Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
This was hell. Hamza was sure of it.
He’d posed for pictures for the Press & Journal, the Highland News, the Lochaber Times, three local blogs, and alongside a woman whose dog had died saving her husband from drowning.
Or maybe it had been the husband who had died saving the dog. Hamza had been too overwhelmed by the whole thing to pay all that much attention.
One of the councillors had shaken his hand for far too long. The other had tried to table a meeting in the coming few days about graffiti in the town centre, litter in the graveyard, and someone repeatedly shiteing in the doorway of M&S.
Hamza had been about to point out that none of that was really his department when Ben Forde had stepped in, agreed with the councillor that it was a terrible state of affairs, and offered to pass it on to the relevant departments.
Through it all, the specially invited audience had sat patiently waiting in the rows of fold-out chairs. They were all members of the Highland Area Watch Keepers Society—an organisation that Hamza had vaguely heard of now and then over the past couple of years.
It was a police initiative, devised by some High Heid Yin in a fancy office somewhere, who couldn’t care less about the additional workload it might bring about.
Basically, from what Hamza knew of it, it pulled together Neighbourhood Watches from across the Highlands, bringing them all under the HAWKS banner so they could better communicate and share information.
The Highlands was unique in the way its communities were so spread out. A burglar on the lookout for large houses with lax security might only have one or two potential targets in any given town or village, but they’d have dozens more in similar communities half an hour north, or sixty miles west.
Your average scally in the Highlands was well-travelled, if nothing else.
By and large, the membership was what you’d expect. Mostly retired folk with time on their hands. Largely men, though not exclusively.
There were maybe half a dozen guys in their thirties and forties dotted around the audience. They had the look of survival nuts about them, all beards, and baseball caps, and heavy jackets with lots of pocket space.
And they all sat there, quiet and attentive. Waiting.
Waiting for what, Hamza didn’t know. They’d already been presented with their hi-vis vests. A uniformed sergeant, Gavin Fleck, had done that, shaking hands with each member as they came up to collect their bright yellow tabard.
Fleck was someone Hamza had seen in and around the station and at a handful of crime scenes, but had never directly interacted with. He was in his early forties, with a receding hairline, bright red cheeks, and a paunch that suggested he didn’t spend a lot of his time chasing down suspects on foot.
He had the look of someone for whom community policing had been a calling, not a stopgap. And his performance that day had only confirmed it.
He’d smiled, thanked them for their service, and posed for photographs with each and every one of them. And, to his immense credit, he’d even managed to look like he was enjoying it.
Oh sure, there were points when the mask had slipped—he’d had to stop for a quick swig of water somewhere around the sixtieth handshake, and had endeared himself immensely to Hamza by mouthing a silent, ‘Bloody hell,’ while his back was to the audience.
By and large, though, he remained a consummate professional, and every member of the audience who’d been presented with a vest returned to their seats a little taller than they’d left them.
That part had been done and dealt with. So, what were they still hanging around for?
Some tea urns were being wheeled out up the back of the draughty old hall. Biscuits were being arranged on plates. Cellophane-wrapped trays of sandwiches were being laid out, but remained covered for the moment.
Maybe that was it, then. Maybe that was what they were waiting for.
Looking out at the audience, Hamza imagined that a fairly high percentage was only really in it for the social aspects.
A bit of company. Something to do. A wee bit of purpose in their twilight years, while serving their communities.
It was good. It was… nice.
But he had a murder to be getting back to.
He caught the eye of Sergeant Fleck, and beckoned him over.
‘What’s the…?’ he began, but the sergeant gave a reassuring wave of the hand, then tipped his head towards the lectern that stood off to his right.
‘Don’t worry. Just getting to it now,’ Fleck said, then he went scurrying over to the podium before Hamza could ask any more.
‘Just getting to what?’ the DI muttered.
‘Buggered if I know,’ said Ben. Somehow, he’d already got his hands on a cup of tea, and was dunking a chocolate digestive into it while his eyes scanned the room.
The councillors were now seated in the front row of the audience. There were a couple of empty seats beside them, which Hamza assumed were for him and Ben, but nobody had explicitly said so.
Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted to sit down. Sitting down implied he was hanging around, and the sooner he could get out of here and back to doing some actual real work, the better.
There was an ear-splitting squeal of feedback as Sergeant Fleck tapped the microphone. What little murmur of conversation there had been abruptly fell away into silence.
‘Sorry about that. Technology! Isn’t it wonderful?
’ Fleck said, to the amused agreement from the elderly audience.
‘Anyway, thank you all for coming. It’s great looking out here and seeing so many members of our various communities gathered together to support one another.
Retired people, office workers, mechanics, nurses, cleaners, ex-soldiers, parents, grandparents, people from all walks of life, coming together to protect and to care for the places we live. ’
There was a round of applause at that. The members of the audience all looked around and smiled at one another, sharing in the moment.
‘We’ve even got Archie Howden, who’s a bank manager, but we’ll not hold that against him.’
Laughter rippled through the audience. A nervous-looking middle-aged man in a cheap suit half-rose from his chair and tipped an imaginary hat.
Sergeant Fleck let him enjoy his few seconds in the spotlight before continuing.
‘It has been an absolute pleasure to present you with those well-earned state-of-the-art hi-vis vests which, I hope, will help cement the future of HAWKS, and allow us to continue protecting Highland communities from Glencoe to John o’ Groats.’
‘And Ullapool,’ someone in the audience added.
Fleck’s smile didn’t falter. ‘Aye, don’t worry, I was including Ullapool in that. I meant the whole… Top to bottom, sort of thing, and everything in between.’
‘Bottom to top,’ another voice chimed in.
This one caught the sergeant off guard. ‘Sorry?’
‘Glencoe to John O’ Groats. That’s bottom to top, no’ top to bottom.’
‘Sorry, yes. It was just… a figure of speech, really, but thanks for pulling me up.’
The sergeant gripped the podium as he looked around the audience, making sure nobody else had anything to add.
When he was confident that they didn’t, he continued.
‘As I’m sure you can see, the community centre staff have been hard at work putting together a wee celebratory tea for us. I hear the egg mayo sandwiches have to be tasted to be believed. And, oh, I have something to read out.’
He shuffled around some paperwork on the lectern until he found a note scrawled on a bit of scrap paper.
‘It says, if you’re vegan, you’ll have to have cucumber,’ Fleck said. He returned the note to the pile. ‘It doesn’t say if that’s cucumber sandwiches or just cucumber on its own, but I’m sure they’ll take care of you, either way.’
There was no laughter that time. Hamza didn’t imagine this audience took much truck with things like veganism. A slice of cucumber would be good enough for the hippie-dippy bastards. Too good, if anything.
‘So, before we wrap up, all that remains is for us to present the Watchperson of the Year award, celebrating the individual that we, as an organisation, feel has contributed something a bit extra over the past twelve months. Gone a bit above and beyond.’
He held up an envelope. In an ideal world, it would have been gold, but it was just a cheap, plain white one. Someone had drawn a couple of stars on the front in marker pen, but it had been a largely futile exercise, presentation-wise, like sticking a bow on a turd.
A murmur of anticipation went around the audience. Half of them sat up straighter. Hamza could practically hear their rehearsed speeches being played out one last time in their heads.
Rather them than him, he thought. He didn’t relish the idea of standing up and talking in front of a crowd like this at all.
‘So, here to present the award, and to say a few words…’
Sergeant Fleck turned. Hamza’s stomach dropped. Beside him, Ben Forde spluttered in surprise into his tea.
Oh, no.
Oh, shite.
‘Detective Inspector Hamza Khaled of Police Scotland Major Investigations Team North!’
This was more like it.
The suction cup arrow to the testicles—or testicle, if you wanted to get technical about it—had not been a great way to start.
There had been a certain loss of dignity on the space hopper, and no matter how many times Tyler had asked, the wee boy had point-blank refused to hand over command of the radio-controlled car.
But this? This he could do.
This was his element.
‘You like LEGO, then?’ he asked, rummaging through the pile of bricks the boy had tipped out like an avalanche onto the polished wooden floor.
Little Jack, who knelt across the pile from where Tyler sat cross-legged, nodded enthusiastically.
‘Do you?’
‘I love it,’ Tyler told him, which seemed to make the boy’s day.
‘You want to build a castle?’
‘Aye!’ Tyler said.
Little Jack’s face became deathly serious. ‘You can’t. Sorry. I’m building one of them, an’, an’ two people can’t build castles, it’s not allowed.’
‘Isn’t it? Ah. Well, rules are rules, I suppose,’ Tyler said. He fished around in the pile and plucked out a few yellow pieces. ‘How big’s your castle going to be?’
‘As big as the world,’ the boy replied, with a wide-eyed sincerity that suggested he wasn’t messing around here. ‘As big as the whole world.’
‘As big as that? Wow.’ Tyler picked another piece from the pile. ‘We might need more LEGO.’
Little Jack looked momentarily concerned, but then shrugged his worries away. ‘We can just get more at a shop.’
Tyler couldn’t argue with the logic.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own wee worlds as they slotted and clicked bricks together. The boy’s castle was of an architectural style unlike anything Tyler had ever seen. It was all random jutty-out bits with a big stack of two-by-two square blocks in the middle.
Had he been shown it without knowing what it was meant to be, Tyler would’ve guessed “octopus with an erection,” but he decided to keep that thought to himself.
‘What are you building?’ the boy asked.
Tyler held up his work in progress. He’d already used almost all of the yellow blocks, and was soon going to have to move on to orange.
‘It’s a dog,’ he said, which drew a peal of sharp laughter from little Jack.
‘That’s not a dog!’
‘It is so a dog,’ Tyler insisted.
He turned the half-built model towards the boy, barked, then made a series of slobbering sounds.
‘See? It’s a dog!’
Jack giggled. ‘It’s rubbish!’
‘Oh, aye? Well, your castle’s shite,’ was what Tyler almost said.
Thankfully, he fought the urge.
‘Just wait and see it when it’s finished. It’ll be so good, you’ll think it’s a real dog.’
This earned another fit of giggles from the boy.
Tyler fished around and found another yellow brick. A tiny, one-by-one piece that would work for an ear. He clicked it into place, and stole a glance in little Jack’s direction.
‘You like dogs?’
The boy nodded, not looking up from his work.
‘You got a dog?’
Jack shook his head. ‘No. Mummy says they’re too messy.’
‘They can be, aye,’ Tyler said.
The boy raised his eyes. ‘Do you have one?’
‘Me? No. But did you see that big man I was with? He’s got a dog.’
Jack looked in the direction of the living room, his mouth forming a little circle of surprise.
‘What’s its name?’
‘Taggart,’ Tyler told him.
This was met by another giggle and a cartoonishly exaggerated frown of confusion. ‘That’s not a name for a dog!’ he cried. ‘A dog’s ’upposed to have a dog name. A dog’s ’upposed to be called Goldie.’
Click. Something snapped into place in Tyler’s hands.
‘That’s a great name for a dog,’ he agreed. ‘That’s a really nice name.’
The boy smiled, pleased with this. Pleased that he’d got it right. Pleased that he’d taught this silly man something useful.
‘Do you know a dog called Goldie?’ Tyler asked.
The wee man didn’t answer. He didn’t giggle. Didn’t look up. He just focused on the bricks, and on the abstract, not-even-remotely castle-shaped object he was building.
‘Jack?’ Tyler leaned down a little, trying to catch his eye. He held his own yellow and orange model out for the boy to see. ‘Do you know a dog like this? A dog called Goldie?’
He didn’t answer. Not at first. Not out loud.
Eventually, though, he nodded.
‘Does it belong to a friend of yours?’ Tyler asked.
The boy shifted around on his knees, like he was going to get up and leave. The lure of the LEGO proved too great, though. He settled back down and shook his head.
‘Whose dog is it, then?’ Tyler pressed.
Jack’s voice, when it came, was a whisper. ‘I’m not ’upposed to say about it.’
‘Who says?’
The boy swallowed. Glanced around. Said nothing.
‘Your mummy?’
No response.
‘Your daddy?’
‘My daddy’s in Heaven,’ Jack told him, so matter-of-factly that Tyler didn’t quite know what to say.
The boy looked around them again, then leaned in and cupped a hand to the side of his mouth, so only Tyler could hear.
‘Victor.’
‘Oh, right.’ Tyler quickly recalibrated, the details of the family dynamic rearranging themselves in his head. ‘Victor says you’re not supposed to talk about the dog?’
Jack nodded. He didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded.
‘That’s a shame,’ Tyler told him. ‘I’d love to go and meet Goldie for myself.’
‘No!’
The shout caught Tyler by surprise. Jack jumped to his feet. The castle model went krish as it fell to the floor.
‘You shouldn’t go to see that dog. You’re not ’upposed to.’
‘How come?’ Tyler asked.
Jack had another look around. This time, he leaned in so his mouth was right next to Tyler’s ear. His voice was a shrill, scratchy whisper.
‘Because that’s the bad man’s dog.’