If this is your attempt at rapport building, Cat thought, you’re laying it on a bit thick, buddy.
And McReynolds, to his credit, seemed to realise it. ‘I take it you know why we’re here?’ he asked, stepping around the drop sheet and lowering himself onto the window-facing sofa. DC Purves was snapping open a notepad.
Cat, also sitting down, nodded. ‘I’ve noticed all the activity, of course. And this morning I got a call from a friend, a work colleague of mine, telling me a body’s been found – is that right?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Mr Moyle?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘I guessed that must be the case.’ Cat made sure she maintained eye contact. ‘And I expected you to call, you know. That’s why I decided to wait here – and do some painting – instead of heading out.’
‘You expected us to call?’ McReynolds had tilted his head.
‘As part of the investigation, I mean. I imagine you’ll be interviewing all of the people in the building sooner or later, right?’
McReynolds didn’t answer directly. ‘Did you know Mr Moyle?’ he asked. His irises, luminous with reflected sunlight, were the same colour as her blouse.
‘Only as the guy who lived upstairs. We didn’t socialise or anything.’
‘Did you ever see him doing anything suspicious?’
‘Suspicious? Such as?’
‘Drug dealing? Criminal activity?’
‘No,’ said Cat, frowning. ‘Criminal activity? No. I mean, I smelled some weed occasionally, but nothing really sinister – no.’
‘You sound surprised by the question . . .’
‘That’s because I am surprised. Criminal activity? Is that what all this is about?’ She was hoping it might explain everything.
But again McReynolds was evasive. ‘Did you happen to notice if Mr Moyle ever had any unusual visitors?’
‘Unusual?’ Cat said. ‘Well, he had some headbanging friends, but I wouldn’t call them unusual.’
‘You had direct contact with them?’
‘Once. They came for a party upstairs.’
‘Would you recognise them if called to do so?’
‘I think they were the same guys who were here last night.’ Cat saw no reason to lie. ‘I saw them from the window. The guys who raised the alarm.’
McReynolds glanced at the younger cop, who was taking notes. ‘DC Purves says you lodged a complaint about the noise of a party last month.’
‘That’s right – the one I just mentioned.’
‘Apparently this led to some ill-feeling between you and Mr Moyle.’
‘Ill-feeling? No – who said that? He was noisy, that’s all.’
‘He was noisy when he had parties or noisy all the time?’
‘All the time.’
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Since June. I moved here from Florida.’
‘And he’s been noisy since June?’
‘When he’s been upstairs, yes.’
At just that moment someone in Number Six – one of the cops – dropped something. Ka-LONK! Followed by a very audible ‘Aw, shite!’ and someone shouting, ‘Don’t touch that!’ Then something rolling across the floor. Kowok kowok kwok. And footsteps. Klonk klonk klonk. And bending boards. Creak creak creak.
McReynolds was looking at the ceiling. He was staring directly at the patch that Cat had painted over. He seemed to be thinking. And eventually he dropped his luminous eyes to Cat again.
‘Must have been a great disappointment to you, coming all the way from Florida and finding yourself lumped with such a noisy neighbour.’
‘Well, it wasn’t perfect, but then life rarely is.’
‘So you won’t be missing Mr Moyle, now that he’s gone?’
‘Let’s just say I won’t be sending any flowers to his funeral.’ Cat wanted to make sure she wasn’t completely Pollyannaish. ‘I mean, he sure made his presence felt – in a bad way.’
McReynolds pursed his lips. ‘Then would you say you’d have a good idea when he was home? When he was moving about?’
‘I guess so, yes.’
‘When was the last time you heard him, then?’
‘Let me see – that would be last Saturday night, I guess, when I returned from . . . when I got back from a party with Agnes, my friend from work.’
‘Mr Moyle was home that night?’
‘He got home after four o’clock.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘He’d been away for a few days. When he arrived home it was a bit of a disappointment for me, you know. So I checked the clock.’
‘You’re absolutely certain it was him?’
‘As sure as you can be. He makes – made – some very distinctive noises.’
‘Did you happen to hear him close his front door?’
‘I think so.’
‘But you can’t be positive?’
‘Well, he usually slammed the door, and he slammed it that night – why?’
Yet again McReynolds avoided answering. ‘And you’ve had no reason to suspect that anyone else has been in the apartment since then?’
‘I would’ve heard something, I think.’
DC Purves was scribbling furiously.
‘So you didn’t hear anyone visiting him? Acting suspiciously? Trying to break in?’
‘Nothing of the sort,’ Cat said. ‘But I’m not usually here during the day, you understand.’
‘You’ve been at work? All week?’
‘Every day.’
‘And you can verify this?’
‘I can give you my office number, if you like.’ Cat realised she had a chance to make a statement. ‘I’m a fraud investigator at ABC Bank. Terry Grimes knows me.’
McReynolds looked surprised. ‘You know Terry Grimes?’
‘He’s my police liaison in Scotland.’
‘Oh aye?’ McReynolds’s expression had completely changed. ‘Terry is a good man.’
‘He’s been very helpful.’
‘That’s Terry’s way. Nothing is too much.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Sings in the choir at St Giles, you know.’
‘I heard that.’
Cat wished she’d mentioned him earlier. The chill had completely left the air; the shift in McReynolds was palpable.
‘I see you feed the tits,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘The birds,’ he said, gesturing to the window, where a couple of blue tits were whirling about the seed bar. ‘I feed them myself.’
‘Oh yes, yes,’ said Cat, relieved. ‘The tits.’
‘Cheeky devils.’
‘They sure are.’
‘Live in constant fear, though – of sparrowhawks, you know.’
‘Is that right?’
‘That’s why they’re always looking over their shoulders.’
McReynolds contemplated the twittering little birds until they flew off and then fixed Cat again with his chambray eyes. ‘Let me be perfectly frank with you, Ms Thomas. I’m assuming I can rely on your discretion?’
‘Of course.’
‘We’re in a bind here. All the usual signs in a case like this seem to be missing. Fingerprints. DNA traces. Evidence of tampering with the doors and windows. Everything. So we’re relying entirely on witnesses. But there are no witnesses. And if the people in the building didn’t hear anything, then nobody did.’
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Cat assured him. ‘Nothing unusual, anyway. I wish I had, but I didn’t.’
McReynolds nodded, clearly disappointed. ‘Oh well, we’re bound to be in touch.’ He was already getting to his feet. ‘This is my card. I’ll be in charge of the case until further notice. So don’t hesitate to contact me if you think of anything important. I’m available day and night – all hours.’
‘Sure thing.’ Cat looked at the card as she led the two men to the door. ‘But “until further notice”, you say?’
‘I beg your par
don?’ McReynolds had turned in the vestibule.
‘You said you were in charge “until further notice”.’
‘Well, the case might be bucked upstairs to the MIT.’
‘MIT?’ To Cat that was a university.
‘Major Investigation Team.’
‘Oh.’ Cat’s curiosity got the better of her. ‘So I take it . . . I mean, Moyle didn’t slit his wrists or hang himself or anything, right? This is murder?’
McReynolds glanced at Constable Purves and back to Cat with an anguished expression. He seemed to consider for a moment. ‘Ms Thomas,’ he said, ‘I hope you’ll forgive me for speaking bluntly. But the victim wasn’t just murdered.’
‘No?’
‘Mr Moyle was . . . well.’ McReynolds sighed, clearly at a loss for words. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Oh?’
‘No one’s seen anything like it. Not the forensic team, not the paramedics . . . no one.’
‘Right.’ Cat was aware that she wasn’t breathing. ‘Right.’
McReynolds looked like he wanted to say something else but couldn’t bring himself to do so. ‘Ms Thomas,’ he said, nodding, ‘good day to you, then.’
Cat closed the door and didn’t exhale until she heard the two detectives rapping on the door of Maxine and Michael downstairs. Then she let out a long sigh and returned to her living room, slumping onto the sofa – it was still warm – and staring at the whirling tits, and feeling, just as she had when she’d bought the place, as though she were poised on a clifftop staring out over a sea of fog.
PART
TWO
CHAPTER
ONE
The police were in and out of the place for another week. They brought in more forensic teams. They removed some of Moyle’s furniture. They crawled over the roof. They put up ladders and inspected the windows from the outside. Whenever Cat saw them, they looked perplexed.
When they finally departed, the flat was locked tight for two weeks and then the movers came in. Later the renovation teams arrived. Cat heard hammering. Polishing. A new front door being installed. And finally, in mid-December, just in time for the season’s first snowfall, a FOR SALE – UNIT 6 placard materialised on a post outside. Moyle’s aunt had evidently decided to divest herself of the murder scene – the place where ‘no one’s ever seen anything like it’.
Notwithstanding her lingering uncertainty as to the extent of her own involvement, there was no question that Cat’s life improved immeasurably. Night after night she slept so soundly that her energy reserves were rapidly restored. It was true, she suddenly became acutely conscious of other disruptions – birds, distant traffic, the rattling blind, the ticking clock – and was irritated by things she doubted she would have noticed if Moyle were still alive. But overall the change was dramatic. She resumed her morning swims at the Drumsheugh Baths. She went for runs in the chilly late autumn evenings and virtually bounded up the leaf-cluttered sidewalks. Her skin cleared. The circles under her eyes faded. Her hair regained its lustre. Her complexion brightened. Her eyes sparkled.
‘Hell’s bells, Cat, you look fantastic.’ It was Agnes, being ambiguous again.
‘I feel better, that’s for sure,’ Cat admitted.
‘I told you you wouldn’t regret it. At this rate we’ll be a team again in no time.’
Indeed, Cat was aiming to get back on the road as soon as possible. Her performance as departmental analyst had been immaculate. She was precise. She was focused. She anticipated all problems and attended to matters that even Jenny McLeish hadn’t found time to complete. She was determined to make Wing Commander Bellamy acknowledge her improvement, even if it was against his own will.
‘Let me know when I can get back on track,’ she told him. ‘There are a few things I’d like to look into.’
‘Such as?’
‘Our Credit Cards Department, for one.’
‘Credit Cards isn’t in your domain.’
‘Not yet, but I’d like to look into it anyway.’
‘Ambitious, aren’t you?’ Bellamy wasn’t looking at her directly ‘Your bank in Miami wasn’t wrong about that.’
‘Well, please consider it in any case. Those circumstances I mentioned – the matters that were holding me back – they’re not a problem now.’
‘Hmm.’
Cat wasn’t sure if Bellamy had heard about ‘the mysterious death in Dean Village’. But she sensed that he was disconcerted by her new radiance. And her directness. What she left unsaid was that she’d already commenced discreet investigations into the unwanted credit card, and – as a stalling gesture – had written to Mr Dennis Napier, the loyal customer from Dundee, promising that the matter would be ‘comprehensively investigated and any developments forwarded at the appropriate time’.
It was Christmas now: the air stung her face, the sidewalks were slippery with ice, and the hours of daylight were absurdly contracted. But the wintry atmospheres – filtered light, skeletal trees, silhouetted tenements – combined to summon delightful memories of her first visit to the city when she was eight. She spent many evenings just strolling the streets, glorying in the Yuletide extravagance. She had never really cared for Christmas – the mandatory good cheer, the grotesque commercialisation – but she had to admit that this year she felt at peace with the world. Especially when it snowed. Especially when she heard carols being trilled in the parks. And most of all when she saw kids capering around with unequivocal joy.
But how long could it last? How long does the world allow anything unequivocal to last?
The very next night, as it happened, she heard footsteps upstairs. The oily voice of a solicitor or estate agent or whatever. Someone – a potential buyer or two – was enjoying a private viewing. When they departed, Cat rushed to the bedroom window for a look. A well-dressed middle-aged couple – investors, she guessed – were folding themselves into a silver Mercedes and gliding away.
It was an uncomfortable reminder that sooner or later there would be a new tenant. Someone who might even be worse – difficult as that was to imagine – than the unlamented Moyle. Maybe a whole hard-rock band this time, practising every night. Maybe an elderly couple who trundled to the bathroom every half-hour and played their TV at the highest possible volume. Maybe a homicidal maniac who shouted profanities and hurled things against the walls. Maybe a tap dancer. A salty old sailor with a wooden leg. An amateur boxer who liked to skip rope. Someone with a couple of boisterous dogs. A movie geek with a home cinema and a passion for war films. Maybe a whole hard-up family – kids running around squealing and rolling toys across the floor. There was even the terrible possibility that the place might be turned into a holiday let. Half the apartments in central Edinburgh were that way, apparently. Long-term residents were losing their minds. Unruly tourists dragging their wheeled luggage over the setts, buzzing the wrong flat, dropping keys and banging doors, crashing around as they looked for the heating controls, heading out late and coming home later, shagging each other silly, letting the kids go berserk, doing their laundry in the middle of the night, leaving piles of garbage in the hallway – you name it – before packing up and vanishing, never to be seen again.
Was it too much to ask for a Trappist monk? A mime artist? A retired ballerina? A reclusive millionaire who used the place for just a few weeks every year? Or would she have to go back to Aileanach Castle and put in another request?
During an open inspection the following weekend Cat, posing as an interested buyer, ventured into Number Six for the very first time. She saw the bathroom where Moyle had bumbled about and peed noisily into his toilet. The kitchenette where he’d banged his pots and dropped cutlery on the floor. The tiny box room where his washing machine had thumped and screeched through its cycles. The notorious bedroom, directly above her own, where he’d tossed his boots on the floor and twanged his electric guitar. The living area where he’d hauled chairs across the floorboards. She even thought she could discern the large blotch where
he’d bled out . . . not unlike the bloodstain of David Rizzio, secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, that was supposedly visible in the Palace of Holyrood.
‘Any idea why the place is being sold?’ she asked, as casually as possible
The agent – a young guy in tortoiseshell glasses with lenses so thin and clear they could only be fake – looked taken aback. ‘I think the old lady who owned the flat is liquidating some assets.’
‘Then can you tell me who’s shown the most interest in buying it?’
‘We’ve had a good deal of interest.’
‘I always like to have an idea of my competition, though.’
‘Well, most of the interest has been from investors.’
‘Investors . . .’
‘Out of town investors. Mainly from the Asian market. This is a very popular area for investors.’
Cat’s spirits drained. Unless the agent was just talking the property up, the ‘holiday let’ scenario was still very much alive. Definitely the rental property scenario. Which could easily mean a rolling succession of university students throwing twice-weekly parties – or something even worse.
She wished she had enough money to buy the place herself. She could swap it for her own flat, she guessed, but the place wasn’t as roomy as hers (what with the slanted ceilings and all), and for that matter she didn’t really fancy living in a murder scene. But that thought only made her wonder if she could scare potential buyers away with the place’s history. By erecting a sign? Positioning herself at the bottom of the stairs and casually informing everybody who came for an inspection? Or could she get Maxine, the professional tour guide, to start a Ghost Walk that included the building in its itinerary?
Her best bet, she decided in the end, was to make herself known to the new buyer as soon as the place was sold, then lobby for some changes before any tenants moved in. Rugs for the floors? New carpet? Maybe a tradesman could screw down the creaking floorboards? Or some sort of sound insulation could be installed under the floor? All to be financed out of her own bank account?
Then, two weeks into the new year, the dreaded UNDER OFFER sticker appeared across the FOR SALE sign.
The Devil Upstairs Page 11