Hold Hands in the Dark (3 page)

Chapter 4

The Scotstounhill flat was in darkness. Dani flicked on the lights and notched up the heating. It had been a while since she’d come home to an empty place. Her boyfriend, James, was back in Edinburgh for a few days, staying with his parents and visiting clients.

              Dani had actually got used to the sounds and smells of dinner being on the go as she stepped over the threshold. It seemed petty and callous now to think that she had ever found it irritating and intrusive. Yet, as she padded her stockinged feet into the dark kitchen and slid a bottle of white wine out of its narrow shelf, Dani experienced the old tingle of anticipation. The feeling that she need not be answerable to another human being for at least eight hours and might do exactly as she wished.

              The phone on the hall table began to chime and Dani recalled that this dream of protracted solitude had never actually been a reality.

              ‘DCI Bevan,’ she answered in a clipped tone.

              ‘Oh, hi there Dani. I really hope I’m not interrupting your evening.’

             
‘Sam?’
It must have been at least two years since she’d heard Detective Sharpe’s distinctive drawl.

              ‘Err, yeah. I know it’s been a while. I hear you’re doing well. I’ve followed some of your recent cases on the international news sites.’

              Dani had been caught off-guard. ‘Thanks. So, how are you? Are the boys okay?’

              ‘They’re just fine. Jake’s at College now. He’s studying Stateside, so I get to see a lot more of him than I used to.’

              ‘That’s really great.’ She frowned. ‘What time is it for you, are you calling from the department?’

              There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. ‘Actually, it’s the same time as for you. I’m at the Hutchisons’ place.’

              ‘In Falkirk?’

              ‘Yep.’

              Dani ran a hand through her dark brown hair which she’d allowed to grow in recent months so that it now fell in neat waves to her shoulders. This statement had genuinely thrown her. ‘Do you come to Scotland often?’

              Sam chuckled. ‘This is the first time I’ve been in the UK since the Richard Erskine case. But I’d been meaning to visit Bill and Joy for a while. I’ve been pretty damn useless at keeping in touch with them to be honest. Bill, on the other hand, writes to me often. His letters mean a lot.’

              Dani had no idea that Bill kept up a link with her ex-lover in this way, he’d never mentioned it. But then Sam Sharpe
had
saved her friend’s life. She supposed that created a bond. It would certainly mean something very profound to the Hutchisons, who set a great deal of store by that kind of thing since their own son had died in tragic circumstances several decades before.

              ‘Look, I realise that me calling out of the blue like this is gonna come as a shock. But my reasons are purely professional, I promise. I could call you Ma’am, if it helps?’

              Dani felt her mouth form a smile and the blood immediately rush to her cheeks. ‘It really doesn’t. Just tell me what this is all about.’

              ‘A detective on my team, Dale Faulkner, was murdered when responding to a 911 call to a domestic disturbance last month.’

              ‘I’m sorry.’

              ‘Yeah, well, Dale left an ex, three kids and a girlfriend to grieve for him. But somethin’ about the callout just didn’t add up, so I did some digging into his past. Turns out that Dale spent the first eight years of his life in your neck of the woods.’

             
‘Glasgow
?’ Dani was curious now.

              ‘West Kilbride, to be precise.’

              Dani couldn’t help but smile at the way Sam pronounced it. ‘And you never knew he was Scottish.’

              ‘The guy had a broader Virginian accent than I do. I suppose his family had been in the state so long that he just adapted to the ways of the locals.’

              ‘You must have found out something significant for your investigations to have brought you all the way over here.’

              ‘Yeah, you could say that. But I think it would be best if we met and discussed this face-to-face – if that wouldn’t be a problem, of course?’

              ‘Okay, let’s meet. I don’t see any reason why that should be a problem at all.’

*

DI Phil Boag and DS Andy Calder stood before Dani in her tiny office. Both men had gained promotions within the last year. In each case, the DCI believed they were richly deserved. This belief didn’t prevent her from feeling the pang of regret and frustration that her own application to become a superintendent had been turned down.

              ‘The Hemingway Shipyard has experienced five accidents in the past year,’ Phil began, tapping at the screen of his leather bound tablet.

              ‘Is that a lot, compared to other companies?’ Dani leant her elbows on the desk.

              ‘There
are
no other similar companies to compare it to,’ Andy added bitterly. ‘Hemingway’s is the last operational shipyard on the Clyde.’

              ‘But having said that,’ Phil chipped in, ‘the health and safety department didn’t think it was anomalous. In each case, human error on the part of the employee was to blame. All the proper procedures were in place, so the company weren’t found liable.’

              ‘Any fatalities in recent years, other than Tony MacRae?’

              ‘No, Ma’am. But back in 2010, one of the welders broke his back and ended up in a wheelchair.’

              ‘Another fall?’ Dani’s interest had definitely been piqued.

              Andy stepped forward. ‘I spoke to the guy on the phone, Ma’am. He seemed almost cagey about the whole incident. He claimed that he’d gone beyond the barrier he was supposed to, in order to reach an area he felt needed repair. That’s when he lost his footing. But the way he told it, sounded like he was reading out a written statement.’

              Dani pursed her lips. ‘You think he may have received a payoff from Hemingways to give that story?’

              Andy nodded. ‘I reckon so. The Union’s got no power in the sector any longer. The employees are pretty much operating at the whim of the management.’

              Phil looked sceptical. ‘The CEO I spoke with sounded reasonable. He said their accident reports were available to the public to view at any time. We’d need several sworn statements of negligence in order to even consider pursuing a charge of corporate manslaughter.’

              Dani nodded. ‘Clifton and Mann picked up some interesting info from the widow. I’ve sent them out to interview a few more witnesses before we drop the case entirely. Let’s give Hemingways something to sweat about for a couple more days. I don’t want them to feel like they’ve been let off the hook just yet.’

Chapter 5

I
t had been several months since Dani had visited the Hutchisons in Falkirk. Their detached property, located within a quiet, modern estate was exactly as she’d last seen it; the front garden neatly tended and the windows sparkling clean.

              It was Joy who answered the door. ‘DCI Bevan! How wonderful to see you. My, you’ve changed ever such a lot. Your hair is much more, err, -
feminine
, I suppose would be the word.’

             
Dani smiled graciously, knowing that her friend wasn’t intending to be unkind. The detective realised her previous style must have appeared a little severe to those outside the force. But fitting in with her peers on the squad didn’t seem quite as important to her now as it once did. ‘How are the family?’ She enquired, with genuine interest.

              Joy took Dani’s coat and led her along the corridor to the sitting room. ‘Louise and the boys have settled comfortably into their new place. They’ve got a terraced house in Bathgate. They’re not too far from us.’

              Dani nodded politely, but had partially stopped listening to Joy’s words. She could see her old friend and colleague Sam Sharpe, standing in the centre of the lounge with his back to the door, apparently deep in conversation with Bill. His profile was still as broad as when she’d previously encountered him but it was different somehow – more defined and muscular.

              The man turned as he heard voices approaching.

              The moment that Dani was dreading had finally arrived. Sam cracked that wide, disarming smile; the one which had the disturbing capability of utterly transforming his less than handsome face and lighting up a room like a hundred watt bulb.

              ‘Dani! Great to see you again!’ He reached out a large hand and shook hers vigorously. ‘Hey, are you alright? You look a little pale.’

              Dani managed to regain her poise. ‘I’m fine, I’ve just been up since early this morning, that’s all. No time for breakfast.’

              ‘Oh my goodness,’ Joy declared. ‘I shall dish up lunch immediately, then.’

              Bill stepped forward and scooped the detective into an embrace. ‘Good to see you again, my dear. I think you look terrifically well, especially considering you’ve recently taken on the Scottish justice system and won!’

              Dani chuckled, allowing her host to guide them towards the dining room. ‘That’s a bit of an overstatement.’

              ‘To bring to light a miscarriage of justice that was forty years old and secure a conviction against a powerful businessman with connections to the very highest echelons of the Scottish establishment is no mean feat, lassie.’

              Sam took a seat opposite her. ‘Yeah, I did read you’d been busy.’

              Dani shook out a napkin. ‘Well, I don’t work alone, as you well know. My team played as much of a part in that investigation as I did. In fact, it was young Alice Mann who found out the identity of the real killer of those girls. She’s got a brilliant future ahead of her.’

              Sam narrowed his blue eyes, sensing something different about his ex-lover. She no longer appeared to possess the drive and determination to succeed in the job that he remembered. To him, she was also looking fantastic. Her hairstyle was softer and although her face was pale and the DCI was obviously beat, from what he could tell, Dani had filled out a little, and in all the right places.

              Dani glanced up at Sam, meeting his eye for the first time since her arrival. ‘I’m really sorry about your colleague. I know how responsible we feel towards our team as a commanding officer.’

              ‘Thanks.’ The American sighed. ‘Dale was also a good friend. When he was still living with his wife and I was with Jane and the boys we hung out together a lot. Family barbecues and that kinda thing.’

              Joy entered with the serving plates, but said nothing to interrupt.

              ‘Our kids were friends too. I went to see Toni after Dale had been killed and I’d done some digging into his past. His own wife of twenty years had no idea Dale was born in Scotland and spent pretty much the first decade of his life here. Doesn’t that strike you as weird?’

              Dani crinkled her brow, allowing herself some thinking time whilst she dug into the roast dinner. ‘It’s very unusual. He must have possessed dual nationality. What did his passport say? Are there any close relatives left in Richmond to tell you more?’

              ‘The guy turned out to have two passports, one for the US and one for the UK.’ Sam put down his cutlery and gazed around the table. ‘We found his original passport in a wallet in his police locker, of all places. Holding it in my hand was one of the freakiest experiences I’ve ever had. It was issued in July 1976. The photo inside was of Dale as a goofy little kid, with gaps in his teeth and dessert-bowl hair.’

              ‘To renew the passport, Dale would have had to return to the UK and present himself to the appropriate government building,’ Bill added.

              ‘There’s no evidence he ever came back to Scotland since his family emigrated to the States. We couldn’t find any living relatives in the US, either. His folks passed away in the late nineties. I never met them.’

              ‘Why do you think the man’s Scottish origins have anything to do with his death?’ Dani was intrigued.

              ‘The first thing my team did after Dale got shot in that dump on the Southside of the city was to look into who owned the place. The landlord was living in the Midwest somewhere but he gave us a list of tenants. It’d been standing empty for several months, but its most recent occupants were a middle aged couple called McNeil. They’d given the owner a social security number, so we traced them through that.’

              ‘Do you think this couple still had access to the house?’

              ‘We didn’t know what the hell to think if I’m honest, Dani. But it was the only damn lead we had. It turns out the McNeils were schoolteachers, who worked at a couple of public high schools in the centre of the city until the spring of 2014. No one’s heard from them since. I spoke to the principal of one of the schools. What he recalled most about the husband, John, was how attached he was to his Scottish heritage. The pair were both true blue Americans, but they made a big thing of having ancestors over here.’

              ‘Did the principal know whereabouts they hailed from?’

              ‘Yeah, you see that’s the thing. Mr McNeil was a geography teacher. He had a map on the wall of his classroom with his ancestral hometown encircled with thick red ink. It was Portencross, West Kilbride. Just like Dale Faulkner and his family.’ Sam crossed his arms over his broad chest. ‘Now, don’t tell me that’s a coincidence, DCI Bevan, ‘cause I just ain’t gonna believe you.’