The old pathologist was a small man, very well dressed, a shock of grey hair above bright blue eyes that still twinkled as he sat at the window table of the tearoom overlooking the river. In the garden beyond, a couple of magpies were squabbling over something. Vernon Cameron had a reputation for being immovable in the witness stand, not usually a helpful thing in a pathologist, where everything was an opinion in a range from remote possibility to high probability. Beware of anything that seems very certain, especially experts.
‘What do you want to see me about?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘If it’s about another bloody case where the magic fairy of DNA has come floating out of the clouds waving a wand, then, to be perfectly honest, I am beyond caring. The past is another country and I don’t want to go back there. I left all that behind.’
‘I am old enough to be caught up in that myself,’ smiled Anderson. ‘I usually just tell myself that I did the best I could with the evidence that I found. We only gather the information; fifteen people decide on matters of guilt or innocence. If we all had the benefit of hindsight, then the world would be a better place.’
Cameron softened a little, leaned over on the table, moving his cup of Earl Grey over to one side. ‘What do you want to know?’ His eyes opened wide, keen. Anderson knew the type. He bet the pathologist had never actually stopped working. Bored with the bridge, the golf and the morning coffee at the garden centre, he was keen to have his expert opinion sought once more.
‘Birdie Scanlon.’
Cameron’s face twitched a little; he certainly knew the name. ‘Marilyn Scanlon – Marilyn Summers as she was?’
‘Summer,’ corrected Anderson.
‘That was a very sad case. Edward Dukes went down for that. Two wee kids left without a mother. No winners there.’ He smiled. ‘But that was years ago. He’d have served his time and got out by now.’ A cloud seemed to pass over his face. ‘Was he that fatality in Invernock?’
‘He was indeed. How did you know? It’s been kept very quiet.’
‘Because you are sitting here talking to me? And that was a suspicious death. It didn’t say the name, but the age would be right. I know there was a connection with Invernock.’
‘Do you recall much about the case? About Birdie? The victim?’ Anderson asked, not too pointedly, he hoped.
‘She was married to Frankie Scanlon.’ Again, he gave that slight sniff. ‘Tragic all round, that family.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘You’ll have read up on it, so I’m sure you are well aware. What do you want to know in particular?’ asked Cameron, sounding now as if he was on a professional roll.
‘Were you aware at the time of any rumours that something wasn’t quite right? Or anything that you felt did not fit?’
The eyes turned a slightly steely colour of blue. ‘I was the second pathologist, there to corroborate. Shields was the senior. He died on a golf course in Spain.’
‘Three years ago? Yes, I know.’
‘You have been doing your homework.’
‘I am a detective,’ said Anderson in a manner that he hoped was disarming rather than sarcastic.
‘And quite a senior one at that. So why are you sniffing round this case now? Forty years later?’
‘I always pay attention to what my younger detectives say. What they see with their keen little eyes. We are taught to be tolerant of them. It wasn’t like that in your day – it was more speak when you were spoken to. I bet you would never dream of questioning your superiors. I was wondering if you recalled anything about that case that you might want to revise now with hindsight. I’m giving you the chance now to ask that question. My DI does that all the time; she’s bloody annoying, but seldom wrong.’
The blue eyes remained cold and unimpressed.
‘When she questions something, she tends to have a valid point. Just wondering if you recalled any concerns you wanted to raise about Birdie.’
Cameron was quiet for a while, staring at Anderson, blue eyes searching for a clue. Anderson could see him doing this in the witness box, before a piece of incriminating evidence was planted in his hands by opposing counsel.
‘It was a very sad case. She was a beautiful woman – more than a bit of a celebrity in her day if I remember correctly. In the early sixties? There was nothing official, but there was talk that the other chap … well, she was’ – he paused – ‘still close to him while she was married to Frankie Scanlon. That’s the oldest motive in the world, isn’t it?’
Anderson nodded. ‘Except that the affair would have been with Dukes, wouldn’t it? He was the one that killed her. The rumour was about McSween.’
Cameron took a while to respond. ‘But it was Dukes who was in the house when she was murdered. Rumours, nothing more. Scanlon was a fair but formidable character. He and the senior pathologist, Shields, knew each other well – same lodge, same golf club. That was important in those days.’
‘Doctor Cameron, can you recall the findings at the PM?’
‘I’m sure it’s not beyond the bounds of a detective of your standing to find the report and read it.’
‘I want your opinion. Here’s a copy.’
As Anderson handed the folder over, a light bulb seemed to go on behind Cameron’s eyes. A recognition that he was being given a chance to right a wrong. The old pathologist reached forward and took the file with fingers that still looked as if they were washed forty times a day, and given the virus of the recent few months, they probably were.
He placed the file on the table in front of him, holding it down against the light breeze. ‘Let me try to recall it first. Dukes stabbed her.’ His right hand moved towards his lower left abdomen, indicating exactly where the knife had gone. His recall was good so far. ‘Then he spilled boiling water – was it water? No, it was chip fat. I have a vague memory of somebody saying how odd the scene smelled – like a chip shop. There had been fat warming on the cooker, correct?’
Anderson nodded.
Cameron was encouraged, and his eyes closed slightly, reaching into the recesses of his memory to retrieve more detail. ‘There had been some discussion that the secondary damage had been accidental. The pan had been on the cooker, knocked over in the struggle. The kitchen was a relatively small space. There’ll be a drawing of the layout in the file. Dukes was a tall man. Birdie was short, very slim.’
Anderson caught on to that comment. ‘She was short, Dukes was tall. It was a kitchen knife and it was moving sharply upwards?’
‘Yes, nothing odd about that. People don’t stand to attention when they stab each other, DCI Anderson.’
‘Were there any other signs of a struggle on the body?’
‘I don’t recall the body being covered in bruises. Nothing like that … or maybe …’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘There were some bruises of different ages – they were explained by boisterous play with her small son.’
He nodded. ‘In that case, I think we may have needed some supporting evidence. Are you putting a different interpretation on that now? Do you think our opinion might have been swayed because her husband was a senior police officer?’ He nodded his head from side to side as if he was considering it. Then shook it. ‘No, the injuries in domestic violence have a certain pattern; this was different. And nowadays, the destruction of the face – oh, you would have a whole queue of experts coming out to chat about the significance of that.’ He sighed. ‘A handle sticking out in a small kitchen. There were public information films on the TV about that at the time – “Turn the Handles Inwards”, and a small child crying in pain after being scalded. Did we get it wrong, DCI Anderson?’
‘I don’t know, to tell you the truth. But you did what you could do. There was a kitchen, a knife, a pan of hot fat, and two people there. Do you remember why Dukes was there at all?’
‘Well, we thought that she had called Dukes on the phone because her husband was away … But why had she called him? No, I don’t know. I was thinking, with the daughter and the son being so young, they wanted to keep Mum’s memory clean for them. But do you think they were having an affair?’
‘Personally, I doubt it. But Dukes admitted the murder. He came quietly.’
‘He was devastated.’ Then he corrected himself. ‘Or so the gossip in the queue in the canteen said at the time.’
‘It was a hot summer day, the kids were outside, and there was a big case about to break … Her husband was away?’
Cameron shrugged.
‘It was the day of that bank robbery in Barrhead,’ prompted Anderson.
‘Yes.’ A memory came to light. ‘I remember there was one almighty downpour. The scene-of-crime guys who went out to Barrhead got soaked, and much of the external evidence was lost. There were a lot of bank jobs in those days, but the cases that came under my knife were mostly violent deaths, killed by somebody they knew and trusted.’
‘Do you have any doubts about the case at all?’
He shook his head. ‘The daughter had come back in, saw him standing over the body. She gave her testimony, you know, wee Veronica. I think she was such a brave wee girl. I think it changed her.’
‘I think it damaged her.’
‘You may be right. My granddaughter is that age – gives you some perspective on the situation, how so very young they are.’ He shook his head. ‘Nowadays, there’s counselling and all sorts. In those days, I think her granny probably sat her down and had a nice wee chat. And the boy – there was a boy. I forget his name?’
‘Ben. He was six when he died.’ Anderson wondered, looking over his shoulder, watching the magpies. ‘Nothing odd about the actual post-mortem itself?’
‘Like what? What are you getting at?’ Cameron said with a sideways flick of the head.
‘Did the injuries match the knife?’
‘Yes.’
‘The incisive edge, the angle of the wound? All that squared?’ He kept his eyes drifting out of the window, thinking again.
‘I don’t know what you are getting at. Is this case going to be reopened?’
‘Not in that sense. Only because of the connection to Dukes’ death. I’m just looking for anything that doesn’t fit, anything at all.’
He nodded slightly, not sure of himself now.
Anderson said, ‘Anything else you can remember about the PM?’
‘Everything will be in the report. There was nothing tangible and no big points to argue. It didn’t go to court so the results were not challenged in that sense.’
‘Do you ever remove nail varnish for a post-mortem?’
‘We can do, but that’s not done by us. It would be noted when the body came in. There’s a whole forensic treasure trove under the fingernails.’
‘Was there in this case?’
‘No, it would be in the file if there was. We didn’t have the expertise in those days that the boys have available now.’
‘Any doubts you had about the identification of the body?’
‘We all knew who she was.’ He caught Anderson’s reaction. ‘Are you questioning her identification?’ He slapped himself on the forehead. ‘You are going to say the three magic letters again, aren’t you? Bloody DNA?’
‘My team can find records of tissue samples being taken, but not the samples.’
‘They’d mostly be destroyed long ago, but interesting all the same. They normally retain some, so yes, I’d say that was unusual.’
Anderson was treating himself to a coffee and a fudge doughnut in his car. He needed to think. Cameron could shine no light on it, but there was something in his manner that said he wasn’t outraged by the suggestion. He had decided to scan a copy of the post-mortem report over to Professor O’Hare. He had Dukes’ post-mortem scheduled for later that day, so they could chat then. He had reread it himself, unable to find a mention of the body having nail varnish removed by a technician.
The dead body was a right-handed, sun-worshipping watch wearer with hazel eyes and natural nails. Birdie was left-handed, pale and brown-eyed with habitual bright red nail polish. It wasn’t much.
They were on the trail of Veronica who had been so traumatized as a child that she had suffered from mental health issues most of her life, whereas Anne McLeod was sharp, with a lifetime to brood. The jury was out on Loretta. Warburton was very keen for them to proceed: ‘The reputation of Police Scotland will be well served by financial and human resource investment in this team and a positive outcome.’ Or something like that. Why did he give them all that background material? Because he knew something. Maybe Costello was right. Maybe they should be talking to him.
Was Frankie Scanlon in on the switch of identity of his wife? Was it his idea? Surely he must have known.
Eight women between fifteen and forty years of age had been reported missing in the loose time frame of June 1978. Wyngate was pedantic but he would get there. The records would have been handwritten then typed up, card-indexed and cross-referenced. It was like dancing on breaking ice.
Was it worth pursuing? If he was right, there had been a family waiting for a young woman to return. But was this the most cost-effective way to get to the answer? How long had passed since then? Forty-two years? Anderson would allow Wyngate a day on it, then get the focus back to the driver. They could solve the case if Dennis MacMillan had been more observant and less trusting. They’d put pictures of Anne and Loretta in front of him, see if that sparked any memories. They’d add Veronica once they got a picture of her older than eight. Maybe put a mask on the picture, see if there was any recognition of the eyes, the shape of the face.
It was all a matter of priority.
He opened his iPad. Wyngate’s report was typical: succinct. Eight files, with edited highlights. Had nobody thought to look? It was accepted that it was Birdie in the house and it was Birdie on the slab. It was as simple as that. Nobody thought they should be looking for anybody else. The deceased must have resembled Birdie in some way, the babysitter the Scanlons were looking for.
Wyngate had found something very telling: the Scanlons lived in a cul-de-sac, a small square off a road. Wyngate had surmised that in 1978 a single woman looking for a job as a babysitter would not have had a car, so she would have been walking to the bus stop. Witness statements reported a neighbour who lived on the corner, a house with gnomes in the garden, seeing a woman walking down Loch Road as if she was going for the bus. She was in a rush because it was raining. The original investigation presumed that was the babysitter leaving. Nobody came forward to say their relative was missing after going for an interview at that address. Had the Scanlons interviewed her beforehand, and this was a ‘come round and meet the kids’ type of interview? Frankie claimed that he didn’t know her name, nor did the children.
Anderson sipped his coffee, thinking it through. In the house, Birdie and the kids were joined by the babysitter. Babysitter was seen leaving by the neighbour, Eddie Dukes appears, has the fight with Birdie, kills her. Eddie admits it. So why should they look for the babysitter? Cut and dried. The dead person was Birdie … her husband said so, he identified the body on the slab … The body with an unrecognizable face, Anderson recalled, reading slowly the description of the babysitter given by the neighbour with the gnomes: dark hair, slim, young, wearing big sunglasses. It had been a hot day. She had a knee-length waistcoat with a long-handled Dorothy bag over her shoulder, bare legs and a short dark skirt. Anderson had a vision of a very old Coca-Cola advert.
Anderson scrolled to the old crime scene photographs. A woman goes into a house and puts her handbag down. There are introductions, a short interview, a quick hello to the kids, then send them outside and ‘come into the kitchen for a coffee’. Then brutally stab her, maybe change into a skirt that looks like hers, pick up the babysitter’s stuff and walk out. The dead person is identified as Birdie, but in reality the woman who walks away is Birdie. Anderson shrugged; that wasn’t right. They had eaten the cake. The kids had spoken to her. They’d had lemonade in the garden. Why did Frankie say the children never met her? And where did Birdie go with only a small bag? The police at the time would have timed it and dismissed it, but was any of that fixed in a timeline by a disinterested party? There was no date-stamped CCTV in those days.
Plus, the kids knew which woman was their mother and who was the babysitter. They wouldn’t lie – they were eight and three or something. But there was something in that chain of events that was not right.
Birdie might have been ambidextrous. She could have bought a bikini and spent the summer sunbathing as her husband was so busy at work. Mrs Corner House with the gnomes knew Birdie. She would have known if it was her.
A cold thought entered his head. What if they were looking at this the wrong way round? Did the Scanlons go out looking for somebody that could be Birdie in build and colour? The face doesn’t matter; they can chuck boiling water or something. Scanlon was a cop, so everyone will take his word for it. They’d put the victim’s prints up as Birdie’s, maybe those from the glass of lemonade. They baited the woman with the offer of a babysitting job, which made sense given their troubles with Veronica and Ben. They select someone whom nobody will really miss. The phrase ‘dead ringer’ sprang to mind. Cruel beyond belief. And how does that conversation go? Frankie said to Eddie, ‘Please pop round, stab a woman to death, and pretend that it’s Birdie, then serve time in jail. Meanwhile, I’ll be away, free as a bird. Thanks, matey.’ What is the point of that? And where’s Birdie?
Could it have been done without Frankie knowing? Was he so distraught that he just said it was Birdie on the slab without really looking? Eddie served minimal time and Birdie got away. From what? A violent marriage?’
Eddie allowed her to get away, did the jail time for her because he loved her? So why did they not get together afterwards. Did they intend to walk into the sunset, but something happened? It didn’t pan out for them? Did Birdie need to get away from Scanlon, so she plots all this and runs? He was a ranking police officer – maybe he had too much hold over her. Eddie was her knight in shining armour. There was no recorded history of Frankie being violent.
It was all speculation. He swiped back to Wyngate’s list, looking for a young woman with no family or close friends. Nobody who would miss them.
There were four names. Ages thirty-two to twenty-four. The description didn’t fit for the fourth one – she was quite a heavy girl – but it was difficult to choose between the other three.
Then he remembered the PM report said that the woman had borne a child, before June 1978. Single mothers weren’t totally acceptable in society back then. It was something that would have been gossiped about. Was that why she was away from her family? Frankie’s friend did the post-mortem; nothing wrong with that. The story as it was told fitted the findings in examination, except maybe a slight difference in eye colour which they noted but ignored – the wrong box was ticked, nothing more than that.
It was a whole different country; a different kind of traveller used those roads.
He swiped back to the photograph of Birdie’s face, that picture of her dancing with the Peacocks, three men who were very close until she died.
Or until Ben and Andrew died, to be more accurate.
It was about the children.
And that was not the same thing.
He looked out at the sky. Dark clouds were rolling in; it was going to thunder. The socially distanced queue outside Greggs started to scatter for their cars, hurrying. Hurrying because they were getting wet. Somebody dashed into the shop to get shelter, keeping close to the wall. The pavement was so hot that it was almost steaming. He closed his eyes, thinking of the neighbour with the gnomes. She’d said the babysitter was hurrying because it was raining. The same terrible summer downpour that had wrecked the evidence at the scene of the Barrhead bank job. And that, he realized with a shiver, left a lot of time unaccounted for.
And why was the girl wearing sunglasses when it was raining?
Professor O’Hare was in the morgue muttering to Dr Gibson about a second wave of the virus and that somebody sensible should be in charge now.
‘I’d bring every single politician of every party down to that makeshift morgue and ask them how they would feel if it was their granny. That would sober them up a bit. I’m going to write up Aasha Ariti and call Anderson tomorrow with the prelim results.’
‘That case belongs to DI Tony Bannon now, I think. Colin Anderson is on the murder at Invernock.’
‘Not both of them?’
‘Nope, check the paperwork. And I think they are here, both of them,’ she added lamely.
‘We will do the tox results on the girl first. If that goes well, we can then report on Dukes. The place is staying open because of the backlog, so we can work as long as we like.’
The body of Aasha Ariti was remarkably unmarked. He looked everywhere but could find no signs of violence apart from one bad bruise on the back of her head and some other bruising on her shoulder blades. There was some grazing around her right shoulder, and her lungs were heavy with river water. She had drowned in the Clyde. There was no sign of any sexual activity beforehand. There were stretch marks in her dark skin that showed she had lost weight.
O’Hare saw movement behind the glass of the viewing gallery and switched the intercom on.
‘Thank you for coming along. I think you both need to see this and have a chat about what is going on here, so we really understand it.’
‘Aasha Ariti?’ said Tony Bannon, looking very uncomfortable. ‘I am actually the SIO.’
‘He is,’ added Anderson. ‘There’s no reason for me to be here.’
O’Hare ignored him. The grey-haired pathologist slipped on a pair of steel-rimmed glasses. His voice was grave when he spoke. ‘You are a human being, Anderson. You are a father of a daughter a similar age to Aasha here, and I believe that Claire is at the same university.’
‘Indeed,’ said Anderson, folding his arms and trying to ignore the sight of the young lady lying in front of him. ‘I think Tony and I are both struggling with the fact that there’s no cause of death as yet.’
‘We have a very clear suspect, but the clock is ticking. We can’t charge him with her murder until we know that it is murder,’ said Bannon. ‘The main suspect cannot be located at present, so we need something to move the situation on.’
‘Good, I’m glad you have held off from charging anybody with murder.’
The two detectives exchanged a glance. Bannon bit his lip, sensing something coming his way.
‘The media pressure has been intense.’
‘We don’t let the media run our investigation or my office. Although no doubt Trial by Facebook is coming. This year I have seen two suicides where social media was strongly implicated. DI Bannon, as you are the SIO, as far as Aasha here is concerned, can you talk me through what happened to her that night?’
So Bannon, a little non-plussed, talked him through Aasha going to the nightclub, his voice tinny and echoey on the hard walls of the morgue below.
‘Did the notes say something about having to go back to the house to get her red dress? Why was that?’
‘Why was what?’
‘Why did she go back to the house for a dress? How recent is this photograph of her?’
‘One of the last pictures taken of her. I called her mother for it. She was actually wearing her cousin’s dress – that’s why she went home to her aunt’s house if that’s what you are getting at.’
‘Why did you need such a recent photograph? Any reason?’
‘Yes, in the older pictures on the electronic file she’s much heavier. Her face looks quite different, so it wasn’t such a good likeness.’
‘And they were not taken such a long time ago,’ said O’Hare with a tinge of regret. ‘There’re many signs that she has been on a recent diet – you can see that she has stretch marks and areas of loose skin. I presume her cousin’s the same size that Aasha is now.’
‘Do you think she’s been on a mad diet?’ asked Bannon. ‘I’m thinking of the way she stepped back on the stairs. Was she showing off her dress to Anthony or was she showing off her new figure, so much so that he didn’t actually recognize her at first?’
‘She has lost weight, but please go back and speak to the parents, the aunt, the sister, the cousin. What diet was she on? I suspect it might be a meal replacement three- or four-hundred-calorie job. She had thought that she was pregnant, so that fits as these diets can stop menstruation. Her GP does ask her about the noticeable weight loss and she says it’s due to a healthier lifestyle. She was lying. And her GP knew she was lying.’ He lifted back the sheet and opened a path of jet-black hair to reveal her scalp, showing patches of thinning. ‘And there were no medications prescribed, so what was causing all this? She wasn’t stupid; she’d know the sign of any illness. Other consequences are heart arrhythmia and brain haemorrhage and, maybe more importantly for us, hyponatraemia – low blood sodium. I read in your report, Colin, that she was only drinking water when she was out.’
‘Yes, we could rule out her being drunk straight away.’
‘Did anybody say she was drunk?’
‘Poole describes her as slightly drunk as they left the nightclub. The man on the bridge said she was walking unsteadily.’
‘She said she was feeling unwell.’
‘So she goes out for fresh air, then she has a period of confusion where Anthony thought she was drunk, and then more confusion, which is why she wandered off.’
‘And somewhere down at the river, she leaned against the railing, no doubt aware that something was very wrong. She goes into the gardens at the flats, maybe trying to get to somebody’s front door, then she slipped into unconsciousness and fell in the water. Her blood findings support that, but I’ve sent more away for further tests.’ O’Hare continued, ‘If she was losing weight at six or seven pounds a week, then she would have developed issues, and with my back-of-a-fag-packet calculations I think she was on that trajectory. I think that’s what happened to Aasha. Anthony could be totally honest in what he says. Her family will be devastated, but I really don’t understand why she would do this to herself.’
‘For the wedding. There was a family wedding.’
‘God, she was a medical student – surely of all people she would have understood, so maybe you two should do something about it.’
‘Like what?’
‘Who knows, but get it stopped. If an intelligent young woman can end up in a river because of something that’s sold over the counter then … then somebody needs to do something about it. I’m fed up with people being pressurized into harmful behaviours. It’s a toxic world out there. And me? Well, I’m busy enough with illegal substances, never mind legal ones.’
Up in the gallery, Anderson turned towards Bannon who had covered his face with both hands. He gave him a consolatory pat on the back. ‘It’s the right outcome, and we weren’t to know any of that.’
‘The shit is going to hit the fan.’
‘And how much worse would it be if you had arrested him? Situations like this are how media liaison earn their wages, so don’t stress about it too much.’
O’Hare’s voice was wafting out again. ‘So this gentleman’ – he held up a picture of Dukes – ‘was a bit more straightforward in terms of cause of death. The motive for these injuries is outwith my clinical knowledge.’ He brandished a file. ‘Here’s a list of the injuries as incurred by Edward James Dukes at the hand of somebody who was determined to torture him for some reason.’
‘Definitely torture?’
‘Oh, I would say so. This went on for a very long period of time. It’s a recognized pattern – with a twist in this case. The actual cause of death, I think, is straightforward strangulation. The wrist injuries were to extract information – painful but by no means fatal. The injuries to his testicles were post-mortem, something to be thankful for. I presume those were a message for you. Was he a rapist or a sex offender? Something like that?’
‘Are you sure about the torture?’
‘There are very fine bruises in a line around the dorsal aspect of the wrist, none on the palmer aspect. His hands were fixed tightly, palms down. And then there are the very bloodied puncture marks on the dorsal wrists where the nails had been hammered in, one on each side. So the fine lines were made by your common and not very imaginative cable ties, which were then removed. So I think the wrists would have been firmly held in place by the cable ties round the wooden arms of the chair. So why the nails? Unlike the testicular injuries, these were pre-mortem, carried out to cause pain – perhaps to gain information? The testicle insults were just for our benefit. The actual strangling would have brought about a rather merciful death.’
‘I’m pretty sure he could have done without it,’ said Anderson. ‘So he was tortured. The dog was tortured. Would it have taken a lot of strength?’
‘I don’t think so. He must have been compliant at some stage. I was a little confused by how exactly it happened. He was in a loft?’
Anderson explained.
‘OK, so he may or not have been a paedophile. That would explain why there was such destruction to his genitals. By somebody who didn’t have the nerve to do it while he was alive?’
‘Or was that the conclusion they want us to jump to because it fits the narrative? He could have been killed for some information that he was unwilling or maybe unable to give. His bank card details maybe. “Tell me now and I’ll strangle you. Don’t tell me and I’ll keep hurting you until you do and strangle you anyway.”’
‘Did he have any secrets?’
‘At the moment, too many to mention. This gentleman—’
‘Give me ten minutes and I’ll meet you in the office. I’ve left that other report in there.’
Bannon and Anderson sat and argued the toss about Anthony Poole back and forward. Could they have played it differently? Probably not. Was there going to be a shitstorm? Definitely. Bannon walked to the window for a signal and phoned it in, passing it up the line.
O’Hare bustled in, followed by a cloud of Hibiscrub. He sat down, ignoring Bannon, and opened the file, running a very clean fingernail along the text. ‘Was Dukes convicted of the culpable homicide of this young lady in 1978? Too long ago for me to recall.’
‘Yes. What did you think?’
‘It all made sense to me. But one thing did strike me. Did you notice the knife?’
‘What about it?’
‘It was a normal kitchen knife.’ He turned towards Anderson and held a pencil to his chest. ‘Even if this was incredibly sharp, it would still need a fair amount of pressure to puncture the abdominal wall, upwards and inwards. It stops when it hits a structure too hard to penetrate, but the hand will keep going; it always does on these knives. That’s why daggers and fighting knives have the crossbar. The killer would have had a cut on their hand. Exactly here’ – he indicated the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger – ‘exactly where you have that nasty blister. So there would have been a mix of blood at the scene and, even after all these years, the killer of Birdie will have a scar – I’d bet my last Jaffa Cake on it. Dukes did not.’
Costello’s Fiat returned to the car park. Anderson watched from the window of the incident room, waiting for her to get out, but she stayed in it for five minutes or so before she eventually emerged. She didn’t appear to have been talking on her phone – just sitting very still. He knew she was seething. He could feel it from here. Anderson presumed that when she did decide to join them, she’d have moved into rant mode. He noted the way she closed the car door very gently, then leaned against it to shut it with a vicious bump of her hip. Her anger would be controlled until she had an audience and then she’d have fury writ large on her face.
Right on cue, the door banged open, and she marched over to the kettle, switching it on with some violence.
Both Wyngate and Mulholland became very interested in their laptop screens.
‘What’s up?’ asked Anderson.
‘I’ll bloody tell you what’s up. That bloody Joanna Craig. That cow has accused me of taking ten grand from her mother’s flat. Me? Ten grand from wee Vera?’
‘What?’ Mulholland and Wyngate both looked up.
‘Yes, ten fucking grand – and do you know who is backing her up in this shite?’ Her bony finger pointed from her outstretched arm; she was looking at Anderson but her finger pointed to Wyngate. ‘His bloody friends, bloody Knobby and Plod.’
Anderson glanced at Wyngate who explained. ‘PCs Howie and Follet. They were on the door outside Mrs Craig’s flat after she was found with that head injury.’
‘Well, seemingly – seemingly, the old dear has all this money there, and it’s not there now. And I–I …’ She nearly exploded. ‘I am supposed to have gone in there and taken it between the time of Vera being taken to the hospital and Knobby and Plod turning up. I ask you!’
‘Why are they saying that?’
‘They think I knew it was there and I just lifted it. I was keen to get into the property and very keen to find out where the will was!’
‘Why do they think that?’
‘Yes. Why do they think that, Wyngate?’ She turned on her younger colleague, her grey eyes blazing.
‘Because I might have told them that. Mathieson asked me at the meeting. You did say that, Costello. You asked me where my mum kept all her important stuff – insurance papers, wills, etcetera.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant. I was looking for Joanna’s details.’
‘Well. I know that, but all I said was … Then I said that you had checked all her valuables—’
‘To make sure they were still there,’ hissed Costello.
‘It was only after I said it that—’
‘I’d be quiet if I were you, Wyngate.’ Anderson’s voice was calm. ‘Was there any money in the flat?’
‘How should I know? But it seems that somebody said to Joanna that I knew about it, and if it was missing, then I must have taken it. They say I knew about the money because I was doing the shopping, and now Mrs Allan has claimed that I wanted her out of the way in the ambulance, and Knobby says that I tried to pull rank to control the situation.’
‘But they have no proof.’
‘They don’t need any, do they? I knew there was something wrong when I set eyes on her. Cow.’
‘Well, go and speak to Vera.’
‘She’s unconscious.’
They all looked at each other.
‘She might not pull through. And Joanna – Joanna knows about Harry … She said that to Mathieson: “I know who her brother was.” And she’s going to the newspapers – probably to Clarissa Fettercairn and Mary Travers because she’ll really get a sympathetic ear there, won’t she, when she casts doubt on my professional integrity? I think it is officially going to Complaints.’
‘Mathieson wouldn’t touch that with a bargepole.’
‘She already has,’ said Wyngate.
‘Look, this Joanna woman has an agenda. Let’s get after her and find out who she is?’ suggested Mulholland.
‘Let’s not bother,’ said Anderson calmly.
‘What the fuck is this – Let’s Hate Costello Week?’
Mulholland opened his mouth, but Anderson cut in, ‘They aren’t suspending you, are they?’
‘No, not yet. Not until there’s some evidence Joanna can produce. Vera habitually takes two hundred pounds a week out of her Cashline account, all from the hole in the wall. She takes it out as soon as her late husband’s pension goes in, to keep her balance down so that she gets some kind of allowance. Mrs Allan knows about that, so Joanna presumes that I must know too.’
‘What are you have supposed to have done with the cash?’
‘Stuffed it up my arse, I guess.’
‘Why are upstairs taking it seriously at all?’
‘Because Knobby and Plod have gone on record as saying that I was very keen to get back into the flat.’
‘So you were, but we went in together.’
‘Yeah, that’s the other thing: they think that you are my accomplice.’
Wyngate winced.
‘No, look, be logical. You didn’t do it, so there can be no evidence that you did. She thought her mum had money and the money is no longer there – if it ever was there,’ reasoned Anderson.
‘So what we need is for Vera to wake up and say what she did with the money. If she never wakes up, then this will stick to me and my reputation like a black shadow.’ Costello waved her hand at the timeline on the wall. ‘That is what all this is about – it’s noise. One unsubstantiated rumour after another. There is always somebody who will believe it. You can never, ever close a door on that. This has been going on for forty years and we are still talking about it. So I am told to keep a low profile and have a cup of tea.’ She paused, then screamed, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’
‘What’s up now?’
‘Who ate all the Hobnobs?’
The assault when it came was brisk but not brutal. Anderson had been making his way to the small car park behind the annexe, down a narrow path, thinking about the headache he had from staring at a computer for six hours. He didn’t hear the footsteps rush behind him. The first thing he knew was a blow in the back that pushed his face into the wall. That was the first pain: the thin skin over his cheek against the hard porous brick. His first thought was that somebody had stumbled into him; he expected a call of ‘Oh God, I’m sorry’ or ‘Are you OK?’ Then maybe a flick of his jacket as a swift hand relieved him of his wallet. But the pressure on his back increased, squeezing the breath from him; it felt like a shoulder into his spine compressing him. He waited for the knife at his neck, but all he heard was somebody breathing hard – nervous even.
‘What do you want?’ asked Anderson, with the little air he had left in his lungs. He was speaking into the brick; he didn’t know if he was even making sense.
‘Stop it, just stop it.’
‘Stop what?’ hissed Anderson, genuinely confused.
‘You are ruining the name of a great man. You must stop it. Do you hear me? Stop it. I’ve fucking had enough of it.’ Anderson was pulled away from the wall and then rammed back into it. The pain in his cheekbone was intense. ‘Fucking enough.’ The voice sounded upset, almost tearful.
‘I’m a police officer,’ he said.
‘Yes, I know. And that makes it even worse. You should be better than that – better.’ There was another jolt, a slam into the brick again.
‘Is this about Dougie McSween?’ asked Anderson, guessing on the only male child left alive.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ The voice behind him started to break up, and the pressure released a little.
Anderson struggled to keep his voice calm. ‘I’m going to step back, OK? Whatever this is, we need to talk about it. We need to talk – otherwise, I cannot help you.’
The pressure on his back released further. Anderson took a few deep breaths before he stepped away from the wall, suspecting that this was not a violent perpetrator; this was somebody who had got themselves into a mess.
Anderson had had a long, hard day. They had been making progress, only to be sideswiped by Costello. He wanted to get home and see Moses. He was tired of thinking. He took one slow step back and then turned quickly, raised his right fist and rammed it deep into the face of his attacker. Once the knuckles connected with the cheekbone of his assailant, the latter went down like a sack of potatoes, squealing like a pig.
Anderson was trying to calm down, so he didn’t help the guy up, but just let him lie on the ground until he decided to stand up, dust himself down and introduce himself properly.
The man slowly pushed himself to his feet, his hands walking up the front of his thighs as he tried to straighten up. Anderson stood well back just in case, but his assailant started to sob.
It took ten minutes for him to stop crying. He went from deep sobbing to being breathless, his ribs heaving as he fought to get air into his over-stressed lungs. He looked exhausted as he slid back down to the pavement.
Anderson felt the need to do something, some activity. Use up the adrenaline, use up the adrenaline, he could hear his old counsellor say. He needed to exercise his old bones to keep the demons away. If he did his Tai Chi for half an hour every morning as he had been advised, he might be able to cope with situations like this a little better. The PTSD he had been suffering for a couple of years after the fire that nearly killed him, nearly killed them all, had faded with good treatment to an uncomfortable memory he could access when he wanted to. It didn’t pop up unwanted at the scent of a burning flame, the crackling of wood on fire, or a news clip of the bush fires in Australia. The panic had slowly backed off like a defeated dog; it simply disappeared into the distance. He had never thought he’d be one to suffer from mental health issues – he had always thought of himself as level-headed. The ability to recover and rationalize: bad things happened, and all you could do was minimize the risk. Anderson knew he had been lucky that the treatment had worked for him. He had so much to get better for, to go home for. He had his children, he had Moses, his career. He might even have a wife. He had a lot of stability and security. He had no idea where he might have ended up if he had been living back in that bedsit, staring at the four walls, with only his TV and fear for company.
He looked down at the man, now curled in a ball at his feet, wondering what had driven him to this.
‘You OK, mate?’ Anderson prodded him with the toe of his shoe. ‘Do you want a hand up?’
The sound of Anderson’s voice brought the other man to his senses. The heaving chest stilled, the gasping was curtailed and his sobbing quietened. He slowly got back up to his hands and knees, before wiping his nose with the sleeve of his jacket, and then, very unsteadily, tried to get to his feet, as if his lower back would snap if he moved too quickly. He swayed, his arm stretched out, wavering for balance.
Anderson offered him a steadying hand. The younger man, if he was younger, looked up at him, his face bloodied where Anderson’s fist had caught his cheek. Snot and tears poured down his face, the tracks of tears light against the grimy grey of his skin.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, wiping the back of his hand over his nose, making a smear of green and red.
‘Yes, you will be,’ said Anderson pleasantly. ‘Do you want me to arrest you now or should we go for a cup of tea somewhere and talk about it? My car’s round the corner.’
They sat in Anderson’s messy BMW which still smelled slightly of dead dog. They both had coffee, both had settled for a muffin.
‘Why are you raking up all these lies about my father?’ His eyes were full of pain, a tortured soul.
Anderson wondered about his mental health. ‘Your father?’
‘Douglas McSween.’
‘One of the Peacocks. I was talking to your sister on Thursday.’
‘My half-sister,’ he snapped. ‘She didn’t come to the funeral. And my father was not a paedophile. Why are you investigating him as if he was? The constant besmirching of his name. This has followed him around for years and none of it is true. It made his life unbearable. I saw the newspaper today. You folk never think, do you?’
‘To tell you the truth, we are not investigating the Peacocks for any activity involving young children. We’re trying to figure out who is spreading these rumours. We’re on the same side here.’
‘Uncle Frankie was a cop. You should know that he wasn’t into any of that stuff.’
‘Well, being a serving police officer does not automatically exclude you from wanting to break the law, but that’s not what we are looking into.’
‘Really? Doesn’t look like it from where I’m sitting.’
‘Who is doing it? Who has it in for those three guys? It follows them around, this gossip. Some malicious person just goes around spreading lies.’
‘You can’t slander or libel the dead, can you? They are really going to ramp it up now, aren’t they? I’ve been reading the papers, I know what they are saying.’
‘I’ve read that, but is it because your dad passed away so recently? Is that why this is so raw?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘OK, so let me ask you a few questions. Can you remember the day your wee brother disappeared?’
‘You see, there you go again. It always goes back to that …’
And with that, Anderson was left looking at an empty seat and hearing ringing in his ears from the door slamming.