I hadn’t been due for weekend duty, but all things considered I wasn’t about to complain about it. The DI had seen his team decimated and I was part of the reason, so when he asked me to work on Saturday, I figured that keeping my head down was best in all the circumstances.
I was glad to be getting out of there myself, truth be told. I’d been due to make DS and although no promises had been made, a nod and a wink from Luke Skywalker had made it pretty clear that I’d be Ray Wilding’s replacement after his promotion and move. There might have been a little jealousy from Alice, but I could have talked her through that. She’d have been a bridge between me and a new incoming DC, but she was gone, thanks to my misjudgement, followed by her own, then blown up to disaster proportions by her lizard of an uncle, a man the brass were determined to keep out of my sight, not just because I was likely to be a witness against him, but because I might have decided that taking the bastard apart was worth dismissal.
I saw my promotion as blown, possibly for good; if I’d stayed in Leith as a DC, that would have been tough to take. I’d have felt humiliated by a new guy taking my slot. . almost certainly Sauce Haddock, if I read things right. . I’d have been lonely, without both my old sidekicks, and maybe worst of all, I’d have been subjected to the usual Springbok grilling by Alice’s replacement. I don’t know why, but every Jock guy who meets a South African in my age bracket assumes that he knows Kevin Pietersen, the cricketer.
I’d called Alice that morning. I hadn’t slept much and it must have been obvious, for the first thing she asked me was whether I was hung over.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘How about you?’
‘Oh yes. I got well smashed last night; what did you expect? You don’t want me breathing on you right now, I promise.’
‘I’m sorry, Alice. About the job and everything.’
‘Don’t be,’ she told me. ‘I should have known better than to trust my swine of an uncle. He’s let me down before. I don’t know why the hell I did that.’
‘I can guess,’ I told her. ‘You heard Welsh’s name and you thought you should give the man the chance to distance himself from him if necessary, before things happened.’
‘More or less,’ she sighed, ‘I suppose. How about your job? What’s happened? Nobody would tell me.’
‘I’m keeping it. I was worried though; I don’t mind admitting it. That’s why I went crazy on you, then froze you yesterday. I apologise for all of that; it was the last thing you needed.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, ‘I understood. Friends now, though, yes?’
I smiled. Friends. That’s what Alice and I were, more than anything else. There are a lot of things I like about her, not least her spikiness, and her ever-readiness to say what she thinks. ‘Yes. Friends.’
‘Want to come round tonight?’ she asked.
‘Yes. We’ll go for a meal, somewhere.’
‘Okay. But you’re paying. I’m unemployed, remember.’
I hung up, feeling glad that I’d taken the plunge, and headed for the office. I’d expected to be there on my own, but I’d underestimated Sammy Pye’s ambition. The guy’s around the same age as me, and he’s a DI already, even if he was accelerated when Stevie Steele was killed. He didn’t get there by leaving everything to junior officers; if there’s a slot to be filled he’s there and he’s sharp enough to make sure the bosses know it too.
‘Morning, Griff,’ he greeted me. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Fine, thanks. Backside kicked, moving on, then it’ll be business as usual.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ he volunteered, ‘I’m sorry to be losing you. I’d been looking forward to working with you as my DS, given your experience in the rank back home. You’ll enjoy your new job, though.’
‘I know,’ I admitted. ‘I had some of that in South Africa too, but like here it’s not something you can put on job applications. Pity about the DS, though: I can always use extra money. I fear I’ll be DC Montell for ever now.’
‘If you are,’ he said, ‘it’ll mean that nobody upstairs takes a blind bit of notice of anything I say. I sent DCS McGuire an intranet memo saying that I hope what’s happened won’t hold you back any further.’
I stared at him, taken aback. Ambitious yes, but I hope he makes it.
‘I tried to save Alice too,’ he added, ‘but there was no hope. She was too exposed. If Varley had gone to bat for her, then maybe, but he did the opposite. He claimed in interview that she was the one who called Welsh.’
‘He did what?’ That was news to me; I rose halfway out of my seat.
‘Sit down,’ the DI told me quietly. ‘Nobody’s buying it, but it could be his defence in court, given Alice’s history with Welsh. Oh shit,’ he murmured. ‘You did know about that, didn’t you? Short-term; a long time back.’
‘I’ve been told,’ I said, ‘but as far as I’m concerned, I still don’t know about it. It’s none of my business anyway, no more than me and that giraffe is hers.’
Pye blinked, and then laughed. ‘Catch it kneeling by the pond, did you?’
I was still searching for a comeback when the phone rang. I snatched it up, welcoming the distraction of work, if that’s what it was. ‘CID, DC Montell.’
‘Griff,’ a seasoned voice boomed in my ear, ‘Bert here, front desk. I’ve just had a call from a panda patrol. There’s a burned-out van on that empty site opposite the Royal Yacht. You’re needed there.’
‘A burned-out van?’ I repeated. ‘Have it towed.’
‘No’ wi’ what’s in it, son. Like I said, you’re needed.’
I passed the message on to the DI. He was pleased, as I was. There’s nothing worse than sitting in the office on a Saturday, shifting paper and waiting for something to happen, knowing all along that nothing will. ‘My car,’ he said as we made for the door.
We didn’t have far to go, no more than a mile, but there was no way round the bottleneck at the bridge over the Water of Leith. Mostly it’s a stream, on its way through the city; it starts to qualify as a river only when it reaches my flat, which is right on it.
As it turned out there was no rush. The van wasn’t going anywhere unassisted, and neither were its passengers. I knew it was a bad one when I saw the younger uniform’s face; it was that pale, almost green colour that I’ve seen a few times in my career, but mostly in the southern hemisphere, where there is a history of people making statements with petrol.
The back doors of the van lay open and the windows had blown out with the heat. I didn’t need to look inside to know what was there, but I did so anyway. Black and crispy, definitely overdone.
Pye stepped up like a good leader and stood beside me. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘How many?’
‘Two,’ I replied.
‘How can you tell?’ he asked.
‘Simple, count the feet.’
‘We need SOCOs,’ the boss said, ‘and the duty pathologist.’
I’d known that, but I didn’t point it out. Instead I called the communications centre and relayed the instruction, leaving them to make the contacts. ‘Two corpses in a van on the other side of the Ocean Terminal lagoon; incinerated,’ I told them. ‘We can dispense with the medical examiner.’
‘Do you need Fire and Rescue?’ the centre woman asked me.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘The fire’s gone out and the victims are well beyond rescue. Everybody else ASAP though. Blues and twos.’ For the uninitiated, that means lights and sirens.
The DI had stepped back from the wreck. ‘You two,’ he told the uniforms, ‘get yourselves up to the road end and guard it.’ He pointed towards the blocks of flats that overlooked the scene. ‘We’re in full view here, so there’s every chance that someone’s calling the press even as I speak. Keep them and everyone else at bay.’ The two left, glad of it, and he turned to me. ‘It’s a wonder nobody reported the fire,’ he remarked.
‘Not really, boss,’ I ventured. ‘The doors are facing Ocean Terminal and that’s empty at night. Besides, they were probably shut after the fire was lit. To do the job properly you’d turn the thing into a makeshift crematorium.’
‘We should back off,’ he said. The ground on which we stood was rough and unpaved bare earth, ready for housing development when the economy recovers enough to bring new buyers to the market.
‘Look.’ He pointed all around us. ‘Tyre tracks. We don’t want to mess them up any more than we have already. Whoever did this didn’t run away from the scene; they drove.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, after they’d taken the plates off the van. They’ve even taken the tax disc, in case it didn’t burn properly, I’d guess. They don’t want us to identify it too quickly.’
‘Or the people inside, possibly.’
The van had been white; it still was recognisably so but its sides were buckled and the remaining paint was bubbled. The tyres had burned as well and the vehicle sat on its bare wheels.
We moved away, as far as the DI’s car. ‘Gangland?’ I asked.
‘That’s what I’d assume. Maybe I should ask the SCDEA whether they’ve had any intelligence about tribal warfare on our patch and haven’t bothered to share it with us. Although,’ he added, on reflection, ‘I might put it a bit more discreetly than that.’
‘Or even better,’ I suggested, ‘have somebody else put the question. For example, DCS McGuire; I saw that he had the head of the agency with him yesterday.’
‘Yes. He was the outside officer in the interviews with Alice and her uncle.’
‘I hope he gave him a really hard time,’ I growled, bitterly.
‘Time wounds all heels,’ Pye chuckled. ‘And you’re right; it’s time also to call our boss man. Big Mario will want to know about this one; I’m sure we’ll see him pretty soon.’ He pointed east towards the new high-rise Leith. ‘See that block over there, on the water’s edge? That’s his place. Let’s haul him out of it.’