Irvine Welsh - Crime

Over espresso in a café, you and George watched his prospective clients amble along the seafront as he explained that Ellis had been the town bad boy back in Welwyn. A charismatic and sly young man, he wasn’t a hard case, but was somehow able to get tougher souls to do his bidding. Ellis had several offences, mainly burglary, but there had been one charge of rape, dropped through lack of evidence. While there was nothing to link him to minors, he was easy to detest; the sort of shitbag that every community manages to produce. Nobody, police or public, would lament him being banged up for a long time. Nula Andrews was the opposite: small, frail, elfin-faced, an innocent looking much younger than her twelve years. You recalled the picture of her they’d circulated, and those blazing doe eyes that blitzed into the psyche of the British public. Nula was on her way to help her aunt with some decorating. She was easy to cast as Little Red Riding Hood to Ellis’s Big Bad Wolf. So Robert Ellis became the most hated man in Britain: a Huntley, a Brady. And, in a sickening fashion, he did make an unsolicited confession of sorts.

But whatever Ellis was, he was not guilty of this crime. George Marsden was having none of it and honour compelled him to resign, ending his police career on a sour note. He had a troubling belief in right and wrong. If it was religion, it wasn’t the insurance policy stuff most people took out by nipping to church on Sunday. So George talked through the Nula Andrews case with you: the similarities and differences to Britney. Then you’d discussed Stacey Earnshaw, snatched near Salford Shopping Centre. — It wasn’t Ellis, he said emphatically.

Every city produced its share of Ellises. Bob Toal was anxious to see if any in Edinburgh could be linked in some manner to Britney. He himself had cried wolf about retiring for years and now that his compulsory date loomed, he wanted to do so on a high. Some sections of the press, which had originally crucified Ellis, now, in light of Britney’s case, had started to hint at a grave miscarriage of justice. The public, meantime, were doing what the public will do in such instances: clamouring for a body.

You hadn’t told a soul about the Eastbourne visit and feared the phone call that might force the truth, but received nothing other than routine messages informing you Grandad Ronnie’s whereabouts still hadn’t been uncovered. Guilt was beginning to strike hard; you felt you should have been knocking on doors and sitting in cramped vans on stake-outs with the others. You’d fallen asleep on the plane back to Edinburgh, not fully waking up till you picked up the local newspaper at an airport stand to see Britney’s face, with a vibrant, insolent grin, staring at you. Tomorrow it would go national. You took a taxi back to your Leith flat, in a new development by the docks. You were planning on speaking to Toal about the Ellis case. Then you realised that in your tiredness you’d neglected to switch on your mobile after coming off the flight. There was a message from Trudi and two from your boss. — Think we’ve got our man, Ray, he’d chirped in the last of them.

You were sure you knew who this was, but when you headed down to HQ you were surprised to find Ronnie Hamil still missing and a youth called Gary Forbes in custody. Forbes had confessed that he had taken Britney, killing her and burying her body in woodlands in Perthshire. Then you looked at Bob Toal, now utterly despondent; between leaving that message and you joining him, Toal’s confidence in this arrest had completely evaporated. It wasn’t surprising; Forbes was an idiot, desperate for attention. A gangling, introverted young man, he was obsessed with murders and serial killers and kept scrapbooks documenting their deeds. You’d watched this sad, socially neglected teenager revel in his faux bad-boy status. He was already clearly fantasising about the crazy women who would write and visit him in prison. Worst of all, though, was the way your investigative team were desperately stretching him to fit the template. Seizing on pathetic anecdotes; the neighbour who claimed he’d tortured a budgie, the young cousin who’d sustained a bad wrist-burn at his hands.

— Is this the best we can do? you’d asked. You looked around at the faces in the office; Harrower, Notman, Gillman, Drummond, McCaig.

Toal, meanwhile, sat in an ulcerous silence.

— We can comb the Highlands at this halfwit’s instigation and we’ll just be wasting manpower, Bob, you’d said. — Let’s get him to show a couple of cops where he’s supposedly hidden the body, then charge him with wasting police time.

— Yes, Toal snapped grimly, scarcely moving. — Get on to it, he’d said to Gillman, nodding curtly. The others took their cue to leave. Toal shut the door behind them, his expression and body language warning you to brace yourself. — Where in hell’s name have you been? Why did you have your phone switched off?

— You’re not going to like this.

Toal hadn’t moved a muscle.

— I flew down to Gatwick and met George Marsden. He was investigating officer on the Nula And—

— I know who the fuck he is, Ray, Toal had spat. — He’s trouble! Then your boss shook his head in disbelief, — You took off down south to meet a bitter ex-copper, a civvy, when your team are looking for a missing girl and a prime suspect? I’m disappointed in your judgement, Ray. Very, very disappointed.

You’d wanted to discuss Welwyn and Manchester, but it wasn’t the time. Anybody who had made a serious study of the latter case would have seen that there was no way Robert Ellis could have kidnapped Stacey Earnshaw. And the evidence tying him to Nula Andrews was highly contentious. But it meant taking on senior police officials and judges. It wasn’t a war you felt you could even start at this point, let alone hope to win.

Toal was incredulous. — Do you know that Ronnie Hamil’s still missing?

— We’re doing everything we can to find him, you’d said, shabbily.

— No. Your team are doing everything they can to find him. Toal’s voice was getting high and excited. — You won’t solve this case dicking around in Welwyn Garden City or Manchester. It’s the family that’s the key, mark my words! Find Ronnie Hamil, Ray!

You nodded meekly at your boss and looked forward to another long night.

THE LUNCHTIME TRAFFIC is light on the freeway, as Lennox sits next to Ginger, who has been uncharacteristically cowed and silent. This suits him; he feels good that somebody else is feeling bad. He’s exhausted, but he’d been glad to see the dawn fill the room, delivering him from his sweating torment. He shakily recalls one of last night’s tortuous dreams. He was on Ginger’s balcony. Inside the apartment, through the glass, the grinning Mr Confectioner with a frightened Britney, who then became a terrified Trudi. Lennox’s own mother Avril sat in a chair watching, like she was almost encouraging the Nonce. Lennox had pulled at the door but it wouldn’t slide open. He pounded the glass till both his hands bled. When he looked behind him there was no balustrade on the balcony. And the veranda area had shrunk to become a small ledge.

A horn blares, tearing him from his thoughts.

— Spastic! Ginger roars, as he zooms in front of a big truck that dazzles Lennox with a magnificent chromium blast of reflective sunlight. He turns to Trudi in the back. — Was I out of order last night?

— No, not at all, she says, a little too emphatically. — You were great hosts and it was a good night out, I’m just suffering a wee bit now, with the jet lag and everything.

At the hotel’s rear courtyard – a small jungle of cypress, oak, pine and the ubiquitous palm trees, designed to allow revellers to sneak in discreetly – they say their goodbyes. Lennox and Trudi look obviously wrecked as the concierge dispenses an obsequious and collusive this is South Beach grin.