Chapter 2.11
Roberta puffed out another lungful of maple-pecan, leaning back against the ‘WELCOME TO ABERDEEN ROYAL INFIRMARY’ sign.
Showing solidarity with the half-dozen other smokers gathered beneath the front portico in violation of all the notices about it being forbidden within fifteen metres of hospital buildings.
Because it was pishing down, and sod that.
She had her flowers tucked under one arm, walking stick propped beside her, freeing up the other hand for phone-holding duties as rain battered out of a gunmetal sky. Gurgling in the gutters, hissing through the trees, bouncing off the tarmac.
‘What?’ Lund’s voice had a flat echo to it, as if she’d answered from a toilet cubicle. Dirty bugger. ‘Nah, I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to just do PNC checks for poops and giggles.’
‘It’s an official order from your superior officer!’
‘Oh aye, till Friday. And you’re off on the sick! And you didn’t say please.’
A furious hiss of nutty smoke billowed down Roberta’s nose. ‘See when I retire? I’ll have all this free time on my hands, and nothing better to do than come up with ways to make people’s lives miserable.’
An ambulance neee-nawwed away into the distance.
A drenched family hurried in from the downpour.
An elderly smoker folded over, one hand covering his face, the other holding a drip stand as he sobbed.
And on the rain fell.
‘Fine.’ Lund let loose a long-suffering groan. ‘Who do you need me to look up?’
Roberta grinned, because they always cracked in the end. ‘One David McLeod, ex-detective-sergeant, Grampian Police.’
This time, the pause dripped with suspicion. ‘Why?’
‘Cos I want to know if he’s legit, or a greasy wee shunt.’
‘Pfff . . . Hold on.’
Keyboard noises clacked away in the background. So, Lund can’t have been on the bog after all.
‘How you getting on with my cases?’
‘Oh no you don’t. We’ve got strict instructions not to tell you anything: doctor’s orders.
. . . Well, Chief Superintendent’s, but you know what I mean .
. .’ One last clack, then: ‘OK: here we go. . . . Uh-huh. Right. David McLeod, Thirty-Two Kingswood Place, Kingswells. Couple of parking violations, . . . shotgun licence is up for renewal in September, . . . registered with the Security Industry Authority as a private investigator. No outstanding warrants, complaints, or warnings that I can see.’ She hummed and hawed a little.
‘You should ask the wee loon: get him to do an internet search and burrow down into all the guy’s socials, like a weevil. ’
Probably.
Might take his mind off that horrible Domestic Violence case . . .
A scuffed-yellow people-carrier emerged from the downpour, swinging through the NO ENTRY ‘EXCEPT BUSES’ sign with gay abandon. Not exactly the most stylish of vehicles – a Ford Galaxy. As if a Transit van shagged a hatchback.
It stopped right in front of Roberta, and the driver’s window buzzed down.
Simon Rennie grinned out at her. Swear he’d got even porkier since she’d been in hospital.
At this rate, he’d be self-basting in time for Christmas.
His bleached-blond mop was thinning at the front, but still teased up into short spikes, like a porcupine’s testicle.
Wearing a ‘TOP 10 DAD*’ T-shirt and sunglasses, even though it was bucketing. Like a tit.
He ponked his horn. ‘Taaaaaaaxi!’
Roberta hunched her shoulders and hurpled around to the passenger side.
Lund must’ve heard that. ‘We done now? Only I’ve got actual police work to be getting on with.’
‘Aye: when did Davey leave the job, and was it under a cloud?’ Roberta yanked the door open and scrambled in, out of the rain.
Then sat there, looking around at the absolute craphole that was the Rennie family car.
The footwell carpet was basically invisible beneath a layer of sweetie wrappers and toys, while dust and mud and splots of grease and what you had to hope was chocolate covered nearly every other surface.
All of it clarted in a furry blanket of dog hair.
Smelled more than a little funky in here too, even though a trio of lemon air-fresheners dangled from the rear-view mirror.
Bunch of minks.
She plonked her flowers on the dashboard, pinning the phone between her ear and shoulder to do battle with the seatbelt. ‘And while we’re at it, what the hell’s going on with Billie Nesbit’s stabbing? Poor cow’s stuck in ARI and we’re twiddling our thumbs like . . . flipping snudges.’
Click.
Rennie put the Mankmobile in gear. ‘Home, James?’
‘God’s sake . . .’ Lund gave a wee grunt. ‘I’ll do what I can, but I’m promising squit-all. Like North Korea round here, now – we do not question the Great Leader.’ Then hung up.
‘Well?’
Roberta put her phone away and turned. ‘Kingswells?’ A nod. ‘Aye: Kingswells. Got to see a man about a thing.’
‘Hmmmm . . . Thought this was supposed to be a quick favour?’
‘The longer you moan about it, the longer it’ll take. Besides, you got something better to do on a sharny Tuesday?’
Rennie’s lips pursed as he peered out at the downpour.
‘Well . . . I suppose Emma’s got the kids all day.
But I was planning on spending it playing Minecraft and arguing with strangers on the internet .
. .’ He huffed out a lonnnnng breath, then pulled away from the kerb.
‘Meh, why not. But we’re stopping for coffee on the way, and you’re paying. ’
The Rennie Family Yuckmobile stopped outside the smallest house on Kingswood Place.
Number thirty-two was about half the size of its boring neighbours, but every bit as dull.
For some strange reason, there was no pavement, and instead of a tarmac road and lock-block driveways it was the other way around.
As if the developer had got the plans upside down.
To add a frisson of excitement, the pantile roofs alternated between russet-brown and grey, but the buildings were the same colour as the lowering sky.
Each one had a teeny garage, set weirdly far back from the road, behind the houses, at the arse-end of the garden. Much too small to fit anything bigger than a child’s pedal car. A line of trees lurking behind them.
Even though the front gardens were minute, most were well maintained – the grass short, the bushes trimmed with the precision of a super-model’s bikini line – but number thirty-two boasted a shaggy clambering rose, losing pale-pink petals in the hammering rain.
Dandelions peppering the tiny unmown lawn.
House martins nesting in the eaves, spattering the weed-choked flowerbeds below with bird shite. Letting the rest of the street down.
And while all the other homes had at least one hatchback or Smart Car parked on its inside-out driveway, Wee Davey McLeod’s place had the crusty brown rustbucket VW Polo last seen outside Inverurie police station.
Rennie turned the blowers down to a gentle howl, peering out through the windscreen as it began to fog over. ‘Want me to wait?’
‘No, I want you to sod off and leave me stranded out here, in the rain, with my walking stick.’ Giving him a good dose of the evil eye. ‘Cretin.’
‘You’ve got a funny way of asking for favours.’ Taking a sip of white chocolate mocha frappuccino. ‘Lucky I’ve got the patience of a saint.’ Reaching into his door pocket for a greasy paper bag with the coffee shop logo on it. ‘And a double-toffee-chocolate-crunch muffin.’
Roberta tutted at the idiot, hoicked up her collar, and climbed out into the monsoon. Leaving her flowers in the car, but not the Reversy Percies, because you couldn’t trust Rennie with confectionery. Biscuits. Or cheese.
She hurried up the driveway, her walking stick making little sploshes in the puddled tarmac, ducking in beneath the climbing rose where it prolapsed out above the door. Getting a bit of shelter while she rang the bell.
The neighbours had two steps up to their front door, and a wee built-in handrail, but Davey’s house featured a concrete ramp instead. Which didn’t excuse not answering the sodding door.
Come on, come on, come on . . .
She thumbed the button again.
Sodding drowning out here.
This time, she left her finger on the bell, letting it rinnnnnnnnnnnnnng. ‘DAVEY!’
A clunk, then the door swung open, and there he was – playing dress-up in a blue pinny and pink rubber gloves. Instead of the sexy yellow ones.
He goldfished at her for a bit, like he was having a stroke or something. ‘It . . . But . . . What are you . . .?’
She barged past, into a tiny vestibule/porch thing, with a set of hooks for hanging your keys and a place to put your dirty outside shoes.
Roberta gave herself a shake, spraying second-hand rain. ‘Flipping took you long enough. It’s pishing down.’
‘Watch it! You’re getting water everywhere!’ Voice low as he squeezed by, to stand between her and the internal door. ‘God’s sake, what are you doing here?’
‘I think you mean, “Oh, lovely Roberta, it’s such a delight to see you again! Do come in for a cuppa and a chocolate biscuit.”’
He wriggled his rubber gloves at her. ‘Will you keep your voice down? Jenny’s sleeping.’
‘At half two in the afternoon?’ Wink. ‘Have a post-lunch knee trembler, did you?’ That explained the gloves.
‘Just . . .’ He scrunched his face, took a deep breath. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Can’t one old friend visit another old friend who asked the first old friend to do dodgy PNC searches on the sly? After all, it’s . . .’ Looking over his shoulder, eyes widening. ‘Is that . . .?’
‘Jenny.’ He turned to look, even though it was the oldest trick known to man, and soon as he did, Roberta slinked past, through the door.
The hallway on the other side was . . . really, really, weirdly clean. As if no one actually lived here.
A bunch of landscape prints adorned the walls, and a cheap bookcase sat in one corner, but other than that, the only thing in here was a threadbare pale-green carpet, hoovered to within a millimetre of its life.