A Taste for Malice (32 page)

Someone put it there. Feathers don’t just find themselves between the pages of books. If it was deliberate, only one person knows how that might affect me.

For chrissake, McBain. You need a dose of perspective. Leonard’s not going to break into your home just to place a small, white feather between the pages of a book.

A book that Maggie gave me. I should give her a call.

Nah.

If she wanted to speak to me she would have rung.

Maybe she’s waiting for you to call her, dumb-ass.

In the meantime, there is still that gigantic bar of chocolate in the cupboard. It’s shouting; eat me, eat me, eat me.

I flop on to the sofa and thumb through the book. It reminds me I should meditate more. Theresa introduced me to it not long after we first met. She convinced me of its merits after proving to me that sex was spectacular afterwards. So relaxed did we become that our inhibitions melted and all that was important was now. Her skin. My hands. My tongue. Blending into each other till we all but dissolved into a puddle of sweat.

She was good.

Maggie was different. I know it’s a capital sin to compare lovers. Here’s the thing: try not to.

Where Theresa was all about the moment, Maggie did all she could to make
me
feel good. Where sex with Theresa centred on the flesh and organs, with Maggie the way she looked at me told me she was offering more. There’s nothing more flattering than a lover who gives unselfishly.

Anyone for chocolate? I could just have a square. Two squares wouldn’t kill.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with the very lovely Ms Gibson. Wonder what her marital status is? Maybe I should give her office a call and cancel. Can’t be arsed with all that introspection. Sensible me pipes up and says if I don’t go it will give the suits the chance to put me on permanent leave.

I open the book at random. A quote in italics draws my eye. It’s a line from a poem by Nicholas Boileau.

In vain he flees his troubles on a horse —

They share his saddle and see him on his course.

That’s weird. I shiver. Maybe I should go after all.

For the rest of the evening I channel hop. There’s nothing on all of the channels worth staying with for more than a minute. Before I go to bed I go through to the kitchen, pick the chocolate out of the cupboard and toss it in the bin. Feeling virtuous I brush my teeth, peel off my clothes and jump into bed. As I fall asleep my last thought is; I’ll take the chocolate out of the bin in the morning.

My night is broken; jagged with bouts of staring into the black and periods of sleep. Eventually I dream. Colours blend into white. Then red. The red flakes off into a blizzard. This slows and congeals. A face forms in a puddle. The eyes open. Leonard stares at me and grins. His knife flashes.

I sit up, heart hammering. Fuck. That was scary. Adrenalin sparks under my skin. I allow my head to clear, gravity to register and then walk naked through to the bathroom.

Examining my face in the mirror I promise myself that I will not let Leonard win. He’s history. The people who harmed his brother are all dead. There’s no reason to come after me.

Besides, he’s long since gone. He’ll be hiding in Brazil, or somewhere. My eyes stare back at me unconvinced.

A long satisfying piss, wash of the hands and as I brush my teeth a nagging thought tugs at my mind. I have something to do this morning and I can’t quite remember what.

My mobile rings.

I run back through to the bedroom and pull it from the charger. It’s Elaine Gibson.

‘Did I disturb you, DI McBain?’ she asks.

‘Not at all.’ I catch my profile in the full length mirror of the wardrobe. And immediately suck in my belly. Then I let it out again. What a tosser. As if she can see me. ‘I haven’t forgotten if that’s why you’re calling.’ As I say this I’m thinking, boy is she persistent.

‘There’s been a change of venue. It’s a wee bit unconventional, but I think it’s worth it. I’ll explain when I see you.’

‘OK,’ I say and wonder what she’s up to. Then I realise that with my left hand I’m tugging at my scrotum. What’s that all about? Nervous wee boy stuff? If she knew what I was doing she’d feel all
icky
. I tuck my hand under my right armpit.

‘Do you know The Lighthouse in Mitchell Lane? Go up the escalator and then get in the lift. Get off at the top. You’re looking for Viewing Platform Six. Oh and can you be there half an hour earlier than we arranged?’ She hurries on and doesn’t give me a chance to answer. ‘Great. Bye.’

At the allotted time I am at the location as suggested by Ms Gibson. Before I left the house I called Bob at Medical Records. His phone went straight to answer machine. I’ll try again later.

I park my car in the city centre and struggle past thousands of fierce-looking shoppers, each of them carrying bags with the names of designers blazing from them. The Lighthouse is tucked in just off Buchanan Street and is the venue for the Scottish Centre for Architecture and Design.

The lift doors open at the top and I walk out into a small space with windows on all but the wall with the lift doors. Some of the windows are panoramic, offering spectacular views across the city while others are the size of arrow slits in some ancient tower and set into verdigris copper tiles.

‘Incredible, isn’t it?’ asks Elaine. She’s sitting on a low chair. There’s another chair spaced at a comfortable distance and a small table holds an aluminium flask, a jug of milk, two white cups and a bowl of sugar.

I walk over to the main window and look over the rooftops of the city’s shops and offices.

‘This is amazing,’ I agree. ‘You’d never know this was here.’ I look over at her as she tries not to look too pleased with herself. ‘How, and …why?’ Then a thought occurs to me. ‘This isn’t a date, is it?’

‘The How…I give the building a lot of business and they owe me a favour. The Why…my feeling is that I needed to get you away from the usual office surroundings,’ she answers. ‘Most of my colleagues would frown at this, but you are an unusual man, DI McBain. And sometimes one has to think outside the box.’

I sit. She pours. We sip.

‘So where do we begin?’ I ask.

‘Wherever you want,’ she answers.

‘I take it you belong to the non-directional school of counselling?’

‘I belong to the do whatever it takes to get the job done school.’

‘Does that include dinner and a couple of glasses of wine?’

‘Clients are out of bounds. Romantically speaking,’ she answers. She couldn’t be more comfortable if she was sitting in her own living room, wearing a big pair of pink fluffy slippers and sipping a warm cup of cocoa. ‘Could we put that one to bed, Ray?’ Then she smiles at the less than carefully chosen metaphor. Perhaps she’s not as comfortable as her body language suggests.

‘Tell me why you think you are here, Ray,’ she says.

‘In a nutshell, my bosses are pissed off at my tendency to get into trouble.’

‘What’s the pay-off?’ She looks deep into my eyes.

‘The pay-off? For my behaviour you mean?’ I scratch my cheek. ‘I get the job done.’

‘Might it be a form of self-sabotage? By all accounts you were marked for the top of your chosen career very early on. Perhaps that’s not how you see yourself.’

‘Go on,’ I say with a little irritation. I’m irritated because I recognise the possibility in her words and I want to buy myself some time before I have to answer the question.

‘We all have an internal construct of how we see ourselves. A view of how we fit in the world. And if the image that the world has of us differs, our subconscious finds a way to re-align our internal world with the external.’

‘An internal construct? Sounds a bit airy-fairy if you ask me.’

She doesn’t answer with words, instead she arches an eyebrow. If she thinks the silence is going to force me to speak then she’s wrong.

‘How would you describe your self-worth?’

‘A pot of gold.’

‘Sorry?’

‘At the end of the rainbow. Guarded by an army of leprechauns.’

‘Interesting analogy,’ she says and I curse inwardly. What started as a flippant comment has come out as a damning statement. One that she won’t fail to read. ‘So you ascribe it as having some value. But out of reach?’

I suddenly feel as uncomfortable as if I had a thistle stuck up my arse. My head and neck feel warm and my hands are shiny with sweat. My face is turned to the right and I study the roof of the building that houses the Gallery of Modern Art. The rows of small, glass pyramids that provide light to the rooms below have just become completely fascinating.

‘Tell me three things you remember most about your parents,’ she says.

‘Between them, they excelled at absentee-ism, addictive substances and hurting each other.’

‘Do you blame yourself?’

‘No. Why should I?’

‘Who is talking now? Ray McBain the clever policeman? If wee Ray McBain the six-year-old were to speak, how would he answer that question?’

My mind fills with images of my parents, their faces twisted with hate and anger. They turn to me and I imagine their expressions are now full of disappointment.

This time it’s me who breaks the long silence. I surprise myself with my honesty. ‘He’d say that the grown-ups are always right and that he must have something terribly wrong with him that makes the two people he loves most in the world hurt each other so much.’

‘How about the orphanage? Tell me three words to describe your time there.’

‘Scary …lonely …and scary again.’ I attempt a laugh at my weak joke.

‘How does the boy feel about being sent there?’ Her expression has slipped out of neutral and has softened with empathy. I feel my throat tighten and my eyes sting.

I take a deep breath and allow the tears to fall.

‘That he deserved it.’

Before I know it our time is up and in silence we enter the lift. From there we take the escalator down to the main entrance.

‘I feel we made some real progress today, Ray. Thank you,’ she says as she shakes my hand. Then I remember that I’m wearing the same jacket as yesterday. I pat my pocket and feel the photo. I take it out and show it to her. ‘This woman is linked to a case of mine,’ I say quickly. Don’t want her to think that I am prone to showing women pornographic images. At first she is discomfited by the image, then her professional demeanour asserts itself.

‘And you want to know what exactly?’

I explained how I had come into possession of the photograph, ‘…and this mystery woman has been trying to get it back.’

‘Do you think she was being bribed by the dead nurse?’

‘Makes sense. It’s a piece of a puzzle and I’m trying to get some details on the personalities involved so I can understand them and work out the connections.’

‘My first question is what’s in it for her? At one level, it’s a classic pose of male domination. We can only see one penis, but the amount of semen on her face suggests there is more than one man. She’s an older woman. Is she starved for affection? Also, this is an act that is devoid of intimacy. She’s lonely. Some women can only dream of getting so much male attention.’ She flaps a hand at my expression of disgust. ‘Yes, it’s extreme, but if people continually suppress a long held longing, it will force itself out in an extreme manner.’ She stares into the distance as she thinks some more. ‘She’s on her knees, but she’s brought these men to a point where they lose control. Although the feminists might not agree, she’s using her power. Perhaps she has a public life that demands moral correctness and in private she relishes another world altogether.’

Starved for affection. A public life that demands moral correctness. Sometimes all you need is to hear things said out loud. A note of alarm sounds deep in my brain. I look at the picture again. I turn it at an angle so I have a head that appears upright.

She smiles. ‘However, that could all be psychological babble and the woman simply has a thing for semen.’

‘Fuck me,’ I say as the name to the face pops into my head. ‘I know who this is.’

She has been playing me for a fool all along. She pretends that I’ve won a victory, allows a little of her real emotion to slip through, gives me a little piece of truth and the cumulative effect is that she gets me off her back. I’m almost impressed at her performance, if only her self-serving attitude hasn’t affected the life of a child.

As I drive I fumble with my mobile and headset. I really should have done this before I started to drive out of the Mitchell Street car park. Corkscrew turns are not the easiest to negotiate while steering with one hand. I consider calling Bob at Medical Records. Then decide against it for the moment. I know who I’m after. I can chase him up for verification when we come to close the case. I dial a different number.

‘Hey, boss.’

‘Alessandra, are you busy?’

‘Up to my eyes in it, mate.’

‘I need a woman.’

‘Can you not pay like you normally do?’

‘Very funny. This is in a professional capacity.’

‘I stand by my original statement.’

‘Listen. I have a strong lead on the Browning and Craig case. I need to bring a woman in for questioning. I need a female presence.’

‘Right.’ That’s what I love about Alessandra Rossi. Immediate understanding of the implications on a case. She could have given me a row for not obeying the suits. Instead, she goes straight to thinking about how this helps us catch the perps. I hear a voice questioning what’s going on. Alessandra mumbles something to someone I’m guessing is Daryl, then comes back to the phone. ‘Sorry, Ray. We’ve got half a dozen of Glasgow’s best-dressed gangsters in here for this Kay case. We’re going to be here for days questioning them.’

‘You’ll not get anywhere with them.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about. This lot are tighter than a nun’s…’

‘Alessandra, you won’t get anywhere because this is not really a gang war thing. It’s a love thing.’

‘Eh?’

I tell her what Dan Donovan explained over a newspaper.

‘So,’ Alessandra processes the information, ‘if we find the gay lover, we find the killer. We stop the excuse for the gang war. The city becomes a safer place. Any ideas?’