the same fate as David Kerr,’ said Mitchum brutally.

  ‘So I want every resource you have available on this taskforce. I want to know exactly where this investigation is going. I want my daughter back and that is the most important thing.’ Kirkton’s face looked grey, yet it couldn’t be from lack of sleep. They’d had no real idea there was anything wrong until Tania failed to return that morning. They had believed she had stayed over.

  Anderson and Mitchum both knew it would be Costello who said it. ‘And I am sure the most important thing for Irene Kerr is getting David back. Your daughter is no more important than anyone else’s child and you will get the same resources and endeavour that everybody else gets. After all, we are all committed to the safer society.’

  Wyngate was wondering how dark and humid it would get before it finally started to rain. The clouds that rolled in were more black than grey. The city was a very uncomfortable place to be. He hoped it would have its downpour and clear the air.

  He was walking up Byres Road after a rather nasty emergency root canal, still in pain but a different pain to the one he had had before; instead of the daggers of agony shooting through his jaw that were so painful it almost made him pass out, there was now a dull throb that was responding to paracetamol. He was going up to Boots to collect a prescription for antibiotics. He walked with his jacket collar pulled up over the side of his face as his tongue probed at the gap, gently feeling its way round where the dentist had performed his surgery. It felt … Wyngate stopped.

  There she was.

  Walking down Byres Road, lilac raincoat swinging open, small heels, blonde hair and dark glasses. A large black handbag swung from the crook of her arm. She was walking quickly like she was in a hurry but was too cool to run. He slipped into the crowd walking behind her. Byres Road was busy. People were sitting out drinking coffee, looking at the sky as if the weather of the next half hour was going to be an event. At the corner of the Hilton she slipped up the small lane that led from the Waitrose car park and beyond through the pike that prevented vehicular traffic through to the service lane beyond. Wyngate thought that if his geography was right, this would take him out at Athole Lane, where Mr Hollister had been found. He got out his phone, held it to his ear as if he was making a call. She had slowed slightly and he did not want her to turn round. Her shoes seemed to be causing her a little difficulty on the rough surface of the lane so Wyngate was forced to slow down. He ambled along, one hand on the phone at his ear, one hand in his pocket, appearing casual while his heart thumped like a piston. The walls of the tenements to the left and the right, four- or five-storey high buildings on either side, cut out the noise from the city. They could have been anywhere, locked in a world of their own walking along. She was going quicker now as the lane surface became well repaired concrete. She went past a skip. There was a car half-parked to the side, well tucked in to let other vehicles squeeze past. He leant on the skip, scared of getting too close, and took a photograph of the figure in the lilac coat. Her gait had changed, walking slower now, as if she was enjoying herself or as if she had found out that she was early for an appointment after an initial panic. He phoned Vik Mulholland back at the station and tried to keep his voice calm.

  ‘Vik? I think I have a visual on Blondie … she’s walking along Athole Lane. Right in front of me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, heading south. Do you know how many exits there are?’

  He heard Vik typing away, calling up a map. ‘Gordon, there are loads of ground troops out there. Do you want me to send somebody to see where she goes in case you lose her?’

  Wyngate heard the noise of typing. ‘Yes.’

  ‘The lane ends in a T-junction with Bowmont Gardens, so she can go north or south. If we get a patrol to Saltoun Street, they will see her at the other end and see what way she goes. You can’t afford to lose sight of her and you will at the dogleg. This is the closest we have got to her. We need …’

  Wyngate could hear the panic in his voice; not like Mulholland to get carried away like this. ‘What’s happened, Vik?’

  ‘Tania Kirkton has gone missing.’

  ‘Oh God. I need some help here, Vik, she’s moving fast again. Get back up, she’s easy to spot. Blonde. Aviator sunglasses. Same bob cut. Lilac coat.’ He moved out from behind the skip
, in pursuit once again. The lane doglegged to the left then the right. He lost sight of her for a moment. When he walked on to the straight stretch, she had disappeared. He turned round making sure that he had not missed her.

  That wasn’t possible. There were six doors in the walls on either side, old wooden garden doors that allowed access from the lane into the rear courts of the tenements. He pushed at the first one, painted bright red. Locked. The second one, its peeling black paint formed a bond over the frame. It had not been opened for years.

  No, no, no, no, no. He couldn’t have lost her. He jogged on. Not believing it, his toothache forgotten. He eyes searching, looking for a hidden little place, any other pathway or doorway where she might have gone.

  He redialled. ‘Vik, are you looking at a map? Is there any other way out of this lane, right at the dogleg, right here? I can’t see her at all.’

  ‘I have the map right in front of me and there are two doglegs but no way out until the fork at the end. Surely each garden has a back door that opens on to the lane. She’ll have gone in there. Did she go left or right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Wyngate said.

  Silence, then: ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  ‘I mean that, I really don’t know.’

  Wyngate closed the phone and cut the call. He needed to think. He walked back to the bright red door, closest to where he had last seen her and tried the handle. It was securely locked on the inside. He stood in the lane looking behind the wheelie bins as if she might be hiding there like a kitten, ready to jump out at him.

  But she wasn’t.

  He walked up to the next door, newly painted with a serious padlock on a metal clasp. He thought it had given way, then he heard a lock turn. A young man with dark spikey hair and a smear of earth on his tanned face stuck his head out the red door; the one he had first tried.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The voice was clear, clipped and very Edinburgh. The suggestion, politely put, was that he was going to be arrested if he didn’t have a very good reason for trying the door.

  ‘I am a police officer.’ Wyngate searched for his warrant card, dropping his phone in the process. The man watched him bend down to pick it up, with a look of slight amusement. The door opened a little more to reveal a long dirty shirt and baggy trousers, a pair of secateurs in his dirty gloved hand which he raised to backhand sweat from his forehead. He had been busy pruning.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, I was when I left the station this afternoon,’ he joked.

  ‘And do you have a reason to be sneaking about here? I was watching you from the house.’ The man waggled a finger at the door. ‘Is it to do with the body found out there?’

  ‘Yes.’ Wyngate gestured to his right, the direction the Blonde had walked off in. ‘I was following somebody who we would like to talk to. Just caught sight of her, then lost her.’

  ‘Who?’ He seemed more interested now, the door was opened a little more. His large dark brown eyes flickered down the lane.

  ‘I just want to know where they went, or if they live round here. Blonde lady. Lilac coat, well dressed.’

  He looked up the lane. ‘I don’t recognize that description. A lot of folk use it as a shortcut though.’

  ‘Does anybody here keep their door open? Where she could have got in? I would really like to talk to them.’

  He glanced back at the ID, rubbing his eyebrow with the back of his glove, leaving another smear of dirt on his face, then said, ‘Shona, maybe? That black door there. They have young kids that play up and down here on their bikes. That might be a place to start. I’ll phone her and let her know that you are coming. After all that’s been going on, she might be a wee bit reluctant to open her door. We are all a bit jumpy after that boy was found.’ He put the rusty secateurs on the ground and patted his pockets, presumably looking for his mobile. ‘Are you any further ahead with that?’

  ‘We are looking into a few leads. So over here, behind the black door?’

  ‘Yes, it will be open. You should tell us what’s going on. We might be of some help.’

  ‘I’ll pass that on to community liaison. Thanks. And your name is?’

  ‘Hodge. Richard Hodge. 27 Marchmont Terrace. Secretary of the local Neighbourhood Watch. You can pass that on to James Kirkton. We like to police ourselves here.’ The door closed in his face.

  Wyngate turned round, checking the lane again, a strange chill flickered in the heat. None of this made sense. He pushed in the newly painted black door. It opened to reveal a neat back garden with stone inlay patio, a table with four wrought iron seats and a neat old-fashioned clothes line with four posts and a flower border as straight as sentinels. Wyngate walked up the path to what would be the rear door of the close in the old days. It was locked as well. So if she had come in here then she must know the code.

  He walked to the rear window, tiptoeing through the border of red gravel to see a woman talking on the phone as she folded something on the ironing board. His face at her kitchen window startled her. She put her hand to her chest and then held it out; recognition as he held up his warrant card. She cut the call and left the room appearing at the rear door of the close less than thirty seconds later; the security pad protected the rear door. She was not happy. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

  He repeated the story of the blonde woman.

  She looked at him as if he was mad, shaking her head. ‘Nobody here of that description. And nobody can get through. See, even if the door was open you need the code to get in to the close in order to get access to the front. I would have thought that was obvious.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Yes always. And I can hear that door open and shut so would have known.’

  ‘Oh, it’s just that the man across there said that you were the likely one, he must think that your door goes all the way through,’ he ended lamely. He felt his heart sink. ‘Are you called Shona?’

  ‘No, who’s Shona? There’s nobody round here called Shona.’

  ‘And there’s nobody round here called Richard Hodge either is there?’ At that point Wyngate started swearing quietly to himself, looking at the red door, banging gently in the wind.

  ‘Why do you have dirt on your face?’ asked Paolo, pointing at Sandra’s eyebrow.

  ‘Do I?’ She lifted her hand to her face. ‘I picked up that bloody cat. He gets everywhere. Wee Piero, he’s been rolling in the garden. I think he’s trying to cool down. This weather is awful, too clammy.’

  Sandra sat facing the mirror on the dressing-table stool that the Duchess used to use before her balance got too bad. Paolo had pinned her hair back and wrapped a towel round her neck. He worked intensely. He was concentrating but soon she too was totally immersed in what was happening to her face. Her skin, red and blotchy, was evened out with pale green cream rubbed in so finely that it disappeared and her face, for a moment, was almost translucent with the subtle gloss of a pearl. He dotted on vanilla coloured cream, and smoothed it over her skin with firm pressure, fine deft strokes as if he was painting. Her face became a doll’s face, all the imperfections of humanity gone; her eyebrows were beautifully pencilled back in, then the fine thick black eyeliner shadowed her eyes, which looked garish against the milk white of the rest of her face. As he worked his hands creamed on her cheek, brushing white powder one way and brown powder the other, contouring her face. He held her head delicately so she kept still and did not pull away and spoil it.

  When he said ‘close your eyes’, she did. She did not want to open them again.

  At some point he put on some opera; she wondered what it was.

  Sandra let herself relax along with the music. This was what the Duchess listened to. The young man crying his heart out for the love of women who didn’t want to know him because he is poor.

  ‘Does this mean a lot to your mother? She listens to this so often.’

  ‘Do not speak,’ he said and gently pressed his lips against the top of her head.

&nb
sp; She was transported, not aware of the brushes on her skin. It seemed easy to allow him to slip off her clothes, pulling the rough nylon tunic up over her head, then something else, softer and warm-flowing down over her shoulders. The stiff trousers came down, she held her hand out to steady herself as she stepped out of them and felt something cascading down her back, stockings being rolled on her feet, her feet being slipped into shoes. Her hair released from its binding. His fingers through it and pulling her fringe this way and that. Then she was pulled back onto her feet. She could feel his breath close to her ear, she didn’t want to look. She wanted to hold on to the feeling of being beautiful, of being treasured.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ he said and she did slowly, feeling the weight of individual eyelashes on her eyelids. She looked at herself in the mirror. Another face looked back at her; a perfect version of herself. Paolo stood behind her and rested his chin on the top of her head as they looked into the mirror together.

  She smiled at him. ‘Oh thank you very much. Thank you so very, very much.’ And she felt truly grateful. He looked absolutely smitten as his gaze drifted over the reflection of her features.

  Now she had him where she wanted him.

  Wyngate felt wretched; his misery was deep and all consuming. And so obvious, nobody was taking the piss. Not even Mulholland. He had always been the back room boy, sitting at the computer and doing what he could to support the team and he excelled in that. But he had always harboured thoughts to go operational in the field. So far he had been out twice.

  And messed it up twice.

  It wasn’t his forte. He was not good with people. He was not sharp like Costello or empathetic like Anderson, not bright like Mulholland or worthy like Walker. He did not have the gravitas of O’Hare. But when Vik had to go in for his second operation on his leg, it had seemed perfectly logical, instead of recruiting another member to the team, to swap roles. Or swap part of the roles. It had been Wyngate’s job to show Vik how to input data and how to get the best out of the databases.