The Blood of Crows (10 page)

He pressed the intercom and asked Eilidh, his PA, to
bring the woman in. He had kept her waiting ten minutes, long enough to test her nerve.

‘Coffee? Tea?’ Howlett asked after the official introductions had been made.

His visitor shook her head and sat down without being asked.

‘Just a coffee for me, then,’ he said to Eilidh, while considering the way the woman had sat down.

Heavily? With relief? No, as if she was tired. Her hands gripped the strap of her bag so tightly that her knuckles were blanched.

Again, he inwardly questioned his decision. ‘I’d like to thank you for attending at such short notice.’

‘Not as if I had a lot else on, is it?’

Ah, there it was, that vague insolence. He smiled at her. She smiled back briefly, looking at him intently – as if he was speaking a foreign language, and she was concentrating.

‘How are you keeping, DS Costello? I think your team are missing you.’

‘I’m sure they are. I’m keeping perfectly well, thank you. How are you?’

‘Er … fine,’ he lied, wondering if she had heard the rumours. Howlett smiled again, and reshuffled his papers. ‘Something has come to light. Something we think you might be interested in.’

DS Costello did not respond by looking interested; in fact, she didn’t respond at all. All he got was that same steady, slightly insolent stare.

‘This job could be right up your street,’ he persisted. ‘A bit unusual, but it might just help with your rehabilitation, help you on your way back to work. But I do need your
complete discretion, guaranteed. If you decide that you can’t help us out, then I ask that anything said or seen in this room stays in this room.’

There was a nod, a slight rise of the bony shoulders. ‘Of course.’

Howlett left the silence to itself as the door opened and Eilidh brought in a tray with hot coffee and water, and a plateful of chocolate biscuits. He watched as the grey eyes of the woman opposite him flickered at the noise of a car horn outside, then darted towards the fax machine as it beeped and whirred. She was wary, jumpy.

‘So, to cut to the chase –’

‘Good,’ said DS Costello. A pale bony hand tugged the silk scarf a little further forward, but not before Howlett had seen the scar, still red and angry, in her hairline. She saw him look, and met his gaze with a bland expression.

Howlett lifted the coffee pot and poured himself a cupful, adding a little milk. He kept his eyes down, intent on not letting his hand shake.

‘Are you familiar with Glen Fruin Academy?’

The grey eyes registered a little surprise. ‘I know of it.’

‘It’s a delicate matter.’

‘Yes?’ she said. Her hand went up to the scar again, and he noticed the slight tremor. It almost made him warm to her.

‘There might be some rather odd goings on up there and we want you to have a look round …’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘I’d rather send you in with no preconceived ideas.’

‘OK,’ said Costello slowly. ‘So, what crime has been committed?’

‘Technically, none – as yet.’

‘So, why is it a police matter? As opposed to a school matter, I mean.’

‘That depends on what you find, doesn’t it?’ answered Howlett with a degree of charm. ‘I know you will come up with something. I’m sure you can already guess what it is – young people, money not an issue, testing the boundaries and the pressures of life.’

‘So, they have a drug problem up there?’ she asked.

She noticed Howlett was careful not to answer. Something bigger than drug usage, then. Dealing?

‘I want you to go and live in. It’s nearly the end of term. In fact, they have an end of term garden party there on Sunday and we would like you to have everything cut and dried by then.’

‘So, no pressure, then. Do I get any clues at all?’

Howlett smiled again, the charm still in place. ‘Your cover is that you are a design expert. Don’t worry, nobody will ask you anything technical, but you can watch the movements of people and photograph who you like. Nobody will think it odd, the school has been talking about expanding for ages. You can pretend to do a logistical study on the movement of pupils.’

Costello nodded. Drug dealing, it had to be. She could see their predicament, she bet they knew who was using but didn’t know who was supplying. Always better to catch the organ grinders than the monkeys. With no official police involvement, any pupils with a problem could go off to a clinic to get clean with their record clear. Though why
she
was involved was beyond her, except for the fact that she was not officially operational yet.

Howlett was talking on, smoothly rolling his fountain pen between the palms of his hands. Costello had the feeling he had rehearsed the speech.

‘The parents are the sort of people who would need very good evidence in place before the school could politely ask them to take their children away. Without that evidence they might take legal action, and we can’t afford any mistakes. I think Strathclyde police have enough mistakes to deal with at the moment. The one thing we must avoid is the media getting a sniff of who is involved. At all costs the school’s name must be kept out of it. And we don’t want the local force involved at all, it’s been cleared at the highest level. We know you will not let us down. But I want you to keep it as quiet as possible, and get back to me. And nobody but me.’

‘So, I have four days?’

‘Three. Plenty of time for a detective of your experience. You have tomorrow to prepare, maybe do some background reading. There are some books in that envelope. History of the place, et cetera. Mr Ellis, the Warden – the headmaster, if you like – and the security man, Pettigrew, will know who you are and why you are really there. With the naval base being at the other end of the glen, the rest of the staff are used to a bit of cloak-and-dagger stuff.’

Costello didn’t comment.

‘Just approach it as you would any covert operation. Watch everything but say nothing. You need to make your own way there for first thing Thursday morning. You’ll have your own quarters. It’s like a hotel, and the food is supposed to be excellent. Dress appropriately. Apart from that, you have free rein. Any questions?’

‘Glen Fruin itself is a good half-hour by road from Glasgow, and no public transport goes anywhere up the single track that leads to the school itself. Whatever is going on must need some transport in and out.’

‘In terms of technology and transport, the whole place is like something from the eighties,’ Howlett told her. ‘There’s a new road that runs the length of the glen on the north side, and an old road, not much more than a track really, goes across the lower part of the valley. The whole place is really cut off, bad for TV reception, little mobile phone reception, Internet by cable only. But it’s well thought of among the progressive parents of today, who are themselves children of the hippies of the sixties.’

The grey eyes regarded him steadily. ‘You know what’s going on, don’t you?’

‘I have my suspicions. Some evidence would be nice.’

Costello’s hand went up to caress the arc of her cheekbone. ‘But apart from all that, I can do what I like?’

Howlett felt another twinge of doubt, but he said, ‘Of course you can.’

2.20 P.M.

Half an hour in the sub-Saharan temperatures in the station was enough. Anderson was glad to get out into the fresh air, and then into his car which he had left parked in the shade.

‘Why don’t I drive, and you can fill me in on the way? My car has air conditioning and yours doesn’t,’ said Lambie.

‘Yes, it does,’ said Anderson. ‘It’s called opening the
window. Have you brought your printouts of the Biggart file with you?’

‘It’s all in here,’ Lambie tapped the side of his head. ‘I’ve been studying it all morning. Look, sir, I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, but do we know what we’re doing? I mean, have we heard from upstairs or are you kind of acting DCI without portfolio, so to speak?’

‘Without portfolio, without a desk, without a bloody clue. To be honest, Lambie, I’m just doing the best I can. With all this talk about LOCUST, I don’t think anybody has their eye on the ball. But it worries me that we have a sadistic and forensically savvy fire-starter walking about with a grudge. And the one person who has not been interviewed at length is Mrs Melinda Biggart. That’s the next logical step, and it’s a box we will tick. I don’t see my promotion being thrust upon me so I might just as well stay busy. What else can I do?’

‘Exactly what you are doing – a DCI’s job on a DI’s wages.’

Heading south towards Newton Mearns, Lambie found himself having two simultaneous conversations – one about Biggart’s history as a career criminal, and the other trying to navigate Anderson to Thorndene Park gated community in the Mearns, where Biggart had lived the good life among neighbours who would have spent their entire existence trying to avoid him.

‘Did you see it? In his history, when you looked over it?’

‘See what?’ Anderson missed the subtlety of a mini-roundabout and drove the Jazz right over the top. ‘Christ, this place is well hidden.’

‘He has a funny history. I was wondering if he was just found out?’

Anderson thought for a minute. ‘You’ll have to fill me in. I didn’t find him that fascinating. I thought he was just a pimp and a drug dealer who’d made it big.’

‘I do believe the expression, in his own parlance, would be “he was a fart trying to be a shite, and failing”. He used to be a small-time pimp, with a few girls on the street, and a small drug habit of his own to feed. He was beaten up a few times – twice by his own girls for short-changing them, and twice by his own wife.’

‘The lovely Melinda.’

‘Then, about eight years ago, everything changed. He seemed to go straight, with a legitimate business, ran a night club.’

‘The Zoo.’

‘An old pal of mine says it was investigated for having a brothel upstairs but I can’t find any record of it. Then he moved to another, and his sexual tastes changed – for the younger. Everything he wanted, he seems to have been given.’

Anderson halted the Jazz at some temporary traffic lights. He’d got the drift. ‘So, was somebody financing him? He was a small-time loser, so why would they? Why him? Did they get fed up backing him and decide he was surplus to requirements? He’s been well protected over the years – and, whatever the reason, I’m not losing any sleep over it.’

2.25 P.M.

Rosie lay back on her pillow. The heat was sweltering, and the sweat was running in rivers down her face and body
and soaking the mattress. She had no idea where Wullie had got to. He had set off for the funeral yesterday and hadn’t come back. He had never done that before, so something must have happened. And she was panicking. Yet, she told herself, she had no need to panic. She had food, she had water, she had her sponge to do the toilet, and she had her notebooks and pencils to work – and as long as she could work, she was good. She had things to do. Things to work out.

But she wished Wullie would come back. He’d probably met old friends from the force at the funeral, gone out, got drunk and fallen asleep face down on somebody’s couch. Or had he had a hypo and been admitted to hospital? She couldn’t bear to think of him, at his age, falling over, people ignoring him, stepping over him and thinking he was drunk, that he was a nobody. Wullie wasn’t a nobody. He was a great guy, the best.

She wished her laptop was within reach. The mobile phone was on the table, too far away, and that was no use anyway, there being no signal at the cottage. She just couldn’t move to reach anything. Her body was a great anchor that kept her pinned to her bed. She had a jug of water and a lot of chocolate, which she was trying to ration while trying to think. The cottage was hidden high in the treeline on the north side of the glen, invisible to the horrible jumped-up brats at the school. It was equally hidden from the road that ran along the top of the glen, the only access being an overgrown path. In the winter, once the old oaks and elms had lost their leaves, you could just make it out if you knew where to look, sitting in a slight natural bowl high on the hill. But in the eight years
they’d been here, nobody had ever found it by accident. And nobody was ever invited.

Rosie knew she had no way of letting anybody know she was here. So, she’d just have to wait for Wullie to come back, which he would – he always did, sooner or later. She reached for a new box of Quality Street and truffled about inside for the raspberry creams.

She lay and watched the clock move slowly round to half past. The warmest part of the day was over. She slipped the sponge in between her legs, working it between the heavy rolls of fat, and peed, tightening her pelvic floor to stop the flow, removing the sponge and wringing it out in the basin of water. Years of practice had perfected the technique. Back and forth, back and forth, until her bladder was emptied.

She was ignoring the dull tightness in her bowels.

2.55 P.M.

Costello climbed out of the taxi and adjusted her shoulder bag. The big envelope that Howlett had given her was just a couple of inches too big for it. She had torn it open the minute she had left his office, of course. It contained a plan of the school and grounds, a pamphlet written by some former pupils, and a copy of Simone Sangster’s book,
Little Boy Lost.
Intrigued, she had flicked through it in the taxi, finding Glen Fruin was mentioned in the index with references that spanned about six pages. She closed the book, glad at the thought she wouldn’t have to read the entire thing.

Partick Central reception was busy. Costello smelled
that familiar smell of floor cleaner, disinfectant and blocked toilets. The desk sergeant was dealing with a couple at the glass window and the discussion was moving from the persistent to the argumentative. The woman with the low voice was obviously from the ‘if I repeat it enough, it will happen’ school of thought. Pacing the floor with annoying squeaky shoes was a man in an oil-stained T-shirt who was looking daggers at the couple at the desk window, then at the desk sergeant, and then at his watch in quick succession. He flashed a look at Costello as she walked past him, then dismissed her as somebody of no value and continued his pacing. Costello bet that he was there to report a stolen vehicle.