Deadlock

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘I’m on my way.’ She turned to Cotter. ‘You, stay here and spend some useful time on the force website, finding out about the people you work for.’

  Sixty-Four

  ‘Have we been able to recover the recordings from the bodycam?’ Sauce Haddock asked.

  ‘Yes, that was easy,’ DS Jackie Wright told him. ‘It has an SD storage card in it as well as the transmitter. It’s all there, exactly as the boy describes, including his exchanges with the three victims. That’s why I’m here. I’ve transferred them on to my tablet, because there are a couple of things I want you to see.’ She put the device on the table, supported by its folding case and angled so they could both see the display. ‘It’s really sad,’ she said, ‘seeing them there and knowing that they’re all dead now.’ She touched a green symbol, and the recording began to play. ‘I haven’t edited them, but I could fast forward if you like, to get to the significant bits.’

  ‘No,’ the DCI replied, ‘let it run at normal speed.’

  As they watched, the image moved towards a door. A buzzer was rung and more than a minute later, the door was opened, and an elderly man appeared in shot. ‘Hello,’ a young voice began, ‘my friends and I have formed a group. We’re visiting older people in the village to see if there’s anything we can do to help you. Is there anything you need doing? Cleaning? Making you a sandwich, anything like that?’

  ‘How very kind of you,’ Michael Stevens exclaimed. ‘As it happens, there are things I need, but I can’t go out and about. They say I’m locked up again. Or is it locked down? I can’t tell the difference really.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Haddock murmured, as the scenes played on. ‘It’s a bit eerie, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but it bears out Rory’s story.’

  They watched as the boy noted the old man’s requests. As he left the apartment, the screen went black, but sprang back into life a second later, as Rory returned with a loaf, a newspaper and a four-pack of toilet tissue, distributing them around the house as he had described on Singh’s voice recording. ‘Look,’ Wright said, pointing as the camera showed the en-suite bathroom. She froze the image. ‘The cabinet’s open and you can see his medication quite clearly. The blue and white boxes, they’re the blood thinners. I verified that with the Gullane pharmacy. They’re called Pradaxa; it’s a trade name for Dabigatran, the medication mentioned in the post-mortem report.’

  ‘And the mysterious Mr Campbell will have seen that?’

  ‘For sure . . . and will have been able to find out what they’re for, quite easily, from the internet.’

  The images on screen continued to play and the narrative moved on, resuming as Rory knocked on a second door. Another man appeared, much younger than Mr Stevens. ‘That’s the upstairs neighbour,’ Wright explained. ‘Tiggy confirmed it; she’s met him. And now,’ she said as the scene ended and moved on to the next, ‘this takes us to the next interesting point.’

  It began with the bird-like Mrs Alexander opening her door and Rory making his pitch. ‘You’ve timed it well, son,’ she chirped. ‘I need to get a big box of tea bags off ma top shelf, but ma steps are awful shaky.’

  ‘No problem,’ they heard the boy reply, ‘where are they?’

  They saw the old lady lead him inside and show him the small folding ladder. They saw him climb on to the second rung and fetch a large box of Scottish Blend from the high second shelf. They saw him fold and replace the steps in the corner where they stood.

  ‘You’re right about those being shaky,’ they heard him say.

  ‘I ken, son. I don’t use them myself now. It’s only the tea that I need from up there, and a big box’ll last me four or five month. The rest’s stuff I never use anymore.’

  ‘So what was she doing falling off them?’ Haddock asked, as Wright froze the image.

  ‘Exactly.’ The DS pointed to the screen. ‘Now look at that.’

  He leaned forward peering at the image, at an object that lay on the work surface. ‘It’s a pack of wooden shelving, isn’t it?’

  ‘Exactly, from B&Q according to the label. Noele says that there’s a handyman in Gullane that a lot of people use. His name’s Sam. I called him and he told me that he’d arranged to go in and put them up for her, within her reach, once he’s allowed by the lockdown rules.’

  Sauce Haddock’s eyes narrowed; he smiled. ‘Talk us through it, Jackie.’

  ‘When Mrs Alexander was found by Sir Robert Skinner, the immediate conclusion was that she’d fallen off her shaky steps and hit her head on the corner of the kitchen table, with fatal consequences. That’s never been questioned, yet here we are with the lady . . . the victim . . . saying that she never used them, and with an object in the room that would have done the same sort of damage.’

  ‘The gaffer would never have overlooked that; he was a detective for thirty years. It’s in his blood still. He’d have clocked everything in that room and registered every possibility. Can we . . . ?’

  ‘I have done, Sauce. I’m ahead of you. When the Gartcosh forensic team went in, they photographed and videoed the entire scene. I’ve checked them and on their footage the shelves are nowhere to be seen.’

  ‘She could have put them in a cupboard, out of sight,’ the DCI suggested. ‘They wouldn’t have been going up any time soon. Arrange to get the keys from whoever has them, get yourself out to Gullane and search that flat. Take Tiggy with you to help you look and to verify anything you find.’

  ‘Will do, boss, but do you want to see the rest of the camera footage?’

  ‘What does it show?’

  ‘Mrs Eaglesham’s laundry room, complete with old-style wiring, and ancient washing machine. There’s also a shot of her collecting eggs and leaving the door open to let the hens have a run about. It’s all there, Sauce, all the way through; a potential plan for three murders and a ready-made suspect, Alan Campbell.’

  ‘Two suspects,’ Haddock corrected her. ‘We’ve seen nothing that rules out Rory Graham as a person of interest, regardless of his youth. Equally, we’ve got nothing to say categorically that the three deaths weren’t exactly what we took them for at first sight, tragic accidents. Go on, get out to Gullane and look for those shelves.’

  His mobile sounded. He checked the screen and frowned. ‘DCI Mann,’ he grunted. ‘I wonder what she wants.’

  He took the call as Wright exited. ‘Hi Lottie, what’s up in Glasgow?’

  ‘First,’ she said, ‘congrats on the promotion, sorry about the circumstances. Your old boss was one of the best.’

  ‘Thanks, appreciated on both counts. What’s second?’

  ‘An anomaly,’ Mann replied. ‘My team are involved in a very low-profile investigation, so low that I can’t share too many details. As part of the process one of my DCs has been trying to identify all the genetic traces that we found at the scene. As he’s worked, he’s thrown his parameters wider and wider, until . . . one of them’s found a match. The problem is that its twin is also unidentified, having been found at two locations in an open investigation that Gartcosh tells us is being run by your team. I asked Dorward for details, and he told me to talk to you. For once, he wasn’t being an obstructive smartarse. He said it was a complex investigation and that you were best placed to discuss it. How much can you share?’

  ‘Everything,’ he replied, immediately, ‘because I’m not sure I have anything at all. Mine’s low profile too, but only because we don’t know what we’re looking at. The person you’re talking about is a mature Scottish adult male with Irish ancestry, yes?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘I have him, at some point, on separate premises where two old people suffered ostensibly accidental deaths.’

  ‘Can you tell me where?’

  ‘Gullane, in East Lothian.’

  ‘That’s Skinner territory, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not just that, h
e found one of them. And a third,’ he added. ‘He’s part of a group that have been offering help to the vulnerable. We’re also looking at that third accident location, but the mystery DNA is definitely not there. Where it can be placed, each of the victims was vulnerable and had carers and helpers coming in, as well as the gaffer’s lot. It’s been impossible to identify all of those people, but one assumption, maybe the best, is that’s why mystery man was there. How about yours? What can you share, if anything?’

  ‘Very little. I’d need McIlhenney’s authority to tell you the whole story, and I doubt that he’d give it. But I am certainly dealing with a homicide, and I have a prime suspect. Or I had, until a man who’s been at the scene of two fatalities in East Lothian suddenly showed up in a bloodstained flat in the middle of fucking Glasgow.’

  Sixty-Five

  Bob Skinner frowned at his mobile’s screen as his ringtone sounded. ‘Number withheld’ was the message and he did not like those. Nevertheless, in the world of international business of which he found himself a citizen, he felt that the luxury of rejection was no longer open to him. With an ill grace he touched the green symbol and put the phone to his ear.

  ‘Bob?’ Even in a single, whispered word, the caller sounded stressed and anxious.

  ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘It’s Clyde, Clyde Houseman.’

  Skinner felt his eyes widen, as he suppressed a gasp, turning his back on his companions and putting distance between them. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m in Glasgow, outside my flat,’ Houseman said. ‘I’ve been away for a few days. I needed to take myself off the grid for a while, to deal with a personal thing. I just got back, and there’s a car outside. I spotted it as soon as I turned the corner. I made the passenger as one of Lowell Payne’s counter-terrorism people and the driver as one of ours. Has Amanda pushed the panic button? If she has . . . man, she told me that if I ever needed space it would be okay just to take it. Is that it? Am I in the shit, or has something big gone down?’

  ‘Why are you calling me, son?’ he asked.

  ‘Because you’d know. If she had a crisis in Scotland, you’d be the first person she’d contact.’

  ‘As it happens, I was,’ he said. ‘Clyde, when you went off on your break, did you leave anyone in your flat?’

  ‘Yes, Calder, my half-brother. My mum was a Glaswegian,’ he explained. ‘She called her sons after the rivers that run through the city. He turned up out of the blue, the day before I went off; I said he could stay there as long as he liked, and we’d catch up when I got back.’

  Skinner frowned. ‘Then I’m sorry to tell you that your brother’s dead.’

  He heard a guttural sound, possibly a choked-off sob, followed by a hoarse question. ‘How?’

  ‘He was murdered, Clyde. It hasn’t hit the media because the assumption was that he was you. That and other reasons, like politics.’

  ‘Do they know who did it?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard. They have a suspect, but it wasn’t him.’

  ‘Who?’ Houseman growled.

  ‘I’m not fucking telling you. I don’t know who did it, but I know who didn’t, and I don’t want you making any fatal errors. You want some advice? Get in touch with your Director General, then with Chief Constable McIlhenney.’

  ‘Fuck that, Bob. Before I do any of that, I’m going to find the man who killed my brother. I might even know where to start looking.’

  ‘Clyde!’ Skinner shouted, forgetful of his companions, but the line was dead.

  Sixty-Six

  ‘This isn’t exactly conventional, Mr McGuire,’ Johanna DaCosta observed. ‘If Sir Andrew is still a person of interest, I’d expect him to be interviewed in a police office as before, yet here we all are in his home with Detective Sergeant Cotter looking after the children, even. Is this an interview, or are you and DCI Mann here to apologise?’

  ‘Neither,’ the DCC replied. ‘It’s an update, that’s all. Yes, we could have hauled you back to Govan, but this is more discreet. If I’d shown up there it would have signalled to everybody outside the loop that something serious was going on.’

  ‘Why are you here, Mario?’ Martin asked. ‘I understood you and your pal keeping your distance before. What’s happened to change that?’

  ‘A couple of things. First, the man you were suspected of killing has turned up alive. The chief had a call from Bob Skinner, advising that Houseman had phoned him, from outside the crime scene. He spotted the surveillance car that was posted there and wanted to know what was up. When Bob told him what had happened, he went apeshit. The body and the recovered head are those of a serving Royal Marine, Calder Bryant. He’s Houseman’s half-brother. It appears that he was raised by his father in Yorkshire but followed Clyde into the Marines. Clyde hung up on Bob and nobody’s heard from him since. He thinks he knows who the killer is and he’s gone after him. If he thinks it’s you, Andy, that’s a big problem.’

  ‘For him if he comes anywhere near my kids,’ Martin murmured, green eyes icy.

  ‘He won’t get near them or you,’ McGuire promised. ‘As soon as we became aware of this, I posted armed officers in every approach to this cul-de-sac. You’re as safe as we can make you.’

  ‘You said “a couple of things”, Mr McGuire,’ DaCosta reminded him. ‘What’s the other?’

  ‘I’ll let DCI Mann deal with that,’ he replied. ‘I’m here to advise you of the Houseman situation. It’s still her investigation, and Andy, you are still a person of interest. Mistaking Bryant for Houseman, that would be quite easy to do given that you only met him twice, one of those times being twenty years ago, and that they each had Marines tattoos on their arms. Add to that, the fact that Karen is still missing. The chief is considering sending a report to the Crown Office and leaving a decision about charging to them. He may still be forced to do that but, Lottie, carry on please.’

  Lawyer and client looked at Mann. ‘We’ve established an anomalous presence at the crime scene. We don’t know when it was left there, and we don’t know whose it is, but the same DNA has shown up in an investigation that my opposite number in Edinburgh’s carrying out in Gullane, in East Lothian.’

  ‘Where?’ Martin asked.

  ‘Gullane,’ she repeated. ‘I know, Sir Robert Skinner lives there, but his DNA’s on record and this isn’t it.’

  ‘What does it tell you about its owner?’

  ‘It belongs to a mature adult male, predominantly Scottish, with Irish influences. Does that mean anything to you, Sir Andrew?’

  He frowned, eyes narrowing. ‘It m—’

  He was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, then being closed again, firmly. ‘Andy,’ a female voice called out, ‘what are those bloody cars doing in your driveway? I could hardly get parked, and it’s pissing down outside.’

  Karen Neville walked into the living room, to find four people staring at her, one of them with undisguised relief and a love whose existence he had forgotten until that moment.

  Sixty-Seven

  Noele McClair hung her coat and scarf on their hook on the wall of the DI’s room. Its last occupant had been Sauce Haddock, until he had commandeered the unit’s virtually unused conference room as the DCI’s office. The cubicle had been redecorated in a general refurbishment, but it had not been enlarged. She found it constricting and spent most of her working day at a workstation in the open-plan space outside, but before heading there she took out her phone and rang Matthew Reid. She frowned as her call went straight to voicemail. ‘That’s the most walked dog in Gullane,’ she muttered as the announcement played again in her ear. ‘Matthew,’ she said, after a beep told her when to begin, ‘this is just to confirm tonight. I expect to be home by six; I’ll be an hour or so in the kitchen so any time after seven will be fine. Unless,’ she added, ‘you’ve chucked me already. Either w
ay, let me know, there’s a love.’ She bit her lip as she ended the message, hoping that she had not sounded unsure of her ground with him, and wondering about that last word. That’s the trouble with voicemail, she thought. Once it’s out there, you can’t call it back.

  She had reached her desk when she saw Haddock, beckoning to her from his room. Dropping her handbag on to her chair, she went to join him. ‘What’s up, Sauce?’ she asked.

  ‘The balloon, possibly,’ he replied. ‘I had a call from Lottie Mann through in Glasgow. She has a murder scene that’s so sensitive she couldn’t tell me about it, a victim that she couldn’t discuss, and a seemingly nailed-on suspect that she isn’t allowed to name, even to me. She also has various DNA samples harvested from the scene that are still unidentified. Believe it or not, one of them connects to our non-investigation out in Gullane.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ McClair exclaimed. ‘How?’

  ‘God knows, but it’s true. Remember the unidentified genetic material that was found in the Stevens and Alexander properties? It matches Lottie’s trace, and Arthur Dorward is adamant that there is no possibility of a cock-up in his lab.’

  ‘And identifying the owner’s been dumped on us? Is that what you’re saying?

  Haddock nodded. ‘Effectively yes, Lottie says she’s at a dead end. To be honest, Noele, I don’t even know where to begin. I have this feeling that both here and through there, we’re looking at the perfect crime.’

  Out of nowhere, a shiver ran through her.

  Sixty-Eight

  ‘Look, Karen,’ Lottie Mann said, ‘I appreciate this is a discussion you might prefer to have with Sir Andrew. Alongside that, as a divorcee myself, I could see your point if you say it has nothing to do with him and you’d rather he wasn’t here. It’s a discussion that has to take place; you’ll realise that as a cop, but we can do it on your terms.’