Fire in the Blood (Scott Cullen Mysteries)

by Ed James

  "Nobody comes to mind," he said, and gave a wearying look.

  "What about yourself or Fraser?" asked Cullen. "You'd just given Mr Strachan's job to Fraser and demoted him in the process. That could have been cause for industrial action. Constructive dismissal."

  "Doug had a perfectly amicable relationship with the pair of us," said Crombie. "I would prefer that you keep any scurrilous suggestion to yourself."

  "Fine," said Cullen.

  "Can I ask why you think that Doug would have had cause to want to harm someone?" asked Crombie. "As far as I am aware, you are investigating the death of my son, not some other crime."

  "The disappearance of Paddy Kavanagh is still unsolved," said Cullen, "so we're keeping an open mind on that."

  Crombie nodded but seemed suddenly distracted. "Yes, I gather that there has been a sighting of Paddy," he said. "I've no idea why he would be showing up now after all that time."

  Cullen tried to make eye contact but Crombie successfully evaded it.

  "We have it on good authority," said Murray, "that Mr Strachan had potentially obsessed about murdering someone."

  Crombie's eyes widened.

  Cullen shot Murray a look - he was running this, it was his interview. It was pretty much the only hand they had left and Murray had thrown it in early.

  "Would you know who that might be?" asked Murray, pressing the point.

  Crombie shook his head. "I don't think that Doug is a murderer," he said. "He likes a drink and his punctuality is less than adequate, but he is a good man. Any suggestion to the contrary is pure nonsense."

  fifty-four

  "What the fuck were you playing at?" asked Cullen.

  Cullen and Murray were heading downstairs, towards the cooperage where Fraser Crombie would be. The night lights had come on, but it was still reasonably light outside.

  "You were just flirting with him," said Murray, "we were never going to get anything out of him at that rate."

  "Flirting with him?" snapped Cullen.

  "You know what I mean," said Murray. "It was going round in circles."

  Cullen wanted to punch him. "I'm not sure that we managed to get anything out of him with your approach," he said.

  "Aye, well, at least I tried."

  "I wish you hadn't," said Cullen. "I really wish you hadn't."

  "I'm starting to side with Bain here," said Murray, grinning.

  Cullen tried to laugh it off but he was still seriously pissed off with Murray. The knowledge was now out in the public domain - Strachan would find out and develop an elaborate explanation.

  Cullen stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Think you can keep that little nugget from Fraser Crombie?" he asked.

  Murray rolled his shoulders. "Whatever," he said. "You lead this, given how you're a higher rank than me and everything."

  "Aye, very good," said Cullen.

  He pushed open the door to the cooperage. Fraser Crombie was clawing the rim off another barrel, sitting on a wooden chair. The room was darker than upstairs, and the strip lights were now on, flickering away. The only windows were at the end of the room where Fraser sat - Cullen could see that the spots of rain had turned into a full-on downpour.

  Fraser frowned at them as they approached. "What are you two doing here?" he asked.

  Cullen leaned back against a workbench just beside his chair. "We wanted to speak to you," he said. "We have a few questions that we wouldn't mind answers to."

  "Fire away," said Fraser, echoing the phrase his father had used.

  Cullen flipped through his notebook, more to intimidate than for retrieving any information - everything he needed was in his head. "When we spoke to you this afternoon," he said, "you said that the company structure was a show for the prospective purchasers."

  "Aye, it was," snapped Fraser. "Just my old man and his vanity. Nothing more, nothing less."

  "You were demoted, though, weren't you?"

  "Of course I wasn't," he said. "I was in my early twenties at the time with no experience or qualifications. You know that." He pointed a finger at Cullen. "I was never a Managing Director. I used to make barrels with Doug Strachan, when he was sober enough to teach me."

  "You weren't angry that you got demoted?" asked Cullen.

  Fraser held up his claw hammer. "If I was angry at anything," he said, "I was angry at getting stuck working here."

  "It's the family business, though," said Cullen.

  "It is, but it's falling apart," said Fraser. "There's no future here. We haven't invested in new technology, but at the same time we haven't really trained people up in the old ways. We've just kept my old man in a high standard of living."

  "Do you stand to take over the business when he dies?"

  Fraser laughed, then attacked the barrel again, quickly tearing the rim of the barrel off. "Hardly," he said. "I'm certainly not inheriting the whole business. His Will has strict rules. I get five percent of the company, and I've no idea what happens to the rest."

  "I would have thought your dad would have been keen on keeping everything in the family," said Cullen.

  "Aye, well, he made it clear that he would employ me but I wouldn't get any special favours or anything," said Fraser. "He's into his tough love."

  "This was when he demoted you?" asked Cullen.

  Fraser laughed and raised his hands. "Fine," he said, "it's when I was demoted, if that's what you want to believe."

  "Why didn't you go and do something else?" asked Cullen.

  Fraser glared at him. "Like what?" he asked. "As I said, I had nothing, no prospects or skills."

  "But you stayed."

  Fraser shrugged. "I like the work," he said, "and I like spending time down here on my own, making barrels and whisky. We might be a bit of a farce, but I'm proud of what I do. Not many people can take a drink of high quality whisky they made. I'm just angry that it's such a bloody pigsty. We could be organised."

  "You don't seem to be too upset," said Cullen, nodding towards the barrel Fraser was stripping. "We've just confirmed that the body is your missing brother."

  "I've got nothing else to do," said Fraser, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "This place is my life. I've got work to do and it helps me think, helps me clear my head."

  "You mentioned earlier about Strachan getting threatened with the sack by your brother," said Cullen.

  "That's right."

  "We spoke to him about it and he denied that Iain threatened him."

  "It figures that he would," said Fraser. "My brother's body turns up and he's been linked with killing him, of course he's going to deny it."

  "He did admit that he got caught," said Cullen. "In fact, he also admitted to being an alcoholic. He said he had other offers of work if he left here."

  "And you believe him?" asked Fraser.

  "Do you want me to check with the other distilleries?"

  Fraser laughed. "There's nobody left alive that would remember him," he said.

  Cullen smiled. "One thing I can't quite work out with your brother's body," he said, "is how the killer got the body in there. I mean, you and Iain were at Glastonbury when these barrels were filled, weren't you?"

  "Aye," said Fraser, his voice sounding tired, "we were."

  "So Iain must have come here first," said Cullen, "rather than going to see his wife."

  Fraser shrugged again. "I'm not an expert in this, other than seeing a few episodes of Taggart," he said. "My brother was a dreamer. I have absolutely no idea what he was up to. He was besotted with that girl."

  Cullen looked Fraser up and down. He saw a shadow of a man, trapped in the amber of his upbringing and too afraid to break free. He was a passionate man, but had lost his fire when he lost the argument about the future of the distillery.

  Fraser picked up a rag from the back of the chair and rubbed his hands. "Unless you've got other questions, I really wouldn't mind getting home. I've got a busy day tomorrow."

  fifty-five

  They sat in Murray
's Golf in the Distillery car park and watched Fraser Crombie get into his SUV and head off home to Garleton.

  "Who do you think then?" asked Murray. "Is it Strachan?"

  "When we got here," said Cullen, "I would have put money on it. If you offered me an each way bet."

  Murray laughed. "I doubt you'd get it each way," he said. "What about now?"

  "Now, I just don't know," said Cullen. "Maybe Bain is right, maybe it's Paddy Kavanagh back from the grave, avenging his grievances." He took a pause and let out a deep, tired breath. "We've got a reference to killing when he was drunk, by a woman who was as drunk as he was. He could have been talking about anything - killing the business, making a killing - not just about killing Iain Crombie."

  Murray rubbed his chin, the stubble making a rasping noise. Murray had looked almost clean-shaven that morning - Cullen's own beard hair took at least three days before it made that noise.

  "If it's not Strachan, then who else is there?" asked Murray.

  "Iain's brother?" asked Cullen.

  Murray tossed his car key in his hands a few times. "Could work, I guess," he said. "Those fights." He sniffed. "Then again, they seemed to have made up before they went to Glastonbury."

  "The father is a possibility," said Cullen. "He kept on insisting that it wasn't Iain. I don't think that it's particularly innocent behaviour."

  "Wasn't he just in denial?"

  "Yeah, maybe," said Cullen.

  "But why would he do it?" asked Murray. "I'm struggling to see a motive. The way the company was structured, it looks like Iain was set to inherit everything from Alec."

  "Think you could be right there," said Cullen. "So could it be Paddy, then?"

  Murray nodded. "I think so," he said. "Two disappearances in a month is a hell of a coincidence. This sighting of him at the service station… I just don't know what to make of it."

  Cullen thought it through. "He had to lay in wait for a month or so until Iain got back from Glastonbury," he said. "What was he doing in that time and why did he not kill him when he disappeared? He disappeared and then waited. It doesn't stack up."

  "Good point," said Murray. "I still think that it's the most likely possibility that we've got here, though."

  Cullen sat and looked out of the window. The security guard was doing a slow walk around the perimeter of the distillery, a fag in his hand, deep in thought.

  Cullen's phone beeped again - he took it out and checked it.

  He had just about missed the meeting with Iain Parrott.

  fifty-six

  Murray pulled into the car park outside the Old Clubhouse in Gullane. It was a curious building - it genuinely looked like an old golf clubhouse. There were three pitched roofs emerging from the bulk of the building, the fronting of each in a mock Tudor style. Behind a low wall was an outside seating area - despite the sun, there were only two tables occupied. One had two whippet thin men in their thirties sitting beside their road bikes nursing pints of Peroni in elaborate glasses. The other table had Iain Parrott sitting at it, looking furious.

  "Wait here," said Cullen.

  "Seriously?" asked Murray.

  "He's all cloak and dagger about this," said Cullen. "I half expect him to hand over some fucking microfilm or some shite like that."

  Murray laughed. "Well, 007, if you need any field help, I'll be … fuck, I don't know," he said. "Who did Sean Bean play in that one he was in? Wasn't he a goodie?"

  "He's looking really fucked off with me," said Cullen, "so the Bond trivia will have to wait."

  Cullen got out of the Golf and headed over to the table Parrott was at. He could tell that Parrott didn't quite recognise him from the brief grunting meeting that they'd had a week previously. As he approached, Parrott evaded eye contact.

  Cullen sat down on the bench across from him. "Hello, Iain," he said.

  Parrott nodded at Cullen, then looked over his shoulder towards Murray. "You're late," he said.

  "I'm a police officer on an active investigation, Iain," said Cullen, "it's the nature of the beast." Cullen gestured at the pint glass on the table, full of Coke. "Can I get you another?"

  "No, I'm good," said Parrott.

  Cullen looked in through the window. It was busy inside, couples having meals, a few blokes sitting on their own at the bar. He figured that he'd get away without getting a drink. He looked at Parrott in the eye, tried to get the measure of the boy. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked.

  "Is it my Dad in the barrel?" asked Parrott.

  "It's Iain Crombie," said Cullen. "I don't know if he's your Dad or not."

  Parrott looked up into the night sky. "Mum told me about my Dad when I turned seventeen," he said. "She said I deserved to know the truth. I like Craig, don't get me wrong, but he's not my real father."

  "You know that he died when he wasn't much older than you," said Cullen. "You weren't even born when he died."

  Parrott shrugged his shoulders. "I've been convinced for months that he was killed," he said. "Mum and my Grandfather and my uncle have all been living in this fantasy land that he might appear next week out of the blue. Ta-da!" He took a long drink, keeping quiet. "I knew."

  Cullen was getting wary of the boy already - he'd dealt with enough zealots to know that he needed to be careful. Everywhere zealotry went, bad stuff followed.

  Parrott wrapped his hands around the glass and leaned over the table. "It was a relief when Mum told me that you'd found him," he said. "But I want justice. I want to find who killed him and I want justice." He wiped at a tear forming in his eye. "I've lost a father. I'm seventeen and I should have had that time with my Dad and not Craig."

  Cullen leaned forward over the table. He spoke in a low tone. "Craig has been your father," he said. "He'll continue to be your father, whether he's a blood relative or not. He's fed you, clothed you, given you everything you need. You need to make sure that he's not excluded just because of what you've learned. It doesn't change what you had. Or what you have still got."

  Parrott leaned back, away from Cullen. "I hear what you're saying," he said. He looked down at the table, drummed his fingers on top of a notepad. "I think I'm onto something with Dad's disappearance."

  "Go on," said Cullen, his eyes on the notepad.

  "It's probably nothing," said Parrott. "In fact, I'm pretty certain it's nothing. If it turns out to be nothing, then it'll tell me something for certain."

  "What is it?" asked Cullen.

  "I'll tell you when I know for sure," said Parrott.

  "Why don't you tell me now?"

  Parrott shrugged. "I just want you to know that I'm onto something," he said.

  Cullen exhaled. A wave of fatigue hit him. He rubbed at his tired eyes - he'd had enough of the boy. He seemed a bit deranged to Cullen, and that made him want to keep a distance. He got to his feet. "Are we done here?" he asked.

  "Aye," said Parrott. "Like I said, I'll call you if anything comes up."

  "Fine," said Cullen. He marched back to Murray's Golf, which was gleaming in the sunlight in a way that his old battered Golf just wouldn't.

  Murray looked up from his mobile. "Turns out Sean Bean was 006," he said.

  "He was a baddie, though," said Cullen.

  "Aye," said Murray. "Still, he was a goodie. If you needed help, I should have said I'll be Felix Leiter. He was the CIA agent in a couple of films. Casino Royale."

  "Great," said Cullen. "Now who's sounding like Bain?"

  Murray looked over. "Cheer up, you bugger," he said. "What did the boy want?"

  "Fuck all."

  fifty-seven

  The Garleton Arms was a fairly generic sort of pub, the sort that was everywhere in Edinburgh - blackboards with special offers in chalk lettering, carpeting everywhere, and the standard offering of a premium lager, a standard lager, a heavy and the ever-present Guinness.

  It was 8.45pm and Cullen had just missed the train back to Edinburgh by seconds - they'd seen it leave the station as Murray pulled in. The ne
xt one to Edinburgh wasn't until 9.27pm, so Murray had suggested a quiet pint up in Garleton. He'd parked his Golf outside the police station and said he'd drive Cullen back down to Drem for the next train.

  Cullen bought two pints of the premium lager. The kitchen had just closed and the smell of steak and chips filled the place. Cullen remembered that he hadn't eaten much since he'd had a pair of Scotch Eggs from the M&S at Waverley before getting the train out, so he bought two bags of Kettle Chips. He wandered over to the table in the window that Murray had acquired.

  "Cannot believe that I've got to get into Edinburgh for a 7am start tomorrow," said Murray. "Are you sure that Bain's not just winding me up?"

  "You've seen him in action," said Cullen, after he'd finished chewing his mouthful of crisps.

  Murray tore open the other bag of crisps, unevenly down the seam - yet another of Cullen's pet hates. "Do you think we're any further forward?" he asked.

  Cullen took a long drink of lager. He checked his watch - still half an hour until they needed to leave for the train. "Don't really feel like we are," he said. "We're still a million miles away from having anyone vaguely resembling a suspect here."

  "You think?" asked Murray. "I think we've got four clear suspects."

  "Four vague possibilities," said Cullen.

  "Whatever," said Murray. "That's still people we need to eliminate. That's still work."

  "It's taken us nine days to get this far," said Cullen. "I can see this taking another nine to get nowhere."

  "Who's your favourite?"

  Cullen took another long drink and looked across the pub towards the flat screen TV, which was blasting out a Euro 2012 match. "Strachan at the moment," he said. "But it's not exactly odds-on. What about you?"

  When Murray didn't answer, Cullen looked up. Murray was staring out of the window - he glanced at Cullen. "Look," he said.

  Cullen looked down the street. He couldn't believe his eyes. Across the high street, was Caldwell walking hand in hand with Bill Lamb, a good two inches taller than him.

  "Holy fuck," said Cullen. "Did you have any idea?"