The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(72)

The phone rang. McLean stared at it for a while, uncomprehending. It never rang. No one ever phoned him on his office phone; if someone wanted to talk they’d just come up and knock on the door. But it was ringing. He picked it up, noticing as he did that the little card listing the internal extensions was missing. Gone to find a suitable partner no doubt.

‘McLean,’ he said.

‘Ah, thank Christ for that. A detective at work.’ The dulcet tones of Sergeant Dundas on the front desk.

‘And a happy new year to you too, Pete. What can I do for you?’

‘I’ve got a man here says he’s lost his wife.’

‘Is this the beginning of some complicated joke, Pete? Only I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to get through.’

There was a sound of rustling and the phone muffled, as if the desk sergeant were moving. He said something that McLean didn’t quite catch, presumably to the man who had lost his wife, then came back, more quietly.

‘I’m sorry, sir. I wouldn’t normally bother you with something like this. But, well, I can’t get rid of the guy. And his mother.’

The phone muffled again, like it was being pressed against a police-issue sweater. Through the crackling, McLean thought he heard something along the lines of ‘He’ll be down in a minute. Just be patient, please.’

‘You still there, sir?’ Sergeant Dundas’s voice was once more clear.

‘Yes, Pete.’

‘Well, could you speak to them, please. I know it’s uniform work, but there’s no one else more senior than a constable and this bloke keeps going on about his wife being abducted. From the look of him I’d say she more likely just walked out. But he’s not going to leave until he’s spoken to a detective.’

‘He said that?’

‘Aye. Well, actually it was his mother. But—’

‘OK, Pete. I’ll come down.’ McLean stood, secretly grateful for an excuse to get out of his dismal office. ‘But you owe me one.’

Harry Lubkin was fat; there was no other way of putting it. His face was a mess of loops that couldn’t in all honesty be called cheeks or chins. More an extension of his neck, which itself was an extension of his over-large body. McLean would have put him at around five and a half feet tall and comfortably as round. His eyes were deep-set, and circled with dark bruising; his squidgy nose offset to one side. As is often the way with very fat men, he had shaved his scalp, but tufts of hair fuzzed around the edges of a couple of recent cuts. A slimmer man McLean would have taken for a brawler.

His mother, on the other hand, was whippet thin. Her thick-rimmed spectacles and pointed hairstyle made her look like something from a Gary Larson cartoon. If she’d been wearing a twinset and holding a square-edged handbag, the image would have been complete. As it was, she wore a nylon shell-suit and clutched a canvas bag that could probably hold enough for a week’s holiday.

The two of them were waiting in the front lobby of the station when McLean arrived, one sat primly on her plastic chair, the other slouched over two ... no, three. Mrs Lubkin sprang to her feet when he arrived; Harry stayed seated.

McLean pretended to consult the sheet of paper that Sergeant Dundas had handed him for a moment, then approached with caution and introduced himself.

‘And it’s about time, too.’ Mrs Lubkin spoke with a broad Glaswegian accent.

‘I’m sorry.’ McLean tried to sound it as he motioned for Mrs Lubkin to sit again and pulled the last chair out for himself. ‘We’re a bit short-staffed today. A lot of officers worked late last night at the Street Party. Now, you said Mrs Lubkin has gone missing?’

‘Aye, the dirty wee stop-out that she is.’

‘Mother, can you no’ give it a rest?’ Harry Lubkin’s first words were something of a surprise. Unlike his mother, his accent was neutral, with perhaps the slightest hint of Edinburgh about it, and his voice was high-pitched for his bulk.

‘Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?’ McLean glanced over his shoulder at the reception desk, hoping to give Sergeant Dundas a withering stare. He was nowhere to be seen, but the door through to the control office behind was propped slightly ajar. Pete was going to owe him big time for this.

‘What’s your wife’s first name and when did she go missing, Mr Lubkin?’ McLean asked.

Harry Lubkin looked like he was going to answer, but his mother got in there first.

‘It’s Trisha, and it wis Boxing Day. Wee harpy. Shouted at me. Can you believe that? Her ain mother-in-law. I’ll no’ tell you what she called me. Then grabs her coat and walks out. Just gone.’

‘Boxing Day? And you’ve only just come to us now?’

‘Aye, well. We’d had a bit of a row, see.’ Harry Lubkin didn’t meet McLean’s eye, instead finding the polished linoleum floor quite fascinating, his chubby fingers even more so.

‘A row, I see. Is this a common occurrence?’

Harry looked at his mother, said nothing.

‘Whit a temper that girl has!’ Mrs Lubkin filled the space. ‘An’ strong wi’ it. You can see what she did to my poor wee Harry here. Black eyes, bruises all over. She fair near broke his nose.’

‘Is this true, Mr Lubkin?’ McLean reappraised the injuries on Harry’s face, then took out his notebook and pen, flipped through to an empty page. He didn’t think he’d be needing to take any notes, but it helped with the reassuring act.