The Tears of Angels

by Caro Ramsay

  ‘If they’re personal then going through the usual channels will not help. And as they are on police property …’

  ‘Apply for them in the proper way.’

  ‘Oh, I thought we already had. But to clarify, Bernie is missing, this might have something to do with his disappearance and you want me to go back to Partickhill and speak nicely to a fiscal then come back with a bit of paper? I’ll have no trouble with that as Archie Walker has just about moved in.’

  ‘So, you won’t mind doing it then.’

  ‘If you insist.’

  ‘We do.’ Was there a hint of a threat?

  At that moment another DCI appeared. ‘We have been cooperative, DI Costello. It’s late.’ He took the files from her, ‘I’m sure you would be better going home now.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she smiled at him on the way out. ‘But I’m going straight to talk to the fiscal. I’ve counted the pages, so no tearing anything out.’ She joked in perfect seriousness as she said her goodbyes, feeling as welcome as a wasp at a picnic, and got back into her car.

  With the mobile in her pocket.

  She drove to McDonald’s and bought a tea and doughnut in the drive-through. She pulled out the phone and played with a few buttons. It belonged to somebody called PC McGarry and it wanted a code.

  McGarry? The name meant nothing to her. She got out her own mobile and opened up the image of the diary. Munching on her doughnut, she pulled the screen large to read any code next to PC McGarry. Nothing.

  She then Googled PC McGarry and chuckled. Trumpton. He was the beat bobby in Trumpton. PC McGarry 452. She tried four five two to unlock the phone. It asked for another digit, the white space flashing at her. She tapped 0.

  The screen lit up.

  She scrolled the contents, her mouth going dry as she saw the names. K. Jones? Karen Jones? Talk about being in bed with the press. She flicked through the text history, sexual and explicit. There were eight others she did not recognize. She couldn’t help herself – she had to look at the photographs. They were even worse. She looked at them all, recognizing Inchgarten Lodge Park. In some Sammy was there but not on police work – well, not the kind of work she was paid for. And Karen Jones was hardly wearing anything. She saw a compromising photograph of the young female fiscal Costello had got friendly with on a violence against women course. Then she shut the phone.

  It was amazing Bernie had any energy left to do any bloody work.

  Anderson was still at his desk avoiding going home. He had been busy and was now sitting with the blinds closed, thinking.

  Eddie Taylor had a granny. Called Elizabeth Taylor. The granny’s neighbour had died. Her name was Bella, she had been set on fire. Her murder did not match that of her neighbour’s grandson, but it bore similarities to Dotty’s murder.

  It looked like they had killed the wrong woman. So there would be proof back at the maisonette in Knightswood where Bella lived. Anderson had walked through the house, still full of that smell of stale, stinging smoke. The curtain twitchers had done their job – Mrs Taylor the neighbour had come knocking. She was very correct and proper, a thin, grey-haired lady in blue trousers and a blue blouse, blue cardigan. Even her hair had a blue tinge in the light. Her eyes were red, she was fiddling with a handkerchief she had stuffed up her sleeve. She mentioned a tragedy in her own family. Anderson had nodded that it was a difficult time for all. She had regarded Anderson with intelligent blue eyes and asked what he wanted. She knew where the tarot card was straightaway. She had picked the mail up from the top of the trolley, sifting through them and placing each letter down as if waiting for Anderson to say snap. She stopped at the black envelope, the one he had thought was a funeral card. No address, put through the door by hand. It had been opened. The judgement card lay inside, Anderson was now turning it over in his fingers. Mrs Taylor had thought it was lovely, the picture of the unicorn.

  Why would Warren McAvoy go after his sister’s boyfriend’s grandmother? It made no sense. And as McAvoy couldn’t drive, he would have needed a driver. That made another person evil enough to go along with him.

  It was getting very late.

  But on the good side, Helena was back on her feet, feeling woozy but much better, just a tummy bug. They had had a long chat on the phone earlier in the day. He checked his messages. The conference had not gone well, then Archie Walker had summoned him. Then the ACC had had a go as well.

  There was still no sign of Bernie. Anderson was starting to feel sick in the stomach when he thought about what his colleague might be going through.

  His door banged open and Costello walked in and switched the lights on, saying, ‘Just the two of us, please’ to Walker and Batten, who were still out in the investigation room. She closed the door and placed the blue phone down on his desk. ‘We have a problem. More than one.’

  Five minutes later Colin had his head on his desk. ‘I thought it couldn’t get any worse.’

  ‘Well, it has.’

  ‘I gave her a chance to say what was going on between her and Bernie. PC McGarry four-five-two.’ He turned the mobile over in his palm. ‘God, the village bobby in Trumpton. Bernie obviously watched the same TV programmes that I did as a kid.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s fair to say he has a playful nature. But he’s in contact with Karen Jones, so that answers that question as to how the press were so well informed. And we need to find somebody called “Crecy”. Plus there’s a file in that office about Ruth that is not a duplicate of ours. They would have killed me rather than let me walk out of there with it. So much for one unified force.’

  ‘Did you ask politely?’

  ‘Indeed. I was lucky to get out before I was lynched. They want me to go through official channels.’

  ‘So be nice to Walker.’

  ‘Go to hell.’ She leaned forward. ‘But Bernie was after their medical records. Why, do you think? Mental health issue somewhere?’

  ‘Doubt it. Somebody would have said something by now. Oh God, what is going on? Sammy’s very close to Ruth, she knew what she takes in her tea, without asking. Milk two sugars.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘And why were you sticking your fingers into the plants?’ Anderson asked.

  ‘Folk with well-watered plants remember to water them. It’s a sign of being organized, of being aware. And the pencil drawing, recently ordered. Her mind is focussed. More focussed than Sammy Winterston’s.’

  ‘But what was going through Webster’s mind – school records, medical records?’

  ‘Of the parents, not the boys? I’ll chase them down. See if I can find anything. Webster was a good cop so you never know what he might have spotted. Before all this stuff started with Eddie in the field, he was investigating the parents. So it must have been for the killing of Grace.’

  ‘And he knew about Tony’s record but dismissed it totally.’

  ‘Or wasn’t paying attention?’

  Anderson’s mobile pinged. ‘Text, Brenda.’ He read the text and grimaced. ‘She wants me to go round to Helena’s to check on her.’

  Costello looked at her watch. ‘Well, it is nearly midnight, Colin. So you should be, well, somewhere other than here. Must admit Brenda is doing well, after her personality transplant.’

  Anderson ushered Costello out of his office before she started. A headphoned Batten had three maps rolled up beside him; he looked like a man with a mission. Wyngate was huddled over a computer monitor. Walker was by the wall, twitching, with his hands in his pockets. Sniffing after Costello, no doubt. His phone went and he slipped into the corridor before talking down his mobile – to his wife, probably.

  Costello couldn’t see Walker’s wife asking him to go round and spend time with his girlfriend.

  ‘What’s Batten doing?’ Anderson asked Wyngate.

  ‘Watching the film of the first Dewar interview. Again,’ said Wyngate. ‘I’m still struggling, trying to place who was where on the night of the killings. Surely that is important.’

&n
bsp; ‘Highly. You keep at it. Ask Walker if we can arrange a re-enactment for them, a reunion. Then we’ll throw in a firecracker. See what comes up.’

  ‘He’ll never allow that.’

  ‘Don’t know until you ask.’

  ‘I’ve already asked him to get a warrant for the medical records. I’m not pushing my luck. Why is Batten still looking at Dewar’s stuff? Have you found something suspicious about Eoin?’

  ‘Nope. And our surveillance hasn’t picked up any suspicious behaviour.’

  ‘That’s all we need on this case – the confusion of somebody behaving normally.’

  It was midnight when Anderson got out to Helena’s house. When he arrived she was in the kitchen, moving around unsteadily. He could have knocked her over with a sneeze. Now she was on the settee, sleeping, wrapped in a blanket. An empty cup on the floor, a bottle of morphine sulphate. Her back must really be sore. He adjusted the cushion under her head and felt something: glossy paper. He pulled out a photograph of Claire. Colin lifted it up and placed it on the arm. She would see it when she woke up. He kissed her forehead and left, closing the door behind him.

  Bernie was drifting in and out of consciousness, happy to be in another world where he was sitting on a beach with his first wife and the kids when they were young. Eating ice creams, the scent of Nivea sun lotion and listening to the waves race across the sand. Happy.

  Then he would wake up tasting the salt of the sea, realizing he was tasting the salt of his own tears.

  Thought he was looking out of a window but there was not even a gap of hopeful light in the ceiling. Hoes and a rake in the corner, oil stains on the floor. They started to come alive and dance. He could hear the Sorcerers’ Apprentice from somewhere inside his head.

  His mouth was dry and stinging for the want of water. His stomach had forgotten about food – it was all about fluids now. The pain refused to leave; it flitted around from joint to joint. Every time he shifted his weight it got worse somewhere else. There was a limit to pain, surely. He needed to pee again. It had not dried since last time, and he couldn’t ignore the cloying mass between his buttocks. Or the repulsive smell.

  He was a feeble little man, lying in a dark corner, peeing and shitting himself.

  Thursday, 19 June

  Batten was on the phone being charming as the team gathered. It was eight thirty a.m. A late start for them. Costello was ripping off the jagged edge of her fried egg, looking at the latest Find Warren cartoon online. This time they were up Ben Lomond, Warren being the pantomime villain right behind PC Plod. The joke was wearing thin. Archie Walker, the fiscal, walked in. He didn’t say anything, but held up the front pages of the Daily Record and the Sun before sitting down.

  ‘I need a coffee,’ he said, ‘a strong one. Where is Karen Jones getting this stuff?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Anderson. ‘Initially, it was via Bernie. But he has been under the radar for a wee while, so either there’s another leak or Bernie is working for the other side, so to speak. And Sammy Winterston won’t be joining us this morning. She’s under the weather.’

  ‘Might be safer for her to be under lock and key,’ Costello said to Walker.

  ‘Moving on,’ said Anderson, ‘Batten is on to something.’

  Walker said, ‘I know when my attention has been diverted.’

  But he listened in to one side of the phone call, hearing Batten say, ‘Oh, dinosaurs, yip, well, on his computer, and that would be normal? Oh right, yeah.’ Batten was nodding. ‘Mammals … oh mammoths, sorry, yeah. Well, thank you. I certainly will, no problem …’ There was a seductive flirtation in the psychologist’s voice. He put the phone down. ‘Robbie’s class project at school, ancient man. Hunting with impaling pits, which echoes the way that Grace was killed.’

  Anderson had been hoping for more and couldn’t disguise his disappointment. ‘So what?’

  ‘So his dad helped wee Robbie with his homework. It’s a link, a suggestion of an idea planted.’

  ‘Right, so he had shown that to Warren and it sparked off something in his mind. What? To pull a canoe cradle over then push a wee lassie on to it?’ Anderson held his head in his hands. ‘Sorry. But she was four years old, pulled from her bed, half asleep. They could have led her anywhere, done anything.’

  ‘Vik’s report says that Warren wasn’t there,’ said Wyngate, scrolling through a log.

  ‘Vik has been told that Warren was not seen there, it’s not the same thing,’ Anderson pointed out.

  ‘My point is,’ argued Batten, ‘that idea had been implanted in Eoin’s mind, that method of death. He’s a trusted dad. Might be good to find out what sport he did, review the other methods of murder. The T-shirt was overlooked, there was time to—’

  ‘What T-shirt?’ Walker was confused.

  It was Costello who answered. ‘We found a green vest top on the island. Initially we thought it was Warren’s but it was Sammy’s. It got torn while she was searching the island with DCI Webster.’

  ‘Really?’ said Walker.

  ‘And the surveillance team caught Eoin coming back last night; they hadn’t noticed he had gone.’ Anderson shook his head. ‘So do we ask him where he went? If we do, it shows we’re watching him.’

  ‘Then we don’t. What’s the significance of the green top?’ asked Walker.

  ‘The same significance of Lexy’s nickname for him: Bonking Bernie,’ said Costello.

  ‘Were you going to inform me of this, DCI Anderson?’

  ‘Only found out myself last night. Look, there are more important things. As our local fiscal, can you get Bernie’s personal files out of Alexandria, asap? He wasn’t a bad cop; he might have been on to something.’

  ‘And Mr Fiscal, Eoin is very protective over Jimmy. The boy might have been coached. It’s all smoke and mirrors. We need to know where everybody was exactly that night. Exactly,’ said Batten.

  ‘The reconstruction?’

  ‘And I need to re-examine the family dynamics.’

  ‘So Warren killed the boys, and Eoin is on a revenge spree? And Eddie Taylor was killed by mistake.’

  ‘Yes, maybe and no. Bella was killed because the killer thought she was Eddie’s granny, so they knew he was Eddie.’

  ‘So that leads us back to Warren. He killed the boys and went into hiding.’

  ‘He could be bloody anywhere.’

  Walker shook his head. ‘No, hold on a moment. Why was this stuff on the island not found at the time?’

  ‘It was underwater by the time the search team got there. Simple. People keep forgetting about the weather. It was pouring down by the time the bodies were discovered,’ said Anderson.

  ‘And the Inchgarten locals would have known that. OK. So does the Eoin revenge theory fit in with the tarot cards? Is that what you and Batten have been wittering about?’

  ‘It’s as if they’re being left as calling cards. They might have no significance other than they are relevant to the person it is left with. And that is because they want us to know that they know them.’

  ‘Somebody who knew Sammy and Bernie were at it like rabbits.’

  ‘Everybody seems to have known that.’ Wyngate blushed slightly.

  ‘Somebody who knew O’Hare’s car,’ Anderson continued. ‘Someone who knows where I live but not where Costello or Sammy live.’

  ‘Anybody we have interviewed?’ Costello asked. ‘And are we thinking Fergus is Eoin’s number two, if we are following his revenge theory?’

  ‘Still not found him, have we?’ said Walker.

  Wyngate flicked over a few pages of a notebook. ‘You have no idea of the nutters we have talked to to trace these cards, but the bottom line is they are easily purchased over the net. There have been some packs sold at a psychic fair in the Central Hotel late last year but the stallholders had no real recollection of who or when. But they paid cash. Of course.’

  ‘Well, it’s more about the psychology,’ said Batten.

  ‘Oh please, no!’ groaned Walke
r.

  ‘Ivory and ebony, the good and the bad,’ Batten explained. ‘The side of the angels and the side of the devil. Somebody wants us to get this sorted. O’Hare, Costello, Anderson all got white cards, so we are on the side of the angels. Eddie Taylor, the woman the killer thought was his grandmother, Patty McAvoy, and Lexy McAvoy all got black cards. So the killer knew that Eddie was Eddie and not Warren, as Colin says. Then they went for his granny. Anybody involved in the previous investigation is lumped in with them too, so they need to suffer. That will explain why Bernie might be in deep trouble now. And somebody is telling the killer what’s going on; that Anderson is in charge, for instance?’ Batten put his own tarot card on the table. It was white. ‘I am on the side of the angels. Even so, we must be careful to warn our nearest and dearest that they might be on some lunatic’s hit list. We are dealing with an unstable mind; any perceived slight could result in a change in game plan.’ The rest looked unconvinced. ‘Think about Bella – he killed the wrong one. Just because they saw Mrs Taylor go in and out of a house, letting herself into the house with a key. One little old lady looks like another when you set fire to them.’

  ‘Can I say something?’ asked Wyngate, gently, to remind them that he was there.

  ‘Only if it’s helpful,’ said Anderson.

  ‘Fergus Dewar and Eoin McCardle never went to university together. We didn’t really get anywhere with the medical records with no warrant. But Costello had said something about Tony Laphan’s interest when he was a medic student …’

  ‘Forensics pathology?’

  ‘And rocking stones.’

  ‘Can I kill him now?’

  Wyngate ignored them. ‘Fertility. It’s the link. Both Eoin and Fergus are members of HIM. Help for infertility for men. Same organisation, that’s where they met.’

  ‘What?’ said Costello.

  ‘So what? They had kids. They had treatment, they got over it,’ argued Anderson.

  ‘Well, maybe, but the couple that lost their child under Laphan’s care? They had years of treatment to have Thea. Thea dies and the following year they go to Inchgarten on holiday and nine months later – they have another kid.’