The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
She wasn’t sure what the form was for refusing a dance these days, and besides, nothing ventured, nothing gained
Duffy was fired up now, pen jabbing at his pad. “And what sort of perv pays a tribute like that to some wee lassie, tell me that?” “Given what we already know, which is the most probable?” Chisolm cast his gaze around the room.
“Goth, sir.”
“Rubbish,” Duffy shot back. “That cross holds the key to the whole thing.
“And it definitely wasn’t some wee Goth that put it there,” he added.
“Well,” the detective inspector gathered his files together. “Before you hand out the actions, Burnett, allow me to summarise.”
Brian glanced down at the table. The inspector’s fingers were drumming an impatient beat.
“We have a dead female in a graveyard with a head injury and a makeshift cross placed inside her.” Chisolm cleared his throat.
“No evidence as yet of other molestation. No ID and no suspects. Would that cover it, do you think sergeant?”
Brian’s underarms were damp by this time. “Pretty much.”
“Anything you’d care to add?”
“No, sir.”
Suggestions
Chisolm steepled his fingers. “Well, Burnett, sort out your priorities.
“Right now I suggest you get some of this lot along to Old Aberdeen, turn the place over with a fine-tooth comb.
“Send a DC out to the university and see if we can get ID on that lassie ASAP. Grab yourself another couple of uniform if need be. Meantime,” the inspector raised his eyes to the ceiling, looked down again, “I’ll chase up forensics.”
Brian shifted in his seat. “Sir.”
The DI gathered together his files, scraped back his chair, got to his feet.
“Oh, and one last thing. If we’ve got a major inquiry on our hands, we’d better give it a name. Any suggestions?” He studied the faces around the table. Wood bit his nails.
Duffy ducked his head.
“Murder in the Cathedral springs to mind,” Dunn piped up. Douglas couldn’t pass up an opportunity to remind everybody that he’d been to uni.
“We don’t know that it was murder.” “Plus, it wasn’t actually in the cathedral.” “And why the cross? We’ve no idea what that’s all about.”
“Nothing, most like,” muttered the doodler. “Some of those dirty pervs get their rocks off on stuff like that.”
“If we can’t explain it,” Susan Strachan had been quiet up till then, “why don’t we call it Operation Cross Purpose?”
“Any advance on that?”
Chisolm’s gaze was met by a circle of bent heads. “Well, then,” the inspector stood. “Go to it.”
Only option
“Comin’ up for a dance?” The man jerked his neck towards the jiggling mass of heads.
“Well…” Maggie hesitated.
After failing to make contact with Jimmy Craigmyle on the phone number Brian had given her, she’d spent an abortive afternoon checking out nameplates on bedsit doorways up and down Crown Street. She decided then that her only option was the nightclub.
The evening hadn’t started well. She’d hoped to collar the doormen.
There were two of them, built like barrels, hands like hams. Maggie tilted her face towards one of the shaven heads.
“Is Jimmy Craigmyle working tonight?” she asked. “In you come, ladies.” The man either didn’t hear or didn’t want to.
Maggie felt a shove at her back. The pressure of the queue carried her forward in to the foyer.
Now Maggie’s eyes darted to the sunken arena and back again. The guy was bordering on the repulsive.
Still, she wasn’t sure what the form was for refusing a dance these days, and besides, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“Come on,” he grasped her by one bare elbow, propelled her down the stairs. He wasn’t much taller than she, shirt flapping over skinny trousers. A gold chain gleamed at a hairy neck. Above it, a full mouth, flat nose, eyes so small as to be piggy.
Maggie caught a whiff of aftershave, and behind that the rank odour of sweat. Time was she’d have been thankful for such manly excretions.
She cast her mind back to those early days after George’s death, when she’d nosed out every last trace of him, clung to it like a drowning person would a piece of flotsam.
She struggled to replicate the moves of the girls nearest to her, for women seemed to outnumber men by about four to one.
Replete with tattoos and tangerine tans, they bopped up and down, buttocks compressed in Lycra miniskirts, boobs spilling out of push-up bras.
Surreptitiously, Maggie tugged down the frock she’d filched from Kirsty’s wardrobe. She’d been shocked at how striking she looked with the new hairstyle and heavy make-up: hot, in today’s parlance.
Horrible word. She caught the man’s eye. He must have taken this as an invitation, for an arm snaked out, a hand closed around hers.
The palm was damp, she registered, before it clamped around her waist, pulled her close. So close Maggie could feel shirt buttons make small indentations down her front.
“Come here often?” Strong fingers pressed into the small of her back.
“N-no.” Maggie stiffened. “My first time.” “There’s a first time for everything,” he leered.
Wrong move
She drew back. “I daresay.” Then, don’t be so standoffish or you’ll never get anywhere. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
The music was deafening, the thump-thump of the bass notes pounding her head. “A question,” Maggie leaned into the man’s ear.
Wrong move. The hand pressed harder into her back.
“You haven’t come across Jimmy Craigmyle?” she mouthed.
“Who?” A whiff of bad breath. “Craigmyle. He works here, I believe.” “Doing what?” A pelvis thrust into hers. “Might be on the door some nights. I’m not really sure.”
“Naw.” So close were they she could feel bones grate, one against the other.
So this was the sort of thing young women had to negotiate nowadays.
For once, Maggie was grateful for her hitherto sheltered life.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she blurted as she broke free.
She fought her way through the sea of bodies until she’d reached the relative safety of the ladies’ loo.
More tomorrow.