Blood, Salt, Water (20 page)

McGrain stood up with her, nodded his sympathies to Walker and followed her to Martina’s room.

They knocked. They waited. Morrow was about to knock again when Martina came to the door, blocking the room with her body.

‘What?’

Morrow pushed the door open and walked in, looking around like a suspicious mother. Martina had been packing her school bag, it bulged on the bed.

She was indignant. ‘Excuse me! You can’t just barge into my room.’

Morrow sat down on the desk chair. ‘Sit down, Martina.’

Reluctantly, Martina sat on the edge of the bed and Morrow examined her. ‘We are police officers, Martina, do you understand what that means? I’m not your mum or your stepdad or a teacher. Something has changed. What’s happened?’

Martina feigned confusion.

‘Since yesterday? You were so worried about your mum that you phoned the police. Aren’t you worried any more?’

She welled up and nodded. ‘No, I’m still . . . my mum . . .’

‘Has she phoned you?’

‘No.’ It seemed sincere but Morrow made a note to check her phone records. ‘If you hear anything I want you to call me.’ She gave Martina a card. ‘Will you?’

‘Of course.’

They left and shut the door, knocking lightly on Hector’s. He called ‘Come in’ and they found him lying on his side on the bed, red-eyed and dressed for school. The curtains were shut, the room gloomy. His mobile, a round-edged early model iPhone, a parental cast-off, sat on the pillow. It was next to his face, as if they’d been whispering secrets to each other.

‘Can we talk to you for a minute?’

He nodded. He must have heard them, knew they were there.

‘Aren’t you going to school today?’

‘Yeah.’ He looked teary. ‘I’m going.’

Morrow sat on his desk chair and McGrain stood at her shoulder. ‘Have you heard from your mum, son?’

He shook his head.

The iPhone lit up, bright in the gloom. Morrow glanced at it. It was a text from
Mart
. One word:
Callate
. Hector saw it, startled, and turned the phone on its face.

‘What’s
callate
?’

Hector pulled the covers up over his mouth as if he was afraid. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Why’s she texting you from across the hall?’

‘I asked her not to come in. I don’t know anything about it,’ he said and began to cry again.

Back in the car Morrow looked up the word
callate
on her phone. It was Spanish for ‘shut up’.

She had a voicemail: Hester Kirk’s family had been shown a picture of the dead woman’s face and confirmed it was her. Family Liaison was there now. Three daughters remaining in the domicile, ages fourteen, sixteen and eighteen. No father.

The woman had been missing for four days. Morrow counted back. That meant she had been missing for two days before she was killed. If the same people had taken her, Roxanna might still be alive.

They drove onto Clydebank and she called the office as they were pulling into Hester Kirk’s estate. She got a male DC she hardly knew and whose name she didn’t catch.

‘PINAD: did we ask for a trace on the Fuentecilla kids’ phones?’

‘We did, yeah.’

‘Can you open it and see if the children have received any calls from their mother?’

‘Open, ma’am.’ He hummed as he read down. ‘Ah! Martina: no calls from her mum. But has been getting calls from an unlisted number over the last two days. The phone is turned off now but the last location was in Helensburgh.’

‘Frank Delahunt?’

‘Let me see.’ He clacked his tongue as a filler while he looked. ‘Nope. Triangulated to number seven Sutherland Crescent, Helensburgh.’

Morrow said they were going to question Hester Kirk’s family and would head out there afterwards. Notify Kerrigan and Thankless that they were on their way.

29

Iain walked the town, uphill, downhill, while he waited for the medicine to kick in. He didn’t want to go and see the grannies until he was calm. He was scary. He didn’t want to scare them. People shopping, people visiting, people walking dogs. On the esplanade the mobile police unit had emptied the street of its usual traffic. Even the cars were avoiding the road in front of it.

Crossing Colquhoun Square, Iain stopped: coming uphill in a clean car were two mismatched people, man and woman. They were driving too slowly, paying close attention to the faces in the street, and they weren’t from here. They were police and they were looking for someone. Iain ducked down a lane, towards wee Asda, around the corner to the big bins where a car couldn’t see.

‘Hello.’

He looked up.

‘Susan.’

‘You’re very dirty, Iain.’

‘Fire,’ he said.

She tipped her head like a seagull eyeing a chip. ‘Are you upset?’

He didn’t like her at all today. She must have followed him in here from the street. ‘The fuck is it to you?’ It was too much. He should have toned it down.

But she didn’t react. He wondered if he had actually said it, she was so unperturbed. She was holding something out to him. Something white. An envelope. She had gloves on. It was a warm day. He didn’t know what was going on.

She waved the other hand, with no glove, at the wall of the alley. ‘Upset because of that fire? Dreadful.’

Iain’s eyes were blurry. He waited for them to clear. But he could feel the medication pumping around his body. Now he was holding an envelope. He felt so sleepy so suddenly he thought he could lie down and sleep right here, next to the bins. God, it was lovely. He waited for a minute, savouring it. Susan waited with him.

When the calm paralysis was past he found Susan smiling at him. She hooked her arm through his, comradely now, leading him out of the lane and into a newsagent’s.

She left him inside the door, went over to the counter and bought a chocolate bar. Iain didn’t think she really wanted it. She seemed to pick it at random, pay and then drop it thoughtlessly in her bag.

‘Tobacco?’ she said, as if they’d had a conversation about it in the alley. Maybe they had. He stepped forwards anyway and seemed to be buying some. He tucked the envelope in his back pocket to free his hands so he could get his money.

Now he had papers and tobacco and was paying when the shopkeeper asked Susan if she’d heard about the fire at the Sailors’ Rest. Wasn’t it awful? His wee granddaughter was at school with that girl who died.

Susan agreed that it was terrible.

‘Aye,’ said the shopkeeper, snarling at Iain. ‘And every bastard in this town knows who did it, but no one’ll say.’

‘Why?’ Susan looked innocently from one to the other.

Iain was picking the right change out of his cupped palm slowly so that he didn’t have to look up.

The shopkeeper hissed at Iain, ‘Well, why don’t they?’

‘Why don’t you?’ Susan was talking to the man.

He blushed. ‘It’s not
for
me to say—’

‘You’re reproaching him for something you won’t do yourself?’

The shopkeeper huffed.

‘Do you know what I find revolting about this country?’ said Susan, her accent rolling into something else, ‘All the fucking cant.’

The shopkeeper was out of his depth. ‘What? Like “we can’t”?’

‘Cant. Self-righteousness.’ Her accent sounded much more American now. Iain was in a medicated fog but even he could hear it. ‘It’s
repugnant
.’

Iain knew that she had let her mask slip. This was the real Susan and she had only let them see her because she was leaving. She was smart. She was disgusted. And she was leaving.

The shopkeeper was determined not to admit he was wrong. He shrugged. ‘That’s just people, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said real Susan. ‘It’s
here
.’

Iain was having trouble counting the money. Susan leaned over and pecked a five pence piece from his hand and dropped it on the pile on the counter.

Iain didn’t want to be here any more. He kept his head down and picked up the pouch, heading for the door.

They walked back out into the street. Iain thought how little Susan understood the town. It wasn’t about being sanctimonious. Nobody would tell on Mark or Tommy because they all got a wee dip here or there, all got a bit of work or had a cousin who did. They were all involved with each other, wrapped up and tangled, because it was such a small place.

‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?’ He said.

Susan looked surprised. She squeezed his forearm. ‘The envelope.’ She nodded to his pocket. ‘Andrew Cole has been arrested for murder.’

He looked at her. He must have misheard. He nodded an urgent prompt at her mouth and she said it again: ‘Andrew Cole. Got arrested. For murder. Golf course.’

‘The fuck?’ he asked her lips.

‘The police. Will let him go. If you. Give them the envelope.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s from his mother but you mustn’t tell them. They know how protective she is. Give it to the police. Tell them Tommy Farmer gave it to you.’

‘Tommy?’

‘Tommy, yes. Tommy doesn’t know Andrew’s mother.’

‘How do you know Tommy?’ Actually, how did she know Andrew? ‘How do you know Andrew?’

‘I don’t. I know his mother.’

Iain looked at her perfectly composed face. She gave him a smile. Warm and motherly, a good friend, a reliable neighbour. Not-real Susan again.

‘Who are you?’

‘Susan.’ She gave a patient smile. ‘Remember? Akela in the Scouts.’

‘No,’ said Iain, for once not doubting himself, ‘no you’re not
.’

She smiled again, waiting for the moment to pass.

‘The widow Grierson died two years ago. That’s not why you’re here and who are you?’

Hand forward, elbow cupped, warm hand, head tilt. ‘I’m so sorry. You’re having a hard time, Iain. I want to help.’

Her mask was very good. She had a banal gesture rehearsed for every eventuality but he knew he was right about this. ‘You’re no better than me.’

‘Quite so.’

‘Who are you?’

She muttered something pleasant to him, her face blank, and turned, walking away.
Shunt?
Was that what she had said? She didn’t call him a cunt, did she?

She was walking casually away down the street now, glancing into shop windows, skirt swishing at the ankles, rich-woman hair catching the wind. He felt the paper of the envelope crinkle in his back pocket as he shifted his weight.

He blinked hard. Susan Grierson was a broken jigsaw. It made no sense.

Annie and Eunice. They were what was left. This he had to do. He turned and headed east, to their house. He could feel the energy going from his feet, the need to move leaving them and the pain from the night’s walk. Baffled momentum took him up to Hardy Hill.

Small grey box houses with mean high windows and nowhere to keep the smelly wheelie bins but right outside the front door.

Iain banged and leaned against the cold concrete and waited. The door was PVC plastic but still the skin on his knuckles sang a tender reprise of the knock. He half wondered if his hand was burned but didn’t care enough to look. He was concentrating on getting in, seeing them, because then he would feel better. They always made sense.

A bus passed by in the street, the engine growl reverberating against the concrete façades of the houses. Passengers looked out at him, slack-mouthed, faces indistinct.

The front door opened and there stood Annie, eyes as raw as fresh oysters. At the sight of Iain she retreated back into the dark hall. But then her hand came out, calling him in. Iain tripped across the step.

She shut the door but didn’t look at him. Iain knew then that she half blamed him for the fire. He went after her, didn’t know what to say and held his hands out and hugged her. Annie wasn’t used to a lot of touching, neither was Iain. It was awkward. She hugged and patted his back, as if she was winding him, and she called him son. She wanted him to let her go, but he couldn’t. He had come here for comfort, to see her from before, but it wasn’t before and he didn’t want to see her face.

He released her, averting his eyes, and saw Lea-Anne’s pink coat hanging on a banister. A photo of Lea-Anne smiling in her school uniform. Lee-Anne’s jazzy trainers. A One Direction school bag.

What little light there was in the hall was suddenly sucked away. Eunice stood in the kitchen doorway. She nodded, turned and hirpled into the kitchen. Annie tugged at Iain’s sleeve, bringing him in with her.

Small table, wood-pattern veneer, pushed up against the wall. A place mat in nuclear pink embroidered with flowers. Three chairs, one for each granny and a third with a One Direction cushion on it. The boy band were pictured hugging each other, smiling cheerfully up at whichever bottom was coming towards them. It was pushed out from the table, as if Lea-Anne had just gone to the toilet. They all three stepped carefully around it.

Eunice was looking at Iain, cold, lips tight to her teeth. She turned away. ‘Tea.’

Iain leaned against the wall. He felt gigantic, looking down on the shrunken old women and the vacuum left by the child.

Eunice, Our Lady of the Bad Leg, spun and swooped, rolling her hip as she moved around the kitchen, bringing and taking and boiling. Her jowls were puffy, a map of thread veins over her cheeks. A small plate of biscuits was put on the table, three saucers, sugar, a carton of milk. Annie fingered the embroidery on the place mat in front of her. The sun outside went behind a cloud and the room darkened. Everything was on the worktops. Biscuits, milk, tea bags, sugar, boxes of crackers. Details crowded noisily in on Iain. No one looked at anyone else.

Annie reached up to him, her hand was in his hand, fingertips to his fingertips.

‘Son,’ she said, ‘your hands is swole.’

He looked down. The bottom half of her face was crying, chin crumpled, breathing jagged and irregular. The top half of her face was looking at his hands, his dirty hands, as if she could see what they had done, what had been on them.

‘Salt water,’ said Iain, because women knew.

‘You’re mockit,’ she said, releasing his fingers, letting him drift out.

Dirty. He was. From four miles out he looked at the two old mourners, bodies sagging around crumbling bones.

Eunice poured the hot water into three cups. She put three sugars into each and milk. Lea-Anne took three sugars. The women stirred their cups, taking turns with the spoon, stirring for Lea-Anne. They sipped their hollow communion. They didn’t offer Iain any. The third cup was left sitting in front of the empty chair.

Iain turned to leave.

‘Polis was here,’ Eunice announced. ‘Was looking for ye, son.’

Iain looked back. She wasn’t looking at him. They were both hunched over their cups, concentrating on the ritual. They blamed him for the fire.

Annie spoke: ‘Best take the back lanes.’ She told her tea.

He passed a mirror in the dim hallway. He didn’t recognise himself. The smoke had worked its way into every crevice of his face, tingeing his hair brown. They blamed him.

Out on the street a bus grumbled by, a woman pushed a buggy, a man made a phone call. The smell of smoke didn’t cling up here in the high scheme but it clung to Iain. He was the smell now.

One more. He took the pill bottle out and took another one, swallowing it dry again, glad it hurt.

Their names came into his head. Lea-Anne. Murray. Murray and Lea-Anne. He saw their faces. Lea-Anne and Murray. Murray hiding by a burn when they were young, back in the days when Annie took a drink and the house was party central. Murray sitting on Iain’s bed –
don’t smoke
. Murray working sixteen-hour days in the kitchen at the hotel to raise the deposit to buy the Sailors’ at auction. The excitement when he got it. Gone. Murray and baby Lea-Anne sitting at a low table in a visiting room, Iain walking in and seeing them turn their faces to his. They were waiting for him.

They blamed him. Andrew Cole had been arrested? For what? He didn’t do anything. Everything was jumbled and broken.

He knew then that he could be free for the rest of his life, or he could be in a cell. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t do something, grab hold of something, he would be lost. Police.

He walked purposefully for three blocks, rolling and smoking cigarettes on the way.

With the sun in his eyes and a cigarette on his lip, he climbed up the four steps to the doors of the police station. He rattled the handle. It was locked. He rang the bell. Nothing.

Then he saw a laminated note on the door, written in small letters. It told him to call this number and leave a message. He looked for the car with the mismatched couple, the cops on the lookout, but it wasn’t there. He thought of the mobile police unit but Mark would hear if he walked down there because someone, someone would be watching.

Someone.

The thought of a sinister, faceless presence made him think of Susan. That’s what she was. A dark nobody.

He stood on the steps, looking down into the street. Nicotine coursed through the channels, speeding up his brain. The pills dampened his feelings. It was a good combination. Susan was something he couldn’t understand but he knew she was working him. He’d be stupid to do what she told him. The envelope. She wanted him to give it to the cops. So don’t. Do something else with it. Do whatever she didn’t want. Give it back.

Glad the police station was shut – he could have done something really stupid there – he tripped down the stairs to the street.