Where the Bodies are Buried (2 page)

The minivan slowed and it looked like he was about to pull in and park. He was a jammy sod finding a space on that stretch
of Byres Road at this time of day, which meant the chances of her finding one an acceptable distance ahead were vanishingly
small. She could be looking at setting a new personal best for eyeball time prior to losing a subject, at well under a minute.
Not entirely her fault, circumstances outwith her control and all that, but having blown surveillances as often as she had,
even genuine excuses rang hollow.

Oh, thank you. Magic. He wasn’t parking: it was the car in front of his that had been jammy enough to find a space, and he’d
been forced to stop while it reversed laboriously into the gap.

She sighed, trying not to dwell upon how ill-suited she must be for this job if she could get so het up over every minor or
even just potential hiccup.

She reached down and pressed the push-to-talk button mounted on the gearstick, the corresponding microphone embedded in the
sun visor.

‘Uncle Jim … I mean Delta Seven, permission?’

‘Delta Seven, go ahead. You don’t need to ask permission when you’re eyeball. And for the umpteenth time, it’s your own call
sign you say, not mine.’

‘Sorry. I mean Foxtrot Five, sorry. Just wondering where you are.’

‘My
location
is Hyndland Street, north towards Highburgh Road, where I’ll be hoping to make ground and re-obtain the subject vehicle when
it reaches the lights.’

‘Yes yes,’ she said, though it was his reminder that she had once again failed to use appropriate terminology that she heard
most loud and clear. How much patience could the man have? He deserved better: much better.

‘Subject is approaching the junction with University Avenue,’ she relayed. ‘Lights are red and he’s not indicating. Anticipate
subject going straight on straight on straight on in the direction of Great Western Road.’

Straight on straight on straight on. That couldn’t be correct, surely?

Her doubt precipitated a gut-tightening recollection of Monday. A disaster on that scale usually prompted a telethon.

It hadn’t been a difficult task. It was an ‘establish’, nothing more: the proverbial barn door from six feet. Monday’s subject
had been a small businessman who had done a runner while in heavy debt to one particular supplier. Rather than declare bankruptcy
and go through insolvency proceedings, he had flown the coop in the knowledge that the supplier was in major financial difficulties
arising largely from this unpaid debt. Put simply, if he stayed out of sight long enough, the supplier would go bust and his
debt would disappear.

The supplier had made inquiries of his own, but had passed the matter on to professional investigators Galt Linklater, in
order to ensure that all evidence obtained was legal, above board and admissible in any court action. Galt Linklater had in
turn subcontracted part of the job to Sharp Investigations, as they often did when their caseload exceeded their personnel.

Sharp Investigations was known less formally, to Jasmine at least, as Uncle Jim. He was an ex-cop, who had set up as a private
investigator upon his retirement from the force. He’d been offered jobs with a few agencies, Galt Linklater among them, but
for ‘reasons of professional experience’ that he was reluctant to elaborate upon, he preferred to be his own man. Sharp Investigations
had thus always been a solo operation, and a successful one at that. How its scope and effectiveness might be improved by
employing a nervous and clumsy young woman with no experience and even less natural aptitude was something Jasmine was still
waiting to discover.

‘Foxtrot Five. Lights through to green no deviation Byres Road,’ she said.
That
was it. Why did these things come out right when she wasn’t thinking about them?

‘Delta Seven,’ Jim replied. ‘I am approaching the junction of Byres Road and Highburgh Road. Lights are red. I will be baulked.’

The fugitive businessman from Monday’s ghastliness had been named Pete Harper. He was from Kilwinning but had disappeared
from his home six weeks before, and according to his landlord he had cancelled the direct debit that paid his rent. The supplier
had provided a list of possible addresses where he might be lying low. Galt Linklater needed an establish: proof that he was
living at a certain address, best obtained by doorstepping the guy with a hidden video camera recording the happy event.

This kind of job, Jim had explained to Jasmine, was precisely why he needed her on the firm.

‘Guy like this is going to be skittish at the best of times,’ he said. ‘So he’ll be hyper-suspicious of anybody asking questions
while he’s doing his invisible. He’ll smell polis coming off me from a hundred yards out. Sees me through his window or the
peephole in his front door and he’s not even going to answer the bell. That’s why Galt Linklater farmed it out: all their
guys have ex-polis stamped on their foreheads. Fresh-faced young woman, on the other hand, different story.’

The logic was inarguably solid, but despite that, it just sounded to Jasmine all the more like he was taking pains to avoid
admitting the real reason he’d taken her on.

‘Delta … I mean Foxtrot Five. Subject is indicating right right right on to Great George Street but is blocked by oncoming
traffic.’

Shit. She should have said ‘offside indication, held due to oncoming traffic’. She was supposed to be practised at learning
lines, for God’s sake.

Strictly speaking, there was no need to keep confirming call signs on a two-man follow, but Jim had insisted upon it to get
her into the habit. At this rate, she’d have it down by around this time next year.

‘Delta Seven, yes yes. Making ground. I can take eyeball when he turns.’

Looking conspicuously unlike a cop or an ex-cop, and bearing no resemblance whatsoever to a private investigator (particularly
in the way she practised her new-found profession of private investigation), it had been Jasmine’s job on Monday to hit the
front doors.

It had happened at the second address. The first address was a dud: the ex-girlfriend who was meant to be living there had
sold up two years back. Jim had had his doubts about it in any case, but they’d given it a shot as it was en route to the
place on which they had the soundest intel. Technically, the second address was actually addresses two through ten, as it
was a three-storey tenement in Partick and they only had the number of the building, not the flat.

‘Foxtrot Five. Subject vehicle has turned right right right and is proceeding west on Great George Street. Subject vehicle
now indicating offside. Over to you, Delta Seven.’

‘Delta Seven confirms the eyeball. Subject vehicle entering Lillybank Gardens, which is a one-way crescent. He’s looking to
park.’

‘Yes yes.’

As Jim had explained, you need a story when you’re going around knocking on strangers’ doors, asking after people who don’t
want to be found. Most people will just tell you – truthfully – that they don’t know who you’re talking about, but occasionally
they’ll want to know why you’re asking, because they
are
the subject, or because they know the subject personally. You need to keep it simple, avoid extraneous detail and extrapolation.
It was much the same principle as something she’d been taught at drama school, regarding acting on film or television: never
do anything you can’t repeat precisely for ten more takes.

Jim had fed her a solid, time-proven script that he assured her would serve her for most occasions. She was looking for someone
who had served in the navy alongside her father. The old man had retired a few months back and was trying to organise a reunion
among the old shipmates with whom he had lost touch. When she eyeballed the subject and he confirmed his name, her out was
that she had the wrong Peter Harper, this one being evidently too young. Sorry to trouble you, then out the door with the
establish committed to the hidden video camera’s electronic memory.

After a catalogue of screw-ups, Jasmine had been determined to get this establish right, particularly as it was a subcontract
from the firm that provided so much of Jim’s business. She decided it would be wise to plan contingencies, and concocted a
second, back-up story to be on the safe side.

‘Delta Seven. Subject vehicle turning left left left into the car park Ashton Lane. That’s a stop stop stop. I have one vehicle
for cover. Foxtrot Five park and deploy.’

‘Foxtrot Five. Yes yes.’

The address given by the supplier had been number 315. There was a main-door flat at 313, occupying the whole of the ground
floor, so the first three possibilities were on the level above it, accessed by the close next door. Jasmine had rung the
doorbell on the left-hand flat, which was answered by a hunched old woman, eyeing her suspiciously through the narrow crack
permitted by her security chain, a Westie yapping and panting excitedly at her ankles.

‘No, never heard of him,’ the old woman answered.

She got the same at the middle flat from a harassed-looking mum with a baby over one shoulder and a streak of fresh creamy
sick across the other. There was no reply at the right-hand flat, so she climbed
the stairs and started again on the next landing, where she struck out for a response at the first two doors. She’d try them
again on the way back down, just in case.

How did she find herself here, she’d asked herself, as she rang another bell and stood waiting for a response: knocking on
doors to empty flats in search of a man she didn’t know, who didn’t want to be found? It was like something out of Beckett.
Where along the road had she ended up in this lane and missed the turn-off for a place in a regional rep or even a half-decent
touring company? Well, she knew the answer to that one, didn’t she? No mystery there.

She was about to ascend to the next landing when her reverie was interrupted by the door being opened. Her surprise at this
belated response was slightly jarring, but nothing like as jarring as being confronted by the subject. Pete Harper, despite
being a slippery customer, was evidently no master of disguise, having gone to precisely no trouble to alter his appearance
from the two-year-old photo the client had provided Galt Linklater with.

‘Delta Seven. Subject is out out out of the vehicle and walking still walking towards Ashton Lane. Foxtrot Five confirm you
are deployed on foot in a position to follow.’

‘No. I mean: Foxtrot Five no no. Still trying to find a non-permit-holder space.’

‘For God’s sake, just pull in any … Radio silence.’

Jasmine pulled her hand away from the PTT button as if stung by it. Radio silence. Subject must be close to Jim. She wasn’t
going to push the button, wasn’t going to forget procedure, wasn’t going to screw up.

Harper had exhibited an agitated air that instantly put her in a state of unease: the demeanour of a man who had already given
her two last warnings to stop annoying him. He seemed to be almost buzzing with latent aggression, and she felt as though
he was staring right through her, able to read her purpose and intentions as clearly as though they were printed on cue cards
in front of him. It struck her with full force that she wasn’t just doorstepping a stranger under false pretences, but doorstepping
a stranger of whom it could reasonably be inferred, from the very purpose of her visit, that he was a bit of a crook. The
possibility that this bristling individual might do her physical harm seemed palpable; further upsetting him strongly contra-indicated.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked in a monotone grunt, Jasmine interpreting the enquiry as sincere only insofar as he was wondering
whether she might require assistance in being imminently strangled and buried.

‘Ehm, it’s, well, sorry to trouble you, I’m, ehm, I’m looking for a man …’

Harper’s eyes narrowed in deeper scrutiny and his nostrils flared. Jasmine’s knees started to feel wobbly.

‘He was, ehm, you see, my dad retired and, ehm, he was in the navy, and he was trying to get in touch with some of the guys
he served with, but no, I can see that you’re too young, so you must just have the same name as the guy I’m—’

‘I haven’t told you my name. Who is it you think I am? Where did you get this address?’

Oh God oh God oh God oh God.

Jasmine remembered that the guy was lying low here, and the whole point was that nobody had him listed at this address. It
suddenly seemed imperative to give him a different name, in order to allay his suspicions and extricate herself from the situation
as quickly as possible.

‘I, ehm, the name I had was, ehm … Hayley,’ she said, the first name that came to mind. Then she realised it was a girl’s
name. ‘William. William Hayley.’

‘That’s not me,’ Harper said.

He began to close the door again, which was when it body-slammed her that she had just completely blown the establish.

‘Oh no, wait, Peter Harper,’ she blurted.

‘What?’ he demanded, now looking as suspicious as he was annoyed.

‘I’m also looking for a Peter Harper.’

‘Also? A second ago it was William Hayley.’

‘That was the name … I mean, there’s more than one person I’m looking for …’

‘Aye, and you just said I’m too young to be who you’re looking for, so why are you patting more names at me? Who gave you
this address?’

Jasmine was collapsing so completely inside that she feared for a moment she was about to just burst into tears. She had to
hold it together. She thought of her back-up story and grabbed on to it like it was a branch in the rapids.

‘Well, you see, I’ve moved into this new flat and the girl there split up with her boyfriend, and there was mail for him and
she doesn’t want to see him so she asked me to track him down to wherever he’s moved, and see, it’s his name that’s Peter
Harper, so …’

‘You’re looking for your flatmate’s ex-boyfriend
as well as
your dad’s old shipmate?’

Jasmine felt her eyes widen involuntarily, perhaps to take in the full scale of the catastrophe that was unfolding before
them.