A Taste of Ashes (DI Bob Valentine Book 2) (6 page)

Valentine reclined on the bed. ‘We’ve spoke about this, Clare. I have a job to do.’

‘You have a family too.’

There was no point in arguing with her, the conversation had been covered before. The only reply Clare wanted to hear was one that he could not give her. Not now the girls were heading for university and his father was living with them in an expensive new extension. ‘A man died tonight. And an old lady. They had family too.’

‘Not your family.’

‘Have you any idea how cold that sounds?’

Clare spun round and pulled the light on. ‘Don’t give me that, Bob. I’m not going to listen to the public service broadcast anymore. It’s all very sad that we live in a world where people are running around killing each other but there is nothing I can do about that and very little that you or anyone else can. You have a family, a wife, two beautiful daughters who worship you, and an elderly father who won’t be around for ever. It’s about time you started devoting some of your precious time – and I mean precious, you are not well enough for this either – to your own people. You need to understand that because if you don’t then your next shock might be the last.’

The light went out and Clare moved to her side of the bed.

Valentine didn’t consider a reply because there was nothing he could say that hadn’t already been said. When he came home with a blue folder under his arm, his first day of active policing after the stabbing, she cried. Just seeing that small oblong of cardboard meant days filled with worry and nights without sleep when she didn’t know if her husband was alive or dead.

He didn’t want to hurt Clare but what choice did he have? There was only one way to conduct a murder investigation and that was by devoting himself to it. He couldn’t leave the station and forget about the case. Two people had died now. They deserved better.

As he closed his eyes and tried for sleep the detective pressed the thick ridge of flesh in the centre of his chest. The scar tissue was hard, a bulging seam that marked the point where death had touched him. So much had changed since that day, he had questioned everything about his life, but he had resolved nothing. Clare was right, the time for answers was coming.

Darren Millar’s journey from the east coast to the west was filled with panic. Since fleeing Glencorse Barracks, without permission, he expected to be identified every time he turned onto a new street. People were staring, hostile. To avoid scrutiny he waited outside Penicuik bus station in the rain, rather than under the sheltered roof of the depot. His nervousness peaked when he joined the queue on the concourse but as the bus finally departed he got a fleeting sense of freedom. The delusion was soon replaced by serious nervousness as the journey progressed. Stomach cramps and incessant worry arrived. This wasn’t the same as the early panic that he might get caught, and returned to barracks for a kicking, but a sustained and terrible fear his family wouldn’t survive without him.

Jade was always a worry, but weren’t all little sisters like that? He expected his friend Finnie to look out for her, to make sure she went to school and didn’t stay out all night, but that clearly hadn’t been happening. He wouldn’t be escaping barracks and rushing home, or fielding phone calls and text messages from Jade – some into the wee hours – if everything was OK.

His mother had said that Jade needed help. She was too young to understand what losing Dad meant at the time, but as she got older the realisation that she no longer had a father was always going to cause problems. ‘Being a teenager was hard enough,’ Mum said at the time and Darren knew she was right.

They were so cruel, kids. After the funeral he’d taken a few days off school, everyone knew though. They’d had time to talk, to identify a change in him. On the first day back in woodwork he went through the tasks slowly, silently. They watched him, hoping to see some indication of the change but when none came a prompt appeared.

‘Hey, Darry …’ said Kevin Houston. He wasn’t one of the bigger lads, but the most brash and ignorant. He smiled for the other boys, raised his voice a little. ‘What are you making with that wood – it’s not a coffin is it?’

The whole class laughed. Houston grinned as the boys jeered, he’d said the words but it might have been any of them. They all scented weakness, every one was attacking.

‘I’ll have you for that,’ said Darren. But even as he said it he knew he didn’t have the heart, it would mean tackling the whole class.

As the bus pulled in to the station at Ayr, Darren Millar wiped away the moisture on the inside of the windowpane. It was dry outside now, but the earlier rain that was brought in on coats and umbrellas still clung to the congested bodies. He hadn’t expected the scene to be so prosaic, the streets so familiar and the people so unaware of the importance of his arrival. He didn’t know what he expected, really. Everything was so instinctual, the call for help, the flight. Did it even matter what happened next? Not to him. Certainly not for him, because he wasn’t there for himself. None of this was about him.

Darren checked his mobile phone as he left the bus – there were no messages from Jade. If she’d had any trouble finding Finnie’s flat she would have called. She always had the phone in her hand, or at least within reach. Lately, it was like she had his number on speed dial, like she didn’t want to be away from the sound of his voice for too long. It was another pressure to add to all the rest. They needed to have a talk, she needed to know that there were times when her brother would be there for her and there were times when it was simply impossible. If he could make her see that, then the visit home might be worth all the trouble.

On the way to the flat, Darren passed the Meat Hangers nightclub where Finnie worked. It was closed up, the front window had been covered with a large square of plywood like it had been smashed and a replacement hadn’t arrived yet. He edged up to the front door and tried to see inside but it was too dark. There were no lights on, nobody there. He didn’t expect to see Finnie, he’d said that he wasn’t going to be around, but he hadn’t said anything about the club closing, which he found strange.

At Finnie’s flat Darren eyed the smokers outside the pub. They were typical Ayr types. Teenage girls in short, tight dresses. A pot-bellied taxi driver looking for a fare. A man with raw features, reddened from heavy drinking, using the wall for support. Darren might have been away for a century, the place wouldn’t change. He could arrange the interchangeable scenes from memory, it was depressingly familiar.

In the doorway the handle was moving downwards as he arrived.

‘Who the hell are you?’ The man’s face stayed firm as he spoke, for a moment he eyeballed Darren like he was sizing up his threat, and then he pivoted back towards the door and held it open for another, bigger man.

‘What’s it to do with you?’ said Darren.

‘Don’t get lippy with me, son.’ He stepped forward to allow the second man space in the doorway. ‘And I’ll ask the questions. So, come on, who are you?’

‘I’m Darren Millar.’

His expression said the name didn’t mean anything.

The bigger man spoke. ‘He’s Finnie’s army pal.’

‘So you know him. Where is he?’

Darren edged onto the street. ‘How should I know? I’m not his keeper.’

‘But you were about to chap his door.’

‘I was. Doesn’t mean I can see through wood, does it?’

‘I’ve warned you about that lip already. You’ll have trouble talking at all with a mouth the shape of Joe’s fist.’

The two men followed Darren into the street, the smokers outside the pub looked on, eager for the possibility of entertainment. As he stepped away Darren looked up towards the window of the flat. ‘What were the pair of you doing up there?’

‘Just a social call.’

Darren started to nod. ‘Fin still work for you?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘You’re Norrie Leask. I was just at your place, it’s all boarded up.’

Leask’s eyes narrowed as his heavy brows pressed down. ‘You’re either very smart, or very stupid, pal. Either way, you’re lucky I don’t have the time for this tonight. But you tell your friend I want a word with him, and yesterday’s too soon. Got that?’

Darren didn’t reply. He watched Leask and the man called Joe walk towards a car on the other side of the road. They exchanged words over the roof before getting inside and chatting some more; Leask seemed to be giving directions on the road ahead. Darren waited for them to drive away and then went inside. As he opened the door the flat was in darkness, completely still.

‘Jade …’

There was no answer.

‘Jade, where are you?’

Movement. The sound of more than one body.

‘No. Don’t hurt him!’ Jade’s voice edged into a scream.

As Darren turned on the light he had to drop to the floor to avoid a cricket bat that was swinging towards his head.

‘Jesus.’

A loud thud on the wall was followed by a small cloud of plaster. Darren got to his feet, fists drawn, and started hooking punches before his attacker had time to respond.

‘No. Stop.’

Jade squeezed herself between her brother and the target of his fists.

‘Stop!’

Darren stepped back, he was breathing heavily.

‘Start explaining, Jade, I mean it. I want to know what’s going on now.’

Detective Inspector Bob Valentine didn’t think he would miss the old Saltmarket mortuary but so many pieces of his personal history had disappeared that he now found himself feeling nostalgic for the place. It had been too small for its purpose, the technicians always moaned about negotiating the steps with coffins or wheeled stretchers, but it was big enough to hold his memories. As he drove towards the new morgue at the Southern General, the DI replayed his first visit to the place.

‘Penny for them,’ said DS McCormack.

‘You wouldn’t thank me for my thoughts right now.’

‘Oh right, like that is it?’

Valentine turned down the radio, gripped the steering wheel. ‘Well, if you must know I was thinking about the early days, when I was green as grass, and made those scary, first trips to the morgue.’

‘The wee one at the High Court, where they had the Bible John victims?’

‘And Peter Manuel’s victims as well.’

‘It was a funny place, so unassuming. Didn’t look like it was a place chock-full of death.’ She stretched out her neck, trying to catch a look at the detective. ‘Come on then, what ghoulish pranks did they play on you?’

‘There was nothing like that. I just remember watching everyone carrying on like there was no death in the room. You could smoke in those days, they’d pass fags about and chat about the football results or what had just been on the telly. Nobody was bothered about the half-naked dead folk lying around. It shocked me, but you get used to it, don’t you?’

McCormack nodded. ‘Do you remember the very first time you saw a dead body?’

‘Aye, a jumper in the Clyde. He was white as a sheet, apart from the black veins under the skin.’

‘Mine was actually at the old morgue. I think they were winding me up because they thought I was a daft wee lassie. I got the tour and then they asked me if I wanted to see some dead folk. I didn’t, of course, but I couldn’t let on and have them laugh at me.’

‘So you said yes?’

‘Of course. The first drawer they pulled out was OK, it was an old woman who’d collapsed during a burglary, she just looked tired, worn out. I wasn’t fazed but that was my biggest mistake, they started to up the ante then. I saw a few more on slabs and then they took me through to a special room, with a dozen corpses under white sheets.’ She shut her eyes tight at the memory.

‘Go on, you can’t stop there.’

‘The first one was a throat slashing that had been closed with clips, it looked like something out of Hammer horror. Then there was a road smash that needed cutting out, there was nothing recognisable as a human being at all, I could only tell one end from the other by the patch of black hair. I was just about managing to keep my breakfast down at this stage and then they showed me a wee boy who had been hanged on a tree by his satchel strap. He was cold, chalk white like your Clyde jumper. I think I could handle the grizzly stuff but the wee boy’s face was so calm and they’d straightened his tie, parted his hair. I ran out of there in floods of tears.’

Valentine listened to the end of her story and empathised. ‘The little kiddies are the ones that really get to you.’

‘Like Janie Cooper, you mean?’

He didn’t respond. The exit for the Southern was yards ahead. He flicked on the indicator.

As they parked, McCormack spoke again. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pressure you.’

‘It’s all right, Sylvia.’

‘I’m only trying to help.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ll shut up now.’

‘You better had, we have a job of work to attend to.’ He locked the car and headed for the mortuary.

The pathology technician directed the detectives to the over-lit room where they had lain out the victim’s body. A large inverted Y-shape marked where the main incisions had been made. He was a large man, broad-shouldered and deep-chested. His neck and arms were heavily muscled and despite his fifty-plus years he had clearly been in good condition. As Valentine’s gaze took in the man’s dimensions he questioned if they had the correct corpse.

‘Are we sure this is our man, he looks huge?’ he said.

‘It’s definitely him, look at the tattoo, sir.’

As McCormack spoke the pathologist entered the room, struggling to fit a pale blue gown over his head. ‘The Royal Highland Fusiliers, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said.

‘I thought it was military,’ said Valentine. ‘And hello to you too, Wrighty.’

‘Good morning to you both.’ He struggled to fasten the gown behind his back. ‘My old man was a bit of a militaria buff, I recognise the crown formation.’

‘Well you’ve saved Sylvia a trip to Google, I’m sure she’ll thank you later.’

The detectives collected polythene folders from the technician. Inside was the pathology report, printed on white A4 paper.