by Tana Collins
Carruthers almost collided with Gayle Watson as he left Bingham’s office. She adjusted her tie.
‘You’re wearing a particularly dapper shirt today, Ms Watson,’ he said.
This seemed to please Gayle Watson. Her infectious smile lit up her face giving prominence to her dimples. ‘Thank you very much.’ She put on a fake upper-crust English accent. ‘One does what one can.’
‘Did you want to see me?’ he asked. He wondered where she bought her shirts. Rumour had it that she got them from Hawes and Curtis, in George Street, Edinburgh. They looked expensive and she was always so well turned out. He often wondered what older cops like Willie Brown and Dougie Harris made of the new intake of police officers. Both Fletcher and Watson were two strong no-nonsense women.
‘Aye, just to let you know,’ said Watson, ‘I’ve set the interview up with the media. That’s later this afternoon. We’ve also pulled the information on the bird poisoners. I gave Andie and Dougie a hand with that.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Carruthers, eyeing a bunch of scrolled papers in her hand.
‘Photocopies of the artist’s impression of the girl.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Are you free at the moment?’ She nodded. ‘I’d like you and Dougie to go door-to-door round that local beauty spot by Pinetum Park Forest. See if anyone knows the dead girl. Find out if she was known locally.’
Gayle Watson saluted. Her dimples creased. Carruthers turned to walk away. Watson called him back.
‘Jim, Andie’s just put a cheese and onion toastie on your desk for you. Just in case you forget to eat.’
‘Tell her thanks, will you?’ He couldn’t help but smile at Fletcher’s thoughtfulness. She’d make someone a great wife one day.
He returned to his desk. He picked up his toastie and bit into it, enjoying the hot tangy taste. His phone rang. He picked it up with the hand that was not currently wrapped round the hot cheese sandwich.
‘Afternoon, Gill. What have you found for me? Had the meat been poisoned?’ As he asked the question he could picture the vivacious, curly blonde-haired scientist over in the West Edinburgh purpose-built lab that housed the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency.
‘’Fraid so, Jim. I can’t tell you what the poison was, but it’s fast-acting and highly toxic.’
Carruthers grimaced. It was a closely guarded secret what poisons were used by these criminals. It was not information anyone wanted in the public domain. It was less of a secret that Dr Gillian McLaren had a level of paranoia about her phone line being bugged that was bordering on the obsessive, something better suited to MI5. She was, however, well aware of this and it had become a standing joke between the two of them. This time nobody was laughing.
As he listened to Gill, one of his favourite people, he wolfed down the rest of his sandwich, gasping as he burnt his tongue on a molten glob of cheese. Absentmindedly he picked up the photograph of the dead girl’s tattoo. Turned it upside down. Gazed at it then turned it the right way up again.
‘So they’re at it again, the bastards.’ As he said this, he picked up the wrapping of the toastie with his free hand, scrunched it up savagely and threw it into the waste bin.
‘Where did you say this meat had been found?’ said Gill.
Carruthers pinpointed the area, telling her about his climb up the cliffs. ‘I didn’t see any dead birds,’ admitted Carruthers.
‘Well, the meat was certainly fresh,’ said Gill. ‘Not long since deposited. What took you out there?’
Carruthers told her about the body of the girl on the beach.
‘It’s not really what you need, is it?’ said Gill. ‘Investigating one crime and you come across a second. Still, you’ve almost certainly saved the lives of some of the UK’s most endangered raptors. Meat on that cliff face like that – it was rabbit, by the way. It could have been sea eagles they were after. It may sound surprising to find them on the east coast but they’ve been reintroduced into the area. In fact, one came to a grisly end not that long ago in Fife. Got caught up in one of the wind turbines.’
Poor bird, thought Carruthers. What a way to go. He brought his mind back to people rather than birds.
‘Well, we don’t know two crimes have been committed yet. Body on the beach is still a suspicious death. May have been an accident or suicide, although…’
‘Although what?’
‘Sorry,’ said Carruthers. ‘Just thinking aloud. She had no personal belongings with her so less likely to be an accident. Unless the anonymous caller also stole her possessions before he legged it.’ Carruthers knew Gill liked to hear about current police cases. He always threw her a few titbits. Just as much as he could without getting himself into trouble. She’d been helpful on more than one occasion in the past, too.
‘It sounds interesting.’ There was a pause. ‘You free for a drink anytime soon?’ she asked.
Carruthers couldn’t help but smile. He enjoyed her company. Had started going out a bit more socially again. After his wife had left him he’d turned into a bit of a hermit until he’d started dating Jodie, the pathology assistant. It had ended in disaster. He was grateful Jodie was currently on holiday. Gill was single, too, but they were just friends. He’d made a firm commitment to himself that the odd fling might be OK but nothing serious. And of course, as everyone knew, having a fling with a friend was asking for trouble.
‘Full workload just now,’ he found himself saying. ‘Apart from the body on the beach and the bird poisoners, we have a series of high-end art thefts to deal with.’
‘Oh yes, think I heard about them. Jeezo. Well, once it quietens down give me a call and don’t eat too many pot noodles in the meantime.’
Carruthers laughed. The police eating nothing but pot noodles when working on a big case was a running joke between them.
‘If I can be of any more help, you know where to find me,’ she continued. ‘Always happy to help the boys in blue.’
‘I will do. And I’m not a boy in blue anymore. Plain clothes. CID.’
He heard her laughing. ‘Pity. I like a man in uniform. Seriously, I mean it. I’m just the other end of the phone.’
‘Thanks, Gill.’ Carruthers glanced at his watch. ‘Right, had better go. Heading up a brief in five.’
Last to enter the brief was Harris, who plonked a buff file down in front of the seated Carruthers. ‘Details of the bird poisoners we’ve caught in the last four years,’ Harris said.
Carruthers nodded his thanks. He was eager to read the material. Only Harris, Bingham and Brown had been at the station long enough to remember any previous cases. He, Fletcher and Watson were all pretty new. He glanced around the room as the staff were taking their seats.
Watson had been drafted in to take Fletcher’s place when she had been off after her miscarriage. He looked over at Fletcher chatting to Watson. It hadn’t been an easy ride when Fletcher returned. She admitted she’d lost her confidence having been off for so long and had initially considered Gayle Watson a threat. Carruthers had been worried about Fletcher but now she’d finally gone for the counselling he’d requested, he could see it was helping. As for Watson, she’d settled in so well she’d stayed. Fletcher and Watson had called a truce and a tentative friendship had developed. Looking at them now, he’d suggest the tentative stage was over.
He cleared his throat and started the brief. ‘Right, folks, listen up. First, dead girl on the beach.’ He stood up and went over to the incident board, pointing to the photos of the girl’s body on the beach.
‘No luck identifying our dead girl yet, although from her dental work Mackie suggests she’s possibly Eastern European.’ Carruthers paused before continuing. ‘Aged mid- to late-twenties. And pregnant. She’d also recently had sex and it may not have been consensual. Nothing from the door-to-door. Am I right?’ He looked over at Watson.
‘’Fraid not, boss.’
‘OK,’ said Carruthers. ‘I want us to extend the search over a wider area. One other thing. We’ve got t
he results of the fingerprinting on the binos back. Clean. No prints.’ There were groans. ‘OK,’ said Carruthers, ‘can you get the binoculars back if the lab’s finished with them, Gayle? I might just have a use for them.’
‘Sure, boss,’ said Watson.
‘There’ll also be a piece on the local Fife news tonight at nine so we’ll see what that brings in. The bird poisoning’s ongoing. Dougie, can you give me a summary of the information you’ve just handed me?’
‘Aye, Keith Mulholland and Jon Simpson, gamekeeper and ghillie on the Logan Estate, twenty miles north of Pinetum Park Forest both caught poisoning birds of prey in 2012.’
‘What happened to them?’ asked Carruthers.
Harris shrugged. ‘Suspended sentences and a fine. As far as I know they’re still both working on the estate.’
‘It’s twenty miles away,’ said Carruthers. ‘We could interview them but let’s first see if there could be somewhere more local.’
Carruthers pored over a map of East Scotland. ‘What’s the nearest estate to where the poisoned meat was found?’
‘The Ardgarren Estate. It’s a couple of miles down the road from Pinetum Park Forest. Owned by a man called Barry Cuthbert. He’s a local bigwig.’
‘Meaning?’ asked Carruthers, disliking him already.
‘New money. And lots of it.’
‘What sort of estate does he run?’
‘I think it’s a grouse shooting estate,’ said Harris. The overweight detective sergeant made a sound like a snort. He clearly didn’t think much of grouse shooting estates.
‘This Cuthbert, ever been in trouble with the police?’ Carruthers was busy processing the information. Grouse shooting estates were some of the biggest threats to birds of prey. It was definitely worth checking out this estate.
‘Not to my knowledge,’ said Harris.
‘Run a check on him, will you?’ said Carruthers. ‘Just to be on the safe side. In any case, I think we should pay Mr Cuthbert a visit.’
‘We should be handing this over to the Wildlife Crime Unit,’ said Fletcher.
‘It’s not just a wildlife crime we’re investigating, though, is it?’ said Carruthers. ‘That slab of poisoned meat was found in the vicinity of a suspicious death.’ Fletcher raised her eyebrows. ‘I think we’ll keep this to ourselves, for now.’
‘They need to know, Jim. We can’t sit on this.’
‘And we will hand it over. Just as soon as we’ve interviewed Cuthbert. Have you never heard of killing two birds with one stone?’
Harris groaned. ‘Very apt,’ said Fletcher.
‘Now, we also need to focus on the art thefts,’ Carruthers rubbed his brow. He was starting to get a headache. There still hadn’t been any sign of the company to fix the air conditioning. Everyone was complaining. The heat was making him feel tired. He was sure there were health and safety rules on it but this was a police station and they just had to get on with it. ‘Right. Thefts. So far there’s been three of them. These villains have got away with a Constable, a Sisley and now a Vettriano. Total value estimated to be just under four million. We need to find out if there’s any common denominators to these robberies. I want us to pool together on this one. What do they all have in common?’
‘Well, Constable was an English landscape artist, Sisley an impressionist landscape painter who kept his British citizenship although he lived most of his life in France, and Vettriano is a local Fife boy who is popular for painting people,’ said Fletcher. ‘The only common denominator I can see is that they’re all British.’
‘OK, that’s a start,’ said Carruthers before turning to Harris. ‘Dougie, I want you to cross reference the latest robbery at the McMullans’ with the previous robberies. These are all wealthy people. Did they use the same caterers, cleaners, roofers? The McMullans used a firm of roofers who had access to the house. I want you to check them out. What did these people have in common? Did they mix in the same circles? Have the same hobbies? Maybe they all belong to the same bridge club? There must be something. And this gang must be stopped before someone gets killed.’ He held his hands up. ‘I know we’ve already done this with the first two but I want us to go over it again. Perhaps this recent robbery will throw fresh light on the other two. We may have missed something.’
He retrieved a cream file that had been lying under his paperwork. Opening it he distributed photographs amongst the staff. ‘The National Crime Agency have sent over these photographs of the gang wanted in the South East area for the series of art thefts down south. So far they’ve targeted private individuals in London, Kent and Sussex. As we know from the previous brief the MO is virtually identical in the sense of targeting isolated homes, committing the robberies in the dead of night, usually with the owners at home and using stolen vehicles, which are later abandoned. However, and I want to stress this, they’ve never operated north of the border before. And they don’t usually target big named artists. Just too difficult to shift, even on the black market. So my thinking is to keep our eyes and ears open, memorise their ugly mugs. However, don’t assume this is a cut and dried case and we just have to catch these criminals. It may be a completely different gang.’ He gazed around the room. ‘OK, let’s go.’
As the room cleared Carruthers remained standing. He frowned as he stared at the photographs in front of him. Something did not add up. Hadn’t he said in a previous brief that the gang were a sophisticated bunch of art thieves? If they had been they would have targeted the works of lesser-known artists. So what did this mean? Either they weren’t professional art thieves or they weren’t following the usual script.
4
Carruthers grabbed the bagged binoculars he’d put in his desk drawer, grateful the SOCOs had now finished with them. Unfortunately they’d yielded nothing useful and neither had the cigarette butt. He stood up, pulling his lightweight jacket from behind his chair, picked up a set of keys for one of the station cars and walked to the car park, Fletcher at his heel. ‘I’ll drive,’ he said.
He took a right out of the station car park on the outskirts of the popular university and seaside resort of Castletown and started driving towards Barry Cuthbert’s estate. They hugged the ancient city walls of the town passing a large student halls of residence and wild flower-lined verges. It was late afternoon and they were just starting to hit the local rush hour traffic. ‘Do you reckon this hot spell’s going to continue?’ asked Fletcher.
‘I hope not,’ said Carruthers. ‘It’s too hot for me.’
Fletcher laughed. ‘Wimp. Any idea when the station’s air con’s going to be fixed?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
They drove away from the town and the rush hour traffic and ended up on the emptier back roads in the East Neuk of Fife. Carruthers stared out of his car window, gazing at the tumbledown old stone walls, rolling fields and occasional farm. He noticed bits of fluff blowing across the road. Must be dandelion clocks and thistles gone to seed, he thought. A little bit later they drove into what looked like smoke drifting over from a field. He glanced to his left as he drove, to see that it was dust from a working combine harvester. This life was vastly different from the metropolitan bustle of London. He had worried when he first moved up that he would miss the capital with its noise, buzz and fancy restaurants, but he found he was enjoying taking life at a slower pace. And he loved being so much closer to nature and the sea.
Twenty minutes later they buzzed at the security gates of Cuthbert’s estate, and Carruthers looked beyond at the opulent mansion.
‘How the other half live, eh?’ said Fletcher.
‘Indeed,’ said Carruthers, wondering how Barry Cuthbert had made his money. He clutched the bagged binoculars in his hand. A tinny voice came through the speaker. Carruthers moved closer and said, ‘Detective Inspector Jim Carruthers and DS Andrea Fletcher to see Barry Cuthbert.’ The heavy gates juddered as Fletcher and Carruthers drove through.
As the car rolled along the sweeping drive Carruth
ers saw two men coming out of the building. The older man was wearing tweeds and carrying a shotgun. The younger man was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
‘Do you want to interview those two first?’ said Fletcher. ‘They look like gamekeepers.’
‘They’ll keep.’
They were shown into the hall by the middle-aged and rather dour housekeeper and escorted to the living area. Carruthers couldn’t fail to be impressed by its opulence. The room smacked of money. He thought he recognised a Queen Anne chair in the corner by the red velvet curtains. However, his eye was drawn to the works of art on the wall. One in particular. A magnificent oil seascape hung over the mantelpiece depicting ships engaged in battle. The picture looked pretty old. Carruthers saw a spiral of smoke rise from a leather chair in the centre of the room. Barry Cuthbert was sitting in it, smoking a cigar. He rose when he saw his guests.
‘To what do I owe this honour?’ he asked in a broad Cockney drawl.
As he shook the man’s hand, Carruthers checked Barry Cuthbert out carefully. He didn’t like what he saw. Somewhere between forty and fifty years old, Barry Cuthbert had highlighted blond hair, hands covered in signet rings and a perma-tan that looked anything but natural. He reminded Carruthers of an independent financial adviser he’d once met. He also looked completely out of place on a Scottish countryside estate.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Cuthbert. We’re currently investigating the death of a young woman on Kinsale beach by Pinetum Park Forest.’
Barry Cuthbert raised his eyebrows but shook his head. ‘Know nuffin’ ’bout it. First I’ve ’erd of it and I know most of what goes on round here.’
‘I saw two of your gamekeepers outside,’ said Carruthers. ‘Do they ever go over there?’
‘No. Why would they? It ain’t part of my estate.’
‘We’re also investigating a case of attempted bird poisoning up by the cliffs, behind where the body was discovered,’ said Fletcher. ‘What sort of estate is this?’ Is this a shooting estate?’