Artefacts

It was impossibly calm and quiet where Anthony sat, the sound of turning pages amplified by being the only affront to the silence of the room, though even that noise was swallowed by the insulation of a thousand leather-bound volumes lining the walls. There was no reverberation, no sound from outside, and a stillness to the air as though even the motes of dust had been ordered and alphabetised.

He could hardly imagine a greater contrast to the chaos of the station, where several phones were always ringing and voices constantly raised merely to stay above the din of each other. In this chamber at the Procurator Fiscal’s offices he felt like he was sealed off from the world, but inescapably prominent in his thoughts was the fact that he had been sealed off along with Adrienne.

It occurred to him that this was the first time they had been alone in a room together since that night. That they had been here for an hour before he realised this had to be a good sign, given that it wasn’t any ordinary room: it was like an awkwardness stress-test environment. Granted, they had some compelling reading matter to distract them, so he couldn’t gauge for sure what was going on between them in this sustained silence. Did this mean they were comfortable in each other’s company, or were they each immersing themselves in the task at hand because it helped them pretend like the other one wasn’t there?

He couldn’t speak for Adrienne, but he was happy she was here. Apart from anything else, he needed some solidarity right now. The sense of complicity made what he was doing feel a little less like career suicide, though maybe this only meant that it was a suicide pact instead.

He glanced up at the walls and bid himself a wry smile. Maybe there was another reason they called him Beano: he spent so much time in print. So if he was going out, he was going out his way: sitting in a library, cramming at a desk, the fast-track graduate hitting the books and fast-tracking himself right out the door.

It was an unusual feeling, to knowingly pursue something even though he was aware that it would get him in serious trouble if the boss found out. Anthony had never done anything wanton in his life. As a kid he’d always worked hard, learned his spelling, got his sums right, done his homework, listened in class, never answered back. But sitting here right now he understood that he hadn’t done those things because he was afraid of getting a telling off from the teacher. He had done them because that was how he was brought up. This was about getting his sums right. It was about finding the correct answer, and he was moulded to do that in a way that deferred his consideration of consequences to the point of negligence.

It was easy for him, though. If he got bagged because of this then fuck da police: he’d move on. He’d moved on from worse. He’d be mightily angry about it, sure, but he wasn’t gambling with anybody else’s chips. Adrienne, by contrast, was a single mother with two kids to provide for.

‘Do you think this makes us maverick cops?’ he had asked her on the short drive over here.

‘No, I think it makes us ex-cops if we’re not extremely careful,’ she replied, leaving no doubt that she was aware of the stakes.

As per McLeod’s request, Dominic Wilson had looked out the records of the Teddy Sheehan prosecution, retrieving the files from the PF’s equivalent of the morgue. Anthony was aware that it was not a small favour. There was something between Wilson and McLeod, some quiet bond of trust, the confidentiality of this undertaking reflected in his also granting them this windowless chamber to peruse the documents. Nonetheless, the PF’s office was as gossipy and leaky as any cop shop, and it was hard to do anything out of the ordinary without somebody taking notice. You never knew who was watching, and you never knew who they’d tell.

There hadn’t been a murder trial per se. Teddy Sheehan’s lawyer had submitted a guilty plea on his client’s behalf at the hearing following his hundred-and-ten-day lie-in after being charged. Subsequent hearings had been to determine the severity of the crime and the minimum term to be served under the statutory life sentence. The materials Dom Wilson had fished out were what would have formed the basis of the prosecution had there been a not guilty plea and the case gone to trial. Consequently, many of the documents were duplicates of the ones Anthony had been looking for back at Govan nick. Once again, Drummond’s efforts to erase the evidence had been thwarted by the existence of a remotely stored copy.

There were police statements, interview statements and, of course, the confession. It was tempting to skip to that first, but given that it was likely to be the least reliable document in the box, Anthony decided it would actually be most instructive to read it last. Just like a live case, it was important to put together both a chronology of the investigation and a chronology of the events, developing a wider picture so that every piece of evidence could be valued in context.

Julie Muir’s body had been found on the Sunday morning by Capletmuir resident Malcolm Vickers, who was out walking his dog. It was discovered among a waist-high crop of wild garlic, evidently dragged there out of sight. Mr Vickers rushed home and called the police.

Bob Cairns and Mitchell Drummond were first on the scene. They had happened to be in the area attending an incident in nearby Gallowhaugh.

There were crime-scene photographs, black-and-white ten by eights. Anthony spotted these as he lifted the document that had been on top of them, glimpsing enough to recognise what they were before concealing them again. Tentatively, reluctantly, and feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic, he uncovered them once more and forced himself to look.

To his relief, he was largely spared her face. She was lying on her back, her head turned to one side, her long hair draped over her features. There were close-ups of the marks on her neck, the tight pattern of bruising and abrasions. These were easier to look at: they were just skin, just shapes. They could be anybody. It was the personal details that always got to him, the notes of uniqueness still sounding out through the cacophony of white noise that murder made as it turned the individual human form into anonymous and interchangeable shapes. It was the stories suggested by an unusual pair of shoes, an esoteric tattoo, a striking piece of jewellery. In Julie’s case, it was a ring. Her hand was resting on her chest, like a virgin in a medieval painting, drawing Anthony’s attention to how out of place this olde-worlde-looking item seemed against her trendy clothing.

According to the confession, Teddy Sheehan encountered Julie Muir on the pathway adjacent to the railway line, close to where she was found. He had gone out for a walk because it was a dry night, though not so dry back at home, where his sister was reportedly asleep on the settee having necked half a bottle of vodka. She was frequently asleep at that time, the statement said, though she would often wake up and continue drinking until passing out again or until the bottle was finished, whichever came first.

Julie smiled at him as she passed, which apparently made him aroused. He turned and caught up to her again further along the path, where he took off his belt, dropped his trousers and exposed himself. Julie got upset at this and began to scream. Startled by her response, Teddy grabbed Julie and put his hand over her mouth, trying to keep her silent. As she struggled, trying to scream louder through his muffling hand, he became more concerned about getting into trouble and dragged her into the wild garlic. Panicked and confused by the strange state of excitement in which he found himself, it was here that he looped his belt around Julie’s neck and strangled her.

Anthony marvelled at the phrasing of the confession, the insights it offered into Teddy’s mind, the little notes and minor details intended to lend authenticity to the narrative. It was a case study in why the polis weren’t allowed to pull this shit any more. Cairns had written down precisely the version he thought would play best if it came to trial, and got this befuddled, frightened and quite possibly beaten educationally subnormal suspect to sign at the bottom.

He thought of Brenda right at the very start of the video, rambling but impassioned as she poured out her heart to her guest, before Fullerton let her compose herself and told her to take it from the top.

‘Oor Teddy wouldn’t hurt a fly. Everybody knew that. All those wee bastards that used to call names and throw stones: he always ran away. Never so much as turned around and told them to shut it. And when I finally got to see him on remand . . . He was scared, so scared. I asked him if it was true, if he’d done it, and he said he wasn’t allowed to talk aboot it. What does that mean? Not allowed? By who?’

Anthony could guess.

What did they do to you, Teddy, he wondered. What did they tell you would happen if you didn’t stick to the script?

‘Jesus,’ Adrienne said, the first word either had issued since they began poring over the contents of the box.

‘What?’

‘She was pregnant.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Pathologist’s report. Nobody else seems to have been aware of this. None of her friends or flatmates mentioned it in their statements. Her parents didn’t know either.’

‘Did her boyfriend?’ Anthony asked pointedly.

There had been a statement from Ewart in the file, with a note to say it was strictly confidential. Supporting the contention that his relationship with her was of little relevance to the case was his claim that he hadn’t even been at his parents’ house that night, and had no idea Julie was planning to drop by. She had only visited the place once before, for a dinner party a few weeks previously, but he’d driven her there.

‘Can think of poorer pretexts for a surprise visit,’ Adrienne suggested, ‘than to confront your boyfriend with the news that you’re up the duff in front of his scandal-wary parents.’

‘Can I see the report?’

Adrienne handed him the pages, which he traded for the confession.

There it was, in the clinical bloodless prose that reduced all that was once Julie Muir to a technical read-out of her final state.

The victim was approximately three months pregnant at time of death . . .

He scanned the rest of the report, the precise description of the injuries to her neck, the corresponding condition of internal organs, the estimated time of death.

The ligature used to strangle her suggested a combination of metal and a softer material, probably leather. This was consistent with Sheehan’s confession that he had used his belt.

She had not been sexually assaulted.

Anthony was about to put the report back down when he saw it.

‘Fuck,’ he announced.

The most vital piece of information in the entire document was at the very top, and they had both bypassed it in their hurry to get to the details.

‘What?’

‘The pathologist’s name – it’s Colin Morrison.’