A Taste of Ashes (DI Bob Valentine Book 2) (18 page)

‘You’re joking?’

‘They stopped overnight, apparently they’ve got a lead to follow up today.’

Valentine stood up, stepped away from his desk. ‘So on top of everything we’re two men down today.’

‘It could be worse,’ said McCormack.

‘How, just how could it be worse, Sylvia?’

‘We could be three men down.’

‘Just hold that very thought.’ Valentine headed for the door.

As he stood in front of the vending machine waiting for his coffee cup to fill, Valentine told himself that he’d had a long career, and it wasn’t without merit. There had been the predictable lows too, and the encounter with CS Martin that awaited him was definitely going to be another of those, but he had a lot to be proud of.

When he’d taken a knife in the heart, and been declared dead, that would have been a good enough reason for many to leave the force but he stayed on. He knew that financially, he really had no option though. And now that they’d moved to a bigger house, and moved his father in with them, those restraints had only tightened. The girls’ demands were growing more costly every year and there’d be university to consider soon. Clare’s spending might have been curtailed for now but that was a result of their huge splurge of late, she would be back to her old ways as soon as the sheen of a new house wore thin. A dull ache started deep inside his chest, somewhere in his damaged heart.

The DI picked up the cup, watched the slow trail of steam rising; the sharp aroma signalled the coming bitter assault on his tastebuds. He wouldn’t miss the King Street coffee, that was for certain. He turned towards the long corridor and made his way to the chief super’s office. He took a sip, it was hot, burning, and he jerked the cup away too quickly: a sliver of grey liquid landed on his white shirt front.

‘Shit.’ She’d notice that, right away. Dino was always pointing out the minor flaws that everyone else ignored, she presented them like evidence she was gathering to back up her own superiority.

Valentine rubbed at the coffee stain with his cuff, spreading the mark to a wider surface and transplanting some of it to the pristine cuff.

‘What’s the point?’

He knocked on the door and stepped back.

Silence. Maybe she’d gone out. He wished.

‘Come …’ Why did she always say that? It was like some ridiculous parody of a company boss from a seventies sit-com. As he opened the door he found he was grinning to himself.

‘Should I deduct from your demeanour that you’ve had a break, Bob?’ said Martin.

‘I always caution the team against wild deductions, chief.’ It was a bad start, and he knew it.

‘Sit down, Bob.’

She closed the desk diary she’d been studying, sat back and pointed her elbows to the floor. There was a pause that lasted for a few seconds and then she snatched a deep breath and started to speak. ‘It’s hard to know where to begin with you.’

Valentine stayed calm, ignored the fact that he already felt like a child visiting the headmaster.

‘I mean, it’s as if you’re trying to provoke me with all these nonsensical actions.’ She paused again, seemed to be waiting for the DI’s response, when she saw that none was on the way she raised her voice. ‘Do you know who my first call was from this morning?’

‘I don’t.’

‘William Reynolds, I’m sure the name doesn’t ring a bell, but when I tell you he’s the boss of a Dr Caruthers that you’ve been upsetting at Ayr Hospital then you might get the gist.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Yes, Bob. Reynolds is chief executive of the local health board, not someone we want to fall out with given how often we’re in and out of their facilities.’

Valentine played with the crease in his trousers. ‘Look, does this Reynolds bloke know that Sandra Millar is a murder suspect?’

‘I don’t care if he does or not, Bob. I don’t want you upsetting him, or Dr Caruthers, or Major Rutherford, or the tea lady in the canteen at Killie Hospital, these are people we have to work with, our community, remember that.’

When she’d stopped shouting her voice reverberated in Valentine’s ears. ‘Do you understand me, Bob?’

‘Yes, I understand.’ He pushed away the crease in his trousers, brushed at his thighs as he tried to provide a defence. ‘It’s not been the easiest of cases …’

‘Now, I’ll stop you right there. None of the cases you handle are easy, Bob. You’re a murder squad detective, that in itself should give you a clue as to what to expect in your in-box.’

‘I’m well aware what it is I do. If I can be allowed to finish …’ He glanced at the chief super, she tightened her mouth. ‘This case, chief, is not your classic hot-blooded murder. It might look that way, but every time we take a step forward we’re yanked three steps back. It’s not straightforward, not a matter of joining all the dots in the constellated disadvantage, there’s more to this, much more.’

‘Bob, I’ve had two hospitals complain about you since Tulloch was stabbed, I’ve had to hose down the bloody army because of your attitude and to top it all, no, to put the cherry on the top of this steaming pile of shit that you are calling a murder investigation – and I’ve been through your files so I know what I’m talking about – I find out you’ve been withholding evidence from me.’

Valentine uncrossed his legs, as he leaned towards Dino’s desk, the temptation to scream back at her was only halted by his ramping heart rate and the warnings of his medics about stress. He eased himself back in his chair and drew breath.

‘The post-mortem report was an oversight on my part.’

‘What was that?’

‘I’d like to apologise, there’s no excuse for not passing that on immediately. I should have done, and I didn’t.’

The admission blindsided the chief super. She clearly didn’t believe she was hearing it. ‘Are you trying to cover for someone on the squad – Ally forget to deliver it to me, did he?’

‘No. It was my fault.’

‘Well it wasn’t Phil, he’s too bloody anal about admin. Was it that Glasgow girl, Sylvia?’

‘I just told you. I take full responsibility, it was an oversight.’

‘And you’re not even going to play the old overloaded-with-work tune?’

The DI stalled, he hadn’t expected her to react in this manner. He’d made a serious error, she had every right to question his judgement, suspend him or worse. But now it seemed like she suspected him of reverse psychology, a double bluff that she refused to fall for, only the truth was much simpler.

They stared at each other over the desk, dredging each other’s gaze for a solution to the impasse. The silence was broken by the telephone sounding like a bell between rounds.

‘Hello, CS Martin.’

It felt like an intrusion to listen to the call, Valentine got up and paced around the room. The conversational tone of the call had quickly changed, concern crept into the chief super’s voice. She crouched over her desk now, slouched into the receiver like it was her only means of support.

‘What … Say that again … When?’

CS Martin didn’t move, her shoulders appeared locked in a downward-facing angle to the desk, where her free hand was a tense fist.

Valentine became aware of the rapid change in the room’s atmosphere. He returned to his seat and tried to look innocent whilst discerning what the talk was about.

‘Wait, are you telling me this is related?’ she said.

‘Shall I go?’ said Valentine.

She flagged him down. ‘And when did this call come in? Have you spoken to the parents? Have they spoken to the press?’

He wanted to know what had happened.

‘Right. Keep it that way. I’ll meet you there right away.’ The receiver was returned to its cradle.

‘Sounds serious,’ said Valentine.

‘Your get-out-of-jail-free card.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

She stuck her jaw towards him. ‘Well, I’m not talking about the divi commander’s team-building exercise, though God alone knows what I will tell him about that … Look, if you ever conceal evidence from me again, Bob, or even think about bullshitting me, I’ll have your arse in a sling.’

‘Point taken. Can I ask about the call?’

‘We have another one.’ She eased herself away from behind the desk, stood up and walked towards the coat stand in the corner of the room.

‘Another murder?’ It didn’t seem possible, the case was beyond complex already.

‘That’s right. And it’s yours.’

‘So it’s related to the Tulloch murder?’

‘Clever lad.’ She started to fasten the buttons of her navy-blue fitted coat. ‘At least that’s the assumption I’m making right now given we have a body matching the description of a missing person that was reported last night by the parents of Jade Millar’s boyfriend.’

Valentine followed as the chief super made for the door. ‘Niall Paton was reported missing?’

‘That’s right. Parents rocked in last night and spilled their hearts to Jim on the front desk. We also had some calls on unusual activity out at the old pits, sounded like fly-tipping but Jim put two and two together and we’ve had uniform out since first light.’

‘Why didn’t someone inform me?’

‘Oh I was informed, Bob.’ She grinned at him, but it was really for herself. ‘It’s a right pain in the arse when your colleagues keep stuff from you, isn’t it?’ She stepped through the door, left it swinging open for Valentine to follow.

‘Two wrongs don’t make a right,’ he yelled.

‘No, Bob, they don’t.’ She stopped at the top of the stairs, turned. ‘And don’t think I’d be so petty, as you’re very fond of saying this is a murder investigation and one I was about to remove from you until it became a double murder investigation. Count yourself lucky you’re still on the job and don’t expect to get any more leeway from me now.’

DI Bob Valentine’s arrival in Cumnock was like any other visit to his former hometown: uneasy. There had been a time when coming home was a welcome event, he’d visit his parents and visit his past, but those days were gone. There was nothing for him in Cumnock now. If he was being honest, and dispassionate, he would have said there was nothing in Cumnock at all now. There had been work, once. Mines with a hundred years of coal that Thatcher shut up and flooded lest anyone try to reverse her decision. His father had mined those pits.

There were the streets lined with black spit, the talk of the Friday-night pint that generally ended on a Sunday, and throughout it all, the hard-worn Cumnock women who always kept a clean front step scrubbed twice a day. The town had changed now, and the changeover had been brief. The town had gone from his home to a place not fit for animals in a few short years. The idea that dole moles and junkies might ever care about their front step amused him now.

‘Something funny?’ said the chief super.

‘The old toon …’

‘You grew up here didn’t you, father a miner?’

‘Yes, on both counts.’ They stood on the edge of the field where uniformed officers were busying themselves with blue and white tape, not quite sure whether it was appropriate to tie-up bramble bushes. ‘Place is a mystery to me now, though.’

‘It’s bloody Cumnock, the place is a mystery to everyone. Need your head tested to stay here now.’

‘Or have no choice.’ Valentine turned to face CS Martin, ‘That’s the thing though, we had no choice when I was growing up, but people cared then. People made the most of the place.’

A tut. ‘I can’t see this lot bothering their backside. We’re too far gone now, Bob. Places like this were written off years ago. You’re well and truly out of it … Come on, our stiff awaits.’

Valentine watched and waited as the chief super negotiated a dry-stone dyke. She made noisy objections each time the stones wobbled under her hands and her coat tails rode up in comical fashion as she descended the dyke. She was still cursing when she reached the field, the grass brushing the hem of her coat and forming a wet tide line. It was a bizarre scene for the detective, so out of place, so strange to see his boss wading through a field by the town where he’d once watched his father set off for the pit with a lunch pail under his arm. He felt like he had lived two lives, that they should never have crossed, but here he was watching his present attaching to his past. If there was a message to be discerned, it escaped him; but the eerie feeling that he should be drawing some kind of meaning from the event turned inside him.

‘We should have brought wellies,’ CS Martin roared over the wet grass.

‘Wait till you get further in, you’ll be calling for waders.’

‘That better be a joke.’

‘No joke. You’ll need bloody scuba gear if you fall down one of the shafts.’

The chief super halted her stride, turned to one of the uniformed bodies. ‘How far do we have to go?’

‘Just a little bit further.’ The uniform pointed. ‘Over there, where the tracks end.’

Valentine caught up with them. ‘Tell me they’re our tracks and we’re not parading half the force through our crime scene.’

The uniform shrugged, looked blankly ahead. It seemed too complicated a question for him to understand, never mind answer.

‘Christ, I knew it. We’re up to our knees in it, stamping all over potential evidence.’

‘Relax, Bob. I’m sure if there’s any footprints in this muck we’ve already got them cast.’

The DI peered up to the sky, but didn’t offer a reply; he’d trust his insights into the way uniform worked over the chief super’s any day of the week. As he looked at the churned mess of the ground he knew if there had been anything of use there it was now gone. The fresh path cut through two fringes of flattened long grass that stretched all the way from the drystone dyke. Up ahead the SOCOs in white suits were shuffling about, the unearthly starkness of their appearance always made Valentine aware of the close proximity of death. The dream, or whatever it was, where he had met Bert returned to him. The message had been to look for a soldier but he knew that wasn’t what he was going to find here.

As they reached the main area of activity, Valentine was handed a box of rubber gloves, he took a pair and passed them to CS Martin.

‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m prepared to observe but I draw the line at poking about in fusty remains.’