Singing to the Dead

by Caro Ramsay

Anderson watched her leave and then became aware of DCI Quinn leaning against the door of her office, watching the whole situation. She said nothing; she just re-buttoned her jacket and turned back to her office, closing the door with her stilettoed heel.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ he said accusingly to Costello. ‘They lost Peter.’

  ‘Irvine was told by Lewis to say nothing, but she told me in the loo. She was going to tell you herself.’

  ‘She should have come to me immediately,’ he said coldly.

  ‘She’s young. She knows how close Quinn and Lewis are. She was scared,’ said Costello. ‘I’d think twice about getting on the wrong side of those two.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t, you liar.’

  ‘I would if I was at Irvine’s level. She’s keen to get on.’

  ‘Didn’t help the wee man though, did it?’ Anderson felt the colour rise in his face. ‘I think I’m going to get Lewis and Irvine in here and disembowel them both with a stapler.’

  ‘Go easy on Irvine.’ Anderson tried to turn away from her, but Costello leaned over to speak quietly in his ear. ‘Can I give you a piece of advice?’

  ‘No,’ he snapped.

  ‘You need that kind of hassle like a hole in the head. She is your best friend’s widow.’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Well, you’re fond of her, aren’t you? You both lost Alan, and it would just be too easy to misconstrue the emotions that got stirred up as something else. And…’ Costello’s pinched face was earnest. ‘She has no family. It’s Christmas and she has nobody. I know from experience what that’s like. I’m used to it. She isn’t. So, don’t…’

  ‘Take advantage of her? What kind of guy do you think I am?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant…’

  ‘Thanks, but Helena and I have always got on well. She’s simply the wife – widow – of a good friend. End of story.’

  ‘As long as that’s all it is.’ She handed over a file.

  ‘Costello!’ A not-so-discreet cough made them both turn, and DCI Rebecca Quinn summoned Anderson with a gesture that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. ‘My office, now, please, both of you.’ She left, clearly expecting them to follow.

  ‘Well, better get this over with quick then,’ Anderson muttered.

  ‘They said that about the First World War,’ Costello muttered behind him.

  Quinn sat down on her chair, ramming it backwards with a foot on the leg of the desk. Costello and Anderson had followed her in before they saw O’Hare was standing, leaning on the filing cabinet. He seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  ‘Three more deaths, Costello. Three deaths, and you told me nothing. Do I need to remind you – Duncan Thompson, Barbara Cummings, Moira McCulloch?’

  Costello glanced at Quinn’s desk and recognized her own yellow notepaper. She then looked at O’Hare but he looked straight back, his face unreadable. She turned her glare to Quinn. ‘Those are my notes.’

  ‘Really? Lewis and Mulholland gave them to me.’ Quinn picked them up between her thumb and forefinger and waved them in the air.

  ‘That was my investigation,’ Costello’s voice was quiet and angry.

  ‘I can second that. I witnessed that call coming through on her phone.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But you didn’t tell the rest of the squad, so how was DC Mulholland supposed to act on this in your absence?’

  ‘I wasn’t well. I…’

  ‘You are either at your work or you are not. And if you are not, DS Costello, this station will try and do its best to carry on without you,’ said Quinn with consummate sarcasm.

  Costello snapped back. ‘All I had was three names. I had been told to wait for a call back from the Poison Unit. If I’d come to you with that, you’d have accused me of wasting your time and told me to wait until they rang back, wouldn’t you? I am a detective, you know.’

  ‘Debatable,’ said Quinn. ‘So why were you in the canteen, stuffing your face?’

  ‘I passed out because I hadn’t eaten for forty-eight hours, ma’am. I’ve been doing just a tad overtime lately. And I was thinking…’

  ‘New experience for you.’

  ‘… about the case.’ Costello put the map in front of Quinn, forcing her to look at it. ‘Look! The Western is here, Gartnavel’s there. Headeze is only sold by the Waldo chain.’

  ‘What?’ Quinn interrupted.

  ‘The painkiller I suspect carried the cyanide. Waldo is here in Byres Road. There are a few in town, and there’s one out in Anniesland, but I think we need to look at this one first. John Campbell lived here,’ Costello stabbed with her forefinger, ‘up on Partickhill Road. His daughter was going from the tennis club – here – to where she lives down here in the Mearns.’ Costello’s finger darted from one side of the map to the other. ‘She would drive down Byres Road, past this branch of Waldo.’

  By now O’Hare was leaning in, looking. ‘Lars Lundeberg, the one who survived, is at Glasgow Uni and lives in student accommodation in…’ He spun his finger, locating a street. ‘There, Peel Street. He walks past Waldo to get to Uni.’

  ‘But it’s Christmas and he’s gone home – to Gothenburg not Peel Street. Somebody is supposed to be phoning me about him, or maybe they already have and nobody’s told me,’ said Costello, sulkily.

  ‘And Barbara Cummings worked in Rowanhill Library,’ O’Hare continued as if she had not spoken.

  ‘But lived on the south side,’ said Quinn, reading Mulholland’s notes. ‘Did she drive?’

  ‘Eyesight too bad, I would have thought. So, if she used public transport, that could put her on Byres Road as well.’

  ‘DI Anderson, go out and get somebody to check up on this. Find the next of kin and ask if the deceased ever took Headeze and where they did their shopping. Same with Duncan Thompson. He lived on Novar Drive. And Moira McCulloch, she’s out in Bearsden. Now, Anderson,’ prompted Quinn. ‘Do it now.’

  Anderson got up and threw Costello a quick look as he reached the door, not the time or the place, as Quinn and O’Hare looked at the street map.

  Costello broke the silence. ‘I’ve been trying to work out – is this product-tampering meant to hit Waldo supermarkets? If so, what’s the point? It can’t be blackmail, as we’ve had no demands.’

  ‘But the Poison Unit would have noticed a pattern if it was more widespread. We’ve put out a nationwide alert. No response. This seems local,’ said O’Hare. ‘Doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘So, what is the point?’ said DCI Quinn.

  ‘I think somebody is going to commit murder and get it put down to the tamperer while everyone is dropping like flies,’ Costello said urgently. ‘I mean, look at Sarah McGuire. Say she gave it to her dad meaning to kill him – mightn’t she take a little herself by way of a wee contingency plan in case we got too close? She would know to eat something to retard absorption. I remember you said it yourself, Prof – John Campbell had a thin stomach wall and he hadn’t eaten anything, so he died quickly. But on a full stomach, with a healthy stomach wall, absorption is slowed so you’re more likely to survive.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said O’Hare, with faint amusement.

  ‘Sarah was dead keen to find out how much of her inheritance is left undamaged. She inherits all three flats above her dad’s as well, you know…’

  ‘How hard was that smack on the head, Costello?’ asked Quinn, slowly.

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘I was worried you might be. Forget it. One step at a time. Check the availability of cyanide, check out all possible motives, the shop, the staff, the family, the friends, who knew who, whether there’s any interconnection between the families. All credit to the good professor for picking it up. Get the store to withdraw stock and put a warning in the press – something general; I don’t want a panic. Though with our track record, I hope we bloody nail it before anybody else dies. We’ll keep the countrywide alert on red, just in case this is only the fir
st tampering that has been picked up. It could be happening all over the place.’ She turned her gaze to Costello. ‘Please, Costello, just do what you are told, and report back to me. And don’t go off at any tangents. Do you understand?’

  Costello stood her ground. ‘At the risk of labouring the point, Sarah knew her Dad was getting headaches from being kept awake by the noisy tenants upstairs. Sooner or later he would take a Headeze. All Sarah had to do was tamper with a few boxes and give her dad one. If nobody notices the deaths are due to poison, so nobody asks for a toxicology report, well and good, she gets away with it. If somebody else is found to have died from the poison, there is absolutely no connection, and she still gets away with it. Her dad setting his house on fire is a fantastic stroke of luck, until I notice the smell. And even when we have a whole cluster of them, Sarah just has to point out she’s a victim as well, and guess what – she gets away with all of it. It’s ingenious. I could quite admire her if she wasn’t such a stuck-up cow.’

  O’Hare was gazing out the window at neutral ground, having no desire to get caught between these two. He was saved by Anderson knocking at the door.

  ‘We’ve got Wyngate on to it, ma’am; he’s good at this kind of thing,’ he said, taking the spare seat.

  ‘Glad somebody is.’ Quinn marked something in her diary, apparently ignoring Costello, who was breathing heavily after her outburst. ‘Oh, and DI Anderson – while you’re here – please don’t let members of the public wander round our investigation room unaccompanied.’

  ‘Who?’ he asked, confused at the sudden change of subject.

  ‘Tall woman, long dark coat. Ten minutes ago?’

  His lips tightened. ‘That was the Boss’s – DCI McAlpine’s – widow, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes, I know. She’s an artist, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not a member of Strathclyde police.’

  Anderson did not respond; he just looked Quinn straight in the face. It was her gaze which dropped first. ‘No, ma’am, but her husband was.’

  ‘Rebecca?’ said O’Hare. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder but she pulled away.

  Costello took advantage of Quinn’s fire being drawn elsewhere. ‘DCI Quinn? You told me Lewis gave you those notes. Did you ask her how she got them?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The information should have been given to me straight away.’ Quinn opened a drawer, attempting to end the conversation.

  Anderson stood up, ready to go; Costello did likewise but leaned lightly on Quinn’s desk, pulling herself up to her full five feet five. ‘But just for the record, those notes were actually on my person and were removed from my person when I was unconscious. In fact, they were removed from my handbag while I was waiting for confirmation of the facts,’ she emphasized. ‘So, a theft occurred while I was on an active enquiry, a theft of important information pertinent to that enquiry.’ Costello pulled her jacket round her. ‘You might like to think about that before I make a very public complaint.’

  ‘Are you threatening me, DS Costello?’ asked Quinn.

  ‘Yes, DCI Quinn. Goodbye,’ she said airily, and walked out the room. Anderson, following her, added a cheery goodbye of his own.

  Costello slammed the door of the locker room. A uniform, following her in, sensed trouble and did a prompt U-turn.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Mulholland who was examining his eyebrows in the mirror.

  ‘Do I look like I enjoy getting my arse ripped off by Quinn? You should have come to me with what Garrett told you, instead of leaving me standing there like a right fucking idiot.’

  ‘If those papers were important, you should have kept them safe.’

  ‘They were in my handbag.’

  ‘They were on the floor of the loo.’ Mulholland didn’t stop his preening. ‘Make your point, Costello, or leave me alone. Your big mistake was that you were sitting on information, and you got caught out.’

  ‘I fainted in the toilet.’

  ‘So, faint in the Incident Room in future.’

  ‘I was still on an active line of enquiry.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Mulholland flicked his fringe a few times with his fingers. ‘Maybe you could get away with that crap when you were McAlpine’s blue-eyed girl, but not now.’

  It was half past five and pitch dark when PC Smythe pulled up beside the railings outside number 3 Crown Avenue. He wasn’t due back on duty at Partick Central until much later but he’d found he couldn’t sleep. He’d read all the reports as they came in, and he’d heard a rumour that the Partickhill team was about to get bogged down in another investigation, something to do with product tampering. It was OK to say airports and ferries were being watched, but the truth was you didn’t have to smuggle a kid out of Scotland, most of the country was empty. But nothing justified the laid-back behaviour of some of the search team, thought Smythe. Searching was a boring, cold, relentless, unrewarding job. But it had to be done. He’d been told often enough that he was young and idealistic. But if two missing kids wasn’t something to get idealistic about, what was the point of the bloody job? One sloppy short cut could make the difference between life and death.

  He got out of his car and walked along the front of the terrace, then under a beautiful blond sandstone archway into the lane. He looked up, catching the gargoyles and angels in the beam of his torch. The lane was little used by cars. It had been grassy, with two indistinct tyre tracks that somebody had once tried to cover with stone chips. Now it was a patchwork of snow, ice, stone and moss. Smythe’s steps sounded hollow as he went into the darkness beyond, and he held his torch a little higher.

  Thirty yards or so in, the lane divided into three. He tried to orientate himself, swinging his torch from left to right in a wide sweep. The track to the left went along the back of Crown Drive; the other, to his right, would go up Crown Avenue. The third, nothing but a short-cut footpath worn by habitual but unofficial usage, disappeared into the darkness. His heart sank – how many more such little ways existed, gifts to any child abductor? Were any of these even on the search grid?

  He shone his torch along the side of the terrace, where the wall dropped to a height of ten feet or so. He couldn’t see any of the back courts from here so he continued on a good fifty yards, past an island of broken-down garages, their front doors hanging off, their roofs caved in. He shone his torch inside, over broken lawnmowers, old bedsteads, junk of every kind; an Aladdin’s cave to any kid.

  He was getting cold, the chill was eating into his bones, and he was unnerved by the sheer isolation of the place. He’d bet his bottom dollar this place wasn’t even on the search grid. He pulled out his mobile and photographed the garages; not a good image, but it was something to show, some proof.

  He turned his torch off and went back to his car, immediately turning the engine on and putting the heating up full blast, blowing on his hands to get his fingers working again. He looked up at the houses. Four storeys? Five, if they had a converted basement. Multiply that for the entire West End … And the evening search team were content to sit on their fat arses!

  He wished there was somebody on the case with a conscience, a detective with kids. He had heard about a Detective Inspector Colin Anderson.

  Smythe put the car in gear and drove up the hill towards Hyndland Road, and Partickhill Station.

  14

  Lynne had a quiet meal planned at Mother India, just her and Douglas. Douglas would come by taxi, carrying a big brown envelope so that even if Stella McCorkindale, his secretary, glanced out of her window at the wrong moment, it would look as if he were dropping off something important after their meeting.

  On her way home she ran through her routine. Eve was at her neurologist’s and his clinic always ran late. So, first Lynne would have a nice twenty minutes with her feet up and a cup of Earl Grey. Then she’d have a leisurely bath, shave her legs, tidy up her eyebrows and slather on the new luxury moisturizer from M&S. And her Clinique Aromatics that Eve hated.

>   She stood on the front doorstep for a few minutes, fantasizing about moments of stolen passion with Douglas. She slid the key into the lock. Her dreams evaporated.

  Eve was in. The smell of chips and curry welcomed her in the hall. Her bloody sister had got the taxi driver to pick up a takeaway on the way home. Lynne lowered the shopping bags gently to the floor, closing the door very slowly behind her, and tiptoed along the hall to find the door of her bedroom open. She always left it shut. Always. She looked at the pile of the carpet. It was perfectly regular, perfectly even, showing no wheelchair track marks.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice shouted, not from the study. Wherever she was, Eve sounded happy at least.

  ‘Yes. It’s me,’ Lynne said. ‘I’ll be through in a minute.’

  ‘You alone?’ The voice came from the back of the house.

  ‘Wish I was,’ she muttered. She picked up the shopping, and walked through to the kitchen, to find an empty tube of Pringles crunched up and tossed on the floor.

  She put the shopping on the worktop and walked round the corner to the dining room. Eve had covered the whole of the dining table with drawings and illustrations – pastels, watercolours, pen and inks – and, from the look of the mess on the carpet and on the table, she had been busy. She did not lift her head as Lynne entered, engrossed in examining picture after picture, each covered with a fine leaf of tissue paper, most of them going on a pile to her left, a few going on a pile to her right. The room was stiflingly hot. Lynne tutted quietly and walked over to the window, to put her hand on the radiator. It was up full blast.

  ‘Don’t open the window; it makes the paper flutter about.’

  ‘We need fresh air,’ said Lynne, noticing that her sister had on different trousers. So she had got changed on her own.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lynne asked, keeping her voice calm.

  ‘Looking for somebody I can resurrect. Expand my portfolio a bit. I’m not spending my whole career being famous for a bloody midge – sorry, Squidgy.’

  Squidgy, squatting at the top of the table, ignored her.