by Ed James
"Yeah, but Portobello's not exactly amazing, is it?" she said.
He laughed. "I'll hopefully not be there forever."
Caldwell winked at him. "Have you and Sharon been looking?"
This again, thought Cullen. "No, we haven't," he said. Cullen himself had been looking for a flat for the previous two years, feeling continually priced out of the market - either by rising house prices or rising deposits. The market was finally stabilising but Sharon and he were getting serious. He had managed to evade questions from Caldwell for the last few months but that wouldn't stop the station gossip.
"Aren't things going well?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I wouldn't know," he said. "This is uncharted territory for me. I usually get up, wipe my cock on the curtains and fuck off into the night."
Caldwell stopped and laughed. "What about a roller blind?" she asked.
"No way," he said. "A boy's got to have standards." They laughed. "In all seriousness, things are going well. I'm a bit surprised, to be honest."
"What, all that stuff with that girl you were supposed to be seeing?" she asked.
Cullen closed his eyes. "We don't talk about that."
He tried to forget about that. He'd saved the life of a girl that shared a flat with his ex. It continually staggered him how messy he could make his life, but there it was. In truth, his actions had put her in danger, so saving her was the least he could do. It had made his early relationship with Sharon difficult. Even almost six months on, she still didn't quite trust him. He didn't blame her, but he tried to gain that trust at every opportunity.
"So why are you surprised?" she asked.
"Just the curtains thing, I suppose," he said. "I mean I wanted to settle down, I just didn't see it being with Sharon, that's all."
"You mean you don't see yourself settling down with her?"
He pointed a finger at her. "That's not what I meant, so this goes nowhere near her," he said. "I didn't see myself going out with her. Nothing to do with her, more with me."
"But things are fine?"
"Of course," he said. "Better than I could have hoped." He opened the gate back onto Dunpender Drive. He stepped aside and let a young mother with a buggy through. "Why are you asking?"
"Oh, no reason," she said, grinning. "It's just that... well."
"Well, what?"
"That ADC Law hasn't taken her eyes off of you."
He stopped. "Just stop it," he said. "I'm not interested."
"Okay, just passing on what I noticed," she said, a slight smirk on her face.
"Well, if that's the game you're playing," he said, "DS Lamb was taking an interest in you. Maybe he likes giants."
Caldwell shook her head. "Very funny," she said. "A lot of small rich men go in for tall girls like me."
"Yeah, I wonder what goes on in their heads," he said. "How tall is your husband?"
"Six five," she said.
"Fair enough."
Cullen checked the missed call he'd received when they were speaking to Cath Russell - predictably, it was Bain. He dialled the number and held the phone away from his ear.
"Sundance," he said, "if you see the caller display with my name on it, you fuckin' answer it, okay?"
"We were with someone."
"I don't care if you were with the fuckin' Queen, all right?" he said. "If you see my name, you fuckin' answer."
"What did you want?" asked Cullen.
"Where the fuck are you?"
"Just about back at the Gibson house."
"Right, I'll see you outside then."
"Thanks," said Cullen to a dead phone line.
Caldwell looked over at him. "That sounded like it went well," she said.
"Typical Bain," he said.
They approached the house - it seemed to Cullen that there were even more cars than when they'd left. He hoped that Anderson and the other SOCOs were going through Mandy's room with a fine tooth comb.
At the drive, Cullen recognised PC Jennifer Wallace, the Family Liaison Officer that had been with the family, standing chatting to ADC Law. They stood on the gravel outside, far enough away from the house to avoid being overheard.
"Anything been happening here?" asked Cullen.
Law shrugged. "Scene of Crime have just turned up," she said. "I handed that teddy bear over to Anderson, Bain didn't seem much interested."
Cullen was glad that he seemed to be avoiding another confrontation with Anderson. "What's Bain been up to?"
"Running around like a blue-arsed fly."
Cullen nodded. "That's what he does best," he said.
"They've started going door-to-door," said Law. "Bain's got Stuart out with a squadron of uniform."
"Why aren't you out with them?" asked Cullen.
"I must have missed the opportunity when I was away with you," she replied. "What do you want me to do?"
Cullen clocked a grin on Caldwell's face. His glare only seemed to worsen it. "Bain should be here any minute," he said. He looked at Wallace. "Anything to report from you?"
"I was out with his wife just there," answered Wallace. "She tore through half a deck ay fags. She's torn to shreds." She was broad shouldered, though not tall like Caldwell was. Her hair was very short and her voice coarse, as if she smoked forty a day herself.
"Well, you would be," said Caldwell, almost in an undertone but loud enough for Wallace to hear.
"You going to keep an eye on them?" asked Cullen.
"Yeah, been told to by Lamb," said Wallace. "Cups of tea, bit of TLC here and there." She gave a conspiratorial grin. "I'll keep my eyes and ears open. I'll not take the piss either. They'll want shot of me at some point."
"Do you suspect them?" asked Law, her blue eyes staring at Cullen.
"Not at the moment," said Cullen. "Bain wants Jennifer to make sure that there's nothing funny going on here."
Wallace nodded. "He tried to convert me, you know," she said. "Asked if my sins were absolved."
Cullen checked his watch; 12.18. "His daughter's body hasn't been found for four hours yet and he's already trying to convert people to his religion."
Wallace raised her eyebrows. "Aye, well," she said. "You know what that lot are like. They get pretty funny about death."
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Nothing much," she said.
Cullen handed her his card. "Okay, well, let me or Lamb know if anything happens, okay?"
"Sure thing," she said, and went back along the path into the house.
Cullen looked down the street - there was still no sign of Bain. The clouds were already darkening again. He had half a mind to go and get his overcoat from his car.
"You religious, Scott?" asked Caldwell.
"No."
"Thought you would be," she said, "what with you being a sheep shagger. It's all Calvinism and stuff up your way, isn't it?"
"Aye, but my old man was a punk," said Cullen, "no way was he taking his kids to church."
Caldwell and Law laughed. Cullen thought that Law was laughing a bit too hard, trying a bit too hard to impress. Maybe Caldwell was right - he really needed to stop it, whatever it was that he was doing.
"How about you?" he asked, looking at Caldwell. "Are you a bible basher?"
"He is," said Caldwell. Another oblique reference to her husband, thought Cullen. "I had to convert to Catholicism to get married and everything, not that he bothers much, but his family's mental for it."
Cullen thought that he would escape that with Sharon if it ever went that far - her parents were religious only on a token basis, sort of like some insurance policy for the afterlife.
"What about you?" asked Caldwell.
"Me?" asked Law. She frowned. "No, not at all."
"What do you know about this group?" asked Cullen.
"God's Rainbow?" She curled her hair behind her left ear, tried to hold it in place. "Don't really know much about them. Bill had to lift some wee ned from there on Saturday night, for pissing against the wall." She ca
ught Caldwell's look. "Unlike you city cops, we have to help out with rowdy Saturday nights if we're on duty. It was Port Seton for me on Saturday, but I'd much rather have been here."
Cullen nodded. "Charles Gibson mentioned a Jamie Cook earlier," he said. "You ever come across him?"
Law gave a mischievous wink. "That ned that was pissing against the side of the church," she said, "that was Jamie Cook."
"Sundance," snapped Bain from behind, in the direction of the house. "How come you've always got birds around you? I need to get some of that magic to rub off on me."
Caldwell raised an eyebrow.
"Well done for finding a cuddly toy," said Bain, shaking his head. "It's like the fuckin' Generation Game with you, Sundance."
"It looks like Mandy was abducted while she ran down the lane," said Cullen. "I'd say that's a result."
"Aye, fuckin' looks like isn't good enough," said Bain. "While you've been trying to get a threesome with this pair, I've been out getting some proper fuckin' police work done, the sort of shite that a DC and a pair of ADCs should have been doin'."
Cullen didn't know what to say in response.
Bain finally looked at Law and Caldwell. "Ladies, I think we've got a lead," he said.
"What is it?" asked Caldwell.
"DC Murray's been around a couple of the Gibsons' neighbours," said Bain. "He found out that Charles Gibson's car left the house at 10.30pm last night. That's where I've been, putting the frighteners up this woman, just to make sure she's not tryin' to frame him for some neighbourly shite about fallin' asleep at a dinner party or choppin' a tree down."
"Have you spoken to Gibson?" asked Cullen.
"Just been in now, aye," said Bain. "He says he was off seeing this Father Mulgrew character."
"Do you want us to go round there?" asked Cullen.
"Fuckin' magic," said Bain, "saves me a trip. Can you check it out for me?"
"Will do," said Cullen.
Law butted in just then. "Elaine Gibson gave me the name of some psychologist that they'd taken Mandy to," she said. "Do you want me to give her a call?"
"Good effort," said Bain. "Keep me up-to-date."
Cullen frowned - he'd dragged that out of them earlier and here she was, taking the credit for it.
Bain spun around again to look at Cullen. "So what have you pair actually been up to?" he asked.
Cullen talked him through the notes that he'd just taken at Cath Russell's.
"So nothing, then?" said Bain.
"She confirmed how long these midnight disappearances have been going on for," said Bain. "And Mandy didn't make it round there last night. From the teddy bear, it looks like she was intercepted on her way."
Bain nodded and thought it through for a few seconds. "Right, Sundance, what does your genius brain say, then?" he asked.
Cullen bit his tongue. "There are a couple of things we need to look into," he said. "If we take Gibson at face value, then Mandy was put to bed last night and somehow escaped. We haven't any idea how. The doors were all locked."
"Aye, that's a funny business," said Bain. "I think I need to chin Gibson about that one as well."
"I think we should go to the school," said Cullen. "I want to speak to Susan Russell and Mandy's teacher, maybe a few other kids."
"There are websites for schoolgirl fetishes, Sundance," said Bain.
Cullen shook his head. "Can you stop?" he said. "I want to see if there are any leads we can pick up there."
"Why, do you think there will be?"
"There might," said Cullen.
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
"I mean I don't want you going there," said Bain.
"But-"
"But nothing, Sundance," said Bain. "Speak to this Mulgrew character and do some diggin' there."
"Fine," said Cullen, folding his arms.
"Anything else, genius?" asked Bain.
"One other thing," said Cullen, trying to keep his voice level. "I think we need to think about whether Mandy was abducted because of Charles Gibson's job."
"Are you still fuckin' goin' on about that?" said Bain.
"Yes," said Cullen, slowly and reluctantly.
"Cullen, this isn't Die Hard, you know," said Bain. "You're not John McClane and you're not looking at someone abducting bankers or their fuckin' kids."
"Are you sure you want to exclude it?" asked Cullen through gritted teeth.
Bain exhaled. "Fine, I'll get the most junior officer I can find to think about it and do nothing with it."
six
Cullen parked outside Mulgrew's house on the corner of Haddington Road and Bangley Road. It was a small cottage on the outskirts of the town to the south. The area was less developed and had older houses but it was on the main road out of the town - Cullen suspected that the fields to the south of Mulgrew's cottage would be ripe for future development. There was a bus stop just across the main road.
Haddington Road led south over the Garleton hills into the Tyne valley below to Haddington. To the north, it continued to Aberlady and the coast. Bangley Road led into the middle of the town and was lined by grey-harled council houses, the sort Cullen had seen all over Scotland. There were a few drives and avenues cutting off from the street, but they were nowhere near as grand as where the Gibsons and Russells lived. If a train line ran through the town, thought Cullen, this was definitely the wrong side of the tracks.
Looking down the street, Cullen saw a few kids hanging around, a couple of them mucking about on BMX bikes. He frowned - they should be in school. He looked down the road at them, with half a mind to go and cause some havoc to compensate for how pissed off he felt.
"Shall we go in?" asked Caldwell.
Cullen looked at her. "Aye, I'll lead," he said. He led her down the path. The garden was teetering on the brink of moving from mature to overgrown. Parked on the drive was a decaying Volvo estate that Cullen guessed would be older than him or Caldwell. There were lots of old beech trees knitting together into a chaotic hedge, though a couple had ignored orders and were halfway to becoming trees.
Cullen assumed that the row of cottages had once belonged to a farm whose land was now subsumed into the rapidly expanding town. Mulgrew's house itself was the end cottage of a row that lined the Haddington Road, with the side on Bangley Road butted right up against a council house. The cottage didn't look in great repair, in stark contrast to the gleaming new builds of the Gibsons and Russells. The lintel above the downstairs window was severely cracked and several of the stones on the corner of the house were badly decaying.
Cullen had to knock four times. The door was pulled open with some force.
An old man stood there. He wasn't tall but he stooped over, shortening his height further. He was wearing red trousers and a plaid shirt, giving him the look of a lumberjack.
"Yes?" he asked, in a thick southern Irish accent.
"Seamus Mulgrew?" asked Cullen.
"I am," he replied. "Father Seamus Mulgrew, if you will. And you are?"
Cullen brandished his warrant card. "DC Scott Cullen, Lothian & Borders Police. This is ADC Angela Caldwell. We'd like to speak to you in connection with the death of an Amanda Gibson, known as Mandy."
"Mandy?"
"You know her?" asked Cullen.
Mulgrew nodded quickly. "She's dead?"
"She was found this morning at Balgone Ponds," said Cullen, "on the way to North Berwick."
Mulgrew stared at Cullen, though his eyes didn't focus on him. "I know the place."
"Can we come in?"
Mulgrew's eyes settled on Cullen. "Yes, yes," he said, and led them in.
He led them through a tight hall with an even tighter wooden staircase. The living room was a small dusty room with what Cullen took to be a kitchenette just off, a term that Cullen's gran had used - the only person he'd heard use the word in real life. It was the only way he could think to describe the tiny space - beige Formica and wood effect panelling surrounding a small
stove and a porcelain sink. There was a counter top fridge that looked older than the house. The small living room had a dark green three piece suite crammed in, a battered old writing bureau being the only other furniture.
"From your accent, I take it you're not from around here?" asked Cullen.
"No, you're right there," said Mulgrew. "I'm from the Emerald Isle, as they say."
"And you were in the Church there?"
"Yes, well, as I say, I was." Mulgrew took a deep breath. "Eventually I chose a different path from a strict Papal one and I'm much happier for it. I'm doing the Lord's work now, rather than the Pope's. I thank the Pope for the skills I learnt in the church but I had to do what was true to God."
"And you still choose to use the title of Father?" asked Cullen.
"I have not renounced any of my vows to the Lord," said Mulgrew, "so I shall keep my title."
"Can you tell us about Mandy Gibson," said Cullen, "and your relationship with her?"
"Well, she was a nice, sweet girl," said Mulgrew, suddenly looking wistful. "She always seemed so happy and eager to please. Her parents are such dear people. Her father, Charles, is training as my protégé."
"So I gather," said Cullen.
"Mandy did have her problems, though," said Mulgrew. "Don't we all..."
"What sort of problems?" asked Cullen.
"Well," said Mulgrew, frowning, "there were demons in that girl."
"I thought she was handicapped?" said Cullen.
"No, no, no, she was weak," said Mulgrew, "and that weakness had let Satan enter her body, letting countless of his hordes of demons in."
Cullen struggled to listen to what Mulgrew was saying but wrote it down verbatim nonetheless.
"Her family had asked me to assist," continued Mulgrew, "but it was pushing even my skills with the occult, I can assure you."
"Can you elaborate on these skills?" asked Cullen.
"Certainly." Mulgrew closed his eyes. "As a member of the Roman Catholic church, I was ordained in the ways of the occult - witchcraft, exorcisms, that sort of thing. There was a very select group of priests who were allowed access to this knowledge and given these skills, you know? I was among that group."