Loyalties

Jasmine was putting some pasta on the boil when she heard her doorbell ring, jolting her into sudden self-consciousness as she sang along to Chvrches just a little too loud. She looked at the clock and noticed to her surprise that it was after nine, so this set her on guard a little. It hadn’t been the light and tentative, sorry-to-disturb-you ring of a neighbour come to ask a favour or hand over a misdelivered letter, but the firm, insistent press of somebody who expected an answer.

Part of her was pleased to see that it was so late. She had been to the range and lost track of the hours, which had largely been the purpose of the exercise. Work had started at just after six, a surveillance with an early start because they had to be outside the subject’s house in Pitlochry before the school run. She had clocked off at four and needed to occupy herself for the remainder of the day. A bout of her new favourite pastime had delivered.

She had first tried air-rifle shooting while investigating a missing person case, she and Fallan tracking down a former police marksman to his current job running the field sports centre attached to a big hotel in the Borders. Fallan and the instructor had remarked that she was a natural, and she assumed they were winding her up until she saw the paper targets they had retrieved. She had enjoyed the experience more than she could possibly have anticipated, and often found herself thinking back to it, remembering the feel of the weapon in her hands and the sensation of the kick against her shoulder. She was curious to know whether her results had merely been beginner’s luck, so when she overheard one of the Galt Linklater guys talking about a range of which he was a member out near East Kilbride, she had asked if she could come along as a guest.

Now she was a member herself, as well as the slightly self-conscious and enduringly dubious (as opposed to proud) owner of two different rifles. The gas gun was more accurate because there was no recoil and so she could maintain her stance between shots, but now and again she went back to the spring-powered rifle because it was the type she had first used, and because she enjoyed the rhythm and the ritual: break, prime, load and fire.

Shooting had become an invaluable source of peace, calm and relaxation. When she was on the range she could reduce her world to an impregnable little vortex. There was only the target, the crosshairs, her finger, her breathing, her pulse. Time became elastic in the moments before she squeezed the trigger; seconds stretched and minutes compressed. Sometimes she could reach for the next pellet and find the tin empty, discovering that two hours had just dissolved.

Jasmine put her front door on the chain, remembering, as she always did, Glen Fallan asking how likely it was that she’d be attacked by an angry Girl Guide: this being in his estimation the upper limit of the potential intruder this security measure was capable of stopping. She opened the door just a little and spied a female figure in trainers, three-quarter-length lycra running trousers and a T-shirt. Her flushed face was familiar but out of place, so it took Jasmine a moment to recognise her. The authoritative doorbell ring should have helped, she realised.

‘Hi, Jasmine. Sorry to trouble you so late. I’m Laura Geddes, remember? I work with Catherine McLeod. Do you mind if I come in?’

‘No, sure.’

Jasmine undid the chain and led Laura inside to the kitchen, doubly curious as to the nature of this visit given the hour and the dress code.

‘Can I get you something to drink?’

‘Just some tap water would be great.’

Good answer, Jasmine thought. Apart from milk for tea she was down to one can of Irn-Bru and in pressing need of a trip to the supermarket.

Laura gulped down half a pint and accepted a refill before taking a seat at the kitchen table. She had tiny beads of moisture on her forehead and arms, a fresh smell of the outdoors about her. It reminded Jasmine uncomfortably of how her mum used to smell when she came home on those occasions Jasmine was off school sick and had been indoors, laid up in bed all day.

Laura’s hair was different, which was another reason Jasmine had struggled to place her. It was shorter and she had dyed it, resulting in a blonde bob that was at odds with Jasmine’s residual mental image of her. It made her seem a little brighter, more open. Laura had often given Jasmine the impression she was hiding behind her hair when it fell across her face. She had seemed skittish rather than shy, and a little mirthless. For all that, she always seemed more approachable than her boss, but this wasn’t saying much.

Catherine McLeod was a Detective Superintendent, but in Jasmine’s mind her official rank was Queen Crabbit Cow. If Jasmine tried on bitch every so often to see how it felt, then McLeod must have had it spliced into her genes. She didn’t know what she had ever done to piss the woman off, but Jasmine always got as much warmth from her as a dying penguin’s last fart. It seemed particularly unfair given that Jasmine’s contributions had helped her close two major cases; but rather than gratitude, this only seemed to inspire resentment. Admittedly there was the small matter, in one of those cases, of Jasmine seriously perverting the course of justice, but McLeod didn’t know about this, so that couldn’t be the reason she was so down on her.

It wasn’t about Jasmine though, she knew: it was Fallan she hated. Any time Jasmine had been in McLeod’s company, the big man had been part of the deal. Jasmine had thus fielded her share of suspicion and disapproval in accordance with McLeod’s ‘fly with the crows, get shot with the crows’ principle.

As Laura sat at Jasmine’s table, pasta bubbling on the cooker just behind her, she wasn’t radiating hostility or attempting to intimidate; Jasmine got the impression she was here to share, but there still seemed something about her that was closed off, defensive and even afraid. Laura might let you be her ally but she wouldn’t let you be her friend.

‘I’ve been trying to get you on your phone, but you weren’t answering. I was out for a run and my route took me over this way, so I thought I’d just see if you were home.’

Jasmine didn’t remember ignoring any calls or seeing that she had missed any. She wondered whether Laura had the right number for her; she certainly had the right address. She hadn’t previously given thought to the fact that McLeod and her people knew where she lived, but they were the polis, after all.

‘What can I do for you?’

Laura took another gulp of water and wiped her brow with her forearm. The tiny beads of sweat were starting to pool and run in the warmth of the kitchen.

‘There was a murder yesterday. I don’t know if you heard about it.’

Jasmine had seen something on the front page of someone else’s Daily Record, but hadn’t paid it much heed other than to connect it to the traffic congestion Andy Smith had warned about.

‘Fleetingly. Over in Shawburn?’

‘That’s right. It was a guy called Stevie Fullerton.’

Laura stared at her a moment. Jasmine felt she was being scrutinised to gauge any possible reaction.

‘I’ve got an alibi.’

‘Do you know who he was?’

She vaguely remembered the name. It had been one of many thrown accusatorily at Fallan by McLeod the first time she met her, the policewoman gatecrashing their breakfast when Jasmine was lying low at a city-centre hotel. Whether Fullerton had been a criminal associate of Fallan’s or a gangland rival, she couldn’t remember. Even from the context it had been clear McLeod was digging up ancient history.

‘Gangster,’ Jasmine answered. ‘Drug dealer. General malefactor. What do I win?’

Laura didn’t appear to be in the mood for banter, though to be honest Jasmine couldn’t remember there ever being a time when she was.

‘He was shot four times in the chest at a car wash. Several witnesses plus CCTV gave us the perpetrator’s licence plate and vehicle, which did not turn out to be stolen. We apprehended the suspect and have him in custody.’

‘Congrats. Sounds like a quick result. What does it have to do with me?’

‘The suspect is Glen Fallan.’

Jasmine didn’t have a snappy comeback for that.

The mere mention of his name always provoked a confused mix of emotions. This was the man who had confessed to killing the father she’d never met; yet even after that confession she had invited him into her flat again. On more than one occasion he had sat where Laura was now, and while he was at her table Jasmine had felt safer than at any time since the loss of her mother.

Perhaps unable to immediately process the enormity of what she had been told, among her first instinctive responses was a laughably petty disappointment that he had been in town without telling her.

‘He hasn’t been in touch with me,’ she said, growing awkward in the lengthening silence.

‘We know. He hasn’t been in touch with anybody. Since his arrest he’s made no phone calls, refused legal assistance and is answering no questions.’

The same instinct caused Jasmine to wonder why he hadn’t got in touch to say he was in trouble. Then she wondered what gave her any reason to think that he would.

‘Did you know he kept a gun concealed in his car?’

‘I take it we’re off the record right now?’

Laura nodded.

‘I wouldn’t be here talking to you if he didn’t keep a gun in his car. He saved my life more than once. I know the guy’s got a past, but I thought that’s what it was: the past. I can’t believe he would just shoot some gangster, though. Not unless it was self-defence.’

‘It wasn’t. It was execution-style, while the guy’s view was blanked out by foam on his windscreen.’

Jasmine had no response to this.

On the hob, the pasta was threatening to boil over. She turned down the gas a notch, unsure if she was even hungry any more.

‘Do you know what it was about?’ Jasmine asked.

‘No. Nobody’s talking. Not Fallan and not Fullerton’s people. Nobody will tell us anything. That’s why I’m here. I was hoping you might be able to help.’

‘I don’t know anything about Fallan’s history. He knew my mum way back when, but neither of them was ever forthcoming about those days.’

‘Maybe the time has come for you to do some digging, then. There’s questions you can ask that we can’t. People who might speak to you who would never talk us.’

‘So you’re asking me to do your job for you and play my part in helping send Fallan to jail?’

‘We can do that easily enough without your help, Jasmine. Catherine McLeod thinks all her Christmases have come at once: she’s got Stevie Fullerton on a slab and Glen Fallan on a plate. It’s just that, to me, there’s something I can’t place, something about this that feels a little . . . off.’

‘It must feel very off for you to be telling tales out of school like this.’

Laura’s expression darkened, a hunted look coming over her, as though she may have misjudged her circumstances.

‘I came here in the strictest confidence,’ she said firmly. ‘I hope that’s understood. I don’t need to tell you how motivated Catherine is about this.’

‘Like a dog with two dicks, I’m guessing.’

‘Eating Winalot laced with Viagra. But that’s why I’m concerned, in case there’s an angle we might be missing. Fallan isn’t helping himself, and we can only respond to what’s in front of us, so if there’s more to this than meets the eye you might be the only person in a position to look for it.’