Gillian Galbraith - Blood In The Water

Without waiting any longer for the supervisor’s response she replaced the receiver, dialled the City Social Work Department and was able, without the fight she had anticipated, to extract the name, address and telephone number of the child’s foster parents. As she was holding on, waiting for another answer, Alastair returned to the office. He ripped open a packet of sandwiches. ‘Shitey press,’ he said loudly, ignoring her gesture for him to be quiet, ‘they’re all over the place. I had to fight my way back into the station and I got poked in the eye by one of their sodding sound booms. Of course, not as much as an apology from the swine responsible.’

Alice put down the receiver, acknowledging defeat. No reply.

‘Did the skateboarder identify Mair from the photograph?’ she asked.

‘So so… He thinks it could have been the man he saw at McBryde’s place. Who were you trying to speak to?’

‘Davie’s foster parents. Fancy a trip there? I’ve been thinking about Mair’s likely whereabouts and I reckon he’ll base himself somewhere close to them.’

‘Why on earth should he?’

‘Because before he’s caught he’ll want to see as much of the boy as he can. If I’m right, the Hendersons, Davie’s foster parents, may already have seen Mair. It has to be worth checking out. If they have, then it’s odds-on he’ll return and we could have the place watched. What do you think?’

‘What’s the alternative?’

‘Phoning round the rest of the shelters and ensuring that they get copies of the photos.’

‘Why do you think he’ll want to be close to the boy?’

‘Because he loves him. He even wanted to look after the child himself. How many uncles do you know like that? He doesn’t even have a wife in tow to help. Mair will want to be sure that the boy’s in good hands as a minimum.’

‘The boss won’t approve. You’re taking things into your own hands again, Alice. Shouldn’t we check with her first?’

‘No. She might say no. I’m going anyway. Are you coming or not?’

‘Well, anything is better than more phone calls. Let’s leave by the back entrance, avoid the swine.’

Eskside West is a pleasant, cobbled street, leading up to the old bridge and separated only by an area of municipal parkland from the broad, slow-flowing river Esk. The Hendersons’ house, distinctive with its soot-blackened exterior and disabled ramp, was in the middle of an unostentatious Victorian terrace and easy to locate. No one was home. A neighbour, hauling black bags of rubbish to a skip, told them that he had seen the family leave to go shopping about an hour earlier. From the warm interior of the car, Alice gazed idly at the river. Frozen reeds protruded from its banks and the edges of the water had iced over. Seagulls paraded up and down on the grass, and two of the three arches of the bridge were blocked by mounds of branches, straw and an old tree trunk, the remnants of the last spate. In the shallows a mattress lay stranded on a bed of gravel, springs spilling out along with the rest of its entrails.

The indignant wail of a car horn drew her attention towards the traffic lights, and she noticed a family of four making their way towards the car. A man pushing a boy in a wheelchair, on his right a woman, laden with the double burden of the shopping and a baby in a sling. Their progress was slow and Alice stared at them as the boy’s erratic, uncoordinated movements and bright hair proclaimed his identity. While the man wrestled with the catch on the little metal gate leading to their large front garden, the two sergeants approached. A passer-by, eyes fixed on the boy’s lustrous head, bumped into Alice and mumbled an apology. She looked round, catching the stranger’s eyes.

‘It’s him,’ she said mechanically, staring at the man as he moved on.

‘Who?’ Alastair asked.

‘Mair! Who do you bloody think!’

Her lungs were hurting, her head down, arms swinging wildly, mouth full of warm saliva. A gallon of acid must have been pumped into her chest, the pain was so intense. All her attention was on her prey, her eyes streaming and puffs of frozen breath billowing from her as she ran. Catch him, catch him, CATCH HIM. And then she fell, hard, onto the unyielding ground, legs entangled in some kind of snake-like obstruction. Panting loudly, she raised herself up and found a toddler, reins fluttering in the wind, crying angrily beside her.

‘You’ll need to watch where you’re going, Lucy, you’ve tripped the nice lady up,’ the woman said, glancing apologetically at her child’s victim while lifting the uninjured tot off the road. Alice ran on in the direction she had seen Mair take, increasingly conscious of an agonising pain stabbing her knee with every footfall. On the High Street she stopped to recover her breath. Gasping noisily, she stood, hands on her hips, trying to scan the pavements on either side of the busy road. A few hundred yards ahead, on the river side, she noticed a cluster of pedestrians being jostled as a dark-haired man pushed through them into an Oxfam shop. Fat bloody chance it’s him, she thought, and unable to run any further, she hobbled towards her destination.

Circular racks of trousers, jackets and skirts barred her way as she crossed the shop-floor towards a counter where two elderly women, apparently oblivious to her presence, were chattering with each other. Edging past a skyscraper of stacked jigsaw puzzles, she noticed a narrow archway above which was written ‘Children’s Books’, leading to an additional room, and limped in its direction. The man within had his back to the entrance but he wheeled round instantly on hearing the sounds of an approach.

As Alice looked in Donald Mair’s eyes, she knew from the expression of fear that flitted across his face that he had recognised her as his pursuer. In that instant he launched himself at her, a human battering-ram, smashing her shoulder and the side of her face with his own. Her instinctive attempt to grab him failed, her grip broken at the sickening sensation as he slammed his knuckles into her nose. Excruciating pain engulfed her whole face and blood poured from both nostrils, streaming over her lips and cascading off her chin.

Turning round she saw Alistair blocking the doorway into the street. When Mair charged at him she watched as her friend swung a heavy wooden lamp at the man’s temple, the cracking contact causing him to stop in his tracks, legs buckling beneath him as if they could no longer bear his weight.

The Hendersons were an organised pair, the sort that not only have a family first-aid box but also know where to find it and how to use it. Alice’s bloodied nose was bathed and anointed by Elizabeth Henderson, while her husband busied himself making a pot of tea. They both recognised the man in the photo. He was the one who had come to their door, only a week earlier, offering to tidy up their oversized, neglected front garden.

‘Did you take him on?’ Alice asked, her voice uncharacteristically nasal.

‘No,’ Elizabeth Henderson replied, putting the hank of lint back into its box, ‘He was a bit odd. The garden is a mess, and we could do with help, but we don’t have the money. I told him that. Then he said he could do DIY work in the house. To be honest, he spooked me a bit.’