Ally appeared out of breath before them. He nodded first to Clare, then to Valentine. ‘Hello, boss, we’ve got a live one, I’m afraid.’

‘A live what, Ally?’

The DS leaned over, lowered his voice. ‘Erm, maybe what I should have said was we’ve got a dead one.’

3

As Valentine rose from his chair, retrieved his coat, Clare sat with her arms folded tight across her chest. If there was a glimmer of sympathy lurking in her for the fact that he was going to miss their daughter’s big night, Valentine couldn’t find it. He’d angered her by doing the one thing he promised that he wouldn’t do – put the job first, again.

The detective stood for a moment, fastening his coat, and trying to locate a crack in the stonewall Clare had built around herself, but it was useless. Her anger was one thing, merely the outward projection of her inner hurt, it was the upset he’d caused that dug at his conscience and made him want to plead forgiveness.

‘Look, Clare …’

She cut in. ‘Leave it.’

‘I’m sorry, I have to …’

‘Just go, will you.’

Valentine looked at DS McAlister – who had the good grace to avert his gaze and remove himself from the scene – he stood biting the inside of his cheek and tapping his foot. He was attracting the attention of the theatre goers, who were turning and staring, whispering to each other in wonder at the strange break in proceedings.

‘Right, I’ll call, Clare.’ She didn’t move. As he left Valentine caught a glimpse from his father that indicated he might try and talk to his wife; it wasn’t an optimistic look.

Valentine followed the DS to the car park, there were too many people milling about inside the theatre for him to ask why he was being dragged away from his family. As the cooler air outside worked on his temperament the detective breathed deeply and tried to compose himself – it would have been too easy to get mad with Ally, too familiar a routine as well; whether it was age or experience keeping him composed, however, he didn’t know.

‘OK, son, tell me what’s what. Not the nightclub on Arthur Street is it? I heard it on the radio on the way in.’

Ally kept walking towards his car. As he pointed the keys the sidelights flashed. ‘No, that’s a hold-up, would you believe? DI Eddy Harris is all over it.’

‘Flash Harris, that fits … It was a jeweller’s last week, Ayr’s turning into bloody Dodge City. OK, so what have we got, then?’

‘Hard to say what the situation is at present, boss. All we know is it’s a bloke who’s taken a blade in the back and his claret’s all over the kitchen floor. We taking my car, yeah?’

Ally’s casual tone was customary among the squad but didn’t fool Valentine. He knew if they had a murder on their patch then every one of his team would be focused – it didn’t stop him teasing the DS. ‘You make it sound like one for that Kitchen Nightmares show.’

Ally allowed himself a grin, by the time they got inside the car he had upgraded to a laugh. ‘Those celebrity chefs are a joke, think they’d try on that hard-man patter in real life? Wouldn’t be five minutes before some psycho was tenderising the Botox out their face.’ The car’s engine spluttered, the wheels turned on the tarmac.

Valentine spoke: ‘Am I going to have to batter the details of this case out of you, Ally?’ They were at the bus garage, turning onto the Sandgate. ‘Where are we going for a start, son?’

‘Whitletts, boss.’

The DI nodded. ‘It just doesn’t get any better does it?’

‘No, sir. It’s the junkies isn’t it? I heard some statistic the other day that nearly forty per cent of the houses up there have a drug dependent.’

‘Is this a drugs killing, or are you just trying to make me think you actually read the background reports that cross your desk?’

‘I don’t know much more than I’ve told you.’ The King Street station came into view, lights glowing inside creating the appearance of industry. ‘Looks busy, boss. Think we’ll be burning the midnight oil tonight?’

Having to pull a late shift at the station on the night his eldest daughter had made her stage debut, as the rest of the family were celebrating, crushed Valentine. The feeling passed quickly, though, as his sense of duty was renewed by the situation. There had been a murder in his hometown, and that was something he could never ignore. Whatever was stacking up at home, none of it compared to the need for justice. That would never change because it was the other side of his devotion to his family: if anything happened to them, he would expect no less than the kind of retribution only someone like him could deliver.

‘Ally, when’s the most important part of an investigation?’

The DS glanced in Valentine’s direction. ‘Have I said something wrong?’

‘The first twenty-four hours, son. Forty-eight hours at a push. After that we’re onto extrapolating the known facts and, not a favourite of mine, guesswork.’

‘I think I see what you’re getting at.’

‘You do? Good.’ Valentine pointed to a gap in the road where a row of police cars had parked up, he had the car door open before the vehicle stopped. As the brakes halted the wheels, he pushed himself from the car and motioned with a curled index finger for DS McAlister to follow promptly. On the pavement he was met by a crowd of noisy residents. The noisiest – a woman in sweatpants and a housecoat who was shadowed by two hyperactive youngsters – fronted up to him, blocking the path. ‘You going to tell us what’s going on?’

Valentine sidestepped the woman without an answer and one of the children, a young boy in football colours, started up the path after him. ‘Get those children inside, please. This is a police investigation.’

As Valentine halted his stride, turned, DS McAlister directed the woman back towards the crowd on the side of the road. She wrested her arm from his grip. ‘Get your mitts off me, it’s a free country, you pig.’

‘It won’t be free for you if I arrest you,’ McAlister snapped back.

‘Arrest me for what?’ Her mouth drooped open, a gap-toothed glower that said she might just be stupid enough to test the officer.

‘How about disrupting a police investigation?’ His tone was flat, fully controlled. ‘Or maybe I’ll just do you for civil disobedience. Now get indoors, all of you.’

Valentine provided backup. ‘I’ll have officers round to speak to you all as soon as possible. But in the meantime please go home and let us get on with our work. There’s nothing to be gained from hanging about on the street, and it’s cold! Come on, take the kiddies indoors.’

The woman sunk back from the officers, pushed open the gate at the end of her garden. The crowd started to disperse. DS McAlister approached Valentine as he lengthened his stride towards the property. ‘That was a close one,’ he said.

‘They’re just scared. They know something’s happened, and on their own doorstep, I wouldn’t want that any more than them.’

‘Aren’t you worried about contamination of the crime scene? About kids running all over the evidence.’

The DI fought back an urge to ridicule McAlister for swatting him with the textbook. ‘Ally, you have to treat people like people. That’s your first and foremost. But it’s a fair point, why don’t you get uniform to put up a cordon?’

‘I’ll do that and if anyone crosses it, I’ll make sure they’re thrown in the divvy van, in full view of their pals.’

Valentine stamped towards the murder scene. ‘And when you’re done building community relations, come and join the rest of the squad in there,’ he pointed to the front door of the house, ‘slight matter of a murder investigation to get under way.’

4

The path to the house was clogged with bodies, the SOCOs in their restrictive white suits being the most obvious. The officers in uniform were almost as prevalent but the others in plain clothes were only identifiable as part of the squad by their industry. As Valentine got closer he noticed that an assortment of little yellow A-boards littered the path. They sat next to the familiar shapes made by blood droplets falling on concrete. It fell flat and round, splayed and squashed, it lay as innocuous as red paint but he knew it was not. The blood pools delineated a shambling route that led to the gate and then seemed to have been lost on the black tarmac of the pavement and road.