Expiry Date Read online

  Expiry Date

  Alex Walters

  Contents

  Also by Alex Walters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Alex Walters

  DI Alec Mckay Series

  Candle & Roses ( Book 1)

  Death Parts Us ( Book 2)

  Their Final Act – ( Book 3)

  Winterman

  Copyright © 2019 Alex Walters

  The right of Alex Walters to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2019 by Bloodhound Books

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  * * *

  Print ISBN 978-1-912986-74-3

  1

  It was still only early afternoon, but the sun was already low in the sky, throwing unexpectedly long shadows from the ranks of gravestones.

  Donaldson stopped and looked around him, rising to his feet, suddenly feeling self-conscious and slightly nervous. He was born and brought up here, but had never quite grown accustomed to these deep-midwinter days. It wasn’t so much the shortness of the days themselves. It was more the way that, even on a bright, clear day like today, the sun barely scraped above the horizon, rising and setting in the southern sky. It was dark almost before you knew it.

  It was cold, too. One of the coldest winters he’d experienced in recent years. He’d wrapped himself in layers of clothing, topped with a heavy waterproof jacket, in preparation for his visit. But he could still feel the chill, the icy wind coming off the firth.

  He crouched down again, and continued arranging the flowers. He always felt uncomfortable with this task, aware of his own ineptitude. All fingers and thumbs. That was what she used to say, as she watched him carrying out some task requiring the delicacy she’d had in abundance. He could imagine how she’d have responded to this clumsy offering.

  It was the best he could do. He moved the stems backwards and forwards in the jar, trying to capture the balance that would have come so naturally to her. Somehow it never looked quite right. Uneven, unkempt. Nothing quite where it should be. The story of his life after she went.

  Eventually, he abandoned his attempts to improve the arrangement and rose stiffly to his feet, resisting the urge to seek support from the gravestone as he did so. That would have seemed just a little too symbolic.

  The tribute was less elegant than he’d intended, but it would have to do. If he worked at it all afternoon, it would never match the display he’d envisaged. But that was always the way. He’d leave here, as he always did, feeling that somehow he’d failed her, that he hadn’t lived up to her expectations. Even though he knew full well that, in most respects, her expectations of him had never been high.

  It was one reason he didn’t come here more often, though that made him feel guilty, too. At first, after it had happened, he’d visited frequently. Probably too frequently for his own sanity, he realised later. He hadn’t come here with any real purpose, although he’d made a point of refreshing the flowers every week or so. It was as if he was simply seeking proximity to someone he knew was no longer there. He’d neglected everything else. Even his daughter. Especially his daughter. Not that he’d cared much about that.

  Eventually, he’d had to force himself to stay away, trying to busy himself with other tasks, other interests. And then, of course, they’d caught up with him and he hadn’t been able to come here at all. Years had passed. The sense of need had lessened. His daughter was no longer there as a reminder of what he’d lost. It wasn’t exactly that he’d moved on. But he’d recognised that, whatever it was he needed, he wasn’t going to find it here.

  Now, he came over only a few times each year. Her birthday. Their anniversary. Usually at Christmas, though this year he’d been too tied up trying to sort out whatever the hell was happening with the business. It was more of a gesture now. Something he did because he felt it was the right thing to do, without knowing quite why it mattered.

  The breeze was increasing from off the Cromarty Firth, and he found himself shivering slightly from the cold. Sunset was at least a couple of hours away, but already the shadows were thickening. He’d always enjoyed coming up here, and it had been a place they’d visited often in their early days. But at this time of year, it had an eerie, almost threatening air. He felt now as if someone might have been watching him as he’d worked, gazing at his hunched back crouched by the gravestone.

  He looked around, peering into the shadows of the undergrowth, the dark recesses of the half-ruined Gaelic Chapel. There was nothing but the movement of the leaves and grasses in the rising wind. He rarely encountered anyone up here. In the height of summer, when there were likely to be more visitors, he tried to come later in the day. He didn’t particularly mind if he did run into someone, but he preferred to have the place to himself.

  Time to leave. He had a meeting to get to. He screwed up the paper wrapping from the flowers and stuffed it into his coat pocket. As he turned to leave, he took one final glance down at the gravestone.

  He’d struggled for a long time with the wording. The stonemason had come up with the usual selection of anodyne suggestions, but he’d wanted something more personal. Something that captured the nature of their relationship.

  He’d spent days searching through books of poetry, books of quotations, hoping that some author or poet had succeeded in expressing the feelings that he was striving to articulate. But he’d found nothing that felt quite right.

  In the end, he’d settled for something much simpler and more straightforward. Other than her name and the dates of her birth and death, there was only a single word on the stone.

  The mason had tried to talk him out of it, arguing that he should choose something more poetic, or perhaps simply something more convent
ional. But he’d stood his ground. It had been the only way he could think to describe her, to say quite what she’d meant to him. Just a single word etched in the very centre of the stone.

  ‘Irreplaceable’.

  2

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ McKay said. ‘Look at the bloody numpties.’

  Fiona glanced at him sharply, her expression suggesting disapproval. Chrissie had already warned him to moderate his language in Fiona’s presence, but he’d spoken without thinking. In fairness, his exclamation had been pretty mild by his usual standards.

  By now, the others had followed his gaze and seen what had prompted his outburst. ‘Ah,’ Chrissie said. ‘I see what you mean. Goodness.’ McKay sometimes wished he shared her talent for understatement.

  At first, he’d assumed they were kids. Youngsters buggering about on the fort ramparts. Now, looking more closely, he realised they were older than that. In their late teens or twenties, as far as he could judge at this distance. A young man and woman.

  When he’d first glanced in their direction, they’d just been messing around on the top of the ramparts. Stupid enough, in McKay’s opinion, but it wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone up there. Then they’d gone further and ventured out onto the grassed slope below the ramparts. The slope, which had presumably been part of the original defensive design, was relatively steep and ended in a sheer drop to the moated area below. There was no fencing.

  ‘If they slip…’ Fiona said. There was no need for her to complete the sentence. It was obvious to all of them what would happen if either lost their footing.

  ‘Don’t you think you should do something, Alec?’

  ‘Me being a police officer and all? What should I do? Arrest them for being empty-headed bampots?’

  ‘I don’t know, but–’

  She was interrupted by an irate bellow from behind them. ‘Oi, you two! Get down! You’ll fall to your bloody deaths!’

  McKay turned to see that the speaker was the man from the ticket office by the entrance. Presumably part of his duties included ensuring that, if at all possible, visitors managed not to kill themselves while on site. Whether yelling at them unexpectedly was the soundest way of achieving that goal, McKay wasn’t sure.

  In fact, the shouting had the desired effect. The two looked down, apparently surprised at the intervention, then made their way back up the slope to the ramparts, jumping down into the interior of the fort.

  ‘Bloody idiots,’ the man said to no one in particular. ‘Wouldn’t be sorry to see one of them actually fall.’

  ‘Aye,’ McKay said. ‘But think of the paperwork.’

  The man nodded, as if McKay had made a serious contribution to the discussion. ‘Anyway, enjoy your visit, folks. Just don’t let me catch you doing anything like that.’

  ‘You’d be waiting a long time.’ McKay turned back to the rest of the group. ‘We’d best get inside. We don’t have all that long.’

  He wasn’t even quite sure why they’d come here. Historic buildings weren’t really McKay’s thing. Fiona’s lugubrious husband, Kevin, had suggested it, and Chrissie and Fiona had seconded the idea with apparent enthusiasm. Kevin was supposedly keen on history, though McKay couldn’t recall the man showing much interest in anything during his infrequent visits up here. Certainly, his expression at the moment wasn’t that of a man filled with excited anticipation.

  At least they had decent weather for it. It was cold enough, colder even than usual for early January. But it was a bright, clear day, the low sun hanging in a largely cloudless sky. The only other time McKay had visited this place, it had been pouring with rain, and they’d spent their time scurrying from one exhibit to another.

  He followed the others across the footbridge into the fort itself. Chrissie and Fiona were chatting animatedly. Kevin hung behind them, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. McKay supposed he ought to initiate some conversation, but the prospect seemed too daunting. He’d long ago learnt that he and Kevin had virtually nothing in common. He wished now they’d accepted the offer of the commentary headphones available in the ticket office. That would at least have given him an excuse to match Kevin’s silence.

  Once they’d passed through the main gateway, the full interior of the fort was visible. It was impressive enough, McKay acknowledged. He knew little of the history, except that it had been built after Culloden with the aim of keeping the rebellious Scots firmly under control. Remarkably, although now open to visitors, for the present it still operated as a working garrison. Probably just in case the Scots ever needed suppressing again.

  McKay recalled from his previous visit that the visitor areas were well laid out and informative. Despite the limits of his own interest, he’d found himself engaged with the exhibitions, fascinated by the continuity of military life in this confined fortification. Today, he was content to follow the others around the place, enjoying a rare escape from the pressures of his working life.

  They’d had a hectic few months, still dealing with the complicated fallout from their last major case up here. Trying to make sure, in particular, that the prosecution case was as watertight as possible. That was mostly behind them now, and they were as confident as they could be. But McKay had long ago learned not to take anything for granted, and his recent experiences had made him more wary than ever.

  On top of that, they’d had the usual heavy caseload, especially in the period leading up to Christmas. Everything always seemed to get more insane in December, when every pisshead in the city tried to cause as much trouble as possible. Most of it was trivial stuff that came nowhere near McKay’s desk. But there were always one or two more serious incidents. Domestics. Bar fights that went too far. Fatal road traffic collisions. More than enough to keep them occupied.

  At least things were back on track with Chrissie. It wasn’t exactly that they’d resolved all the issues they’d been wrestling with. But at least it didn’t feel as if they were bottling them up anymore. McKay had been persuaded to have another shot at joint counselling, and this time they’d found someone who actually knew what he was doing. McKay had forced himself to relax into the process, and it finally felt as if they were making some progress.

  So that was all good. But it had left him feeling exhausted and, at least at work, even more jaded than usual. Christmas had come and gone in a low-key way, as it always had in the McKay household except when Lizzie had been small. Hogmanay had been more lively. They’d had Chrissie’s other sister, Ellie, round with her husband and a few other friends and neighbours, and everyone had drunk and eaten too much to the point where they all, even McKay, seemed more or less happy. But now they were into January, season of short days, long nights, bloody endless cold, and nothing much else to look forward to.

  ‘Penny for them, Alec,’ Fiona called back to him. ‘You’re looking very pensive.’

  ‘Ach, my thoughts aren’t even worth a penny. Just contemplating the futility of existence. You know how it is.’

  ‘Alec always brings a ray of sunshine into our lives,’ Chrissie observed. ‘It’s one of his few skills.’

  Fiona laughed. ‘Alongside being the great detective, I assume.’

  ‘Aye, that too.’ McKay had decided, after some initial hesitation, that he rather liked Fiona. She was Chrissie’s elder sister but they saw little of her. She and Kevin had long ago moved, for reasons best known to themselves, to some godforsaken part of Southern England. They usually tried to visit over Christmas or New Year, but this year their arrival had been delayed by some work commitment of Kevin’s. McKay wasn’t even clear what sort of work Kevin was involved in, except that it was something incomprehensible in IT. He’d only once made the mistake of asking.

  But Fiona was likeable enough. Like Chrissie, she was strong-willed and opinionated, and, with the obvious exception of Kevin, not one to suffer fools gladly. All qualities that McKay admired, and one of the reasons why he’d been attracted to Chrissie in the first place. So he was quite happy to have th
em up here for a few days. It seemed to cheer Chrissie up too, which was never a bad thing.

  ‘So what’s worth looking at here?’ Fiona had stopped and was gazing around the clusters of stone buildings inside the fort.

  ‘It’s years since we’ve been here,’ McKay said. ‘There’s the Highlanders’ Museum. Highland regimental stuff, if that’s your thing. But the whole place is worth a look. Recreating post-Culloden military life. Makes you grateful you didn’t have to be part of it. Oh, and there’s a café.’

  They made their way slowly around the perimeter of the fort, occasionally pausing to enter one of the exhibition rooms. Kevin, predictably enough, made a point of stopping to read each display, apparently several times, while the others waited patiently by the door. Initially, McKay had expected that Kevin might offer some opinion or insight at the end of this extended perusal, but instead he remained his usual taciturn self, providing them with little more than a grunt, apparently indicating satisfaction.

  This was fine by McKay. He had no great desire to make conversation and, as they strolled in the winter sunshine, he found himself relaxing for what felt like the first time in weeks. That was surprising in itself, he thought. Not that he was relaxing, but that he felt the need to. He’d always thought of himself as someone who thrived on the job – the intensity, the adrenaline. Maybe it was just because he’d been through so much over the last couple of years, domestically and personally. Or maybe, as Chrissie kept half-jokingly telling him, he was finally showing his age.