by Tony Black
40
There was a type in Ayr, as common as paving weeds, that turned up just to proclaim their opposition to the world and all its inhabitants. They wore a look, an atavistic west-coast sneer that signalled a gruff indifference to all efforts to appease them. If you gave up a parking space at the supermarket for them, they’d sneer – perhaps also shake their head – because of course they deserved no less than special treatment from the masses that inhabited their planet. If you stood in front of their ilk in a newsagent’s and ordered a broadsheet, they would sneer and say something about the wee papers not being good enough for some people. In any social gathering there would always be an abundance of Ayrshire’s sneerers. At a wedding, the bride’s dress – to them – was deserving of derision because it was too short, too long, too plain, too ornate, too expensive or too cheap. The exact criticism didn’t matter; it was the opportunity to voice a complaint, to point out a flaw, real or perceived – it didn’t matter, because to them everything and everyone was flawed and their mission was to make the world aware of this, like rubbing a dog’s nose in its own dirt.
Conflict followed this lot like the stench of a rotting carcass. There were always raised voices, raised tempers and raised fists in Ayrshire. There was no need for an explanation to those who lived there. It was the way they were and had always been: rebarbative, belligerent and first to fly behind any perceived slight from this unforgiving universe that had the impertinence to test them. It could be exhausting to observers like Valentine, who had long since learned to turn the other cheek, keep eyes tight shut and the mouth tighter yet. There was no debating the issue: it was beyond discourse, beyond the pale, really. Valentine knew by ignoring the practitioners of the sneer that he was tacitly giving approval – good men speak out against bad deeds – but he stayed the course because wrestling with pigs only took you into the muck and there were just too many pigs to ever contemplate a positive outcome.
The detective had decided Adrian Urquhart was a sneerer the first time he had met him. He shouldn’t have been, he was of the wrong class for a start, but the trait did not abide by such simple distinctions. The boy had obviously had contact with many classes, or perhaps he was just one of the lucky ones who inherited the talent for such idiocy full-blown.
DS McAlister and DI Valentine stood facing Adrian Urquhart across the threshold of his late father’s home like opposing forces meeting in no-man’s-land. The second he had opened the door, Adrian lifted his eyes skyward and sighed – all that was missing was a stamped foot to complete the image of petulance. Valentine wondered if their arrival had come at an inopportune time: perhaps he had somewhere else to be? Or was it they had been mistaken for unwelcome cold-callers – perhaps peddling double-glazing or religion when he clearly had no use for either. It unnerved the detective that he should react in such a way, his father’s demise being so recent, but it didn’t shock him, because he had Adrian Urquhart’s measure.
‘It might be better if we came inside; there are some new developments we need to talk about,’ said Valentine.
Adrian stepped back into the hallway and flagged them in. His eyes were rolling again, not towards the sky but inwardly, as if in a show of deep disappointment.
‘It shouldn’t take too long,’ said McAlister.
Adrian didn’t acknowledge the DS, just closed the door and turned to face Valentine. ‘Will you need to speak to my mother, because she’s in the kitchen.’
The detective nodded. ‘If it’s no trouble.’
‘Right, I’ll get her . . . Just go through. I’m sure you know the layout of the place by now.’
The officers proceeded down the hallway towards the living room and stood before the fire. It was a large room, elaborately and expensively decorated, but the chintzy feel belied any real personality. It was as if the room had been decorated from magazines or coffee-table tomes; there was no feeling of a home about it at all. As he looked around and gauged that the footprint of his own property might fit comfortably into this one room, Valentine conceded a bias for what was and was not a home.
‘Hello again . . .’ Mrs Urquhart was rubbing her hands on a tea towel when she appeared from the kitchen.
The officers turned to face her and nodded in unison.
‘You could have taken a chair, gentlemen,’ she said, directing them towards the sofa and flicking the tea towel over he shoulder.
Adrian joined her on the adjacent sofa. The additional bodies did nothing to diminish the room’s extent. There was a lulled silence that sat heavily between them, and then, like a moment of clarity descending, sighs were wrung out. The four faced each other over the rug’s gloomy brocade like opposing, and slightly surreal, tag teams. All the previous goodwill that had been extended by the Urquharts seemed to have vanished, and Valentine suddenly wondered why. He was still searching for a killer – that hadn’t changed – and it was too soon for the conclusion of hope. In his experience, the families of victims tended to reserve resentment until a case was closed without a proper solution being found.
Valentine leaned forward, clasping his hands above his knees. ‘How have you been, Mrs Urquhart?’
She tilted her head to the side, and her reply came in a drawl. ‘Did you come here to inquire after my health, Inspector?’
The DI’s face tightened into a grim mask – one that might be useful to deflect derision. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Mrs Urquhart, I detect you might be a little uncomfortable with the investigation.’
‘Oh, really . . .’ She crossed her legs and snatched the tea towel from her shoulder as if it was the arm of an assailant. There was no disguising her anger and frustration as her hands clasped the tea towel at either end and twisted a tight coil.
DS McAlister spoke. ‘Have we come at a bad time?’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Adrian. ‘My father has been murdered, do you think there is a good time for any of us?’
Valentine unclasped his hands and waved McAlister down. The tone of the interview had been well established now; he hadn’t expected it to reach its nadir so quickly, but the turn of events presented an interesting possibility for a more direct approach. ‘We won’t take up too much of your time. I hope you’ll appreciate that this murder investigation is a top priority for us and there are certain aspects of the case that have caused us some concern recently.’
Adrian snatched the tea towel impatiently from his mother’s hands and slapped it on the arm of the sofa, out of her reach. ‘Such as?’
‘When we last spoke, you may recall I mentioned the name Knox . . .’
Mrs Urquhart’s voice pitched higher, reaching the level of imperiously clipped tones. ‘Yes, the other unfortunate victim.’
‘That’s one way of describing him.’
‘Well, how would you describe him, Inspector?’
Valentine watched as a scowl crossed her face. He kept his words low and calm but avoided a direct answer. He saw no need to submit himself to an interview – that was his job. ‘You said you didn’t recognise the name . . .’
She cut in. ‘I’ve had no cause to change my opinion.’
DS McAlister spoke. ‘We didn’t ask if you had . . .’
The Urquharts turned to each other. Adrian tightened his mouth as he took in his mother, but no words were exchanged. They seemed to both be concentrating on saying as little as possible. Their actions might have been rehearsed, but that was unlikely, thought the detective. Mother and son seemed to be adept at communicating without words: not telepathically, but like creatures in a zoo whose forced union had bred an infallible understanding of each other’s ways and wiles.
As Valentine assessed the pair, he leaned back in his chair and rested his chin on the back of his hand. He could tell that he had crossed a chalk line with them, but he had no idea where it was or what it represented. Was it a personal animus or a more vague scattering of the seeds of disapproval in his direction? Either way, he didn’t judge them for it – at least, not too harshly
– because when he found himself perplexed by people he knew the only route to understanding was observation. To jump to the conclusion that they merely found his questioning – or, indeed, himself – coarse and impertinent would be like snatching assumption from the lucky-dip bag marked delusion. As he prepared to pose his next question, there was a sound like cups clattering in the kitchen and then the heavy wooden door opened.
Ronnie Bell looked to be dressed for country pursuits, a shiny wax jacket and Chelsea boots beneath corduroy trousers. He walked to the middle of the room, then approached the mantle, where he stood facing the officers, firm-footed and sure.
‘Hello again, Mr Bell,’ said Valentine. ‘I hope you’ll appreciate we’re in the midst of a delicate discussion . . .’
Mrs Urquhart interrupted. ‘No need to bother about Ronnie . . . He’s fine where he is.’
The neighbour removed his outdoor jacket and flung it over the back of a chair, then joined the others on the sofa, sitting stiff and proud. He smiled to Valentine but did not open his mouth.
‘All right, if you’re content with the situation,’ said Valentine. The Urquharts’ actions seemed unusual to the detective, but not out of the ordinary. He had seen grief and the aftermath of trauma affect people in many ways. To take against the police was a common enough choice; he just couldn’t figure out what the driver was.
‘I think it might be best if you asked what you came to ask and were quick about it,’ said Ronnie. ‘This family has been through enough, and what with all the media attention, it’s been far from pleasant.’
‘Media attention?’ said McAlister.
Adrian stood up, his voice rising like a slow siren wail. ‘Look, what is it you want?’
Valentine’s shoulders tightened beneath his grey dog-tooth sports coat. ‘We’ll try not to take up too much more of your time.’ He motioned to the sofa. ‘If you don’t mind please, Adrian.’
He shook his head and sat back down.
The DI picked at the edges of composure. ‘Mrs Urquhart, do you think there is a possibility your husband may have known Duncan Knox from your time in Glasgow, perhaps?’
She massaged her wrist. ‘Well, I can’t see how.’
DS McAlister spoke again. ‘The Inspector asked if it was possible, Mrs Urquhart.’
‘Well, anything’s possible in theory . . . Are you asking if I knew that my husband was an associate of this Knox person when we were in Glasgow? I don’t know. I certainly don’t think so.’ She dropped her wrist suddenly. ‘I told you before, I have no idea who this man is.’
Valentine tried to remove the veil of apprehension that Mrs Urquhart was hiding behind but was unable to. He could see the answers were not going to change, no matter how he posed the questions. ‘This model club that your husband attended on Wednesdays . . .’
‘Yes, what about it?’ Her voice edged higher and became almost staccato in its delivery.
‘He went every week?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘And you’re sure of that?’
‘Yes, I told you before, he went every week.’
Valentine glanced at McAlister and the DS seemed to intuit the passing of the baton. ‘That’s not what the club told us,’ said Ally. ‘In fact, he was rarely there at all. Have you any idea where your husband might have been going on those nights?’
Adrian reached over to touch his mother’s hand. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Valentine.
‘You’re upsetting my mother. This is an interrogation . . . Don’t you see we’re the victims here as much as my father?’
‘This is all routine questioning, Adrian . . . We’re trying to establish the facts, that’s all.’
It was Ronnie Bell’s time to stand up now. He pushed away Adrian’s hand and made to grab Mrs Urquhart’s elbow. ‘I think that’s enough for one day, gentlemen . . .’
The Urquharts raised themselves from the sofa in time with Ronnie, and the police officers followed. They all stood facing each other across the broad room.
‘Thank you for your time,’ said Valentine. As he started to fasten his sports coat, to walk for the door, he turned. ‘We have James Urquhart on camera in the vicinity of Prestwick Road on one of those Wednesday nights . . . Any idea what he might have been doing there?’
‘No. None.’ Adrian’s voice was blunt and sure.
Valentine held his gaze. ‘Duncan Knox was there too.’
‘It’s a very small town, Inspector,’ said Adrian.
Ronnie stepped between them. ‘Right, that’s it, no more questions. If you keep pestering this family then I’ll be directing you to a legal professional.’
Valentine retreated to the door. In the hallway, the DI spoke out once more. ‘It is indeed a small town, Adrian . . . and secrets aren’t kept long in small towns. I’ll be in touch.’
‘I’m sure you will, but my mother is leaving for the Highlands in a little while.’
‘The Highlands?’
‘She wants some peace and quiet. You don’t grudge her that, do you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Valentine, almost deferentially. ‘That’s not something I would grudge anyone.’
41
DI Bob Valentine knew he belonged to a nation that lauded its landscape of battle-scarred castles and limpid lochs with an almost mordant fascination. The Scots drank copious whisky and danced dizzying ceilidhs. They revered long, dark nights and their literature revelled in justified sinners and mean cities. Their history reviled the blood of ancient forebears: their wars were all lost and their slim victories were dressed as defeats. In short, we were a queer lot, the Scots.
There was no lust for life in Scotland: that much had been confirmed for him on those rare occasions he visited foreign shores and saw how differently life was lived there. Scots couldn’t look forward because they were always too busy looking back and castigating themselves for past mistakes. How could a nation like this have arrived at any other place? Towns and cities blighted by the ignorant and drug-addled. Pushers, pimps and gang masters holding sway over great swathes of an isolated and abandoned society. The Scots killed themselves in countless ways because they were a defeated nation, a colonised country that had abandoned all respect for itself generations ago. Scotland’s sins were compounded by the political class that ruled from afar, uncaring, uninterested and unwilling to treat their neighbours like anything other than the barbarians at their door.
Valentine knew he was fighting a battle he had no chance of winning because the people who should have been marching beside him had already given up. He’d once been told, many years ago when he was still in uniform, that his job was like mending cracks in a dam. Police were Polyfilla, masking tape, multipurpose emulsion. But that was then; he knew that now the dam had burst and all thoughts of repair had been replaced by one almighty scrum for the lifeboats.
The detective stood in front of his desk, staring out to a slate-grey street being washed by wind-driven rain. The diluted blue of the skyline was a dreary indicator of his mood, a fulminating composition of oppressive conditions he could never escape, even if he wanted to. There were people there too, hurried and harried by the elements into shop fronts and wynds where they might once have passed a pleasantry, shared in their dismal fate to inhabit a land lashed by downpours day after day after day. But not a glance was exchanged between the long retinue of wet coats and dripping umbrellas; they passed each other like phantoms from other worlds, unaware of each other – or, in reality, ignorant.
When had it become like this? thought Valentine. At what point did we all become so separate from each other? There seemed to be no sanctioned contact, no public nexus. No one wanted to be part of a wider collective. We wanted our own selves and our own homes and our own flat-screen televisions to while away the long hours of self-delusion. That’s what we wanted. We didn’t want each other because, if we were honest, at this point we didn’t even like each other. Not as a people, not as a race. If t
here was a defining trait that we all subscribed to now, it was separateness. But we were amorphous in this nascent sense of ourselves. It was not an individuality, because that carried a certain connotation of self-assuredness that we lacked entirely – our desire was only to trade our culture and heritage for the same bland swill that encouraged us to take no responsibility for anything beyond our own immediate needs and wants.
Valentine couldn’t look out the window any more. The world outside repulsed him. He felt a quickening of his pulse and a dull twinge in his chest that suggested he had allowed his adrenaline to spike in an unhealthy manner. Just a short time ago, he had been dead. No longer of this world. And through the miracles of modern medicine he had been brought back. He tried to remember why that was a good thing. He tried to think of the infinite perfection of life, how overjoyed he had been to hear that he and Clare had first created life, and there was his answer: his family. If it wasn’t for the others he shared his life with, then what was this world to him? The answer was beyond the window that he could no longer bear to look at.
DS Sylvia McCormack was standing outside the glassed-off office at the end of the incident room. She seemed to be holding some files, the thick blue files that they stored the case notes in but also a collection of loose sheaves of paper. In her left hand, pressed tight to her side, was a mug that looked like it might contain coffee. Valentine crossed the floor and opened up the door.
‘You weren’t thinking, were you?’ he said.
‘About the handle you mean?’ She nodded to another mug sitting on a table by the door. ‘I made us coffee, can you take this?’
‘Aye, sure.’
The detective took the mug from her hand and watched her wrestle the bundle of files onto her hip; she retrieved the other mug and walked through the door. The job of closing it behind her seemed to require another set of arms, but she didn’t look fazed or in any way like she might welcome assistance.
