McFee tried a shrug. ‘I’d get up, but … you know.’
Allan winced. ‘Does that not hurt?’
Steel plonked herself down on the edge of the bed. ‘No’ interrupting anything, am I?’
‘What do you think?’
Mrs Griffith grabbed the duvet and hauled it up, covering McFee’s wee hairy body. ‘I really don’t see how this is any of your business.’
‘What’s the deal, she paying off her husband’s debt in naughty favours? That it?’
‘Actually-’
Mrs Griffith put a hand on his chest. ‘Matthew and I are deeply in love. We have been for nearly a year. When Charles gets back, I’m going to ask him for a divorce.’
‘Divorce?’ The inspector bounced up and down a couple of times, making the springs creak. ‘Tell you what I think: I think the pair of you decided you couldn’t be bothered with a long, drawn out legal battle, so you killed him, dumped the body somewhere, and reported him missing. Cooked up the receipt for four grand so we’d think he’d done a bunk to get out of paying his debt.’ She smiled. ‘How am I doing so far?’
McFee looked at her for a minute, then burst out laughing. ‘We’re gonna get married. You any idea how hard it’d be for Mags to get a divorce if Charles is missing? Couldn’t even have him declared dead for what, seven, eight years? No way we’re waiting that long. Nice quickie divorce, and we can all get on with our lives.’ He winked. ‘Might even send you an invitation.’
‘Pull over.’ Steel scowled out of the windscreen, arms folded across her chest, jaw jutting.
‘You sure? It’s half two, you don’t want to be-’
‘I swear to God, Constable, if you don’t pull over right now I’m going to take my boot and I’m going to jam it right up your-’
‘OK, OK, pulling over.’ Talk about a bear with a sore bum.
The car crunched and bumped over a moonscape of compacted snow, coming to a halt outside a wee corner shop on Queens Road. A little billboard thing was screwed to the walclass="underline" ‘ABERDEEN EXAMINER — END IN SIGHT FOR WINTER CHAOS!’ Aye, right.
Steel unclipped her seatbelt and clambered out onto the crusty pavement, slipped, grabbed the door, wobbled for a bit, then straightened up. ‘No’ a word.’
‘I didn’t say anything!’
She slammed the door and picked her way into the shop.
How could someone be that miserable about inheriting fifty-four grand?
Steel was back five minutes later with a white carrier-bag clutched to her chest. Buckled herself in, then pulled out a half bottle of Famous Grouse. The top came off with a single twist, then she stared at the bottle for a moment, before knocking back a mouthful. Closed her eyes and shuddered. Took another sip. ‘What you looking at?’
‘Just thought it was kind of … you know … on duty and…’ He swallowed. She was glowering at him.
‘Drive.’
She was about a third of the way down the bottle by the time they reached the rutted driveway to the crematorium. The memorial gardens were covered in a thick layer of white, stealing the sharp edges from everything. According to the car’s temperature display, it was minus four out there.
Allan crept along the road, making for the bulky building at the end. The place was a collection of grey and brown rectangles, bolted together into a single unappealing, ugly, lump. As if just being a crematorium wasn’t depressing enough.
There was only one other vehicle in the car park, a frost-rimed 4x4. Allan parked a couple of spaces along and checked the clock: two fifty-eight. ‘Doesn’t look like he was all that popular.’
Steel took another slug of Grouse. ‘I was nineteen, only been on the beat for a couple of weeks… Was doing door-to-doors for this abduction case — woman, mother of two, snatched outside the bookies she worked at.’ Steel screwed the top back on the bottle, one eye half-shut, like it wouldn’t stay in focus. ‘And then I chapped on Desperate Doug MacDuff’s door…’
Silence.
‘Guv? You want me to come in with you?’
‘Going to go in there and tell the truth. Let everyone know what he was really like. Give that manky old git a piece of my mind. Who needs his filthy money?’ She climbed out into the snow, breath streaming around her head. Slipped the half bottle of whisky into her pocket. ‘You wait here. Might need to make a quick getaway.’
December 31st — Hogmanay
‘Guv?’ Allan peered around the edge of the door into DI Steel’s office.
She was slouched in her seat, feet up on the desk, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. The smoke curled out through the open window, letting in the constant drip-drip-drip of melting snow. A cup of coffee was growing a wrinkly skin, sitting next to a cardboard box with ‘FRAGILE — THIS WAY UP’ stencilled on the side.
‘Guv?’
Steel blinked, then swung around. ‘What?’
‘Just got a call from Mrs Griffith’s next-door neighbour. Think we’ve found the missing husband.’
Steel turned and stared back towards the road. ‘You sure you locked the car?’
‘Yes, I locked the car.’ Snow crunched and squelched under Allan’s boots as he picked his way along the edge of the next-door neighbour’s garden. It was horrible out here, cold and wet and soggy as the thaw ate its way through the drifts.
The neighbour was standing by a six-foot wooden fence, clutching an umbrella, melt-water from the roof drumming on the black and white fabric. She bounced a little on her feet as they got nearer, green eyes shining, big smile on her face, Irn-Bru hair curling out from the fringes of a woolly hat. ‘He’s over there.’ She pointed through a gap in the fence. ‘Saw him when I was trying to defrost the garden hose, and I was certain it was a body, and then I thought I can’t leave it, what if it disappears like in North by Northwest and nobody believes me? Or was that Ten Little Indians? I don’t suppose it matters really, but it was something like that, so I ran inside and grabbed my mobile and came back out and it was still there, which is great.’ All delivered machine gun style in one big breath.
Allan peered between two of the boards that made up the fence. There was a pair of legs sticking out of a drift of glistening snow: black boots; red trousers trimmed with white fur. An electrical cable was wrapped around one leg, studded with large multicoloured light bulbs. ‘Ouch. You think he’s…?’
Steel hit him. ‘Course he’s dead. Been lying upside down in a snowdrift for a week. It’s no’ like he’s hibernating in there, is it?’
The end of a ladder was just visible on the other side of the mound. ‘On the bright side, at least he’s not missing any more.’
Steel sat in the passenger seat, clutching that fragile cardboard box to her chest. Allan turned up the heater, then peered through the windscreen up at the house. Mrs Griffith was standing in the bay window of the lounge, staring as the duty undertakers wrestled her husband’s remains into the back of their unmarked grey van. It wasn’t easy — he’d frozen in a pretty awkward shape, like a Santa-Claus-themed swastika… Wee Free McFee had his arms wrapped nearly all the way around her shoulders, holding her tight as she sobbed.
Allan sniffed. ‘Still think they did it?’
‘The lovebirds? Nah. Silly sod was clambering about on the roof practicing his Father Christmas in the snow. Deserved all he got.’
The funeral directors finally forced the last bit of Charles Griffith into the van, then slammed the doors shut and slithered off into the defrosting afternoon.
Allan put the pool car in gear. ‘Back to the ranch?’
‘Nope. You can drop me off at home, I’m copping a sicky.’ Steel opened the top of the cardboard box and hauled out a brass urn that looked like a cross between a cocktail shaker and a thermos flask. A plaque was stuck to the dark wooden base: ‘DOUGLAS KENNEDY MACDUFF — IN LOVING MEMORY’. She opened the top and peered inside. ‘Hello again, Doug, you rancid wee scumbag. Your mate the solicitor says I’ve got to give you a dignified farewell. Something befitting your standing in the community.’