Summoning the Dead (DI Bob Valentine #3)(55)

Valentine stepped forward. ‘Gowan’s machinery found the oil drum, his workers had it open before we arrived. I can’t gag everyone indefinitely. People talk, you know that.’

Martin returned to the desk, picking up papers and shouting out their titles at random before turning away and facing the DI. ‘This is a train wreck, Bob. And it’s only going to get worse. Colleen tells me there’s been a TV helicopter out at the scene in Cumnock.’

‘It might work to our advantage.’

‘That’s high optimism, Bob.’ Martin laughed. ‘It might work to your advantage given that you want out and the chief constable’s been on to me already this morning.’

‘Did he mention my transfer?’

‘What do you think? Ask him your bloody self – I’m sure we’ll be seeing him soon enough. So you might want to think about why you turned down his offer of help from the media unit. Because going by today’s newspaper headlines I’d say that looks like a catastrophic lapse of judgement on your part.’ Martin left, slamming the office door behind her.

Valentine returned to the window and watched as an oversized cloud crossed the sky, revealing a faint sun. The yellow rays the sun delivered settled on the surface of the River Ayr and left watery reflections dancing on the rippling surface. The scene did nothing to calm the detective’s thoughts.

DS Donnelly was the first to emerge in the chief super’s wake. ‘Is it all clear, boss?’

‘Yes, Phil, come in.’

DS McAlister and DS McCormack followed.

‘Dino looks a bit agitated.’

‘Don’t worry about her – she likes to get worked up like that. It makes her feel important,’ said Valentine.

‘How did it go with the Stevensons?’ said McAlister.

‘It’s a positive ID, as we predicted.’

‘That’s something. Phil has some more good news.’

‘Phil?’

‘Yes, the woodentops following Keirns have sent in their report from last night and there’s some interesting stuff in there.’

‘Go on . . .’

‘Well, it seems after we left, another car turned up at Gerry Fallon’s place, the occupant going in the house and making himself comfy with Keirns and Fallon for quite some time.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Valentine.

‘It gets better,’ said McCormack. ‘I ran the number plate this morning and it belongs to a Glasgow man, Josh Simpson, who just so happens to be a freelance hack for hire with a nice sideline in political spin.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said McCormack. ‘Now given that Garry Keirns has been quoted in three or four newspapers this morning, I think that’s an interesting lead.’

‘It’s very interesting. Good work.’ Valentine retrieved his car keys from the top drawer of his desk. ‘Get your coat then, Sylvia.’

‘Are we going to take Simpson in, sir?’

‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? We’re not interested in guns for hire. We’re interested in Fallon.’





36

August 1984

My new friend is Rory Stevenson. He’s ten and goes to St John’s. I met him at the shop swapping football stickers. Rory has the most stickers – he has the Rangers badge, which nobody ever has. You never see the Rangers badge, or Kenny Dalglish, who plays for Liverpool. Rory supports Liverpool, and so do I now. I don’t know why really. I don’t know where it is even, but Kenny plays for them so they must be the best.

Rory says there’s a football team for boys in the town. It’s for under-twelves and he’s going to play for them, and maybe I can too. There’s trials soon and we’re going together. The boys in the dorm don’t like Rory. They don’t like anyone that’s not from the dorm because they call us tinkers and ask, ‘Have you heard of soap?’

Rory doesn’t say those things.

He’s my best friend, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.

Once we caught a frog. Just lying out on the grass, so it was. I picked it up and Rory put it in a brown-paper bag. We walked with it down to the burn and let it go. We loved that frog.

On Sunday Rory has Bible class, but after we go roaming up the hills. We play Star Wars with sticks. I want to be Han Solo, but Rory says I can’t be Solo because he doesn’t have a lightsabre. Rory’s good at finding sticks, though, so I go Vader and he goes Skywalker and we play lightsabres.

‘It’s getting late, we should go,’ says Rory.

‘No, stay out,’ I say.

‘I can’t. My mam will be angry.’

We go back down the hill to the road and walk and walk forever, it seems.

‘Who’s that?’ says Rory, pointing to a black car that’s slowing down.

‘Oh, Jesus.’ I know straight away who it is.

‘What is it?’

‘Run. Run for your life, Rory.’ We take off running along the road, just hoping for a gap to appear that we can jump through into a field and away from the black car, but there’s no gaps.

The man in the black car opens the door and sends out the dorm boys, who come running and pin us down. They smell of chocolate and crisps and are mad wild with the excitement of it all.