The Silent Conversation, page 4
‘Are you OK?’ asked Anderson, gently leading the younger man away from the dead body. ‘DCI Colin Anderson. It looks like I’ll be leading on this one with DI Costello, so can you tell me what happened, from the start.’
‘Sorry, I’m a bit rattled, that’s all. Shouldn’t be really – I should be used to it.’ Callaghan looked back over his shoulder to the deceased, then turned back, walking with Anderson towards wooden decking with two sofas and a central fire pit.
‘I don’t think you ever get used to it. And it’s not often that you witness the actual passing of another human being. You never want to harden yourself to that.’ He patted the younger man on the shoulder, thinking of himself at that age and how shocking it was to feel helpless while watching life ebb away.
‘When on duty, I guess you feel a bit protected by the uniform.’ He turned back to look at the deceased once again, his eyes starting to well up. ‘You’ll get the recordings from the camera, won’t you?’
‘Already requested. He won’t get away,’ Anderson reassured him, then prompted, ‘So you saw her …?’
‘Yes, I was leaving the Drunken Monkey, walking down Plantation.’
‘The Drunken Monkey?’
‘Yes, the Drunken Monkey, the pub on the corner there, having a drink, and I had walked out on Brewer Street, heading home, and I saw this cop in front of me. It was the cap, it kind of struck me, you know. Then there’s a guy that I thought might have been giving her a bit of aggro. He was walking after her, quickly; I got a sense of something. There was a fair few folk about, but it struck me, her rushing, and then she was gone, and I saw him juke up this side alley here. When I got here, the door in the shutter was open – swinging open, I mean. This place’s like Fort Knox. So I walked up, popped my head through, and there she was. No, sorry, that’s wrong. I had turned into the alley when this guy comes running out and pushes me out of the way. The speed he’s going at, I guessed that something had happened, so it was at that point I looked in the door, and I saw her legs – she was already on the ground, but not dead. She was gasping, choking, jerking. I called it in. She was in real trouble. I tried CPR and then the woman came out and the two guys from that house there.’ He pointed to the large glass doors, open on to decking, the open-plan living room beyond low-lit in greys and creams, a blonde woman pacing behind, carrying a young child in her arms, no doubt woken by the circus. ‘That’s the tall guy with the ponytail; his wife’s holding the kid. That wee girl came out, God knows what she saw.’
‘And the other bloke?’ Anderson nodded at the bearded man, still neatly dressed, looking calm in the chaos.
‘He lives here – she died in his back garden. Look, I need to sit down.’ He nodded to a large wooden garden table, the parasol above it closed up, neatly tied.
‘Of course, wait for forensics and give a detailed statement to DC Wyngate.’
‘Yes, fine. Just feel a bit shaky.’
Anderson saw Costello walk into the Green, her handbag slung across her chest like a Glasgow Corporation bus conductor, a notebook in her hand – she had probably broken her iPad again. At that moment, the two paramedics backed away, continuing their little chat, and Anderson saw the victim for the first time. On an initial glance, she did have a uniform of some kind on: short jacket, white blouse, neckerchief, one epaulette showing. Her hat was lying tilted on its peak beside her. Her skirt was crumpled but still down to her knees. The white blouse was open down the front, her neckerchief pulled down to one side where the paramedics had tried to get a line in, in an effort to get a heartbeat. A small rose pendant sat between her breasts, the red of the flower lost in the blood and bruising, but her blonde hair was still nipped neatly in the back of her neck, a few strands loose, sticking out. Her eyes stared at the sky, looking mildly surprised. He couldn’t see any mass of blood, any obvious cause of death. Not that that meant anything.
He looked back at Costello who was walking quietly around the victim, keeping her distance, her eyes scanning the whole scene, dipping down every now and again to get a better look at something nearer ground level, working from the outside in, occasionally making notes or maybe doing a sketch of something. Her own plain clothes uniform was not unlike the victim’s – a plain white blouse, plain black flat shoes – but Costello had on her usual navy-blue trousers which made the victim’s skirt even more incongruous.
He closed his own notebook, walking over to her, disturbing her thoughts. ‘What kind of uniform is that?’
‘Well, I have two ideas,’ said Costello.
‘Two more than me,’ he admitted.
‘Either fancy dress or a sex worker, or a sex worker in fancy dress – so three options, actually.’
‘Oh, really?’ He grimaced. ‘I thought you were going to say she was from another force, a bigwig here for some ceremonial dinner that nobody told us about.’
‘She’s wearing stockings. Believe me, she’s not a cop if she’s wearing stockings.’
Anderson walked up the brick lane between the two buildings, a tunnel blocked by the high steel shutter that rose the full height. The tunnel led to a garage. Once the shuttered door was closed, this place, the Maltman Green, was a fortress. He looked round at the garden to end all gardens: trees, curved paths in soft cream stone, flowerbeds, two ponds, a fountain, connected by a lawn that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Lords, a summer house and a play area for the children. The two houses that opened on to the Green had huge areas of decking with patio heaters, soft garden furniture, dining tables, coffee tables lit up with fairy lights. He looked up. The buildings were three storeys high. Some windows bore a resemblance to those of the old factory; some had been converted to doors on to balconies. The two buildings on the longer sides were luxurious. Anderson could smell the money.
‘It’s paradise, isn’t it?’ he said, walking back to Costello.
‘Somewhat marred by the dead body lying in the corner,’ said Costello. She had checked the door again, testing the locking mechanism, the keypad. ‘So what do you think has gone on here? The rest of the troops are doing door-to-door, and the CCTV is being gathered.’
‘Constable Callaghan found her. He lives in the flats on Rowan Way and was walking home from the Drunken Monkey.’ He repeated the police officer’s story, watching Costello run it through her mind.
‘Really?’
‘He wasn’t on duty.’ He nodded at the young man, sitting talking to Wyngate, his hands tightly wrapped round a mug. From the gesticulations and pointing, Wyngate was working out who lived where around the perimeter of the Maltman Green.
‘The white-shirt guy with the beard is Murdoch Wallace. This is his house – they’re the owners of the folded-up trampoline. It’s his wife, Pauline, who’s making the tea.’
‘There’s a lot of people hanging around.’
‘You should see the media gathering at the gate, but Jonsson says we can go in and out of the door at his garage that’s two streets away.’
‘O’Hare is on his way. He was held up.’
‘Any ideas about the victim?’
Costello shrugged. ‘No obvious wounds. She could have clonked her head, but she doesn’t appear to have been strangled or stabbed, no signs of violence on her apart from those from the resus. I hope the paramedics did the right thing – so little time between her being alive and being worked on to there being no hope. Seems odd to me.’ She looked around. ‘O’Hare will give us the answer to that one.’ Costello looked at her watch. ‘Where did Callaghan bump into the attacker?’
‘He rushed past him quickly on the other side of the shutter,’ said Anderson. ‘I think just as the passageway opens out on to the street. Our perp nearly knocked Callaghan down as he exited the scene.’
‘I’ve checked the gate – the lock is OK, the keypad is working – so how did they get in? I have the feeling that this place is kept pretty secure and away from the grubby little fingers of the average Glaswegian punter. And what were they doing round here? Planning a sneak in? A break-in? Was she actually pretending to be a cop? Or was she a sex worker and had found this nice little place that she thought was private.’
‘I doubt it. The folk who live here are pretty smart, as you would imagine. They have security cameras up there.’ He pointed up to the wall of the building, the camera focused on the steel shutter. ‘We’ll get footage soon.’ Anderson took a final look at the woman on the ground – mid-thirties, he reckoned, thick blonde hair, and too much make-up for a uniformed officer. Costello could be right; she might have been going to a fancy-dress night out somewhere, but it had gone wrong. She didn’t look like a strippergram; the clothes were too difficult to get off. She looked more like a school mum ready to have a night out with the girls, maybe a fancy-dress hen night. That shouldn’t be too difficult to trace if she had been with a group.
‘So, did you get anything useful from them?’ asked Anderson once DC Wyngate was in earshot. ‘Were they aware of anything before?’
‘Murdoch Wallace says he thought he heard a noise; he muted his TV but there was nothing after that until he heard Callaghan shout for help. He went out and took over the CPR while Callaghan called an ambulance. They have a Great Dane but it was asleep, and the big house has a dopey retriever. Neither dog reacted.’
‘Norma would bark the place down,’ said Anderson, paternally proud of the wiry wee mongrel. ‘How’s Callaghan?’
‘In shock. Keeps thinking that if he’d been a bit quicker, he might’ve been able to do something.’
Anderson nodded. ‘He’ll think that for the rest of his life. Nothing prepares you for somebody dying right in front of you. It’s always awful. You think you should’ve done something better or done something different.’ He saw a flashing image pushing through his head: Sally falling from the roof of the Blue Neptune to her death. Did she fall or did she jump? It wouldn’t have happened at all if he had refused to go up on the roof with her in the first place.
Hindsight was an accurate science.
‘So talk me through it. What did he say?’
Wyngate topped and tailed the story that Callaghan had told him: a young cop out having a quiet drink after being in the house with the kids all day. ‘He thought she might have been a high rank or something. He clocked the uniform wasn’t quite right.’ Wyngate checked his notes. ‘Interestingly, the call handler took a call from this area, but nobody spoke. She was concerned that the person making the call didn’t have the breath to speak. It might have been the victim, dying, then the phone was taken off her. The call from Callaghan came in about seven minutes later. To keep ourselves right, I’m going to put Ruby Redding on to the geography of this place. That’s the Halfhouse – the big duplex over there. It’s above a very expensive ladies’ boutique. This one behind us is the Quarterhouse, above the deli.’
Anderson looked up, thinking how still and warm the air was in this enclosed quadrangle, slightly oppressive. He pointed to the balcony three storeys up. ‘Those doors are open; they’d have a good view from up there. Give them a knock before you leave, get their statement.’ He looked back at the victim. ‘Did Callaghan know her?’
‘Never seen her before in his life,’ Wyngate said, ‘but when I asked him that, his eyes drifted past me to her. Like it meant something. But I might be reading too much into it.’
‘You and Mulholland are spending too much time together.’
Anderson looked over to Callaghan who was standing in the dull shadow of the Quarterhouse balcony. He was still looking over to where Rachel was lying; his eyes seemed to be searching for her soul.
FIVE
Carol slowly regained consciousness, her nightmares interrupted by the persistent noise of the entry system buzzing. Her cheek hurt, red and swollen from being jammed against the wrought iron of the balcony floor, each breath agony as she had fallen on the metal threshold of the door. She decided to stay asleep, dreaming that she was out running; the day was sunny with a cool breeze, and she was keeping a good pace round the head of the reservoir. In her dream, the run was endless and effortless. Then, as expected, the nightmare started; she heard the thudding behind her, felt teeth in her calf. Then she was face down in the grass, a sharp stone biting deep into her cheek, feet walking towards her.
She thought he was going to help.
She wasn’t on the ground now. It had been ten years. She had survived.
The buzzer sounded again. They were getting impatient.
This flat was safe. They couldn’t get in. The entry system enabled her to identify the caller without alerting them. Crawling over to her bed, she looked at the screen on the bedside table, guessing that it was either police or a journalist. She was not keen to speak to either of them.
‘Carol Holman? Carol? It’s PC Redding here. I’d like to ask you a few questions about an incident in the Green.’ An ID was held up to the small screen of the security camera.
Carol remained still and silent, hiding.
The heat was building, and the Green steamed with the lack of breeze. All the activity was focused near the folded trampoline. A small team was searching the ponds and the decorative grasses, the fire pits and the chiminea, trying to locate the mobile phone, the handbag and the car keys. Costello walked round with her notebook, nodding at various people she knew, incubating a vague feeling that the crime scene might be getting out of control: too many people talking to each other, chatting out of turn.
She looked up at the high walls. This place was a fortress.
Costello had noticed how long it took Wyngate, using subtle persuasion, to separate Murdoch Wallace and Sven Jonsson, but now they had settled, she could tell by the inclinations of the head, the nodding and the finger pointing that they were talking through the incident. Pity that Jonsson and Wallace had already chatted, maybe getting their stories straight, maybe denying that they knew the girl. Costello strolled to the wild garden, stepping over the stones in the pond, glancing down at the goldfish mouthing the surface, searching for food. A scene of crime officer was kneeling, shining his torch into the water. She stood on the central stone looking up at the balconies of one of the apartments. All the doors were closed, but as she stepped off the last stone, the back door on the ground floor opened and a woman came out, looking as if she had just got out of bed and pulled on a pair of leggings and a big jumper.
Costello walked along the decking to the two steps and held out her warrant card.
‘Is it OK to come out? What’s happened?’ the woman asked, looking over her shoulder.
‘I’m DI Costello. There’s been an incident and somebody’s been injured, I’m afraid.’
The woman’s eyes drifted past Costello to the gathering of crime scene officials, the police officers, the other residents down at the corner near the trampoline.
‘I could see a little from upstairs. I hope she’s OK.’ Her hands lifted to the neck of her jumper. She shivered a little.
And Costello noticed. ‘And you are?’
‘Louise. Louise Dawson.’
‘And you live here?’
‘Yes, this is the Halfhouse. That’s the Quarterhouse, the Grainhouse and the Maltman House itself.’ She pointed as she spoke. ‘But you’ll already know that.’
‘And do you live here on your own, Ms Dawson?’
‘Mrs, but I’m divorced. I live here with my son, Joe. He’s still upstairs in bed. He sleeps the sleep of the dead – teenage boys, you know.’ She was nervous, words tumbling out, a slight lick of the lips.
‘Did he see anything?’
‘No.’
‘Can you ask him?’
‘He’s asleep.’ The gentle voice was definite.
Costello changed tack. ‘Did you see or hear anything tonight, anything out of the ordinary?’
‘I don’t think so. I’d gone to bed early, but something woke me. I think I heard Sven shout. There’s often noises in the Green – I didn’t think much of it until I looked out of the bedroom window and realized that something had happened. I thought it might be one of the children. There seemed to be enough people around, helping’ – she shook her head – ‘so I didn’t come out. Didn’t want to be one of those people who hang around looking at accidents.’
‘Did you call nine-nine-nine?’
‘Me? No.’ Louise glanced over to the pond, to the crime scene guy and his torch. ‘Is she OK?’
‘We’re waiting to hear the outcome. Will you be around tomorrow so we can take a formal statement?’
‘Yes, I’ll phone work, tell them I’ll be late in. I’m the office manager; we’re short-staffed at the moment. Bailey and Gordon accountants.’
‘Here’s my card. If it’s an issue, leave a message on that number.’ She saw Wyngate out of the corner of her eye. ‘I’ll let you go in now.’
Louise paused at the door. ‘Was she anybody we know?’
‘No, I don’t think so, but we’re working on it.’ Costello nodded her dismissal as Louise slowly retreated behind her door.
Costello sensed deceit. The four houses occupied the same space. The families must know each other well – the four women; the Swede, the tea maker, the one with the open balcony and Louise. Sabina Jonsson was looking after her children. Pauline had made the tea. The balcony woman had still not been contacted. And nobody admitted to making that first 999 call. And why did Louise refer to the victim as ‘she’ if she had seen nothing? The body was at the other end of the Green behind the loggia.
A fifty-fifty guess? Or did she know?
Carol lay on her stomach in her dark bedroom. She had inched towards the edge of the balcony as far as she could, so she could see without being seen, too scared of the big space. There was a small blonde woman in a suit, talking to Louise at the Halfhouse; she was something official, probably a police officer. Louise had then pointed at the four houses, including up at the Quarterhouse. Carol didn’t think she had been seen, so why were they pointing her out? The door entry system buzzed again. Carol reversed enough to be out of sight. She heard her laptop ping. Furtively, she crawled over to it, seeking out the new message.
