Where the Bodies Are Buried

When JAI MCDIARMID is violently murdered and left in a back alley of Glasgow, no one is surprised. A heroin dealer who was openly sleeping with a drug trafficker’s girlfriend, McDiarmid led a life which seems to have made him a multitude of enemies, providing the police with a large list of suspects responsible for his death. Detective Superintendent CATHERINE MCLEOD intends to investigate all angles of the case. A mother of two, Catherine occasionally fears that her commitment to work is putting unneeded strain on her marriage. Her love of the job, though, means that she never intends to relinquish her badge. Catherine ventures into the city's rougher areas to question McDiarmid’s friends, harboring the belief that, in Glasgow, a murder is exactly as it seems. Meanwhile, inexperienced private investigator JASMINE STEEL is shadowing a man suspected of committing insurance fraud. A failed actress who has returned to Glasgow after the death of her single mother, Jasmine begins training as a private eye out of economic necessity. Her mother’s cousin—a man who she affectionately refers to as UNCLE JIM—is a retired detective who began an investigation service to pad his small pension. Jim takes her in and tries to teach her his trade. However, Jasmine’s approach to her work is amateurish, as evidenced by her nervous response when she helps Jim by following the insurance fraud suspect he is tailing. Spotted and confronted by the suspect, she barely saves the situation by acting her way out of it. The next day, Jasmine cannot get in contact with Jim; he’s neither at his house nor answering his cell-phone. Fearing the worst, she contacts the police, who are reluctant to begin a search. With no other option, she takes it upon herself to find Jim, beginning by searching open case files. She finds only two: GLEN FALLAN and ANNE RAMSAY. As she debates her next move, she is startled by Detective MCDADE, who has let himself into the office. MCDADE apologizes, identifying himself as an old police friend of Jim’s. After reviewing the two cases which Jasmine intends to investigate, he warns her about Glen Fallan. Jasmine wonders why Jim would have the case file at all; according to McDade, Glen Fallan has been dead for twenty years. Inside the old hit-man’s file, Jasmine finds another name (TRON INGRAMS) as well as an address. Intrigued, she sets off to meet him. Meanwhile, Catherine continues investigating the McDiarmid murder, finding little help or clues when questioning the seedy clientele of the city’s dingy pubs and greasy spoons. She learns that almost everyone knew of the relationship between McDiarmid and mobster Gary Fleeting’s girlfriend—even Fleeting himself, who makes it abundantly clear that the relationship did not bother him. With her original theory (that Fleeting killed him) finding little support, Catherine seeks help from another detective: the well-polished ABERCORN, head of the Organized Crime Unite Special Task Force (acronym: LOCUST). Catherine regards him as an ineffective “political” policeman and does not fully trust him; they begin working together, though, to keep the case from going cold. Outside of Glasgow, Jasmine discovers that Tron’s residence is actually a safe house for battered women; Tron helps with the yard and housework of the institution when needed. He appears to be a man of little words, and tells Jasmine he has no interest in talking to her. Undeterred, she sticks with him in the hope of learning something about her uncle's disappearance. Tron tells her nothing on their drive to a local store; however, he also notices a suspicious looking Audi following them. Cautiously, Tron slows down his car to see the passengers—just as the cars are even, the occupants in the Audi (wearing masks to hide their faces) begin shooting at them. With surprising expertise, Tron maneuvers the car out of the way, then gets out and begins firing a previously hidden pistol at the would-be assassins. As the car speeds away, the passenger dropping his shotgun in the process, Jasmine confronts Tron about actually being Glen Fallan. He vehemently denies this. With the shotgun and pistol safely stowed away in Tron’s car, they both return to Jim’s office—which they find has been broken into. In addition to wiping the computer hard drive, burglars have stolen the Glen Fallan case file. Fearing that Jim is dead and now worried for Jasmine’s safety, Tron essentially instates himself as Jasmine’s partner, renting her a hotel room and keeping a watchful eye over her. Still at a stand-still with the murder case, Catherine meets with veteran police officer BOB CAIRNS. While discussing suspects, Cairns receives a call from an informant: there's a potential bomb threat at Glasgow Central train station. Rushing to the scene, they clear the station and bring in search dogs—they find no explosives, but do discover a large shipment of heroin in one of the lockers. As Catherine and the other officers congratulate each other on a job well done, another discovery is made: while they were searching for a phantom bomb, a jewelry store in the station had all of its merchandise stolen. Now with Tron as a “partner”, Jasmine goes to visit Anne Ramsay, the other of Jim's open cases. Orphaned at age four, both of Ramsay’s parents and her little brother inexplicably went missing. Despite the disappearance’s becoming a sensationalized national story, the police never fully committed to finding them. Ramsay retells the story and informs the new partners that the only person claiming to see her family was William Baine, who had given his account to the police and newspapers several days after the story had been sensationalized by the press. They then visit and question an abusive, slovenly Baine; Jasmine poses as a reporter and Tron, posing as a photographer, stays hidden behind a camera. While Jasmine asks polite questions, Tron continually interjects but keeps his face hidden. When Tron eventually reveals himself, Baine reacts with surprise and fear, announcing that Tron is really Glen Fallan. Catherine receives a phone call from Abcercorn, informing her that: (1) the heroin in the station was extremely low-grade, undoubtedly placed there as a ruse, and (2) he has apprehended the jewelry store thief. After questioning him, Catherine learns that there was heroin at the station, but that it was removed by several older men dressed as police officers during the bomb threat. Abercorn suspects that the reappearance of Glen Fallan makes him chief suspect in the bombing threat and the McDiarmid case. Catherine, though, is skeptical. However, her chief suspects are all tortured and murdered, forcing her to question the simplicity of the case, when someone driving what appears to be Jasmine’s car opens fire on her, attempting to kill her. Catherine survives unhurt, but convinced of Fallan’s guilt. Tracking Jasmine’s license plate, she finds the two at their hotel, noticing their bizarre camaraderie and unwillingness to talk. Catherine leaves them, no longer sure of Fallan’s guilt. After Catherine leaves, Jasmine returns a phone call to Scottish Gas for what she believes will be a routine call relating to billing; she discovers, though, that the call is from Jim’s friend, who works with the company. Jim had been attempting to get aerial infrared photographs of Glasgow after hearing of ‘the Necropolis’—areas in which warmth show up on maps due to decomposing bodies. He wanted data from the late seventies and early eighties, and Jasmine figures that he had traced the Ramsay’s bodies to an area outside of Glasgow called Campsie Hills. While scanning the area, Fallan tells Jasmine of his life: the son of a vicious and corrupt police officer, her spent his life working as a hit-man and fixer for Glasgow crime lords. However, he states plainly that he left that life behind twenty years ago and has no intention of going back to it. In a flash-back scene following t

Since his award-winning debut novel Quite Ugly One Morning, Christopher Brookmyre has established himself as one of Britain's leading crime novelists. He has worked as a journalist for several British newspapers and is the author of twelve novels, including One Fine Day in The Middle of the Night, Quite Ugly One Morning, and Not The End of The World.