Текст книги "A Taste of Ashes"

Автор книги: Tony Black

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

34

The temperature outside was warming, the sun high and visible for the first time in ages. Some of the school kids from the academy were already larking about in the heat, playing slapsie and chasing each other. It made the detective think of Niall Paton – he couldn’t have been much older than many of the kids, going on the picture his parents had shown him an hour earlier.

The Patons were clueless as to their son’s disappearance and desolate at the news of his murder. Valentine had watched the mother fall into her husband’s arms and weep, repeating the word ‘why’ over and over. He had no answer for that, and he knew he had no answer for many more questions that were stacking up around him.

The family lived in a nice house, only a few streets from where he used to live in Masonhill. That their son had hooked up with Jade Millar – a girl from Whitletts – made him curious. They had such different backgrounds, one family was stable, the other a disaster. Had they really just hit it off? What was the attraction? The detective smiled to himself, he was being naive and he knew it.

He was biting into the sausage roll when he spotted DS McCormack approaching from the other side of the road. He raised a plastic coffee cup to get her attention, waved her across.

‘Some weather, this?’ she said.

‘Don’t knock it, if the sunshine lasts another hour that’s going to pass for our summer.’

She looked down the street. ‘That you parked there?’

Valentine nodded. ‘Yeah, come on. You can fill me in on your Meat Hangers visit as we go.’ They turned to negotiate the pavement and were halted by a young mum with a pushchair, a noisy toddler covered in ice cream wailed at them. ‘That looks good, son.’

The mother smiled, pride beaming out of her.

As they walked on, McCormack spoke. ‘It was an interesting visit, but what John Greig might have called a game of two halves.’

‘I’ll have the good half first …’

‘Well, I got in, I suppose that’s a positive given that the place is closed up. Had to rattle Leask’s accountant for the key and a tour of the records but he played along. No idea where Leask is, though.’

‘What’s Eddy Harris saying about that?’

‘He’s been on the knocker but drawing blank stares all over. If anyone does know where Leask is, they’re not saying.’

‘Jesus, he can’t just disappear, he’s not Houdini, this is a low-rent scrote we’re talking about here. I wouldn’t have rated Leask with the marbles. And what about his business, are you telling me he’s just put the shutters on it?’

McCormack brightened. ‘Ah, now that’s where things get interesting. Bullough, the accountant, says the takings had been down for a long time, Leask was looking to wind up the business. The robbery would have been the final nail in the coffin he reckons because Leask had cash-flow problems.’

‘And he just gave this information up freely, did he?’

A half-smile. ‘Not exactly. Though once he knew we were talking about a double murder, and that we might need to take him in for questioning, the hankie came out to dab his brow.’

‘OK.’ Valentine scrunched up the remainder of his sausage roll and binned it. ‘Go back to the robbery, do you know what the tally was on the take?’

‘A whole bunch. Can’t say for sure because the books haven’t been done for that weekend but it’s a Friday night and Saturday night’s takings which get kept in the safe because there’s no bank on those days, then you add in the Sunday night’s too, which couldn’t be banked until the Monday, only nobody works a Monday because they’re in all weekend…’

Valentine held up a hand. ‘Right, stop there. It’s three night’s takings, is that what you’re telling me?’

‘And the Saturday alone usually totals ninety grand.’

‘We’re talking a six-figure sum, which is not to be sniffed at.’

‘The insurance payout would dig Leask out of a big hole, let’s put it that way.’

They’d reached the car, Valentine pointed the key at the door. ‘Hang on, if Leask was doing an insurance job, then why the vanishing act? Surely he’d just hide the loot and wait for the Man from the Pru showing up with a cheque. It doesn’t make any sense, as it stands.’

McCormack opened the car door. ‘That’s exactly what I thought.’

‘So it only makes sense if Leask’s plan has gone awry, if someone’s done a number on him.’

‘Do you think that’s what happened to James Tulloch?’

Valentine got in the car, sat behind the wheel. They were both staring into the packed street as he spoke. ‘I have honestly no idea, Sylvia. I wouldn’t even like to speculate.’

‘I hear you. The options are limitless aren’t they?’

‘They’re up there.’ Valentine turned the key in the ignition, flicked on the blinkers. ‘We’ll have to start narrowing them down. How did you get on with shaking up the staff at the Meat Hangers?’

‘I didn’t. There was no one there, it’s padlocked up, remember? What I did get, though, was the full staff list, and Bullough confirmed that it’s up to date.’

‘He could be very useful to us, make sure he’s kept on pins.’

‘Oh, I have. Gave him the don’t-leave-town-without-letting-us-know speech.’

‘Right. Let’s get back to the station and run those through the national computer. If there’s a name on there with a record we might be lucky.’

‘We haven’t been so far.’

‘Well that has to change some time, Sylvia.’

35

Darry Millar sought out the bar by following a faded tartan carpet that was held together by spillage stains. The yellowing woodchip on the walls was scuffed and scarred but looked fresh compared to the original dado rail, a sallow shade of yellow that might once have been magnolia. Above the door it had said guest house but he knew it wasn’t an accurate description: they wouldn’t get away with doss house, though. At the bar – which smelled of damp raincoats and cheap whisky – he removed a ten-pound note from the pocket of his jeans and placed it on a sodden bar-towel.

‘What can I get you?’ The barman stooped as he spoke.

‘A pint, please.’

‘Heavy?’

‘Yeah, that’ll do.’

There was a television playing in the corner of the room, it was the news but he’d missed the headlines, they were onto the sports preview now. The barman stared, half-hypnotised, at the screen but managed to turn off the tap as the pint glass filled.

‘Anything else?’

‘Erm, yeah, any food on the go?’

A huff. ‘We do lunches, but the kitchen’s shut now.’

‘What about a sandwich or something?’

‘There’s a garage up the road might have something. I can do crisps.’

Darry handed over his money and asked for two bags of crisps. It wasn’t much but he’d have to take something back to Jade. As the barman returned Darry was sipping his pint, the taste soured as he caught sight of a familiar face on the television screen.

‘Turn that up!’

The barman pointed a remote control at the corner of the room. The speakers crackled as the volume increased.

‘The body of a young Ayrshire man was found in a shallow grave near Cumnock today …’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Darry.

‘You know this lad?’

He looked at the barman. ‘No. No I don’t. Just seems awful though. I mean, not a nice way to go.’

‘There’s no nice ways, son.’

He raised his pint, changed tack. ‘There’s the drink.’

As the barman walked away, returned to his seat at the other side of the till, Darry listened to the rest of the broadcast.

‘Niall Paton, a pupil of Belmont Academy in Ayr, was sixteen years old. Police say they are treating the death as suspicious and following a definite line of inquiry.’

Darry couldn’t finish his pint, he took the crisps and returned to the room where Jade was waiting. As he opened the door she had her mobile phone to her ear but switched it off immediately.

‘Who was that?’

‘Nobody. I mean, I was just checking my credit.’ She put the phone in her pocket. ‘Did you get anything to eat?’

Darry put the crisps on the bed. ‘Look, I think you should sit down.’

‘What?’

‘Sit down, Jade. I’ve got something to tell you.’

She was rustling the crisp bags, opening them up and stuffing the contents in her mouth. ‘Well, what is it?’

Darry went to sit beside her on the bed. His throat grew stiff, the words too difficult to form in his mouth. He sat silently, staring at the hands in his lap.

‘I thought you had something to say,’ said Jade.

‘They killed Niall.’ He blurted the words.

‘What did you say?’

‘The news, it was just on downstairs. They found Niall in Cumnock, he’d been murdered.’

Jade dropped the crisps on the bed, for a moment she looked to have misheard, but the reaction was merely delayed. She spun around and fell on the pillows, sobbing.

‘I’m sorry, Jade.’

‘You didn’t even know him.’

‘I didn’t have to. It’s tragic. He was just a boy.’

Jade turned around. ‘He had nothing to do with any of this.’

‘I know.’

‘How can you feel sorry for him? How?’ Darry leant over to reassure his sister, she pushed his comforting hand away. ‘You didn’t even know him. You’d only just met him.’

‘I know, Jade, but he was looking after you, he was going to stand by you whatever.’

‘He wasn’t the father.’

‘What did you say?’

She sat up on the bed, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘He was an idiot.’

‘Don’t say that, Jade. He was doing the right thing by you.’

‘He was a bloody idiot. And I was just using him, we only had sex after I found out I was pregnant.’

Darry’s imagination lit up, he didn’t want to consider the options if Niall wasn’t the father. ‘Jade, stop it.’

‘No. He should never have got involved with me, this is what happens to everyone who gets involved with me. Whether they like it or not they end up dead or their lives ruined, even Dad, even you soon if you’re not careful.’

Darry turned to face his sister, grabbed her by the shoulders and started to shake her. ‘Shut up, now. Do you hear me? I want you to stop that talk, it’s nonsense and you need to think about more than yourself now.’

Jade dropped her head and fell into Darry’s arms. ‘I can’t go on like this much longer.’

‘You won’t have to.’

‘We can’t keep running and hiding, we’re going to run out of money soon. I can’t keep this baby, I can’t!’

‘As soon as I get hold of Fin we’ll get things sorted. If he’d just answer his bloody phone.’

‘Fin can’t sort anything. He can’t get Mum away from the police.’

Darry pulled his hands away, tapped his temple. ‘Mum’s not herself, that’s why she’s in hospital, Jade. Whether the police were there or not, we couldn’t just take her away. She needs help, she’s ill.’

Jade started to cry again. ‘That’s my fault too. It’s all my fault.’

‘No, it’s not. I told you, I don’t want you to think like that.’

‘No. I mean it. You need to rest, get some sleep.’

Jade curled into a ball on the bed and Darry helped her off with her jacket. She cried and shook where she lay and in a few moments she was sleeping, exhausted, but the torments of earlier a long distance away.

Darry sat and stared at his sister on the bed: what was he going to do? There were no easy answers. Tulloch was dead, that was all that mattered. He was worried about his mother, but she would be better in the long run. She had seen Tulloch for what he was, and now she was free of him. Even if the police wanted to blame her, even if she was to blame, there was no way she could really be held responsible in her state of mind. It was all so messed up, there were no answers anymore. All he knew was that he had to get Jade away, and fast. He needed to find somewhere where they could work out what their next move was going to be because if the police found them now they would be split up and she’d be on her own. She had no one else. He couldn’t let her down too.

As Darry reclined in the armchair, covered himself with Jade’s coat, he felt her phone sitting in the inside pocket. He took it out, stared at the screen. He’d seen her talking to someone when he came in and he wanted to know who it was. He called up the last number, it was a mobile, but he didn’t recognise the number.

Darry pressed dial.

The line started to ring.

‘Hello, Jade … what happened?’

He knew the voice at once. ‘… Finnie.’

36

The incident room was buzzing when Valentine and McCormack returned. Most of the team were drinking coffee from tall Costa cups; by the number of discarded plastic containers littering the desktops it looked like a sandwich run had also been completed recently. The detectives moved towards the incident board and Valentine checked for any updates. The photographs of Niall Paton had been added, the extant one and the more recent images from the crime scene.

‘Looks like a good working over,’ said McCormack.

‘No doubt about that. I wouldn’t mind a look at Norrie Leask’s knuckles right now.’

‘I wouldn’t think he’d get his own hands dirty with that sort of thing, sir.’

‘No, you’re right. He gets others to do the legwork. Get onto those staff records from the Meat Hangers, if you find anything give me a holler. I’ve got a debriefing with the Chuckle Brothers.’

‘Are Ally and Phil back then?’

‘Looks like it.’ He pointed to the officers who had stationed themselves in the glassed-off office at the other end of the incident room.

‘Jeez, they look pensive.’

‘Yeah, and not in a good way.’

McCormack headed to her workstation and Valentine made for the office, grabbing a coffee from the nearby tray as he went. A few heads rose from desks as he passed but they slunk back rapidly; no one had anything to say, nothing to add to the ongoing investigation. Valentine’s stomach tensed with the prospect of what his team were facing.

It had been a tough time, visiting the Patons and telling them he thought the son they had reported missing was lying in the morgue. Asking them to identify the boy, as he lay there bruised and battered, had been even more painful. There was never a nice time to tell anyone that a loved one had been taken from them, but a child murder was a brutal undertaking. For Valentine, this was the second killing on his patch lately, and he didn’t want to see another one.

As he opened the door to the office Donnelly and McAlister acknowledged the DI with downtrodden nods.

‘Christ, I hope the hangdog looks aren’t an indicator that your jolly to the east was a complete waste,’ said Valentine.

McAlister looked to Donnelly, his heavy eyes pleaded for a reply. They were worn out, tired. ‘It depends what you want to hear, boss,’ said Donnelly.

‘I’ll settle for our perp in the cells and Dino slobbering over a bone with a big bow on it. Of course, the way things are going, I have a feeling you’re going to tell me the case is being taken over by the boys with MP on their arms.’

‘I’m not entirely sure what we’ve got,’ said McAlister, scratching a stubbled chin.

Valentine moved behind his desk, pulled the chair under him. ‘You’ll have heard about the Paton boy.’

‘Yes. No age at all was he.’

‘He was sixteen, Phil. And no, that’s no bloody age at all.’ Valentine told the detectives about the recent links that had been discovered to the Meat Hangers robbery before skirting over the run-in he’d had with the chief super.

‘She’s a paranoiac, thinks we’re all talking about her,’ said McAlister.

‘We are,’ said Donnelly, a rare smile creeping in.

‘But, what I’m saying is, we should never have kept the pathology report from her, was just asking for trouble.’

‘Well, that was my call,’ said Valentine. ‘So, I’ll take the fall for that one. But I had my reasons … Now from here on, we keep Dino in the loop, we won’t get away with it again.’

‘Not a chance.’

‘None. And unless you fancy answering to Flash Harris you’ll take heed … Now, tell me about your visit to the barracks.’

The pair exchanged glances once more and McAlister conceded to Donnelly’s claim on the initial briefing.

‘It was a tough gig, as you might imagine,’ said Donnelly.

‘I didn’t expect them to lay out the red carpet.’

‘No. They didn’t, nothing like it in fact. But we persisted. The first day was gathering names, people who knew Tulloch and Millar.’

Valentine cut in. ‘What about Grant Finnie?’

‘We just heard about him, funnily enough, about the same time you did by the looks of things.’

‘Go on …’

‘Well, you know that Tulloch was about as popular as a turd in a jacuzzi, but he was a higher rank too, a sergeant to be precise and he had a bit of a rep as a ball-buster. Millar and Finnie were both under his command but when we put that to some of the squaddies they clammed up, it was very strange, almost rehearsed.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Like they were all reading from the same script, like they’d been told to keep schtum.’

‘By who?’

‘No idea, boss,’ said Donnelly. ‘Higher up the ladder I’d expect but that could be anyone. Of course, it could be the institutionalised mind-set – no one in the army wants to be seen as a grass.’

Valentine touched his brow. ‘Hang on, you’ve just told me no one was saying anything.’

McAlister spoke: ‘Officially, that’s true. Unofficially, and I mean off the record, we got a hint that something had went on between Tulloch and Finnie.’

‘Like what?’

‘It was in Helmand, on a tour of duty in late 2013.’

Valentine found himself dipping his head towards the desk, there was a sound, a voice he recognised that shouldn’t be in the room. He heard Bert’s words again and began to feel queasily unwell.

McAlister got up and prodded Valentine’s shoulder. ‘You OK there, boss?’

The room’s mood returned to normal, the DI snapped, ‘I’m fine. What happened in Helmand?’

Donnelly joined McAlister standing in front of Valentine’s desk. ‘We don’t know. But we can guess that it wasn’t pleasant.’

‘Try highly irregular,’ said McAlister. ‘We spoke to one of the boys from the regiment off the base, that’s why we needed to stay a bit longer. He told us that there was an incident, a crime of some sort and he thought it involved one of the women on the ground, a native …’

‘What happened?’

‘We don’t know for sure.’

‘Well, are we talking rape or torture?’

‘Boss, we’re talking murder.’

‘She was killed?’

‘Shot,’ said Donnelly, his voice a low drawl.

‘That’s a bloody war crime, no wonder they hushed it up, can you imagine the fallout in the media?’ Valentine got to his feet. ‘How much of this have you confirmed?’

‘On the record?’

‘Don’t piss about, Ally, on the record, off the record, we’re not in the business of protecting murderers.’

Donnelly held up his palms. ‘Look, our informant stuck his neck out.’

‘What about that bloody woman, Phil? What about Tulloch and Niall Paton? They stuck their necks out too. I need more to go on than a rumour.’

‘We checked the books, I mean the official paperwork. It all ties up, the times. Tulloch and Finnie were in Helmand together at the same time, returned together at the same time, but their departure wasn’t at the same time as the regiment shipped out.’

‘That’s hardly conclusive.’

‘No, but their discharge papers might be. They were booted out the Royal Highland Fusiliers on the same day, and they both hit civvie street without so much as a kind word from the army about their spud-peeling skills.’

37

The incident room was a blur of unfamiliar faces, bodies that were no more than obstacles and a low-level hum that might have been chatter but might also have been the inside of Valentine’s head cracking. He wasn’t in an unfamiliar place, the opposite was true, but it was certainly an uncomfortable place. His booming senses and eddying emotions told him that the return had been instant, round about the time Phil had detailed the results of the east-coast investigation.

‘Sir, can I have a word?’ It was DS McCormack.

‘Not now, Sylvia.’

‘It’s important.’

‘I’m sure it is, but it’ll have to wait.’ Valentine headed for the door and crossed the corridor in loping strides. He tried to increase his pace but the effort didn’t bring the desired results, only made him feel more off balance. He reached out for the wall to steady himself and almost fell against it. He stopped, gathered breath and made the final steps to the door of the gents in an almost drunken stupor.

Inside, the door closed, the atmosphere changed. The sounds changed, the clatter of the incident room was replaced by a still almost hypnotic birr from the strip lights. He heard a voice and at once knew it didn’t belong to anyone that existed on the same plain as him. There might have been actual words, and meaning attached to those, but the DI was too unsettled to allow himself to strain for their meaning. He rushed to the sink and started to splash cold water on his face and neck.

The water was a comfort, eased his rising temperature but failed to shake him from the moment. As Valentine straightened himself before the mirror his vision blurred then receded into darkness. As his sight returned he was holding tight to the skin, staring into the mirror at an image of a face he knew wasn’t his. Somewhat higher than his right shoulder stood Bert McCrindle, fully suited in khaki, a cap perched at an angle above one eye.

‘It’s not right, son,’ he said.

‘What?’

Bert turned to the side, peered through Valentine. As the detective followed his gaze he saw another figure had joined them. At his left shoulder, in the mirror, was a young girl, she had black hair pulled tightly from her face. Although dark-skinned she looked pale, far too pale.

Bert spoke again. ‘It’s not right, son. They buried that girl in a shallow grave.’

‘Who is she?’

As he stared at the girl in the mirror she turned to face Bert. She smiled, almost a bow, but Valentine’s gaze was drawn to the small hole in her temple, a little black point the size of a fingertip that oozed a line of dark blood.

‘Not right to treat another human life like that, son,’ said Bert.

The detective took his gaze from the girl and returned to Bert, as he did so, his blood surged and the strip lights burned hard and bright in his eyes. The intensity lasted only a few seconds before the blackness took over.

‘Bob … Bob … Are you OK?’ A new voice, familiar this time.

‘Where am I?’

DS Donnelly came into focus, leaned down towards Valentine. ‘You’re in your office, here get this down you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Just water. You’ve had a tumble, Eddy there found you on the floor of the gents.’

DS McCormack started to press a cold can of Coke into his forehead. ‘I don’t think you’ve any injuries, there’s no blood or bruising.’

‘Lucky you never whacked your head off the sink,’ said DS Harris. ‘Luckier yet I found you when I did, you could have been there all day.’

Valentine pushed away the can of Coke. ‘I’m grateful for your weak bladder, Eddy.’ He waved away the assembled crowd. ‘Look can you all get back to work, I’ve passed out, it happens, now get over it.’

‘I think you should go home, take the rest of the day off, sir,’ said McCormack.

‘That’ll be right. I’m fine, just been overdoing it lately, not had much sleep.’

Donnelly turned to McAlister and winked.

‘I bloody saw that, Phil.’

‘Sorry, boss. Just being funny.’

‘Just being a dick you mean.’

‘That’s it, that’s what I meant.’

Valentine pushed away his chair and stood up, he took a mouthful of water and followed it with two deep breaths. ‘It’s roasting in here …’

‘I’ll get the window open,’ said McCormack.

‘Wait, what was it you were going to say, when you stopped me on the way out earlier?’

‘Oh, right, just that I ran the Meat Hangers staff through the database and we have a repeat offender, string of convictions for battery and a nice GBH cherry on top.’

Valentine put down the cup, reached over his desk to retrieve his jacket. ‘Right, get moving. We’re going to pay this one a visit … name?’

‘Brogan, sir … Kyle Brogan and he stays in the same part of town as Tulloch did.’

‘Another trip to the badlands. Hope you like the sound of banjos, Sylvia.’

DS Donnelly stepped forward. ‘What about us, boss? Do you want us to get onto Major Tom?’

‘You’re kidding aren’t you? He’d eat you alive. No, you leave that to me, I’ll talk to the chief super when I get back. We need to approach this carefully, the military have a love affair with the Official Secrets Act and if we go in boots first then we’ll likely come out that way too.’

‘Shall I update the super?’

‘No, leave her to me as well. I’ll take care of that personally. I want to know how she’s going to approach it but I also want to see her eyes when I confirm for her that she’s been had by her new Major buddy.’

DS Donnelly started to fiddle with the collar of his shirt. ‘But what if Dino comes in sniffing around, if I hold this back then surely that’s putting us in her bad books again.’

‘I’m never out of her bad books and the way this case is going there’ll be a few more joining me before long. I want you and Ally to get onto the boffins and chase a full report on the Paton kid, what can they tell us about how he died and if there’s any useful forensics on him, preferably not his own.’ Valentine turned away from Donnelly and faced DI Harris. ‘Eddy, welcome on board. I’m sorry it wasn’t in more auspicious circumstances but now we do have you, I’ll be putting you to use right away. I want you to get onto the school, Belmont, and get names of all Niall Paton and Jade Millar’s main associates. I also want to talk to any teachers that they shared and get hold of any others that clocked unusual behaviour from the pair of them in recent weeks. Likewise sports clubs and whatever else kids go in for. Oh, and GPs, and anywhere else they were attending like therapists or what have you, talk to them. I want insights, draw up their profiles.’

‘Christ, that’s a tall order, anything else whilst I’m at it?’ snapped Harris. ‘I could shove a broom up my arse and sweep the stairs too, I suppose.’

‘There will definitely be more, Eddy, I just haven’t thought of it yet.’