Troubled Waters (31 page)

‘OK. What have you found otherwise?’ the DCI inquired, looking out of her window as if taking in the view, all the while slowly raising and lowering herself on her toes, using her calf muscles.

‘Quite enough. We’ve got the knife. Ranald phoned from Stimms’ office, he’s been checking out the factory. There’s a lock-up there and Hamish Evans’ car was in it, so that explains why we never managed to find it. I reckon he transported his daughter’s body in the boot of his own car. There are traces of blood and a woman’s shoe, just the one, was behind the spare petrol can. Her mother reckons it was Miranda’s shoe. The back seat was soaked through with dried blood – all he’d done was lay a couple of rugs over the mess. I’m pretty sure it’ll turn out to be Hamish Evans’ blood.’

‘Where did he dump the bodies? Presumably it was him who put them in the sea? Mind you, did he not have help?’

‘Have you a sore neck, Ma’am?’

‘No. Why?’

‘You seemed to be moving your head from side to side – I thought maybe you had a stiff neck.’

‘No . . . I’m simply taking in the whole of the view.’ The woman turned round to face her colleague, her head now completely still.

‘He’s adamant that they were both dropped into the Forth from the same place, the place we found him with Diana. That makes some sort of sense for her location, but for the Belhaven Bay body it is odd.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, he says he dropped Miranda in the water on the Monday night, then went home. That’s where Hamish found him. The boy was stabbed, he says, because he threatened him. Obviously, knowing what he knew, the boy was a threat to him full stop. Supposedly, Stimms dumped the body in the same place early the next morning. Somehow in only, what – less than five full days? – the body travelled all that way down the coast.’

‘Too far?’

‘Far too far, taking into account the changing tides and the speed of the currents round about. I spoke to the Leith harbour master and he had a possible explanation. He thinks that whilst the body was floating about somewhere near the bridges, some ship with a bulbous bow may have caught him on it – over it. Apparently, it’s happened to small whales before. In the Forth, there are lots of such craft – the ferry, some of the tankers and container ships coming down from Grangemouth.’

‘Why didn’t he end up in Zeebruge, Ostend or wherever they’re going, then?’

‘It’s all speculation, of course, but his explanation is that it tends to get rougher out of the river, out of the lee of the land. The transition point is often round about the Bass Rock – you get south-easterly gales blowing up there, making the boat pitch more. That’s not so far from Tyninghame, from the bay.’

‘Well, it all sounds a bit far-fetched to me, but we needn’t worry ourselves about it. Not if Stimms has confessed to the killings anyway . . .’

‘You’re doing it again, Ma’am. That neck-bending thing.’

‘It’s my neck, Inspector, and I can do more than one thing at a time.’

‘A 360-degree turn next, maybe. The lift-hitching theory is the only one we’ve got. If you’re interested there’s a Youtube video of a whale, trapped across the projection on a ship’s bow.’

‘Have you put your theory to Dr Cash?’

‘It’s not my theory. Needless to say she didn’t have a moment to spare to consider it, being “busy, busy, busy”, but in the tick she allowed me she seemed to concede that it was possible. The best I could get out of her was that it would not be inconsistent with her findings.’

‘What the hell. As I say, he’s confessed anyway, wherever the dead bodies were disposed of. Others can puzzle that one out if they have to. So you’re satisfied that there were no accomplices amongst the Elect helping him to move the bodies, putting them in the water?’

‘Yes, I don’t think he had help. I’m not sure he’d have needed it. Jimmy Stimms is small but fit as a fiddle, whippety-thin, wiry. I honestly think he’d manage on his own. That’s certainly what he maintains. His house was brimming with trophies for cycling.’

‘Whippety-thin? Cycling, you say? That’s interesting . . . of course, you have to wear Lycra for it, don’t you? I’m not sure I could get away with that – too skin-tight. Now, I gather you’re off for the rest of the day. Got anything planned?’

‘I’m collecting some keys, Ma’am, nothing more.’

The lock on the faded green front door was old-fashioned but functional. With the turn of the key, the dog rushed straight inside. His tail was wagging furiously as if he was on a hunt, his nose twitching, ready to explore every room and then race out into the garden. Hannibal’s approach
was less whole-hearted, more subtle and cautious. Freed from his cage, he patrolled, in a sedate fashion, every available inch of her new property and then lay down in the patch of sunlight on the bare wooden floorboards, rolling onto his tummy in apparent ecstasy. Alice simply breathed in the air, still unable to believe her good fortune in acquiring such a jewel of a place. In time, she would move some furniture, pictures, and crockery there, but in the meanwhile a sleeping bag on the floor would do, plus a few feeding bowls for her companions. She stood in the doorway, looking out over the loch and the lavender blue Lomond Hills in the distance, marvelling at the silence and the newness of it all.

For a second, her pleasure curdled as a pang of sorrow hit her, coming from nowhere, at the thought that she, and she alone, was enjoying, experiencing, such a wonder. Had Ian been there he would have been pacing about the place, considering where an additional window ought to be situated, designing the layout of the kitchen in his head, mulling over likely colour schemes. And talking to her all the time. Change stimulated him, brought all his creativity to the fore. In his absence, she would have to make do with his pictures, and her memories. This place would not be an amalgam of their tastes as the Broughton Street flat had been, but her undiluted taste for good or ill.

The sound of car wheels on the sparse gravel leading to the cottage put paid to her musings and she went out to see who had arrived. Maybe it was just the post, or someone lost, in search of directions to somewhere else. Instead, she recognised the small figure climbing out of his slightly battered Polo, a bottle of red wine clutched in his hand.

‘Alice,’ Father Vincent Ross said, almost apologetically, ‘I happened to have this rather good Cabernet Sauvignon at home and it suddenly struck me that you might enjoy it. As a house-warming present? Also, if I’m honest, I’m dying to know how you fared with the Elect, my so-called “rivals”. Pah! By the way, is that an elderflower bush by the gate? In the summer we could make the most exquisite champagne from its blossoms. My last attempts exploded in their bottles, I don’t like to think how Satan escaped the shrapnel, but I’ve learnt my lesson. It’s just an idea. What do you think?’

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM POLYGON BY GILLIAN GALBRAITH

FEATURING DS ALICE RICE

BLOOD IN THE WATER

This thrilling police-procedural debut from crime writer Gillian Galbraith introduces readers to Alice Rice, Edinburgh’s latest fictional detective and a new female presence in the macho world of crime detection. Galbraith draws on her own experience to give a realistic portrayal of the medical and legal worlds. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, Alice races against time and an implacable killer to solve a series of grisly murders amongst the professional elite of Edinburgh’s well-to-do New Town.

WHERE THE SHADOW FALLS

When the body of a retired sheriff is discovered in his grand house in the New Town of Edinburgh, Detective Sergeant Alice Rice finds herself hunting his killer. The search leads her to an unfamiliar world where wind-farm developers — with millions of pounds at stake — and protesters face each other with daggers drawn. Just as Alice thinks an answer is beginning to emerge, the sheriff’s lover is killed in an apparent hit-and-run accident. An unlikely coincidence or, as the search widens, is Alice now investigating a double murderer?

DYING OF THE LIGHT

Midwinter, a freezing night in Leith, near Edinburgh's red light district. A policewoman's flashlight stabs the darkness in a snow-covered cemetery. The circle of light stops on a colourless, dead face. So begins the hunt for a serial murderer of prostitutes in Gillian Galbraith's third Alice Rice mystery. Partly inspired by the real-life killings of prostitutes in Ipswich, this novel explores a hidden world where sex is bartered for money and drugs. Off-duty, Alice's home life continues its uneven course. Her romance with the artist Ian Melville offers the prospect of happiness, but is plagued by insecurity. Her demented but determined neighbour, Miss Spinnell, offers a new challenge to Alice's patience at every meeting.

NO SORROW TO DIE

As Heather Brodie kisses her lover goodnight, her disabled husband lies dead, his throat cut from ear to ear. Who wanted Gavin Brodie dead? Many people, including Gavin himself. Devastated by an incurable illness, he had begged to be allowed to die. When another terminally-ill man finds a knife-wielding intruder in his bedroom, DS Alice Rice concludes it is no coincidence and there may be a serial killer with a mission to get rid of the sick. This atmospheric thriller builds on the success of the first three Alice Rice mysteries, and it is a passionate tale of deception, betrayal and the value of life and love.

THE ROAD TO HELL

When the body of a half-clothed woman is discovered in an Edinburgh park, a murder investigation is launched. The victim has not been reported missing and there are few clues to her identity. Soon after, the naked corpse of a prominent clergyman is found, also in a park. DS Alice Rice wonders if the same killer is at work, and if so, what is the connection between the apparently motiveless attacks? The Road to Hell, the fourth in the series, takes the policewoman to new personal depths and along a trail that leads to some of Edinburgh's darkest and scariest corners.

TROUBLED WATERS

A young disabled girl is lost on a winter’s night in Leith, unable to help herself or find her way home. Someone is combing the streets, frantically searching for her. Within hours of her disappearance, a body is washed up on Beamer Rock, a tiny island in the Forth being used as part of the foundations for the new Queensferry bridge. No sooner has Detective Inspector Alice Rice discovered the identity of that body than another one is washed up on the edge of the estuary, in Belhaven Bay. What is the connection between the two bodies? Is another victim in the killer’s sight and if so, can Alice solve the puzzle before another life is taken? In this novel, the sixth in the Alice Rice Mystery series, appearances belie reality, and truths and falsehoods become indistinguishable.

FEATURING FATHER VINCENT ROSS

THE GOOD PRIEST

In the house of a Roman Catholic bishop a man lies in a pool of blood. Out in the bishop’s diocese the quiet life of parish priest Father Vincent Ross is about to be thrown into turmoil by a terrifying revelation. There are ugly scandals being hidden by the church he has served for so long, and a murderer is on the prowl. The police and the authorities are groping in the dark, but Father Ross has been given special information that he cannot disclose to anyone. It gradually dawns on him that he and he alone can unravel the mystery and bring the nightmare of violence to an end. He must put his personal safety, his reputation and finally his life on the line.