Blood, Salt, Water (9 page)

‘No, thank God.’ He was relieved not to have stumbled across anything gruesome. But Morrow felt that maybe she had: the alcohol wipes suggested premeditation. They were ominous. Most people would use the sleeve of their jacket to wipe prints off.

She straightened up and suddenly saw the spectacular view. A lush green run of fields dropped down to meet the glinting water. The hills rose, green again, on the far bank. Smiling, she looked down the coast to her right and saw Helensburgh laid out in a neat grid, the rain-drizzled roads silvered by sunshine.

‘I actually know Helensburgh really quite well.’

He was telling her he was an asset. She didn’t want to encourage him so she just looked away. ‘Yeah, it’s old.’

‘Actually, no. It’s only three hundred years old. It was built as a luxury holiday town. The founder named it after his wife—’

‘I know.’ She didn’t know that, but he was interrupting her train of thought.

He tried to impress again. ‘Did you know: a quarter of all the millionaires in Britain lived there at one time?’

That was quite interesting, if irrelevant. Morrow stayed silent. She looked over to where the street grid ran out and big trees and lawns intermingled up the early slopes of the surrounding hills.

‘I know it well because I was in the Sea Cadets. We went sailing over there at the outdoor centre.’ He pointed to a distant coppice of masts.

Morrow nodded in the right direction, thinking about the alcohol wipes. Buoyed by her lack of hostility Thankless asked, ‘Were you in Cadets?’

‘No,’ said Morrow.

‘It was great. I loved it.’

She wondered why they were talking like this, exchanging personal information as if they were friends. It was the setting. Being near the water made the trip feel like a holiday.

‘D’you know that area of Helensburgh up by the—’

‘Never been.’ She cut the comradely thread abruptly with, ‘We were Largs people,’ and headed for the car. She glanced back and saw Thankless looking sheepishly across the water to Largs.

The two towns were on opposite banks of the wide estuary, each looking diffidently away. Helensburgh was three hundred years old, pretty and stood on its dignity. Largs was a thousand years old and didn’t care what anyone thought. It had seen Viking battles and German bombers, the Black Death and the EU. It was a place of ice cream parlours, vulgar amusement arcades, chips and sweets and pocket-money toys. It was a working-class day out. Helensburgh was aspirational.

He caught her up at the car. ‘Well, if I win the lottery I’d live out here. All that fresh air—’

‘I don’t like the country,’ said Morrow.

‘Why?’ He was smiling at her, surprised and patronising, about to explain why she was so very wrong and ‘the country’ was a great thing.

‘The shops are shit,’ she said. ‘Anyway, cut the chat. You phone the station and make sure Kerrigan’s bringing the forensic team.’ Kerrigan was, Morrow knew she was. She was just giving Thankless a job to do to remind him she was in charge.

She walked away, glad to have shut him up but disappointed in herself. It was her problem. She’d hated bosses for behaving like this to her. She hated them for doing it now. She thought of DCC Hughes walking out of the meeting before people had finished speaking.

Back at the gate Morrow glanced once more at the beguiling view. Wind rolling up from the water swept a soft Mexican wave across a rapeseed field.

Morrow felt in her gut that Roxanna was probably dead. Alcohol wipes and a handheld vacuum for the floor of the car. It was professional and it was serious. There were no professional hit men in Helensburgh, just fat men in tracksuits stabbing rivals for a fist of fifty quid notes. A professional would have been conspicuous in such a small community.

She took out her phone and called CI Nolly Dent.

15

Leaving the lunch time rush in the café behind him, Boyd Fraser began to run, heavy-footed. He had forty minutes before he had to begin preparations for the charity dinner. He blamed his trainers at first, then remembered that he always blamed the trainers, that he didn’t actually like running.

He ran straight west, staying away from the unbroken shore road to give himself an excuse to stop at the crossroads and catch his breath. The black asphalt glistened and an electric car startled him as it ghosted past, wheels hissing the rain from the road.

He wasn’t enjoying the run. The wind annoyed him. Cars and pedestrians got in his way, everything hurt. He had been very fit once, running the London Marathon. He even beat his training partner’s time by three minutes, something Sanjay never really forgave him for. Now Boyd was always comparing himself to that never-again peak of fitness. But he ploughed on, passing rustic houses, sailing houses, the entry gate to a Neo-Gothic castle. He felt his shoulders rounded from leaning over work surfaces and account books, from picking up kids and crates of milk.

Meeting Miss Grierson yesterday had disturbed him. It created in his mind an unbroken timeline between then and now, as if he had never been to UCL or spent fifteen years in London or camper-vanned or surfed in Cornwall, as if he’d always been here and Lucy and the kids had magically appeared in the town of his birth.

While he was away, at university, on his travels, he’d cast himself unhappy in Helensburgh, trapped by the oppressive propriety of his home life, the coldness of his father. The dry Sunday School days, crayoned pictures of Jesus, the smog of family history and the weight of expectation. They were the good Frasers, the righteous elect. His mother thought that everything that went her way was part of God’s plan. Everything else was the work of Catholics and Anglicans.

But meeting Miss Grierson took his mood back to that time, reminded him of what growing up here was really like: it was quite pleasant. His parents were kind and gentle people, bigoted, a little rigid, but well meaning. The desire to rip things up, the bitterness, the sneering, those were Boyd’s own. He wished he hadn’t given Miss Grierson a job tonight. He didn’t want to see her again.

Boyd puffed on, troubled by the realisation that he had never really suffered terribly much and should be happy. But he wasn’t. Whoever’s fault it was, the fact remained: he wasn’t. He felt sorry for himself. He felt cheated of something vital and he didn’t know what it was.

He shook his head as he approached a road, shrugging off the thought. Why did he feel so sorry for himself? He couldn’t remember.

He stopped at the kerb: Lucy. Lucy was pissed off all the time. It was the pressure of work, starting a business, sleeplessness because of the kids. It was one of those. Feeling relieved, as if he made sense again, he ran on. It was the pressure of court life. Marie Antoinette.

He was back to the fucking Hameau again. Annoyed at the intrusive thought, at his weak legs and his weight gain, he turned and ran downhill towards the water, stopping to let a Waitrose van pass. Fucking Waitrose stealing customers and allergy bastards, Waitrose turning the whole town into a retirement village for bank managers.

Fuelled by anger, he was going quite fast now. He thought back to Sanjay and the jagged competitive edge between them. That’s what he missed. A spur to get him to his personal best. A peer group. That’s what he needed.

As if the universe had heard him, he looked up and saw, almost half a mile away down the shore front, a man he vaguely recognised. The man was facing Boyd, leaning against an electricity substation. His head was shaved, he wore a tracksuit zipped up over his belly, a cheap gangster, and he was smoking in a louche, cowboyish manner. Boyd knew him but not from the café, just from seeing him around the town. He couldn’t fit a name.

Boyd found he was sprinting towards the man. He could get some sniff from him, or at least he’d know someone. A chemical adventure. Maybe that would do it. A little blowout.

He slowed as he approached and caught the gangster’s eye, stopped to catch his breath and nurse a stitch. The two men stood parallel but apart, nodding hellos.

‘Right?’ panted Boyd.

The cowboy nodded and pushed himself off the wall, hips first, then back and shoulders, finally pushing himself upright by the base of his neck.

‘I know you, do I?’ asked Boyd.

The man dropped his cigarette, grinding it into the ground with a twist of his toe. ‘Who’re you?’

‘Boyd Fraser.’ Boyd needed a breath then, and by the time he’d caught it the moment for asking the cowboy’s name was past.

‘
Fraser?
’ The cowboy was smirking, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. Fraser was a well-known name in the town.

‘Aye.’ Boyd didn’t usually say ‘aye’. His mother wouldn’t stand for that sort of language.

‘I know a Fraser.’ He walked over to Boyd. For the briefest moment Boyd thought he was about to hit him. Instead he stopped, tilted his head and said, ‘Who’s your da?’

Boyd turned square to him. He was taller than the man, wider on the shoulders and fitter. ‘Reverend Robert Fraser.’

‘Those ones? You own that café? That Puddle place up at Sinclair Street?’

‘Paddle. Aye.’

The cowboy looked serious and held out his hand. ‘Tommy Farmer.’ English name, cross-border accent but chubby Scottish build: a navy kid.

Boyd shook it. ‘All right, man?’ He didn’t quite know how to broach the subject of where to get a deal. ‘Hey, I don’t suppose you’d know—’

But Tommy had spun away. ‘Murray! Murray Ray! ’Magine bumping into you!’

Boyd had been only vaguely aware of two people ambling towards them down the shore road but the man and the child must have changed pace, hurrying while he wasn’t looking. Now they were standing near and the man had stopped and he looked scared. He held his daughter’s hand tightly. He wore a small ‘Aye’ badge on his lapel but was trying to cover it with his free hand while keeping a frightened eye on Tommy.

Boyd understood that Tommy Farmer was the cause of the fear. He found it exciting. He shifted his weight towards Tommy, sliding behind his shoulder, implying that they were together, though they weren’t.

‘Hiya, Murray.’

‘Hiya, Tommy.’ Murray dropped his gaze, cowed. ‘The badge – I know Mark doesn’t—’

‘Never mind that,’ said Tommy, ‘I’m a “Yes” myself.’

But the badge was not the problem, apparently, because the atmosphere between them didn’t improve.

‘Are you a “Yes”, Boyd?’ Tommy looked at him. Boyd was an emphatic ‘No’ but he could hardly say so. He kind of nodded and the men went back to looking at each other.

Boyd was impatient for the father and child to move along because he had decided on his gambit:
Tommy, you don’t happen to know where I could get a bit of sniff, do you?
He was rehearsing it in his head. He was waiting for a break.

But Tommy and Murray were eyeballing an acrimonious private conversation. They wouldn’t argue in front of the child because it was a small town, small enough for the children to feel like a collective resource. Grown-ups disguised their enmity to protect the kids and festered threateningly instead. But if Boyd spoke to the girl, kept her busy, the men could talk and Murray would move on.

Boyd looked at her. About ten or eleven, thick specs, a pink puffa and matching woolly hat that seemed itchy. She kept scratching her head through it.

‘What’s your name?’ he said.

‘Lea-Anne Ray. What’s yours?’

‘Boyd Fraser.’

‘Oh, aye. You one of the Lawnmore Frasers or the Colquin crowd?’

It was a staggeringly astute comment on his family history. Generations back the family had split into those who lived in Lawnmore and the other side who hadn’t done so well and ended up in the council flats at Colquin.

‘Lawnmore,’ he said.

‘Oh, aye. Very good.’ She pursed her lips and looked away. She didn’t seem to entirely approve.

Murray intervened. ‘Our Lea-Anne’s a right wee Granny Grey Hips, aren’t ye, pet? She’s brought up by her grannies.’

The men were just watching him talk to her, not taking the opportunity Boyd was giving them. He realised it was futile and stopped trying.

Tommy gestured to Murray who was near to tears. ‘Boyd and Murray, you don’t know each other, do yees?’

Boyd, still panting a little, shook his head.

‘Well, fellow proprietors,’ Tommy was smiling but he looked a bit mean, ‘this is Murray Ray. He owns the Sailors’ Rest down there.’

Looking down the seafront, past the man and child, Boyd saw the squat little pub. The windows were boarded up. Outside, parked like a fleet of company cars around the back, sat three large skips.

‘Doing it up, aren’t you, Murray? Must be costing ye.’ Tommy wasn’t really asking and Murray didn’t seem to have the breath to answer. He was trembling, his head bobbing on his neck.

‘Arm and a leg,’ said Lea-Anne. ‘Remortgaged the house.’

‘Is that right, wee hen?’ Tommy was talking to her now, not nasty, not threatening the way he was to her father. ‘Boyd here,’ he said, continuing the introduction as if they were old pals, ‘has that Puddle café up there on Sinclair.’

Lea-Anne nodded, politely feigning interest.

Suddenly finding his voice, Murray said loudly, ‘You’re taking a hell of a chance! Starting a business in this economy! You don’t know what’s going to happen! Don’t know who you’ll offend—’

‘Calm yourself down, Murray,’ Tommy warned but he was enjoying this, Boyd could tell. He realised that Tommy had been hiding behind the electricity substation, watching the pub, waiting for Murray Ray.

‘You don’t know WHO you’re going to offend!’ Murray wasn’t even pretending to talk to Boyd now, he was just shouting it to the wind. ‘Or what’ll FUCKING
HAPPEN
TO
YOU.’

Hearing the curse word, Lea-Anne looked at her father, her mouth a tight little ‘o’. He muttered an apology and squeezed her hand. She accepted the apology with a small nod but looked away and muttered ‘
Dizz
graceful’ to herself.

‘And when’s Mark back anyway?’ Murray said, wild-eyed and reckless. ‘Is he on his
holidays
again?’ He barked a desperate half-laugh at Boyd, implicating him.

Tommy leaned in, warning Murray to shut up but the desperate man burbled on, ‘Hey, Boyd Fraser, were you at the
bonfire
up at the golf course?’ Lea-Anne tried to pull her hand away from her father’s. He was holding it too tight and hurting her. Murray nodded at Boyd, his face a rictus grin. ‘Up it went and everyone’s like that: “Mark Barratt must be on holiday!”’

It didn’t make a lot of sense. Boyd didn’t know who Mark Barratt was. Lea-Anne looked confused too and scratched her head again through her hat. Boyd was only half listening. His mind was on a warm remembered night in London, dancing at five in the morning, feeling tall and alert and on it. Fifty nights conflated in his mind to one moment of total confident certainty.

‘You’re doing the food at the dinner dance tonight, aren’t ye?’ Tommy was talking to Boyd.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘we’re catering the hospice dinner.’

‘Great.’ Tommy rubbed his hands together. ‘I’m coming.’

Boyd was more than pleased at that. Relieved. Tommy would be there. Tommy would probably have a little baggie on him, at the dinner, or he’d know someone who did.

Tommy nodded at the father and daughter. ‘You’re coming, aren’t ye, Murray?’

‘Aye,’ Murray said, calmer now, distracted.

‘And who’s babysitting you, Lea-Anne?’

‘Granny Eunice.’

‘Not your Granny Annie?’

‘Nut. Eunice’s leg’s giving her gyp. Knee’s all swole. Annie’s got a ticket.’ She shrugged. ‘Giving the dancing a by, though, with
her
bladder.’ It was a little freakish, hearing the words of an old person from such a small child. They all looked at her for a moment.

‘Great,’ said Tommy, enunciating the ‘t’ so sharply it sounded like a spiteful finger-flick to the ear.

The sky was darkening. Lights were coming on across the water, throbbing uncertainly. Boyd’s break time was running out and the men were arguing about something he didn’t understand or care about. He should go.

‘So, yeah,’ said Boyd, ‘see you later, anyway.’ He nodded at Tommy as if they had a date.

Murray and Lea-Anne shuffled out of his way and he jogged past, gathering speed on his tired legs, regulating his breathing.

He ran on, past the boarded-up pub. It looked like a bit of a dive but the navy base nearby meant that dives could make enough at the weekends to tide them over an empty week.

Boyd ran on for five or so minutes, as far as the edge of town, and then turned back. He wasn’t sure of the time. He found it hard to put a time on the strange conversation with the old/young girl and the two angry men.

He ran up Sinclair Street towards Lawnmore, a steep incline straight uphill from the water, a final push.

Opening the garden gate, he stepped in and climbed the little steps. He stood for a moment, looked around the garden like a visiting stranger.

The Lawnmore Frasers. It occurred to him that in London he had had anonymity and liked it. Here, in cosy, rosy Helensburgh, he was a young business owner from an old family, part of the fabric of the town. He didn’t like knowing who he was so exactly. He didn’t like other people having the measure of him.