A Taste of Ashes (DI Bob Valentine Book 2)

by Tony Black

  McCormack faced him over the car roof. ‘If we do have a hot-blooded and angry killer, then of course you’re right. They’ll likely be known to their victim, family or friend, and may not have a record with prints on file we can match. But what if it’s not?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘I mean, what if it’s a cold-blooded and calculated murder and the killer has form?’

  They got inside the car. ‘Very well, Sylvia, but you’ve forgotten one thing. The lab boys still need to find something else. And I’m not confident they will. The blade’s clean, it’s been in water for long enough to be even cleaner than when it was chucked away, the odds are well and truly against us.’

  22

  The A77 back to Ayr was quieter than usual, the occasional white van making itself conspicuous by speeding past the officers in their unmarked vehicle. Valentine knew there were some on the force who would pull over the offending driver – for their own entertainment more than anything – but the thought never appealed to him. Traffic offences were dealt with by an altogether different species from him, hardly police at all, merely civil servants who handed out fines and collected a wage for their bother. It wasn’t that he looked down on this branch of the force, a job was a job and they all had to be done, but his own undertakings couldn’t be compared. How could you weigh the loss of life, in brutal fashion, against a heavy foot on the accelerator pedal.

  The DI found his thoughts focusing on the disappointment of the Glasgow lab visit. He was being foolish, placing such high expectations on forensic evidence. His job wasn’t like the super cops on the television who find a speck of dust and everything was pieced together by men in white coats. It took solid police work, hard yards. No one was going to come and solve the murder for him, it was entirely his responsibility.

  Thinking of the murder, the violent incursion of a blade into the soft flesh of a living being brought home his own suffering. Not just the pain he felt but his family’s pain. His wife and daughters’ tears, his aged father’s fatigued and worn look he carried for months. The worry they all shared. The ultimate act of violence was murder but it didn’t stop with the corpse, its shockwaves echoed much farther afield.

  The schoolgirl and her mother were still missing. Where had they gone? Would there be more victims cropping up soon? The girl was only fifteen; who was looking out for her? Valentine worried less about the brother, or should that be worried about a completely different set of issues. Darry Millar was army, a survivor. He hadn’t deserted his regiment without cause – it was a huge step to take and the consequences were great. Darry was a worry to the DI not because he feared for his safety but because he feared for the safety of others; the thought of more victims piling up increased with each tick of the clock.

  ‘We’ve almost drawn another blank,’ said Valentine.

  ‘It’s still at an early stage, sir.’

  The officers avoided eye contact.

  McCormack continued. ‘What I mean is, the initial findings have been minimal and I know you’d normally look out for your best leads in the first day or two but it’s not like we haven’t made any progress.’

  ‘It’s going to be uphill from here, Sylvia, we both know that.’

  ‘We’ve little or no forensic, that’s true, but not every case is solved quickly.’

  Rain started to splatter on the windscreen, a grey smear was spreading from the Fenwick Moors. The DI turned on the wipers, they had little effect; he moved them up a notch. It was a grim picture, inside and out.

  ‘I worry about the Millar girl,’ he said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘She’s only fifteen, just a bairn really.’

  ‘She’s not that young, I remember what I was like at her age, lusting after Morten Harket.’

  ‘Lusting after what?’

  ‘Not what, who. He was in a band called A-ha.’

  ‘A-ha!’

  ‘Very funny. What I’m trying to say is, the image you have of girls Jade Millar’s age is probably heavily influenced by your daughters, little girls don’t stay little girls for very long.’

  Valentine took in the remark, let the words work on his mind. He didn’t want to relate his fears for his daughters to the case, he’d done that once before and suffered for it. ‘Do you remember what we went through on the Janie Cooper case?’

  ‘Jade’s not going to be another Janie – it’s a completely different set of factors. She’ll turn up.’

  ‘Are you basing that on anything or is it just your women’s intuition?’

  DS McCormack smacked the dash. ‘Just a wee bit sexist sounding, sir.’

  Valentine promptly agreed. ‘I’m teasing you, Sylvia. As you know, I’m not the most intuitive of folk. If I was I would be catching onto some of these hints your psychic pal Crosbie seems to think are flooding my way.’

  ‘Did the picture he gave you start ringing any bells?’

  ‘No, nothing. I meant to have another look before I left the house this morning but it passed me by.’

  ‘Where is the picture now?’

  ‘On the fridge. I stuck it there when I was grabbing a late tea.’

  ‘Clare will think you’ve started to get all arty on her.’

  Valentine laughed. ‘I doubt that very much. She knows me too well.’

  The rest of the journey passed in silence, except for the volume of rain pelting along the bypass. The DI played out possible scenarios for Jade Millar’s whereabouts, stacked up the odds of Darry’s involvement in shielding her from sight. Nothing was sitting right with the current situation, it was as if someone had cried murder and the household fled.

  On the way into King Street station Valentine began to speak again. ‘We need to go back to brass tacks, Sylvia.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘We have to draw up detailed profiles, call in known associates.’

  ‘You make them sound like criminals.’

  ‘Well one of them is.’ He held open the door for the DS.

  ‘Not necessarily, sir. We could be looking for someone outside the family unit, someone we’ve missed.’

  ‘True. But they’ll be attached in some way. I want a thorough profile on all the known players: Jade, Darry, Sandra and our victim, Tulloch, too. What do we know about him, apart from the fact that he was in the army?’

  ‘Not much, yet. The team’s focus has been on collating the available facts from the scene.’

  ‘We need to spread out our approach now, before things get away from us. Somebody knows something about this family and why Tulloch ended up on a mortuary slab and it’s time for us to start rattling a few cages.’

  ‘OK. I mean, you’re the boss.’

  At the foot of the stairs Valentine heard his name called.

  ‘Bob, you’re back to face the music, I see!’ It was Jim Prentice, still behind the front desk.

  The DI turned around. ‘What are you on about, Jimbo?’

  He leaned onto the desk, steadied himself on folded forearms. ‘Something up with your radio? And your phone as well?’

  ‘Have you been trying to get me?’

  ‘Oh, you could say that. Tried covering your arse for you as well but when Dino comes down here and stands over my shoulder whilst the dead signal comes back it gets a wee bit difficult.’

  Valentine directed Sylvia to the stairs. ‘I’ll gather the team, sir.’

  ‘Jim, can you spare me the histrionics, eh?’

  ‘Well I presume you never heard about the press conference that was crashed by Captain Mainwaring. Or should that be Major Mainwairing? Major bloody knob anyway.’

  ‘Rutherford showed up?’

  ‘Aye. That’s not the best of it, though.’ Jim unfolded his arms and raised himself before leaning closer to the DI as he approached. ‘Your missing woman, the one with the dead boyfriend, well she’s only gone and turned up … Just about put up a three ring circus in the high street!’

  23

  When DI Bob Valentine e
ntered the incident room it was as if the pause button had been pushed. Heads turned and frenetic pacing stopped, mid-stride. The lull in the room’s volume was less pronounced, but for a moment the street seemed to come closer, bringing with it the sounds of traffic and hard-hitting rain. Valentine stood in the doorway with the handle gripped tight in his fist, he had enough temper to slam the door shut, watch the dust bounce from above the skirting and see a few faces shriek but those days were gone. Giving into the whims of mood, in his condition, could be injurious to the already weakened muscle pounding inside his chest.

  He removed his coat, placed it on the coat stand and made for the whiteboard where some of the DCs had gathered. ‘Back to work,’ he yelled. ‘Unless someone’s found a genie with three wishes going begging, we still have a murder to solve by our own efforts.’

  DS Ally McAlister was the first to approach Valentine. ‘Think we need to have a bit of a chat, boss.’

  ‘Well let’s hope it goes better than every other one I’ve had this morning.’

  ‘Take it Jim’s been on the tom-toms?’

  ‘Waylaid on the doorstep, slavering like a cartoon dog with a string of sausages, so he was.’ Valentine pointed to the glassed-off office at the other end of the room. ‘Ally, Phil, Sylvia … in there when you’re ready.’

  In his office, Valentine was greeted by a fresh scattering of yellow Post-it notes. He grabbed one, stuck it on top of another, and repeated the process till he had formed a little monument to the morning’s messages. The note on top caught his attention: his father had called and wanted a return call.

  Valentine picked up the phone, dialled 0 for reception.

  ‘Hello, Jean, the message from my dad, was it urgent?’

  ‘Bob, hi, no I don’t think so. He’d tried your mobile but it was off … said something about a picture on the fridge you had left behind.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That was it. Said he didn’t want to call but curiosity had got the better of him.’

  ‘That or he’d already seen today’s rerun of Antiques Roadshow … I’ll give him a bell later. Thanks, Jean.’

  The rest of the notes followed a similar pattern. Missed calls to mobile. CS Martin had stacked up half a dozen of those on her own, each one with a pointer to the time of call which indicated she’d been keen enough to get hold of him that she’d rung every fifteen minutes for more than an hour. He was glad the calls seemed to have stopped, whatever her problem was he would need to give Dino time to cool off now before he did talk to her. A day or two would be ideal but he doubted that much time was available.

  The office door opened, in walked Donnelly and McAlister.

  ‘Where’s, Sylvia?’ said Valentine.

  The DSs looked at each other, Donnelly chimed first: ‘Lost your shadow, boss?’

  Donnelly averted his gaze to the floor. For a moment, McAlister was left grinning to no one but himself.

  ‘Is that supposed to be funny, Phil?’ said the DI.

  ‘Er, no. Well, just a gag, y’know.’ Phil was not known for his sense of humour, Ally was the joker.

  ‘I’d say stick to the police work, son, but I’m not sure that’s your forte either. Is there something you have to say to me?’

  Donnelly coughed on his words. ‘The press conference went a little worse than I was expecting, boss.’

  Valentine saw that the DS was nervous, he let the remark about McCormack go. ‘You were anticipating the worst when I left, Phil, are you telling me you exceeded your own expectations?’

  ‘It was the first press conference I’ve ever headed up.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re trying to lessen the blow – just tell me what happened.’

  ‘The army showed up.’

  ‘I’m assuming you don’t mean the SAS.’ Valentine shook his head.

  ‘No. Just Major Rutherford. But he was enough.’

  ‘Jim on the desk told me there’d been some kind of kerfuffle.’

  DS McAlister moved towards the seat by the printer. ‘Putting it mildly. We might have fared better if he’d actually abseiled through the windows with a squad of paratroopers.’

  It was just a press conference, one of a thousand that had been held at the station, so Valentine struggled to take in what his officers were relaying. ‘Oh, come on. There’s only so much can go wrong at one of these things, and most of it comes from the hacks.’

  Donnelly pulled out the other spare seat, sat. ‘It might not have been so bad if the chief super hadn’t got right behind him. She actually came along and told us he was to take the lead …’

  Valentine erupted, ‘What? Are you bloody kidding me? Since when was this an army investigation?’

  DS McCormack joined the group. ‘Sorry, I was on a call. What have I missed?’

  Valentine’s bulging eyes, rimmed with red vessels, sent a stronger message than words.

  ‘Or maybe I shouldn’t ask?’ said McCormack.

  Ally retraced the main points of the conversation, added in the fact that Major Rutherford had asked that the Fusiliers be kept out of the picture for the moment and CS Martin had agreed.

  ‘So we’re supposed to just keep Darren Millar’s involvement hush-hush?’ said McCormack. ‘That won’t be easy for long.’

  ‘He’s someone we’re seeking to assist with our enquiries,’ said Phil. He’d loosened off his tie and now he removed it. ‘It’s bloody humiliating, not to mention the fact that our hands are tied as far as the investigation goes.’

  Valentine got up, pushed out his chair, moved from behind his desk. ‘That’ll be bloody right.’ He pointed at Donnelly and McAlister. ‘I want the pair of you out at Glencourse Barracks tonight. I want the full SP on Darren Millar, if he wet his bed once, I want to know. I want his every move cross-referenced with James Tulloch’s and what kind of relationship they had, if any, in this regiment. And if Major Rutherford or Dino doesn’t like that then they can take it up with the Home Secretary. Go, now!’

  DS McCormack spoke: ‘And what about me, sir?’

  ‘You’re staying here for the minute.’ He checked Donnelly and McAlister for a reaction, continued: ‘You and I are heading out to the hospital again, Ayr this time, to see what sort of sense we can get out of Darry’s mother.’

  ‘Sandra Millar turned up?’

  ‘You could say that. More like thrust herself under the front wheel of a Suzuki scrambler some teenage lunatic was taking for a spin down the High Street.’

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘No, Sylvia, she’s unconscious. But when that changes, she’s going to have quite a few bloody questions to answer.’

  24

  Valentine grabbed his pinstripe jacket from the back of his chair and headed out after the DSs. He had toyed with the idea of ripping off his tie and wearing it round his head, Rambo-style, but selected the saner option of straightening the knot and fastening his shirt button. There was nothing to be gained from confronting Dino and Rutherford with hot blood, that would only give away his true feelings about this morning’s goings-on and he wanted to build his case slowly. The DI knew his own defenestration was likely, he’d been exasperating the chief super for too long now, switching off the radio and his mobile phone was a step too far. She was prickly, thin-skinned was a phrase her enemies were fond of, and in anger she would side with anyone to get her own way; it was an extension of the old your enemy is my enemy rule. Of course, knowing any of this made no difference to the situation, it was impossible to gain an advantage on a person like Martin whose sole reason for being was to gain advantage over others. Even the thought of going to war with her exhausted the detective.

  In the hallway Valentine went over his thoughts. His pulse was returning to normal now and the bitter taste he carried in his mouth had disappeared. If he could only hold his lip in check, his desire to speak his mind, then he might survive the encounter. He took a shallow breath and knocked on CS Martin’s door. Nothing. Normally, there would be a curt call of ‘come’ or the
sound of hard heels clicking across a harder floor before the door was yanked open, but this time his knocks were greeted with silence.

  He knocked again. Harder this time.

  Laughter, the sound of convivial voices.

  ‘Sounds like a bloody cocktail party in there,’ said Valentine to the empty hall; he was very much on the outside.

  Another knock. And a resolve to open the door himself if he was ignored again.

  The sweet tones from beyond the door came closer for a moment, then spilled out.

  ‘Oh, hello, Bob,’ said CS Martin, her relaxed demeanour was so unfamiliar to him that Valentine suspected he had the wrong door.

  He peered over her shoulder. ‘If it’s not a good time, I can try later.’

  A firm hand clutched his forearm, grabbed him into the office. ‘No, now’s fine. After all, we’ve been chasing you all morning, and a wee bit of the afternoon too.’ Her smile hid the harsher truth of those words.

  ‘I’m sorry, did I mention my murder investigation?’ As he walked in Valentine spotted a highly polished brogue dangling from the end of a trouser leg that his late mother would have said held a crease that could cut butter.

  ‘You won’t have met Tom, will you?’ said Martin.

  ‘I think we spoke earlier.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘On the phone.’

  The brogue flashed into fuller view, was met by another at the heel. ‘That must have been before you went off the radar, Inspector.’ He thrust out a hand, awaited a shake. ‘Tom Rutherford.’

  Valentine met the hand in front of him. ‘Well, I wasn’t entirely AWOL, Tom … unlike Darren Millar.’

  The chief super motioned the men to sit down, returned to her side of the desk and laced fingers, topped with pointed red nails, over the blotter.

  As Valentine sat he tried to gauge the room’s mood but the temperature seemed to have shifted already. He’d interrupted a convivial gathering of like-minded careerists who were hopeful of a productive networking opportunity, but had just been forced to switch off the mutual appreciation. As he crossed his legs Valentine became crudely aware of the last encounter his shoes had had with polish.