The Dead Hour (29 page)

“Was anyone in during the day? Was anyone hanging around the office?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Can ye think of anything from Tuesday? Were there any cars parked outside or in the car park?”

Evelyn shook her head but stopped. “There was a car. It’s unusual. There aren’t a lot of cars around here. It was black. Shiny. It was new.”

“Any idea of the license plate?”

“No.”

“Any idea what kind of car it was?”

Her eyes searched the table for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t drive. Don’t know anyone who drives. I’m not interested in cars.”

Paddy stood at the top of the stairs. A midnight wind lifted thin wafts of dust from the empty road and sand brushed her cheek, threatening her eyes and making her hair feel gritty. She fitted her notepad into her pocket and tripped down to the street.

Sean must have been watching the door for her and already had the engine started. He pulled the car to the curb at the bottom of the steps to meet her and she bent down to his window.

“Was there a call?”

“Eh?”

“Did an important call come through?”

He looked at the radio, nonplussed, and then back at her. “No. I don’t know. Was there?”

He was pulling up to the curb because he was monster keen, not for any other reason. “Never mind.” She opened the passenger door and climbed into the backseat. “Ye were listening to the radio, though, eh?”

“I listened for police cars being called to anywhere,” he said, repeating her instructions word for word. “Nothing.”

“’Kay. Well done. Now we’ll go to Partick Marine station.”

He looked at her ablank. Paddy tried to think where it was. She never had to bother before. “Go to Partick Cross and I’ll direct you from there.”

“Okay.” He smiled at her. “You’re the boss.”

Sean was being subservient and helpful. It was quite eerie. He was delighted to get the job, however temporary it might be, and she had a definite feeling that when the paper got a copy of his driving license and found out that he’d only passed two days ago they’d get a replacement, someone older who wasn’t going to cost them his wage again in insurance. Still, for the very near future Sean had a job with great money, he was making nearly as much as Paddy, and she knew the wages went up the longer he stayed.

It was a newer car than the one Billy used to drive her in, a silver car with an empty tin-can feel. The molded metal inside was covered in plastic but the frame was visible through it; it shuddered along the road and all the instruments on the dash looked far away from each other and essential. She found herself feeling for the broken handle of the door and the small rip in the padded door of Billy’s car, missing the rhythm of his flawless, smooth driving.

Sean stopped suddenly at lights, turned stiffly around corners, and swore under his breath when he came across anything untoward on the road like a pedestrian or a bus. She was glad she was the first passenger he’d had; his style didn’t exactly disguise his lack of experience.

He edged through the town, stalling and swerving his way to Partick Cross, where she directed him off the main drag to the dark station and asked him to pull up outside.

“Just wait here and like before, listen out for any calls coming over the radio.”

“Okay, Boss.”

Her fingers were on the handle. “Stop calling me that. It’s doing my fucking head in.”

“Whatever you say, Boss.”

She stepped out of the car and was almost at the big door when she looked down the street and saw it: parked quite near the station, not bothering to take a nearby street or hide in the shadows, was the red Ford.

She staggered to a stop and a sudden, horrifying thought occurred to her. Sean was defenseless in the car. Heart pounding, she bolted back and yanked his door open so fast she almost fell over. Sean barely had time to look startled before she dragged him out by the arm, letting go when he was kneeling on the road.

“What the fuck … ?”

“Car,” she panted, pointing up the road. “That car’s following me.”

Sean stood up, brushing the dirt off his knees. “Take a breath and tell me.”

“The car—” She spun him around and pointed. “The red Ford was parked outside last Friday and before, I’ve seen it before then as well.”

“Those cars are everywhere.” Sean dipped at the knees and looked into the cabin. “Well, there’s no one in there now.”

“He’s probably being questioned in the station.” She pulled him over by the arm. “Just come with me.”

The waiting room was quiet; the resigned midnight calm of a clockwork night shift had descended on the station. She pointed Sean to a seat at the back of the room and he took it, but gave her a resentful look as he shuffled over to it, left like a dog at the doors of a supermarket. Murdo McCloud spotted her and raised a hand in greeting.

“Oh, pet,” he called over, “I heard about your driver and what happened. Are you well?”

“Murdo, who’ve they got in being questioned at the moment?”

“Oh, now.” He shook his head at the question. She knew he couldn’t answer that. Being questioned was a delicate matter that had to be kept confidential if the police were ever to squeeze useful information from anyone. Revealing the fact that a rogue had been in for questioning was the final threat the police had over people. If word got out that someone had been in talking to the police and they had anything important to tell, there was a good chance that the guy might never make it home again.

“Don’t worry, it can’t be a snipe,” she said. “The car’s parked right outside. Whoever it belongs to doesn’t care who knows it.”

Murdo wobbled his head, wavering. “Well, I don’t know.”

“It’s a big red Ford. It looks like a sports car. It’s right outside the door.” Murdo thought about it for a minute, his eyes sliding sideways to listen to the noise of the station. He nodded her toward the door.

“Right, well, come on now.” He stood up, jogged noisily down the three wooden stairs to the floor of the waiting room, and hurried across it in an old man run, elbows high, strides hardly wider than a walk would have been. “As long as we’re quick.”

They hurried to the door, opened it, and Paddy stood in the street and pointed at the car while Murdo hung out and looked at it. He nodded happily and ran back in, holding his fists up to his chest, scurrying as if the elves were after him.

When Paddy got back inside he was standing behind his desk, grinning and breathless, a little excited at having broken a rule.

Murdo panted, “That’s not a crim’s motor.”

“How d’ye know for sure?”

“It’s one of the young officers. He’s just been transferred here.”

“Would I know him?”

“Dunno. Young fella, just moved to this station, transferred. Name of Tam Gourlay.”

Gourlay. He must have thought she’d know his car when she saw it outside her house but she didn’t know cars at all. She considered telling Sean but he wouldn’t understand why Gourlay’s parking outside her house was so bad. He was trying to intimidate her before the police inquiry, frighten her into being circumspect about what she said. And now someone had transferred him to Partick Marine, the very station that Sullivan was conducting the Bearsden Bird investigation out of.

“God, of course, it’s Tam,” she said, trying to smile happily.

“Ah, ye know him?”

“I know Tam well. And his wife. And the baby. We’re about the same age.”

Murdo was old and hadn’t noticed. He screwed his eyes up at her. “Aye, well, so I suppose.”

“Where is Tam just now, d’ye know?”

He looked wary. “He’s on night shift.”

“I know he’s on night shift. We’ve been bumping into each other most nights for the past two months.” She leaned in confidentially. “We were both at the Bearsden Bird’s door on the night she was killed.”

Murdo rocked uncomfortably from foot to foot. He didn’t want to talk about that with a journalist now, no policeman did, not until the inquiry was over and no one was found at fault.

“Naw, naw,” she said. “I’m not interested in that; that’s too big a story for someone like me. I just wanted to hook up with him later, but if you don’t want to tell me where he is, I’m sure we’ll bump into each other anyway.”

She patted the desk and waited but Murdo was an old lag and had seen every ruse there was. His blank expression didn’t flicker.

“Is it weird that he was transferred here?” She muttered, “Given that the inquiry into the Bearsden call’s coming up and the investigation’s happening out of here? Isn’t that a bit unusual?”

Murdo looked her straight in the eye until she got tired of waiting and turned and walked away, feeling foolish and awkward, Sean following in her wake.

“I’m looking to meet up with one of the officers working out of this station tonight,” she told Sean outside. “Let’s follow the calls for the west as closely as possible.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but okay.”

She went over to the red Ford and looked at it carefully, skirting around to the front of it so that she was seeing it from the same angle as she had in Eastfield. It was definitely the same car. She hadn’t even consciously remembered it but there was a car deodorizer hanging from the mirror and it was still there, a small rectangle hanging from a chain.

When she got back to the calls car and fell into the backseat Sean asked whether Whiteinch would count as the West End?

“Absolutely. Why?”

“Just heard a call for there. A shop window got broken.”

“Right, let’s go.”

Sean swung the car in a clumsy arch across the road and headed west.

They chased calls all night, attending every smashed streetlight and shadow on a shop window but Tam Gourlay stayed ahead of them. She didn’t want to ask after him; if she did he’d know she was coming and she’d lose the edge. But she was glad in a way. Sean made her see herself from the outside, imagine herself being watched instead of ignored and invisible the way she usually did. She was glad that they were hanging tight to the west tonight and couldn’t meet Burns together. She was afraid Sean would guess if he saw them speaking.

But Gourlay stayed beyond them. A few hours later they were called to a polite student party in university halls that had gone bad when some street boys had crashed and smashed their way through the cooking facilities. Pictures had been ripped off the walls and wallpaper scratched all the way along the hall to the front door. When Paddy got outside she saw Sean standing on the pavement watching boys not much younger than himself being rounded up by the attending policemen. He was smoking, listening for the radio through the open window, his eyes red and heavy, smiling at the show.

“Anything come over?” she asked, nodding in at the radio.

“Naw.” He grinned at her. “Nothing came over.”

She could see that he was loving this. She nearly told him that it wouldn’t always be this much fun, he’d get as jaded as she had when the tiredness and the sameness became oppressive but she stopped herself. She’d had that spark when she first started, and it was fun taking these small glimpses into unfamiliar lives.

“’Mon, we’ll go.”

She got back into the car, watching the policemen for signs of Gourlay, and it occurred to her that Gourlay had parked outside her house on Friday night. If he had been there earlier and she hadn’t noticed him he could have seen her pull up with Burns. A rush of hot blood up the back of her neck made her think suddenly that possibly, just possibly, Gourlay had followed them to the waste ground and watched them fucking in the car. And he had told everyone in the Strathclyde region. It all made sense now. He was trying to discredit her before the inquiry.

“Sean,” she shouted over the noise of the radio, sounding so alarmed that he turned it down suddenly. “Sean, give us a cigarette, would ye?”

He was a more committed smoker than she was. He pulled the car over to the pavement and handed his packet back to her, watching in the mirror as she took one out and lit it with his lighter.

Paddy drew heavily on the cigarette. It was an unfamiliar brand and the taste raked hard at her throat, making her heart race and her hands shake. Burns was innocent after all. Well, innocent-ish.

“Is there any point in us driving around?”

“Eh?”

Sean took a cigarette himself and lit it. “Is there any point in us driving around if we’re going nowhere? Shouldn’t I just pull over and we can listen from the curbside?”

“Aye, yeah, whatever you think.”

He parked in a street and they sat with the radio blaring between them, smoking, not speaking. Sean didn’t look at her once and didn’t notice how flustered she was at the thoughts rolling around her head. Sitting with him was actually more comfortable than it had been with Billy, and she was surprised by that. She kept looking in the mirror and expecting to see Billy’s eyes.

They followed a call to a high-rise dive suicide and stopped at the burger van where Paddy bought Sean a Nick Special, a deep-fried burger on a bun with a fish stick and extra onions. They ate in the car listening to the radio for West End calls. Neither of them really believed they were ever going to find Gourlay.

She was looking out of the window, looking forward to the hotel room she could never seem to get to, raking through her troubles and feeling sorry for herself, when she remembered that Lafferty was still out there and that if he found her, and she lived, she might look back on this as a high point in her life.

Her hotel room was small, built into the attic space, furnished with a single bed so narrow that turning over in her sleep would be tricky, and a window set deep into the roof, showing nothing but sky. The sheets were nylon and the blankets scratchy but it was quiet and Paddy was alone. She had shared a room with Mary Ann since she was born and had never slept in a room by herself. She could sleep naked if she wanted. She took off all her clothes and climbed into the bed, looking at the sagging wallpaper on the sloping ceiling, luxuriating in the quiet.

As she fell asleep, in her last conscious moment, she listened, as she always did, for her sister’s soft breathing.