The Blood of Crows (12 page)

She was feeling more alive than she had felt in ages.

It was time she got back to work.

5.00 P.M.

Back at Partick Central, Mulholland was still sitting flicking through a file, pulling out photographs of any known associates of Billy the Bastard Biggart, and trying to get rid of the smell of orange peel from his fingers. Wyngate was sitting hunched over a computer keyboard, his eyes inches from the screen. Anderson came in and looked from Wyngate to Mulholland, eyebrows raised.

‘Who knows what he’s doing? He’s quiet, which means he’s happy.’

Anderson made himself comfortable, checking through the paperwork on his desk. He had also asked O’Hare to supply him with the photographs of the other two girls, the ones who had been found dead, dumped miles from anywhere but they didn’t seem to have appeared on his desk yet.

Anderson was still wondering if the ‘cute guy’ that
Janet had noticed in the hallway of Biggart’s flat and James’s ‘pretty’ young man might be the same person – a young gay man who was attractive to men and woman, cultured, educated. ‘Good teeth’ he added, automatically thinking about the Bridge Boy. Coincidence? Yes, but looking at the bigger picture – the violence, the association with Biggart – it fitted. He just couldn’t see exactly how. Maybe Biggart had been charmed. There were rumours that Biggart was susceptible to pretty young men, among other things. But who was this young man? Anderson needed the IT guys to produce an image of the Bridge Boy’s face before somebody had stamped on it. He needed that image to be put in front of James and Janet. That photo had to go to all the petrol stations along the train route. It wasn’t usual for people to fill a container of petrol, and good-looking people got noticed.

Anderson felt a warm breath on the back of his neck. ‘You’ve been looking at Wyngate for a long time. Do you fancy him?’

It could only be one person.

‘DS Costello, as I live and breathe. How the hell are you?’ He got up and hugged her, noticing how bony her shoulders felt under her jacket. Then he stepped back to look at her. It was Costello all right, but not the same Costello. He couldn’t stop his eyes flicking up to the silk scarf, knowing what it hid, and scanning the slight indentation on one cheekbone. She was regarding him with a challenging look.

Mulholland and Wyngate both started to get up to greet her. She stopped them with a stare, so they just said hello and went back to their work.

‘So, what are you doing here?’ Anderson asked quietly, stepping aside and giving her his seat. He noticed that she just nodded and sat down; there was no unsubtle scan of the files on his desk, no fiddling with his stapler in a slightly threatening way, no overt or even covert nosiness at all. No, this wasn’t the old Costello at all.

She clasped her hands in front of her, and placed them in her lap, a gesture that suggested she was trying to behave herself. ‘It’s amazing how I can get access to anywhere I want now. I just walk up to a door and the next person who comes out lets me in, two sets of security doors no problem at all. I bet I got in quicker than you ever do.’

She seemed genuinely surprised, and he didn’t want to tell her that she had a certain degree of notoriety. Her face was now well known to every police officer in Strathclyde. She had their sympathy too, but he was even less keen to tell her that.

‘You look as though you’ve been somewhere important,’ he said. ‘Has somebody died? The suit, I thought the funeral was yesterday –’

‘Yeah, I’ll talk to you about that in a minute. But you’ll never guess where I’ve been.’

Anderson was immediately on edge. ‘Were you called into Pitt Street? Have you been summoned for the Fairbairn review? Have they started already?’

‘Nothing like that.’ She was totally dismissive. ‘But it was ACC Howlett.’

‘Oh.’ Anderson leaned forward over the desk. ‘You haven’t been asked to leave, have you?’

‘Not yet. I don’t really know whether it’s a promotion, a test, or a slap in the face.’ Then her voice drifted off
somewhere else. ‘What are you doing? Did you get the case of the girl in the river?’

‘No,’ came the terse answer

‘They are getting nowhere fast with it next door. They are on the trail of a white Transit with false plates. Three girls, rather than one?’ Her voice raised in a question.

Both Mulholland and Wyngate looked up. ‘Dorothy Elm said it was a white Transit. Shit! I’m sure all this is linked somehow, in some way.’

Then Mulholland said, ‘And how do you know that? You’re on sick leave.’

Costello directed her answer to Anderson. ‘I was snooping around next door and they are on to the Russian Consulate, but it doesn’t look like they are getting anywhere. Why not ask MacKellar to work the cases together? Then you’ll know if there is a link.’

‘Fat chance. I’m not supposed to know what’s going on next door, am I?’

‘Oh, if he gives you any hassle, refer him to me – he owes me a big favour,’ she went on rather airily and Anderson was reminded of why she was so annoying. ‘So, you working on Biggart, then?’ She turned to look at the photo of the old Apollo building. ‘Did he do the world a favour, get suitably pissed, and fall asleep with a fag and torch the duvet?’

Anderson didn’t dare tell her it was none of her business any more, so he ignored the question. ‘No matter what ACC Howlett said, I’m sure you’re not supposed to be here, having this conversation or snooping around this investigation.’ Then he found himself looking at the flat-voiced woman in her neat suit, but thinking about the old
acid-tongued Costello, and decided he owed her a little more consideration. He said quietly, ‘Biggart wasn’t quite the typical burn-yourself-to-death job. Somebody else did it for him. I’m running it, under MacKellar’s watchful eye.’

‘Well, at the end of the day, he is your boss.’

‘I would rather you were shocked that I am not running this investigation as DCI. Then it would all be one big enquiry.’

There was no response. Costello just kept looking at the photographs.

He tried another tack. ‘So, what brings you round here? Not that we’re not pleased to see you …’

‘I was forced to come in and see you as your phone is always off these days.’

‘Just when I was in the morgue, that’s all. Then I was … elsewhere.’

She picked up his stapler and began to fiddle with it.

‘Well, OK, you actually only phoned once, but I was a bit busy at the time,’ he expanded. ‘I was hardly ignoring you.’

But in the old days he would have returned her call ASAP, and both of them knew it.

‘So, Biggart was toasted rather than toasting himself?’ she said, her eyes skimming over his desk.

‘Yes. And you are not a serving police officer here, DS Costello, and you know –’

But she wasn’t paying any attention. ‘I’m back in harness, sort of.’ She clicked the stapler closed, as if testing a firing pin. ‘Here you are, doing all this, and what do I get? I get to stop a bit of mischief among the over-privileged wankers at Glen Fruin Academy.’

‘No?’ said Anderson, drawing out the vowel in disbelief. ‘Well, that’s good. I mean, it’s a high-profile job. Prime ministers’ children, offspring of rock stars. Absolute discretion called for.’ He tried to keep the sarcasm from his voice. If anybody was badly suited for that job …

‘You mean, why the hell did they ask me?’

‘Just accept that they’ve given you something to do, something to get you back in the saddle. Sounds like you’ve been trusted with something important. More than I can say about me.’

‘Bullshit.’ The stapler thumped down. ‘It means they think I’m not fit for real work. It means they wouldn’t trust me with anything like this.’ She tapped the photocopies of Mary Carruthers’ letter.

‘And what’s that,’ muttered Anderson.

‘The grieving widow had a chat with her solicitor this morning, seems Tommy Carruthers had money in the bank. Untouched. Twenty grand.’

‘Really.’

‘I’ve just spent over an hour with her telling me why she doesn’t think he killed himself – quite simply, she says he had no reason to. And I believe her. And now this. The solicitor is on to it, Colin. It needs to be looked at.’

‘Why, are you involved in this? In any way?’

He recoiled involuntarily as she lurched across the desk. ‘A cop who nobody says a bad word against? A good Catholic? He flings himself out the window the minute his wife’s back is turned. Looks like a good cop? Or a bent cop? Twenty grand. That must be enough to raise a few questions.’

‘The fiscal was satisfied. I think I have enough to do.’

‘And the solicitor will pursue it; better you get in first.’

‘And what do you want me to do? Hold a séance and ask him if he jumped, or was he pushed?’

‘No, just review the file and the fiscal’s case notes. It was very quick, they couldn’t have done a halfway decent job.’

‘You really want me to piss everybody off? I’m not exactly Mr Popular round here.’

‘So, you have nothing to lose really. Think of it as a small error by an overworked young fiscal. That’s how I might have phrased it, me being the tactful one.’ She gave him that look of total resolution.

‘Look, I’ll send Lambie out to have a word, before I agree to anything. When are you buggering off to Glen Fruin?’ he asked, hoping it would be soon.

‘I’ve to arrive there tomorrow night.’

He took the stapler off her. ‘Would you like me to run you out there? I don’t imagine it’s an easy place to get to without a car.’

She smiled. ‘Yeah, I’d like that. They said they’d send a car. But I’d rather go there with you. We could have a bit of a chinwag on the way and see what progress you have made with Carruthers. How long will it take? About forty minutes, something like that?’

‘Straight run to Duck Bay, then forever on a single-track road,’ he told her. ‘It’s right up the glen, halfway between Loch Lomond and Loch Long. But don’t worry, I have all evening.’

‘Good.’ She turned and looked at him directly.

Anderson realized it was the first time he had noticed that familiar determination in her face.

‘Did I read in the paper that Helena Farrell McAlpine, or
whatever she calls herself, is now engaged to that idiot with the ponytail? Gilfillan, her so-called business partner?’

‘I believe so,’ said Anderson guardedly, relishing the familiar feeling that he would gladly smack her in the face. Costello could annoy him in a way that even Brenda, after eighteen years of marriage, could never hope to aspire to.

He expected her to pursue the matter with the bait of some seemingly innocent throwaway line, but all she said was, ‘Thanks for the offer of the lift. I’ll phone you later. And don’t bother to order the paperwork on Carruthers, I’ve already ordered the reports from the fiscal’s office and complete case notes from Central. I did it in your name, should be downstairs with you ASAP.’

Anderson was aware of his fingers tightening to form a fist, but she was gone, sliding out of the door like a ghost late for a haunting.

5.05 P.M.

Skelpie Fairbairn had been out for exactly fourteen days, three hours and twelve minutes. He’d thought it was boring on the inside, but now, sitting on the wall, watching the cars go past, he was mega-bored. Being bored when there was nothing to do was one thing, but being bored when everybody around him was having fun, that really was being bored. He’d watched all his DVDs over and over, and there were no more where they’d come from. So he’d come out on to the street.

It was hot, but he daren’t hang around in the park. He didn’t want somebody reporting him for looking at the
young girls running around. Folk were paranoid nowadays; someone might challenge him, they might even call the cops. He’d every right to walk through the park, his lawyer had said, all the rights of a free man. But he hadn’t really. If they knew where to look for him, they could find him.

His lawyer was sure the appeal would be successful. Then it would be time to move on, time to disappear back to the people who thought the way he thought. But with Biggart gone, he had to endure the wait until somebody contacted him with the codeword. And he was confident that they would. He pulled the copy of the
Daily Record
from his pocket and flicked through it. The centre spread was a full-colour picture of Alessandro Marchetti as he had been then, in 1996. Next to it, in a slightly overlapping box, was an artificially aged photograph of the way he might look now as a young man of twenty. There was only one mention of the babysitter, Tito Piacini.

Fairbairn smiled and folded the paper, then stuck it back into his pocket. He pulled out his lighter and his pack of Marlboros, and flipped the lighter from the back of his hand, catching it and striking the flame simultaneously. That had taken practice to perfect. He crossed the road when the green man flashed, and began to walk.

He had no real idea where he was going, but he was on his way.

5.40 P.M.

Somehow Costello felt justified in spending money now that she was earning it again. She had got a taxi up to
Sauchiehall Street, pleased with her day so far; she felt she was getting back into her life. The first thing she wanted was sunglasses, good sunglasses. She didn’t care how big and dark they were as long as they kept the sun away from her left eye, which was still very sensitive. She picked out a lightweight grey suit, and a few collarless white linen blouses, the sort of thing she imagined an architect’s assistant would wear. Then, in M&S, she went a bit mad and started to fling in all kinds of underwear and jewellery; it was such a long time since she had been out, she felt like a kid in a candy store. Afterwards, she went to ground in a corner of the in-store café and looked over her loot.

What else might she need?

She had a notebook, a good pen, she’d bought smart pyjamas, and a pair of black fleecy trousers and a jumper for kicking around in. After finishing her tea, she bought a frock – she didn’t possess one – and thought she might as well treat herself to some new black court shoes, just in case. Her credit card would be in intensive care but it needed a bit of a workout every now and again. She crossed the street as she came out of M&S, intending to go to the shoe shop on the corner, but she was irresistibly drawn to Waterstone’s four-storey bookshop. She went to the back of the shop where she knew there was a Scottish history section. She had a quick mooch through Mountaineering and Hillwalking, but there was nothing about Glen Fruin. She surmised neither the naval base nor the school would encourage random hillwalkers and the security difficulties they might bring. She found History. The Scots were very
fond of the romantic idea of their own history, the glens running red with the spilled blood of noble clansmen defending their beloved homeland against the marauding English. But the battle of Glen Fruin was much more typical – two clans having a square go because one had killed and eaten some sheep belonging to the other. The book had a small chapter on Glen Fruin Academy, with photographs of the grand house sitting halfway up the hill, looking out across the river that snaked its way along the glen.