Artefacts of the Dead

by Tony Black

  ‘Or their memory . . . or the entire family for that matter. Good point, Phil.’

  Valentine felt like the focus of the team’s attention; he could tell by the way they sat forward in their seats, on the edges of desks that they were as engrossed in the task as he was – and that they wanted to engage. In contrast, the chief super seemed to be uninterested. She stood leaning on the edge of the wall, arms still folded and long earrings swaying in time with her shifting eyes. She seemed to have had enough.

  ‘Right, I don’t think I need to be around for this . . .’

  Valentine drew his eyeline level with hers. ‘Come again?’

  She pushed herself away from the wall and stood square footed. ‘I’m off.’ She turned for the door. ‘But I’ll see you in my office when you’re done, Bob.’

  The DI followed the line of her steps for a few seconds, then returned to the group, without answering the chief super.

  ‘OK, I’m glad you’re keeping your minds open. Let’s recap then: a ritualistic impaling, on public ground, of a wealthy banker. Where do we start? A grudge, maybe . . . Given the nature of the victim, possibly financial. Given the nature of the execution, possibly sexual or an attempt to make it look that way. I want you all to start thinking about James Urquhart in three-dimensional terms. Who was he? What did others think of him? And what had he done?’

  DS Rossi lifted a blue folder. ‘Boss, the firm he worked for was the subject of a buyout . . . we should be looking into that.’

  Valentine nodded. ‘You take that, Paulo. Let me know what it turns up. I want to know who was for it, who was against it. If there was a significant benefactor or, more importantly, a significant loser . . . I want to know their inside-leg measurement.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And, Phil, I want you to dig even deeper into Urquhart’s business history: was there an affair? A disgruntled partner, maybe? If there was bad blood between an employee or a client or a bloody delivery boy that didn’t like the look of him, I want to know what they had for breakfast the day Urquhart copped it.’

  ‘OK, boss.’

  Valentine pressed his palms together; he exerted enough pressure to feel his shoulder muscles flexing. ‘Ally, you and I will talk to the victim’s next of kin; we’ve already made contact so they know our faces, but I want you to go beyond that: find out what Urquhart did with himself . . . Did he belong to any clubs? Play cards on a Saturday night or go out on the pish? Was he passionate about anything?’

  ‘Maybe he was in a cult, sir?’ said DS McAlister. ‘One that put spikes up your arse.’

  A low hum of laughter passed around the room.

  Valentine kept his face firm and pointed at the DS. ‘You’re joking, Ally, but you never know. Check him out, thoroughly . . . and talk to his neighbours, all of them. Not just the ones he lives beside now, but if he lived anywhere else. And talk to his colleagues, are there any that he’s kept in touch with? All of them, Ally . . .’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The detective started to punch at his open palm with a fist. He could feel the energy spreading throughout the incident room. There was a moment at the outset of every case where the team took up the challenge, and he felt it now. If they were lucky, some of them would return with salient facts, leads that could be pursued. Valentine caught the wave of spreading energy and turned towards the group.

  ‘Right, get on with it. Anything that you turn up, I want to see it straight away. However insignificant you think it is, I want to know. If you can’t get hold of me then go to Ally or Phil . . . or in emergencies, Paulo! Though you’d have to be bloody desperate to do that.’

  Ally aimed a weak punch at DS Rossi’s arm; he brushed it away.

  ‘Only messing, Chris,’ said Valentine. He clapped his hands together. ‘Right, get to work.’

  12

  Some people went through life hoarding misfortunes. They collected gripes and let-downs like stamps and delighted in displaying them as testament to their hard treatment from an oppressive universe. These were Valentine’s worst kind of people – they caused him the most trouble – and they were everywhere. A cleaner rarely rated her station and could be the most difficult to deal with – a freshly mopped floor was a minefield you could dare to cross, but you would encounter the explosion of a lifetime’s worth of contempt for authority if you dared. In the wider world it was no different – Chief Superintendent Marion Martin had such an extensive cache of grudges that they had grown arms and legs, become sentient and now bore grudges of their own. A venomous strafe from one of her inner army was never far away – the whole point of which being to subjugate her opponent, to defeat through superior firepower and restore a fractured pride.

  It was pathetic and it was draining, thought Valentine. When he looked back on his career he could count numerous occasions where bitter and vindictive types – for no logical reason beyond their own fragile self-esteem – had simply deposited their dumper-truck loads of grief on his doorstep. They weren’t happy with their place in the world, their colleague had a bigger office with more rubber plants, or their neighbour had a newer car with a higher spec and a leather interior. Perhaps their sister married a more successful man, or that girl they used to go clubbing with in their teens had popped up on Facebook, inflaming an old slight about imperfect teenage skin. The situation, the cause, didn’t matter. It was the effect that Valentine was forced to deal with: the consequence of a world full of neurotic drones who were too consumed by their own sense of lack to ever consider what they were doing to those around them.

  Valentine smiled to himself as he went over the markers that the chief super dropped about her state of mind. None of her solar flares could be avoided. The workplace was always a forced union of opposites, a crucible for the embittered, and he knew he had to be on guard lest the collective malaise enveloped him. It was just another daily difficulty to be navigated, an unpredictable chore. Like encountering road works on your regular route home, it was a sapping reminder of the imperfections of this life. But Valentine also knew like attracted like – the bastards got theirs in the end – their problems weren’t his, even though they came his way from time to time. He had the last laugh because there were others like him too: he knew them well. They might be a minority, but they existed, and that in itself was enough of a thorn in the side of those like the chief super.

  He clattered his knuckles off the wooden door, just shy of the brass nameplate, and walked in. ‘You wanted to see me?’

  The chief super was sitting behind her desk, the chair in full recline, her stockinged feet balanced on the brim of a blue folder. In her hands was a copy of a paperback book, grey and glossy – Valentine couldn’t be sure, because she quickly buried the book in her lap, but it looked like Fifty Shades of Grey.

  ‘What the bloody hell are you doing breenging in here leaving Desperate Dan shapes in my door?’ She swung her feet down from the edge of the desk and lunged forward on her elbows. The sound of the book landing on the floor was unmistakeable, but she ignored it.

  Valentine’s stomach fluttered and the muscles of his neck constricted as he pulled back his head. ‘If it’s not a good time . . .’

  She was rattled, her mouth cinching into a tight little knot and her eyes forcing a dart between her brows. ‘Shut up and sit down.’ She raked her fingers through her hair and then grabbed at the edges of her scalp and started to rock her skull to and fro like an angry wasp was trapped inside her head.

  Valentine casually withdrew the seat in front of the desk and sat down. He crossed his legs and made a point of straightening the crease of his trouser leg. He let his eyes rove around the room while the chief super clawed a blue folder towards her.

  ‘I can come back if you’d prefer,’ he said. The remark was a prod for her.

  She pointed to the chair he sat in. ‘Stay put . . .’ As she turned the pages in the blue folder, her index finger bounced on the table. Valentine noticed how scalloped and short her fingernails were
. They’d been bitten to the flesh in a manner normally reserved for adolescents. ‘Right . . . here we are.’ She seemed to be calculating something; he imagined she normally counted on her fingers but was trying to appear wise before him. ‘Perhaps you can tell me why I have a lab chit here requesting I facilitate storage for half a ton of bloody rubbish?’

  Valentine held firm, he kept his eyes locked with the chief super’s. ‘I’m investigating a murder scene.’

  CS Martin turned over the folder and slapped the desk. ‘You put forty uniforms on this, Bob? Forty?’

  ‘I didn’t count the exact number, but if you say so . . .’

  She pushed herself away from the desk and the castors of her chair sung out. ‘Oh, I do say so . . . Forty officers bagging Mars bar wrappers and empty Persil packets on time-and-a-half – does that sound like a good spend of budget, Bob?’

  He brought his fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat into it. ‘Like I said, I’m investigating—’

  He was cut off. ‘Yes, I heard you the first time.’ The chief super tipped back her neck, stared at the ceiling for a moment and then swung forward, balancing her elbows on the desktop. She was pointing at Valentine as she spoke. ‘You better hope some vital piece of evidence emerges from this midden that we’re creating downstairs, Bob, because if it’s not I’ll be calling you on a very grave error of judgement.’

  Valentine folded his hands and started to play with his wedding ring. He was being belittled for no good reason other than the chief super’s egocentricities; the net result – he told himself – would be the opposite of what she expected. He would continue to carry out his duties in the same manner; carpeting over the costs of preserving a high-profile murder scene was as pointless as it was embarrassing.

  ‘Is that everything?’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s bloody not.’ She reached out for the blue folder again, raked it towards her and started to turn pages over. ‘I’m warning you now, Bob, don’t think about testing my patience. You won’t win and your coat’s already hung on a slack hook, remember that.’ As she spoke, she scanned the contents of the page she had alighted upon. Her tone seemed to harden as she changed tack. ‘Right, what does the name Cameron Sinclair say to you?’

  The detective raised his eyebrows. ‘Bit pretentious giving a kid two surnames.’

  Her tone rose. Her eyes burned. ‘Does it ring any bells, Bob?’

  ‘Should it?’

  She released the folder like it was a piece of litter and sat back in her chair. ‘He’s a hack . . . works for the Glasgow-Sun.’

  ‘Not one I’ve run across before.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’d like you to run across this wee bastard now . . .’ Her words trailed off into vehemence.

  ‘What’s he done?’

  The chief super started to swing her seat from side to side. ‘It’s not that he’s done anything . . . but if you can find something, that’d be bloody useful.’ She seemed to regret revealing her inner thoughts and lurched forward in the chair once more. ‘Cameron Sinclair has been badgering the press office about our latest stiff.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t released any information yet and neither has anyone on the squad.’

  ‘Well, he’s been calling a few people, and a few people have been calling me.’

  ‘Like who?’

  She turned down the corners of her mouth. ‘People, Bob . . . people.’ She let the implication of her words hang in the air between them.

  Valentine allowed a pause to enter his thoughts. ‘The murder scene is on the edge of the tip, there’s public housing a street away, and we’ve got a team of SOCOs with a white tent pitched out there . . .’

  She cut in. ‘All right, no need to draw me a bloody picture. I don’t care if this Sinclair character has got a tip-off from Joe Public, what I’m more concerned about is if he has an inside track.’

  Valentine closed his mouth and breathed out slowly through his nostrils. He resented the implication that she was making but it was just the kind of thing he’d come to expect of the chief super. He watched her crease her eyes at him and knew that his own stare was a notch above threatening, but didn’t bother to alter it. He felt the arm of the chair on the palm of his hand and gripped it tightly beneath the desk. Valentine knew if he was the first to speak then he would relinquish too much ground: it was a classic stand-off.

  ‘Be it on the squad, or elsewhere.’ She had to add the ‘elsewhere’ to get herself out of the bind she’d created.

  ‘I’m not responsible for the entire west coast of Scotland, but no one on my squad talks to the press without my authority and at this stage no one has been given authority.’

  CS Martin made a half-smile. ‘All right, Bob, don’t give yourself a heart attack.’

  It was a low blow, but she was all about the low blows.

  ‘If the cat’s out the bag, I think we should call a press conference,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Oh you do, do you?’

  ‘It would seem the smart thing to do, don’t you think?’

  Her mouth shut like a zipper, then sprung open again. ‘As ever, Bob, I’m one step ahead of you . . . I’ve called a press briefing and you’re fronting it up . . .’ – she looked at her wristwatch – ‘in forty-five minutes.’

  The response the chief super would have expected, Valentine knew, was complaint.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘I’ll tie in with the media department then.’

  As he rose from the chair, Valentine delivered the widest smile he could muster and then made a brief, almost mocking, salute before exiting the office.

  In the hallway he started grinding his teeth – it wasn’t that he resented being spoken to like a third-rate moron, or the ridiculous assumption that Martin was in possession of superhuman policing prowess, it was the grim realisation that this was in fact his situation. Valentine understood that he was the officer of last resort – she hadn’t wanted to give the case to him – but he now saw that she clearly thought he would live up to her expectations.

  As he walked back into the incident room, Valentine knew his sense of pride was pushing to the fore. He wanted to prove the chief super wrong, but more than that he wanted to prove to himself that she was wrong. The case wasn’t only about him finding a killer now; it was about finding the strength inside him to restore his wounded pride. He could live with his lowly status in the ranks, the feeling that somehow he had not gone as far as he should – but he couldn’t live with the knowledge that there were people like Martin who thought he was exactly where he deserved to be, that he couldn’t do any better. He’d been pigeonholed before and it hadn’t affected him like this, but that was then, thought Valentine; the times were changing, he was changing, and people like Martin were going to have to open their eyes to that.

  As he entered the incident room, the detective scanned the rows of desks for a familiar face. He raised a finger and beckoned. ‘Ally, get yourself over here.’

  DC McAlister closed the cover on a blue folder and eased himself out of his seat. As he rose, Valentine noticed the squint tie and the hanging shirt tails.

  ‘Can you not smarten yourself up a bit?’

  McAlister’s mouth drooped; he looked down at his tie and grabbed the knot. ‘I’m only reading reports, sir.’

  ‘Aye, I can see that, Ally . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t expect you’ll ever be heading up Paris Fashion Week, but I want you looking at least presentable if you’re going to be standing beside me on the press conference.’

  ‘The telly?’ said the DC.

  ‘Don’t get excited, son, I don’t expect you’ll be getting introduced to Pamela Anderson.’

  The room’s attention had focussed on the conversation now. A ripple of muted laughter spread around the place as the pair turned back for the door. Valentine sensed the shift in the axis and stopped in his tracks. ‘We’re only going to deliver a statement.’ He homed in on Donnelly and Rossi. ‘So you can put the petted lips away. I need you lot here h
olding the fort.’

  On the way to the press office, Valentine watched McAlister making a show of tucking in his shirt tails, and he quickly moved from fussing over his belt buckle to flattening the stray edges of his fringe, first wetting his fingers on his tongue and then full-scale slapping his forehead.

  ‘Will you get a grip, Ally?’ said Valentine.

  The DC gave him a glance that seemed to suggest he thought the remark was a bit harsh; Valentine stored the look away and conceded that he might indeed be correct in the assumption. It was not something that was going to bother the DI, though; his mind was now focussed on the task in hand.

  ‘What are you going to reveal at this stage, sir?’

  ‘As little as possible.’ He grabbed the handle of the press office door and walked in. The media manager was standing over a table reading what looked like the prepared statement.

  ‘Hello, Coreen,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Oh, it’s yourself . . . How’s the eh . . .’ She ran a finger up and down the length of her breastbone.

  Valentine gurned. ‘Just fine. Is that the statement?’

  ‘Yes, I thought it was best to keep it as general as possible at this stage . . .’

  The detective’s eyebrow rose in her direction; he squinted at her and then took up the piece of paper. The statement was full of police speak: in the locus, between the hours of, appealing for any witnesses. Valentine knew better than to follow the script to the letter – there was nothing that marked a policeman out as a sodden-earth plod worse than the kind of language that she was suggesting. Still, he had lived long enough to know the battles that were worth fighting and those that could be avoided without casualties.

  ‘That’s fine, Coreen. Are they in situ?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, more or less . . .’ She turned away to the young girl who seemed to be her assistant this month – they changed with the weather. ‘Is there anyone else coming, Debbie?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘I think they’re all in.’