After Everly had left, McKay rose and closed the door gently behind him. ‘Sorry if I’ve ruined your prospects, Hel.’
She laughed. ‘If my prospects really do depend on not doing the right thing, I’d rather not have any. Mike’ll calm down. He must know you’re right. Although next time maybe try to be a bit less provocative in the way you point it out? Just a little management tip for the future.’
‘Aye, I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘You really think Nightingale’s bent?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be too surprising, would it? We already know he’s got a few skeletons in his closet. He’s something of a piss artist. It’s exactly the kind of background which means you get compromised. And he always seems to have a few quid to splash around. Ginny reckoned when they were staying down in the Borders, he was sticking the booze on his personal account because he knew he wouldn’t be able to swing it through expenses.’
‘That doesn’t prove much. Our only witness is that paragon of honesty and good faith, Archie Donaldson, a convicted human trafficker, drug dealer and all-round villain.’
‘I reckon Donaldson’s spilling whatever he can now. He puts on the usual big brave face, but he’s scared shitless. Donaldson’s always seen himself as invulnerable. He was the big man, keeping himself distanced from the shite that made him rich. Even when that all came tumbling down and he ended up inside, I don’t think he believed it. I visited him during his early days inside. He seemed as arrogant and bumptious as ever. He knew the NCA and the Revenue would extract whatever they could, but he thought he was smarter. I suspect he was right. In other circumstances, he’d have been more than capable of bouncing back. But now that’s not going to happen.’
‘Cancer can be beaten.’
‘Of course. And he trotted out some stuff about there still being options the doctors can try. But that just sounded like bravado. I could see in his eyes he felt defeated. He doesn’t believe he’s going to survive. He just wants to make the best of the time he’s got left.’
‘And that involves spilling the beans to us?’
‘He’s got two motives. Partly, it’s just about coming clean, wanting to get stuff off his chest. I’m prepared to believe he’s genuine about that. But Everly’s right. It’s also that he wants to get compassionate leave. He’s been a model prisoner and now he’s bending over backwards to assist us. It’ll no doubt all count in his favour when he comes to make his request.’
‘Which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not spinning us a load of nonsense.’ She frowned. ‘Why bring up Nightingale with you anyway? Why did he think you’d be interested in some Glasgow-based DCI?’
‘Because he knows Nightingale’s been working up here. I wasn’t going to say it to Everly, but that was one of the details that made me think Donaldson was telling the truth. How would he have known that if he wasn’t privy to what Nightingale was doing. But there’s more to it than that. He reckoned Nightingale was brought up here specifically because the Gillans and Dawson were connected to Donaldson. In other words, someone didn’t want us to start looking into this without being suitably supervised. Nightingale’s role was clearly to stop us digging too deeply, or maybe to deflect us if we started digging in the wrong places. By which I mean the right places.’
‘So do we think Donaldson was directly behind that?’
‘My guess is not. I think it’s more likely someone who didn’t want us to start looking at Donaldson’s business in case we uncovered dirt closer to home. If Donaldson’s had Nightingale in his pocket, he’s probably not the only one down south. They could have a lot to hide.’
‘I’m beginning to understand why Mike was reluctant to open this particular can of worms. You don’t know who might be involved.’
‘If I was watching from the outside, I’d be ordering in the popcorn,’ McKay agreed. ‘As it is, I just want to make sure I’m not the one being consumed.’
McKay had stayed remarkably still while they’d been talking, as if his usual restlessness had somehow been sublimated into what he was saying. Now, finally, he resumed his roaming. ‘There were a few other things Donaldson told me.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Mainly about our friend, Ruby Jewell. He really believes she’s the devil incarnate.’
‘He’s not far wrong.’
‘I’m not going to disagree. Especially after what they tried to do to you. She’s a very special kind of psychopath, even if she generally does get someone else to do her dirty work for her. She’s a chip off the old block in that sense too.’
‘So what did he tell you?’
‘That she’s still around. Still up here. She never left.’
‘If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t believe it. We had a full-scale search going on for her for months. Her picture’s been all over the media. She and that associate of hers have been on the force’s most wanted list all that time. I don’t see how they’ve evaded us. Except we know that’s what she does. But how does Donaldson know that?’
‘Because she’s been taunting some of the people who are still part of Donaldson’s network. Periodic letters, phone calls, texts. Letting them know she’s there, and that she’s coming for them.’
‘And I don’t suppose any of them chose to report this to us?’
‘What do you think? Jewell might scare the hell out of them, but anyone’s who an associate of Donaldson isn’t going to seek our help. But it sounds like she’s being playing with them for months. Ginny found a picture in Dawson’s mail. I had to look at it over and over again, but I’m pretty sure it was Jewell. That was sent just a few days before Dawson killed his family and himself.’
‘So what’s this all about? Just crushing her father?’
‘That’s a big part of it. But it feels like there’s something more now. Why’s she stayed up here?’
‘Because she likes screwing around with us?’
‘That’s another part of it, certainly. She’s run rings round us from the start. We’ve managed to stall her at one or two points, but she’s always been at least a step ahead of us. The whole thing’s a game to her, and it’s a game she’s bloody good at playing. But now it feels like something more. It feels as if she’s building up to something.’
‘Does she know Donaldson’s dying?’
‘The obvious answer is that she can’t possibly know. Donaldson told me he’s tried to keep the news under wraps. In his words, as soon as you’re seen as dispensable, you become dispensable. When you lose authority, it’s gone for good.’
‘Quite the philosopher, isn’t he?’
‘He’s right, though. His condition’s not widely known in the prison, so it’s hard to see how it could be known outside. Except…’
‘Except we’re talking about Ruby Jewell.’
‘Quite. So that might be a factor. Or it might be something else. If she is behind what’s been happening, it seems very personal. The packages sent to our houses – mine, yours, Ginny’s.’ He paused. ‘That’s another thing I discovered this morning. Spoke to forensics to see if they had anything more on the items in the packages.’
‘And?’
‘They’ve found DNA on all of them. DNA that matches the Dawson children.’
‘Shit.’
‘Not only that. They’ve also found minute traces of blood. A fine spattering. A pattern that would be consistent with the items being present when the Dawsons were killed. Even that poor bloody hamster.’
‘But how could they have been removed…?’
‘Unless someone had been back in there after the killings? They couldn’t.’
‘You’re suggesting Jewell or someone returned there before the bodies were discovered?’
‘We can’t be sure. There could be other explanations for the presence of the blood. Forensics can’t yet give a precise view on how old it is and there could be other explanations for the patterning. But it seems likely. And there’s something else. The teddy bear that was sent to Ginny and Isla. That’s the same. The DNA and the blood patterning. So it looks as if that could have been in the room too. That’s even more intriguing. The bear looked very like one Isla had as a child – if not the toy itself, then a copy of it. She thought her brother was behind it.’
‘Her brother? Where does he fit into this?’
‘It’s a long story. Her brother’s the black sheep of the family and Isla had cut him out of her life, but he’s recently turned up again.’
‘So what does that mean? That he’s part of Jewell’s coterie.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Jewell does seem to have a knack for getting people to do her bidding. Maybe the teddy bear was just a coincidence, but it doesn’t seem likely. But if not, and if the bear was in that room with the Dawsons, it raises a hell of a lot of questions.’
‘And we don’t have any forensic evidence that places Jewell in that room?’
‘Who knows? We’ve never had the opportunity to take a DNA sample from Jewell. We’ve never even had her fingerprints. We tried to find prints when she went missing that first time, but she’d made sure she left nothing behind. Again, she’s always been a step ahead. There are plenty of DNA traces in that room, some of which belongs to third parties, but nothing we’ve been able to tie to any nominal.’ McKay had wandered over to the window and was watching with apparent fascination the rain battering the glass. ‘Any progress we’ve made has been because she’s wanted us to.’ He turned. ‘Speaking of which, I’ve made one other discovery this morning.’
‘You’ve been busy.’
‘Mostly on the back of my discussion with Donaldson. But this was something else. I wanted to follow up with the young woman I’d spoken to at the Gillans’ car-hire place. I’d tried to phone the place but there’d been no answer, so I asked Josh Carlisle to pop out there to check what was going on. The place was closed and locked up, and it seemed as if it had been for a day or two. There was a pile of mail inside the door.’
‘Not surprising, surely. I imagine your young woman had decided that with the Gillans gone there wasn’t likely to be a job for her. She’s probably just done a bunk.’
‘That was what I thought, though I know the people in the commercial hire place are keeping it ticking over till the future of the business becomes clearer. But the young woman, Morag, had also given us a home address and mobile. I’d already tried her mobile which just went to voicemail, so Josh went to check out the address. Turns out it’s a fake. Or, rather, a real address but not one where our Morag has ever lived.’
‘So Morag wasn’t Morag?’
‘Apparently not.’ McKay had returned from the window and once again sat down opposite Grant. ‘And, embarrassing as it is to admit it, I think we can guess exactly who she was.’