The Sea Detective (6 page)

This was the fifth time.

The first time Basanti had screamed at its unexpectedness. She had tried to twist away from him but his weight on her shoulder trapped her in her chair while his right hand groped at her breasts through her shirt. Then he heard a noise outside in the corridor, the sound of the outer door opening, and he broke away frightened of being caught by the men who owned her and who employed him, an Albanian, without the proper papers, without any English. He gathered up his things, a bucket, a mop and a vacuum cleaner and hurried away without looking at her.

The second time, she’d been in the chair in front of the mirror drying her hair. He’d finished cleaning round her bed and she noticed him glancing at her furtively before going to lock the door. She watched the reflection of the dangling keys in the mirror as he leaned across her and groped at her breasts. She didn’t scream, nor did she twist away from him. Be brave; for Preeti’s sake, be brave, she said to herself. She lifted her shoulder with lazy resignation which seemed to say to him ‘All the other men do worse, much worse, to me and anyway you are too big and strong’. He grunted at the illicit pleasure his power gave him.

The third time she watched the keys dangling in the door, the tightness of the swarthy skin on his neck and a curly ginger hair below the lobe of his ear and the pulse beside it.

The fourth time, she felt for the pencil by her thigh, watched the keys dangling in the door and studied the way he lifted his neck when she turned towards him. Beside the ginger hair and the pulse was a faint subcutaneous line of blue. She saw it, but she also noticed the angle of the neck. The skin was taut enough but it slanted away from her, making deflection more likely.

The fifth time she felt for the pencil by her thigh and checked the keys were dangling in the door. She sat facing the mirror, her back square to him. When he touched her she didn’t turn away or towards him because this time she had to make him lean further over her shoulder than the other times. Yes, the skin had to be stretched but his neck had to be extended, his head in front of hers, looking down and distracted. She had to trick him into presenting his neck to her in this way before the fear of his employers catching him molesting her exceeded his desire to touch a young and beautiful Indian girl.

So, as she sat there, letting him fondle her, she opened the buttons of her shirt and after them the button which fastened her jeans. He grunted in the lustful way that he did and leaned far across her shoulder, first to gaze at her uncovered breasts, next to slide his stubby hand into her knickers, and it was then she gripped the pencil half way along its shaft to prevent it snapping on impact and plunged it through the stretched skin of his neck and into the artery by the curly ginger hair.

All the way up to her hand, and then she wrenched it out.

He screamed as it went in and again as it came out. A crimson spurt burst from his neck.

She ran for the door and for his bunch of keys which dangled from the lock.

‘Mr McGill, I’m not a fool.’ Ryan’s irritation increased every time Cal spoke.

Jamieson knew why, and it entertained her, almost to the point where she’d snorted with laughter. She’d disguised it by feigning a sneeze. Back at police headquarters Ryan had listened to Cal’s confession but hadn’t liked what he heard. Could you charge someone with planting flowers in the gardens of dozens of MPs and MSPs including the Scottish Environment Minister and the Scottish Justice Minister? So far the only reported ‘damage’ had been one broken plank from the Environment Minister’s fence. Nor had any of McGill’s other ‘victims’ made a complaint: none of them had reported an intruder or a crime of any sort.

‘It’s just not believable Mr McGill. Wasn’t planting flowers just your cover? You had another more serious and criminal purpose.’

Cal looked up at Ryan, then down. ‘What other purpose might I have had Detective Inspector?’

‘I’m asking the questions Mr McGill.’

Ryan was getting riled, Jamieson realised with glee. In a few cases, where MPs and MSPs had country properties, he’d even threatened McGill with the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. It granted rights of access over land though not over designated ‘curtilage’, the area of garden around houses.

Cal had considered Ryan’s point for a moment before replying coolly, ‘Well it’s a technical matter isn’t it? The
practical
issue is this: wouldn’t it be an embarrassment for the prosecution and the police to waste money charging me and putting me on trial when, for all you know, some of the garden owners might appreciate my present of a plant. I’m told it thrives in rock gardens.’

He’d paused and lifted his eyes and looked at Ryan before lowering them again. ‘I imagine some MPs or MSPs might even take the stand
for
me, the Lib Dems for example, or the Greens in the Scottish Parliament … or even the Environment Minister himself. It’ll be a green cause celebre after all.’

A tic pulsed under Cal’s right eye as he paused again.

‘Anyhow, Detective Inspector, aren’t the curtilage provisions of the Land Reform Act a civil, not a criminal, matter? Surely it would be a matter for the landowner to pursue in the first instance, not the police.’

Schadenfreude

A delight in the misfortune of others

Jamieson found herself wondering how schadenfreude was spelt. It was a word she’d never written before. Was it with a capital ‘S’? Was it ‘freud’ as in Sigmund? Absent-mindedly, she wrote it on her pad before crossing it out and glancing nervously at Ryan in case he thought she’d been writing him a note. Not that he would have been interested in any suggestion Jamieson had to make.

The Assistant Chief Constable had told Ryan to ‘tie McGill in legal knots. We’ve got to stop him going on with this or it’ll play badly for us, Ryan. We’ll be a laughing stock.’

And now they’d be a laughing stock if they took him to court.

Schadenfreude

Jamieson reckoned there’d be a final ‘e’. Didn’t ‘freude’ mean ‘joy’ in German? Freud without an ‘e’ meant Sigmund and joylessness.

Ryan, unaware of his junior colleague’s internal discussion about semantics, said, ‘Tell it to me again, Mr McGill. When did you start this?’

‘Last September.’

‘And you say you’ve done one or two a week since then.’

‘Sometimes more …’

‘And always at night …?’

‘Mostly, though in December and January it’s dark by four o’clock.’

‘And in each garden you planted just one plant.’

‘Yes.’

‘What type of plant?’

Cal looked wearily at Ryan as if to say I’ve told you this before, my story isn’t going to change. ‘Dryas Octopetala. It’s also known as Mountain Avens.’

‘Describe it Mr McGill if you would.’

Jamieson’s eyes widened. It was the first time she’d ever heard a Detective Inspector ask a suspect for a description of a plant. Would there be a computer-generated likeness of it broadcast on the BBC evening news?

Has anyone seen this plant? It is considered dangerous and must not be approached.

‘It’s a low-growing evergreen which has white flowers,’ Cal replied. ‘Normally with eight petals …’

‘Which is why it’s called octopetala. You’ve told me that already,’ Ryan snapped.

‘I’m answering your questions, Detective Inspector. I’ve also told you that it grows wild in the Arctic, Scandinavia, and the Alps as well as some mountain areas in the UK – Snowdonia and the Scottish highlands.’

‘Thank you Mr McGill.’ Now Ryan seemed irritated by Cal volunteering information unprompted by a question. ‘By the way do you collect your plants from the wild?’

Ryan’s tone lightened. He tried to make the question sound like conversation, as though he might have a personal interest in the answer, a gardener looking for a tip perhaps.

Jamieson sussed him. He was trying to get McGill for breaching the Wildlife and Countryside Act Section 13 which prohibits uprooting wild plants. McGill had sussed it too and Jamieson offered up silent applause.

‘That would be illegal, Detective Inspector. I propagate them myself, from seed or by division.’

The sneer returned to Ryan’s face. ‘We’ll make inquiries to make sure you’re telling us the truth.’

Cal shrugged. ‘I imagine you will.’

Jamieson smirked and opened Cal’s file. She flicked through it but she’d seen what she wanted on the first page: his date of birth. He was 28, almost 29, two years younger than she was. Her internal voice was now musing about his girlfriend and in particular whether he had one. As soon as the thought entered her head, she scolded herself. It was typical of her, this flitting from intellectual word plays (
Schadenfreude)
to emotional trivia with a brief diversion around Scots law in between. At university, she’d heard two professors discussing the difference between a first and second rate mind. From the gist of their conversation, she’d realised (with a shock) that high IQ was not the distinguishing characteristic. No, apparently high IQ conjoined with something they referred to as a ‘rigorous disposition’ was what separated a first rate mind from a second rate one. Jamieson’s habit of neural fluttering from one subject (high/low brow) to the next (low/high brow) in seconds was – she tried to persuade herself – commendable for its versatility. Though would the two professors have regarded it as a ‘rigorous disposition’ of the qualifying kind?

There was another unresolved matter which amused/bothered Jamieson depending on her mood. If she had a boyfriend, a settled, loving relationship of the type she read and often dreamed about, would it liberate her to concentrate entirely on intellectual thoughts and pursuits (surely, the hallmark of a first class mind), or would (and this was her worry) opportunity and availability make her think more about sex? It was Cyril Connolly who said ‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’
With apologies to CC, was there no more sombre enemy of a woman’s good mind than a man in bed? Stop it, Helen

‘And what is the significance of this plant?’ Ryan, as ever, was oblivious to Jamieson.

‘It thrived in the big freeze roughly twelve to thirteen thousand years ago. This period is called the Younger Dryas after the plant.’

‘Is the plant noxious?’

‘Do you mean poisonous?’

Ryan nodded. Jamieson prepared the charge in her head.

Mr Caladh McGill, you are charged with attempted murder by planting a poisonous plant in the Environment Minister’s garden
.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know, though I’ve read somewhere it can be used as a tea substitute.’

Nice cup of tea anyone?

‘So you put these Dryas plants in the gardens of politicians or leading businessmen. Why?’ Ryan carried on.

‘It’s an under-the-radar way of campaigning, as I’ve said. Each one is labelled with a warning about the prospect of another Younger Dryas, a new big freeze.’

‘And you hope they’ll discover the plant, be surprised by it, look up Younger Dryas on Google or something and discover that it’s associated with a …’ Ryan glanced at his notes, ‘catastrophic environmental event and give them pause for thought.’

‘Yes. I’d like them to discover it for themselves and realise how close we could be to another trigger point.’

‘And discuss it with their friends, Twitter, that sort of thing.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Cal winced and shifted in his seat. The stitches in the gash in his side were constricting and stinging. The local anaesthetic was wearing off. Ryan was unsympathetic: the detour to the Western General Hospital on doctor’s orders had been another avoidable delay in his opinion; not that he’d accompanied McGill. He’d left that to Jamieson. He’d something else to do. Jamieson had an uneasy feeling about what it was. She’d heard about Ryan’s methods with suspects who thought they were too clever for him.

‘Sore?’ Jamieson asked and looked flustered that she had spoken at all.

Cal smiled at her. ‘It’s ok, thanks.’

‘Spare your sympathy Jamieson,’ Ryan barked. ‘It’s his fault for fooling around on someone else’s property at night.’

Jamieson flushed (at Cal’s smile, not the reprimand) and studied the sketch Cal had drawn during his first explanation of thermohaline circulation. ‘Wasn’t that what Henry Stommel studied?’ She’d asked Cal and Ryan had thrown down his pen (
his toys out of the pram
) and sighed with impatience.

‘Henry Stommel – you picked up his books in Mr McGill’s flat, boss,’ she’d explained.

‘Yes I know, Jamieson.’

If she’d understood McGill correctly, the big freeze occurred when the ocean conveyor of currents distributing heat from the Equator to the north Atlantic seized up. The result? Glaciers and ice moved south, conditions which few plants or mammals survived. In the big freeze, Dryas Octopetala was one them, one of the very few which thrived.

Now Ryan was studying a print-out from Cal’s computer. ‘So this is the list?’

Cal held the bottom of the paper and glanced at it.

‘I’ve crossed off the names in the right hand column.’

‘You’ve left a plant in each of their gardens?’

‘Yes. The ‘to do’ list is on the left …’

Ryan examined the ‘to do’ names and addresses. The Scottish First Minister was there; so were the Transport Minister and the chief executives of the transport companies Stagecoach and National Express. There were two dozen names and addresses, most of which Ryan didn’t recognise.

‘Well Mr McGill, you won’t be going anywhere until we’ve checked out your story. Detective Constable Jamieson will be organising searches at the addresses you’ve crossed off.’

Will she?
‘All of them?’ Jamieson said. There were 63 addresses.

‘All of them. In the meantime charge Mr McGill with vandalism.’

‘Vandalism sir … to what sir?’

‘To a fence, Jamieson.’

‘Yes sir.’

Cal shrugged at her in complicit understanding. Then he smiled at Ryan. ‘I won’t plead guilty whatever the charge, Inspector.’

Ryan pushed back his chair. ‘I wouldn’t waste the court’s time if I was you Mr McGill. You’ve admitted it after all.’