2

They'd had the conversation a couple of months before in DCI Helena Grant's office. 'You're joking.'

'Do you see me laughing, Alec?' she'd responded.

DI Alec McKay had leaned forward and peered at her face, as if taking the question seriously. 'Not now you mention it. But you've one of those poker faces. I'd never want to call your bluff.'

'You call my bluff all the bloody time, Alec. Mostly you get away with it.'

'But not guilty. How's she expect to get away with that?'

'By playing the victim card for all it's worth, according to the Procurator.'

McKay had been sitting in front of Grant's desk. Now, he rose and wandered about the office, occasionally stopping to gaze at her bookshelf or pick up some paper she'd left on the table. This, Grant knew, was a sign that McKay was feeling agitated. She'd once found the habit irritating. Now, she'd mostly learned to ignore it.

'She can't play it very far though,' McKay pointed out. 'She killed two people.'

'One of whom, according to her, had abused her physically and sexually since her childhood. And she's saying the other was a serial rapist who'd abused her repeatedly and similarly in adulthood.'

McKay was silent for a moment, clearly trying to make sense of this. 'Denny Gorman, a serial rapist?' he said, finally. 'Even if the inclination was there, the capability wouldn't be.'

'You know as well as I do, Alec, that rape's not about sex. It's about the abuse of power.'

'That's my point. Gorman didn't have any power. Ach, no one had a lower opinion of Denny Gorman than I did. He was a slimeball of the first order. But he was an utterly ineffectual one.'

'Most rapists are ineffectual slimeballs,' Grant said.

'Elizabeth Hamilton's original claim was that Gorman raped her when she'd had too much to drink. There was nothing in her statement about repeated abuse.'

'Apparently she wants to make a new statement. She claims that when she made her original one she was still too traumatised by what had happened and wasn't in a fit state to give an accurate account.' Grant paused. 'Not helped by the fact that the police officer leading the interview was…' She paused again and looked down at the notes she'd scribbled when talking to the Depute Procurator earlier. 'The phrase was "acerbic and unsympathetic". Does that sound like anyone we know?'

McKay dumped himself back down on the chair by Grant's desk and snatched up her stapler. For a moment, Grant thought he might throw it through the window behind her, but instead he just tossed it from hand to hand. 'For fuck's sake, Helena. This is utter shite. Grade A bollocks from start to finish. They must see that.'

'Not up to them, is it? If this is the line she takes, it'll be up to the jury.'

'Aye, but the Procurator will tear it to shreds, surely?'

'He'll do his best. But he's clearly rattled.'

'Jesus Christ, I thought this one was cut and dried.' McKay was still gently tossing the stapler as if about to use it as an offensive weapon. 'We caught her red-handed with the two fucking bodies, for Christ's sake. Even the bloody Procurator ought to be capable of making that stand up.'

The case went back to the previous summer, the climax of an extraordinary series of multiple killings over on the Black Isle. Elizabeth Hamilton had been the daughter of John Robbins, who was now assumed to have committed the original murders. Hamilton herself had been a victim of Robbins' abuse and had had suspicions about his behaviour. The exact sequence of events had always been unclear, but it had appeared that, with the balance of her mind disturbed, Hamilton had sought revenge on both her abusive father and on Denny Gorman, a local publican, who she said had raped her at the end of a drunken evening. The story was messy and far from clear, but Hamilton had apparently drugged the two men and somehow pulled their bound bodies into the sea off Rosemarkie Beach with the intention of drowning them. Hamilton had been intercepted by DS Ginny Horton, a member of Grant's team, but by then Robbins and Gorman had already been dead.

There had seemed little doubt that Hamilton would be convicted of murder, albeit with considerable extenuating circumstances. The assumption had been that she would plead guilty with the aim of seeking the shortest possible sentence. Now it seemed as if Hamilton, or her lawyers, had chosen a bolder route.

McKay finally grew bored with the stapler and dropped it back on to Grant's desk with a clatter. 'So how's she trying to justify this shite?'

'It goes back to how she ended up at Robbins' house that last time. She was vague about that when we interviewed her. Our assumption was that she'd finally lost it and gone back there to take her revenge on Robbins.'

'Or that she'd gone back there to try to screw some more money out of him. Maybe she lost it when he said no.'

Grant nodded. 'We never quite got to the bottom of it though, did we?'

'She reckoned she couldn't remember how she'd ended up there. All just a blank. Doc told me that was not uncommon. Dissociative amnesia.' As always, McKay spoke the polysyllabic words as if chewing a mouthful of nuts. 'The mind makes you forget traumatic events. Never works for me.'

'She could have been telling the truth,' Grant said. 'But she's claiming to remember more now.'

'Like what?'

'Like the fact that she didn't go to Robbins' house voluntarily.'

McKay sat up straight in his seat. 'What?'

'That's what she's saying. Reckons she was just walking in the centre of Inverness when Robbins drew up beside her in that van– '

McKay had picked up the stapler again. 'Van?'

'The van he used for the killings.'

McKay nodded. 'Aye, I know. The one we found at the rear of the house.'

'As far as Robbins knew, he'd bunged Hamilton a few quid and shipped her off to Aberdeen after she threatened to blackmail him. So when he saw her back in Inverness he wasn't best pleased.'

'This is what she's saying?'

'This is what she's saying. He told her to get into the van then drove her back to his house. When they got there, he grabbed her then tried to use the chloroform on her, the way he had with the other victims. She fought back, somehow managed to turn the tables and forced the chloroform soaked cloth across his mouth.'

'And this is what she's saying?' The note of scepticism in McKay's tone was growing with each repetition of the question.

'Aye, Alec. This is what she's saying. This is what she'll apparently be saying in court under oath.'

'So why did she get into the van with this man who she reckoned had already threatened her if she returned?'

'Maybe she was scared. Maybe he made nice and said he'd changed his ways. I don't know. I assume the Procurator will challenge her on that.'

'Let's hope so. So she says Robbins attacked her. She fought back, managed to give Robbins a taste of his own medicine. Then what?'

'She says that that was when she really lost it. The trauma of being attacked again. The knowledge of what Robbins had done and the realisation that she'd almost just become another of his victims. The memories of the abuse she'd suffered.'

'Blah, blah, blah.'

'So she wanted to get her own back on him. She tied him up, dragged him into the back of his car, and then headed off to Rosemarkie Beach.'

'Stopping to pick up Denny Gorman on the way. Also drugged and tied up.'

'We're getting back into the territory she claims not to be able to remember. All she can say is that the balance of her mind was disturbed and she didn't know what she was doing.'

'Conveniently enough.'

'There's more.'

'Spare me.' McKay had put down the stapler again but was back to wandering around the room. 'No, tell me the rest. I need a laugh.'

'She reckons she never intended to kill either of them. Just wanted to give them a scare. Robbins used to dump her in the sea at Rosemarkie when she was a child. Knew she was scared witless even in shallow water because she couldn't swim. Her plan was to drag them into the rising tide, with the bodies weighted down. She'd assumed the cold water would wake them, and either they'd be able to drag themselves clear in time.'

'Despite being tied up?'

'It's possible. But she also says she'd intended to drag them clear if they didn't respond.'

'So why didn't she?'

Grant was silent for a moment. 'She's claiming that was partly our fault.'

McKay had been staring intently at Grant's poster of the Cairngorms as if it might provide some unexpected insights. Now he turned. 'Our fault?'

'Ginny's, to be precise.'

'So it's my fault she didn't tell her story accurately. And it's Ginny's that she killed Robbins and Gorman.'

'You're getting the hang of this, Alec.'

'Oh, for fuck's sake.'

'She reckons she'd been on the point of pulling Robbins and Gorman clear when Ginny turned up and dragged her away. She says Ginny had got the wrong end of the stick and thought Hamilton was trying to kill them.'

'I wonder what might have given Ginny that idea. For fuck's sake, is Hamilton actually going to say this shite in court?' McKay said. 'You've read Ginny's statement. When she got there, Hamilton was sitting staring into space. Ginny didn't even realise what she'd done at first. Then when she discovered the bodies, Ginny was the one who tried to drag them out of the water. Until Hamilton hit her over the bloody head.'

'That's apparently not how Hamilton remembers it.'

'Then Hamilton really is bloody doolally– ' McKay stopped. 'Ach, but that's the point, isn't it? She wins every which way. Just sows confusion and if others challenge her it only confirms she was off her head.'

'The balance of her mind was disturbed, it says here. But, aye, that's about the size of it.'

'You think she'll get away with this?'

'Who knows? Like I say, it's got the Procurator rattled. He doesn't like to be wrong-footed by smartarse lawyers. They were already gearing themselves up for some negative press when Hamilton was convicted and sentenced. You know, the abuse victim who's punished by the state. Her lawyers have been winding up the media to influence the tone of the trial coverage.' Grant paused. 'I'd never say it outside these four walls, but there's a part of me thinking good luck to her. I mean, murder's murder, but Robbins and Gorman won't be missed by anyone, and Hamilton had suffered a hell of a lot. We had no option but to charge her and I want to see justice done, but if she avoids a long sentence, however she does it, I won't be entirely sorry. The one who deserved to rot in prison was Robbins, and he never will.'

McKay was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments. 'Aye, I take your point. But there is one other thing.'

There was something in McKay's voice that sounded an early warning to Grant. She'd heard that tone before, usually when McKay was about to confess to some particularly egregious flouting of procedure. 'Go on.'

'Something I haven't told you.'