You had me at naked.
Send.
Ding-ding:
You did remember my trophy, didn’t you?
Sod. No.
Tufty pulled on his seatbelt. ‘So where are we off to?’
‘Mrs Galloway’s. And don’t forget to stop off for milk, tea and biscuits. We can pop in by that trophy shop on the way.’
Tufty shifted the carrier bag from one hand to the other, going for the punchline as the lift juddered to a halt. ‘So the other nun says, “If that’s the case, why’s he been shagging a penguin all night?”’ He grinned at her.
Nope.
The lift doors juddered open.
‘You see, because the bishop thought the penguin was the Mother Superior.’
Roberta stepped out into the corridor. ‘Don’t give up the day job.’
‘Oh, come on. It’s funny.’
‘You keep telling yourself that.’ She sauntered down the corridor to the flat at the end. Stopped.
Mrs Galloway’s front door hung squint from one hinge, the wood all buckled and scraped. Someone had kicked it in.
Oh sodding hell …
Roberta knocked on the splintered doorframe. ‘Mrs Galloway? Agnes? Are you OK?’
She stepped inside, Tufty right behind her.
‘Mrs Galloway? It’s DS Steel. Hello?’
A voice behind them, cold and hard: ‘You’re too late.’
Roberta turned, peering past Tufty.
The woman from the flat across the hall stood there in her disappointed tracksuit, arms crossed, face pinched and creased.
‘What happened?’
‘What do you think happened? You were supposed to save her! Instead, she’s in intensive care, half dead, because you screwed it up!’
‘She’s …’ A lump swelled in Roberta’s throat, like a tumour. She swallowed it down. ‘Intensive care?’
‘Should be ashamed of yourself!’ The neighbour slammed a hand against the twisted door. ‘HE – CAME – BACK!’
She was so tiny, lying there on the other side of the glass, in her crisp-white hospital bed, dwarfed by the machines gathered around her. Everywhere no’ covered in bandages, casts, or dressings was covered in bruises instead. The almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest was the only sign that she was still alive.
Roberta put a hand against the window through to the High Dependency Ward, its glass cool beneath her palm.
The doctor flipped the page in her notes and kept droning on in a flatline nasal monotone: ‘… four broken ribs, punctured lung, ruptured spleen, broken ankle, dislocated shoulder …’
So small. So fragile. So broken.
‘… fractured cheekbone, detached retina, broken wrist, internal bleeding—’
‘She going to be OK?’
The doctor sighed. Scrubbed a hand across her face, tugging the bags beneath her eyes out of shape. ‘No. Maybe. Someone her age … It’s a lot of trauma. She’d be better off if he’d run her over with a car.’
The neighbour was right: it was all her fault.
She’d screwed up and Agnes Galloway had paid for it.
‘Look, I know I’m not meant to say this, but speaking as a medical professional …’ The doctor put a hand on Roberta’s shoulder. ‘If you catch the bastard who did this, I want you to batter the living crap out of him.’
Tufty was waiting for her, fiddling with his phone as she marched out of the ward. He stuck it away in his pocket and fell into step beside her. ‘Is she all right?’
Idiot.
‘Of course she’s no’ all right! How would she be all right? Philip Innes nearly killed her.’ Roberta curled her hands into claws and glowered at the ceiling. ‘AAAARGH!’
An old man pushing a drip on a stand stopped to stare.
‘Keep moving, Grandad!’ She stormed past him, down the corridor and into the waiting lift. Mashing the button with her thumb. Glowering at the numbers as the doors slid shut. ‘We should’ve had uniform watching the place! Why didn’t you remind me to get someone watching the place?’
Tufty shrugged. ‘Concussion, remember?’
Useless git.
‘Oh, come on, Sarge: this isn’t our fault! We didn’t do it, Phil Innes did.’
She hauled out her phone and called Control. ‘What the hell’s happening with my lookout request? You were supposed to find Philip Innes! Why isn’t he in sodding custody?’
Ding.
She swept out into yet another bland corridor. ‘Well?’
There was silence from the phone. Then, ‘For your information, Detective Sergeant Steel, we are not here for you to yell and shout at. If you want an update you can ask nicely!’
‘Fine!’ Roberta clenched her teeth, squeezing the words out: ‘Can I pretty please have an update on my lookout request?’
‘There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’
‘I swear to God I’ll come down there with a claw-hammer!’ She barged through a set of double doors, and up to a reception area where a lumpy male nurse in green scrubs squinted at a computer screen.
‘Philip Innes hasn’t been spotted. Patrol cars and foot patrols have been asked to keep an eye out.’
‘AAAAARGH!’ She hung up. Rammed the phone back in her pocket. Poked a finger at the nurse. ‘Police. Wee boy, brought in earlier. Eaten nothing but dog food for days.’
The nurse didn’t even look up from his computer. ‘Antibiotics for the sores, fluids for the dehydration, social workers for the rest of it. No visitors.’
‘Well … sod you then!’ She turned on the spot and stormed out again, grabbing a handful of Tufty’s sleeve on the way, hauling him with her. ‘We’re going to find Philip Innes. We’re going to arrest him. And somewhere along the way he’s going to fall down a LOT of stairs!’
III
Cairncry Drive was a nice street, very fancypants. The houses were of the semidetached-bungalow-with-attic-conversion type in pink granite. Neat and tidy front gardens with crisp-edged box hedges and artistic shrubs.
Tufty locked the pool car and followed Steel up the path to number thirteen. A Jaguar sat out front. A new-looking one with leather seats and bags of extras. And they said crime didn’t pay? Had to admit, standing outside Phil Innes’s fancypants house on his fancypants street with his fancypants car parked outside, loansharking looked a hell of a lot more lucrative than police work.
Steel’s face was set like angry concrete, both hands clenched into fists.
Yeah, that was a good sign.
Tufty rang the bell. ‘Erm … Sarge? You’re not going to do anything silly, are you? You were only joking about him falling down stairs, right?’
‘No.’ She hammered on the door. ‘PHILIP INNES! POLICE! GET YOUR BACKSIDE OUT HERE, NOW!’
‘Only, you know, Professional Standards—’
‘EITHER YOU OPEN UP, INNES, OR WE KICK THIS DOOR DOWN!’ More hammering.
‘He’s probably not even here. I mean, surely if you’ve got a lookout request out for you someone checks your house first, right? A patrol car or something?’ A shrug. ‘Stands to reason.’
‘INNES!’
The door swung open, and there was Phil Innes, dressed in a denim shirt and tan chinos. Very preppy. ‘What’s all the shouting— Hey!’
Steel grabbed him, spun him around, slammed him against the side of the house and pinned him there. Pulled out her handcuffs and snapped them on. ‘Want to know what happens to scumbags who beat up old ladies? They’re going to tear you apart in prison.’
She shoved him towards Tufty. ‘Get this piece of crap in the car. We’re going for a drive.’
Interview Room Four had the same sharp cheese-and-vinegar smell as a pair of manky old trainers left out in the rain, then brought in to dry on a radiator. The only upside was the expression on Philip Innes’s face as he sat there breathing it in.
His solicitor was a baby-faced young man in a slightly crumpled suit. His hair cut short to try to hide the baldiness happening on top of his
head.
Roberta sat back in her seat and shared a look with DC Lund. ‘That sound like a lie to you, Veronica? Sounds like a lie to me.’
Innes pulled an affronted face. ‘Well it’s not.’
‘You seriously expect us to believe you had nothing to do with it? Nothing at all?’
‘Yes, I’ve visited Mrs Galloway from time to time, but only to help out with shopping or if she needs a hand. Ooh, I don’t know … changing a plug? That sort of thing. I would never attack her. She’s an old lady, for goodness’ sake!’
‘You’re a loan shark, Phil-pot.’
Baby Face tapped his pen against the desk. ‘Do you have any evidence of that, Detective Sergeant Steel?’
‘Ask anyone.’
He smiled at her, making little dimples form in his chubby wee cheeks. ‘That’s not evidence, that’s hearsay. And it’s not admissible in court.’
Cheeky sod. ‘He put Agnes Galloway in hospital!’
‘Do you have any witnesses, Sergeant? No. Do you have any CCTV? No. Do you have any evidence against my client whatsoever? No.’ He rocked his baldy wee head from side to side. ‘No. No. No. No evidence at all.’
She leaned forward, snarling it out. ‘Then we’ll get some.’
‘Yeah …’ Tufty leaned back against the wall, and swapped his phone to the other ear. ‘Nothing so far.’
Steel’s voice growled out like an angry bull terrier that smoked sixty a day. ‘How could no one see anything?’
Down at the end of the corridor, Barrett and Harmsworth knocked on the last doors on this floor. Stood there waiting for the occupants to answer.
‘We’re doing everything we can, Sarge.’
‘Philip Scumbag Innes is going to walk.’
‘Yeah, but DNA—’
‘Oh he’s already covered that one. He “pops round from time to time” doing “odd jobs” for her.’
‘And my bumhole’s a mariachi band.’
‘Then stop buggering about and find me some sodding witnesses!’ She hung up.
Got to love a well-crafted motivational speech.
He stuck his phone in his pocket and went back to work.
A thin woman with nervous, watery eyes peered out at him through the tiny gap between her door and the frame – she hadn’t even opened it wide enough to pull the chain tight. ‘I didn’t see anything.’
Tufty held up the photo of Phil Innes again. ‘Are you sure, because—’
‘Why would I see anything? Because I didn’t. I didn’t see anything.’
Of course she didn’t.
The old man adjusted his glasses, fiddled with his hearing aid. Squinted at the photo Tufty handed him. Sniffed. Fiddled with his glasses again. From somewhere in the flat behind him came the sound of a TV quiz show turned up far too loud.
He handed the photo back. ‘I don’t know anything. Stop asking me questions.’
Then slammed the door.
The toddler was dressed up in a paleontologically-inaccurate dinosaur onesie, staring up at Tufty like he was the – most – exciting – thing – ever!!! His mum, on the other hand, did pretty much everything she could not to look at him at all. Her mop of Irn-Bru curls was fraying at the edges, dark bags under her eyes. The end of her nose had a faint pink glow to it, her eyes puffy and red. Another shrug and she handed the photo back to Tufty.
‘No, I didn’t hear anything.’ Shrug. ‘Nothing at all.’
He pointed upwards. ‘Mrs Galloway’s flat is right above yours and you didn’t hear anything? It looks like a bomb went off in there! How could you not hear anything?’
She hugged her dinosaur baby closer and looked away again. Shrugged. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’ One last shrug for luck. ‘Please, I have to go. I can’t help you.’
The flat door swung closed, shutting Tufty out in the corridor.
Ten down, fifteen to go.
Steel stormed the length of the CID office then turned around and stormed back again. ‘Bloody, felchbunny, fudgemonkeying, motherfunkers!’
Phones, chargers and extension leads still cluttered everyone’s desks, but Tufty, Lund, Barrett, and Harmsworth all sat with their chairs facing the middle of the room, watching Steel storm up and down and up and down.
She did another circuit. ‘None of them? No’ a single sodding one?’
‘Well,’ Harmsworth flared his nostrils, ‘why would they want to help the police? It’s not as if we do anything, is it? No, we just sit about on our fat backsides eating doughnuts all day.’
Barrett checked his clipboard. ‘Every single household spoken to.’
‘No offence,’ Lund held up a hand, ‘but maybe you were doing it wrong? Maybe a woman’s better at—’
‘Oh please, don’t start that again.’
‘I’m just saying, Davey, it’s—’
‘AAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Steel screamed at the patchwork ceiling tiles. ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE!’ She grabbed the plastic crate marked ‘CAN’T UNLOCK’ and hurled it at the whiteboard. It split open, showering the floor with Nokias, iPhones and Samsungs.
No one made a sound as she stood there, glaring at the fallen phones.
Then Tufty sighed. ‘They’re scared. They’ve seen what Innes can do and they don’t want it happening to them or their families. It’s not their fault.’
‘Then whose sodding fault is it?’
‘Phil Innes.’
DCI Rutherford really didn’t look the same, dressed in lounging jammie bottoms, furry slippers, and an Aberdeen Football Club T-shirt. He stood in the doorway to a two-up-two-down in Cults.
His mouth tightened as he turned over the last photograph: Agnes Galloway, taken by the hospital before they got to work patching her up. Her frail wee body crippled and twisted.
Roberta leaned forward and poked the picture. ‘Philip Innes.’
‘What have we got on him?’ The DCI’s hands shook, his words terse and clipped. ‘Witnesses? Forensics? Anything?’
‘I want a warrant to go through his place with a nit comb. He’s got to have something incriminating in there.’ She counted them off on her fingers: ‘Payment books for the loan-sharking, the shoes he used to kick an old lady half to death, the gloves he punched her with, the bloodstained clothes he wore.’
‘We can’t get a warrant without probable cause,’ DCI Rutherford stared down at the photo, face souring, ‘you know that.’
‘So give me a warrant and I’ll find some!’
A teenager drifted by on a bike, waving as she passed. ‘Evening, Mr Rutherford.’
He pulled on a smile. ‘Kerry.’ It disappeared as soon as she was out of sight. ‘I want this bastard caught, prosecuted, and banged up. But to make it stick in court we need corroboration. I need a complaint from the victim or I need a witness. Get me something I can use!’
Airyhall Library looked a lot better from the front.
The bit round the back was more functional: a big block of council recycling bins sat beside a wee recess where the back door was. Beige walls with brown trim. A Rorschach inkblot stained the tarmac, where some poor librarian’s car had been dripping oil. They were all gone now, of course. Twenty to nine and the car park round the side was empty.
Airyhall Community Centre looked pretty empty too. Or at least the lights were off. The side that faced the library was a featureless grey-beige wall, with a wee sticky-out bit where a red door led into the building proper. The whole thing lurking on the other side of a chest-high wall, topped by a handrail.
No’ the greatest of views.
Probably wasting her time sitting there, but after today even a tiny success would be terrific. A minute achievement. A microscopic win. Anything to dull the image of that poor wee boy, standing in his crib, bawling his eyes out.
All those tins … Were his teeny fingers strong enough to lever the lids off himself, or had his darling mother done that for him before shooting up?
And what sort of scumbag fed their toddler dog food? Even if it was the expensive stuff you did
n’t need a tin-opener for. After all, if you’re going to shoplift, why no’ shoplift the best?
Aye, well. Wasn’t as if she’d be doing it again, was it?
Or anything else, come to that.
Overdosing in front of her wee boy – what was wrong with people?
For once in his miserable life, DI Beardie Beattie was right: if it wasn’t for the drugs …
Stop it.
Sitting here brooding wasn’t helping.
Roberta puffed on her e-cigarette, billowing out clouds of strawberry-and-lime-flavoured steam.
Come on, Roberta: focus.
There was a perfect view between the recycling bins and the back of the library. If anyone turned up to do something dodgy, she’d be on them like stupid on Tufty.
Mind you, twenty minutes parked here and what did she have to show for her one-woman surveillance operation? Sod, and indeed, all.
No sign of Tommy Shand or his horrible orange Peugeot.
Pfff …
Well, it’d been a long shot anyway.
Should probably just show that mobile phone to the Procurator Fiscal and do Tommy for making indecent images and having sex with an older child. But getting him for possession with intent as well? That would be the bacon in the butty.
She pulled out her phone and poked at her contacts, setting the thing ringing.
‘Control Room.’
‘Aye, Benny: Tommy Shand. If anyone phones up to complain he’s dealing behind Airyhall Library again, I want you to call me. OK?’
Benny tutted at her down the phone. ‘You do know that’s DI McPherson’s case, don’t you? He’s first point of—’
‘Do you want me to tell your boyfriend what you get up to on those Police Scotland team-building away days?’
‘Ah … I thought we had an … understanding about that. After last time? You promised!’
‘You hear anything, you call me, Benny.’
A groan. Then, ‘All right, all right. Jesus.’
‘Good boy.’
She hung up. Drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.
Sodding Tommy Sodding Shand. Here she was, ready to take this crappy, crappy day out on him and he didn’t even have the common decency to bother showing up. Selfish felchbunny.
Her phone ding-dinged at her:
Now We Are Dead Page 14