The DCI David Fyfe Mysteries

by William Paul

  However, she did have one wild card she was going to play. Gus Barrie had been pestering her, meeting her clandestinely in the Burning Sands bar down by the harbour at Estepona and taking her back to his hotel for an afternoon of distinctly old-fashioned sex. She had no ethical problem in sleeping with her brother-in-law. Mike had been dead a long time and Gus was always so embarrassingly grateful.

  Good old Gus. He never gave up on trying to persuade her to join him back home. He was rich, not exactly ugly, and would make a good, relatively undemanding husband. Her problem was that she had not been back to Scotland for almost a decade and did not relish giving up the Spanish sunshine. Also, she didn’t particularly like the idea of going back and reviving memories of Mike. Sometimes, in maudlin moments, she tried to imagine what might have been if he had not abandoned her. She had loved him all right, loved him to death and no one since. Definitely none since. If things had worked out she would probably still have been mistress of a white-walled Spanish villa to celebrate her birthday but there would have been children by now and a warmth and purpose in her life that were sadly lacking. They had had it all worked out so neatly all those years ago. He had promised to make her rich. Their future had been selected from an à la carte menu, but it went wrong between the ordering and the serving up. In an actual restaurant you could send it back and have it changed. You couldn’t do that in the crazy-house restaurant of life. The bastards that ran it got away with murder.

  She had never forgiven Mike for killing himself the way he did. Stupid bastard, flying high on drugs, a martyr to the image he had of himself as somebody who was too beautiful to grow old. She hated him for leaving her to grow old on her own.

  At the Burning Sands she had been drinking dry martinis when Gus tried his latest ruse to tempt her back home. The money from the robbery, Mike’s robbery, could be recovered, he claimed. Mike’s partner was due out of prison soon and he knew where it was. They would follow him and relieve him of it as soon as he dug it up.

  She had crossed her legs, hooking one ankle behind the other. It was a mannerism she had when she got excited but wanted to keep herself under control. She seldom thought about the million pounds plus that Mike had stolen. He had destroyed it just as he had destroyed himself. Neither could be brought back. But she was aware of the rumours that it had been a con trick. The money had not been lost at all. There were many different versions of the story but she had discounted them all, because the principal one had her as the beneficiary and she knew for a fact the inaccuracy of that one. But even though she knew the real truth, Gus’s offer was persuasive. Adamson was getting out of prison and they would follow him to the cash if he did know where it was. It was simple and maybe, by some far-fetched chance, it would prove the money did still exist. Even if it didn’t, a little fantasy never hurt anyone. Why not? It was a good excuse for a pilgrimage back home.

  She permitted herself to enter the fantasy that afternoon with Gus, enormously tempted by the prospect of becoming a millionairess and being in total control of her own destiny. That was what Mike had promised her but for that she needed his money. Then she could tell Terry to fuck off before he got round to telling her. She would tell Gus as well, but more sympathetically. That was real power; the only sort that mattered. Until the fantasy was ruined it would pass some time as she grew steadily older.

  Angela rolled the thick gold necklace at her throat between her fingers. A birthday present from Terry. Worth less than a grand. He was definitely losing interest.

  Sentimental moments were few and far between for Angela. They tended to ruin her mascara and she hated to admit that any man, even a long-dead one, could make her cry. She had learned to make the best of things as they presented themselves. Now she was trying to summon up the courage to take a huge risk. She was not a risk-taker by nature but her mind was being concentrated wonderfully every time she looked in the mirror. PMT, she thought. Pre Middle-Age Tension.

  Terry stood waiting for her at the end of the corridor at the top of the stair. He held out his hand and leaned forward to kiss her. She moved her head to one side so that he did not spoil her lipstick and he caught her on the cheek instead.

  ‘You look stunning, darling,’ he said, sticking his tongue in her ear in the way she loathed and sliding his hand under the hem of her skirt to snap her suspenders.

  ‘I bet you say that to all your wives.’

  They walked down the staircase, making a grand entrance into the parlour. Fifty people were milling around with wine glasses in their hands and they all looked upwards as one at the descending couple. The polished marble floor turned them upside down and dangled them in abstract limbo. Another fifty people were outside on the terrace by the swimming pool and they all began to come inside from the evening coolness. The sky beyond the terrace was a hazy azure, dotted with large fluffy white clouds like cotton wool pads for removing make-up. The hills of the Sierra de Ronda stretched into the distance and the town of Jubrique al Genalguacil was a dark patch among them. A chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to You’ began raggedly and then took proper shape. Angela fixed her best smile on her face and concentrated on not tripping. Fingers and hands gently stroked her arms and shoulders and back as she walked in among her friends. It reminded her of running through the washing on the back green when she was a child.

  A cake in the shape of bright red Ferrari was on a table in the centre of the crowd. The number plate read: Angela 40. A white marzipan lady was in the driving seat with yellow marzipan hair and a blue marzipan scarf flowing stiffly behind her.

  ‘That’s our Angela in the driving seat,’ someone said. ‘Always knew she was a fast lady.’

  ‘Born to be wild and free,’ someone else said.

  ‘Put your foot down, Angela. Show us what you are made of.’

  Angela saw the cracks, like knife cuts, across the marzipan lady’s face. The slash where her mouth was grinned inanely. It was a long shot going back into the fantasy zone but it was worth trying. Time was running out.

  She stepped away from her husband to pick up the wide-bladed knife that had been placed beside the cake and held it out in front of her. With a horizontal flick of her wrist she decapitated the marzipan lady. The tiny head rolled on to the table-top. She snatched it up and popped it into her mouth.

  Everyone thought it was a brilliant gesture. They clapped and laughed uproariously.

  34

  Lillian was in his chair drinking a glass of wine when Adamson burst through the door. The panic he had felt in Holyrood Park over Byrne’s dead body had changed to exhilaration by the time he came running up the tenement stairs. It abruptly changed back to panic again at the sight of the redhead whose welcoming smile quickly changed to an expression of puzzlement and concern.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  Words failed him. He could only shake his head.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she repeated. ‘Where is Father Byrne? Should we call him?’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘What is it? What has happened?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did you go with Father Byrne tonight?’

  A shiver of redoubled panic made him tremble as if he had been punched in the face. ‘Nowhere,’ he said.

  He turned his back on her. The empty space of the cold landing seen through the door shimmered perversely like a heat haze between him and the door to Lillian’s flat. The whole building seemed unnaturally quiet and intimidating.

  ‘Come away,’ Lillian said. ‘Come across to my flat. Father Byrne asked me to look after you.’

  Physical exhaustion quietened Adamson as effectively as a powerful sedative. He allowed himself to be led across the landing and through to her bedroom where he was sat down on the bed. Through two doorways he could see the door of his own flat slightly open. He wanted to close it and all the doors around him, but instead he just buried his face in his hands. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to know what was happening. He wanted to be back in
his little prison cell where life was simple and the only problems were the ones he created for himself inside his head.

  ‘I need an alibi,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’ Lillian asked. ‘You were with Father Byrne tonight.’

  ‘He didn’t turn up.’

  ‘But I saw you leave with him.’

  Adamson felt a prickly sensation in his fingers and toes and a sudden heaviness in his stomach. Latent panic seeped into his thoughts like damp stains spreading over the surface of his brain. What was he saying? He had made another mistake. No one yet knew that the man was dead. Why should he need an alibi unless he had advance knowledge of the situation? Unless he had committed the murder?

  Stupid, stupid, he muttered silently. He should have kept his mouth shut, just as he should have left Byrne to die a natural death after the fall. But he hadn’t kept his mouth shut, and he had battered Byrne with the boulder.

  ‘I’ll be your alibi,’ Lillian said. ‘I’m an excellent liar.’

  He lay back on the bed and listened to her moving about in the flat. Slowly it dawned on him that she was the only person who knew he had been with Father Byrne that night. She was the only witness who could condemn him. Logic dictated that he should kill her to protect himself. With complete objectiveness he decided he would sleep with her first and kill her in the morning.

  He heard a strange sound, like something falling heavily on the floor. Strange voices. Scampering feet. Panic flapped around him like the heavy canvas walls of a tent that had been blown apart in a storm when he was a child and a member of a Scout troop on a camping weekend. The tent had collapsed on him, its rough, damp surface pressing on his face. He pushed it one way and then the other but still he could not escape. When he tried to scream it clamped itself on his lips and tried to get into his mouth. He could not breathe and he thought he was going to die. Then suddenly he was free and all the others were standing around him and over him. They were all laughing but he could not hear any sound other than the storm and the howling of the wind.

  In the bedroom he sat up. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. Calm returned suddenly, just as the heavy canvas had been whisked off the terrified young Scout. But then there were more sounds and the panic came hurtling back, flapping at him as if it was descending from the ceiling. With it came a high-pitched whining inside his skull like the sound of bombs dropping. He raised his arms to protect his head from the imagined threat. Gradually the feeling subsided and he feared for his sanity. There were going to be no explosions. There were no bombs. He was safe.

  Calm again, he looked up. Shock made him tremble. In front of him stood two men. They could have been mirror reflection except only one was holding Lillian by the neck. Her head was at a crazy angle on his shoulder and her feet were not touching the ground.

  ‘Who are you?’ he managed to say.

  A heavy weight thumped down on Adamson’s legs. Hands grabbed his upper arms, squeezing painfully. A shaven head and stubbly face appeared directly in front of him, the nose almost touching his. He couldn’t move. He smelled bad breath and saw small patches of eczema peeling from raw skin round a lion’s head tattoo.

  ‘Who are you?’ Adamson repeated, almost choking on the words.

  ‘Us?’ his attacker growled. ‘Friend, we’re your worst nightmare.’

  35

  A host of corpulent monks in white ankle-high Reeboks were marching past the window and Fyfe was surrounded by a crowd of stone-faced gargoyles all drinking and smoking furiously. To one side in a wing-backed leather chair sat Lord Greenmantle sucking contentedly at a fat unlit cigar. Behind him stood sad-eyed Father Quinn, Brother Patrick with his arms up opposite sleeves, and Archbishop Delaney. On the carpet at Greenmantle’s feet were the Archbishop’s secretary Miss Lyle, and Quinn’s housekeeper Mrs McMorrow. Both of them were sitting with their legs crossed like little children and they were eating from plates piled high with sandwiches and sausage rolls. Sylvia and Sally appeared next, arm in arm, moving towards him but blithely ignoring him when he spoke their names. They did not stop, did not deviate. They walked right through him as though he did not exist and the gargoyles howled with laughter.

  Fyfe woke abruptly to find a strange man’s face within a few inches of his own staring straight back at him. The shock was enough to snap him into a kneeling position and that movement was enough to show him that the face was his own, reflected and distorted by a magnifying make-up mirror on the bedside table. He was suddenly aware that there was somebody behind him. He jerked away as Sylvia sat up and touched his arm with her hand. The real world re-established itself. He found his place in it and collapsed face-down on to the bed, pulling a pillow over his head.

  ‘You always were a restless sleeper,’ Sylvia said, tucking herself in closely against him. ‘Something disturbing your dreams?’

  He almost said, ‘Something disturbing my life,’ but he thought better of it. Everything he had done, they had done, over the course of the night came back to him in a rush. He smiled beneath his pillow, sighed silently and began to invent excuses that would allow him to leave at the earliest opportunity. He was wide awake, too alert to be able to return easily to the surrealistic safety of his dream. Sylvia breathed deeply and evenly beside him, creating a hot spot on his shoulder blade. He peeked out the side and blinked to clear the stickiness from his eyes. The clock told him it was only five thirty in the morning. His clothes were in an untidy heap beside the bed. His pager was fixed to the belt of his trousers. He could reach it without too much difficulty to flick the test switch. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. The noise started loudly and faded after the first couple of beeps, sounding like a bumble bee failing to get its motor running properly.

  ‘Aw shit,’ he moaned indistinctly from below the pillow.

  ‘Shut it off, will you,’ Sylvia said.

  She pushed him towards the edge of the bed. He rolled off on to his feet and silenced the pager. ‘I’ll use the phone in the hall,’ he said. ‘You need your beauty sleep.’

  She did not look up when he left the bedroom. He stood shivering in the hall for a couple of minutes pretending to call the office, speaking banalities to a howling telephone line that seemed to cause an echo inside his head. When he went back into the room Sylvia was still lying in the same position, her blonde hair all spiky and ruffled, the makeup round her eyes badly smudged. A tremendous wave of affection made him stand still and stare down at her. He wanted to be gone but wished he could stay. He wished he could wrap himself round her body and cling to her for ever after. What was it his mother used to tell him as a boy? You’ll wish your life away.

  ‘I’ve got to go, Sylvia,’ he whispered, hoping she would be asleep.

  She stirred, turning on to her back, stretching sinuously under the covers so that they took on the shape of her body. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  He had to improvise. ‘Looks like another murder. Whole city’s gone mad. They need me back on the bridge at the mother ship.’

  She sat up and watched him dress. He couldn’t think of anything witty to say so he kept quiet. The previous day had been a trying one, packed with crooked priests and ex-alcoholic monks padding about in white Reeboks. Then he had revived an old affair with his former lover Sylvia who was getting married to a queer old judge who was trying to avoid having the twilight of an otherwise blameless career on the bench blighted by the curse of arse banditry. The prospective wife-to-be had got hold of him to demonstrate her continued heterosexuality at great length.

  ‘Once a month is it to be then, Sylvia?’

  ‘Is that a threat or a promise?’

  ‘A polite request.’

  ‘What about your wife?’

  Fyfe realised that Sylvia was near to tears. She was sitting with her arms folded, every muscle tensed. The bedroom looked unchanged from the time when he had been a regular visitor; the same wallpaper, the same furniture, even the same severely cut work dress hanging on the wardrobe door with her advocate’s cloak drap
ed over it. What about his wife Sally, he wondered. He wouldn’t tell her what had happened, of course. He would just go back to his old habits of having both women while he could. He would burn the candle at both ends and this time when he was caught he would retire gracefully to the sanctuary in Tayside where Brother Patrick would smile indulgently and understand perfectly.

  ‘I don’t know if we should, David,’ Sylvia said. ‘Maybe it would be better if we just make this a one-night stand.’

  He wasn’t surprised or disappointed. He was aware of his dishonourable character trait of wanting to spend the rest of his life with whatever woman he happened to be sleeping with. But he was out of Sylvia’s bed now, ready to move on.

  ‘For old times’ sake,’ he said.

  ‘Something like that. We might be better to let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘I’ll call you anyway.’

  ‘Yes. Do.’

  Fyfe bent down to kiss her on the lips. She did not resist or draw away. He could sense her eyes following him when he left and went out into the cold, clear air of the grey morning. Overnight rain had washed the streets clean. The sandstone buildings had a freshly scrubbed look about them. A milk float purred gently along the street. Two boys ran back and forward to it. Glass bottles clicked and rattled. Only when the float overtook him did Fyfe realise he was walking in a daze. He breathed deeply to fill his lungs and began heading in the direction of his car parked more than a mile away. He bought a paper from an early-opening shop and read the front page story about the three murders and the assumed gangland war. It was strong on gory description, weak on actual detail. Then he turned to the horoscopes and picked out his star sign. Love: You will renew acquaintance with an old friend. Fortune: Money is something which causes you a lot of concern.