Troubled Waters (4 page)

‘Are you going to vote in September?’ DC Cairns asked, breaking her boss’s train of thought.

‘Mmm.’

The roundabout at Barnton, usually clogged with cars in all four directions, was deserted, silent, still, awaiting the arrival of its daily visitors. Conscious of the privilege, they sped across it.

‘And?’

‘Same as most of the women in the country. Thanks to Dewar we’ve a fair amount of autonomy, and whatever happens, more is on its way. Blair went to school in Scotland, Brown’s from Kirkcaldy. If John Smith hadn’t died, he’d have led. Who’s governing who? Salmond’s just another maker of promises, another maker of mistakes. Look into his genealogy and he’ll be a UK mongrel like the rest of us. I want fewer divisions, fewer boundaries, not more. Are you even old enough to vote?’

‘Only just. At least they’d be our mistakes . . .’

‘Shetland doesn’t think they are “our”. Nor does Orkney, nor do much of the Highlands. How local should we go?’

‘Home rule for Leith, I say. And we’d be richer.’

‘Away and sell your granny then, you patriot, if money’s what it’s all about. But best do it before the rush begins.’

‘You care?’

‘I care.’

The windscreen-wipers could not cope with the volume of snow now pouring from the heavens, so Alice speeded them up and began to accelerate up the brae beyond the Cramond Bridge, anticipating a straight run on the motorway ahead. But from the Kirkliston turn-off only the slow lane had been gritted. In the resultant bottleneck, they continued arguing, the pace of their journey dictated by a procession of others, all inching forward together at a speed sedate enough to make a hearse impatient. Their leader, an elderly white transit van, crawled onwards, its exhaust gassing them with an endless stream of noxious fumes.

‘Like I said, we need a blue light,’ DC Cairns repeated, as much to herself as anyone else. Cold, and desperate to get to their destination, her foot was flat on the ground, pressing an imaginary accelerator.

Fifteen minutes later they entered South Queensferry. Driving over the brow of the hill on Kirkliston Road, their eyes were immediately drawn to the long view of the estuary, its glistening waters cut in two by the sparkling, curved outline made by the lights on the Road Bridge. The pocket-sized royal burgh itself was at its picturesque
winter best: snow lying in the interstices of the cobbles, capping the crow-stepped gables of the houses and coating the roof of the Black Castle, making it look like an illustration in an old-fashioned children’s story book. Dawn still unbroken, no one was yet abroad on its narrow streets and the place was lit only by the ornamental lanterns dotted along the sea front. The sole sign of life they saw in the town centre was a tabby cat, walking purposefully along the length of the Ferry Tap Inn before dodging into the shadows in search of prey.

A huddle of FCBC men, all in hard hats and orange high-visibility jackets, had gathered by the Inchcolm Ferry ticket office. They were clustered together by the statue of a seal, chattering, their breaths steaming white from their mouths in the cold air. One of them saw the car. He pointed at the nearby turning and started jogging alongside the Escort as it took a left off the High Street. The others followed him, the sound of their boots getting louder as the road surface below their feet changed from tarmac to the blocks of rough-hewn stone from which the pier was constructed. In the distance, dwarfed by the gigantic outer cantilever of the Forth Rail Bridge, lay the Consortium’s Safety Boat, the
Fiona S
. It was tied up at the far end of the Hawes Pier, rocking in the waves, its engine idling in readiness for the arrival of the police. Alongside it stood the corpulent figure of Jim Scott, cameras slung around his neck. He was looking anxiously in the direction of dry land and the Hawes Inn. Recognising the Inspector as she walked towards him, he waved a soup-plate-sized hand, saying morosely on her approach, ‘I hate the water. Can you swim, Alice? I might need help.’

‘Me? I’m a qualified junior life saver – although whether I’d manage without being dressed in my pyjamas, I’m not
so sure,’ she replied, throwing her case over the side of the yellow and black craft, then stepping on board and holding out a hand to receive, first, his rucksack of precious equipment, and then his leaden bulk. At the same time, a red life-jacket was thrust at each of them by a passing stranger, the stern rope around his free hand. The photographer, breathing noisily, picked his off the deck where it had fallen, turning it this way and that, examining the catches, trying to work out how it might fit his vast frame.

‘This must be for a child,’ he said, holding it against his fur-trimmed bulk, a look of dismay on his face. ‘It’ll never keep me up. Look at these pathetic, thin flotation bits – they’re not even soft, air-filled. There must have been a leak. They’re not safe.’

‘They’ll inflate,’ the policewoman replied, passing a strap between her legs, ‘when you hit the water. That’s the whole point, so that they’re not too bulky now.’

‘When – don’t you mean if? And there’s a whistle! Fat lot of good that’s going to do as I’m swept out to the open sea . . .’

‘Just put it on, eh?’

No sooner had DC Cairns stepped on deck than she toppled forwards, hitting her elbow on a stanchion. With the last passenger on board, the Captain had ordered that they cast off and one of the deckhands had pushed off from the pier, making the boat lurch forwards in response. Another life-jacket was dropped unceremoniously by the same crew member on top of her crumpled form.

‘Thanks a bundle,’ she murmured sarcastically.

‘Are you lot not supposed to be in a hurry? I’d get inside, eh? Otherwise, you’ll miss the safety briefing,’ he replied, unmoved, stepping around her and holding the cabin door open for the other two.

‘I’ve had my accident already, or had you not noticed?’ DC Cairns countered, righting herself, looking round to take in her surroundings. In the cabin, standing beside the Captain, was the only other member of the crew. He had kept himself busy chatting to his boss, watching idly while his colleague scurried about outside, casting off, pulling in the fenders, then coiling the loose ropes on the deck.

By the time all three passengers plus their equipment were installed safely inside, the vessel had already reached the centre of the firth, and begun to speed up. On hitting its near maximum of twenty-five knots, it started crashing through the waves, the hull slamming down in the troughs, then rising almost vertically and the engine coughing whenever the propellers left the water. Spray started to cascade over the bow, slapping against the glass of the windscreen, mixing with the falling snowflakes. The photographer, his face already pale, clung with both hands to the back of a blue, plastic seat, his feet set wide apart in a desperate attempt to steady himself.

‘Are you not going to sit down?’ Alice asked him, gesturing for him to take the seat beside her.

‘If I move I’ll be sick,’ he said pitifully.

‘We’ll need,’ Alice raised her voice, hoping to be heard above the roar of the engine, ‘stills of everywhere – and video footage of everywhere.’

‘Everywhere?’ Scott retorted, looking doubtful, as if far too much was being demanded of him. Incongruously, for a sea voyage, he had chosen to wear a flat cap, and to emphasize his point he pulled the peak down over his forehead. Seeing him, a passing deckhand cheekily plucked it off his head and handed him a white safety helmet, murmuring, ‘Rules is rules, you’ve got to obey the rules – on this site, any road. Hard hats on this site.’

‘Video of everywhere?’ Scott repeated, holding out a hand for the return of his hat.

‘Everywhere,’ she confirmed, then, seeing his fleshy shoulders droop, she added, ‘it’s only about ten metres by seven, Jim, and that’s at low tide. It’s not huge, OK? Now, we’ll all need to tog up, ideally before we land.’

‘Here? I’m not doing that now,’ he protested, pressing his cameras to his breast with one hand as if they were his infant children. ‘This thing’s bucking like a wild west bronco.’

‘We’re going to a crime scene . . .’

‘Will the suits be any use? Will they not just get soggy?’ DC Cairns interjected, dragging a strand of wet hair out of her eyes. ‘Then they’ll tear.’

‘Or turn to papier mâché, but too bad,’ Alice replied, ‘we’ll have no time when we get there – possibly minutes only. At high tide, the whole rock’s underwater.’

‘Health and safety certainly wouldn’t like it,’ the photographer said darkly.

‘Maybe,’ Alice replied, ‘but fortunately, they’ll never know.’

‘Unless we fall in . . .’ Scott whispered.

‘Dead men tell no tales,’ she quipped, but his look of shock made her relent. ‘Oh, all right, all right. But the second we come to a halt . . .’

Minutes later, the boat veered to the left of Mackintosh rock, the towers of the Road Bridge rising impossibly high above them, and Beamer itself came into view. The
Nicola S
lay immediately adjacent to the rocky outcrop. Seeing their destination illuminated by the lighting rig the skipper began to slow his launch down, anticipating tying up beside the other Safety Boat to allow his passengers to disembark into the dinghy. A foot or so from it,
a deckhand threw a rope to one of the other crew who started pulling the vessels together by means of the bow and stern ropes. Fenders on both craft squeezed to bursting point, the skipper of the
Nicola S
, a former lobster fisherman, shouted out, ‘Are we to stay then? The body’s still on dry land . . . just. Can we go? Now you’re here there’s not much point in our hanging about, is there? I’d like to get Ewan home, into the warmth. He got an awful shock. Gav’ll row you there. We’ve put the lights back on for you.’

‘That’s fine. On you go,’ Alice shouted back.

Although unnaturally low in the water, the inflatable took their combined weight with the photographer sitting at the stern, acting as a counterbalance to the two women. Every time a wave washed over its sides, he grimaced, imagining the damage the salt water would wreak on his sensitive equipment. Once next to the rock, DC Cairns jumped on it, rope in hand, ready to hold the dinghy steady as they disembarked.

‘You’ll only have minutes,’ their oarsman said, shaking his head at their ineptitude as the photographer lurched towards the stern, grabbing the man’s shoulder to steady himself. Crunching barnacles as she did so, Alice stepped onto land, then walked forwards, zigzagging from one side of the black rock to the other, already scanning its surface for anything, any clue, before it was lost forever beneath the murky waters of the Forth.

On one of the low scaffolding boards, held between two piles of bricks from the partially dismantled lighthouse, lay a silt-covered green glass bottle. She picked it up in her gloved hand, making a mental note of where, precisely, it had been found, for the grid. If Jim did his job properly, there should be no problem. He would capture
everything. But time was short, and when last seen, he was still behind the foghorn building, shooting the body from all possible angles, ensuring that its exact location could be pinned down on this featureless islet. Before he had even got round to removing a lens cover, precious minutes had been wasted by his protracted disembarkation, his togging up and the arranging of his equipment. A three-toed sloth would seem speedy beside him.

Her own scrutiny of the corpse, begun while he battled to stuff one of his corpulent limbs into a paper trouser leg, had revealed no obvious signs of injury to the woman. Her clothes seemed intact, although her tights were torn and she wore no shoes. Importantly, no smell of rotting flesh came from her, and no outward signs of putrefaction were visible. The word ‘fresh’, she thought, applied to a dead woman as opposed to a living, breathing one, had quite a different meaning, quite different connotations. No suggestion of flirtation there.

‘Alice,’ a voice shouted, and she turned to see the photographer signalling to her, his paper suit blown unflatteringly tight over the contours of his rounded, Buddha belly. DC Cairns was hunkered down beside the corpse, and as Alice approached she said something but her words were drowned out by the crashing of the waves.

‘What did you say?’ Alice bawled, turning momentarily away, attempting to protect herself from another gust.

‘We’ll lose her, if we’re not quick,’ the man yelled back. ‘Since we’ve been here, the tide’s moved up at least another six inches, the waves are getting bigger, look – one of her hands is back in the water . . .’

‘You got her in situ – stills and video?’ Her throat hurt with the effort of shouting.

The photographer’s precious cap now back on, its peak protruding from under his paper hood, he nodded in an exaggerated fashion, then moved closer towards her. DC Cairns, her hands almost covering her face, followed behind him, protected by his bulk.

‘I’ve already put my stuff in the boat,’ he said.

‘OK. That’ll have to do, then. You take the head-end, Jim. We’ll take a side each.’ She bent down and gestured for the constable to do the same, ‘On my count. And try not to touch her, lift her through her clothes if you possibly can.

‘Should we not get Gav to help?’