Fire in the Blood (Scott Cullen Mysteries)

by Ed James

  Cullen started walking up the street again. "I don't know," he said. "If he knew that Paddy was in that barrel, then he wouldn't tell us that it couldn't be his son, would he? I mean, he's not lying, but surely he'd just say 'I know nothing', and move on."

  Cullen thought Murray nodded his head almost too enthusiastically.

  "The other option is that Paddy killed Iain and scarpered," said Cullen.

  Murray's eyes widened. "We'd better add that to Bain's Strategising Board when we get back," he said.

  "He's certainly someone we need to find, one way or the other," said Cullen.

  Murray pointed just ahead of them. "The flat's here," he said.

  After a minute or so of conversation over a distorted entry-com system - the only successfully conveyed word seemed to be police - they were climbing the stairs to Eric Knox's flat.

  "You lead," said Cullen.

  Murray grinned. "We're the same rank, you know," he said.

  "It's your turn," said Cullen, "and I was suggesting, not ordering."

  Eric Knox stood in his doorway, a big barrel of a man set on spindly little legs. Murray held up his warrant card. "DC Stuart Murray," he said, "and this is DC Scott Cullen."

  "What do you want, lads?" asked Knox.

  As Cullen approached, he could see that Knox looked old. He'd only retired two years previously, but he looked a broken man. His hair was almost white and he carried a few days of salt and pepper stubble, mostly salt. His rheumy eyes appeared to struggle to focus on them. The closer Cullen got to him, the stronger the smell of second-hand booze.

  "We want to ask you a few questions about a Padraig Kavanagh," said Murray.

  Knox's movements were slow and uncontrolled. He tilted his head back slowly, then it settled forward again. "Paddy?" he asked, voice sounding somewhat confused.

  Murray gave a look in Cullen's direction, raised eyebrows. Cullen hoped that Knox was sober enough to give them anything useful.

  "Can we go inside?" asked Murray.

  Knox's bottom lip protruded. "Certainly, boys," he said, "in youse come."

  He led them through to the living room, a sparsely decorated room that overlooked Queen Street and gave a view down to the Forth if you stood in the corner, which Cullen did. Knox sat on an armchair, with a distressed coffee table in front of it, a mostly drunk bottle of Likely Laddie sitting on top alongside a glass that clearly hadn't been cleaned in days if not weeks. Knox offered them both a seat, but Cullen preferred to stand. Murray sat on the chair nearest to the door, a whicker seat that Cullen recognised from Ikea.

  "So, boys," said Knox. "What do you want to ken aboot old Paddy, then?"

  "We believe that you worked with him at Dunpender Distillery," said Murray.

  "Aye," said Knox.

  Murray blinked, his eyes staying shut almost two seconds. Cullen almost laughed. "Did you know him well?" he asked.

  "Aye," said Knox again. "He was a good lad, was Paddy. Ah kent him weel."

  "Were you close?"

  Knox mulled it over. "Aye, I'd say we were as close as you'd get being workmates, ken?" he said. "We'd go out drinkin' in the toon most nights after we got back up here. Both used to cycle doon to the distillery, ken? It was a right bugger in winter, likes."

  "Where would you go drinking?" asked Murray.

  "The Tanner's Arms," said Knox. "We both had a tab there, ken? Not sure how much was on Paddy's when he… y'know."

  "Know what?" asked Murray. It was clear to Cullen that he was playing the daft laddie.

  "He disappeared," said Knox.

  "Indeed," said Murray. "Do you know what happened to him?"

  Knox shook his head, exaggerated. "No idea," he said. "It was a bloody mystery. Disappeared round the time Iain Crombie did."

  "Eleventh of June, 1994," said Murray.

  "Was it?" asked Knox.

  "So we believe," said Murray. "Did you ever hear from him after that date?"

  Knox frowned. "I can't mind when he went, ken?" he said. "That sounds about richt, though. Maybe a bit later. I can mind goin' for a few scoops wi' him in the Tanner's, must be the night afore he went. He was a bit worried aboot somethin', no idea what."

  "No idea at all?" asked Murray.

  "None at all," said Knox. He laughed. "Paddy always had a wee trick up his sleeve, though, always had somethin' on."

  "Did you know Iain Crombie well?" asked Cullen, changing the tack.

  Knox's head slowly wheeled round. "Didn't give me the time of day, that one," he said. "Head up his own airse."

  "You never socialised with him or anything?" asked Cullen.

  "No," said Knox. "Didn't like to fraternise with the likes of me." He rubbed the stubble on his top lip. "He did go out for a pint with Doug Strachan and Paddy on a few occasions, though, if I remember it richt."

  "Did you ever go?"

  Knox shrugged. "I wasn't invited into their inner circle, ken?" he said. "Couple of times I was in there by coincidence, likes."

  "Did anything ever get out of hand?"

  "Paddy occasionally had a bit too much and got chucked out," said Knox. "Water off a duck's back to the barman in there, ken? He was back in the next night as if nothing had happened."

  "What can you tell us about Mr Kavanagh?" asked Murray.

  "What is there to tell?" said Knox. "He was always on his travels, ken? Up to the highlands and islands, up to Aberdeenshire, down to Northumberland. Always put in a good shift with us. I kept telling him to slow down, ken, he was showing the rest of us up!"

  Murray smiled. "What about before he came to Dunpender?" he asked. "Did he ever speak of that?"

  Knox's head lolled from side to side. "Not really, no," he said. "Got the occasional wee snippet, ken? He was based all over the place. Ireland's like Scotland, ken, it's reasonable-sized but there's no bugger there for much of it."

  "Was his background in whisky?" asked Murray.

  "Whisky with a 'e'," said Knox, giving a wide smile. Cullen noticed that a few of his teeth had turned into black stumps. "Irish whisky. He was mainly a carpenter, ken? Used to help out with the barrels and that, but he soon got stuck in elsewhere. A good learner was Paddy."

  Murray leaned forward. "Mr Knox," he said, then licked his lips, "we have reason to believe that Mr Kavanagh may have been murdered."

  Knox scowled. "Murdered?"

  Murray nodded again. "Yes," he said. "Yesterday morning, a body was found in a barrel of whisky at the distillery. We have reason to believe that it could be Mr Kavanagh."

  Knox gave a deep breath. "That would explain his disappearance all right," he said.

  "Would anyone wish to cause him harm?" asked Murray.

  Knox thought it through for almost a minute. "Nothing springs to mind," he said. "Paddy was weel liked, ken? Got into a few scrapes in the Tanner's, but didn't we all?"

  "So there's nobody that springs to mind?"

  "Not that I can think of," said Knox.

  "Did Mr Kavanagh ever have any particular enemies, either at work or otherwise?" asked Murray.

  Knox rubbed at his top lip again. When he took his hand away, Cullen noticed a red blotch - he wondered if it might be cancerous. "Can't think of anybody, really," he said.

  "What about Iain Crombie?" asked Murray. "How was their relationship?"

  "As I say, I don't really know," said Knox. "They were drinking buddies on a few occasions, ken, but that's it."

  Murray scribbled a few things down in his notebook. "You mentioned that he lived here in Garleton?" he asked.

  "Aye," said Knox.

  "Do you have an address?"

  "Well, yes and no," said Knox.

  Murray rolled his eyes. "Start with the 'no', please."

  "Well, he used to have a bedsit in an old house on John Knox Road," he said. He laughed. "No relation, by the way."

  "And the house…?" asked Murray.

  "Excuse me," said Knox. He reached a trembling hand over for the whisky bottle, pouring a good few fingers int
o the glass. He took a deep drink of the spirit. "That's better." He blinked his eyes a few times.

  "So this bedsit?" repeated Murray, after a few seconds of silence.

  "Aye, the house," said Knox. "It fell into disrepair, ken, as they say, about ten year ago. Got sold off and it's now proper flats."

  "And Mr Kavanagh had previously rented a room there?" asked Murray.

  "He did, aye."

  "Do you know anyone else who lived there?"

  Knox stumbled to his feet. He staggered across the room towards a large sideboard beside where Cullen was stood. He reached into a drawer and retrieved a notebook. "Even better, son," he said. "I ken the address ay the landlady, Catherine Wilsenham."

  twenty-two

  "Told you the other way would have been quicker," said Cullen.

  They were in Murray's car, driving down a back road to East Linton. On the map it looked shorter than the more main road that ran through East Fortune, but the way Murray had taken them had quickly turned into a single track road. They passed through a small hamlet called Markle and then started a long climb - Cullen recalled from many trips to the town to visit Sharon's sister that the far end had a big hill, and he hoped that they were nearing it.

  "What do you make of that old boy then?" asked Murray.

  Cullen looked out of the window, across the green fields. He spotted a quarry blasted away in one of the hills, long since overgrown. "It was like speaking to Charlie Kidd," he said, "with all those 'kens'."

  "Charlie who?"

  "Works in Technical Investigations," said Cullen. "Take it you've never had to take a laptop in to get forensic analysis performed?"

  "They've barely got broadband out here," said Murray, turning right onto what Cullen hoped was the main road again.

  "Is that true?"

  Murray laughed. "Only joking," he said. "We've got one Technical Investigation analyst that we use, based in Fettes."

  "Okay," said Cullen. "Anyway, I don't think we got much out of speaking to Knox."

  Murray looked round as they turned a tight bend. "Is that because of me?" he asked.

  Cullen laughed. "I'm not Bain, you know," he said. "You did okay in there. Trouble is, he was a fair few sheets to the wind."

  They drove on down the hill into East Linton. Sharon's sister, Debbie, lived in the town, just off the main drag. They hadn't seen them in a couple of months, which was perfectly fine with Cullen.

  "Reckon this Wilsenham woman will be any use?" asked Murray, as he pulled in to let a few cars pass on the tight high street.

  "I think the only use will be in covering your arse," said Cullen.

  Murray looked over. "How?"

  "You should have spoken to her by now," said Cullen.

  "Fuck sake," said Murray, "you're starting to sound like Bain."

  Cullen almost laughed. "Stuart, you've had the file for over a day," he said. "She made the initial report of his disappearance. Don't you think that you should have tried to track her down?"

  "I thought she'd be dead," said Murray.

  Cullen raised his eyebrows. "Well, good luck with that defence when you try it with Bain," he said.

  Murray turned left off the high street into a large car park. The town's library - a grand old building - sat to one side, while a sprawling sheltered housing complex sat at the far end.

  "Don't say anything to Bain," said Murray. "All right?"

  "Wasn't planning to," said Cullen.

  "Fine."

  Murray got out of the car quickly and slammed the door. When Cullen got out, Murray was leaning across the roof, staring at him. "Do you want to show me how it's done?" he asked.

  Cullen raised his hands up. "I was just saying," he said. "I know how Bain thinks - he'll be chipping away at you."

  Murray closed his eyes. "Fine, then," he said, "I'll lead."

  Ten minutes later, they were sitting in a TV lounge inside the sheltered housing. To Cullen, it was more like a retirement home - he'd expected individual flats rather than rooms - but the warden had explained that they liked to encourage them to be social, so they had a few TV lounges throughout the building. When they'd entered, the volume had been ridiculously loud, even though the room was empty. The warden quickly muted it before retrieving Catherine Wilsenham.

  Wilsenham was a frail old woman, at least eighty in Cullen's estimation. Cullen was surprised that they still did blue rinses, but she had one. She struggled to walk any distance without a Zimmer frame and Cullen imagined that she wasn't too far away from going into a proper home. She would have been mid 60s when she had reported Paddy missing. She was sharp, though, and could recount minutiae from the distant past.

  Murray questioned her, and they'd gleaned the same stuff they had from her as they had from Strachan, the Crombies and others. Paddy was a drifter, used to disappear for long weekends every so often and then magically reappear, ready and raring for a week's work. She took fifteen full minutes to describe the morning of her visit to Garleton police station - then a fully operational station - to report that Paddy Kavanagh had gone missing, even recalling the name of the officer who had taken her statement.

  "He used to like a drink, you know," she said. "I'm teetotal, myself. I would have a sherry with Christmas dinner when my Gerald was still around, but I've abstained for the last fifteen years since he passed on." Her eyes darted between Cullen and Murray. "Paddy was another matter entirely, though. He was always up the high street at the Tanner's Arms." She bristled. "That was a bad place. It was full of rough sorts, you know, the sort that would sell anything for the price of the next drink."

  "Was Paddy ever thrown out?" asked Murray.

  Wilsenham frowned. "I believe that he was asked to leave on occasion," she said, "whenever he'd had a bit much to drink or one of the other patrons had said something unsavoury to him. Why?"

  Murray smiled. "Just corroborating some information," he said. He looked at his notebook. "Could we go back to his travels?"

  "Why, certainly," said Wilsenham, "though I'm not sure that I can add much information to what you may already know. I mean," and she laughed, "we weren't exactly travelling companions."

  Murray pretended to laugh. "I understand that," he said. "What I was wondering was if there were people that Mr Kavanagh would be off to visit? Did he have any family up north, for instance?"

  She lost herself for a few seconds deep in thought. "He did have some family," she said. "I can't remember where exactly, but he did occasionally go and meet some relatives."

  Cullen shared a look with Murray. In the seemingly endless and pointless hunt for Paddy Kavanagh, the fact that he had some relatives possibly somewhere was a massive breakthrough.

  Murray sat forward on the sofa and held his hands out, palms facing upwards in a gesture Cullen regularly used. "Mrs Wilsenham," he said, "Mr Kavanagh is either a potential murder victim, or he is a missing person. If you could try and remember where his family were, it could aid our investigation immeasurably."

  Wilsenham turned to the side and looked out of the window, across the car park. It was still full daylight outside, though Cullen imagined that the early commuters would be heading home, some already in East Linton. She looked back at Murray, her swift movements in stark contrast to the drunken motion of Eric Knox. "I can't recall, I'm afraid."

  Cullen cut in. "Was this mentioned to the original investigation?" he asked.

  "You know, I don't think it was," said Wilsenham.

  "We know that Mr Kavanagh used to travel," said Cullen. "Near Aberdeen, Aviemore, the western islands, down to Northumberland. Could they have been in any of these locations?"

  A light suddenly went on in her eyes. "You know, I think he had family just outside Newcastle," she said. "For some reason, Morpeth springs to mind."

  Cullen knew Morpeth - he'd visited there with Sharon a few months previously. It was an old market town, but it had been invaded by what could only be described as townies. They'd stopped off on a Sunday afternoon, but
it felt like a Saturday night elsewhere, girls in micro skirts and boob tubes, lads in shirts and trousers.

  "Morpeth?" asked Murray.

  Wilsenham nodded. "Yes, Morpeth, for certain."

  twenty-three

  An hour later, and they were back at Garleton station. Murray was busy typing up the statement from Wilsenham - he'd get Watson to take it to her the following day and get it signed.

  Cullen had spent the time looking through the reports that Watson and Caldwell had produced, putting off setting finger to keyboard for his own report. Of Bain - or any work he may have produced - there was no sign.

  "How much should I put down?" asked Murray.

  Cullen looked over from the desk he was sat at. "Just the salient facts," he said.

  "So, what, he knew some people in Morpeth?" asked Murray.

  Cullen grinned. "We were there for an hour and that was all we managed to get," he said.

  "That woman could talk," muttered Murray.

  Caldwell looked up from the far end of the room. "Any chance you love birds could give it a rest?" she asked. She held up the box of personal effects that they'd got from Marion Parrott pertaining to Iain Crombie. "I'm still not even half way through and our glorious leader will go mental if I haven't finished."

  "Any idea where he is?" asked Cullen.

  "He's not been here for the last hour or so," she said. "Before that, he was pissing about at the whiteboard and writing some stuff up."

  Cullen's phone rang. He looked at the display - Bain. He answered it.

  "Sundance, could you get back to the Incident Room?" asked Bain.

  Cullen could hear his voice travelling down the corridor. "We're already here," he said, and ended the call.

  Bain marched into the room with a puzzled look on his face, PC Watson following him. "Right, you lot, gather round," he called. He went over to the whiteboard and wrote some notes in the bottom right corner. Cullen and Murray slowly wandered over, Murray stopping halfway over to crack his spine. They pulled seats over and sat down in a very small semi-circle. Bain uncapped the black marker pen.

  "That looks like a flip chart pen," said Caldwell. "You don't want to write on a whiteboard with one of them."