Talion Read online

  TALION

  Pete Brassett

  Published by

  THE BOOK FOLKS

  London, 2018

  www.thebookfolks.com

  © Pete Brassett

  Polite note to readers

  This book is written in British English apart from instances where local dialect is used. For that reason, spellings of words and other conventions may differ slightly from North American English.

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  Detective Inspector Munro is a burly Scottish policeman who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Detective Sergeant West is an intelligent young woman, new to the force, with a lot to prove.

  When a missing person case lands on their desks, Munro is sceptical there is much to it. But their investigation soon comes to some strange findings, and before long, a body is found.

  With a serial killer on their hands they must act fast to trace a woman placed at the scene of the crime. Yet discovering her true identity, let alone finding her, proves difficult. And as the plot thickens they realise the crime is far graver than either of them could have imagined.

  Visit the end of this book for full details of the books in this series.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Character List

  Other books in this series

  More brilliant fiction by Pete Brassett

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  Prologue

  After a string of brief but ultimately doomed relationships – including a broken engagement to a toff whose understanding of the word “fidelity” was restricted to the sound quality of his stereo system – West, treading a path of self-preservation, avoided emotional ties with anyone but the neighbour’s cat. Much to her annoyance, however, the sagacious and often belligerent Detective Inspector James Munro, who’d cured her complacency with equal measures of sarcasm, humiliation and praise, had managed to crawl under her skin like a blood-thirsty mite.

  Frustrated by his untimely disappearance, she settled down with a mug of coffee, a bacon roll, and a copy of the report detailing the circumstances surrounding the blaze at his house, looking for anything that might point to his whereabouts. She paused as the normally ebullient DCI Elliot stepped silently into the room.

  ‘Charlie,’ he said, his voice more subdued than usual. ‘On your own?’

  ‘Sir. The lads are at the beach, I’m heading down there in a bit.’

  ‘Fair enough. And how are you? Are you coping alright?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ said West. ‘We’re still trying to find him. Want some coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks. You’re not reading that report again, are you?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Well, I’m not convinced you’ll find anything in there.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said West, ‘but I do like the bit at the end, the bit where they confirm that the cause of the gas explosion was an arc sparked by the phone hidden inside the oven.’

  Elliot smiled as he pulled up a chair.

  ‘Aye, you’ve got to hand it to him, clever bugger,’ he said. ‘I mean, who else would’ve thought of doing that, and to get Gundersen to call the number himself. Genius.’

  ‘Certainly was,’ said West. ‘Mind you, that being the case, I suppose you could say Gundersen’s death was self-inflicted.’

  ‘Aye, technically speaking, although I’m not sure a court would see it like that.’

  ‘Well, in Jimbo’s defence, we’d have to say it was an accident, then. A bout of forgetfulness brought about by stress-related fatigue.’

  ‘Well, that would work,’ said Elliot, ‘although, to be fair, no-one’s looking to charge him with anything. In fact, with Gundersen off the streets, that’s one less murderous drug dealer we have to deal with. Truth be known, a fair few folk want to pat him on the back.’

  West polished off her bacon roll, sat back and slurped her coffee.

  ‘You don’t know anything about him, do you, sir?’ she said. ‘I mean; family, relatives, that kind of thing?’

  ‘I know just about everything there is to know about James Munro, Charlie, including the fact that he doesn’t have any relatives, not any more. It was him and Jean, and when she passed on, well, as you know, he’d do anything to avoid sitting at home on his own.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to find him, if it’s the last thing I do.’

  West grabbed her phone, went to the list of received messages and glanced furtively at Elliot.

  ‘I got a text,’ she said. ‘From Jimbo.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘It’s okay, relax. He sent it about half an hour before… well, you know. Must’ve been while Duncan was giving him a lift home.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s gibberish, really,’ said West. ‘He didn’t finish it. He must’ve got distracted. All it says is “Number one, Charl”. That’s it.’

  Elliot sat back, folded his arms and smiled gently.

  ‘That’s him to a tee,’ he said. ‘He was probably trying to tell you that you’re number one now, Charlie.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You’re not convinced?’

  West slumped back and wriggled in her seat as if troubled by an irksome itch.

  ‘In all the time I’ve known him,’ she said, ‘he’s never once sent me a text. Never. He hates phones. If he had to use one, he’d ring.’

  ‘Well, given the circumstances…’

  ‘Oh, ignore me. I’m probably looking for something that isn’t there.’

  Elliot leaned forward and clasped his hands beneath his chin.

  ‘Have you mentioned that message to anyone else?’ he said. ‘Dougal, for example?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Dougal doesn’t think like the rest of us, Charlie. That young lad always ignores the obvious, plus, his brain’s wired to the internet. Fill him in, see what he thinks. If anyone can take a sideways look at it, he can.’

  Chapter 1

  Unlike the Costa del Sol and the Côte d’Azur where leathery pensioners with hides like well-worn Chesterfields paraded along the beach admiring the hordes of tanned, topless beauties basting themselves with oil, the narrow stretch of unsullied coastline running between the clifftop ruins of Greenan Castle and Craig Tara was populated by curlews and cormorants, oystercatchers and sandpipers, the occasional bank of swans, and curious ramblers hastening their stride as the surf snarled at their feet.

  Kneeling in the silty sludge of the shore, and safe in the knowledge that the tide was on the ebb, Cam Brodie – a flaxen-haired eleven year old intent on a career as a naturalist – produced a small notebook from his shirt pocket and made a careful note of the insects feasting on their protein-packed host: kelp flies, Coelopa pilipes; dune weevils, Otiorhynchus atroapterus; and two darkling beetles, Phaleria cadaverina. He huffed indignantly as his mother, weary from their four-mile hike beneath a
blistering sun, shrieked in disgust and ordered him away from the carcass.

  The rotting remains of an otter on the banks of the Doon was, she’d relented, an acceptable specimen for Cam to study, as was the grey seal which, for reasons unknown, had chosen to end its days on a rocky outcrop by the Heads of Ayr, but the mammal lying face up before her was not representative of the indigenous marine life. There were no fins or flippers, no gills or scales, and no beaks or tails. More alarmingly, nor were there any eyes.

  ‘You can’t blame the herring gulls for that, Mum,’ said Cam cheerily as his mother reached for her phone, ‘it was probably the hooded crows nesting in the cliffs. Why, they’ll even peck the eyes off a sheep, they’ve a reputation for it.’

  Chapter 2

  DC Dougal McCrae, whose love of the great outdoors was strictly limited to fishing expeditions where the most macabre sight he was ever likely to encounter was that of a brown trout pouting pleadingly as he removed the hook from its mouth, pulled on his green Wellington boots, tossed his jacket in the boot of the car and slammed it shut.

  ‘Are you not changing your shoes?’ he said. ‘It’s probably bogging down there, you’ll get yourself soaked.’

  ‘You’re alright,’ said Duncan, keen to preserve his street-wise image, ‘I’ve been through worse. Is it far?’

  ‘Below the castle,’ said Dougal as they scrambled down the embankment to the beach. ‘Ten minutes, tops.’

  Duncan, feeling the heat under his heavy leather jacket, flexed his shoulders and took a lungful of salty sea air as they squelched their way through the sand.

  ‘How’s Westy?’ he said. ‘I’ve not seen her today.’

  ‘You mean DS West?’

  ‘Who else would I mean?’

  ‘You make her sound like a terrier.’

  ‘She is,’ said Duncan, grinning, ‘metaphorically speaking, of course.’

  ‘Aye, alright, I’ll give you that. She’s okay. I think.’

  ‘You think? I thought she seemed positively dour.’

  ‘She’s just concentrating on upping her game,’ said Dougal. ‘She has some big boots to fill now.’

  ‘Right enough.’

  ‘And I’m sure it’s not easy for her, with Munro still missing.’

  ‘Oh, aye. I never thought of it like that. He got her out of a hole, did he not?’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it. He took a disillusioned officer whose personal life was in tatters and turned her into the no-nonsense, shoot-from-the-hip DS we know and love.’

  ‘Have we still not heard anything?’ said Duncan. ‘I mean, it’s been days now and his face has been plastered all over the telly. He can’t just disappear into thin air.’

  ‘Duncan, this is DI Munro we’re talking about. If anyone can disappear in a puff of smoke, he can.’

  ‘Oh, well, maybe this is just the kind of distraction she needs to get her focus back.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘What is it we’re looking at, exactly?’

  ‘A body on the beach. That’s all I got.’

  * * *

  Despite being a single parent and holding down three part-time jobs, Cathy Brodie refused to see her glass as half empty. She was, in fact, thankful to have a glass at all. She never spoke of how Cam’s father had scarpered when he discovered she was pregnant, she refrained from whining about having to scrimp and save to make ends meet, and she never complained about collapsing on the sofa through sheer exhaustion when she returned home from work in the evening. Instead, accepting her son’s fascination with creepy-crawlies as a talent for something she’d never had, she indulged his passion for studying, nurturing and occasionally dissecting them, at every opportunity. Even if it meant bearing witness to some particularly unsavoury sights.

  She sat with her back to the body while Cam, unfazed by his discovery, busied himself with a handful of sandworms.

  ‘Mrs Brodie?’ said Dougal, waving as they approached.

  ‘Aye. It’s Miss, actually. Call me Cathy. This is my son, Cam.’

  ‘I’m DC McCrae and this is DC Duncan Reid. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Well, it’s not every day you find a body on the beach. That’s one for the grandchildren.’

  ‘Right enough. And how about you, wee man? Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Cam. ‘I’m very well, thank you.’

  ‘Good. So tell me, how long ago did you find him?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ said Cathy, ‘I telephoned as soon as we saw it, what’s that been now? Twenty minutes?’

  ‘Aye, thereabouts,’ said Duncan. ‘And you’ve not interfered with it? Not moved it around or anything?’

  ‘Are you joking me?’

  ‘Sorry, but I have to ask. And that goes for you too, Cam.’

  ‘No, he knows not to touch anything unless I say it’s safe to do so.’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Will I show you the body now, sir?’ said Cam.

  ‘Aye, you do that.’

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ said Cathy. ‘I think I’ve seen enough for one day.’

  * * *

  Cam hopped enthusiastically towards the corpse and dropped to his knees, beckoning the others to hurry up.

  ‘I’ve never seen a body before,’ he said, grinning, ‘but I suppose it’s not that common really, is it?’

  ‘Thankfully, no,’ said Dougal, baulking at the sight.

  ‘Mind you,’ said Duncan, squatting beside him, ‘it is a beauty. Something we can get our teeth into at last.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Cam, ‘as you can see, there’s lots of insects enjoying themselves already.’

  ‘Aye, so there are. And is that an interest of yours, Cam? The wee beasties?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it is.’

  ‘Let’s take a closer look, shall we?’ said Duncan, peering at the hollow eye sockets. ‘Well, I wonder where they went?’

  ‘Corvus cornix,’ said Cam.

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘The crows. They enjoy eating them. And those are kelp flies, and there’s probably an earwig or two in there as well.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Duncan. ‘He’s got some blotches about his face, see where it’s swollen and red? Is that some kind of allergy, do you think?’

  ‘No, no. They’re bite marks, from the clegs.’

  ‘Clegs?’

  ‘Horse flies, sir.’

  ‘You certainly know your stuff,’ said Duncan. ‘Why do you have such an interest?’

  ‘I want to be naturalist when I grow up.’

  ‘Well, good for you. Is there anything else you can tell me about this poor fella?’

  ‘Erm, I’m not quite sure. I know the clegs would only have bitten him if he was warm because it’s the blood they’re after.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s only the female of the species that do it.’

  ‘Sounds familiar. And do you know how long a bite like that would take to heal?’

  ‘Oh, a few days at least.’

  ‘Gold star and a tick for you, wee man,’ said Duncan. ‘Well done. And listen, if you fancy a career with the police, then think about specialising in entomology.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s not that different to what you’re doing here, but an entomologist can tell us lots of things about a body, like how long it’s been dead and even where it’s been, by studying the insects inside it.’

  ‘Really? Does that mean I’d get to see more dead people?’

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly.’

  Dougal shook his head despairingly.

  ‘Okay, that’ll do,’ he said. ‘Cam, away to your mother, please. We’ll be along shortly.’

  * * *

  Dougal, sneering at the tiny flies hovering about the head, took a moment to study the anaemic corpse which showed surprisingly few signs of injury. Height: about five-seven. Weight: ten or eleven stone. The hair – more white than grey – was neatly cut, and the clothes,
a black, two-piece suit, a white, open-necked shirt, and patent leather shoes, were obviously expensive. The left leg, bent in a way nature had not intended, was probably broken on impact.

  ‘He looks a bit like Tommy Hamlyn,’ he said, ‘but it’s hard to tell without the eyes.’

  ‘Who’s Tommy Hamlyn?’ said Duncan. ‘Has he got form?’

  ‘Aye. A wee bit of dealing, some thieving, that’s it. It’s his mouth that gets him into trouble. He has a habit of winding folk up the wrong way.’

  ‘You’re not talking decent folk, are you?’

  ‘No, no. Definitely not. I’m talking bad folk, the kind of folk he tries to emulate.’

  ‘So, what do you reckon?’ said Duncan, glancing up at the castle. ‘Do you think he fell?’

  Dougal smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Pushed,’ he said. ‘We should scoot up there and take a look once we’ve got some cover. I’ll stay here and call it in, you nip back to the car and get some tape, we need a cordon fifty yards up and down the beach, and get some details off Miss Brodie while you’re at it.’

  ‘Roger that, pal.’

  * * *

  Cathy, her blonde hair shimmering in the sunshine, turned and smiled as Duncan walked towards her.

  ‘You folks okay?’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Cathy. ‘We’re having a ball, aren’t we, Cam?’

  ‘Yes, Mum!’ said Cam, beaming proudly. ‘The police officer says if I work for him, I’ll get to see lots of dead bodies.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Duncan. ‘I was just trying to explain what an entomologist does.’

  ‘I’m sure you were.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll walk with you as far as my car. Tell me Cathy, are you staying nearby?’

  ‘Aye, the caravan park. Craig Tara. It’s the nearest we get to a holiday these days. No jetting off to sunny Spain anymore.’

  ‘Och, who needs Spain when you’ve weather like this.’

  ‘Let’s hope it lasts,’ said Cathy, ‘we’ve another week to go, yet.’