Singing to the Dead

by Caro Ramsay

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Singing to the Dead

  Caro Ramsay was born in Glasgow and now lives in a village on the west coast of Scotland. Singing to the Dead is her second novel, following the critically acclaimed Absolution, which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s New Blood Dagger for best debut of the year.

  Praise for Absolution

  ‘A cracker of a debut… Many shivers in store for readers, followed by a shattering climax’ The Times

  ‘Ramsay handles her characters with aplomb, the dialogue crackles and the search for the killer has surprising twists and turns. A most auspicious debut’ Observer

  ‘Undoubtedly one of the most impressive debut novels in the field in some time’ Barry Forshaw, Amazon

  ‘Among the year’s best literary thrillers’ Washington Post

  ‘Edgy and fast-paced, this crime thriller is a cleverly understated page-turner… Deliciously dark, this well-written debut will leave you wanting more’ Woman

  ‘Glasgow comes alive in Caro Ramsay’s dark, vivid and daring thriller’ Val McDermid

  ‘A cracking debut [4 stars]’ Mirror

  ‘A very sophisticated first novel… at once humane, horrifying and exciting’ Literary Review

  ‘A classy example of the genre’ London Paper

  ‘Intelligent, unpredictable and hard to put down’ Sainsbury’s Magazine

  ‘A thrilling crime read’ Daily Telegraph, Sydney

  ‘With her first novel, Caro Ramsay makes an impressive contribution to the growing ranks of Scottish crime writers’

  Shots-Mag

  ‘[Ramsay] is able to write scenes of heartbreaking tenderness nestled amid evocations of such grotesque violence that it is difficult to imagine that they can coexist as such sublime interlocking pieces of the whole… Absolution marks the beginning of what certainly will be a major career’

  New York Sun

  Singing to the Dead

  CARO RAMSAY

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2009

  1

  Copyright © Caro Ramsay, 2009

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192135-8

  To Mum and Dad

  Author’s Note

  Singing to the Dead is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used entirely fictitiously.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Jane and all the Gregory girls, and Bev and all the Penguins for their help, support and patience while I was writing this book.

  Also thanks must go to Mary and Karen, who try hard to organize me and never seem discouraged by their failure. And of course thanks to all at work for the sneaky days off and, in particular, to Annette for knowing how to work a computer… properly.

  And to Ma, Pa, Emily and Pi.

  Special thanks and acknowledgements should go to my pals in Strathclyde Police, especially Superintendent Donald McCallum, not forgetting the legal expertise of R. J. P. Kerr and my medics – Dr Penelope Redding and Dr Tara Singleton.

  Thanks to you all, hope you enjoy it.

  Caro

  Tuesday, 19 December 2006

  He was supposed to have been at school, but his ma couldn’t be bothered to walk that far. She couldn’t be bothered most days now.

  She’d been in such a hurry to get out the flat he’d not had a chance to put his jacket on. Once he’d gone back to get it and she’d locked him in and left him all night. So all he had was a wee fleece from the Oxfam shop, and that was soaked through and sticking to his back.

  Shite, he was cold. He was always cold.

  Christmas shopping at Woolies, she’d said, but she never made it further than the offie. So there’d be nothing left to buy presents.

  It was getting very dark now; soon they’d be turning on the big light at the end of the playground. He sat on the swing, shivering in the slow-falling sleet, not daring to touch the freezing iron chains with his bare hands. If you work a swing up high enough, his dad said, you can kick the clouds up the arse. But that was two Christmases ago; a long, long time. He was only five then. If his dad was here now he’d give him a push, but he didn’t know where his dad had gone to, and he was too cold to swing himself.

  So Troy McEwen sat watching the lights come on one by one in the tenements, a growing patchwork of comforting brightness, and played a game with himself, betting which window would light up next. The playground was empty. Everyone else was somewhere warm and bright and happy.

  He watched his ma wiping the rain from the bench seat, using her sleeve like a big paw. She’d a huge coat on, made from a dead sheep; she’d got that at the Oxfam shop too. Now she was taking a bottle out the bag at her feet, unscrewing the cap. She always came to the same bench, her favourite place for a wee drink.

  There was that old woman again, the one with the scruffy white dog. He waited to see if she had a go at his ma. It wouldn’t be the first time. They hung about for a bit, the wee dog crapped on the path, then they buggered off up the road.

  He wanted to see if he could give the clouds a kicking even though it was too dark to see them. So he shouted to his ma to give him a shove. But she wasn’t listening. She didn’t look up. She was taking another swig from the flat bottle with the stag on it.

  He wanted to go home now. Maybe there’d be something to eat. So he slid off the swing and went over to his ma. He tugged on the sleeve of the dead-sheep coat, and she slumped sideways, her eyes hazy, unable to focus. Pissed again. She looked older than everybody else’s ma, and he didn’t like the way she pulled her hair back in an elastic band. It made her look like the dead cat he’d seen floating in the canal last summer. He could smell her whisky breath through the rain.

  He wasn’t allowed on the roundabout in the rain ever since he’d fallen and broken his arm and they’d tried to take him into care – again. But she wasn’t watching, so he’d not get a skelping. He pushed and pushed, went round once, twice, and got the wheel going really fast, all by himself.

  Suddenly the floodlight came on. In the brightness he could see a syringe abandoned, close to the roundabout. Next time round, he’d kick it r
ight on to the grass… But he stretched too far, his numb fingers slipped, and suddenly he was on the ground.

  He lay there for a little while, whimpering, frozen hands stinging with pain. Then he rolled over and sat up wearily. In the floodlight he could see his knee skinned raw and tiny red bubbles of blood welling up. He’d ripped the knees out of his leggings. His ma would kill him.

  Out beyond the light it was really, really dark. His knees and hands were hurting. And he was so cold.

  Then a tall shadow fell between him and the floodlight, a grown-up wearing a long black coat, carrying a newspaper packet. The salty smell of the local chippie enveloped him.

  ‘You’ve hurt yourself,’ a kind voice said. ‘I’ve just got some pies and chips to take home. Why don’t you come and have some?’

  He sniffled and wiped his nose on his sodden sleeve. All he wanted at that moment was for somebody to pick him up, cuddle him and take him somewhere warm.

  And feed him a nice hot pie. With chips.

  Wednesday, 20 December

  1

  Detective Inspector Colin Anderson held a handkerchief to his nose, trying not to breathe, his eyes watering in the acrid smoke, and looked at the remains of the ground-floor flat, 34 Lower Holburn Street. The fire had been out for half an hour but the whole place was still humming with the intense humidity of a tropical rainforest. Two firemen, boots squelching, emerged from the smoke-filled kitchen and stood for a moment in the sanctuary of the hall, sweat tracing veins of white skin in the soot on their faces. The younger of the two stared at the sagging ceiling, looked troubled and sighed. A close call but too late.

  The older one gesticulated tiredly with a heavily gloved hand – Anderson could have a look if he wanted.

  DI Colin Anderson tiptoed forward and squatted beside the black plastic sheet as Woodford, the senior fire investigator, lifted the corner. What lay beneath was only vaguely human. The crouching pugilistic pose, limbs contorted into flexion, clenched hands pulled up to the face, the muscle contraction – all were typical of a body caught in intense heat. Anderson leaned in for a closer look, coughing into the back of his hand, and Woodford pulled the plastic away further. They knew it was the body of an old man – they surmised he was 76-year-old John Campbell – but the mass of charred flesh could have been anyone, anything. The body was black and yellow, darkened with dried blood, devoid of hair and eyebrows, clothing either melted on or burned away. Small patches of coloured fibre with frazzled strands were dotted around the shoulders. Had he been wearing something woollen? A cardigan, maybe dark blue? Anderson looked more closely and saw a melted button. He remembered his own granddad wearing those cardigans – Fair Isle with metal buttons like little medals. He picked this one up on the end of his pen, and looked at it closely. The lion rampant was still recognizable, its stance a cruel parody of the deceased. He slipped it into an evidence bag.

  ‘What time was it called in?’ he rasped.

  ‘A few minutes past ten, so an hour and a half ago,’ Woodford replied. ‘We were here in minutes, but too late is too late. There’s no debris underneath him, so he was already on the floor when the fire took hold.’ Woodford gesticulated with the back of his hand.

  ‘Is that suspicious?’ Anderson started to cough again.

  ‘Probably not. He was old, the smoke would have knocked him out quickly; or he could have had a coronary, collapsed, and that’s why the pan went up in the first place.’ Woodford pointed to where an open can, a blackened cracked plate, and the remains of a knife lay on the floor. Part of a worktop remained, sticking out like a jetty. An oval-shaped biscuit tin with a picture of a green Bugatti on the lid sat waiting, incongruous, as if it had been kissed by the flames and rejected. Close by was a twisted plastic strip of tablets, and a seven-day dispenser melted into the shape of a blackened flower. ‘Signs he was on medication, would you say?’

  ‘Maybe. There’s no indication he tried to put the fire out?’ Anderson asked.

  ‘No extinguisher, no fire blanket and the smoke alarm was bugger-all use. The place went up like a…’

  ‘House on fire?’ smiled Anderson and nodded, signalling for the body to be covered up; his eyes were streaming so much he couldn’t see any more anyway, and the noise of the generator starting up was deafening. He retreated, looking at the firefighters in the kitchen, their boots tramping everywhere, contaminating the scene. Site, he corrected himself. Nothing so far to indicate that it was a crime scene.

  He gingerly dipped his head under the door lintel, now supported by an inner metal frame, and felt the vicious heat eating through the soles of his boots. Even Anderson’s inexpert eye could tell the ceiling was sagging like a hammock.

  One of the firefighters tapped along the wall none too gently with a hammer. ‘Do you think this is weight bearing?’ he shouted, keeping his eyes on the crack in the plaster that ran the length of the room.

  ‘Tap it any harder and we might find out,’ answered some smart-arse through the smoke.

  Anderson knew they were on the ground floor of a four-storey tenement and felt his stomach sink.

  Somebody handed him a hard hat.

  Great.

  He shuddered, casting his eyes round the room, as Woodford shouted and the generator was cut. The hammering died abruptly and all was quiet apart from the walls cracking and sighing as they relaxed after the intense heat. Anderson stayed still, thinking they were listening for further signs of life, but they had stopped only because somebody more senior was taking a phone call.

  In the relative silence, Anderson turned back to look at the kitchen. Everything, in the aftermath of the rage that had passed this way, was consumed and blackened, warped and twisted. The lino on the floor had shrivelled into leaves that floated now on little pools of water. He could hear something still sizzling. Yet, amid all this destruction, this was still recognizably a kitchen. Two hours ago somebody had been cooking a leisurely Wednesday morning breakfast. Anderson noticed that the fridge, the same model as his own, had buckled under the pressure of sheer heat. The focus of the rage, the cooker, was a dark tangle of metal, with the odd bit of chrome stubbornly shining through.

  A fire officer appeared with a video camera, nodding to DI Anderson for tacit approval to keep filming. Anderson gave him the thumbs up, pulling the hard hat further down over his blond hair, trying to ignore the savage heat that gnawed at the exposed flesh of his neck and face. He knew a fire investigation officer could read a fire in a way a run of the mill SOCO never could; best leave it to the experts. The camera whirred into life, the operator complaining about the lack of light. Anderson felt the smoke irritating his throat again, and coughed deeply. No amount of money in the world could persuade him to do their job.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Woodford, holding his hand out. ‘You were a bit late for the barbie.’

  Anderson smiled wryly and reversed out of the flat, keeping his fists clenched and his arms folded; it was easy to forget, to put a hand down and get a palmful of burns. The soles of his feet were complaining loudly; he was going outside to stand in a puddle. He started to cough in earnest, a dry hacking at the back of his throat. Then he retched.

  ‘Yip,’ Detective Chief Inspector Rebecca Quinn snapped down the phone. Its high-pitched ring tone made the fillings in her teeth hurt. Twice she had asked for a new one but she might as well ask to be made the next Queen of England. ‘Yes?’ she said again, but whoever was at the other end totally ignored her and said, ‘Left a bit, left a bit,’ to some unidentified other. ‘Wyngate!’ she shouted. The incoming code said Reception and there were only two people at Reception – Costello and Wyngate. The latter, she knew, was unkindly but accurately known as Wingnut because his ears stuck out. At least he was easy to remember. DC Gordon Wyngate? The skinny computer geek, clever with no common sense.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Wyngate at Reception, ma’am.’

  ‘I know that. What is it?’

  ‘You asked me to let you know if anybody else called in sick. W
ell, DC Burns just has. He’s got this throat thing,’ Wyngate added helpfully.

  Burns? Burns? She flicked through the file in her mind. Burns? The big, softly spoken islander. So, they were another good man down. ‘Might be quicker to send me a list of who’s actually coming in,’ Quinn said in resignation.

  ‘Well, Vik Mulholland has a rest day but he’s promised to come in later.’ Wyngate gauged the pause at the end of the phone and added, ‘He’s the one who looks like…’

  ‘Yes, DC Wyngate. I know who he is.’ Any cop who looked like Johnny Depp’s better-looking brother was not easily forgotten. ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ Quinn said with slight sarcasm and put the phone down. Over sixty per cent of the squad was now off with either the flu or a throat infection, and it was Christmas next week. Just as well things were relatively quiet.

  She glanced at the clock – quarter to twelve. The briefing was scheduled for noon but she’d start five minutes early, just to unnerve the bad timekeepers. She could hear the remnants of the squad gathering on the other side of the blind. As usual, she was immaculately dressed in the navy-blue classic suit that she considered her uniform; her red hair was precisely pinned back, but her lips were pale. She opened her make-up bag, and applied her deep-burgundy lipstick carefully, pursing her lips, watching the coloured lower lip blot the stain on to the upper, checking her reflection in the mirror in the lid of the bag. It was one of her little rituals; just as Beryl Reid used to say that if she got the shoes right she got the character right, so DCI Quinn relied on her lipstick. Without it she was a human being; with it she was a cop. And a good one.

  She checked there was no lipstick on her teeth, no loose hairs on her collar, and turned back to her desk. The pile of files added up to nothing much.