The Suffering of Strangers Read online

  Costello was warming to this young cop. ‘It might give us more time. If Sholto was lifted because he was healthy and Little Moses left because he wasn’t, I don’t see the abductor hurting Sholto. I need advice about the press release, can’t afford to get that wrong.’

  ‘Moses might be on the mend from the chest infection, the Down’s is pretty permanent. If it was the Downs she rejected …’

  She asked, ‘Do you think it was a man who swapped them?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, but shook his head, the idea not sitting with his internal logic, ‘and to mention something more weird … Mrs Carstairs said the man had the baby in a seat he was carrying. Like a car seat.’

  Costello nodded, that would explain the quick in and out.

  ‘And another weird thing?’

  ‘Weirder than this?’

  ‘I think I heard Roberta and James arguing. In fact they have done nothing but argue. She thinks the blanket round Moses is the same as Sholto’s but is not his, not the actual blanket. James says she’s talking crap.’

  ‘OK,’ Costello said slowly, letting the implications of that sink in.

  ‘The blanket is in there, still round the baby.’ He nodded at the cubicle. ‘You might want to retrieve it as soon as you can, it’s distinctive. Got lambs round the bottom.’

  ‘You’re good. You should have a future in CID.’

  He smiled. ‘I hope so. Do you want me to hang around? I should have been off duty an hour ago.’

  ‘Yes, you go,’ she said ignoring the protests from her feet. ‘From the sound of it, your wife needs you more than I do. What age is your youngest?’

  ‘A year.’

  ‘OK. Before you go, spare me a minute and give me a list of all the places your wife takes the wee one. Clinics? The yummy mummy’s club? Yoga for the under twos. Baby juggling? Somebody knew Roberta, and knew the baby.’

  He rattled off a list that was alarmingly long, stopping every now and again to think and then coming up with another few items, checking the calendar on his mobile. Nathan seemed to have a very hectic social life. It confirmed Costello’s fear. Anybody who wanted to get near that baby could.

  ‘And again, before you go, who is the paediatrician?’

  ‘It’s a Dr Hayman they are trying to get hold of, he’s not around after hours. Dr Hogan is the guy dashing in and out the cubicle. He’s good, come across him before. Been here a few times with injuries sustained falling off swings, one was breathing difficulties and one a bad donkey bite. Oh, and one broken wrist after bouncing off a trampoline. But that was the wife and doesn’t really count. You got kids?’

  ‘No. I prefer a good night’s sleep. I bet you are on some social services list with that catalogue of incidents. But yeah, off you go, I’ll get in touch with Hogan.’

  He got up and swung his over jacket over his uniform, ‘Keep me in the loop will you? I’d like to know how this pans out. I’ll get back to you about …’ He indicated those behind the curtain.

  ‘Sure, I’m based at Govan, here’s my mobile number and office email. It’s the best way to contact me with my roving brief, that way you can be sure I have received it.’

  She watched him go, young and enthusiastic, ready to tackle the failure of law and order. Police Scotland would soon put an end to that. She peeked through the gap in the curtain, Baby Moses was mouthing as though he had something unpleasant on his tongue, the little blue blanket gripped tight in his fist. She closed the curtain over again and sat back down to witness the comings and goings through the curtain as she slipped one shoe off.

  A quarter of an hour later a large doctor, hirsute and smiling, steth swinging from his neck, strode purposefully along the corridor and entered the cubicle. Costello leaned forward, trying to listen but she could not hear.

  After a few minutes, he emerged, ‘Hi, I’m Drew, the baby is doing fine, we have him on some IV antibiotics.’

  ‘How is Roberta?’

  ‘She is very shaky, feels very guilty. I’d rather that you didn’t disturb her. It’s all very emotional, I’m sure you understand that.’ He cupped his hand round her elbow. ‘Can I have a word? I made a few enquiries as soon as I heard. There was a patient who gave birth to a disabled child five weeks ago. On the off chance I gave her a call, and she’s at home with her husband, and the baby is there too. The health visitor has seen the baby, and I’ve asked her to check again tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you. Was there only one?’

  ‘That recently, in this health board, yes. There are only two Downs born a day in the UK, it’s not as common as it used to be, thanks to the tests available. And I’m not sure where my patient confidentiality issues start and end with this, but I was concerned about the mother’s mental health. She was flagged on the system but I think she’s a non-starter for you. But to keep things right maybe you should follow that up yourself,’ he said. ‘Notes can take a long time in this hospital to come online, we have a nine-month waiting list in maternity,’ he joked, rather charming when he smiled, reminding Costello of some old TV programme about a giant of a man living in the wilds of Canada, who used to befriend bears.

  He rubbed his beard, Costello could hear the prickling of the bristles. She wasn’t the only one who looked as though a good night’s sleep might be in order. ‘I am more worried about Roberta than I am about the baby.’

  ‘And how do you know them Dr …?’

  ‘Everybody calls me Drew. Jimmy and I go to the same tennis club.’ He shook his head. ‘Have you any trace on Sholto?’

  ‘Not yet. We need to find the woman who gave birth to that baby, and I’m sure she will be looking after Sholto just fine.’ Costello smiled in what she hoped was a comforting manner. ‘She saw a healthy baby and took it. I hope it is as simple as that.’

  ‘Except Jimmy tells me it wasn’t the mother who swapped them, was it? It was a man,’ said the doctor.

  Costello left the hospital with the keys for the Chisholm’s house in the can holder on the console of the Fiat. She drove back to Waterside, back into the little estate, the neighbour flicked her window blind, still keeping an eye out and seeing that the family was not returning, she retreated. Costello let herself into the house. It was as if Roberta had just walked out, a pair of slippers at the door, two damp towels thrown on the stairs, her handbag sitting beside the two-seater sofa. The house was clean, a mismatch of style that showed two different people had set up home together. Mostly it was cluttered with the detritus of a new baby, including a huge pile of dirty washing sitting on a pink plastic basket on the living-room floor. No doubt Roberta thought she would have time to tidy up later, once Sholto had stopped crying. She walked through the living room to the kitchen at the rear. On the rack above the tumble dryer she had said. There were a few keys, she picked out the one that was most like a car key and two minutes later she was crouching beside the open passenger door of the Duster, the torch on her mobile phone focussed on the catch of the Car Easy car seat.

  Roberta might be right about the blanket. Mrs Carstairs might be right about the car seat, so she examined the clasp that attached the cradle to the seat belt. It was scored slightly, indented in a linear arc as if, Costello thought, it had been adjusted while somebody had been holding a key in the same hand. The mark did not carry over to the other part of the clasp, leaving the score to come to an abrupt end at the junction. Carefully, she leaned over, trying not to touch anything. The car, technically, had been impounded, but the car seat could have very important evidence. The clasp next to the handbrake, to the naked eye, was a perfect match, but microscopic analysis would confirm the seat was newer than the cradle it clipped on to. Not a match. This piece of information was going to stay within the investigation. She left a note, dated, timed and signed that she had been there and closed up both the car and the house.

  ‘You alright there, pet?’ asked the neighbour through a slightly open door.

  ‘Yes thanks,’ Costello replied, without looking round.

 
; THREE

  Driving home alone, Costello’s thoughts drifted back to Archie and the mysterious brunette in the Porsche and got mad at the two-timing little shit. She was practising her deep breathing, forcing her fury to subside. It wasn’t working. And the greatest hits of Beyoncé on the car radio wasn’t making her feel any better.

  She knew she wanted to be angry at something. At Roberta for leaving Sholto in the car. At Moses’ mum for abandoning him. At the man, or woman, who facilitated it all. At herself, for getting involved in the case. She thought about getting angry at the long wait in the hospital corridor and the rude blonde nurse on reception, but she decided to save time and stay angry at Archie. Whatever was going on with him, the only thing different was that she had stumbled across it. It wasn’t his fault that he was having lunch with a younger, smarter woman and had forgotten to mention it. But that suggested to her that she, the woman, was more likely to be a colleague. Maybe more than a colleague, but he wouldn’t be up to anything, not behind her back. The brunette would be the daughter or the niece of a friend, a new graduate, a young lawyer trying to make her way in the legal world. Maybe doing some research for a case and wanted the opinion of the Chief Procurator Fiscal.

  Costello told herself.

  And yet rich enough to drive a Porsche?

  He wasn’t the type to cheat, he was an honest man. Archie was the type to have an affair only once his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And that was a different thing.

  Or was it? And she didn’t strictly know if that was true, she only had the lying bastard’s word for it. There could have been a bus load of women before her.

  Since her.

  She parked the Fiat outside the deli, near her old station at Partickhill, bouncing up on the pavement as she couldn’t be bothered walking to the car park, acknowledging that she had criticized Roberta Chisholm for exactly the same thing. But she didn’t leave anything of value in the car. She was going home, home to have her long shower, put on her jammys and turn her phone off. She was going to enjoy herself with CBS Reality, a few episodes of Dr G or Killer Clergy Go Mad On Cocaine. If that was a true reflection of criminality in the southern states of the USA, she was glad she worked amongst the more usual, everyday jakey kind of Glasgow scum. Like Bernadette Kissel.

  She climbed out the car, aware of the deep itch in her scalp, a build-up of God knows what over the last few days. She stood at the window looking at a side of ham, lying on a bed of slimy green lettuce as she had a good scratch, digging her nails in until it hurt. It felt good. The anger. The pain. Fury still bubbled inside her like a bad biryani. At least Little Moses had been left somewhere safe. Maybe by somebody who knew how Roberta Chisholm would react. Maybe the abductor had, with the good but misguided intention of the not very bright, simply gone out and got themselves a better baby. Maybe the car seat being the same was a coincidence or maybe an igniting factor; he saw that and thought ‘that’s the baby for us’.

  That was still a million miles away from Bernadette Kissel who had stood there and shrugged her shoulders when shown the post mortem photographs of her own emaciated child. Nothing to do with her. Her kid had faded over a period of weeks, dropping to less than half the body weight it should have been. The infection that ate into his skin because he never had his nappy changed, the bruises, the broken and fractured cartilage on one whose bones were not yet old enough to calcify. Who knows what they had gone through? Nobody was too young to suffer the rage, the drunkenness of others. Costello knew that first hand.

  And some believe it’s only abuse if it’s violent. Neglect is as bad, she mused as a couple of teenagers walked past the shop window behind her, their uniforms reflected in the glass, and neglect is often unreported. It was subtle in its evil. Mental health issues Costello could get her head round, that might be somebody else’s responsibility to intervene. But that degree of neglect because Kissel had a needle in her arm, well that was something else.

  ‘Your own call, Bernadette, nobody else’s,’ Costello muttered as she regarded her own reflection. She was as tired as a Halloween ghost. She had listened to so much shite in the past few weeks she could sell it as fertiliser. All kinds of crap about trust, relationships, primary caregivers, stakeholders, core feelings and the responsibility of the caring society. By day two of the hearing Costello had realized what a dinosaur she was. She couldn’t abide this ‘we will get you all the support you need’ crap. The only two people she felt any empathy for were the deceased, life taken before they had the chance to enjoy it, and that poor overworked social worker who would take the mental scars of her cross-examination to the grave. Linda? Laura? McGill. Lorna McGill? She’d be on the happy pills after the roasting the defence council had given her. No doubt her boss had done the same when she got back to the office, the poor lassie had scapegoat written all over her. The powerful had feasted on that girl, and they were not stupid people, not stupid ‘men’, she reminded herself – they knew the financial constrains the social services were under – yet they pulled Lorna McGill apart. Costello made a mental note to find out the reg of the Merc the defence council drove and get him nicked for speeding or driving while on his phone or picking his nose at the traffic lights. She had a few friends in traffic who owed her a favour.

  Applewood cheese, red onion chutney. She thought, the sight of the dead pig putting her off the ham. She realized she had been standing there for a few minutes, lost in her mind-set. The two school kids had disappeared round the corner of Hyndland Road.

  She thought she heard the squawk of a seagull and looked around. Nothing to see. She was stepping into the shop when she thought she heard it again and stepped out, listening, waiting for a break in the traffic to hear properly. There was a something, not sure exactly what it was but twenty years of being a cop alerted her.

  A something.

  She stood down back on the pavement, making her way to the corner, the lane and the three wheelie bins sitting in a line, waiting for the refuse lorry. A green and white hooped top was visible in between, none too clean and not warm enough for a night like this.

  ‘You OK?’ she asked.

  Anderson had intended to turn left to take Nesbit for an evening stroll round the Botanics, but he was late and they would be closed, so his feet turned right, down to the junction with Hyndland Road and the road to Partickhill Station, his old cop shop. It was a chilly, damp night, the air seemed full of the post-rain fecund scent of leaves rotting slowly in the gutter.

  In the end he had got out of the house for the sake of his sanity, listening to every noise upstairs, distracted by the noise of the door opening and closing above him. The presence of Claire and David in the house, their togetherness had made him feel a bit lonely. He had never had any trouble attracting women, just the opposite in fact, so why was he on his own now? By choice? So why was it troubling him? Helena was dead. His wife was out most of the time. Costello was away with Archie. Mulholland had formed some kind of peace treaty with Elvie McCulloch, Wyngate was happily married and breeding like a little rabbit. Even Claire was pairing off. They were all with somebody else now, except him. He only had Nesbit, the faulty Staffie, a faithful and constant companion on his walk to clear his mind of the mundanely boring work, a job so tedious he had started to look forward to emails from his boss. He should have been going for walks years ago, all those difficult times when he worked like a mad man, when he grafted all the hours God sent rather than the nine to five he was trapped in now. In those days, he was so stressed he didn’t eat or sleep. All that counselling and anti-anxiety medication? He would have been better taking the dog out. In those days he never had time to speak to his family. Now he had all the time in the world but had bugger all to say. And there was the sneaking sense that they were moving on while he was going backwards.

  Oh yes, he was getting quite comfy with his slow strolls round the streets and back lanes around Kirklee, or the other way if the traffic was quiet, up to the hospital, around the pond, where Nesbi
t could chase the ducks. At the far end of the pond it was easy to forget that the hospital was there at all, it felt a mile away from any drama. That walk was a long slow drag up a dark, tree-lined avenue. If he was feeling energetic, not a common feeling these days, Anderson would turn right off Great Western Road and then right again, for a leg punishing stroll through the up and down twisty turny streets of the big posh houses of Kirklee itself. Some deep part of his cynicism reminding him that his own house was one of the poshest of them all. There had been another offer in his inbox that morning. These properties, the ones like his that had stayed intact as three-storey townhouses, were in big demand and very rarely on the market. Most had been converted into flats and sold off or rented out. He had been offered £1.2 million. He already had enough money to do him so he didn’t know what to make of that offer. He liked the house, but it wasn’t his home. And he liked the money he had to be tied up in bricks and mortar. Claire and Peter were good kids but money like that could easily absolve them of the need to get out of bed in the morning. He didn’t want his children to be damaged by the money he had been left. That offer in the email had been more than it had been last month. How high would they go? And did he care?

  Anderson walked on, standing at the crossing. The Premier newsagents shop behind him was still open, that strange little red and brown shop standing in an island of blond sandstone, like a few Lego bricks in a house wall, too bright, too modern. Out of place, a bit like himself.

  Would tomorrow be another boring day of sitting in meetings or would his chat with the ACC that afternoon spark something worthwhile rather than another knee-jerk response to a headline. The Kissel case? Or that woman killed by her husband in a dispute over Coronation Street where the police had been called but taken so long to attend the incident that by the time they got there it was a murder scene rather than a domestic violence report. The nine-year-old son had witnessed the murder. There had been two cases of child killing in the last three months, which the media had blamed on the lack of intervention of unspecified social services. The meeting might be about another bid by some MP or an MSP to try to get Police Scotland and the social services to work more efficiently by cutting their budgets and incarcerating them in meetings.