28

The present day

‘So when did he make his confession?’ Rebecca asked.

They had moved to a table away from the bar so Sawyer could tell his story. Rebecca didn’t take any notes so she hoped she would remember the details. A packet of crisps and two cups of coffee had helped counteract the effects of the double whisky, so she was confident she would. She had promised she wouldn’t quote him directly without his permission—what was it Molly had said? Sawyer was deep background.

‘Burke left the room to check out the details of Drummond’s story with the local uniform . . .’

‘Jim Rankin.’

‘Yes. He’s dead now. Dropped of a heart attack in his garden. Poor bastard had only retired a month before. Bang, down he went.’

‘That’s a shame.’

Sawyer looked genuinely saddened. ‘Aye, just shows you that you never know when it’ll hit you. Mind you, he was a big man and his diet was none-too-healthy. I think the only exercise he ever took was pulling on his uniform. Or bending a glass to his lips.’

‘Did you know him well?’

‘Nah, only through the Drummond case. Never saw him again after the trial. But I heard about his death. His wife found him out there, already going cold. The poor guy should’ve had a new life ahead of him but it was gone, just like that. Things like that really make you think.’

She was beginning to see a slightly different side to Sawyer. He still struck her as an arrogant misogynist, and possibly a corrupt officer, but she’d seen him stare down the moron squad the night before and she could see his obvious sadness at the passing of a fellow cop, one he barely knew. She was reminded of her father again and his words popped into her head. Even the worst gangster can love his kids or his dog. Doesn’t make them any less the villain, it just makes them human.

‘So, Roddie Drummond just came right out with it as soon as you were alone?’

Sawyer smiled at the scepticism in her voice. ‘Let me tell you something, darling, people do the stupidest things but they can be really clever at the same time. Burke left the room, the recorder was switched off—he didn’t want me to continue the interview without him.’

‘Why not?’

‘In case I broke the bastard. He wanted the glory. He was a new DI, wanted to make a name for himself. He was worried I’d nick his thunder.’

‘But you continued the interview anyway, without the recorder on?’

His grin widened. ‘Bloody right I did. I knew it wouldn’t be admissible but I wanted that bastard Drummond to know I was on to him. I told him that I was impressed with his ability to tell just enough of the truth but that I knew he’d missed bits out.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like he’d actually murdered that girl. That he’d beaten her to death—turned out they found tiny bits of bark in her wounds—of course I didn’t know that then. He’d picked up a log and battered her to a pulp, then threw the log on the fire. All ashes by the time we got the forensic report back. So no murder weapon.’

‘And what did Roddie say?’

‘Nothing, at first. Just sat there, that kind of blank look he has. Like he’s plugged in but the power’s not on, you know? But he’s fired up, right enough. It’s all going on behind those eyes. Burke didn’t see it but I did. He’s a clever, clever sod, that Roddie Drummond. Massive IQ, did you know that? Could’ve gone to uni, learned to be a genius, but he stayed here on the island.’

‘Why?’

‘He wanted to be near Mhairi was my take on it. He was obsessed with her. Even when he was shagging the Marsh woman he was probably fantasising about her. Anyway, I hit him with my views—that he was a lying piece of scum and he killed that girl. I told him that he could fool Burke but he couldn’t fool me. I told him I’d get him, no matter what.’

‘And that made him suddenly confess?’

‘No. He let me talk, kept looking at me—the tears were all gone now, the trembling. All gone. Then he just smiled. That was when I knew for certain that he’d done it. Right then. When he smiled.’

‘Confession by smiling? That’s a new one. So when did he make the verbal admission?’

Sawyer was not put out by how unimpressed she was. He would have known she wouldn’t believe him but he kept talking anyway. ‘I was sick of looking at him by then so I packed up the paperwork and got ready to leave him there. I was at the door when he said it.’

Rebecca remembered the words from the coverage of Sawyer’s testimony: You’ll never make it stick.

‘Hardly a smoking gun, is it? What happened to “It’s a fair cop, guv’nor”?’

Sawyer leaned forward. ‘Look, darling, I don’t expect you to believe me. Christ, the jury didn’t. Bloody advocate depute wasn’t even going to lead as evidence. No corroboration. So I had to slip it in myself, on the stand.’

‘And help blow your case out of the water.’

‘Drummond had a clever lawyer and he made me look like a lying scumbag. Doesn’t mean I was lying.’

‘The jury didn’t accept it. You screwed up.’

Sawyer looked over her shoulder as he thought about his next words. For the first time she saw something other than self-confidence in his eyes. Now she saw doubt. ‘Don’t you think I know that? Not in telling the court what I heard—I know what I heard and the fact that a clever lawyer made sure none of them believed me doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. We didn’t have enough, I knew it even if the AD didn’t. It was all circumstantial, his defence didn’t need to try hard to argue reasonable doubt. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Well, that bastard was guilty but we just couldn’t prove it. Not Proven. That’s what they handed down, and in my more reasonable moments—yes, I have them—I know that’s the correct verdict. He was guilty but we didn’t prove it. The blood on his clothes, the contact traces on her body, even his wounds could all be explained away. He’d tried to help her, he’d held her, he’d perhaps been too rough with her throat when he tried to revive her, he already had wounds after his encounter with Carl Marsh. The only thing we had was a trace of muck and bark on his hand that was similar to samples on the woodpile but the defence argued that he could have picked that up when he was working that night, or when he set the fire. We had no motive, no eye witnesses, no other suspects, we had nothing.’

‘So you made up the so-called confession to strengthen the case.’

‘No. He said it. If I made it up do you not think I’d come up with something more damning? He said it.’

‘Or you were smart enough to make it just weak enough to make it more believable.’

He looked back at her. The doubt was gone and that old certainty was back. ‘Don’t be fooled by him, darling. Roddie Drummond killed that lassie, sure as we’re sitting here. And he sat in that room all those years ago and more or less challenged me to prove it.’