2

Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke was in the CID office at Gayfield Square
police station. She had been staring at her computer for almost five minutes, a
mug of tea grown tepid beside her.
‘I can make you another,’ Detective Constable Christine Esson suggested.
Clarke blinked herself back into the room and shook her head, then squeezed
her eyes shut and arched her spine until she could feel the vertebrae click
back into place.
‘I’m going to guess Francis Haggard,’ Esson went on, holding her own
mug up to her face. Her dark hair was cut pageboy style and had never
changed in the years they’d worked together. Her desk faced Clarke’s,
making it difficult to hide, though Clarke suspected her colleague could read
even the back of a head.
‘Who else?’ Clarke admitted.
Haggard was a uniformed officer based at Tynecastle police station who
stood accused of domestic abuse, ‘abuse’ being the current terminology.
Previously it had been called domestic violence, and before that, domestic
assault. None of the three, to Clarke’s mind, came anywhere near defining the
severity of the crime. She had encountered victims turned to husks; selfbelief, trust and confidence scooped out. Some had suffered all their married
lives – often physically, always psychologically. The abusers ranged across
class and age, but this was the first time she’d had to deal with one of her
own.
Haggard had fifteen years of service behind him. He’d been married for
the past six, and according to his partner, the angry outbursts and gaslighting
had started within the first eighteen months of marriage. Clarke and Esson
had interviewed Haggard that very afternoon, not for the first time. He’d sat
across the table from them, shoulders back, legs splayed, one hand
occasionally cupping his groin. His solicitor, who’d had to slide his own
chair further away to avoid their knees touching, had just about managed to
hide his obvious disdain.
Haggard had complained about the presence in the room of not just one
but two female detectives, turning towards the lawyer. ‘You sure you’re okay
with this, Mikey? Couple of blokes might see things differently.’
The solicitor, Michael Leckie (Clarke doubted anyone else in his life ever
referred to him as Mikey), had shifted in his chair, saying nothing.
‘I see how it is,’ Haggard had said, nodding to himself. ‘Pitchforks are out
and the pyre’s nicely smouldering.’ Then, turning his head sharply towards
Leckie, ‘Go on then, tell them what I told you to.’
At which Michael Leckie had cleared his throat and transferred his
attention from the file of papers in front of him to the two detectives seated
opposite.
‘I suppose,’ he said, spacing his words as if reciting a language he’d only
recently learned, ‘you will have heard of a condition known as post-traumatic
stress disorder?’
‘PTSD,’ Esson had replied.
‘PTS fucking D,’ Francis Haggard had echoed.
‘PTSD,’ Esson said now, shaking her head in disbelief. Somehow, without
Clarke having noticed, the tepid tea had been switched for a fresh mug. She
lifted it and took a slurp. Esson herself only ever seemed to drink hot water,
at least while on duty. ‘It’ll never fly, will it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Clarke confessed. All Haggard had stated at the interview
was that the job he’d been doing for the past fifteen years had left with him
the condition.
‘My client is unwilling to go into details at this time,’ Leckie had
commented, sounding as though he might not himself know too many of the
particulars. Haggard had already been charged and was out on bail, with the
stipulation that he not go within a couple of postcodes of his wife or their
shared address. He’d been suspended from police duties, naturally, and
interviewed several times as part of the investigation. Esson had been
assigned to the case from the get-go, but Clarke had only come aboard when
DC Ronnie Ogilvie, Esson’s usual CID partner, had caught COVID, leaving
him isolating at home.
‘PTSD,’ Esson repeated.
‘I’ve been looking it up online,’ Clarke said. ‘It’s for battlefields and terror
attacks. Surviving a tsunami or childhood trauma.’
‘He’s going to say a priest fiddled with him after choir practice, and thirty
years later he’s battering his partner?’ Esson sounded sceptical. ‘Funny he’s
only just decided that’s his mitigation. Pound to a penny some men’s group
online will have suggested it. We should check if it’s been tried in the past.
And we need to let a psychologist have a go at him.’
‘There’s a lot we need to do, Christine. Has he been stationed anywhere
other than Tynecastle?’
‘A few relief shifts down the years. But otherwise, no.’
‘So this PTSD stems from working at Tynie.’
‘The dreaded Tynie. Suddenly it begins to look more plausible.’
Every cop in Edinburgh knew at least one story from Tynecastle. Officers
there had a reputation for overstepping the mark and getting away with it.
Countless prisoners had tripped on their way to or from its holding cells, or
fallen down stairs, or somehow lost their balance and ended up planting their
face into a wall. CCTV wouldn’t have been functioning at the time.
Accusations of misconduct would be withdrawn or come to nothing. There
were whispers, too, of larger misdeeds – manufactured evidence, cover-ups
and bribes.
‘Her name’s Cheryl,’ Esson suddenly said.
‘What?’
‘Cheryl Haggard. The victim. We shouldn’t lose sight of her in all this.’
‘That’s a good point. If he’s been suffering from PTSD, wouldn’t she be
the first to know? He’d have said something, wouldn’t he? Or she’d have
sensed him changing.’
‘You’ve not spoken to her yet, have you?’
Clarke shook her head. ‘I know you and Ronnie did.’ She dug into the
files on her desk, finding one of the transcripts. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘She’s got her sister looking after her.’
‘Well, that’s something. Who’s the liaison officer?’
‘Gina Hendry. She says she knows you.’
Clarke nodded. ‘We go back a bit. I’ll talk to her.’
‘Tomorrow maybe, eh, boss?’ Esson was holding up her phone, screen
towards Clarke so she could see the time display.
‘Already?’ Clarke turned towards the window. Outside it had grown dark.
‘Been a long day, and I think it’s my turn to get them in.’
‘You make a compelling case, Detective Constable Esson.’ Clarke reached
down to the floor for her shoulder bag.
Siobhan Clarke lived in a tenement flat just off Broughton Street, not much
more than a five-minute walk from Gayfield Square. Esson had taken her to a
bar on Leith Walk, where they’d shared some nachos to go with their drinks.
Leith Walk itself was the usual mess, courtesy of the roadworks for the new
tram line. Some sections of pavement were all but inaccessible, and the bar
owner had hung a banner above the door to let potential customers know that
Yes We ARE Open – And Ready To Serve You! Clarke wasn’t sure how far a
single plate of nachos and two rounds of gin and tonics would boost his
coffers. As they’d left, he’d said he hoped to see them again soon.
‘And bring a friend – bring lots of friends.’
With plenty of distance between them and the next occupied table, Clarke
and Esson had found themselves discussing the case. They’d tried not to at
first, but had soon run out of topics. Esson had swirled the ice in her glass as
she started things off.
‘The arresting officers, I could tell from their notes that they were trying to
go easy on him. One of their own and all that. And there’s Cheryl standing at
the far end of the hall with blood pouring from her nose and tears streaming.
It was the neighbours who called it in. Far from the first time they’d heard
screams. They’d summoned us one time previously, but Haggard had talked
his way out when the uniforms pitched up. I thought the days were past when
we turned a blind eye to domestics.’
‘Doesn’t help when you’re confronted by someone who carries the same
warrant card as you.’