‘A burned-out van?’ I repeated. ‘Have it towed.’
‘No’ wi’ what’s in it, son. Like I said, you’re needed.’
I passed the message on to the DI. He was pleased, as I was. There’s nothing worse than sitting in the office on a Saturday, shifting paper and waiting for something to happen, knowing all along that nothing will. ‘My car,’ he said as we made for the door.
We didn’t have far to go, no more than a mile, but there was no way round the bottleneck at the bridge over the Water of Leith. Mostly it’s a stream, on its way through the city; it starts to qualify as a river only when it reaches my flat, which is right on it.
As it turned out there was no rush. The van wasn’t going anywhere unassisted, and neither were its passengers. I knew it was a bad one when I saw the younger uniform’s face; it was that pale, almost green colour that I’ve seen a few times in my career, but mostly in the southern hemisphere, where there is a history of people making statements with petrol.
The back doors of the van lay open and the windows had blown out with the heat. I didn’t need to look inside to know what was there, but I did so anyway. Black and crispy, definitely overdone.
Pye stepped up like a good leader and stood beside me. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘How many?’
‘Two,’ I replied.
‘How can you tell?’ he asked.
‘Simple, count the feet.’
‘We need SOCOs,’ the boss said, ‘and the duty pathologist.’
I’d known that, but I didn’t point it out. Instead I called the communications centre and relayed the instruction, leaving them to make the contacts. ‘Two corpses in a van on the other side of the Ocean Terminal lagoon; incinerated,’ I told them. ‘We can dispense with the medical examiner.’
‘Do you need Fire and Rescue?’ the centre woman asked me.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘The fire’s gone out and the victims are well beyond rescue. Everybody else ASAP though. Blues and twos.’ For the uninitiated, that means lights and sirens.
The DI had stepped back from the wreck. ‘You two,’ he told the uniforms, ‘get yourselves up to the road end and guard it.’ He pointed towards the blocks of flats that overlooked the scene. ‘We’re in full view here, so there’s every chance that someone’s calling the press even as I speak. Keep them and everyone else at bay.’ The two left, glad of it, and he turned to me. ‘It’s a wonder nobody reported the fire,’ he remarked.
‘Not really, boss,’ I ventured. ‘The doors are facing Ocean Terminal and that’s empty at night. Besides, they were probably shut after the fire was lit. To do the job properly you’d turn the thing into a makeshift crematorium.’
‘We should back off,’ he said. The ground on which we stood was rough and unpaved bare earth, ready for housing development when the economy recovers enough to bring new buyers to the market.
‘Look.’ He pointed all around us. ‘Tyre tracks. We don’t want to mess them up any more than we have already. Whoever did this didn’t run away from the scene; they drove.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, after they’d taken the plates off the van. They’ve even taken the tax disc, in case it didn’t burn properly, I’d guess. They don’t want us to identify it too quickly.’
‘Or the people inside, possibly.’
The van had been white; it still was recognisably so but its sides were buckled and the remaining paint was bubbled. The tyres had burned as well and the vehicle sat on its bare wheels.
We moved away, as far as the DI’s car. ‘Gangland?’ I asked.
‘That’s what I’d assume. Maybe I should ask the SCDEA whether they’ve had any intelligence about tribal warfare on our patch and haven’t bothered to share it with us. Although,’ he added, on reflection, ‘I might put it a bit more discreetly than that.’
‘Or even better,’ I suggested, ‘have somebody else put the question. For example, DCS McGuire; I saw that he had the head of the agency with him yesterday.’
‘Yes. He was the outside officer in the interviews with Alice and her uncle.’
‘I hope he gave him a really hard time,’ I growled, bitterly.
‘Time wounds all heels,’ Pye chuckled. ‘And you’re right; it’s time also to call our boss man. Big Mario will want to know about this one; I’m sure we’ll see him pretty soon.’ He pointed east towards the new high-rise Leith. ‘See that block over there, on the water’s edge? That’s his place. Let’s haul him out of it.’
Paula Viareggio
I never thought I’d be a mum, but now that it’s going to happen I’m getting used to the idea. It’s going to be life-changing, that’s for sure, and so, while I’m looking forward to it with an intensity that frightens me at times, at the same time I’m grabbing every chance I can to be the old Paula, the one I’ll never be again.
That’s why I jumped at Aileen de Marco’s invitation to accompany her to that charity gig in Glasgow. Note: she and Bob are married but nobody ever calls her Aileen Skinner; that’s one thing she and I have in common, our insistence in clinging to our own family surnames. (The term ‘maiden name’ went out with the pill as far as I’m concerned. How many Western women these days come as maidens to the marriage bed?)
I don’t know her very well, so her call surprised me. I knew that I was third choice, at best, but I didn’t give a damn. It was a chance to glam up and put on my glad rags, and I wasn’t passing it up. I’d never imagined it was something I’d ever be doing with her, mind you. I have nothing against the woman, but she does strike me as something of a contradiction. As a politician, she’s articulate, outgoing, and assertive. I’ve seen her in parliament, live and on telly, and she seems to have the measure of everyone there, including the current First Minister, the man with the embarrassing waistcoat, without ever rubbing their noses in it. When she appeared on Question Time on BBC, the chairman described her as ‘the acceptable face of Scottish politics’; I’m sure that’s an image she’s been careful to cultivate. In private she’s much more reserved, much more internalised. I confess that I would never have her on the board of my company, because I could never be sure of what she was thinking.
Mario had just left when she rang again. ‘Hi, Paula,’ she began as soon as I answered. ‘It’s Aileen. I’m just calling to check that you’re all right for tonight. We’re front row centre and I’m sure Clive wouldn’t want an empty seat near him.’
‘I’m fine,’ I assured her. ‘I’m still short of going into labour.’ Or voting for them, I thought, but kept that to myself. ‘The wee darling’s kicking the crap out of me, sometimes literally, but everything’s normal, they tell me. It’ll be a couple of weeks yet.’
‘That’s good. Small change of plan,’ she continued. ‘I’m in Glasgow already, doing constituency stuff, so, rather than make a double journey to pick you up as I’d intended, I’ve taken the First Minister up on his offer of a government car for you.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I could still fit behind the wheel of my own, when I remembered that my husband had taken it. With him, there’s never total certainty over when he’ll be back. ‘Thank him for me,’ I said. ‘Do they need the address?’
‘No, they’ve got it. What are you wearing tonight?’ she asked. A woman’s question.
‘The one and only evening dress I have that still fits me.’
‘Colour?’
‘Red.’
‘Ah,’ she sighed. ‘Me too. I don’t really have a choice at public events,’ she explained. ‘It’s expected of me.’
‘Aileen,’ I offered, ‘I’d wear something else if I could, but I reckon it’s either that or a nightgown.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it. Between us we’ll rub our Nationalist First Minister’s nose well in it. Hey, do you want to know about the guy we’re going to see? Clive told me all about him.’
‘I looked him up,’ I replied. ‘He’s third-generation Lebanese and he’s a Muslim. He’s a bit of a poster boy in his home country and in the Middle East in general. Famous for refusing to play in the Eurovision Song Contest because there was an Israeli entry.’