Singing to the Dead

by Caro Ramsay

  Everybody turned to Irvine, who went very red.

  ‘But these things are tamper-proof, surely,’ said Anderson, turning away from the window. ‘This isn’t the first scare like this. Tylenol? The baby food tampering?’

  ‘One thing this is not is a scare, DI Anderson.’ DCI Quinn snapped. ‘Malicious product tampering is terrorism. It involves lots of innocent victims. And it only takes one bozo to get lucky once, don’t forget that. Costello and Lewis, I want you to follow the cyanide once Mulholland gets his information clarified.’ The team looked at each other, immediately wrong-footed. ‘Problems? No? Good! Costello, you’ve been quiet for too long. Have you anything else to add?’

  Undeterred by the note of sarcasm in Quinn’s voice, Costello seized the moment. ‘DI Anderson is right – these should be tamper-proof,’ she said. ‘But I spent some time yesterday figuring out what I would do if I were a tamperer. Shall I show you?’ Everyone crowded round, happy to witness something concrete. She pulled out the pack of painkillers Agnes had given her. ‘So, the tamperer buys two boxes, takes them home, peels off the safety tab with a razor blade, and removes the bubble pack.’

  She then, to an engrossed audience, demonstrated how to lift the foil from the plastic strip. She tipped the red and white capsule into her hand, where she pulled it apart, spilling the white powder into the cup of her palm. ‘I had a go at re-filling a capsule with salt in the canteen, and it was almost impossible to get the two halves back together without creating a dent or squashing the edge. But if you warm one in the palm of your hand, and put the other half in the fridge, it’s a lot easier. After that, all you do is reverse the process to package it up again. And do some inverse shoplifting. And…’ Costello hurried on as though afraid someone would interrupt her, ‘… Karen McGuire was doing a history project on the fall of the Third Reich. The Nazis used cyanide as a method of suicide, and there were books about the war in the house. That makes me very suspicious of that family.’

  ‘So, is the mother on the suspect list for definite?’ asked Anderson, looking at his notes. ‘Bloody stupid of her to take it herself.’

  ‘If you crunch a whole capsule between your teeth, death is quite quick,’ Costello repeated patiently. ‘But if you take a smaller dose on a full stomach, absorption is slower. She knew her daughter was in the house, she knew she was safe.’

  ‘So,’ said Quinn, taking the floor again, ‘if you are right, do we think the others were killed at random to sidetrack us?’

  ‘Could be. But I’d say the money motive is too compelling to pass over,’ said Costello with conviction. ‘Sarah is dead keen to find out how much of her inheritance is left undamaged. She inherits all four flats, you know…’

  ‘Costello,’ Quinn cut in. ‘Just watch your attitude. Not every lady who lunches is a patricidal sociopath.’

  ‘I’m serious!’

  ‘That’s what worries me.’

  A nervous-looking Gail Irvine crept over with the bagged and tagged Headeze from Sarah McGuire’s house. Quinn gave the package a cursory glance and passed it back to be sent to Forensics. She looked tired, almost defeated, then she took a deep breath and tapped her pen in the palm of her hand. ‘But if money really is the motive here, don’t let us forget Waldo’s management team; who is in financial difficulty, whose ex-wife is in debt…? We’ll put Irvine on that. Whatever dirt you can find, Irvine, dig it out.’ Quinn straightened, and her voice became brisk once more. ‘Right, we’ll run with both these: the targeting of Waldo by those unknown, and the possibility that someone – possibly Sarah McGuire…’ she nodded some kind of well done at Costello, ‘… but possibly someone else, is attempting to hide one murder among several.’

  ‘What about video footage?’ asked Anderson. ‘Any from the store?’

  ‘Only folk buying their groceries,’ said Quinn. She dusted one hand against the other. ‘Might be worth another look once we have a suspect we can recognize.’

  Lewis had been fiddling with some tablets of her own. ‘Look at my Piriton; it’s impossible to tamper with this.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be all right then, won’t you?’ Costello muttered. ‘Pity.’

  ‘Fuckin’ child molesters, should be strung up by the balls,’ Littlewood grunted as he bumped into Anderson’s desk for the third time.

  He was not a quick-witted man. He was an old-school detective, big and brusque, and being kept at the station made him feel caged. He was pacing up and down, muttering obscenities and scratching every part of his anatomy.

  Anderson got the feeling Littlewood was hanging around for a reason, but he could wait. His phone rang, showing his home number; he ignored it. ‘If you have to keep fiddling with yourself, could you go and do it somewhere else? I can do without the distraction. Can you believe this – Quinn has just detailed me to find some staff to go through the hundreds of crank calls we are about to receive because word has got out about that bastard O’Neill putting up £100,000 reward money for information leading to the safe return of these boys. £50,000 each! And now – can you believe this – I am supposed to go up there and say thanks to the nice man.’

  Littlewood stopped pacing. ‘It’s not been confirmed, so who put the word out? I thought we’d put the brakes on that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t put it past his PR people to leak it. It’ll look really bad if HQ doesn’t allow it. Rumour of a fiver is enough to get some folk selling their granny.’

  Littlewood leaned over Anderson’s desk, gnarled nicotine-stained fingers splayed wide. ‘So, you’re going out to see Rogan O’Neill today,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I just said so, didn’t I?’

  ‘You and Costello are going to keep him sweet so he’ll stay in line about the reward.’ Littlewood leaned over, talking right in Anderson’s ear. ‘And you’ve to give him a big thank you for the security for this afternoon.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘It’s my business to know.’

  Anderson could smell the stale tobacco on his skin, see the nicotine-stained hairs in his nose. ‘And? Spill, Littlewood, I’m not daft.’

  ‘Officially, he’s just doing an appeal, and donating money to the cause. Unofficially, I have a plan of my own.’ Littlewood shrugged. ‘Costello, come here, will you? I want you to ask O’Neill when he got here – and find out when his crew arrived.’

  She came over, and folded her arms sulkily when he told her where she and Anderson were going.

  ‘If you meet her, the blonde twiglet, make friends and be nice,’ said Littlewood.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it. Do the casual chit chat. Find out who’s with them and why, find out whether Rogan carries the same crew – sound engineers, roadies – with him all the time, especially Dec Slater and Jinky Jones. Be nice to him too – good cop, inquisitive cop, act infatuated, flatter him – you know how to do that.’

  ‘I’ll tell him I was his tambourine girl once.’ She ignored Anderson’s wry smirk. ‘More than once, actually. Oh, yes! I was plucked from the audience and sat on his chair and serenaded.’

  ‘By a bald aging sex machine? I thought that whole tambourine thing was a ploy to get into the knickers of the best-looking chick in the audience,’ growled Littlewood. ‘And you were the best he could do?’

  Costello smiled a saccharine smile.

  Anderson raised his eyebrows. ‘So, what does it mean, that bloody song? The best bit is that husky “Goodnight”. I’ve heard it twice at funerals… puts a tingle down my spine every time.’

  ‘What I want to know, Costello,’ said Littlewood, leaning across the desk, ‘is – did you shag him as well?’

  ‘Well, you’ll never know the answer to that, will you?’ said Costello. And she turned away, humming: Say hello to the tambourine girl.

  Walking into the Glasgow Hilton, Colin Anderson realized he was angry – angry at Lewis and Irvine, angry at Quinn, at the job, at Brenda. Angry at Santa and the season of goodwill. He and Costello had walked round to Rogan
’s hotel from the station, the roads being closed due to the fair and Rogan’s personal appearance. He was relieved he had Costello with him. She was happy to walk in silence; she didn’t need to yabber on all the time. Anderson thanked God he hadn’t been sent out with Kate Lewis; he would have strangled her by now.

  Just before they walked into the hotel foyer he said, ‘Do something for me, Costello? Brenda’s busy, and Helena offered to pick up Peter and take him to the fair. Could you ring her and say I’m taking her up on it? Voice an opinion and you’re dead.’

  ‘Fine, boss,’ said Costello, barely concealing an impish smirk.

  In the lift, they stood in silence, watching the green light climb up the floors. Costello waited until the lift door slid open. ‘Colin? Is that a CD in your pocket or are you just pleased to see Rogan?’

  ‘Leave it,’ said Anderson out of the side of his mouth as they both showed their warrant cards to the beautifully groomed receptionist.

  Anderson straightened his tie, and patted the jacket pocket that held the Rogan O’Neill’s Greatest Hits CD set Vik Mulholland had given him for Rogan to sign. Vik had been seriously annoyed when he heard about the interview, and that he wasn’t going.

  Costello had imagined Rogan O’Neill dark and tanned, greying a little at the temples, walking around his luxury suite in the Hilton wearing a thick white towelling robe, with hot and cold running champagne on tap. Instead, he was sitting in an armchair wearing a blue crumpled tracksuit and eating an orange, his white stubby thumbs waggling the segments apart. His single earring, the star-shaped pinkie ring, the gold chain round his neck, were the same as always, and although he was starting to look his age, whatever age he was, he was still desperately handsome.

  ‘Oh heck, it’s the polis,’ he said in broad Glaswegian, genuinely pleased to see them because he was so bored. And he seemed to be having trouble with his podiatrist, who was balancing his foot on a small surgical plinth.

  ‘If it’s a bad time, we’ll wait outside,’ said Costello, somehow uncomfortable with the idea of interviewing her hero while he got his toenails cut.

  The podiatrist, kneeling at Rogan’s feet, held up a scalpel and steadied the sole of his foot in a latex-gloved hand. She glared at him. ‘Stay still!’

  ‘You two have a wee seat and watch. This silly bint is trying to slice my toes off and if she’s going to commit grievous bodily, I want witnesses.’

  The podiatrist rolled her eyes in Costello’s direction. ‘If I was at all humanitarian, it would be your vocal cords I’d slice.’

  Rogan pointed at her. ‘You keep your eyes on the job, hen. I have to use my toes to count, you know.’

  ‘I remember,’ said the podiatrist. ‘I was at school with you.’

  Rogan shoved a segment of orange in his mouth sideways and pulled his lips back in an orange smile. ‘Bloody ages since anybody even half interesting came to talk to me.’

  ‘Cheers,’ replied the podiatrist, with the gentle sarcasm of an old friend.

  Costello had never been in the main suite in the Hilton, with its leather settees and huge white curtains that cascaded to the floor. Matching Osprey luggage was strewn everywhere, trunks and cases and bags, most of them open and rummaged through. In the corner stood a computer, the only thing in the room that was set up with any degree of permanence.

  ‘Two things I wanted to say,’ Rogan announced, getting straight down to business. ‘One: I’m putting up a reward about these two missing kids – a reward for each, for their safe return.’

  ‘While we are grateful,’ said Anderson carefully, ‘it’s not always a help. It can bring a lot of pranksters and timewasters out the woodwork. And there are rules, regulations…’

  ‘Fuck ’em. It’ll help, and it’s a done deal officially now. You’re the first to know. My secretary got a fax from Stewart Street.’

  Anderson looked nonplussed. ‘So, excuse me for asking, did your publicity machine leak it before that? Just to get the jump on it?’

  Rogan shook his head. ‘No, but if it hadn’t been agreed, I would have gone public with it anyway. Looks like one of your lot blabbed,’ he added in mock innocence.

  ‘Seems so, since the press are aware of it.’

  ‘Well they’re not aware of the fact I’ll double it if another kid goes missing. Money is the only language some folk speak.’ Rogan looked at him, carefully. ‘Sorry, son, didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘DI Anderson.’

  ‘We didn’t have coppers like you when I was a wee lad. They were big blokes, took you up a close and kicked yer arse, told yer dad, and if you were really unlucky they told yer mam and ye got yer arse kicked again. Anyway, you can put up with a few timewasters if it gets the kids back a bit quicker. Somebody knows where these wee guys are, and the amount I’ll put up will entice them out, believe me, pal. And two: I’m opening this thing at the school later. See that bit of paper over there?’ Costello got up and picked up from the walnut sideboard some sheets of A4, headed Arm-Strong Security. ‘Just thought I’d let the police know what security I was bringing with me.’

  ‘Surely all this was cleared with the community police when you agreed to open the fair?’ asked Costello.

  ‘That was then, this is now. I’m offering to foot the bill for a whole load of extras. That wee midgie guy is coming along, isn’t he?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘That’ll draw the kids. And I’m not having any more taken. Do you know, they’ve a three-foot midge on the front of the first relief truck, so instead of switching on the Christmas lights, I’m turning on a midge… not a sexual experience I’ve had in the past.’ He paused, looking at Costello as if he’d just noticed her. ‘Do I know you from somewhere, pet?’ he asked.

  ‘I was a fan in the old days,’ said Costello, sneaking a look at the floor plan. ‘This is very generous of you, Mr O’Neill. Security like this is not cheap.’ She didn’t know a lot about it but it looked comprehensive.

  ‘Ma pals call me Rogue. No probs; I know how short-staffed you guys are with this illness and it being Christmas an’ all. Where you from, hen?’ he asked Costello.

  ‘Cardonald,’ said Costello.

  ‘And you were a fan, you say?’

  ‘I’ve still got the video of the Blackfriars concert.’

  ‘Remind me?’ said Rogan, circling his forefinger in the air.

  ‘It was filmed by one of your fans. You might remember him – he was a crazy guy who turned from heroin to being a Jehovah’s Witness in a week. He asked you not to swear during your set.’

  ‘And then went on to sell double glazing?’

  ‘That’s him,’ agreed Costello.

  ‘Aye, ah know who you mean, hen. He used to copy the videos and flog them for a couple of quid. He gave us the dosh – we needed it in those days.’

  ‘I know, I had to buy it, four times over. Lucky me,’ said the podiatrist dryly.

  Rogan looked at Costello, as if seeing her in a new light. ‘Were you one of my tambourine girls?’ he asked her, smiling flirtatiously.

  Anderson smirked.

  ‘Yes, I was.’ She coloured slightly.

  ‘One of the onstage ones, or one of the ones in the back of the van?’ Rogan laughed. ‘Don’t answer that – we only chose the lookers,’ he informed Anderson. ‘You know, I never think of them as having grown up.’

  ‘I was only sixteen at the time, if that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have bothered him,’ said the podiatrist. ‘He only takes women from the audience who are half his age – well, a third his age these days, even a quarter if he’s in some American states.’ The podiatrist had a wee smile to herself.

  Rogan winked at Costello. ‘Well, you must have been a stunner in your day, hen.’ He turned to Anderson. ‘And that’s the problem; they come out the woodwork twenty years later and spill to the tabloids.’ He brandished a newspaper with a blaring headline: My three-in-a-bed romp with Rogue. Rogan glanced at it again and looked pleased.

 
Costello dived in, scenting revenge. ‘Oh, DI Anderson has a CD for you to sign. For a friend.’

  Rogan reached into his pocket for a pen. ‘Which one is it you have, son?’

  DI Colin Anderson blushed at being called son again. ‘Your gift-boxed CD collection. And it’s not for a friend, it’s for a colleague’s girlfriend. Could you sign it “To Fran”?’

  ‘Aye, nae probs. Is she good-looking?’

  ‘Just remember, Rogue, you’re supposed to be a sensible father now. You’re saving kids these days, not shagging them,’ said the podiatrist. ‘Despite what it says in the papers.’

  ‘Wish I had the bloody energy. Have you taken a trip down to Cardonald recently…? Sorry, pet, what was your name?’

  ‘Costello.’

  ‘You have a first name?’ Rogan winked winningly.

  ‘Detective Sergeant.’ She winked back, and refused to look at Anderson. She was glad when the door from the adjoining room opened.

  Even with her face devoid of make-up and her hair pulled back into a scrunchie, spiking like a blonde cactus, Lauren McCrae was stunning.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, her broad smile showing incredibly white and even teeth. Anderson nearly fell off his seat, and even Costello found it difficult to keep her eyes off her.

  ‘Get some drinks out the cabinet there, sweetheart,’ Rogan ordered. ‘I’ll have a lager.’

  ‘Honey, you’re doing an appearance later. You can have a Coke.’

  Rogan ignored that. ‘Oh, and put it in a glass for me.’

  ‘What did your last slave die of?’ asked the podiatrist.

  ‘Blood poisoning, and you watch what you’re doing with that scalpel.’

  ‘Oh, honey, you just be quiet now.’ The honey-dripped Canadian voice was gentle.

  ‘So how do you find Scotland, Miss McCrae?’ asked Anderson.

  ‘She got off the fucking plane and there it was! Jesus, you polis can be thick.’

  ‘I’m finding Scot Land just fine,’ Lauren put in smoothly. ‘It’s maybe a little rainy, but I guess it’s fine.’ She shot a look at Costello, smiled shyly and looked away.