A Deviant Breed (DCI Alec Dunbar series)

by Stephen Coill

  ‘Aye – but they were Cornflakes when I put ‘em in the bowl!’ Reece hugged himself and shivered. A ripple of laughter echoed around the room. Dunbar approved, a team that banters is a team that’s jelled, and a team that’s jelled pulls together and for each other.

  DI Tyler joined Dunbar at the whiteboard.

  ‘Morning, Inspector,’ he said without making eye contact.

  ‘It never ceases to amaze me how can people just slip off the radar like they do?’ She said, just as she puzzled as everyone else as to why Dunbar should be so fascinated by so little. There was barely a detail on it that even hinted at momentum. Was he expecting the answer to their investigation to suddenly and miraculously appear on the board before his very eyes? ‘How do you just walk out of the door, out of your family’s lives and simply disappear?’

  Dunbar didn’t answer. He didn’t know. Too many permutations to even begin seeking the answers to questions as complex and varied as the human condition generates.

  ‘Morning sir!’ she eventually said.

  Dunbar spun around and fixed on DC Reece, ‘let’s cast the net wider then, trawl the database for mis-pers – everyone of the same age-range and try and get hold of someone from editing at the Big Issue.’

  ‘The Big Issue?’ Reece repeated.

  ‘You have heard of it?’

  ‘Sure but –’

  ‘Ever bought one?’

  ‘Err, no sir, not recently, cannae say I have.’

  ‘They’re all sold by foreigners. If they’ve nae’ roof over their heids why did they leave home in the first place?’ another voice contributed.

  ‘Where’s your humanity?’ Dunbar asked teasingly, as he tossed the latest copy onto Reece’s desk. ‘If you had, you’d know that they regularly feature missing persons in their magazine. Ask if they’d mind sharing information about missing men that match our criterion just in case they didn’t appear on the police radar.’

  ‘Mind if I handle that, sir?’ Tyler cut in. He eyed her quizzically. ‘I have a contact on the editorial staff from my NCIS days,’ she added.

  ‘Be my guest but make it quick. We’re going to see Archie English now that the cogs are turning here – and you’ll need an overnight bag.’ Dunbar strode off, ‘Falk, did you get around all Prof Geary’s diggers?’

  ‘Yes boss.’

  ‘Statements?’

  ‘Aye, for what they’re worth.’

  ‘Exhibits list?’

  ‘Vasquez gave me photocopies of their finds lists, everything they recovered.’

  ‘Excellent. Just talked y’self out of an overnighter in the sticks. Neil!’

  ‘Boss!’ DS Conroy answered.

  He scanned the room and located him leaning over one of the civilian data-input clerk’s monitors. ‘You’re in charge. Make sure they crunch the mis-pers lists, check every possibility and then check them again. If you come up empty, widen the search by an increment of five years at each end of the lab’s guesstimate.’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ Conroy replied.

  ‘We’re heading for the hills again. We won’t be back in the office today unless one of you bright sparks finds this bastard – gold star if you do. Falk!’

  ‘Boss!’

  ‘Trawl the streets and get on the blower to some of your mates back home, see if there’s any crack about hits and hack jobs and especially heads going missing.’ Tyler snapped around at that suggestion. He had dismissed it out of hand the day before.

  ‘Nae problem, boss. Sorted,’ Falk grunted.

  Apart from himself, Falk was the only man on the team for that job and one of few in city Dunbar would trust with such a difficult shout. Gangland figures are not known for cooperating with the police and those on the periphery usually have their own agendas or an axe to grind. Dunbar had learned early in his service to be wary of informants and eager witnesses alike. They’re prone to tell you what they think you want to hear or in modern parlance – to sex it up. It was advice he had imparted to many a young constable before they stepped out of the police station door for the first time.

  Fortunately, Falk could open doors that would remain firmly closed to ninety-nine percent of cops in Edinburgh and quite a few in Glasgow, the city of his birth. He could get the crack where others feared to tread and was the only cop on a raid Dunbar had ever seen knock out the muscle guarding a door without breaking his stride. He reminded Dunbar of another young detective he once knew, himself – less the elite military training and firearms expertise and supreme fitness his DS boasted. Was he kidding himself that he was once just like Sean Faulkner? No, there was something – maybe it was just attitude.

  ‘Not all Big Issue sellers are foreigners, lass.’ He whispered as he passed the female civilian who had piped up. ‘The vendor I bought my copy from this morning was a pure-bred Penicuik.’ The civilian blushed. Tyler smirked and followed after him.

  ***

  Tyler leaned on the roof of his car and stared at him, without even attempting to get in after he had unlocked it.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘I seem to recall you dismissing my gangland killing theory.’

  ‘Yes I did – didn’t I? It isn’t!’

  ‘But –’

  ‘But you won’t be the only one to pop that idea into the suggestion box – so before I can screw it up, toss it in the bin and get on with the job of finding the killer we have to tick that box.’ Dunbar dipped out of sight and into the driver’s seat. ‘I curse the mon’ that came up with the tick box.’

  ‘Or woman,’ Tyler countered.

  ‘There are certain senior officers that only function according to it. Detectives!? Couldnae detect a turd in their own gusset.’

  Tyler wrinkled her nose at the thought as she slid in beside him. He could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head as she fastened her seat belt, with a question on her glossy lips. Why had he noticed her glossy lips? Elspeth had been away too long, time she took a day off and came home.

  ‘Molineux,’ he said, after starting the engine.

  ‘The Chief Super?’

  ‘The very same. He’d love nothing better than for our victim to be a face – knowing full well those responsible would never cough it – and that those in the know dare not speak of it for fear of meeting the same fate.’

  ‘Why?’

  Surely she couldn’t be that green. ‘Informants value one thing over money and favour – their lives. Anyone that ruthless isn’t someone you grass up.’

  ‘I meant – why would Molineux want such an outcome?’

  ‘Ahh, well – it makes for a neat and tidy balance sheet. A case like ours could easily tip his budget into the red.’

  ‘I don’t believe the Chief Superintendent’s focus in a murder case is budgetary.’

  Dunbar eyed her and braked hard as a traffic car swung into the car park in front of him. They exchanged accusatory looks. ‘Under the old regime not so much but things are in a state o’ flux – eight police forces melded into one,’ still fixed on the traffic cop. After a moment had passed they declared it an honourable draw. The traffic car moved on and he pulled out.

  ‘We’ve got is a skull in the ground that’s been there for anything up to ten years? Pyfff! What odds do you suppose we’d get on a clear-up?’ he asked. She shrugged.

  The thing that really rankled with Dunbar was that Molineux would be justified to some extent in winding his enquiry down after a couple of months. Given the amount of time that head had lain undiscovered it was already in effect a cold case, so writing it off as such would not raise many eyebrows. He grunted indignantly.

  ‘So long as he is perceived as having given us a decent stab at it, he’ll file it for the attention of the Cold Case Team and he’ll get to claim the sensible and fiscal high ground.’ Dunbar sneered wickedly. ‘But we’re not going to let him, are we Detective Inspector Tyler?’

  4

  Dunbar drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited outside Briony Ty
ler’s Morningside flat. He checked the time and then tucked his pocket watch back into his waistcoat pocket. Next he glimpsed his rear view mirror then cast his gaze around. The quiet street bore the telltale hallmarks of relative exclusivity.

  Although a number of the properties had obviously been converted into flats, Dunbar concluded that few, if any, of these fine examples of Georgian architecture were student lets. For a start not a single curtain was closed. Not many students he had ever encountered would be out of bed at that time of the morning. Neither were any of the windows blacked-out by posters or protest stickers suggesting banning or freeing, promoting or supporting something or other. No, Briony Tyler’s flat, whether paid for or rented, was beyond a police inspector’s salary and Dunbar found himself wondering – rich daddy? – or sugar-daddy? As much as anything it was the cars lining both sides that gave the game away as much as the Farrow & Ball paintwork and gleaming brass door knockers. And all of them second cars no doubt, reserved for the school run and shopping trips.

  Finally the front door opened and Tyler humped a small suitcase over the threshold onto the top step. It was one of those wheeled contraptions with a telescopic handle that clutter the carousels of airports the world over. Louis Vuitton, if he was not mistaken. His wife had a designer label fetish too. Elspeth would not be seen dead in the business class lounge with anything less. Having ensured that the door was locked behind her, Tyler bundled the case down the steps to his car. Dunbar sighed and popped the boot open without even having to get out of his seat. What on earth could she need for an overnight stay that weighed that much? It landed in the boot with a thud and when she closed the boot lid the whole car shook.

  ‘A fiver, a driver and an expense form,’ he said as Tyler slid in beside him.

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘The CID survival kit,’ he replied. She eyed him askance. ‘All my first DI said he needed on any job that took him out of the division or force area,’ he explained.

  ‘A fiver wouldn’t get you very far these days and I’m surprised he needed a driver. I heard that detectives of your era didn’t worry too much about the drink driving laws.’

  Dunbar feigned indignation. ‘My era? It wasnae that long ago – anyway there was a clamp down. Hell, the traffic department practically ran a ‘bag the CID’ campaign after a DS of epic boozing repute crashed one of the firm’s cars into a shop front and did a runner. Locals phoned 999 – they thought it was a ram raid.’

  ‘Arsehole! I presume he lost his job.’

  ‘His memory!’ Dunbar responded with a wry smile. She snapped around and eyed him quizzically. ‘That was his defence anyway – banged his napper – could nae remember a thing. He got over his amnesia a day and a half or so later.’

  She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Are we talking about you?’

  Dunbar bristled. ‘No! We’re not, and my accident was only last year – and I’m a DCI and – I definitely hadn’t been on the swilly, and my amnesia was real, and – I still haven’t got over it, and they took a blood sample from me at A&E which proved negative.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she offered insincerely. ‘I meant when you were a DS, you’re a bit of a legend I hear.’

  ‘Am I?’ It was a disingenuous response. ‘If so, it wasnae for drink driving.’

  ‘Drinking got a mention.’ Tyler teased. He scowled his unwillingness to continue that discussion. She shrugged, ‘fair enough sir, moving on – but, they actually believed him?’ she asked, incredulously.

  ‘Course not, but more importantly for him – the jury did! He returned to duty after the trial for a slap on the wrist at a discipline tribunal. Very soon afterwards though, he got shunted sideways into uniform and the custody office. Nae more nipping to the pub to – liaise with informants.’

  ‘Ahh well, we have source management now. Nobody can use that excuse anymore.’

  ‘Source – bloody – management.’ He grunted. ‘It should never have been taken out of the hands of individual officers.’

  ‘Despite the fact that some officers were exploiting informants and abusing the system?’ She countered.

  Dunbar eyed her quizzically. ‘What’s to stop the source management officer doing exactly that?’

  ‘There are checks and balances now, and management systems in place that –’

  ‘There always were – but no system will eradicate human weakness or greed.’

  He had a point and it was clear that his opinion was entrenched so she decided to let it go. ‘So what happened to him?’

  ‘Bomber!? Ach, he retired two years short of his thirty, on ill health grounds and drank himself to death within four years.’

  After that they fell silent and Dunbar wondered how often he had been over the limit in his wilder days and, has he had on many occasions, whether he would have met a similar premature fate to Sergeant Bomber Donnan had Maggie not killed herself and he had continued drinking at the rate he used to.

  ***

  ‘Is this going to take long?’ Archie English asked impatiently as he

  showed them in. ‘We’ll be as brief as possible, Mr English, but this case began on account of your –’

  ‘No, no – not my interview – your enquiry,’ he cut in fixing them intently as he guided them into his sitting room. It reminded Dunbar of one of those curiosity shops that have little to do with the antiques trade and everything to do with the owner’s obsession. Books and bric-a-brac covered every available surface. Archie even had to shift a stack of ‘The Scots’ magazines from the two-seater couch in order that the two detectives could sit, which Tyler duly did. Dunbar remained standing. It allowed him to pace and thus survey the room and observe the man better. Archie placed the magazines on a stool and gently patted them into a neat stack.

  ‘Early days, far too soon to say,’ Dunbar replied, glancing in Tyler’s direction.

  ‘Well that’s just not good enough, Chief Inspector. You’re disrupting one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the Borders – if not Scotland in the past hundred years or more.’

  Not the response Dunbar had expected but an interesting one, and no mention of the reason they were there.

  ‘Discovering a man’s head buried in Braur Glen is an important discovery in its own right, Mr English. Especially to his family, I should imagine – if and when we eventually identify him.’

  ‘Yes, yes – that’s all very well but do you have any idea how long I have worked on this?’ he responded in exasperation. ‘Do you not grasp the significance?’

  Dunbar felt his irritation growing as he met the man’s unblinking gaze. ‘I think I’m beginning to,’ he replied, eyeing Tyler who simply smiled knowingly.

  He held her gaze for a moment. She had truly beautiful eyes, pale hazel. Self-consciously he averted his gaze and continued his survey of the room. It was cluttered but not untidy. There was a sense of order, of uniformity, everything in its place, and not a speck of dust anywhere. The books that filled his shelves and bookcases were all alphabetically aligned according to author surname. Dunbar took three of the magazines from the stack Archie had moved, which seemed to trouble their host. They were chronologically stacked in date order. When he replaced them he deliberately left them askew and turned to study the fireplace again.

  Above it in a gilt frame was an intricate and beautifully executed hand-tinted map of the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England, signed by the artist – Archibald Fraser English. Out of the corner of his eye, Dunbar noticed Archie flick through the magazines to check they were still in order before patting them square on the stack. Dunbar made a mental note: obsessive compulsive.

  ‘Took me months that,’ Archie said, returning to his seat. ‘More in the research to be certain of the clan boundaries than in the execution, and here I must confess to a degree of blatant plagiarism, but as it is not for public consumption or sale, so – ’

  In common with other such maps, found in tourist shops all over Scotland, cartographic accuracy gave way to a
rtistic flair and interpretation, which made clear its true purpose. It illustrated, in fine detail, how the area was divided up between the numerous Reiver Clans by the middle of the seventeenth century. Dunbar also noted that two names on the map were written in bolder script than any others, Humes and Inglis. According to the artist the Inglis Clan was virtually surrounded by the Humes, to the north and east and south and west respectively. Tiny, perfectly drawn skulls lined the boundaries between those particular clans and those three clans alone. Why skulls? Why had he drawn them on the map in the very area where one turned up? Significant or coincidence?

  ‘But you hadn’t found Obag’s Holm when you did this,’ Tyler said, studying the map curiously, ‘so how did –’

  ‘I’ve always known the location of the Clan’s territory,’ Archie cut in, ‘which as you see was quite extensive – and quite inhospitable, difficult ground for one man alone to explore. Hence I had failed to identify the exact whereabouts of her base – her lair, her pele, the legendary Obag’s Holm.’

  By now Dunbar had fixed upon the fireplace recesses. Pewter bas-relief coats of arms hung on the wall either side of the chimney breast. To the right, the Humes coat of arms not that Dunbar would have known their symbol had the name not been emblazoned on a painted sash of the clan tartan, and to the left its Inglis equivalent.

  ‘Morag Inglis had a coat of arms?’ Dunbar asked.

  ‘The Inglis Clan does.’

  ‘Is she –?’ Dunbar began to ask, only for Archie to anticipate his question.

  ‘There’s a school of thought that thinks she derives from that line – that is to say the Inglis Clan of Berwick-upon-Tweed – but I have developed my own theory as to the origins of her particular clan name.’

  I bet you have, Dunbar thought.

  ‘Oh yes, what is that?’ Tyler asked and then cringed when she saw Dunbar’s expression. She had earned them another history lesson Dunbar had hoped to avoid.

  ‘Morag made much of their paganism. Some will have it that she did it only to strike greater fear into her neighbours – that of savages, rampant ungodly heathens, but I believe that they probably were practising pagans. Others are of the school of thought that they were no more than glorified moss troopers and not true reivers at all.’