by Lynne McEwan
He remembered the look she’d given him when he’d taken her warrant card. She wasn’t going to let this go. There would be scrutiny. He’d stop her in the end, everyone has weaknesses and he’d found Shona’s. Was that enough? Things might come out along the way, things neither he nor, God forbid, Nicola would want made public. But he got results, that was the bottom line. That’s what kept him moving upwards. He could fix this.
Baird ignored his police-issue mobile on the desk, went to his jacket and pulled out his personal phone, his ‘secret shagging phone’ as Nicola called it. As if he’d time for an affair. Her little joke. His obsession, his love for Nicola was both his strength and his greatest weakness. Did she have secrets from him? He didn’t doubt it.
He called a dozen more times, all straight to voicemail. What would he say when they finally picked up? He had an alien sensation lodged in the pit of his stomach. It took him a while to identify, it was so long since he’d felt it. Fear, plain and simple. If he wasn’t careful everything he’d achieved would come tumbling down, pulled apart by some wee woman sat in some arse-end town in the borders. Damage limitation was called for. He dialled. This time there was an answer.
‘Listen, I’ve sorted that problem in the south,’ Baird said to the gruff greeting at the other end of the line, ‘but you need to keep things calm for a bit.’
‘Too late for that, Gavie-boy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Had your go at fixing it. It’s my neck on the line. You want a job done properly, do it yourself, it’s what the Big Man says.’
‘You got us into this mess. Now you listen to me…’ Baird was used to respect. The top brass, inspectors, sergeants, tough coppers with years of experience, hung on his words.
‘Or what?’ the voice challenged, and Baird knew where the fear he felt came from. It came from the feeling of powerlessness. You can’t reason with a mad dog. There’s only one way you teach it respect. Be quicker, scarier and have a bigger bite. Baird knew the day had arrived when he’d have to shrug off his fine suits and go back to the sticky end. He’d been too soft, he looked weak. Well, that was soon fixed. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He remembered his father, a peaceable man, back in their pit village, slugging it out with another miner who’d goaded him once too often. The blood mixed with sweat and coal dust, streaks of red and black across the sun-starved flesh of his muscled arms. Eventually his father had lost patience with the mouthy upstart and felled him with a single punch, the man hitting the ground like a dislodged pit timber.
‘My turn now, Gavie-boy,’ the voice said, hauling him back to the present.
‘Listen to me, you sick bastard,’ Baird growled, but no one was listening. He heard the click and empty buzz of silence on the line. He threw down the phone, hauling his jacket from the back of his chair. He fumbled his car keys, ran down to the car park and sped from the station, heading for south.
Chapter 32
Shona expected a photo album. Tea and tears. She felt an obligation to stay, it would be a kindness. But the truth was she had nowhere else to go. Another DI would already be sitting at her desk in the CID office. If she went home, the guests would be out and she’d have to face Rob. Becca would still be in bed. Shona wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news of her suspension or Rob’s insurmountable debts to her daughter, but it needed to be soon. It was time Becca understood what was going on and prepared herself for the changes to come. But Shona could put that off for an hour to sit with Marie. If nothing else, Marie reminded her that no matter how bad things were, Shona was still the luckier of the two.
The boys raced ahead across the beach; Marie had promised them chips. Liam seemed content to let Ryan lead him, stopping by items of interest along the way, a coloured rock or a feather, which he pocketed. At one point Ryan picked up a discarded toy car, the dull metal showing beneath the chipped red paint, and handed it to the younger boy, folding Liam’s fingers tight around it. Liam looked at it blankly but didn’t let go.
Marie’s large static caravan sat at the far end of a row. Most of its companions were already locked up for the winter, their windows shuttered against the coming storms. At the door, the boys kicked off their wellies. Ryan placed both sets carefully upright next to Marie’s rubber clogs. There were more wellies and a pair of trainers too big to fit either boy. A Nike hoodie lay next to them. He led his cousin up the metal steps and pulled open the door. Inside, Shona could hear his excited chatter, a second voice replying. Marie must have other family staying. Shona’s heart sank. They’d react badly to the news that the investigation into Isla’s death was over, bombard her with questions she couldn’t answer. Marie might join in, or leap to her defence. Either way, a family row would ensue. She turned to the woman at her elbow. ‘Marie, listen, maybe I should go. I don’t want to make this any harder for you than it is.’
Marie put a hand out to stop Shona. ‘I want you here.’ She bit her lip. ‘Just remember one thing. I did all this for her,’ she said simply, before motioning Shona to go inside.
‘What do you mean?’ Shona frowned. But Marie was still ushering her forward, so she kicked off her shoes and climbed the steps.
Shona’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light inside the caravan. To her left, the boys were already on the banquette seat that ran around the bay end of the caravan facing out to Solway Firth. On the table, a magazine and a coffee mug lay abandoned by a small, dark haired girl, late teens or early twenties, indistinct against the grey autumn light. She wore a black fluffy jumper and jeans, her legs curled up under her. The girl smiled at the treasures Ryan spilled from his pocket. Shona looked around. Through open doors she saw three small bedrooms, two with double beds and one containing bunks and cartoon duvets, but there was no other family in sight.
The dark-haired girl glanced up at the new visitor. The smile faded. ‘What’s this?’ she said to Marie.
‘Hello, I’m Shona Oliver.’ Shona smiled, coming forward.
‘I know who you are,’ the girl said.
Shona stopped in her tracks. A pair of blue eyes stared defiantly back at her. Shona looked from Ryan to the young woman and back. There was no mistaking the resemblance. Shona blinked. The face was small and pointed. Shona took a step closer and saw that blonde roots pushed up into the short dark hair. Could this be the young woman sitting in a hospital bed, battered by her boyfriend? The pale body tangled with ghost gear lying on the sandbank in the middle of the Solway Firth? It couldn’t be. Shona felt her heart leap in her chest. She took another step closer. ‘Isla? Is that you?’
The young woman shifted in her seat, pulling Ryan closer. The boy put his arm protectively around the woman’s shoulders. ‘Aye,’ she said eventually. ‘Aye, it’s me.’
Behind her, out of the window, was a glint of brightness, the sun coming from behind a cloud out over the firth. This was the woman in the water, but out here on the coast, by some miracle, the sea had given her back.
‘So, who?’ Shona asked. ‘How?’
‘Think you better sit down,’ said Marie. ‘I’ll away and take the boys over to the cafe for chips. I’ll let Isla tell you.’
Once they were alone, Isla pulled a packet of cigarettes from their hiding place in an overhead locker. If she was conscious that Shona was staring at her she didn’t show it.
‘D’you mind if we go outside, my mother doesnae like me smoking in the van.’ She wrapped a chunky white scarf around her, opened the door and slipped her feet into the Nike trainers on the mat. They stopped in a sheltered spot between the caravan and a low hedge of yellow gorse bent double by the wind.
‘You okay here? You warm enough?’ Shona asked, conscious that she was slipping into lifeboat mode, caring for a casualty, as if Isla had only just been plucked from the water. Isla’s pale face looked as fragile as bone china and she barely came up past Shona’s shoulder. One strong puff of wind might blow her away.
Isla shrugged. ‘I’m fine.’ She put a cigarette
between bare lips and with a practised stance lit it first time. From the packet she also drew a folded photograph, holding it delicately between third finger and thumb, and positioning it for Shona to see. It was the line-up of Isla and her cousins that Shona had seen in the kitchen when she’d first told Marie the news of her daughter’s death.
‘That’s me.’ Isla pointed to the blonde teenage girl with the centre parting on the far right, then worked her way along. ‘Paul, Josh, Matty,’ she skipped a face, ‘and on the end’s my wee brother, Lewis.’ She came back along the line, her child-like finger with its chipped polish and bitten nail resting tenderly on the only other girl in the photograph. A slight girl with blonde hair and Isla’s blue eyes. ‘That’s my cousin, Siobhan.’ She faltered. ‘It’s… it’s her body you found.’
‘Marie’s sister, your Aunt Margaret? It’s her daughter?’
‘Aye, that’s right.’ Isla blew out a trail of smoke. ‘Though Maggie the Misery never wanted much to do with Shiv, even before she was a jakie. Shiv’s sister, Neve, was the favourite. Neve got hit by a car coming home fae school and Margaret told Shiv the wrong girl had died. What a bitch. Then Shiv had Liam, and, well, he spends all his time with us.’ Isla shrugged. ‘My Auntie Margaret has religion. Thinks she’s above us all. And Shiv’s dad, my Uncle Joe, gave his daughter a bit too much attention, if you ken what I mean. We had a lot in common, me and Shiv.’ Isla’s expression darkened.
More in common than you know, thought Shona, remembering the file she’d just reviewed. Identification of the body was via partial DNA match to Paddy Corr. So, Siobhan must be Paddy’s daughter, Isla’s half-sister, rather than her cousin. There was no record in the file of the DNA sample Shona had asked Ravi to collect from Marie. It was the second question she’d written on the review list pinned to the front after ‘Toxicology report?’ Now those questions had both been answered. Was Quinox present in all three victims? Yes. Confirmed ID through maternal DNA link to Marie Corr? No.
Did Paddy have an affair with Margaret, his wife’s sister? Or, knowing Paddy’s record and reputation, was Siobhan the result of rape? That was a question Shona couldn’t answer, but it might be one explanation for Margaret’s estrangement from Siobhan.
‘So, you both had bracelets with the twin heart design?’ Shona asked, focusing on the details of the case.
Isla shook her head. ‘It was mine, I lent it to her. She’d come down from Glasgow for a few weeks. I was living sometimes in Gretna, sometimes in Carlisle at Buckie’s place. We had a wee project on the go,’ said Isla evasively.
‘The Sweet Life?’ Shona hazarded.
‘Aye.’
‘So, what happened to Siobhan? When did you last see her?’
‘She went out one night and never came back. I thought she’d just skipped back to Glasgow, but then I found out Buckie was fixing her up with punters. I’d told him not to, but she needed the cash.’ Isla turned away, narrowing her eyes as she looked out over the water. A man was chasing his dog on the beach, the shouts drifting across the scrubby foreshore as he tried to persuade it back.
‘Do you think someone mistook her for you?’ Shona asked. It would be an easy mistake to make, she thought ruefully.
‘I didn’t at the time, but now with Sami and Buckie gone…’
‘Siobhan, Sami and Jamie Buckland all had injuries to their hands sustained before they were killed. In Sami and Jamie’s case, days or weeks. Does that mean anything to you?’
Isla took a long pull on her cigarette and nodded. ‘Buckie suggested we sold prescription pills through Facebook. He had a supplier; it was a side-business for Buckie but Sami and I just wanted enough cash to get out. Start over somewhere new. Shiv didn’t know any of this. I couldn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut. When I had enough money, I would’ve told her. Then we could’ve both got out.’
‘How did you and Sami meet?’ Shona was aware she was straying from the main narrative, but she was hungry for detail. Isla might refuse to repeat her story to anyone else. She couldn’t arrest her, she couldn’t stop Isla and Marie running off to hide elsewhere. Shona needed to harvest every detail, sketch the web of connections as quickly as she could.
Isla threw away the stub of her cigarette and pulled her scarf closer. ‘Sami was doing some courier work for a contact of Buckie’s. We just hit it off. He was dead clever, but he’d had some bad times back home in Syria, done his head in. The traffickers had sold his debt on to this crazy gang of dealers. He’d had enough.’
‘Did Sami ever tell you about trafficking children?’
Isla shifted uncomfortably. ‘He’d get upset and say stuff, but I think it was in his head. He’d get mixed up with things that had happened in Syria, you know, like flashbacks, but it was like he was actually re-living them. Kids being taken and killed. People getting blown up. He wasn’t sleeping. Buckie gave him some pills to help him but it just made things worse. Suicidal, like.’ She stared at the ground, pushing the extinguished cigarette butt with the toe of her trainer.
‘How did they injure their hands?’ Shona pulled Isla’s attention away from thoughts of dead children and back to her earlier line of questioning.
‘Buckie’s main drugs suppliers found out we were selling pills on the side. They weren’t happy,’ she said with ironic understatement. ‘We were all too scared to go back to the Carmine warehouse and get the rest of the gear. Thought they might be waiting for us. We’d undercut them, stolen their market. Why would you pay ten pounds for heroin if you can get pills for two or three pounds a time through the post, in the comfort of your own home? No risk. Buckie said he’d bring them in on the business, like a merger. He had big ideas, I helped him draw up a business plan. That looked like it might work, but then some new faces took over at the top, a new crew who didn’t want the competition. Plus, someone, probably Sami or that creepy pal of his, Wazir, was syphoning off cash. Sami was so desperate to pay off the people who brought him here. Desperate and scared.’
‘So, the baby milk?’
‘Thought we could use it to generate some quick cash and get out. But Buckie’s supplier heard about this too and wanted a cut. We couldn’t shift the stuff quick enough.’
‘And the injuries to their hands?’
‘There was one guy. Buckie used to call him El Chapo, or the Big E, like he was a celebrity. Dressed smart. Face like a skull. Said he’d take a hammer to anyone with their hand in the till. I think he killed Siobhan because he thought she was me.’
Shona’s heart was beating fast. So, she’d been right, punishment beatings. Siobhan’s injuries were close to the time of death; perhaps they were a bid to extract information. But Siobhan wasn’t Isla, there was nothing she could tell her captors. Shona thought of the man in the video that Dan had found. The man punching Jamie Buckland in the street outside his home. Expensive suit, face like a skull. ‘What’s his name?’
Isla gave a short and bitter laugh. ‘You’re wasting your time. You willnae get this guy. He’s got protection. He used to say he was like the devil himself. He could get rid of folk and no one could touch him. I believed him.’
‘Isla, four people are dead.’ Shona saw her do the maths. Good with numbers, her mother had said. Shona supplied the missing figure. ‘Wazir apparently committed suicide in custody yesterday morning.’
‘And you think someone got to him, don’t you? Fuck. I told you, this guy’s protected.’ Isla shook her head. ‘Used to boast he had cops in his pocket, judges, the lot. You know what? I should just stay dead. Don’t tell anyone it wasn’t me in the water. I don’t want to stop being Shiv and go back to being Isla.’
‘Is that what you really want?’ Shona folded her arms, letting the question hang in the air.
‘Being Isla wasn’t really working for me. Safer being Shiv.’
‘We can protect you. Give you a new life. Ryan will have questions as he grows up. He knows you’re Isla. Will you tell him you’re not his mother? Will you make him keep that secret?’
>
Isla bit her lip and leaned back, her shoulders resting against the side of the caravan. ‘No really fair to the wee man, is it?’ She let out a long breath. ‘When me and Shiv were kids, we delivered drugs around the estate on our bikes. Got me away from my dad, he was never into that scene. Thieving, gambling and girls was his thing. Running with a gang got me some protection.’ She took out another cigarette, offered the packet to Shona, who declined. ‘One time me and Siobhan were delivering to a squat and this big crackhead, nasty looking fucker, didnae want to pay. He just laughed at us, pulled out a knife and took what we had. Locked us in a flat overnight, we were shit scared he’d come back. We were about fourteen. I was so angry I nearly went for the guy, knife or no knife. Shiv pulled me back. That’s when I knew that what I needed more than drugs was respect.’
Isla paused and clicked her lighter. ‘So, I picked up with the scariest, most violent bastards I could find. That’s how I met Ryan’s dad, Fergie. Duncan Ferguson as he was, before he cleaned himself up and changed his name to Duncan Saltire. Back then, he ran with this skinhead gang who controlled the drugs market in Dumfries. I used to bag the stuff, count the cash, balance the books.’ She saw Shona’s expression. ‘Aye, funny isn’t it, him being so anti now.’ She laughed, taking a pull on her cigarette. ‘You know he’s never paid me a penny towards Ryan? I asked him again a few months back, but he wasnae having it. What a dick. He used to batter me of course, but even wi’ that it was better than being at home, or out there on my own.’
‘You’re not on your own now, Isla,’ Shona said quietly.
‘You really think you can get this guy?’ Isla looked coolly at Shona, assessing her, and Shona had a glimpse of the streetwise intelligence, the head for figures that had kept this tiny, fragile creature alive against the odds.
