Falling was sudden but once begun never seemed to stop. The drop was too slow, she wanted the blow of the pavement to come though there were too many images in the way. Jade and James Tulloch flashed again, the blood, and the knife.
The slap of her head on the concrete came with a scream, but it was hers this time, not some long forgotten hurt of her daughter’s that had hung around her memory. Sandra lay still, let the raindrops tap her face, then curled into a ball outside the entrance to Smith’s.
A man stepped over her motionless body, another walked around her.
‘Jade. Why?’ she whispered to the wet ground.
A woman crouched. A low voice, calm but distinct. ‘Is everything OK?’
She didn’t reply. They were just words, she couldn’t process their meaning.
More sounds came. A jumble of voices.
‘I think she’s had a stumble.’
‘She’s given herself a knock on the head.’
‘I saw her running up the street, she was all over the place.’
‘I think the poor soul’s lost … Love, are you OK there?’
Sandra pulled up her knees. She wanted to be away. She wanted to be somewhere where she was invisible, where she could hide from the world and where nobody knew what was going on inside her. Where nobody else could find out what she had seen. But the images kept coming, and people continued to gather around her.
‘Has someone called an ambulance?’
‘Or the police? Someone should make a call.’
Sandra called out. ‘Jade … Jade …’
‘What’s she saying?’
‘I don’t know, sounds like someone’s name.’
Sandra shrieked as a cold hand was pressed on her wet brow. ‘We’ve called the ambulance, dear. They’ll be here soon.’
Who were they? Why were they fussing around? Sandra eased herself up, crouched against the wall. She pulled up her legs, her knees were scuffed and reddened. There was blood, patches of it, dark black scars and long red lines running down to her shins. On her hands too, she stared at them. They were red with blood and black crescents under the nails. She held them in front of her eyes, her long white fingers trembling, and cried out again.
‘Jade. My daughter …’
‘What’s that?’
‘I want my daughter. She needs me.’
A woman in a white woollen hat leaned towards her, the glasses on her nose were wet with the rain and blurred her eyes. ‘Don’t worry yourself, the ambulance is coming. You’ve had a nasty fall, given yourself quite a knock.’
‘No!’ It wasn’t the fall that Sandra cared about. There were other pointers to how she came to be curled up in Ayr High Street, with a small crowd gathering around her, poking and prodding her as she cried for her daughter. Everything was fragmenting, the memories, the pictures of horrors she didn’t understand. Blood and wounds. A blade. Screams. Her daughter’s face, twisted in tears. Her boyfriend’s bloodied back slouched at the table in her home. It was unreal but so familiar, like a scene from a movie she’d seen a hundred times but couldn’t quite piece together the plot.
‘James is dead,’ she cried.
‘What?’
‘James is dead.’ Sandra sobbed into her dirty hands as the rain washed blood onto the street. The sight of the blood made her thrust her hands away but she couldn’t escape the terror. She pushed herself from the ground, grabbed at the wall and scrabbled through the crowd. She was on the road, running awkwardly. New sounds started behind her.
A screech of brakes.
‘Watch out!’
‘Stop.’
A burn of rubber.
‘It’s hit her …’
20
There was a niggle bothering DI Bob Valentine. For the first time, or so it appeared, things were going their way on the case. If the knife turned out to be the murder weapon, and the forensics team could find fingerprints in the bloodstains on the wall, then he would have something to take to the chief super that might calm her down, maybe put him on her good side. CS Martin was a simple enough sort to play. Providing he prefaced all bad news with a greater quantity of good news, she tended to be sufferable. It was all pride with her. If the CS had something she could take upstairs, and earn a few plaudits for, then she could be quite easy to please.
‘You’re looking chuffed with yourself,’ said McCormack.
Valentine glanced towards his passenger. ‘Think we’ve left at just the right time, rush hour’s cleared right up.’
‘Was I being too optimistic thinking it might be the case that had started to cheer you up?’
‘You’d have to be a funny old sort to be cheered by a murder investigation, Sylvia.’
‘I meant the progress.’
He steered the Vectra through the curve of the road, evacuated a spray of pooling rain water. ‘I’ll be happy when we have the murderer in custody, until then my dancing shoes can stay where they are.’
Valentine didn’t want to think about how far they had come on the case. Rewarding himself for every achievement led to a false sense of gain when there was no real victory to be had. A life had been taken and many other lives disrupted and affected by the actions of a killer. His town, where he lived and raised his children, would only be a safer place once that killer had been caught and removed from the streets. It was not a task to be treated lightly. It was the role he had given everything to, and had nearly cost him his life. There was no way of approaching a murder investigation softly and now that the press conference had been called a new set of pressures were about to begin.
Those in the less functional uniforms, with the shiny buttons and big caps, tended to get nervy when closely scrutinised by the media. Demands were put on investigating officers and workloads and stress levels increased. Things like leave got cancelled. Enforced overtime became the norm. The station, and others like it, became inhospitable places where dour officers passed each other in grim obsession. Everyone knew the light would only return to their lives when the case was closed. The panic reached the public eventually too, and if it was left alone, made for a dangerous atmosphere that spilled into areas it shouldn’t. When that happened, the killer was in control, harboured delusions of omnipotence that increased the danger for everyone. Fear ruled then.
Nobody liked to think of a murderer walking their streets – you couldn’t contain news like that for long, though. In the days to come, Valentine saw himself fending off prying questions from neighbours, posed over the garden wall, and if he didn’t have the right answers, in a quick enough fashion, he’d become a part of the fear himself. He didn’t want to think like this but it was his job, not just as an officer, but as a husband and father, a member of his community. His wife should have no more to worry about than their children and their biggest fear should be from exam results. No one deserved to live in fear of a killer.
The DI’s mobile phone interrupted his thoughts.
‘Want me to get that, sir?’ said McCormack.
‘No, just leave it to go through the speaker, it’s on the Bluetooth.’ He answered the call. ‘Hello, Bob Valentine.’
‘Hello, there.’ He didn’t recognise the voice, the accent was too rarefied for his circle. ‘I’m Major Rutherford …’
The gap on the line was a ruse for Valentine to reveal his position, but he didn’t bite. Experience, or guile, had taught him to play the chippy bloke’s role in these situations; it got results.
‘Yes,’ said the DI. ‘And how can I help you, Major?’
‘I had an interesting telephone conversation with one of your subalterns recently, Inspector. I believe his name was McAlister; the chap said you were conducting a case where one of my boys had been mentioned, Darren Millar.’
‘It’s a murder investigation.’
‘I see. And has Millar’s name been linked to the crime in any sort of nefarious way? You understand the regiment would need to be kept informed of any implications.’
‘Implications?’
‘I mean for the regiment. He’s one of our boys but we have a duty to uphold the good name of the Fusiliers, you understand.’