Denise Mina - The Dead Hour

The room was shallow but broad. A car was neatly parked against the left-hand wall, a beige MG sports car. Off to the right, against the red brick wall, sat an old kitchen table with jotters and receipt pads on it, above a three-tiered battered red toolbox.

“No sugar, I’m afraid. You said you want to talk about Thillingly?”

“I heard Mark came here the day he killed himself.”

“Yeah.” He handed her one of the mugs. “I know Mark didn’t kill Vhari, whatever the police say.”

The tea wasn’t very hot but she wrapped her fingers around it for warmth. Her stomach was still sore and she was feeling the cold more than usual. “I was at the door the night she was killed. I saw Vhari with a man.”

Bernie stiffened. “I see. Right.” He sipped his tea, carefully not looking at her. He should have asked who the guy was or at least what he looked like but he didn’t. He didn’t need to. He already knew.

“It was Paul Neilson, wasn’t it?” she said, watching for a reaction. Bernie sipped at his cup quickly, blinking, and she knew she was right. “Why did Mark kill himself?”

“Mark was depressed. Often depressed.” Bernie drank his tea, his eyes skitting around the messy floor. He was lying, badly. He was unaccustomed to duplicity and it intrigued her.

They looked around for somewhere to sit but there wasn’t anywhere. They couldn’t even sit on the floor because it was too oily. “Usually with visitors I just sit in a car, do you mind?” He held his hand out toward the MG. “Passenger or driver? The seats are soft.”

“I’ll be the driver.” She opened the door and climbed in, sliding into the leather seat. It was comfortable, apart from a belligerent spring that jabbed her in the back if she moved about.

Bernie slipped into the seat next to her and shut the door. “Why are you so interested in Mark?”

“I was there when they pulled Mark out of the water. The police had him convicted before he was in the morgue, and it just seems too tidy to me. Was Mark’s nose burst when he came to see you?”

Bernie havered for a moment, pretending he was trying to remember Mark’s face that day, but Paddy could see he was fitting the bits of lies together to see if they worked. “Um, no, I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”

“He had a nose like a smashed potato and you didn’t notice?”

“I can’t remember.” He glanced guiltily around the garage. “I wasn’t really looking at him.”

“Right? I’ve been told that he tried to phone your sister the night before, that he called her house and someone else answered the phone.”

She had his full attention now.

“Who answered?”

“Mark asked for Vhari first. Then he asked the person who they were and where the hell she was. He was very upset afterward.”

“Who told you this?”

“Diana. He said something about Kate as well…”

“Did he say where she was?”

“Might have. She’s still missing, isn’t she?”

“Dunno.” Bernie shook his head too vigorously. “I haven’t seen Kate for years. Never see her. She never comes to see me either.”

Paddy tried not to pat his arm. Bernie wasn’t a good liar. “But you did see Vhari?”

“Vhari kept in touch with everyone. Never did the easy thing and just bolted like I did.” He bit his finger and looked away through the window. “Vhari was a lovely person. She was good. That’s what the papers keep missing about her. She was really good. ”

Paddy thought of Mary Ann reciting prayers in the dark. Being away from them for a day was a glorious novelty but she couldn’t imagine not talking to her mother for years and years. With the luxury of distance she could see that the Meehans were warm. Fraught but warm.

“Did Vhari keep in touch with Kate?”

“Oh, yeah. Called her every week. Called us both.”

They stopped for a moment, looking out through the dirty windscreen, seeing the garage as if they had just driven in. “So this is all your own?”

“Every bit of it. Got the lease, even drew the sign myself. The Burnetts were furious.”

“What’s Kate like?”

He smiled despite himself. “Kate never gave a fuck. Kate left home at fifteen and never went back. Grandfather left her a cottage when he died, up at Loch Lomond, and she never even went home for the keys.”

“Did you get anything?”

“No.” He looked bitter. “I’m not blood. I got nothing. Vhari got the Bearsden house. It’s worth a fortune.”

Paddy thought of the old-fashioned curtains she had noticed in the big bay window on the night of the murder. “Had she just moved in?”

“Yeah, three weeks ago. Half a mile from the folks, God help her.”

They sipped their tea, watching the still room and the pink fire ripple across the brazier surface, its light shifting the tones in the room. She glanced at Bernie out of the corner of her eye so that he wouldn’t know she was watching, and saw his eyebrows furrow with worry. Every time Kate was mentioned he balked.

“And Mark spent his last day here?”

Bernie blinked hard at his mug and shrugged. “He was outside waiting when I got here at eight thirty, dressed in his smart suit and that stupid Midge Ure overcoat. He was bloody freezing.” He smirked at the memory but his face crumpled suddenly at the thought of Mark. He struggled for breath for a moment, the shock of emotion making him fleck saliva onto his chin. He raised a hand and wiped it off. “I’m very sorry,” he said, his accent still as crisp as a fresh lettuce. “It’s just… a lot’s happened.”

Paddy tried to think of something kind to say. “I’m sorry too.”

“Mark had come to tell me Vhari was dead. He wanted to tell me. I don’t have a phone at home and he didn’t want me to hear from the radio.”

“Are Kate and Paul Neilson still together?”

“Dunno,” he said, too quickly. “Dunno anything about Kate’s life.”

“But you know Neilson?”

Bernie nodded. “We were at school together, all of us, Mark and Paul and us. Formed a tight little gang. Mark’s family only lived across the road from us. Paul lived farther away, he never really hung around the house much. I didn’t know him well.”

“He didn’t join the gang?”

“No, just sort of took Kate away. He was nothing to do with us. After school Vhari and Mark got engaged. Big family event. We were all big pals until Diana came along.”

She had heard Bernie’s accent before and now she could place it: it was a public school accent and the last time she’d heard it was from the mouth of the man she now knew was Paul Neilson when they were both standing outside Vhari Burnett’s door.

“Where does Neilson live?”

“Killearn. Huntly House or Lodge or something, Huntly Cottage.”

“Would Neilson have known where your grandfather’s house was?”

Bernie’s eye flickered to her and he shifted uncomfortably. “Dunno. Maybe.”

“But Mark would have known. They were engaged so he probably met your grandfather. He’d know where Vhari had moved to.”

“Well.” He cleared his throat unnecessarily. “I suppose.”

Paddy nodded, making mental notes. “Why didn’t Mark go to the police?”

Bernie shrugged again; it seemed to be a herald for a fib. “Mark was a lawyer. He didn’t have a particularly high opinion of the police.”

“Was he protecting you from them?” It was a stab in the dark and not a very good one.

Bernie smirked at her. “From the fuzz? What have I done? Been a toff in a working-class area?” The temperature was dropping between them so she decided to move on.

“Bernie, listen, Vhari had the chance to walk out of the house that night and she didn’t take it.” She watched his face closely. “Whatever secret you’re keeping from the rest of the world, she gave her life to keep it. I think she was protecting Kate. Why would she need to protect her from the police?”