He paused at the boundary fence which enclosed the house’s newly laid lawn and gazed about him. To the east was dense forestry land. To the south, was the undulating scrub, a sea of gorse and heather, which led eventually into the hills themselves. The trees could easily provide cover for someone who wished to approach the cottage undetected. But Tony knew the helicopter had picked up no signs of life out there in the aftermath of the killing.
The perpetrator had, most likely, got to and from the property on foot whilst the van they’d used to reach the area had remained parked up a few kilometres away. Tony switched his attention back to the house. Someone must have seen the vehicle on the road that night, or the killer walking by the side of the narrow lane, making their way towards the McGill place.
Tony looked at the bank of windows which lined the rear of the cottage. The fashion these days was for properties to have more windows than brickwork. The idea was to let in the light and make the most of the views. Curtains and blinds weren’t in vogue either. Which meant the McGill’s house would have been lit up like a Christmas tree that night, visible from miles around. Like a beacon in the surrounding darkness.
Turning back towards his car, Tony noticed that the skip was still positioned in front of one of the garages, the name of its supplier emblazoned across the side. The DI wondered why it hadn’t been removed yet, like the Jaguar had. He resolved to ask Mike Ross about it. The builder had been very helpful so far with their enquiries. Sighing to himself, Tony crunched across the gravel and unlocked the car.
*
Mike Ross ran his building contractor business from a prefab on an industrial estate just outside Cleland. Colin Bell and Ravi Stevens approached the makeshift office. Bell rapped his knuckles on the window.
“Come in, the door’s unlocked!” Mike called from inside.
A wall of heat met the detectives as they entered. Ravi noticed an electric fan heater plugged in by the man’s feet, whirring gently to a hypnotic rhythm.
“What can I do for you, fellas? I’m catching up on paperwork this morning.” Mike glanced up from behind a pile of papers, his round, weather-beaten face looking strained. “It’s no’ my favourite job.”
“We just need a quick word, shouldn’t take long,” Bell answered amiably, perching himself on a plastic chair.
Ravi remained standing, thinking if he sat down in this soporific atmosphere, he might not get up again. “DI Shorter noticed that the skip you used for building waste is still outside the McGill property,” he explained. “It’s been searched and dusted for prints by forensics. We sent you a letter to inform you it was cleared for removal.”
Ross furrowed his brow. “Aye, one of my men called the rental company a few days ago. It’s up to them to come and retrieve the skip. They bring their own winching equipment. I’m surprised they haven’t done it by now. I’ll give them a call myself, put a rocket under them.” He scratched his bald patch irritably.
“If you give us the details, we’ll do it ourselves,” Bell added.
Mike seemed mightily relieved. “Cheers, lads. I’ve a lot on my plate, as you can see. My admin assistant is on her holidays.”
Bell got to his feet, preparing to leave.
Ravi swiftly added. “Any news on what’s going to happen to the McGill property?”
Mike placed his pen on the desk, almost as a sign of respect for the subject matter. “Richard McGill’s solicitors have been on the blower to me. We aren’t going to continue working on the property, but my company will be compensated by the estate for pulling out of the contract.” He breathed in deeply. “I can’t complain, they’ve been very generous. If I’m honest, I was prepared to write the whole thing off. It was hardly a breach of contract, given the guy was murdered for heaven’s sake!”
Ravi nodded, thinking that Ross was a decent man.
Bell was already pulling open the door. “Thanks for your time, Mike. If you email us those details, we can leave you in peace with your paperwork.”
Chapter 14
Present Day
Brewer’s Street was bustling with people on this particular Friday morning. Alice Mann noticed there was a small food market setting up on one of the side roads. The stallholders were unpacking containers of freshly baked bread and pastries, cooked meats and pies. Her stomach rumbled at the sight. She was hungry most of the time these days.
Andy turned to his colleague. “I’m going to have a word with the security guys at the car-park. Can you go and collect the CCTV recording from the coffee shop across the road? Stay and have a drink while you wait if you like. I’ll meet you back in there when I’m finished.”
Alice raised her eyebrows. “Would you have suggested that division of tasks if I wasn’t pregnant?”
Andy glanced down at her burgeoning stomach, stretching her fitted suit jacket and observed his partner’s hand clasped firmly to the base of her spine. “Take a look at yourself, Alice. You’re having a baby in a few months and your body is feeling the strain. This is no time to go all feminist on me.”
She smiled. Andy wasn’t a bad companion for her right now. His complete lack of political correctness meant she could afford to take it easier on her aching muscles. “Shall I get you a coffee whilst I’m there?”
“Of course,” he grinned widely, turning in the direction of the Brewer’s Street car-park.
Alice took a table by the window. She sipped her green tea and secured the lid on Andy’s flat white. The owner had supplied her with a memory stick which held the footage from their CCTV camera for two of the dates when cars were broken into. The window of the café faced the entrance to the car park on the opposite side of the road. At this time of day, the street was packed with passers-by. Alice knew it would be a tough task to identify a suspect amongst the throngs of folk going about their lawful business.
She observed Andy duck under the exit barrier of the car-park and jog across the road to the café. He pushed open the door and dropped down in the seat opposite.
He picked up the cardboard cup. “Cheers, I need this.”
“No problem,” Alice replied. “Did you get any further information from the security people?”
He shook his head. “They’ve had no more problems since the owners upped the manpower.” He sipped from his drink. “Once we’ve viewed the CCTV, I think we can satisfactorily close the case.”
“Without having found the culprits?” Alice failed to see how this solution was satisfactory.
“There have been pay-outs from the insurance companies on all the claims made by the victims. The car-park company has been forced to improve lighting and security. Everyone’s a winner.”
Except that the thieves were guaranteed to simply move onto another patch which they identified as vulnerable, Alice thought sadly. She finished her tea in silence. There was no point in dwelling on the prospect, she knew her colleagues had done everything they could.
Andy relaxed back in his chair. “There’s just one victim I need to speak to before I call time on the investigation. He had a briefcase stolen from the front seat of his BMW, along with a mobile phone and laptop. The insurance cheque didn’t seem to mollify him. He said there was stuff in the briefcase that he wanted returned – personal items. I’ll need to have another word with him, try to smooth things over.”
“What was his name?” Alice enquired idly.
Andy screwed up his face. “It was something unusual, foreign maybe. Mr Vogel, I think it was.”
“Mark Vogel?” Alice asked in surprise.
“Yeah, that’s right. Do you know him?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. But his name came up in one of the cold cases we studied on the professional development course. The McGill murder, in fact.”
“That’s a coincidence. It may not be the same guy, of course.”
Alice pushed her cup to one side. “If you really want to smooth things over, wouldn’t it be better if we dropped in to see him, had a chat face-to-face?”
Andy shrugged. “Sure. We could take a drive over there this afternoon.”
“Good,” she added with resolve. The case had suddenly become a lot more interesting.
*
The Vogels’ property was on a wide street in the Thorntonhall area of south Glasgow. Alice knew it was probably the most affluent suburb of the city these days.
The impressive stone house was divided into three floors; a bay window with painted wooden shutters on the ground was positioned beside the grand front door. It didn’t take long for Mark Vogel to answer their knock, he’d been expecting the visit.
Alice took in his appearance. Vogel was now in his late fifties, but lean and surprisingly youthful looking. What was once a head of thick, dark hair was now sprinkled with silvery-grey.
“Please, come inside,” he said brusquely.
Andy led the way to the smart sitting room which lay behind the bay window. Alice avoided the low sofa and sat on a high-backed, Regency chair.
Vogel remained standing. “Do you have any news on the briefcase?”
Andy cleared his throat. “As you know, there were no fingerprints left in your car. We have now viewed all the CCTV recordings covering the vicinity in which your car was parked, Mr Vogel. There were some images of possible suspects, but the individuals were wearing heavy clothing and their faces obscured from view.”
Vogel’s expression was rigid.
“I’m afraid the DCC has agreed to close the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence.”
The man reached out for the chair beside Alice and sat down heavily. “I suppose I was aware this was coming. Nobody gets their property returned in cases of petty theft these days.”
Alice bristled at the comment. “We carried out a thorough investigation, sir. But the car-park is private property, away from police patrols and council CCTV cameras. There is an element of risk involved in using these types of facilities.”
Vogel glanced across at her, taking in her pregnant condition for the first time. “I was helping my daughter to move into one of the new-build flats on Brewer’s Street. She has a job in one of the cafés on the street and wished to be closer to work. I didn’t want to hover on a double-yellow line, so chose the car-park instead. I needed my hands free to shift boxes, so I left my work stuff on the seat. I wasn’t expecting to be long.” He sighed irritably. “But there’s no point in a post-mortem.”
Alice made her tone softer. “If the items in the briefcase had no monetary value to the thief, they may have been dumped somewhere. You could try an appeal on social-media, perhaps offering a small reward for their return?” She glanced about her at the grand surroundings. She knew it was a risky thing to do, but these people certainly had the money. If the contents of that case really meant so much to Vogel, it seemed worth a try.
The man appeared to be considering this when a woman entered the room. She was of petite build and had neatly styled, reddish hair which Alice imagined was expensively dyed.
“Is everything alright, Mark?” She ventured. “Shall I make coffee for the police officers?”
Andy got to his feet. “There’s no need, Mrs Vogel. We’ll be on our way now, thank you.”
But Alice remained where she was. “Actually, Sergeant Calder, I would appreciate a glass of water. If that’s OK with Mrs Vogel?”
Anna Vogel nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. I’ll put some coffee on whilst I’m there. It looks as if Mark might need it.”
Andy cast his colleague a suspicious glance. They had a bottle of water in the car. He wondered why she was stalling.
Alice squirmed in her seat, exaggeratedly rubbing her hand across the taut bump under her cotton shirt.
Mark glanced across at her. “When are you due?”
“In a few months. But I didn’t expect to be this uncomfortable so early.”
He nodded. “We’ve got three. Our youngest are twins. Anna was practically housebound for the entire nine months. Nobody seems to warn you of that.”
Alice smiled ruefully. “Would we ever have babies again if we knew what was in store?”
Vogel chuckled. “Probably not.”
“Was it one of the twins who was moving into the flat on Brewer’s Street?” Alice enquired innocently.
“No, it was our eldest, Layla. The twins are only eleven.” He rubbed his forehead. “We adopted Layla when she was eight years old. She’s twenty-two now. For a long while, Anna and I thought we couldn’t conceive. But a last-ditch attempt at IVF resulted in Jack and Ophelia. Now we are blessed with three.”
Anna re-entered the room with a tray of drinks. She placed it on a side table and handed a glass of water to Alice.
The detective sipped it slowly, aware that Andy was eyeing her with scepticism. She turned to their hostess, knowing there wasn’t much time left to talk to the couple. “I recognised your name when Sergeant Calder showed me your crime report. Are you the same Vogels who gave evidence in the Richard McGill case?”
Alice sensed Mark’s body stiffen on the seat beside her. “Yes, that was us.”
Anna poured the coffees and perched herself beside Andy, who had sat back down on the sofa in resignation. “It seems like a lifetime ago now.”
Mark reached for a cup and saucer. “Thankfully, the press appears to have finally forgotten about the whole sorry incident.”
Alice shifted up. “Did you know that Holly Kilpatrick is still campaigning to keep the case in the public eye? Our DCI went to interview her, just this week.”
The couple exchanged glances. It was Anna who spoke. “Yes, we did know that Holly kept an interest in the investigation. But I’m afraid we didn’t remain in contact after Richard’s death. The incident was just too traumatic for us to move past it as friends.”
Mark clattered his cup in its saucer. “If truth be told, Holly held a grudge against me for letting Richard go to the door alone that night.”
“It was pure nonsense,” Anna added vehemently. “Richard McGill was a powerful, dominating personality. He wasn’t someone who required his hand holding when he went to his own front door.”
Alice could see the truth in that statement. “Shock does very odd things to people.”
Anna nodded. “That much is true. It was an awful thing to witness, just terrible.” She tutted. “I often think that if we hadn’t had Layla to focus on afterwards, and then the twins, we might have been worse affected by it all.”
“Richard had been a friend of ours for some years, but we had known him mostly when he was married to Eleanor. Holly was very new on the scene to us in 2003, despite how long he’d been seeing her behind his wife’s back.”
Alice noted the hint of disapproval in his words.
“In fact, we are still friends with Eleanor now. She married a nice chap a few years after the murder. He was a widower who she met on holiday. They’re still together and seem happy.”
“What about the children, Tania and Boris?” Alice did a quick calculation in her head, working out they would be in their mid to late twenties now.
Anna wrapped her palms around her cup. “Well, they inherited all of Richard’s money. Which was never going to do them any good in the long run. Tania has done fairly well for herself, I suppose. She owns a bar and restaurant out on one of the Balearic Islands. But Boris went off the rails for a while. Drugs and alcohol mostly. He wrote off a few expensive cars too. Eleanor was at her wits end.”
“What’s happened to him now?”
“Boris bought a big pile up in the Highlands. I don’t think he works in any meaningful way, just lives off the trust-fund. But I don’t think he does the drugs any longer. He’s gone a bit ‘new-age’, in fact.”
“I believe they call it ‘hipster’, these days, darling,” Mark interjected. “Layla’s boyfriend is the same. It’s all chai lattés and matcha tea.”
Andy had finally lost patience. “We appreciate the refreshments Mr and Mrs Vogel, but it’s really about time we got back to the station.”
> “Absolutely,” Alice replied cheerfully. “Could you just give me a hand getting up, Sergeant Calder?”
Chapter 15
2003
Rain pelted the windscreen as Ravi Stevens navigated his car across Rannoch Moor. The clouds were so thick the sky was steel grey above him. He glanced at the directions he’d noted on a scrap of paper and balanced on the dashboard.
The address Mike Ross had given them was in a village called Doune, which was nestled on the edge of the moor. Ravi had to admit he’d never heard of the place before. Colin Bell thought he was heading on a wild goose chase. But the DC had ignored his belly-aching and headed out alone.
He’d attempted to call the number for the skip hire company several times. On each occasion, the line rang interminably, with no answer. In the end, Ravi had checked with BT that the number was still connected, which it was, but according to their records, hadn’t been used for over two weeks.
Finally, the signpost for Doune came into view through the gloom. Ravi turned down a bumpy track and followed it until a settlement of half a dozen houses appeared in the distance. He parked outside the village shop and ran inside, drenched from only a couple of seconds under the downpour.
A rotund man in his fifties sat behind the counter, a newspaper open in front of him and a mug resting on its pages.
“Good afternoon,” Ravi began, showing the man his warrant card. “I wondered if you could give me some directions?”
“Aye, where are you headin’ to?”
Ravi unfurled the scrap of paper. “I’m looking for McCulloch’s Barns? The address shows it’s in Doune somewhere. I’m hoping to find the skip hire company that operates from out of there.”
The man nodded knowingly. “Old Sandy McCulloch rents out space at his farm. There have been several businesses come and go from there in the past couple of years.”
Ravi’s expression became hopeful. “It’s nearby then?”
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