Riven

by A J McCreanor

  ‘And she’s a bit of a bitch.’

  ‘That’s the trouble, Ross, it’s not sexy. His life was pretty empty. Folk just aren’t that interested.’

  Ross wiped the egg yolk from his plate with a piece of toast. ‘It’s a bit of a sad day when being battered to death in your own home is a one-day wonder.’ He finished the eggy toast and started on the potato scones. ‘Maybe we need to look again at the kids at Watervale.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because, well it’s Watervale . . . you saw the scheme.’

  Wheeler sipped her coffee. ‘Yeah, kids living in a rough scheme. Some of them pretty neglected,’ she paused. ‘Brain scans.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I went to a lecture about brain scans.’

  ‘Talk about sexy.’

  ‘Shut it. It showed the disparity in brain size between kids who’ve been neglected and kids who have had a normal upbringing.’

  ‘Shocked?’

  She nodded, recited the facts as best she could.

  Ross listened and agreed. ‘Hard for some of them. On the other hand they’re not all neglected, those kids – some of them are just wee thugs. It’s a deliberate career choice. Some of them are just evil wee shites.’

  ‘You’re going to make the best dad, when the time comes, you know that don’t you?’

  He smiled. ‘You offering?’

  ‘In your dreams, matey.’

  He flushed, looked away. ‘Got the report from the other two schools, St Austin’s and Cuthbertson High. Boyd and Robertson did the interviews.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw it already. Nothing much in it, same as our report.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘They described him pretty much the same as the staff from Watervale. The guy was a bloody ghost.’

  She groaned. ‘We’ve nothing. Stewart’s going to love us.’

  ‘In the biblical sense, do you mean?’ Ross scraped his plate. ‘Would that suit you?’

  Wheeler left the rest of her breakfast. ‘You’ve a mind like a sewer Ross, you know that, don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘Aye, but just so you notice me one way or another.’

  She stood up. ‘Let’s go, muppet.’

  Chapter 25

  They were sitting in the CID suite by nine. Stewart was perched on her desk for one of his informal chats. Wheeler looked up from her computer and saw that once again he looked pristine in a dove-grey suit. She instinctively touched her own trousers – same outfit as yesterday. She felt slightly grubby, thought maybe the smell from the greasy breakfast she’d shared with Ross still clung to her. They were in their way to see George Grey but Stewart obviously wanted something. ‘Boss?’

  Stewart stared down at her. ‘The Grim Reaper will be in my office in ten minutes. Make it worth my while seeing the little gremlin and throw him a bone. What have you got?’

  Wheeler could smell his citrus aftershave, felt that he was sitting too close. She sat back in her seat, felt the blush creeping up her face. ‘Love to, boss,’ she tapped a pile of reports, ‘but still sifting through the evidence. Going through the house to house again as you suggested, but it seems no one saw anything suspicious.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Stewart waited.

  ‘That’s the thing. James Gilmore was nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently he was just a decent guy doing a decent job. But his death was completely out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Unless . . .’ said Ross.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Paedophile?’ said Ross. ‘Would account for the way he died – someone out for revenge?’

  ‘Evidence?’

  ‘There were a couple of calls that came in from pay phones—’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Haven’t traced them yet, boss, but one caller warned us about Gilmore not being one of the good guys. The other linked him to Arthur Wright, London.’

  ‘Who?’

  Ross shrugged. ‘Came up blank but I’ll keep digging.’

  ‘Get the calls traced.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Any other theories?’ Stewart waited.

  ‘Could’ve been a dealer? He worked city-wide, so it’s pretty good cover?’ Robertson offered.

  ‘Gilmore was a supplier?’ Boyd sounded doubtful. ‘And going up against the McGregors and the Tenants, not to mention the independent entrepreneurial nutters out there?’

  ‘No, maybe not going up against them but working for them,’ said Robertson. ‘If Gilmore got himself involved in something that he shouldn’t have, it may be that he paid the price.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Stewart, ‘so, we’ve nothing. Let’s start something.’

  ‘Boss?’

  Stewart cleared his throat. ‘I’ll tell Grim to write up an article about our zero-tolerance approach in the lead-up to Christmas. We’ll make it known that we’ll be targeting all known offenders.’

  ‘Everyone, boss?’ Ross was already doing the maths.

  ‘We’ll tell them it’s everyone. In reality it’ll just be the usual scum who’ll be stopped and searched.’

  Wheeler warmed to the idea. ‘Make it difficult for them to do their not-so-legitimate business.’

  Stewart smiled at her. ‘Exactly, we make their daily life complete shite and so they’ll need to get us off their back. Someone knows something about this murder; it didn’t happen in isolation. The bloodied clothes the killer was wearing, the car he used. Someone must be boasting about it to their pals. Something has to give.’ He crossed to the window, looked out at the grey sky. ‘There’s a dozen incentives already in place that this can easily dovetail in with.’

  ‘Stop and search is never popular,’ said Wheeler.

  ‘We’re not trying to be popular,’ replied Stewart. ‘We’re trying to be a pain in the backside. This’ll hit the dealers and if we hit them hard enough they’d grass up their own granny, never mind whoever did Gilmore.’

  ‘So we hassle them until they snap?’ said Boyd.

  ‘Exactly. We know the main players and their teams – let’s make them uncomfortable.’ He smiled. ‘Okay, let’s go with that. I’ll get the word out via Grim and the Chronicle. Might as well try to shake things up a bit.’ Stewart adjusted his tie and marched to the door. Wheeler watched him leave the room, thinking that he was right. They had nothing new and they had nothing to lose by stirring up some bad feeling.

  ‘You not going through to watch the performance, then? See the big man in action?’ Ross grinned at her, fanning his hand in front of his face. ‘You warm? Only you look a bit flushed.’

  Wheeler stood, pushed the reports to the side. ‘Shut it, you. I’m off to the loo, then we’re having a chat with George Grey.’

  When she passed Stewart’s office, the door was open and he was sitting behind his desk. Grim was seated on a hard chair facing Stewart. She heard them begin.

  ‘Good to see you, Grim,’ said Stewart.

  ‘Likewise, Stewart.’

  Neither managed to convey even a hint of sincerity.

  ‘Okay, enough with the pleasantries – let’s get on. Grim, I want you to run an article on a police crackdown, a type of zero-tolerance, and here’s why.’

  Wheeler walked on, made a quick stop at the loo and marched back to her desk. ‘Ross, we’re off to see George Grey.’

  Wheeler and Ross pulled up outside a row of tenement buildings that were not scheduled for demolition. But should have been. Ross killed the engine. ‘Let’s give it a second, see if the rain goes off a bit.’ He looked at the houses. ‘We need one of those wee sanitising units. This place is worse than the scheme at Watervale.’

  ‘Can’t all be trendy West Enders like yourself, Ross.’

  ‘Right enough.’ He turned to her. ‘Rovers got beat last night.’

  Wheeler laughed. ‘So? Is that not a regular occurrence? Surely you can’t be surprised?’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He paused, stared out at the rain. ‘You out and about yourself?’

  She looked at him. ‘Well I wasn
’t out watching football, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  He waited, ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Good time?’

  Wheeler stepped out of the car. ‘I told you, I went to a lecture on brain scans.’

  He waited.

  She slammed the door.

  He grunted, got out the other side, automatically smoothed down his hair.

  She watched him. ‘Don’t think the photographers will be here today. Besides, there’s another bit of dog hair on your jacket. Either your grooming’s slipping or you’re letting that mutt sleep on everything.’

  ‘Shit.’ He brushed the hairs from his jacket and was locking the door when the half-brick sailed by his head and smashed onto the bonnet of the car. Wheeler spun round and saw three boys running into one of the tenement buildings. The taller of them turned back, his voice ferocious, ‘Fucking scumbag pigs!’ A smaller boy shouted, ‘Oink, oink.’ The third wasn’t quite so humorous: ‘Next time the brick’ll kill you.’ He paused, spat on the ground then followed his friends into the close.

  She looked at Ross. ‘It’s a welcome of sorts.’

  Ross grabbed the brick and chucked it onto the ground. ‘No point going after them, is there?’

  ‘What for? We’ll be led a merry dance round the houses. Come on, we’ve got work to do.’ She walked into the mouth of the close. ‘George Grey’s house is on the ground floor, so we’re probably not going to be ambushed.’ Wheeler paused outside a wooden door; the paint was peeling and the central glass panel had been severely cracked and gaffa-taped back together, giving a warped mosaic effect. Wheeler grimaced. ‘I’m thinking industrial chic – what do you think?’

  Ross stood beside her and whined, ‘I haven’t even had a chance to digest my breakfast before that crappy wee welcoming committee outside.’

  She patted his arm. ‘Aw diddums is all sensitive again. The big boys upset you? Never mind, I’ll buy you coffee and a bun later if you’re good.’ She knocked hard and waited.

  A boy of around sixteen answered.

  ‘You George Grey, son?’

  The boy nodded, turned back and shouted into the house, ‘It’s the polis.’

  Wheeler looked at Ross. ‘Are we that obvious?’ They flashed their ID but the boy had already turned away.

  They followed the boy into a dank hallway, the wallpaper flaked and torn, and through into a cramped room. The smell of damp hung in the air. George stood in the filthy kitchen. ‘I’m just havin’ ma breakfast. That okay?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You want some?’

  They shook their heads. ‘Thanks anyway.’ Wheeler waited while he scraped the dregs from a margarine tub and smoothed it over two pieces of pan bread, then took a handful of crisps from an opened packet and laid them on the bread. Squeezed on a good dollop of budget-range tomato ketchup, put the two slices of bread together and scrunched down hard. Opened a can of Irn-Bru and slurped about half of it down before looking up at them. ‘School said you’d come and talk to me.’ He walked through into the sitting room. ‘Whit aboot?’

  Wheeler and Ross followed him into the room. Wheeler tried to ignore the cloying smell of urine and stale vomit and walked towards the sofa. She perched herself on the arm, avoiding the worst of the damp and mould. She battled to understand why social services couldn’t improve a place like this. Fumigate it maybe. But then what? Demolition would be an answer.

  ‘We need to have a wee word about Mr Gilmore. But it can wait till you’ve finished your breakfast.’

  She watched George Grey start on his sandwich. He was about five-five. Thin, greasy strands of hair fell in defeated layers over a bony forehead. He wasn’t just skinny, he was painfully emaciated. He settled himself on a greasy beanbag and stared at her. Dark eyes peered out from his gaunt face. They were the darkest blue she had ever seen, but she had never seen an expression so lacking in hope, so soulless. If she had to name it, George Grey was the walking dead. She sighed; he was like other terminally neglected children, whose life was over before it had really begun. A part of him had already died. What remained was what she had to interview.

  She shifted on the arm of the sofa, listened to someone retch in the bathroom above, heard the cistern flush, then a hacking cough sound, until finally she heard footsteps on the bare stairs. A skeletal man wearing a stained vest and jogging bottoms wheezed his way into the room and stood in front of her.

  ‘I’m DI Wheeler and this is my colleague DI Ross.’ They flashed their ID again.

  The man ignored their cards. ‘The filth? The school said you’d be round. Whit’s the matter, you cannae solve sumthin’ and you want to pick on George?’

  ‘We just need to ask your step-son a couple of questions.’

  ‘See, that’s where you’re wrong, right off, hen. I’m no his step-da. His da scarpered long ago. My name’s MacIntyre, William MacIntyre, and,’ he pointed to George with his right hand showing the three stumps that used to be fingers, ‘that there’s no step-wean o’ mine.’

  Ross coughed. ‘Guardian?’

  ‘Ah live wi’ his ma. Is that good enough fur you?’ He leaned in towards her and Wheeler got the benefit of a mouth full of decaying teeth. She stared instead at the gnarled stumps. Wheeler wondered how he had lost the fingers; it didn’t look like they had been created by professional medical intervention. She turned away and faced George, waited a second until he had swallowed the last of his drink, then she began.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Mr Gilmore was found dead at his home on Monday evening.’

  George nodded. ‘Aye, I heard he copped it.’

  ‘Whit? Gilmore’s deid?’ MacIntyre flopped onto the sofa.

  ‘You knew him, Mr MacIntyre?’

  ‘No well – he worked with George though, didn’t he?’

  George nodded.

  ‘Can you remember the last time you saw him, George?’

  ‘Last week, I think it was Tuesday.’ He paused. ‘Aye it was Tuesday, ’cause right after I talked to him I had to go and get changed. We had P.E.’

  ‘Was there anything unusual about him? Did he seem nervous or tense?’

  ‘Naw.’

  ‘How’d he croak it?’ MacIntyre’s voice was low. Feral, sleekit. His left hand rubbed at the stumps, massaging the wrinkled skin.

  Wheeler stared at him. ‘You didn’t see it reported on the telly or read anything in the Chronicle about it?’

  MacIntyre sniffed and then coughed up a ball of phlegm, rolled it around his mouth, swallowed. ‘Flu, hen, I’ve been out of the game for a few days.’

  Wheeler had noticed the track marks, fresh, not old. Heroin, just as Nancy Paton had told them. If MacIntyre had been out of it for a few days it was because he’d scored enough to keep him in his own personal nirvana. ‘Is Mrs Grey able to speak with us?’

  He jerked a thumb at the ceiling. ‘She’s in her bed – she’s got a dose of the flu as well, right enough.’ He gnawed on his thumb nail. ‘So, how’d he die, then? Whit happened?’

  She heard the tremor in his voice. Noted it. Watched George take his empty can of Irn-Bru into the kitchen, heard him scrunch it into the bin, and she kept her voice low while watching MacIntyre’s reaction. ‘He was found murdered in his home, Mr MacIntyre.’

  ‘Not very nice.’ Ross stared at MacIntyre, watching his pale face turn yellow.

  ‘Fuckssake.’ MacIntyre shuddered, then he rounded on them. ‘And you arses are trying to pin it on George, is that it?’

  ‘Why would you think that?’ asked Wheeler.

  ‘Cause that’s what pigs dae.’ MacIntyre glowered at her like a malevolent gargoyle.

  ‘We’re just trying to find out if Mr Gilmore seemed in any way different over the past few weeks. It might help us with our enquiries.’

  ‘Well, George’s telt you he wis jist the same, noo beat it. Scram.’ MacIntyre started shaking, first his hands, then his arms; finally his whole body was twitching. George
stood in the doorway watching.

  Wheeler stood. ‘Can you remember anything unusual about Mr Gilmore, George? Hear of anyone threaten him or someone who might want to harm him?’

  The boy stared at the stained carpet, his voice still. ‘Don’t know nothing about him. Hardly ever saw him.’

  She tried for eye contact. ‘You sure?’

  George blinked at the carpet. ‘Sure.’

  Outside the weather had begun in earnest; sleet fell in horizontal sheets as they made their way back to the car.

  ‘Well, William MacIntyre’s a right ladies’ man – what a charmer. Ross, he could teach you a thing or two.’

  ‘Aye. I thought so.’

  ‘He was awful freaked about Gilmore’s death, considering that he never really knew the man.’

  ‘Aye, I thought he looked a bit too shaken up about someone he’d barely known. Doesn’t seem the type to waste time with emotions. Doesn’t figure.’

  ‘Agreed. He knows more than he’s letting on.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s hard to tell with junkies. See the shaking – he needed his fix. And all that stuff about flu was complete bollocks.’

  ‘Flu symptoms,’ she agreed, ‘otherwise known as withdrawal symptoms.’

  Ross patted his stomach. ‘Is it time for our coffee pow-wow yet?’

  ‘You still needing a wee coffee after all that food earlier?’

  ‘I was up early.’

  ‘Running?’

  ‘Running, then walking the dog – can’t all be swanning about at arty-farty lectures.’

  ‘Wimp.’

  ‘I’m starved.’

  ‘Your metabolism’s out of whack.’

  ‘It’s pretty efficient,’ he said proudly. ‘It’s all the exercise.’

  She took out her phone. ‘I’ll phone in for a quick recce to see if there’s been any developments.’

  ‘Yeah, we can’t be expected to do all the work.’

  She stared at him. ‘You’re a skiver, Ross.’

  ‘I’m hurt. I was at the station till late last night.’

  ‘Turn up anything?’

  ‘Just the two calls.’

  She settled herself into the car, punched in the number for the station. ‘I’m impressed, Ross. You’ll soon just about have earned your acting DI.’