Quite Ugly One Morning (3 page)

Stephen Lime lay back in his bath and farted contentedly to himself. If he pressed his chubby legs together just the right way, he could send the bubbles rolling along beneath him until they emerged between his ankles near the taps. And if he got his timing right he could let some of the next volley emerge between his knees at the same time, twin currents disturbing the calm surface eighteen inches apart.

He was not, he was convinced, fat. Poor people were fat. Stupid people were fat. He was a man of imposing stature. Like a great oak, the wider rings of girth were evidence of health, strength and vitality.

He smiled to himself.

It was all coming together, the orchestra of his business plans finished their cacophonic tuning and now playing in concert, conducted expertly by his baton. To plan, to organise, to execute and to reap from such complex and multifarious components as he was doing required a talent that was no less than exceptional. And exceptional abilities deserve exceptional reward. He wasn’t in the half-a-million-plus-twice-that-in-share-options bracket, far from it, but the success of his present enterprises was proof, to himself at least, that he was of that calibre. And talent like that does not go unrecognised for long.

These insect pipsqueaks who were always questioning the salaries of top British management were not only ignorant, but bigoted and bitter if they couldn’t – or simply wouldn’t – appreciate the priceless brilliance that it bought. Cheap at twice the price.

He had been furious when he saw footage of those select committee hearings on the news that time. Malignant, unworthy and ungraciously envious worms, sneering little bastards and tub-thumping luddites. He knew you had to watch what you said these days, and that they were elected members and all, but there was still something patently very wrong when the finest of Englishmen could be spoken to like that by blacks and Jews.

And why weren’t they scrutinising the fact that some bunch of layabouts could pick up millions just for strumming three chords and going without shampoo for six months at a time? Or that there were northern scruff earning more than he was simply for kicking a ball around a patch of grass in front of hordes of other neanderthals.

But not for long. The cash was piling up, and the floodgates were about to open; within a couple of years he might be making more per annum than his father did in his whole life.

However, what meant most now was not the money, but the sense of achievement, and there was no fitter crown to it all than the Trust being on the verge of going into the black for the first time.

His father had taught him well, given him the basics. A climate of job security is a climate for stagnation. In management, you are the benefactor who has granted the worker a job; it is you who is putting food on his table and clothing his grubby litter – and for that he owes you diligent service. That kind of thing. Truths that you couldn’t stick your head above the parapets and openly declare in these topsy-turvy times, but truths nonetheless.

No man works harder for you than your money, his father had always said, and had made sure he got an assured, worthwhile but unspectacular return on every last brown penny he invested anywhere. A valuable lesson to the young Stephen, possibly the most important he ever learned, with the attendant warning that risk and reward were inseparably proportionate.

But what had distinguished Stephen Lime, what had afforded him the opportunities to soar above heights his father had never imagined, was that he had been the one with the vision to realise that there was an exception to the rule – that there
was
something you could invest in which guaranteed vast returns for negligible risk.

It was called the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain.

Obviously it was not just a simple matter of pouring in ostentatious contributions and being awarded lucrative contracts, although that did happen at a more upscale level than he was operating on, and usually carried the obligation to employ one of the appropriate senior minister’s useless
offspring. No. It was a question of having still more vision to see where the returns would appear, strategically placing oneself to reap their benefits to the full.

Stephen had served his management apprenticeship under his father’s tutelage, been given control of the old man’s biscuit business in his early twenties after he and his university had discovered a mutual incompatibility. He knew the old man had clearly seen the bigger picture when he encouraged him to seek a post with another firm, obviously appreciating that the sudden high-gradient plummet into debt of BakeLime Biscuits was merely a teething problem of a doubtlessly brilliant long-term strategy.

Out on his own in the real world, his on-going investment worked a little like a nest egg or even a trust fund, helping him make a proper start in the business world through contacts and management appointments. Observing his superiors, he knew he had a lot to learn, but was sharp enough to see the qualities that made them so invaluable. They could see the wood for the trees, were not distracted by trivia and kept their eye on the bigger picture. They knew the fact that the last three companies whose boards you served on went rapidly and resoundingly bankrupt did not reflect on your management abilities or your suitability for a vacant post. Eddies in the currency markets, union skullduggery, interest rate fluctuations – these such unstable factors were what knocked companies for six
in spite of
first-class leadership and visionary business strategy.

He watched the men above him bravely rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a closed concern, to take the reins elsewhere with an optimistic smile and a fatter pay-packet.

And, as he reassuringly discovered, many of them had invested too.

Never forgetting his father’s words, he put most of his money to work, and in the family tradition, backed favourites at low odds, watching his personal assets slowly but steadily multiply.

Above all, he was patient, always aware that he was still on a learning curve, gathering the knowledge that would serve him when the right opportunity presented itself and when he was ready to take it.

*
*
*

When opportunity knocked, it did so fairly quietly, so much so that it took a while for him to hear and to recognise.

It was vital to the direction the government was taking the NHS that the right people had their hands on the helms of the nascent Trusts, and his reliable political sympathies plus a healthy annual tax-deductable charitable contribution made him ideal material for a quango post. He was appointed to the board of St George’s NHS Trust in his native Romford, 30K
a year to attend a few meetings a week, very much the kind of occasional, mid-level dividend he had expected from his on-going investment.

But when he took up his position and looked a little closer, he could not believe the magnitude of the opportunities that lay before him. The government were slicing up the biggest public pie in British history and he would be well placed to fill his plate.

The National Health Service was an aberration, no other way to describe it. It was such an affront to Conservative values and ideology that he was sure Thatcher would have happily closed the whole thing and grudgingly paid for the humane putting down of anyone who got ill but couldn’t afford private healthcare. It had a terrifying, massive, insatiable appetite for public funds, chewing up and swallowing billions of pounds every year; but unlike other greedy mouths at the public tit – defence being a shining example – precious little of it found its way into the pockets of Party members and contributors. It was just one huge, amorphous, unanswerable entity, running its own ship, its spending dictated almost entirely by patients’ healthcare needs. No familiar faces at the top with the power to award hefty contracts; indeed, precious little in the way of external contracts at all. No six-figure executive posts with company Beamie.

The only way to score from it was perhaps to buy into one of the big drug firms, but anyone could do that, and as purchases were all in accordance with doctors’ prescriptive practices, there wasn’t even an easy way to manipulate the market. It just swallowed up public money and circulated it within itself until it needed more.

Nightmare.

Aberration.

The basic fact of the matter was that if public spending
could not be avoided, it should at least be spent in the private sector.

But then came the NHS reforms and the dawn of the Trusts, and the picture got suddenly and dramatically brighter.

Stephen Lime made great play of resigning two part-time, higher-paying consultancies to concentrate on his duties with St George’s Trust, and dramatically increased that year’s tax-deductable charitable donation, thereby subtly indicating to the right people that he was claiming his long-term investor’s bonus. And after less than nine months on the St George’s board, he was appointed Chief Executive of the Midlothian NHS Trust in Edinburgh.

Then he really went to work.

But this evening he was relaxing, having a good soak before getting ready for dinner, and waiting patiently for the phone call that would confirm the removal of one last small obstacle from his path.

He had his portable on a table by the bath, having carved a space out for it among his self-multiplying aftershave collection. He picked it up, enjoying the feel, the weight of it in his hand, and yes, he would probably admit, willing it to ring.

Strange that such a small and relatively inexpensive item could give him so much reassurance, but there was no denying it, his portable always made him feel good. Smooth, compact, sleekly black, satisfyingly heavy, he always thought of it as his light-sabre. Few could guess from its appearance what power this harmless-looking little electronic object could wield in his skilled hands.

There was a knock at the door which startled him momentarily and gave him a nasty fright as the phone slipped from his right hand but nestled itself between his left forearm and a fold of fat on his stomach, barely a centimetre above the water.

‘Mr Lime?’ It was Mrs Branigan, the housekeeper.

‘Yes, Theresa?’

‘The newspaper is here.’

‘Thank you, Theresa.’

Lovely. As such a busy man he seldom got time either to enjoy more than a brief shower a couple of mornings per week or a decent read at the paper, so when he did have the
opportunity he loved to combine a good bath with a glance at the local rag. And perhaps there might be a brief reference to what he needed to know, although chances were it might not be discovered for another day or so. He looked down over the side of the bath to see his copy of the
Evening Capital
sliding under the bathroom door, dried his hand with a towel and leaned over to grab it.

Farting once more as he sat up, he unfolded the unwieldy broadsheet to reveal the top half of the front page, read the headline and shat in the bath.

‘Yeah, but a fucking polis station Duncan, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Aw, come on, Jack. You didn’t exactly give me much notice. I don’t think I did too badly.’

‘I’m not ungrateful Duncan, and I’m not complaining about the flat. I’m just saying you could have warned me.’

Parlabane sat with his friend, Duncan McLean, on high stools at the bar of the Barony on Broughton Street, Parlabane sipping a tomato juice with Worcester, Tabasco and quite definitely
no
vodka. It was late afternoon, the sun bathing the wooden surroundings in a slow-fading glow.

‘And as for this, fuck’s sake.’

He flipped over the
Evening Capital
from the sports section at the back so that his picture was staring up from the front page under the headline: MAN HELD AFTER RITUAL SLAYING, with the strap: GORY FIND:
Police question half-naked suspect over Maybury Square bloodbath.

‘“Half-naked suspect"? What are the sub-editors on at that bloody place?’

Parlabane distastefully examined the photograph again, his profile visible next to the back of Dalziel’s head, which she had turned away from the camera in sharper anticipation. If he looked very closely he could make out the smudges of spew on the sleeve of his T-shirt as well.

‘I’m supposed to be turning up there to get some shifts in a few days,’ he said bemusedly, his companion trying not very hard to suppress a laugh.

‘Well, Jack, I did tell the news editor you’d fill the front page in no time.’

‘Oh, very fucking amusing. And what’s this: “Police believe the murder may have been the result of a burglary-gone-wrong – although as both the victim and the suspect were found in states of undress, they have not ruled out a sexual motive.” I fucking hate when they do that. I have
never
done that.’

‘Done what?’

‘Say that something has not been ruled out when you know
fine that no one ever ruled it in. And I would just like to stress that I was not a suspect. I volunteered to assist the police with their inquiries.’

He stared angrily at the byline again. ‘Who the fuck’s Finlay Price?’

Duncan shook his head and sighed. ‘You don’t like it up you, do you, Jack?’

‘What, is this you finally propositioning me, Duncan?’

‘No, I’m just thinking about your unfettered glee as you stuck it to all those people on all those front pages when we worked together through in the West. The words “taste” and “own medicine” keep inexplicably popping into my head.’

‘Yes, but
they
all did it. Those fuckers were all guilty. I wasn’t.’

Duncan spluttered a mouthful of his Guinness back into the glass and put it down on the bartop, wiping his mouth.

Parlabane put a hand up in a gesture of backing off.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll take it like a man. But Christ, you could enjoy it all a little less.’

Duncan folded up the newspaper and handed it to one of the bar staff who put it back on the rack by the door, next to the
Evening News, Daily Record
and
Shavers Weekly,
a self-styled pisshead fanzine which enjoyed greater editorial clarity than any of its neighbours.

‘Forget about it,’ he said. ‘Come on, have a pint, chill out. You’re back in the old country. Haven’t you seen the beer adverts?’

Parlabane shook his head distractedly.

‘Somebody tried to kill me, Dune. Chilling out is going to be a protracted process.’

Duncan gaped. ‘Last night? Here?’

‘No, in LA. That was the emergency. That was why I came home in such a hurry.’

‘Jesus, sorry, Jack. I had no idea.’

Parlabane sipped at his tomato juice and looked around the pub, the motes of dust and smoke swirling in the dying rays through the big window at the front. He was catching his breath for the first time in seventy-two hours, eight time zones and Christ knew how many thousand miles. The Barony was beautifully placid, comfortingly calm, inescapably Edinburgh. Shining, polished pump handles priolling along the bar, open fire being stoked up in anticipation of a cold but
clear night, single malts glinting in pale gold on their shelves. He couldn’t imagine anything less LA; in the difference there was distance, in the distance there was safety. The cops, the spew and the dead guy were just temporary inconveniences. He had survived.

‘You know, we must have joked about it a dozen times, remember?’ Parlabane said. ‘Someone trying to light me up for sniffing too close to something. It was kind of an ego-trip fantasy that I never for a moment believed in. I received a few veiled and not-so-veiled threats in London, but . . .’ He shook his head.

‘Do you know who it was, what it was about?’

He shook his head again and stared into space.

‘You don’t want to talk about this, do you?’ Duncan asked, putting a big hand between his friend’s shoulders.

Parlabane smiled. ‘Your move into sports reporting hasn’t blunted your keen powers of journalistic observation, McLean.’

Duncan ordered another pint and protestingly asked for a second tomato juice for Parlabane.

‘So, the cop-shop aside, is the flat all right?’

‘Well, not counting the slaughtered bloke in the Hammer House of Vomit downstairs and the knife-wielding, finger-munching psychopathic jobbieman on the loose, it’s fine. How long have I got it?’

‘At least a month, then really until my pal finds a buyer, which might prove difficult after this morning’s events.’

‘Not at all. Just have to phrase the ad properly. “High-profile city-centre residence”, something like that. “Historical significance.” Certainly a significant address in the history of Dr Ponsonby.’

By about seven-thirty the place was filling up with the evening regulars, the post-work swift halves and cathartic office bitching-therapy groups having come and gone over a bustling ninety minutes. Parlabane had stuck advisedly to the tomato juices and watched with accustomed awe as his big friend punished the Guinnesses with little detrimental effect on his mind or body. Didn’t the bugger ever go for a pish? His bladder capacity must put supertankers to shame.

Duncan exchanged waves and nods of acknowledgement with several of the steadily arriving drinkers, and seemed to be on familiar terms with all the bar staff. Parlabane reckoned
his friend must be wasting a fortune on mortgage payments on his New Town flat, as he quite clearly lived here.

‘All right, Jen?’

‘Hi, Dunky,’ came a female voice from behind Parlabane, the woman passing her respects as she waited for her change and for her pint of Eighty Shilling to settle. Parlabane was side-on to the bar, facing Duncan, and so without turning round inquisitively, he was unable to make out more than the edge of a woollen cap and a strong but delicious whiff of perfume. From the corner of his eye he was aware of her taking a long, slow pull at her pint, then heard her sigh with satisfaction.

‘Tough day?’ Duncan said to her over Parlabane’s head.

‘You don’t want to know,’ she said breathily, then reached for the life-giving heavy again.

‘So who’s your pal, big man?’ she said, moving around Parlabane on his left just as he turned right to introduce himself.

‘Sorry, Jen, this is Jack,’ Duncan was saying as Parlabane turned back round, his much-practised, usually affected (but not today), weather-weary-but-winning smile giving way to blank disbelief when he realised who he was being introduced to.

‘Jack, this is Je . . .’

‘DC Dalziel,’ Parlabane stated, looking very sternly at Duncan.

‘I’d consider it a magnanimous gesture if you’d call me Jenny,’ she said, offering a hand.

Parlabane gripped the outstretched fingers and couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Jack,’ he smiled. ‘Grab a stool.’

That morning, Dalziel had seemed to be dressed with severity of impact in mind, but tonight she was a bright kaleidoscope of reckless and frequently conflicting colours, apart from the black woollen cap atop her closely-cropped head. A tiny diamond indeed glinted on one side of her nose as he had predicted, and although it was one of the few such ornaments that he didn’t find clumsy and unattractive, it still made him slightly squeamish. Parlabane almost passed out with pain when he accidentally plucked a nose-hair. The thought of ramming a needle through there was like chewing tin foil.

‘It’s not his fault. I never told him what I do for a living,’ Jenny explained.

‘Well what the hell do you guys talk about in here?’

‘Not everyone is quite as job-obsessed as you, Jack,’ Duncan said in defence.

‘We talk about football, for instance,’ Jenny offered.

‘Oh, you talk about football with un-job-obsessed Duncan, the football reporter?’

‘You have to forgive him, Jen,’ Duncan said, getting up. ‘I’m afraid he tends to get a bit nippy after being arrested in his Y-fronts.’

‘I was
not
arrested. And they were
not
Y-fronts. Where are you going?’

Duncan quickly finished off his pint. ‘Excuse me a wee minute. I just spotted someone through the window. I’m off to see a man about a man.’

Through the glass they saw him cross the road and head into the Buzz Bar of the Blue Moon Cafe opposite.

‘Call of nature,’ Jenny muttered.

‘Hmm?’

‘Le Gay Café.’

‘Oh, is it.’

‘Used to be the Pink Triangle. Weren’t the Eighties a time of subtlety.’

‘Is that why you never told him you were a cop?’

‘He never asked.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘And that’s none of your business.’

Parlabane held his hands up. ‘Fair enough.’

He sipped at his tomato juice and winced slightly. The barman had been sufficiently liberal with the Tabasco that it burnt the palate more than straight whisky.

‘I’ll grant you, off-duty you don’t look like a cop.’

‘I’ll consider that a compliment.’

‘Yes, but then are you off-duty?’

‘Don’t get paranoid, Mr . . . Jack. I’m not checking you out.’

‘Bet you pulled my file though, didn’t you?’

She gave a mischievous grin. ‘Of course. Standard procedure. Two court appearances for charges of breaking and entering. No convictions, thanks to no material evidence. Did you do them?’

He smiled. ‘What, are you wearing a wire?’

‘Well, as I’m not about to bare my chest to you you’ll have to take my word for it that I’m not.’

‘I trust you. Yes and no. Yes I entered, but I never break and I never take.’

‘You never broke, you mean. Those two times, the
only
times.’

‘Of course.’

‘I mean, it’s not like you’re the kind of person who is so experienced at such criminality that – if you locked yourself out, say – you would try and climb in from someone else’s flat rather than ask the police for help.’

She finished her pint and gestured in a familiar fashion to the young woman behind the bar for a refill.

‘So what were you looking for?’

‘Nothing. And I
was
trying to get back into . . .’

‘Not today. I meant when you “entered but did not break"?’

‘Documentation, usually. Records, files. I never remove the stuff, just shoot copies. Proof. Evidence. Helps stand up your story, keeps the libel lawyers at bay.’

‘Not exemplary journalistic practice.’

‘I didn’t say I was an exemplary journalist. Although unlike most these days I prefer to find a real story rather than create one from an out-of-context quote or a grotesque exaggeration.’

‘Aye, you’re a real hero. Spare me the sermon, scoop. How do you explain where these documents came from when you write your story?’

‘They were “leaked”. They “fell into our hands”. These phrases sound familiar?’

Dalziel shook her head. ‘You know, if we acquired evidence that way, you’re precisely the sort of person who would be leading the outcry about it.’

‘Now you can spare me the sermon,’ Parlabane said. ‘You
do
acquire evidence like that. How often have “stolen” documents been “anonymously” delivered into police hands, then turned out to be “surprisingly useful” to a current investigation?’

‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ she said, accepting her drink from the barmaid with a nod. ‘That sounds far too resourceful and imaginative for our lot.’

‘Hmmm,’ he said, lifting the drink he hadn’t noticed her
ordering for him. ‘Well, let’s just say I’ve met some cops in my time who were
extremely
resourceful and imaginative. Cheers, by the way.’

‘Slange.’ She drank a foamy mouthful from her glass.

‘You know a few cops, don’t you?’ Dalziel said.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Anyone so familiar with murdered stiffs is either a doctor, a cop or someone a cop knows well enough to allow him into a crime scene.’

‘Or a serial killer. Or someone who habitually trespasses on crime scenes.’

‘Someone who just habitually trespassed on crime scenes wouldn’t be able to deduce what you did from thirty seconds of staring at a body.’

‘I scored?’

‘Well, the PM hasn’t been completed yet, but you got the ETD right. When they cleaned the blood off down at the mortuary they found rope burns around the waist and under the armpits. And we found another finger amongst all the crap on the floor.’

‘Find any hairs above the mantelpiece?’ Parlabane asked.

‘Where?’

‘I heard your killer took a dump up there. If he banged his head on the ceiling, there might be hairs in the cornicing.’

‘If he banged his head on the ceiling he’d be seven feet tall.’

‘Yeah, so he’d be easier to spot. You’d know his approximate height and hair colour, as well as his maximum number of fingers. Find anything else interesting?’

‘Hypodermic needle.’

‘Literal needle in a metaphoric haystack. Impressive. Syringe?’

‘No. No syringes in the flat at all. So we reckon that means the needle didn’t belong to the doctor. McGregor’s increasingly married to the burglary-gone-wrong theory. Needle equals junkie, junkie equals uncontrolled, random, potentially explosive burglar. And these days there’s a lot of attacks on doctors by junkies looking for drugs. But I’m reserving judgment until I know more about Ponsonby. Naughty doctors do sometimes deal drugs. Drug deals sometimes go very wrong . . .’