Exile

Chapter 24

It was rush hour as Arthur Williams drove through the outskirts of Glasgow. The four-lane motorway slid downhill into the city, past a blackened Gothic Albert hospital. They had been on the road for seven hours, seven hours of listening to Phil Collins's greatest hits because Bunyan liked it. Bunyan was delighted by the trip up north, and she was pleased that Williams had insisted they drive because it would take longer in the car than it would on a plane. Bunyan would be getting overtime for the tour and Williams was looking at one day in lieu, day and a half tops. It had been Williams's idea to bring the car. They would need it if they arrested Harris. They couldn't interview him in a Scottish police station because of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and would need to get him to Carlisle. But Harris didn't look like a very likely suspect. The husband of murdered woman number 14/2000 had no record, no connections and lived on a safe estate.

They had been told to come off the M8 at junction sixteen and take a couple of rights for Stewart Street. They didn't want to go there first, they had all the local intelligence they needed, but it was a courtesy and Williams knew from experience that they might find themselves looking for follow-up information later on.

"Yeah," said Bunyan. "And another right. Should be here."

Stewart Street police station was at the tail of a dead end. It was a large, glass-fronted building, two minutes' walk from the city center. Behind the building the heavy traffic lumbered past on the motorway flyover. The cars outside were coppers' cars, all good nick and thick tread, all taxed, some with flash extras. Williams pulled the car to the curb and cranked up the hand brake.

"God," sighed Bunyan. "Do you have to?"

Williams smiled at her. "Picky, picky, picky," he said, and she smiled back at him.

"That's not how you drive a car," she said.

"You're wrong, DC Bunyan. That is how I drive a car."

They stepped out and pulled their worn clothes straight. It was a dry, cold night. In the distance they could hear the hum and swirl of bagpipes.

"Can you hear that?" Bunyan asked.

"Yeah," said Williams.

"Do they pipe that music all over the whole country?"

"No," said Williams, slowly. "Someone nearby is playing bagpipes."

They told the young PC on the desk that they were there to meet DI Hugh McAskill. He phoned upstairs. "Be a minute," he said.

"We heard bagpipes outside," said Bunyan, leaning on the desk. "Do they pipe that music all over the whole country, then?"

The PC smiled politely. "No," he said, his dry, brisk accent making Bunyan sound like a chirpy barrow boy. "The School of Piping is just down the road. They produce very good pipers."

"I wouldn't know a good piper from a bad piper," Bunyan told Williams.

"Yes, you would," said the PC, tidying the posters on the notice board at the back. "You'd know a bad piper if you heard one. DI McAskill"-he looked behind her-"this is DI Williams and DC Bunyan from the Met."

McAskill was tall and sad-faced. He reached out his hand. "Hello," he said, shaking theirs firmly. "DI Hugh McAskill. I'm very sorry but we can't brief you just now. Bit of business. You've got the written brief?"

"Yeah, are we late?" asked Bunyan, shoving her hands into her pockets. "That's a shame."

Williams took charge. "We'll come and see you in the morning," he said. "Will you be free then?"

"Aye." McAskill looked solemn. "Come in about eight."

Williams nodded. "Good luck with that, then."

"Aye," said McAskill. "We'll see ye in the morning." And he turned and walked away through a set of double doors.

"We're all doomed," trilled Bunyan, when they got to the car. "What a misery that bloke was."

"Don't be stupid," said Williams, losing patience as he unlocked the car. "Something's happened or they'd want to get it out of the way."

He slid hip first into the still warm seat, and Bunyan climbed in next to him. "How would you know?" she said, offended at being called stupid.

Williams reached around for his seat belt and felt his tired back straining with the effort. "The only reason a DI would be too busy for a briefing at seven at night and back in at eight in the morning is if something's happened. Otherwise he'd be at home watching The Bill, wouldn't he? That's why the bloke looked so grim, he was telling us that."

"I see," said Bunyan. "Put Phil Collins back on."

Chaos was king in James Harris's living room. He had four boys under ten, all of whom were very excited about the arrival of the two visitors from London. The two older boys were jumping about on the only armchair in the room, taking turns to ride the high back like a horse. The two small boys, little more than babies, were sitting on the bare floor, playing with their plastic plates of spaghetti hoops, getting them all over their cotton trousers and in their hair. James Harris looked like a man about to crack.

"Will – ye – fuck – ing – chuck – it?" he screamed. The boys on the chair lowered their voices for a couple of minutes and then carried on.

"Mr. Harris," said Williams, noticing how soft his accent sounded by comparison, "can't you get the boys to go upstairs? We need to ask you about your wife."

Harris's response was bizarre. He opened his red eyes as wide as they would go and shook his head. "No," he murmured, but the boys on the chair had heard.

"Mum?" said the oldest one, clambering down from the chair and coming to stand by them in the doorway.

"Is Mammy coming home soon?" said his brother, coming over too.

The babies stopped throwing spaghetti at their faces and looked up. Williams couldn't believe it. The bastard hadn't told them. Bunyan opened her mouth to speak, but Williams stepped in front of her. "All right now," he said, speaking slowly and with great authority. "I've heard that you two boys are very good at drawing." He opened his notebook and ripped out two blank pages from the back. "I have two sheets of paper. One for each of you."

Williams held them above the boys' heads and they looked up at them. The longer the sheets of paper were out of their reach the more the boys were certain that drawing on these pieces of paper was the one thing they had been looking forward to for ages.

"What we need now," he said, "is for two very quiet, calm boys to tiptoe around the room and find one pen each."

They scurried away.

"Tiptoe in a calm way," ordered Williams loudly.

The babies were mesmerized. They didn't care about their dinner anymore, they wanted to do what the big boys were doing. They wanted to walk slowly around the room looking at the floor. The older boy ran back waving a Biro -

"Got mine!" he screamed.

"Calmly," emphasized Williams.

The younger boy came back clutching a purple felt-tip with a broken nib. Williams gave them the paper, laying it on the floor in front of them. "I want you both to draw a house and some children playing. Take your time. Start now."

The boys sat on the floor, leaning over their bits of paper so enthusiastically it was as if they'd never had an organized task before. Williams turned back to Harris.

"How did ye do that?" said Harris, staring at the boys. "I cannae control them at all."

"Mr. Harris," said Williams, speaking with an adult voice, "we need to speak to ye and it would be better if we were alone. Will the boys be at school tomorrow?"

"Aye."

"Good, we'll come and talk to you then."

They turned to leave but Harris put his hand across the door to stop them. "What, um"-he licked his lips-"what time will ye be coming?"

"About two? Does that suit you?"

"Aye, two's fine." He lifted his arm away. "I'll see ye then."

Williams stepped onto the concrete veranda but Bunyan was holding back. "Shouldn't we…?" She thumbed back into the room.

"What is it?" demanded Williams, losing patience.

"The boys are drawing for you," said Bunyan.

The oldest boy stood up, holding his drawing in the air, and shouted that he'd finished. He almost caused a fight by half stepping onto his brother's picture as he tried to get to the door and hand it to Bunyan. He had drawn a house with a roof and a boy standing in an upstairs window, waving out.

"That's great," said Bunyan, in the indulgent, singsong voice she spoke to her three-year-old daughter in. "He's giving us a little wave, isn't he?"

"Aye."

His little brother followed him and handed her a big purple square mess. "I colored mine in," he said.

"This is lovely," cooed Bunyan. "Look at that beautiful house. I should like to live there."

"We're off," said Williams curtly.

Bunyan had no option but to follow him, waving back to the little boys standing on the windy veranda in their pajamas. The smell of urine in the lift was disgusting.

"God," said Bunyan, looking at the drawings. "Those poor little bastards."

"Why would the man not tell his children that their mother is dead?"

"Guilt," said Bunyan, and Williams agreed with her. "Where did you learn to talk to children like that?"

"Used to be a teacher," said Williams, "before I got onto the fast track."

Bunyan thought it made sense. Williams never listened to anyone and he was a bossy bastard as well.