The Rat Stone Serenade

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘Apart from the assault on Inspector Galloway at your office party in Paisley three years ago, I think I’m right in saying.’

  ‘Och, I mean, passions was running high, sir. And you’ll note that bas— that the Inspector dropped the complaint no’ long after.’

  ‘Not before the late Superintendent John Donald, upon whom we shall not dwell, metaphorically forced his arm up his back to do so, reading between the lines of this report, at least.’

  Scott grimaced then looked at the floor. ‘Aye, eh, whatever you say, sir.’

  ‘I also note that you are in receipt of ten commendations and the Queen’s Police Medal for bravery, DS Scott. As well as having been shot twice in the line of duty.’

  ‘Aye, well, feast and famine wae me, sir, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘This is a new force, Brian. And as you know, all has not been plain sailing since the formation of Police Scotland.’ He removed his glasses and stared at Scott. ‘I am relying on experienced, talented, clever detectives like you and DCI Daley to be the backbone of this new organisation. I want you to help bring on the next generation of police officers, in the way that the previous generation nurtured you.’

  Scott gulped.

  ‘You look surprised, Brian.’

  ‘No, it’s no’ that. I just cannae mind much nurturing goin’ on.’

  ‘Well, times have changed and they’ll change more and more. I need the likes of you and Daley to be the core of this new force as we establish ourselves as the best crime fighting institution in the UK. I cannot afford to lose someone like Daley, and I want you to make sure that I don’t – understood?’

  Scott watched the ice slip down the windscreen as the heater did its work. ‘Easy tae say, not easy tae dae,’ he muttered, as he flicked on the windscreen wipers, then jumped as someone knocked on the window.

  ‘Are you trying to gie me a heart attack, woman!’ he shouted above the noise of the engine.

  ‘Typical. No “thanks for remembering my sandwiches, or, cheerio, dear, I’ll miss you”,’ said his wife, Ella, resplendent in a fake leopard-skin onesie.

  ‘Oh, aye, thanks,’ replied Scott, as she handed the plastic box of sandwiches through the window. ‘Get yourself back in the hoose.’

  ‘Don’t worry. A blast of cold air won’t dae me any harm.’

  ‘I’m no’ thinking aboot that. I’m no’ wanting the neighbours tae see you parading aboot like Catwoman gone tae seed. Why oor Tracy bought you that for Christmas, I’ll never know.’

  ‘You drive safely, you grumpy bastard,’ she said, leaning through the window to kiss him on the cheek. ‘And don’t be hitting the bevy as soon as you get doon there. You’ve done really well o’er Christmas. Just a couple o’ beers wae your dinner. Try and stick tae that.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’ll try and keep it doon tae a dull roar. It’s not so easy, sitting all by yourself in a pokey wee hotel room, night after night, wae nobody tae talk tae.’

  ‘You? You wae nobody tae talk tae! Aye, and I’m the Pope.’

  ‘You’ll have tae hand back your season ticket at Ibrox in that case.’ He smiled.

  Ella hurried back indoors as he edged the car out of the drive. ‘Bloody Kinloch, here I come,’ he sighed, turning up the car stereo in the hope that Pink Floyd would make the next few hours pass more quickly.

  5

  ‘Well, I don’t know quite what to say,’ said Ailsa, clearly upset. ‘One tries to keep the past in its place – especially when we all congregate here every year. This has brought it back as though it all happened yesterday, not fifty years ago.’

  ‘Yes, it must be so hard,’ replied Symington. ‘That’s why we came to tell you now, instead of leaving it until morning. Sad to say, connections are bound to be made locally.’

  ‘Not much doubt about that,’ Daley added.

  ‘And this – these remains – how likely do you think it’s . . .’

  ‘A forensic team is at the site now, Mrs Shannon. The skeleton will have to be taken to the lab in Glasgow. If we can make any kind of identification – and that is by no means guaranteed – we’ll inform you as soon as we have the details.’ Symington reached across to hold the old woman’s hand. ‘This may be some sick prank, or completely unconnected to the disappearance of your son. I’m sorry that you have to go through this.’

  Daley, admiring the way his new superintendent was handling the awkward situation, was quietly observing Ailsa. Though he knew her age, he found it hard to believe she was an octogenarian. She had grey hair, cut and styled in a modern fashion, though not out of keeping with her age. She was tanned, slim and fit, her clothes understated yet elegant and, despite news of the gruesome discovery, she remained composed, her bright green eyes focused on Symington, taking in every detail. He tried to imagine how she must feel, the loss of her son brought back in such an unpleasant way.

  ‘I will inform the rest of the family tonight. As you say, there is little point trying to keep anything like this quiet in Blaan. We bring in extra staff, most of them local, at this time of year, to help with numbers. I imagine the village – and Kinloch, come to that – will be abuzz with this news already.’

  ‘Will there be a lot of people about?’ asked Daley. ‘I had imagined that your meetings here were relatively small family affairs.’

  ‘Oh, the family – the board – are the focus of events. But nowadays, when you add on wives, children, grandchildren, personal staff, accountants, advisors, lawyers, etc., well, the whole thing has become rather a three-ringed circus.’

  ‘So it wasn’t like this fifty years ago?’ asked Symington.

  ‘No, no. The family was so much smaller then. And, of course, Percy and his wife were much younger, so apart from a couple of maids whom we brought with us, he and his wife coped with our requirements. So much better, in many ways. But as I’m sure you know, Superintendent, times change, and rarely for the better, in my opinion.’

  ‘Is Percy the older gentleman who showed us up?’ asked Daley.

  ‘Yes. He’s become an irascible old bugger.’ She smiled. ‘He and his wife should have retired years ago, but they don’t want to, and since they’ve become such an institution as far as the family is concerned, I daresay there’d be a wholesale revolt if they tried to.’

  ‘So, was this Percy – sorry, I don’t know his surname – were he and his wife here when your son went missing?’ asked Symington, revealing some of the bluntness Daley had spotted earlier in the day.

  ‘Percy and Morag Williamson – and most certainly they were here then. In fact, they’ve been here since Percy was in his twenties. In the past he was responsible for maintaining the house and gardens, while her preserve was cooking and housekeeping. Over time we’ve had to force them to wind down a bit. Now he mainly potters about, fixing things here and there or riding about on the little lawnmower tractor we bought him. He’s more of an odd-job man now. If anything of any consequence needs attention, we bring in contractors from Kinloch.’ Ailsa inadvertently cast her eyes up to the large crack above the window as she said this. ‘They live in the old cottage in the grounds. It’s been their home for more years than I care to remember. Makes me feel my age.’

  ‘So, basically, the house is only occupied for a few days each year around this time?’ asked Daley.

  ‘Well, yes and no, chief inspector. The house is available to be used by family and friends throughout the year. But they all have such busy lives now and are more likely to spend their holidays in the Bahamas rather than Blaan. One or two still come up in the summer. I try to visit each June, that’s a lovely time of year here. And the bloody Bahamas are too hot for me.’

  ‘So how many people will be in the house this New Year?’

  ‘As many as sixty, perhaps more. We have the house itself and the annexe that my husband built,’ she said.

  ‘So a considerable number. Quite an undertaking, I would imagine,’ said Symington.

  ‘Yes, superintendent. Of course there are som
e of my family who would much rather that this little tradition was dispensed with entirely.’

  ‘Times change, I suppose,’ said Daley. ‘Your husband died quite young, I believe, Mrs Shannon.’

  ‘Yes, in his late thirties, I’m sad to say. He never got over the loss of our son, Archie. We had another child, but he never came to terms with whatever happened to his first born.’ She looked at Daley sadly. ‘He started drinking heavily. I suppose the grief along with running the business was just too much to bear. I couldn’t get close to him, latterly.’

  ‘So he was in charge?’ asked Symington.

  ‘Oh, yes, very much so. In many ways, despite his premature death, what he put in place were the foundations of what the company has now become. He was far-seeing in terms of investment and new opportunities. We made a move into minerals and oil at the right time, when prices were cheap. He was a clever man.’

  ‘So who runs the show now?’ said Daley.

  ‘Well, we all have a say. After my husband’s death, his younger brother took over as managing director. As the business became much more complex, we had to bring in expertise from the wider business community. Though my brother-in-law is still alive, he has been incapacitated for many years with dementia. His son – my nephew Maxwell – runs the business with a chief executive.’

  Daley noticed the look of disgust that crossed her face and raised his brows.

  ‘Goodness,’ said Ailsa, noticing his reaction. ‘Are my inner thoughts so transparent? Well,’ she laughed, ‘though my son and I still have a significant shareholding, we have been rather marginalised. Of course, much of the problem lies with him. Though Bruce – my son – has a keen business brain, like his father, he shares the same demons.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘He assuages his frustrations with drink and goodness knows what else, Mr Daley. He should be here now, but he’s still in London. It’s the curse of getting old: one’s family becomes more and more troublesome and disappointing as the years go by, or so it would appear.’

  As if on cue, the door burst open to reveal a young woman, her bowed head shaded from the lights in the room. She looked to be in her late teens or early twenties, with dark, almost black hair, cut into a bob with a heavy fringe. She lifted her face to look at Ailsa and the police officers, then started to moan; a quiet, low keening.

  ‘Nadia, dear,’ said Ailsa, rising from her chair and hurrying over to the girl. ‘Hush now, there’s nothing to worry about.’

  Seconds later, a woman wearing a plain blue dress arrived and gently took the girl by the arm. ‘I apologise, Mrs Shannon. Nadia is really unsettled tonight for some reason. I turned my back for a second . . .’

  ‘Quite all right, Mrs Watkins. I’ll come and see you shortly, Nadia,’ she called as the girl was led away. ‘I must apologise. That was my granddaughter Nadia.’ Ailsa looked upset.

  ‘I hope she hasn’t heard the news,’ said Daley.

  ‘Oh, it’s possible. She is perfectly intelligent, but sadly she suffers from a condition which affects the frontal lobe of her brain.’

  ‘How does that affect her?’ asked Symington.

  ‘She sees and hears things that aren’t there, superintendent.’

  *

  The two men crouched amongst the ferns, shivering with cold as they watched the policemen in white overalls working under the lights in the glade.

  The smaller man squinted at the scene. ‘How close do you have to be to get a decent image, Brockie?’ he whispered to the man beside him, who was looking through a camera with a long lens, poking through the shrubbery.

  ‘To get any definition, I need a few more yards.’

  His companion slowly crawled forwards, a narrow-beamed torch pointing low to the ground so that those ahead couldn’t see its light. He signalled to the photographer to follow him.

  After a few steps he heard a dull thud, followed by a gasping sound. ‘Fuck’s sake, Brockie, you clumsy bastard,’ he said, flicking his torch at the man behind him. ‘And get down, these buggers’ll see you!’

  Brockie had dropped his camera and was now standing to his full height, staring straight ahead.

  ‘Get down!’ This was a shouted whisper from the man in front, who shaded his torch with a gloved hand and directed the diminished beam towards Brockie. Dark blood oozed from the photographer’s mouth as he fell forwards, his full length crashing heavily onto his companion.

  As the journalist tried to wriggle free from under the dead photographer’s weight, his call for help was stopped in his throat.

  6

  Daley sat in the back of the large police car with Symington as they made their way down the steep, well-lit driveway that led from Kersivay House and turned onto the narrow single-track roadway leading back into the village. They had spent some time interviewing Percy and various family members already gathered in the house after speaking with Ailsa Shannon.

  ‘I bloody hope I’m as sharp when I’m eighty,’ said Symington.

  ‘Yes, just shows what pots of money can do for your longevity,’ replied Daley, whose own mother had died in her sixties, the cancer that killed her left undiagnosed until it was too late.

  ‘Very cynical, if you don’t mind me saying. Some folk are just lucky, DCI Daley. Evidently, she’s had her fair share of tragedy.’

  Daley was about to reply when his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket.

  I’m in the County. Mine’s a ginger beer and lime B

  Daley smiled. ‘Have you met DS Brian Scott yet, ma’am?’

  ‘No, not face to face, but I feel as though I have after reading so much about him.’

  ‘Well, once seen, never forgotten, I . . .’

  Before Daley could finish what he was saying, the car sloughed sideways and came suddenly to a halt, propelling the police officers forwards in their seatbelts with a screech of brakes.

  ‘What is it, Paul?’ Daley shouted to the young constable who was driving.

  ‘Something lying in the road, sir. I think I managed to miss it.’ All three unbuckled their seatbelts and got out of the car, walking back the few yards to the black shape huddled under the moonlight. Daley took his torch from his pocket and shivered. To his left over the sea wall, dark waves broke on the beach.

  ‘It’s a body!’ said Symington, squinting into the beam cast by Daley’s torch.

  ‘I need to find out if he’s still alive. Here, son, hold this,’ said Daley, handing his torch to the constable.

  ‘I didn’t hit him, sir. I’m sure of it. You know yourself, we would have heard the thump.’

  Daley gently rolled the man onto his back, but before he could search for a pulse he recoiled. The man’s eyes had been gouged out and his ears roughly hacked off. His mouth appeared to be a gaping black hole, devoid, Daley saw, of tongue or teeth. He felt the bile rise in his throat.

  ‘Superintendent Symington, here,’ he heard behind him. ‘I don’t know how far on SOCO are with the skeleton but I want them and all available officers on the roadway at Kersivay House in Blaan, as soon as. Body at this locus, foul play strongly suspected. Rouse the Force Doctor, too.’ She ended the call. ‘Do we know who this is?’

  ‘With the mutilation it’s too hard to say, ma’am,’ said Daley, still swallowing back the bile in his throat. ‘Hold on.’ He reached into the inside pocket of the blood-soaked jacket and found what he was looking for. ‘Whoever did this, they weren’t trying to conceal the identity of the victim,’ he said, flourishing a leather wallet. ‘Give me the torch.’

  The wallet contained the usual array of bank cards, loose coins and notes. Daley fished a pink plastic card out of its holder.

  ‘Bloody hell, I know him,’ he said, studying the driving licence under the torchlight. ‘Ian Brockie, he used to be a snapper for the Glasgow News. He’s been freelance for the last few years, paparazzi work, that kind of stuff. What the fuck is he doing here?’

  ‘The Shannons?’ asked Symington. ‘When it comes to the business community
, they’re as high profile as it gets.’

  Daley stared back down at the corpse, then at Symington, who was still looking at it intently. One thing he knew for sure about his new boss: she had a stronger stomach than he did.

  As Scott jumped back behind the wheel of his car in the County Hotel car park, he reflected on the various merits and demerits of staying sober. Normally, after the long drive to Kinloch, he’d have sunk into a bottle of whisky and been neither fit to drive nor recall himself to duty.

  ‘Lucky me,’ he said to himself, as he watched the first fat flakes of snow fall under the streetlights.

  He’d been surprised at how easy it had been to stop drinking – well, after the first few days, that was, when he thought his world was coming to an end. He had been doped up with some not-strictly-prescription medication and his wife’s homemade broth to take away the pain. It hadn’t worked. As the first week passed though, things got easier, and soon he managed to regain some of his old cheer.

  He had been left with a couple of problems, though: a nagging anxiety that gnawed at him every second of the day and, worse still, strange flashes, visions, call them what you will. For seconds at a time, he would see faces, shapes, movement in the darkness. Rather than have this on his medical record, he’d visited the Glasgow mortuary, where his old friend, pathologist Andy Crichton, had given it to him straight.

  ‘Delirium tremens, Brian. More commonly known as the DTs,’ declared Crichton in the same matter-of-fact way he spoke when dissecting a body. ‘The way you were drinking, it’s lucky that’s all you have. With a bit of luck this will pass if you stay off the bottle. Go back on it, though, and who knows where you’ll bloody well end up. We’ve all seen those gibbering wrecks that hang around the streets of this city; buggered, everyone of them. And if it’s not the booze, it’s drugs. You’ve stopped imbibing in the nick of time, old boy.’

  These words had echoed around Scott’s head ever since. He hated the feeling of imminent calamity, the shadow that moved at the corner of his eye as he was lying in the darkness trying to get to sleep. He hadn’t told his wife and he certainly hadn’t informed anyone at work – including Daley.