Singing to the Dead

by Caro Ramsay

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Colin,’ Littlewood gasped. ‘Gie’s a break.’

  ‘Sorry, pal.’ Anderson watched the blood forge a tortuous path from Littlewood’s left nostril.

  They stood on the cemetery path, gasping, hands on hips, both exhausted. The moon moved out from behind a cloud, bathing the gravestones with an eerie blue light.

  A wry smile crossed Anderson’s face. ‘Good, though.’

  ‘Well, a wee slap in the face wasn’t gonnae stop you, pal. And it gets better,’ Littlewood smiled back. ‘We might have a lead. And here’s your bloody phone. You’re going to need it.’

  28

  Why didn’t Troy push the rat away? It was sitting on his foot, where the skin was black and breaking, pulling at his flesh, tugging it so hard Troy’s leg twitched like he was trying to kick it off. But the rat held on.

  Luca took off his shoe and threw it. The rat bristled its whiskers, turned and darted away, taking its scaly tail with it as an afterthought.

  Troy had not moved. He was lying still under his blanket, and the smell from his leg was getting stronger. Luca’s cheek was bleeding where the rat had bitten him; a dark smear of blood came off on his fingertip when he touched it. Luca was getting more than a little cross. He wanted out of here and he wanted Troy to come with him. But Troy was lying curled up like a baby, his face to the wall, so that all Luca could see of him was his back. Luca crawled over and tapped him on the shoulder. There was no response. Luca pushed him harder, and his head moved from side to side like an old teddy bear’s. The smell was worse the nearer he got, so Luca held his nose as he whispered in Troy’s ear, pulling and tugging at his fleece. But he wouldn’t wake up. Luca started to cry. He didn’t know what to do. He’d thought his mum would have come to get him by now, but she hadn’t.

  He was beginning to feel very, very alone.

  He lay down beside Troy, stealing the edge of the duvet, and worked his way underneath, pulling it tight around him, hiding. Troy was left with no cover, but he didn’t move, he didn’t seem to mind. Through the high window, he could just about see the sky, little spirals of snow dancing their way down. He began to sing. He sang the Christmas songs he had learned at school, songs about angels and stars and snow. If his mum didn’t come, maybe an angel would come instead.

  Anderson knocked on the door once and then again, without giving time for a response. It was three o’clock in the morning, it was minus six degrees, Glasgow lay under a duvet of snow and Anderson didn’t have a coat on. Yet the sweat was running off him. He rattled the handle of the storm doors, looking up at them, judging their weight and strength, ready to kick them in if necessary.

  ‘She’s a good copper, Costello, isn’t she?’ The words clouded from Littlewood’s mouth in the cold air. ‘She won’t be wrong. Even if we don’t know what she’s right about. But she says we need to talk to this Frances.’

  ‘Do we think Mulholland has been feeding her information? Surely not, surely he’s better than that.’

  ‘We just want to talk to her, Colin,’ said Littlewood. He wasn’t going to tell Colin how far Costello’s thoughts had got. They would know soon enough. He fingered the hinges to see if the strength had been rusted out of them yet. ‘I’ll take a crowbar to those, if need be.’

  Anderson stood back, looking up at the four storeys of the tenement. Absurdly, his mind went back to his days on the desk, people phoning up in panic: Police, please. Yes, where are you? At home. Yes, where do you live? I can’t remember. He had not understood it then but he could understand it now.

  Littlewood said, taking charge, his voice determined, ‘You stay here, and I’ll look round the back. If she opens the door, if anybody opens the door, just get in there. And keep her talking.’

  The sound of the traffic on Hyndland Road was muffled by the buildings. But Anderson, alone now in the dark in Beaumont Place, shrouded in uncertainty, was glad of it, finding a comforting reminder that life was still going on somewhere. He peered in through the letter box, seeing nothing in the darkness. He felt for his pencil torch, then swore. It was in the pocket of his jacket, back at the station. The letter box snapped shut as he turned to get the big torch from his car, and he swore a second time. They’d come in Littlewood’s old Sierra.

  He bent down to the letter box again, squinting, waiting for his eyes to adjust. A glass door, the glass heavily patterned, the wooden surround covered in white flaking paint. He could see nothing beyond the inner door at all. Just darkness. Nobody home. He flicked the brass cover of the letter box up, jamming his forehead against the frame, looking down as far as he could. He could see envelopes, and the edge of a newspaper that had fanned open as it fell. Not enough to tell if it was a build-up of mail for a day or a week. Littlewood had told him they had not spoken to Vik about this. The date-stamped image of Frances Coia walking across the screen at 7.20 p.m., her long coat swinging behind her, was imprinted on Anderson’s sleep-starved brain. So too was the grainy image of Peter, just a minute ahead of her. The memory sparked a chilling flame deep within him, and his heart grew colder. They had met, Frances and Peter, at the Christmas Fair. Frances had given Peter the goldfish and they had been playing – doing a little pat-a-cake game while he talked to Mulholland. Peter would have remembered, and in the dark car park, confused and not able to see where his mother had gone, he would have been happy to see someone he knew. Hello, Peter, do you remember me? Have you lost your mum…? And, trustingly, Peter would have taken Frances’s hand.

  That was why Littlewood had not said anything to Vik.

  Anderson took a deep breath, and let the letter box snap shut, the pain in his ribs starting to dig at him. The narrow front garden, six feet below the level of the heavily curtained window, was overgrown with thistles, and he could see a milk crate, a few bricks and a car tyre. He could not see a light anywhere. He jumped down into the garden and pulled the milk crate towards the wall, stamping down the under-growth, his frustration relieved by physical activity. He set the crate against the wall, put one foot on it, then took his weight on his elbows on the mossy window ledge; there wasn’t a crack in the curtain, not in the entire window. His eyes scanned the six glass panels, all with white paint flaking off the frames. Beyond the glass there was darkness and silence, and in the glass itself his own distorted reflection. He was looking into an abyss, and it was staring right back at him.

  The house wasn’t letting go of its secrets.

  Colin Anderson stood back down into the garden, and the sudden twist of his body pulled his fractured rib. The pain was excruciating – it brought tears to his eyes – and, when he started crying, he found he could not stop. Peter could be in there, right now, and he couldn’t even think what to do.

  He looked up the length of the street, all brick walls, closed doors and curtained windows. A car turned into the street, and the growling of its engine was comforting. It slowed as it passed him, and he hoped it was looking for a place to park. Maybe he could ask about Frances? About what went on in number 42? He watched as the car drove on, speeding up round the arc of the road – what now? He couldn’t, wouldn’t, walk away from here. Costello had been so sure.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said into the night air. Then he heard the sound of footsteps, and his heartbeat quickened. Littlewood was walking up the road, head up purposefully. ‘Follow me,’ he said, breathing hard, and turned back into the lane between the tenements.

  ‘Jesus.’ Anderson was almost running to keep up with the big man.

  ‘Three fences, two backyards. The one-door flats have basements.’

  ‘A basement? We can get into the basement?’ asked Anderson.

  ‘Not legally, but Quinn isn’t going to make a fuss over our justifiable entry.’ He patted Anderson on the shoulder. Littlewood broke the rules as easy as cracking eggs, but Anderson was putting his career on the line and it did not come easy to him.

  They climbed over a set of pre-war green palings, and padded across a concrete yard with a collection of w
heelie bins in the middle. The huge creeper in the backyard veined the sandstone with snow. ‘If necessary we’ll kick the fucking door in, but I heard something, I’m sure of it.’ Littlewood pulled the wire of the next fence down, helping Anderson across. A rat, disturbed from its nest, scurried along the wall.

  ‘You hear that?’

  ‘Hear what? Rats?’

  ‘Noises. Come on, shift your arse.’ This next court was paved, with small trees in containers, all pruned and trussed up for the winter.

  ‘Did I hear what?’ repeated Anderson, grasping Littlewood by the arm.

  ‘Come on.’ Another set of green palings, four feet high, and Anderson heard his shirt rip a second time as he went over. ‘Here,’ said Littlewood. The back of the tenement was dark and austere, dotted irregularly with small windows and desiccated window boxes, greyed with years of pollution. Littlewood walked past the door of the close. ‘Down here.’ He crouched down, pointing. ‘This is the back of number 42, and this is the basement to the main-door flat.’

  ‘No way in through there?’

  ‘No chance. But, Col, look here.’

  There was a long window at ground level, and beyond it the basement of the house dipping into darkness. The window was broken in one corner, the glass cracked but still hanging in its wooden frame. Anderson knelt down beside Littlewood, leaning on the foot-high ornamental railing that bordered the area below, a drop of twelve feet, its slabs littered with lager cans and rubbish. Littlewood raised his hand to his mouth, signalling that Anderson should keep quiet. They both crouched in silence but heard nothing.

  Both listened intently. In the still air, something small ran across the court in among the bins. ‘What was that?’ Anderson said, startled.

  ‘Fox?’ Littlewood mumbled. ‘Listen again.’

  Both men leaned forward over the dark void, peering at the grimy frosted glass where a faint glow was just visible, as if looking harder would tell them what they were hearing, or if they were hearing anything at all. Littlewood caught Anderson’s eye for a second, and neither of them breathed.

  It was so faint they could hardly hear it, just a gentle stream of whispered words to no particular tune.

  ‘That is the sound of a sick person, a child, so we have reasonable cause to go in,’ declared Littlewood. He reached across the drop and worked his gloved index finger behind the piece of broken glass, stubby fingers moving delicately and carefully even though he was working at arm’s length, until he could flick the broken piece outwards. It fell and shattered in the well of the area.

  He leaned into the darkness, craning his neck to see through the hole.

  ‘You see anything? Please say you see something,’ said Anderson, holding back the tears.

  ‘Too dark,’ Littlewood grunted. The noise was still there, like a mermaid trying to breathe air. Littlewood reached back into the jagged gap, taking the glass between thumb and forefinger, moving it this way and that, trying to manoeuvre it out. ‘I’m trying not to let any of the glass go inward; it’s heavy, it could kill from this height.’ He was talking to calm Anderson more than anything else. The pane of glass remained firm within the frame. Littlewood pulled his glove tight at the wrist then tugged his coat sleeve down over his hand, and shuffled forward on his knees, gaining a few more inches’ reach. ‘On the other hand, we’ll just have to trust no one’s right under the window.’ He thumped the glass, once, twice, three times before it came away. Shards of glass spiralled into the darkness below and lay there, glinting like diamonds.

  The formless singing stopped. The silence was absolute. Then a little plaintive voice deep within the darkness said, ‘Mum?’

  As they got to their feet, they heard footsteps approaching across the backyards.

  ‘Oi! Police!’

  ‘Police, is it?’ Littlewood muttered.

  Two uniformed officers were climbing the second fence. Littlewood held out his warrant card at arm’s length.

  ‘Police here too. DS Littlewood, Partickhill, and DI Anderson.’ He peered at the other two officers. ‘Burns, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ came a doubtful whisper. ‘Smythe’s here.’

  ‘Right, get back to the car, get a torch. Then get that front door kicked in. And get a fucking move on!’

  The two figures hurried back the way they had come, a patchwork of brightness illuminating the way as lights were switched on in the flats above. When Littlewood got back to the window, Anderson was balancing on the parapet, trying to reach the window ledge with his foot without falling to the slabs twelve feet below.

  ‘Get round the front, Colin. They need you round the front.’

  ‘Not leaving here. I can get in.’

  ‘Not without breaking your fucking neck, you can’t. Now get round the front.’

  But Anderson knelt down again, peering through the broken glass.

  More footsteps, confused chatter, a radio’s static interference, all sounded across the back court. Two figures were moving quickly in the darkness, guided by the beam of a torch. It was Lewis and Wyngate. Lewis had picked up the alert at the station, and where Lewis went Wyngate had to follow.

  ‘Give us that torch, Wingnut,’ Littlewood said as the constable just managed to clamber over the final fence. He took it and handed it to Anderson, who knelt down aiming the beam through the hole in the glass.

  ‘Any luck?’ whispered Lewis. ‘Is it Peter?’

  ‘Bloody hope so,’ Littlewood growled. ‘And I hope you left Mulholland back at the ranch.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Lewis. ‘He’s round the front.’ She about-turned and headed off.

  ‘Fuckwit,’ Littlewood grunted.

  Anderson was very quiet; the torch had stopped moving. ‘Peter?’ he called.

  In the beam of the torchlight a little blond boy lay on the edge of a mattress, curled up like a baby, his face to the wall.

  29

  It took four interminable minutes to batter the storm doors open. There was no response to the light switch as they entered the dingy hall and pushed over the mannequin that stood in their way. The tambourine it held spun and clattered to the floor, jangling tunelessly.

  ‘Wyngate, get after Colin, just in case,’ said Littlewood, as Anderson pushed past him.

  Anderson ran to open the old door at the back of the hall, and nearly fell through a hole in the floor where the floorboards had rotted and given way to the joists below. It stank of damp. He shot back into the hall and tried the next one. This door was different, new, with a single key in a fresh aluminium lock. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, and almost fell headlong down the narrow stone steps beyond. He crashed into the wall as the stairwell turned sharply, then again, then down into another hall. Two more doors, both closed. He pushed one door, it did not budge. He stood back and took a well-aimed kick, ignoring the screaming pain from his ribs, and was through in a second, Wyngate right behind him.

  The floor moved beneath them as the rats ran, as one, for cover, changing direction like a shoal of black tetras. Anderson reached for the little body wrapped in its blanket, and sank to his knees, cradling the boy to his chest, repeating Peter’s name over and over. He held the boy’s face, disfigured and swollen, to his own, and buried his face deep in the boy’s hair, holding him so tightly to his chest that Wyngate had to force them apart.

  Then Anderson sat back and looked, slowly taking in the inert weight, the lack of response, the lack of breathing. ‘Oh no, no, no…’

  The hem of the boy’s legging was pulled tight around the puffy flesh of his ankle. The skin was blackened and cracking, bleeding edges serrated by rodent teeth to reveal pink flesh underneath. Anderson looked up at Wyngate who was standing over him. ‘He’s dead, he’s dead,’ he said, blinded by tears. He would have stood up, except for the weight of Wyngate’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, he’s dead. But, Colin?’ Wyngate said gently. ‘Since when did Peter have a gold earring? It’s not him.’

  Littlewood was on his
mobile at the top of the stairs, shouting for back-up, for an ambulance. Lewis had found another boy in the same room. It was Luca – she had seen photos of that face often enough – and he was frozen. But at least he was breathing, a slow raspy breath that stuttered on inhalation, and asking for his mum. She had removed her police jacket and wrapped it round the boy and herself, holding him close in an effort to transfer warmth from her body to his.

  Irvine and Mulholland hurried past Littlewood in the dark, torches flashing, but he was paying no attention. ‘Get Quinn down here,’ he snapped down his phone. ‘Now!’ As the siren of the ambulance approached, he did a quick headcount, putting Burns on the door until they could get the tape up. ‘That’s Costello’s Toyota pulling up; let her in, but nobody else. Give the paramedics some room. And whatever you do, don’t let Mulholland in here.’

  ‘Vik Mulholland?’ asked Burns. ‘He went past just a minute ago.’

  Mulholland pushed the door carefully. Like the rest of the flat, the living room was in darkness. The huge velvet curtains cut off every remnant of light and shadow, and everything was pitch black except for the blue flashing lights of the cars, strobing outside. He didn’t speak to anybody, and nobody spoke to him. Nobody was thinking about Frances. Yet if somebody had done this to those children – locked them in that damp freezing basement – what had they done to Frances? The room was chilly, and the only sign of life was a gentle hum from the TV or the video. He scanned the room, his eyes gradually adjusting to make out the big chair and the red settee. All the time his heart was thumping – there was some mistake here. Where was Frances? What had happened to her?

  He went back out into the hall, which was still pulsing with blue light. He looked in what passed for a kitchen; nothing there, except he imagined he could still smell their curry heating up in the oven.

  In the hall, he picked up the tambourine that had been knocked from the mannequin’s hand. Somebody had stood on it and dented a few of the jingles. As he looked in the bathroom, the tambourine accompanied him with its tinkling rattle. The bathroom smelled vaguely of apple shampoo, and some of Frances’s clothes – the big black dressing gown, a pair of black jeans – were hung up on the back of the door. He went back into the hall, comforted, and opened the next door along, pausing as two paramedics passed with a folded stretcher. He went through the small blue door with the flaky paint, into the bedroom he knew, the bedroom he had spent a few very pleasurable nights in. He closed the door behind him, completely shutting off all the clattering and banging going on outside. The bed was tidily made – he remembered making it himself what felt like a lifetime ago, and it didn’t look as if it had been slept in since. And the air was freezing; nobody had been here for some time. So, where was Frances? What danger was she in?