The detective hadn’t altered his stride. He was at the gate now, climbing over the rail on his way back to the car. McCormack gritted her teeth and followed him over the top.
Inside the car, McCormack spoke up again: ‘So we’re really going to do this?’
‘Interrupt the funeral, you mean? I can’t see any other way.’
‘We could secure the scene, sir, supervise the removal of the oil drum.’
‘And send in the Chuckle Brothers? I don’t think so. This requires tact, Sylvia. They’re good cops but neither have that particular talent.’
‘I just thought . . .’
‘I know what you thought.’ Valentine proceeded to rub the back of his head again. ‘But we have to do our own dirty work this time.’
‘Something the matter with your head?’
The DI jerked his hand away and started the car. ‘Twisted a muscle or something.’
‘OK.’
Valentine knew exactly what McCormack’s response really said but resisted the urge to explain himself. He’d have enough of that to do later, when he got home to Clare and his father. The consequences of what he was about to do didn’t sit easily with him, but he’d sooner be in full control than delegate it and have even more to explain in time.
The road to Cumnock Congregational Church wasn’t long. Fields and moorland butted the road on either side whilst a light smirr pattered on the windscreen. It was familiar territory to the detective, but after what he had just seen, it felt like he was viewing the place with fresh eyes.
Valentine knew the streets he grew up in well, possibly even better than the streets of Ayr that he now walked daily. But the Cumnock of his boyhood appeared to him as another place entirely these days.
He calculated the child in the oil drum to be about ten years old, maybe a little older. If he’d been in the ground for twenty-five years like the doctor had guessed, that meant he was murdered when Valentine was in his early teens. It never occurred to him that this meant it might well have been him in the barrel – the ages were close enough, and murder was a random enough crime – because his thoughts were on the victim. A child had been murdered; there could hardly be a worse offence.
Children he’d gone to school with, played football with, gone to the pictures with, could it be one of them? He saw their faces, the grey school jumpers, the old Bukta tracksuits they wore then, parkas, Clark’s Commandos. They were all so alike; hardly a detail separated them.
They’d gone to Cubs together – Scouts too. School trips – that sailing holiday in Whiting Bay – those memories were sullied now. One of the boys, one he’d possibly known, had been murdered, and the killer might as well have left his tracks all over his doorstep. It all felt too close to home, too personal, but he knew if he was to catch this killer he’d have to push those thoughts aside. He had to keep an open mind, a focussed curiosity, because anything less was letting a child murderer go free.
They were entering the township when DS McCormack spoke again. ‘This must all feel very strange for you, sir?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, you grew up here. I can’t imagine what that must be like.’
‘You grew up in Glasgow. You worked there. I’m sure you had cases that felt close to home.’
‘Glasgow’s a big city – it’s not the same. These places are claustrophobic – everybody knows everybody’s business.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that. And I wouldn’t be relying on local gossip to be of any help to you. Cumnock’s a law unto itself, after what they went through with the miners’ strike people aren’t keen to rat on their neighbour. And talking to the police is still cautiously frowned upon.’
‘They’re a bit backward at coming forward where I come from too. Nobody likes us; I’m well used to that.’
The church was built from picturesque red sandstone in a gothic, turreted style with an ornamental bell tower as the focal point. The cross on top of the tower was small, looked almost like an afterthought, but the stained-glass windows were vast, taking up a whole third of the main-facing wall.
Valentine headed for the entrance, aiming to park in the church grounds, but thought better of it and pulled up beyond the wrought-iron railings with two wheels on the pavement.
‘Inside the grounds is for the family,’ he said.
McCormack shrugged, her expression saying that she thought he was being unnecessarily pedantic. ‘We’re here to disrupt the occasion not join in.’
‘I know. But some things just don’t feel right.’
As they parked, a navy Range Rover exiting the churchyard caught Valentine’s attention. Whoever was in the back was important enough to have a driver and kit him out with a uniform.
‘Who’s that?’ said McCormack.
‘Search me. I don’t know anyone from Cumnock with a Range Rover, never mind a driver with a peaked cap.’
As the car passed, the detectives stared into the back window, which had been tinted but was clear enough to show the full-leather interior and a familiar face.