by Val McDermid
Gabriel smiled. ‘Because he doesn’t know the Prime Minister. He knows me.’
Gregor clapped him on the back. ‘Right enough, Gabe. Better wait till you get the post, though. So tell me, did you see Donald Trump’s latest?’
And that, Gabriel knew, was the kind way of shifting him off his personal soapbox. He bit back all the things he wanted to tell Gregor about illegal ruby smuggling and tried to concentrate on the three-ring circus that was American politics. He’d made the right noises in the right places, he thought, finishing his second pint and rising to leave.
Outside, the air was cool and the sky was clear. It was a fine night for a walk. Not that the weather made much difference to him. He needed the fixed mark of Hazeldean’s and the only way for him to get there and back was on foot. He’d never driven and he couldn’t afford taxis. Gabriel stood in the Kirkgate, gazing up at the stars, trying to quiet the cacophony in his head. Saw Chit and Myanmar was bad enough, never mind the other thing. That business that had come at him out of nowhere and set everything in his world spinning like the plates in a circus show. All he thought he knew had been called into question. If the answers he found were the wrong ones, it could go very badly for him, and that was a terrifying thought.
He remembered once seeing a machine that tumbled dull rocks till they became polished gemstones. The inside of his head felt like that tonight. Lots of jumbled thoughts banging into each other, confused and indistinguishable one from the other. He knew from past experience that the walk wouldn’t turn those thoughts into sense. But perhaps sleep might help. Sometimes it did.
As long as his thoughts didn’t spiral out of control between here and home.
3
She walked. Whenever sleep slipped from her grasp, she walked. It occurred to her that her life had come to resemble the first draft of an advertising script for Guinness or Stella Artois. ‘She walks. That’s what she does.’ Except that there was no brightly lit pub full of cheery faces waiting to greet her at the end of her wanderings.
Often at the end of the day, she knew there was no point in stripping to the skin and sliding between cool sheets. She would only lie stiff as a corpse, thoughts of murder running in her head, frantic hamsters on a wheel.
Sometimes, if she was tired enough, sleep would creep up on her and pin her to the bed like a wrestler faster and stronger than she was. But it never lasted long. As soon as exhaustion relaxed its hold on her, she’d surface again, eyes gritty and swollen, mouth dry and tasting of death.
And so she would walk. Along the breakwater, tall apartment blocks to her left, the choppy waters of the Firth of Forth on her right, the night breeze filling her nostrils with salt and seaweed. Then she’d turn inland, past the twenty-four-hour Asda and across the main drag into the old village of Newhaven. She’d pick random routes through the huddled streets of fishermen’s cottages, then work her way inland and upwards, always trying to choose streets and alleys and quiet back lanes that she’d never entered before.
That was part of the point. She had chosen to move to Edinburgh precisely because it was unfamiliar. She’d grown up a mere forty-minute train journey away, but the capital had always been exotic. The big city. The place for a special day out. She’d only been familiar with the main streets of the centre until work had started to bring her here from time to time, opening up small windows on disconnected corners. But still, Edinburgh was not a place laden with memories to ambush her in the way that her home town was. Deciding to live here had felt like a project. Learning the city one street at a time might take her mind off the grief and the pain.
So far, she couldn’t claim it had worked. She was slowly beginning to understand that there were some feelings nothing could assuage. Nothing except, possibly, the passage of time. Whether that would work, she couldn’t tell. It was too soon.
And so she walked. She wasn’t the only person out and about in the small hours of an Edinburgh night but most of them were cocooned in cars or night buses. She’d developed a surprising fondness for the night buses. Often she was a long way from home when tiredness finally claimed her. But she’d discovered the impressive bus app for the city. However obscure her location, it plotted a route home for her and, in spite of her initial apprehension, she’d found a rich seam of humanity huddled on the buses. Yes, there were the obnoxious jakies reeking of cheap booze, the zoned-out junkies with blank eyes, but they were outnumbered by others seeking a little late-night camaraderie on their journey. The homeless looking for a bit of light and warmth. The cleaners finishing late or starting early. The shift workers, sleepy-eyed on minimum wage or less. Different accents and tongues that made her feel as if she’d travelled a lot further from the Western Harbour Breakwater than she actually had.
That night, she was plotting a zigzag course along the edge of Leith when she came across the start of the Restalrig Railway Path. She’d encountered the far end of it once before, when she’d found herself down by the shore in Portobello. The disused railway line had been tarmacked over and turned into an off-road route for cyclists and walkers to cut across the city. Street lamps stretched into the distance, giving a sense of safety to what would otherwise have been a dark and uninviting cutting sliced through some of the poorer areas of the city. She decided to give it a try. Worst-case scenario was that she’d end up in the middle of the night in Porty, reliant on the night buses once again.
She set off, thinking about the hidden ways that snaked through the city. Edinburgh had more than its fair share, from those streets in the Old Town that had simply been buried beneath new rows of houses, to the closes and stairways and ginnels that made a honeycomb of the Old Town. Here, there was no clue to what the path had once been except steep banks of untended undergrowth and the occasional straggly tree trying to make something of itself in unpromising circumstances. Every now and then, a heavy iron bridge crossed the path, carrying a road metres above her head. The stone walls supporting the bridges were covered in graffiti tags, their bright colours muted in the low-level lighting. Not exactly art, Karen thought, but better than nothing.
She rounded a curve and was surprised by the glow of some kind of fire underneath the next bridge. She slowed, taking in what lay ahead of her. A knot of men huddled round low tongues of flame. Overcoats and beanie hats, heavy jackets and caps with earflaps, shoulders hunched against the night. As she drew nearer, she realised the centre of their attention was what looked like a garden incinerator fuelled by scrap wood. And what she’d taken for beanies were actually kufi prayer hats.
It didn’t occur to her to be nervous of half a dozen men of Middle Eastern appearance gathered round a makeshift fire in the middle of the night. Not in the way she would have been if it had been a bunch of drunks or teens off their heads on glue or drugs. She wasn’t heedless of risk, but she had a good estimation of the air of confidence and competence she exuded. Besides, she reckoned she was pretty good at telling the difference between ‘unusual’ and ‘threatening’. She still held fast to that conviction, in spite of the unlikely event that had robbed her life of its meaning.
As she approached, one of the men spotted her and nudged his neighbour. The word went round the group and the low mutter of conversation ceased. By the time she’d broached the loose circle around the flames, they’d fallen silent, a ring of expressionless faces and blank brown eyes fixed on her. She held her hands out to warm them – who could begrudge her that in the chill of night? – and gave them a nod of acknowledgement.
They stood around in an awkward grouping, nonplussed men and a woman who could afford to be relaxed because she believed she had nothing left to lose. Nobody spoke, and after a few minutes, she nodded again and went on her way without a backward glance. Only another oddity to chalk up to her nocturnal ramblings.
She was beginning to feel that sleep might be a possibility, so she cut down Henderson Street, past the Banana Flats where occasional lights gleamed, down to
wards the wide mouth of the Water of Leith. Not far to go now. Then she would fall into bed, maybe not even bothering to undress. At last, she’d lose consciousness for a few hours. Enough to keep her functioning.
And tomorrow morning, Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, head of Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit, would be ready to deal with whatever crossed her desk. Hell mend anyone who suggested otherwise.
4
Roland Brown always left his house in Scotlandwell in plenty of time to cycle the six miles to his office in Kinross. Truth to tell, he set off ridiculously early because that way he could escape the hell that was breakfast with his three children. Other people’s kids seemed to be able to rub along pretty well, but his daughter and two sons existed in a state of constant warfare that had only intensified now the teenage hormones were starting to kick in. It started as soon as their eyes opened in the morning and carried on relentlessly till bedtime. Which was another source of perpetual battles. He’d recently come to the conclusion that although he loved his children – at least, he supposed he did – he really didn’t like them. It was a realisation he could share with nobody except the birds and the wildlife on his way to and from work.
Unlike humans, they wouldn’t judge him.
So he’d hammer along the Loch Leven trail, muttering his current annoyance as he pedalled, ridding himself of his rage with every downward thrust of his legs. By the time he reached the office, he was calm, unflustered and ready to settle down to his clients’ VAT returns and tax problems.
At that time of the morning, it was a peaceful ride. Unless it was raining or snowing, there would be a scattering of dog walkers who would raise a hand or nod their heads in greeting as he hurtled past. In the summer, he’d occasionally encounter cyclists on touring trips. But generally, it was just him and the things he knew he should never say to his ungrateful, ill-mannered, self-absorbed children. People spoke about blaming the parents, but Roland refused to accept that he and his wife had been particularly catastrophic in their child-rearing. Some people were born twisted.
He rounded a long curve, the loch on his left, the early morning sun hitting his shoulder as he emerged from a clump of trees. Ahead he could see a clearing with a bench that took advantage of the view up the loch towards the Lomond hills. A figure was hunched on the wooden seat. Roland had never seen anybody sitting there before, and it was a surprise to see someone sitting down on what was a cold spring morning with a real nip in the air. There would be dew on that bench, no doubt about it.
As he drew nearer, he could see the man wasn’t so much hunched as slumped. Had he taken ill? Was that why he’d gone to sit down? Did he need help?
For a split second, Roland considered ignoring the man and pretending to himself there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. But he was a decent man at heart, so he slowed to a halt and wheeled his expensive mountain bike across the grass. ‘Are you all right, pal?’ he called as he approached.
No reply. Now he could see that the man’s head was at an odd angle and he seemed to have something brown and sticky matting his hair. Roland drew nearer, his brain refusing to process what he was seeing. And then it was impossible to ignore and all at once Roland’s bike was on the grass. Vomit sprayed the ground at his feet as he realised the man on the bench was never going to be all right again.
5
Nine o’clock and Karen was in the poky office at the back of the Gayfield Square station that housed the Historic Cases Unit. They were squeezed into the furthest corner, as if the high command wanted them out of sight and out of mind. Except when they cracked a major case, of course. Then Karen was dragged out of her remote cubbyhole and paraded in front of the media. It made her feel like a prize pig at an agricultural show. However, they were generally ignored for the rest of the time, which suited Karen. Nobody was looking over her shoulder, checking out what she was up to when she hunched in front of her computer screen, blowing on a flat white to cool it enough to drink.
First task of the day was to check her email, to see whether any of her pending cases had inched forward thanks to the forensic scientists who routinely re-examined evidence from old unsolved cases. Their results were often what set a fresh investigation in motion. Without a solid piece of new evidence, there was nowhere for Karen to go.
She was still skimming her mailbox when the door slowly opened to reveal the other half of the cold case team, precariously balancing a paper plate supporting two bacon rolls on top of a large cardboard cup. Detective Constable Jason ‘the Mint’ Murray was as dexterous as he was quick on the uptake, which made Karen fear for the fate of his breakfast.
‘Morning,’ he grunted, miraculously negotiating his arrival without spillage. ‘I brought you a bacon roll.’
The gesture touched Karen more than it warranted. Jason seldom thought beyond his own needs, which was fine with Karen. She didn’t need a daily reminder of what she’d lost. ‘Thanks,’ she said, conscious of sounding less than grateful.
‘Any news?’ Jason took one of the rolls and handed Karen the plate. He yawned as he dropped into his chair. ‘Late one last night.’
‘Where were you?’ Karen really didn’t care. But she knew the value of small gestures when it came to cementing team loyalty. Even if they were only a team of two.
‘I went through to Kirkcaldy for my cousin’s birthday. We ended up on tequila shots in somebody’s kitchen. That’s the last thing I remember.’
‘I hope you got the train in this morning,’ Karen said sententiously.
‘Och, I feel fine. I’m a polis, nobody’s going to do me on a morning after.’
‘Not the point, Jason.’ Before she could deliver a lecture, her mobile rang. ‘DCI Pirie, Historic Cases Unit.’
The voice at the other end had the unmistakable vowels of Dundee. ‘Aye, this is Sergeant Torrance from Tayside. Traffic Division.’ He stopped abruptly, as if he’d given her enough information to be going on with.
‘Hello, Sergeant. How can I help you?’
‘Well, I think it might be me that can help you.’
More silence. Clearly she was going to have to work at extracting information from Sergeant Torrance. ‘An offer of help always gets my day off to a good start. What is it you think you’ve got?’
‘You maybe saw on the news we had a bad crash at the weekend?’
‘Sorry, that one passed me by. What happened?’
‘Ach, a stupid boy showing off to his pals, more than likely. They lifted a Land Rover Defender and somersaulted it over a roundabout on the Perth road in the wee small hours. All three passengers smashed to bits, dead on arrival at Ninewells.’
Karen sucked her breath over her teeth in an expression of sympathy. She’d seen enough road accidents in her time to know the level of carnage they could produce. ‘That’d piss on your chips and no mistake.’
‘Aye. One of the officers attending, it was his first fatal RTA. I doubt he’ll get much sleep for a wee while. Anyway. The thing is, the driver’s still alive. He’s in a coma, like, but he’s hanging in there.’
Karen made an encouraging noise. ‘And you took a sample to check his blood alcohol.’
‘Correct. Which was, by the way, five times over the limit.’
‘Ouch. And I’m presuming you got the lab to run DNA?’
‘Well, it’s routine now.’ Sergeant Torrance didn’t sound like a man who thought that was a good use of Police Scotland’s budget.
‘I’m guessing that’s why you’re calling me?’
‘Aye. We got a hit on the DNA database. I don’t pretend to understand these things, but it wasn’t a direct hit. Well, it couldn’t have been, because it ties in with a twenty-year-old murder and this laddie’s only seventeen.’ The rustle of paper. ‘Apparently it’s what they call a familial hit. Whoever left his semen all over a rape murder victim in Glasgow twenty years ago was a close male relative of
a wee Dundee gobshite called Ross Garvie.’
The adrenaline rush of reopening a cold case never faded for Karen. The rest of her life might have gone to hell in a handcart, but excavating the past for its secrets still exerted its familiar pull on her. Yesterday she’d never heard of Tina McDonald. Today, the dead hairdresser was front and centre in Karen’s consciousness.
After she’d finished extracting all the information she could from Sergeant Torrance, Karen called the Mint over to her desk. ‘We’ve got a familial DNA hit on an open unsolved rape murder,’ she said, her fingers battering the keyboard as she googled the victim. She skimmed the thin results of her search, leaving it for later. There were more important things to set in motion.
Jason slumped into the chair opposite. In spite of his posture, his expression was alert. ‘I’ll not bother taking my jacket off, then.’
Both halves of the suit might have looked better if he’d taken it off before he went to sleep in it, Karen thought. ‘Tina McDonald. A hairdresser from Partick. Raped and strangled in Glasgow city centre on May seventeenth, 1996. A Friday night. Twenty-four when she died. You know the drill.’
Jason crammed the last chunk of his bacon roll into his mouth and nodded, chewing vigorously then swallowing hard. ‘I’ve to go to the warehouse and pull the files and the physical evidence. Take the evidence to Gartcosh to have the DNA checked again, then bring the files back here.’ It was the first phase of every cold case resurrection. He recited it like the mantra it had become for him.
‘Away you go, then. If you’re lucky with the traffic, you’ll be back by lunchtime and we can get stuck in this afternoon.’ Karen returned to the screen, flinching as Jason’s chair legs screeched on the tiled floor. These days, all her nerve endings seemed to be closer to the surface.
