The Darkness and the Deep (26 page)

Joanna hadn’t demurred. Joanna had been smiling and sympathetic, understanding about his all too evident distress. The responsibility, she had murmured, the Press . . .

He’d accepted that response with unreflective gratitude. In his life to date, reflection had been something to do with mirrors and you only went in for analysis if you were a chemist. The game was every man for himself; you dealt with problems with buccaneering zest and when you went to bed you fell asleep immediately after you made love to whoever was lying next to you.

He’d let Ashley, somehow, slip under his guard and he was paying for it now. Wakefulness, in the black hours between midnight and dawn, was a new experience. Suddenly, stealthily, he was being encircled by the emotions he had never even recognised before: love and grief and now fear – fear, fear, fear.

Even in the darkness he felt he was being watched, as if he were under a spotlight while They lurked in the darkness beyond. A woman’s face with a cold, penetrating gaze kept coming into his mind, the face of the policewoman who had interviewed him the day after the wreck. He had never had a problem dealing with women. If they stood up to him when he tried to browbeat them, he rather liked it. They wouldn’t win the argument, but they could have a bit of fun struggling.

She hadn’t bothered to take him on. It was as if she was so much in control of the situation that it wasn’t worth her while, and that scared him. Women, in his experience, didn’t act like that. Perhaps he didn’t know as much about women as he would like to think. Joanna, for instance . . .

Had she really known nothing, suspected nothing? Never heard the gossip, never been troubled by his own distaste for the emaciated body which had somehow become a weapon used against him in their childless marriage?

He stole a glance at her. She seemed perfectly relaxed in the silence which had lasted since they left Knockhaven, her small neat hands with their pink-tinted nails clasped loosely in her lap. And – or was it his imagination? – the gaunt contours of her face seemed softer, somehow, more rounded. He realised he hadn’t seen her in the gym since it all happened.

Aware of his regard, she turned and smiled. He smiled back, somehow, but the thought having entered his head couldn’t be shaken out. It had never occurred to him before to wonder what Joanna was like, as a person; she was just his wife, a fixture in his life, until the day came when Ashley had changed all that. After that, Joanna had become an encumbrance in his eyes, treated almost with contempt.

Had she
really
noticed nothing? he asked himself again. What if she had known, all along? What if she had watched, and waited and then – acted? Someone had.

There was the house now. He turned in and as he parked the Mitsubishi by the front door, Joanna leaned across to pat his hand. ‘You go into the sitting room, darling, and I’ll bring you a stiff whisky. You need it, after all that. It’s been a hellish day.’ She jumped down and let herself into the house ahead of him.

The perfect wife. He followed her more slowly. Perhaps whisky was the answer – a lot of whisky. He couldn’t think of any other way of dealing with the problems that were making his head feel as if it might burst.

There wasn’t much pleasure in a night down the pub when you could barely raise your elbow for the heaving, sweaty mass of bodies and you were having to drive back afterwards anyway, Tam MacNee reflected morosely. He’d managed to take part of the day off, seeing it was Sunday, and he hadn’t felt a bit like leaving Bunty and his own fireside.

Most of Knockhaven seemed to have turned out to show support and in the Anchor this evening, the condensation running down the inside of the windows was almost as bad as the rain now streaming down the outside. Behind the bar, Willie Duncan and three of his mates were hard at it, inexpertly pulling pints and serving shots in hastily washed, smeary glasses.

The worst of it was, MacNee wasn’t getting anywhere. He’d had a lot of grief from the punters – jokes, questions, sly remarks and downright aggro about the lack of progress. Even the jokes had an undertone of uneasiness; the whole town was on edge even as they made a show of going about business as usual. He hadn’t picked up anything either new or useful from the general conversations, which rapidly took refuge in the safe topic of football, and while he had nothing against discussion of the Beautiful Game, it wasn’t enough to justify a car journey on a dirty night like this. Shandy had a limited appeal too. He might as well cut his losses and head for home. He was edging his way gloomily towards the bar to return his empty glass when a burst of raucous laughter made him turn his head.

A group of young men had colonised the corner to his right. They weren’t quite drunk yet, just well on the way. MacNee was familiar with several of them, including Willie Duncan’s son Ryan, all jobless and at least a couple with drugs raps on their record. He’d be astonished if the rest of them were clean.

He didn’t recognise the one who was the centre of their attention, wearing a ripped black T-shirt and with hair gelled into spikes. There was a stud glinting in the side of his nose and he had a cluster of dull metal earrings; a vivid snake tattoo coiled up the side of his neck. ‘Here, mate – it’s your shout!’ he called to a red-haired boy with a nasty case of acne, then he added a remark which MacNee couldn’t catch, but which provoked another burst of laughter.

The accent – MacNee couldn’t quite place it. Scots, obviously, and definitely not local, with that sort of urban edge to it. Alarm bells jangled: someone new on the patch, down from the big city, hanging around with this lot – he might just as well be holding a placard above his head with ‘drugs scene’ written on it. Things were messy enough here already without a turf war starting. He was beginning to edge discreetly closer when the spike-haired youth, as if feeling eyes upon him, turned his head.

MacNee felt his jaw physically drop. Blandly, DC Kingsley allowed his eyes to slide off the other detective’s face, then turned back to take his pint from his red-haired companion. ‘Here – you’ve slopped this, Dougie!’ he complained. ‘Gie’s a wee sook of yours to make up.’

The voices rose again in joking argument as MacNee set down his own empty glass and shouldered his way through to the door, oblivious to the drinks he too managed to slop on the way and to the imprecations that followed, half-blind with rage.

Operation Songbird had been his initiative. He’d been working on it for weeks now, getting to know the players, getting accepted as just another bloke in the bar even if he was in the polis, cannily pulling together all the tiny scraps of information until they led him to Willie Duncan. Willie wasn’t the big man, but he was working for him and knew who the big man was. MacNee had been close to breaking him too; the last time they’d talked he could see Willie struggling between fear of reprisal and desperation to have the questioning stop. He’d seen it in a hundred criminal confessions – the moment when the balance tipped – and he’d been almost there. With all that had happened, the moment slipped away, but MacNee would get back to him again. And again. And again. And he’d break, eventually.

Kingsley had been told, in no uncertain terms, the limits of his brief, and he’d blatantly ignored them. That could be a great big black mark on the cocky sod’s precious professional record.

His head down, MacNee ran along Shore Street towards his car in the darkness and teeming rain. Its stinging freshness was almost welcome after the stale, unhealthy atmosphere inside. As he licked at the raindrops trickling down his upper lip, his temper began to cool as well.

After all, what could he really claim to have achieved recently? Tonight had been a complete bust and the plan to bring more pressure to bear on Willie had to be at best medium term, if the man was refusing to speak to him at the moment.

Kingsley was in there talking to the right people and he looked the part – even the tattoo looked kosher. And the bastard had managed to sound the part too, which was harder still. It was a classy operation. Sooner rather than later, he’d be put on to a supplier, getting hold of that elusive end of the thread. To make a complaint would make MacNee look jealous and spiteful. And unprofessional – the very charge he had felt the boss was unfairly levelling at him when Kingsley first arrived.

It genuinely wasn’t that the man was a Sassenach. Tam had had some rare nights out with English lads who took the jokes and gave as good as they got, to mutual satisfaction. It wasn’t even the degree and the toffee-nosed manner. Well, maybe it was a bit, and he’d bristled too because Marjory had seemed to suggest Kingsley merited special treatment. But he’d have got over that if it wasn’t for the man being only out for himself. He’d no interest in being part of a team. He wanted to do it all, get all the credit going, keep everyone else out of it as if the investigation was his personal property – MacNee stopped. The rain was trickling down the inside of the collar of his leather jacket but he didn’t notice.

‘
O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!
’ Why was it that on the occasions when the Power chose to confer that gift, it so often spoke with Bunty’s voice? ‘You daft fool!’ it was saying to him now. ‘You’re like two cocks crowing over the same midden!’

He walked on and reaching his car, let himself in. His hair was dripping into his eyes; all he could find to mop it with was the duster he kept to wipe the windows, but it was better than nothing. When he could see again he drove off.

Maybe the boss had been right about lack of professionalism. Maybe, if he hadn’t been so touchy to start with, they could have been working together on this, actually getting a result. They were on the same side, after all.

It wasn’t too late. Tomorrow he could go in and congratulate the man, tell him to keep up the good work. It would be the generous thing to do, the right thing to do.

And, as another voice – which certainly wasn’t Bunty’s – whispered wickedly in his ear, he could fairly enjoy seeing the feet ca’ed away from under Jon Kingsley.

In his bedroom at the back of the flat above the Anchor, Nat Rettie could hear voices and laughter filtering up from the bar below. He had been playing computer games most of the evening, to blot out his uncomfortable thoughts.

He’d been less than thrilled to see Kylie this morning. For God’s sake, he was in trouble enough already, without the silly little slapper suggesting taking his mother’s car and going off somewhere while everyone was at the funeral tea. With the Filth all over the town like a rash!

It was always the guy that got done for under-age sex – what about the girl? It should be illegal for her to do it too, but oh no, all she would get was sympathy while he took the rap if he got her pregnant. And he’d a nasty feeling Kylie quite fancied that, what with one of her sixteen-year-old pals with a baby having her own flat and everything. Nat wasn’t getting into that kind of crap.

But he daren’t dump her. She could really drop him in it, so he’d just have to sweet-talk her a bit longer, make sure she knew what to say if she was asked. Anyway, he was counting on moving away from here, disappearing for a bit. If he could get his mother to sell the pub there’d be money and she’d probably give him half just to get rid of him. She’d made it pretty clear after she married Rob that Nat was in the way.

She’d just ignored him since he came back. She didn’t cook for him any more, or do the shopping. Luckily the neighbours were still handing in food and she’d had money in her purse so Nat could buy stuff for himself. When that ran out he could probably nick some from the till in the bar, but what he really wanted was some serious cash so he could get away from this minging place. Certainly the last thing he needed – the very last thing – was all those helpful bastards downstairs interfering, propping her up to keep the pub going till she was ready to take it on again herself.

He’d taken her a cup of tea a few times, been really nice and asked how she was and all that stuff, but she only looked at him as if she didn’t know who he was. She spent all her time shut in the lounge reading old letters and looking at photographs and newspapers about every lifeboat rescue there had ever been and how great bloody Rob had been and all.

Nat tore angrily at the skin round his thumbnail; he’d no nails left to bite. He hated feeling trapped, helpless, with the police sniffing around everywhere. It made him scared, gave him a sort of savage feeling inside.

He started another game – one of his favourites, this was. In this he could do what he liked, satisfy every violent impulse. And if it all went wrong – well, with a game you could just crash it and start again. But his mind wasn’t entirely on the screen in front of him.

He sat back from the screen, frowning. Then he looked at his watch, jumped up and left the room.

With some relief, Willie Duncan chased out the stragglers at the end of drinking-up time, then with the two men who had been helping him in his bar duties began to collect up empty glasses and full ash-trays.

‘I never kent what hard work it was, being on this side,’ one of them said ruefully. ‘I’d rather a Force 10 in the Irish Sea – at least you’re spared the backchat.’

‘We’ve taken good money tonight, though,’ the other pointed out. ‘She’ll be needing it, poor lassie.’

Willie grunted, dumping another tray of glasses by the sink below the counter and running in water to wash them, set grimly about his task, ignoring the jokes about his domestic talents.

It was gone half-past eleven before they were finished and the two helpers went home, leaving Willie to put the bulk of the takings in the safe and lock up. He switched off the lights and let himself out, locking the double doors behind him.

Outside, the heavy rain had settled into a steady drizzle. The yellow street lights had a misty halo as he walked along the deserted Shore Street with its darkened houses, the only sound his own footfalls on the wet, glistening pavement. He’d left the bike behind tonight; he might have taken a chance on his blood alcohol level normally, but not with all these coppers coming out of the woodwork. And Tam MacNee hadn’t given up either – oh, he’d seen the way he was round everyone in the pub, even though no one seemed to be giving him the time of day. That problem hadn’t gone away, but at least Willie’d come clean about it so he was in the clear as long as he kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t scared now like he had been.