Artefacts of the Dead

by Tony Black

  ‘Good. Then I’ll show you both out.’ She turned to the door and stood with one hand on the handle and with the other – palm outstretched – gesturing towards the hallway.

  At the door Valentine halted. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  The detectives walked through the doorway and followed the hall into the vestibule before being shown out the front door. As they stood in the driveway buttoning their coats, Valentine spoke. ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Urquhart, there are one or two other formalities that I’ll have to . . . address with you.’

  ‘Formalities?’ Her tone was clipped.

  ‘Regarding the investigation . . . I’ll be back in touch.’ Valentine dipped his head and made for the car; as he went he could sense angry eyes burning into his back, but his attention fixed on the sight of Ronnie Bell peering over the neighbouring wall. The detective turned to see if Mrs Urquhart had registered Bell, but she was already heading indoors.

  ‘More neighbourly concern, or was it the sight of the police that brought him out snooping around?’ said Valentine. As he spoke Bell turned away from the officers and gripped the handles of a wheelbarrow, which he started to push along the path – a squeak on each revolution – towards his home.

  Inside the car, DS Rossi turned the key in the ignition and depressed the clutch, then started to shake his head and curse. ‘What the hell was that all about? Couldn’t wait to get us out of there . . . Jesus, you’d think we were the ones that murdered him, not the ones investigating the case.’

  Valentine waited until they had left the Urquharts’ driveway and crossed the first of the broad Alloway streets before he spoke. ‘Don’t you concern yourself with that, Paulo; you’ve got other things to be worried about.’

  The DS jerked the wheel. ‘What do you mean?’

  Valentine raised his arm and made a show of exposing the watch face on his wrist. ‘By my guess, it’ll take you about nine minutes to get back to the station . . . That’s as long as you have to explain why your phone was dinging a call from Cameron Sinclair when I got in this car.’

  20

  DS Chris Rossi played the bluff card because it was instinctual: a remnant from a childhood when pleading ignorance to gullible parents had once paid dividends. Valentine didn’t buy the dummy, though, and was vaguely aggrieved by the insult to his intelligence until he realised who he was dealing with.

  ‘And you can take that glaikit look off your chops, son,’ he yelled. ‘It’s not going to get you out of this hole.’

  Rossi closed his mouth and his Adam’s apple rode up and down in this throat before he parted his dry lips once more and tried for words. ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘I don’t much like apologies either – the damage has always been done by the time they come out.’

  Valentine took his eyes from the detective and watched the road ahead for a suitable place to stop; he selected a calm stretch where the road tapered off into a bus lane. ‘Just pull up there.’

  Rossi looked in the mirror and put on the blinkers; even his driving had become more cautious now. When he pulled up and halted the car he seemed reluctant to still the engine – it ran on for a few moments – and then he turned the key in the ignition and the juddering stopped.

  Valentine looked straight ahead but said nothing. He knew the crucible building in the car would have to be addressed, but it wasn’t going to be by him. He had tested this approach, many times, in the interview room; the silence was no threat to him, it provoked no fear, but to those on the receiving end it was a real and palpable force backed with all the weight and import of consequence.

  DS Rossi turned to face the DI. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘You can say what you like, Paulo; at this stage it’s unlikely to make a blind bit of difference.’

  He slapped at the wheel: it was a petulant gesture. ‘You know what it’s like.’

  Valentine had a bolt of energy balling inside him. ‘Do I?’ He had no idea what Rossi was implying: that they were all blokes together, perhaps? Or, that he should sympathise with a fellow officer who had been tempted in ways he had never been and never would be?

  Rossi exhaled a long breath. ‘Look, do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Valentine placed a hand on the dash and tapped gently – an almost effete trace of the instructor’s emergency-stop signal. ‘You have until I tap here again to say something that might help you or mitigate the fact that you are in some serious bother . . . If I like what I hear, I’ll do all I can for you. If I don’t, you’re on your own.’

  The DS scrunched his eyes and grimaced. His complexion settled on a shade just shy of white, though his eye sockets were grey and sunken. He was sweating, his brow damp and his top lip glistening. ‘Look, sir, you know I’ve had some financial problems and I’m not about to use that as an excuse, but . . .’

  Valentine turned in his chair to face him. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I have a family and it’s tough on a copper’s wage.’

  ‘I’ve got a family too, son. But I’ve never been tempted to put my fingers in the till.’

  Rossi wiped his brow and then fingered the edges of his mouth. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before . . . I got into debt . . . The money was put out there and . . .’

  ‘You took it?’

  Rossi nodded, then clamped his mouth shut.

  ‘Tell me, I need to know: did Cameron Sinclair make you an offer or did you go to him?’

  The DS kept his eyes fixed on the middle distance but didn’t answer. He’d told Valentine all he needed to know.

  ‘You bloody idiot, Paulo.’

  On the way back to the station, the pair sat in silence until Rossi parked up in the King Street car park.

  ‘Go home,’ said Valentine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me . . . You’re off the case and almost certainly suspended. When I relay this to the chief super there’ll be an investigation, a tribunal likely, and you’ll get a chance to explain yourself . . . But my advice to you, Paulo, would be to use the next few months to start polishing up your CV.’

  Valentine got out the car and slammed the door; he didn’t look back as he headed for the station and climbed the stairs all the way to the chief super’s office.

  The detective’s thoughts collided as he stood facing the brassy nameplate, and then he knocked twice on the door and walked in. Chief Superintendent Marion Martin was sitting at her desk eyeing the contents of a tuna-fish sandwich as he appeared.

  ‘I found our mole . . .’ he said.

  The tone of his voice was so matter-of-fact and the content of his words so at odds that he seemed to confuse the chief super; she lowered the sandwich and thinned her eyes. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Chris Rossi tipped off Cameron Sinclair . . . He’s up to his neck in debt. I caught him on the phone to his bookies earlier – he tried it on with Sinclair for a few bob.’

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘Do I look like I’m laughing? I’ve sent him home while we get the suspension proceedings going.’

  ‘What?’ CS Martin shook her head and touched her temples with her fingertips as if testing whether the perception was real. ‘Jesus, Bob . . . Couldn’t you have let me know sooner? At least given me some kind of warning . . .’

  Valentine turned away from her, towards the door he had just walked through. ‘I just found out myself. Look, what was my option, put him in a cell?’

  ‘What if he goes back to Sinclair?’

  ‘My next call’s to the editor of the Glasgow-Sun. I think Sinclair will be joining Paulo in the dole queues before long.’

  ‘Unless they stand by him.’

  ‘After bribing a police officer . . . He’ll get his marching orders and we’ll be shot of him. I could almost thank Paulo, it’s his greatest contribution to the whole investigation.’

  Martin stood up, shaking her head as she spoke. ‘Bob, get real, if the Sun punts Sinclair he’ll
just go freelance and chase us but with an axe to grind this time . . . And what about the squad? It was bare bones before you shunted Paulo out the door.’

  Valentine reached for the handle and jerked the door open. His voice was rising too; he knew it wouldn’t be long until they were upping the volume even more. ‘I think we’ll get by without Robocop, don’t you?’ He walked through the open door and yanked the handle firmly behind him – the door hit the jamb like a full stop on the end of the conversation. In the hallway, Valentine’s neck tensed and a firm pulse began to beat beneath his collar. He started to loosen his tie as he walked back to the incident room to break the news to the squad that not only had he no idea how Duncan Knox and James Urquhart were connected, but that they were now a man down too. He knew the impact on morale would be severe. Valentine didn’t want the group to suffer for DS Rossi’s sins, though. He had been on the receiving end of harsh treatment for others’ mistakes in the past and knew the resentment it caused. If there was to be a way forward for the team, it would be by maintaining focus on solving the case.

  He opened the door of the incident room and stepped inside. ‘Right, listen up everyone . . .’

  The place seemed to still, like a low-voltage shock had been passed through the furniture, and then suddenly everyone regained composure and started to mill towards the inspector.

  ‘Something up, boss?’ DC McAlister had returned from the crime scene at the track.

  ‘Aye, you could say that.’ Valentine’s voice signalled another jolt to come. ‘I’m just back from talking with the chief superintendent and have some bad news for you, I’m afraid.’ Valentine’s gaze was on one of the PCs: she held a blue folder tight to her chest, as if looking to put a barrier between her and what was about to come. ‘Detective Sergeant Chris Rossi has been relieved of all duties as of today . . .’

  A low barrage of muttering buffeted Valentine. ‘That’s enough . . . The DS is suspended pending a review of his actions of late and in the meantime I’m raising DC McAlister to the post of acting detective sergeant.’

  McAlister’s eyes widened for a moment and then his face cracked into a grin. ‘Thanks, sir.’

  ‘Don’t get overexcited, Ally. I’ll be wanting my pound of flesh from you – you’ll be taking on Paulo’s workload, so that’s looking at the buyout and Ronnie Bell to add to your duties.’

  DS Donnelly crossed the floor to pat McAlister on the back and shake his hand.

  Valentine spoke up. ‘Right, I haven’t heard my phone ring once since I was out, so I’m presuming there’s nothing to report . . .’

  Silence settled in the room and was punctured by a woman’s voice. ‘There was a call from your wife, sir . . . I left a message on your desk. It wasn’t to do with the case.’

  Valentine looked at the officer and nodded, then turned back to the others and clapped his hands together. ‘OK, back to work. Come on, move it!’ As he walked through the shifting bodies Valentine called out to Donnelly and McAlister. ‘You pair – in my office, now.’

  The detectives looked at each other and set off in the wake of Valentine’s heavy footfalls. At the office door he reached out for the handle and swung it open, and as he stepped inside the DI stood pressing the glass front with his fingertips and ushered the others through. He let them get inside and then closed the door firmly and headed towards his desk to retrieve the telephone message from his wife. It was a short note in looping, large handwriting that reminded him of his daughters’; the contents were, however, all his wife’s. He lowered the note onto the desk, then quickly retrieved it before crushing his fist around the thin paper and dropping it towards the wastebasket beneath his desk.

  ‘More good news?’ said McAlister.

  Valentine set eyes on the newly appointed DS and held his mouth tightly shut. He straightened his back, pressing his hands onto his hips, and then removed his chair from below the desk and sat down. Donnelly and McAlister followed his lead.

  ‘I’m presuming neither of you knew about Paulo’s . . . addiction?’ He spat the last word like it had left a bad taste.

  The detectives looked at each other. Donnelly spoke. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say we never knew exactly . . .’

  Valentine raised a hand and cut him off. ‘You misunderstand me. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I know neither of you are so bloody stupid as to jeopardise your careers like that, but . . .’ He leaned forward on the desk and pointed his index finger back towards the chief super’s office. ‘Some people will be asking just those questions and you better have your answers ready. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. Paulo’s been a clown, every circus needs one, but no more than that.’ The DI shook his head and exhaled a long breath. ‘He’s dug his own grave, but if either of you let on you had suspicions that might be looked at as a tacit approval . . . Am I painting a clear enough picture?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Valentine was growing tired of the staccato responses; he felt like an officious teacher admonishing the behaviour of errant pupils. He eased back in the chair and the castors squeaked beneath him.

  McAlister spoke. ‘Can I ask about the shape of the squad, boss? We’re a man down now, and . . .’

  ‘I know, and Dino’s been threatening to bring in some Glasgow boys since day one.’

  ‘We don’t want them coming down here and big-footing the lot of us. Be just like them to steal the show.’

  Valentine scratched his chin as he replied: ‘It’s bad enough on Glasgow Fair having Weegies doon the water for an ice cream.’

  ‘We’ll be seeing a few more of them if Rangers ever claw their way to a promotion,’ said McAlister.

  The three men laughed, but it was short-lived. Valentine’s grave expression signalled the true import of the situation.

  ‘If she brings in Glasgow, we’re in the shit . . . but at least we know the territory.’ Valentine sat forward again, picked up the receiver from the telephone on his desk and started to search his blotter for the number he’d written down earlier. He nodded the others towards the door; they rose and left the office. When he was alone in the room, he drummed his fingers on the keypad of the phone for a moment – the call to the editor of the Glasgow-Sun with the Sinclair allegations would have to wait a few minutes longer. He dialled another number.

  ‘Hello, Clare . . .’

  His wife sounded stressed on the other end of the line. He surmised she had been busy juggling her shopping addiction with the housework and grimaced into the phone.

  ‘Oh, you got back to me then . . .’ she said, her tone smothered in sarcasm.

  ‘I’m sorry, love . . . had a lot on. What’s this about my dad?’

  Clare sighed down the line. ‘I gave him a call today, just checking in . . .’

  ‘Yes, and . . .’

  ‘Well, he didn’t answer at first.’ She shuffled the receiver. ‘I thought he might have been out in the garden or something, but then I called back and he was still in bed.’

  ‘He’s retired, he’s entitled to a long-lie.’

  ‘It was eleven o’clock, your father never sleeps that late . . . Anyway, he sounded . . . Look, he wasn’t himself is what I’m trying to say. I was concerned enough to call you at the station . . .’

  Valentine stepped in. ‘OK, leave it with me.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I’ll look into it.’

  ‘Will you go round?’

  Valentine’s eyes roved towards the ceiling in exasperation. He had far too much on to be entertaining his wife’s insecurities, even if they were well intentioned. ‘If I’ve got time . . .’

  Clair sparked up. ‘Look, I would go round myself but he’s never keen to have a woman fussing over him, you know how he is . . . and he’s your father, Bob.’

  ‘OK, Clare, I’ll pay him a visit.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Yes, Clare . . . today.’

  As he put down the receiver, h
e glanced towards the clock on the wall and sighed. He still had time to make the call to the editor of the Glasgow-Sun. He reached out for the telephone and tapped in the number he had written down beside the name Jack Gallagher. As the line began to ring, he knew it was a call that wasn’t going to make him any friends.

  21

  Every day was a struggle for the things we decided we couldn’t live without. Valentine remembered his father had worded it differently: he’d said it was about ‘putting steam on the table’. However you worded it, the struggle started somewhere around the time you left the cover of your parents’ home and met the stark realities of the adult world. The game was afoot. And it was a game: a tawdry, shallow, callous and pathetic game. We traded our immortal souls for a place at a feeble table. One where there was no proper competition, no winning or losing; it was all about simply keeping going, keeping playing because the second you stopped that’s when you realised there was also a forfeit attached. You gave the game everything for nothing.

  Valentine remembered being old enough to leave school and go out amongst the great monetised masses – he had watched those from rich families take a year out or start a business bankrolled by their parents: options beyond the dreams of avarice to him at the time. And his life since had been nothing but graft: hard, sometimes dangerous graft. He wondered how it had been for those others who went off to Peru to follow the Inca trail or took the cosy sinecure, discreetly secreted under Daddy’s wing. He knew for sure none would be sitting alone now, wondering what had become of Bob Valentine. And why was that? Because he had come from nothing. And what had he risen to become? A middle-grade public servant, badly battle-scarred and clinging to a notion of respect for his position that was likely ten years out of date. The world had changed very little in many regards since he’d formed his opinion of the force, but all the changes that had been made were ineluctably in the wrong direction.

  If there was a point, a focus of Valentine’s thoughts – apart from the most obvious form of self-flagellation – he knew it was Urquhart. He was the diametric opposite of the detective, who was the rough to the smooth in the equation. It made him wonder how different a life to him Urquhart must have lived. Valentine did this because it was his job, but also because it was a natural preoccupation of his: he put himself into the mindset of others like some people tried on new clothes for a holiday. Valentine could see the banker had moved in rarefied circles and enjoyed the security of excessive wealth, but what had that done to him? The detective knew his own shortcomings had resiled him to certain choices, but when choices where endless, when the game of life had no dice, how did this influence the making of a man?