Текст книги "A Taste of Ashes"

Автор книги: Tony Black

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

25

Jade Millar awoke to the sound of a newspaper being rustled by her bed. There was another sound, voices – Niall’s and Darry’s – that seemed to be increasing in volume. She sat up, tried to focus her gaze on the pair of them but they remained a blur. Just two bodies separated by an expanse of white paper. She rubbed her eyeballs, yawned and forced her cold feet into the trainers that sat next to the bed.

‘What’s going on?’ she said.

‘Oh, you’re finally awake?’ said Niall. ‘This is what’s going on!’ He grabbed the newspaper from Darry and ran to her side of the room. ‘Look, look at this.’

At first, Jade didn’t want to look. She wanted to stand in the shower, get some breakfast, coffee maybe. If this was the way the day was starting then it was not a good start at all. Just what was Niall doing with a newspaper? She’d never seen him with a newspaper, never known him to read one, they were so last century.

‘What am I looking at?’ She took the paper, squinted. The words and pictures on the page became even more of a blur, then started to move in and out of focus.

‘There!’ Darry dived behind her on the bed and stuck a finger towards the page. ‘Read it. Sound familiar?’

There was a picture of a group of men sitting at a desk behind nameplates and a water carafe, they looked a serious lot. As she read the caption beneath the picture she registered that they were police and something inside her chimed with recent events. A constricting panic gripped her chest.

‘Oh my God.’

‘Exactly,’ said Darry. ‘It’s Jim Tulloch they’re there for, you know the rest so you don’t need to read on, except for the last paragraph.’ Her brother rocked the bed where they sat as he got up, moved to the hallway and reached for his jacket.

Jade’s stomach was starting to turn over as she read the final comments on the newspaper story, a late addition which had clearly been appended after the reporter had filed the copy. ‘Mum. They’ve found Mum.’

Niall put an arm around her. ‘She’s in the hospital.’

‘What, why? What’s wrong with her?’

Darry was at the door again, fastening his jacket. ‘That’s what I’m going to find out.’

‘But you can’t,’ said Jade, gripping her stomach now. ‘What about me?’

‘You’ve got Niall there, and he’s got a baseball bat that nearly stoved my head in to look after you.’

Niall gripped Jade’s shoulders tighter. ‘We’ll be fine, Darry. Go and see how your mum is.’

Darry walked towards his sister, removed his hands from his pockets and placed them on either side of her face. There were tears on her cheeks, he rubbed them away with his thumbs. ‘Jade, I know it’s not been easy, but it’s over now, mostly. You just need to keep it together for a little while longer and then we’ll be fine, just like we were before.’

She looked up. ‘Before he came?’

Darry nodded. ‘Just like before.’

‘It won’t be like when Dad was still here, though.’ She tightened her hold on her stomach.

‘No, Jade, Dad’s gone but so’s Tulloch. There’s just you, me and Mum now.’

‘And …’ She turned to her boyfriend and flung a hand to her mouth but it wasn’t enough to stem the rapid vomiting.’

‘Jade,’ said Niall. ‘You OK?’

Darry stepped away, cleared a space for his sister to run to the bathroom. ‘Let her through.’

Niall retreated to the wall, then followed after Jade. Darry held him back. ‘It’s all right, she’s fine.’

‘She’s just been sick.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Just look after her while I’m away, Niall. Stay inside and stay away from the windows, keep the curtains drawn too. And if anyone comes to the door ignore it.’

The young lad didn’t look too sure, his gaze still locked on the bathroom door. ‘OK.’

‘And here, take these for you and Jade.’ He handed over a little plastic bag full of SIM cards. ‘I have all the numbers saved into my phone, they can’t trace us if we keep changing them.’

‘But what about you?’

‘I have a bunch of them too, we have to keep changing them, after every call. Do you understand?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll make sure Jade knows, too … Shouldn’t you get going?’

Darry made a final glance around the room, as if making sure he hadn’t left anything, then ran back to the bed and raised the mattress. He patted the divan with his free hand and retrieved a small package, wrapped in a ripped Tesco carrier. ‘I won’t leave this here with Jade the way she is.’

‘What is it?’ said Niall.

Darry opened the bag, removed a filthy oil cloth. Inside was a worn, black pistol.

‘Christ, where did you get that?’

‘I could tell you,’ he raised the Luger to Niall’s head, ‘but I’d have to kill you.’

Niall pushed the handgun away. ‘Bugger off. That’s not funny. Is it loaded?’

‘Don’t concern yourself with that.’ He tucked the pistol inside his coat and walked through the door.

It didn’t seem right to be hiding away in Fin’s flat, it made her feel like she was the one in trouble, but what had she done really? Jade didn’t want to feel the way she did, like a criminal. Tulloch had made her feel bad enough, for long enough. He was the one that should feel bad but he couldn’t feel anything now. That didn’t seem right either. Tulloch was gone but they were all still suffering because of him; why should he be the one to get away from all of this?

Things would be different when Tulloch was out of their lives, surely. She should feel different, but she didn’t, not really. If anything, she felt worse, she hated him more. The problem had increased, spread to more people. Darry and Niall were all wrapped up in it now, and so was her mum. She couldn’t think about her mum without sobbing. It wasn’t right, her mum didn’t deserve any of this.

As she cried, Jade saw her mum in hospital, wired up to machines with nurses rushing around her. What had happened? Would she ever see her again? It was her fault, wasn’t it? Jade accepted the blame, it was all her doing in the end. She was trapped, the flat was like a prison cell and she wanted her mum. If she was going to die she wasn’t going to die in a hospital bed, with Darry watching over her. The images intensified, grew in her mind. She saw herself getting the news from Darry. ‘Mum’s dead … She asked for you, at the end …’

‘No!’

‘Jade, what’s up?’ Niall called from inside the bathroom.

She ran from the bedroom into the hall, yanked the main door open and ran onto the stairwell.

At the sound of the door smashing into the wall Niall ran into the hall holding a white towel round his waist, ‘Jade … Jade … come back.’ He ran to the window at the front of the hallway and tugged back the blind. ‘Jade … Jade …’ She was bolting down the street, the white soles of her trainers flashing on every step as she made off.

Niall stood at the window, staring down the street until Jade was out of view. As she disappeared he planted his wet brow on the windowpane and closed his eyes. He had only closed his eyes for a few seconds when he reopened them and found himself returning another intense gaze.

‘Who the bloody hell are you?’ he mouthed, trying hard not to permit lip-reading. The man was stout, in his fifties and wearing a black leather jacket that stopped just beyond his waist. Niall looked the man up and down, black trousers and shoes too, and a black shirt. ‘It’s a country and western get-up, surely.’

Niall laughed as the man walked towards the building, but his amusement subsided the closer the man got. He never once let his stare drop, even as he was falling from view. When he was gone, Niall yanked his hand from the blinds and turned back to the now empty flat. He saw his wet footprints on the lino, following all the way down the hall to where he stood at the window. The main door was still open, swaying on its hinges; the sound of heavy footsteps echoed up the stairwell.

He started to shiver as a shrill blast of cold blew down the hallway. Niall cradled his chest in his arms, gripped at his elbows. Down the hall, beyond the stand where the coats hung, he saw the baseball bat but the weapon was cut from view when the door burst open. Another man, taller, younger, still in black leather but without hair stood in the open hall.

‘Who’re you?’ said Niall.

The man didn’t speak. He turned away, looked into the flat. ‘You on your own?’

‘I am now.’

‘Where’s the girl?’

‘Gone.’

‘Where to?’

Niall shrugged. ‘She never told me. She doesn’t tell me everything.’

‘And you expect me to believe that? What about Fin, the owner of this flat that you’re staying in, where’s he?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘You’re not sure?’

‘Not exactly. I mean, he’s moving about.’

The second man strolled through the door, hands in the pockets of his jacket. ‘What about my money, I take it that’s on the move with him?’

‘What money?’

The men stared at Niall, his thin shoulders white against the dark wall. He was still shivering. A small pool of water had gathered at his feet.

‘I hope you’re not going to play silly buggers with us, son.’

‘Tell me what you want.’

The two men looked at each other, then turned away without speaking.

The bald man closed the door, started to remove his jacket. ‘You’re going to tell us where Finnie and the money are but first I’m going to have a wee bit of fun finding out.’

26

Valentine eased open the door of the incident room and called out to DS McCormack. She was seated in front of a computer, staring at the screen as she wagged a pencil beside her ear. She looked deep in thought, but snapped out of it when she heard the DI’s voice.

‘Sylvia, grab your coat,’ said Valentine. ‘And can you grab mine for me too?’ He let the door swing closed and as he was turning, a rushing DI Harris halted in his stride and put out a hand. ‘How goes it, Bob?’

The detective’s expression, especially the glowering gaze, said it all. ‘Do you really want an answer to that, Eddy?’

‘Probably not, judging by the kip of you.’ He placed a palm flat on the wall, exposing a chunky gold watch. ‘Not got the building blocks down on the murder case, then?’

‘Not got the blocks delivered, yet.’

Harris drummed fingers on the wall, the watch rattled in accompaniment. ‘I was hoping to grab five minutes with you.’

‘Not now Eddy, I have the victim’s partner in Ayr Hospital just coming round after a hit and run.’

‘Oh, yeah, the scrambler on the High Street. Another daft wee boy racer who’s going to find himself in more grief than he bargained for.’

‘He’ll not be playing Kick Start in this town again, put it that way. Look, what were you after anyway?’ He glanced into the office, McCormack was picking up his jacket, folding it over her arm.

‘Norrie Leask, some very strange goings on with him at the moment.’

‘Really? Is there another kind of goings on with that nut-job?’

Harris eased away from the wall and smoothed the edges of his moustache, as if he was trying to affect a more serious look. ‘Even by Leask’s standards he’s hyper. You might say, jumpy.’

‘Go on.’

‘Has been rattling a lot of cages in the town, putting the big threat about here and there, which in itself isn’t unusual for Leask but nobody’s saying why, and that is unusual.’

Valentine listened to the DI but was puzzled why the normally cagey Harris was being so open with the details of his case. ‘There’s been a crime, a serious one. Nobody wants to be involved, that’s how it works,’ said Valentine; he retrieved his coat from McCormack as she appeared in the hallway.

‘Who are we talking about?’ said McCormack.

‘Norrie Leask. Local psycho-cum-club owner. Runs a place called the Meat Hangers.’

The DS’s expression altered, she pointed back to the incident room. ‘I’ve just been reading about that place on James Tulloch’s file.’

Harris switched his attention from Valentine to McCormack. ‘Isn’t Tulloch your victim?’

‘Yes, he’s ex-army,’ said McCormack, ‘but he was working as a jumped-up bouncer recently, some sort of nightclub security. I’m sure the file said he was employed at the Meat Hangers.’

Valentine pushed open the office door, stamped back towards the PC that McCormack had just been sitting at. He started to scroll down the screen. ‘Where did you see this, Sylvia?’

‘Just there!’ she pointed on the screen. ‘Yeah, there it is … Employer name, Leask, Meat Hangers nightclub.’

Harris had joined them. ‘Jesus …’

‘He’s not going to help Norrie Leask when I get hold of him.’

‘We should bring him in, sir,’ said McCormack. ‘See if he feels talkative.’

‘I know where he is,’ said Harris. ‘We’ve been keeping a shadow on him temporarily.’

‘Only temporary?’

‘You know how Dino is with budgets just now, Bob. We could only follow his movements in office hours, there’s no time-and-a-half going this weather, especially when we don’t have anything on him.’

Valentine shook his head. ‘We should ask the scroats just to commit crimes nine-to-five, that would make life so much easier for us.’

Harris turned away from the officers, headed back down the hall to his own office. ‘Look, I’ll bring Leask in. I’ll let you know when we have him and if you want to sit in that’s fine with me.’

‘Do that, Eddy. If Leask’s tied up in this I’ll have him on a platter.’

‘You’ll get in line behind me, mate, slight matter of the armed robbery to solve too.’

Valentine watched as DI Harris padded away from the incident room, but his thoughts were on the night of James Tulloch’s murder. A lot of money had gone missing from Leask’s club in the raid and that amount of cash was a strong motive for murder. If the two incidents were linked then perhaps the pieces of the puzzle would slide together more easily than he thought. Just why Flash Harris was being so helpful was more worrying. It wasn’t his style, unless there was something in it for him too.

‘What do you think, Sylvia?’ he said.

‘I think we’ve very little else to go on. Is Leask capable?’

‘That I don’t know. He’s a tin-pot hard man but murder would be stepping up a few leagues, even for him.’

‘If the money was the issue, well, a lot of heads have been turned for a few quid.’

‘But, presumably the money was Leask’s, it was from his club.’

‘He’d want it back, surely.’

‘So he’s angry enough to kill for it, maybe. I’d be more inclined to see Leask as a profiteer, but he’d certainly be daft enough to get involved in murder if his cut was big enough.’

‘But where does Tulloch come in, has he robbed his cut, sir?’ said McCormack.

‘There was no sign of money at the scene, only a victim’s corpse. Of course, if Tulloch copped it for the cash, there would be no sign of the cash or the killer.’

‘They’d both be long gone.’

Valentine slotted his arms into his pinstripe jacket. ‘It’s an interesting scenario.’

‘We should certainly kick over Leask’s skittles.’

‘Don’t worry about that, Eddy’s getting into his bovver boots as we speak. Meanwhile, nothing’s altered enough to derail us, we need to question Sandra Millar. If anyone’s likely to throw some light on Tulloch’s murder it’s her.’

‘Agnes Gilchrist puts her at the scene at just the right time, she knows something that’s for sure.’

Valentine started to descend the stairs. ‘Let’s hope she gives it up nicely. I’d hate to have to borrow Eddy’s boots myself.’

27

The meeting with the chief super and Major Rutherford had soured Valentine’s mood. He had not been particularly cheerful before, was not even in the vicinity, but now an angry rook was pecking at his mind. There would be more to come, CS Martin had been undermined, and to make matters worse, in front of someone she clearly had a need to impress. It didn’t matter whether she was taken with Rutherford’s accent and old-school-tie bonhomie or just the cut of his jib, the result would be the same. Valentine saw the case slipping away from him, he was losing control.

‘Here, you drive, Sylvia.’ He handed over the car keys.

‘Yes, sir.’

Valentine rarely let anyone drive his car but he needed time to think. As he got in the passenger’s side he found there was no space for his legs. He wanted to stretch out, but as he pushed his back into the fixed seat he groaned. ‘Bloody hell …’

‘All OK, sir?’

‘How do you put this back a bit?’

‘There’s a wee bar that you press. It’s under the seat, sir.’

Valentine fumbled for the lever. ‘Where about?’

‘Here, let me.’

As Sylvia reached under the seat to release the chair Valentine looked away, scanned the car park. There was no one there. ‘Good job Ally and Phil never saw that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They think we’re on.’

‘On, sir?’

‘It must be an Ayrshire expression. They think we’re getting a bit close, spending too much time together.’

‘Oh for God’s sake. It’s only the nature of the case, they should realise I have experience of this sort of crime from Glasgow.’

‘Well if they don’t they better get used to it. I can see all of us burning the midnight oil from here on.’ He fastened his seatbelt. ‘Look, I meant to say, about the other day with Crosbie, thanks for that.’

‘No bother, only trying to help.’

Valentine played with a cuff-button and watched the road ahead as they approached the King Street roundabout. ‘Well, there’s help and there’s help. That sort of thing’s well above the call of duty.’

‘Most of what I do is,’ she grinned to herself.

Valentine gave a knowing nod. ‘I don’t know if it was the meeting with Crosbie or what, but I’ve not had any funny turns since.’

‘Is that what you’re calling them now?’

‘Seems to fit. Mind you, the way this case is going I could do with the help.’

DS McCormack glanced in the rear-view mirror and pulled onto the bypass, the car started to accelerate. ‘Well, we have Sandra Millar now and this Leask lead could be promising.’

‘Promising for who, us or Eddy Harris? I don’t trust him and the way things are shaping up Dino’s likely to put me out to grass and hand the lot over to Harris.’

‘She wouldn’t do that.’

‘Wouldn’t she? I’ve seen her tricks first-hand and she’s capable of a lot worse, let me tell you.’

‘But Harris isn’t as senior an officer as you, doesn’t have as much experience. She wouldn’t dare.’

‘Trust me, if these cases are linked then it’s a possibility. We need to be ahead of the game, ahead of bloody Flash Harris.’

‘I’ll get a hold of the case files from the Meat Hangers robbery when we’re done at the hospital. I’ll go over them tonight.’

Valentine tapped his fingers on the rim of the window-ledge, a smattering of rain had started to fall making the grim Ayrshire setting seem worse than usual. ‘The robbery was on the same night and our victim worked there; if we have Tulloch at the club earlier in the evening then that’s something for us to go on. What’s Leask saying about Tulloch’s death, has he got previous form with him that might tempt theft? You’ll have to dig for any animosity because I presume it won’t be obvious or Leask’d have just given him his jotters.’

‘I’ll visit the club and sniff around the staff. I’d suggest a covert visit but I don’t think we’ve got the time to set that up, sir.’

‘Just brass it out. Go in heavy, get the complete personnel list and run them all through the system. If there’s any with convictions for violence, run them through the mincer. If there was bad blood between Tulloch and anyone, even in small amounts, I want to know about it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The detective dropped his voice, took a more contemplative tone. ‘Just bear one thing in mind, Sylvia, if we end up sharing an incident room with Eddy Harris the only way we’re going to keep the good biccies on our side of the table is by making him look like an absolute bloody muppet.’

Darkness had fallen by the time the detectives reached the hospital. A queue of vehicles waited to enter the car park, their disgruntled drivers watching in disbelief as DI Valentine pointed McCormack into the emergency bays at the front of the building.

‘Are you sure about this?’ said the DS.

‘It’s an emergency isn’t it?’

‘Well …’

‘Sylvia, if murder isn’t an emergency then what is?’ She didn’t look convinced. ‘And anyway, who’s going to ticket a DI?’

‘Point taken.’

They headed for the front door of the large, well-lit building. The hospital had not been there long, was close enough in recent memory for Valentine to remember when it was still farmland, but the exterior looked worn and weather-beaten already. Peeling paint and sun-faded window frames highlighted by bright spotlighting. Inside, the reception desk was through a further set of automatic doors, a blonde-wood facia – there seemed to be a design theme – covered the wall either side of the corridor.

‘When did hospitals start to look like branches of Ikea?’ said Valentine.

‘I’ve no idea, sir. But they do now.’

‘Bet you wish you’d bought those shares in allen keys, eh?’

The receptionist pointed the detectives to the lift and said she would ring ahead to the ward to let them know the police had arrived. She was balancing the receiver on her shoulder, speaking in an unnatural volume to rise above the clamour of voices around the desk, as they left her. On the third floor, more blinding light and a powerful antiseptic smell greeted the officers. Valentine got as far as the middle of the long corridor, following the numbers on doors, before he stopped still.

‘Where’s our uniforms?’ he said.

‘There doesn’t appear to be any here.’

‘That’s what I mean. There should be. Ally should have had one on the door, this is a bloody murder suspect.’

McCormack looked the length of the hallway and back again. ‘Maybe he tried to put someone on but was overruled.’

‘I don’t think so, Sylvia,’ Valentine looked through raised lids, ‘unless Dino’s opened a rolling expenses spreadsheet for this case alone.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’

‘No, neither would I. But I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt on this occasion, given that she’s been otherwise engaged all day with her new major friend.’

‘I’ll check it out, sir.’ McCormack removed a notebook from her bag and started to scribble.

‘Do that. And make sure it’s round-the-clock surveillance, I don’t want Sandra Millar left alone when she’s already got a habit of going walkabout.’

As they reached the door to the patient’s room a man in a short-sleeved shirt, a lanyard with an ID badge around his neck flapping, started to jog to meet them. ‘Hello, you must be the police officers.’

‘You must be the doctor?’ said Valentine.

He tapped the badge round his neck. ‘No getting anything past you – Ben Caruthers.’

‘Shall we go inside, Doctor?’

‘Before we do, can I just say, she’s not in the best condition.’

McCormack returned the notebook to her bag, said, ‘I thought she was lucid now.’

‘I don’t know if I’d use quite that term. She’s conscious, but she’s very confused.’

‘What are you trying to say, Doctor?’ said Valentine, sensing a note of over-caution from the doctor.

‘I suppose what I’m trying to say is that this woman has been through a serious trauma.’

‘She was knocked over by a kid on a scrambler, not a double-decker bus. And he was hardly up to ninety in the pedestrianised area of the High Street.’

‘I’m not talking about the accident, Inspector. I mean Sandra Millar is suffering from pronounced anxiety, she’s under a serious amount of stress and confusion. Her nerves are bad, she blacks out and she’s got memory loss.’

‘That’s convenient,’ said Valentine. ‘Have you any idea how many murder suspects I interview with memory loss, Doctor?’

‘I don’t mean to make it sound like she’s affecting these symptoms, she’s really not well. She’s likely to be suffering some form of post-traumatic stress, that’s a fragile state for anyone to be in. I’m merely asking you to be considerate of that.’

Valentine turned for the door, grabbed the handle, ‘I’ll bear that in mind, Doctor.’

As the DI opened the door a flat-screen television, suspended on a bracket above the bed, was the only source of light. He flicked the switch on the wall and illuminated the whole room. A huddled mass, curled in the middle of the bed, recoiled.

‘It’s all right, Sandra, you can catch up with the Hollyoaks omnibus on Sunday,’ said Valentine. He walked to the bedside, where he was joined by DS McCormack. Dr Caruthers moved to the other side of the bed and tried to settle his patient. As Sandra jerked upright in the bed her gaze darted between the two officers and the doctor who examined the catheter on the back of her hand.

Valentine was unmoved, he reached over Sandra and retrieved the remote control, flicked off.

‘I hear you’ve lost your memory, Sandra?’

‘Have I?’ her voice was a whisper.

‘Very good, of course you wouldn’t remember that either.’ He put his hands in his pockets. ‘Where have you been, my dear?’

‘I don’t know what you mean?’

‘Since James Tulloch was murdered in your kitchen, Sandra.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh, I see. You’re going to claim you don’t remember your boyfriend, now.’

Her face was impassive. Dark circles sat under her eyes, just above drawn cheeks and the straight, thin line of her mouth. ‘I remember Jade.’

DS McCormack spoke: ‘Where is Jade?’

‘I don’t know. I want to see her. She’s my daughter.’

‘But she’s missing, Sandra,’ said Valentine. ‘Just like you were until we found you rolling about on the High Street this morning. Yes, Jade’s missing. And Darry, your son …’

The officers looked for life in her eyes but nothing showed. The talk seemed to have stilled her nerves, she sat solidly in the bed and didn’t move.

‘I said Darry, do you remember him?’

‘I … I …’

Dr Caruthers intervened. ‘I think you’re confusing her. Perhaps if you eased off a little.’

‘This is a murder investigation, a man’s been stabbed to death … In her kitchen.’

Sandra’s face contorted, the thin mouth widened and she started to whine.

‘I think she’s had enough now,’ said the doctor.

Valentine’s voice rose. ‘I’ll decide when she’s had enough.’

‘No. Actually, Inspector, that decision is mine and I think my patient has had quite enough questions for one day.’

Sandra sunk into her pillow, sobbed into the bedclothes as Dr Caruthers tried to coax her to take a sip of water. The detectives watched, McCormack nodding towards the door; when Valentine’s eyes met hers he shook his head and continued with the questioning.

‘We have the knife, Sandra,’ said Valentine. ‘And footage of you throwing it in the river, what have you got to say about that?’

She mumbled, ‘Jade. I want my daughter. I want Jade. She needs me. I’m all she’s got …’

‘That’s right, her father’s dead too isn’t he? You remember that bit OK.’

Dr Caruthers put down the glass of water and stepped towards the officers. ‘That’s enough now! You can see the effect your questioning’s having on her. I won’t watch her take a complete breakdown tonight, it’s time for you both to leave. Now.’