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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Sergeant Don Colyear
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
When you work in the police force, intuition is everything and police sergeant Don Colyear has it in spades. It's a gift that gets him into as much trouble as it gets him out of. After an incident makes remaining in Glasgow impossible, Don is sent to work in a remote Highlands town. He doesn't want to be there and the feeling is mutual. His new inspector wants him gone and the locals wonder why he's even there. Still, Don makes a go of things, striking up a good working relationship with rookie officer Rowan Forbes. As Don starts to investigate petty crimes, it soon becomes clear that there is something off about the town. A string of teenage disappearances have not been given due attention. Then there's the gruesome murder of the groundsman of the local sporting estate. Why is the inspector reluctant to properly investigate? Could the incidents be linked? As Don delves further into the town's secrets, it's not long until his own life is at risk.
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OUT IN THE COLD
STUART JOHNSTONE
Para Azul
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Gut Feeling
John tried the letterbox again. He let the flap fall, sending harsh metallic claps both inside the bare-sounding flat and all around the stairwell, knowing half the building had probably been awoken by our now-lengthy efforts.
Five seconds of silence. Ten. Nothing.
At John’s request I held the flap open while he shone his torch through.
‘No carpet,’ he said, ‘no light bulbs even; is this definitely the right address?’
I checked the message on my radio screen and confirmed it was.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
‘You’re asking me?’ I laughed. He had been doing this more and more. I enjoyed the responsibility implied, though not so much the pressure that came with it.
John began rapping the butt-end of his torch against the door. The sound was piercing, and I resisted the urge to plug my ears with my fingers.
The door to the flat behind us juddered open, the scowl on the man’s face turned to apologetic surprise and the door closed over.
John was sniffing through the letterbox now.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Just checking,’ he said. ‘I think we’re going to have to put the door in.’
‘I’ll get it from the car,’ I said. I made my way down the stairwell, watching my feet carefully as the orange haze from the buzzing communal stair-light failed to penetrate the gloom efficiently.
Three certainties in life, John would say often, too often to forget he’d said it to me before. Death, taxes, and they’re always on the top floor. Today he was right enough. He had a lot of these little sayings. I wondered if they were his, or if he’d learnt them from his tutor and, if so, whether I was doomed to inherit them someday.
I held the ram out to John by its crude handles, my arms shaking with the weight of it. He just gave me a trademark look and I knew I was doing the swinging.
He was squat, middle-aged and out of shape, but his shoulders were better equipped for this sort of thing than my slight frame.
I pulled the ram up to chest height and opted for the pendulum approach. If John hadn’t been there, I would probably have voiced the and-a-one, and-a-two, and-a-threeee out loud. When I reached the count of two, fingers burst from the letterbox, tiny fingers.
‘Jesus!’ John spluttered, drawing away from the wriggling digits. He shone his light through as the hand withdrew. ‘Hello,’ he said with a small voice, ‘is your mummy or daddy there, can you get them? A wee girl,’ he said to me ‘can’t be older than three. Where’s your mummy? Can you open the door?’ John continued with the girl. She said something in reply I couldn’t hear. I crouched down next to John and saw the dark-haired girl shielding her eyes from the torchlight.
‘Can you get Mummy to come to the door, sweetheart?’ I asked.
‘Asleepin’,’ she replied.
‘Did you call us? Can you open the door?’
She tried and the handle turned but the door stayed shut, remaining firmly locked. ‘Do you know where the key is? Does Mummy have it?’ I asked, realising I was machine-gunning questions at the poor girl.
‘Mummy asleepin’,’ she repeated.
‘OK, honey, I need you to stand back away from the door now, can you do that?’
John gave me a nod and I lifted the ram once more. He held his hand up as I approached. ‘Do you have a dolly, a baby?’ he asked, a moment of inspiration. ‘You do? Could I meet her, could you go get her for me?’
John’s flat stop-hand turned to a go-point. I planted my feet and swung at the Yale lock and the ram battered through, taking part of the doorframe with it. The door crashed open, slammed against the wall and swung defeated on its hinge. Angry splinters jutted like fangs from the frame’s edge.
John’s torch lit the dark-haired girl standing in the carpetless hall in pyjama bottoms and a grubby vest top. A grim-looking doll wearing only a blue bonnet hung from her hand. The astonished look on her face quickly dropped, as did the doll, as she began to sob. I dumped the ram and approached cautiously, trying not to frighten her any further.
The smell from the flat was stifling. Nothing specific, just general filth and neglect. I flicked my sleeve over my hand and held it to my face, something I would learn in later years to be a mistake. Experience would teach me the best way to deal with smell is to just breathe normally; the nose becomes accustomed quickly. Any efforts to avoid the stench are futile and only serve to prolong the discomfort.
‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’ My voice came out funny from my reluctance to breathe through my nose, so ‘name’ sounded more like ‘dame’.
I pulled her hands from her tear-streaked face, but she didn’t reply. I lifted her and asked again. Her hands moved to my shoulders, holding me at arm’s length, though she didn’t otherwise resist. She looked at me for the first time. Her wet eyes scanned my face in the gloom. They were quickly drawn to the yellow light beaconing from my radio. She ceased crying now that she had found this wondrous toy on my shoulder. I turned the radio off so she couldn’t activate the emergency button and handed it to her to play with while I waited for John to search the flat with his too-small-for-the-job torch. Mine was no better and the large torch in the car hadn’t been charged by whoever had used it last.
‘My name’s Don,’ I said to her, ‘and that funny man over there is John. What’s your name?’
‘Carly,’ she said, more to the radio than to me.
‘That’s a pretty name. Where’s your phone?’ I was still hoping that this was to turn out as nine out of ten dropped calls did; an accidental or mischievous dialling of treble-nine, resulting in some finger wagging and corrective advice. This hope was growing thinner with every passing second.
‘Mummy’s room.’
‘Is Mummy there too, can you show us?’ I asked. She pointed down the hall where John’s torchlight bobbed and spun.
‘John, she’s going to show us,’ I called.
Carly pointed to the furthest away door, closed over.
‘Better stay there,’ said John. I nodded and began asking Carly about her nursery. Apparently her teacher was Miss McPake, and she was nice. She had yellow hair, and a blue car.
John returned to the hall. I raised my torch to see him shaking his head, a foreboding expression on his face. Mummy wasn’t asleepin’.
John riffled through the contents of a purple purse he had found, looking for the woman’s details. He reached for his radio, giving our call sign. Control acknowledged and I carried Carly back down the hall. She didn’t need to hear what John had to say.
As we passed back along the hallway Carly tugged on the collar of my stab vest. ‘Baby,’ she said. I looked around the floor and spotted the dropped doll and handed it to her, swapping it for the return of my radio. I turned it back on and inserted my earpiece. John was passing the grim news.
‘That’s confirmed, Control, no suspicious circumstances, door was locked from the inside, no signs of struggle, no wounds.’
‘That’s received, Echo-Three-Three, I’ll update supervisors. Do you require detectives?’
‘Negative, I’ll email them the incident for the morning meeting. Can you just confirm Social Services are en route? Oh, and we’ll need a joiner to re-secure a wooden door.’
‘Roger, Three-Three.’
Carly fell asleep in the car once it had warmed up. I had coddled her in my uniform fleece jacket and she was snoring gently. John had dabbed at her face with a sanitation wipe from the first-aid box, only succeeding in making her look grubbier with the streaks of clean skin standing out in contrasting hue to the rest.
‘What did you find?’ I asked John, now that I safely could.
‘The mother in bed, stiff and cold. Some pill bottles and charred foil.’
‘Such a shame,’ I said.
‘Shame? Selfish fucking wretch you mean.’ This took me a little by surprise, and not just because of the sudden raising of his voice; it really wasn’t like John. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I just don’t get how someone could do that.’ He turned to look at Carly. She hadn’t stirred. John had a daughter of his own. I’d never met her, but he talked about her often and with obvious pride. She was studying to be a nurse and was only four years younger than me.
‘Do you think she made the call?’ I asked.
‘The girl? Must have. Mum’s been dead a while, at least a day.’
‘What will happen to her?’ I said, sending a nod towards the sleeping girl.
‘I’m not sure,’ said John, still looking at her. ‘If there’s no family to take her she’ll be placed with a foster family; if she’s really lucky, adopted.’
‘And what if she’s not lucky?’
John considered this for a moment. ‘She’ll be passed pillar to post between foster homes and institutions for her entire childhood. God only knows what she’ll be when she comes out the other end.’
There was a period of silence as we both digested this. I wished dearly that I hadn’t asked.
Everyone then seemed to arrive at once: the undertakers in their dark blue private ambulance, the joiner in his white van and a social worker looking bleary-eyed, clearly on call and asleep when they had summoned her. The priority was to get Carly out. Seeing your mother being removed in a black body bag is the kind of thing you can’t unsee. John stood with the social worker, passing on as many details as he had been able to glean from the purse. I lifted Carly carefully, trying not to wake her, and brought her over. John was being told that neither Carly nor her mother were known to social work, which horrified me. I didn’t comment; I didn’t want to sound like I was attacking the social worker personally. It wasn’t her fault the system had failed here. She was a middle-aged woman with a kind face, a useful advantage in her job, I guessed. I handed the half-sleeping girl over. Her small fist was again gripping the edge of my vest and she began to moan as I carefully prised her fingers. As I walked away, she began to cry, understanding dawning on her perhaps. My heart was breaking and the urge to return to her was overwhelming.
‘Baby,’ she called, her voice and lower lip trembling.
Oh shit, I thought and went to the car to retrieve her doll. I passed it to her and couldn’t resist tucking a dark curl around her ear. I exchanged sympathetic smiles with the social worker.
Carly seemed to settle briefly, until the social worker began buckling her into a child seat in her car. I joined John, who was helping the undertakers remove equipment from their vehicle.
‘Baby,’ I could hear Carly screaming in the background. The social worker must have had to remove her doll to properly secure her in her seat. We waited until they had driven off before traipsing back to the flat, the five of us each lugging something necessary up the stairs. I had the body bag.
The two heavy-set undertakers were impressively dressed in black suits and equally sombre ties – impressive given that it was four in the morning and nobody would have blamed them for turning up in jeans. They hadn’t brought a torch, clearly unaccustomed to having to do their job in a house without light bulbs. The torch the joiner had was no better than ours. Still, between us we managed to manoeuvre a stretcher into the bedroom.
She lay naked on her front, underneath a heavy half-pulled-back quilt.
She was, mercifully, facing away from me. Her arms were up above her head and must have been hugging the pillow her head had been resting on before John had removed it.
John double-checked the body with the aid of the extra torches.
I looked away as he checked for sexual injury.
I was still getting used to bodies and John hadn’t yet put me in a lead position for this type of call. I knew I would be able to deal with it when I had to, but while I didn’t have to, I took advantage.
Carly’s mum was a large woman, twenty-eight according to her driving licence, though you’d have guessed older. The roots of her brilliant-blonde hair showed that she shared her daughter’s natural colour and she sported an array of, frankly, grotesque tattoos: Tweety-Bird looking like he had walked into a hall of mirrors on one shoulder, ‘Carly’ written in a swirly font on a forearm, and ‘Ewan’ etched across a garish pink heart on her shoulder. The girl’s dad perhaps; and where the hell was he?
The smell in the room was a concentrated version of the rest of the house. Massive piles of dirty clothing lay against one wall like a fabric snowdrift. Used dishes were stacked beside the bed, and coffee cups acting as Petri dishes lay mingled between empty vodka bottles and glasses.
There was a smell coming from the body too. Not of decomposing flesh, not yet, more like a smell from a butcher’s shop. No longer a human odour, just meat.
The smell didn’t seem to bother anyone else. They simply set about their tasks as if this was the most natural, pedestrian thing in the world. Perhaps, for them, it was.
I began noting down the long names on the labels of the pill bottles before bagging them. John assisted the undertakers in wrapping Carly’s mum in the sheet she lay on. Clever, I thought, that wouldn’t have occurred to me. It meant they could lift her easily while I slid the open body bag underneath and not have to touch her too much.
It was decided that the stretcher would only make things more difficult in the tight turns of the flat. The undertakers lifted her shoulders while I took hold of her feet and led the way, with John making a path with the torch.
My stomach lurched as we left the room. It took me by surprise. As much as the smell was unpleasant, it was unusual for it to induce a gag reflex. I hid it, or did my best to, and the others didn’t seem to notice. If they had I would certainly have been subjected to well-meaning, but nevertheless tiresome, ridicule.
The joiner was finishing replacing the lock and drilling screws into the edge of the door frame to undo the damage I had done to it as we passed him.
‘Always the top floor eh,’ he said to John, as we started down the stairs.
‘Three certainties in life …’ I could hear John beginning.
We waited in the car for the joiner to finish. We would meet the others at the hospital morgue to book the body through once we had finished at the scene.
It was agreed I would write the report, or rather John told me I would. I was trying to recall all the information needed to complete it, hoping I wouldn’t have to ask him later.
A vague pain was niggling at my lower stomach, either from the earlier lurch or from nightshifts generally, I thought. They played havoc with my system. Some of my colleagues, John included, could consume an entire evening meal at three or four in the morning, unthinkable to me.
A tap at the window startled me. The joiner passed in two sets of keys and John gave him a piece of paper with the incident number and we said our farewells. John wound his seat back to as horizontal a position as it would allow. He would get twenty minutes’ sleep as I drove to the hospital, again something some of the team could do, but I could not.
I unhooked the keys from the antenna of my radio and immediately dropped them as my stomach twisted into spasm.
‘You OK?’ asked John, rolling his head towards me, his arms crossed on his chest, ready to nod off.
‘Fine,’ I lied. I fished the keys from the dirty floor under the pedals. The ache in my gut was constant, a film of sweat was creeping over me. I arched my back, trying to shift it and slipped the key into the ignition before another wave of shooting nausea and agony overcame me. I tried to stop the pain leaving me audibly, grinding my teeth and clenching my fists around the wheel, but a grunt escaped.
‘You want me to drive?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said again, with depleting plausibility.
‘You probably just need to fart,’ said John, lying back again, eyes closed. ‘It happens to me on the nightshift sometimes. Let her rip, just crack a window.’ I smiled, and got the car started, taking advantage of a short reprieve. I punched the gearstick into first and set off tentatively. I reached the end of the street without further cramps, and I put my foot down with more confidence.
I had just shifted into third when my stomach pitched once more. The pain that then flooded my abdomen made the other spasms feel utterly insignificant. In my panic I must have stamped on the brake. I shot forward, doubling over at a perfect height for the top of the wheel to connect with the bridge of my nose.
I felt it break. Not with a snap, but with a crunch. Light flooded my eyes as the two areas of pain waged a vicious war.
Blood was dripping into my cupped hands and John was saying something, but I didn’t hear. I needed to get back to that bedroom.
I don’t recall turning the engine off or applying the handbrake as I fled the car. I vaguely remember John calling after me, and the taste of blood. I do remember running, and the banging of doors, and the fishing of keys.
I entered the flat and immediately realised I had forgotten a torch. I fished my phone from my pocket and selected the torch function, which would deplete the battery in minutes. Some part of me expected to see Carly’s mother when I reached the room, but I found only an empty bed, my mind painting a residual image of the woman as I’d just seen her.
I swept the light from the phone around the room and began tentatively kicking over piles of clothes and boxes. I reached the clothing, piled high on the far wall and my stomach churned.
I held the light high and began to remove items onto the bed, the odd drip from my still-bleeding nose falling onto them.
The snowdrift turned out to be more of a light dusting, I realised, as my hand hit something solid. I cleared a large blanket from the pile and was faced with thin wooden bars.
A child’s cot.
I cleared the remaining garments from around it and raised the phone over the top.
He was eighteen months old, I would later learn. His name was Ewan, I knew even then.
The child’s eyes were open, staring straight up. The sleeve and shoulder of his Babygro were thick with white vomit, long dried.
I could hear John wheezing from the hall, approaching.
My hand shook as I reached into the cot. I placed the back of my fingers on the boy’s face expecting cold confirmation. But he was warm, hot even.
His eyes rolled towards me and I laughed. I’m not sure why.
CHAPTER TWO
Past on the Way
I feel sick again.
Saliva floods my mouth. The room feels like it’s spinning. Since I can see nothing, I can’t confirm that it’s not, or even if this is, in fact, a room. The almost total darkness makes it impossible to get a fix on anything. I need a visual anchor to stop the carousel in my head.
I’ve dealt with far more grizzly incidents in my career than that night with Carly and her mum. Shocking incidents of violence, cruelty and horror, but that’s the one I always go back to in the quiet moments. It’s been what, eight? No, nine years now. I haven’t seen or spoken to John in at least half that time. It’s absurd how people who seem so important to you can slip out of your life entirely.
Before that night my nose was perfectly straight, now it has a certain boxer’s angle about it. It adds character, Karen had told me. You’re my wee panda, she had also said, chuckling at my twin black eyes and gently kissing the bridge of my knackered nose.
I’m smiling, I can’t help it. That was a sweet moment.
I’m considering standing again, but the last time I tried, I slammed my head off something, right on the spot where she hit me. My legs gave out instantly. I think I was unconscious again for a while.
I’ll just stay seated for a while. I don’t think I could take that pain a second time. The blow must have opened up the wound. There’s what feels like dried blood on my face between my right eye and ear, and my collar is wet and sticky. A strong iron smell fills my nostrils. That and mould. Wherever I am must be full of it.
What the hell did that woman hit me with? And how did I not see it coming?
My hands are cuffed behind my back. They’ve been applied too tight; my fingers are swollen and slightly numb. I can spin my wrists for a little relief, but only just. I have to remember to do that every few minutes to try to swap the trapped blood in my fingers for some carrying oxygen.
The floor is covered in some bizarrely fluffy material. Under that is cold loose dirt.
I try to shake off the dream-like malaise. Is this what a concussion feels like?
I will have to try to take control of the situation, soon. Find my bearings, figure this out. Though not right at this second. Just give me a minute. Maybe a few.
Think.
There’s time for that at least.
Now … if she wanted me dead, she had the perfect opportunity; why would she leave me here? Does that mean she’ll be back?
Listen, I tell myself. I hold my breath and really listen. But again nothing. Just a low ringing in my ears, and I’m pretty sure that’s coming from me.
I should get up.
Get up.
No wait, I really am going to be sick.
I heave, but there’s nothing. Nothing but my abdomen wringing itself like a wet tea towel.
I spit.
I will get up. Just need a minute.
God, this job!
It doesn’t matter where you work. If you’ve been a cop for any length of time, you’ve seen some horrible shit, pretty sure that’s fact. That night with Carly’s mum, it comes back to me again and again, because of what it could have been. This sense of what if …
I was such a green boy back then. Perpetually terrified. The first two years, working with John, were ceaselessly stressful. The constant feeling of inadequacy as you learn the job, the shifts, the very nature of the work. Still, those two years were also often fun. Or maybe it just feels that way because of how things went later.
Losing John, the way I did, the way it went down, I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but that was only the start of the trouble. Stratharder was to be a fresh start. I had mixed feelings about the move, but I couldn’t stay where I was. Besides, what had I left to stay for?
Windows down and music cranked I left Oban behind, having stopped briefly to look at my old house and wishing I hadn’t bothered. It was nothing like I remembered. Everything was so small and normal and not at all like the magical childhood photographs in my head.
I headed north on the A85, everything only vaguely familiar. I passed over the Connel Bridge and soon the small airport came into view.
Jamie, a friend from school, used to take me and some other guys up to one of the runways and let us have a shot of his Renault Clio. If the cops had turned up then, and caught me driving without a licence and insurance, then a career in the police would have been a non-starter. Not about what you’ve done, John would say, and he would report to me his own adolescent transgressions, some of which made mine look no more serious than chap door run. It’s about what you got caught for.
The airport represented a geographical line in the sand. It was as far north as my knowledge took me; I was heading into uncharted Argyll.
I had forgotten just how beautiful the region was. The West Highlands of Scotland epitomise the idyllic depiction of the country, the shortbread tin fantasy. We don’t tend to advertise that most of the country has as much concrete as any other, and that these picturesque parts are actually pretty awkward to get to.
Keeping only an irresponsible half-eye on the road, I took in the green views to my right and a tree-obscured look at Ardmucknish Bay to my left, stretching out in glittering silver-blue before it was lost from sight entirely.
I fished a fresh CD from the large rucksack keeping me company on the passenger seat. It was the only place left to put it. Every other inch of the car was crammed with suitcases and bags, much of it my work gear. It was a depressing realisation that I could pack my entire life into a Volkswagen Polo. It made me wonder if it was the barometer of a person; what size of car could contain you. If it was, I wasn’t doing well.
The cyber-female voice of the satnav informed me I was five miles from my destination. The destination I had set was a random spot on the main road, where I guessed the turn off for Kirkmartin would be as it was nowhere to be found on Google Maps. Even Stratharder, a much larger town in comparison was somewhat elusive and just appeared as a patch of pixelated green. Loosely speaking, Stratharder is my neck of the woods – backwoods; but I was only vaguely aware of it as a town. Dad said much the same when I called and asked him about it.
I was so busy looking for a sign for Kirkmartin that I drove straight past one for Stratharder – 8 miles, it registered somewhere in my head after the fact. According to the letting information on the strangely amateurish estate agent website, Kirkmartin could be found on the road to Stratharder, a few miles out. It was as specific as that.
I found a U-turn opportunity and pulled onto the new road, which was one of those not-really-designed-for-two-cars types. No white lines down the middle and verges that looked so soft that I wouldn’t trust anything but a Land Rover to get out of them.
The route skirted the edge of a large rocky outcrop for a mile or so before heading into thick forest. I drove on for about ten minutes before realising the road had been, and for what I could see ahead, continued to be, completely straight. The trees on each side leant over to form a tunnel of nature. The low autumn sun beating down on the canopy sent regular deep shadows across the road that drummed a beat on my eyes. The effect was hypnotic and soporific. My speed dropped to forty with the view ahead difficult to make out through the constant strobe of sharp light and deep shadow. Another five minutes passed and still the way ahead maintained a seemingly perfect straight line. I had never experienced this before, not to my recollection at least. Even major roads rarely managed a straight stretch for long, with Scotland’s abundance of natural features relentlessly requiring negotiation.
Just as I was beginning to think I may have taken a wrong turn, not that there had been any turns, another vehicle came into view. Something else on the road reintroduced a healthy sense of perspective. A small, bright yellow car was coming into increasing focus. I slowed further and pulled as far left as I could without risking the Polo’s off-road ability. A terrific din buzzed from the approaching car, which was maintaining its middle-of-the-road position. Certain that it would start edging to the opposite side, I continued. The car’s lights began to flash as it neared and was weaving side to side. I worried that whoever was behind the wheel might be in trouble.
It was charging towards me, the exhaust growling, then joined with the horn being pumped. There was no sign of it slowing as it weaved and screeched like a mad thing. I pulled the wheel hard to the left and was forced from the road, frantically finding a section of verge between the trees. I heard a deep clunk and felt it up through my arse as my own exhaust struck something solid. The left wheels sunk into the verge and I had to steer into a skid to right myself. The yellow car tore past me with two young-looking faces laughing and hurling obscenities out of the side windows of the hideously modified hatchback.
‘Arseholes,’ I spat, as I wrestled frantically with the wheel.
I managed to stop the Polo from sliding to a complete halt, knowing I’d never get it out without help if I did. I wheeled back onto the road, coming to a stop in the middle. I stepped out as the waspish buzz of the other car’s exhaust faded into the distance. I was left in a serene silence interrupted only by birdsong and a light breeze cutting through the trees, which had thinned to reveal lush farmland on both sides. Far off to my left the rocky outcrop remained stubbled with fir trees and long sinuous lines of thin mist marking out the contours of its face.
I inspected the tyres: caked in mud, but otherwise fine. I tried to check the exhaust but could see little with the car having developed a tail of weeds and moss from the verge.
The way ahead stretched uphill where the trees grew thick again and swallowed the road out of sight. The farmland to my left also rose uphill and my eye was drawn to a section of stone brick jutting from an overgrown hedge. On closer inspection it was the ruin of some old building, too substantial and tall to be a cottage. Its one-time height was marked by a wall at the far side which looked ready to succumb to gravitational inevitability, simultaneously being held together and threatening to be ripped apart by ivy and moss.
I drove on, tentatively at first, listening for any damage to the car, though it seemed fine. At the top of the hill, finally was a bend. The road then sloped downhill to the left and I caught my first glimpse of Stratharder. Looking down on the town a battle was being waged between the grey of man and the green of nature. Smoke from chimneys and the odd steeple defiantly broke through the canopy. The thick green undergrowth lining the verge became a carefully coiffured hedge as I entered the limits of the town.
I was instantly charmed by the place. It was like stepping back in time and a quick check of the reception on my phone only compounded this assessment. The road continued gently downhill through the town centre in a long S-curve. Other than a Co-op supermarket, most of the shops were independent; cheesemonger, butcher, baker, even a few clothes shops. A crass yellow-fronted video store sat like a boil on the face of the high street, otherwise, yes, charming.
I slowed at the main crossroads in the town and inspected the sign posts. Back along from where I’d come, Oban was twenty-six miles, above that Kirkmartin at four miles. Odd, I thought, I’m sure I hadn’t passed any turnings. In addition to these a tourist-info sign directed visitors to the town library and a blue police sign, ingeniously vandalised with ‘FUK-DA’ spray-painted above it, signalled to the south. What the hell, I thought, while I’m here …
The police station had a laughably enormous car park to the rear, pitted with potholes and circled by a corroded metal fence. The station itself was also ludicrously large for a town this size. It was of typical design for a cop shop, all cubic concrete and austere grey. An incongruously beautiful hanging basket draped from a bracket at the public entrance.
I entered and that same sense of time travel struck me. I’d visited county stations before, all of which, understandably, were a little outdated, but this place was something else. In place of a standard bulletproof-glass public window, an unprotected, well-chipped wooden bar met me. The one modern feature was the automated ceiling light which blinkered into life as the door closed behind me. The small waiting area was equipped with a few plastic chairs beside a single public toilet. On the far wall was a door, I assumed giving access to the station proper. It was locked by a number combination panel, which made me smile as there was nothing at all stopping me hopping over the bar and into the station beyond.
The rattle of a keyboard caught my attention. A small, middle-aged woman I had failed to see initially sat at a desk in the centre of the room. She was holding an outstretched hand and a single lofted be-with-you-in-a-minute finger. I waited, studying the public awareness posters, some from previous decades, on the wall. One, which promoted vigilance against leaving your mobile phone unguarded in the pub, displayed a picture of a Nokia phone I nostalgically recognised as a 3210, sitting beside a half-empty pint of lager. I snorted a laugh. I sent my first text message on one of those, my first sext message too, come to think of it. Diane Cowie, first year at uni. She had sent the first one. We had been on one date and neither of us were sure how it had gone. We had texted with pleasantries afterwards and agreed to ‘do it again sometime’, but contact then waned. Then out of the blue I get this So … are u going to fck me or what??? text. Turns out she’d been at a party and been put up to it by a friend; or her friend had written it for her, I forget. God bless whoever she was, because two nights later, after much said sexting, we were indeed fcking.
‘The two youths walked past the vehicle.’
‘Pardon me?’ I said, the woman’s odd statement startling me.
‘Is it S-T or E-D? The youths walked past the vehicle?’ she called. I glanced behind, thinking perhaps someone had walked in behind me unnoticed, and it was they she was addressing. But no.
‘Do you mean which version of the word “past”?’ I said, guessing at a possible meaning. The woman, in her fifties at another guess, held one earpiece of her headphones away from her face. She was dictating reports, I decided. She looked at me expectantly.
‘Yes, is it S-T or E-D? That word always gives me trouble.’
‘Um … past; S-T,’ I said. The woman tapped away before slapping the return key like a cymbal crash. She stepped out from behind her desk and approached the counter, smiling and pushing her silver-rimmed glasses up into her hair. Despite the warm weather she was dressed for the cold, in a heavy grey wool cardigan and slightly darker grey tweed skirt. Her hair, also grey to complete the theme, was pulled back into a tight bun making her eyes wide and intense. Despite this her manner was warm and inviting. I liked Margaret from the start.
‘Are you lost, dear? You need some directions?’ Evidently, this was the chief reason someone would have in Stratharder to visit the police station.
‘No, well, actually yes, I could do with … Sorry, let me start again. My name is Don Colyear, I’m the new sergeant.’
‘Oh,’ she said, placing her glasses back on and tilting her head back to get a better view. ‘Are you sure?’ I didn’t know if she was joking. I laughed anyway. ‘It’s just that you look so young.’ She quickly held her hands up, to indicate no offence was intended.
‘It’s fine. I suppose thirty-three is young for promotion.’
‘Well, you’d better come in then. You’ll have tea?’
Tea? I thought. It was twenty-six degrees outside.
‘That would be lovely, thank you,’ I said.
There was a clunk from the adjacent security door as she unlocked it. The door swung open and I made to enter, but was stopped by an outstretched hand.
‘Some identification please,’ she said sternly.
‘Oh, of course, I could be anyone.’ I was fishing my wallet from my pocket when I saw the woman laughing.
‘I’m just kidding. Who’d show up here claiming to be you if they weren’t? Come on through. I’m Margaret by the way.’
‘Nice to meet you, Margaret.’
‘Make yourself at home. How do you take your tea?’
‘Just milk, thanks,’ I said, perusing my new workplace. Margaret disappeared down a hallway.
The station was orderly, nothing out of place, yet the beaten furniture, the drab decor and sheer volume of paperwork, as neatly stacked as it was, just made the place feel … ramshackle.
The only noise in the room came from the whirring fan of Margaret’s computer. Her workstation was the only part of the station with some life about it. Framed photographs of young children were dotted jauntily along her desk. A sign which read ‘Don’t Ask Me, I Only Work Here!’ and a jar of boiled sweets also inhabited her little corner. Her work tray, complete with three tiers, was labelled, from top to bottom: In Mail, Out Mail, Shake it all about Mail. A small television sitting on top of an ancient video recorder – seriously this thing might have been Betamax – was on, with the sound muted and subtitles playing. It was EastEnders, or Corrie, or … well, some soap opera.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Margaret, returning with two unfeasibly large mugs. ‘If I’d know it was you, Sergeant, I would have turned it off. I just like to have it on when I’m doing my typing.’
‘It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, Margaret.’ I was going to struggle with this new authority thing. Just hearing that title made my skin crawl. I felt like such an imposter. ‘And it’s Don, Margaret, I think we should dispense with the “sergeant”, if that’s OK with you?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ she said, handing me a mug which read I’d rather be golfing. Someone’s unwanted gift I assumed. ‘I’m not sure the inspector would be keen, though.’ She sat at her desk and swung round on her chair to face me, pulling another chair over with her foot.
‘Inspector Wallace? I forgot to ask, is he here? I’d like to introduce myself.’ I sat and sipped from my mug, which took both hands to hold comfortably.
‘No, he’s working from Oban today. He goes between here and there. He doesn’t announce where he’s going to be. He likes to keep people on their toes. It means nobody turns up here for a skive. They’re terrified they’ll get caught up here without an excuse.’
‘What’s he like?’
Margaret took a long sip of her tea, eyeing me. ‘Ask me again when I know you better,’ she said with a sardonic smile.
‘Will do,’ I said. I considered myself warned. ‘When he’s about, call me Sarge if you have to, otherwise it’s Don.’
‘Fair enough. Where are you staying then, in town?’
‘Actually, that’s why I needed directions. I’m staying in Kirkmartin?’
‘Ah, you’re staying at Hilda’s?’
‘Mrs Brownhill?’
‘That’s right. Hilda’s lovely. You can’t miss it; she’s just about halfway along the Langie.’ I didn’t have to ask; my confused expression was sufficient. ‘The Langie. The long straight road you took to get here?’
‘Right, yes. Well, I’m afraid I did miss her. I was watching out for it too.’
‘Did you see the old church? The crumbling building by the side of the road?’
I nodded and sipped.
‘Well, you’re not far from there. There’s a wee road just beyond takes you down the hill, Hilda’s place is on the right.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. I was about halfway through my cauldron of tea, and I knew I couldn’t possibly drink any more. ‘How long have you worked here, Margaret?’
‘Oh, let’s see, nearly twenty-eight years now? Yes, that’s right. It’ll be thirty years when I retire.’
‘Oh, you don’t look old enough, Margaret,’ I said, trying to be charming. She looked entirely old enough.
‘Not really my choice,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I don’t drive, so when they close the station I would need to commute to Oban to stay on, so I’ll just call it a day.’
‘Closing the station? I don’t understand. Why did they send me here if the station is being closed?’
Margaret looked suddenly disappointed. ‘That’s what I was building up to ask you. It seemed rude to just come out with it. But now you mention it, it’s what we’re all wondering. What the hell are you doing here?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure, Margaret. To fill in for the last sergeant, I guess.’
Margaret placed her mug down gently and turned her body to mirror mine exactly.
‘That’s just it though, Don, there’s never been a sergeant here before. Not ever.’
CHAPTER THREE
Introductions
Stratharder Police Station was a very different place when I arrived the following day. It was as if someone had applied the paddles of a defibrillator and shocked it into life.
The first indication of this new pulse was in the car park; I left my car between two marked police vehicles, one small Vauxhall Astra, looking as if it had just been driven from the showroom, despite the licence plate indicating it was in fact four years old, and a larger, well-used Ford Focus estate, newer than the Astra but already longing for retirement.
I arrived early for my first shift and found the front door to the station propped open, presumably to allow air to circulate. It was another fine day, which would make it four in a row, I calculated. Another few and it might just break some kind of Scottish record.
As I entered the station, a young officer typing away on one of the computers in the corner looked up. She smiled, but went back to her keyboard. She was somewhere in her late twenties. Her auburn hair was cut short, swept forward and across giving her an elfin, almost androgynous appearance. Her short, ever so slightly upturned nose, and ears peeking from her hair only heightened the effect.
I passed into the station and dropped my bags, unsure where I should take them.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you,’ the elfin girl said, but her gaze remained on her screen.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your bags. If the inspector comes downstairs and sees them, he’ll have a fit. There’s a locker room down the hall, I’ll show you.’ She made the familiar rapid Ctrl-Alt-Del, triple-click to lock her workstation and strode towards me. She was astonishingly short. I hadn’t noticed while she’d been seated, but her feet must have been dangling from the chair. If she was five feet, it was by a photo finish. She walked past me and I followed her down the hall.
‘So, you’re Sergeant Colyear?’
‘Don,’ I said. ‘And you are?’
‘Rowan Forbes. I’m pretty new here too.’
‘New to the police or to the area?’
‘Both. I’ve been in seven months, and I’m not from here,’ she ended in a derisive tone. ‘There’s a male and a female locker room, but to be honest I don’t think it really matters, you’ll be the only one using it,’ she said, stopping halfway down the hall and poking a thumb at a door.
I entered and threw my bags into one of the open lockers, of which there were perhaps two dozen or so. I was about to close the door behind me but Rowan nonchalantly followed me inside. A long bench sat between the two rows of lockers and I could see a shower room at the far end. I hung my jacket and pulled a T-shirt from my bag. Rowan had remained by the door and was eyeing me curiously; it was clear she wasn’t about to give me any privacy and I didn’t want to start our working relationship with an awkward exchange. As I swapped shirts she at least looked away, propping her back up against the wall. I hauled my body armour over my head, securing it with the side zips.
‘Do you cover this area?’ I asked.
‘Supposed to, but spend most of my time down the road.’
‘In Oban?’
‘Yeah, it’s OK, still pretty dull, but positively jumping compared to this place.’
I secured my belt and began placing my officer safety equipment into the corresponding clips and holsters. Cuffs to the right, baton to the left, clicking them into place without looking, so familiar was the routine.
‘What brings you up to the office today? I thought the inspector didn’t like the troops up here?’
‘I’m working with PC Ritchie today, he’s in with the inspector just now.’
‘Is he your tutor?’
‘Not exactly,’ she said, chewing on the end of a finger in thought. ‘I don’t have a tutor as such, I kinda get passed around.’
‘That doesn’t seem right. Consistency is important at this stage.’
She held her hands up. ‘Hey, you’re preaching to the choir, brother.’
‘Well, we’ll see what we can do about that, Rowan.’ I made to leave but she stood in the doorway with a pained expression on her face.
‘Actually, could you not?’ she said. ‘I mean what you do is up to you, of course, Sarge.’
‘Don.’
‘Don, but please leave my name out of it, if you don’t mind.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Politics, you’ll see. I just want to keep my head down and get through the rest of this year and next, and then I’ll be posted somewhere else.’
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I agreed to whatever it was I was agreeing to and returned to the main office. A large, heavy-set officer watched as Rowan and I came back from the locker room. I could swear I heard an accusatory ‘Oh aye’ under his breath, but I let it go, in the spirit of not rocking boats on the first day. Instead I strode purposefully up to him and held out my hand.
‘Don Colyear,’ I said.
He looked at me squarely and gave my hand an overly firm shake.
‘Brian Ritchie,’ he said, then snatched his hand away before turning to Rowan. ‘Right, short-stuff, see you later.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Rowan. ‘I’m just updating a crime report. I’ll only be a second.’
‘You’re staying. I’m leaving. The inspector wants you to show the new boy around,’ said Brian. He was in his forties, his hair a salt and pepper side sweep. His beard only just about qualified as such, barely long enough to have moved out of the stubble category into something acceptable under appearance standards. He had a naturally powerful look about him but, somewhat untrained, his body armour no doubt girdling a stomach typical of middle-aged neglect.
‘I’ll just check my emails, Rowan,’ I said as Brian departed. ‘Then maybe you can show me around town?’
She agreed and I settled myself in front of the terminal next to hers. I knew the inbox would be depressingly full. My two weeks of annual leave ensured an ocean of information to wade through, mostly inconsequential bulletins, lookout requests, and Force news; but hidden amongst the police spam would be some important items. I sighed as the email loaded up and I saw over three hundred unread items waiting for me. Worse than I feared. I quickly scanned my mail, looking to see if anything in particular jumped out at me, and one did catch my eye. The brief subject line made it conspicuous: Speak to me it read. It was from Alyson. I thought she’d given up trying to get my attention. She was obviously doing well for herself. Her email prefix showed she was now Govan CID. Becoming a detective was something she’d aspired to from the beginning. We’d joined on the same intake and been assigned to the same station and shift. I was glad to have someone to trade notes with.
We were introduced to our tutor constables on day one. Alyson was paired with a solid, serious-looking guy, complete with cop-tash; the kind of facial hair abandoned several decades before by all but those in law enforcement. Still, he had an air of competency about him. I got John, as one gets the flu, or the shaft – or so I thought. He was a small, round man. Jolly as a dog with two tails and slovenly in appearance. What little hair he had, spiked electrically from the sides and back of his head. His uniform was more grey than black, having absorbed months, if not years, of dandruff, sweat and whatever else he had come into contact with in the course of the job. Everything sat at a sort of jaunty angle with him – the skin-dusted armour, his hat and of course his ever-present smile. Suffice to say I was not pleased with my allocated mentor. I felt I was at an immediate disadvantage and I was sure Alyson would find herself streets ahead of me.
However, very quickly the noises coming out of camp Alyson were not good. Her tutor, Phil, she told me at the first night out in Glasgow about a month after joining the shift, was a spectacular prick; her words. A misogynistic control freak with a short temper. In the first few weeks she hadn’t been allowed to open her notebook once. Alyson had to laugh off his clumsy, unctuous advances on a daily basis. She told me this in the corner of the pub and had cried a little. It forced me to re-evaluate my working relationship with John.
While Phil did his best to keep Alyson sitting in the car, John had me talking and taking notes in almost every scenario. Unless it was clear the situation required a more experienced hand, he stood patiently aside while I learnt by doing. What I had misconstrued as laziness was actually good tutorship.
I hovered the cursor over Alyson’s email for a moment, then clicked and read:
Don,
Will you please grow up?
At least tell me you’re OK. If you don’t, I’m going to visit your dad and make him tell me what’s going on.
I won’t send any more texts, or emails to your private address. The message has been received loud and clear, but ignoring me completely is just cruel.
There are only so many ways to say sorry, and I think I’ve used them all twice by now. I don’t need forgiveness, at least not any more, but I do need to know you’re all right.
I heard you had to have an operation; I felt sick when I was told. I wanted to come and see you, I really did.
I’m not trying to justify myself, here. What I did is utterly inexcusable, but you need to understand things from my side.
The email went on much further, but that’s when I closed it. I hovered over the trash can icon for a moment, then clicked.
Gone.
‘Sergeant Colyear?’
A deep, sonorous voice startled me. I stood and extended my hand to the inspector. He took it briefly, not shaking it, but holding it, holding me in place as his eyes scrutinised my face. He then took a step back and looked at me head to toe. The first thing that struck me about him was his black hair. It was entirely too black, particularly as his hawkish eyebrows were a far more natural combination of brown and grey.
‘Would you make us both a tea and join me in my office?’
‘Certainly, Inspector,’ I said.
Margaret showed me to the small kitchen area and introduced me to the bureaucratic nightmare that was the tea fund.
I could neither knock nor open the door handle with my fingers straining to control the cups. I placed my own on the floor and chapped the inspector’s door with a double tap. There was a pause of a few seconds before I was beckoned from the other side.
‘First impressions?’ he said, as I set his tea before him without a thank you.
‘Of?’ I said, settling myself into an uncomfortable plastic chair at the opposite side of the imposing desk.
‘Stratharder, our little town.’
‘Oh, very nice. I mean I haven’t really had a chance to see much of it yet, but what I have has been very charming.’
‘Charming,’ he said, stretching the word, tasting it. He held his mug of tea in both hands, his gaze was to the window over my shoulder. ‘I suppose it is, it’s home.’
‘I didn’t realise you lived here, Inspector.’
‘Yes, I stay up the hill. The house has been in my family for several generations. Stratharder may not be the most happening place’ – his use of the word ‘happening’ made my skin crawl; that word hadn’t been happening for a very long time – ‘but that’s how I like it. It’s how most people round here like it. You’re staying out at Hilda’s? How are you settling in?’
‘Fine, thank you. It’s a nice apartment, and she’s a lovely lady.’
‘Oh, she is,’ the inspector agreed, ‘very … friendly. A little lonely of course, but friendly. I would lock your door at night if were you.’ He wagged his finger at me and laughed to himself. The elusive road to Hilda’s that Margaret had described had been there, right enough. In my own defence it was easy to miss. From the Stratharder side it was clear as day, there was even a little metal signpost on the opposite verge stating Kirkmartin 2. From my original approach, the adjacent bushes sat awkwardly, making the roadside look continuous. The road had taken me up over a hill and revealed a stunning view of a small glen; the backdrop of which was the daunting buttress of fir-lined rockfaces I’d admired on my drive in to Stratharder. The road plunged precariously downhill and narrowed, so that even a moderately sized vehicle would have filled it. Two deep troughs had gripped the wheels as I descended and I’d waited for my already battered exhaust to be finally ripped from the underside. However, miraculously, it had remained. The roadsides had risen quickly and submerged the track in near darkness. I had passed a row of cottages on my left, derelict and roofless, before reaching Hilda’s. A driveway allowed for a couple of cars and I’d parked next to a small Suzuki jeep. Hilda had met me at the door with a welcoming smile, wearing a silk dressing gown in a colour somewhere between purple and pink. Her long grey hair hung in spider wisps across her shoulders and significant bosom.
‘Do you have a family?’ asked the inspector.
‘You mean wife and kids? No.’
‘Still sowing wild oats and all that?’
My skin crawled a little farther. ‘Not exactly, no. I’m not long out of a relationship actually, Inspector.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Don, I really am. It is all right if I call you Don?’
‘Of course. In fact I’d prefer it.’
‘I will address you as Sergeant in front of the subordinates of course, and I expect the same professional courtesy in return; but when we’re chatting like this you may call me Stewart, if you like.’
I knew Inspector Stewart Wallace was always going to be The Inspector to me, but I said: ‘That’s fine, I understand. May I ask you something, Stewart?’
The inspector sat forward in his chair, his interest piqued.
‘Yes, go ahead.’
‘I’ve heard that my position here is, well … I didn’t take over from a previous … Sorry. Let me put this another way. Am I the first sergeant at Stratharder?’
He smiled and sipped at his tea, and then stood. He walked to the window.
‘Are we to speak candidly, Don? I mean are we to lay our cards on the table?’
I studied him for a minute trying to get a read on him, judge the level of hostility in his voice. ‘If there are cards to be laid, Inspector, I think we ought to, don’t you?’
He turned to face me. ‘All right, here’s where I’m at.’ He folded his arms across his chest, sending signals of his discomfort but also his resolve. ‘I didn’t want you here. Actually, to be more precise, I don’t want you here. Stratharder neither needs nor wants a sergeant. Your presence here is as pointless as it is political.’
‘Political, Inspector?’
‘Listen, let’s agree to this. You don’t pretend to be naive, and I won’t bullshit you.’
The back of my neck burned, partly from embarrassment and partly from an embryo of anger. I shifted in my chair so I could face him properly. I stopped myself from crossing my arms and forced a passive cross-legged stance. I let him continue.
‘I’m sure you’re a pleasant young man, Don, and I don’t mean to get off on the wrong foot, but you see, I simply don’t appreciate having others’ dirty laundry being dumped on me, and my town. I protested at your placement here, although it clearly fell on deaf ears. An ace beats a king, I suppose. Still, it doesn’t mean I have to like it, nor does it mean I have to bend over backwards to accommodate what is a selfish and poorly judged decision. Out of sight, out of mind, that’s why you’re here, only you’re sitting right in front of me, aren’t you? And I can see you just fine.’
He paused then, perhaps expecting a rebuttal, but all I had heard so far was complaint. I waited for him to reach some kind of point.
‘Look,’ he said with a tone of retraction, ‘this is not a personal thing, and you should try not to take it as such. I’m not attacking you here. What happened at your last station is in the past, but it happened.’
‘What is it you understand to have happened, Inspector?’
‘Let’s keep this friendly, Sergeant,’ he warned, retaking his seat behind the desk. ‘I’m not judging. There are two sides to every story, but if you haven’t realised by now, let me explain. The police is a family. Even now that we have merged as a single force, it just means we are a larger family, and we look after our own. Trust is everything in this job, surely you know that?’
