Troubled Waters Read online

  Once outside, he took her cold hand in his and began walking eastwards, in the direction of his home. A couple of hundred yards on, exhilarated by her company, he let go of her hand and playfully backed her against the tenement wall, caging her there with both his arms. Hesitantly, he placed his head on her breast as if to listen to her heart, astonished to feel it on his temple as it thumped against her ribcage. As he raised his head to kiss her, she poked him in the chest, dislodging his arm and ducking out of his unwanted embrace. Free, she began to run, her long legs as ungainly as a new-born fawn.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he said, looking round blearily for her, hurt and disappointed. Did she not want to kiss too? On a magical night like this, peaceful and still, heavenly, what could be nicer than the feel of warm flesh on warm flesh? She had only to say if she didn’t like it.

  At three-thirty in the morning, a householder in North Fort Street dialled 999 and asked for the police. She had been unable to sleep, had risen every hour or so to get a drink of water. Sipping it by her bathroom window, a figure had caught her attention. Someone, she said, was curled up in a doorway opposite, and the snow was falling on them, like it would on a wild beast.

  ‘Homeless?’ the call-handler asked.

  ‘They must be.’

  ‘Have you tried the Bethany Christian Trust or the Salvation Army or someone? That’s a social services problem, not really a police problem . . . not an emergency.’

  ‘It might be a child, for Christ’s sake, it looks little more than a child.’

  ‘You should have said that first, dear. We’ll send someone round the now. What’s the address?’

  2

  Before dawn that same day, a man lowered himself into a dinghy as it swung about at the stern of the Safety Boat. The deckhand above him hurled its painter down to him and, despite the howling of the wind, he heard the clicking noise made by the anchor chain as it was being pulled in by the winch. ‘Are you not staying?’ he bellowed, grabbing the oars and starting to pull. Lit up by the crewman’s torch, he was still facing the larger vessel. Concentrating hard, he rowed the grey inflatable dinghy away from them, now exposed to the full fury of the weather himself. Straining against the cross-current, he lowered his head, putting his back into it, battling to cover the last few yards to his lonely destination. A wave caught his bow and, for an instant, he thought it would tip him over, upend him into the cold, grey water. Spray, thrown up by a mistimed oar-blade, lashed his face, dripping off the side of his ears and running down the inside of his collar.

  ‘Nope,’ the Captain’s voice hollered back from the vessel, ‘Andy’s got to check the monitors on the Road Bridge.’

  ‘How long will you be?’ the man in the dinghy shouted, as loud as he could.

  ‘Twenty minutes, half an hour at a pinch. The tide’s already well on the turn. That’ll give you time to check the scaffolding over . . .’

  There could, the man thought, clambering up onto Beamer Rock, be few more inhospitable places in the world, at any time of the year, never mind in the middle of January, and in the pitch-dark. The whine of the Safety Boat’s twin propellers as the skipper eased open the throttle, heading downriver towards the open ocean, underlined the fact that he was on his own. A blizzard was raging around the Forth, and as he switched on his torch to follow the disappearing craft, its beam illuminated a corridor of snowflakes, each one circling its way across the waves before disappearing into the turbulent waters. He breathed into his wet gloves and stamped his feet vigorously, trying to return feeling to them, so that he could get on with the job. Even tying up the dinghy would require a degree of dexterity. There was no time to waste. The generator powering the lighting rig must be fired up.

  Once started, it released a throaty purr, more like a lion or a tiger than a machine, and hearing it lifted his spirits. The yellow light from the rig transformed everything, bathing the only two buildings on the rock in its rich glow, reminding him that shelter, even there, existed. Meticulously, he began to inspect the scaffolding around the base of the nearest one. The metal poles framing the red and white striped lighthouse seemed intact, secured by their ties; the wooden boards were still in place and the access ladder remained lashed to one end. Jetsam, in the form of a couple of milk cartons, had been deposited on the lowest platform and he tossed them back into the water, watching as one, then the other, was consumed by the waves. The clattering noise made by his tackety boots as he moved about was drowned out by the shrieking of the wind as it raced around the two bridges, searching for weaknesses and making any loose spars or struts rattle and zing with its passage. Finally, the job done, everything scrutinised and all slippery seaweed removed, he switched the generator off, instantly plunging his tiny kingdom into blackness again.

  Keen to distract himself, knowing he still had time to kill, he turned his head towards the Fife coast and shone his torch on the north tower caisson. A couple of barges attached to it had cranes on board and his eyes alighted on the grab of one of them, suspended from its yellow, skeletal arm, hovering hundreds of feet above the vast steel structure of the bridge. Next, his beam picked out a tri-coloured German flag on one of the craft. It was writhing on its flag pole, faded and frayed, above the name-plate ‘Gerhardt’. In the cutting wind, he shielded his eyes with his free hand, trying to make out the name on the other barge but it was no good.

  Seconds later, he had to screw them up, the force of the flakes driving into them making his tear ducts pour with water. Pulling his white safety helmet down over his forehead, he covered his whole face briefly with his hands, the pain in his eyes temporarily unbearable. In his sightless state, he was suddenly overcome by dizziness and all but lost his balance. Christ alive! When would that fucking Safety Boat re-appear? Its lights, bobbing about close to the centre of the Road Bridge, did not seem to have moved an inch for at least the last ten minutes, and well over twenty minutes had already passed since his landing.

  Determined to get back into the warmth the instant it arrived, he hunched himself against the force of the gale and started trudging towards the spot where he had tied up the dinghy, compelled every few seconds to turn his back to the blast. Slipping, thankfully, into the lee of the foghorn building, he swung his torch from side to side in time with his steps, sweeping the surface of the rock for the rusted ring and the blue rope tied to it.

  Although his sight was still blurry, an unfamiliar bulky shape resting on the black dolerite surface caught his eye. His first thought was that it was a seal, and he was glad, grateful, that there was another living, breathing creature here with him in the godforsaken place. Sweeping along its length, his beam picked out a herring gull, its feathers rippling in the gale. The bird was perched on the thing, pecking at it.

  Shielding his eyes with his hands, he edged closer, conscious that the thing must be dead, might even smell. Suddenly, he felt uneasy in its presence. In the bright light it looked solid, grey and fleshy, but its skin seemed to have come loose and was rucked up, corrugated around it.

  At his approach, the bird opened its beak, let out a screech and flew off, banking against a wall of wind before disappearing up river and into the black. Gingerly, he went down on one knee to examine the thing more closely, stretching out to touch the head end, and on feeling it, instinctively whipping his hand back as if it had been burnt. Bile flooded his mouth. The pads of his fingers had not touched the wet seal fur they were anticipating, but skin, human skin, and smooth as silk.

  Close up, bathed now in a pool of light, the thing remained recognisable, to one of its own species at least. By his feet lay the washed-up body of a woman – cold, wet and lifeless. Around her brow curled a strand of dark green seaweed, as if it had taken root there and was growing out of her skull. The involuntary squeak the man let out surprised himself, was the only external sign of his inner transformation from an adult into a frightened child. But here, on the sea-swept rock, there was no one to wake him up, put the lights on, comfort him and tell him th
at it was only a dream. His own eyes told him otherwise, staring as they were into the milky brown pair looking up at him from the dead face illuminated by his torch.

  Desperate not to be alone with the body, he jumped up and started bellowing at the launch, waving his hands frantically, swinging his light at it like a wrecker’s lantern. But every word that left his mouth was lost, obliterated by the roar of the waves and the shrieking of the wind. He felt no pity for the corpse, only panic and revulsion, a desperate desire to get away, to leave the thing before he saw its chest begin to expand with breath, its eyes begin to blink.

  ‘Is that the on-call DI at St Leonard’s Street?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alice replied, putting down her coffee cup, the millisecond of hesitation before she answered a testament to the unfamiliarity of her new title and the ungodly hour. Five a.m., and the caffeine was not doing its job.

  ‘We’ve just received a report,’ continued the man in the control centre, ‘that someone dead – a female, apparently – has ended up on Beamer Rock. I’m to tell you that there’ll be a launch waiting for you at South Queensferry, if you want it. It’s been arranged by FCBC, the Consortium. They’re the bridge-building people. One of them found it.’

  ‘A launch? Beamer Rock? Where on earth is that?’

  ‘In the middle of the Forth, some place near the Road Bridge. They said the central tower of the new crossing’s to be constructed on it eventually. A workman was sent over to look at scaffolding on the rock, Heaven knows why, and he practically tripped over the corpse. They’re keeping his boat there for the moment, in case she’s washed away again. They want to know if we want it to stay with her until you get there.’

  ‘Yes, keep it there. This woman, what’s the story, was she washed up on the rock or left there by someone or what?’

  ‘No idea. The only other information we’ve got is that the tide’s coming in, so you’d better get your skates on. Correction, your flippers on. Apparently, it gets completely submerged at high tide.’

  At that news, the detective inspector put the telephone down, snatched her coat from the back of her chair and called out for DC Cairns. Getting no answer, she went to look for her and, three minutes later, bumped into her as she was going down the station stairs and the constable was racing up them.

  ‘The incident sheet says there’s a body, somewhere washed up in the Forth!’ the constable said breathlessly, a piece of paper in her outstretched hand.

  ‘I know, Liz. Hurry, get your stuff. That’s where we’re going. I’ll see you at the car.’

  In the city, snow had continued falling throughout the night and, as usual, the capital was behind in its preparations, caught by the outlandish eventuality of a two-day blizzard in January. St Leonard’s Street, already under a thick layer, was passable, but a delivery van impeded their progress up the slope of St Mary’s Street, its wheels spinning ineffectually on the glistening surface as it endeavoured to regain its lost momentum and ended up straddling the road instead. Immobile, the driver ground its gears noisily for a few seconds before, admitting defeat, he signalled with a wave for them to squeeze round behind it.

  ‘Arsehole, get yourself snow tyres! Pity we’ve no blue light, that’d put the fear of God into him,’ DC Cairns exclaimed as they drove by, shaking her head at the seasonal ineptitude on display.

  ‘You’ve got yours on, have you, oh wise virgin?’

  ‘Virgin, indeed! Not as such. Wise as I am.’

  ‘Did you phone the Duty Fiscal? Who’s on call?’ Alice asked, turning on the fan heater in an attempt to defrost the windscreen and herself.

  ‘I tried that, by the way, it doesn’t work. Derek Jardine. He said to give him a ring once we’ve got a better idea of the lie of the land. He’s tied up, attending a hit and run at the moment in Liberton.’

  ‘And the FME?’

  ‘It’s that tiny little irritable one. What’s he called again?’

  ‘Dr Harry McCrae.’

  ‘Right, him. I told him to meet us at eight at Port Edgar.’

  ‘You’ll need to speak to him again. We’re not leaving from Port Edgar. The Marine Unit Commander lives in Duns, and they’d take forever to get going. The Lammermuirs are probably knee-deep by now, anyway, if not the coast road. We’re taking up the Consortium’s offer of a launch.’

  ‘So where are we leaving from? The top brass won’t like it – all that expensive equipment rusting away, they won’t like it one bit, they’ll have no ammunition against the cuts,’ the constable said, impatient to see properly, scraping the glass in front of her with a hand and dislodging a thin strip of ice.

  ‘Needs must. He’d take an hour or more to get here from Duns, if he got through at all. The body would be long off to sea again by then. We haven’t that long. Tell him to meet us at the Hawes Pier at, yes, say, eight o’ clock – the one under the Rail Bridge, the one that the Inchcolm Ferry leaves from.’

  ‘I’ll let him know, then, about the new plan. This’ll make a nice change from the usual, eh, Alice? A crime scene at sea, that’s a first for me!’ The young police-woman smiled at the thought and searched around the side of her seat for her seat-belt.

  ‘For me, too, and if it’s a murder, it’ll likely be our last if they’re all shunted off to these new Major Investigation Teams after the reorganisation. We’ll be stuck with nothing but shoplifting, peeing up closes and runaway chihuahuas.’

  ‘And we’ll get to inspect, close up, the beginnings of the third Forth Bridge or whatever it’s to be called, even if it will be a bit dark. There’s a competition to name it.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. “Salmond’s Leap”, that’s supposedly the front runner along with the “It-should-have-been-a-tunnel-bridge”, the green lobby’s favourite,’ Alice remarked, as they drew up beside a bus at the first set of lights on Davidson’s Mains. It had one passenger in it, his head resting against the window.

  ‘Some kid suggested Rusty’s Pal. Actually, or accurately, it should be the fifth Forth Bridge. That would take into account the ones at Kincardine and Stirling as well as the two Queensferry ones.’

  ‘Or, to continue with the powerful fish-politician theme, “Sturgeon’s Passage”. That got a lot of votes I believe.’ A disturbing picture of the First Minister, pop-eyed and bubble-mouthed, swimming beside his little deputy, flitted, uninvited, into Alice’s head.

  ‘It’ll be something dull, something safe . . . the Queensferry Bridge, the Queensferry Crossing. I ought to put money on something like that.’

  Her boss nodded, now lost in thought, going through a checklist in her mind as the constable, untroubled by her silence, wittered on. Paper suits were in the case in the boot, gloves and bootees too. A photographer, Jim Scott, had been fixed up. He was coming straight from his house in Rosyth. With his ponderous manner, vast belly and elephantine legs, he would not have been her choice for this particular job. But beggars could not be choosers. And at least, with his help, the three of them should be able to move the body without calling out the coastguard or the lifeboat men, cutting out the delay and unnecessary contamination that their involvement might bring with it. Unorthodox as this approach might be, time and tide would wait for no man. No woman either, so normal procedures would have to take second place, whatever fuss was made later by DCI Bell or anyone else for that matter.

  ‘Are you going to vote in September?’ DC Cairns asked, breaking her boss’s train of thought.

  ‘Mmm.’

  The roundabout at Barnton, usually clogged with cars in all four directions, was deserted, silent, still, awaiting the arrival of its daily visitors. Conscious of the privilege, they sped across it.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Same as most of the women in the country. Thanks to Dewar we’ve a fair amount of autonomy, and whatever happens, more is on its way. Blair went to school in Scotland, Brown’s from Kirkcaldy. If John Smith hadn’t died, he’d have led. Who’s governing who? Salmond’s just another maker of promises, another maker of mistakes. Look
into his genealogy and he’ll be a UK mongrel like the rest of us. I want fewer divisions, fewer boundaries, not more. Are you even old enough to vote?’

  ‘Only just. At least they’d be our mistakes . . .’

  ‘Shetland doesn’t think they are “our”. Nor does Orkney, nor do much of the Highlands. How local should we go?’

  ‘Home rule for Leith, I say. And we’d be richer.’

  ‘Away and sell your granny then, you patriot, if money’s what it’s all about. But best do it before the rush begins.’

  ‘You care?’

  ‘I care.’

  The windscreen-wipers could not cope with the volume of snow now pouring from the heavens, so Alice speeded them up and began to accelerate up the brae beyond the Cramond Bridge, anticipating a straight run on the motorway ahead. But from the Kirkliston turn-off only the slow lane had been gritted. In the resultant bottleneck, they continued arguing, the pace of their journey dictated by a procession of others, all inching forward together at a speed sedate enough to make a hearse impatient. Their leader, an elderly white transit van, crawled onwards, its exhaust gassing them with an endless stream of noxious fumes.

  ‘Like I said, we need a blue light,’ DC Cairns repeated, as much to herself as anyone else. Cold, and desperate to get to their destination, her foot was flat on the ground, pressing an imaginary accelerator.

  Fifteen minutes later they entered South Queensferry. Driving over the brow of the hill on Kirkliston Road, their eyes were immediately drawn to the long view of the estuary, its glistening waters cut in two by the sparkling, curved outline made by the lights on the Road Bridge. The pocket-sized royal burgh itself was at its picturesque winter best: snow lying in the interstices of the cobbles, capping the crow-stepped gables of the houses and coating the roof of the Black Castle, making it look like an illustration in an old-fashioned children’s story book. Dawn still unbroken, no one was yet abroad on its narrow streets and the place was lit only by the ornamental lanterns dotted along the sea front. The sole sign of life they saw in the town centre was a tabby cat, walking purposefully along the length of the Ferry Tap Inn before dodging into the shadows in search of prey.