Sugarcoated (9 page)

So here was me, in a hunger or a burst situation:

Two guys in two days had my number. One of the two guys in those two days even had two mobiles. Double chance of a call!
And
not only had he punted me a juicy wad of cash for nothing, but he’d gone down on his knees
begging
me to be his babes. Mad.

Yup. A hunger or a burst situation. Or should that be burst then a hunger? Because despite Stefan’s hand-on-heart promise to be in touch and Dave Griffen’s slightly more lukewarm approach to seeing me again:

‘Seriously, once you’re shot of Mr Big, give us a call, Clod. I’d like that …’

Well, I didn’t hear a dicky-bird. From Stefan or Dave.

Still, I couldn’t exactly say I was pining. Even if I’d wanted to, there was no chance to mope – or, more constructively, to swot – in my bedroom. Far too busy
I was, in the company of two older men who seemed desperat
e
to spend time with me. Not only that, whenever
they
promised to keep in touch they
always
kept their word.

I’m talking, of course, about the detective doubleact: Hatch and Stark.

Starsky and Hutch.

Not to mention Marjory.

I was straight home off the subway after leaving Dave Griffen and was
literally
walking up my path, wishing it wasn’t quite so long and that my stomach wasn’t quite so full, and there they were. On my case. Plod-plod-plodding my still-warm footsteps in their big police-issue shoes.

‘Finally –’

‘– the elusive Miss Quinn. Feeling –’

‘– better enough to be out and about, are you? Because –’

‘– your school said you’d been phoned in –’

‘– sick. Hope you’re well enough –’

‘– to answer –’

‘– a few more –’

‘– questions.’

‘– questions.’

The detectives finished their introduction in perfect synchronicity. That kind of threw them, I think, because they started giving each other polite ‘after you’ hand signals instead of saying anything else to me.

‘Oh for goodness sake. Zit all right if we come in, Claudia?’

Marjory bustled round her superiors with a cut-the-crap-before-I-knock-your-heads-together sigh. Leaving them to follow, she took my arm. Police training must involve locating the kitchen in strange houses, because she steered me straight through to ours.

Police training must also involve sniffing out the teabag jar, and where people hide their fancy biccies, because Marjory had the right cupboard in one.

(Note to self: I could do that too, so definitely consider the police as a career option. Speak to Uncle Mike asap.)

‘Quick cuppa,’ Marjory prescribed rather than asked me, already filling the kettle, finding a plate and fanning it with shortbread I hadn’t spotted last time I
searched for goodies. ‘Then we’ll pop you down to the station. OK?’

Marjory put her hands on my shoulders to sit me down. Looking over my head at Starksy and Hutch, she froze. It was like she was waiting for the detectives to give her the nod to proceed.

So for a few seconds, the only sound in the kitchen was the increasing roar of the kettle. Have you ever noticed how it sounds like an ominously approaching tidal wave when nobody’s talking over it? Anyway, that’s what I was just thinking about until Starsky-Stark or Hutch-Hatch gave a phlegmy throat clear, and Marjory hunkered down to my eye level. She plopped her big hand on my leg. Gripped my knee and shoogled it till I was looking at her.

‘Right. Now we’re needing you to look at some pictures, Claudia. And have another chat. Remember I said we might have to do that if the man you saw the other day –’

‘I didn’t see. Was hiding. Told you before,’ I snapped into Marjory’s words.
Too fast
, I realised. Too defensive.

So I slid my eyes away from Marjory’s steady gaze.
Casually – or as casually as I could – I made myself incredibly interested in the scrap of paper Dad had left for me on the kitchen table.

Hey Cloddy. Still no sign of my licence or
VISA. Now I’ve lost my passport too! Maybe
you’ll have a scout after school? Study hard.
See you tonight about 7. Cheers.

I read the note three times. By then Marjory had four mugs lined up.

‘Milk? Sugar?’ She was asking Starsky and Hutch. They were taking seats on either side of me at the kitchen table. Closing in.

‘Some of the pictures we’ll show you –’

‘– might jog your memory –’

‘– and help us put –’

‘– some dangerous men –’

‘– men who kill, in fact –’

‘– away.’

They relayed between noisy slurps.

‘Men who kill?’ I didn’t even know I’d spoken
aloud but Starsky-Stark, Hutch-Hatch and Marjory were all nodding at me as if they were keeping time with an official police metronome. My voice was strangely thin and small. Little girl lost-ish.

The look on my face must have matched it because Marjory patted my hand.

‘Now you can bring somebody with you,’ she suggested, helping herself to a third shortbread finger. ‘What about Mum?’

By the time I’d explained about Australia and the baby taking forever to be born, and Mum’s open ticket meaning she could be away for weeks…Oh, and Neil’s low sperm count (that just gabbled out) Starsky and Hutch were looking
pretty
bored. Not to mention squirmy.

‘Your dad around then?’ Starsky-Stark crossed his legs and asked his watch.

‘See time’s of the essence.’ Hatch-Hutch’s tone hinted that I’d be wise not to outline the current staffing shortages of Quinn’s Family Eyecare to explain why Dad wasn’t home.

‘He’s working late tonight. Won’t be able to get away.’ I left it at that.

‘No one else close? Granny? Uncle?’

While I was shaking my head at the detectives, I scrolled my brain for anyone who could be called on at short notice to keep me company in a crisis. Pathetic this was. Embarrassing. My list of I’d-Drop-Anything-For-Clod-Quinn contacts running to an unimpressive three.
All unavailable: Georgina in Africa. Mum in Australia. Uncle Super Mike a long motorway drive away in Aberdeen.

Marjory sussed I was floundering.

‘You could always phone a friend.’ She tried to throw me a line. Her voice was hopeful.

‘Or a classmate?’ She threw me another one. Watched me scraping the barrel.

‘Never mind, I’ll be with you.’

When I failed to come up with a name she leaned over and knuckled my arm with so much kindness that, instead of bursting into tears, I heard myself blurting, ‘Can I bring a guy I know?’

I was meaning Stefan, of course. He counted as a ‘friend’, didn’t he? We’d dated. Snogaroo-ed. I’d seen more of him than Dad in the last forty-eight hours.
Even better, his voice was in my head, replaying something I’m sure I hadn’t just imagined he’d said:
‘I’m only a phone call away when you need me, babes
.’

‘Well, so long as he meets us at the station –’

‘– and we move it
now
–’

‘and your pal’s not squeamish –’

Starky and Hutch’s dialogue ping-ponged over my head as we left the house. I scrolled my mobile for Stefan’s number.

Found it.

Dialled.

‘Who’s the lucky lad, then?’ Marjory joined me in the back seat of the detective’s car. Her big elbow was kidding me so hard my phone nearly flew out my hand.

‘I’m still in the market myself, by the way. Ask your guy if he’s got a mate who likes curling and hot curries,’ she was asking but I couldn’t oblige her.

I was frowning at my phone. Checking to see if I’d battery. Switching off and on again. Retrying Stefan’s number. Three, four, five times.

But it didn’t ring out.

‘
I’m sorry. The number you have dialled has not been
recognised
…’ the operator’s calm voice advised me each time.

And when I texted instead, my message just bounced back to me.

‘Right, Claudia. To recap. A serious assault took place outside your dad’s shop. You’re inside, but you insist you saw nothing. Correct?’ While DCI Starsky-Stark was asking me this question, and I was answering in my flattest you’re-wasting-my time-when-I’ve-better-things-to-do voice: ‘Yeah. Nothin’,’ he showed me into a room.

And bringing me down to the cop shop doesn’t change
anything: I saw what those hammer guys did. I’m keeping m
y witness statement zipped up inside me
. This is what I was reminding myself as I plonked in the chair Starksy-Stark scraped back for me and checked out the inside of the first interview room I’d been in. Weird thing here is that it was
just
like one you’d see in all the telly cop programmes. It was small, drab and windowless, unless you count the grubby slatted excuse for ventilation set high in one of the nicotine-coloured
walls. Despite several tatty NO SMOKING notices, the room
stank
of nicotine too. And sweat. Both smells stale and overpowering, leeching from the paintwork, the floor, the air …

The smell was the only detail about the room that made it different from all the ones I’d seen on telly. There was a scruffed table in the centre, like you’d have on
Prime Suspect
. Though instead of that weary old actress who won an Oscar putting on a grey wig and frowning like the Queen, I was at one side, with Marjory, Starsky and Hutch facing me. There was even a tape recorder so I half expected someone to start the interrogation intro routine you get on
Morse
,
The Bill, Inspector Frost
…

Persons present for interview: DCI Starsky-Stark and DI Hutch-Hatch, nice-but-butch Sargy-Marjory and big daft Clod Quinn
.

Except this wasn’t an interrogation.

‘This isn’t an interrogation.’

‘We’re just –’

‘– keen to clear things up with you more –’

‘– formally,’ the detectives told me. While they did
so, DI Hutch-Hatch even unplugged the tape recorder and put it on the floor. This allowed more room on the table for the sheets of paper his superior was taking from a folder and, as carefully and deliberately as if he was playing patience, spread out. Before each sheet went down, the detective paused. Checked what was on it. Whatever it is, I thought to myself, must be grim, because the lines round DCI Starsky-Stark’s down-turned mouth visibly deepened with each sheet he studied. Made him age before my eyes.

‘Right, Claudia.’

When the DCI had five sheets laid out he folded his hands on his belly and gave me his attention. ‘I just want you to look carefully at some pictures,’ he said in a soft, weary voice.

Don’t know how long I sat in that room with the detectives. An hour? A month? Two minutes? No idea. All I remembered was seeing what I saw, wishing I hadn’t, wishing even more I could silence the non-stop descriptions of what I was looking at. Because the voiceover from Starsky and Hutch made it way too much. Too horrible. While the men described terrible things to me in their unflappable, grey voices I wanted to put my hands over my ears and shut out their commentary with some of my special humming. But I think I must have been holding my breath for too long because the moment I lifted my arms everything went swimmy in my head.

So as I said, I don’t know how long I spent in that nicotine room. There was a blank between me sitting beside Marjory and her lugging me along a corridor to a sink, splashing cold water on my face.

‘Take it you’ve never seen a dead person before then, Claudia?’

Only in Westerns, thrillers, slashers, horrors:
Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Straw Dogs.

Only on the box. Where I can switch off
.

Forget
.

Enjoy
.

I tried to answer Marjory but my words just came out as bubbly gasps. I was too traumatised by the images I’d seen on the flip-side of those sheets of paper to manage anything as ordinary as talking. I mean, I could hardly
breathe
. Or see normally, because open or closed, my eyes kept flicking through the pictures from the nicotine room like they were flash-cards I’d committed to memory:

First, in separate photographs, the detectives made me study two naked girls. They were lying on the same piece of torn lino with their arms and legs splayed into positions no female would ever choose to pose herself. Both their torsos were –

‘extensively bruised –’

‘– following a violent assault.’

‘– Estonian, these young women, we think –’

‘– on false passports, though –’

‘– so we don’t know their real names.’

‘Anyway, as you can see, Claudia –’

‘– the faces of these girls have been –’

‘– well, you call what’s been done excoriation –’

‘Not a pretty sight –’

‘– is it?’

‘These girls were mules –’

‘– for a crime ring we’ve been after –’

‘– for months and –’

‘– we actually had surveillance on this pair –’

‘– one of our undercovers getting close to these girls –’

‘– sweet girls despite their habit, apparently –’

‘– anyway we’re preparing to move in –’

‘– find out who’s pulling these lassies’ strings –’

‘Then they disappear.’

‘And from one of the high-rises across from your dad’s place at Greenwood reports come in of a bad smell –’

‘And we find these young women in one of the flats –’

‘’Bout your age they’ll be, Claudia –’

‘Coroner reckons they were alive throughout their torture.’

The next photograph the detectives showed me bore no resemblance to what they described.

‘Now here’s the remains of a man in his fifties –’

‘Pick the photo up, Claudia, to get a better look.’

‘Now we know more about him than the first two bodies –’

‘– because he was a security guard –’

‘– and one of ours.’

‘Ex-cop.’

‘Retired –’

‘keeping himself out of mischief with a few night shifts –’

‘“And out from under my feet.” That’s what his wife said about –’

‘– Andy. His name’s Andy Muir.’

‘His wife’s Jess.’

‘Two sons.’

‘One of them about to be a dad –’

‘– same as your brother is, Claudia. Coincidence, eh?’

‘Anyway, Andy was a night-watchman down the freight warehouses –’

‘– on the Clyde. Working for a shipping company –’

‘– you’ll have seen these giant containers down there –’

‘– they store everything and anything –’

‘– not always legal cargo.’

‘Drugs, guns, people come in through these containers now and again –’

‘– so one night our boys get a shout from Andy –’

‘– suspicious delivery in the next yard –’

‘– but the call cuts off before Andy’s done talking.’

‘No sign of Andy after that.’

‘Jess is frantic –’

‘– as you would be –’

‘– if your husband disappears into the ether.’

‘Then a week on some fisherman up Deeside snags –’

‘– well at first he thinks it’s a log –’

‘– but as you’ll see, Claudia –’

‘– that’s a partially burnt torso you’re looking at.’

‘Skull found intact further up the river –’

‘– which meant we could identify Andy –’

‘– though his arms and legs have never been found.’

‘So that’s Andy.’

‘But this next fella here’s a complete mystery-man …’

When Stark and Hatch moved swiftly on to the third photograph, I was almost relieved.

No more shock tactics. Just a headshot of a young guy. No blood. No bruises. No sign of violence. He looked early twenties to me: bad skin, thin blueish lips falling back from his teeth to make it hard to tell if he was smiling or sneering. I’d have judged his expression better if his eyes were open but they were closed. He looked asleep.

‘Peaceful enough eh, Claudia?’ The DCI tapped my thoughts as he tapped the photo. ‘So far this is as much as we’ve got of this lad.’

‘His head.’

‘Found in an alley in Aberdeen.’

‘No sign of the rest of him apart from –’

‘– well, actually you’re seeing the cleaned-up version of this poor bastard.’

‘He was found with his mouth full –’

‘– and a certain intimate part of his anatomy misplaced –’

‘– but we’ll spare you that photo –’

‘– for now. It’s in DCI Stark’s file if you’re interested.’

‘Anyway Interpol –’

‘– they reckon this fella’s Eastern European too –’

‘– can tell from his dental work –’

‘– and the hallmark in his earring. And that Claudia –’

‘– is us about done with what we needed to show you, apart from –’

‘– this gentleman here.’

That final image on the table in the nicotine room was nothing like the others. For a start, the male subject in it was clearly alive. In fact, as he strode towards the camera, snarling something through the cigar in his teeth and giving the finger to whoever was snapping him, he looked larger than life. The closest thing to a human walrus I’d ever seen, he was, huge belly
straining the white T-shirt he wore tucked into trackie bottoms mismatched with what was probably a very sharp jacket. Though it was hard to judge the quality of the threads given that the photo was so blurred. That was the second thing that made this pic different from the others the detectives had shown me. It was poor quality. Grainy. A shot of a moving target. Not a still … Huh. Get me: I was going to say ‘still
life
’.

Still death, all the other photos were.

Anyway, in this picture I’d to peer to distinguish the smaller details, but what I made out told even a dumbo like me all I needed to know about this big man: you wouldn’t mess.

Basically, from his stubby grey ponytail to his white loafers, he was a tick-the-box gangster. The bling round his neck and wrists and fingers might as well have been engraved ‘BAD DUDE’, and as for his enormous gold specs – well, according to my dad, that ugly brown tint was always the giveaway.

‘Only clergy and crooks go for that these days. Folk with something to hide, Cloddy,’ Dad would have been whispering out the side of his mouth if
he’d been sat beside me instead of Marjory.

But he wasn’t and Marjory wasn’t whispering. She was telling me, ‘Our friend here’s incredibly camera-shy, but we can show you some pictures our forensics snapped when he was … well not exactly saying cheese, but a lot more cooperative.’

‘Then, Claudia,’ DCI Starsky-Stark chipped in. He was sweeping all the photographs, except the one of the walrus, into his folder. Taking more sheets from a different one, ‘I’m having a cigarette and you’re having a think to yourself in case there’s something you remember about what you didn’t see. So, eyes down –’

I recognised the hammered man from Dad’s shop immediately. There were two pictures of him, taken from different angles. Both of them caught the man battered into a bloody, crumpled heap. Must have been snapped just before the paramedics attended to him.

‘You know this gentleman,’ the DCI swung his index finger back and forth between the walrus-gangster photo and one of the hammered man, but he kept his eyes fixed hard on me till I nodded.

‘But not as well as us,’ DI Hutch-Hatch took over the talking while his boss concentrated on staring me down. ‘And not as well as we’d have come to know him –’

‘– if someone who was even less keen on him than us hadn’t taken him out.’ Marjory was in on the commentary now, pulling out her notebook, puffing up her big manly chest.

‘The victim of the fatal assault outside Quinn’s Family Eyecare is Douglas Hall. Glasgow businessman, aged 58 –’ she read formally from her notes, then she laid them aside. ‘Better know as Hell Dog Hall. Complete scumbag.’ Marjory narrowed her eyes, wincing as if the words she was saying were nipping her mouth. ‘Drugs, guns, brothels, customs scams, illegals, false docs, fraud, dog-fighting, car-ringing. You name it, he was behind it –’

‘The Glaswegian Godfather, if you like,’ Starsky and Hutch couldn’t seem to resist putting in their oars.

‘But untouchable –’

‘– or, at least he was –’

‘– till someone from left field …’

‘Look, let’s get to the point about why you’re here.’ DCI Stark was on his feet, unlit cigarette in his mouth, box of Swan Vestas rattling in one hand, match poised for striking in the other.

‘Just looking at this bastard makes me feel I need fumigating. I’ll make no bones: Hell Dog was
scum
, Claudia. Involved in a world that you – a nice wee lassie – just wouldn’t have a … Ach-’

Slumping against the doorframe of the nicotine room, DCI Stark’s face when it dropped to his chest was nearly the same grey as his suit. ‘Thing I’m trying to say, pet,’ he went on more kindly, ‘without scaring you more than you’re scared already, is that while we’re in here and you’re saying f-all, pardon my French, somebody’s out there who kills gangsters in broad daylight. And we don’t know who it is yet. But it’s someone with balls big enough to think he can step into Hell Dog’s shoes.’

‘If that makes any sense,’ DI Hutch-Hatch started nodding in agreement but then he seemed puzzled. ‘I mean it would be
feet
stepping into Hell Dog’s shoes, wouldn’t it, Boss? Not balls. You don’t put your balls into shoes –’

‘I’ve made my point, loud and clear,’ DCI Starsky-Stark’s glare included everyone in the nicotine room, but it lingered on me before he left.

‘Better get your thinking cap back on, Claudia.’