Snapshot (37 page)

‘No it’s fine. I understand. But has someone else come to visit you and talked about Grahamston?’

‘Oh no. Why would they? Nobody else knew. Just the boys.’

‘Yes, but has anyone come to speak to you and maybe Grahamston came up in conversation. Like the way it did with me?’

‘Oh, I see. No. Wait, yes. Yes. Oh, it wasn’t you, was it? Yes, you as well as the other man.’

Winter’s heart skipped a beat.

‘When was he here, Mrs McKendrick?’

‘Who?’

‘The other man.’

‘I don’t really remember, son. A few days ago.’

‘And . . . was it someone you know?’

She reflected for a bit, seemingly not sure how to answer.

‘No. I hadn’t met him before. He came to ask about Ryan. Like you.’

‘What was his name, Mrs McKendrick.’

‘You know, I can’t remember. There’s been so many people round.’

Part of him wanted to strangle her.

‘Please try and remember. It’s really important.’

‘Is it? I don’t see how it can be. But I don’t remember. I’m sorry. I’ve not been too well.’

‘Can you remember what he looked like? How tall he was? Anything at all?’

She shook her head sadly.

‘No. He was maybe . . .’ She looked Winter up and down. ‘Maybe as tall as you. Maybe not. I’m not sure. Do policemen not have to be a certain height to join?’

His heart stopped briefly.

‘What?’

‘I thought they had to be tall. Well they used to be anyway. Mind you, you see some . . .’

‘He was a policeman?’ he interrupted her.

‘Oh yes, didn’t I say that? He was here to talk to me about how I was after Keiran, well you know. Family liaison, that’s what they call it. He was very nice.’

FLOs wouldn’t be likely to be still visiting relatives of an overdose victim, not after this length of time. It smelled fishy.

‘Was he on his own, Mrs McKendrick?’

‘Call me Rosaleen. Was he what? On his own? Yes, yes he was. Just wanted to make sure that I was okay and that Ryan was coping with things.’

‘Did he ask you a lot of questions about Ryan?’

‘Did he? Yes, I suppose he did. Wanted to know how he was. If I’d heard from him.’

‘And had you?’

She looked up at him nervously.

‘He’s at sea. Can’t contact him when he’s at sea.’

‘No, of course not. And this policeman wanted to know about Grahamston?’

She looked very tired, as if the trouble of remembering things just wore her out.

‘I can’t really mind, son. I think he asked me about places that Ryan liked to go when he was at home on leave. I must have mentioned Grahamston. Ryan was always going on about it, you know.’

He knew.

‘This fellow did seem very interested when I told him about it. He said he’d been there when he was a boy too. He wanted to know all about Ryan and Kieran going there. He was such a nice chap. Very interested.’

I bet he was, Winter thought.

‘Try and think, Rosaleen. What did he look like? Anything.’

She frowned and sipped at her glass with an exaggerated thinking pout of her lip before shaking her head firmly.

‘Sorry, son. No. I told you. I’ve not been too well. I can’t remember his name or anything. Sorry.’

It was pointless pushing her any further.

‘Thanks, Mrs . . . Rosaleen. It’s late. I’d better be going.’

‘Oh. Okay, Tony. I’ll see you out.’

She began to push herself out of her seat and stopped halfway, looking puzzled.

‘But what was it that you wanted to talk to me about Ryan? You haven’t really said. Have you?’

‘Yes, yes. About Grahamston and just making sure he was doing okay.’

She looked doubtful.

‘But you said it was important.’

‘It was.’

‘And Ryan’s okay?’

‘Like I said, I haven’t heard anything.’

‘You’ll let me know if you do?’

‘Aye. Of course I will. Of course.’

She smiled, ten years dropping off her in an instant. He wasn’t sure if that should have made him feel bad or good. Bad, he decided.

She led Winter to the front door and opened it to let him past.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean what I said about not wanting people to come round any more. Not you anyway.’

With that she lifted her head and looked Winter straight in the eye and he took an instinctive half-step away from her, hoping she wasn’t hinting at what he thought.

‘It gets lonely on my own and my daughter is with friends,’ she added.

‘I’m sure you won’t be on your own for long,’ he blurted out. ‘Ryan . . . I’m sure you’ll see Ryan soon.’

Mrs McKendrick managed to look pleased and disappointed all at once. He backed away with a nod of his head and an embarrassed wave, turning to the stairs and hearing the door click shut as he was four steps down. He didn’t breathe until he was outside and had opened the car door, not daring to look up at the McKendricks’ window.

He started the engine and drove a couple of hundred yards before pulling into the first space he saw and stopping again. His hands gripped the steering wheel hard and he resisted the temptation to batter his head against it. Addison had said to him something once about being careful about asking questions that you didn’t know the answer to. Addy.

Whoever it was that had asked Mrs McKendrick about Grahamston it wasn’t Addison and it wasn’t Rachel. One too tall and one too feminine. It left a whole lot of other cops though.

Winter pulled out his phone and called the number of the intensive care unit. It was late but they were used to being bombarded with calls from worried relatives round the clock. When the young female voice asked, he said he was family. It probably sounded true because he meant it.

‘Mr Addison is still stable,’ she told him when she came back to the phone.

He said nothing.

‘That really is good news,’ she continued, sensing his anxiety. ‘They were very worried yesterday but he’s come through that and they think he might even be able to breathe for himself very soon.’

‘Really? I . . . that’s . . . Thank you. Really, thank you.’

‘He’s still very ill,’ she warned. ‘Stable but serious. I don’t want you to . . .’

It was too late, she couldn’t take back the only bit of good news he’d heard in a long time. He was going to need it to see him through whatever was coming next.

He glanced at his watch, seeing it was almost half past eleven. There was a good chance that there wouldn’t be anyone in the office at that time of night. It wasn’t going to stop him going in anyway but he’d just as rather there was no one there to ask him what was going on and where he’d been all day.

The alarm bells that had sounded in his head when he’d seen the photo print-outs had been ringing their heads off from the moment that Rosaleen McKendrick had said the word policeman. They couldn’t be ignored any longer, no matter how much he’d tried to rule it out of his thinking, scared of everything it implied.

His mobile phone rang, jumping out of the night’s silence and making him nearly soil himself. The name that he hoped for flashed up on the screen. He grabbed it and answered quietly.

‘Danny. Have you got her?’

‘I’ve got her. She’ll be safe, son.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Enough. She’s a feisty one, all right. But like you said, I didn’t take no for an answer.’

‘Where have you got her?’

‘Probably best you don’t know, Tony. If you don’t know then you can’t tell.’

Winter could see the logic of it, even if he didn’t like it.

‘Fair enough, Uncle Danny. I’m going to get this sorted as soon as possible.’

‘Don’t sort it quick on account of me. I’m happy looking after a beautiful young woman for as long as it takes.’

‘Have I got to keep my eye on you?’

‘You better believe it, son. Seriously, get it sorted quickly but get it done right. You watch yourself. I mean it.’

‘I will.’

He didn’t mean it though. He only had a vague idea of what he intended to do and he had absolutely no idea if it was going to work.

‘Tony, I’ve said this already but you should be taking this in to Shirley. Rachel thinks the same. She was all for taking you to him herself. I must be off my head but I told her we had to trust you. Don’t make me regret it.’

‘Thanks. But I can’t go to Shirley or anyone else in Strathclyde come to that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve got to go. Things to do. Look after her for me.’

Danny started to speak but Winter had already gone.

It was just off midnight when Winter got to Pitt Street. There were still a few people hanging around but he kept his head down, avoiding eye contact and the questions that would follow. He didn’t have either the time or the energy for that; instead he made straight for the office, switching the light on and closing the door behind him. He needed a bit of privacy.

He booted up the computer, urging it to go faster, and linked up his phone with a USB cable. In a couple of minutes, he had the photographs he’d taken of the photo print-outs from the storage cupboard and printed them off. Sweeping everything off the desk top, he laid them out and added a selection of photographs of his own. Central Station. Harthill Services. Glasgow Harbour. Dixon Blazes. The Dark Angel’s portfolio.

For many reasons, the pile of photographs had been burrowing away at him since he saw them. The pic of Rachel coming out of Highburgh Road was the biggest one but Danny had put that right, for now at least. Then there was the fact that two of them were his, or copies of his. He’d recognized them right away.

One that he’d taken of the Nightjar team as they stood near to Addison and McConachie after they were shot. And one of the three cops laughing in the background over the body of Mark Sturrock at Harthill. He hadn’t filed them for evidence, on the basis that there was no immediate prospect of a prosecution, so it meant they hadn’t left the office. Some fucker must have taken them from his desk and copied them.

Apart from other members of the SPSA, the only people who could get in there were police. Even they weren’t supposed to but it wouldn’t be difficult to do considering the amount of time they were around the place.

One thing was for sure: Ryan McKendrick couldn’t have got in. If this was the Dark Angel’s portfolio then it wasn’t his alone.

The real kicker was that some of the photographs had been taken from behind the police tape lines. Not from a distance, not from where the killer had been but right there, inside the lines. Four of them in total, taken at Dixon Blazes and at Smeaton Drive. The ones at the industrial estate definitely weren’t Winter’s and he hadn’t been at the Johnstone shooting. They weren’t much good and looked like they could have been taken on a mobile phone without much in the way of framing.

If his amateur forensics were right then McKendrick was already dead when they were taken and in any case, it was impossible to see how he could have got past the cop tape. Maybe, just maybe, whoever had copied his photos had done the same with these ones but Winter didn’t think so. He who smelt it dealt it, they used to say in the playground. He who took the shots fired the shots, that was his guess.

Rosaleen McKendrick’s mystery visitor. The person who was able to get in and copy his pictures. Whoever it was that could take snaps at the crime scene.

It all seemed to add up to the C-word. The question was, which cop was the cunt in question? The answer was in the photographs, he was sure of it.

He looked at Central Station first. The poor pictures he’d taken on his mobile when he made such an arse of himself. There was Campbell Baxter, Daz McKean, Harkins and Simpson, Paul Burke and Rachel. It was before the Nightjar team had been put together so it was just whoever had been on duty and got the call.

His eyes lingered on the wound in Cairns Caldwell’s skull, the dark puncture that oozed dark life. The Nokia hadn’t done too bad a job, picking out the hole in his head that he had disappeared into. He had to stop looking though. There was no time for wallowing in that any more.

Nightjar at Harthill. Alex Shirley. Jan McConachie. Addison. Monteith. Cat Fitzpatrick. The uniforms that he didn’t recognize. The bodies of Strathie and Sturrock. Pools of rioja and rufous.

Glasgow Harbour. Addison. McConachie. Monteith. Two Soups. Uniforms. Gee Gee Adamson in rosso corso and his leather shroud. Andrew Haddow in a black pinstripe with soft hands and terrified eyes. The black Beamer.

Dixon Blazes. Carnage. Forrest crucified to the front door with blood money stuffed in his mouth. The Temple. Jim Boyle and Sandy Murray. Paddy Swanson. Lucy Stark. It was a real party all right. The four stiffs were there too. Jake Arnold, Ginger George Faichney, Benjo Honeyman and Harvey Houston. McConachie and Addison lying shot, one dead, one dying.

Smeaton Drive. The images behind those he’d seen on TV. Caroline Sanchez. Paul Burke. Rachel. The Temple. Iain Williamson. Baxter. A whole host of bunny suits and uniformed cops making up a one-ring circus.

Blood and people. Death and crowds. Watchers and the watched. The guilty and the innocent and the guilty. Blood and snot and tears. Everything and nothing. Twelve souls separated from their mortal coils in one easy shuffle and two men who almost managed to dodge a bullet. He scanned every face, every expression, looking in the shadows of the eyes of the dead and the grimaces of the living. Looking for something, anything, aware he might only know what it was once he saw it.

Then it struck him. It wasn’t about what he could see. It was about who he couldn’t.

Winter had never read any Sherlock Holmes but he’d seen the films and he knew the lines. Well, two of them. ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’, of course was one. The other was, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, then whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’

Eliminate. Take away. Deduct. He wasn’t a cop, he was certainly no detective but that didn’t mean he knew nothing.

He looked through every photo again, moving them quickly from one hand to another, faster and faster. Harthill, Dixon, Central, Dixon again, Smeaton Drive. From the first to the last then back again. His brain was ahead of his eyes and his hands, jumping from photograph to photograph and to a conclusion.