Absolution (22 page)

‘Entrapment comes to mind,’ said Costello slowly.

McAlpine nodded. ‘Maybe. Steele was an evil bastard. So if McTiernan had a private score to settle, fair enough, we weren’t going to dig too deep. But if he’s evolved in prison to
this,
we need to be on him. McTiernan is nice, pleasant, articulate and intelligent. Charming, even. However, capable of great violence when sparked.’ McAlpine stopped swinging in the chair. ‘He grew up in the area. He’s been away. Now he’s back. And he’s a carpenter, handy with a chisel. A knife? Who knows?’

‘But wasn’t he in jail when Lynzi was killed?’

‘Penningham is an open jail. He would have been out at weekends. Lynzi was killed on a Saturday night. Find out what you can and report back to me. And Costello, never forget, he’s clever. Don’t go near him.’

‘Not likely to, sir. I saw Arlene’s face on the slab.’

‘I thought you would be here,’ Anderson said, dipping under the canopy of the Three Judges. ‘Are you coming in for a pint or are you going to stay out here and get drowned?’

‘I thought you were going home,’ replied McAlpine.

‘I went home for fifteen minutes, and Brenda didn’t stop nagging to draw breath. It’s ten o’clock at night, and the kids took no notice of me saying it was bedtime. So Clare will still be practising her ballet in the front room and Peter will still be having too-tired-to-sleep tantrums upstairs.
I knew the lads would be in here. You’ll have to come in; I can’t afford to get a round in.’

McAlpine popped his cigarette into the bin on the wall and followed Anderson through the lounge. ‘I went home, but there was nobody in. No idea where Helena is.’

‘At the gallery, I presume. She does have her big exhibition soon.’

‘I hate the house being empty. So I walked round here. Byres Road is like Sauchiehall Street. Where do all those students get the money to drink like that?’ There was a burst of laughter from Littlewood, who slapped the puny Wyngate on the back, nearly knocking him over. ‘Where do
they
get the money to drink like that? Wyngate should be saving up to get married.’

‘They seem to be having a good chinwag about something. Batten’s over there too, bonding with the troops. Did you find his stuff helpful?’

‘I grudgingly admit I did. It focused their thoughts.’

They found a table against the far wall. ‘What do you want?’ Anderson stuck his hands in his pocket, fishing out a fluffy blue hippo and a Mysteron hat before finding his last fiver.

‘Here. I’ll get it. Helena makes a fortune.’ McAlpine pushed an empty pint glass away and held out a note to Anderson. ‘Get me a Macallan.’

From the bar, Anderson looked back at his boss. There were winos on the street outside who looked better than the DCI did at the moment. He seemed thinner, the bruising emphasizing the gauntness of his face. Batten, however, looked relaxed and confident. He didn’t fool Anderson for a minute. He caught the psychologist looking at McAlpine, apparently a casual observation, but an observation it was. As Batten turned back to the bar, emptying some Tennent’s
90 Shilling down his throat, he caught Anderson looking and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

McAlpine didn’t look up when Anderson put the glass in front of him. Anderson sipped his tomato juice and pulled a face. They’d put Lea & Perrins in it, even though he’d asked them not to.

McAlpine downed the Macallan in one.

‘You’d better be careful,’ Anderson warned, nodding in Batten’s direction. ‘I think
somebody
is noticing how much you’re drinking. I know it’s your way of working, but – ’

‘But what?’ The almond eyes narrowed dangerously.

‘But nothing,’ Anderson said, not wanting a scene.

‘What are they talking about anyway?’ McAlpine growled, noticing that Wyngate and Littlewood had now been joined by Burns. ‘Have they got nothing better to do with their time?’

‘Women. Wyngate’s getting married, or might not be, if he signs up for any more overtime. His fiancée has the hump.’

‘Bloody women. Look at us – the three of them over there, miserable as sin, and the two of us over here. Not a decent woman between us. They do one thing, say another. Brenda wants you to earn more, then bites your balls at the first hint of overtime. Helena says she loves me, then keeps secrets from me and gets mad just ’cause I smash her car.’

‘How much did you have to drink before I got here?’ asked Anderson. ‘Look, mate, I’ve known you a long time and it’s none of my business, but it’s usually Helena who has her head screwed on, and if she is keeping something to herself she’ll have her own good reasons. Women do.’

‘You’re right; it is none of your business. And stop being right, Col, it’s fucking annoying.’

‘Helena is a good woman. You should be more careful where you lay your head.’

‘And when did you become the Yoda of love? You’re sitting here on your arse as well as me, you know.’

Anderson conceded his boss had a point and let the silence lie.

‘Helena knows I would never leave her, never. And that’s enough for her.’

‘Is it?’

‘That’s the way our marriage works. She’s not like other women; she’s strong, she’s independent, she knows the job I do, what I am, and lets me get on with it. She never interferes with my work or complains about the hours I put in.’

‘Sounds bliss,’ muttered Anderson.

‘But this is –’

‘But this is what?’

‘A matter of life and death.’ McAlpine spoke very quietly. ‘I’m supposed to be the most important person in her life, but she doesn’t confide in me. How do you think that makes me feel?’

Anderson remembered Helena’s red-rimmed eyes, the pallor on her skin he’d thought was tiredness.

‘My mum died of cancer,’ said McAlpine suddenly, the Macallan in his voice making it sound as though he was proud of it. ‘Well, that’s not true. She killed herself once Robbie had died, but I had to watch her being eaten away. Her pain was unbearable. Helena knows that.’

Anderson read between the lines and trod carefully. ‘Maybe it was because of your mum that she didn’t tell you. Poor Helena, I didn’t know… So she’s struggling with that –’

‘Why’s it always
poor Helena?
It’s worse for those watching it than it is for those going through it.’

Anderson doubted that, but said, ‘I wouldn’t know, I’ve no experience of either.’

McAlpine stared deeply into his glass. ‘I couldn’t carry on if it wasn’t for her,’ he said quietly. ‘And she knows that too. I was a mess when we met. And I’ll be a mess if she… goes.’

‘I know what you mean. She’s the kind of woman that holds mere men together.’

‘I couldn’t face life without her, and she just…’ McAlpine sighed and shook his head slowly, then asked for another Macallan. Suddenly his mood shifted. ‘You know, Colin – you know that ability some women have, to appear to be one thing but be another? I think Christopher Robin’s right – why not just slice the bitches up?’

‘Christ, Al!’

‘No, listen… women are the root of all evil.’

‘Isn’t that supposed to be the love of money? That’s the popular theory anyway,’ Anderson answered carefully.

‘No, seriously. How would you feel if Brenda left you? Left wee Paul and Clare too? Left you for another man after years of accusing you of being unfaithful?’

‘His name’s Peter,’ Anderson corrected. ‘I’d feel a thousand times worse if she took the wee man with her.’

‘So, we have Lynzi, a two-faced cow, leaving her kid and shagging everybody in sight. The girls in the disco with Arlene told us she was coming off the game, to get a flat, to get her kid back, to get respectable. From O’Hare’s report, it seems she was making a good go at being clean.’

‘I don’t know how much credence we can give to those girls. We need to talk to one of them sober. Tracey nearly blurted out something about the stupid cow being caught. So we’re leaving her to stew for now, and then we’ll nail her. Leopards don’t change their spots.’

‘So, say Arlene’s still a streetwalking pro. Lynzi fucks off with another man but doesn’t tell anybody. Elizabeth Jane’s all sweetness and light but has no friends to speak of. There’ll be a pattern to all that if we can find it.’ McAlpine steamrollered on. ‘But I’m not seeing it. It’s like a bad smell – the smell of
morality –
and I don’t know where it’s coming from.’ McAlpine began to push his fingertip on the top of the table, drawing a convoluted pattern. ‘I can nearly see it.’

Anderson had witnessed this before, the two minutes of genius McAlpine displayed between sobriety and being pissed. ‘But Elizabeth Jane was respectable. Very respectable.’

‘Wrong.’ McAlpine’s finger waved close to Anderson’s face. ‘The higher they are, the further they fall, morally. Get Costello talking about her; she knows how a woman’s mind works.’

‘She does have the advantage of being one,’ said Anderson with ultimate logic.

‘Just ask her.’ McAlpine fell quiet again. ‘Just ask her what goes on in the mind of a woman like that.’ The pub fell silent as well. ‘I had my first fatality here, you know, at Partickhill. That was the worst, the very worst. She was so beautiful…’ He looked deep into the middle distance.

Anderson felt one of McAlpine’s drunken soliloquies coming on and did his best to divert it. He wanted to go home. ‘Have a mouthful of coffee, it’ll make you feel better, and I’ll drive you home. You have a long chat with Helena and remind her what an absolute arse you are.’

McAlpine ignored him. Young and beautiful – that’s not right, is it?’

‘No, it’s not right. Neither’s leaving your wife alone when she’s faced with a long night of worry about – ’

‘How many dead kids have you dealt with?’ asked McAlpine, his finger waving in Anderson’s face.

‘Too many,’ answered Anderson, with honesty.

‘How many?’

‘One. Only one. One is too many.’

‘Colin, I’m serious.’

‘So am I. How many times have I heard you say it: it’s worse if it’s female, worse if she’s young. Once you add pretty and blonde, you’re in severe trouble. And the guy you think’s done for some blonde doe-eyed orphan gets lynched before we even get him to the nick. You know that. But at the end of the day you always have to remember they’re all – ’

‘Someone’s daughter.’ McAlpine smiled drunkenly. ‘I’m glad I taught you something.’ He was palpating his face again, pushing his fingertips in hard. ‘She was lovely.’

‘So when was all this, then?’ asked Anderson. He had an eerie feeling, heard Helena’s words coming back to him.
He lost somebody close.
‘You haven’t been at Partickhill for twenty years or so – is that why?’

McAlpine nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on something in the distance of his memory. ‘She had acid flung in her face.’ He held the palms of his hands before his own face, looking at them as if he had developed stigmata.

‘Who did?’

McAlpine’s eyes half focused themselves back on Anderson. ‘It was a case I was involved in once.’

‘That’s a very personal thing to do to someone, especially someone who’s pretty. It’s so – ’

‘She wasn’t pretty. She was
beautiful.’

‘Yeah, but what does acid-throwing do? Rips your face off, changes your identity, in some ways it removes you from being a person.’

‘Oh, piss off with your psychobabble. They were using her as bait to lure out the boyfriend. It worked; the minute she got that in her face, he tried to get over here. They must have had some way of keeping in touch, and when he didn’t hear from her, he was over. Must be terrible, to be so alone.’

‘Sounds a bit heavy,’ said Anderson, vaguely wondering why, in all the years he and McAlpine had known each other, this was the first he’d heard of this particular case.

Suddenly McAlpine leaned forward in his seat. ‘She was eight months pregnant.’

‘That’s nasty,’ said Anderson gently, the thought hitting him in the stomach. No wonder the Boss hadn’t forgotten. ‘That’s really nasty.’

‘I got a bollocking for getting too involved.’

‘And then got fast-tracked?’

‘I got traded off. Should have hung around and made it difficult for them.’

Anderson drained his already-empty glass, hoping the Boss would see it as a precursor to leaving, going home and getting some kip.

But McAlpine didn’t move. ‘It took her weeks to die.’ He drew a forefinger across each wrist. ‘Her decision. All those weeks, I’d been talking to a face, a personality, covered in blood and bandages and stuff. She had such, such…’ He stared at the carpet for a long time. ‘…
life
about her. You see, Colin, after she was gone, I saw a photograph of her. Sitting on a beach, she was, without a care in the world. You have a picture in your mind of somebody and then –
pow! –
there she was. Beautiful.’

‘Yes, you mentioned it,’ said Anderson, wondering how the passing years had edited the memories. ‘What about the baby?’

‘Yeah, I still think of her. She’d be what, twenty-two? A couple of years older than I was when it all happened.’ McAlpine suddenly stopped talking, started rubbing the top of his glass with the palm of his hand. ‘The same age? I must be old now.’ He squinted, remembering something. ‘You see… you see, Colin.’ He sounded very drunk now. ‘She wasn’t a Lynzi or an Arlene or a Brenda. Anna wasn’t two-faced; what you saw was what you got. What was in front of you, that was it. You ever known a woman like that?’

Deep in Anderson’s brain, something clicked. ‘That must have been about the time you lost your mother.’

‘And Robbie.’ McAlpine stared into his empty glass. Anderson was about to ask him if he was OK when he said, ‘You don’t forget it. You never forget any of it.’ He shook his head. ‘What a fucking year that was. Never so glad to hear the bells as I was that Hogmanay.’

Burns came over, moving to the side to let the man in the next booth slide out, and stood waiting to be allowed to interrupt. ‘Is your mobile off, sir? The station is trying to get you.’

‘It’s this new bloody thing.’

As soon as he pressed the switch, the screen flashed green, telling him to call back. For a while he listened to the voice at the other end, mouthing Mulholland to Anderson. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah… OK, right – Phoenix Refuge… yeah, I know it. What are they… Elizabeth Jane’s mobile? And the number is the Phoenix? Anybody in particular? Father O’Keefe? And any connection to Arlene? You beauty!’ He snapped the phone shut. ‘Both Elizabeth Jane and Arlene had the Phoenix Refuge number in their mobiles. Do you know where the place is?’