He sighed and pulled out another urn. This one squat and brutal. ‘Instead of which we end up in a job lot of Granny’s old things, sold off at a car boot sale as soon as she’s gone.’ The next three urns were more like Thermos flasks. Then another trophy-style one. A couple of ornate vase-type ones. A wooden box with a brass butterfly on it. ‘Stop me when you see something you feel reflects the deceased’s personality.’
Tufty did a slow three-sixty. Boxes and crates and more boxes and more crates and the snakes-eating-crisps grandfather clocks … ‘Did all this come from estate sales?’
‘Sadly, when most people say something has immense sentimental value, what they really mean is they can’t be bothered dusting it any more. Ah, here we are.’ Haddie straightened up, holding out a blue enamel jar with golden swirls across it. ‘The brass plaque says, “David Fairbairn, 1935 to 1994, beloved father and husband”, but you could put a sticker or something over that. And, as it’s for a good cause, you may have it on the house.’
Tufty accepted the urn. Cool in his hands. Heavy too. ‘Erm … Is David …?’
‘In residence?’ Haddie’s eyebrows popped up. ‘Oh, very much so.’ They sank back down again. ‘Ah, I see. Of course, how insensitive of me. Please.’ He held out his hands and Tufty gave him the urn back. ‘I will be but a second. Feel free to browse.’
He turned and bustled off between the heaps.
Steel wandered up. ‘You’re no’ going to put a sticker on it, are you?’
‘Could go to that key-cutting/engraving place on Rosemount? Get them to do up a little plaque to glue over David’s one?’ He turned in place again. ‘So much stuff.’
‘I’m hungry. Are you hungry?’
‘All those lives … You slave away, you save up, you buy stuff, and it ends up here.’
The muffled roar of a vacuum cleaner sounded in the distance.
‘You know what I fancy? Noodles. No, ribs! Or maybe chicken?’
Tufty picked his way between a stack of oriental carpets and a rack of framed hunting prints. ‘Hidden away in a warehouse, waiting for what?’
‘Ooh, I know: Chinese.’ Steel rubbed her hands together. ‘We can go to the Manchurian, down by Mounthooly.’
A herd of bicycles, stacked on top of each other. A flock of standard lamps. Deeper and deeper into the gloomy recesses. ‘You know what I think? I think Mr De Selincourt is fooling himself. He’s banging on about your ashes ending up in a car boot sale, cos no one cares. What about all this stuff? Who’s going to come in here and impulse buy a …’ Tufty pointed, ‘a treadle sewing machine from the Dark Ages, or a banjo with no strings? All this stuff’s going to sit here growing dust till he snuffs it, then it’s back to the car boot or off to the tip.’
The hairy grey layers on top of the boxes got thicker the further back Tufty went. An upright piano was almost mammalian with its pelt of fur.
‘They do the most spectacular dim sum there. And the chicken wings! Oh God, the chicken wings …’ Steel made a Homer Simpson gargling noise.
‘Thought there was a buffet waiting for us at the Flare and Futtrit.’
‘Aye, no’ till half three, though.’
And right at the back, the most forgotten stacks of all: books. Hardback and paperback, leather-bound and slipcovered. They looked like they hadn’t been touched in eons. Pompey was buried under a thinner crust of grey than they were.
Well, not quite right at the back.
There were a couple of boxes tucked in behind the books. Completely and utterly dust free.
‘See, Tufty, when you’re off on the lash with your fellow officers, it’s important to get a nice thick lining on your stomach first.’
Why would brand new boxes be hidden away back here?
‘Oh, some people say, “eatin’s cheatin’”, but they’re the ones who end up facedown in the corner covered in their own sick.’
They were sealed up with brown tape, just like the box the urns were in.
He nudged one with the toe of his boot. ‘Does that look suspicious to you? All clean and shiny when everything else is clarty with dust?’
‘Yoghurt’s good, of course, but me? Dim sum. Nice and sticky and starchy … Are you even listening to me?’
‘No.’ And let’s face it, Elinsworth Fredrick De Selincourt had form for resetting. Once a dodgy wee swine, always a dodgy wee swine. People didn’t just give up selling stolen goods. ‘Come on, it’s not just suspicious, it’s hella suspicious.’
‘So open them. Take a peek.’
‘I can’t. It’d be inadmissible in court.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ She shoved him out of the way. ‘Here, I’ll do it, you damp—’
‘Excuse me!’ Haddie’s voice boomed out from somewhere behind, getting closer with every word. ‘You have no business being back here. I give you an urn out of the goodness of my heart and this is how you repay me? By snooping?’
‘Mr De Selincourt.’ Tufty pointed. ‘Would you care to tell us what’s in these boxes?’
Haddie licked his lips. ‘Actually, I’m really busy this afternoon. Perhaps if you made an appointment for later in the week …?’
Steel sucked on her teeth, making them whistle. ‘Oh, Haddie, Haddie, Haddie. No’ again!’
‘I … I haven’t done anything wrong, and you don’t have a warrant. Those boxes are from an estate sale. There’s nothing illegal about them.’ A blush breathed a bit of colour into those pale cheeks of his. ‘You’re not allowed to search my premises. If you do, it’s inadmissible in court.’
‘My ugly wee colleague here was just saying the very same thing, Haddie. But you said we were free to browse, remember?’ She slapped a hand down on his shoulder, making him buckle slightly at the knees. ‘And you’re right: I can’t search your Aladdin’s Gloryhole. What I can do is tell Constable Quirrel here to stand guard over those boxes while I nip off and get a warrant organised. That’ll take about an hour and I’ve no’ had any lunch yet, so by the time I get back here I’m going to be very hungry and very, very grumpy.’
Tufty nodded. ‘And she’s in chafing underwear too, so— Ow!’ He rubbed at his arm, squeezing down the burning jagged ache where she’d belted him one.
‘Now, Haddie, my fish-fingered little fiend, you can cooperate right here, right now, and open these boxes of your own free will – or we can do it an hour later when I’m probably going to want to rip your arm off and eat it. Up to you.’
‘But I don’t … This isn’t …’ His eyebrows pinched up in the middle, shoulders drooping. ‘I gave you an urn for free.’
She reached out and plucked the urn from his hands. ‘Thanks for your kind donation, I’m sure Mrs Galloway will be touched.’ She tucked it under one arm. ‘So: friendly cooperative boxes now, or grumpy down-the-station boxes later?’
Haddie made a groany little wheezing noise then nodded. Got out his Stanley knife and slipped the blade through the pristine brown tape on both boxes. Sighed. ‘This is what I get for trying to be nice to people.’ He eased the flaps open on Box Number One, then did the same with Box Number Two.
Tufty peered inside and whistled. Reached in and pulled out a pair of brand-new-still-in-their-boxes iPhones. ‘This must’ve been a very strange estate sale, Mr De Selincourt. As far as I can see, the dearly departed left about three grand’s worth of state-of-the-art mobile technology.’
Steel helped herself to a boxed Samsung, turning it over in her hands. ‘Let me guess: you got them from a thieving wee scroat called Billy Moon? Am I warm?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Steel, I—’
‘It’s Detective Sergeant now. They demoted me for dangling a fat wee resetter off the roof of his warehouse by the ankles. And dropping him. You want to see if we can make it two in a row?’
‘But I’m cooperating!’ Starting to whine a little now.
‘So you are.’ She tossed the phone to Tufty. ‘Elinsworth Fredrick De Selincourt, I’m detaining you under Section Fourteen of the Criminal
Justice, Scotland, Act …’
The woman in the burgundy apron huffed a breath onto the rectangle of thumb-smeared brass and polished it on the hem of her apron. Peering out of the window, down Union Street. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, would you? Two wee tractors, making all that mess.’
Tufty joined her, looking out between a display rack of key fobs and an animatronic plastic man pretending to hammer a nail into a shoe.
Four fire engines blocked the road outside Marks & Spencer – two of them sending out jets of thick white foam, the other two hosing the buildings down with water. The gutters were thick with brown froth.
‘I’m just glad the shop’s upwind.’ She huffed another breath on the plaque. ‘There we go, nice and shiny again.’ She slipped it into a wee paper bag. ‘That’ll be six quid, please.’
IV
‘Come on, stick, you horrible little …’ Tufty shifted his fingers and pushed a bit harder. The brass plaque slithered side to side on the glue then finally got a grip. ‘Right.’
He clambered out of his rusty old Fiat Panda, locked the door, straightened his tie and hurried across the car park. It was crowded: people filing out of the crematorium and into their vehicles.
He nodded at a thin man with red eyes and a trembling bottom lip. Giving the guy a ‘Sorry for your loss’ and a pat on the arm on the way past.
Aberdeen Crematorium looked like a nuclear bunker crossed with an unsuccessful airport terminal building. Only not so charming. A black roof sulked above concrete walls that sloped inward a bit as they rose. Dark glass panels either side of a big dark wooden door.
The last of the mourners were gathering up floral tributes to a backtrack of sombre music. Someone was still sitting down at the front, not moving, just staring up at the red velvety curtains. PC Mackintosh.
Tufty sorry-for-your-loss-ed his way past the mourners and slipped into the seat next to her. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, it’s OK.’
‘Had to go home and change. Didn’t think it’d be right turning up in AFC joggies and a knock-off T-shirt.’
She looked him up and down. The shirt, the black tie, the black suit. ‘I think you look very nice.’
He smiled back. ‘You too. I mean, I know it’s just police uniform, but it suits you and …’ Why was everywhere so hot today? Oh, right, crematorium. Tufty cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I brought you this.’ He held out the urn.
‘Oh, Constable Quirrel, it’s lovely.’
‘There’s a plaque.’
She ran a finger along the shiny brass rectangle. ‘“Pudding the Yorkshire terrier, a dearly loved friend and companion.” That’s very sweet.’
‘I was going to put something about “now chasing the squirrels in heaven”, but I didn’t know if he liked squirrels or not. And …’ He dug into his pocket. ‘Ta-da!’ He held up a Lion Bar and a bag of Skittles.
Mackenzie smiled, then reached out and took the Lion Bar. ‘You remembered.’
‘Of course, Lion Bars don’t actually contain any real lion. And as chocolate’s poisonous to all cats including lions – well, the caffeine and theobromine in chocolate to be pedantic about it – they can’t really endorse it in good conscience, can they? The bar is a lie.’
‘Oh yeah? Well Skittles say, “Taste the rainbow”. Rainbows are an optical illusion caused by sunlight reflecting and refracting through water particles suspended in the atmosphere, relative to the observer, and have no intrinsic flavour. The Skittles are a lie.’
Ooh … Had to admit that was more than a little bit sexy.
Tufty turned to face her. ‘Where do you stand on the topic of loop quantum gravity, because—’
She grabbed him by the tie. It came off in her hand – clip-on – so she grabbed him by the lapel instead and pulled him into a kiss. Her lips tasted of chocolate and coffee and strawberries. Warm and soft and tingly. No tongues.
There was a thump and squeal right behind them, then, ‘I hope you two are no’ Frenching it up – this is a crematorium, no’ a knocking shop!’
Aaargh!
They both flinched back.
PC Mackenzie dropped Pudding’s urn, scrambling to snatch it up again before it hit the carpet.
Tufty lunged at the same time and their heads thunked together as the urn bounced off the floor.
Sitting behind them, Steel went, ‘Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.’
‘Ow!’ Mackenzie rubbed at her forehead.
He scooped up the urn. ‘It’s OK. Not even scratched.’ And the plaque had stayed on too. He handed it back to her. Then turned.
Steel was beaming at him, still wearing her dungarees and floral-print chiffon top. Hair all anyhow. She winked. ‘Ah: young love.’
He lowered his voice to a hiss. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Half two, you said. I’m here to pay my respect to poor little Pudding. No’ like you, you randy sod.’
‘I am not randy, I’m—’
‘Excuse me?’ A man’s voice. They turned and there was a tall thin type in a dog collar and dark suit. Milk-bottle-bottom glasses and a wispy combover. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but before we begin, does anyone want to say a few words about the deceased?’
‘About time!’ Barrett grabbed his coat and clapped his hands. ‘Come on, everyone: up, up. The buffet starts in fifteen minutes.’
Harmsworth levered himself out of his chair and stood there in his cargo shorts and Batman T-shirt. It really didn’t go with his heavy police boots. ‘Oh it’s all right for you two to go off gallivanting, isn’t it? Never mind about us, stuck here doing paperwork and interviewing your prisoners.’
Steel had a wee scratch at an itchy armpit. ‘Prisoner singular, Owen. Singular. He cop to it?’
Lund pulled on her jacket. ‘Mr De Selincourt has decided that assisting us with our enquiries is the cool and groovy thing to do. Especially if we’ll cut him a deal for ratting out some of his rivals.’
‘I’m down with that.’
Tufty lowered Pudding’s urn onto his desk. Still warm. That was the thing about wee dogs – they didn’t take long to reduce to ash. Poor Pudding. He patted the lid. ‘You stay here where it’s nice and safe. We’ll take you up to see your mummy tomorrow, when you’ve cooled down.’
And maybe, if the DI Steel Horror Express could be persuaded to stay back at the station, PC Mackintosh might go with him? If he asked nicely. You know, for moral support. They could even talk physics on the way there. Like they had at the crematorium, when her warm soft lips tasted of—
Lund thumped him. ‘What are you grinning about?’
‘Nothing.’
Barrett clapped his hands again. ‘Come on everyone, hop to it! No lollygagging.’ He hustled them out of the office then locked the door and pocketed the key. ‘Now, how are we getting there, foot or taxi?’
‘Taxi?’ Harmsworth pointed at the corner of the corridor. ‘It’s a ten-minute walk that way. It’s further than that to the nearest taxi rank.’
‘All right, all right,’ he held his clipboard up above his head, ‘and we’re walking.’ Leading the way down the corridor and into the stairwell. Lund skipping along behind him, Harmsworth shuffling along beside her as the theme tune to Cagney & Lacey blared from Steel’s pocket.
She stopped and dug out her phone, falling behind as she answered it.
Lund grinned at them. ‘Just so you know: I’m going to get comprehensively blootered, pick up some stud, and ride him home like a rusty stallion.’
Barrett put a hand to his chest. ‘Oh, my ears and whiskers!’
Yeah, it was definitely going to be one of those nights.
Tufty turned back to Steel.
She was standing on the landing, one foot on the top step, phone clamped to her ear. A scowl on her face. ‘What?’ Her whole body tightened. She bared her teeth. ‘No, you listen to me: I will skin you and wear you as a sodding posing pouch! … Yeah? Well we’ll see about that!’ She hung up and rammed the phone back in her pocket. Turned and mar
ched upstairs instead of down.
OK, that didn’t look good.
He hurried after her, catching up as she reached the next landing. ‘You not coming to the pub? Only I can’t help noticing you’re going the wrong way.’
She didn’t even look at him. ‘Got to see a man about a raping piece of crap.’
Oh, not again.
She thumped through the doors and into the corridor. Marching past the little offices and meeting rooms. Right up to DI Vine’s door.
The sound of laughter came from the other side.
Tufty wheeched around in front of her. ‘Maybe this isn’t the best of ideas? You’re angry, you’ve been showered in pig poo, we’ve been to a funeral! Maybe you—’
‘I don’t need you holding my hand, Constable.’
‘Hey, I got showered twice for you, remember?’
‘Idiot.’ She shoved him aside and hammered on Vine’s door. Wrenched the handle and stormed in without waiting.
Vine was behind his desk and so were his sidekicks the Retro-Eighties-Ugly-Pugglers-Do-Miami-Vice Boys. The two of them leaning over his shoulder and laughing.
The uglier one pointed at Vine’s computer screen. ‘Play it again, play it again.’
‘Ah, DS Steel,’ Vine looked up and smiled at her, ‘love the dungarees.’ He nodded at whatever it was they’d been watching. ‘You’ll appreciate this – there’s a lovely shot of you getting splattered.’ He clicked his mouse and swivelled his monitor half-around.
A YouTube video filled the screen, the BBC News logo on a red band along the bottom with the title ‘FARMERS’ PROTEST IN ABERDEEN’. A baldy fat bloke in a wrinkly suit banging on behind a podium. ‘Scottish farmers have every right to be angry. It’s vitally important that we sort this out, but we have to be realistic!’
Now We Are Dead Page 27