Artefacts of the Dead

by Tony Black

  ‘I take it you heard about the trip to the Urquharts?’ said Valentine.

  She placed the folders on the desktop and flicked her fringe from her eyes. She was breathing heavily as she spoke. ‘I saw Ally in the cannie . . . Pretty grim, eh?’

  ‘Oh, it’s that all right.’

  ‘I wouldn’t let it get to you.’ She dropped herself in the chair and watched as a swirl of coffee was evacuated from the brim of the mug. ‘Shit!’

  Valentine grinned; he thought that Sylvia had a way of ingratiating herself with people that was nothing short of a blessing. She was what his late mother would have called soulish. He had met precious few people who had set him in mind of his mother; herself perhaps the antithesis of the word soulish.

  ‘Are you OK there, do you need a hanky?’

  She shook her head and sneered at him over the bridge of her nose. ‘I’ve survived worse.’

  As he took in her self-deprecating scowl, he knew she wasn’t milking the moment for herself, like others might have. ‘I’m sure you have.’

  Valentine retreated behind his desk and removed the chair. As he sat down, he raised the coffee mug and tested it for warmth. As he returned the mug to rest, he rifled the files and the pile of paper on top.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said.

  ‘The full Knox transcripts from Glasgow . . . I’ve marked up the highlights.’ She crossed her legs and balanced the coffee on her knee. Her breathing had stilled now. ‘That other stuff, the bundle of papers, is just something I thought might interest you.’

  Valentine picked up the top sheet, which looked to have been printed from the Internet. The website seemed official enough, but the content of the page was an excursion to new territory for the detective. As he read the top line and glanced over a sidebar, he knew the DS was dragging him towards something he didn’t want to face. He certainly didn’t want to face it on his own, although the thought of facing it with a colleague some years his junior, whom he had only known a short matter of time, might be even more worrisome.

  ‘Look, Sylvia . . .’ His words trailed off as he was caught in her eyeline.

  ‘I’m only trying to help, sir.’

  Valentine lowered the printout and gripped the tip of his jawline in his hand. ‘So, tell me about this Reece case, the mother of five.’

  The DS smiled. ‘God, where to start . . . ? We had nothing until Colvin showed. He had images in his head of Mrs Reece in a field; he knew she was dead, but that was it. Most of the stuff he gave us was fragmented, patches of words and pictures of her children crying and so on . . .’

  Valentine had heard of instances in the past where quite incredible messages had been delivered to police from people with no apparent knowledge of the case at hand; they had always struck him as slightly suspect or, worse, as frauds.

  ‘Was he looking for money?’

  ‘No, not a penny. He made that very clear from the start.’ She tilted her head at a strange angle, as if searching the far reaches of her memory. ‘The thing was, he was desperate . . . It was like he had to get this out of his system because it was, I don’t know, haunting him.’

  The detective shifted uneasily. He didn’t want to be drawn into believing in psychics helping police with their clear-up rates, but something about McCormack’s story poked at him and drew his attention into new areas.

  ‘So you took him on?’

  She thinned her eyes. ‘More like took him in. As soon as he got close to the investigation, the information just started spilling out of him.’

  ‘He found her, then?’

  She retrieved her coffee mug and took a sip. ‘No, sir . . . She was dead.’

  ‘Not a great success.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the crime had already been committed . . . Murder, I presume.’

  ‘No, you miss the point. The investigation was cold. Colvin saw where the victim was buried and led the squad there. We’d never have found her remains without him.’

  Valentine stared at his coffee. The grey liquid seemed uninviting, but he raised the mug to his mouth, more to pass time than anything else. He didn’t know what to say to the DS. He didn’t want to reveal how he truly felt – confused – or to say what he thought of her mother and her friends, for fear of upsetting anyone. The overriding feeling he noted was embarrassment.

  ‘Sylvia, I don’t know what you think you saw at the Coopers, but . . .’

  She raised a hand, as if to punctuate his sentence for him. ‘Boss, I know what I saw.’

  ‘Sylvia . . .’

  ‘No. Wait a minute.’ She reached forward and clattered the mug on the desktop. It was still quite full and some liquid ran down the side. ‘Have a read of the notes I printed for you – sudden precognition is a well-documented occurrence in near-death survivors.’

  Valentine forced a smile onto his face. He felt his attention drawn to the activity outside the office; he hoped no one could lip-read. He touched his jaw again and sighed as DS McCormack stood up and headed to the door.

  ‘Just read the notes, boss,’ she said. ‘And if it doesn’t ring true then I’ll say no more.’

  He doubted that was true. ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Keep an open mind, sir.’ She reached for the doorknob and paused, and a smug gleam entered her eye. ‘And remember there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

  If she had appended a wink to the statement, Valentine couldn’t have been more unsettled. He felt like she had something on him now, a hold over him that was as damning as incriminating photographs or drunken revelations spewed forth in a moment of weakness. He knew, however, that DS McCormack’s intentions were nothing of the sort. They were pure, decent even – but that only added to the tension crushing him as soundly as he would a tack in the heel of his shoe.

  The DI fingered the edge of the paper printout for a moment longer and saw himself reading it, perhaps even digesting the contents, and then he withdrew his hand as if testing a griddle plate. He stood up so sharply he heard the blood coursing in his ears as he returned to the window and the sight of the grey and rain-lashed streets of auld Ayr. For the first time, Valentine realised he was trapped: trapped in the town, trapped in his marriage, and trapped in a career he had no right to in his current condition. Most of all, and certainly the most worrying for him, was the fact that he was trapped in a mind and body that he no longer felt in full control of. It worried him in ways that DS McCormack seemed incapable of grasping. It was not a matter of glimpsing a quite useful and seemingly productive sixth sense, it was a matter of whether he could stop it interfering with his sanity long enough for him to solve the murders of James Urquhart and Duncan Knox and the disappearance of Janie Cooper. Valentine felt his chest tightening, his heart beating so hard that he had to press the flat of his hand to his breastbone. As he reached out to steady himself on the window ledge, his vision became blurred and blotched. The detective knew he had to sublimate these feelings soon, because if he couldn’t, the danger was that he would lose his job or, worse still, his life.

  42

  DI Bob Valentine came to the conclusion that the only option left to him was to resign from the force immediately. As he kept his gaze on the rain-battered windowpane, the view beyond became a blur of indistinct shapes and fragmented iridescent light. He thought about the situation he now found himself in, and the move he knew he must make increasingly seemed like the only honourable course of action. He had failed to find a coherent way through the morass of his thoughts, and the investigation, he was absolutely sure, had suffered for it. His focus was gone, had completely deserted him; he was spending too much time going over irrelevancies in his mind. When he looked coldly at the situation and was honest with himself, the largest share of his attention was on finding a solution to the Janie Cooper case. All his attention, not just some diffuse part of it, should have been on solving the murders; he felt a deepening guilt for a justice that the victims and wider so
ciety deserved but which he hadn’t seen fit to deliver. No wonder Adrian Urquhart and his mother had been so offhand with him; they knew full well he was letting them down. Valentine turned away from the window. The burn inside him felt like his innards were in meltdown.

  He couldn’t recall another time in his career when he had felt this way or acted like he had. He could only alight on the arrogance of youth for a parallel, but this was different. In youth you could be forgiven for not knowing any better – what was his excuse now? Valentine’s heart settled down to a low, pulsing beat that he no longer felt in his left arm like hot pins pressing insistently from inside his veins. He was calmed by the idea of relinquishing the case and his job, and he wondered if that was because he knew it was the right thing to do. Was his survival instinct kicking in? Telling him that if he went on like this then the solution he sought would be final, and fatal? He couldn’t bear to put Clare and the girls through hospitals and him clinging to life once again. He could take a million more hurts, but not that. He knew now that Clare and the girls had suffered more than he’d thought – had he ever really considered how much? He knew the girls, and Chloe especially, would need time to get over it, but they were young and had so much of life still to come, which would distract them. Clare was more of a worry: she was older and far wiser, and yet she’d been felled. He knew his wife had never gotten over the initial shock of him being so close to death; he tried to put himself in her place and for the first time Valentine realised just how much Clare meant to him. She was as much a part of him as the sand in the sea; if he’d been damaged when his life was endangered, then so had she, because he was sure they shared that much. The way she had been lately – was it merely her way of protecting herself from the damage she knew he was inflicting on both of them?

  There would be an assessment, a test of his psychological fitness that would likely find him wanting. Did he care? He could only focus on his family – he cared for them. He no longer felt anything for himself, because he no longer recognised himself. Who was he? Who had he become? If he was losing his mind then the man he thought he once was had surely gone. A vague moment of self-pity entered his thoughts: a ‘why me?’ moment. But he brushed it aside. Why anyone? What did he know? The answer was nothing – it was like DS McCormack had said:

  ‘More things in heaven and earth . . .’ The words came out flat, empty of all their true substance.

  What mattered was his family and that they would be kept safe. If he came clean, admitted his physical and mental failings, then he would be granted a medical discharge. There might even be compensation, a lump sum to add to his pension that would help ease the transition into a more straitened way of life. Clare would be ashamed, and Chloe wouldn’t like having her father around all day, but Fiona was too young to understand. The sudden image of the rows and recriminations to come flooded his mind. He felt a failure, not just as an officer, but as a father and as a man too. How could he ever look his own father in the eye again?

  As Valentine walked towards to door he knew this was an ending. He had tried to return to active policing after the incident of his stabbing, but he had failed. For whatever reason, his own physical and mental frailty or something else that he didn’t understand, it was an irrelevance now. He thought of the call from the chief super when he was at Tulliallan and the spark of ambition it had ignited. He knew that flame was still there, still burning – if weakly – and he wanted to apply the bellows to it, but didn’t know how. His resolve hadn’t altered any; he just wasn’t able to do it.

  Valentine walked through the incident room in a daze. He tried to maintain his usual posture, he kept his hands in his pockets and gave the odd, slouching nod to those who crossed his path, but he wasn’t present. His mind was already in with the chief super, delivering his resignation. It seemed to be a long walk; his legs ached and the fronts of his thighs grew heavy as he dragged his feet over the grim, corporate-looking carpet tiles. By the time he reached the brassy nameplate that bore the name CS Marion Martin, his heart was pounding again, and a dry, acrid taste was sitting in his mouth.

  He knocked once and reached for the handle. As he stepped inside he felt a flash of heat in his forehead and then he saw the chief super lowering the telephone in the most careful manner. Her eyes were wide, her skin pale and shiny, and her mouth a thin point that threatened to reveal a recent hurt. She sat down and slowly pushed herself away from the edge of her desk. The window behind her was a luminous white band that cut the shape of her shoulders and head into stark relief.

  Valentine was first to speak. ‘Something wrong?’

  She remained still. A slow trail of words seemed to be coming from somewhere else. ‘We have another one: a young girl out in Mossblown. Running club just about trampled over her . . .’ She looked up, stared into the DI’s eyes. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  He nodded. ‘Is it the same MO?’

  She shook her head. ‘No . . . No spike. Uniform say the scene looks like it was abandoned in a hurry.’

  Valentine found a juggernaut of thoughts driving over his earlier intentions. As he looked at CS Martin, felled in her own office by yet another murder, he knew there was no one else who could carry the load. Resignation seemed his most insane thought now – how could he have conceded the investigation to such an incompetent? He might not solve the case in quick time, but he was confident enough in his abilities to see that Dino would fare far worse. The idea that he would lie down before her became another one of his bad moves. He was lurching from pillar to post, he knew that, but there was another victim to consider now and perhaps it would reveal some secrets that had so far remained hidden from the investigation.

  ‘Mossblown? The others were in Ayr. That’s worrying, a widening spread.’

  ‘Probably thought the town centre was too hot now.’

  ‘No. If it’s a different MO then the intention will be different – Urquhart and Knox were impaled on spikes to attract attention; taking a body into the countryside says concealment to me.’

  The chief super nodded. ‘Why show off with the others and not this one?’

  Valentine shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We don’t even know that they’re linked.’

  ‘Oh come on, we treble our annual murder count in a matter of weeks and it’s not the same perp?’ She gripped the arms of her chair and the shape of her face changed.

  ‘Maybe the motivation’s different . . .’ He leaned forward and balanced his body weight on his palm. ‘Maybe this girl was done over because our killer wanted her out the way.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Valentine felt his energy levels increasing. He pushed himself away from the desk and turned for the door. ‘Running club?’

  ‘Bloody Ayrshire Harriers . . . Twenty-six names taken by uniform.’

  ‘Crime scene will be a mess.’

  Martin shook her head. ‘I’m more worried about the potential for press leaks . . . Won’t take long to seep out with twenty-six tongues wagging.’

  The DI dipped his brows. As he gripped the door handle he felt like he was entering a different station to the one he had crossed a few moments ago to offer his resignation. ‘Look, I’ll get out there and see what’s what.’

  She didn’t reply. Valentine knew this was virgin territory for the chief super, and if there had been a clock ticking on his efforts before it had just sprung into the red zone. He returned to the incident room and took a brief pause once inside the door. If his mind had been awash with thoughts before, it had stilled now: he grasped his newfound focus and stepped forward.

  ‘Right, everyone, can I have your attention?’

  The room seemed to go into slow motion and then freeze. A cup clattered onto a desktop like the last bell in a town-centre pub and then the only sound was that of the photocopier. A uniform reached out to remove the paper tray and then silence fell on the place like it was its natural state of being.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Valentine. ‘I’ve just been in with
the boss and have to report we have another body on our patch . . .’

  DS McAlister called out, ‘Another one . . . Where this time?’

  ‘Mossblown, Ally . . . The details are still sketchy, but we’ll know more when we get out there.’

  ‘Right, then,’ said McAlister. ‘We should get going.’

  The room’s volume was suddenly turned up a notch; some shuffling and animated facial gestures spread through the enclosed space.

  Valentine walked to the coat rack and retrieved his grey dog-tooth sports coat. ‘Right, Ally and Phil, you can follow me out . . . Sylvia, you’re with me.’ He pointed to the DS and then he curled up his index finger as if reeling her towards him.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The sound of the squad’s feet on the stairs came like a stampede. Jim Prentice looked up from the front desk and a woman struggled to hold onto what looked like a lost dog; it started barking as Valentine rushed past.

  ‘What’s all this?’ said Jim. ‘It’s never another one . . .’

  The detective held the door for DS McCormack and the others and managed to sneer over their backs towards the desk sergeant. ‘Jim, try and keep it zipped, eh!’

  In the car, Valentine depressed the clutch and pulled out before McCormack had a chance to put her seatbelt on. A red light illuminated on the dashboard and then a chime started to ping.

  ‘It won’t go off till you’ve got the belt on,’ said the DI.

  ‘I haven’t sat down, yet . . .’ McCormack turned towards the door and reached out for the seatbelt. Cars halted on the approach to King Street roundabout as the trail of police vehicles accelerated. They were halfway to the Tesco superstore before the conversation began again.

  ‘What do we know about this one, sir?’

  Valentine dropped a gear and changed lanes. ‘Female and not the same MO.’

  ‘How far out’s this town?’

  ‘About ten or fifteen depending on the road . . . There’s nothing to the place. A few council houses and a couple of pubs. Farms all around and, if I remember right, a nursing home.’