In Place of Death (33 page)

She could see something of the boy's dad in his damaged features. This was Archie Feeks' son, no doubt about it. A face without a lifetime of smoking or working in a shipyard, a face
that wouldn't grow any older.

Words came back to her. A promise. She'd been trained not to make promises she couldn't keep but she'd still made this one. She'd told Archie that she'd look after
his boy. Fine job she'd made of it.

Any doubts she might have had that it was Remy who'd found the body in the Molendinar had vanished. Just where it fitted into the whole mess wasn't so clear though.

She glanced around and saw that Jim Ferry, Kelbie's DS, hadn't scarpered with his boss. She outranked him and she'd make use of the fact.

‘DS Ferry. What do we have?'

Ferry huffed theatrically but didn't have much choice. He grudgingly filled her in. ‘Someone phoned
999
and said there was a body in here. That was all they gave. No name, no
explanation as to how they knew. Uniforms were here in minutes and we followed on. We've searched the place, best we could in a maze like this, and there's no one else here.'

‘The person that phoned, male or female?'

‘Male.'

She turned to McGowan and Hardie. ‘How long's he been dead?'

‘We can't . . .'

‘Best guess.'

‘Not much more than an hour.'

‘And how does that compare to the time of the
999
call?'

Ferry shrugged but looked at his watch. ‘The call was made fifty minutes ago. So maybe ten, fifteen minutes between death and the guy calling it in.'

Whoever had killed Feeks had phoned the police. Why?
Why?

She made up her mind to look round the rest of the factory, not expecting to see anything that had been missed but just because she had to do
something.
Also, it gave her time to think
and a little more time before she had to make a visit that she was dreading.

Narey breathed deeply as she stood in front of the door of the flat in Adelaide Street. It really
didn't
get any easier but this was going to be more difficult
than most. She became aware that she was feeling the same depths of anxiety she did before she stepped into her dad's care home. Not knowing what reception she was going to get but doubting
it would be good. She paused again, made a silent prayer then knocked.

After a few moments, the door swung back but, rather than Archie Feeks, she was greeted by a rounded, middle-aged woman wearing a raincoat over a black turtleneck jumper. Narey held her warrant
card up.

The woman responded by lifting the card on a lanyard round her neck. She kept her voice low. ‘Jill Henderson. Family Liaison. I only got here five minutes ago. As requested I haven't
said anything but he's very worried. He's asked me three times if anything has happened to his son.'

She cursed herself for getting there after the FLO. It wasn't going to have helped the old man's state of mind to have been kept waiting and worrying.

‘What have you told him?'

‘Only that you were on your way and you were in a better position to talk to him. That you had all the relevant information.'

‘Okay, thanks. But I wish that were true.'

‘Sorry?'

‘All the relevant information.
There's far too much that I don't know. He's in the living room?'

Henderson gave the briefest of nods.

Narey went through the door and saw the man sitting in his armchair, his body small and tight with the fear of anticipation. He looked up to see her standing there and she saw him shrink even
further.

‘Mr Feeks, I'm really sorry to—'

‘No!' He was on his feet, his eyes wide. ‘No, no, no.
Don't.
Not in my house. No. You
can't.
'

‘Mr Feeks, your son . . .'

His hands flew to his ears, his eyes screwed shut and his mouth twisted in pain. He must have been sitting imagining the worst since the liaison officer turned up and now it was ticking in front
of him, ready to explode. She recognized the signs of denial: he was like her dad when he was corrected on things he didn't want to believe.

Archie spun on his heels, unable to look at them. Henderson moved warily across the room towards him, her arms seemingly changing their minds as to whether to reach out to him. She stood close
but let him breathe.

Narey had no choice but to finish what she'd started.

‘Mr Feeks, I know this is not what you want to hear but I need to tell you it. A body was found tonight in the former Gray Dunn building in Kinning Park.'

‘No!'

His yelps were painful and she wanted to soothe them but, for the moment at least, could only make them worse.

‘We believe that the body is your son, Remy.'

The man doubled at the waist, his arms hugged round himself. His breathing was convulsive, drinking from a well that was suddenly empty. All colour drained from him and Narey feared a heart
attack as well as the loss of breath.

He was as pale as the horse that death rode, ageing before their eyes. His hands trembled and silent tears streamed down his cheeks as he coughed. He sucked in air hard, expelling it again just
as quickly as his body went into overdrive. Narey was well used to holding her emotions in check but this was hard. She just wanted to hug him.

It was a couple of minutes, every second of it an age of agony for all of them, before Archie had settled enough to speak. He looked at the liaison officer beside him.

‘Is it definitely him?'

Narey answered. ‘Yes, Mr Feeks. It is.'

He got shakily to his feet, his face contorted in anger.

‘I didn't ask you.' He jabbed a finger towards Narey.‘You said you'd look out for my son.
You
said you'd look after him.
You
told me not to
worry. Well how's that worked out for me, eh? Not so fucking good, I'd say. So don't mind me if I don't want to listen to what you've got to say.'

‘Mr Feeks—'

‘I don't want to hear it, hen. I don't want to hear anything from you. Not a word.'

Jill Henderson stepped between them, the FLO taking the man gently by the arm. He shrugged her hand off but still let her guide him back into the chair. Henderson kneeled to talk to him but the
man's eyes were beyond her, glaring at Narey.

‘Is there anyone you'd like me to call, Mr Feeks?' Henderson was asking. ‘Someone who can come and sit with you. A relative or a friend, maybe?'

‘No. I just want to see my son.'

‘I understand that and DI Narey will make sure that—'

‘No! I don't want
her
to do anything. I don't want her near me or my laddie. Do you understand that? I just want to see my son and I want
her
the fuck away from
me. Get her out of my house. Now.'

She was helpless and scorned, knowing she'd let him down and could do nothing to put it right. All she could do was have someone else care for him. Someone to do what she
couldn't.

The FLO turned and looked at Narey, both of them knowing Henderson didn't have the authority to tell her to leave as the man wanted. There was a higher authority though and Narey knew it.
She wouldn't stay.

She wanted to tell the man that she was sorry for his loss, that she'd do everything in her power to bring him some justice and that she burned with guilt for letting it happen. She
couldn't do any of that though, not to any good purpose.

She nodded at them both and let herself out, a little piece of her dying inside as she crossed the threshold.

Sunday morning

She managed four hours in bed and slept for maybe three of those. She couldn't shake the tortured image of Archie Feeks any more than she could rid her thoughts of his
son lying murdered amid the rubble.

Half-awake or half-asleep, she hadn't been able to tell the difference. Her mind worked it over and over in both states and when she was finally sure that she was awake and getting up, she
was exhausted before the day had begun.

It was still dark when she rolled into the station, flipping the lights on in the incident room and watching them flicker slowly into life. The place would be buzzing before long, full of bodies
and shouts, people demanding to know what had happened and where the hell it left them. She didn't know what she was going to tell them.

She had to be in first, to get her thoughts into some sort of proper order. If she didn't know the answers then at least she had to be aware of the questions. And she'd ask more of
the team, get them to ask more of themselves. Some of them would be on board more than others and some of them would wallow in it, relishing seeing her fail. Fuck them. This all had to stop and
she'd be the one to do it.

She fixed a poster-sized portrait of Remy Feeks to the wall, standing back to see him alongside Euan Hepburn, Jennifer Cairns, David McGlashan, Christopher Hart and Derek Wharton. Below each was
a photograph of the site where they were found, urbexing sites all. She stared at them for an age, weighing up what she knew and what she didn't. The latter was way too much for her
liking.

Her guts told her to change the set-up. She rearranged the displays, pushing Hepburn, Cairns and Feeks to one side, and the remainder to the other. It wasn't what she knew, it was what she
felt.
She'd just finished and was looking at the faces afresh when she heard footsteps behind her.

A constable had walked in, mug of tea in hand, and was waiting to speak to her.

‘DI Narey? You'd asked for CCTV footage to be pulled overnight. We've got some images for you.'

She felt a rush that she knew was the first sign of good news in a long time. ‘Great. Let's go see them.'

The constable, Tom Brightman, stood beside her as another, Lyndsay McEwan, operated the video. The image that came up was typically grainy and not helped by the falling light at the time it was
filmed.

‘We have shots of three people, we think all men, all going separately towards the Gray Dunn building on Stanley Street,' Brightman explained. ‘None of the images are
particularly good and I'd say at least two of them were making an effort to keep their heads down and faces out of sight.'

‘Show me.'

One by one, the operator showed the stop-start images. The digital time display in the top corner stated that there were eighteen and then twelve minutes between the men appearing on the corner
of Stanley Street. The first was about six foot tall and wore a light blue fleece with his head kept low. After him came Remy Feeks, his fair hair obvious and the only one of the three not shy of
being seen. Maybe he ought to have been. Finally, came a taller man wearing a hoodie and what might have been a dark balaclava.

The camera had picked each of them up a couple of times and had done the same for two of them, Feeks and the hoodie-wearer, on Milnpark Street.

‘I can hopefully pick them up elsewhere and trace them back a bit but it's a real needle in a haystack job,' McEwan told her. ‘There's not a lot of cameras down
there so it will be a case of guessing where they'd come from. I'll do my best but it will take time.'

Narey said nothing. Her mind was working overtime, joining dots and hoping against hope.

‘This is what we've got of them on the way out,' McEwan continued. ‘Just man number three. He's in a hurry and goes onto Admiral Street and that's where we
lose him. He's probably headed for Paisley Road West but as yet we haven't picked him up again. If he changed his jacket or ditched the balaclava—'

‘What about man number one?' She hardly dared to ask.

Brightman shrugged. ‘If he came back out onto Stanley then we haven't been able to see him.'

‘Show me him again.'

It was the way he walked, hunched and hurried. It was the fleece he was wearing. It was the height and the build.

More than that. It was Euan Hepburn. It was the forum user with the login name of Metinides. It was curtailed conversations and a feeling of distance. It was a lack of questions about a case
that would normally have produced far too many. It was the feeling in her guts that had been niggling away at her for over a week.

She excused herself and hurried back to the incident room, to the phones where the anonymous call had been received about the witness in the Molendinar. The tip-off about Remy Feeks. She checked
the log then called up the recording.

The voice was slightly muffled and deliberately low. The man was putting it on, trying to disguise himself. It might have fooled most people but not her. Not for a moment. She felt her stomach
sink and lurch. The room had shifted on its axis and her throwing up was a distinct possibility.

‘DI Narey?'

She put the phone down and stepped away from it before she turned. Constable Brightman was by the door.

‘Sorry, DI Narey, but do you want me to get these images on Stanley Street enlarged and sharpened up so they can be made available for posters or media use?'

She looked back at him. The question should have been expected but it managed to take her by surprise.

‘Yes. Please.'

‘All three men?'

She paused just for a heartbeat. ‘Yes. All three.'

Winter woke on Sunday morning with the biggest hangover he'd ever had without touching a drop of alcohol. Sleep had come late if it had come at all and he'd tossed
and turned the whole night, plagued by memory and guilt as much as by the pain in his leg and his back.

He'd dragged himself into the shower and suffered the sting of the jets of water against his bruised and broken skin. However painful it was, he deserved it.

Somehow, when the buzzer went at the front door, he knew instantly who it would be. It didn't occur to him that it could be anyone other than Rachel.