Chapter 3.12
Harmsworth had plumped for a Volvo too. Only where Susan’s was a swanky new hybrid model, his was a poop-brown estate car from the last century, that looked as if a jobbie had sex with a hearse.
Its tan leather interior sported a number of suspicious stains, and a driver’s seat with one of those bead-curtain covers.
A Hawaiian hula girl hanging from the rear-view mirror, who twerked every time they went over a pothole.
Despite all the boot space, the only thing the car seemed full of was a fusty infected-foot-type smell.
Its driver had dressed-up for an episode of The Sweeney, in a grey shirt and a brown tie, Chinos, and slip-on leather shoes that matched the upholstery.
He drove along Straik Road in Westhill, the straggly trees of Denman Park on the right, the industrial estate where Roberta got blown-up on the left.
Couldn’t see the explosion site from here, though – hidden away behind business units and a Premier Inn – but even after three-and-a-half months it still radiated menace. Throbbing away like a tumour.
Roberta went back to her printouts, skimming the reports from Operation Troglodyte – peeled from her incident room’s walls. Doing her best to ignore Harmsworth as he droned on and on and on . . .
‘. . . of course I always knew I was the lynchpin of the team – any fool could see that it was me holding everything together – but it’s so nice to hear it said. Out loud. To be appreciated. Properly.’ Waving one hand about as if he were a maiden aunt. ‘Acknowledged.’
Suppose it wouldn’t hurt to inflate his already massive ego a little.
While he was being useful, anyway. But she wasn’t going to put any effort into it.
‘Of course you’re appreciated, Owen. You’re my Number-One, Main-Man, Go-To-Guy when I need someone smart and resourceful to rely on. ’ All delivered in a tired monotone.
But Harmsworth lapped it up, anyway. Preening.
‘Of course. Of course. The others probably don’t realise it, but I’m a bit like a father figure to them.
A guiding hand, keeping their more idiotic impulses in check and directing them back on the right path.
’ So pleased with himself you’d think he’d just invented wanking.
‘Yup.’
The trouble with Operation Troglodyte was that it featured over a dozen witnesses, and not one of them saw anything.
Didn’t see the knife.
Didn’t see Billie Nesbit get stabbed.
Fourteen clueless bloody idiots.
Fifteen if you included Emma Dornoch’s campaign manager: Frank Abercrombie. Which Roberta did.
At least the Inturds had cooperated when they were interviewed – tried to be helpful, unlocked their phones and shared any footage of the mini-riot.
Billie was their friend, after all. Even if their sleazy lawyer, Elgin Woodburn, made them shut up any time anything even vaguely self-incriminating came out of their mouths.
The Polo-shits, on the other hand, said bugger-all. Beattie barely got them to confirm their names and addresses before their swanky solicitor from Edinburgh locked everything down. No unlocked phones, no footage, no comment . . .
But then Beattie was an idiot.
The next time Roberta looked up from her file, Westhill had long disappeared from the rear-view mirror. Now Harmsworth’s poopy Volvo wound its way out along the A944, past fields of soggy barley and barely upright wheat. All getting gently rained on this miserable Monday morning.
Little northeast farmhouses huddled into the landscape, sitting back from the road, sinister granite-and-slate lumps. Narrow windows watching them drive by with suspicious eyes.
And still Harmsworth wanked his ego ragged: ‘. . . of course, not everyone would’ve noticed that, but I kept my head and I said to myself, I said, “Owen, what kind of—”’
‘Thing is: why would anyone want to stab a pretty wee thing like Billie Nesbit?’
He blinked at her for a moment, mouth moving, but nothing came out. Derailed mid-wank. ‘Sorry, who now?’
Roberta tapped her file. ‘See, it’s a weeny riot, a skirmish between political factions: bleeding-heart liberals on one side, fascist cock-spanners on the other. You could stab any of the blokes there – Christ knows there’s enough to go around – but you try killing the sexy redhead instead?’
The road curled around the Loch of Skene, its dark waters flickering between the trees. Distant hills visible for a moment, before the rain swallowed them.
‘Ah.’ Harmsworth nodded. ‘OK. I see . . .’ Chewing on that for a bit. ‘Suppose it’s a kind of penetration, isn’t it? Stabbing?’
Roberta stared at him.
A shrug. ‘You did ask.’
The loch disappeared behind a clump of trees, leaving only fields, woods, drookit stirks, and sharny dubs behind.
Harmsworth held up a finger. ‘Or maybe our stabber is the kind of tosser who just likes hurting women.’
‘But in public? With all those witnesses? Bit risky, isn’t it?’
He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Apparently not.’
Hate to admit it, but the useless snudge had a point.
She went back to her file.
Dunecht was a quaint wee planned village, spread along one side of the A944 – a sort of waypoint between Aberdeen and Alford, Banchory and Kintore.
They drifted past the village shop and the garage; then a row of quaint little cottage-style semis, with bowling-green lawns; then the estate offices; a school; a minute housing estate; and out the other side. Sneeze and you’ll miss it.
Roberta checked the map on her phone for Corskieford Croft, then pointed off to the right. ‘There.’
A gravelled track stretched away between two fields, lined with hawthorn and jagged gorse.
Harmsworth took the turn, face a pained rictus as chuckies ping-and-clanked in the Volvo’s wheel arches. Slowing to a crawl, they made their way down the corridor of green, towards a squat mean-fronted farmhouse with a row of steadings off to one side.
Would’ve been quicker getting out and walking.
But still Harmsworth crept along, all the way to a sparse parking area, part overgrown with grass and dandelions.
The steadings had probably been a cow byre at some point, but an enterprising and grippy farmer/developer had turned them into a row of small holiday lets – going by the key-boxes next to four of the five front doors.
The only one without a key box had a Land Rover Discovery parked outside. And there were no other vehicles here, so maybe tourists weren’t exactly flocking to northeast Scotland on a manky Monday in late-September?
Harmsworth parked his funereal jobbie. ‘This us?’
She slipped her file back in its folder and struggled out of the car. Opening her brolly, before lumbering towards the not-for-let house. It even had a name, mounted above the door: ‘DUNLOBBYIN’.
The view wasn’t exactly killing it – flat as a concrete slab, in various shades of green and brown, leached of all joy by the never-ending sodding rain.
But a nice toasty baking smell came from somewhere nearby. Sweet and buttery.
There was a bell, but what was the point of keeping a Harmsworth and ringing it herself?
He extricated himself from his poop-coloured car and sauntered over. No brolly for him. Instead, he’d pulled on a retro brown leather jacket, with matching leather flat cap, rounding out his Sweeney ensemble. With the shirt and tie, white socks and slip-ons, he looked like a right tit.
Harmsworth squared his shoulders. ‘What’s the plan, Guv?’
‘Ring the doorbell. Question the witness. Hopefully get a cuppa and a non-crap biscuit.’
‘Sweet.’ He rang the bell, then popped his oversized retro collar. Which just made him look even more titlike.
She suppressed a smile, pointing. ‘This is a good look for you. Very manly: intimidating.’
He gave her an aw-shucks shrug. ‘Thanks, Guv.’
Because he was a complete and utter, massive—
The house door opened, and there was Frank Abercrombie in a floury apron.
He’d ditched the shirt and rainbow tie for jeans and a purple sweatshirt, but his combforward had come adrift a bit, exposing even more shiny forehead.
White powder on his heavy moustache. Wobbling slightly as he held onto the doorframe for support.
So he’d either been snorting cocaine, or the big-old glass of rosé in his other hand wasn’t his first this morning.
‘Can I help you? Only I’m in the middle of a big bake, and .
. .’ His bleary eyes narrowed as they fixed on Roberta.
‘It’s you, isn’t it!’ Knocking back a glug.
‘God, when I saw that photo in the papers – him carrying you out of the explosion – I knew we were completely F. U. C. K. E. D. You don’t come back from a visual like that. ’
Which was not her fault.
‘Can we come in, only it’s raining out here and, you know . . .’ She wiggled her walking stick, hamming up being lopsided and limpy.
‘Oh, God, yes, sorry, please, I was just . . .’ Abercrombie threw the door wide, stepped back out of the way, scoofed another mouthful. ‘If you can take off your shoes that would be super helpful.’
Dunlobbyin’s kitchen was compact and cosy. Just big enough for a rectangular wooden table – that matched the units – and a big fake range cooker, whirring away to itself and filling the air with the crispy golden scent of baking biscuits.
Roberta and Harmsworth sat at the table, drinking tea and munching their way through a plate of homemade shortbread, while Frank Abercrombie rolled out a slab of cheese-scone dough. Pausing every now and then to guzzle more wine:
‘So then I said, “Go away you thugs; I’ve called the police!” And they didn’t, of course. And then . . . Erm . . .’ Brow furrowing as he cut out perfect little discs and arranged them on a baking tray. ‘I think it was something like, “Get back! You’re not allowed to harass people!”’
Roberta checked to make sure Harmsworth was writing all of this down. Because being a consulting detective was no reason to lower standards.