Helen Fields - Perfect Death

Her door opened again and DS Lively reappeared.

‘Would you give me a break?’ Ava sighed. ‘If you’ve come to taunt me about the coffee, can I recommend …’ She caught the look on his face. The usually sour, perpetually hard-done-by grimace was slack but his neck was drawn in tight, his throat working hard but producing no sound. DS Lively was, she realised, doing his damnedest not to cry. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘It’s DCI Begbie,’ Lively said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Ava stood up, knowing what the look on her detective sergeant’s face meant, needing to hear him say the words anyway. ‘Stop apologising, Lively, and just say it.’

‘Ma’am, I’m not sure what happened. His car’s been found. Too late to do anything. The Chief’s dead.’

Ava felt a stab of pain in her chest. She was winded, crushed, the sentiment producing a remarkable physical effect. Her former commanding officer and decades-long friend was gone.

Out at Gipsy Brae recreation ground, north of the city, the wind sliced sideways. It carried away voices and notebooks, whipping hair and leaving the landscape stark. The road had been cordoned off before the entrance to the park. Ava sat in her parked car, delaying the walk to where Begbie’s vehicle was lit up in the distance. The recently retired Detective Chief Inspector George Begbie had been a policeman’s policeman. Crabby at times, long-suffering, straight to the point and a champion of victims. In all the years Ava had worked with him, she never once saw him lose sight of what mattered. Somewhere at the heart of every case, someone had been hurt or had lost something. The Chief had fought for those people with all his considerable might, ignoring the brass bearing down from above, paying no attention to the press, oblivious to the politicians. He’d been as sharp as a pin and never expected a single officer to work more hours than he himself put in.

It was Begbie who had saved Ava from the misogyny that might have cost her a career as a detective, giving her a post on the Major Investigation Team, promoting her against more obvious candidates, even suspending her not long ago while her name was cleared regarding a breach of protocol. She knew it had hurt him to do that. They had evolved from colleagues to firm friends over late nights at crime scenes and early mornings when they were short-staffed. Even as a junior officer, Begbie had never excluded her from meetings, seeing her potential. If the rest of the squad liked and admired him, Ava had loved him like a favourite uncle. One who had occasionally shouted at her and made her work three days straight without sleep but, nonetheless, he was most of the reason she’d stuck with a career in policing. She didn’t want to believe he was gone.

Ava locked her car and went on foot, wondering why George Begbie, who favoured warm pubs and comfy chairs, had chosen this barren place to say his final goodbye to the world. Staring out across the North Sea with Cramond Island to his left, Granton Harbour on the right, and nothing but vast grey skies reflected on icy water, it was a horribly bleak ending for such an oversized personality.

Ava hung back at the top of the small road that led down to the sea allowing access for caravans and maintenance trucks, now also to Begbie’s ancient Land Rover. He had parked it away from the footpaths, facing the waves. No one would voluntarily have gone close to a lone male sitting in a vehicle, especially such an intimidatingly large figure. Ava put on a white suit, shoe covers and gloves, for what little good it would do. A determination of suicide had already been made, subject to autopsy. A snake of piping had been disconnected from the car window and lay still on the grass, malevolent even now. Tenting had been erected to protect the scene – more from prying eyes than to preserve evidence – and the busy silhouettes of Scenes of Crime Officers were bustling.

Walking down the gentle grass slope, hands in pockets, Ava was mindful that the light had gone from the day and soon a full lighting rig would be required to process the scene. A young Sergeant, his uniform immaculate, face a picture of concern, walked towards her.

‘Do you have your ID on you, please?’ he said.

Ava handed it over, too tired to explain who she was.

‘Major Investigation Team?’ the officer asked. ‘I’d hardly have thought this was your territory.’

‘Sergeant, if you’ve finished telling a Detective Chief Inspector where she should be and what she should be doing, perhaps you could chase that dog walker over there off this grass. And you address me as ma’am or DCI. Now get going.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, pulling his coat up around his neck and heading off into the wind.

Ava took a deep breath. She hated rudeness, particularly the brand that grew from superiority. If Begbie had taught her nothing else in all the years he’d been her commanding officer, it was that rank came with a responsibility to be kind and to listen. She reined in her emotions.

‘Where’s Dr Lambert?’ Ava asked a passing Scenes of Crime Officer.

‘Busy elsewhere,’ the officer said, stepping around Ava to take a new pair of plastic gloves from a box. Ava took her by the arm.

‘She’s busy? The deceased is a former Detective Chief Inspector. He spent twenty years attending crimes scenes like this and now he’s not a priority? I want to know what happened here. There’s no way George Begbie committed suicide.’

The officer clenched her jaw, pulled her arm out of Ava’s grasp and took a step away.

‘A minibus skidded on a patch of ice and left the road half an hour ago, carrying eight children. Two of those are fatalities. Dr Lambert is making that the priority. If you’ll excuse me.’

‘I hadn’t heard,’ Ava said to the Scenes of Crime Officer’s back. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘DCI Turner?’ a voice said from behind her. A man stepped in offering his hand as the SOCO retreated. ‘I’m Chief Inspector Dimitri. Never had the pleasure of working with George Begbie but I understand he was well respected by his men. Why don’t we let forensics do their bit? I always feel like a spare part while they’re processing. We could wait in my car if you like.’

‘That won’t be necessary but I appreciate the offer,’ Ava said. ‘I’d like to see the body in situ, though. I take it this is your patch.’

‘I was assigned to deal with it, although it seems unlikely to be an ongoing police matter.’ He paused and looked towards Begbie’s car. ‘I’ve lost people I worked with and it’s hard. The trick is not to turn it into a crusade. As soon as you start overthinking it, you lead yourself in all the wrong directions. I’m not trying to put you off, but the best thing to do really would be to leave it to us. You can count on me to look after him, and any information you want, you only have to ask.’

Ava glanced at the Chief Inspector she’d heard of but never met in the flesh. He was so softly spoken that she’d found herself craning her neck forward to listen. Close-up, she realised his eyes were so pale a shade of blue that they were hard to look away from. His hair was white but not by virtue of his age. She guessed him to be in his mid-fifties although his face appeared sculpted from some organic material that didn’t age. Before she could respond to his suggestion, a stretcher appeared from the vicinity of the car with a body bag on it. It was carried to a waiting van for transportation to the city mortuary. Whatever assumptions had been made at the scene, there would still have to be an autopsy.

‘Let me walk you back to your car,’ Chief Inspector Dimitri said.

‘No need.’ Ava shook her head. ‘I’d like to inform George Begbie’s wife myself, if you don’t mind. I appreciate your officers will follow up and take a statement from her. But tonight … I know her. He’d have preferred it to come from a friend.’