The Blood That Stains Your Hands (25 page)

'You were seen, outside the fucking station, two nights ago, talking to Mrs Stewart. You were seen getting into her fucking car.'

He can barely restrain himself. He's trying. I can feel his rage. I know it. The anger where you want to grab something and kick fuck out of it. Hit it and hit it and keep on hitting it. And I'm the it.

'Sergeant!'

'Yes.'

'You slept with her?'

'Yes.'

'Fucking hell.'

He turns. His face is pale. Blanched with anger and betrayal.

'Is there anyone, I mean, fucking anyone on this entire fucking planet, that you haven't slept with?'

Nothing to say. She was going to be the last one. She was. Maybe she will be anyway, despite being dead with ten spikes in her head. That probably won't mean anything to him. Would probably sound pretty weak. Although I'd mean it.

'What the fuck were you thinking, Sergeant? And I don't want any of your glib, defensive crap. What were you thinking? You'd spoken to her as part of an on-going investigation. What?'

Exhale a slow breath. The only thing to do is tell the truth. That's all there is. It's not a defence, but it's all there is.

'She was the one,' I say.

Oh crap, did I have to put it like that?

'What?'

His voice is incredulous, and so it should be. I try not to be glib, I try to be forthright, and I end up sounding like the worst Hollywood fucking movie of all time, uttering a stupid fucking line that makes me sound like Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and someone else completely shite all rolled into one.

'I could talk to her. She understood.'

'She understood what? That you were a fucked-up piece of useless, washed-out crap?'

Well, that pretty much nails it.

'You all know that's who I am,' I said. 'She understood why. I could talk to her. That's all.'

He takes a moment. Can see him step back from the precipice, the precipice where if he falls over it, he comes at me swinging.

That was better. Might still have been a bit Hollywood, but it cuts to it. He knows that's my problem. He knows that beneath all the shit, the fights and the alcohol and the women, he knows that what I've needed is someone to talk to.

His anger begins to dissipate, but it's not making this any easier.

'You didn't kill her,' he says. It's not a question. He knows. She died around midday, I'd been in work from before eight, although I had gone off on my own. Where had I been when she died?

'No, I didn't.'

'Why did you sleep with her, Sergeant?'

That, I don't have an answer to. And if I do answer it, it's liable to create a breach in the walls. Not these four walls in this room, as Taylor gets going again. My own walls. The walls that I've constructed to help me get up today, to allow me to not go straight back to the vodka bottle. The walls that separate me from her.

I don't want the walls to be breached. I can't let that happen. I don't want to go back to last night.

'Before you leave, is there anything that I need to know?'

Before I leave.

I shake my head. 'I'd told you everything prior to seeing her that evening. We didn't discuss the church. It was personal.'

'There's no hint of her being in a group with these other four?'

'No.'

'She talk about Cartwright when you spoke to her previously? You know, we're going to have to get that guy in. Is there anything we can use?'

Give it a second, but I'd been thinking about it on the way in here. One of the reasons I walked. So I could think. But she never mentioned him.

'Nothing. She was at St Stephen's, and they thought themselves quite detached.'

'She wasn't that detached if she was in collusion with the others.'

'I got no hint of that.'

Hands in his pockets, nothing else to ask. It would have been better if I'd had something else to give him, although, of course, the more involved I'd made her seem, the worse it would have looked for me.

He finally leaves his position at the window and goes to sit down behind his desk.

'What are you going to do today?' he asks.

'I don't know. Hadn't thought beyond seeing you this morning. Presumed you'd show me the door.'

'You knew I'd find out?'

'I was going to tell you. Was going to tell you last night, then Connor turned up.'

'You look terrible,' he says.

Nothing to say to that.

'If I send you home, are you just going to go to the pub for breakfast?'

'It's Sunday. There's a pub I can go to for breakfast?'

He smiles ruefully, puts his elbow on the desk, rubs his forehead.

'I'm sorry, sir. Didn't mean to give you the extra headache. I should get out of your hair. It doesn't matter whether you're suspending me, or whether I'm taking the day, or the rest of the week, or month, off sick. I should just go, and let you get on with the investigation. You can get someone to let me know what the situation is.'

'You had breakfast yet?'

'Some.'

'Go to the canteen. Eat breakfast. You all right to drive?'

'I feel all right to drive. Not entirely sure that I'd pass a breath test.'

'Give it an hour, eat something...'

'Not sure that'll make a huge difference.'

'We've been needing someone to go up north, speak to the Reverend Baxter.'

'He's in Golspie.'

'Yes, he's in Golspie.'

How long will it take to drive to Golspie? I don't actually ask the question, but obviously it's written on my face.

'About four hours. It's early enough. Take a while, eat something, try to get your head into as right a place as possible, then leave. Drive up there. Speak to the guy. Come home this afternoon. Come and see me when you get back.'

'Are you sure?'

'I'm getting you the fuck away from Dodge, Sergeant, but I can't promise you that Dodge won't be waiting for you when you get back.'

*

S
gt Harrison joins me at breakfast a few minutes after I've sat down. I've got bacon, sausage, two eggs, toast and coffee. She's got a poached egg and some toast.

She nods as she takes her seat across from me.

'I was wondering who he'd send,' I say.

'Who else was it going to be?'

'There are thirty people up there.'

'He knows you won't even countenance talking to men about anything personal, and I'm just about the only woman in the entire place you haven't slept with.'

She smiles as she says it, and what can I do but smile with her?

'You're not here to get me to spill my personal crap out over the table, are you? That would ruin breakfast for everyone.'

'No, probably not. I think it's more of a, you know, it's like putting paracetamol down in front of someone with a headache. Up to them whether they take it or not.'

I nod, slight smile on my face.

'Am I to have the paracetamol option all day on the drive to Golspie?'

You know, that wouldn't be too bad, I suddenly think. I'd been surprised by Taylor sending me off on a day out. I can see his management thought process, of course. If he did the natural thing and punted me off into the long grass, then I might never recover. Worried that I'm going to fall off the cliff. Instead he gives me something to do that none of us have had the time to, but which has needed doing. The thought of all that time on my own, Bob on the CD player, or not, was all right. Having a purpose, I was less likely to fall back into brain-splitting melancholy. But having Eileen Harrison along for the journey? That'd be all right too.

''Fraid not, kid,' she says. 'He probably thought if we spent all that time together you'd turn me.'

She laughs at her own line. God, I love lesbian police officers.

'You want to talk about her?' she says suddenly.

'Really, I don't. Can't.'

'You're actually hurting?' she says.

'I could be if I let it. If we keep talking about it.'

'Maybe that's what you need.'

'Jesus, Eileen, what are you trying to do? I thought you'd been sent here to help, not push me into the fires of Mordor.'

She laughs again.

'All right, all right.'

A moment, share a glance over the table, both look down at our food, take a bite. I remember the night when she was in exactly the same position that I'm in now. She'd had sex with a police constable, who'd then been killed. Worse, for Sergeant Harrison, it dragged on much further. There were people actively trying to establish with whom the deceased had slept. She got a couple of weeks in police purgatory for that, an investigation, escaped with a reprimand.

But that's not what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking of the moment when she told me about it, when I was the one to whom she confessed. And what use was I to her then?

'I probably don't deserve your time,' I say.

'Don't be daft,' she says. Knows what I was thinking. 'We were all pretty screwed up back then.'

'Now it's just me.'

'Don't kid yourself.'

We eat breakfast. We talk a little. The thought of Philo Stewart is a volcano spewing lava, but I've got my back turned, and am refusing to look at it.

––––––––

O
K. It's just me, Bob and the open road.

Driving up the A9 is as close as we get in our country to replicating the feel of an American movie, driving across Montana or Idaho or Wyoming, endless straight roads, with nothing in the distance for mile after mile after mile. And it's not really that close. But once you're up past Stirling and Dunblane, the countryside is more open, and the longer you drive, the more different it becomes, and you know that wherever you end up, it's going to feel considerably different to where you started off.

Stop off once at the House of Bruar. Cup of tea and a piece of cake. Don't stay too long. Wander through the men's clothing department on the way back to the car park. This is the kind of shop where rich people buy their clothes. Shooting jackets. Fishing waistcoats. Mustard trousers.

When I retire to the Highlands I'll stop off here on my way up to refresh my wardrobe.

Fucking right I will.

Run screaming from the place before I turn into one of
them
. It may be the place where rich people shop, but most of the poor sods mooching through and looking jealously at £150 casual shirts are the kind of middle-class wankers in whose midst we currently find ourselves, up to our eyes in murder. The civil servants and the Tesco managers and the personal assistants, desperate to be part of the big leagues and wondering if all it takes is to fork out more than you can afford on a pair of giant, fuck-off waders you'll never use.

Up past Aviemore, snow on the hills, down the hill towards Inverness, then over the Kessock Bridge, passing Inverness Caley's ground on the way, where I once watched Thistle in one of those mind-numbing 0-0 draws that make you want to never watch another game of football in your entire life. Across the Cromarty Firth, and on up past Tain and Dornoch. Arrive in Golspie at 1.17 p.m., go straight to the old fellow's house. If he went to church, or was preaching, he'll hopefully be back by now.

Get out of the car, and stop for a moment. Look out on the sea, land in the distance. A lot of grey cloud around, not much blue sky. There's a wonderful quality to the light, and the smell of the air. I stand there for a few minutes, just looking at the water. Feeling it all. I only move when I get the sudden thought that I wish she was here with me.

I hadn't even got as far as imagining the weekends away we'd have been able to take together. Had spent the drive up the road with the old favourites,
Bringing It All Back Home
and
Highway 61
, trying not to think about it. About her.

Up the short garden path. Ring the bell. The immediate pad of footsteps and the door opens. A woman in her late 60s, an apron on.

'Hello.'

'Detective Sergeant Hutton. I'm looking for the Reverend Baxter.'

'He said you were coming. He always takes Joey for a walk around this time. Keeps them both young, he says. You can come in and wait, or you'll find him along the Dairy Park.'

'Dairy Park?'

'Aye, if you go along to the end of the town, then instead of turning up the road to Brora, go straight along, park at the end of Duke Street, then walk across the bridge.'

'OK, thanks.'

'No problem. If you don't find him, just come back and you can wait.'

Into the car, along to the end of the street, following the directions. Park the car, and cross the bridge. A wide stream running on down to the sea, with a ford for cars to cross, albeit there's nowhere to go other than to park at either of the houses on the other side.

Onto the field, that beautiful feeling in the air, no hint of rain and just a bit too cold in my jacket and tie. Hands in pockets. Say hello to a couple of women walking by, dogs in and out the grass. See a single guy with a dog in the distance, heading back in my direction.

As we get closer, I can see he looks about the right age. Green wellingtons, big warm jacket. His clothes much better suited to the weather than those of the soft southern police officer who's here to greet him. Joey, if this is them, is a golden Labrador, old and not terribly excited about having to walk as far as he's being made.

'Reverend Baxter?' I say, as we come upon each other.

'Aye, you must be the policeman. Call me Jim.'

'Jim... Jim Baxter?'

'My name's Morris, but everyone started calling me Jim back in the day. It stuck.'

He pauses, takes a look around.

'You want to go back to the house or sit on a bench and look at the view?'

I get enough sitting in houses, so I indicate the bench.

'Joey!' he calls out after the dog, and the mutt comes ambling back towards us from ten yards along the path.

We sit down on the wooden bench and look at the sea and the rocks and narrow stretch of beach, the sand covered in seaweed and old buoys and those coloured, random bits of rope that you always get. Orange and light blue.

'Where's that?' I say, indicated the low land on the horizon, far across the water.

He gives me a curious glance. The dog approaches, looks vaguely interested in the fact that his owner is talking to someone, and then wanders off again to rummage around the beach, no doubt in search of some faeces or other to rub himself in.