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CHAPTER THREE

‘A n accident?’

The man sitting in front of PC Robert Muller bobbed his head. His expression was so neutral Robert fought the urge to grab a hold of his shoulders and shake him.

Instead, Robert wrapped his hands around the chair. ‘My wife was killed.’

Still, the man – DCI Seamus Dickinson or, as Robert and the rest of their colleagues called him, Dickheadson – just sat there. People displayed more emotion when talking about tap water. ‘The best of my team worked the case, Constable Muller. Forensic evidence suggested the fire was caused by a gas leak. An accident.’

Robert wanted to hurl himself at the man. Dickheadson’s pudgy body was no match for his own muscled physique. Anne had appreciated his workouts, and after what the last two years had been for him, working out until he passed out was the only solution to his insomnia and heartache.

‘It’s been two months. It’s too early?—’

Dickheadson shook his head once. ‘Two and a half. And it was a horrifying fire. As unsatisfactory as the answer might be, there is no one to punish. Now, Constable, you can leave.’

Constable? Dickheadson seriously thought now was the time to pull rank?

Robert pushed himself off the chair. If he further tightened his grip on it, he’d crush the damn thing. ‘With all due respect?—’

‘I’ve been behind this desk long enough to know when someone starts with those words, they are lying. I have work to do.’

‘Sir, my wife was murdered .’

Dickheadson smacked his palms on the desk in front of him, sending his teacup rattling in its saucer. ‘I’ve had it with you, Muller. You do realise you’re a police constable? The lowest in the pecking order. I had my best inspectors on the case. The entire team has more experience than you and the best records in Police Scotland. Just because you can access this office doesn’t mean you can waltz in here and demand answers. I’ve told you what I’m sure the family liaison officer and the senior investigating officer have already informed you.’

The family liaison officer. Yes, right, that butt joke of a cop who was barely out of her six weeks at police school. And what family was she liaising with? Anne’d had no one but him, just like he’d had no one but her.

Robert took a breath to rein in his emotions. He was all over the place – from tears threatening to leak to his blood craving a sparring match with Dickheadson.

‘Your inspectors might have a great case record, sir, but I know my wife. There was no way she’d have been in that building.’

Dickheadson sighed, then reached for a slim file on his desk. He opened it up and flipped through the pages. ‘Anne Muller was your wife.’

Robert resisted rolling his eyes.

His boss continued. ‘She worked as a receptionist for a lawyer. Nine to five?’

At Dickheadson’s raised eyebrow, Robert shook his head. ‘Eight to four. Then she went to the gym.’

Dickheadson nodded. ‘Aye, and returned home at half six. That’s a long time to be at the gym.’

What the hell was the man trying to get at? ‘My wife and I had a good marriage, as I’ve said multiple times to the inspectors and to you.’

‘It’s in your statement, aye.’ Dickheadson shut the file then leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘And you worked a lot of nights. Requested the night shift, in fact. That means you’d have barely seen her.’

Robert swallowed the guilt that sad truth presented to him. At the start, theirs had been a good marriage, but the last two years had been complicated.

Dickheadson wasn’t done driving his point home. ‘You began asking for night shifts two years ago, after your wife had her first miscarriage. What started as a temp change turned into two years because you wanted to avoid your late wife. You weren’t there when she needed you. Why bother now?’

Fuck this man! Robert slammed his hands on the desk. ‘Because someone killed her. And I will not sit by and let the perp walk away.’

For the first time since they’d started this hellish conversation, a light gleamed in Dickheadson’s grey eyes. It sent goosebumps erupting on Robert’s arms.

‘You, Constable, are not a member of the CID as far as I’m aware. You have no training in investigations, nor the discipline and dedication it takes to be a detective. As much as TV shows and movies would like you to believe it, you can’t sit in your cosy little house and solve crimes.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. Anne was my wife. I love her. I will move heaven and earth to find the real perp. She wasn’t in that wretched building of her own volition. My wife did not like nightclubs. We might not have been spending a lot of time together, but we knew each other. And I know in my heart’ – Robert thumped his chest – ‘she was killed.’

Dickheadson rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve exemplified perfectly why you aren’t cut out for this. You have too many emotions.’

‘Emotions get things done! They connect with people.’ On a deep, subconscious level, Robert knew he’d raised his voice. But he couldn’t censor his tone. He’d bowed his head too many times to this dick. ‘Tell me, how many people do you actually know out of those whose files go across your desk on a daily basis?’

‘Get out.’

Robert barked out a laugh. ‘No, I’m not leaving – not unless you reopen the investigation.’

‘Piss off.’

‘I will not!’ Robert shouted. ‘My wife was murdered. You have to?—’

‘Do nothing, Constable, except warn you that you’re crossing a line.’

‘Fuck you, Dickheadson. You’ve done nothing but bully me the entire time you’ve been my boss. I worked nights because I couldn’t bear to see my wife’s tears. Well, you wouldn’t know what that feels like, would you, when you never actually see your own wife?’

‘Constable!’ Dickheadson roared. ‘You have never made a formal complaint against me. And we are not talking about my wife.’

‘Sure, let’s talk about your twenty-year-old mistress at the Premier Inn on George Street. Tell me, does she know about the child you have in Stirling with the other woman you fucked during the TRNSMT festival two years ago?’

Dickheadson blinked at that last statement.

Robert shot him a smirk. ‘How’s that for an investigator?’

‘Get out!’

The door to the office burst open, and Robert’s best pal PC Joshua MacLeod rushed in. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m sure Robert didn’t mean?—’

Still leaning on the desk, Robert cut him off. ‘Oh no, I meant every single word. You, Dickheadson, are a spineless, cheating bastard who’s a waste of space in that chair. It’s time someone said that to your face.’

Dickheadson too scrambled up from his chair, nostrils flaring. ‘You forget, Constable, that I can take your job.’

Robert had dreamed of being a police officer ever since his neighbour had let him try on his Strathclyde Police hat. Robert had been a wee boy, but with that hat on, he’d felt a surge of power run through him. His mother had laughed it off as a boyhood fancy, spurred on by a healthy dose of superhero movies and a child’s imagination.

But Mr Mann had loved to talk about the work he did as a police officer. Mann had been more of a parent to Robert than his own mother had time to be. So naturally, when Robert had grown up and found university wasn’t an option thanks to financial constraints, he’d found himself in school to be a police officer.

Yet here he was now: two and a half months after becoming a widower at thirty-five, a year after knowing his wife had miscarried for the second time, and now having witnessed a side of police work he hadn’t experienced before – the last one painted with disappointment and, worse, inhuman carelessness.

Is this what the uniform he wore stood for? Was it just a symbol people hated, feared. An outfit that had come to stand for brutality over protection, for arrest numbers and PR calls over compassion.

‘I don’t care. From where I stand, I feel ashamed to say I’m a police officer.’ Robert sighed. Unfortunately, after everything, that was the awful truth.

He would never be a father; was no longer a husband or a police officer.

He had nothing to live for.