Castle Killings: A DCI Keane Scottish Crime Thriller (Deadly Highlands Book 4)

by Oliver Davies

  “Okay,” I told him. “We’ve got a folded sheet of paper with a phone sitting on top of it. We’ll be back with it in under half an hour, Shay.”

  “Alright. See you in a bit then.” He hung up.

  I placed the envelope in an evidence bag and packed up Anthony’s belongings again before locking up.

  A visibly relieved Mike jogged up to the house to return the key and make sure the owners were informed that we didn’t want anyone to go into that cabin until we gave them the go-ahead. Once I’d put Shay’s and Anthony’s cases in the car, I didn’t have long to wait before he came jogging back.

  “All good,” he told me as we climbed in. “They’ll call in on Wednesday if they don’t hear from us before then to see if we still need them to keep the cabin locked down.” I doubted we’d need to send a SOCO team to go over it but, for now, I wanted to keep that option open. Collins was thoughtfully quiet for the first few minutes of our drive back, but I could see him flicking curious glances at me out of the corner of my eye.

  “Got a question you want to ask, Mike?”

  “Err, yeah, I suppose I do. Have you ever handled potential IEDs before, boss?”

  “Me? No. Not really the sort of thing you come across very often in this part of the world, and we’re not the people that get called in when anything suspicious is found by members of the public.”

  “Oh.” He thought about that for a bit. “It didn’t seem to faze you at all… or Mr Keane.”

  I shrugged. “Neither of us thought it was very likely that there was any kind of explosive in there. You just have to remember that we’re supposed to keep that possibility in mind whenever we come across something like that. And you were right, normally that would mean calling the emergency coordinator to send the bomb squad out, but their detection equipment isn’t any better than what we had with us. I’d definitely have called it in if that envelope had contained any explosives. Only a total idiot would mess with something like that if they weren’t fully trained to handle it. That’s a job for the specialists.”

  “Yeah… rather them than me. I don’t think I’d like that kind of work at all.” I flashed him a grin.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It must be pretty satisfying when you disarm or remotely detonate a device successfully. Plus, it’s a lot less risky these days than most people might think, in most cases. Firemen put themselves on the line much more regularly.”

  “And there’s another job I wouldn’t want,” he said decisively.

  Shay’s fingerprint check didn’t take up much time. All the prints on the envelope, the paper, and the phone came from the same person and matched the ones he’d found all over the driver’s side of the car. We fed the paper through the scanner before putting the original back in the evidence bag. Opened up, the message written on it was brief. ‘Recordings on phone. You have my consent to look at everything on there.’ He’d even dated and signed it for us and added the pin code to unlock it.

  “Well, that certainly makes things a lot easier for us,” Shay said. “I’ll start checking through the phone if you want to go and see how Caitlin and Philips got on with Mr Michaelson.”

  They didn’t have much to tell me.

  “We showed him our photo of Anthony Tait, and he frowned at it for a bit before pulling one of those obviously fake ‘Oh yeah, I remember him’ faces,” Caitlin told me. “He said Tait told him he was planning to move up here and wanted a rental to move into until his own house sold and he found something he really liked.”

  “He claimed to have shown him a property in Staxigoe on the ninth,” Philips added. “I don’t think he realised we didn’t believe a word of it.”

  “And how did he explain what his fingerprints were doing in Anthony’s car?”

  “He said the client insisted on driving him up there so they could talk en route. Sadly, the house wasn’t quite what Anthony had had in mind, and nor were any of Mr Michaelson’s other available properties. He’d kept his phone number, though, to let him know when anything new became available, and he offered us that before we could ask for it.”

  “What was your impression of him?” I asked Caitlin.

  “Subjectively? He was pleasant enough, but he gave off that vibe some people have like there was a whole lot of nasty hiding under the surface. Not the sort I’d want to cross. I didn’t like him.”

  “Age?”

  “I’d say mid to late forties. Hasn’t Shay checked him out yet?”

  “Possibly. We haven’t discussed it since I got back. We’ve been busy with the package Anthony left for us to find. Collins told you about that?”

  “He did,” Philips confirmed. “He said there was a phone in it?” From the way he said that, I figured Mike had discreetly decided to leave out the part about our little bomb detection delay at the cabin. Had they all picked up on Shay’s extra level of cautious discomfort around Philips then? That my DCs had all developed some sort of proprietary, protective attachment to my cousin lately wasn’t a bad thing. They knew he didn’t like people snooping into his business.

  “There was, along with a signed, dated note giving Tait’s consent for us to look at everything on it. Shay’s getting started on that now. Any updates from missing persons on Nicholas Albert yet?”

  “No. There were no new emails or messages when we got back,” Caitlin told me. “I checked.”

  I glanced at the clock. It was almost half-past six by then, but nobody was asking what time they could quit for the day or looking like they wanted to. Mills, when I crossed to his desk, was busy working on a job that Shay must have given him after they got back here.

  “This is a list of all the properties currently listed by the letting agency Andrew Michaelson manages,” he explained. “Mr Keane asked me to check who all the owners are.” I couldn’t help but notice that Charlie Soames’ name had been filled in against quite a few of the ones he’d already completed.

  “Who owns the agency?” I asked.

  “Mr Soames owns that too. Not just the building, the business. Michaelson works for him.”

  Collins, when I looked across, was on the lettings site too, clicking through pictures of the properties on offer. He had a printout of one of the photos from the memory card we’d found at Visser’s flat in front of him. Looking for a possible match for the house that Melissa Soames had been photographed entering? Darren must have seen where I was looking.

  “That was next on my to-do list,” he told me. “I handed it over to Mike to deal with when you got back.”

  I hadn’t forgotten about where those three calls to Anthony’s number last Thursday had come from, but we only knew about those because Shay had stolen the metadata from Nick’s phone’s service provider. Whether Charlie or someone else had made the last of those calls, whoever had done so had been at the Soames’ house at the time. Hopefully, the contents of Anthony’s phone would provide us with sufficient information to justify submitting an urgent notice to the service providers requesting all the data we wanted. Melissa’s little affair with Visser gave us a perfectly good reason to speak to her, but I wanted more than that to go on before I approached her husband. Shay linking Michaelson with Charlie Soames certainly helped, but it wasn’t enough. I was really hoping that whatever Anthony Tait had left on that phone for us would be a lot more substantial than what we already had.

  Twenty-Six

  Tuesday morning dawned grey, wet and miserable, but it would have taken a lot more than a bit of bad weather to dampen my spirits. That we’d possibly struck gold with Anthony’s phone had been apparent to the team when we’d left the office at seven the night before, but I hadn’t been ready to present the new information last night. Better to give Shay time to check a few things first. Instead, I’d scheduled an eight-thirty team briefing at the house for this morning.

  We went through a few minutes early to find all four of them waiting in the living room, breakfasted and dressed for work, freshly filled mugs in hand. Shay went to hook his laptop up
to the television before taking it to an armchair off to the side, and I gave the others a minute to settle themselves where they could all see clearly.

  It was odd, seeing them all sitting so stiffly on the edge of the long couch like that. We didn’t usually hold briefings in such a casual setting, and they were probably wondering why we weren’t doing this at the station. I pulled a dining chair to the side opposite Shay and sat down, dropping the folder I’d brought with me onto the nearby wall unit.

  “Okay, everyone, as you all probably guessed, Anthony Tait left us quite a gift package before driving to his meeting at Nybster Broch last Thursday night,” I told them. “I think it’s probably simplest to start off this morning by letting him speak for himself.” I nodded to Shay.

  “Ready when you are,” he said affably, mouth twitching. “Maybe you could just turn the TV on and set it to the AV channel first? The remote’s on the coffee table.”

  Caitlin reached out to pass it across to me with a grin. Even Philips was looking a lot less rigid as he hid a smile behind his mug. I pressed the remote.

  A morning show blared out of the set at us as the TV came to life, and I hastily adjusted the volume before switching channels. Shay hit play as soon as the blue AV screen showed up, and the head and upper body of Anthony Tait appeared, staring directly out at us. Collins would have recognised the room he was sitting in from our visit to the glamping site, but none of the others had seen it.

  “Hello, detectives,” he said calmly. “My name is Anthony Edward Tait, and if you’re watching this recording, I guess I didn’t come back and destroy it. Not my preferred version of events but you never know, right? It’s Thursday the eleventh of April, and it’s just after nine p.m. Well, you can see that from the time and date stamp, so I probably didn’t need to tell you that.” He scratched his nose absently before lowering his hand again. The girls had been right about that gap-toothed smile. It added a deceptively endearing, slightly goofy look to Anthony’s otherwise unremarkable face.

  “I’m supposed to check out of here next Wednesday morning, so no doubt this will be in your hands soon after that if I don’t. I’ve just been told that your forensics mob have now concluded that Kaj Visser was murdered, rather than falling off a cliff in a drunken stumble and that some hot shot team are being sent up from Inverness tomorrow to take over the case. That’d be you, I suppose.” Another nose scratch. “I can’t say I was pleased to hear it.” He leaned forward a little. “I expect you’re already looking for Nicholas Albert by now if you’re any good at your jobs, so I might as well tell you that I dropped him off in Thurso a couple of hours ago. He was planning to hop the next train south. I’ve told him to find somewhere to lie low until he hears from me... or from you. He’s a nice kid, a bit gullible, but you can’t charge him for that.”

  I signalled Shay, and he hit the pause button.

  “So,” I said, “we’ve got some good news and some bad news there. If Anthony was telling the truth when he made this recording, then Nick is probably fine.” I think they’d all been relieved to hear that part. “As to the bad news, we know that Chief Superintendent Anderson only told Munro that I’d agreed to take the case late last Thursday morning. That means the news that we were coming reached the wrong ears within hours.” I didn’t need to elaborate any further. The odds of anyone involved in Visser’s murder overhearing a couple of carelessly conversing officers anywhere outside the station during that time were extremely slim.

  “How many people knew we were coming?” Philips asked.

  “Everyone Munro told and everyone they then spread it to,” Shay said, shrugging. “Apart from informing his CID team that they were off the case, Munro also had to assign someone to organise a crew to prepare our offices for us.”

  “And we’ll be looking into that too,” I put in. “But whoever the leak is, they’re not our number one priority right now. Not unless we discover that they actively conspired or participated in Visser’s murder.” I signalled Shay again, and everyone’s attention returned to the TV as the video started up again.

  “Now, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I’ve never snitched on a client,” Anthony said with a little scowl. “In my line of work, that’s a big no-no, but trust issues go both ways. I’ve made quite a few of these recordings over the past few years. Call them a penalty clause in case of any breach of contract, if you like. I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to wipe every single one of them so far. You’re not going to hear a peep from me about any of my earlier jobs or about how my clients’ agents are put in touch with me. I play fair with people who keep their end of a bargain.”

  His nose must really have been bothering him because it needed another scratch at that point. “So, here’s the situation. Kaj Visser was a cocky young stud who’d been sleeping his way around Wick for months. Anyway, apparently, he made the mistake of successfully making a play for some rich guy’s wife, and the husband, understandably, felt that a lesson needed to be taught. That’s the story I got from the client’s go-between. I was told they wanted him incapacitated and delivered to them for a little old-fashioned schooling. I gathered the intention was to give him enough of a beating and a scare to get the message across in a way Visser wasn’t likely to forget. Looks like they weren’t entirely honest about that part. Either that or they got a bit carried away. Not that it matters to me. I’m just paid to deliver the goods. What happens after that is none of my business. It’s the fact that they’ve made such a mess of it that concerns me. Makes people dangerously inclined to start thinking about worrying loose ends when they hear there’s a murder investigation underway. Not that I’m particularly worried. Once I’ve pointed out a few facts to them, I’m confident they’ll calm down.”

  Anthony paused there for a drink of water.

  “Now,” he said, putting his glass down again, “I’m not going to name names for you, but I have left you a little something to help you out. You see, confident or not, I’m a cautious man, and I record my calls. The audio files for this job are all now stored on this phone. If you can’t find your culprits from those, then you’re in the wrong job, mates. So, there you have it. I’m planning to go and collect the rest of my payment tonight once I’m told where and when. Then I’m going to come back here and wipe all of this, just like I’ve always done. If I don’t, well, I reckon they’ve got whatever’s coming to them.” We saw him reach out and pick the phone up, and then the screen went black.

  I opened up my folder, pulled out the transcripts of the phone calls Anthony Tait had recorded, and handed them out. I’d printed out some copies of those as soon as Shay had sent them to me, just before leaving the office last night.

  “The calls Anthony left for us to listen to have been split into two groups. The time and date of each call are noted on your sheets,” I said as I passed them out. “The first set has all the communications between Anthony Tait and Nicholas Albert. Can you play those for us now, please, Shay?”

  12:39 Thursday 28/03 Call from Anthony to Nick

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Nick? It’s Anthony Tait. We met at Top Joe’s last Sunday, watching the San Marino game. You gave me this number.”

  “Yeah, mate, hi. Christ, that was a rubbish match.”

  “Hey, at least Scotland won, even if McLeish doesn’t seem to know his arse from his elbow these days. Anyway, I’m heading down to Wick tomorrow, and I remembered you said you went down there yourself pretty often. I was wondering if maybe we could grab a pint or something.”

  “Aw man, I’m skipping this weekend. Got to work, sorry. You still be around next week? I meant what I said about hanging out one night while you’re up here.”

  “Sure. I’ve still got loads to do. I reckon another two weeks at this rate.”

  “Cool. Buzz me next week then, and we’ll sort something out.”

  “I’ll do that, cheers mate.”

  19:28 Wed 03/04 Voicemail from Anthony to Nick

  ‘Hi Nick, i
t’s Anthony again. Still coming down to Wick this weekend? Buzz me on Friday if we’re on.’

  “I’ve added in Nick’s text reply after that,” Shay told them.

  19:44 Wed 03/04 SMS from Nick to Anthony

  ‘Planning to. I’m meeting up with friends on Friday night so just call me when you’re ready to roll.’

  He started up the audio files again.

  20:38 Fri 06/04 Call from Anthony to Nick

  “Hey, it’s me. I’m just heading back into Wick. Meet at Harpers? We could maybe play a few games of pool?”

  “Cool. I was going to meet the girls at Camps, but I’ll buzz them and tell them Harpers instead. I’ll be there in fifteen, mate.”

  00:47 Sat 07/04 Call from Anthony to Nick.

  “Hi, mate. Just to let you know, I got Kaj home okay. He came round enough to get his key in the door, but fuck me, was he wasted! I wouldn’t want his hangover in the morning.”

  “Tell me about it! He still seemed fine at Camps, but I noticed he had a bit of a stagger on when we headed back here. Daft bugger should have laid off after that.”

  “Blown his chances with Julie, has he?”

  “Maybe not. Blokes like that can get away with it, at least once. I reckon she’ll give him another chance.”

  “Lucky bastard! Well, thanks for a fun night, mate. It’s shit going out in a strange town on your own.”

  “Nah, no problem. Thanks for getting him out of here before he heaved all over the carpet.”

  Below that, Shay had typed in the list of missed calls from Nick to Anthony last Tuesday and Wednesday and his final text message.

  18:17 10/04 SMS from Nick to Anthony - ‘Please call me when you get this.’

  “Thoughts?” I asked the room after they’d heard and read all of that.

  “There’s nothing there to implicate Nick,” Philips offered. “And he definitely sounded pretty drunk on that last call. The mention of them playing pool might explain why they weren’t at the table with the girls when Visser went over to them.”