The Relentless Tide

by Denzil Meyrick

‘And what about Sanderson?’

  ‘I’ll deal with him. Get back downstairs and clear your desk. Tomorrow you report to me at HQ in Pitt Street. Make sure you’re fully briefed on the contents of that file.’ He removed his spectacles and began writing. ‘That will be all, DS Daley.’

  Still mystified, Daley left the room with the file tucked under his arm and the letter from Ian Burns in the pocket of his jacket. He would be spending the evening reading; there was no doubt about that.

  As he remembered Burns, he looked along the corridor to where his old boss had had his office, now occupied by Sanderson. In his mind’s eye, he could see the old beige raincoat – and scarf more often than not – hanging from the coat stand, as Burns sat behind his desk dispensing words of wisdom through a fug of cigarette smoke.

  He thudded downstairs, his eyes filled with tears.

  He went to the office janitor and found a cardboard box, into which he began packing personal items from his desk in the general CID room.

  ‘Hey, big man, you’re having a laugh?’ said the familiar voice. ‘I knew things was bad, but no’ as bad as this! Surely they’ve no’ sacked you, Jimmy?’ Scott’s tone was all concern.

  ‘You’ll have heard about DCI Burns, Bri?’

  ‘Aye, aye, I did. Poor bastard. I’m still in shock here, man – all of us are. If I ever catch the—’

  He stopped in mid-sentence when the door swung open to reveal DI Donald. He stood in the doorway for a moment, looking round the room. When he was sure it contained only Daley and Scott, he strode in and closed the door.

  ‘Well, well. Leaving so soon, DS Daley?’

  Scott looked from one to the other, his face a picture of confusion.

  ‘Yes, sir. Won’t be in tomorrow, as you obviously know.’

  Donald hesitated, running a hand through his hair. ‘Fuck off, Brian,’ he said in a low, aggressive tone.

  ‘Eh? I’m buggered if I know what’s going on. DS Daley – what’s that all aboot? I thought you was upstairs getting your jotters.’

  ‘Do one, DC Scott!’ Donald shouted.

  Scott scuttled out of the room, leaving Daley and Donald standing almost toe to toe.

  Donald leaned into Daley’s face. ‘I don’t know what wire you have to Pitt Street, but rest assured I’ll make it my business to end this little charade and see you back here as a cop on the beat. Trust me.’

  ‘You do your best, John,’ replied Daley, deliberately using his superior’s Christian name to irritate him. ‘But let’s be honest, your best isn’t really up to much, so I’m not holding my breath.’

  Just as Donald was about to reply, two DCs entered the room, talking animatedly about the murder of Ian Burns.

  ‘This isn’t over, Jim Daley. This won’t be over for a long time,’ Donald whispered into Daley’s ear. He swept back his hair, turned on the heels of his well-polished shoes and departed.

  19

  Kinloch, the present

  The crack of the starting gun echoed from the hills that held Kinloch in their embrace. The crowd of runners set off, banging and barging into each other as they jostled for position.

  The huge chicken flapped its wing in Scott’s face as he tried to navigate his way past.

  ‘You should have chosen tae be a duck,’ said Scott, wrestling the fabric wing from his line of sight.

  ‘Why?’ came the muffled voice of Josie inside the large suit.

  ‘Cos if you get in my way once mair, I’m going tae fling you in that loch. I’m no’ sure chickens can swim.’ He barged his way past, making sure he trod on the large yellow toes of the chicken’s costume, making the bird stumble, its head lurching perilously from side to side.

  ‘Aye, and there’s the polis getting knocked intae Josie Thomson in his chicken costume!’ shouted Councillor Charlie Murray through the tannoy. ‘Any mair o’ that an’ your goose will be cooked, DS Scott,’ he continued gleefully, to laughs and cheers from the spectators.

  Scott threaded his way through the crowd, ready to take the long, punishing hill on the first part of the course.

  ‘He’s got a fine pair o’ legs, right enough,’ said Annie dreamily, as she watched Scott disappear in the crowd of participants.

  ‘I’m thinking it’s mair than his legs you’re thinking on, missus,’ replied her friend Nancy, a broad smile on her face.

  ‘Here, I’ll have nane o’ that. Brian’s jeest a good friend. Sure, his wife’s coming doon soon tae have a look aboot and see if she wants tae move tae Kinloch – for a whiles, at least.’

  ‘Ach, you must be fair devastated. Mind you, she’ll be daein’ well tae have as good a figure as you. For a woman o’ your age, it has tae be said, you’re no’ too bad on the weight front, Annie.’

  It took Annie a few moments to assimilate this information before she turned to look at her companion. ‘I beg your pardon? Bugger me, you’ve got an arse there like a small island, Nancy. I widna go aboot casting expurtions on anyone else’s physique!’

  ‘Woo! Now who’s the touchy one? Och, his wife will likely be o’ the model variety. I mean, look at his boss, thon Daley – his wife was a right looker.’

  ‘She’s a bonnie lassie, right enough. But remember one thing, Nancy.’

  ‘Whoot?’

  ‘She’s no’ here.’

  ‘How long have I known you for now? Aye, it must be forty years since we first met at primary school.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘In all that time, Annie, I’ve never seen you jealous. Aye, but I see it noo!’ Nancy laughed heartily.

  For once, the formidable hotel manageress had nothing to say as she stared at the distant figure of Scott, disappearing round the corner and up the hill, half obscured by a massive blue chicken.

  ‘You bastard!’ shouted Nancy, staring down at a large seagull dropping on the right shoulder of her red coat. ‘They bloody gulls! I swear, these tourists are feeding them till they burst. There’s half a fish supper on my coat.’

  ‘They’re right whoot they say at the Highlan’ Kirk, Nancy: God does indeed work in mysterious ways.’ Annie laughed at her friend’s plight as she tried to remove the unwanted deposit with a small paper hanky. In truth though, she asked herself, was she looking forward to the arrival of Mrs Scott? No, not one bit.

  Glasgow, 1994

  The nightclub was winding down. Very drunk men were doing their best to prop themselves up on their partners as they shuffled around the floor in what could only be described as an approximation of the last dance.

  ‘Here, have one mair for the road, Anne Marie,’ said her friend. She looked around, then pulled a half bottle of vodka from her handbag and surreptitiously poured two large measures into their glasses of Coke, all the time hiding the manoeuvre behind her oversized handbag.

  ‘Thank fuck I’ve nae work tomorrow,’ her companion replied, grabbing the glass and glugging down the spirit. ‘Mind you, that mother o’ mine likes tae wake me up wae a slap in the face when I’ve had a skinful – just cos she’s got a miserable life, like.’ Anne Marie McKean fiddled with the gold locket at her neck.

  It was a shock to the system when the DJ eventually wound things up with a scattergun delivery list of what attractions the nightclub had to offer for the upcoming weekend. ‘Hope you’ve had a fantastic Wednesday evening – but now it’s Thursday morning, so cheerio for now!’ he finished with his usual flourish.

  Anne Marie squinted as the bright lights were turned on and the music disappeared, to be replaced by the gabbled banter of the tired and emotional crowd. Even though she was three sheets to the wind, she marvelled at how the magical, inviting place she had paid hard cash to enter a few hours ago now looked so mundane – tatty, even – under normal light.

  Soon they were outside, shivering in the early morning air. A young man in his late teens pushed past Anne Marie, then spewed copiously into the gutter. A slight girl of about the same age – his companion – looked on in disgust.

  As she leaned over the flicke
ring flame of her new friend’s lighter, Anne Marie saw two lads squaring up to each other in the middle of the road. They were being goaded by a handful of onlookers. Without warning, there was a distinct snap, followed by a yell, as a forehead connected with the bridge of a nose. One of the youths fell back clutching at his face, blood pouring down his chin. His opponent took the chance to land a couple of kicks into the unprotected ribs of his victim, now helpless on the ground, before he and his friends ran off down the street, yelling and screaming their delight at their inhumanity.

  The aroma of beefburgers from the fast food van beside them and sizzling kebabs from the shop across the street, mixed with the scent of cheap perfume, alcohol, diesel taxi fumes and youthful hormones, filled the air. Woman screamed and giggled, men roared and guffawed. Distantly, a police siren sounded, as a girl in a red dress pleaded with a lad in a light blue suit not to leave her. All life played out under the orange glow of sodium lights on the Glasgow city centre street, the silver flow of the Clyde just visible through a small lane.

  The girls were arm in arm now as they passed an alleyway. A woman in her late forties, her overly thick make-up obvious under the bright pool of the street light, had her back against a wall, dress rucked up to her waist, her bare legs entwined around the back of a muscular young man no more than twenty years of age. He grunted every time he thrust himself inside her, trousers at his ankles, his white socks splashed with mud. ‘What the fuck are yous lookin’ at?’ she shouted over the shoulder of her energetic lover as he went about his business, sending the girls giggling past the scene, their high heels clicking and scraping on the rough pavement.

  ‘Och, let’s make a night of it. I’ve got a full bottle at hame.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Anne Marie. ‘If you’ve got mair vodka, I’m yer woman. How far away dae you live? I love a party, me.’

  The pair staggered on until a black cab appeared round the corner.

  Kinloch, the present

  Scott wheezed as he struggled up the hill, and was then overtaken by a woman with a ponytail wearing a dark blue tracksuit and orange wrap-around sunglasses.

  Despite himself, he had to stop in order to lean on his knees and take huge lungfuls of air. The hill seemed to go on for ever, and though he knew its full extent, he’d only ever travelled its length by car. Now he was doing so as part of a race, and regretting every minute of it.

  ‘I must be mad aff my heid,’ he said to himself in breathless gasps, filling his lungs and starting the fifty or so yards to the top of the rise.

  The race was strung out now. As Scott looked ahead, he could see a long line of brightly clad runners, snaking down the hill into a small valley, back up another hill and round a corner out of sight. Though it looked steeper, he knew the climb to be considerably shorter in distance than the one he’d just tackled.

  ‘C’mon, you,’ said a voice from behind.

  Scott looked back to see the thin figure of the pensioner who’d been at the start with him and the chicken.

  Determined not to be outrun by the old woman, he kicked on and was soon on the slope heading down into the little glen. He looked at the pedometer he had on his wrist – almost two and a quarter miles, though the long hill had made it feel three times that distance. As a general rule, he stayed away from hills if he could when out on his training runs. Though he’d given up booze, he was still a smoker. Hills and smoking didn’t mix, as he realised he was now proving to himself.

  He took another deep breath, just as he was passed again, this time by a man approximately his own age. He dug in, his running shoes slapping into the tarmac as he made his way down the steep hill, his bad knee aching.

  Time to stop the fags, he thought to himself, as he ploughed on. From behind, he could hear the panting of the old woman. It occurred to him to feign cramp, but his wily fellow participant would probably clock the deceit.

  The honour of Police Scotland was at stake: he would not be beaten by a grandmother.

  Glasgow, 1994

  The taxi ride had taken longer than she thought. But she knew that if drivers thought they could get away with it when carrying inebriated passengers, they’d take creative routes.

  ‘That’s us here,’ said her companion, as they finally pulled up in a nondescript street of sandstone tenement flats.

  Anne Marie watched as her new best friend paid the fare then crouched out of the cab. Maybe because the journey had been longer than expected, or perhaps thanks to the cool night air that now flooded into the taxi, she felt squeamish. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to go to this woman’s house for more alcohol – after all, she hardly knew her. In fact, she was yearning now for the cosy embrace of her own bed.

  ‘I’m going tae pass,’ she slurred.

  Her new friend wouldn’t take no for an answer, though, and hauled at the sleeve of Anne Marie’s coat, pulling her sprawling across the back seat.

  Despite her protests, she found herself being half dragged, half cajoled up a path and through a big red close door. With no little effort, the two young women made it to the second floor. They had to suppress their laughter as one of them managed to kick over three empty milk bottles sitting on a mat outside a neighbouring front door. Luckily, the bottles chinked and rattled against each other but didn’t break.

  Her friend nimbly produced a key, which she used to access her flat.

  Once inside, Anne Marie did as she was told, stumbling straight through to the lounge, while her friend went off to get some drinks.

  As she sat down on a long leather sofa, her head began to nod with tiredness.

  Just as she was about to fall into a drunken sleep, her synapses sprang back into wakefulness, sickeningly prompted by the constricting pain in her neck.

  Wildly, eyes bulging, she grabbed at whatever was cutting off her breath and circulation and sending flashes across her vision.

  The last thing Anne Marie McKean saw was the blood on her hands as she fell forward into oblivion.

  The man stood over the body for a few moments. He heard the front door slam, but didn’t react.

  He removed the garrotte from the dead girl’s neck, closed the lids over her bulging eyes with his thumb and forefinger, and went about his grim business.

  20

  Kinloch, the present

  Scott made it to the top of the second hill, just over three miles into the race. In a mile or two, the route doubled back on itself. Already, fit young men and women were passing him on the other side of the road, heading back down into the town to complete the next leg of the challenge.

  Scott stopped, again breathing heavily. He noticed he was only a few steps away from the narrow forestry road that wound to the site where the graves had been found. He walked to the fence and sat down on a grassy hummock above a ditch, fishing into his shorts pocket. He hated being parted from his smokes. With a nod of defeat, he took a slim cigarette from the ten-pack he’d bought especially for the occasion and lit it with the tiny lighter stowed away in his sock.

  As he drew deeply on the sweet tobacco, he squinted up the hill, shading his eyes with one hand. Silhouetted in front of the sun, he could see two figures gesticulating. He cocked his head and was sure he could make out a distant expletive carried on the breeze.

  At the moment he was a runner, but for some reason what was taking place up on the hill fascinated him. The detective in him overcame the athlete.

  He made his way up the rough track, crouching low enough to make his back ache so that the couple on the hill couldn’t follow his progress, and managed to slouch to a position behind a gorse bush a few yards from where they were arguing.

  He cocked his head to one side, trying to keep his breathlessness at bay and calm the thud in his chest the race had engendered. Down the track, he could see runners heading in both directions. Ironically, the participants heading back into Kinloch, having completed more of the race, looked much fresher than those who had just toiled up the twin hills.

  A snatched par
t of the conversation in the field caught his attention.

  ‘And just how do you think I’ll manage that?’ The voice was male. He knew he should recognise it, but something wasn’t right – tone, timbre – it was like a shouted whisper. Try as he might, he couldn’t place who was saying the words.

  Scott edged his way forward and had to bite his lip to prevent himself from crying out in pain when he accidentally knelt on a thorn. The little sliver of sharpness penetrated his left knee and the pain was excruciating. Eyes streaming, he swore silently as he pulled out the offending thorn with a grimace. Collecting himself, he cupped his hand to his ear, much in the way he’d seen his grandmother do when her hearing began to fail.

  Sure enough, he thought, still wincing in pain, he could hear more.

  ‘I’m telling you. How this happened, I’ll never know. How someone found out about it is almost impossible to imagine. But that’s where we are. You’d better get that fucking brain of yours into gear and fix this, now!’

  Scott was even more convinced that he should recognise the voice, but whether because of the pain in his knee, or the exertion of the race, his mind was blank.

  Without warning, he heard footsteps on the forestry track behind him. He was already partially hidden by the gorse bush, so he slowly edged himself as far round it as he could, hoping not to be spotted.

  As Scott held his breath, one of the young archaeologists he’d seen in the Douglas Arms trudged past, rucksack on his back. More intent on listening to whatever was coming out of his earphones than on examining his surroundings, he didn’t spot the detective.

  As the newcomer headed further up the hill, Scott noticed that the conversation on which he’d been eavesdropping had stopped. He waited for a few heartbeats before edging his head above the bush to have a look. Squinting into the early afternoon sunshine, he could only make out a bare hillside. Whoever the arguing pair had been, they had disappeared.

  With his many years behind the mast, Scott’s suspicions were now fully aroused. What had begun with a couple of shadows gesticulating to each other on top of a hill had turned into something altogether more sinister.