Whisky from Small Glasses

by Denzil Meyrick

  The theme tune from The Sopranos jolted him from thoughts of sartorial insecurity to an equally perplexing subject: his wife Liz. She called infrequently when he was at work and he had become used to these calls containing at least a modicum of bad or unwelcome news.

  ‘Hi, Liz. Everything OK?’ He always sounded so lame when he had to speak to her unexpectedly. He felt an involuntary frisson of excitement at the sound of the well-spoken, smoky tones.

  ‘Oh, hi, darling. That was quick. Is it OK to talk?’

  ‘Yeah, no bother. I’m actually . . .’

  She gave him no time to finish. ‘Great. Just to let you know, Jill wants me to go up to the caravan at Granton for a few days. Anyway, I thought, the weather’s nice, and it’s not as though we’ll be doing anything, so I’m leaving in a couple of hours.’

  Daley was used to being presented with a fait accompli. He marvelled at the effortless way Liz, again, managed to impart her intention to do as she pleased, while at the same time make him feel as though he was in some way responsible. He attempted a rear-guard action. ‘I’ll be home about five. We could go to the wee pub for a couple of drinks, or get a curry or something – make a night of it. You could go up to Jill’s in the morning.’

  Liz’s reply was as predictable as it was swift. ‘Oh, what a pity you didn’t mention it before. She’s invited me to dinner tonight as well. Mark has some boring guest to entertain. I’ve already said I would go. Sorry, darling.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ was all he could muster. He guessed it was true what people said: once a partner had been unfaithful, it was really difficult to regain the trust that was so important in any relationship. And Liz had been spectacularly unfaithful. The first incident – that he knew of – had been with her gym instructor. Sent home early by the force’s medical officer after taking a baseball bat across the head during a drug raid, he thought he heard noises as he gained the stairs of their new detached home in the village of Howwood. The vision of Liz on hands and knees on their bed while her paramour worked energetically behind her was seared onto his memory. Suffering from a hair-trigger temper as well as an acute headache, Daley proceeded to render the third party insensible with a swift uppercut, dragged him by the hair onto the small balcony, and despatched him neatly over the railing and into the garden below.

  The sight of a naked man struggling to stand up, with what looked alarmingly like a broken leg, accompanied by the shrieks of an obviously frantic woman, constituted more than enough reason for the good people of Howwood to call the police. Eventually, after much pulling of strings and dire warnings regarding the diminishment of his prospects, a deal was done behind the scenes, and Daley – forced to attend anger management classes – was left to resurrect, as best he could, the remnants of his career. Having reached Detective Inspector in his mid thirties, Jim Daley could reasonably have hoped for Superintendent or beyond before retirement. This was now most unlikely. As for Liz, she had vowed undying love for him and tearfully cited boredom and loneliness as an excuse for her behaviour. Although Daley realised he was wrong, his almost cloying love for her saw him take the only action that seemed palatable: forgiveness. Since then, even when close friends and colleagues alerted him to likely dalliances, he chose to ignore them, having neither the strength nor will to do the sensible thing and leave her. Though he would never let her know, he was head over heels in love with her, and, even though he barely believed it himself, was prepared to accede to almost anything in order to keep their relationship afloat.

  She said and did all the right things: she showed great interest in him, they made passionate love, declared satisfied happiness, promised unerring loyalty, but all to no avail. Now that trust was absent, only the slavery of obsession remained. Daley was forced to endure the nods and winks of colleagues; the police of course being a small community where gossip was rife. Had Liz been less attractive her indiscretions would probably have gone unnoticed, however, such were the rumours of her wanton nature, every male colleague now reckoned that they had a chance with her.

  ‘Anyway, you know what the traffic’s like in the morning.’ Liz pronounced ‘morning’ with that annoying intonation that had crept into everyday usage from Australian sitcoms, as though the knowledge or concept of the morning was something entirely alien to the listener.

  The habit annoyed Daley, who hardened his reply. ‘Yeah, whatever you think, Liz. When will you be back?’

  ‘Oh, you know me, darling – go with the flow.’ He did. ‘Anyway, better dash. I’ve left one of those microwave curries out for you. Ring you later. Love you.’ The term of affection was an obvious afterthought.

  Daley stood with the handset to his ear for a few moments. So little said, so much left unsaid: it summed up their marriage. He walked back to the car park, made a mental note to get his car washed, then drove to the station.

  Jim returned to his office by way of the coffee machine. On reaching the second floor and his shared office he could hear his DS swearing volubly at his computer. ‘You know, I’m buggered how they think that getting us tae dae all this typing ourselves is cost effective.’ DS Brian Scott was more agitated than normal, which was, indeed, saying something. ‘When I joined up you just had tae scribble something doon and wait for some daft wee lassie in the typing pool tae dae the business. Noo, well, I’ll tell ye, Paisley’s goin’ like a fair, while I’m up here learnin’ tae be a fuckin’ secretary.’

  ‘Ah, DS Scott.’ Daley aped the clipped Kelvinside tones of their boss. ‘It’s incumbent upon us all to integrate with new policing methods.’ He grinned at Scott’s exasperation.

  ‘Aye, and fuck him tae. It’s getting tae be ye need a degree in this shit jist tae dae yer ain job.’ Scott was smiling in spite of himself. An IT specialist he most certainly was not; a highly effective, sometimes inspired police officer he most certainly was. His brusque manner and tendency to ignore the rulebook had hampered his progress through the ranks, and he would no doubt end his career as a DS. Daley felt that it was a role tailor made for his gritty determination, and he valued his assistance more than he would ever admit. Simply, they made a good team.

  Daley walked to his large paper-strewn desk. A yellow Post-it note placed on top of a mountain of files announced Numpty wants to see you! in Scott’s bold, untidy hand.

  ‘When did his magnificence call?’ Daley enquired, looking up just in time to see Scott’s computer screen turn a brilliant blue.

  ‘Oh, just after you left. He’s in a right stooshie aboot somethin’. He didna even pull me up aboot whit a coup this place is.’ He swung his chair around to face Daley, left hand outstretched in a gesture of disbelief at his computer screen. ‘I mean, whit the fuck is this a’ aboot?’

  Draining his coffee, Daley went over to Scott’s desk, where he deftly pressed a few keys on the computer, restoring it to the report on which the DS was working. ‘Just how many computer courses have you been on? It must be dozens now.’

  Scott’s face took on a look of rueful resignation, ‘Aye, a few, but you’ve got tae remember, Jim, every time I get a chance tae go up tae the college it’s mair like a break from my dear lady wife. That’s a great wee bar they’ve got there, an’, well, by the time ye’ve sobered up in the morning, ye’ve well an’ truly lost the thread aboot whit the fuck they’re on aboot.’

  Daley chuckled to himself as he took the lift to the top floor of the building. As the elevator doors swished open he marvelled, not for the first time, at the steep upward curve in the standard of opulence in this portion of the station. Gone was the bare functionality of the other three floors, to be replaced by dark wood panelling, tasteful paintings, picked out by soft lighting and thick carpeting punctuated by tall verdant pot plants. Even the civilian staff were of a more aesthetically pleasing variety; a woman in a tight-fitting skirt wiggled past him in a cloud of expensive perfume that reminded him of Liz.

  Behind the closed door the sound of a giggling female was plain. The nameplate read simply: SUPERINTENDENT
JOHN DONALD. COMMANDER DIV. CID. Daley knocked loudly three times. After a few moments of mumbled voices, the familiar ‘Come’ served as an invitation for Daley to enter. He opened the door and stepped inside, straight-backed and confident.

  Donald was sitting behind an unfeasibly large desk that made the rest of the office seem shrunken. An attractive woman stood over him clutching a file, looking intently on as the superintendent busily appended his signature to a document.

  ‘Ah, Jim.’ Donald’s eyes flitted towards him then back to his papers. He gestured airily with his left hand. ‘Make yourself comfortable while I satisfy the rapacious appetite for my time this young lady seems to harbour.’

  Same old, same old. Jim was used to his boss’s eccentricities; at times it felt as though he had worked for this man for his entire career. As a young probationary cop Donald had been Daley’s shift sergeant. On his first posting to Paisley CID, as a raw DC, Donald was his DS. Not long after Daley’s promotion to DS in A-Division in Glasgow, Donald arrived as the all-powerful DCI. They were once described as star-crossed. He wished they weren’t.

  The man who sat in front of him now bore hardly any resemblance to the foul-mouthed, overweight philistine of what seemed like a very long time ago. Steadily Donald had ironed out all his imperfections. He stopped drinking, took up running, golf and squash, and consequently lost piles of weight. He spent a great deal of time abroad or under a sunbed, ensuring that his permanent tan was just that. Even his hair had undergone a transformation: gone were the thick black curls cut close to the scalp; now thinning, his gelled coiffure made him look like a hackneyed version of an East End gangster.

  His manner had changed accordingly: the harsh accent of Glasgow’s East End was now modulated to the clipped tones of middle-class Bearsden, taking him much further socially than it had in geographic reality. His notorious temper was kept in check by sycophancy to superiors or aloof arrogance to those of a lesser rank. Yet Daley had never been in any doubt as to how thin this façade was; Donald was as notorious for his self-seeking ruthlessness as he was respected for being a mediocre police officer who had transformed himself into a truly talented administrator and political mover. The letters BA, LLB after his name bore testament to the hard work and determination it had taken to climb from the mire of a piss-poor childhood to his current middle-class comfort.

  Donald signed the document with a flourish, then flamboyantly waved the paper in the air to dry the fountain-pen ink he had used. ‘Now, Di, don’t be frightened to bring in as many papers for me to sign as you want. My door is always open, you know.’ He leered at the young woman who nodded dutifully then left the room. ‘Now, Jim, sorry about that. Breaking in a new girl, so to speak. One long round of paperwork in here. Now where did I put that . . . Ah, here it is.’ He lifted a black file from the desk and removed what looked like a number of printed emails. ‘Bit of bother in our new dominions. Kinloch, to be exact. There’s no point me blustering on, scan these and we’ll get on wi’ it.’

  Daley noticed how the polished edge of his accent tarnished slightly once the secretary had gone. For many, this would have appeared to be an acknowledgement of their shared past; to Daley it was more an indication of how far down he was in the pecking order. Donald obviously felt there was little point in turning on the charm for his senior DI. He opened the file and began to browse its contents. After a few minutes he looked up from the papers and cleared his throat to divert Donald’s attention from the copy of Perfect Home his superior was avidly consuming.

  ‘Oh, right, Jim. So, there you have it. Bit of a crisis down there in terms of manpower, and experience too. The subdivision is run by a teuchter called Charles MacLeod, a right little shit and the very worst kind of social climber. They have a DS who’s no more use than an ornament, and a few eager young DCs. Do you remember Davie Fraser from A-Division? His nephew Archie’s there.’

  ‘If he’s anything like his uncle, the pubs will be doing a fine trade.’ Daley had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Strathclyde Police had undergone yet another phase of reorganisation in an attempt to save money. His division had been amalgamated with what had been the old Argyll Constabulary, meaning that Paisley HQ was now responsible for parts of the west coast of Scotland that few could pronounce, never mind find on a map.

  ‘Quite so, Jim, quite so. Poor man. I think his liver is on the way out. Never met a man who loved a drink more.’ Donald looked rueful. ‘Anyway, I’m reliably informed his nephew is cut from entirely different cloth.’

  Daley hoped so. His experience of Davie Fraser was having to follow him from bar to bar when he was a young cop, watching the man who was supposed to be showing him the ropes steadily becoming more inebriated and objectionable by turns.

  ‘Do you mind me asking what this has to do with me?’ He knew what the answer was going to be, but being direct would mean Donald would be unable to dollop his usual helping of sugar onto an unpalatable request.

  ‘Straight to the point, Inspector Daley. That’s what I like to hear.’

  Daley had the impression that Donald was a bit disappointed, and would rather have had the chance to dish out his usual jargon on ‘duty’ and ‘chances for advancement’, the normal precursor to a shit job. ‘I need someone there with a bit of experience, to get this solved quickly and prove to those yokels that our way is the best way. Fuck knows, we’ll have to get them to toe the line somehow, and this affords us the perfect opportunity.’

  ‘So you want me down there, sir?’ Daley moved the conversation away from a lecture on the difference in policing methods between city and county divisions.

  ‘Yes, Jim. In fact, I’d like you down there first thing tomorrow morning. The body is on the way to the mortuary in Glasgow. That prick Crichton will do the necessary this evening at about seven, and I’d like you to be there.’

  Daley paused momentarily to take this in. He was being sent to a far outpost of the empire to investigate a murder that could take forever, while the wayward Liz was at the other end of the country doing, well, he dreaded to think. ‘I see, sir. What about personnel?’ was all he could think of to say.

  ‘I have you booked on the first flight in the morning. You will of course be much better informed after the PM. Take a look on the ground yourself, then we’ll decide who we can spare to send down there with you. Take that file, and I’ll send anything else we’ve got downstairs. No doubt we can spare Tweedledum and a few other bodies should the situation require it.’ Donald had what could best be described as a strained relationship with DS Scott.

  Daley’s mind returned to what he had read in the emails: a young woman, ligature, body dumped at sea, and a locus distant from usual amenities. This was not going to be an easy inquiry. ‘Have the Support Unit been informed yet, sir?’ He was referring to the group of elite Strathclyde officers who specialised in various disciplines now required of a modern police force: firearms, dog branch, crowd control, underwater unit and so on. Daley reckoned the underwater unit would be handy bearing in mind the circumstances of the death.

  ‘Not as yet, Jim. I think it wise to wait until we have some kind of result from the PM, no matter how preliminary. Of course, you realise, in terms of expenditure this is going to be a killer. We’ve already had a full SOCO team down there. The burden of expense falls to us, the investigating department. I hope you’ll bear that in mind when you’re on the ground?’

  ‘As you know, sir, cost is always at the forefront of my mind during every inquiry.’ Daley smiled, knowing his boss was well aware of his attitude to the bean counters many senior officers had been forced to become.

  ‘Luckily,’ said Donald, choosing to ignore the irony of the last statement, ‘because this is new territory, so to speak, we are able to introduce a degree of flexibility into our spend. However, Jim, the pot is by no means bottomless. Please take that on board.’

  Daley was about to make some sarcastic reply, when Donald continued on an entirely different subject without the need for
an intake of breath. He, it seemed, had developed all the skills of the politician. ‘And how is Liz? Everything back to normal in that department?’

  Daley bridled as a leer crossed Donald’s face. Only a few weeks had passed since Liz had flirted outrageously with the superintendent at a retirement party. The couple had rowed late into the night when they returned home, with Liz claiming that she was only trying to advance his career with a little ‘networking’ – yet another modern term he couldn’t stand. Anyway, Donald’s body language had made it abundantly clear that ‘networking’ was the last thing on his mind. The ever loyal DS Scott had administered a left hook to a colleague who had insinuated that something illicit was afoot.

  ‘Mrs Donald and I really must have you for dinner.’

  Mrs Daley’s more likely to have you for breakfast, Daley thought, somewhat uncharitably.

  ‘Anyway, better get on, we both have plenty to do.’ The superintendent stood, hand outstretched. Daley shook it in acceptance of the dismissal. ‘Pick up your tickets from Kirsty next door – and don’t forget to keep me informed. Don’t take any shit off that little bastard MacLeod. Any trouble there and I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. Good hunting, Jim.’

  3

  It didn’t matter how long it had been since Daley’s last visit to Glasgow’s mortuary: it hadn’t been long enough. Part of the training of young police constables in years gone by had included at least one trip to this place to witness a post mortem. Around a dozen pale police officers would huddle around a bluff pathologist, as he hacked, cut, tore and drained, and generally showcased his talents in a way only the most strong of stomach could withstand. Daley had managed not to faint or to be sick, however, he had been in the minority. These incidents were so common that each muppet (as trainee cops were then affectionately known) would be given a paper bag and told to be ready to grab whoever was next to them, in the not unlikely event they passed out. The young PC who had stood next to Daley the first time was so traumatised that she left college that day, never to return.