Blindside (12 page)

‘You’ll miss her.’

‘Yes. But she’s got an important job and so she needs to be here to do that.’

‘Uh-huh.’

That seemed to be the end of it.

Logan went to his room and double checked his own carry-on bag. It didn’t look like he was taking much, not compared to Ellie, anyway, but it was all he needed. And he could always pick up extras over there.

Ellie shouted that she was going for a quick shower and he heard the bathroom door close then the sound of the shower going on. He went back to her room to check her packing and was surprised to see that she
had put a lot of stuff back in her wardrobe and the suitcase was ordered and ready to go.

He bent down to shut it and saw a mobile phone he didn’t recognise. It was wedged down the side of the suitcase, only the top of it showing above the clothes. He pulled it out and turned it over in his hands. It was an old Nokia, which would have looked new maybe three years ago.

He sat on Ellie’s bed and switched the phone on. It took a moment to warm up and then the logo for the phone company came on the screen. Logan paid the bills for Ellie’s phone and this one was on a different network. He frowned, not sure what he was looking at.

Ellie came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later in her robe with her hair piled up in a towel. Logan was on her bed, leaning back against the wall. She stopped when she saw him.

He held the phone up.

‘What’s this?’

Her eyes flicked to the phone.

‘It’s a phone.’

He raised his eyebrows at her.

‘I can see that, Ellie. I mean, why do you have it when I already pay for one? I’ve never seen this one.’

‘Becky got it for me.’

Logan sat forward, frowning.

‘What?’

Ellie came over and sat beside him, took the phone from him and started pressing buttons. He waited to see what it was she was going to show him, but when she was done she put it against his ear.

He heard her mother’s voice. Heard Penny.

‘Hi, baby. This is your mum calling to say congratulations on your very first phone. Hope you like it. Love you.’

Ellie took the phone and switched it off.

Logan blinked away blurred vision.

‘Becky said they were getting rid of the evidence in my mum’s case after Christmas. At the police station. And was there anything I wanted. She showed me a list.’

‘She never said.’

‘Told me it was our secret. Anyway, I knew that message was on my old phone. I never deleted it.’

‘And Becky knows about the message?’

‘No. I didn’t tell her why I wanted it. It was just for me.’

Logan put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She didn’t resist, leaning her head on his shoulder and toying with the phone in her hands.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

She shrugged in his embrace.

‘You’ve got Becky now,’ she said.

Logan gently eased her away from him and faced her.

‘Your mum was special to both of us,’ he said. ‘Becky knows that. You could have told me.’

She looked down at the phone and back at him. She surprised him by saying okay, leaning in and kissing his cheek before getting up to plug in her hairdryer.

She was stronger than him, that was for sure. And he loved her all the more for it.

2

Armstrong had left Pitt Street after the interview with the two uniforms – telling Irvine that he wanted to catch up on his other work. He promised to be back before five to go and see Suzie Murray with her.

Irvine typed up statements for the officers and filled out internal reports. She hated the paperwork and it took her more than three hours to finish all of it. Sometimes she thought that modern policing was more about documenting what was done – rather than actually doing it.

She called Jim Murphy at four in the afternoon to chase up the post-mortem results and to see if anything of note had turned up from the lab analysis of whatever was found at the locus.

‘I think the drug squad instincts are right,’ Murphy told her.

‘How so?’

‘Well, blood analysis isn’t back yet but I’m betting that she died from an overdose. I spoke to the pathologist and his preliminary view is that she wasn’t killed by someone. There are no signs of violence and no water in her lungs.’

‘She was dead when she went in the water?’

‘Yes.’

‘CCTV show up yet?’

‘No.’

‘Call over there and see if they can put a rush on it, will you.’

‘I’ll do it now. Talk later.’

Five o’clock came and went with no sign of Armstrong. The clock crept towards six, then past it. She called her mother to ask her to pick Connor up from the childminder and endured a lecture about parental responsibility. After that, she called Armstrong’s mobile and left a message on his voicemail to call her when he could.

Then it was six-thirty.

Her phone rang and she picked it up without looking to see who it was.

‘It’s about time,’ she said.

‘What?’

It was Logan.

‘I thought it was someone else.’

‘You waiting for a call? We can speak later if you like.’

‘No. No, it’s fine. I’m a bit frustrated. Are you still planning on coming over later?’

‘I am. It’s just that, well, I wanted to ask you about something. About the phone you got for Ellie.’

She’d forgotten about that.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Ellie asked me not to.’

‘She’s a kid, Becky. Did you not think I should have known about it? I could have helped her. I mean, who knew how she was going to react to hearing Penny’s voice. She could have regressed.’

‘What about Penny’s voice? You’re not making any sense, Logan.’

He told her about the message on the phone.

‘I didn’t know. How did she react?’

‘She’s fine.’

He sounded terse, angry.

‘I said I didn’t know,’ she told him, aware that he was reacting this way because he was upset – probably unsure how he felt himself about hearing Penny’s voice again.

He didn’t respond. She closed her eyes and rubbed at them with her free hand.

‘Listen, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘If I’d known about the message of course I would have talked to you about it first.’

He sighed.

‘We can talk about it later,’ she said. ‘I’ll call when I get home, like I said.’

‘Fine.’

Click

Was there any other word in the English language so often used to mean something entirely opposite to its meaning as
fine
? She didn’t think so.

She called Armstrong again, still pissed off at him. Got his voicemail and left a short message that she would go and see Suzie Murray on her own and he could meet her there if he liked.

She put on her jacket, grabbed her bag and headed out of the building.

Way to stay out of trouble.

3

Irvine stood outside Joanna Lewski’s building in Bridgeton. It was on the corner, three storeys built in red sandstone with a charity shop at street level and flats above. The sun was sinking in the sky and it glowed red-orange.

She looked at the address she had scribbled on a piece of loose paper. Lewski’s flat was on the top floor, back right. She went to the entrance door and was looking for the buzzer for the flat when she noticed that the door wasn’t locked. She pushed at it and it swung into the common hallway. She wasn’t much of a fan of the red and yellow paint job in Logan’s building, but this one had bare plaster walls in charcoal grey. She could barely see the stairs at the far end in the murky light cast down from the grimy window on the landing.

For a moment, Irvine thought about going home. This was something she could do tomorrow when Armstrong was with her. If he was happy to leave it tonight, maybe she should be as well.

Nothing to do with the less-than-inviting interior, of course.

She pushed the piece of paper into her bag and stepped into the hall.

‘Get on with it,’ she whispered.

Halfway along the hall she was startled by the sound of her mobile ringing.

‘Hey,’ Armstrong said. ‘Where are you? I thought we were going to see this Suzie Murray together.’

Irvine closed her eyes.

‘Before five you said. It’s now …’ she checked her watch – ‘nearly seven.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. Had a bit of a domestic.’

‘You’re married?’

‘Why so surprised? But, no. It’s my girlfriend. Where are you?’

‘I’m at Murray’s building now. I was going to see her on my own.’

‘You want me to come too? I can be there in ten minutes.’

‘Do what you want. But I’m going up to her flat to get started. It’s late enough already.’

‘Go ahead. I’ll be there.’

Irvine put her phone away and walked to the stairs at the end of the hall. The dirty grey walls continued up to the next floor and, if anything, it looked even darker.

She started up the stairs and heard a noise above – like shouting. A male voice. She strained to hear but it had stopped and she wasn’t sure where exactly it had come from. It could have been at the end of the first floor hall or higher up. Sound echoed off the walls and down the stairs, distorted from its origin.

She waited for a moment and started up again when there was no further sound. The stairs were old stone, polished by the foot traffic that had passed over them since the place was built over a hundred years ago. The centre of each stair was dimpled where the heaviest traffic had worn it away. Irvine was careful to look where she was walking, one hand on the rail screwed to the wall for support.

As she neared the top of the stairs leading to the second floor she heard more noise. This time it was like a thump, followed by someone choking back a sob. It sounded like it was coming from the far end of the hall. Where Suzie Murray lived. Where Joanna Lewski had lived.

Irvine stepped up into the hall and looked along to the door of the flat. There was a narrow window seeping dirty yellow light from the streetlights outside.

She waited, straining to listen for any more sounds from down the hall. She thought she could hear whispers, but couldn’t be sure. There was another thump, this time definitely emanating from the flat she
was going to visit. Irvine stepped back, wondering if maybe it would be a good idea to wait for Armstrong after all.

She turned to look back down the stairs, didn’t see the door to Suzie Murray’s flat slowly open, revealing the black interior of the flat.

She heard a slow creaking sound behind her as the door to the flat opened all the way, turned and saw the silhouette of a man against the light from the window. His face was indistinct in the gloom of the hall.

She heard what sounded like a woman crying.

The man didn’t move.

Irvine reached into her bag and took out her warrant card, holding it up.

‘I’m a police officer. DC Irvine, Strathclyde Police CID.’

Her voice sounded stronger than she felt. That’s how they taught you – got to
sound
like a cop, even if you don’t feel it.

The man turned his head and looked inside the flat. She saw him in profile – long hair with a prominent brow and a boxer’s flat nose. Realised now that he was tall and wide.

Wished to Christ she’d waited for Armstrong.

The man turned back to look at her.

‘Bad timing,’ he said, and walked towards her.

4

Irvine held her ID out in front of her, as though it would act as a shield. The man continued to advance on her. She stepped back, felt her foot slip on the edge of the top stair – nowhere to go but down.

He was close now, ten feet from her. She pushed her other hand into her bag and grabbed the canister of pepper spray, pulled it out and pointed it at him.

‘Stay where you are or I’ll use this.’

She said it loud and it was enough to stop him. Still couldn’t make out his face. She smelled alcohol and aftershave.

His head cocked to one side.

He ran at her.

Irvine saw his face clearly for a moment and pressed the button on the spray.

He ducked his head and held a big hand up to protect his face from the spray. Irvine tried to angle the liquid into his eyes.

Then he was on her.

He shoved his leading hand into Irvine’s face, cracking her face back on to the wall. She felt the impact on her eye socket and cheek, the whole side of her face going numb from the blow.

She kept her finger on the spray and moved the canister rapidly from side to side hoping to catch him in the face. It worked.

He shouted out and pulled his hand off her face.

Irvine kicked out at his legs and felt the side of her shoe connect with his shin. She stepped up into the hall and swung her fist at his head, the canister of pepper spray still grasped in it. She caught him with a glancing blow and he staggered on to the stairs, grabbing at the railing with one hand and swinging the other one round at her.

She saw the blow coming too late. His hand closed into a fist and hit her high on the head, just below her hairline. The force of it made her stagger and she fell back against the wall.

The man rubbed at his eyes. Turned and ran, half falling down the stairs.

Irvine leaned against the wall and listened to the sound of him running on the stairs and the main door crashing back against the wall as he went out on to the street.

She slid down the wall and dropped the pepper spray, her whole body shaking. She felt on the verge of tears but forced herself not to cry, taking in deep lungfuls of air to slow her pulse.

The side of her face felt hot and tight. She put her hand to it and felt swelling around her eye, pulled it away and saw blood. She wiped the blood on the wall, smearing it red.

Irvine searched in her bag for a packet of tissues, pulling out a handful of them and pressing them to her face. She felt blood soak them almost immediately.

‘Are you okay?’

Irvine looked up at the sound of the woman’s voice. She was leaning against the doorframe of her flat staring at Irvine.

‘Did he hit you?’

Irvine nodded and pushed herself up. She bent down to lift her bag and felt her head swim, light flashing in her vision. When it passed, she grabbed her bag and walked towards the woman, the wad of tissues still pressed against her face.