Blood, Salt, Water (18 page)

25

Shoppers stared at Iain in the busy chemist’s shop. He was sitting in a chair beneath the high pharmacy counter, waiting for his prescription. He didn’t care that they were staring. He looked a mess but he didn’t care because the doctor had touched his hand and was upset too. He wasn’t alone.

The doors to the street crashed open. A skinny guy, young, Iain didn’t know him, stormed straight for the counter. He was limping, swinging his arms, and scattered the women looking at make-up.

Methadone!

Stamping from foot to foot, he leaned all his weight on the counter, lifting his feet off the floor, clucking. The pharmacist asked if he’d like to come to the cubicle but – just gaesit. ’M fucking ganting.

He necked the clear green liquid from the measuring cup. Iain watched the make-up-perusing women leave, muttering, gossiping. They’d know the boy’s family, who he belonged to, the whole back story.

The boy was thin. Even his tongue looked thin as it rolled around inside of the plastic cup, licking the residue from the ridged bottom. He went to put it down but spotted another little green pool and lifted it to lick again. Then he dropped it on the counter, gave the pharmacist an angry glare and stormed out, slamming the door again as he left.

The pharmacist waited until the doors were shut and he’d passed the window. She looked at the measuring cup. Bending down, she lifted a small bin and used her elbow to knock the empty cup into it, catching Iain’s eye.

‘Saliva,’ she explained, disgusted. She looked at him, hopeful, and said, ‘Are you a fireman?’

Iain didn’t answer. She decided he was and started to cry.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, hoarse, ‘that Lea-Anne Ray. My God, she was a right wee ticket.’

They couldn’t look at each other. They stayed still, an ocean of shop between them, until the door to the street opened and a woman came in. They each hid their faces.

Iain’s prescription arrived in a neat paper bag. He wanted to take a pill in the shop but thought he might remind the pharmacist of the methadone addict. He liked being mistaken for a good guy. He thanked her and walked casually out of the shop.

Outside he ducked down a lane, around a corner, standing by the bins, ripped the paper bag open and took out the smoked glass bottle. He pressed down on the lid, felt the mechanical whirr, a clock being wound to work again. It was quite a big pill but he swallowed it dry. It lodged in his throat leaving a catch there, and then slid down. The ghost of the pill hurt his throat. He swallowed again. Was it down? Probably.

If it was any good it would take ten minutes. If it was no good after twenty minutes he could always take another one. He went out onto the street and started to walk slowly, watching his feet, gauging his mood with every step. A little better. A weak sun warmed the street. The smell was lifting. He felt a little better.

He felt calm enough to lift his head and look around. A cluster of women at a street corner looked tearfully down to the water front and talked in low voices, hands covering their mouths. Pensioners in the cafés looked sad and worn. Even 4x4 drivers looked upset and craned to see the fire brigade tape at the end of Sinclair Street.

He walked down towards the water. On the esplanade, a block away from the blackened Sailors’ Rest, stood a mobile police unit with shiny aluminium stairs down into the street. A cop on guard outside looked expectantly around the street but no one would meet his eye. His hands were clasped behind his back, his feet splayed. He’d been there for a while. Iain saw a man steer his wife away, making her cross the street. No one would make a move until Mark Barratt got back. The town was waiting for orders.

Iain had no right to feel righteous. He wasn’t doing anything either. He was no better than them. Annie and Eunice were all that was left. Iain couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of them before now. The grannies would be distraught. He turned uphill and headed east, squeezing the pill bottle in his pocket, willing the medication to dull his perception.

Across the road, through a charity shop window display of crystal vases and dun pewter tankards, Susan Grierson watched him wish.

26

Cadogan Street was in the old commercial district of Glasgow city centre. Monumental Victorian office buildings in blood-red sandstone faced-off across narrow streets. They were tall, blank and imposing. Busy with early morning commuters, the street was a bland string of doorways into the bright lobbies of dull commercial enterprises, the tedium broken by occasional sandwich bars and coffee shops. Office windows above crackled with rancorous strip lights.

The Injury Claims 4 U office was through a glass door. The concierge had been told to expect them first thing and he let them in, directing them across a grey lobby.

‘Early,’ he said vaguely, nodding at his watch.

It was ten to eight in the morning. They needed to talk to the Injury office staff but two of them already had other jobs. They had agreed to come in before work.

The concierge led them to a cramped afterthought of a lift. ‘Eighth floor. The only door on the landing.’

The doors slid shut and the lift rose slowly. The eighth floor made the grey lobby downstairs look glamorous. A chipped door sagged open. It was painted in battleship-grey emulsion and had a metal strip on it that read
I4U
.

They stepped into a reception area that looked and smelled as if someone had been chain-smoking in it for thirty years. Everything was tinged brown, the carpet, the desk, the chair. Even the pale blue hessian walls were overlaid with yellow.

‘Didn’t expect this,’ said Morrow, quietly. ‘Not at all.’

She had imaged sleek, handsome Roxanna in quite a different workplace. Somewhere with glass partitions, designer furniture and other office luxuries, like breathable air.

‘No wonder they don’t like Glasgow,’ said McGrain, his civic pride offended by the state of the place.

Looking at the office, it seemed obvious that Fuentecilla had always intended to shut it down. If she had been planning to stay she would have moved offices. She would have bought furniture. She would have had the place painted or, at the very least, opened a window.

‘Hello?’ called McGrain.

A sudden sound of bubbling water caught their attention. They followed the noise around the corner and found a small staffroom with a full kettle boiling on top of a small fridge. Three tea-stained cups were lined up by the kettle, each with a tea bag slumped forlornly in a finger of milk. Looking up at them guiltily from a round table were the three staff members they had called in, a woman and two men, all in their twenties. A half-eaten packet of Bourbon biscuits sat in front of them on the table.

Morrow and McGrain introduced themselves and showed their ID badges.

Maxine Bradford kept her hands clamped between her knees as if she didn’t fully trust them. She had curly blond hair and far too much make-up for the hour, or indeed any hour, apart from dress-up night at a social club for clowns.

Lorrie Whittle held up a hand as he introduced himself, ducking his head, as if he was embarrassed. The other two were dressed for work but Lorrie was wearing grey trackie bottoms and a sweat shirt. He didn’t have a job yet.

The third man stood up and straightened his suit jacket. ‘Jim Moonie.’ He held his hand out to shake and made you-can-trust-me eye contact, the convention of his profession. He shook hands with Morrow, then McGrain and capped it with a habitual, but inappropriate, ‘Delighted you could come.’ He knew it was wrong and sat back down, admonishing himself.

‘OK.’ Morrow took charge. ‘Well, thanks very much for coming in so early, all of you. Very kind. We just need a general chat. Can we sit down somewhere?’

Moonie offered her his chair and then brought two more chairs in from a nearby office, setting them around the table. Tea was offered and refused. The biscuits were offered and McGrain took one.

‘Did you find her?’ asked Maxine, a little excited. ‘Is she dead?’

McGrain shook his head. ‘We haven’t found Roxanna Fuentecilla.’

‘We found someone, but not her.’ Morrow put a photograph of the Star of David and the crucifix on the table. ‘Do you recognise this?’

They stared at it for a moment.

‘Is that Hettie’s?’ Maxine suggested.

Lorrie touched the picture. ‘Loads of folk wear that sort of thing.’ He picked up the photo and handed it back to Morrow, repeating: ‘Loads of folk wear that sort of thing.’ As if she hadn’t heard him.

‘Loads of folk who work here?’

They were shocked at the implication.

‘The woman who was wearing this necklace was found dead. She had this in her pocket.’ She put the photo of the lanyard on the table.

The effect was immediate. Maxine gave off a little scream and said ‘Oh my God’, once to Lorrie, once to Jim, once to Morrow and McGrain. Lorrie blinked back insistent tears and couldn’t take his eyes off the picture.

Jim took an exact copy of the lanyard out of his pocket and put it on the table. It had an ID badge attached to it with his photo on one side and a magnetic strip for the door entry on the other. ‘That’s for a pass, to get in the front door. We’ve all got them.’

Morrow nodded. ‘Is there a personnel file for Hettie?’

Lorrie Whittle muttered that he knew where they were. They followed him in a back room, where the firm’s records were kept. The forensic accountants had been through these files with a camera and sharp eye and found nothing very much at all. Whittle took a file from the grey personnel cabinet.

Hester Kirk had been made redundant as soon as Fuentecilla took over. She had worked out her contract and left three weeks ago. A small passport photo was attached at the top right-hand corner of the file. Morrow recognised her as the body in the water. She was chubby, heavy-chested, and wore the necklace in the photo. Her hair was dyed blonde and pulled back in a ponytail. She had the expression of someone caught off guard by an automated photo booth, her mouth loose, one eye slightly closed. Her home address was in Clydebank.

Back in the kitchen, Morrow asked who had been here for the longest. Jim said it was him, he’d been here for a year and a half.

An office was found. Jim Moonie sat in a stiff chair holding tight to the sides.

‘Jim, what can you tell us about what’s been going on here?’

Jim looked from Morrow to McGrain. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Just tell us the story of what’s happened here. We’d be interested to know how it looks from your perspective.’

‘OK. Hmm.’ He considered the proposition for a moment. ‘Well, the office is shut. That’s all we know.’

‘You were here before Roxanna?’

‘Aye. Bob Ashe was the owner before her. Injury claims. That was the business. Not squeaky clean, always, but you probably know that already. It was low-level stuff, not organised insurance fraud. Not really.’

‘We know. We’re not really interested in that. We want to know what happened when Roxanna got here.’

‘Well.’ He smacked his lips. ‘In they come, out he goes. He calls the office together, looking well-nervous, here’s your new boss, cheerio. No warning nor nothing. Off he goes to live in Miami.’

‘Did that seem like something he’d been planning?’

‘No. But he’s got grandweans there. He was back and forth. If he was going anywhere it was there.’

‘No, I mean selling up and leaving?’

‘Not at all. He hasn’t even sold his house yet, I know it’s still on the market. I see it in the listings in the papers every week.’

‘Where did he live?’

‘Helensburgh. Market’s dead out there, until after the vote. No one knows what’s going to happen, do they?’

Morrow got him to write the address down for her.

‘Was the house for sale before he announced he was leaving?’

‘No. You wouldn’t sell out there just now. But it seemed like something he couldn’t resist. Like he’d been given a big bung to fuck off, excuse me. Then she takes over. Knows nothing about the business except who’s on the fiddle and she wants them out.’

‘Hester Kirk?’

‘Hettie was the Queen of the Scamsters. I’ll be frank with ye, I loved it when Hettie got the boot. I liked her personally, but she was a robbing fucker, excuse me. I thought we were going straight. There’s a good living in this game if you do it right. But if you’re willing to do it wrong there’s a killing in it. Hettie was always giving me earfuls about do this do that, bring your numbers up, you’re dragging us down. But it’s illegal, you know? Well, of course you know, you’re the polis. I’m not religious or anything. I’m just not a robbing fuck, excuse me. I just don’t do that sort of thing. So, I’d had a hard time but then Fuentecilla’s come in, seemed to be cleaning up the business. Got rid of the robbing fucks, excuse me.’

‘Like Hester?’

‘Exactly, like Hettie. She was the first one out. We get paid on commission for claims, you know? Temptation is to pad it out. Hettie gave in to temptation. And backhanders.’ He looked guilty suddenly. ‘It’s OK to tell you this, isn’t it? Since she’s, you know . . .’

‘Dead?’

‘Aye. Dead.’

‘Did Fuentecilla tell you what she was doing? Was there a meeting or anything?’

‘No. But it was obvious because of who got the boot. We all got the message.’

‘Fuentecilla didn’t say anything about income or the firm’s sources of income or anything like that?’

‘She wouldn’t bother to tell us. She’s quite snooty, isn’t she? Anyway, it’s her firm now so she can do what she likes. But they weren’t cleaning it up, were they? Because then they told us all to fuck off, excuse me.’

‘How did Hester Kirk react to being laid off?’

Jim said Hettie’d been there for, maybe, two years? She was kind of an angry woman anyway, you know? Divorced. Her ex was a junkie and tried to rob her a couple of times. Well, now she was furious. Said she’d never get another job like this. Her redundancy package was the legal minimum. Said she wasn’t going to take that lying down. She knew all about the business and who was this Spanish cunt anyway, excuse him.

‘Anyway, we all got our books last week. Rent’s paid. Another firm’s moving in next week.’

‘Fuentecilla paid you all off?’

‘Aye. Last week.’ His lip curled. ‘Never even bothered to tell us face to face. Just left letters and final payslips on everyone’s desk. The rest of us stopped coming in. She’s daft, really. I mean, it’s a partnership. If the firm goes down with bags of debt she has to pay them out of her own pocket.’

‘We checked for debts; I thought the firm was square?’

‘Oh, it can’t be.’ Jim smiled. ‘You don’t know about her spending spree. All the purchases.’

Morrow looked around the poor office. ‘What was she buying?’

‘Land,’ said Jim. ‘And I only know because Hettie’d told me. Broke into the filing cabinets one night, in the back office – she’s double wide – found letters from estate agents, deeds of sale.’

Morrow stood up. ‘Can you show me?’

The back office was across the reception area. Fuentecilla had put her own office as far away from the rest of the staff as possible. Jim opened the door tentatively, as though his Spanish beauty of a boss might still be in there. He reached in and turned the light on.

Clean. A glass desk with a purple Bang and Olufsen phone standing upright. A transparent chair. A wall of red filing cabinets with drawers of differing sizes, all with the same designer name on them in steel lettering.

The forensic accountants hadn’t been in here. Hester had been. She was angry when she searched this office and had used a chisel to jimmy the cabinets open. Papers were scattered all over the floor. Morrow wouldn’t have been able to look at them without a warrant but since it was a suspected break-in she could look at anything she liked.

Morrow and McGrain wandered from pile to pile, touching nothing. Purchase orders and title deeds, conveyancing reports. All for undeveloped land around Scotland’s west coast. With the uncertainty in the market right now prices would have slumped. No one else was buying. Property speculation wasn’t criminal but undeveloped land was one of the few assets that could easily sit untouched for seven years, accruing nothing but value, until a Declaration was applied for and the legal cogs ground into motion.

Morrow’s phone rang. She answered it. It was DC Kerrigan. The fingerprints on the bag of cocaine in Fuentecilla’s car had come up with a match: Iain Joseph Fraser, currently of Helensburgh, previously of Shotts Prison. They tested the cocaine and found traces of Jaffa Cakes in it. Odd.

Morrow nodded at McGrain, telling him to distract Jim Moonie.

McGrain did as he was told, turning Jim away to ask, ‘When did you first notice that Hettie’d broken in here?’

Morrow went out into the corridor: ‘What was he in for?’

‘Assault to severe injury,’ said Kerrigan. ‘Pretty ugly attack. I’ve sent you his record.’

‘Good. Take Thankless. Go to Helensburgh and see if you can pick Iain Fraser up. And while you’re driving out call Mr Halliday at Lurbrax Farm. Ask him if he’s sold any undeveloped land recently.’

She didn’t want to ask him herself. She liked the idea of Halliday recklessly campaigning for the next generation at his own expense, but she knew too much about people.