The Initial Blow

by Paul Vincent Lee

‘Have you phoned her mum?’

  ‘Yea; nothing, except I found out that she wasn’t even staying there; she was staying with that cow, Julie Connor, apparently.’

  ‘Have you called her then?’

  ‘Can’t, no number for her.’

  ‘What about Martha? Does she have a number for her?’

  ‘No. I asked but the Julie one jumps about from hotel to hotel doing her relief manager…..in more ways than one, no doubt; fucking cow. Martha hasn’t a Scooby which one she’s in.’

  ‘Right.’

  I didn’t really know what to say. What do you say exactly when a million thoughts are flashing through your brain and most of them you don’t want to even think about; never mind mention to the person you’re talking to?

  ‘Where do you start? Think I should phone the police?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Was she on the plane?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  ‘Right. Well, maybe she went on a bender with Julie. Just missed the flight’

  ‘Or some cunt.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s face it, Ray, she might be with some guy.’

  ‘No way, Joe. Get that out of your head. Has Martha checked the hospitals? Bet she hasn’t.’

  I was trying to say all the right things but the truth was that the first thing that had come into my head was that Kate was with some guy. I was pretty certain that Kate had had affairs over the years, nothing “serious”, just excitement, fun. Despite supposedly being in the entertainment business, Joe wasn’t exactly a major player in those departments, but after 20 odd years with the one partner, who was? But I did know she would not just up and away. She would never just leave the kids. Never.

  ‘Surely Julie would have phoned if anything like that had happened?’ said Joe.

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t know, or doesn’t have, a number for you or Martha.’

  ‘Maybe.... Ray?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think it’s a guy. What will I do if she leaves me?’

  ‘You’re talking bollocks now. Calm down. Do you want me to phone Martha? See if I can hunt down Julie? It would be easier from here.’

  ‘OK. Thanks, Ray. You’re a mate, but if there’s no word by tomorrow morning, it’s the cops.’

  ‘Well, let’s just wait and see. What’s Martha’s number?’

  During the conversation I had started to pace the room, tension forcing me to move around my “executive” rabbit hutch in Glasgow’s “ much sought after” Waterfront apartments. Although these days the people doing the seeking were mostly Building Societies trying to repossess properties from up and coming young executives who had upped……. and gone. I sat down on the old rocking chair that sat beside the phone stand, the only memento I had from my childhood “family” home. I had a bad feeling about this. It was at times like this that I wished I was into music, meditation; anything that could help with the tension I felt when under stress, but none of those had ever been my thing. I had mentioned that I was thinking of trying meditation once to a girlfriend a few years back. She had ventured back with, “Why not…. it beats sitting around doing nothing.”

  I was never quite sure if she had been serious or not.

  ‘Kate, I hope you haven’t done anything crazy.’

  ***

  The phone call from Joe had played on Martha Reid’s mind. Joe was a decent man but not who Kate should have married. He stifled her. She was removed from him. He obviously didn’t know Kate was staying with Julie. He hid his surprise, his concern, but she knew. She wasn’t senile just yet. Still, they had been together for a long time, a not inconsiderable achievement in this day and age, and when her grandchildren had come along, Martha had experienced a new manifestation of love, so that was something. The following morning, after spending a few moments admiring her magnolias, she picked up the phone.

  ‘Joe? It’s Martha. Has Kate popped up? Full of excuses.’

  ‘No, not a dickie bird. Getting a bit worried, to be honest.’

  ‘What? Why didn’t you call me, Joe? Have you called the police?’

  ‘Bit early for that, don’t you think? Look I’m sure everything’s fine. You know what she’s like. I’ll call you as soon as I hear.’

  ‘Yes. Please do that, Joe. Bye.’

  Martha Reid did know her daughter and this wasn’t “like her.” She was calling the police, Joe or no Joe. They would be able to trace Julie. She would give Kate a piece of her mind.

  Martha Reid spoke slowly and distinctly, ‘I’d like to report a missing person, please.’

  ‘Certainly, madam, and who would this person be?’ the officer on the desk at Maryhill Police Office replied.

  ‘My daughter, Kate Turner.’

  ‘I see and what age is your daughter?

  ‘Fourteen.....back by tea time’ thought the PC.

  ‘Forty six,’ replied Martha, the number surprising even her.

  ‘Her address?’

  ‘Well, she actually lives in Spain but is over here for a short visit.’

  ‘And she was staying with you, yes?’

  ‘Well, no actually. She was staying with a girlfriend of hers, I’m not sure where; some hotel in the city. The thing is she was due home, in Spain that is, yesterday but she’s not arrived. Her husband, Joe, and I are very worried.’

  ‘I see. Has he checked with the airline?’

  ‘Few drinks in the Corinthian, some smooth, good looking bastard....’ “some hotel in the city” is probably right, dear.’

  ‘Not as far as I know. He thinks it’s too early to panic.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s right, nearly always a simple explanation for this kind of thing.’

  ‘What airline was she flying with?’

  ‘I’m not certain. Easyjet or Ryanair, I think.’

  ‘OK. Well, her husband should check with the airline and take things from there. If she was on the flight, then it’s probably more an issue for the Spanish police. If she wasn’t on the flight, get back to us and we’ll check hospitals, that sort of thing. I’m sure everything will be fine. That OK?’

  ‘Oh. Well, right. Yes. I suppose so. If you think that’s for the best.’

  ‘I do, madam. Bye.’

  Martha was not convinced by the way things had gone, but that was both Joe and the police not seeming too concerned, so maybe she was fussing over nothing. Still...

  The desk officer logged a call from a Mrs Turner, re “missing Spanish person”. He was looking forward to his long weekend off, starting one hour from then.

  Martha suspected there was a man involved. She knew it wouldn’t be the first time. Unfortunately, Joe Turner knew that as well.

  ***

  Boom Boom Banks liked a nice cup of warming tea in the morning; morning being when he woke up and not any arbitrary notion of time. Time for Boom Boom didn’t exist. He was either awake or comatose. He dug a tea bag out of the left hand pocket of his overcoat. He was sure he had only used this one a couple of times so it would be fine. His matches, as always, were safe and dry. It had been a warm night, as far as he could remember, so there would be no problem lighting a fire. Boom Boom’s joints groaned as he rose from the base of the tree and scuttled down to the river to fill his tin can. His fuddled mind retreated to a former place and time, his body, like now, stiff and sore but he was just a lad, his Jesuit mentor reminding him of the sanctity of the human body and the virtue of silence.

  At first he wasn’t quite sure what it was he was looking at. Old clothes? Flood debris? He thought there might be something worth salvaging and pulled on the sodden mass.

  ‘Ah, lassie. What have you done to yirsel?’

  Boom Boom knew this was hassle and unwanted attention for him but;

  ‘the poor lassie, the poor, poor lassie.’

  He pulled the girl’s inert body onto the bank and gently pushed the hair away from her face. The water and its various forms of life had left their mark but, returning to his former life momentarily, P
rofessor Colin Banks could see that she had been a good looking woman, mid-forties and probably had given birth at some stage. Boom Boom wondered if she had any money, cigs or anything worth selling. After all she won’t need them now. Half an hour after pulling the girl from the river; Boom Boom Banks had done what he felt compelled to do and was on the move. He would report the body; he had never been devoid of compassion; but anonymously;

  ‘No need to get involved.’

  He saw from a gold necklace on the body that the lassie’s name was Tunstall.

  ‘Strange name that my poor wee soul.’

  He knew he could probably have sold that necklace, but he wanted to let: The lassie get hame to her family.

  Besides, he would be able to sell the mobile phone to some smack heid.

  ‘Get a couple of tinnies, as they say in Oz.’

  Boom Boom shuffled his way onto the Lanark road and found one of the; rapidly disappearing red phone boxes that used to adorn many roads in Scotland, but that only now still survive in some country locations. He knew he needed no money to make a 999 call.

  ‘Is that the polis?’ the phone box reeking of piss, even out there, in the countryside.

  ‘Yes, sir. Your name is?’

  ‘Never mind. There’s a lassie’s body on the riverbank about a mile up from Garrion Bridge. She’s been murdered.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Where exactly is this body, sir?’ weariness rather than concern the overriding tone.

  ‘You want an Ordinance Survey reference, constable? You’re the police. Seek and ye shall find.’

  ‘Sir, can I......?’

  The sound of rapid pips cut short the officer’s next question.

  Boom Boom shuffled away. He knew, even through his haze, that he was in serious trouble.

  ‘Why, Boom Boom, why?’

  The anonymous phone call was passed onto the Police station at Hamilton, as they were nearest to the alleged site. No great urgency was attached to it. There were no recent Missing Persons enquiries and the caller sounded a bit strange; well-spoken…….and pissed at the same time.

  The banks of the River Clyde take on many shapes, sizes and even roles as they meander through the Scottish countryside, through Glasgow city centre and on to the Atlantic Ocean, but not many parts are more beautiful than the stretch that P.C.’s Gardner and Wright wandered up and down; chatting about nothing in particular, a few hours after Boom Boom’s call. After about a half hour of what, under other circumstances, would be considered a pleasant stroll, P.C. Gardner vomited where he stood. Within another half hour D.I. Susan Dornan was looking down at the livid white mass that only a few hours previously had been a human being and D.S. Matt Healy was throwing every obscenity he could think of at the unfortunate constable. They didn’t make him feel any worse though, as he hadn’t seen a partially decomposed body before.

  ‘You’ve completely fucked up this crime scene you fucking useless cunt.’ roared Healy.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Sorry. Fucking sorry. You fucking kidding me. How long you been a cop?’

  ‘A year, sir.’

  ‘A fucking year and you’ve never seen a dead body. Too busy shagging sheep out here in the sticks or what?’

  ‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Piss off before you end up in the river.’

  ‘Yes, sir’

  Healy hated the next part. Identify the body, go see the relatives.

  ‘Jesus, please, no wee kiddies at home.’

  Dornan was doing a thorough job going over the body whilst allowing Healy to vent his frustration. She would speak to him about his “Management Technique” later. Rome wasn’t built in a day: and the young cop would have learned an important lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

  ‘No money. No cards. No Driving Licence. No mobile. Picture of two kids. No picture of man, you know, husband, partner. A receipt, don’t know where from. No rings on, but two in her bag. Wearing gold necklace with the name Tunstall.’ Dornan had moved away from the body needing a break from the sight and smell of violent death. She also guessed that the dead woman would be roughly the same age as she was and that somehow affected her more than other bodies she had seen. At times like these she tended to ponder death; the reality of what it actually was. The certainty of it. Her own death. In the end what depressed her most was the world’s indifference to it. Tomorrow this murder will be all over the local papers, the nationals too busy reporting on who has been evicted from Big Brother to report something as mundane as another murder, but people will still put their dinner on their lap and show more interest in the “lives” of people in Albert Square and Coronation Street than the life, and death, of a young woman a few miles from their white plastic, double glazed front doors. Maybe that was the real reason for double glazing, to keep the real world at bay. Big Brother not really needing to watch us anymore as; we’re all watching it.

  ‘Tunstall....think that’s her name or what?’ Healy’s voice dragging Dornan back into the gruesome present.

  ‘Could be, I suppose, but a bit unusual, and she’s a bit old to be wearing that sort of thing.’

  ‘Is it even a name? ’

  The Scene of Crime Team had arrived and so had the pathologist on call.

  ‘Ignore the vomit. It belongs to that tosser over there. Right, Doc, what you think?’ Healy had automatically taken charge, not out of disrespect, Dornan knew, just habit.

  ‘She’s dead.’

  If Dornan and Healy had a quid for every time they got a sarcastic, apparently witty reply from a police pathologist, they could retire.

  ‘Yes, very good, never heard that one. Can you enlighten us to probable cause and time of death, doctor?’ interjected Dornan, afraid that the pathologist, his apparent indifference to death probably understandable, might end up in the same place the body had obviously been, should Healy get his way.

  ‘Cause – multiple stab wounds. Time – no idea. I’ll get back to you on that.’

  ‘Please do, doctor, please do. Oh. By the way, there’s a Strand Comedy Club opened up on Woodlands Road if you fancy turning professional’, said Healy to the retreating back.

  The pathologist ambled away, oblivious to death and sarcasm.

  ‘Any middle aged women reported missing recently, Susan?’ Healy asked on the drive back into Glasgow.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  An overturned lorry on the M8 motorway had forced Healy to take a diversion through Easterhouse, one of Glasgow’s bleaker Housing Schemes, the city’s new marketing logo : “Scotland with Style” understandably not too prominent there. Susan Dornan stared glumly out of the passenger window, her thoughts returning to society’s indifference to life. Satellite dishes festooning every building, including those that didn’t even look fit for human habitation, allowing the inhabitants to escape into a mist of game shows and celebrity life styles, the forlorn hope of winning one that would allow them the latter; somehow appearing possible in a fog of cigarette smoke, alcohol misuse and a drug-induced stupor. She felt that somehow, in some way, the actuality of life had disappeared from society; and been replaced by the imaginary worlds of computer games, media images and simulated events, with these, bizarrely and with no apparent hint of irony, being described as reality. The only shops they passed being graffiti-covered fortresses whose sole purpose appeared to be to supply the very illusions of escape but that lead only to further imprisonment. They passed the spot where a local youth had been stabbed to death a fortnight before. The rusted fence where he fell festooned with King William of Orange, UDA and Rangers FC flags along with a couple of Celtic FC tops perhaps placed there by someone who felt that there had to be more to life, or should that be death, than the version they lived here. Susan had, unfortunately, seen too many of these shrines that had seemed to have become a ritual in recent years whenever tragedies struck a community. Often people with no connection to the victim seemed compelled to attend and Dornan often wondered why. Perhaps their lives were so emp
ty they needed to check they were, in fact alive, by being part of a public event. Maybe they had no other way to let the world know that they, at least, were still alive.

  ‘Did you notice the tan, Susan?’ Healy’s voice again bringing Susan Dornan back from her inner thoughts.

  ‘Yes....significant? Half the female population of Glasgow have a tan these days.’

  ‘I know, but hers looked natural to me. What do you think?’

  ‘Could be. The post mortem will tell.’

  ‘Bet it’s the husband, or boyfriend.’

  Susan Dornan smiled.

  They arrived back at Pitt Street at around 18.00 hours. The Gods had apparently decided to give the city a break and a glorious summer’s evening belied the horrors that had obviously taken place a mere 20 minutes’ drive away. Dornan brought the rest of the team up to speed and allocated tasks; whilst Matt Healy put the little information they had up on the new-fangled, see-thro Incident Boards that all the detective squads now used. Matt Healy was a bit of a Luddite, but this was one innovation he approved of, as he explained to Susan Dornan the previous day, ‘you can see what brass is coming into the room and duck out a side door.’

  At this point, however, it was a waiting game for the Post Mortem and to see if anybody files a Missing Persons Report. DC Allan had been told to call everyone in the phone book with the initial T as a first name, as there was no-one with it as a surname, and ask if their name was Tunstall. He wasn’t sure why because if their name was Tunstall they were probably dead and wouldn’t be answering the phone any time soon. Still, he wasn’t passing his views on to Healy, not just yet.

  Jill French Googled “Tunstall” but had only come up with screeds about a pop singer which she felt would hardly be relevant to a 46 year old woman, and she wasn’t going to court Healy’s derision by even mentioning it.

  Martha Reid’s missing persons call report was still in the Front Desk in-tray at Maryhill Police station, about three inches below the latest call concerning Patch, a missing mongrel.