by Caro Ramsay
They followed her, her floral yellow dress side-shifting and sliding over her hips as she walked. Anderson watched, a man who could never understand the attraction of skinny women. He got an elbow in the guts from Costello.
Outside the Boathouse Daisy stopped. ‘There’s a hose round there if you want to wash your leg down, hen, otherwise the drive home is going to be a wee bit rank.’ She smiled as she spoke, ‘It’s too hot to be going about in a car stinking of pish.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Anderson.
Vik managed the steps of the Boathouse without too much difficulty; Elvie slipped into the bench seat opposite him. They knew the place well already. The Boathouse had a huge table with two bench seats at either side, covered in cow hides. The door was open, as were both windows. Despite the heat of the day, a small fire was burning in the wrought-iron fireplace and two sheepskin rugs lay in front. Mr Peppercorn immediately folded up on top of one of them and went to sleep, snoring loudly right from the first breath.
‘Take a pew,’ said Daisy. Anderson hung around near the door of the kitchen, enjoying the smell of something baking. She looked him right in the face and said quietly, ‘And you are in need of something restorative. You’re being pulled in too many ways, son, too many women. But it will all sort itself out OK – these things do.’ She disappeared through the small wooden archway. Anderson heard a switch going on, a fridge door being opened. She came back and handed him three mugs, homemade from the look of them, and a plate of gingerbread that smelled so delicious, Anderson felt his stomach squeeze. She nodded to the table. As he sat down, Daisy came back with a bowl of cut fruit, bananas in thick slices, melon in fine slices, apples halved across to see the star of Venus. She placed them in front of Anderson, who was sitting on the end of the bench seat, staring out the open door, down to the beach and the water beyond. He was looking at Inchgarten Island.
She handed him a jug of cold milk and a packet of sugar. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. Help yourself to the gingerbread.’
Anderson could feel his mouth water, he could see the moistness in the cake, and it was calling to him. Vik began to cut the cake into pieces … the aroma of sweet, fresh ginger was tempting.
‘Help yourself, I’ll leave you to it.’
The coffee and cake were delicious, both Elvie and Vik were tucking in.
‘This is lovely.’ Anderson realized he meant it. The peace was then ruined by Costello blundering in, adding the smell of wet denim and dog pee to the ginger.
Mr Peppercorn looked up, disregarded her and went back to sleep.
‘So, Vik? Any thoughts on Warren McAvoy?’
Vik shrugged, licking the crumbs of gingerbread from his lips. ‘They all say the same thing. He was a lovely boy. Life was precious to him. So that doesn’t fit in at all with what we think.’
‘Something is not right,’ said Anderson, noticing the way Vik poured Elvie another glass of water, without being asked.
‘No, it’s not. But where the hell is he? Did he use that inflatable to get off the island?’
‘We have no idea. Have you looked in the other lodges?’
‘They seem empty,’ said Elvie. ‘I’ve been around all times of day and night, not seen anybody of his description.’
‘They believe there was somebody else on Inchgarten that night,’ said Mulholland.
‘But there wasn’t.’ Costello sniffed her coffee and pushed it away.
‘You don’t know that,’ said Elvie. ‘Daisy has known McAvoy for more than ten years and never heard him raise his voice in anger. He did talk to trees and they answered back.’
‘Interesting,’ said Anderson, wondering if there was anything in the gingerbread. He was starting to feel very mellow indeed. He hastily took a slug of hot coffee. Elvie gave him a long, intelligent stare.
Costello poured herself some water, looking at the glass and pondering how well it had been cleaned. ‘Do they have any idea where he might have been? He had been missing for almost a year …’
‘No. But they think he has the ability to go anywhere,’ said Vik. ‘He could climb trees and walk across the top. Skylining, it’s called,’ he added. ‘His party trick was to walk from here to the car park without touching the ground.’
‘And he goes flying,’ said Elvie, nibbling at an apple.
Anderson chuckled. ‘So you think he’s up a tree?’
‘No,’ Elvie looked quizzical. ‘No, but he lived by different rules. You won’t get anywhere looking for him in the places you’d look for normal folk.’
‘So Warren wasn’t normal?’ asked Costello.
‘That’s one point everybody agrees on.’
‘Why does she cut the apples that way?’ asked Costello, noticing the fruit.
‘It aids fertility,’ said Elvie, and both Anderson and Vik burst out laughing.
They walked out into the sunshine and Anderson sniffed the air. ‘There’s a train station in Balloch, isn’t there? I don’t know if I can have you in the car stinking like that …’
‘I’ll spray perfume on it.’
‘You need to spray napalm on it,’ said Vik.
Elvie was looking deep into Anderson’s eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but I think you should let Costello drive the car. You sit here, in the sun, get some air.’ She turned to Costello. ‘Can I show you something? Follow me. You two can keep Daisy here.’ And she walked away.
‘What was that about?’ Vik asked.
‘No idea, don’t care,’ said Anderson.
‘What if she turns Costello into a frog?’
‘She’ll have my eternal gratitude.’
Anderson watched as Elvie took Costello to the water’s edge. It could have been a conversation about the weather, or the island. There was just the slight turn of the head as Costello checked her bearings, something Elvie was telling her about, somewhere behind the Boathouse.
Sammy had walked into Partickhill Station telling the front desk that she felt a lot better and needed a chat. She wasn’t quite well enough to return to work, she said. Her hands trembled slightly as she tapped in her access code on the keypad.
Denied.
Fighting back tears, she made her way back out on to the street, her embarrassment making her hurry. She bumped right into Costello.
‘How are you, Sammy?’
‘I wanted to clear the air a bit.’
Costello was surprisingly friendly. ‘I was peed on by a dog.’
‘Is that not lucky?’
‘That’s birds. Let’s walk a bit; we can get a tea up here.’
‘I have a confession to make,’ Sammy said as they set off. ‘I’ve been talking to Ruth. I think of her as a friend. Thinking back, I might have said too much at times. I’m sorry.’
‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ Costello said but not unkindly. ‘Have you been talking to Karen Jones?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know who Crecy is?’
‘Who? No.’
‘Would it surprise you to know Bernie had a secret phone?’
‘Would it surprise me? No.’
‘Crecy is on it. It’s a pay as you go mobile. We phoned Crecy’s number and it was answered, but nobody said anything. We’ll find him, though. Or her. All texts to that number have been deleted. I know it’s not you; I’ve just phoned it and your phone didn’t ring.’
Sammy gave her a wry smile, then looked at the pavement. ‘I don’t know Crecy. Did Bernie have a lot of other women?’
‘He did. Plenty of them. But you enjoyed it, he enjoyed it, so forget it. He’s not worth sacrificing your career over.’
Sammy played with the charm bracelet, spinning it round, making its Tinkerbell jingle. ‘I did love him, and it was more than that.’
‘He promised you a load of shite,’ Costello walked on.
Sammy wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘Then I saw Lyn, I mean, she’s nice. I liked her. She has no idea what he’s like.’
‘I don’t think Walker’s w
ife has an idea what he is like either. But I’ll sort him out in my own way. So tell me, what goes on at Inchgarten, in the hidden room behind the apple tree? The big weird bed?’
Sammy opened her mouth but nothing came out.
‘It’s all about fertility, isn’t it?’
Sammy looked away, across the traffic. Tears again.
‘I’m sorry. Bernie had the snip. He was going to leave Lyn. We should—’
‘It’s nothing to do with you, Sammy. It’s about Grace and Robbie and—’
‘No. No, Costello, you don’t understand. They wouldn’t tell us, but infertile couples go there and have kids. It works for them, Costello, it works.’
Costello saw the desperation in the other woman’s face. ‘What does? Sitting on a Rocking Stone at the solstice and eating an apple cut across the way?’
‘I have no idea, it just does. I had to believe that.’
Costello nodded slowly, and gave her a hug. She watched her walk away in the shoes she had been wearing the first day they met. A tall, slim woman formally dressed in a red blouse and black trousers, hurrying like she was late for a train. She turned left into a side street and vanished from her sight. A white van drove past and indicated, a slow left turn.
Costello had already turned round, away from the sun, thinking if it wasn’t Sammy talking to the media, then who was?
They had caught Eoin at his work, out of place behind a desk, like a man caged. He looked much more at home on the beach with the boat and the boys.
Anderson started by asking about Ruth.
If Eoin was surprised he didn’t show it. ‘Ruth? Well, she always had her own life, her own agenda. Always doing her sporty stuff, a steady hand and a keen eye. And a heart of stone, she could be a real bitch. Poor Fergus.’
‘Not a good break-up with Fergus, then?’
‘I think Fergus found the break-up of the business more painful, to be honest.’
‘How did things change for him?’
‘He didn’t care by then.’
‘What type of company employs yours?’
‘Anybody who wants a logo, signage. We now subcontract out the computerised logo, for embroideries that go on sports shirts, that kind of thing. The more modest end of corporate branding.’
‘Do you deliver?’
Eoin paused, surprised by the question. ‘Mostly we post out. DHL.’
‘And before the downsize?’
‘We had a fleet of vans.’
‘What type of vans?’
‘White, VW Caddies. All gone now.’
‘And they had the Dewar McCardle logo on?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Can you tell me if Fergus was drunk when the boys went missing?’
‘Not drunk like the spectacular drunk he can get now, but yes, he’d had a few. I think we all had. Except Ruth, of course.’
‘And you went over on the boat that night?’
He shook his head. ‘Later, yes, but when I first saw Jimmy I tried to wade in, but Tony was getting the Scoob. You have no idea how that felt, to only see one kid on the boat.’
‘But you didn’t know then what had actually happened. They could have been lost, or had an argument,’ said Costello, feigning boredom, pretending to have received a text message and fiddling with her phone. She dialled the Crecy number. She heard it try to connect.
Eoin shook his head again. ‘Deep down inside I knew that bastard had killed my boy; I knew it as soon as we discovered they were missing … it was Grace all over again. I had this sixth sense something awful had happened. I was right.’
‘And thinking of Grace, the method of death, impaling. Jimmy seems to …’ Anderson was lost for words.
‘He found the body. He does obsess about it. His last therapist said he was working his way through it. I’m not sure. But then, I don’t have the right letters after my name, do I?’
A phone rang. Costello tried not to look at Anderson. ‘You were so convinced something had happened to the other boys? At that moment …?’
Eoin apologised and lifted his desk phone, ‘Yeah, I’ve got that, I’ll call you back.’
Costello looked down; her mobile was still unanswered, still ringing out.
‘How did I know? I knew because Warren McAvoy was there. He killed them and escaped right under your noses. We couldn’t find him and one year later you are still looking for him, aren’t you?’
So Eoin thought that Warren was still alive. Or did he know that? ‘Did you know there was a previous death on the bay here?’
Eoin nodded slowly. ‘It’s a famous murder. A wee girl. Robbie learned about it at school.’
‘Does the name Crecy mean anything to you?’
Eoin pretended to look nonplussed. But not quite quick enough. ‘Apart from the battle? No.’
‘Did the boys do that in school as well?’
‘I’m not sure where you’re going with this.’
‘Can you tell me if Jimmy and Robbie are your natural children?’
Eoin leaned forward slightly, a slow sigh. ‘Jimmy is, Robbie was not. I had issues. Frozen samples, et cetera. But we used that for Jimmy, but that is confidential. Jimmy does not know. And that has nothing to do with any of this apart from …’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s how Fergus and I know each other – it’s the reason the four of us are friends. Fergus had cancer, the chemo did for him. Callum was an artificially conceived child, so please leave it at that.’
‘And why always Inchgarten?’
‘Because we like the place.’
‘How are you feeling now?’ asked Anderson, sinking into Helena’s big sofa. He wanted to sleep.
‘It has stopped being agony. I think I must have pulled something when I was sick the other night.’ Helena moved round on the settee, adjusting the hot water bottle at her back. ‘Thanks, the heat really helps. How’s the case going?’
‘It isn’t. There are so many little threads that will not pull together.’
‘Shame that something so awful happened somewhere so beautiful.’ She shifted her weight slightly. ‘Maybe I’ll come down with Claire once this is all over. Introduce her to the mood of the landscape and all that crap.’
‘When this is all over,’ he looked at her as she winced at the pain and readjusted the cushion for her. ‘Helena, can you be wary of anything you get in the post, especially if it’s in a black envelope? I’m not totally convinced that there isn’t a complete nut job behind all this.’
‘Is that Mick’s diagnosis? A complete nut job?’ She was half asleep already.
‘You need to listen to me, Helena. Any weird cards you get in the post, here or at the gallery. You must let me know as soon as it arrives. You listening?’
‘Why would they send anything to me?’
‘I don’t think they will but I want you to promise.’
‘I’ll promise you anything as long as you shut up and let me have some sleep. It’s these pills. Make me very drowsy.’ Her eyelids flickered and closed.
‘No chance that I can have some then? I could do with a sleep like that.’
‘Can you turn off the phone charger? It buzzes too loud.’
Anderson couldn’t hear a thing.
It was ten to midnight when Anderson’s phone bleeped. He turned to Helena, who was still lying curled up on the settee with the hot water bottle at her back. He spoke quietly. ‘How long has he been on the move for?’
‘Just ten minutes; he’s been heading south out of town on his own but he’s slowing down now. We’re in Easterhouse. We got wise to his wee trick – he keeps an old Citroën parked in the street behind his house. Looks like he’s pulling in to park now, outside a block of really run-down flats in the shit end of nowhere, deepest Easterhouse. And he’s getting out, looking around, taking stuff out the boot.’ Anderson heard the driver say something, ‘Yip, we’re going to have to drive past. We can’t hang round here without being noticed.’
‘OK, you park up
and keep an eye on the car. Let me know if he goes anywhere.’
Friday, 20 June
‘Nothing has changed. A shadow crossed the window of the upper right flat then someone fiddled with the curtain. I think that’s where they are. The two on the other side look empty,’ said the cop sitting in the passenger seat of the surveillance car as Anderson leaned in the car window.
Anderson looked at the depressing, run-down flats. Easterhouse was a deprived area, the regeneration project hadn’t got as far as this street. ‘Why would a guy like Eoin Dewar come to a place like this?’
‘You OK to go in there on your own?’ asked the driver, leaning forward to look round the other cop.
‘The doc here is coming with me. I don’t think Eoin will start pulling my arms out because I ask him why he’s here.’
Anderson and Batten walked up the garden path, pausing at the entrance door, which was hanging off its hinges. A couple of tyres lay on an old mattress in the corner of the overgrown garden. They couldn’t see much beyond that in the darkness, in the lack of street light.
‘Nice, innit?’ said Batten.
They went up the stairs, trying to ignore the smell of urine. Behind the door of the upper right flat was the quiet rumble of somebody talking, a hum of a radio or something.
Anderson knocked at the door.
The inside of the flat fell silent.
Anderson knocked again. ‘Mr Dewar, can we have a word?’
The door opened. Eoin stood behind it, a little sheepishly. He opened the door fully to reveal a badly decorated hall lit with a single bulb, and the door to the living room was open. Anderson was hit by the stench of body odour and some kind of alcohol? Industrial? Antibacterial?
‘Sorry to bother you, can we come in?’
Eoin said something over his shoulder that Anderson did not catch; a weak voice flitted back from the living room.
‘Why did you try to give us the slip?’
‘Why are you having me followed?’
‘You are a suspect in the murder of Edward Taylor. Can we come in?’
