Summoning the Dead (DI Bob Valentine #3)(37)
‘Oh, I see. And I presume you’re serious about this transfer?’
‘Deadly. In fact, you can consider this my formal request if you like.’
‘Well, consider it denied. You know what the staffing situation is like in here. If it wasn’t bad enough we just lost DI Harris to early retirement, and I don’t see a replacement on the horizon. No, you’re going bloody nowhere, Bob.’
‘Well, I asked.’
‘And the answer’s no. And it’ll still be no if you ask tomorrow.’
Valentine stood up. ‘I’ll put my request in writing to the chief constable in that case.’
‘What? I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’
‘We have a strong lead on one of the victims. I’d anticipate having the boy ID’d properly in a matter of days. I’ll hold on to the letter until I clear this one up, unless my wife finds out, but don’t worry, I won’t leave you in the lurch.’
The chief super’s face had set firm; only her eyes followed Valentine as he walked towards the office door.
‘I’m about to debrief the team, chief. You’re welcome to sit in if you like,’ said Valentine.
Martin’s jaw tensed at its edges. She looked to be biting down hard as she stomped for the door and grabbed the handle. ‘We’ll talk later, Bob.’
‘Yes, chief.’
DS McCormack and DS Donnelly were making their way to Valentine’s office as the chief super breezed past them. McCormack turned down the corners of her mouth as she entered the small office. ‘Was it something you said, sir?’
‘You better believe it,’ said Valentine. ‘Right, Sylvia, you’ve been dealing with Freddie Gowan’s office, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, on and off.’
‘Well, you’re back on. Find out where he is this morning and bring him in.’
‘Bring him in, sir?’
‘Tell him you’ll charge him with obstructing a police investigation if he gives you any bother. I’m sick of *footing around him and Garry Keirns.’
‘OK, sir. I’ll get right on that.’
‘And, Phil, I want you to bring in Keirns today too. Preferably at exactly the same time as Sylvia brings in Gowan. If they see each other on the way in, it might prompt them to think about actually telling us what we want to know. It’s time to start tightening the thumbscrews.’
23
Valentine took the seat he was directed to by the lab’s receptionist and waited for a familiar face to materialise. There had been messages left on his phone from the SOCOs on site at Ardinsh Farm and a growing stack of yellow Post-it notes stuck on his desk by the squad, but he wanted to get the final assessments first-hand.
The boffins had a way of detailing their findings in entirely antiseptic language that was prone to missing the salient points. It took a special skill to decipher the lab reports, and Valentine had found it was often best to go straight to the source.
Much of what was coming in now was already old news to the DI: the results on the tie and the ICI drum were a foregone conclusion, but he still had some questions to ask about the other items that he had seen bagged and listed in the catalogue of crime-scene contents.
As he waited in the reception area Valentine tried not to be influenced by the pacing white coats he could see beyond the window. The Glasgow lab was a clinical place and not somewhere the DI liked to dwell for any length of time. Even the chair he sat in, though a sofa, was rigid. The whole place felt stiff, like no one had ever managed to make the interior feel familiar.
At the station, even at the morgue, there were little indicators of human existence: potted plants, picture frames on desks and the occasional bumper-sticker philosophy posted on a wall. None of that existed here in the cold, white space where people passed each other unsmiling and seemingly engrossed in their own importance.
Valentine occupied himself with the listings of items recovered from the barrel alongside the two boys. Now that he felt almost certain of the victims’ identities, it was possible to attach some of the property to each individual. He drew up a list and ticked off what he thought went where.
Rory: white shirt, elasticated school tie, long black trousers, grey V-neck sweater, Clarks’ shoes, white towelling socks, white Y-fronts, white vest, leather satchel, paper jotters, Spiderman comic, Panini football stickers, Tesco carrier containing Adidas trainers, Sekonda watch.
He added one more item to the list under Rory’s name – St Christopher pendant. The DI had no firm evidence to make this claim, only his instinct, but he felt sure enough of that to conclude the list with the item.
As Valentine totted up the boy’s possessions and ran his index finger down the list, he felt a deepening sense of anguish for the loss of such a young life. Everything on the list spoke to Valentine in familiar tones – the football stickers, the boy’s watch; everything was so prosaic, and so much reminded him of his own boyhood.
Rory was a child, just like any other. On the day he died he had gone to school, he’d carried his gym kit in his satchel. Did he trade football stickers that day? Did he measure his time away from home on the seventeen-jewels Sekonda with the winding mechanism? It was painful to visualise the boy’s final hours, but somebody had to. Somebody had to try to make sense of the way two young boys came to be murdered thirty-two years ago in the same town that Valentine had grown up in.