The Red Red Snow, page 2
Mulholland had never been a fan of tattoos – nice for about a year, but then they took on the appearance of crepe paper. Elvie, his doctor girlfriend, had told him how much of the tattoo is excreted within a week of it being done and how the colours built up in the lymph glands. That couldn’t be good.
‘DS Mulholland?’
He looked up; the pathologist’s assistant was waving him through to the observation area.
They all said hello through the intercom, old friends. As they exchanged a few words about Christmas, Mulholland looked at the body on the table below him, the same image cast high in close-up on the screen in front of him. The body was lying face down, so they could admire the tattoo.
It was magnificent. The body of the peacock covered Callaghan’s upper spine. Its head rested at the nape of the neck, the tail feathers spread out over the shoulders and down the spine, ending with a few long and beautifully detailed feathers running along the crest of the pelvic bone, just visible from the front, one on each side. O’Hare was measuring their distance from the central spine with a ruler.
‘Perfectly symmetrical,’ he announced, confirming what his eyes had told him.
Mulholland got straight to the point with the obvious question. ‘So why did he not know he had been stabbed? He wasn’t drunk or anything.’
‘It’s not unheard of.’ O’Hare sidestepped to the worktop at the far side and picked up a long narrow tube of metal. ‘This is the sort of thing you are looking for. That length, narrow with a very sharp point.’ He turned back to the body. ‘It was inserted just above what I presume would be the line of the belt on his jeans and slid upwards. A retractable blade would explain why nobody saw it.’
‘Easily traceable?’
‘Doubt it. It could be vintage. These blades have been around for a very long time. They’re not legal, of course, but only those going into the auditorium would have had their bags searched, not those going into the food hall.’
As the pathologist bent over the body, he was unaware he was stamping out every ray of hope Mulholland had. ‘So an upward, slightly medial trajectory, slipping between the quadratus lumborum – that big muscle there – and the lower border of the rib cage.’
‘Somebody with medical knowledge?’ asked Mulholland hopefully.
‘Somebody who can Google,’ replied O’Hare.
‘When was he stabbed and how long did it take for him to bleed out?’
‘Bleed out? Stop watching American cop shows. He had a punctured lung, which filled up with blood. If the knife had not been removed, he might have survived, but it was withdrawn and air got into the pleural cavity, causing a tension pneumothorax. And that tends to be fatal. He collapsed and died; he would have been beyond rescue when the paramedics arrived.’
‘Air in his lungs?’ repeated Mulholland, thinking that was the point of lungs.
‘The air was leaking out of the lung with each breath, as there was a patent airway due to the track of the blade,’ O’Hare explained slowly as if he was talking to the terminally stupid.
‘And how long would that take, to kill him?’
‘Minutes. He was healthy, didn’t smoke. If he was very lucky, ten – more like five, probably less than that.’
Mulholland nodded. It was a place to start at least.
A gilt border framed the picture of a woman, mid-thirties, maybe early forties, posed classically, with a gentle smile on her softly featured, half-turned face. Her strawberry-blonde hair was pulled back to fold down on to her shoulders. Bright eyes shone out from the canvas, intelligent, sparky – a face full of life taking pride of place at her funeral. Even considering the twenty or thirty years that had passed, the woman in the picture bore no resemblance to the contents of the coffin. There was no sign in those eyes of the disease that would rob her of each of her senses, slowly and incessantly, one by one.
Philippa Elizabeth Walker – Pippa to her friends – had died eventually of malnutrition, three years after being diagnosed with dementia. She had been three weeks shy of her fifty-seventh birthday.
DCI Colin Anderson stood at the back of the small congregation of mourners, his wife Brenda by his side, her fingers round the crook of his elbow – a comfort, a memory that they could still function together on some level. Anderson looked to the front row of the crematorium, as the minister announced the next hymn, ‘All things bright and beautiful’. Archie Walker was there, the husband of the deceased, an honourable man who had taken some comfort in the arms of DI Costello. Anderson had the view that he would need to walk a mile in Archie’s shoes before he proffered an opinion on the morality of that, but how bad does a man have to feel to think that Costello was the way to gain succour?
DI Costello herself was nowhere to be seen. Beside Archie at the front was a small blonde woman who was standing much closer to the taller man on her right-hand side. Archie’s sister and her husband, Anderson presumed. Then another two men before a more familiar figure with jet-black hair pulled back into a tight bun, wearing a well-cut coat, a designer handbag over one shoulder. As if aware of his scrutiny, she turned her head slightly, catching his eye, and gave him a weak, watery smile. He gave her the subtlest of nods back, two people in this crowd who shared one secret: the death of Neil Taverner.
He scanned back over the mourners, still failing to see Costello, his long-term colleague. He could understand why she might want to stay away.
Once they started on ‘The cold wind in the winter’, the coffin slowly lowered. Out of the corner of his eye, Anderson saw Brenda wipe a tear from her cheek. He covered her hand with his and gave her fingers a little squeeze as, at exactly eleven o’clock, one of the pall bearers stepped forward and freed up the black velvet curtain to fall over the portrait. No doubt that was something that the family, or Pippa herself, had asked for. Anderson felt it gave them nowhere to look.
Outside, the weather was fitting for a funeral – dark clouds hanging low in the sky, a gentle wind that belied a bitter bite. Every one of the many mourners who emerged from the crematorium fastened up an extra button, gave a little shiver, burrowed a hand deeper into a warm pocket or a glove.
‘That was quick,’ said Brenda, who had been standing back on the concrete path, her black-gloved hands clutching at her bag.
‘It had to be, there’s a backlog. They are putting them through once every thirty minutes.’
‘Colin!’ she scolded.
‘It’s true. The weather has been so cold, and there’s been a lot of flu and …’
‘Yes, I get it.’ Brenda nodded at a couple walking past, recognizing them from somewhere, no doubt some formal do related to Police Scotland that they had attended as husband and wife.
They were still legally married and they continued to live together in the big house that Anderson had inherited, but they stayed there because of Moses, their grandson. Technically, Anderson’s grandson, but in every other way theirs.
But Brenda had a new man in her life. She said he was there for good and had left it at that. That was a conversation for later, but for now the arguing was about who was sitting round the table on Christmas Day. While a funeral tended to put such worries into perspective, it didn’t help any when deciding what size of turkey to buy. Brenda wanted to invite everybody over for dinner on Wednesday: Colin, Brenda, Rodger the boyfriend, Claire, Peter, Moses and then Claire’s boyfriend, David, and Paige Riley, a victim of a bad circumstance whom Claire and David had adopted as a friend. Brenda wanted them all there. Anderson wanted just the five members of the Anderson family. He wasn’t holding his breath that he was going to win that one.
Henry McSween watched puffs of cloud settle over the trees. He had made himself a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette he had borrowed from his son. The good and the rich would be partying later over in the wood, and then they would go, leaving the locals behind.
The Bens stood constant. And the wood, of course.
There was always the wood.
Forty years ago, when he was a boy, they called it the hundred-acre wood; the Riske Wood where they ran, hid, climbed, skinned their knees, bloodied their noses. They had deer to shoot, salmon and trout to fish. The River Riske had always been a good kayaking river, and that, at midnight over a good malt in front of a log fire, had given old Stuart and Henry an idea. Times were changing, killing things for fun was going out of fashion. So old Lord Boyd of Riske – Stuart to his friends – had masterminded a plan to convert the wood into an adventure playground. Acres and acres of forest with trails for pony trekking and hiking, sled-dog runs, tree-walking, wild camp sites with points for spotting the wild deer and boar. There had been a plan, at one time, to introduce some wolves into the wood if fate and legislation had been smiling on them.
Henry had overseen it all. And it had been very successful.
The stupid Catterson girl had hurt herself while canopy-walking and sued. Then old Stuart had developed pancreatic cancer and died. Stuart’s son, who was ‘something big in the city’, simply sold the estate to Arthur Doyle, and Doyle’s plans had not included the old workers who had been born on the estate and toiled hard all their lives. They were quietly but surely shown the door.
Arthur Conman Doyle.
What a dick.
He had ceased the fishing and hunting, telling them the land needed to restock. Now he had put a lock on the bridge so no cars or people could enter the wood. The coffin bridge was still in use, for those that dared.
The villagers never knew what Doyle was up to. There was still accommodation for rent in the wood itself. Rhum Cottage had been the McSween family home for over forty years and was now upgraded to a holiday property, up for weekly rent.
This Christmas, again, the Cattersons would be cutting their turkey, drinking around the Jacuzzi, having the big party; there had been a hog roast last year while he was struggling to put chips on the table.
That was unfair. He had no beef with that old hippy Suzette Catterson, and she couldn’t help it if she spawned the devil. She had even invited him to their annual ‘Gathering’, as she called the party. He had never attended though, too many folk there he wanted to punch.
Suzette Catterson closed the door of the dishwasher, giving it a final nudge with her hip. The contents smelled strongly of garlic and red wine, which always slightly annoyed her as she didn’t like garlic and was allergic to red wine. But Ernie and Betty had enjoyed their evening, and Suzette could now look forward to the pre-Christmas gathering at Riske where she could let her hair down and roll naked in the snow. Not that she ever had, but it was nice to get the chance.
The Baxters were the last of seven couples that she had cooked for over the last few weeks. Jonathan, whose entire contribution to the evening was opening the wine to let it breathe and glancing down the cleavage of the wife of his close friend, always liked to invite clients back to the house in the weeks before Christmas. It was an informality above inviting them out for a meal or buying them a fine whisky. And he presumed Suzette enjoyed it. It also counted as ‘being at home’, so Jonathan’s mistress couldn’t really object.
Suzette found the meals torturous. The Baxters were worse than her family – although from the way they raised petty rivalries, scoring little points here and there, with just sufficient offence taken to make it seem worthwhile, they might have been related. When Betty Baxter started wittering on about her holiday in the ‘cultural, non-tourist part of Costa Rica’, Suzette had dreamt about peeing in the soup. Jonathan had given her a look, warning her that these were clients, these were the people who had paid for the town house and the university fees. Suzette recalled, on that occasion, that Juliet had told a rather disgusting story of an intestinal worm that was rife in the jungles of Costa Rica, until Betty put up her hand and giggled: No more! The story was putting her off her sirloin.
The Baxters’ kids had done well. They had been born within six months of the Catterson children and it always gave Suzette a glow of maternal pride that she never saw her children in any beam of parental perfection. Juliet, while intelligent and an individual thinker – a euphemism if she had ever heard one – was a spoiled, over-privileged little brat and was a first-class bitch when she wanted to be. Juliet had the heart of a swinging brick, a trait she inherited from Jonathan’s mother, of course. Suzette was fed up of excuses. So what if her daughter had always dreamed of being a dancer until that tragic day she fell from a branch while tree-trailing? Shit happens. Eight years was enough to get over it.
Was Juliet coming up to Riske? She had mentioned some party already arranged but that she’d try to be there for Christmas Day and would make more effort if it all wasn’t so bloody tiresome. And Suzette had thought wistfully of a drama-free Christmas.
And as for Jon? Well, it was a huge relief that he now had a serious girlfriend called Johanna, and when he announced that Suzette might want to start looking for hats, nobody was more surprised than she was. Jon was still undecided about his plans, having been asked to spend Christmas Day with Johanna’s family. Suzette was still hopeful that he would not make it.
Betty Baxter had heard the news about Jon and said something like, ‘Oh, you must be so relieved that Jon’s settling down.’
Relieved?
As if she knew.
Suzette had ignored her, filling Betty’s glass, laughing at the lanky, clumsy, slightly introverted boy who had grown into a very handsome young doctor. Jonathan had looked across at Suzette, challenging her to say what she really thought.
Corporate wives never say what they think, so she stayed silent on the subject.
Still, Suzette had a pang of pity for Johanna. Jon would be a shit-awful husband. He took after his father.
Then she remembered the look that her husband had given Ernie Baxter, the way they had picked up the bottle of whisky and disappeared into the study, locking the door behind them.
It wasn’t her place to wonder. She had stopped wondering the third night of her honeymoon. Now she was more worried about how she was going to spend Christmas staring into the face of her fat, ugly husband. She’d take a few more good books.
Suzette sat down at the table and pulled over her notebook, picked up her Mont Blanc pen and swiped her mobile open, checking a few lists for details of the Suzette Catterson Christmas Escape to Riske Wood. Five days of no phone, food, drink, walks in the woods, hot-tubbing in the moonlight and sleeping in until sunrise. She would be leaving for Riske in the Beetle today, after the food delivery – which included an obscene amount of drink and an entire Christmas hamper – had arrived at the house at noon. The rest was being delivered directly to Rhum Cottage. She had already called Charlie Priestly to ensure he had been out to prepare the cottage for them: enough wood for the stove and extra towels for the hot tub. Before she left, she had to drop in some presents to Jonathan’s praying mantis of a mother. Although Jonathan wasn’t in his office, he was too busy to go anywhere near his parents, seemingly.
It was nearly quarter past eleven. Suzette needed to get going. She checked her list for the party, those who had responded and those who had not. Plus, the kitchen at Riske was not as well equipped as her own, so she had packed everything, she was sure. She swiped through a few texts and emails. They’d had this party at the cottage for the last ten years, always on the Friday before Christmas. The owners, the Doyles, were now firm friends, plus there was always an invitation to whoever was renting the other cottage, Eigg, half a mile deeper into the forest. The Doyles had mentioned that the other renters were German. She made a note to order more beer. The usual suspects from the village would be coming – folk that they had grown to know in the years they had been renting the cottage. Their guests would party; have a shot in the Jacuzzi where fine spicules of winter twigs of the trees grew low over the water. The colder the air the better, and the forecast for Glen Riske was snow followed by heavier snow. They were guaranteed a white Christmas; she had a childlike thrill about that. The guests would all get very drunk on gin and good whisky, stagger home, and once Suzette closed the front door, their own Christmas would commence.
Christmas, with a good chance of being snowed in.
She smiled to herself, drawing two black lines with her italic nib at the end of the long list.
If Jonathan got the flu, it might yet be the perfect Christmas.
This was the third funeral where Costello had stayed outside or at the back, shunned by most of the mourners, the one in the coffin being the one who would have welcomed her.
Archie Walker and the rest of the family were lined up under the tiled narthex, shaking hands and chatting to the other mourners, exchanging words of condolence. Costello slid out and skirted round the back of the line, avoiding Archie, avoiding the Andersons, but not before she had clocked that Colin was holding his wife’s hand. She remained unconvinced by the show of unity. As she looked down the line of parked cars, she saw Brenda’s boyfriend waiting for her. The Andersons were turning into a strangely extended family. Brenda would be going back home to the house on the terrace to see to the baby, the grandson Colin never knew he had. The rumour was that Brenda’s boyfriend, Rodger, a boring accountant, had almost moved in. No doubt Colin was being moved upstairs to a smaller bedroom. It was his house, but he would never leave Moses to another to look after, so, practically, Brenda had to remain living there. They were in danger of drifting into Jeremy Kyle territory.
Colin Anderson would be going to the hotel for a coffee and a ham sandwich with the rest of the cops present. Archie was a well-liked fiscal. His wife’s purvey would be a busy affair, his colleagues supporting him as he buried his wife, lost to the cruellest of diseases. It had appeared that Pippa’s stay in the care home had been long enough for her to slip from the memory of her friends. Pippa had been replaced on her committees, her shifts at the charity shop worked by others, her knitting at the Women’s Guild picked up by those she had thought of as friends, as the disease had eaten into her social circle as easily as it had eaten into her brain. The embarrassing faux pas, forgetting a name, an address, a key, a date, a time, losing the inhibitory function as well as a sense of self. She had become a social outcast.
