The Blood That Stains Your Hands (31 page)

However, it's none of this information that jumps off the page. It's the name of the child's father. Reverend Archibald Compton. The Reverend Compton. Has me thinking of our old chap, currently in custody. Sure, Compton's his first name, but it leaps out all the same. Of course it does. You get attuned to looking for the slightest thing.

Closer check of the document, and there's nothing else. Make a couple of notes, then look up. One archivist left. Check the time. After six. Will be long since dark outside.

'Are you needing to leave?'

She looks up, smiles.

'You've got another thirty minutes or so.'

'I need a computer.'

'Of course,' she says, and she nods in the direction of three monitors sitting against the far wall.

Leave the files behind, but still lying out on the table, and walk over to the computer.

––––––––

R
ain is falling, one of those set rains, heavy, consistent, little wind, rain not going anywhere. Early evening, driving out to Newton Mearns. Windscreen wipers on full, the night-time traffic a blur of water and lights. Slowed to a stop in Cathcart, now heading up through Clarkston.

On my way to see Mrs Juliet Faraday, the ex-wife of the reverend Archibald Compton, the man who changed his name to Compton Forsyth, and was moved to another church in Glasgow after their daughter went missing and his marriage broke up. No photographs on the internet, so I've really no idea what it is I'm going to say to this woman when she asks why I'm there – nor, indeed, how I would explain it to Taylor or Connor should either of them ever ask – but I've switched off that overactive part of my brain, and am not trying to plan anything out. What happens, happens.

Begin to get a strange feeling of nervousness as I get closer to my destination. As I make lights, and don't get held up, I begin to wish that the traffic was heavier. I don't want to get to this woman's house, although I'm not sure why that is. I'm not worried about it. What's the worst she can say?
Bugger off, Sergeant, I don't want to talk to you.
We get that fifteen times a day.

I used to get nerves on the job, but it's been a long time. In the old days the nerves were always related to big man activity. Apprehension at facing a regular Glasgow hard case. They don't bother me anymore. Nothing does.

Except now, as I pull up in front of this semi-detached house on a quiet residential street, I feel incredibly uncomfortable. I called ahead and she knows I'm coming, although she has no idea why. Perhaps she thinks I've found her daughter. Perhaps I
have
found her daughter. In my nightmares, at least. I doubt she'd see that as a positive.

Sit in the car for a couple of minutes. Don't want to get out. Turn Bob off, sit in silence. Well, silence is relative. The rain is stoating off the roof.

Fuck it.

Out the car, up the garden path, ring the bell, stand close to the door beneath the short awning and wait.

*

'Y
ou're sure I can't get you a cup of tea?'

'I'm all right, thanks.'

'Very well.'

She takes a seat on the sofa beside her husband. He's looking at me that way people usually do. She seems nervous. I'm standing with my hands in my pockets, having refused the offer of a seat as well as the tea. There's the hum of a fake-log fan heater; in another room the television is on. News. Somewhere something shit is happening.

Inevitably I take too long to say anything, which allows the bloke to say, 'What's all this about, officer?'

Good question.

'I'm sorry to trouble you, Mrs Faraday,' I say, ignoring the bloke, 'but we have your ex-husband in for questioning at the moment, and I just wanted to ask a few background questions.'

'You've arrested him?' says the bloke sharply.

'No,' I answer, although what do I know? They could have done all sorts in the last few hours, albeit my phone has been silent. I'd been expecting, at least, Taylor to call to rap my testicles for sitting in the same room as Tony Stewart.

Jesus, don't think about that.

'How long were you married?'

Mr Faraday has that regulation pissed-off-at-the-coppers look on his chops, but what do I care? The dude's like eighty or something. I'm sure I could take him.

'Fourteen years,' she says, looking up after a few seconds' adjusting to the fact that she's going to have to talk about something she doesn't even like thinking about.

'That was in the fifties, sixties?'

'Yes.'

'Can you give me a brief outline of your marriage, why it didn't last?'

'Really?' snaps the wounded prick, standing up for his wife. 'Do you—'

'It's all right,' she says, squeezing his hand.

Yeah, dickhead, listen to your wife. I give her the space. The guy mumbles and looks vaguely like he's been defenestrated.

'There's really not a lot to say,' she says. 'We were married in 1953. Nothing especially interesting about it, much like any couple in those post-war years. Archie was a trainee minister for a while, took some time to get a full-time job, but finally got a placement in Tollcross in the early sixties. There was nothing exceptional...'

She lets her voice go, because there might not have been anything exceptional at first, but there was something exceptional coming. Again I give her the space, while the husband holds on to her hand.

'Then one day our daughter disappeared.' She hesitates to shake her head, but there will be no tears. This woman is in her early 80s, and has had a whole other life since then. She must have found the ability to talk about it at some point. 'She was outside playing. You didn't think anything of it back in those days. But one day she never came home. There was some suggestion that she might have run away, but she was only eleven, and such a happy little girl. So happy...'

At least I've managed to take my hands out of my pockets. Don't push her though. Everything I need to learn is coming.

'Archie blamed himself, the poor man. He felt terrible. And I'm afraid, for a while at least, I passed my anxiety... my grief... on to him, and was happy to blame him too. We never recovered. He started drinking. We both did. Eventually he wanted to leave, get out of Tollcross. At the time I didn't. I wanted to spend every minute there, every minute looking out at the street as if she might come running round the corner.'

She smiles. Dangerous territory. You can see it; now she's about to start crying, and when that happens old fucktard chops will get terribly defensive on her behalf and no doubt attempt to escort me from the premises.

'Why did he change his name?'

Keep 'em talking on matters of practicality.

She gives a slight shake of the head, a slight smile.

'Why do women cut their hair after a break-up? No one knows. He got the church in Cambuslang, and I wouldn't go with him. He just wanted to start over. Had always hated Archibald. Took the opportunity to lose the name. Stopped drinking, as far as I know, got himself together. Got the new life that he wanted.'

She squeezes the bloke's hand again, gives him a bit of a reassuring glance and says, 'So did I.'

Well, I know the rest. Compton Forsyth didn't go straight to the Old Kirk. He got the Halfway gig for a few years, and then got promoted to the bigger church. Stayed there until he retired from full-time work, a few years before he actually had to.

So, I could probably ask several more questions in relation to the missing kid, but I don't want them thinking that's solely why I'm here.

Do I suspect the old minister of having done something to his daughter? Just because he was guarded, bordering on evasive, with Taylor earlier? We weren't really accusing him of anything.

'Have you got a photograph of Daisy?' I ask.

'Good grief!' the guy barks.

Good grief? How fucking old are you, grandad?

Well, probably about eighty-five, actually.

'There wasn't one in the file,' I say, directing all my conversation to the woman, even though there wasn't one on the file isn't exactly an explanation for the question.

She gets slowly to her feet. Hip replacement.

'Of course, just give me a moment.'

She walks from the room. The old guy looks daggers at me. No doubt he was a fucking soldier or something and thinks he can still take me. I give him a glance, and then look back at the door.

Those nerves, which had mostly gone while talking to Mrs Faraday, suddenly come raging back.

What do I possibly expect from this photograph? There's no third alternative. Either the girl is not the one who's been running through my head, in which case, why am I here? Or, she is. In which case, Jesus fucking Christ, a young girl who's been missing since 1966 gave me a Bible.

Nerves.

Mrs Faraday walks slowly back into the room, a small picture in her hand. Now she's crying. Mr Faraday gets to his feet to defend his wife's honour.

She stops in front of me, takes a moment, and then hands me the photograph.

And they that be wise shall shine

as the brightness of the firmament

––––––––

D
riving back through the rain and the traffic. Fewer cars, so everyone going faster, the air filled with spray. Wipers flying back and forth, back and forth, umbrellas scurrying by on the pavements, blurry lights flashing all around, everything smeared with rain.

I'm crying. Why am I crying? For Philo Stewart? For the ghost of a little girl who vanished nearly fifty years ago? Or is it just me? I'm crying for myself, because I'm so utterly fucked up, because I really haven't a fucking clue what's going on.

How could I? How could that happen? How could I be seeing that little girl? The daughter of Mrs Faraday and Reverend Compton Forsyth?

She's not just missing. If she had gone off somewhere to live some other life with some other family, then I wouldn't be seeing her. I'm seeing her because she's dead. I'm seeing her because forty-seven years ago someone killed her, and she wants me to find her body.

And the scariest fucking thing of all is that I know where the body is buried. I know. I knew as soon as I saw it, but I didn't like that thought, did I? So I pushed it away. On one level it was obvious, yet on another so utterly preposterous, so stupidly, insanely far-fetched, that it was easy to push away. Easy to hide in some remote part of my head.

Stop at Wickes on the way home, buy the first shovel that comes to hand. Don't compare the price, don't compare the quality of the shovel.

'Y'all right, darlin'?' asks the woman at the checkout.

Answer with the merest of nods. Look at the shovel the whole time. She's probably wondering if she should sell me the shovel, because a shovel's the kind of thing you could do some damage with. Maybe I look like I'm intending to do some damage. Maybe, she's thinking, she should call the manager. Or the police. She does neither. She hands me my change and the receipt. I leave with the shovel.

Why me, Daisy Compton? You could have come to anyone. It didn't even have to be someone involved in an investigation. It could have been anyone at any time in the last forty-seven years.

Maybe she has. Maybe I'm her second, third, ninth, fifteenth, fiftieth attempt.

How many accidents do I nearly have? No idea. Barely notice the drive, don't even think about going back to the station. Along Glenvale Road, past Philo Stewart's house. Can't stop myself looking. No lights on. Nobody home. Where will the cuckold, the widow, be spending the night?

Up the road to the Old Kirk, into the small car park between the hall and the church. Grab the shovel, step out into the rain. Streaming down. I'm still wet from walking to and from Wickes. That kind of rain. Only takes a few seconds. At least you can't tell my tears for the water.

Head is exploding. Jesus! Make it go away. Just stop, come on Hutton, make it stop. Put it in one of those fucking compartments you're so up your arse about, you're so convinced that you have littered all over the fucking place in your stupid, fucking head.

Through the gate, a lone figure in a massive waterproof stands by the grave. As soon as he sees me he starts to walk towards me. In the rain and the dark he won't recognize me, just as I don't yet recognise him. All he'll be seeing is a guy with a shovel walking towards the grave he's protecting.

'Stop!' he shouts.

It's Wallace. I stop. It's not like he's about to pull a gun on me, but there's no need to wind the kid up.

Lift my hand, shout, 'It's Hutton.'

God, the rain is so damned loud. The rain is loud. He slows, recognises me.

'Sergeant,' he says.

I acknowledge him with barely more than a nod that he probably doesn't even see, then walk past him. Shovel in hand.

'Sergeant?' he says, falling in behind. 'Sergeant?' he repeats, a little louder.

I stop, more or less next to the grave of Maureen Henderson, and turn.

'Constable Wallace?'

'You're digging up the grave?' he asks. Sounds worried. Of course he's fucking worried. The last thing you want when you've been given one crappy duty to do for eight hours is a ranking police officer turning up and doing precisely what you've to stop anyone doing.

We stand a yard apart, me with my shovel, Wallace with his worry, but also his determination, separated by pishing, soaking, cascading rain.

'Not this grave,' I say. 'You're all right. Another one, just down here.'

'Sir?'

'You stand there and guard your grave, Stevie, this has nothing to do with you.'

'Have you been drinking, sir?' he throws at my back, just as I've turned away.

Hesitate. Keep my temper in check. It is, there's no denying, a fair bloody question.

'No, Constable, I haven't. You do your job, let me do mine.'

Start to move away.

'Maybe I should call it in, sir,' he says.

I answer that with a dismissive wave. He can do what he wants, but I'm starting to dig up this grave right now.

I stand looking down at the headstone, the slightly clearer words beneath the name and dedication to the deceased.

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament.