Cross Purpose: Episode 73

Maggie looked at the lad. His face was even whiter than usual. And pinched, like a wee old man

Willie jeered: “Clipe here called the polis.” “Somebody had to,” Kieran shot back. “Willie said,” Lewis again, “that we’d get in trouble if we telt onybody.”

“Trouble? You’re already in trouble. Deep trouble. More trouble than you’ll ever know.” Maggie turned to address the others. Come to think of it, she was in deep trouble as well.

She recalled Brian’s strictures about meddling in police business. After that last telling off, she wondered how she was going to explain this episode.

And never mind Brian. What about Chisolm? Her heart plummeted into the footwell.

It was still raining hard, a sharp east wind whipping off the North Sea. It rocked the old Volvo. Maggie fervently wished she hadn’t parked somewhere quite so exposed.

“Fit ye gaun tae dae, Miss?”

“I’m going to take you straight down to Queen Street.”

“Naw,” Willie sprang to life, “ye canna dae that.” She turned. “I thought you weren’t afraid of the police, Willie?” His lip jutted. “Ah’m nae.” “Well, then.”

“It’s ma da.”

“I understand that.”

“Naw, ye dinna.”

Misery

“I do,” Maggie’s voice softened. “Believe me, Willie, I’m sorry about your dad.” She reached out a hand. Roughly, Willie shook her off.

“And I really do understand now why you’re so reluctant to get involved with the police. But don’t you see that you’ve already put yourself bang in the middle of a police investigation?”

“How?” The boy’s face was the picture of misery. “Lots of ways. What about tampering with a crime scene, for a start? Or maybe withholding evidence? I believe the police are still looking for that girl’s mobile phone.”

There was a muffled sob from the back. Willie Meston shrugged. “Ah didna nick the quine’s phone.”

“Somebody did.” Maggie looked at the lad. His face was even whiter than usual. And pinched, like a wee old man.

“Right,” she straightened in her seat. Reached again for the ignition key.

“Ah hiv tae git hame,” Lewis muttered.

“Me too,” this from Ryan. “Ah’ll get murdered if ah don’t get the wean back.”

“Whatever, there are questions the police need answers to.”

“Nae way ah’m gaun tae the pigs,” Willie made to open the door. “Not so fast,” she activated the central locking system. “I’m taking you down there right now. All of you.”

“But…ma da, he’ll…”

Maggie was overwhelmed by a wave of fatigue. She’d been buoyed by the prospect of nailing Willie’s supplier. Of saving the boy – and the others, by association – from falling into a life of petty crime.

But to discover that these five small boys, four of them her own pupils, had embroiled themselves in a murder investigation was too daunting to comprehend.

“Tell you what…” She had a sudden rush of blood. “Why don’t we do a deal? You lot come with me, but instead of going down Queen Street, I’ll take you to a friend of mine. Then you can tell him the whole story.”

Appealed

She was already there when James opened the door. She was wearing her work uniform: white tunic with a Nehru collar, short sleeves with a cuff, dark trousers – straight-legged – flat shoes.

She looked, he thought, like a dental nurse. The notion appealed to him: the idea that this girl would minister to his hygiene. He felt a stirring.

“You managed to get away?”

“Yes,” she gave a small shrug. “Said I had a hospital appointment.”

“Good girl.” James Gilruth rewarded her with a thin smile.

Some weeks back he’d taken out a lease on the apartment: six months with standard conditions. James wasn’t at all sure he’d require six months.

But the location was convenient: one of the quieter streets running down the hill off Justice Mill Lane. The perfect bachelor pad. That was how the estate agent’s particulars had described it. Classic, James grimaced.

When he’d made his cursory inspection visit, he was met by a cramped hallway, a narrow living area open to a minimalist kitchen, a bedroom just large enough to accommodate a bed and a tiny en suite shower room.

Hardly James Gilruth’s idea of bachelor living. But the apartment was adequately kitted out: double bed, leather suite, flat-screen television, kettle and crockery in the kitchen.

The agent had been willing to negotiate on the rental figure, and the underground garage was the clincher. There was no way James would want his Jaguar with its personal plate parked in plain sight. The set-up suited his purposes perfectly. For now.

The television was on. She must have been watching it whilst she was waiting for him to arrive. James caught a snatch of the STV lunchtime news:

Aberdeen University student Lucy Simmons was buried on Saturday in a private ceremony at her local church in Frimley Green, Surrey.

The body of Lucy, pictured last summer on a family holiday in Sri Lanka, was discovered in the curtilage of St Machar Cathedral on May 22.

Although the tragic death of the first-year history of art student, initially suspected to be murder, was later attributed to natural causes, it has had far-reaching consequences: an investigation is currently under way into drug dealing involving children in the Seaton area of the city, and a petition to improve safety issues in Seaton Park has resulted in a consultation process involving…

“Switch that thing off.”

Tension

The girl did as she was bid. James took hold of her arm, steered her in the direction of the bedroom.

He didn’t bother with the preliminaries. Time was money, after all.

And the girl was on his payroll, whichever way you chose to look at it.

He took his glasses off. Laid them carefully on the bedside table. Lay back, eyes closed.

He felt the tension in his spine begin to ease as she worked him over. God, she was good… Though there wasn’t the same edge, the buzz he got when he and Michelle were in the salon, where his wife could be sitting just through the wall having her hair done, that at any moment someone could walk in on them and catch James Gilruth, king of cool.

He pursed his lips. Partitioning off that back room had been a masterstroke.

This place did have its compensations, though, James thought with a small grunt of pleasure: a bed to lie flat on, a shower to get cleaned up in.

Above all, it was completely anonymous.

In the handful of visits he’d made to the flat, James had never once encountered another soul.

Not in the car park. Not in the lift. Not in the hallway. He ran his tongue over his lips in satisfaction.

James let his head fall back on to the pillow. He’d take a quick shower, he resolved.

Have her give him a full body massage. Then he’d send her packing. It would be back to business.

James Gilruth had things to do.

More tomorrow