Chapter 4
Interview One was a wee magnolia room with grey carpet tiles and a half-knackered table – its Formica top covered in scratched graffiti.
Most of which was the kind of language that would cost you a fortune in the swear jar.
Though whether they’d been carved there by suspects or police officers was anyone’s guess. Probably a bit of both.
Cameras were mounted in the upper corners of the room, keeping a beady eye on the four chairs. Especially the Naughty Seat, bolted to the floor just in case . . .
Not that there was anyone here for them to record.
Well, except for Roberta – as she drew the vertical blinds to shut out the scorching day, leaving the fabric slats glowing alien-abduction bright. And the sodding window wouldn’t open, so it was already too hot in here.
She sagged into a non-bolted-down seat, with her back to the door; a random file nicked from someone’s desk acting as a prop on the table in front of her, as she took her car keys and scratched ‘SHITEFLAPS!’ into the Formica. Then sent Lund a friendly text:
WHERE THE SNUDGING HELL ARE YOU?!?!
SEND.
Roberta thumped back in her seat with her arms crossed.
What the bugger-wank was taking them so long? Lund and sodding Barrett should’ve been here ages ago. Lazy pair of twunts. See, that was what’s wrong with officers these—
A knock on the door.
Here we go.
She sat up, getting the fake file all lined up and official looking. ‘Come!’
The door opened just far enough for Disco to pop his head in. ‘Guv.’ He slipped through the gap, bringing a mug of coffee with him. Plonked it down on the table for her. ‘Two and a coo.’
Yeah . . .
She gave the mug – ‘POLICE OFFICERS DO IT WITH TRUNCHEONS’ – a good stare, because some of the junior ranks resented playing Teasmade, and you never knew if your tasty hot beverage came laced with spit and bogies.
Didn’t look sputumy . . .
‘“Disco”, is it?’
He nodded. ‘Guv.’
‘And do I want to know why?’
‘Probably best not, Guv.’
Fair enough.
She took a sip. Didn’t taste of bogies, either. ‘Ever worked a murder before, Disco?’
‘Depends on your definition. Do one-punchers at kicking-out time count?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ Wrinkles appeared between his eyebrows as he attempted to engage whatever passed for his brain.
‘There was that farmer out Bennachie way, who skewered a neighbour with the bale spikes on his tractor? Dispute about stirks, a dozen fenceposts, and who was knobbing whose missus. But he was the one who called 999, so not much of an investigation.’ Disco hooked a thumb at the door. ‘Ready for your first guest?’
‘Might as well.’
And off he sodded, shutting the door behind him. Meaning he missed Roberta’s phone launching into its jolly ringtone.
The word ‘LUND’ glowed in the middle of the screen.
Ha: should bloody well think so too.
Roberta jabbed the button. ‘Where the sodding frunch have you got to? I’m sitting here with a ton of—’
‘I’m at the lay-by. You want the good news, the bad news, the worse news, or the really awful news?’
Oh for . . .
Roberta slumped back. ‘Give us the bad news.’
‘Barrett, the skiving proink, is now officially signed off with The Disease. Detective Superintendent Young caught him coughing up a lung in the muster room and sent him home.’
‘Of course he did.’ Scrunching her eyes closed and massaging her forehead. ‘Worse news?’
‘Young also said he needs a vanful of thugs at Portsoy Harbour: four o’clock this afternoon. Operation Basilisk?’
‘And I care, because . . .?’
‘All the Operational Support Units have the plague, and apparently we “need the practice” after our “monumental cock-up at Charles MacGarioch’s place, last week”.’
‘Well, he can ram it sideways up his hoop. I’ve already got a murder and an attempted on my dance card the day. I’m no’ home to visitors.’
A nasty, ominous wee pause slithered out of the phone. Followed by: ‘You want the awful news now?’ Deep breath. ‘Just caught Sheila Dalrymple creeping out of the SOC tent. They’ve found a second set of remains in that bin.’
Noooooooo . . .
‘I hate you, Veronica. Was one dead body no’ enough?’
‘That’s not what makes it awful. Second set of bones are tiny and only partially ossified. Which means your victim was pregnant – between ten and thirteen weeks.’
Roberta folded forwards, curling up till her forehead thunked into the stolen file.
Pregnant.
‘You still there?’
‘No.’ It was really hard not to add another chunk of cash to the swear jar. But she squeezed it down. ‘And the good news?’
‘There isn’t any. I just said that to make you feel better.’ A sigh. ‘Still, at least now we know something about our victim, right?’
Oh, lucky, lucky them.
Roberta thumped her head off the folder a couple of times.
What kind of sick bastard did that to a pregnant woman?
‘Guv?’
‘Grab Harmsworth and a couple of Smurf suits. I want that whole lay-by fingertip searched. And do both sides of the railway line as well.’
‘There’s only two of us!’
‘Better get onto Transport Plod first: all rail services to be cancelled between Inverurie and Insch till you’ve finished. No point getting the pair of you squashed; staffing problem’s bad enough as it is.’
Lund’s voice went into a full-on whine. ‘But, Guu-uuv . . .’
‘Sooner you start, sooner you’re done.’
Another knock at the door pulled Roberta’s forehead from the file. ‘Got to go.’ She hung up, grimaced. ‘Pregnant . . . Bloody hell.’ Then sat upright and gave herself a shake. Pulled on her police face. ‘Enter!’
Tufty had ditched his high-vis and stabproof vest, going for a much more casual police-officer-about-town vibe as he shepherded a young man into the room.
Wow.
Talk about babe magnet.
The new guy was early-twenties, but had come up with a cunning plan to look older and more mature by growing what could barely be described as a ‘moustache’.
It was as if he’d brushed his top lip, twice, with mascara and left it at that.
His ears pointed in different directions, and his haircut alone was enough to make sure he remained a virgin till his mid-thirties.
His general air of unsexiness wasn’t helped by the twin wads of bloody toilet paper poking out of his bashed nose.
Or the sour yoghurty smell that oozed out of him like baby sick.
Tufty snapped to attention. ‘Derek Wickham, ma’am.’ All formal and correct.
Derek looked around him, as if he’d never seen a TV crime drama before. Voice all bunged-up and nasal. ‘So . . . if I talk to you, right, I can go?’
Roberta pointed at the Naughty Seat. ‘Sit.’
He did. ‘Only I’ve got a paper on Scoddish parliamentary process to hand in for tomorrow.’
She clicked her fingers and pointed at the chair beside her.
Tufty sank into it and fiddled with the AV unit’s knobs and buttons, setting it all recording.
‘Interview with Derek Albert Wickham, Monday, sixteenth of June.’ Checking his watch.
‘Eleven twenty-five. Present are Detective Inspector Roberta Steel and DC Stewart Quirrel. Mr Wickham has declined to have a solicitor present. Isn’t that right, Mr Wickham? ’
Derek nodded.
‘You have to say it out loud for the tape.’
‘Oh, sorry. Yeah. Suppose. Long as I get to go home afterwards . . .’
Tufty raised his eyebrows at Roberta, because that wasn’t, strictly speaking, an unqualified agreement, but close enough.
Roberta glowered across the table at Derek, giving him the full benefit of her police charm. ‘You in the habit of rioting, Derek?’
‘Rioting?’ He shrank back from the table, but his chair was bolted to the floor, so didn’t get very far. ‘I . . . thought you wanted to talk about Billie gedding stabbed? I mean, Billie Nesbit. The red-haired girl? Who got stabbed?’ Pointing in the vague direction of Kintore.
Roberta jabbed her fake file. ‘First we’re going to have a wee chat about your role in the violent affray outside Emma Dornoch’s campaign headquarters.’ A nasty smile. ‘So why don’t we start at the beginning . . .’
The police station’s corridors were every bit as inspiring as its canteen.
Only without the pictures of local scenery and hairy cattle.
Instead, the scuffed walls boasted a crop of not-so-motivational posters, like ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MAKE SCOTLAND A BETTER PLACE TODAY?’, ‘DON’T MAKE TIME FOR CRIME! ’, and ‘TERRORISM Isn’t COOL!’
Woo-hoo . . .
Roberta sent a big cloud of black-cherry vape at the picture of some beardy tit in uniform: ‘I’M KEEPING THE PEACE WITH A CAREER IN THE POLICE!’
Kinda getting a bit tired of black cherry. And all the other fruity flavours too.
How come no one made nice savoury vapes? Like steak-and-kidney, or cheese-and-onion. Bet you’d make a fortune selling smoky-bacon refills. Better yet: chicken-tikka-masala.
The door to Interview One opened and out slipped Tufty, like a sleekit wee jobbie.
There was a flash of Derek Wickham, still sitting at the table, in tears, rocking back and forth as he gurned away. Boo-hoo.
Tufty clunked the door shut and pulled on a disappointed face. ‘Went a bit hard, there, Guv.’
She gave him a dose of fruity steam. ‘What kind of person goes to university and studies politics?’ Pronouncing the word with all the contempt it deserved.
‘Wanna know why you go to university?’ Counting the reasons off on her fingers: ‘Getting laid, drinking too much, sexual experimentation, freedom from your stuffy parents, and banging every hot undergrad you can get your sticky little mittens on.’ Another cherry lungful.
‘Studying politics? See if either of my kids does that, I’ll disown them. ’
‘Are we letting Wickham go?’
‘Should be studying art, or poetry, or Scottish literature. You know: something useful.’
‘Not like he saw anything, is it?’
‘World would be a better place if just applying to study politics was enough to get you carted off. Three years, hard labour, working on a tattie farm in the Outer Hebrides.’ Hauling her trousers up. ‘That’d teach ’em.’