“Monsig just didn’t want to spend our money where it wasn’t needed,” I said. “He’s not psychic. What’s happened anyway?”
“What hasn’t?” she said. “Embezzlement, backhanders, bribes, gangsters.” She was ironing, and as she pressed down hard on a coat collar, a cloud of steam billowed up and hid her face. If she’d cackled, she could have got cast in Macbeth.
“In other words, you’ve no idea,” I said. “Gangsters? In Dumfries?”
“Master gangsters, it said in the paper,” Dot insisted. “I’ll cut it out and bring it in to show you. Investors are leaving like rats from a sinking ship. Of course, Father will never go back on his word. We’ll lose out in the end, just you see. It’s like the end of days in Dumfries this last while.”
I was trying to compose an e-mail.
“The end of days,” I repeated. My mother was a big one for the end of days.
“Two suicides,” said Dot. “Two deaths anyway. Disappearances… ” she trailed off.
“Who’s disappeared?” I said, wondering if the world was small enough for Dot to know Ros. But she was staring out of the front window. “The end of days,” she said again softly as the door opened and a pair of police in uniform walked in. I girded my loins, squeezed past the ironing board, and went to face them.
“We are a confidential service, officers,” I said, smiling but speaking very firmly. “You’ll need to speak to Father Tommy Whelan over at St. Vince’s and just between you and me, he’ll make you get a warrant. But since you’re here, what am I saying no to, today?”
Because it wasn’t the first time-or the tenth either-that the cops would be looking for someone right down hard on their luck and think we’d love to help them. I suppose, to give them their due, one of the reasons to suddenly need new clothes and shoes in a hurry is if you’ve got blood or whatever all over your old ones, but it would take a brass neck to walk into some drop-in clinic dripping with murder blood and ask for a clothing project voucher.
They took their hats off-trying to signal that they were staying?-and that’s when I recognised the sergeant who’d been in Gus’s house last night. He’d already recognised me. Cops are quick that way.
“Miss… Constable, isn’t it?” he said. “Long time, no see.”
The other one-just a youngster, the look of a farmer’s boy round him, red cheeks and gold hair-gave him a sharp look. He hadn’t missed the twist in the voice any more than I had.
“Unless you’re donating,” I said. I had spied the black plastic bag in the farmboy’s hand. “Not uniforms, I hope. Ho-ho. That could cause some mix-ups.”
“I wonder if you would cast your eyes over these gents’ clothes,” said the sergeant.
“What’s your name?” I asked him. “I don’t think I ever caught it.” I didn’t really care, but asking questions and getting people to answer them was something my therapist Eilish had taught me for if I was feeling flustered, and I’d got into the habit.
“Sergeant McDowall, and this is Constable Anderson.”
He had put the bin bag up on the table where the belts and bags were laid out and he pulled out, first, a big sheet of thick polythene and then an armload of dark fabric, smelling of mould and damp and something worse than either. He started spreading them out.
“What’s this in connection with?” Dot said.
“A gentleman met with an unfortunate situation,” said McDowall, “and we’re trying to identify him. We wondered if maybe he was one of yours. He looked your sort.”
I turned over the trousers. Jeans. Fancy stitching on the pockets but no logo. Impossible to say. Same with the jersey-hand-knitted, no labels. The t-shirt was from Primark, so it could be. The underpants were brown and cream nylon y-fronts, definitely nothing to do with me. The young copper was hauling another item out of the bag and this did look familiar. Thick and sturdy, the fake leather shoulder patches flaking. My mind flashed on the memory of Kazek flapping his arms to say how warm his coat was, and I didn’t hide it quick enough, felt my face turning pale.
“What?” said Anderson. “You recognise this, do you?”
“Oh Jessie,” said Dot. “Do you?”
“No,” I said. “Not really.” But his words were echoing in me-an unfortunate situation. If ever anyone looked like meeting with one of them, it was Kazek. I had to know. “How long have you had these then?”
All three of them were staring at me.
“Why do you ask?” said McDowall.
“Just… ” I scrabbled for an answer. “They don’t smell too good.” It was true; they didn’t.
“Nearly a week,” said Constable Anderson, getting a dirty look from the sergeant for his trouble. “River water, you know.”
A week. Not Kazek then. I let my breath go and felt the colour come back to my face. McDowall was glaring at the constable, but Dot was still watching me.
“River water?” she said. “A week? Is this the poor soul that came out of the Nith at the Whitesands?”
“Poor sod,” I said. “Maybe if he hadn’t been wearing such a big thick coat he wouldn’t have sunk.”
“That’s an odd word to use,” said McDowall. “Why not say drowned? If you know something about this, Miss Constable… ”
“I really don’t,” I said. I was watching Anderson’s hands. He was rootling about in a plastic bag he’d had in his pocket. He took out a crucifix and half a dozen of those rubber charity bangles and laid them down.
“We don’t do accessories,” I told him. I lifted one of the bangles, a pink one.
“It’s not in English,” said McDowall.
“Polish.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but when I looked up again all three were staring at me.
“Are you sure you’ve nothing you want to tell us, Miss Constable?” said McDowall.
“There’s this,” I said, praying it was the right thing. If only Dot had left me alone to think, I might know. “I tried to tell what’s her name, Gail, last night. There’s a Polish person missing. Her name is Jaroslawa Czerwinska; she was Becky King’s best friend and she disappeared a week past Saturday. She hasn’t gone home and no one knows where she is.”
“Saturday,” he repeated, frowning at me. “This incident took place on Tuesday.”
“It was the drowning!” said Dot. “Oh, the poor man.”
“So it’s hard to see how they’re connected,” McDowall went on.
“I never said they were,” I told him.
“Except we have connected them, haven’t we?” said McDowall. “Mrs. King went in the Nith on Tuesday and this man came out, and you know both of them, it seems to me.”
“I didn’t know this guy,” I said. “First I knew was watching the frogmen like everyone else.”
“You’re sure of that?” said McDowall. Anderson was putting the clothes away again.
There’s a crucifix on the wall. I went over and put my hand on it. “I didn’t know the man who died in these clothes,” I said. “Never met him, don’t know anything about him.”
“Well, there you are,” said Dot. It seemed to be good enough for young Anderson too. Only McDowall looked unimpressed, like he knew how many times I’d lied on Bibles to save my neck when I was wee.
“Again, I can’t help noticing that you said died, Miss Constable, while your colleague here said drowned.”
“And it’s a small town,” I said. “I bet loads of people know Becky King as well as this guy.”
“If anyone knows him, they’re keeping quiet about it,” said McDowall. “Thank you for your time, ladies.” He followed Anderson back to the front door then turned. “Czerwinska, eh?”
And now, too late, I saw that I had really blown it. I had given the coppers Ros’s name. Ros, who worked on the caravan site where a guy was hiding who had the same coat as the guy in the river and had the guy’s Bible and his rosary too and a ton of dodgy money, and I had hidden him. And if the cops asked me why, I’d have nothing to say.