Craig Robertson - Snapshot

Winter asked the question that he didn’t want to hear the answer to.

‘So you and Sturrock… kept in touch?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

Rachel peeled her hands away from her face and returned his stare.

‘It wasn’t often. A couple of times a year, if that.’

‘How did you contact him?’ Winter persisted.

She looked back at him.

‘By phone?’ he asked her.

Rachel’s gaze fell to the floor before she answered.

‘Yes.’

Winter pulled her head up so he could look her in the eyes again.

‘So your mobile number could be in his phone?’ She shook her head slowly.

‘No, not could be. Is. My number is definitely in his phone. I’m scared, Tony, I’m very scared.’

Sleep overtook them eventually but not before Winter demanded that Rachel go to Shirley with everything she knew and that she stayed off the street and out of harm’s way. Rachel was having none of it though.

She told him that if she went to Shirley then she wouldn’t get within a mile of the Dark Angel case and might be out of a job entirely. She’d never registered Sturrock as an informer and worse than that, had never told Alex Shirley about it after Sturrock was shot. She kept it to herself, thinking it didn’t matter because she was clean and there was no point in dragging it up. Now it was too late.

Anyway, she wasn’t one for hiding away. Even if the maniac that was running around shooting people found that her number was in that phone and knew who she was, she’d take her chances.

They woke early, both bad-tempered and fearing the worst about the day ahead, following one another into the shower without a word being said. The television and the radio were replaying the previous day’s horrors and that was more than enough without either of them adding to it.

The morning was dreich; grey, wet and miserable to match their moods, as they went their separate ways towards Pitt Street and Stewart Street, both fuelled by a growing sense of urgency and apprehension and with thoughts of Addison and Sturrock’s phone writ large in their minds.

Winter was in the office before eight, meaning he had the place to himself for the best part of an hour and he could get on with what he’d decided to do undisturbed. He’d stopped to pick up a paper and threw it on his desk, seeing BLOODBATH in large red letters across the front of the Sun. They didn’t have any photographs from the scene at Dixon Blazes but they’d used their gun-site logo half the size of the page. There were only a few paragraphs of the bare facts and a whole lot of conjecture.

Thank God they didn’t have a photograph of Addison, he thought. A quick scan of the story showed there was no mention of any accusation against him, instead the keywords were ‘near fatal’, ‘severe head wounds’ and ‘critical but stable’. He couldn’t get the image of Addison out of his head and it didn’t help that he was going to have to file the photographs. That was part of his reason for getting in so early, to get the admin done and get out of the office before some fucker began noising him up with questions he didn’t want to answer.

But he also wanted in and out as quickly as he could because he had other things to do. As soon as he got in, he had left a message on Cat Fitzpatrick’s answerphone, asking if he could stop by and see her as soon as possible. He wasn’t sure what she’d think of the message but it didn’t really matter, not compared to the rest of it. If it became complicated then it was too bad.

The full-length shot he’d taken of Addison was on screen in front of him, uploaded from his camera. It was surreal. His best friend stretched out, cut down, dark suit and crimson collar. He struggled to match the person lying there with the one that he went to the pub with, went to the match with, the one that called him ‘wee man’ and chased anything in a skirt. He could only see someone on the cusp of eternity, one foot in the grave and the other limping badly. It wasn’t Addison, it was too lacking in life for it to be him.

He cropped a section of his face, trying to make it look more like him, to make the connection with the Addison he recognized but still all he got was skull and blood and bone and concrete and shards of being. None of that added up to him. It was a subject, a still life.

Jan McConachie was different. She’d already crossed the threshold and the bullet that had taken off the top of her head left no room for argument. Flat on her back with arms and legs spread wide, she pleaded for a redemption that would never come. Her lights had gone out so fast that it didn’t register on her face. It seemed her life had been stolen from under her nose and she simply hadn’t noticed. The only evidence of it was a vaguely stupid, open-mouthed look as if she didn’t know the answer to the final question. She was looking to the skies for the answer but Winter doubted she would find it there.

The phone made him jump, a testament to his state of mind.

‘Yes?’

‘Hi Tony. How are you?’

‘I’ve had better days, Cat. I need a favour. Can I come to your office?’

‘Sure. I’ll be in all morning. Whenever suits you.’

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

Cat Fitzpatrick looked up from a microscope as he pushed the door open, the hint of a sympathetic smile on her face, then turned her eyes back to whatever was under the glass. It gave Winter a few seconds to look at her without her noticing. The weak sunlight that struggled through the window still managed to pick out highlights in her flame-red hair which was tied back severely. Even in a lumpen, white lab coat she looked stunning. The second-best looking woman in Strathclyde polis, he told himself.

‘Sit down,’ she said, without looking up. ‘Two minutes.’

Winter cast his eye around the lab, never failing to be amazed at how there always seemed to be a new piece of kit every time you visited. These guys had to go back to school every five minutes or technology would outstrip them. Dinosaurs like Baxter were continually in danger of being left behind as they clung on to what they knew.

Cat pushed the scope aside and looked up, studying him.

‘How is Addison?’

He sighed and closed his eyes.

‘Not good. He lost a lot of blood and the bullet passed through his skull. They think it missed his brain, though, and there’s some hope. They are giving him a thirty per cent chance of survival.’

Cat looked at him, another question waiting to be asked, but when he didn’t offer an inroad she let it go.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘It’s awkward. But it’s important.’

‘Go on.’

‘There was a drug dealer killed last week at Blochairn. A guy named Sammy Ross.’

She shrugged.

‘The name doesn’t ring any bells.’

‘No reason it should. He was found stabbed Saturday night, Sunday morning. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘So?’

‘So I think that there might have been more to it than there first appeared. I might be completely wrong but I’m guessing that something might have been missed in the post-mortem.’

Her mouth opened then closed again.

‘That’s… I’m not sure if I’m more astonished by the possibility of something being missed or that you have some reason for thinking it. What’s this all about?’

‘I can’t say, Cat.’

‘Then I don’t see how I can help you.’

‘Look, it’s important. If I’m wrong and there was nothing missed then there will have been no harm in checking, right?’

She weighed it up.

‘Maybe. Has this got something to do with Addison being shot?’

‘It might have. I can’t be sure. But I need to find out. I need your help, Cat.’