Chapter 2.15
Davey pulled up outside number sixteen, face like a skelped arse. ‘I take it you want to do all the talking.’
‘When you’ve got fillet steak, why eat dog food?’ Roberta climbed out into the drenching drizzle of a dreich Scottish August – sloughing down from a pewter sky.
Cove had oozed outwards over the decades into a sprawling suburban maze of housing developments and cul-de-sacs.
Like Creel Terrace: semidetached two-storey boxes with linked garages.
Semidetached two-storey boxes without garages.
Little terraces of four-or-five two-storey boxes, all smooshed together .
. . They’d been clad in red brick from the ground up to just below the first-floor windows, with cream harling above.
As if there’d been a terrible flood and that was the high-water mark.
Number sixteen formed the left-hand side of a garage-free semi, with that fluorescent-snot-coloured Toyota Yaris parked out front.
A grey Transit van sat on the driveway at the side of the house, hooked up to a fast-food trailer that had a lime-green sign bolted on top: ‘BURGER THIS FOR A GAME OF SOLDIERS!’
Davey stayed in the car, squeezing its steering wheel, face all pinched. As if he reeeeeally wanted to say something, but knew he needed her more than the other way around.
Roberta gave him a big smile. ‘You’ve been in the private sector too long, Davey.
Gone soft.’ Opening her arms wide, like the messiah-adjacent figure that she was.
‘But look on the bright side: with my kindly mentoring – a wee prod here-and-there – we’ll soon get you toughened-up again.
Can take the man out of Grampian Police, but . . .?’
He gave her a grudging shrug.
‘There’s my boy.’ She hobbled up the path and in under the wee cantilevered portico. Getting a little shelter as she rang the bell.
Davey joined her, Uncle Festering beneath his golf brolly, as if a bit of drizzle was going to kill him. ‘Remember: we’re looking for evidence of an affair, and-slash-or proof Sherman’s been hiding money.’
‘Oh aye. I’m betting that comes up in casual conversation all the time. It’s—’
The door swung open, revealing a young-ish man in nothing but Y-fronts and a collection of tattoos.
Some of which looked a bit . . . white supremacy-ish.
A little pot belly swelled between his skinny legs and broad shoulders.
Well-muscled arms. So either he spent a lot of time just lifting weights, or wanking himself ragged.
His hair looked as if it’d only just woken up.
He gave them a cave-sized yawn and had a scratch at his arse. ‘Yeah, what?’ A belch rattled free. ‘’Scuse me.’
Roberta pulled on her official voice. ‘Is this your vehicle, sir?’ Pointing at the Yaris.
Something magical happened when you called scroats like this ‘sir’. A Pavlovian reaction, born from years of being pulled over and searched, made him stand a little straighter. Made him cover the front of his pants with his hands. Made him worry if she knew what he’d been up to.
Bet Adolf McSkinny-Legs here had a criminal record thick as his skull.
His forehead wrinkled as he battled with the three brain cells in there. Should he lie and antagonise her? Or tell the truth and maybe get off with a slap on the wrists? In the end, he went for the sensible option. ‘No?’
‘Course it isn’t. It belongs to one Charlotte MacNeal, does it no’?’
He pulled his chin in, chewing on his bottom lip. ‘Mebbe . . .?’ Backing off a couple of paces and shouting over his shoulder, into the house. ‘CHARLIE! CHARLIE, IT’S THE POLICE!’
At which point Davey opened his gob – probably wanting to clear up any misunderstanding and explain that they weren’t actually police officers, what with that being illegal under Section 90(1) and everything – but Roberta elbowed him to shut it again.
‘May we come in, sir? It’s a tad on the soggy side out here.’ She stepped inside anyway. ‘My what a lovely home you have.’
Not really.
It was a long narrow hall, barely shoulder width, with a tiny loo on the left and stairs going up. A whole heap of coats bulged from a rack, meaning Adolf had to turn sideways to get past, making for a glazed door at the end of the hallway.
The laminate floor needed a sweep, and a mop, and pulling up and burning; and it was a safe bet that the stair carpet had never seen a hoover in its life. Scuffed walls. Furry cobwebs dangling from the ceiling . . .
Bet Davey’s clean-freak little heart was shuddering at the sight.
Roberta advanced on the retreating idiot. ‘Down here, is it, sir?’ Past the jacket barricade. ‘You won’t mind if my colleague stays behind, will you? He’s what we call “claustrophobic”; likes to stand by an open door.’
And with any luck, Davey was bright enough to stop anyone from doing a runner out the front.
‘It . . . Er . . .’ Adolf’s skinny legs failed him, and he stumbled in his retreat. ‘CHARLIE! THE POLICE ARE HERE TO SEE YOU!’ Disappearing through the door at the end of the corridor.
Roberta followed him into a small living room, connected to a dining/kitchen by a little archway. In here, the manky laminate boasted a couple of pot plants long past their compost-by date, two saggy leather couches, and a rug that was more stains than pattern.
It was a motif that featured in the dining area too, where who knew what colour the floor tiles originally were?
A small round dining table boasted a trio of chairs and the remnants of last night’s meal. Along with a bottle of Chardonnay, still one-third full of wine – with about two dozen little black flies bobbing about in it.
No sign of any ‘Charlotte’, though.
Roberta shadowed Mr Tattoo McY-Fronts into the kitchen bit, blocking him in.
A miserable little back garden lurked outside the French doors, where a border collie sheltered from the drizzle beneath a rickety picnic table.
She gave the dog a wee wave. ‘You didn’t give us your name, sir.’
‘Ah . . .’ Backing up against the sink. ‘Brown. Campbell? Campbell Brown.’
‘I see.’ Roberta tipped her head on one side. ‘And did you . . .’
A woman plummeted past the French doors, landing on the soggy grass outside with a plus-sized thud.
She was late-forties, large, and dressed in a red, lacy, babydoll negligee – the matching thong on full display as she lay there in a crumpled heap.
She’d paired it with a brown furry bathrobe, which had the unfortunate effect of making her look like a disembowelled turd.
Long bleached-blonde hair, and a cigarette dangling from the side of her mouth – which any sensible person would’ve extinguished before clambering out of an upstairs window. Health-and-Safety, and all that . . .
This would be Charlotte MacNeal, then.
Roberta opened the squeaky French doors and the sound of defenestrated moaning filtered into the dining area.
The dog whined, but stayed where it was.
Brown Campbell, on the other hand, squeezed past Roberta, into the drizzle. Falling to his knees and cradling Charlotte’s head. ‘Jesus, are you all right? What did . . .? It’s . . .?’
Roberta leaned on the door frame. ‘A little underdressed to play Santa Claus, aren’t we, madam?’
‘Ow . . .’ She coughed and the cigarette fell into her hair.
He scooped it out, but she slapped him away.
‘Get off me. Off!’ Covering herself with the dressing gown. ‘Don’t just stand there – help me up!’
Campbell put on his best little-boy-lost look, then pulled her to her feet.
She stood there, all lopsided and bleary, with skinned knees and grass stains, one hand pressed into the small of her back. Teeth gritted. ‘Buggering . . .’
Roberta gave her a cheery grin. ‘Shall we talk inside, or are you comfier out here in the rain?’
Mr Y-Fronts helped Charlotte limp inside, where she collapsed into the nearest chair with a groan.
Fussing at her. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
She grabbed one of last night’s empty wine glasses and poured herself a hefty measure of Chardonnay. Scowled at all the floating flies. Then fished them out with a scarlet-painted fingernail. Because Charlotte was clearly a classy kind of girl. Taking a big swig. Grimacing as it went down.
‘Mmmmm . . . Dead insecty.’ Roberta sat opposite. ‘You know, when most people think the police want to talk to them, they don’t immediately leap out an upstairs window.’ Giving her a nice bland smile. ‘Is there something you’d like to tell us, Miss MacNeal?’
Charlotte coughed, winced, then smacked her smeared lips. ‘Go get Mummy’s special medicine, Baby.’
And away trotted Brown Campbell, like a good little doggie.
Soon as she heard the living-room door close, Charlotte rolled her eyes.
‘Thick as mince, but he goes like a steam train, so what you gonna do?’ Patting the pockets of her dressing gown and coming out with a packet of twenty Bensons.
Sparking one up and blowing the smoke at Roberta. ‘Am I under arrest?’
‘What is it with you people and skipping the foreplay? We’re just having a lovely chat, you and me.’
‘Oh, I’m fucking loving it so far.’ One eye screwed up as she rubbed at her back again.
‘So why the leap of faith?’
Overhead, the gurgling whoosh of a flushing toilet raged. Because Sugar Mummy’s Good Little Boy had stopped for a wee before finishing his mission.
Charlotte took a sudden, close interest in the ash disc forming at the end of her cigarette.
Working on whatever lie she was about to tell.
‘It was . . . a late night last night. Up till well past three, shagging the boy’s brains out.
. . . Though I may have been a bit too thorough with poor Campbell.
. . . I must’ve been disorientated. And dehydrated.
After all the sex. That we had. All night. ’
‘Oh, I see. OK. That makes sense.’ A big generous shrug. ‘And, of course, you’d be happy to repeat that, in an interview room, under oath?’
Another flush from above.
Maybe it wasn’t a wee? Maybe Brown Campbell had produced a floater?
Charlotte puffed away. ‘What do you want?’