Chapter 4
Roberta knocked back the last big mouthful of Talisker and thunked the crystal tumbler down on the counter. ‘Same again.’
Well, it was a free bar, be rude not to.
And besides, needed something to drown out the pain of being at a Tory wedding.
That wee PC rocked up beside her, stupid shiny-black kilt jacket abandoned somewhere in favour of rolled-up shirtsleeves and a dangly untied bowtie.
Handwritten list in one hand, round brown tray in the other.
Nothing about him seemed to fit properly, from the kilt to the awkward smile on his scrawny face.
He gave Roberta a nod as the bloke behind the bar placed a fresh tumbler of eighteen-year-old smoky Skye firewater in front of her.
The bartender had the look of an Eastern European turnip magnate, complete with Balkan-style moustache, but the kind of Welsh accent you could open collieries with. He smiled at PC Thin-and-Awkward. ‘What can I get for yeow?’
‘Hi.’ It came out as a high-pitched squeak, so he tried again, reading off his list: ‘Hi, can I get a negroni, three gin and tonics – one with cucumber, one with lime, no ice in the other, two merlots, a vesper, a large Balvennie – no water, and I’ll have a pint of Tennent’s if you’ve got it?’
‘Ooh, sorry, we don’t have any Ten-ent’s. I can do yeow a Peroni, if that helps?’
The wee lad deflated a bit, but forced his awkward smile back into place again. ‘Aye, that’d be great, thanks. Perfect.’
Bet Little Miss Perky-Cleavage walked all over him. And not in a tie-me-up-and-spank-me kind of way.
As the barman went off to get the drinks, Roberta sidled a little closer to PC Doormat.
Gave him a good up-and-down – squinting as if really thinking about it, before holding up a finger.
‘Let me see: callouses on your right hand, that implies some manual work, but there’s none on your left .
. . Tan mark around your watch, so you’ve not been on holiday to get that colour. ’
A little pink flush spread across his freckled cheeks. ‘Well no, I’ve—’
‘Shhhh!’ She waggled the finger at him. Had another squint. ‘Mark around your forehead implies you wear a hat. A lot. One with a peak, going by the fact your nose is slightly paler than your cheeks.’
His ginger eyebrows went up. Clearly impressed by the performance. ‘How did you—’
‘You walked up to the bar with a rolling gait. That’s someone who’s comfortable covering large distances on foot. And, no offence, it looks as if you cut your own hair. Right?’
His mouth hung wide open. ‘That’s—’
‘Police officer.’ She narrowed her eyes even further. ‘Constable. In . . .’ milking the pause, ‘N Division?’
‘Wow. That’s . . . You’re right!’ He positively bounced in place.
She gave him a modest shrug. ‘It’s a knack that’s served me well.’ Then dipped into her jacket pocket and pulled out a warrant card. Flipped it open and let him bask in her official Detective-Sergeant-flavoured magnificence.
He stood up straight. ‘Detective Chief Inspector?’ Actually looked as if he was going to salute. ‘Ma’am!’
Wait a minute . . .
‘Detective Chief Inspector?’ Roberta turned the warrant card around, and lo and behold, the wee loon was right. According to the card she was still a DCI. Before the big demotion. Suppose, sometimes, honesty was more-or-less the best policy. ‘Ah, right, no, it’s an old—’
A booming voice cut across the bar. ‘Hoy, Mikey!’
An older man followed it in. Greying, mid-fifties, black-framed glasses.
A kilt tight enough to make his belly bulge over the thick leather belt.
Like he’d gone to seed a little, but there was still a hint of the man he used to be in the way he moved and held himself.
Someone powerful. Hadn’t he been on the top table? Yeah: father-of-the-groom, wasn’t it?
The new bloke slapped PC Mikey on the back. ‘You crushing the grapes for that wine yourself, or what? Taking forever.’
This time the PC’s smile was genuine. ‘Sarge, this is DCI Steel, she’s like some sort of Sherlock Holmes genius!’
The newcomer gave her a once-over. ‘You’re in the job?’
‘Oh aye.’
‘Sergeant Sandy Moore.’ He stuck out his hand for shaking, a grin splitting his face. ‘This calls for a celebration! Mikey, you take them drinks back to the table and I’ll keep our senior officer here company. If that’s all right, ma’am?’
She backed off a pace, curling her lip. ‘You’re no’ a Tory, are you?’
The grin got wider. ‘Oh I can see we’re going to get on fine!’
You know, Sergeant Sandy Moore was actually OK.
For a man. He and Roberta took up positions at the end of the bar, like police-issue gargoyles.
Obviously, in Roberta’s case, it was a sexy gargoyle, but Sandy fit the bill to a tee.
He had a sort of granity cragginess to him.
And not just the lines in his face. Like he’d been carved out of sturdy rock for the purpose of locking up wrong ’uns.
Mind you, he was getting kinda pickled.
Couldn’t hold his drink as well as she could.
That was men for you.
Roberta’s stool was a bit shoogly, so that’s why she was wobbling a bit. Nothing to do with the eight or nine or twelve large whiskies they’d had.
Sandy took off his tie and rolled up his sleeves, revealing a thistle tattoo with ‘THEY’LL NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!’ wrapped around it, as they looked out through the open doorway to the ballroom.
The bride and groom were on display, snog-waltzing their way around the dance floor to a string-quartet version of a Simply Red song. Which just went to show that no amount of money could buy good taste.
Sandy gestured at the groom with his glass. ‘Course I wanted the boy to go into policing, but they never listen, do they? Went into local government instead.’
Roberta shook her head. ‘Terrible shame.’
‘I mean, what’s wrong with being a policeman . . . Officer I mean. No offence, ma’am.’
‘They don’t know they’re born.’
‘Now he tells me he’s been selected for Aberdeen South – going to be their next Conservative MP if they can beat the SNP.’
‘Tragedy.’
Sandy sighed and took a sip of Glen Garioch. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he’s my son and I love him – well, you’ve got to, don’t you? – but a Tory . . .?’ He shook his head. ‘Do you know they met at the Conservative Party conference? How do you live that down?’
‘My heartfelt sympathies.’ She patted him on the back. ‘You know what’ll help? More whisky!’
PC . . . McKinnon? Think it was McKinnon. Unless it was Mackenzie? No, definitely McKinnon. Anyway, whoever he was, the lad had a nasty habit of going out of focus from time to time, which, let’s face it, was just a bit rude.
But he, Sandy, and Roberta all had a Sambuca lined up in front of them, each one topped with flickering purple-and-blue flames. So, she’d overlook it this time.
Roberta slapped a hand down on the bar. ‘A toast!’
PC McKinnon raised his burning glass. ‘The bride and groom!’
Sandy did the same. ‘The bride and groom!’
Ah, what the hell.
She raised her glass too. ‘Up your bum!’
Then they blew out the flames and knocked back their drinks. A bit like drinking petrol, but there were worse things at half past eight on a Friday night.
‘Waterloo’ belted through the open ballroom doors into the bar. Not a weird string-quartet version, the original ABBA one – pounding out of the DJ’s speakers, accompanied by flickering yellow, blue, and red lights that pulsed in time with the music.
It was time to face facts: PC McKinnon was definitely drunk.
You could tell, because his eyes wouldn’t point in the same direction any more and he sort of swayed in his seat more than was appropriate for ABBA.
Wobbling away there, on the other side of the table they’d appropriated in the corner of the bar. Definitely drunk.
Probably best drink his whisky for him. You know, for his own good.
‘See, the trouble . . . the trouble is . . .’ she plucked McKinnon’s glass from the tabletop, ‘the job’s shhhhhagged.’ For some reason that last word was slipperier than expected.
Sandy nodded. ‘Yup. Shagged. And bug . . . buggered. Thoroughly shagged and buggered.’
She frowned, then it came to her: ‘Shaggered! That’s what it is: completely shaggered.’
PC McKinnon didn’t say anything, just tipped over to one side until a stuffed badger was the only thing keeping him upright. Eyes closed, mouth open, a little trail of drool making its way down his chin.
Sandy took a big gulp of Ardbeg. ‘That’s . . . Police Scotland . . . for you. We could’ve . . . could’ve had the best . . . of all worlds . . . but it all had to be done . . . done the Strathclyde way, didn’t it?’
‘Bastards.’ She was about to follow that up with a story about the detective sergeant, three gross of pilfered condoms and a stripper called Candy, when ‘Waterloo’ faded into ‘Come on Eileen’.
Roberta sank McKinnon’s whisky in one. ‘Oooh! I love this song! Fall-in, Sergeant.’ She lurched to her feet, which took two goes, for some reason. ‘We’re going dancing!’
The whole bunch of Tory bastards stared at her with horror on their faces as she hauled her hand back and slapped Sir Reginald I’m-a-Massive-Tosser Bradbury-Scott across his fat smug face hard enough to make him crash flat on his arse, right in the middle of the dance floor.
Susan stood there, eyes wide, hands doing that speak-no-evil brass-monkey thing, as ‘Back for Good’ by Take That wanged out of the DJ’s speakers.
Was difficult staying upright, what with the dance floor being all uneven and lurching about like a boat in a storm, but Roberta managed.
Keeping one leg moving for balance as she pointed at the lardy git sprawled across the floor.
‘Don’ . . . don’ you . . . dare talk to . . . to my wife . . . like that!’
Sir Gets-Slapped-a-Lot glowered up at her, rubbing his cheek. ‘You, madam, are no lady!’
Right – she was having the bastard.
Roberta lunged for him, but Sandy grabbed her and bundled her away before she could get a decent punch in . . .
They were in the corner, beside that stupid great-big stag statue, in the lobby. No idea how they got here. Just her and Susan. The two of them against the world.
Well, the world and the line of Tory wedding guests who hadn’t booked a room for the night, all boozy and shuffling, heading out through the front doors to the waiting coaches.
Banging on about what a splendid day it’d been and what a lovely couple Adriana and Douglas made and wasn’t it a shame about that dreadful woman?
No idea who this woman was, but she sounded like a complete nightmare. Getting drunk and picking fights? Who did that at a wedding?
Susan glared at Roberta, hands on her hips, face creased up with angry wrinkles. ‘I have never been so humiliated in my life! You swore to me you’d behave!’
The carpet in here was even wobblier than that dance floor. Roberta grabbed the statue’s plinth for balance. ‘C’mon . . . sss wedding. Juss a little fun, s’all.’
‘You’re a disgrace!’
Ah, she was just saying that. Playing hard to get.
Roberta puckered up. ‘Give’s kiss.’
‘I can’t even look at you!’ Susan shoved her away, and the whole trying-to-stay-upright thing went for a bumhole.
One minute everything was the right way up, the next Roberta was lying on her back, on the tartan carpet, arms and legs making sad little circles in the air like an upturned turtle. ‘Help . . . I’ve . . . I’ve fallen over . . . and can’ . . . can’ get up!’
But Susan just turned on her heel and stormed off.
No idea how late it was, but the hotel was in darkness as Roberta felt her way along the ballroom wall and through into the bar.
Where she helped herself to a half-full bottle of Lagavulin from the rack behind the counter.
Removing the cork with her teeth and spitting it away.
Swigging a proper-sized mouthful as she staggered out through the conservatory doors and into the night . . .
Roberta forced her eyes open, but Susan wasn’t in the bathroom any more. Not sure if that counted as falling asleep, or passing out. Probably a bit of both.
Grey light oozed in through the net curtains, presumably so no one could see you on the toilet, pooping. Or vomiting your whole innards out.
Now she was awake, the hangover rushed back in like a surging tide, grabbing her brain and tossing it roughly against the rocky shore. Stuffing it full of angry herring gulls and vicious haddock. But at least there was nothing left to puke up.
That was something, right?
A bright side.
Urgh.
There was an orchestra of bastards trapped inside her skull, doing death-metal covers on bin lids with sledgehammers. And they were crap at it too.
She crawled her way up the towel rail and tottered over to the sink. Stared at the wrinkly horror in the mirror. One side of her face all creased from using the toilet seat as a pillow.
Roberta unbuttoned her vomity shirt and dumped it on the bathroom floor, where it could be all crusty without her, as she filled the sink with cold water and stuck as much of her head as possible under the surface.
Maybe, if she was really lucky, she could drown in here.
At least that would make the orchestra stop.
But she surfaced instead, staring at the dripping monstrosity in the mirror.
The one in the wrinkly skin and fusty grey bra.
The one whose stomach was a measles-dotted mass of itchy midge bites.
Then thunked her head against the cool glass.
Raised her voice so she could be heard in the other room.
‘He was disrespecting you, what was I supposed to do?’
No reply.
One thing you could always rely on Susan for was an industrial-strength sulk.
‘He grabbed your backside! If someone grabbed my backside you’d deck them, wouldn’t you?
Bloody hope you would . . .’ Roberta lowered her voice a bit.
‘At least, I think he grabbed your backside.’ She blinked at the bloodshot eyes in the mirror.
Had a scratch at the midge bites. ‘Maybe it was me?’ Nah.
Louder again: ‘I’m pretty sure it was him! ’
She scooped up a double handful of water and sploshed it on her face.
Still nothing from Queen Of The Sulkers, so Roberta dried her face on a fluffy towel and tried to stand up straight again. ‘Susan?’ Shuffling her way to the door.
The bedroom curtains were open, letting in more insipid sickly light. Rain battered down from the charcoal sky, leaching all colour and life from the world. Or at least the small, misty, soggy bit visible through the window.
‘Come on, Susan, don’t be like that, I’m hungover I need . . .’
But Susan wasn’t there: the duvet was thrown back, the bed empty, the bedroom door lying wide open. Then a scream slashed its way through Roberta’s hangover: distant and terrified.
Susan.
Oh no . . .