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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Sergeant Don Colyear
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Don Colyear has made the transition from his role as a Community Police Sergeant to a new position in Edinburgh's CID, but the adjustment has not been easy. The workload is one thing but being micro-managed by DCI Templeton as well is more than testing. When Colyear's investigation into a mysterious death spirals into a complicated case centred on a massive consignment of Class A drugs, a double murder and a clash between low-level and professional criminals, his instincts are put to the test.
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RUN TO GROUND
STUART JOHNSTONE
5
For Lindsay
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
Amateur Hour
Dillon’s hands trembled as he gripped the slick bat. His bottom lip trembled too, though not from the cold rain that was bouncing off the mud at his feet. Pull yourself together, he thought. Was he fucking crying? Get a hold of yourself, Dillon, fuck sake. He was suddenly very glad of the darkness and the downpour to hide his cowardice. Small floodlights beamed down from high on posts at seemingly arbitrary spots in the yard, showing clearly the ferocity of the downpour directly in front of their bulbs, but it was easy enough to stay clear of the areas they highlighted.
Were the others scared too? If they were there was no sign of it. Tavish at the front of the line, raised his hand, which meant stop, a signal agreed upon in the van. What did he think this was? Commandos infiltrating an enemy camp? Dillon turned to look at his brother, bringing up the rear, wiping his eyes before he did. Davie was looking 7nervously around the scrapyard, but when he saw Dillon’s face he winked and gave what he must have thought was a reassuring nod. Ahead of Dillon, between him and Tavish (on point?), Sal was fidgeting and trying to see past Tavish’s shoulder.
Dillon waited for whatever it was Tavish had them paused for and listened to the rhythm of the metal graveyard in which they stood. Metallic thuds of the heavy raindrops striking the roofs and bonnets of the discarded vehicles, some piled four or five high, sounded in a relentless beat.
Dillon was being pulled low by his brother. He looked ahead and Tavish was urging them down with a swatting hand. No sooner had Dillon ducked to his haunches, leaning against the side of a rusting Transit van, than the roar of an engine flew past them. A Range Rover, coming from seemingly nowhere, charged through the scrapyard and was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Tavish responded with a curl of his hand, urging the group on.
Dillon followed the line, the fear rising again in his chest as they turned the corner of a monolith of rotting hatchbacks, avoiding the circles of light from on high. Ahead, through the driving rain was the row of portacabins they had cut a hole in the fence to visit. Tavish gave the signal, tapping at his mouth with an open hand. Dillon pulled his scarf up over his nose, the others covered their faces in similar ways. This is it. Shit, this is it.
Tavish was running across the patch of earth between them and the cabins. Then Sal was and his legs took him without thinking, his brother was right at his shoulder. 8They stopped at Tavish’s signal. He was peering through a small window in the nearest of the three cabins, discreetly at first but soon cupping his hand at his eye to remove the glare from the overhead light.
He moved on to the middle cabin. A dark blue BMW was parked at the bottom of a small ramp that led to a blue door at the cabin’s centre. A light above this door showed Tavish clearly, all attempts at stealth now apparently abandoned. Again, he was at the window, though this time he quickly ducked and began urging the others to come.
The four of them congregated on the ramp. Tavish approached the door at a crouch and tried the handle. The door remained closed. Now Tavish was on his feet facing the door. He appeared to be contemplating using the crowbar in his hand to jemmy it, but then it was lowered and he was taking a step back before launching his foot at the handle. The door was thrown open and Tavish was inside. Sal was moving in too. Dillon’s legs betrayed him until he received a shove from behind and he too was out of the rain and into a blindingly bright room full of shouting.
It took a moment for Dillon’s senses to settle and take in what was going on around him. He raised his bat, ready to swing at anyone he didn’t know. There was nobody to hit. The shouting was coming from Tavish and one man he had pinned backwards over a desk. The laptop that had been there lay in pieces at their tangled feet.
‘Shut up. Shut the fuck up,’ Tavish hissed. The guy, prone on his back, was yelling through Tavish’s hand across his face and mouth, his own hand pushing into 9Tavish’s chin. He was being forced into the desk surface, unable to get any purchase to fight back. ‘Listen up, prick, I’m going to take my hand away and you’re going to sit up. Any shit from you and you get another slap with this,’ Tavish said, shaking the crowbar with his free hand.
Dillon moved to get a better look, his pulse racing and what felt like vomit sitting in his throat. As the guy on the desk sat up, his hands held up in defeat, Dillon saw a significant cut at his left temple, blood pouring freely. It ran down the guy’s face and dripped from his chin onto his Brown Leather Jacket.
‘That’s better,’ said Tavish. ‘And if you think about running or doing anything stupid, it’ll be a lot worse than a tap with a crowbar. Cover him.’ Sal stepped forward and lowered both barrels at the man’s chest. ‘Now, where’s the shit?’
The man coughed into his fist and then dabbed at the cut on his head gingerly. He examined his fingers and moved to reach into the pocket of his jeans before Sal cleared her throat and bobbed the barrels at him. He paused, then continued going into his pocket, albeit slowly with his other hand raised. He produced a handkerchief and held it to his head before raising his eyes. He took each of the four interlopers in, his gaze lingering on each for a few seconds. The words that came out of his mouth were calm and even, despite the threat contained within them. ‘Just what in the name of fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he said, his accent vaguely Liverpudlian. He pulled his right foot up to rest on his left thigh. To Dillon, the guy in his well-fitting coat, well-groomed dark hair, wearing 10a genuinely inquisitive expression on his face, looked like the one in charge of the situation.
Dillon’s pulse was still on fast forward. He lingered by the door listening for any noise of an engine, but all he could hear was the steady drum of the rain on the roof of the portacabin. His breath was released in small clouds of steam through the saturated scarf at his mouth and nose. Sal was the same, she fidgeted and was breathing hard.
The question seemed to throw Tavish for a moment as he looked around first at Davie and then at Sal, but then he was laughing. ‘What do we think we’re doin’? We think we’re robbing you of a copious amount of illicit substances, that’s what. Now where the fuck is the stuff?’
‘And what stuff would that be?’
Tavish scratched at his head and his gaze went to the door and then back. He raised the crowbar and advanced on the bloodied man again.
‘All right, all right,’ the man said holding the red-blotted handkerchief up in surrender. ‘You need to stop waving that thing around, mate. You’ll have someone’s eye out. Look,’ the man started, then paused, a small smile blooming. ‘I don’t know how you found out about said substances, but trust me when I tell you that you don’t want any part of this. Any of you.’ His eyes again searched out each individual, though Dillon felt they hovered on him longest. ‘Clearly – I mean quite clearly – you have no idea to whom said substances belong and if you don’t know, well I’m not going to be the one to enlighten you. Just trust me when I say that the intelligent thing to do is leave and do it quickly and then you run and don’t stop 11running for a while and maybe, just maybe, I’ll start to forget about this.’ He removed the handkerchief from his head and inspected the red blotch. ‘Though no promises,’ he said as if to the stain.
‘Time for you to stop talking and start telling. Where’s the shit?’ said Tavish, the crowbar bobbing eagerly in his hand.
‘Look, if you’re quick, you might just about get out of here before my colleagues return.’
‘You mean the mob in the Range Rover? Nah, they were out of here in a big hurry. Whatever they’re going to, looks important. When they get back, we’ll be long gone. Now, the shit, last chance.’
‘No, mate. This is your last chance.’ The man uncrossed his legs and cleared his throat. ‘If you insist on this, it will become the biggest regret of what remains of your short life. All of you. You get an A for enthusiasm and gratuitous violence, in your circles that will probably take you far, but right now you’re more out of your league than you can imagine. You couldn’t possibly have known that my colleagues were going to have to step out for a minute and so my guess is you were planning on doing this with all of us here, in which case you’d already be dead. As it is, you got lucky, but luck doesn’t last long. You’re amateurs trying to run against professionals and—’
‘We know what the fuck we’re doing,’ Sal cut in, pushing both barrels towards his face.
The man’s attention turned on her. ‘The evidence suggests otherwise, sweetheart. Maybe in the schemes you lot run around in, someone might be fooled into thinking 12you were holding a shotgun on them – you know, if you smashed in quick and made a lot of noise – but me? No, I see a couple of pipes taped together in the same half-arsed manner as the rest of this ill-conceived evening you’re having. I see a thug whose ambitions are way bigger than his capabilities,’ he said returning his eyes to Tavish, then they turned to Dillon. ‘And I see a scared shitless kid who seems to be the only one realising the magnitude of—’
There was a thud of the crowbar, a low groan from the man whose chest had been struck a fierce blow and a further thud as he slid from the table to the ground. He lay there writhing, gulping in air as if surfacing from a deep dive.
‘You talk way too much,’ said Tavish. He crouched down next to the man and began rifling through his pockets. First, he produced his phone, which he slid across the floor to Davie who kicked it past Dillon out of the portacabin door. Then he pulled a set of keys from the man’s jacket. Tavish held them up, giving them a victorious rattle. ‘Go see what you can find next door,’ he said and tossed them over to Davie.
‘C’mon,’ he said to Dillon.
They stepped out into the rain once more. The downpour had intensified. Dillon stared out into darkness looking for any movement while Davie tried keys in the door of the first portacabin. A clunk of a lock and a judder of a door sounded and they were inside.
‘Check that side for a light,’ said Davie. They both set about patting the unlit walls until Dillon’s hand landed on the switch. Overhead lights blinkered into life and Davie 13voiced the thought in Dillon’s head. ‘What the fuck?’
This cabin was a twin of the other, but in place of office furniture and a beaten man were stacks upon stacks of large brown packages. Three wooden pallets were loaded with these soft brown bricks. They stood, staring for a moment before Davie stepped forward and lifted one. He turned it over in his hands before tossing it to Dillon.
Dillon caught it in both hands, his bat rattled to the floor. One knee bent slightly as he absorbed the weight of it. It was about two feet in length and the contents were wrapped in thick layers of cellophane and brown tape. Through the wrap, it was clear to see that the tightly packed powder within was brown and not white.
‘W-w-what is it?’ he asked, but his brother had already darted out of the door. Dillon placed the package back amongst the others and had begun counting them amongst the three pallet loads when he heard a heated conversation out in the rain growing louder. He lifted his bat again as Davie re-entered followed by the leather-jacketed guy, pushed harshly into the room by Tavish.
‘What is so fucking interesting I needed to “see for myself”?’ Tavish said. Dillon realised he was blocking the view and stepped aside. Sal closed the door over. She’d dropped the shotgun ruse and instead held the pipes as if ready to take the guy’s head off if he tried anything.
Tavish said nothing for a full minute as he slid his hand over the top layer of packages, almost sensually.
Davie approached him and whispered angrily into his ear, but in the small cabin he might have well been shouting. 14
‘Kilo of MDMA, you said. What the fuck is this?’
Tavish picked up a package. He turned it over, even gave it a sniff before turning back to Davie. His mouth and nose were hidden under the Hibs scarf, but his eyes were smiling. ‘What does it look like? Fucking jackpot, is what it is.’
‘S-smack? What do w-we know about smack?’ Dillon said.
The guy in the Brown Leather Jacket was chuckling to himself somewhere behind him.
‘He’s right,’ said Davie. ‘Pills we can shift, but not this. What are we gonna do with this? Fuck it, let’s get out of here before that lot in the Range Rover get back.’
‘Trouble in paradise boys?’ Brown Leather Jacket said. ‘Your information was a little wide of the mark, eh? More than you bargained for.’ He laughed, but stopped as Sal threatened to take a swing. He held his hands up, palms out at his chest. ‘All right, love, take it easy. But seriously boys, maybe you weren’t listening before, and maybe you’ll listen now. That enormous amount of grade A heroin over there belongs to a very bad man. A man you don’t ever want to meet. Now, time to think very carefully about the next step.’ The three boys were looking at one another as Brown Leather Jacket continued. ‘If you take even a single gram of that there stash, he will follow you to the ends of the earth. Now, I’m appealing to your sense of reason here. Turn around, crawl back through whatever hole you made to get in here and run. Run until morning and then run some more.’
‘Go get the van,’ Tavish said to Dillon. Davie breathed a heavy breath. 15
‘Y-you’re not s-serious?’
‘A kilo of MDMA might have kept us going for a few months. This, this is life-changing. There’s no way we’re letting this opportunity slip through our fingers. Get the van and we’ll figure the rest out. All right?’ Tavish said, first looking at Sal, who nodded. ‘All right,’ he said, this time to Davie who hesitated, but then with that same heavy breath, said:
‘Okay.’
Tavish’s gaze returned to Dillon. ‘Now go.’
Dillon was still for a moment. Then made for the door. ‘This is a m-mistake,’ he said under his breath. He was halted as he reached the door, Brown Leather Jacket’s hand grasping his wrist.
‘That’s a t-terrible s-stutter you have there, lad. You’re not going to be very hard to f-f-find, are ya?’
Dillon pulled his arm free, stared deep into the eyes of this man for a second and then left.
Nobody said a word on the way back into town. After a few minutes someone in the front even turned off the radio. Dillon, in the back of the van, bracing himself between enormous piles of heroin, was imagining what was going through the heads of those up front. Tavish’s tiny quota of grey matter would be doing sums and then spending the totals. Davie, if he had any sense, would be contemplating the enormity of what had just happened, and Sal? Well, she was anyone’s guess, maybe the evening’s events, maybe what she was going to have for dinner when they got back. She wasn’t tuned to the same frequency of 16most people. Dillon’s thoughts revolved around a man in a Brown Leather Jacket and the central question: how in God’s name did he allow himself to get talked into this?
They rolled into the scheme a little after ten. The rain hammered on, though Dillon was only too glad to step out of the van when Davie opened the back door.
‘We’re going to stash this lot,’ he said. ‘You stay.’
‘Davie, what the fuck?’ Dillon said, a little under his breath and waving a hand at the van’s contents.
‘Not now, Dillon.’
‘Davie—’
‘Later. It is what it is.’ Davie was looking over his shoulder. He turned back and forced a smile.
Dillon shut the doors to the van. It was pointless arguing. Davie was right, there was no going back.
‘Later,’ Sal said. She lifted her hood against the rain and walked off towards the other end of the circular scheme. Dillon started towards his own flat. He was alerted by a shrill whistle. Wee Cammy was standing next to a car idling in the street. The kid was holding up his phone. Dillon pulled his own and checked the text that had arrived:
Gd, yr back. This guy wants HalfW 1GMD
‘Fuck off, Cammy. Not right now,’ Dillon said to himself. He heaved a breath, thinking about how much cash he had left. He texted back:
5mins
In the flat he checked the drawer. Cash was low, but so 17was product. Their code wasn’t a complicated one, and if the cops ever pounced and confiscated their phones they wouldn’t need a think tank to break it, but it helped them feel a little more secure. He didn’t have the ‘half’ ounce of weed, but the one gram of MDMA was fine. Another text to Cammy:
Only QW. 80 all in
He waited for a response. That was the last of the weed, a quarter. Four wraps of MDMA to make up the gram was exactly half of what they had left. Beyond that just pills that went for pennies. His phone chimed:
Sound
Dillon met Cammy at the door. Handed back a tenner of the cash for the kid along with the stuff.
‘You eaten?’ Dillon asked.
‘Aye. Chippy earlier. Where were yees?’
Off making an enormous mistake. How was your night? ‘Just a thing we had to do. Nothing,’ Dillon said.
‘Awrite,’ the kid said. And spun on his heels. ‘See you later.’
‘Aye, later,’ Dillon said.
The thought turned in his head. See you later. What had the guy said exactly? ‘You’re not going to be very hard to f-f-find, are ya?’
Dillon shut the door over. He was hungry earlier but not now. He went to his bed where he knew he would lie awake most of the night.
CHAPTER 2
Tulliallan
A tangible sense of dread flushed through me as I pulled the car off the main road and through the gates of the Police Scotland Training College. Tulliallan to the general public, more affectionately known to surviving recruits as Castle Greyskull.
A group of new intakes were being put through their paces on a field to my right. Circuit training. One lot doing burpees while another did press-ups and a third sprinted between two plastic markers. Poor bastards. I could see a training sergeant leaning down next to someone struggling to lower themselves into another press-up. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was surely words of crushingly cruel encouragement. The muscles in my arms twitched in response.
DCI Templeton, in the passenger seat, looked up from her phone as the front tyres dipped over a speed bump. ‘What a cheerful place,’ she remarked almost too quietly 19as the main building of Tulliallan Castle came into view. Grey, turreted and imposing, it loomed over the well-kept grounds. Purchased post-war and converted into the training centre for police recruits, it made for an intimidating place to begin life in uniform. In addition to new starts, it also hosted training for road policing and detective training. We parked and made our way across the gravel drive towards the castle. Another troop of recruits ran past us, all in white T-shirts and black shorts.
‘You must have endured something similar when you joined the Met?’ I asked.
‘Hendon, yes. Same idea, just a little less … Arthurian.’ She looked along the turreted roof of the place. ‘What have they got you doing, anyway?’ she asked.
‘A course on crime pattern analysis.’
‘Oh fuck, bad luck.’
‘How about you, ma’am?’
‘I don’t really know. Some shit about senior investigators. Also, some delegation is over from India, so it’s likely to be a schmoozing exercise, as if we’ve fuck all better to do.’
I smiled and hoped she hadn’t noticed. I’d been working in her presence for a few months, but her plummy English accent and contrasting gutter vocabulary I was still finding amusing. She paused at the step of the building. A young recruit had spotted us approach and was holding the door open, which had me urging to get inside, but DCI Templeton was busy fishing into her handbag. I exchanged an awkward smile with the young lady who looked like she didn’t know whether to stick or twist. DCI 20Templeton surfaced from her bag with a pack of nicotine gum. She cracked two from the blister tray and popped them into her mouth. ‘All right,’ she continued, ‘let’s get this over with. I’ll find you at lunch if I can get away. Can’t stand senior officer chit-chat. If not, I’ll see you at the car at five.’
‘Ma’am. Sir.’ The young lady holding the door addressed us individually with a small nod as we stepped past her. She had that air of excitement and terror I recalled from my time here. DCI Templeton’s warrant card hung in full view from her neck, my own was hidden beneath my coat. As a rule, if there’s ever any uncertainty of someone’s rank, or even if it’s not clear if they’re even police, the clever thing to do was to err on the side of most respectful moniker as she had done.
After wandering around the old halls that had terrorised me as a fresh-faced probationer, with every passing recruit making a great point of nodding and addressing me ‘sir’, the feeling of having exorcised the place from my jar of bad memories started to kick in. There was a point to it all, I supposed, to break down new recruits to a state of intimidated compliance and thereafter rebuild with a sense of discipline and respect. The police, after all, had its structure roots in the military and while, inevitably, a lot of that discipline would fall away in time, enough should remain to retain respect of rank. Though having seen DCI Kate Templeton in the presence of her superiors, unafraid to tell them to shut up, or even fuck off with nothing but a wry smile to suggest at playfulness, it wasn’t universally the case. 21
My reminiscing, if that was indeed the right word, stretched on longer than intended and I ended up speed walking around to the more modern annex of the training centre. Finding the appropriate classroom, I entered, stopping the white-shirted officer in his sentence.
‘Sorry … Inspector,’ I said, getting a quick glimpse of the pips on his shoulder.
‘It’s fine, take a seat, we just started.’ I shuffled through the room. A quick glimpse of the faces of those seated showed they weren’t much older than those in the halls. I guessed they were predominantly new DCs and that I might be the only one present of any rank above. Bags were being dragged out of my way as I took a desk roughly in the middle. Somewhere behind me a throat was cleared loudly, perhaps annoyed at my interruption. I sighed as I removed my coat and saw we were all looking at a PowerPoint presentation. A yawn began growing in my jaw as I read the title: Crime Pattern Analysis – Systematic Approaches and Theory.
‘What’s your name please?’ the inspector asked as I pulled a pad of paper from my bag. He held a clipboard and began checking it when I said:
‘Sergeant Don Colyear.’
‘Ah, okay. DS Colyear.’ I was still getting used to this title. I still felt like looking back over my shoulder anytime someone addressed me as such.
He made a mark on his board and continued the lecture. A tedious three hours followed that felt like six.
I was first out of the room as the inspector thanked us for our attendance and attention. I snatched a handout 22from him and cursed DCI Templeton under my breath. I would always blame her for my transition to CID, even if she had sort of saved my career by making it happen.
I returned to the main building, half using my memory and half my nose to find the cafeteria. The catering staff were just setting out ahead of lunchtime and so I had first dibs of what was on offer. Things hadn’t improved much, I saw, as I looked across the various catering trays. Slices of beef swam in oily gravy, macaroni swam in an orange cheese sauce and pieces of broccoli could be seen in the vegetarian curry, swimming.
I elected a drier option. The lady in the white overalls never looking at me as she spooned and passed the plate under the heat lamps. I poured tea from an industrial-sized machine and took a table as far from the new recruits’ section as was possible. They would soon swarm in like black locusts and devastate the stainless-steel pasture.
I dragged a fork through my stir-fried vegetables and noodles, chop suey they’d called it. Not fully convinced at my choice, I started instead on the chips and with a heavy breath I read through the handout I’d been given. I was on to the reverse side of the sheet when a voice interrupted.
‘Carbs, with a side of carbs? No wonder you’ve put on weight since I last saw you.’
I lowered the sheet, and it took a second to recognise the young lady in the grey suit standing there, her arms folded and sporting a small smile.
‘Rowan, bloody, Forbes. Holy shit. How are you?’ I stood and stepped around the table. I pulled her into a firm hug. Her head only just reached my chin, despite 23some height in those well-polished shoes. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
I released her and returned to my seat. She took the one opposite.
She snatched up a chip and said: ‘Same as you. Some detective you make. I was sat two rows behind you in class. I even tried to get your attention.’
I laughed, remembering someone clearing their throat. ‘I almost didn’t recognise you. Your hair.’
The last time I saw Rowan we were being shuttled out of a West Highland village in a convoy of detectives and senior officers. Her hair was short then – a pixie cut, I’d thought of it as. Now her auburn locks almost reached her shoulders.
‘You made it, then, CID. I knew you would, just a matter of time. DC Forbes has a ring to it.’
‘TDC Forbes. The trainee tag will have to remain for a year at least.’
A silence settled for a moment. I studied her face as she ate the chip in small bites. ‘You’re not in the least bit surprised to see me in a suit,’ I said.
‘Which means what?’ She leant forward and after scrutinising my plate, selected another chip.
‘Well, since I never once expressed an ambition towards CID, it means you already knew.’
She smiled while she chewed. ‘Your observation skills are shit, but there’s nothing wrong with your deduction. Course I knew.’
‘How?’
‘What do you mean, how? This is Police Scotland. A 24tighter clique of gossiping fishwives you’ll never meet. At the end of the summer your name was being passed around like a dirty secret, even as far as Dumbarton.’
‘That so?’
‘Yes, that is so.’ She pointed the half-eaten chip at me. ‘You’re not going to ask what I heard, are you?’
‘I honestly don’t care.’
‘Well, I know you and so I believe you there, but I’ll tell you anyway.’
‘You’re going to tell me in the hope I’ll clarify the true events. Like a “gossiping fishwife”.’
She grinned again. ‘There’s various stories doing the rounds, but the one I like best suggests that you undermined Edinburgh CID by single-handedly solving the Star of the Sea killings. And that they were so embarrassed that they made you join to save face.’
The double killing of a ten-year-old boy and a Catholic priest earlier in the year had been given this title by the Edinburgh press, named after the church where the second body was found, and had been used extensively during the trial.
‘Well?’ Rowan urged.
I gave my head a micro-shake, hoping she’d get the message to shut up, but it was too late.
‘I think single-handed is an exaggeration of the most perverse proportions.’
Rowan dropped what was left of her chip. Wiped her hand on her trousers and stood. Her face was flushed scarlet. I wanted to clap it was so delicious to see Rowan squirm with such embarrassment. 25
‘I’m sorry, ma’am. I was just catching up with Don, with uh, Sergeant Colyear. We’re, uh, old friends?’ she said, looking at me to see if this was an appropriate description.
‘Ma’am,’ I said, trying not to laugh. ‘This is—’
‘TDC Forbes. Yes, I’m aware.’
I stopped short. Rowan was wearing her ID, but it had flipped at her chest, the details hidden. How did she…?
‘Ma’am, I just wanted to say thank you for this opportunity. I aim to make the most of it. I won’t let you down.’
My eyebrows furrowed. I was aware my mouth had fallen open again.
‘I’m sure you’ll do fine,’ DCI Templeton said to Rowan before she turned to me, or rather my plate. ‘Dear God, what the fuck are you eating?’ I was about to attempt a description, maybe an explanation, when she continued, ‘What class do you have this afternoon?’
‘Uh, interview techniques, I think, why?’
‘I’ll find whoever is taking it and make your excuses. I need you back in the city.’
‘What’s happened?’ My pulse quickened a little. I stood and brushed a crumb from my tie.
‘Take your time, finish your – lunch?’ she said with a hint of a sneer. ‘It’s a drugs death. I just need the usual boxes ticked.’
My pulse settled. ‘Sure. I’ll get on it,’ I said, trying to sound even about it.
‘Control will give you the details. I’ll need the car key.’ She held out her hand and when I didn’t move for a moment she began curling and opening her fingers. I 26shook my head a little and fished the key from my inside pocket and handed it over.
‘Uh. How am I supposed to … I mean, you want me to attend this call now?’
‘After your meal, yes.’
‘Yes, but if you have the car. How am I supposed—’
‘Well, I’m making the leap that TDC Forbes drove here?’
Rowan and I exchanged a glance. Then Rowan answered. ‘Yes, ma’am. Of course.’
‘Great. I’ll see you both at Gayfield when you’re done, for an update.’ She spoke the end of her sentence into her phone as she began checking it. I watched her cross the room as recruits busily started to pour through the door. Dressed head to toe in black, the murmuration ducked, weaved and separated around her. DCI Templeton failed to respond to the chorus of ma’ams as she passed them.
I turned to Rowan who had returned to my plate. She picked up on the expression on my face. ‘I’ll explain in the car,’ she said. She stood and snatched up a small handful of chips. I followed her out of the room.
CHAPTER 3
No Suspicious Circumstances
‘You work for the same Police Scotland as I work for, right?’ I said as I poured myself into Rowan’s car. A Fiat Spider, a modern incarnation of a classic little two-seater sports number.
‘You mean this?’ She tapped the dashboard affectionately. ‘It wasn’t as expensive as you think.’ As she said this, she started it up and a throaty growl erupted below our bottoms as if the car itself was saying, aye right. ‘Besides, everyone has their thing. Some go on long-haul holidays and others have five-bedroom detached homes. I stay in a crappy flat and haven’t been abroad in three years. But I have this. She pumped the throttle and raised and dropped a single eyebrow to echo the rise and fall of the din. I laughed. I’d missed her and hadn’t realised.
A few unapproving faces turned in our direction as Rowan exited the car park with a bit of a skid. I’d have told her to slow down, that the call we were attending 28wasn’t urgent, but this was just the way she drove and she could no sooner change that than the sarcastic edge to her chat.
‘Here’s how my day is going,’ I said, when Rowan reached the main road and I could hear myself talk once more. ‘This morning I turned up at work and found out that my boss also had a module to attend at Tulliallan, so I had to endure uncomfortable chat and even more uncomfortable silence as I drove us both here in a pool car. I sat through an excruciatingly boring lecture and before I could manage more than a bite of my lunch, I find myself being driven, in excess of the speed limit, back to the city in Rowan Forbes’ hairdresser’s rocket and attending a call with this same person whom I haven’t seen in, what? Nearly three years? And who, for all I knew, was busy advancing her career on the opposite coast of the country. My question to you, TDC Forbes, is, how the hell did my day take such a bizarre twist?’ I turned in my seat to look at her.
‘That’s easy, you’re just a lucky bastard.’ I gave her a sardonic smile and waited for a proper answer. She turned her head to look at me and then back at the road. ‘All right, where do I start. Well, first, I didn’t know I’d be seeing you today, though I did know it was possible. You’re aware I’ve been angling to get into CID for some time now?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well, I always thought it’d be Glasgow I’d be going to if I ever did manage to find my way in, so for a while now I’ve been, I don’t know, researching, I guess. And Kate 29Templeton quickly became something of a hero of mine. That sounds stupid probably?’
‘No, I think I get it. Strong, ambitious and takes no shit. Sounds familiar.’
‘Right,’ she said, smiling and gesturing at herself. Again, I chuckled. ‘So, I’ve been pestering the shit out of her for months about getting a TDC position. We exchanged a few preliminary emails and this is all before the Star of the Sea killings. As soon as that kicks off it all goes quiet. Fair enough, right. Major inquiry and all that. Then finally she responds. She says she’s looked at my file and even had a chat with my sergeant, all good stuff. Problem is, she’s transferring over to E Division, but she’d be happy to speak to someone in Glasgow about getting me started.’
‘And you think, why not follow over to the east?’
‘Well, yeah. I’ve got no binds in the west, so why not.’
‘And this has nothing to do with me?’
At this she raised both eyebrows and turned. ‘Check the ego on DS Colyear. Remember this is a two-seater, I don’t think there’s room for the three of us.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a … breathtaking coincidence. I still can’t believe we’re heading to a call together.’
‘Coincidence, maybe, but you’re the common denominator here.’
‘How do you mean?’ I braced so I didn’t fall into her as she took a left turn too quickly.
‘Rumour has it—’
‘Ugh, enough with the rumours.’ 30
‘Rumour has it, that Kate stayed in Edinburgh to keep an eye on you. That she doesn’t trust you. If that’s true, then it’s all your fault we’re working together again. Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Is it true?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said, but only after I’d laid the question next to certain insecurities I’d had since trading the uniform for a suit.
‘You hesitated. Come on, spill. It’s me.’ She knocked my elbow with her own.
I tutted and voiced the thought: ‘The … possibility had occurred to me; but to give it oxygen puts me at risk of succumbing to paranoia or indulging in arrogance. I’m sure she’s in Edinburgh because it’s exactly where she wants to be, nothing more.’
‘Buuut?’
‘Buuut, she has been micro-managing me like you wouldn’t believe. I haven’t seen her do it with anyone else. She sits on my shoulder like a bad conscience. Also, I’m surprised she’s allowing us to work together. For all intents and purposes, I’m also a TDC. You should see the cases I’ve been assigned.’
‘Basic stuff?’
‘Put it this way, I’ve seen more action when I was working in the Community department. Speaking of, hold on.’
We were reaching the outskirts of the city and I hadn’t yet accepted the incident. I called the control room and assigned us both to what I was told was a sudden death in a homeless hostel, near to the shore. 31
‘Shopliftings, minor assaults, and these.’
‘What?’
‘The cases I’m being assigned. A spate of thefts, a couple of set-to’s outside of nightclubs, and these sudden deaths that are just an exercise in bureaucracy. That’s what I’ve got to show for my first couple of months in CID.’ I fished my notebook out of my jacket pocket and scored through Tulliallan training 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
‘You have to start somewhere, I guess. But to assign a DS to that stuff, well, I get your point. Maybe after you complete the detective course, she’ll give you a longer leash?’
‘We’ll see. Meantime, this is my third drugs death this month. They’re beyond tedious.’
Rowan gave the steering wheel a small slap as we hit city traffic, she’d be forced to drive like a human the rest of the way to Leith. ‘I thought the detective course was all online these days,’ she said after a bit of a silence I was beginning to enjoy.
‘I thought so too, especially in a time of harsh budget cuts, but apparently they’re trialling returning the course back to the training college. Something about networking and encouraging force-wide unanimity. Still too many older cops doing things the way their old force used to.’ It had been eight years since the amalgamation of the police forces across Scotland to form a single entity, but it would be at least another eight before procedures were fully unified. You didn’t have to travel far to find cops who just didn’t see the point in reinventing the wheel, when it had turned well enough for them for a long time before they changed the logo on the uniforms. 32
Rowan handed me her phone as we reached London Road. Traffic was heavy, but the lane turning left onto Easter Road was at least moving. ‘Put the address in. This is about as close to Leith as I’ve ever been.’
‘We’re in your car. We’ll stop at Leith Station and walk.’
Rowan screwed up her face. ‘I thought I was going to be sat in classroom all day, I’m wearing heels. I’m walking no place.’
I laughed. ‘Fine, but we’ll pick up a pool car.’
‘Ach, nonsense. We’re driving now and uniform will already be wondering where the hell we are.’
‘This isn’t Starsky and Hutch. You can’t go around solving crimes in your own cool car,’ I said, but the angle of Rowan’s eyebrows told me my reference did not compute. ‘Fine, it’s your insurance.’
There was a marked Transit parked outside the four-storey building on Parliament Street. It was a fairly unassuming place. Large, as it took up the entire block, but if you weren’t looking for it, you’d walk past without registering.
Men, who might be residents of the hostel, lingered and smoked on the pavement, their hands tucked under the cuffs of their hoodies against the cold wind that whipped October leaves in squally gusts. We parked further down the street. Two teenagers eyed us, our warrant cards and the car as the Fiat chirped to confirm it was locked. Rowan glowered at them until they were out of sight.
The wind buffeted and I buttoned my suit jacket against it. I was struck again, as I had been on multiple occasions in the past few weeks, of how utterly naked I felt without my body armour and assorted accoutrements. I kept a set 33of handcuffs within the jacket, but they did little to allay the sense of vulnerability.
The bored-looking uniformed officer at the door of the building nodded, muttering ‘second floor’ as we passed.
We entered into a reception area, something inserted in modern times to make the place secure. A desk with a small office sat between the front door and a security door giving access to the hostel proper. The receptionist, a lady in her early thirties, was having an animated conversation with a man it became clear was a resident. He was being denied entry, not only because of why we were there, but because he was clearly drunk.
‘Come back tonight, Charlie,’ the lady was saying. ‘If you’ve sobered up a bit. You know the rules fine well.’
The conversation continued for a short time, and I was just wondering whether to get involved when she folded her arms and shook her head at him. The conversation was over as far as she was concerned and as it turned out, he knew it too. He trudged past us back out of the building, a sour smell of wine followed him.
‘Sorry to keep you,’ the lady said, turning her attention to us. ‘He’s a chancer, but he’s harmless. But you’re here about poor Mr Salisbury. I’ll take you up. I’m Annie, day supervisor.’ She unlocked the office door and led us into the building.
‘This happens often? The deaths?’
‘Often enough. They’re not allowed to use in the rooms, but we’re not about to cavity-search residents.’ Her tone was in no way disrespectful, but it was nonchalant, considering we were here about a body. 34
‘Did you find him?’ Rowan asked as we began climbing the stairs.
‘I did, this morning. Rooms need to be vacated by 9 a.m. His door was still locked. When there was no answer, myself and Tony opened the door and found him there. I’m afraid we had to move him. He was lying against the door.’
‘Door was locked from the inside? And the room’s on the second floor?’ I asked.
‘That’s right.’
I exchanged a look with Rowan, one that said nothing for us here.
‘We’ll need to get a statement,’ Rowan said. ‘From Tony too, he’s your colleague?’
‘He is. You can come find us in the office when you’re ready. I’ll put some tea on.’
When we reached the second floor, Annie pointed down the corridor to our left, though she needn’t have. The other uniformed officer guarding the room was a decent clue. We stepped up to the room.
‘Thanks for covering. We can take it from here,’ I told the PC.
‘I have a list of everyone who’s been in,’ she said.
‘Great, could you photocopy your notebook and send the pages to Gayfield?’ I said.
She agreed and left us to it.
‘Shit,’ I said, patting at my pockets.
‘What?’
‘No gloves.’
Rowan rolled her eyes and dug into the pocket of her 35jacket. ‘I’ve only the one pair, so we’ll have to do this one-handed.’
‘Thanks. In my defence, I thought I was only going to be shuffling paper all day.’ I pulled on one of the gloves. My hand felt like it had been shrink-wrapped; I held it up to her. The cuff of the glove barely made it past the base of my thumb. I had a sudden image of O.J. in the dock.
Rowan laughed and covered her mouth with her own gloved hand, hers fitting neatly. ‘I steal these every time I go to the hospital. We only have mediums, but they have a choice of sizes.’
‘Ready?’ I said.
She nodded, taking a breath as she did.
I turned the handle and pushed the door. The swing was interrupted about three-quarters of the way by striking a foot.
I stepped into the room by stepping over Mr Salisbury. He lay flat out. His shirt was pulled open and sticky connectors were attached to his chest where paramedics had attended earlier to confirm what was blatantly obvious. Those who had been in the room before us had done well to disturb him as little as possible, a fact confirmed by the needle still hanging from the skin in the bend in his left arm below a band of rubber tubing wrapped around his bicep. A trail of blood ran modestly from the needle down his forearm. Small smears of it painted the section of floor around him where he’d moved away from the door.
‘What is that smell?’ Rowan said, walking around me.
‘I think Mr Salisbury may have released his bowels at 36some point in his final ride of the dragon.’ The stench of shit hung heavy in the air. I opened the window, secure in the fact that this was no crime scene, just an ignominious end to a miserable life.
‘How old do you think he is, was?’ said Rowan, she was standing above him, her nostrils gripped.
I took a good look at the lad. His arms first, they demanded attention. The one he’d injected into sported a scattering of needle marks and bruising ranging from midnight plum to faded amber. The other had similar marks, though it was hard to see past a sore on his forearm that dug perhaps half an inch into his flesh. Even now it looked angry and wet. His face was drawn, accentuated by his open jaw. The teeth within were broken and filthy. ‘In his twenties, I think, though hard to be specific. We’ll see what info the desk have for him,’ I said.
‘Here,’ said Rowan. She’d moved away from the body and was riffling through a backpack she’d found by the bed. She removed a canvas Adidas wallet and pulled something from it. ‘Provisional licence. Mark Salisbury, his date of birth makes him … twenty-five, no twenty-six. Shit, he could be forty-six.’
‘Come on, let’s get this over with.’
‘What?’ Rowan was looking at me as if I’d suggested she give him a cuddle.
‘You know the score. We need to check the body. His back, at least. The gaffers don’t like it if you call in an accidental drugs death and they find a knife in his heart when he goes for a PM.’ 37
* * *
A box-ticking hour passed with SOCO attending to do their thing and then the morticians for the body. We noted statements while they worked, which left only one last job for the day. Save the worst for last.
A PNC check of Mark Salisbury showed a history of petty criminality, though only one small jail sentence. He spent three weeks, probably gripping his knees in his cell dealing with withdrawal symptoms, at HMP Edinburgh for unpaid fines, though I didn’t know anyone who used its official name. To everyone the prison was simply Saughton, named after the corner of town in which it sat. Other than this, there was nothing too sinister about Salisbury. Just a familiar pattern of sustaining a heavy habit.
When we returned to the car, daylight was fading and the air temperature falling. I was busy updating control as I sat in the passenger seat. I paused my short report as Rowan hissed: ‘Fuckers.’ For a moment I didn’t see what she was so irked at and then I did. Two extremely well-baked globs of spit were oozing south down the windshield. Those responsible had really worked their noses and throats to produce these prize horrors.
‘I told you—’
‘Yeah, yeah, Scratchy and Hutch or whatever.’ She held the washer on until it wheezed dry.
Control were running a check for me on the phone. Various addresses were held over the ten-or-so-year story that could be surmised from the entries under his name and date of birth. We were heading to the first that had been recorded, an assumption that had been vindicated 38by a voter’s roll check that confirmed the Salisburys still lived there.
The Spinney was a cul-de-sac in the Gilmerton area of town. Pairs of semi-detached homes in a stretched circle in an area some might consider a little rough, but the street was perfectly quiet and a million miles from the squalid room in which the boy who grew up here took his last breath.
Two boys bouncing a ball at the kerbside stopped to watch us trundle by, enviously eyeing Rowan’s pride and joy.
‘Twenty-two. This is it. Have you done this before?’ I asked.
Rowan’s face dropped. ‘Once, and it was awful. Come on, Sarge, if you do it, I’ll do all your paperwork for a month.’
‘Nope, you’re up, Forbes.’
‘Two months.’
‘Come on.’
‘A year,’ she called as I hauled myself out of her car. I could hear a slap of her hand against the dashboard.
‘Just be succinct, professional.’
‘Succinct, professional,’ Rowan was muttering as I pressed the doorbell.
The door was answered by a man in his fifties or early sixties. His face was paint-flecked as were his trousers, the kind that have more pockets than any single piece of clothing ought to. Various tools poked out from here and there. 39
‘Mr Salisbury?’
‘Uh-huh,’ he replied to Rowan. He squinted at her ID and his face dropped.
‘You’re here about our Mark? You better come in.’ He looked around the street before closing the door and leading us through to the kitchen where Mrs Salisbury, I assumed, was loading a dishwasher. She smiled as she turned and then withdrew it when she clocked the warrant cards.
‘What now?’ She clutched the cup she was holding like she might launch it at us.
‘Maybe we could sit down for a minute,’ I said.
‘What’s the point?’ Mr Salisbury said. ‘There’s nothing you can say will shock us any more when it comes to Mark.’ He took the cup from his wife. ‘What is it this time? Thieving, I suppose? Whatever it is, he can stay in jail and deal with it himself. We’re not bailing him out any more. That’s right, isn’t it, love?’
Mrs Salisbury nodded. ‘We talked about it and aye, it’s tough love from now on. He won’t learn otherwise. So, where is he?’
‘He’s, uh. Well … on his way to the morgue,’ said Rowan.
The cup crashed to the kitchen floor so that Mr Salisbury could dash to catch his wife.
‘Jesus,’ I breathed. Succinct she was, but she could have been a little less so.
A painful half hour followed with Rowan backtracking and apologising at the end of every sentence. She explained that he’d died of an apparent 40overdose, but that a post-mortem would be required to confirm and his lab-work might take a week, perhaps ten days to complete. Mrs Salisbury sat on the living room sofa staring out into middle distance. Mark’s dad nodded along to the information but was likely taking in as much as his wife. I gave my card, knowing that questions would start to occur to them in a day or two and we left.
Rowan stopped when we got to the car. ‘I fucked that up,’ she said.
My instinct was to soften it a bit, but it’s not what she would have wanted.
‘Maybe think about how you’d want to receive that kind of information next time,’ I said. She unlocked the car, but checked her phone before she climbed in. ‘Shit,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Check your phone. Do you have the same thing?’
I fished mine from my pocket. ‘Shit,’ I echoed. A dozen or so missed calls from Kate Templeton. I rang back immediately.
‘Ma’am, it’s DS—’
‘I know who it is. Where the fuck have you been?’
‘Ma’am, sorry, we were delivering a death message.’
‘Get your arse back to the office. No, in fact head to the Royal Infirmary. I’ll see you there.’
CHAPTER 4
Possession
Wee Malky felt a knock on his elbow. He’d been a million miles away, thinking about dinner, one of those fat haggis burritos from Los Cardos on the way home, maybe. Not maybe – now that it was in his head, it wasn’t going to be denied.
‘Awrite,’ the guy said, gently dancing, one foot to the other, his jaw pounding a piece of gum. He was talking to Malky, of course, but his eyes were everywhere else.
‘Many?’
‘Three.’
Malky deftly palmed three wraps from his right coat pocket, shifted them into his left hand and into the opposing pocket. The guy, he didn’t know his name, but a regular enough customer, reached in when Malky removed his hand.
‘Cheers.’
‘Aye.’ 42
Malky casually looked around, though there was little need. He couldn’t be in a more public place, at least not in this city, but hiding in plain sight had worked for him for years now. He walked the short distance to the public telephone box. Closed the door behind him and lifted the receiver. It never failed to surprise him that there was a dial tone. Who used public telephone boxes any more, at least for the purpose for which they were actually designed? Surely these days someone squeezing themselves into one of these boxes was far more likely to take a piss than a call? A theory supported by the smell rising from the booth floor.
Maintaining the pretence of a conversation, Malky reached down into his stowed rucksack and replenished the sold packets, examining the roll of cash left by the last customer. There was little need to check it. If he’d been short-changed the guy could no longer use his services and junkies, the liars, thieves and frauds they may be, were actually the most loyal of clientele. Don’t fuck with your supply chain. He left the booth then with his full quota restored, five wraps. Enough for the vast majority of transactions and few enough to ensure a possession charge as opposed to supply, if the pigs swiped him. He returned to his spot.
His day was going well. He’d shifted three hundred quid’s worth in little more than three hours. A steady drizzle was falling and threatening to turn to proper rain. Another five or six and he’d pack up early.
He stood in the doorway of the shoe shop, though he’d have to move soon. The art of invisibility was not 43standing still for too long. A random guy staying out of the rain for a few minutes goes unnoticed, an hour though draws the attention of staff. Besides, any doorway was fine. His clientele knew he would be somewhere in this short stretch of Frederick Street, between Princes Street and George Street. He liked this patch, the castle in full view and the foreign girls stopping to get a picture could be ogled.
Shit, he thought as someone caught his eye from across the street. Was he fucking waving? And clearly off his tits.
