A Taste of Ashes (DI Bob Valentine Book 2) (11 page)

McCormack’s eyes widened. ‘I just noticed on the case files that she’s not been updated on the post-mortem findings either.’

‘Our
coup de grâce
, you mean?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

‘Well, let’s just say she’s on a need to know basis. I’ll let her know what I do when she needs to, until then there’s no point overloading her, it just gets her twitchy about the cost of running a case like this.’

‘Did you tell her we called in frogmen?’

Valentine started the car, over-revved. ‘Look, no. I didn’t. She’ll find out today though, I’m sure of it.’

McCormack was shaking her head. ‘I hope she doesn’t find out at the press conference. She’ll be standing in wait for you at the front door if she does, most likely with your P45 in one hand and a baseball bat in the other.’

Sandra Millar whispered her daughter’s name to herself and listened as the wind snatched it away. On cold mornings like this, when Jade appeared barefoot and shivering in her kitchen, she’d hug her tight, tell her to wrap up before going out. She never listened though. Never ceased to pad about the house barefoot or wear a decent coat to go down the street. It was her age, teenagers were like that, but there was more to it as well.

It seemed like such a long time since Sandra had been with Jade, old memories were welling up, but it might have been only a few hours. Everything was unreal now, thoughts appeared clear and bright and immediately became foggy. Jade in her little red boots, the boisterous two-year-old wanted to wear the boots to bed, screamed at all attempts to remove them, and then she was gone. A sulky teenager showed up, dourly locked herself in her bedroom to listen to The Pistols. The good times and the bad. Why hadn’t there been more of the good? Why hadn’t she done more to make her daughter happy, keep her safe? Sandra shoved away her thoughts, shut her eyes. When she opened them again reality had returned.

The scene was familiar enough, she knew the streets, recognised the buildings, the faces hadn’t changed. But nothing was as it appeared. As new thoughts started bubbling up, banging in her head, Sandra stumbled along the street to escape them. But they followed her; it was as if she was being chased out of her own mind.

‘Watch yourself there, dear.’ An old man, he held out a hand like he was offering help. ‘Everything OK, love?’

Sandra looked away, continued up the High Street. People were staring, she was making a show of herself – that’s what the looks said. Her head throbbed, it was hard to think. All she could see were strange pictures floating in and out of her mind. Jade mostly but there was James Tulloch too. He was dead now. The knife in him, the blood, he must be dead. There were screams and wails. She could hear them still, something terrible had happened. Something so awful she couldn’t see it now, it was as if she’d blocked the incident out. It had to be locked away, hidden, because to ever face it meant accepting the most overwhelming pain.

‘No, no, no,’ said Sandra. She knuckled her temples and carried on up the street, a channel forming through the crowd as people stepped out of her way.

‘Jade!’ she called out, not quite a shout but above her normal range.

People turned, some stopped and stared. A group of young boys jeered, they were just kids, in tracksuits with football scarves tied to their wrists. ‘Missus, who let you out the loony bin?’

Sandra cried, immense coldness welling inside her, and started to run. Her steps were long, loping, but soon she was slipping on the wet street. She didn’t know where she was running to. There were too many lights. Too many people. The rain, the wet, and the crowds. The jeering kids, they were everywhere. No matter how fast or far she ran there was no escaping the horror. People stared, they spoke in strange voices. Sandra felt threatened, like she was being hunted. She stopped running, her legs too heavy, her ankles and feet numb.

Falling was sudden but once begun never seemed to stop. The drop was too slow, she wanted the blow of the pavement to come though there were too many images in the way. Jade and James Tulloch flashed again, the blood, and the knife.

The slap of her head on the concrete came with a scream, but it was hers this time, not some long forgotten hurt of her daughter’s that had hung around her memory. Sandra lay still, let the raindrops tap her face, then curled into a ball outside the entrance to Smith’s.

A man stepped over her motionless body, another walked around her.

‘Jade. Why?’ she whispered to the wet ground.

A woman crouched. A low voice, calm but distinct. ‘Is everything OK?’

She didn’t reply. They were just words, she couldn’t process their meaning.

More sounds came. A jumble of voices.

‘I think she’s had a stumble.’

‘She’s given herself a knock on the head.’

‘I saw her running up the street, she was all over the place.’

‘I think the poor soul’s lost … Love, are you OK there?’

Sandra pulled up her knees. She wanted to be away. She wanted to be somewhere where she was invisible, where she could hide from the world and where nobody knew what was going on inside her. Where nobody else could find out what she had seen. But the images kept coming, and people continued to gather around her.

‘Has someone called an ambulance?’

‘Or the police? Someone should make a call.’

Sandra called out. ‘Jade … Jade …’

‘What’s she saying?’

‘I don’t know, sounds like someone’s name.’

Sandra shrieked as a cold hand was pressed on her wet brow. ‘We’ve called the ambulance, dear. They’ll be here soon.’

Who were they? Why were they fussing around? Sandra eased herself up, crouched against the wall. She pulled up her legs, her knees were scuffed and reddened. There was blood, patches of it, dark black scars and long red lines running down to her shins. On her hands too, she stared at them. They were red with blood and black crescents under the nails. She held them in front of her eyes, her long white fingers trembling, and cried out again.

‘Jade. My daughter …’

‘What’s that?’

‘I want my daughter. She needs me.’

A woman in a white woollen hat leaned towards her, the glasses on her nose were wet with the rain and blurred her eyes. ‘Don’t worry yourself, the ambulance is coming. You’ve had a nasty fall, given yourself quite a knock.’

‘No!’ It wasn’t the fall that Sandra cared about. There were other pointers to how she came to be curled up in Ayr High Street, with a small crowd gathering around her, poking and prodding her as she cried for her daughter. Everything was fragmenting, the memories, the pictures of horrors she didn’t understand. Blood and wounds. A blade. Screams. Her daughter’s face, twisted in tears. Her boyfriend’s bloodied back slouched at the table in her home. It was unreal but so familiar, like a scene from a movie she’d seen a hundred times but couldn’t quite piece together the plot.

‘James is
dead
,’ she cried.

‘What?’

‘James is dead.’ Sandra sobbed into her dirty hands as the rain washed blood onto the street. The sight of the blood made her thrust her hands away but she couldn’t escape the terror. She pushed herself from the ground, grabbed at the wall and scrabbled through the crowd. She was on the road, running awkwardly. New sounds started behind her.

A screech of brakes.

‘Watch out!’

‘Stop.’

A burn of rubber.

‘It’s hit her …’

There was a niggle bothering DI Bob Valentine. For the first time, or so it appeared, things were going their way on the case. If the knife turned out to be the murder weapon, and the forensics team could find fingerprints in the bloodstains on the wall, then he would have something to take to the chief super that might calm her down, maybe put him on her good side. CS Martin was a simple enough sort to play. Providing he prefaced all bad news with a greater quantity of good news, she tended to be sufferable. It was all pride with her. If the CS had something she could take upstairs, and earn a few plaudits for, then she could be quite easy to please.

‘You’re looking chuffed with yourself,’ said McCormack.

Valentine glanced towards his passenger. ‘Think we’ve left at just the right time, rush hour’s cleared right up.’

‘Was I being too optimistic thinking it might be the case that had started to cheer you up?’

‘You’d have to be a funny old sort to be cheered by a murder investigation, Sylvia.’

‘I meant the progress.’

He steered the Vectra through the curve of the road, evacuated a spray of pooling rain water. ‘I’ll be happy when we have the murderer in custody, until then my dancing shoes can stay where they are.’

Valentine didn’t want to think about how far they had come on the case. Rewarding himself for every achievement led to a false sense of gain when there was no real victory to be had. A life had been taken and many other lives disrupted and affected by the actions of a killer. His town, where he lived and raised his children, would only be a safer place once that killer had been caught and removed from the streets. It was not a task to be treated lightly. It was the role he had given everything to, and had nearly cost him his life. There was no way of approaching a murder investigation softly and now that the press conference had been called a new set of pressures were about to begin.

Those in the less functional uniforms, with the shiny buttons and big caps, tended to get nervy when closely scrutinised by the media. Demands were put on investigating officers and workloads and stress levels increased. Things like leave got cancelled. Enforced overtime became the norm. The station, and others like it, became inhospitable places where dour officers passed each other in grim obsession. Everyone knew the light would only return to their lives when the case was closed. The panic reached the public eventually too, and if it was left alone, made for a dangerous atmosphere that spilled into areas it shouldn’t. When that happened, the killer was in control, harboured delusions of omnipotence that increased the danger for everyone. Fear ruled then.

Nobody liked to think of a murderer walking their streets – you couldn’t contain news like that for long, though. In the days to come, Valentine saw himself fending off prying questions from neighbours, posed over the garden wall, and if he didn’t have the right answers, in a quick enough fashion, he’d become a part of the fear himself. He didn’t want to think like this but it was his job, not just as an officer, but as a husband and father, a member of his community. His wife should have no more to worry about than their children and their biggest fear should be from exam results. No one deserved to live in fear of a killer.

The DI’s mobile phone interrupted his thoughts.

‘Want me to get that, sir?’ said McCormack.

‘No, just leave it to go through the speaker, it’s on the Bluetooth.’ He answered the call. ‘Hello, Bob Valentine.’

‘Hello, there.’ He didn’t recognise the voice, the accent was too rarefied for his circle. ‘I’m Major Rutherford …’

The gap on the line was a ruse for Valentine to reveal his position, but he didn’t bite. Experience, or guile, had taught him to play the chippy bloke’s role in these situations; it got results.

‘Yes,’ said the DI. ‘And how can I help you, Major?’

‘I had an interesting telephone conversation with one of your subalterns recently, Inspector. I believe his name was McAlister; the chap said you were conducting a case where one of my boys had been mentioned, Darren Millar.’

‘It’s a murder investigation.’

‘I see. And has Millar’s name been linked to the crime in any sort of nefarious way? You understand the regiment would need to be kept informed of any implications.’

‘Implications?’

‘I mean for the regiment. He’s one of our boys but we have a duty to uphold the good name of the Fusiliers, you understand.’

The major’s tone began to grate. What was it about a certain class of people that they excluded themselves from the norms of politesse that the rest of us obeyed? ‘You’ll understand a murder investigation is a very sensitive affair and I’m bound by strict regulations and procedures.’

‘Of course, but we are both seeking the same end, as I said.’

‘I don’t see how, Major. I’m hunting the killer, not your missing squaddie. And if I was, I wouldn’t be discussing that with anyone in any way unrelated to the case.’

The line fizzed.

‘Inspector, I don’t want to get off on the wrong hoof, so to speak. I’m sure we can both be of assistance to each other in this case.’

‘Of course. And I’d like to speak to you about Darren Millar, how does tomorrow sound?’

‘What about today? I’m in your area for the next little while, I could be with you inside an hour.’

‘I’m sorry but I’m not in the office at the moment.’

‘In that case, is there somebody else? McAlister perhaps?’

‘He’s conducting a press conference today, I’m afraid.’

‘Not about the Darren Millar case, the press call, is it? I should think I’d really need to be present for that.’

Valentine glanced at McCormack, her mouth tightened. The embarrassing gall of the man might not have been close to Prince Phillip asking an Aboriginal elder if his people still chucked spears at each other, but it attracted the same derision. ‘Look, as I’ve said, Major, this is a murder investigation. Darren Millar is an integral part of our inquiry but this is not a joint inquiry we’re holding with the Royal Highland Fusiliers.’

The major’s voice rose, seemed to indicate an escalation of more than volume. ‘Valentine, who is your superior officer?’

The DI spotted McCormack fanning her hand over her mouth. He kept the tone of his reply consistent but the limits of his endurance had been surpassed. ‘I don’t believe I have one, Major. If you want my next in command, that would be Chief Superintendent Marion Martin and you can reach her through the switchboard at King Street station.’

Valentine ended the call, switched off the phone speaker.