Fire in the Blood (Scott Cullen Mysteries)

by Ed James

  Cullen and Caldwell had headed back to the Incident Room in Garleton - she sat in the corner of the room while he faced the full wrath.

  "Jesus Christ," continued Bain. "After all that shite you and your bird put me through with that fuckin' Schoolbook killer." Bain made puppets out of his hands. "'Don't focus on him, sir' and 'Are you sure it's not this guy we've not fuckin' told you about?'"

  Cullen stared at him. When he spoke, he tried to keep his voice steady and measured. "Marion Parrott didn't know Paddy Kavanagh," he said. "We probed her to check she wasn't fobbing us off, and we'll follow up with Doug Strachan and Iain's brother and dad. Okay?"

  Bain's nostrils flared. "You'd better fuckin' do," he said. "If we don't get a collar on this, you're gettin' a fuckin' doin'."

  Cullen's calm disappeared. "What more do you expect us to do?" he shouted, flapping his arms around. "Get her to make shit up like you would?"

  Bain took a deep breath. "Don't you fuckin' start on that shite again," he said. "It worked."

  Bain had been guilty of inventing evidence in a recent case - Cullen hadn't reported it further up the chain.

  "It didn't work," said Cullen. "You were trying to frame the wrong man. Again."

  "Thank fuck there's no skeletons in your closet, Sundance," said Bain.

  Cullen ignored him. "What do you want us to do?" he asked.

  "Eh?"

  "You're the Senior Investigating Officer here," said Cullen. "What do you want me to focus on?"

  Bain stroked his moustache for a few seconds. "Tell me about this Marion woman again," he said.

  "Bloody hell," said Cullen. "I've told you already. There's nothing there. She backed up the statements we'd had from Fraser Crombie, Alec Crombie and Doug Strachan. Strachan stole whisky, Iain caught him. Iain was phoning her every night when they were away. What else do you want to know?"

  "Write it up," said Bain.

  "Is that what you want me to do?" asked Cullen. "Angela has started."

  Bain peered over Cullen's shoulder.

  "Leave me out of this," she called over, not looking up from the laptop she was using.

  "What have you been up to here?" asked Cullen.

  Bain shrugged. "Strategising."

  "Strategising?" repeated Cullen. "What for?"

  "This fuckin' case," shouted Bain.

  "There are only three officers on this case excluding you," said Cullen, "four if you include Watson. Who are you strategising for?"

  "You wouldn't recognise it if you saw it," said Bain, smiling.

  "I'm doing everything on this case, as per usual, aren't I?" asked Cullen.

  Bain laughed. "Is that what you think?" he asked. "That's a fuckin' classic, by the way."

  "Go on, then," said Cullen, "tell us about your strategy."

  "It's not finished yet," said Bain.

  Cullen closed his eyes. "So what do you want me to do?" he asked.

  Bain let out a deep sigh. "For the love of fuckin' goodness," he said. He stroked the moustache again for a few more seconds. "Right, this Paddy investigation is goin' fuckin' nowhere. Murray has done the square root of hee haw on it. All he's done in two days is waste a tank of fuckin' petrol and a morning as he barrelled through to fuckin' Paisley. He's got another couple of names in Ireland now, but there's fuckin' millions of Paddy Kavanaghs over there."

  "Do you want me to help?" asked Cullen.

  "Fine," said Bain. "Get yourself stuck into that."

  "Good," said Cullen. "Some direction at last."

  Bain glared at him. "If this is a fuckin' disaster, Sundance," he said, "it's your fuckin' fault."

  twenty

  Cullen found Murray hiding in his car outside the station.

  He opened the passenger door and got in. Murray looked over at him briefly before looking away again.

  "I know that expression," said Cullen. "You've had a run-in with Bain."

  Murray nodded slowly. He glanced over. "Wouldn't say I came off on the winning side either," he said.

  "Just had a score draw with him myself," said Cullen. "He's been strategising. Which seems like doing fuck all to me."

  Murray gave a slight chuckle. The coolness that he usually exuded seemed, to Cullen, to have just suddenly been shot to bits.

  "What do you want, Cullen?" asked Murray.

  "Bain asked me to help with the Paddy Kavanagh investigation," said Cullen.

  Murray shook his head. "Cos I'm fucking it up?" he asked.

  "Whether you are or aren't is not something I can comment on," said Cullen, "but the Iain stuff is grinding to a halt. There are a couple of people I could chase up, but it might be better if we team up for now."

  "I'm not a charity case," said Murray.

  "Not saying you are," said Cullen, "but we need to find out as much as possible about Paddy before Bain fucks this up and we're kicked off back to our other cases."

  "So what do you want to do?"

  Cullen smiled at him. "Let's head back to the distillery," he said.

  "I can't let you up," said Amanda, the receptionist.

  They'd driven to the distillery in silence, Murray getting stuck behind a tractor at the bottom of the hill.

  "Why not?" asked Cullen.

  "Because Mr Crombie is busy and asked not to be disturbed," she said.

  Cullen felt his blood boiling. "Fine," he said. He smiled at her. "Did you manage to get an address for Elspeth McLeish?"

  Amanda frowned. "Eh?"

  "You were going to get me the address of Elspeth McLeish," said Cullen, smiling.

  "Oh, right, aye," she said. She scribbled something down on a notepad at the side of her keyboard. "I'll see what I can find."

  "Thanks," said Cullen, and headed off towards to the stairs leading up to Crombie's office, located at the end of a corridor by the main office in which they'd met him the previous day.

  Alec Crombie's office was in total contrast with the rest of Dunpender Distillery. It had been fitted out with oak panelling and green leather seats, giving the impression of a gentlemen's club in the New Town in Edinburgh. There was a large oak desk at one end that looked through a large picture window. The desk was covered in papers - Cullen thought it was odd that a desk in 2012 wouldn't have a computer on it, but Alec Crombie didn't exactly seem up with the times. Cullen and Murray sat half way down a large boardroom table, with Crombie at the head.

  Cullen had spent a few minutes asking him about Paddy Kavanagh, getting exactly the same sort of answers that had been provided by the others, with nothing else to show for it.

  "I'm very pleased that you've dropped this fantasy that it might somehow be my son in there," said Crombie.

  "We haven't dropped anything," said Cullen. "Until the body is identified, we are investigating both prospects as equally likely, unless we can eliminate one through evidence."

  Crombie glowered. "Very well."

  Cullen smiled. "So," he said, "I'd like to know if there are any of the current workforce, other than Mr Strachan and your son, who would have worked with Mr Kavanagh here."

  Crombie sat forward on his chair and ran a hand over his forehead. "Let me think," he said. "I still run all the personnel files. Could never see the bloody point in paying someone to do it." He sat in silence for a few moments.

  There was a Moleskine notebook on the table in front of him - Cullen knew that they were expensive, in the region of a tenner for two hundred or so pages, yet Crombie scribbled all over a page with his fountain pen, getting at most eight words on the page. He looked up at Cullen.

  "There are a lot of people who worked here at the time," he said. "We were very busy, but I'm struggling to think of anyone who is still alive."

  "Perhaps if you looked on your computer," said Cullen.

  Crombie grinned and patted the side of his head. "It's all up here," he said. "As I said, I don't see the need in all of the expense in getting someone else to do it for me."

  "So there's nobody?"

  Crombie tap
ped his fountain pen on the desk a few times. "The only person I can think of is Eric Knox," he said. "He would have worked with Doug Strachan for a good twenty-five or thirty years. He retired two years ago, lives up in Garleton."

  Cullen wrote the name down, not particularly hopeful that he would be able to get anywhere with it. "Can we have a contact address or phone number for Mr Knox?" he asked.

  Crombie reached down and unlocked a drawer in the desk. He pulled out a large ledger, its dark green cover now faded and tattered. "For the information I don't keep in my head," he said. He flicked through the book - Cullen thought it had more than 250 pages in it - and his hand eventually stopped and pointed to a page. "Here we go. Eric Charles Knox. Old Eric lives up in Garleton, as I said. Looks like he lives on Queen Street. Here."

  Crombie swung the ledger around - Cullen thought that it looked like the ledger stored personal details of every employee that the company had employed in a very long period of time, perhaps as much as fifty years. He wrote the address down - Cullen tried to recall where Queen Street was, eventually deciding that it was somewhere off the high street.

  "Thanks," said Cullen, returning the ledger. "What about Elspeth McLeish?"

  "Elspeth?" said Crombie. "Why ever do you want to speak to her?"

  "We believe that she was closely acquainted with Mr Kavanagh," said Cullen.

  "I try to keep myself distant from staff relations," said Crombie. He licked his finger and leafed through the ledger, finally stopping halfway through. "Here we are." He traced a line on the page. "Ah."

  "What is it?" asked Cullen.

  "I'm afraid we've had returned mail from the address we have on file," said Crombie. He slammed the ledger shut. "I'm afraid I can't help you there."

  Cullen scribbled some notes down. "Can I ask you a few questions about your daughter-in-law?" he asked.

  From the expression on Crombie's face, Cullen was glad that he'd asked about the employees first - he doubted that Crombie would provide them with much further assistance.

  "You can ask," said Crombie, his mouth barely opening to let the growl out.

  "We spoke with her earlier this afternoon," said Cullen, "and she told us that you tried to pay her to have an abortion."

  Crombie closed his eyes. His shoulders seemed to deflate. He rubbed at his forehead, and twisted his head to look out of the window.

  "Is it true?" asked Cullen, after almost a minute of silence.

  Crombie opened his eyes again. "It was my wife's suggestion," he said. "And yes, it is true. She didn't take the money."

  "And you've had little to do with her and your grandson since?" asked Cullen.

  "I wouldn't exactly say that," said Crombie. "I kept a distance from Marion because I don't trust her. I worry that she'd take me for all of my money, if she could."

  "How would she be able to do that?" asked Cullen.

  "She has means," said Crombie.

  "Can you expand?"

  Crombie gave an exasperated sigh. "All I'm saying is that you shouldn't take everything you hear from her at face value," he said.

  "We're trained not to do that," said Cullen.

  Crombie smiled, but with no warmth in his eyes. "Yes, I'm sure you are," he said. "I've made sure that I have a continual dialogue with my grandson, young Iain. He's a special young man, so much like his father."

  "Do you pay any money to Mrs Parrott or to your grandson?" asked Cullen.

  Crombie flared his nostrils. "I do," he said. "I make sure that the boy has everything that his mother can't provide for him."

  "And how often do you see him?"

  "Every fortnight or so," said Crombie. "We have lunch up at the house. Of course, we both live in Gullane so it's that much easier. Every six months or so, I take him to La Potiniere for lunch."

  Cullen had seen the restaurant on the high street the previous day, a curious little round building. It had a few placards with stars up - he couldn't tell if any were Michelin or not. Either way, he didn't imagine a teenage boy would have appreciated it.

  "Were you aware that your son had met a girl at Glastonbury?" asked Cullen.

  Crombie scowled at him, eyes ablaze. "I beg your pardon?" he said.

  "We have it from a number of sources that Iain met a woman at Glastonbury," said Cullen, "and that is why he didn't return home with his brother."

  "Absolute balderdash," said Crombie. "I've never heard such rot in my life. Iain was a faithful husband to Marion, even though she didn't deserve it. Any notion that my son was up to no good at this infernal music festival is slanderous to his legacy."

  Cullen could have pressed him on what legacy a 24-year old would have left, but decided to leave it. "Can I ask what Mrs Parrott did to leave such a negative opinion?" he asked instead.

  Crombie frowned anew. "She was a gold digger," he said, "and she took my son for everything he had. He didn't see it in his life."

  Cullen scribbled it down. "Mr Crombie, we have received the information regarding your son's infidelity from three sources," he said.

  Crombie pushed the personnel ledger to the side. "Can I please ask you to leave?" he said, his voice low. "I agreed to discuss Mr Kavanagh's disappearance as he is the most likely contender for being in the barrel. It is not my son. I don't know where he is, but I do know that he is not in that barrel."

  Cullen sat there, eyes trained on Crombie. "Why are you so certain that it's Paddy that's in the barrel?" he asked.

  Crombie leaned forward. "Excuse me?" he asked. "Are you trying to imply something?"

  "I'm just a bit perturbed by it," said Cullen. "At the moment, we have two clear potential victims. It's a bit unnerving that you are putting up the shutters on us investigating one of them."

  "I have spoken to you twice now," said Crombie, "and that gorilla of a manager of yours once. I hardly think that's putting up the shutters."

  "All the same," said Cullen, smiling, "both times I've spoken to you, you've told me that it's not Iain in there and encouraged me to discount it as a theory. Now, if you have evidence that Iain is not in the barrel, or have any information as to his whereabouts, then you really should share them. The disappearance of your son is still currently an open investigation, even though you have received a Presumption of Death certificate."

  "Do you have children?" asked Crombie.

  "No," said Cullen.

  "Well, then you wouldn't understand," said Crombie. "I know that my son is still alive and out there somewhere."

  "Can you share this knowledge with us?" asked Cullen. "A postcard, a photograph, a letter maybe?"

  "I just know," said Crombie, smiling.

  "Unless you have actual evidence that would stand up in court," said Cullen, "then I'm afraid that we have to consider it a valid possibility that your son is the body in the barrel."

  "Very well," said Crombie, "but you are wasting your time and incurring taxpayer expense for no reason."

  Cullen's blood was pumping - the vein in his forehead usually reserved for particularly heavy premium lager hangovers was throbbing. He decided to drop it for now, but this wasn't the end of the matter.

  twenty-one

  "You certainly got a rise out of Crombie," said Murray.

  They were parked on the street perpendicular to the high street that ran up into the hills, not far from the police station - Queen Street, as Murray had told Cullen, between what Cullen would know as Subway Street and Greggs Street.

  "Something funny going on there," said Cullen. "Why does he keep saying it's not his son in the barrel?"

  "It's beyond me," said Murray. "What's with all this mystical 'I just know' bollocks?"

  "I'm fed up of that," said Cullen, thinking back to January and a father's insistence that his child had been possessed by the devil. Cullen's blood was still boiling, almost bubbling over - he took a deep breath and tried to think of other things as he undid his seatbelt. "Let's go see this Knox boy, then," he said.

  They got out of the car and headed a
cross the high street, having to stop by the Mercat Cross while a sudden surge of traffic passed.

  "Just put a one-way system in," said Murray.

  Cullen hadn't really noticed earlier, but now that Murray mentioned it, he realised that he hadn't come in from the North Berwick side, so hadn't been caught up in it. "Any idea why?" he asked. "It's not exactly bustling."

  "They're supposed to be refurbishing a few old buildings," said Murray, "so it's just temporary. The police station is getting turned into flats from the first floor up."

  "So Bain will have to strategise elsewhere?" asked Cullen, grinning.

  Murray laughed. "If we're ever unlucky enough to get him ever again," he said. "Twice in one year has been bad enough…"

  They chanced across at a gap in the traffic.

  "Joking aside, do you think there's something in what Alec Crombie's saying?" asked Murray.

  Cullen mulled it over as they headed round the corner onto Queen Street, the steep street that led away from the high street. He'd been thinking of nothing but as they'd driven up from the distillery. "There are a few things that spring to mind," he said. "He could have been involved in his son's disappearance for one. Similarly, he could have been involved in Paddy's disappearance and is trying to throw us off the scent."

  "Think this Marion could be involved?" asked Murray.

  "Could be," said Cullen. "She's lost out as a result of Iain's disappearance, though, hasn't she?"

  "If it is Paddy in there," said Murray, "it looks like somebody's killed him and shoved him in a barrel."

  Cullen squeezed his eyes shut - he'd been wondering why Iain and Paddy disappeared at approximately the same time. "Are you suggesting that Iain Crombie killed Paddy and ran away?" he asked.

  Murray stopped in his tracks. "No," he said, "but that's fucking good, Sundance."

  Cullen scowled at him. "Don't," he said.

  Murray held his arms up. "Fine, fine," he said. "Just calm it."

  "Scott's more than fine," said Cullen.

  "So Iain could have killed Paddy?" asked Murray. "That explains the disappearance. Reckon his old man's in on it?"