Against the Clock

and put his hands in his pockets just in case one of them landed on Stewart’s chin.
‘I hope it was buddies,’ Dunbar replied. For your fucking sake.
‘Aye, something like that. Anyway, can’t stand around here fucking gabbing like a pair of old sweetie wives. That wee wank muffin is inside.’
Evans wanted to ask what wank muffin, there were so many of them going around, but let Dunbar ask the question.
‘What wank muffin?’ Dunbar said.
‘That wee fucking teuchter. What’s his name again? Fudboy O’Penis.’
‘Finbar O’Toole,’ Dunbar corrected, thinking of the head of forensics.
‘Aye. The haggis-shaggin’ wee bastard. He brought his blow-up sheep with him and now he’s going about greetin’ like a wee lassie ’cause it won’t keep the air in. I can only assume that’s the reason he raised his voice to me. I had to come out and get some fresh air before I planted my fucking boot right up his jacksie. When you see him in there, you might want to have a wee word wi’ him about shortening his life span.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Dunbar said. Then, as Stewart turned away, he looked at Evans and said in a low voice, ‘Why did you tell him you were out drinking with me?’
‘It was better than explaining about Vern.’
‘No, it fucking wasn’t. Now he thinks we can’t get enough of each other. Wee bastard.’
They followed their boss into the leisure centre, which resembled anything but at this point. Unless the new thing was to have guests slit their feet open on the broken glass littering the floor, or catch scabies or God knows what else in the derelict building.
‘I thought they were going to pull this place down?’ Evans said.
‘It’s going to cost over half a million to bulldoze this pile of shite,’ Stewart explained in a way that even the most non-technical person would understand.
‘Richt, that’s enough, ya big, clumsy arse,’ a voice shouted over at them. Dunbar looked further along to see a white-suited man standing and looking at them.
Stewart turned to them. ‘See? Mouthy wee bastard he is. Only been here a fucking week and already he’s getting on my tits. I want you two to be witnesses that he took a swing at me if I lamp the wee wanker. Fucking talking to me like that.’
‘Did you hear me?’ O’Toole shouted again.
‘We’re no’ fucking deef!’ Stewart bellowed. He reached a hand into his pocket and brought his lighter out. His lucky one. His therapist said he needed to keep a soft rubber ball in his pocket so at times like these he could squeeze it, but what the fuck did he know?
‘There’s no smoking in here,’ O’Toole said. ‘Obviously.’
‘Did I say lamp him one?’ Stewart said. ‘I’m going to set fire to the bastard in a minute.’
Dunbar stepped forward. ‘Show us the deceased,’ he said to O’Toole.
A skylight at the top of the roof, where the water slides started, provided some light around the main pool area. Small generators hummed in the background, powering arc lights.
‘I told him not to touch anything, but he started poking at things,’ O’Toole complained when they were out of Stewart’s earshot.
The walls were graffitied. Others had been kicked through. Wires were hanging down in places where vandals had been looking for copper wires. A chair was stuck halfway through a wire-mesh window, its legs poking into the air, like a photo that somebody with a high-speed camera had snapped of it in mid-flight. Pink lockers were stacked up against the wall opposite the pool, their doors open.
‘Fucking smell that pish,’ Stewart said. ‘And that’s just him,’ he added, nodding to O’Toole. His voice carried in the open air.
‘I’m not paid enough to listen to him,’ O’Toole said to Dunbar.
‘Just take us to where she was found,’ Dunbar said, leading the man away.
‘Through here,’ O’Toole said, taking Dunbar into a first-aid room. Paperwork was scattered all around the floor and an examination table was in place, but the only patient was a body wrapped in cling film.
‘It’s the stuff you would use to wrap a pallet,’ O’Toole said. ‘The pathologist will be back in a minute. I opened up the plastic and found several items of clothing in there with her. An old dress, underwear, polo shirt. Sizes that seem too small for her.’
‘Jimmy Dunbar, as I live and breathe!’ a big man shouted from behind.
Professor Duncan ‘Disorderly’ Mackay stood framed in the doorway of the small room. He was so big, it looked like he was struggling to squeeze himself in.
‘Dunky. How are you this morning?’ Dunbar asked.
‘I’ve been so busy that I can’t keep up with you. I told you to send me enough work to keep me in a job, no’ have me run off my feet. How’s a man supposed to fit in binge drinking when there’s all this work to do? What say you, Toolie boy?’
O’Toole turned to look at the pathologist. ‘I’m with you on that one, big man.’
Mackay gave out a loud laugh. ‘We’ll need to take Toolie to the polis club and get him blootered one night.’
‘Aye, we’ll do that,’ Dunbar answered.
Then Mackay moved out of the doorway, the smile dropping from his face. Back to business. ‘This is a bastard, Jimmy. Poor wee lassie. Looks like carbon monoxide poisoning was the cause of death. I’ll get a better look at her when I get her on my table. It’s anybody’s guess if she was sexually assaulted or not, but there are faint ligature marks on her wrists, like she had been restrained, maybe a long time ago.’
Dunbar looked at the pink patches on the girl’s neck and face. ‘Any guess at time of death?’ he asked.
‘Weeks ago. It looks like she was preserved, like frozen, before being wrapped up like this.’
‘Identification?’ Dunbar asked O’Toole.
O’Toole looked across at Mackay before looking at Dunbar.
‘Alice Brent.’
‘Aye,’ Stewart said from the doorway. ‘Alice Brent. She went missing from this shithole five years ago. Only it was open back then. The place was