I said nowt. In the nick it’s policy: keep it zipped.
There was a minute of dead air between us and then, ‘You’re fucked, Dury.’
I didn’t know where this had come from, where he got the balls to harass me like this, but I wasn’t in the mood for any of his shite after what Debs had told me.
‘I’ve been fucked,’ I said. ‘Right now, at this moment, don’t believe I am… You have a problem with your tenses, sonny.’ I let the nip in the last word take hold, get a good sting in there, then.. a smile.
He slapped palms on the table, leaned in to my face. ‘I wouldn’t mess with me, fuckhead.’
‘Fuckhead! I like your style. You have what my mother would call “a way with words”.’
He stared at me, bit thrown, a look you might expect him to use after finding he’d bought another losing Lotto ticket.
I prompted: ‘Now, you see, you’ve missed your cue… You’re supposed to jump in with some hilarious and witty piece of repartee about what you and my mother were up to last night… It’s in the script. Come on now, keep up, lad.’
He laughed, full-on belly laughs, then sat down. As he dried his eyes he let out a slow trail of words: ‘Dury, Dury, Dury… why, oh why would I waste my time joking with you about fucking your mother when in actual point of fact I am fucking your ex-wife?’
That got my attention. I took my hands out of my pockets, met his eyes across the table. I mustered all my reserves of cool to stop me lunging out of my seat.
He spoke again: ‘And may I say… what a mighty fine fuck Debs is.’
That was it — I reached for his throat. Instantly I was grabbed from behind, dumped back in my seat. I was winded, breath taken out of me.
Boss Suit paced, sniggered.
I went with, ‘She always had some bad taste: she chose me… Shit, there goes your advantage. Gonna have to look for some other leverage.’
‘Enough badinage, Dury,’ said Johnstone. He leaned over the desk, flipped open the file. ‘Take a look at those.’
Inside the folder were photographs of the corpse I’d stumbled over on Corstorphine Hill. The corpse I knew to be Tam Fulton; it looked worse than I recalled. In the full flash-glare, worse even than my nightmares. Two eight- ball eyes where the blood vessels had ruptured. Lots of sliced-up flesh. The pictures showed him at the crime scene and then some had been taken at the morgue, which had yet more detail. Camera close-ups on the actual knife wounds, pink flesh spilling over bright orange fat deposits. Made me want to hurl my guts up.
I pushed the folder aside, said, ‘Are you trying to gross me out?’
‘Don’t jerk me off, Dury.’
I pointed a finger, said, ‘Jerk you off…? Don’t you think I’ve had enough sick images for one day?’
He slapped his palms on the table again — it was becoming a habit — then scooped up the pictures and started to flick through them one at a time. ‘Murder, Dury, is not something we like to joke about in the police force.’
He was too close to me, so close I could smell the expensive aftershave, the breath fresheners. I leaned back.
‘Oh, it’s unpleasant, isn’t it?’ said Johnstone.
‘What I find unpleasant is being in the same room as some jumped-up little prick in a shiny suit, and being presented with puzzles. If you have something to say, say it… otherwise, let me the fuck out.’
He cooled, closed the folder, fastened the clip. ‘What were you doing on Corstorphine Hill on the night of May fifteenth, Mr Dury?’
‘I’ve already told you.’
A long slow trail around the room, hands in pockets, then, ‘You’d be better to come clean with me now, Dury… It could all get terribly messy if you leave it too late. All those deals you see on the telly are bullshit. Real police work is a lot more… intense.’ He illustrated the last word, raised his hands and splayed fingers out either side of his head. If this was the international symbol for ‘intense’ I’d missed the memo.
I wanted to give him the full intensity of my boot in his arse. I felt my mouth go dry, my teeth stick to my lips. Johnstone had nothing on me — it was all histrionics. All strutting. If he hoped I’d bottle it under the harsh lights, so he’d have a nice wee story to go back home and tell Debs, he was going to be disappointed.
I said, ‘For the record — and can you make sure this is noted down? I wouldn’t want you to bollocks your proper grown-up police procedures — for the record, I have no clue what in Christ’s name you’re on about.’
A grin. ‘All right, all right.’ He turned to the pug on the door. ‘Constable, the case, please.’
Johnstone pulled a laptop from a black briefcase and placed it in front of me. It booted up quickly. Few clicks later, I was shown some footage. I sussed at once that it was the security reel from the twenty-four-hour BP garage at the foot of Corstorphine Hill. Some white lettering in the corner of the screen told me the date it was taken was 15 May.
The reel started shakily, then jumped about as the cameras shifted their feeds. It was jerky, nothing you could watch without squinting eyes. And then, a figure dashed into the bottom-left corner. I knew at once who it was, I recognised the clothes: Tam Fulton. I’d say, though, given the amount of screen snow, any identification beyond male, short-ish and carrying something was a stretch.
‘Not exactly Citizen Kane, is it?’ I said.
The uniform pug pushed my head back to the feature presentation.
Johnstone spoke: ‘See anything of interest to you, Mr Dury?’
‘No, although…’ I leaned in to the screen.
Johnstone came with me, scrunched up his brow. ‘Yes? What?’
‘This is night-time, right?’
Interested: ‘Yes, it is.’
‘It’s night-time and we’re talking late, late at night.’
Intrigued: ‘Uh-huh.’
I leaned in closer, touched the screen. ‘Look here, outside the garage, on the forecourt…’
The eager cop lurched, said, ‘Where? There?’
‘Yeah, right there.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well…’ I said, staring at the forecourt stands, ‘who do you think is likely to be buying a bunch of flowers at that hour?’
I saw a vein twitch in his forehead. He clenched his teeth. The laptop was snatched from me, the lid slammed shut.
I lolled back on my chair. The Robocop behind me pushed my shoulders and shoved me under the desk again.
Johnstone spoke through his gritted teeth: ‘Laugh it up, Dury.’
I said nothing, let him say his piece.
‘You might think you’re smart but join the fucking dots…’
I shrugged. ‘What’s the picture? A confused-looking little twat in a Boss suit desperately trying to find someone to frame for a murder he can’t solve?’
‘Dury, are you as dumb as you look?’ He motioned away the pug then crouched to speak in my ear. ‘You and I both know what was in that package Moosey was carrying. Now, given that Rab Hart wants to know what happened to it every bit as much as I do, I’d say dealing with me was your best option.’
Now I was scoobied, but I knew there was only one thing that Rab Hart was interested in, said, ‘What the fuck are you on about?’
He put away the laptop, slung the case strap over his shoulder. I thought he might have put out a smile there, but no. ‘I knew that’s how you were going to play it, Dury… That’s why I have forensics going over your gaff.’
‘They won’t find anything.’
‘You seem very sure.’
‘As sure as there’s a hole in your arse.’
Now the smile. ‘Funny, your mate wasn’t so cocky when we took him in… Then again, with a record like Mac
