Windchill (2 page)

"Even the Elm beats here." Cullen took another drink, now well below halfway. "Anyone fancy going to a proper pub?"

"No chance." Jain scowled at him as she tossed a handful of club tickets into the middle of the circular table, just missing the light. "We've got free entry to the club downstairs."

"Come on, Scott!" Sharon tugged his hands. "Why don't you want to dance?"

Cullen leaned back against the bar, stumbling a few steps. He steadied himself against the wood, snatching a few seconds to take in the club area, music thumping and dry ice burning his nostrils. "Give me a minute."

"Come on, I'm in the mood for dancing."

"I'm not stopping you. Chantal's over there." Cullen waved across the dance floor. "Is that Turnbull she's with?"

"Aye. He's hammered." She raised an eyebrow at him. "No more than you, mind."

"I'm okay."

She prodded him in the chest. "Five minutes and I want you doing your best John Travolta."

"You've seen my worst."

"Five minutes." She turned and sashayed across the dance floor.

Cullen turned to raise his empty glass at the barman, who immediately started pouring another lager. He handed over a tenner, getting a lot less change than he reckoned on.

Sipping his pint, he watched Sharon on the dance floor with Chantal Jain as they pranced around doing fifties moves. He looked around the room, watching the idiots in the team making bigger idiots of themselves.

"Evening, Constable."

Cullen spun round.

DI Colin Methven handed an empty glass to the barman. A baggy Christmas jumper, mostly red with a green reindeer, hung off his athletic frame, his pink work shirt just about breaking cover at the neck.

Cullen raised his glass. "Evening, sir."

Methven leaned in close. "Can I get you anything?"

Cullen inspected his pint glass, already halfway down. "Aye, get us a whisky."

Methven arched his bushy eyebrows. "Will Dunpender do?"

"Aye, go on. Cheers." Cullen took another gulp, the bitter tang of the Spanish lager hitting his tongue.

Methven raised a finger to attract the barman's attention. "Can I have a Dunpender, please." He nodded and Methven turned back to Cullen, giving him the up-and-down. "Any plans for Christmas Day?"

Nosy bastard. Cullen shrugged. "Just going to spend the day in front of the telly with DS McNeill." He tapped his nose. "Got her a box set for Christmas. Shhh."

"I see." Methven handed him the whisky, his heavy eyebrows almost lowered over his eyes. "There you go."

"Cheers, sir." Cullen swirled it around the glass before throwing it down his throat in one go. Heaven. "What about you, sir? Any plans?"

Methven's eyes remained locked on the empty glass. "Got some family commitments. My mother and father are coming over."

"Sounds like fun. I'm glad to be avoiding mine."

"You should come into the station." Methven paid for the drinks. "Double time on Christmas Day."

"I'd much rather not do anything, if it's all the same."

Methven flared his nostrils as he pocketed his change, fingers jangling it around. "Very well."

Cullen finished his pint. "Back in a second." He staggered to the toilet, his shoulder brushing off the patterned wallpaper. Bloody symbols - which was the gents? He pushed open a door and had a look around. Empty.

He tried the cubicles, all locked. No urinals. Strange. He took a deep breath and considered his options.

Fuck it, it'll have to be the sink.

"Scott, what the hell are you doing in here?" Sharon grabbed his shoulder, the door swinging shut behind her. "This is the ladies!"

"Is it?" Cullen frowned as he tucked himself back in. "Shite."

"Were you pissing in the sink?"

Cullen looked away, shame burning his neck. "The cubicles are all full."

She let out a deep breath. "Come on, we're getting you home. Now."

Christmas Eve

Tuesday

24th December 2013

Chapter 3

Harsh winter sunlight made Cullen blink as he waited, icy wind cutting straight through him as it tore downhill from the Royal Mile to the Scottish Parliament. His head was thudding, his mouth full of the bitter taste of hangover, his mind reaching for whatever he'd done to get into that state.

Drinking. So much drinking. George Street. Pissing in a sink.

Not again...

He leaned back against the glass front of the World's End pub and loosened his tie, his body wanting to sweat out the booze even in the crisp air. He hauled out his phone, watching the tribes of tourists as they milled about, laden with shopping bags and coffee mugs. He texted Buxton. "
Where are you?"

Just as he pocketed it, the phone rang. What now? He held it up, trying to focus on the display. Sharon. "Hey."

"Where are you?"

"I'm waiting on Budgie." Cullen looked around, a young couple pointing in a jeweller's window a few units up. "I'm supposed to be off today. Fucking Crystal. I should go to the Police Federation about this."

"Right. That's not the sort of attitude an officer chasing a promotion should display..."

"You've maybe got a point."

"The reason I'm calling is I'm just out of my sergeant's meeting - Methven's spitting teeth about the state you were in last night."

"What state?"

"Don't muck about, Scott. You pissed in a
sink
." A pause he wasn't going to fill. "Look, I've stopped Crystal going to Turnbull and Cargill about it."

"Cheers." Cullen tugged his hair with his free hand. Couldn't remember much past unwrapping the ball gag. Where had he left it? "Is this why I've got to come in on my day off?"

"A suspicious fire goes right to the top of the pile. Crystal's already short-handed with all these secondments at the moment. He's got people helping uniform out for tonight and he's lost Chantal to Davenport's case. Pissing him off today isn't the wisest move."

Cullen sighed as he took a few steps away, looking down the street for Buxton in the pool car. "I get it, I'm Satan."

"It's not just that. He's complaining about you not having an appraisal with him for six months."

Cullen closed his eyes and bit his lip. What a wanker. "Right, I'd better do something about that."

"I'm really worried about you and your drinking, you know?" A long pause. "We'll have words later."

Sounded ominous. "I'll see you after work." Cullen left a gap but she didn't fill it. "Love you."

"Bye."

Cullen ended the call, spotting a text from Buxton. "
Five minutes.
"

He put the phone away again and tugged his scarf tighter. Did he have time to grab a coffee?

Chapter 4

"Come on, mate." Cullen rubbed his forehead, damp with sweat, before crumpling his coffee cup. "What else are they saying about last night?"

Buxton turned off the City Bypass before turning right to head under the dual carriageway. He took the last exit from a roundabout and stopped at the lights. "Chantal Jain overheard you and Sharon talking about something in the ladies' toilet."

"That's all?"

"That's all I've heard."

Cullen let out the deep breath he'd been keeping sucked in and loosened off the scarf. The heater was all the way to the red. "Honestly?"

"Yeah." Buxton sniffed as he glanced over. "Go on, what did you do?"

Cullen undid a few buttons. "I pissed in the sink."

"Classic." Buxton tilted his head back as he laughed. "That's not so bad, though, is it?"

"Not sure Sharon sees it that way." Cullen reached over to turn the heater down. "Just glad nobody came out of the cubicle while I had the old fella whipped out."

Buxton smirked, the corners of his lips turning up. "They'd have to see both inches first."

Cullen shook his head as he laughed. "Fuck off."

Buxton waved his hand, gesturing across the road. "Isn't that Phonebox Jimmy?"

Cullen frowned as he clocked a figure trudging along Lanark Road, clad in a parka and several layers of fleece. "That name sounds funny coming from your lips."

"Suppose it does. I've seen him a few times. Just goes through every phone box in Edinburgh, looking for uncollected change."

"Surprised he's still with us." Cullen shrugged as they passed him. "Everyone's got mobile phones these days. Nobody uses phone boxes."

"He still seems to manage, though."

"True." Cullen sniffed as he looked at the houses around them. "Bit far off his usual patch this. Poor guy will no doubt be having a shite Christmas."

"Yeah, can't be any life, can it?" Buxton laughed. "Bet he didn't get a bondage gag in a Secret Santa, though."

Cullen felt the jolt of booze recollection. "What happened to that?"

"Just left it on the table when we went downstairs."

"Thank God." Cullen tugged at his coat, separating his shirt from his back, now sodden with sweat. "What time were you out till?"

"Late." Buxton turned right onto the main road before clearing his throat. "And I didn't wake up in my own bed last night."

Cullen felt his stomach lurch as they descended to the Water of Leith, his mind filling with an image of Buxton on the dance floor. "You were dancing with someone in Lamb's team, right?"

Buxton tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "Geraldine. Can't remember her surname."

"Classy. How old is she?"

"Forty."

"Another cougar?"

"That's not a very nice term, you wanker."
 

"So you'll be seeing her again, right?"

"Not if I can avoid it." Buxton turned down Woodhall Millbrae and parked behind a pair of fire engines blocking the road, the firefighters now packing away their equipment. On the other side was a row of police vehicles - SOCO van, patrol cars, the forensic pathologist's Lexus. "Looks like the gang's all here."

"So it does." Cullen stared past them at the house, mostly intact apart from one corner still smoking. Like the rest of the street, it was yet another turn-of-the-millennium new-build, stark cream stucco inset with huge chunks of stone, dormer windows dotting the third floor. "No prizes for guessing which house we're looking for."

"Yeah." Buxton took his coffee cup from the side and drank it down in one go. "It's bloody lukewarm." Scowling, he craned his neck forward, looking around. "Can't see Crystal, though."

"Shame." Cullen got out of the car and stretched out.

The place stank of the fire, the deep stench of burnt wood. It was freezing, the bitter wind swooping down towards the river just behind the houses, making him shiver from cold rather than the alcohol for once. He wrapped his winter coat tight around him and waited for Buxton to get out. He took in the street, the City Bypass rumbling above them. In the distance, a man in a salmon polo shirt walked a small terrier along the street, apparently oblivious to the temperature, staring at his phone.

"That's like you and me, right?" Buxton slammed his door, nodding at the house they'd parked beside, encased in a mesh of scaffolding and looking like it wasn't far off being finished, the gang of workers with half an eye on the crime scene. "Those boys are milking the Christmas overtime before heading to the pub, I expect."

"Remind me, again, what's this overtime of which you speak?" Cullen ground his teeth. "Besides, I'm supposed to be off today."

"So you keep saying. All the way out here." Buxton chuckled as he took in the area. "It's bloody expensive out here, isn't it?"
 

"It is, aye. Sharon'd kill to live in Juniper Green."

"Not you?"

"Maybe a bit of assault and battery but not killing." Cullen set off towards the hubbub, a wave of dread hitting his stomach as he thought of the words they'd have later. "Come on."

A uniformed officer was manning the crime scene outside the house's front gate. He held out a clipboard as they approached. "Need to get you to sign in."

"Right." Cullen filled in both of their names. "Is DI Methven here?"

"Aye." The uniform rolled his eyes. "He's inside the house now."

"Cheers." Cullen led over to the building, noting DS Catriona Rarity running the inner locus, the interior. She stood in the front doorway, the door open wide; inside, the cream walls were soot damaged higher up, the expensive wood-flooring covered in mud and sailing with water.

A figure in a SOCO suit stormed out - tall, athletic and male - before tugging at his mask and goggles and letting the whole thing rest behind him. DI Colin Methven.

Another figure followed him, a similar motion revealing Jimmy Deeley, the city's chief pathologist. He led two assistants as they took great care to roll a gurney into the back of a van, a black body bag lying on the top.

Methven trotted up the path towards Cullen and Buxton and watched the pathology team load up the van. "Morning, Constables."

"Morning, sir." Cullen did up another button on his coat, the sweat now turning to a sheet of ice. "What's made you drag me in today?"

Methven scowled at him before nodding over to the van. "The fire service got the call late last night. It's taken them until this morning to stabilise the building and do a proper search. That's when they found the body."

"How bad is it?"

"Not that bad. My understanding is they got here in sufficient time to prevent the blaze getting out of control. Our victim is reasonably well preserved."

"Victim?"

"Indeed. I'll come on to that. The body found was not a blackened lump, put it that way."

"I see." Cullen folded his arms, the cold now biting into him. "Any idea who it is?"

"Steven McCoull."

"How do they know it's him?"

"He had a distinguishing feature, Constable." Methven leaned down and ran his hand up and down his leg below the knee, the suit crumpling with the motion. "Deeley managed to get hold of his GP. Reckons Mr McCoull had a metal pin inserted in his leg as a result of a cycling accident in his teens. Knocked off in front of a bus on Lothian Road. Needless to say, they've found it."

"Okay. So, you said he was a victim?"

"Which is the reason we're here, gentlemen. This is bloody suspicious." Methven clapped his hands together and turned his back on Deeley's crew, closing his eyes as he spoke. "All of his teeth and fingernails were removed and his arms were broken."