‘What’s wrong, Bob?’ She seemed calm, wearing her concerned face. There were no neuroses on show, none of the nervy gestures of late, like tucking hair behind her ear over and over again.
It was late, too late to be getting into a metaphysical conversation with his wife. He pressed his back deeper into the chair and tapped a fingertip off the glass he held. Yet before he realised it, he’d removed a photograph from his shirt pocket and passed it to Clare.
‘Who’s this?’ She turned the picture over as if hoping to find the answer to her question written on the back.
‘Her name’s Janie Cooper.’
‘She’s a pretty wee thing.’
‘Was…’
Clare’s eyes widened. He thought she might throw the picture at him and storm out of the room; she didn’t like hearing about his cases. ‘This wee one’s dead?’ She seemed saddened. ‘This is an old picture, must be a few years ago now.’
‘Twelve years.’
‘That long? Then why are you carrying her picture around?’ She placed the photograph on the arm of her chair where the wineglass had been resting a moment ago.
Valentine sighed. He didn’t think he had the right words to explain what he was doing with a photograph of a murder victim who may not even be related to the ongoing investigation that he was involved in. The idea was absurd; even to those he knew who relied on their gut instincts, it would still be regarded as such.
‘Do you remember a few nights ago I woke you, wanting to talk?’ He touched the edges of his mouth. ‘You said I was sweating…’
Clare glanced at the photograph on the arm of the chair. ‘Yes, I remember… you’d had a turn.’
‘It was a dream… or something.’
‘Hang on, you said you’d had a dream about a girl with hair like…’ She retrieved the picture. ‘You said she had hair like Chloe and Fiona at that age.’
‘She does remind me of the girls at that age… They were like wee angels.’ Valentine caught himself smiling into the past.
‘Bob, what is going on with your job?’
The reverie was broken. ‘What do you mean?’
She put down the photograph and sighed, sitting forward in her chair once again. ‘Something is wrong. You’re under too much stress if you’re having nightmares about children that have been dead for twelve years.’
‘No, you don’t understand…’
Clare put down her wine glass and held her face in her hands; she depressed her temples with the tips of her nails. ‘Is this about you feeling different, about having changed once again?’ She dropped her hands and stood up; the empty wine glass fell over. ‘No, don’t answer, I don’t want to know…’
‘Clare, please…’
His wife left the room before Valentine had any further chance to explain himself. He raised the whisky glass to his lips and drained it. What he had wanted to tell her, to make her understand, was that he hadn’t seen the photograph of Janie Cooper until today. The fact that he already had seen her in a dream was as much a mystery to him as anyone else; he couldn’t explain it. But there she was, or had been, laying flowers on the dead corpse of James Urquhart, dancing round him at the scene of his murder.
The image caused a shiver to pass across his shoulders and he tensed as if caught in a shrill breeze. It was like something you read about in cheap magazines or found on late-night television when flicking through the channels. None of it made a modicum of sense, it was all alien to him, to his reasoning and sense of self.
The detective wondered what had become of his life, of his perceptions; he questioned his sanity. He knew he should relieve himself of his duties, tell Chief Superintendent Marion Martin that he was not fit for purpose, because surely this wasn’t normal, but something told him that wasn’t an option.
The picture of the young Janie Cooper and the image of the girl in his dream had fused now, and his sense of purpose had crystallised with it. If anyone was going to find James Urquhart’s murderer, or that of Duncan Knox or Janie Cooper, then it was going to be him. He believed it, no matter what he had to base his judgement on.
He steeled himself for the moment when what he had seen and felt would be understood with some form of clarity – because wasn’t that the way it always was? Afterwards, everything made sense. After the case was closed. After
the evidence gathered, the clues followed. He told himself that.
He longed to believe it, but there was an ache in the pit of his stomach that asked if he would ever really know anything ever again.
Artefacts of the Dead by Tony Black, £7.99 paperback, Black & White Publishing.