by Ed James
Another door led off the room. "Your turn," said Cullen to Murray while pointing at it.
Murray sighed and opened the door with his baton. He entered the room and Cullen followed him closely. It was colder in there than in the other rooms. The lights didn't work, so Murray pulled out a torch. He flashed the beam around the room - Cullen quickly realised that it was a staff room. There were coat racks, lockers, some seats, a kitchen area and a kettle. Murray's torch caught a dark shape on a cursory scan.
"There," said Cullen, "middle of the floor."
Murray shone the light on the patch of floor. There was a sleeping bag in the middle of the floor. "Shite," said Murray.
Cullen went over to the windows and ran his fingers down the side of the boards. The second one he came upon wasn't particularly well attached. He easily managed to get it off the window, letting light into the room. The glass in the window behind had all been removed - Cullen figured it would make the most logical entrance into the building, given that the front door was locked. He could see the ring of police officers around the building. The one that Lamb had addressed as Sandy was closest to him, looking in at the building. He called over at him - Sandy raised his hand.
"Have you seen anyone come out of here?" shouted Cullen.
"I would have called if I had," replied Sandy.
Cullen muttered to himself. He turned and looked at the sleeping bag - Murray was crouched down and scanning his torch all over it. He slipped a pair of rubber gloves on and started prodding at it with his baton, then started touching it with his gloved fingers. "It's cold," he said.
"So we've not just missed him," said Cullen.
"Well, can't say either way," said Murray, "but he's not been sleeping in it in the last half an hour."
Cullen had another good look around the room. He went over to the lockers. The doors were all open. He looked through every single one - all empty. There were no other doors in the room.
"Were there any other rooms next door?" asked Cullen.
"There should be, aye," said Murray. "I'd expect a stock room at the very least."
"Come on," said Cullen. "We can get forensics in here."
They went back through the kitchen into the main room. Lamb still stood guard at the far end. "You found him yet?" he asked.
"Not yet," said Cullen. "Give us another five minutes."
"Fine."
Along the side wall were several dining tables, the tops were cracked and scarred. At the far end was a door, blocked by the tables. Cullen headed over and started moving tables, eventually getting to the door. He got his pepper spray out and looked at Murray.
"Ready?" asked Cullen.
"When you are."
Cullen pulled the door open. The room absolutely stank. Cullen pocketed the spray and covered his mouth with a hanky. "Get that torch out again," he said.
Murray shone the torch into the room. It was the stock room that Murray had mentioned earlier. It looked to Cullen like nobody had bothered to clear it when the place shut. The floor was covered in a thick goo. There were two large chest freezers, looking and sounding like they were switched off. There were no doors or windows in the walls.
"That is fucking rank," said Murray.
"I bet the power on the freezers went off when the building was shut," said Cullen. "Different circuit to the lights. And I bet that the freezers weren't empty when it was turned off."
"Come on, let's go," said Murray.
"You're kidding," said Cullen. "We'll get a pasting from Lamb and Webster if we don't check the freezers. Perfect hiding place."
"Fine," said Murray, "but you'd have to be really fucking desperate to climb inside that."
Cullen turned around and got one of the smaller tables. It was long and narrower than the doorway. He pushed it in the room - if he climbed on it, he could just about reach both freezers with his baton. He got up on top of it and inched his way along. He opened the first freezer - it was empty, but it emitted a raw stench. He let the lid fall down again.
He moved along to the end of the table and reached out with the baton - it was quite a stretch and he struggled to get a good grip of the handle. He looked down at the floor, covered with God knows what. Eventually, he managed to budge the lid. The stench in the room increased dramatically - the freezer was full of something. Cullen didn't even want to think what, but it didn't look like Paddy Kavanagh. He let the lid down again and went back to the main room.
"Well?" asked Murray.
"The far away freezer has something in it," said Cullen, "but I'll be buggered if I'm touching it."
"You've got to," said Murray.
"You're welcome to," said Cullen.
"You're all right," said Murray.
Cullen leaned against another table. He thought it through for a few seconds. "Look, there's no way that if there's someone hiding in that freezer that they're getting out of the building without getting caught," he said. "There are no windows or doors in that room and we've got the place covered. It's a job for a SOCO, not us."
"Good point," said Murray.
Cullen nodded at Lamb. "Let's go and brief the big man," he said.
forty-four
"You are seriously stretchin' my fuckin' patience with this shite, Sundance," said Bain. "You mean to say that we had a sighting of this Paddy boy and you couldn't fuckin' find him?"
They were back at Leith Walk an hour later. Cullen and Murray had driven in their separate cars after collecting Cullen's car from outside Marion Parrott's house in Gullane, Bill Lamb having tagged along with Murray. Caldwell was sitting in the corner of Bain's incident room, tapping away at a laptop. The rest of them were stood near Bain's whiteboard.
"Listen," said Cullen, "we received an anonymous call from the public that someone matching Paddy Kavanagh's description was staying at this old service station."
"How the fuck did the public know what he looks like?" asked Bain.
"We issued a photofit last week," said Murray. "You remember that you were going ballistic at me for not finding Paddy? Well, I worked on the assumption that he was still alive and got a press release issued. The East Lothian Courier and News both ran with it. And we got a result from it."
"Not finding him is not what I call a result," said Bain.
Lamb loudly cleared his throat. "Brian," he said, "we know two things. First, we know that he is alive. Second, we know that he's been staying in Haddington. I've heard about all the whiteboard magic that you've been up to over the last week, and one of the distinct possibilities that you've got is that Paddy Kavanagh is your number one suspect, that he killed Iain Crombie for reasons as yet unknown, and that he has returned, again for reasons unknown." He took a pause and stroked the triangle of beard on his chin. "If you're smart - and I know you can be - then you can use this to your advantage. Your objective is to solve this case, but if there's a dangerous killer who has returned then that represents a very real threat to the public. And you can go to Jim Turnbull and get a bigger squad on this."
Bain screwed his eyes up and squinted at Lamb for a few moments. Eventually, he nodded his head. "You've got a good point," he said. He checked his watch. "I'm due to meet Jim at 8pm. Looks like I've finally got something positive to talk to him about."
"Damn right you do, Brian," said Lamb. "This is a chance to get back on top."
Bain scowled at him. "Who fuckin' says I'm not?" he said, his voice harsh.
Lamb held his hands up. "All I know is what I hear," he said. "Cargill has become the golden girl here, but she's got her hands full with about seventeen other high profile cases. This is a chance for Jim to have a golden boy - you."
"I like your thinking," said Bain.
Cullen had no idea what Lamb was playing at. The previous time that Bain and Lamb had worked together had seen Lamb raise a formal complaint against Bain over his conduct - the black mark had stayed with Bain ever since.
Bain wheeled round to look at Cullen. "So Sundance," he said, "you were supposed to be back o
ut with Irvine on this obbo for Cargill. How come you were out in Haddington?"
Cullen closed his eyes, trying to keep his cool. "I was actioned with breaking the news of Iain Crombie's death to Marion Parrott," he said. "DC Murray and I completed that action just prior to receiving the call about the sighting of Paddy Kavanagh."
"Always got an answer for fuckin' everythin', haven't you?" asked Bain, shaking his head. "It's goin' to be one step forward with this Paddy shite and then straight back to fuckin' 'Go' without collectin' two hunner pound for old Brian here, thanks to you."
Cullen looked away from Bain in an attempt to stop the rage boiling over. "It might be nothing," he said, "but Iain Parrott, Iain Crombie's son, was assaulted last week in Gullane."
Murray scowled at Cullen, who realised that Murray probably thought that he was being dropped into it.
"Reckon it's this Paddy boy?" asked Bain.
"Stuart?" asked Cullen.
"Could be," said Murray. "That's how I'm treating it."
Cullen assessed that as a bluff.
"Let me know how you get on with it," said Bain.
"Do you want me to head out to see DS Irvine?" asked Cullen. He knew that he probably should check with Cargill directly and hoped that there wouldn't be consequences.
"No," said Bain, "you've got enough goin' on here. I'll sort her out. Did you get your train tickets sorted?"
"Holdsworth's just printing them for me," said Cullen. DS Holdsworth was the CID admin officer in Turnbull's squad - as well as organising HOLMES actions and other core activities he was responsible for more generic office admin such as travel and expenses.
"Right," said Bain, "well, I'm fuckin' off upstairs, see if I can catch Jim early with the news. You lot keep doin' stuff and stop anythin' else fuckin' fallin' apart, all right?"
Bain strode off out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"He doesn't exactly improve with time," said Lamb, once Bain had gone.
Cullen smiled. "He's more like a mouldy tub of Philadelphia than a blue French cheese," he said.
Lamb laughed and then sat down on a chair, straddling it back-to-front. "Think he'll get anywhere with Jim upstairs?" he asked.
Cullen raised his shoulders. "Who knows?" he asked. "He's been getting a pasting off them for the last week or so. Maybe this is a chance for him to get one back."
"More likely it's a chance to get Bain to take his swearing elsewhere." Caldwell had joined them.
Lamb smiled recognition at her. "Good to see you again," he said. Cullen clocked him looking her up and down. "Did you hear any of that?"
She smiled. "Hard to hear anything apart from you rams butting heads," she said.
"Aye, well," said Lamb, "reckon that Bain might be a useful ally to have at the moment."
"What for?" asked Cullen.
"The force is changing," said Lamb. "Who knows what we'll all be doing in a year's time. Us country cops need as many city allies as we can get."
forty-five
"Fucking fed up with being saddled with him," said Cullen. "He's a fucking arsehole."
"He's your arsehole," said Sharon. "Get used to it."
They were in her flat, in the living room. The TV was on, some tedious celebrity show playing on mute. That day was a break in the Euro 2012 schedules and Cullen could imagine Tom at home suffering withdrawal symptoms.
Cullen and Sharon had been lost in Cullen's rant about Bain for the last ten minutes, getting through a pot of decaf tea that sat on the coffee table in front of them, as they sat on the leather sofa.
"All right for you," he said, "you get paired with someone that's competent."
"Caldwell's okay," she said.
"Aye, well, she's junior," he said. "It won't stop me getting paired up with Irvine when he needs someone to do his work for him. I can just see Bain managing to acquire him now that his investigation just got current."
"Be thankful that Jim got the complaint to disappear," she said.
Cullen had been lucky - assaulting a superior officer in a supermarket car park wasn't the smartest move he had ever made. His only saving grace was the fact that nobody - no officers or members of the public - had seen it happen. Cullen had been saving Sharon's honour in a way, but in the end he'd just got himself worse in hock to Irvine and Bain's nickname parade.
"You're right," he said. He leaned back on the sofa.
Cullen still hadn't got an update from Bain before he'd left and now wouldn't see him until he was back from Harrogate.
Sharon lifted her left leg up and placed it over his. She leaned over and started kissing him. He adjusted himself and pulled her close. He kissed her on the cheek and nibbled her earlobe - just how she liked it.
"I've got to get up early tomorrow," he whispered into her ear, "so it's just the once tonight."
"Better take my time, then," she whispered back.
She got up and led him through to the bedroom.
Thursday
21st June 2012
forty-six
Cullen had never visited Berwick-upon-Tweed, only passing it as he'd headed south, but he added it to the list of places to visit on a day trip. It looked like a fairly nice town. As the train pulled off from the station and trundled across the Victorian railway bridge, he could see the town sprawl across the bay at the mouth of the Tweed, anchored to an old seafront.
The English town of Berwick was situated only two miles or so from the border with Scotland - Cullen remembered a recent news story that said that it was a town that had historically switched allegiances so many times that it was listed independently on the codification of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland and Berwick-upon-Tweed in the declaration of war for the Crimean, but had been missing from the declaration of peace, and had effectively been at war with Russia for 150 years or so.
He stretched his legs out in the standard class carriage of the East Coast train and checked his watch - just after 6.30am. The train accelerated towards Newcastle, further into England. He had managed to get a reasonable-sized table on the train, and it had no fellow passengers around it. He'd covered it in the case file he'd brought with him - the old disappearance file that Frank Stanhope had worked on.
The case was a true mystery to him. They were making slow progress, and every step seemed to blow open the possibilities exponentially. He thought back to Bain's whiteboard - none of the suspects particularly grabbed him as having strong motives.
Doug Strachan had been the favourite, almost losing his job to Iain catching him stealing whisky. The reaction to the accusation had been interesting - he'd laughed it off. Was that for show or was there something behind it?
With Fraser and Alec Crombie he couldn't see clear motives, not yet anyway, but there had been a family power struggle. They needed more solid evidence on it rather than the hearsay they'd collected so far. He decided that when he got back from Yorkshire, that was probably priority number one, regardless of any nonsense that Bain had in mind for him.
Marion Parrott was an enigma - she'd been ostracised from the Crombie family upon Iain's death. The fact that there was a blood relation - Iain junior - added another potential motive. Cullen had it on his to-do list to check the ownership of the company.
He looked out across the north Northumberland countryside, at the beautiful sandy beaches and the sprawling fields. The sun was low in the sky, beginning its steady summer rise, and long shadows were being cast along the ground.
Paddy Kavanagh was now the prime suspect - his disappearance intrigued Cullen. It was so close in time to Iain's death that, if it was coincidence, then it would stretch the bounds of probability. Why would Paddy have killed Iain? He was a drinker - a heavy one at that - and Cullen knew from bitter experience that rational behaviour in the average piss artist was out of the question. The information that they'd got about the Tanner's Arms showed a violent man as well, prone to getting barred but never for long, lest they lose an important revenue stream.
T
he sighting of Paddy Kavanagh at the old service station in Haddington changed everything. The case was suddenly switched from an intriguing cold case into a live manhunt. Bain would use it to gain influence and officers. The very fact that he had disappeared at the same time as Iain Crombie pointed to the fact that Paddy had something to do with his death. Could he have killed him and run away? If so, why was he back?
He scribbled away in a notepad as he thought - he was always an active thinker, always needing to jot things down and connect them, rather than get involved in free-form thinking. He realised that a certain individual he worked with had the same characteristic - Bain. He smiled to himself as he drew out a map of the connections between Iain Crombie and the woman that he'd met.
He looked at the file open on the table.
Mary-Anne Wiley. Iain had met her at the front of a Spiritualized set at Glastonbury, meeting in some cinematic moment, no doubt off their heads on booze or pills. They'd clung to each other since, taking in the post-Festival atmosphere and delaying the return to the real world. That was where the trail ran cold - Fraser Crombie had returned on the second of July and hadn't reported Iain missing until the ninth. The gap was probably typical in those days before the advent of mobile phones.
The calls from people in Harrogate about Mary-Ann stuck in Cullen's head - he hadn't got any further information on the sightings. There was nothing in the Lothian and Borders case file. He checked through his notebook - Inspector Harvey was supposed to send the Avon and Somerset case file up. Cullen hadn't received it yet. He really should chase it.
When it was later in the day, maybe.
forty-seven
Cullen got off the train onto the busy platform. It was just before twenty past nine but he was exhausted already. He had a long day ahead of him - fucking about with an old case in Harrogate, then a load of nonsense in East Lothian before he could even think about heading to bed.
People milled about him and he eventually worked out which way the exit was. While on the train, he'd read that Harrogate was supposed to be nice, but the train station was modern and had an artificial feeling about it. He'd expected an old country-style station and was sorely disappointed.