The Stone Gallows (13 page)

And she made me remember that, her lips on mine, gentle, then hard, biting my lower lip, her hand sliding down my chest and into my trousers, twisting hard enough to make me gasp. . .

. . .then my phone was ringing. I broke away, turning my body to the side so that Audrey couldn't see her effect on me. ‘Hello?'

‘Is that Mr Stone?'

‘It is.'

‘This is Cheryl Reynolds of Virgin Mobile. You've been with us for nearly a year and as a valued customer we'd like to offer you an exclusive deal on a new mobile phone. . .'

‘Cheryl, I'm so glad you called. . .' By then I was almost sprinting for the door. Saved by the bell. I wasn't sure if I actually needed a new phone, but in this life you have to take your rescues as they are offered.

6.1.

‘We'll take your car,' Joe said. ‘The heater's still broken in mine.'

As instructed, I'd drifted back to the office at about half past five.

Joe was waiting for me, smelling of single malt. It was easy to guess how he spent his afternoon. Directly across the road from the office was a fairly decent pub and a bookies. With such wonderful facilities less than a hundred yards away, it was a wonder that he ever bothered to go home.

Because it was my car, and because Joe was probably not fit, I drove, which was exactly what Joe had intended. He told me to head for Giffnock. Progress was slow. Everybody in Glasgow wanted home.

‘Good afternoon?' I asked.

Joe patted his inside pocket. ‘Troubled Youth. Came second in the Three-fifteen from Kempton at nine to one. Excellent afternoon.'

‘Your dedication knows no bounds.'

‘What's the point of owning your own business if you can't play hooky every once in a while?' Joe didn't wait for an answer. ‘What about you?'

‘I drove over to Audrey's place to see Mark.'

‘How did it go?'

‘He wasn't there.' I decided not to tell him what had happened.

‘That reminds me. I think I'm getting a new phone.'

‘Why?'

‘It's on a free trial or something,' I lied. ‘She phoned while I was driving, so I couldn't really talk. Anyway, what's the plan?'

‘The usual. We're going to sit outside in the cold and try to catch people with their trousers down.'

‘You'd think millions of years of evolution would have come up with a better system of catching people out.'

‘I hope not. We'd be out of a job.'

That was Joe's biggest fear, that the rampant advance of technology would make guys like us redundant. I suppose it made sense, what with his almost phobic dislike of anything with buttons. I said, ‘So what did I miss in your little meeting with Mrs Sloan this morning?'

‘Nothing much. The husband's name is Ian, and the sister is called Maureen. We're off to Maureen's house. Apparently the two of them sometimes spend the evening together doing “paperwork”.' He waved a buff-coloured file at me. ‘Everything we need to know is in here.'

‘So what do you think? You think there's something in it, or you think she's your average paranoid wife?'

Joe took his time. ‘I think there's probably something in it. You know what it's like in this job. They only come to us as a last resort, and by then it's just a question of us confirming what they already know.'

‘Have you ever found a case where the person you're following is completely clean?'

‘Oh, yeah. It's rare, but it happens. I remember one job, the husband was completely convinced that his wife was screwing around on him. Turned out, she was working as a Samaritan but hadn't wanted to tell him. He went mental. He was a total arsehole, thought that any kind of charity work was a waste of time. I think in the end she eventually left him.' He looked at me sideways. ‘What about you?'

‘What about me what?'

‘You think that a man and a woman should commit themselves to the same person for the rest of their lives?'

‘If you'd asked me that two years ago I would have said yes.

Nowadays, I'm not so sure.'

‘Were you ever unfaithful to Audrey?'

‘No. What about you and Becky?'

‘No. I've always talked a good game, but that's as far as it goes.' Joe replied. ‘We've been together for nearly thirty years. I'm not saying I don't window-shop, but I wouldn't screw up what I have for the sake of some bimbo.'

‘Fair enough.'

He grinned at me. ‘But I could be tempted by the lovely Mrs Sloan.'

‘I think she's more in my age group, Granddad.'

‘She's about ten years older than you, son. Mind you, they do say that there's nothing better than an older woman.'

‘I'm sure you're right,' I said. ‘Although when you get to your age, they must be bloody hard to find.'

6.2.

Maureen Black lived on a quiet little cul de sac in Giffnock. I knew the area quite well. Until the mid-eighties most of the houses had been owned by the local council. Right-to-buy clauses caused the property values to appreciate wildly, and now it was the kind of place that estate agents described as being “Ideal For the Growing Family”.

Except that Maureen's family wasn't growing but shrinking. Joe filled me in on what Sophie Sloan had told him. Eighteen months ago Maureen's husband of ten years had left her. There were no kids, and divorce ensued. She bought half of the house from under him and he invested the money in a convertible. It was so tragic it was almost Greek.

Joe summed up Sophie Sloan's fears about her sister rather neatly.

‘You know what they say about recently divorced women. They're so eager to prove it was a fluke they'll seduce anything in trousers.'

All day long it had been overcast and gloomy, and with no blue sky to help eke out the daylight, darkness fell quickly. We reached our destination just after half past six. ‘Just cruise by,' Joe instructed me.

‘See if anybody's home yet.'

The house itself was a neat little semi, with a living/dining room and a kitchen on the ground floor; two, possibly three bedrooms plus a bathroom upstairs. A driveway extended down one sandstone wall, ending in a fence that presumably lead to a back garden. The front garden was neat, with little in the way of flowers. Estate Agent parlance would describe it as “Low Maintenance”. It would bloody well have to be, now Maureen was on her own and working full time.

No car in the driveway.

‘The living room light's on,' I said.

‘She might have left it like that. Make people think she's already home when it gets dark.'

I turned at the bottom of the road, found a space about fifty yards away that wasn't directly underneath a street lamp, turned the engine off. We settled in to wait.

‘I have a question.' I said.

‘What?'

‘If Sophie Sloan's a qualified nurse, why isn't she the. . . whatchma-callit. . . clinical matron type thingy at her husband's home?'

‘She gave up her nursing registration when she had a kid. Wanted to be a full time mum.'

‘She didn't strike me as being the mumsy type.'

‘The kid died. About six months ago. Leukaemia, I think. I didn't want to pry.'

‘Poor woman.'

Yet another person with a shrinking family.

Joe turned to face me. ‘I remember reading that something like fifty percent of couples who lose a child under the age of five go on to split up. You have to admit, all the triggers are there. Losing the kid will have left this incredibly raw wound, so Sophie and Ian are possibly not getting along as well as they should. Throw into the equation a recently single sister-in-law… it's like all the planets lining up in a row. It's inevitable that something's going to give.'

‘It's shitty.'

‘I agree. But the world's a shitty place.' Joe reached out and switched the radio on, started pressing buttons randomly. ‘How the hell do I get this thing tuned to Radio Scotland?'

‘You don't. It only gets Radio Two.'

‘You mean I need to sit and listen to Terry Bloody Wogan?'

‘Hopefully not.' I said. ‘He does the breakfast show.'

‘Can't you change it?'

I assumed he meant the station the car stereo was tuned to and not the BBC's daytime line-up. ‘There's an instruction manual in the glove compartment.'

Joe started rummaging around. He withdrew a book the size of a paperback novel. ‘Is this it?'

‘That's the owner's manual. The manual for the stereo's bigger than that.'

‘Bigger? How can it be bigger?'

‘I guess the stereo's more complicated than the car.'

Grumbling, he gave up. I covered a grin. We settled in to wait. The minutes ticked by. Lights went on in the surrounding houses as families came home from work. It was damp, but that didn't stop a few kids starting a game of football at the end of the street, using a street light for one goal post and some poor sod's car for the other.

Joe and I chatted quietly, our eyes on the house. Joe thought that Glasgow Rangers were spending too much money on outside talent and failing to foster home-grown players. I feigned an interest as best I could. I'm not much of a football fan, but to Joe it was a religion. I wasn't expected to agree, but not to have an opinion was sacrilege.

Tired of his moaning, I fiddled with the radio, eventually pressing enough buttons to find Radio Scotland just in time for the seven o'clock news bulletin. An investigation was to be launched into the cost of the investigation into the cost of building the Scottish Parliament. A body had been found dumped in a bin behind a notorious Paisley strip club called Diamonds and Pearls; police were investigating. We both pricked our ears up at that one; Paisley was less than six miles away from where we were parked. Five years ago it was the kind of case that we might have been assigned to.

‘You ever miss it? Being a copper, I mean.'

‘Sometimes,' Joe grunted. ‘Mostly not. It's all politics now. Politics and budgets. What about you?'

‘Yeah.' Every day. ‘I mean, no offence and all, but sometimes I wish I hadn't left.'

‘None taken. You could always go back.'

‘I doubt it. I've made my bed. Now I'll probably die in it.'

‘Maybe you should move. Head for the east coast. A change of scenery would do you good.'

‘I'm a Glasgow boy, Joe.'

‘Alright then, don't leave Glasgow. You could live in the city and work somewhere else. Become a community copper for one of these villages that tie four sheep to a lamp post and call it a leisure centre.'

‘Nah, you're alright.' I reached forward and turned up the volume, hoping to distract him. ‘I've not heard this song in years.'

‘Who's it by?'

I didn't know. It was one of those one hit wonders that dominates a season before disappearing forever. ‘Can't remember.'

‘It's shite.'

It was.

A car pulled into the driveway of Maureen Black's house. It was impossible to tell the colour; darkness makes everything the same shade of grey. I could see it was a hatchback, maybe a Ford Fiesta. Joe leaned forward as I turned the radio down again.

‘Aye, aye.' There was the sound of pages riffling as he flipped through his file. ‘Margaret's supposed to drive a blue Three-Oh-Six.'

‘I could tell it was a Peugeot.' I lied.

We lost sight of the car as it parked at the far end of the driveway, hidden from view by the house. A few seconds later a woman appeared and let herself in through the front door. I got a glimpse of dark hair, pale skin. The hair wasn't as long as Sophie's, but there was a resemblance. ‘Hello, Maureen,' I said, softly.

‘No sign of the husband.'

‘He might be following. She's left enough space in the driveway for another vehicle. What did Sophie say Ian drove?'

Joe flipped through his notes. ‘BMW. She said they had one each.'

Of course he drove a BMW. He was, after all, the boss.

We watched in silence. The front bedroom light came on for about five minutes, then went off again, then back on for another five. Then off. It was easy to imagine what was going on. Shower, then change.

Now she would be downstairs, maybe preparing something to eat, maybe reaching for a takeaway menu as she slumped in front of the television, or maybe. . . just maybe. . . opening a bottle of wine and making sure that she had two clean glasses.

Joe nudged me. ‘Look.'

A saloon car was approaching the house. ‘That's a BMW.' I said.

The left indicator came on and the car slowed as it approached the house. ‘Oh, Matron,' I said in my best Kenneth Williams voice. ‘What a naughty girl you are.'

Except that she wasn't. The Beamer pulled into the driveway of the house next door. Doors slammed. Mum, Dad, two kids. Plus a whole load of shopping. We both sat back in disappointment.

‘I suppose we should be glad,' I said.

‘I suppose. The longer we sit here, the more we earn.'

‘You're such a cynic.'

6.3.

At ten to eight, Joe's mobile phone rang. I kept my eyes on the house, eavesdropping, pretending not to, trying to figure out what was being said from Joe's side of the conversation alone. Eventually he hung up. ‘That was Sophie Sloan. She was calling to say that her husband had just arrived home. They're sending out for a curry. There's no point in us sitting here all evening.'

‘And here was me just getting comfortable.'

‘Take me home, Jeeves.'

I started the engine. ‘You want me to take you back to the office so that you can drive home yourself?' Inwardly, I hoped that he would say no. I had my doubts over whether or not he would pass a breath test

‘Nah. I'll get a taxi in the morning. You can drop me at the house.'

‘No problem.' It was only five miles out of my way. Five miles there, five miles back. But then, he did give me the afternoon off. I had nothing to complain about.