Anderson stood at the bottom of Altmore Road, watching the comings and goings, looking at the big house, knowing that Aird was probably watching him. He was hoping to see Jennifer, but all he saw was a young girl with thick black hair go for a wander up the road, and back again.
Anderson was there so long that in the end Aird came out and asked him in, Betty wagging her tail at some newfound friend that smelled of dog.
The kitchen was big, bright – much brighter than the entire rest of the street, which had suffered from eternal gloom ever since Anderson had arrived. It had nearly stopped raining. It wasn’t that the sun had actually come out, but there was a brightness in the air shadowing down from the glass in the old conservatory. The back of the house was almost cut off from the road and the wood. It backed on to the hill, which rose, effectively blocking the wood and the road from the building site going on at the far side and beyond.
The dog subjected Anderson to some investigatory sniffing. Anderson found himself telling Aird about Nesbit; the old man replied that dogs were grand things and Betty was the best of the best. Betty showed what she thought of this idea by walking away and slumping down in her basket in front of the Aga.
‘Have you found out who owns the foot yet?’ He fingered a bad cut on his face. It looked recent, probably the whiplash of a twig while walking in the woods.
‘We have some DNA that we are trying to trace,’ said Anderson, taking his chance to study the old man. He himself was sitting at the fireplace on an old armchair, an armchair that felt loved and sat-upon. A pair of old wellies were drying out by the fire; much loved, much repaired. A pair of hard-core socks hung over the mantelpiece. The man with his back to him was tall; even with the slight stoop he would have been six feet tall. Casual trousers, a cashmere jumper that had been well worn but still looked expensive, the Tattersall shirt underneath. He still sported a long lock of grey hair that fell across his face; a broad, tanned hand sent it back over his forehead. He was a handsome man. The shoulders were a little hollow, the natural wasting of age, but he would have been a powerful man in every sense in his day, and in this street he still owned the wood, the street, some of the property. Anderson was sure of that and that the Dirk-Huntleys would legally pursue anybody remotely liable for the sinkhole, and pursue them through every court in the land. The new money coming in, people who thought the street was cute and wanted to re-gentrify it, ignoring the fact that at the top of the hill there lived an elderly gent who might want to live in his past.
‘Have you ever married, Mr Aird?’
‘Me? No.’ The answer was short and simple. A pot of tea was placed on the big oak table, a cup and a plate of biscuits pushed towards the easy chair where Anderson was sitting.
‘Never been tempted?’ asked Anderson, trying to sound casual.
‘I’m sure you didn’t come all this way to check on my romantic history, Mr Anderson. What do you want to know?’
‘How well do you know Jennifer Lawson?’
‘Jennifer? Oh, at number eight. She gave me this.’ He fingered the cut gently. ‘I’ll go over later and explain myself. I have no feelings for her except pity. Why, what about you? How well do you know her?’
Anderson had to check that he was not joking. ‘A little, professionally.’
‘But I think we are both concerned about her. That child is not well. In hospital now, I believe.’
‘Yes.’
‘People buy property here without thinking the matter through.’ He chuckled as if the thought of causing trouble amused him.
‘So to be blunt, who does it go to when you pass on? Do you have—’
‘I have a son, but he will not be an heir, not by any means. To the contrary, I have done everything in my power to make sure the wee shit gets nothing.’
‘And who is his mother?’
Jock moved slightly along the counter, moving his weight a little, as if more than the thought was uncomfortable. ‘There was a woman once, a beautiful woman. But God she was a handful, much younger than me.’
‘How much younger?’
‘She was in her early twenties, I think I was in my late thirties. But her family thought I was not good enough for her, even with all this.’ He looked out of the kitchen window, a lonely man. Betty, sensing his disquiet, got up and nuzzled his hand.
‘We had all this but we were cash poor. And she would end up just as skint if it went any further. She had money, her dad was some kind of stockbroker or something, in the days when that was an honourable professional, so she threw me over. I don’t think she was happy about it; she was forced into it, I am sure of that, and later she came back.’ He played with the dog’s ears. ‘Her family fortunes had taken a turn for the worse and mine had taken a huge turn for the better. I had a good job and I turned the fortune of the Altmore estate, if you want to call it that, round. She saw the writing on the wall and tried to come back to me. I wasn’t having any of it, but we had a fling. I think I did it to get back at her, and our son was the result of that fling. Then she took up with a terrible man, a drunk and a wife-beater.’
‘And you didn’t take her back?’
‘Did I take her back?’ He contemplated the question. ‘Did I take her back? Did I hell. But I kept an eye on her. Not close enough though. It’s all very sad. It was Lynda, Lynda McMutrie.’
Aird had seen the activity outside number 10 the previous day, but talking to Anderson about Lynda’s death seemed to take the wind out of him. The old man settled into a chair, Betty beside him.
‘I know this is inconvenient, but I’d like to ask you about Lorna Gyle,’ said Anderson, aware that time was passing.
‘Wee Lorna? Not seen her since she was five or so. She ran in and out my house like it was her own in those days.’
‘What kind of relationship did you have with her?’
‘Relationship? We built tractors with Lego.’ Aird reacted like one who didn’t understand the subtext of the question.
‘What about the Melrose boys, did you know them?’
‘Not really, their mum was about. Andrew was struggling with May being ill, remember, so yeah, Lorna used to pop into my house, play with the Lego, sit and watch the TV.’
‘Have you seen her recently?’
‘Wee Lorna? No. Why should I have? Has she been to see her father?’
Anderson shook his head, ‘No.’
‘I know she tried to see him the Christmas before last but couldn’t; he had just been stabbed, so Andy’s not seen her since she was a teenager.’
‘Does Lorna have any features that you might recognize her by?’
‘Why? Has something happened to the lassie?’
‘No, not at all, we are just checking somebody’s identity and want to be sure. We don’t want to upset her dad by asking him.’
That lie fell flat. The old man’s eyes narrowed. ‘He’s serving life for a crime he didn’t do. I think you’d have to go some to upset him any more than that. So you have a female in mind and you are not sure if she’s Lorna or not?’
‘Something like that.’
The old man clucked his teeth together, rattling them, then got up and swore at the pain on his hip. He slowly made his way over to the bookshelves. There were books everywhere; it all looked an absolute mess, but whatever he was looking for he was able to find it very quickly. A makeshift folder made from two pieces of card and a few strips of Sellotape. He squeezed it until it opened up and wiggled it slightly so that a few photographs slid out.
‘I’ve seen some of these in the book.’ Anderson shuffled them back and forth, stopping at the one of her with her parents, the one with the straw hat on. ‘Did you read it?’
‘No, load of piss: “my dad the mass murderer”. She should have written, “My Dad is Innocent.”’ He shook his head. ‘She didn’t know him, though, did she? She was five when you cops started putting pictures of that murder scene in front of her and saying, “Look, your dad did that.” Then her mother died.’ He tutted. ‘I mean, what was the wean supposed to grow up thinking?’
‘You make a good point,’ conceded Anderson.
‘But Lorna did suffer a burn, hot water from a pan when May was boiling the spuds or something. I took her in the car to the hospital. The wee one all wrapped up in a blanket, May holding her like she was a bunch of flowers. That’s her.’
He passed the picture to Anderson, who looked at the fair-haired girl sitting on a blanket in the grass, an upturned bucket beside her. A black dog walking away, looking back, showing the small kiddy’s spade it had between its teeth. There was an older boy in the background, stooped forward, hands down, obviously calling the dog. Anderson could tell it was Aird’s back garden back in the days when he could mow the lawn. The burn on her upper right arm was visible, from the shoulder to the elbow, long and slim, following the track of the water. That wouldn’t be fixed by a graft without leaving a scar.
And he had seen that scar himself. ‘And who is that then?’
‘That, that was Penn, she was a great dog.’
‘No, the boy. I mean who was the boy?’
‘Oh him, that’s my son Gregor.’ And that subject was closed.
‘Mr Aird, what would you do if you met Lorna now?’
He thought for a moment, ‘I’d slap her spoiled little arse and tell her to get campaigning for her dad’s release.’
Anderson set off down Altmore Road. It was still raining but a little more lightly now. It was too much to say that the sun was coming out, but there was a lightness in the air; the breeze was pleasant rather than vicious. He should go back to the office when really he wanted to go home and take the dog out. Everybody else would be at school or at work or somewhere. And the meeting with Aird had just put him in mind for some quality time with Nesbit; somebody who would not judge or talk back, just somebody to listen.
He heard a rat-tat-tat.
He looked behind him – nothing – then saw a frantic waving at the upstairs window of number 8. It was Jennifer, her face pale, holding wee Robbie up at the window, and he was not a light child. Anderson crossed the road, wondering what eyes were watching him, past the overgrown front grass of Lynda McMutrie’s house. Its ownership would now pass back to …? Who was going to inherit? Flashes of connections going past his head about ownership and inheritance.
The connection was there and gone.
No doubt bloody Costello would have logged it on her iPad and printed out the answer by now.
He should not be drinking with these tablets.
He walked up the cracked path of number 8, the door opened before he got there.
‘So you thumped Mr Aird?’ he said in jest.
‘Oh my God. Am I being arrested?’ Jennifer eyes widened.
‘You really have a good imagination. No, he knows he gave you a fright, he was in your house, was he not?’
‘Oh, I saw you go up there. I thought he was going to complain and get me arrested for assault or something.’ She stood there, big T-shirt over her jeans. Robbie was now back on the leather settee, covered in the Pooh Bear duvet.
‘You can sit there, he has not peed.’
And she told him the story of going down the stairs to the basement and seeing Jock’s head behind the wall and then he hit her on the head and knocked her out. ‘But I know that is not right. But I did see something. I know I did.’ She started to cry. ‘So I went back down to look, and there is nothing there. I thought I might have seen something – a doll, or … something. Am I losing my mind?’ The sobbing was now that of extreme despair, depression, blackness. ‘They will take my children off me.’
‘No they won’t.’
‘But they said at the hospital. And Douglas thinks I can’t cope.’
‘Well, he is not here to help you, is he? So let’s have a look.’ Anderson got up and walked downstairs to the basement. Jennifer followed, as he walked round the boxes, the old computer monitor, smelling the dampness and the wet plaster. He saw the irregular hole in the wall, plasterboard chipped off and pulled away, earth and brick behind.
‘You didn’t imagine breaking the plaster, did you?’
‘No, I did that with a hammer. I was looking for rats.’
She missed the quizzical look Anderson gave her but he looked through the hole, down on his knees, his trousers getting wet as he braced his arms against the damp plasterboard to lean forward and see through the gap in the basement wall.
‘There’s nothing there, Jennifer.’
‘But there was. I did see him. Now I think I’m really bonkers.’
‘Hand me that torch.’
She handed it to him. It had been lying on the floor since she’d dropped it. Anderson turned it on, and leaned back in, shining the torch right round, deep on to the cavity against the wall to his right. He could hear the gentle gurgle of running water. The beam caught a flash of light green polythene. He held the torch steady, picking out two starting eyes, teeth, a flattened nose, a swarm of hair working round the feature – they were flatten and distorted by the plastic bag over them, but they were still recognizably human. Recognizably female.
‘Can you see anything in there?’ Jennifer’s voice was infantile in its enthusiasm.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I think we should both go upstairs. Now.’