Fire in the Blood (Scott Cullen Mysteries)

by Ed James

  Cullen's heart rate increased - this was Iain Crombie's doctor. He got his notebook out, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder.

  "Thanks for calling me back," said Cullen. "I'm working on a murder investigation in East Lothian, and I need to trace the medical history of an Iain Crombie."

  "The son of the distillery owner?" asked Berry. He had an English accent that Cullen couldn't place - he sounded as if he was in his 50s or older.

  "Yes," said Cullen. "He disappeared in 1994."

  "Yes, I remember," said Berry. "I was involved in the presumption of death certificate. Have you found Mr Crombie?"

  "We are investigating that possibility," said Cullen. "I was wondering if I could speak to you tomorrow."

  "Well, this is most unusual," said Berry.

  "I know that," said Cullen. "It's unusual for me too. I just need some information from his medical history."

  "Very well," said Berry. Cullen could hear him looking through a sheaf of papers. "I can meet you at 8am in North Berwick tomorrow at the surgery. Otherwise, we're talking 7pm."

  "8am is perfect," said Cullen.

  He ended the call and headed back inside for a celebratory beer.

  Wednesday

  20th June 2012

  thirty-two

  Cullen was in Bain's 7am briefing at Leith Walk. His head was slightly tender - the pint at the Outhouse had turned into another three pints followed by a romantic entanglement back at Sharon's flat.

  "Right," said Bain, standing by the flip chart and rubbing his hands together. Instead of a meeting room, they'd found a corner of the office where Bain could mount the flip chart paper he'd acquired the previous day. "I want an update on where we are with the actions I gave you last night." He looked at Cullen. "Sundance, you first."

  "I'm making slow progress," said Cullen.

  "As ever," said Bain.

  Cullen raised his eyebrows and got on with it - the quicker he got it out, the quicker Bain could lay into him for some perceived slight and the quicker he could get on with some proper work. "I've got hold of the family doctor who saw Iain back in the day," he said. "I need to get permission from Alec Crombie to get access to Iain's records."

  "And have you asked?"

  "Sort of," said Cullen.

  "Sort of?"

  "Well, it was him I got the info from," said Cullen. "I'm heading out to North Berwick to meet the doctor."

  "Keep a lid on it, Sundance," said Bain. "I don't want that Crombie boy putting in a complaint about this."

  "We need to find out who it is in that barrel," said Cullen.

  "I know, I know," said Bain, "but don't piss him off, all right?"

  "Fine," said Cullen, silently fuming.

  "Caldwell, you next," said Bain.

  Cullen didn't listen to her update, instead focusing on calming down from Bain's nonsense. He wasn't the sort of boss to give anyone a free rein, least of all Cullen, someone who had been known to stray down paths Bain didn't want him to.

  "Murray," said Bain, "how's it going with Paddy?"

  "Like Scott, I've managed to get hold of the doctor that Paddy went to see at the time," he said, "and I've managed to get hold of the records. They got here overnight."

  Cullen raised an eyebrow - he was getting outshone here.

  "Good work," said Bain. "Anything?"

  Murray grinned. "Turns out Mr Kavanagh had a scar on his arm," he said.

  It was Bain's turn to grin. "You fuckin' dancer," he said.

  "Pretty pleased with it," said Murray.

  "Right, so it's Paddy in there," said Bain. "Sundance, you can stop what you're doin' with pissin' off Alec Crombie."

  Cullen frowned. "I'm not giving up," he said.

  "Yes, you fuckin' are," said Bain. "It's Paddy. Case closed."

  "Fuck off," muttered Cullen.

  "I beg your fuckin' pardon?"

  "Look, you asked me to look into it," said Cullen, "and I am looking into it. I'm not dropping it."

  "Cullen," said Bain, "I'm not going to tolerate any more of this. Stuart has found that Paddy had a scar on his arm. Case closed. And stop telling me to fuck off."

  "I still want to look into it," said Cullen. "We still need to look into it. Iain could have a scar."

  Bain rubbed at his moustache. "Look, Sundance, it's Sod's law that you picked the wrong one," he said. "Stuart's come up with the goods for once. You can't be a superhero every time."

  Cullen flailed his arms around. "I'm not trying to be a superhero," he said. "We've got a very real possibility with Iain. I need to investigate it."

  "All you've told us is that you've found the family doctor," said Bain. "Big fuckin' deal, Sundance. Big fuckin' deal."

  Cullen didn't know what to say. He was getting shut down. Paddy had been knocked off his bike two months before he disappeared. He was rushed to hospital and stitched up. Wilsenham - his landlady - hadn't even known about it, so it hadn't appeared on any of the MisPer documentation. Nobody at the distillery had known about it.

  "What do you want me to do?" asked Cullen.

  "Write your shite up this morning," said Bain. "Let me think through what I'll get you to do."

  "Fine," snapped Cullen, feeling anything but.

  Cullen sat in the canteen, slumped over a black filter, the burnt smell infiltrating his nostrils. Concentrating on the cooling liquid helped him put his anger in context.

  Bain thought he was acting like a superhero. He was trying to do the right thing. He was trying to close out the lead. Part of him was trying to prove Alec Crombie wrong - that the body was Iain in there - and part of him hoped that it wasn't Paddy because he just didn't know where to even begin with finding the killer. He was just trying to keep his mind open to any possibility while they still didn't know exactly.

  It was typical Bain - get a sniff of a lead and close everything else down. Close Cullen down. Write everything up - put it in a box. There were months of paperwork to go through. The two major scalps he'd got before they'd managed to close out in seven days and two days, but there had been months of paperwork and admin trailing behind them. If he hadn't acted so quickly, the paperwork and capturing the killers might have merged into the same months long cycle, assuming of course they did catch them. Bain liked nothing better than letting a trail that he didn't particularly fancy go cold.

  He took a sip of the coffee, just about at drinking temperature. He spotted DI Cargill walking over, carrying a tray, DCI Turnbull following behind her. He closed his eyes - just what he didn't need.

  Cargill stood by his table, a bacon roll and coffee on her tray. "I didn't expect to see you here, Constable," she said. Her hair had just been cut short - even shorter than before - with the hair-clip as a token gesture at femininity falling short of the mark. She had a trouser suit on, the jacket just about covering the worst of her saddlebags.

  Cullen returned Turnbull's nod. "Just taking a break," he said.

  "I thought you were supposed to be on overnight surveillance with DS Irvine?" she asked.

  "I was," said Cullen, wrapping both hands around the paper coffee cup. "DI Bain took me off of it."

  "He what?" she spat.

  "Didn't you know?" asked Cullen after a pause.

  "No, I didn't," said Cargill, her voice stern. She turned round to Turnbull. "Did you?"

  Turnbull tilted his head to the side. "Brian may have mentioned something along the lines," he said, "but it wasn't explicitly stated, nor agreed to."

  Cargill turned back to Cullen. "I need to have a word with DI Bain," she said.

  "Let me know the outcome," said Cullen.

  "You're not to do anything under DI Bain's instruction without consulting me first," said Cargill.

  "Fine," said Cullen.

  Cargill gave a polite nod. She pointed towards a table by the window and looked at Turnbull. "Shall we?" she asked, before walking off.

  Turnbull lingered. Cargill stopped. Turnbull grinned at Cargill. "DC Cullen is one of
our rising stars, you know," he said.

  Cargill raised an eyebrow. "I'll bear that in mind," she said. She lifted her left wrist and checked her watch, almost tipping the tray up. "I've got a 7.30 with Deeley, so can we get on?"

  "Very well," said Turnbull. "Give me a second." He gave a flash of the eyebrows to Cullen and watched her walk over to the window.

  Cullen's heart started fluttering. Turnbull speaking to him directly. He doubted it would be good.

  "Everything okay?" asked Turnbull.

  Cullen smiled. "Yes," he said. "Juggling seven cases, none of which are going anywhere, but I'm okay."

  Lying bastard, he told himself.

  "How is Brian on this case?" asked Turnbull.

  "DI Bain?"

  Turnbull nodded.

  Cullen raised his eyebrows. "He's okay," he found himself saying. "It's difficult at the moment but we'll get a result."

  "Nothing funny in his behaviour?"

  "Define 'funny'," said Cullen. "This is DI Bain we're talking about."

  Turnbull chuckled. "Okay, well if you see anything outside the particularly wide set of parameters Brian usually operates in, then you let me know." He nodded and walked off, sitting across from Cargill.

  Cullen watched them from afar. Rising star. Rising stars usually got promoted and not stuck with the worst DI in the force. Rising stars weren't used as pawns in some shitty game of chess between DIs. And why did he defend Bain? That was a chance to get him down the pecking order.

  He took a long drink of coffee and did some calculations in his head. Cargill would be in with Deeley for a good hour at least. Then she'd spend about another hour tracking Bain down, followed by Bain giving her the verbal runaround - call it another hour. He came up with a window of three hours where he wasn't directly under Bain's command.

  He finished the coffee and grabbed his suit jacket off the back of the chair.

  thirty-three

  North Berwick was a small fishing town a few miles east of Gullane. It reminded Cullen of a slightly smaller version of St Andrews - one fewer main street, no university, no major golf course. It made up for it by being umbilically connected to Edinburgh by a train line, which meant that lawyers, accountants, advocates, managers and actuaries could all base themselves out there with a short train trip home, while their children went to better schools and they were out in the countryside at the weekend and nearer the better golf courses.

  It was quite a pretty place, thought Cullen as he drove through - big Victorian mansions sat on a long tree-lined road into the town. He cut up past the railway station and avoided the town centre - the road he took to the health centre was one of the seemingly infinite main roads that sliced through the town, constantly criss-crossing.

  Cullen had been slightly late getting out of Edinburgh - some guerrilla roadworks appearing on the A1 just south of Portobello - and was fifteen minutes late for his appointment for Dr Berry. The health centre sat next to the Edington Hospital on a tree-lined avenue with the same sort of post-war houses that would be in any number of Edinburgh suburbs - Corstorphine, Lochend, Queensferry Road and others.

  They sat in Berry's office, the large man's face disapproving of everything Cullen said.

  "Can I just remind you, Constable," said Berry, "that I am doing you a favour? It is entirely at my discretion how much - or how little - help I give you, without you having the decency to provide a warrant."

  "I understand," said Cullen. "I appreciate your help with this. We are in the difficult situation of not having a confirmed identification of the body, so we are unable to get a warrant for the information. However, the information that you provide could help us in that identification."

  "So be it," said Berry. He licked a finger and turned through the pages in the file. "I had a look through this while I was waiting for your somewhat delayed arrival. There was a mark you were looking for, wasn't there?"

  "There was," said Cullen. "A scar on the left arm, probably a month or less before death."

  "I see," said Berry. He flicked quicker than before. "Well, we have a potential match - Mr Crombie was indeed treated at the Edington hospital A&E six weeks prior to his disappearance."

  Cullen's heart raced. He leaned across the desk. "Can I have a look?"

  "I wish that you could," said Berry. "Sadly, I've not got the full report here, just a note."

  "Where would the report be?" asked Cullen.

  "Edington might have a copy," said Berry. "It's just next door." He closed his eyes briefly. "No, I'm forgetting. The records across the Lothians were all centralised when they built the Royal Infirmary at Little France." He scanned through the stub record for the arm injury. "There's the name of a doctor here, an Amardeep Singh." He turned to his computer and typed in a reference number. "Here we go," he said, after a few seconds of clicking. "You're in luck. He's still active - now based at Little France, as it happens."

  Back outside, Cullen quickly got on the phone to Dr Singh. He sat on a wooden bench outside the small hospital next to the Health Centre. A steady stream of traffic passed on the main road in the early morning sunshine, mostly SUVs on the school run.

  "But I insist," said Singh. His voice was upper crust Edinburgh with slight traces of Indian ancestry.

  "This would really help me out," said Cullen.

  "Mr Cullen," said Singh, "the General Medical Council guidance explicitly states that it is my duty to protect patient confidentiality. Only in cases where there are proven and direct links to a crime should I hand any information over to the police."

  "So what do I need to show you?" asked Cullen.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "If I want any more information," said Cullen, "what do I need to give you?"

  "I need written permission from the next of kin," said Singh. "No particular form, just signed and witnessed." He paused. "And that's witnessed by someone other than yourself."

  Cullen was aware of his leash being slightly slackened and needed to get a confirmed result quickly. "Thanks," he said. "Can I arrange an appointment for ten, please?"

  "I suggest that you get the permission first," said Singh.

  "Are you free at ten?"

  Singh sounded exasperated - the pitch of his voice went up a few tones. "Very well," he said. "I can rearrange my schedule, but if you can't make it then I would appreciate some prior warning."

  "Of course," said Cullen. He got the address in the hospital from Singh and then ended the call.

  He leaned back in the bench. His next step was to go to Alec Crombie. He took a deep breath, knowing how much fun that was going to be.

  thirty-four

  "I really do not have any time for you and your wild goose chase," said Crombie.

  They were in his office. Cullen had managed to gain access, blagging his way past the receptionist and into Crombie's inner sanctum. The desk was covered in papers.

  "I've got a board meeting on Friday," continued Crombie, "and I really need to focus on it."

  "This is a police matter," said Cullen. "You'll know that we are still actively investigating both your son and Paddy Kavanagh as potential victims. I could very easily call up my DI and get a court order in place. As I've told you before, that would not reflect well on you and your business."

  Cullen knew he was pushing it - his DI didn't even know that he was there, let alone approve of the wild antics he was getting up to. He was a gambler, and he knew that he was onto a winner with this - he just needed approval from Crombie and then he would show Bain.

  "You can't come in here with your constant innuendo and expect me to comply with your outrageous behaviour," said Crombie. "Perhaps it is I who should be having a word with your superior."

  Cullen tried to stare him out, but found a formidable adversary in Crombie. He decided to try another tack. "You are convinced that it isn't your son in the barrel," said Cullen. "This is your opportunity to prove me wrong."

  Crombie narrowed his eyes and thought it through for almost a min
ute. Cullen was beginning to wonder if his gambit had paid off - or if Bain was getting a call from the distillery owner.

  "I know that it's not Iain in there," said Crombie.

  Cullen felt shellacked - he was failing. Bain would give him a doing. Cargill and Turnbull wouldn't be too enamoured with his behaviour either.

  He opened his mouth to start pleading when Crombie cut him off. "But very well," he said. "I will approve your access to my son's medical records. I would stress that a vital condition would be that this is the end of the matter. Any further suggestions that you have about my son we will not discuss. You don't go to Fraser with it, you don't go to anyone else. Do I have your agreement?"

  "You do," said Cullen.

  Crombie reached across his desk and pressed an intercom button on the phone. "Amanda, can you come up, please?" he asked.

  "On my way," came the voice from the phone.

  Crombie leaned back in his chair. He crossed his legs and adjusted the kilt between his thighs. "You're taking your time with this one," he said, his voice booming. "That was over a week ago that you first came in. I'm surprised that you haven't got it all wrapped up by now. Edinburgh's finest and all that."

  "We've had our challenges," said Cullen, alluding to Crombie and his obstreperous behaviour. "There have been some higher profile incidents hit us. There were two separate RTAs on the bypass and the M8, and a murder in Bathgate."

  "What's an RTA?" asked Crombie.

  "A Road Traffic Accident," said Cullen. "It's been all over the news. There's talk of upgrades to both roads again."

  Crombie laughed. "That'll go away again soon enough," he said. "I'm as much a patriot as the next man, but some of the decisions that have been made in terms of transport infrastructure over the last few decades beggar belief. That the main trunk road between Glasgow and Edinburgh is a dual carriageway is a joke."

  Cullen was surprised to find such common ground with the man.

  Crombie took out his fountain pen from an open drawer in his desk and dabbed it in an inkwell on his desk. He produced a printed letterhead from another drawer. Cullen noticed that it didn't have a 1 in the dialling code. He couldn't remember when they'd changed, must have been the late 80s.