Troubled Waters (3 page)

‘Nope,’ the Captain’s voice hollered back from the vessel, ‘Andy’s got to check the monitors on the Road Bridge.’

‘How long will you be?’ the man in the dinghy shouted, as loud as he could.

‘Twenty minutes, half an hour at a pinch. The tide’s already well on the turn. That’ll give you time to check the scaffolding over . . .’

There could, the man thought, clambering up onto Beamer Rock, be few more inhospitable places in the
world, at any time of the year, never mind in the middle of January, and in the pitch-dark. The whine of the Safety Boat’s twin propellers as the skipper eased open the throttle, heading downriver towards the open ocean, underlined the fact that he was on his own. A blizzard was raging around the Forth, and as he switched on his torch to follow the disappearing craft, its beam illuminated a corridor of snowflakes, each one circling its way across the waves before disappearing into the turbulent waters. He breathed into his wet gloves and stamped his feet vigorously, trying to return feeling to them, so that he could get on with the job. Even tying up the dinghy would require a degree of dexterity. There was no time to waste. The generator powering the lighting rig must be fired up.

Once started, it released a throaty purr, more like a lion or a tiger than a machine, and hearing it lifted his spirits. The yellow light from the rig transformed everything, bathing the only two buildings on the rock in its rich glow, reminding him that shelter, even there, existed. Meticulously, he began to inspect the scaffolding around the base of the nearest one. The metal poles framing the red and white striped lighthouse seemed intact, secured by their ties; the wooden boards were still in place and the access ladder remained lashed to one end. Jetsam, in the form of a couple of milk cartons, had been deposited on the lowest platform and he tossed them back into the water, watching as one, then the other, was consumed by the waves. The clattering noise made by his tackety boots as he moved about was drowned out by the shrieking of the wind as it raced around the two bridges, searching for weaknesses and making any loose spars or struts rattle and zing with its passage. Finally, the job done, everything scrutinised and all slippery seaweed removed, he switched
the generator off, instantly plunging his tiny kingdom into blackness again.

Keen to distract himself, knowing he still had time to kill, he turned his head towards the Fife coast and shone his torch on the north tower caisson. A couple of barges attached to it had cranes on board and his eyes alighted on the grab of one of them, suspended from its yellow, skeletal arm, hovering hundreds of feet above the vast steel structure of the bridge. Next, his beam picked out a tri-coloured German flag on one of the craft. It was writhing on its flag pole, faded and frayed, above the name-plate ‘Gerhardt’. In the cutting wind, he shielded his eyes with his free hand, trying to make out the name on the other barge but it was no good.

Seconds later, he had to screw them up, the force of the flakes driving into them making his tear ducts pour with water. Pulling his white safety helmet down over his forehead, he covered his whole face briefly with his hands, the pain in his eyes temporarily unbearable. In his sightless state, he was suddenly overcome by dizziness and all but lost his balance. Christ alive! When would that fucking Safety Boat re-appear? Its lights, bobbing about close to the centre of the Road Bridge, did not seem to have moved an inch for at least the last ten minutes, and well over twenty minutes had already passed since his landing.

Determined to get back into the warmth the instant it arrived, he hunched himself against the force of the gale and started trudging towards the spot where he had tied up the dinghy, compelled every few seconds to turn his back to the blast. Slipping, thankfully, into the lee of the foghorn building, he swung his torch from side to side in time with his steps, sweeping the surface of the rock for the rusted ring and the blue rope tied to it.

Although his sight was still blurry, an unfamiliar bulky shape resting on the black dolerite surface caught his eye. His first thought was that it was a seal, and he was glad, grateful, that there was another living, breathing creature here with him in the godforsaken place. Sweeping along its length, his beam picked out a herring gull, its feathers rippling in the gale. The bird was perched on the thing, pecking at it.

Shielding his eyes with his hands, he edged closer, conscious that the thing must be dead, might even smell. Suddenly, he felt uneasy in its presence. In the bright light it looked solid, grey and fleshy, but its skin seemed to have come loose and was rucked up, corrugated around it.

At his approach, the bird opened its beak, let out a screech and flew off, banking against a wall of wind before disappearing up river and into the black. Gingerly, he went down on one knee to examine the thing more closely, stretching out to touch the head end, and on feeling it, instinctively whipping his hand back as if it had been burnt. Bile flooded his mouth. The pads of his fingers had not touched the wet seal fur they were anticipating, but skin, human skin, and smooth as silk.

Close up, bathed now in a pool of light, the thing remained recognisable, to one of its own species at least. By his feet lay the washed-up body of a woman – cold, wet and lifeless. Around her brow curled a strand of dark green seaweed, as if it had taken root there and was growing out of her skull. The involuntary squeak the man let out surprised himself, was the only external sign of his inner transformation from an adult into a frightened child. But here, on the sea-swept rock, there was no one to wake him up, put the lights on, comfort him and tell him that it was only a dream. His own eyes told
him otherwise, staring as they were into the milky brown pair looking up at him from the dead face illuminated by his torch.

Desperate not to be alone with the body, he jumped up and started bellowing at the launch, waving his hands frantically, swinging his light at it like a wrecker’s lantern. But every word that left his mouth was lost, obliterated by the roar of the waves and the shrieking of the wind. He felt no pity for the corpse, only panic and revulsion, a desperate desire to get away, to leave the thing before he saw its chest begin to expand with breath, its eyes begin to blink.

‘Is that the on-call DI at St Leonard’s Street?’

‘Yes,’ Alice replied, putting down her coffee cup, the millisecond of hesitation before she answered a testament to the unfamiliarity of her new title and the ungodly hour. Five a.m., and the caffeine was not doing its job.

‘We’ve just received a report,’ continued the man in the control centre, ‘that someone dead – a female, apparently – has ended up on Beamer Rock. I’m to tell you that there’ll be a launch waiting for you at South Queensferry, if you want it. It’s been arranged by FCBC, the Consortium. They’re the bridge-building people. One of them found it.’

‘A launch? Beamer Rock? Where on earth is that?’

‘In the middle of the Forth, some place near the Road Bridge. They said the central tower of the new crossing’s to be constructed on it eventually. A workman was sent over to look at scaffolding on the rock, Heaven knows why, and he practically tripped over the corpse. They’re keeping his boat there for the moment, in case she’s
washed away again. They want to know if we want it to stay with her until you get there.’

‘Yes, keep it there. This woman, what’s the story, was she washed up on the rock or left there by someone or what?’

‘No idea. The only other information we’ve got is that the tide’s coming in, so you’d better get your skates on. Correction, your flippers on. Apparently, it gets completely submerged at high tide.’

At that news, the detective inspector put the telephone down, snatched her coat from the back of her chair and called out for DC Cairns. Getting no answer, she went to look for her and, three minutes later, bumped into her as she was going down the station stairs and the constable was racing up them.

‘The incident sheet says there’s a body, somewhere washed up in the Forth!’ the constable said breathlessly, a piece of paper in her outstretched hand.

‘I know, Liz. Hurry, get your stuff. That’s where we’re going. I’ll see you at the car.’

In the city, snow had continued falling throughout the night and, as usual, the capital was behind in its preparations, caught by the outlandish eventuality of a two-day blizzard in January. St Leonard’s Street, already under a thick layer, was passable, but a delivery van impeded their progress up the slope of St Mary’s Street, its wheels spinning ineffectually on the glistening surface as it endeavoured to regain its lost momentum and ended up straddling the road instead. Immobile, the driver ground its gears noisily for a few seconds before, admitting defeat, he signalled with a wave for them to squeeze round behind it.

‘Arsehole, get yourself snow tyres! Pity we’ve no blue light, that’d put the fear of God into him,’ DC Cairns exclaimed as they drove by, shaking her head at the seasonal ineptitude on display.

‘You’ve got yours on, have you, oh wise virgin?’

‘Virgin, indeed! Not as such. Wise as I am.’

‘Did you phone the Duty Fiscal? Who’s on call?’ Alice asked, turning on the fan heater in an attempt to defrost the windscreen and herself.

‘I tried that, by the way, it doesn’t work. Derek Jardine. He said to give him a ring once we’ve got a better idea of the lie of the land. He’s tied up, attending a hit and run at the moment in Liberton.’

‘And the FME?’

‘It’s that tiny little irritable one. What’s he called again?’

‘Dr Harry McCrae.’

‘Right, him. I told him to meet us at eight at Port Edgar.’

‘You’ll need to speak to him again. We’re not leaving from Port Edgar. The Marine Unit Commander lives in Duns, and they’d take forever to get going. The Lammermuirs are probably knee-deep by now, anyway, if not the coast road. We’re taking up the Consortium’s offer of a launch.’

‘So where are we leaving from? The top brass won’t like it – all that expensive equipment rusting away, they won’t like it one bit, they’ll have no ammunition against the cuts,’ the constable said, impatient to see properly, scraping the glass in front of her with a hand and dislodging a thin strip of ice.

‘Needs must. He’d take an hour or more to get here from Duns, if he got through at all. The body would be long off to sea again by then. We haven’t that long. Tell
him to meet us at the Hawes Pier at, yes, say, eight o’ clock – the one under the Rail Bridge, the one that the Inchcolm Ferry leaves from.’

‘I’ll let him know, then, about the new plan. This’ll make a nice change from the usual, eh, Alice? A crime scene at sea, that’s a first for me!’ The young police-woman smiled at the thought and searched around the side of her seat for her seat-belt.

‘For me, too, and if it’s a murder, it’ll likely be our last if they’re all shunted off to these new Major Investigation Teams after the reorganisation. We’ll be stuck with nothing but shoplifting, peeing up closes and runaway chihuahuas.’

‘And we’ll get to inspect, close up, the beginnings of the third Forth Bridge or whatever it’s to be called, even if it will be a bit dark. There’s a competition to name it.’

‘So I’ve heard. “Salmond’s Leap”, that’s supposedly the front runner along with the “It-should-have-been-a-tunnel-bridge”, the green lobby’s favourite,’ Alice remarked, as they drew up beside a bus at the first set of lights on Davidson’s Mains. It had one passenger in it, his head resting against the window.

‘Some kid suggested Rusty’s Pal. Actually, or accurately, it should be the fifth Forth Bridge. That would take into account the ones at Kincardine and Stirling as well as the two Queensferry ones.’

‘Or, to continue with the powerful fish-politician theme, “Sturgeon’s Passage”. That got a lot of votes I believe.’ A disturbing picture of the First Minister, pop-eyed and bubble-mouthed, swimming beside his little deputy, flitted, uninvited, into Alice’s head.

‘It’ll be something dull, something safe . . . the Queensferry Bridge, the Queensferry Crossing. I ought to put money on something like that.’

Her boss nodded, now lost in thought, going through a checklist in her mind as the constable, untroubled by her silence, wittered on. Paper suits were in the case in the boot, gloves and bootees too. A photographer, Jim Scott, had been fixed up. He was coming straight from his house in Rosyth. With his ponderous manner, vast belly and elephantine legs, he would not have been her choice for this particular job. But beggars could not be choosers. And at least, with his help, the three of them should be able to move the body without calling out the coastguard or the lifeboat men, cutting out the delay and unnecessary contamination that their involvement might bring with it. Unorthodox as this approach might be, time and tide would wait for no man. No woman either, so normal procedures would have to take second place, whatever fuss was made later by DCI Bell or anyone else for that matter.