He was lucky to come home after that night, as his wife was fond of reminding him every time the job got too arduous – or dangerous. Clare wouldn’t welcome the fact that he was starting on another murder investigation; neither would his two daughters. But this was his job; he knew nothing else, could do nothing else. The job was all he had known for the whole of his adult life, and perhaps even before.
As Valentine’s car reached the outskirts of Cumnock, it didn’t feel like coming home – he could never quite call the place where he was raised home. This was the town where he watched his father battle on the picket lines with police waving fivers at the striking, starving miners. They’d burnt out their cars, the police, and no one travelled alone fearing reprisals for the never-ending violence. It was a war zone then, and for a time in his youth it was the distorted prism through which he viewed the entire world.
He knew he wanted to be a cop in those early years in Cumnock. Not because he idolised the police, or harboured the types of beliefs he read about in Batman comics, but because he wanted to live somewhere better. Valentine wanted to live in a world where people didn’t behave like animals and brutes; he wanted to weed those out. He was a hunter, of sorts, only he didn’t know that then.
‘Is it far now?’ said DS McCormack.
The sound of a human voice startled Valentine, broke his reverie and forced him to rewire his thinking to find a response. ‘Erm, no, not far now at all.’
‘What about the funeral, where’s that being held?’
‘I’m guessing it’ll probably be in the town. I can’t see it going farther afield. Sandy was on his own at the end.’
‘And what type of a man was he?’ McCormack managed to make her voice sound businesslike.
‘He was a farmer, Sylvia. What does that say about him?’
‘I just meant . . .’
The DI cut in. ‘I know what you meant. He wasn’t known to police, to use the common parlance. I didn’t know him personally. We’d have nodded at each other in the Spar, y’know, but that was about it.’
‘Nothing to indicate he might be involved in this sort of thing then?’
‘What sort of thing? We haven’t even reached the scene yet.’
‘We know there’s a body.’
‘We know it’s mummified too, if Jim’s to be relied upon. But no, I wouldn’t think Sandy Thompson knew much about the dark arts of ancient Egypt. Probably couldn’t find the place on a map.’
‘People bury things in the country, under the cover of darkness – might be nothing to do with him even though it’s on his land.’
Valentine started to slow the car. ‘Yes, in the absence of soon-to-be-cemented motorway flyovers, a nice secluded country spot seems to suit your average murderer with a corpse to dispose of quite nicely.’
The DI brought the car to a halt behind a white police Audi with no one inside. As the detectives got out of the Vectra and peered over the top of a drystone dyke Valentine pointed to the white tent, surrounded by white-suited figures and uniformed officers. ‘Ally and Phil must be inside,’ said Valentine.
‘Must be, sir.’
The DI tried to open a gate that separated the road from the field, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s locked. We’ll just have to shimmy over it.’
‘I can shimmy well enough, boss.’
In the long, wet grass of the field the officers trudged towards the tent. The ground was hard-packed but remained beset by occasional squelchy patches underfoot.
DS McCormack was the first to break the silence. ‘I’m thinking, if Sandy Thompson just died, then how did the farm get sold off so quickly?’
‘Good question. Sandy would never sell whilst he was alive . . . and I heard of a few offers.’
‘So there must be family.’
‘No, there’s not. His wife died years ago, 1980 or something. They never had any kids except for the boy they took in, Garry.’
‘Was he adopted?’
‘I don’t think so. He was fostered for a bit from the boy’s home, Columba House. Look, you can see it over there.’ Valentine raised his arm and extended a finger towards a large grey building on the edge of the low-lying moorland. It looked like it might once have been a hunting lodge but had fallen into disrepair. Large damp patches were exposed beneath the breaks in the seventies roughcasting, some windows had been boarded up and those that hadn’t been covered were smashed or cracked.
‘What a creepy old building.’
‘It was a very strange place. I remember the boys they had there said they were from broken homes. I don’t suppose that’s a phrase we use nowadays.’
‘It doesn’t sound very PC.’
Valentine smirked. ‘I suppose not. They were all quiet kids when they came to the school. Silent some of them, like they were living in terror of authority. In the playground they were totally different – rough as bloody guts they were.’
DS McCormack stopped still. ‘So this Garry, he must have copped for the lot.’
‘The farm? I doubt it. I’m not sure he was that integrated into the Thompson family. He worked the farm for a few years after Sandy went downhill, but it never lasted. I wouldn’t be surprised if the old boy had sold it on the fly to some profiteer on the basis that once he’d popped his clogs they can bring in the bulldozers.’