A Taste of Ashes (DI Bob Valentine Book 2) (21 page)

‘Bob … Bob … Are you OK?’ A new voice, familiar this time.

‘Where am I?’

DS Donnelly came into focus, leaned down towards Valentine. ‘You’re in your office, here get this down you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Just water. You’ve had a tumble, Eddy there found you on the floor of the gents.’

DS McCormack started to press a cold can of Coke into his forehead. ‘I don’t think you’ve any injuries, there’s no blood or bruising.’

‘Lucky you never whacked your head off the sink,’ said DS Harris. ‘Luckier yet I found you when I did, you could have been there all day.’

Valentine pushed away the can of Coke. ‘I’m grateful for your weak bladder, Eddy.’ He waved away the assembled crowd. ‘Look can you all get back to work, I’ve passed out, it happens, now get over it.’

‘I think you should go home, take the rest of the day off, sir,’ said McCormack.

‘That’ll be right. I’m fine, just been overdoing it lately, not had much sleep.’

Donnelly turned to McAlister and winked.

‘I bloody saw that, Phil.’

‘Sorry, boss. Just being funny.’

‘Just being a dick you mean.’

‘That’s it, that’s what I meant.’

Valentine pushed away his chair and stood up, he took a mouthful of water and followed it with two deep breaths. ‘It’s roasting in here …’

‘I’ll get the window open,’ said McCormack.

‘Wait, what was it you were going to say, when you stopped me on the way out earlier?’

‘Oh, right, just that I ran the Meat Hangers staff through the database and we have a repeat offender, string of convictions for battery and a nice GBH cherry on top.’

Valentine put down the cup, reached over his desk to retrieve his jacket. ‘Right, get moving. We’re going to pay this one a visit … name?’

‘Brogan, sir … Kyle Brogan and he stays in the same part of town as Tulloch did.’

‘Another trip to the badlands. Hope you like the sound of banjos, Sylvia.’

DS Donnelly stepped forward. ‘What about us, boss? Do you want us to get onto Major Tom?’

‘You’re kidding aren’t you? He’d eat you alive. No, you leave that to me, I’ll talk to the chief super when I get back. We need to approach this carefully, the military have a love affair with the Official Secrets Act and if we go in boots first then we’ll likely come out that way too.’

‘Shall I update the super?’

‘No, leave her to me as well. I’ll take care of that personally. I want to know how she’s going to approach it but I also want to see her eyes when I confirm for her that she’s been had by her new Major buddy.’

DS Donnelly started to fiddle with the collar of his shirt. ‘But what if Dino comes in sniffing around, if I hold this back then surely that’s putting us in her bad books again.’

‘I’m never out of her bad books and the way this case is going there’ll be a few more joining me before long. I want you and Ally to get onto the boffins and chase a full report on the Paton kid, what can they tell us about how he died and if there’s any useful forensics on him, preferably not his own.’ Valentine turned away from Donnelly and faced DI Harris. ‘Eddy, welcome on board. I’m sorry it wasn’t in more auspicious circumstances but now we do have you, I’ll be putting you to use right away. I want you to get onto the school, Belmont, and get names of all Niall Paton and Jade Millar’s main associates. I also want to talk to any teachers that they shared and get hold of any others that clocked unusual behaviour from the pair of them in recent weeks. Likewise sports clubs and whatever else kids go in for. Oh, and GPs, and anywhere else they were attending like therapists or what have you, talk to them. I want insights, draw up their profiles.’

‘Christ, that’s a tall order, anything else whilst I’m at it?’ snapped Harris. ‘I could shove a broom up my arse and sweep the stairs too, I suppose.’

‘There will definitely be more, Eddy, I just haven’t thought of it yet.’

In the car DS McCormack started her questioning the second the doors had closed. Her face, tight in the jaw, inferred anger but there were other emotions playing in her cracking voice. ‘What the hell was that?’ she said.

‘I don’t know.’ Valentine’s reply sounded meek. ‘Trust me, Sylvia, if I did, I’d let you know chapter and verse.’

‘Well something happened. I know that look. So don’t pretend that it was just another bout of stress or over-tiredness from the job. And don’t think about getting creative and playing the low blood sugar card, either!’

Valentine turned the key, started to feed the steering wheel through his dry palms. As they left the car park and turned onto King Street he was aware that he hadn’t responded to McCormack yet. The tension between them was building steadily but he was lost for a response. She wasn’t going to accept the stock reply and he didn’t have the focus to summon a more thoughtful answer.

‘Look, what do you want me to say? I can’t get to grips with this any better than you, or anyone else for that matter.’

‘Maybe we need to call Hugh Crosbie again, I mean, if things have escalated for you.’ McCormack removed her mobile from the black leather bag on her lap. She was scrolling through numbers as Valentine spoke. ‘No. I mean, not yet.’ They’d reached the crossroads at the racecourse, the traffic lights – forever red – had the cars backed up through both lanes. The DI pulled on the handbrake, there didn’t seem to be any chance that they were going anywhere for a little while. ‘The picture, you know the one I mean …’

‘The one that Hugh drew for you?’

‘That’s the one.’ Valentine fiddled with the gear stick, tapped fingers on top. ‘I stuck it on the fridge and my dad saw it.’

McCormack interrupted, ‘He recognised the man in the picture?’

‘That’s right. An old uncle, apparently. Some sort of relative anyway.’

‘He was in uniform. Did he die in the War?’

The tense feeling inside the car seemed to be easing, McCormack’s tone dropping to a more rational level. ‘No, actually, he didn’t. I don’t know him, I never did, but my dad said he came back from the war with shell shock, only it wasn’t from the bombing. There was some kind of incident he was involved in, something that scared him for the rest of his days. He was a strange one, a loner, by all accounts for ever more. I think my mother knew the full story but she only touched on it with my father, it was the kind of thing that Dad wouldn’t mention, personal y’know, like something he wouldn’t want another man knowing, or even feel comfortable discussing.’

‘Christ above, well you know what that sounds like to me: a sexual assault.’

‘I thought so, too. There must have been plenty of that sort of thing going on in wartime. I think he endured it because of the era he lived in, men just didn’t speak up about it, there was far too much shame involved.’

The traffic started to ease, the bumper ahead moved off. Valentine selected first gear.

‘This all sounds very familiar,’ said McCormack.

‘War is hell, you mean?’

‘No. It’s familiar to the Tulloch and Finnie case in Afghanistan.’

‘The second Phil and Ally came back with the story from the lad in the barracks. It was like I could feel, no
sense
, the connection.’

‘The gents, this is what you’re building up to? You passed out because something happened in there and I don’t think it was a pissing contest with Flash Harris.’

Valentine broke into a weak smile. ‘Everything’s a pissing contest with Harris. But, yes, you’re right. I saw something. But that wasn’t the first time. There’s been nightmares, sweats, visions … Just like on the Janie Cooper case. I know things are getting worse though because I saw Bert, just like that time in Glasgow when I saw Janie, do you remember when I passed out?’

‘You wouldn’t let me call an ambulance.’

‘For all the good it would have done me, Sylvia. I’m strangely at ease with this today, it’s like familiar territory now. I was scared witless when it happened to me the first time and the nightmares, they’re horrific but not terrifying anymore. I don’t know, I really don’t know what I’m saying.’

‘No. I understand. You’re becoming inured to the visions, it’s like Hugh Crosbie said, you learn to separate yourself from the actual situation and become an observer of it.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, I mean, I wouldn’t say I was comfortable enough in the situation to sit back and watch. It takes a toll, there’s a physical side.’

‘We should talk to Hugh again, I’m sure he’d be able to put you at ease that all of this is quite normal.’

Valentine spluttered, ‘You’re kidding aren’t you? I’m a grown man, a professional law enforcer, I shouldn’t be seeing ghosties.’

‘Well, if you put it like that.’

‘How else would I put it, Sylvia? I’m overwhelmed by this, it’s playing with my head and my heart’s not up to the strain. The only reason I’m not asking them to lock me up in the loony bin is because I sense that there’s some meaning to all of this, that someone is trying to tell me something that will help solve these murders.’

‘It worked before.’

‘There’s that too.’ The DI turned into a side street and lowered his speed.

‘The blackouts aren’t good though, I worry about your health.’

‘So do I, Sylvia. I wonder about the consequences, not for me but for Clare and the girls. Can you imagine the fall-out for them if it got out? That’s not my biggest concern right now though …’

‘What’s that then?’

‘Back there, in the gents, I’m not sure what Harris saw.’

‘Do you think he saw anything incriminating?’

‘I don’t know. I was out spark-cold. But if he did see something, I’m sure he won’t be long in bringing it to my attention.’

‘Or someone else’s, that would be the real worry, Bob.’

‘Yes, someone like Dino. She’s putting up with me leading the investigation at the moment but I don’t kid myself that it’s because she thinks I’m the best man for the job. It would be all too easy for her to park me on psych leave for a while and then you’d all be dancing to Harris’s tune.’

‘Surely he wouldn’t say anything, I mean, it’s his word against yours.’

‘And in that situation it comes down to who Dino has the most faith in. At the moment her faith in me is minimal.’

‘Flash Harris doesn’t have the best clear-up rate in the division, I can’t see him holding any more sway with the chief super than you or anyone else. And there’s the fact that this robbery is still unsolved …’

‘There is that, but the robbery is our responsibility now, and once Harris familiarises himself with the two unsolved murders we have on our books then the robbery is going to play to his advantage with Dino – he’ll have a running start. It’s not looking good, Sylvia, any way you dice it.’

They’d reached the Whitletts home of Kyle Brogan. Valentine started to brake, in time to hear the street debris crunching under the car’s tyres; stilled the engine and released his seatbelt.

McCormack retrieved her bag from the footwell and opened her door, said, ‘So, what did this Bert guy tell you?’

Valentine walked around the vehicle, stopped when he faced her. ‘The first time, something about finding the soldier. Today, in the gents, it wasn’t so much what he said but what he showed me.’

‘And what was that?’

The DI looked away, he was gripping the car keys in his fist as he stared into the middle distance. ‘It was a sad-looking young girl, with a bullet in her head.’

DI Bob Valentine led the march up the path towards Kyle Brogan’s home. The boxy council flats were surrounded by an assortment of broken children’s toys, burst bin bags and rusting engine parts. A mattress from a single bed, that had been set on fire at some stage, was being used as a trampoline by a group of kids. One of the children, a boy in ripped trackies and a Rangers top, saluted the officers with a V-sign and sparked a spate of mimicry from the others.

‘Little charmers,’ said DS McCormack.

‘You should acquaint yourself with them now, sure you’ll be taking their details down the station in a few years.’

‘Sooner for some of them, I’m sure.’

Outside the door Valentine tapped on a broken buzzer, the glass from the cover was lying smashed on the concrete doorstep; he pressed it with the sole of his shoe. ‘You know what the problem here is, don’t you?’

‘Multiple deprived family units, constellated …’

Valentine cut her off. ‘Stop that now! It’s the state of this step. Look at it, my mother used to spend hours cleaning her front step. At around eleven o’clock every morning in the street I grew up in you could see women on their hands and knees scrubbing those steps, it was a point of real shame not to have a clean step.’

McCormack eased past the DI, pushed the door open. ‘Fortunately, some of us have managed to get off our knees, sir. Which is a good job for the likes of you – might have been stuck outside this door all day without my help.’

‘Fair play. I earned that.’

On the stairwell the detectives waded through discarded White Lightning bottles and cigarette ends. There was a strong smell of urine, a stronger smell of rotting refuse and a host of other smells that were largely unidentifiable but definitely not Chanel No. 5.

‘Right, here we are, number 12b … give him a knock,’ said Valentine.

Behind the door, with its chipped paint and exposed rot, came the sound of movement. Through the glass and the faded net curtain a dark shape of a slouching man was seen. He coughed, loudly, then cleared his throat. The next sound came from the letter box rattling, a hand was stuck through and a voice followed. ‘What do you want?’

‘Open up, Kyle, it’s the rozzers,’ said Valentine.

‘I’m opening for no one, how do I know you’re what you say you are? No, get lost.’

Valentine nodded towards McCormack, who removed her warrant card from her coat pocket and flashed it in front of the letter box. ‘Please open the door, Mr Brogan.’

‘Or it’ll have a size-ten-shaped hole in it soon,’ said Valentine.

A chain rattled, a key turned in the lock. As the rusty hinges cried out the door eased open. ‘What’s all this about?’ said Brogan. He was standing in chewing-gum-coloured vest and pants, eyes smarting at the flood of daylight he was forced to face.