A Deviant Breed (DCI Alec Dunbar series)

by Stephen Coill

  Conroy grimaced at the thought. ‘Why don’t you just ask Donnie on the quiet?’

  ‘What!? Donnie Salkeld doesnae do quiet. Tell you the truth, I think that’s exactly what he’s waiting for. He’d just tell her to get her kit off and show us. Paps or pecs, cock or not? And Stella probably would.’

  Neil Conroy exited, laughing loudly. Dunbar pressed his palms to the back of his head and tilted back in his chair as he watched him. Still chuckling, Conroy went from desk to desk turning off lights and monitors whilst wriggling into his overcoat. Horses for courses; not the most dynamic detective sergeant in the force, but all major incidents, murder rooms and operations in particular need a solid, reliable manager at the hub. And that’s what you get with DS Neil Conroy, the quintessential incident room manager. He would spend his whole day working the room, endlessly checking, collecting, collating information, chivvying the team to greater efforts, and no matter how long the enquiry ran, he would never flag and never stop looking for that key detail, that snippet of intel or line in a statement that turned the tide of the enquiry in their favour.

  ***

  Dunbar turned his car off St Andrew’s Square into George Street and crawled west in surprisingly heavy traffic. He was heading home while debating the pros and cons of stopping off somewhere for a pint. There were any number of options and his eye was drawn to large group of raucous men outside ‘The Standing Order’. Not there then! They had spilled into the street to surround a black cab. They roared and raised their drinks in salute, as a familiar figure stepped from the back of the vehicle and punched the air. Gordon ‘Doc’ Monaghan was celebrating yet another escape from the clutches of justice. Bull Heid had pleaded guilty ‘at the eleventh hour’ just as Alec Dunbar had predicted he would.

  Definitely not there. Not that there was anything wrong with a Wetherspoons pub, but it was hardly Doc’s style either. It would do though for his battalions of doormen, foot soldiers, dealers, assorted minions and hangers-on. Doc could stick a tab behind that bar without it breaking the bank, not that cost is an obstacle to a villain of his means. Later, no doubt, he would retire to somewhere more exclusive, somewhere discreet and far more expensive.

  There, with his inner circle, he would discuss the system failure that saw him inconvenienced by his most recent arrest, remandin-custody and trial. Dunbar would have loved to be a fly on the wall where that took place. He also wondered when and where the results of Doc’s analysis would eventually surface. What he was certain of was that somewhere, someone from the city’s underworld would not be celebrating. Praying more like. Doc never let so much as an unguarded word go unpunished. So whoever put him in the dock, and put Bull Heid behind bars was not long for this world.

  There is no big secret to being a successful gangster. It just takes a degree of ruthlessness few lesser criminals possess. The kind that means even enemies fear crossing you. It’s all down to willingness. That’s what sets men like him apart from the rest. What are you willing to do to achieve your goals? Dunbar knew plenty of criminals and hard cases capable of killing a man – but willing? That’s a different thing altogether. The prospect of a life sentence is a sufficient deterrent to even some serious villains, but not Doc Monaghan.

  Such was his reputation, and why he would be a prominent target of the newly formed Serious Crime and Homicide Unit, should Alec Dunbar secure one of the coveted spots. He drove on and made a pistol shape with the fingers of his left hand, as he passed by his nemesis unnoticed.

  10

  It was 6:30am and the control room inspector who woke him sounded as if he could barely believe the information he was relaying. HQ Comms had received a treble-nine emergency call from a resident who lived across the road from McAleavey’s Undertakers premises in Newstead, to report a breakin. Inspector Allan explained that he had despatched a patrol from Galashiels immediately to secure the scene until a key-holder arrived, only for the officer to report that upon examining the premises, that he had made a macabre discovery.

  Inside, two bodies awaited the attention of the undertaker. One of the corpses was on a gurney and contained within a partially opened body bag. The other lay in an open casket. That was the body of an elderly woman and it did not appear to have been touched. However, the fire-damaged body on the gurney was missing its head. Dunbar sat bolt upright and asked the inspector to repeat that last part.

  ‘One of the bodies, that of an elderly woman, was –’

  ‘No, no the part about the missing head,’ he mumbled, kneading his face with his fingers, as if trying to force the sleep from his brain.

  ‘The second body appears to have had the head removed, in situ. Err, I gather he means in the house o’ repose, as they call it – on the gurney, sir.’

  He had heard him correctly. Constable 944 Dewar, the officer at the scene, was of the opinion the head had been the target of the breakin, nothing else was taken nor seemed to have been touched by the burglar.

  ‘He has the key-holder on site with him now, sir. He says the body still had its head when they locked up last night. It was him that specifically asked us to call you.’

  ‘Yeah, I err – thanks, Inspector.’

  Just as he was about to hang up, as a footnote, Inspector Allan added that the ‘on call’ SOCO had also been despatched to the scene.

  ‘Yeah, fine, oh and call Eugene Grant out as well. Send him down there. For that matter, you should have a copy of my team sheet on the system.’

  ‘Team sheet?’

  ‘The Braur Glen enquiry.’

  ‘Oh yes, we – we have, sir.’

  ‘Good, get ‘em all up. I want the incident room fully manned within the hour,’ he ordered.

  ‘Are you authorising the –?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, just stick it on Detective Superintendent Watt’s tab.’

  ‘I didn’t know the force ran overtime tabs, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘In fact wake that idle bugger up too. Tell him what you’ve told me, and that you’ve called the team out.’

  ‘How about I tell him – you have? I get enough flak without takin’ yours – sir!’

  ‘Aye, right enough, mon.’

  Dunbar replaced the handset, rubbed his face vigorously and sprang from the bed. His case had taken yet another bizarre twist. It was a cold shower situation. He needed to wake up and wake up fast.

  ***

  The constable who had taken over from the night shift at the Braur Glen crime scene was quite adamant; he had nothing untoward to report. According to the officer he had relieved, the night shift had also passed without incident. That said, according to Constable Warwick, a fog as thick as Athol Broth had blanketed the range and restricted visibility to about ten metres for most of the night and still lingered on the higher ground. Tyler advised him to remain vigilant and report sightings of anyone seen in the vicinity, and to call for back up should he do so, and not to pursue them alone if their behaviour was at all suspicious.

  ‘Are any of Professor Geary’s team on site?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, they arrived about twenty minutes ago. The professor, the guy with hair like an explosion’ – he obviously meant Shaggy Lound – ‘and the wee fit, bonny lass with the pink streaks in her hair.’

  ‘Be careful, Warwick, the wee fit bonny lass with the pink streaks is the DCI’s daughter,’ she whispered, scanning the incident room. Dunbar was in animated conversation on his phone. It seemed only fair to warn PC Warwick. Zoe had caught the eye of just about every copper who had visited the scene, and it had not gone unnoticed by the DCI.

  ‘Cheers ma’am, I wouldnae like to get on the wrong side of Hop-a-long Harris Tweed.’

  Tyler chewed her cheek to stop herself from giggling. Coppers are prone to tag their colleagues with derogatory nicknames. It made her wonder what hers was. She laid the handset on her desk and turned her attention back to her computer screen. Athol Broth, how long had it been? Her mind drifted back to a winter, some years past in Fort William, and a few memorab
le days in the company of a dashing young 1st Lieutenant of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. She smiled to herself and scanned the room guiltily. Yes, a winter holiday to remember. The skiing wasn’t bad either.

  ***

  The officer at Newstead was instructed to leave statement gathering to Dunbar’s team and fax a copy of his own, regarding attending the breakin at McAleavey’s, to the incident room ASAP, certainly before his shift ended. That suited him; he already had three more jobs forming an impatient queue, and an arrest warrant to execute, but that would have to wait until his colleague started duty at 10am.

  ***

  Where was everybody? In Dunbar’s uniformed days, Galashiels would have had a sergeant on at 9am and a minimum of two PCs on early shift, and, likely as not a rural beat officer, if not two covering the outlying area. Was it going to get any better under the management of the newly amalgamated Police Service of Scotland? Somehow he doubted it. These decisions rarely have anything to do with improved policing and everything to do with money.

  Falk and DC Donald were duly despatched to record statements from the key-holder at McAleavey’s and from whoever secured Walter Farish’s body the previous day, in what turned out to be the interment prep-room-cum-parlour-of-repose. The actual Chapel of Rest was being refurbished, according to the owner.

  ***

  Professor Donnie Salkeld received news of the delay, and its cause, with the world weary resignation of a man who had long since grown incapable of being shocked. Stella, his lab assistant, followed him around the dissecting table, pressing the phone to his cauliflower ear, as her boss rummaged inside the chest cavity of an industrial accident victim.

  ‘Two heids less their bodies, now a body without its heid. Am I to reacquaint the one with the other when our headless friend finally arrives, Alec?’

  ‘Afraid not,’ Dunbar responded. ‘This bugger still had his head when the undertaker tucked him up for the night.’

  ‘Good Lord – is your perpetrator taking trophies?’

  ‘Maybe, or it’s his MO – his signature – or he’s just making a point, Christ knows!’

  ‘That was John.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘John the Baptist was beheaded – Christ was crucified. I know you are not a religious man, Alec, but that’s pretty basic stuff.’

  ‘Ha bloody haa, what the – what’s that bloody awful noise? Are you?’

  ‘Up to my knuckles in human offal, aye, mon.’

  Dunbar grimaced with disgust. ‘Lovely! Anyway, the link with what happened up there in the past and what’s going on today is getting increasingly hard to ignore.’

  ‘Intriguing indeed. Have you read Allyson Holmquist’s findings on that first skull?’

  ‘I was just about to.’

  ‘Did you know that she’s an osteoarchaeologist as well as a forensic anthropologist?’

  ‘I don’t even know what that means.’

  ‘Not just a botherer of ancient bones but – one of those clever devils that put the bones etcetera in context to other deposits, the landscape and the environment in which they lived, and to some extent, how they lived. I mean, I can do that with some degree of accuracy when examining internal organs, as you know, but – bones and teeth! Beyond even my genius. I’ve been reading up on it. Also known as palaeo-osteology. She can tell you about the subject’s dietary habits and so on – clever girl or what?’

  ‘We know what we know, Donnie.’

  ‘At least you hope we do.’

  ‘Well, you always impress the hell out of me. I’d be super-impressed if Professor Holmquist could tell me who the hell was putting these heads in the ground.’

  ‘Ahh well, that she can’t do – yet. However, she can probably tell you where they were and what they were doing before they got separated from their bodies.’

  ‘Better get it read then,’ he said, flicking through Holmquist’s report.

  ‘Do! And I won’t spoil the surprise for you. See you later.’

  To her great relief, Stella hung up. ‘Thank Christ! My arm’s aboot gone te sleep, mon. That’s it, I’m gettin’ somebody doon here te get this bastard comms system fixed – today!’ she grumbled, as she replaced the handset.

  ***

  Dunbar read it once, considered the implications, and read it again before looking up to see Briony Tyler staring back at him with the same puzzled expression. He waved her through. ‘His father!?’ she exclaimed closing the door behind her.

  ‘Once again this enquiry raises more questions than answers, Briony.’ He stabbed at his copy of the report with his forefinger, reading out loud in disbelief. “It was already reduced to a skull when it was reburied at Braur Glen. Material fragments retrieved from the skull suggest deterioration of a coffin lining, ergo – the skull was taken from a gravesite elsewhere. So, dug up, detached from the skeleton and carried to Braur Glen sometime in the past nine years.”

  ‘Nine years, around the time Archie English said he had first started exploring that area in earnest.’ She paused still struggling to take it in. ‘He can’t be so stupid that he’d let them take a DNA sample to compare with the skeletons, having buried his father’s head in the same field – can he?’

  ‘Yeah, I think that maybe, he is that stupid. His intelligence is limited to what he has studied obsessively since childhood. He has a singular focus. Beyond that, I think he’s still an attention-seeking, naive child, with a very narrow view of the world and little interest in what else goes on in it or around him for that matter, especially if it has no connection to his obsession?’ Dunbar stabbed at Holmquist’s report again. ‘And the age estimate. According to this, whoever it was, he was in his early seventies when he died.’

  ‘We might not even have a murder on our hands,’ she sighed.

  ‘That’s right. He said it himself. “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” I wouldn’t put it past Archie to have planted these heads up there to attract some media attention. And the press weren’t really paying the site much attention until that first skull turned up. So, where is daddy’s grave?’

  ‘Nine years of decomposition thereabouts, but not necessarily in Braur Glen. Maybe he took the other head from the same graveyard. Another relative perhaps.’

  ‘Aye, maybe he’s been playing the long game. He is patient that much we do know.’

  ‘At least Professor Holmquist is unequivocal regarding the direct link between Archie’s DNA and that of the skull. Also, both Archie and the skull share their DNA with some of the samples retrieved from the bones of the seventeenth century skeletons,’ Tyler said, slapping the report down. ‘Either Archie is playing games with us, or some lunatic’s taken up the Inglis – Humes feud.’

  ‘Anything back from the nerds at Fettes?’

  ‘They’ve highlighted a couple of eager visitors to his website and blog, but haven’t been able to pinpoint where they’re accessing the site from – yet! Whoever it is, they appear mobile, jockeying in on the backs of free wi-fi sites dotted around the area, businesses, hotels, internet cafés etcetera. M-one and M-two or it might be M.I and M.I.I.’ She met his quizzical gaze and shrugged. ‘Roman numerals?’

  ‘Morag Inglis?’ Dunbar offered. ‘Chase up that psyche profiler, see what they’ve got, then hit ‘em with this and the details of the breakin.’

  ‘And Archie?’

  ‘Don’t really want to talk to Archie again until we have a better handle on what the hell we’re dealing with, just in case we have to put him on the clock.’

  ‘What if he’s got Walter Farish’s head?’ she asked.

  ‘He doesn’t drive – how’s he getting about in the night without a car? The bus service out there is almost non-existent.’

  ‘Taxis?’

  “Just wait here a minute will ye driver? I’m just gonna break into this mortuary and chop a corpse’s heid off.” They both snorted at the thought. ‘And he can hardly go humping heads around the county on public transport.’

  ‘An accomplic
e then? – The woman that the neighbour –’

  ‘For all we know it had nothing to do with it,’ he cut in. ‘Anyway, it was the man who was driving and Archie cannae.’ They both fell silent for a moment. ‘I’ve spoken to Stella at the path lab. Eugene’s told them that McAleavey’s will have what’s left of Wilson Farish’s body there by half past two. We’ll join them at three. After that, we’ll – ach!’ Dunbar leapt from his chair and paced. ‘We’re gonna have to invite Archie up here for a more formal chat, aren’t we?’ Tyler nodded her agreement. ‘If only to see if he can throw any light on who his mystery daddy is.’

  Tyler flicked through the report. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Ach! X this, Y that! Algebra ne’er did make much sense te me,’ he joked. ‘But – nothing seems straightforward where Archie English is concerned. According to this data, his dad can’t have been an itinerant gypsy or a travelling salesman; unless he was very closely related.’

  ‘And in his seventies.’ Tyler suddenly stiffened. ‘How about this for a theory? Holmquist is unequivocal, the father and mother must have been closely related. The professor only has a sample of Archie’s DNA not his grandpa’s – or does she? Incest! The skull is that of Archie’s grandpa. His grandpa, not some itinerant tarmac-cowboy or dodgy salesman fathered Archie.’

  Dunbar pointed at her and slowly wagged his finger for several seconds whilst grinning broadly. ‘Briony I could kiss you!’

  Tyler felt her heart flutter, why? Did she blush? She hoped not.

  ‘Find out where Grandpa was buried,’ he ordered.

  ‘We could ask Archie,’ she replied, feeling her cheeks flush pink. Was she developing a crush on her boss? Yes, was the honest answer, but thankfully he wasn’t looking her way. His eyes scanned the white board.

  ‘No! Get Neil to contact records – we’ll apply for a warrant of exhumation and meanwhile have a wee chat with’ – he checked his notes – ‘Bryce Lamont-Armstrong of Lamont, Armstrong and Adair Associates.’