Absolution (40 page)

It was getting on for eight o’clock when McAlpine parked his car in Bath Street, as close to the gallery as he could get. It boded well for the success of the show, the opening night being this busy. In the light of current events, Helena had rearranged things; she had been standing in the middle of the gallery, pointing, while Denise and Terry and the staff ran round her. Business first – Alan knew that aspect of her personality well. Maybe they weren’t so unalike after all. Her gamble had paid off, and the place was crowded, just the atmosphere was different. As he walked past, instead of the gentle swirl of jazz punctuated by bubbles of conversation and laughter, he heard the lament of a lone piper above the subdued buzz of chatter, the chinking of glasses, but no frivolity. The exhibition had certainly got plenty of publicity – nothing like a good murder attempt for getting the parasites of the press involved.

The girl on the door handed him a catalogue and said hello. He resolved again to behave himself, to be all sweetness and light, no matter what. Glasgow’s finest had turned
up in force; from the steps he could see some honoured guests from Holyrood and the Provost of Glasgow having a serious chat over some champagne. Girls, all dressed formally in black suits, all with their hair gelled back, steered their way through the throng with trays of glasses filled with champagne, orange juice and mineral water. He picked up some champagne, put it back and then, feeling naked without a glass in his hand, picked up a mineral water.

He saw Helena up on the mezzanine, looking beautiful and curvaceous in a black silk suit, her red hair tumbling down, amorphously melting into a flame-red scarf. She looked her normal self, but her make-up was a little too heavy, her smile a little too wide, as though she was rearranging her features for a photograph. She kept the palm of her hand protectively over her stomach, appearing to smooth down her suit. But she was coping. She was talking to an art critic in front of a painting that, to McAlpine’s untrained eye, looked like an aerial photograph of one of the more boring Scottish islands. Helena was gesturing at something, but, as the critic turned to see where she was pointing, her smile disappeared, her face reverted to the slightly drawn politeness of someone in pain.

McAlpine made his way up the stairs to talk to his wife.

‘Hello. I didn’t expect to see you,’ she whispered to him. ‘But I’m glad you’re here.’

‘I thought I would come along, offer some moral support.’ He looked around him. ‘It looks as though it’s going well. Lots of people in kilts.’

‘That’s as it should be. Do I look nervous?’

‘You look just fine.’

‘I’ve been doing this for years, but I keep thinking people are going to jump out and stab me.’ She took a deep breath.
‘I was thinking it was really busy, all these people I don’t know. Then I realized it’s all members of the Strathclyde police force in plain clothes.’

‘They could do with some culture.’

Helena gave a delightful smile to somebody walking past. ‘How’s your arm?’

‘Sore. How are your ribs?’

‘Sore. But I win, I’ve got stitches.’

He lifted up the mineral water. ‘Well, I’ve given up the drink because of the painkillers. One bad habit at a time. How are you, really?’ he asked.

‘Fine, until somebody asks me how I am
really.
I’m going to change the subject now. See the man over there, long hair?’

‘With the tartan blanket over his shoulder?’

‘That’s Peter Kolster.’

‘Don’t tell me that’s the McKolster tartan.’

Her smile began as a mischievous flicker on her lips. They looked at each other as if they had only just met.

‘You left these in the house.’ He handed her the wedding band and blue diamond engagement ring.

She took them slowly. ‘I did. I’m sorry; my fingers are sore.’ She spanned her fingers revealing the red ugly blisters on the palms. ‘I don’t want to wear them on the wrong finger in case I lose them. Tell you what, you look after them for me.’ She put the rings back in the palm of his hand and squeezed her own fingers round them. He pulled her towards him and kissed her gently. He put the rings back in his pocket. ‘Your tie is squint.’ She straightened it, recognizing the silk one she had bought him last Christmas, her hand lingering on the front of his shirt. ‘How’s the case going?’

‘I’m off it. They’ve put Quinn in charge,’ he said bluntly. ‘Once he attacked you, it became personal.’

‘Oh,’ said Helena, as her husband’s mobile rang.

He spoke into the phone, listening, saying ‘yip’ twice before ending the call. ‘Something’s up.’ He snapped the phone closed. ‘But the one thing I do not want to do now is rush out of here, on your big day.’

‘But that’s exactly what you are going to do, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘I was trying to be a good husband.’

She sighed. ‘Al, just be the husband you’ve always been, kind of hopeless. I’m used to that.’

‘I’m trying to do the right thing.’ He sipped his mineral water, wishing it was whisky. He had only been teetotal for half an hour, and it was hurting.

She swirled the champagne around in her glass. He looked at her, his eyes melting to a smile, and for a minute she saw the handsome man he used to be. She smiled back.

‘So, are you all nice and cosy at the Gilfillans’?’ he asked.

The smile died. ‘Quinn sent somebody round to interview them. She seems to think I’m crucial to the case somehow.’

McAlpine seemed to consider this for a minute. ‘I’d better be going.’ He turned to leave, then turned again to plant a warm kiss on her cheek. She reached out to touch his arm, but he had gone.

Late on Friday night, the Three Judges was at last quiet, just the local crowd at the bar refusing to go home until the rain eased off.

McAlpine put a Diet Coke down in front of Costello, who was gripping the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, trying to relax. ‘Get that down you. I’d buy you something stronger, but I know you want to get back across the road and get amongst it.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Not really. I want to pop in at the post-exhibition party. See how it went.’

‘Good on you, Boss. First time you’ve been there for, well, years.’

‘First time I’ve been there full stop.’

‘And I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go over there. Quinn is ripping Helena’s life apart as well, trying to find the connection between all the victims. Her picture is up on the wall, and yours. It’s not nice to see when it’s somebody you know.’

‘The connection is me and this case, surely?’ argued McAlpine.

‘That would seem the obvious answer, and we’ve pointed it out to DCI Quinn more than once. But, you know DCIs, sir. They sit at God’s right hand. She’s up and running with Helena and Leask, they’re her two main lines of inquiry.’

‘Do you think we’ve been wrong about this all along?’

‘I don’t think we’re wrong,’ said Costello defiantly. ‘Leask.’

‘Leask just doesn’t strike me as a fucking nutter. No forensics as yet, no eyewitnesses, no ID parade. Just because he’s a birdwatcher and – ’

‘And had access to chloroform,’ pointed out Costello.

‘You have yet to prove
he
had access. Don’t get carried away. It’s not enough to bring him in, not enough for a search warrant. And, in spite of Batten’s guidance and all the wee boxes, they could get nothing out of him at the interview. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, we can prove. I thought I’d taught you lot better than that,’ said McAlpine.

‘Do you want something to eat while I tell you the latest? I’m starving.’

‘You are a sweet person, Costello.’ He downed his orange juice in one. ‘So you think it’s Leask?’

‘Yeah,’ said Costello, her voice flat. No elation, no victory.
‘The chloroform put the tin lid on it for me. All that driving up and down to see some ancient uncle. Where’s my purse?’ She emptied her bag, notebook, photographs and all, out on the table.

McAlpine looked at the photographs.

Costello was still talking. ‘It was here two minutes ago… And that reminds me – I’ve got to write up that report on our big development – about Alasdair Donald Wheeler’s girlfriend and that comment by Leeza… Leeza… Leeza?’

‘McFadyean,’ McAlpine said vaguely, unscrewing the top of a bottle of mineral water.

‘She said Alasdair hanged himself. So half an hour on the phone to our colleagues in Stornoway, where Anderson had a nice chat with the minister, a few emails to Ballachulish, and we found out some things that made Batten’s ears prick up. DCI Quinn’s a bit iffy about it all, but the rumour is she smiled, so something about all this must be pleasing her.’

‘Alasdair Donald Wheeler? Should I know that name?’ McAlpine studied his empty glass.

‘Leask’s half-brother – and how he died.’

McAlpine paused, the water bottle halfway to his mouth. ‘That’s still very raw with him. I don’t think I’d bring that into the inquiry unless you have to.’

Costello was about to comment that it was he who’d taught her to leave no stone unturned, but one look at her boss’s face told her to think again.

McAlpine’s eyes closed briefly. Then he opened them and stared at her. What exactly did you find out, Costello?’

‘Well, Wheeler was down here, working. Left uni, got a good job as a trainee accountant, sent money home regularly to help out; a perfect son, until he met a woman, Christina Morton. She was a fair bit younger, introduced him to drink
and fornicating and all sorts of things his elder brother would extremely disapprove of. Instead of going home when he was fully qualified, they moved in together; he paid the mortgage and all the bills, while she seemed to spend her entire salary on clothes and beauty treatments.’ Costello opened her purse and pulled out a lone tenner. Why can I not get a man like that?

‘It was Leeza who put me on to it. Christina dumped him with no rhyme or reason and left him bereft. Personally I think she spent his money and then legged it. And I’ve a little theory – that I’ll feel very clever about if it pans out – about the downward spiral of depression for Alasdair. It’s not an unusual story, but I’m wondering how Leask coped with that.’

‘He probably just let it go, just let the memories float away.’ McAlpine passed the mineral water back and forth under his nose, wishing it had the perfume of malt. ‘The past is the past. Behind us. And that’s where it should stay.’

‘You’re very philosophical.’

‘I know. I’m sober. Look to the future, always look to the future. After all, that’s where you’ll spend the rest of your life.’

‘Are you sure that’s only mineral water?’

‘How did Wheeler kill himself? Did you find out?’

‘A bottle of whisky, a plastic bag over his head, and then hanged himself from the Connel Bridge. The place of all his childhood holidays.’

‘At least it was picturesque, must have had a good view as he dropped.’ McAlpine thought of Anna, lying with her arms ripped open, her beautiful feet speckled with blood. What had her last memory been? The feel of the lino floor cold against her face? No, he knew that her final thought
had been of him, and him alone.
He
had been her dying memory. As she would be his.

‘You turning into a psychologist?’ Batten cut in, flinging three packets of cheese-and-onion crisps on the table and sitting down. He patted Costello on the head.

‘She’s got a head start – female intuition, remember?’ said McAlpine.

‘And what a great thing it is.’

‘She was pregnant, wasn’t she?’ Costello asked.

Batten nodded. ‘She aborted the baby. Alasdair was devastated… more than that… it laid waste to all his reason for living.’

‘I knew it. I knew it had to be more than just their splitting up.’ Costello ripped open a packet of crisps. ‘I think Leeza had guessed something like that – female intuition again.’

‘Bloody women,’ said McAlpine, and was totally ignored by the other two.

‘I’ve been going over the dates, like Quinn asked me,’ Batten said. ‘Nothing fits exactly. No anniversaries, nothing like that. I think it was simply that when Christopher Robin realized what a fake Arlene was, he went into some kind of religious meltdown. And each time Lynzi lied, each time Arlene pretended to read the Bible, each time Elizabeth Jane tried to manipulate him, that piece about Helena in the paper – it was another turn of the screw. Each one, by behaving deceptively and dishonestly, was like a hammer slamming it further into his head.’ Batten attacked his packet of crisps, as unmoved as if he had been talking about the racing results. ‘Every single one of those women knew the power of their femininity in some way… a duplicitous way. Speaking from the viewpoint of Christopher Robin of course,’ he added for McAlpine’s benefit.

McAlpine wasn’t listening. ‘Whores, you mean?’ he asked. ‘Masquerading as angels.’

‘Wouldn’t exactly say angels, but…’

McAlpine wasn’t listening; his eyes fell into the middle distance. ‘Playing at being an angel,’ he muttered.
And all the while
…

Costello asked, ‘Sir, what do you mean – an angel? Hardly angelic, any of them.’

‘Nothing.’ McAlpine’s eyes suddenly focused on the present. ‘I was thinking about somebody else. But an image can stay with you for life, like an everlasting scab you just pick, pick, pick at.’ He signalled to the barmaid, who brought over a Talisker without being told. McAlpine asked her for an orange juice instead. She turned and bumped into a man in a brown waxed jacket, the same waxed jacket Costello had seen before. Its owner edged into the booth beyond theirs, the one with the good view of the television, and sat down.

‘Do you think anything good is going to come out of this case at all?’ Batten asked. ‘It’s always good to think on the positive side.’

‘The only good things I can see are that the over-sexed mink of Ballachulish will live a wee while longer. And Sean McTiernan will live a long and happy life out at Culzean with whoever bought the house, the one who has the dog – the girl in the lane, I suspect. His own little blonde seraph.’ She frowned. ‘You know the house, Boss… right where you smacked the car, huge hole in the hedge… you can’t miss it.’ She lifted another two photographs from the file, the backs of them yellowed with age. ‘I can’t help thinking I’m missing something. Right at the start, you said:
with Sean, he shows you one thing to stop you looking at another.
.’