Lies of the Land

by Chris Dolan

  “We don’t have an option, son,” Coulter said when one of them grumbled a little too loudly. “Even if we have to stay here all night.”

  Joe Harkins had been watching them from inside his cabin since they arrived. As the evening got darker, Coulter sent Amy to see if the watchman had any torches. Harkins turned out to be more amenable than they’d expected. No doubt he didn’t want to piss off the polis more than he had already. Between him and Grace, the theodolite woman, they managed to find, and rig up to the power supply, two floodlights. The only place they could put them was on the ground, a few feet back from the hole in the mud, so that two intense beams of light shot across the surface of the dark mud, making the whole scene look like a horror B-movie.

  As the men shovelled gloops of sludge, shimmering in the floodlights, Amy, Coulter, and Grace the surveyor discussed in which directions they should widen the hole.

  “Question is,” Harkins said, “how deep should they dig?”

  Coulter nodded, trying not to reveal his surprise at Harkins’s apparent goodwill. “What are we assuming here? If Crichton made the map, and there is something buried here, did he bury it himself?”

  “If he did,” Harkins said, “it’ll be about two inches down. Big heid, skinny as a famished rat. He’s like a walkin’ toffee apple.”

  Coulter smiled, and thought how much easier this would be if the toffee apple in question would wake up and talk.

  Back in the city centre, Dan McKillop was swinging Maddy round with a degree of elegance, but when he should have only have been twirling her, thus throwing out of kilter the entire Gay Gordons. Which, of course, is what makes it fun. A roomful of genuinely practised and graceful dancers is dull; a frenzy of semi-bladdered amateurs who haven’t clue what they’re doing is a good night out.

  She’d had about four glasses of wine with the meal, a gin and tonic on arriving at Lauries, but now – to be sensible – was drinking pints. The euphoria that blots out all problems in life was in full flux. About a dozen colleagues from Ballater Street had joined them and, as happens in Glasgow, some of them had recruited acquaintances along the way, and complete strangers joined in because Maddy’s group was having the best time. The band, playing furious acid croft – dizzying jigs and reels fortified with electronica, guitar riffs, disco beats – sounded simultaneously like heaven and hell to her ears. Life should always be like this: wild, unthinking, surrounded by laughter and shrieking. Where yesterday and tomorrow don’t exist. There was just the smallest part of her aware that it was all an illusion. That Miller and Hughes were still dead, Crichton dying, and the person responsible still had three unused guns. Possibly he was out there at this very moment, taking aim, maybe in this very room, or a block or two away. A swig of St Mungo’s beer, another spin with a guy she faintly recognised but couldn’t quite place, and all that was swept away, scattered out across the dance floor and diffused into the night and the music.

  A dance ended and another began but she headed for the table – for a rest, a sip, a seventy-five-second time out. Samantha Anderson was at the table when she found it.

  “Up on your feet, Sam. Dance the night away.” No slurring. She was still of sound mind and understanding.

  “Not tonight, Maddy. I’m having to go soon. I just wanted to tell you…”

  Maddy was in no mood to sit, let alone get into middle-class sisterhood with Sam Anderson. So she crouched down in front of her.

  “Stuart is taking early retirement. He’s been to the doctor.” Sam had to shout over the full blast of the turbo ceilidh band. “Depression.”

  “Oh shit, Sam. I’m sorry.”

  “No. It’s fine. He’s been much better. Now that he knows.”

  “Yeah. Good. How about you?”

  “I’m glad too. To know what it is. You know?”

  Maddy did. But she didn’t want to think about it. Not tonight. Not now. The gloom and self-hating and existential dread were for tomorrow, when the old black dog would most surely come and slobber over her hung-over soul. She stroked Sam’s face, which she recognised was a little drunken, and squeezed her hand. “Stay strong.”

  “I just wanted to let you know.”

  “I’ll call you, Sam. Promise.”

  Sam smiled and got up to go. “And, Maddy, enjoy your break. We’re all behind you. You’re a terrific lawyer.”

  Maddy watched her negotiate her way round the flailing dancers towards the door, and felt guilty. Guilty for not wanting to talk to her tonight, for not helping in any way. It was nice of Sam to say what she did, though probably none of it was true. She also felt guilty about still not being able to remember Stuart’s face. A choice of two things to do now – either sneak quietly out and meet that slavering Dobermann halfway home, or push the self-flagellation back for a couple more hours with beer and noise and a blundering Strip the Willow.

  There was no chance that Coulter was going to let his diggers home early, even though, by now, the task seemed pointless. The map was too vague a guide, too blunt, and anyway whatever it was they were looking for might have disintegrated long ago. Or it could have moved in the mud – Crichton was no engineer: he’d have no idea that objects, if not buried deep enough and secured, could swim for yards in any direction in this soft, wet, clay. But it was Coulter’s only hope and even if he had to replace his digging team with fresh officers, or start shovelling himself, he was going to take it to the limit.

  It was Joe Harkins, of all people, who caught the first glimpse.

  “That a stone?”

  “Aye,” said one of the mocket officers. And just to prove it he tried to yank it aside. Bigger than he’d thought, it stayed put. The ray of light from one of the lamps revealed sides and a corner too angular for anything natural. Coulter jumped into the swampy hole, now about twelve foot square and four foot deep. When he pulled at the sodden grey shape, it resisted for a moment, then slurped out suddenly, throwing the detective inspector into the mud. His team all stifled a laugh, Harkins even sharing a quick, amused glance with DS Dalgarno. Coulter didn’t care. He’d found the treasure.

  Maddy jigged down the line, spun around, and regained her feet just in time to hook up with her next partner.

  “Step we gaily on we go,” shouted Doug Mason over the roaring music.

  “When did you get here!?”

  She had to wait until they’d circled the next pair of dancers to get the answer.

  “It’s all over town…” Circle. Spin. Step. “…Maddy Shannon’s having a party.”

  She was pleased to see him. She was pleased to see everyone, anyone, tonight. At the top of the line they did their little twosome steps, Doug grabbing her tight. Just over his shoulder she caught Dan’s face – one eyebrow raised in that mocking censorious stare of his. She was never quite sure just how light-hearted and consenting that look really was. What the hell. The ceilidh was in full swing, the band on fire, and Maddy Shannon was out to grab all the life she could.

  The moon had come out, casting a silver complexion over Belvedere, making the soggy site and surrounding scheme look almost romantic. Coulter hadn’t intended to open the Tupperware box there and then. Best to get it back to forensics as untouched as possible. He’d simply picked at one corner to see how it had been sealed and if it would be a problem to open, and the lid had sprung off.

  Lying at the top of the deep, heavy box was a clear plastic document wallet. And inside that, an A4 sheet of three printed photographs. One of them was the image Kenny Boyd had on his phone, toxic-red sludge seeping over the sides of a rickety concrete casing. The other two were even worse. Rusty canisters, punctured, floating in grey stagnant water, at least one of them once yellow and still faintly bearing the skull-and-crossbones hazard sign. The other of a film of green fungus, taken at such at angle that you could see the buildings above them. The same houses that Coulter could see from where he was standing, at the far side of the site.

  Harkins and Dalgarno edged in closer to see them too. The watchm
an took a breath and Coulter turned to him, thinking he was about to say something. Either he hadn’t been, or he changed his mind. He turned his back and walked away.

  Draw a line from where the box had been found at Belvedere, to Lauries Bar at the Trongate where Maddy and her colleagues were dancing the world into oblivion, and it would pass straight over the Royal Infirmary.

  A constable had been placed outside Bill Crichton’s ward and he was bored to the point of dropping off until suddenly there was commotion all around him. The woman, who the young officer had been told was the patient’s bit on the side, had been sitting quietly with him, either squeezing his hand or reading a magazine every time he had looked in on them. But now doctors and nurses were flashing past him, the woman was crying and gulping for breath, and there was an insistent bleeping coming from one of the machines in the room.

  “What’s happening?” he asked everyone who passed him until one of them – a young doctor – finally answered. “It’s all gone fucking pear-shaped in there.”

  A Glasgow night: dancing and dying and digging for tainted treasure.

  IV

  Some believe that the Big Bang is an argument for the existence of God.

  I wouldn’t know.

  Everything I do is driven by reason. And there is a reason for everything I’ve done. Premeditated. It has to be. To carry out my work I’ve needed tools, times, planning. How did I do it, they will ask later. By hard work and dedication.

  There is information everywhere. You don’t need to contact another living human being. It’s online, on television, in libraries, magazines in waiting rooms, on your phone. Snippets of knowledge, scraps of data, advice. Hints of wisdom. There are some people who know everything there is to know about one particular thing. Like which kings came to power when. Or the law, or how to change spark plugs. How the world began, and how it might end. How a gun works. What kind of people use them, and die by them.

  Planning and dedication are the only guides I have had.

  And isn’t it strange when you, and only you, can see the map clearly, if just for a while. It gives you a certain freedom. Being the only one who knows exactly what is happening.

  And what will happen next.

  This really, honestly, does have to stop.

  She woke at five in the morning, after only about two hours of on-off sleeping. Anxiety that she was going to be late for work, then realising it was still the middle of the night and, anyway, she was on leave. Then forgetting all that, and going round the full circle again. Now she was fully awake, or thought she was, and lay piecing together the dreaded Night Before.

  She hadn’t drunk that much, she decided. If she had she’d be suffering more. Either that or the hangover hadn’t kicked in yet. No. She hadn’t even finished the beer she’d been bought. A few sips between jigs and reels. So, after the wine – and, oh yes, that G&T – she’d only had about half a pint. Over a period of six hours or more. With a meal. And two hours of non-stop dancing. That wasn’t too bad, was it?

  She sprang straight up in her bed. Doug Mason! She’d danced with him for ages, then they’d got a taxi together…

  It was still dark, so she tentatively stretched her hand across the bed. Please, God, let there be no one there…

  There wasn’t. She was alone.

  So where had Doug got to?

  They’d taken the taxi back to here… She’d poured him a brandy – but herself a coffee. They’d chatted for a bit. Or rather they’d bellyached and felt sorry for themselves. Both their jobs shaky. Louis. Doug never finding the right woman. People getting killed. The usual late-night grumbling.

  And then he’d made a grab at her. She laughed now in her bed. He hadn’t meant it to be a grab. She would recognise a serious grab and she’d have lamped him. He’d meant it to be a silky smooth embrace, but his motor skills had failed him again. She’d burst out laughing then, too. But there had been a moment of contact between them – and it had had the same effect on them both. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t feel good. Even in that second or two of contact it was clear – to Doug as much as to Maddy – this wasn’t meant to be. They’d smiled, backed off from one another, and tried to make conversation for a few more minutes. Just to reboot the relationship, establish the social norm again, eradicate that brief fumble between them.

  So where was he now? She’d gone to her bed after giving him a duvet for the couch. Presumably he was still there.

  So, all in all, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to regret. Except she did. She felt terrible. What Dan calls the Four O’Clock Jury, ripping yourself to pieces mentally, deploring every decision you’ve ever taken. The only cure for that was to get out of bed. Lie there and the Dark Night of the Soul never ends.

  She showered and threw on a pair of joggers and an old shirt she kept for loafing around the house, crept into the kitchen, and made a pot of coffee. Moving around, doing things, kept the doldrums at bay. Like swimming, the minute you stop splashing, you sink like a stone. She’d intended to leave Doug – if indeed he was still on her couch – sleeping for a while yet. She quite fancied a walk. It had been a long time since she’d seen the sun come up. She considered Skyping Louis, but decided that the Morning After the Night Before wasn’t the best time to be seen on screen. Nor the best time to talk, given her state of mind. Anyway, it was about two in the morning over there. This was a new experience for Maddy Shannon: not having anything specific to do that day. Not rushing somewhere, catching up, spinning plates.

  Doug Mason decided the matter. She must have made more noise than she’d thought. It was only the back of six when she heard the toilet flush, the bathroom door open, and his feet padding towards the kitchen.

  “Good morning.”

  “Haven’t we done this before?”

  “Déjà vu all over again.”

  “Coffee? Or are you planning on going straight home to die?”

  “How many times can a man die? In under a month.”

  “Don’t know about men, Doug, but if other women are like me, several times a day.”

  The poor man did look under the weather, which in this city is serious. He leant against the doorjamb, in only his boxers and shirt, the latter as crumpled as a discarded chip poke.

  “How about you go and make yourself decent, and I’ll bring you in coffee and paracetamol?”

  He nodded. It was about all he could do. He turned and she watched him shuffle back across the hall. Nice legs, though, have to say.

  She percolated another pot of coffee, super strong – his taste buds would be shot, what mattered was the caffeine – found some co-codamol, and poured out two big glasses of water.

  When she took it through to him, he hadn’t managed to do anything but slump back down on the couch.

  “Douglas, Douglas. What are we going to do with you?”

  Alan Coulter had got no sleep whatsoever. Hadn’t even been home. He’d decided to leave the box more or less in situ and called forensics to send someone right away. While they were waiting it occurred to him that there could be more buried around the same place. The officers couldn’t believe their ears, and took up their shovels again with a sigh.

  Coulter had met Terry Walls, the forensics specialist, before.

  “Certainly not going to get any DNA. How long’s it been buried?”

  “We don’t know. But we think, anything up to four years. What I’m worried about though is getting whatever’s in there out without damaging it.”

  Bernie pulled on latex gloves and shone a paramedic’s torch on to the still mud-smeared container. Through the cloudy plastic they could make out the shapes of the contents. “Looks like piles of papers… Inside plastic wallets. Not the best way to seal anything, but we might be lucky.”

  “Can we take it back to the lab and start working on it now?”

  Walls glanced at his watch.

  “Sorry. But this is urgent.”

  The inspector told the seriously weary digg
ing team that they could knock off. “Thanks lads. I know that was a bastard, but you’ve done good work here tonight.”

  He called into the station to get a new team to cordon the area off – they might just want another look around in the light of day. Then he waited alone, having sent Amy Dalgarno home to get some shut-eye too.

  Cockcrow watch it was called, wasn’t it? He remembered it from Sunday school. The depth of the long, silent night. Therefore keep watch at cockcrow for you do not know the hour when the Lord shall arrive. Something like that. The darkness seemed to push the buildings around Belvedere back so that he could just about make out their ghostly forms behind the piss-coloured street lighting. There was birdsong somewhere though he couldn’t see any trees. What kind of birds nest in concrete and breeze block?

  Harkins brought him out a cup of tea.

  “What is it you’re not telling us, man?”

  The watchman stood beside him, sipping his tea, but said nothing.

  “Five years. That’s what you’d get for trading firearms. That what’s worrying you? Out in three?”

  Harkins shook his head. “Mair than that.” He smiled slyly at Coulter. “Way I heard it, they guns were police guns. You’re hardly occupying the high ground. Inspector.”

  “And how would you know that, Harkins? You’re right – you’d be in for much longer if we add perjury, obstructing police officers in execution of their duty…”

  “Which you could say I’m already guilty of.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “What if, if I had anything to tell you, which I don’t, you keep my name out of it?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Harkins went back to staring and sipping his tea. “I don’t believe you.”

  “More people could die, Harkins.”

  Harkins gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Coulter knew what he was thinking. Miller and Crichton might as well come from another planet. It was like hearing about some exotic animal dying somewhere: nothing to do with him. And as for Tom Hughes, Harkins didn’t hate him enough to kill him himself, but nor did he like him enough to care if someone else did.