A Taste of Ashes (DI Bob Valentine Book 2) (13 page)

Valentine directed Sylvia to the stairs. ‘I’ll gather the team, sir.’

‘Jim, can you spare me the histrionics, eh?’

‘Well I presume you never heard about the press conference that was crashed by Captain Mainwaring. Or should that be Major Mainwairing? Major bloody knob anyway.’

‘Rutherford showed up?’

‘Aye. That’s not the best of it, though.’ Jim unfolded his arms and raised himself before leaning closer to the DI as he approached. ‘Your missing woman, the one with the dead boyfriend, well she’s only gone and turned up … Just about put up a three ring circus in the high street!’

When DI Bob Valentine entered the incident room it was as if the pause button had been pushed. Heads turned and frenetic pacing stopped, mid-stride. The lull in the room’s volume was less pronounced, but for a moment the street seemed to come closer, bringing with it the sounds of traffic and hard-hitting rain. Valentine stood in the doorway with the handle gripped tight in his fist, he had enough temper to slam the door shut, watch the dust bounce from above the skirting and see a few faces shriek but those days were gone. Giving into the whims of mood, in his condition, could be injurious to the already weakened muscle pounding inside his chest.

He removed his coat, placed it on the coat stand and made for the whiteboard where some of the DCs had gathered. ‘Back to work,’ he yelled. ‘Unless someone’s found a genie with three wishes going begging, we still have a murder to solve by our own efforts.’

DS Ally McAlister was the first to approach Valentine. ‘Think we need to have a bit of a chat, boss.’

‘Well let’s hope it goes better than every other one I’ve had this morning.’

‘Take it Jim’s been on the tom-toms?’

‘Waylaid on the doorstep, slavering like a cartoon dog with a string of sausages, so he was.’ Valentine pointed to the glassed-off office at the other end of the room. ‘Ally, Phil, Sylvia … in there when you’re ready.’

In his office, Valentine was greeted by a fresh scattering of yellow Post-it notes. He grabbed one, stuck it on top of another, and repeated the process till he had formed a little monument to the morning’s messages. The note on top caught his attention: his father had called and wanted a return call.

Valentine picked up the phone, dialled 0 for reception.

‘Hello, Jean, the message from my dad, was it urgent?’

‘Bob,
hi
, no I don’t think so. He’d tried your mobile but it was off … said something about a picture on the fridge you had left behind.’

‘What?’

‘That was it. Said he didn’t want to call but curiosity had got the better of him.’

‘That or he’d already seen today’s rerun of Antiques Roadshow … I’ll give him a bell later. Thanks, Jean.’

The rest of the notes followed a similar pattern. Missed calls to mobile. CS Martin had stacked up half a dozen of those on her own, each one with a pointer to the time of call which indicated she’d been keen enough to get hold of him that she’d rung every fifteen minutes for more than an hour. He was glad the calls seemed to have stopped, whatever her problem was he would need to give Dino time to cool off now before he did talk to her. A day or two would be ideal but he doubted that much time was available.

The office door opened, in walked Donnelly and McAlister.

‘Where’s, Sylvia?’ said Valentine.

The DSs looked at each other, Donnelly chimed first: ‘Lost your shadow, boss?’

Donnelly averted his gaze to the floor. For a moment, McAlister was left grinning to no one but himself.

‘Is that supposed to be funny, Phil?’ said the DI.

‘Er, no. Well, just a gag, y’know.’ Phil was not known for his sense of humour, Ally was the joker.

‘I’d say stick to the police work, son, but I’m not sure that’s your forte either. Is there something you have to say to me?’

Donnelly coughed on his words. ‘The press conference went a little worse than I was expecting, boss.’

Valentine saw that the DS was nervous, he let the remark about McCormack go. ‘You were anticipating the worst when I left, Phil, are you telling me you exceeded your own expectations?’

‘It was the first press conference I’ve ever headed up.’

‘Sounds like you’re trying to lessen the blow – just tell me what happened.’

‘The army showed up.’

‘I’m assuming you don’t mean the SAS.’ Valentine shook his head.

‘No. Just Major Rutherford. But he was enough.’

‘Jim on the desk told me there’d been some kind of kerfuffle.’

DS McAlister moved towards the seat by the printer. ‘Putting it mildly. We might have fared better if he’d actually abseiled through the windows with a squad of paratroopers.’

It was just a press conference, one of a thousand that had been held at the station, so Valentine struggled to take in what his officers were relaying. ‘Oh, come on. There’s only so much can go wrong at one of these things, and most of it comes from the hacks.’

Donnelly pulled out the other spare seat, sat. ‘It might not have been so bad if the chief super hadn’t got right behind him. She actually came along and told us he was to take the lead …’

Valentine erupted, ‘What? Are you bloody kidding me? Since when was this an army investigation?’

DS McCormack joined the group. ‘Sorry, I was on a call. What have I missed?’

Valentine’s bulging eyes, rimmed with red vessels, sent a stronger message than words.

‘Or maybe I shouldn’t ask?’ said McCormack.

Ally retraced the main points of the conversation, added in the fact that Major Rutherford had asked that the Fusiliers be kept out of the picture for the moment and CS Martin had agreed.

‘So we’re supposed to just keep Darren Millar’s involvement hush-hush?’ said McCormack. ‘That won’t be easy for long.’

‘He’s someone we’re seeking to
assist with our enquiries
,’ said Phil. He’d loosened off his tie and now he removed it. ‘It’s bloody humiliating, not to mention the fact that our hands are tied as far as the investigation goes.’

Valentine got up, pushed out his chair, moved from behind his desk. ‘That’ll be bloody right.’ He pointed at Donnelly and McAlister. ‘I want the pair of you out at Glencourse Barracks tonight. I want the full SP on Darren Millar, if he wet his bed once, I want to know. I want his every move cross-referenced with James Tulloch’s and what kind of relationship they had, if any, in this regiment. And if Major Rutherford or Dino doesn’t like that then they can take it up with the Home Secretary. Go, now!’

DS McCormack spoke: ‘And what about me, sir?’

‘You’re staying here for the minute.’ He checked Donnelly and McAlister for a reaction, continued: ‘You and I are heading out to the hospital again, Ayr this time, to see what sort of sense we can get out of Darry’s mother.’

‘Sandra Millar turned up?’

‘You could say that. More like thrust herself under the front wheel of a Suzuki scrambler some teenage lunatic was taking for a spin down the High Street.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘No, Sylvia, she’s unconscious. But when that changes, she’s going to have quite a few bloody questions to answer.’

Valentine grabbed his pinstripe jacket from the back of his chair and headed out after the DSs. He had toyed with the idea of ripping off his tie and wearing it round his head, Rambo-style, but selected the saner option of straightening the knot and fastening his shirt button. There was nothing to be gained from confronting Dino and Rutherford with hot blood, that would only give away his true feelings about this morning’s goings-on and he wanted to build his case slowly. The DI knew his own defenestration was likely, he’d been exasperating the chief super for too long now, switching off the radio and his mobile phone was a step too far. She was prickly, thin-skinned was a phrase her enemies were fond of, and in anger she would side with anyone to get her own way; it was an extension of the old
your enemy is my enemy
rule. Of course, knowing any of this made no difference to the situation, it was impossible to gain an advantage on a person like Martin whose sole reason for being was to gain advantage over others. Even the thought of going to war with her exhausted the detective.

In the hallway Valentine went over his thoughts. His pulse was returning to normal now and the bitter taste he carried in his mouth had disappeared. If he could only hold his lip in check, his desire to speak his mind, then he might survive the encounter. He took a shallow breath and knocked on CS Martin’s door. Nothing. Normally, there would be a curt call of ‘come’ or the sound of hard heels clicking across a harder floor before the door was yanked open, but this time his knocks were greeted with silence.

He knocked again. Harder this time.

Laughter, the sound of convivial voices.

‘Sounds like a bloody cocktail party in there,’ said Valentine to the empty hall; he was very much on the outside.

Another knock. And a resolve to open the door himself if he was ignored again.

The sweet tones from beyond the door came closer for a moment, then spilled out.

‘Oh, hello, Bob,’ said CS Martin, her relaxed demeanour was so unfamiliar to him that Valentine suspected he had the wrong door.

He peered over her shoulder. ‘If it’s not a good time, I can try later.’

A firm hand clutched his forearm, grabbed him into the office. ‘No, now’s fine. After all, we’ve been chasing you all morning, and a wee bit of the afternoon too.’ Her smile hid the harsher truth of those words.

‘I’m sorry, did I mention my murder investigation?’ As he walked in Valentine spotted a highly polished brogue dangling from the end of a trouser leg that his late mother would have said held a crease that could cut butter.

‘You won’t have met Tom, will you?’ said Martin.

‘I think we spoke earlier.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘On the phone.’

The brogue flashed into fuller view, was met by another at the heel. ‘That must have been before you went off the radar, Inspector.’ He thrust out a hand, awaited a shake. ‘Tom Rutherford.’

Valentine met the hand in front of him. ‘Well, I wasn’t entirely AWOL, Tom … unlike Darren Millar.’

The chief super motioned the men to sit down, returned to her side of the desk and laced fingers, topped with pointed red nails, over the blotter.

As Valentine sat he tried to gauge the room’s mood but the temperature seemed to have shifted already. He’d interrupted a convivial gathering of like-minded careerists who were hopeful of a productive networking opportunity, but had just been forced to switch off the mutual appreciation. As he crossed his legs Valentine became crudely aware of the last encounter his shoes had had with polish.

‘I believe you gatecrashed our press conference, Major.’ He didn’t feel comfortable with first name terms so soon.

Martin spluttered a polite laugh. ‘Come on, Bob, you weren’t here and we needed someone with authority to head things up. Tom helped out at my behest.’

He couldn’t confirm it, not just now anyway, but to his ear it sounded like Dino was altering her accent, stretching her vowels. He had certainly never heard her use a word like
behest
before. West-coast Scots were embarrassed by the way they sounded in wider company, their lack of BBC pronunciation had created the mangled, laughing-stock accents the likes of Lulu, and now Martin, adopted.

‘Oh, really, you just helped us out.’ The DI turned to face the major. ‘Bit convenient that you happened to be in the area.’

Rutherford never got a chance to answer – Martin cut in – ‘Well we’re grateful he was.’

The major’s thin smile seemed to linger a little too long before he spoke. ‘Perhaps I should make myself scarce, until you two have had a chance to catch up.’

‘That won’t be necessary, will it, Bob?’

‘Not at all. The Major is pretty near the top of my catch-up list right now, I wouldn’t want to let the opportunity slide.’

‘I’ve already informed your superior officer of all I’m prepared to say about our mutual interest.’ The blunt, clipped tone was there to put the DI in his place.

‘I don’t think I made myself clear,
Tom
, this is a murder investigation that I’m conducting. The law is very clear about how we treat the act of killing in civilised society. I’m sure it’s very different in a war zone, but we like to get to the bottom of things here.’

‘That’s enough, Bob.’ The CS’s old tone had returned.

‘I don’t believe it is, not by a long stroke. Or any kind of stroke, and that was some stroke you pulled coming down here and derailing my press conference.’

‘Bob …’

‘I’m not finished, yet. Not with Major Rutherford or with Darren Millar or James Tulloch, another Royal Highland Fusilier, though I’m sure you know that,
Tom
.’

‘Right, Bob. Thank you, you can leave us the same way you came in.’ Martin stood up and pointed to the door like she was directing traffic. ‘I’ll speak to you later, Inspector, keep your phone on. And by the way, I haven’t forgotten about the divi commander’s team-building exercise, I’ll see you about that soon too.’

Valentine rose, nodded to the major, whose smile was now back in place, creeping up the side of his face. It didn’t seem like the time for parting handshakes so Valentine tapped his brow in a mocking salute.

In the hallway the DI tried to process what he had just been part of. It was like an old-school-tie gathering that he’d worn the wrong colours to. Martin was on instinctual suck-up mode, rank always impressed her but paired to haughty arrogance like Rutherford’s she was helpless. The implications for the investigation worried Valentine, neither of them could get in the way of real justice, but they could both slow it down a great deal. He didn’t think Martin was stupid enough to consciously intervene, but she was vain enough to get caught up in the machinations of an old boys’ network that wanted to serve its own ends. He didn’t know what it was they were hiding but if he was to have any chance of discovering that – and keeping Rutherford out of his investigation – then he’d have to make it a priority.