Dyed in the Wool (3 page)

"Why change the habit of a lifetime?"

The uniformed officer hurried past, leaving the door wide open.

"Kieron!" Bain stood in the doorway. "Oh, for fuck's sake."

"Another of your long string of lovers?"

"Shut your face, Cullen." Bain glowered at them in turn. "Going to get your arses in here so I don't lose all the fuckin' heat?"

Cullen followed them in, shutting the door behind him.

Bain stood at his usual whiteboard, already fully populated with a confused mass of doodles. He looked at Deeley then Cullen. "I see you've brought a friend, Sundance."

Deeley smiled. "Nice to see you too, Brian."

"It'd better be good news from you."

"I'll see what I can do. I left the fire service and James Anderson removing the body from the car. I did manage to perform an interim analysis, though it's pretty loose."

Bain snorted. "And?"

"There's maybe a bit too much bruising on the body."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, where you've had someone involved in a vehicular accident with a seatbelt on, I'd usually expect the body to be fairly heavily bruised. With this, though, his face is worse than I would expect." Deeley pulled out a compact camera and brought up a photo of a man's face, his finger tracing an area as he zoomed in. "All that plus there's an imprint of a ring here. I'll need to wait till I can get him on the slab back at the station, but I'd suggest someone's punched him recently."

"We're not wastin' our time with this?"

"I've never seen you spend your time properly." Deeley winked. "I'd suggest it looks sufficiently suspicious to warrant CID investigating. I'll see if I can determine whether he got into a bar fight or whatever. All part of the service."

Bain nodded, lost in thought, before scribbling something down. "Right, Jimmy, I'll not hold you back."

Deeley grinned as he left the caravan, just as Irvine appeared through the door.

"Evening, gaffer." Irvine's jaw pounded on gum. "Got an ID for you. Alexander Aitken." He held up a leather wallet, encased in an evidence bag, before tossing it over to Bain along with another bag containing a set of house keys. "Present from Anderson."

Bain rummaged around in the wallet.

Irvine produced another bag. A high-end HTC mobile phone. He handed it to Cullen. "You fuck about on your phone often enough. You have a look."

"You should get this to Tommy Smith."

"Aye, whatever. You touched it last."

Bain glowered at them. "Seems like the boy was known as Xander."

Sharon folded her arms. "Does nobody like the name Alex or Sandy any more?"

"Nobody under thirty anyway." Irvine shrugged. "There's that sheep-shagger plays for Aberdeen, Cullen's team. Zander Diamond."

"Used to play for Aberdeen."

"Aye. He's a 'z' Zander, isn't he? What makes someone choose between a 'z' and an 'x'?"

"Right." Bain put the cap back on the marker. "Where are we with this Smith boy?"

Cullen shrugged. "Lost his car one day. Seems to earn a packet. It was one of three he had, fairly souped-up model."

"Think he's involved?" Bain casually doodled a note by Smith's name.

"Not sure. Seems dodgy, but we've nothing to suspect him of so far."

"Right, I'm fuckin' enthralled." Bain put the wallet on a table by the whiteboard. "There's an address on his driver's licence. Given that he's a young punter, chances are it's his current one or his parents. Christ knows what address is on mine." He chucked the keys at Cullen. "Can you and Butch head there now?"

Sharon caught the wallet. "Have you got a warrant?"

"I'll get one."

She squinted at the driver's license. "Says he lives in Ravencraig."

"Aye."

"We've just been there, Brian."

"Aye, well you're just going back, then."

*
*
*

Cullen pulled up in front of the address Bain had given them.

Sharon tossed the keys to him. "I'm sure there are Acting DCs and uniformed plod who could be doing this."

"Just think of the overtime."

"I'd rather think of my dad's shite jokes as he gets more pissed." She checked her watch. "They'll hopefully still be there by the time we're finished with this crap."

Cullen put a pair of rubber gloves on and took the keys from the evidence bag, before heading across the street to Xander Aitken's flat.

Sharon's mobile rang. "It's Bain." She answered it.

Cullen peered up at the building, an early nineties development with yellowing harling, before trying the buzzer. No answer. He gave it another twenty seconds and tried again.

"Right. Will do." Sharon pocketed the phone. "The Procurator Fiscal's office's just faxed a warrant to Bain's ice cream van."

Cullen laughed. "I'll have to remember that one."

"Said a local uniform was driving it over."

"Think we should go in?" Cullen sorted through the key chain, looking for the most likely suspects.

"Aye, we can blame it on Bain."

The first key Cullen tried worked on the communal entrance. "The address was 'flat 1', right?"

"Think so."

"Should be ground floor. The door on the left has 'Aitken / Souness' on it." Cullen tried another key and lucked out again.

Sharon entered the flat and flicked a switch inside the hall. The place lit up.

It wasn't the grandest residence Cullen had ever been in and it smelled something rotten. "Stinks in here."

"Aye, it's absolutely minging." She pointed to the two doors on the right. "I'll take these two." She headed through the first one, leaving Cullen alone.

His nose started twitching. Flies buzzed around. He went through the first of his two doors, leading into an L-shaped living room-cum-kitchen, fairly spacious and with modern fitted kitchen units. A large sofa sat around the corner in the living room space, tucked against the wall.

Cullen stopped dead. A pair of Nike Air Max. They were connected to dark blue jeans. Someone was sitting there in the dark. He didn't know whether to go back for Sharon - fuck it, move on. "Hello?"

No reaction.

He reached for his baton, slowly extending it. "Hello. It's the police." He stepped forward, baton poised.

The jeans led up into a hooded top, lying open. Cullen almost lost his dinner.

It was a body. Eyes blank, covered in blood.

Dead.

"Here he is." Cullen tapped the window. "Fifteen minutes from Winchburgh to Ravencraig is Colin McRae standard. Especially at this time of night."

Bain's purple Mondeo travelled far too fast for the residential street, double-parking just by Sharon's Focus.

Cullen put the curtain back before stepping away from the window. "He's going to do his nut. We've no idea who this boy is."

"I presume it's Souness from the door."

"Bit of a leap. Nothing in either bedroom?"

"Loads on Aitken, just nothing on his pal here."

"Assuming he's his pal."

"Quite."

They stood, hands on hips, waiting for Bain.

"Fuck it." Cullen leaned over and started checking the deceased's pockets. He found a wallet in the second, caked in dried blood. He put it in an evidence bag, before opening it through the membrane. He quickly found a photographic driver's license which matched the body. "Kenneth Souness."

"Any relation?"

Cullen shrugged. "They don't usually have relations to famous footballers on driver's licenses."

"Very funny." Sharon added the wallet to the pile of objects she'd already acquired from the kitchen.

"What happened here? Looks like Aitken and Souness were flatmates. One drives off the top of a bing in a stolen Range Rover, the other is dead in their flat."

She shook her head. "No idea what Bain's going to make of this. Aitken killed Souness and then killed himself, probably."

"Bit of an elaborate way to die, though."

The flat door swung open and several sets of footsteps approached. Bain appeared first, followed by Irvine, Deeley and Anderson, all wearing white Scene of Crime suits.

Bain stopped in the middle of the living room and glowered. "I told you to look around the flat, not find another fuckin' body."

Sharon laughed. "We didn't put it there."

Bain pointed at the body. "Jimmy, do you want to have a shufti?"

"Glad my years of training and experience have been reduced to a 'shufti'." Deeley grinned as he moved closer, before getting some instruments out of his bag and setting about work.

"Right." Bain looked over at Cullen. "What have you pair been up to?"

"We've searched the flat. There are two separate bedrooms and a bathroom, as well as the living room-kitchen."

Sharon held up the wallet. "We've got an ID. Kenneth Souness."

"Right." Bain looked at Anderson. "You're going to need a team in here. I want this place done by morning."

"Fine." Anderson stroked his thick goatee. "We're just about done at the bing anyway."

"Good." Bain nodded at Irvine. "Alan, I want you as crime scene manager here. Nice opportunity for you to show your quality. I've got a clipboard in the car and some forms, so you can get started now. I want us six signed in straight away. The plod on their way over can handle the outer cordon downstairs."

"Cheers, gaffer." Irvine's shoulders slumped.

"What about us?" Sharon folded her arms.

Bain looked out of the front window for a few seconds then turned around. "You pair can head off. I want you back in at seven, fresh as a pair of daisies."

"Out here?"

Bain shook his head. "Leith Walk. We've nothing else to get on with, other than making sure Anderson and Deeley are doing their jobs properly. You pair have found quite enough bodies for one evening."

*
*
*

Cullen tapped the driver's side window, pointing to Sharon's parents' house. "I hope they're getting on well inside."

Sharon yawned as she collected the coffee mug from the footwell. "I'm shattered."

"We really shouldn't stay long." Cullen checked his watch - quarter to eleven. "We've got to get back into work in eight hours."

"Aye, you're right, but we need to show our faces. Besides, I'm not thinking of doing that much sleeping."

Cullen smiled as they got out of the car. He'd never been out with anyone with as voracious a sexual appetite as Sharon - usually it was him that was the pest, but it was at least six times a week with her. Cullen knew officers who probably hadn't had sex that often in ten years.

She marched down the garden path and headed inside.

Their parents stood up as they entered the lounge, a small square room filled with settees.

Sharon sat on a dining room chair by the window. "Have you lot had a nice evening?"

"It's been lovely." Cullen's mum grinned.

Cullen's dad finished his can of beer. "I take it you pair have had a shite one?"

Cullen almost laughed at the scowl his dad got from his mum for the 'S' word. He sat on the other dining chair as their parents resettled themselves. "That would be a good way to describe it. Out in West Lothian. Dead bodies."

"Aye, pots of overtime." Sharon's dad rubbed his hands together. "I know how it works, Scott. You pair will have coined in a small fortune from it. Spending money for your holiday to Tenerife in January."

Cullen sighed. "Just over three months to go. I hate January in Edinburgh."

"We were there in the spring." Cullen's mum nudged his dad. "It was lovely, wasn't it?"

"You'll have a great time, son." His dad's phone rang. "That'll be the taxi. We're staying at the Holiday Inn Express at Ocean Terminal."

Cullen raised an eyebrow. "You could walk there in ten minutes."

"Walk through Leith at eleven o'clock at night? Are you mad?"

Sharon's dad raised a hand. "Hey, this isn't Leith. It's Trinity."

Cullen had to bite his lip and keep his eyes away from Sharon to stop laughing. Instead he checked his own watch again. "We'd best be going, too, seven a.m. start tomorrow."

Sharon's mother frowned. "Oh, just a fleeting visit?"

"Afraid so, mum. Got to make sure Scott doesn't sleep in again."

"We're heading back up the road tomorrow afternoon." Cullen's mother got to her feet. "Will we be seeing you?"

"I'll try and get some time." Cullen winced. "The way this case is going, though, I'm expecting to be out in West Lothian all day."

"Okay then." She looked at her feet. "Will you two be up for the weekend soon?"

"Think we're both off in a couple of weeks. Pencil it in."

Sharon shot him daggers - they had precious few weekends together, the last thing she wanted was to spend it at his parents.

*
*
*

Cullen started over again.

Ross County, Inverness Caley Thistle, Elgin, Peterhead, Aberdeen.

Sharon was on top of him, grinding away, her hands pressing down on his chest. Going through the mantra kept the wolf from the door.

Arbroath, Brechin City, Forfar, Montrose, Dundee, Dundee United.

She quickened her pace, sliding up and down.

St Johnstone, East Fife, Cowdenbeath, Raith Rovers, Dunfermline.

Her panting quickened. "I'm going to come, I'm going to come."

Cullen stopped his recital and quickened his pace, thrusting harder and faster beneath her. She leaned forward, her hard nipples pressing into his chest. His hands moved from her hips to grab her breasts, his eyes focused on the mole on her left hip, his favourite one. He closed his eyes and came, just as she buckled.

She put her head against his shoulder and bit. "Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh, fuck."

They lay there for a minute or so, before she rolled off then snuggled into him.

"I love you." He kissed her on the head.

"I love you, too."

Cullen tied up the condom, not thinking about anything for once.

She leaned over. "You know something?"

"What?"

"You only tell me you love me just after you come."

"That'll be about ten times a day with you."

She laughed. "It took you a while the first time."

"And now I can't stop." Cullen pecked the top of her head. "Love isn't something us hairy-arsed Scotsmen are used to expressing."