Don’t Let it Be Him

A red light was winking angrily on the telephone as Maggie came through the front door. She stretched out a forefinger to the answering machine. Pressed ‘play’. She hoped to hear a familiar voice, but all Maggie could hear was a long tone, disembodied, like a foghorn at half kilter, followed by a sharp beep. There was silence. She wondered if the caller had thought the better of it and hung up. She got a lot of that these days: callers whose courage deserted them at the very last minute, folk who decided they didn’t want to deal with a woman. She could see that was going to be a problem, particularly in macho Aberdeen. She waited for a few moments, then bent over the machine and depressed the ‘stop’ button.

Maggie made her way down the hall. Behind the kitchen window, the sun sat low, casting tiger stripes across the sky. The garden was unkempt, the vegetable patch sprouting with shot cabbages, the grass ragged at the edges, the borders choked with old vegetation. She sighed. More expense. Dejected, she set her bag down on the worktop. Her spirits always soared when the agency got a new enquiry. Now, she felt a sharp stab of disappointment. With Wilma’s help, she’d put in some serious groundwork since the day she’d picked up those files from George’s office. And business was building steadily, but she couldn’t afford to let up.

Get on with it. There was a pile of paperwork waiting to be tackled. And no Colin. He’d asked to stay over with a friend. Now she came to think on it, he’d been doing an awful lot of that lately.

‘Hello-o?’ Wilma turned her key in the back door. She no longer bothered to knock. ‘I saw the light on. How’s you?’

‘Fine. I’m not long in.’

‘Well, I won’t hinder you. I just came round to see if you knew about that young lassie found dead at St Machar? Heard it on the news.’

Maggie gasped. ‘Poor soul.’

‘D’you reckon she was done in?’

‘Doesn’t follow.’

‘Oh, but they said…’

‘I’ve told you already,’ there was real bitterness in Maggie’s voice, ‘you don’t want to believe everything you hear.’

‘But the telly…’

‘Wilma, you have to stop jumping to conclusions. We need to be the embodiment of probity, especially now we’re supposed to be private investigators.’ Maggie felt herself flush. In the light of her recent escapades, that was rich.

‘You an your fancy words.’ Wilma experienced not the slightest twinge of conscience. ‘Betcha it was some wanker from Seaton Park.’

‘Seaton Park? What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Well, they’re saying the quine was a student.’

Dear God! Alarm bells went off in Maggie’s head. After years of showing contempt, Colin had lately taken an interest in the opposite sex. She’d even unearthed a men’s magazine one morning when she was changing his bed. She’d been shocked at the time. Reassured herself that sort of thing was tame compared with what was available on the internet. The incident did make Maggie wonder, though: what else her son was keeping from her? If he was still skipping school, for instance? And if he was, what exactly did he do all day down the other end of town? Her mind ran away. What if this poor girl was one of the students he hung out with? What if he’d chatted her up? Gone into the graveyard? Made a clumsy overture? Been rebuffed? Calm down, woman. You’re tired, that’s all.

‘You’ve got Hillhead here.’ Wilma laid a pencil on the table. ‘The University there.’ She placed a second pencil parallel to the first. ‘Seaton Park’s the obvious shortcut between the two.’ She whacked down a folder in between.

‘Yes, I can see that. But what’s the problem? I would have thought the fresh air…’

‘Maggie Laird,’ Wilma cut her off mid-sentence, ‘are you honestly trying to tell me you’ve never heard of students being attacked in Seaton Park?’

‘Well, I’ve maybe read the odd thing in the paper – somebody getting relieved of their mobile, that sort of thing, but I’d no idea…’

‘As for Hillhead…’

‘What’s the matter with it?’ The minute she opened her mouth, she regretted posing the question.

Wilma snorted. ‘Just about everything – lousy accommodation, bugger-all facilities, expensive bus fares.’ She harrumphed again. ‘Wrong thing in the wrong place, if you ask me. As for them nobs at Aberdeen University… Bunch o’ wankers. Couldn’t put one foot in front of the other, some of them. Plus there’s been nothing but bother since they built that place.’ She paused for breath. ‘Didn’t your husband ever say anything about Seaton Park?’

‘George didn’t say much about anything lately.’

‘Well, let me tell you, the place is hoatching with junkies, drop-outs, hoodies, you name it. And there’s damn all in the way of lighting. It’s bad enough in the daytime,’ Wilma made a scary face, ‘but I wouldn’t go near the place after dark.’

Maggie threw a covert glance at her watch. ‘I’m sure it can’t be that bad.’

‘You haven’t seen what I’ve seen up at ARI: broken noses, fractured jaws, knife wounds.’ Wilma was in full flow. ‘I wouldn’t want to go into detail on the sexual assaults.’

Despite herself, Maggie’s curiosity was piqued. ‘And these happened in Seaton Park?’

‘Uh-huh. So if that poor lassie on the telly got done in taking a shortcut from Hillhead, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.’

‘I think you’re exaggerating, Wilma.’

‘That’s you all over, Maggie Laird, looking to see the good in everything.’

If you only knew. In truth, the first thing Maggie looked to do on meeting someone for the first time was nose out the flaw. Like a ferret after a rabbit. It wasn’t something she was proud of.

Her lips formed a tight smile. ‘If you say so.’

‘Would you still be as charitable if it was your daughter lying dead? Oh,’ Wilma bit her lip. ‘Forget I said that.’

‘That’s all right. To be honest with you, I’ve had that much on my plate recently, I haven’t had time to fret about Kirsty.’ Maggie paused. ‘Not till you reminded me, that is.’

‘Sorry, pal.’

‘Anyhow,’ resolutely, she moved towards the door, ‘I have to throw you out now because…’

Wilma cupped a hand to her ear. ‘Do you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Sounds like the polis.’

She pricked her ears. Sure enough, in the near distance there was the distinctive sound of a police siren.

‘Wonder what’s up? It’s no often you hear them in this neck of the woods.’

‘Oh…’ Maggie’s stomach lurched. Her first thought was the unfair dismissal case. She could hear, still, those Alsatians pounding after her, feel their hot breath at her back. Breaking and entering! She wondered if there were any further charges could be brought. Don’t be daft. A thing like that wouldn’t warrant a siren. She collected her thoughts. ‘They’re probably taking a shortcut.’

‘Shortcut?’ Wilma was already rehearsing in her head the yarn she would spin over her wee bit business in Mastrick. ‘It’s a fuckin cul-de-sac.’

‘Well, maybe they don’t know that.’

‘You’d think they’d know, if anybody bloody would,’ Wilma said. ‘Tossers. Oh,’ she pulled herself up, ‘sorry, Maggie. I forgot.’

‘Doesn’t matter. If you’ve been married to a policeman for as long as I have…’ She looked pointedly at Wilma, ‘You get used to it.

The noise of the siren grew louder.

‘Bet it’s to do with that lassie at St Machar.’

Could it be connected with Colin, then? Maggie fought to still the palpitations in her chest. He couldn’t have, surely.

Louder, the siren wailed, and louder still.

Maggie’s mind churned. She told herself it was irrational. Still, she said a silent prayer: Don’t let it be him.

‘Come on, chum, let’s have a nosey.’

Wilma gripped Maggie by the elbow and steered her down the hall.

They were just in time to see the two dark uniforms framed in the door’s glass panel.