Absolution

by Caro Ramsay

  He moved his hands over to Elizabeth Jane. ‘Costello tells us Elizabeth Jane was to be chief bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding, and that the bride said that Elizabeth Jane was mixing it – ’

  Anderson raised his hand to interrupt. ‘I got Shand on the phone from God knows where in Minorca, just a few hours ago. For a good Christian man of the cloth, he’d some harsh things to say. He described Elizabeth Jane as’ – he flipped the pages of his notebook and read from them – ‘a highly manipulative, unpleasant piece of work. He thinks she was determined to stop the wedding. Apparently she told him her cousin’s fiancé had the hots for her, hinted that he’d no right to be marrying her cousin, practically said he’d be in breach of his marriage vows before he started. Well, Shand was in an awkward position, as he knows all three families really well – Paula Fulton’s family, her fiancé’s, and Elizabeth Jane and her parents. Of course Elizabeth Jane’s parents wouldn’t have a word said against their darling daughter, but he knew her well enough to know she’d stir enough shite – not that he said it quite like that – to cause real trouble. So he had a quiet chat with the boy.’

  ‘Paula was right, it was Elizabeth Jane doing the flirting?’ asked Batten. ‘She would probably be naive and maybe a little obvious in her sexual pursuit.’

  ‘The boy had no time for her.’ Anderson opened his palms and smiled at Costello. ‘Exactly what the bride said. But Shand felt sorry for the girl, and thought he should try to help her. So he hinted to her to come to the Phoenix. His initial plan was to get Tom O’Keefe or George Leask to act as some kind of mediator, but events overtook them. Tom had – quote – a hairy fit when Shand mentioned it.’

  ‘I’ve read the reports, all of them carefully, and everybody says they sort of know everybody. O’Keefe says he knew of Elizabeth Jane but didn’t know her. Her parents thought she knew him but only because Elizabeth Jane said so. And Leask distanced himself from his Tom comment, didn’t he?’

  McAlpine nodded.

  ‘I phoned the Fultons. They’d never set eyes on Tom but had witnessed Elizabeth Jane talking to him on the phone,’ clarified Batten. ‘So we don’t really know who was on the phone.’

  ‘We know Leask knew of Elizabeth Jane,’ Costello said quietly. ‘He was in their house. But it might be the priest who’s lying. It was his number that showed up on her phone records. So Leask could be telling the truth, and O’Keefe might be lying.’

  ‘But anybody could answer that phone. O’Keefe is out and about a lot,’ Anderson said. ‘Just because his phone rings, doesn’t mean he answers it.’

  Dismissing Elizabeth Jane, Batten pointed to Arlene’s wrecked face. ‘She was only out pissed. No crime in that.’ He frowned, as if he was trying to establish a link in his mind. ‘She was trying to stay clear of drugs, and that was the reason she was at the Phoenix. She had no problem being a prostitute. In fact, she seemed to be trying to make something good of it. That honesty does not fit with the other two at all.’

  Costello replied, ‘Honesty? I don’t think so.’ They listened as she related her conversation with Tracey. ‘But does pulling a fast one justify getting your guts cut out?’

  ‘Maybe in Christopher Robin’s eyes it does,’ said Batten, taking a Silk Cut from his packet, remembering and putting it away again. ‘It doesn’t really matter what you think. It only matters what he thinks. So you have to think like him. And whatever Arlene, Elizabeth Jane or Lynzi may have done, it does in his eyes “justify getting your guts cut out”, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘So you’re saying that all of these women were being something they shouldn’t be? Is that what’s outraging some warped sense of morality in Christopher Robin?’ Anderson was unconvinced. ‘I’d be much happier if they all had the same window cleaner.’

  Costello opened her mouth, hesitated, then said, ‘We have checked that, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anderson stated.

  ‘So our line of inquiry is the Phoenix.’ Batten tapped the table with his finger. ‘Even if we don’t know who we’re looking for, I think we know where to start. What do you think, McAlpine – we investigate the Phoenix and work our way out from there?’

  McAlpine was gazing into the corner.

  ‘Sir?’ prompted Costello, turning to face the DCI. ‘You agree we should focus on the Phoenix?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said absent-mindedly. ‘Look, I have to go.’ And he was away, flinging open the canteen door so hard the restraining arm hit the wall and shed plaster.

  Costello and Anderson exchanged glances as Batten just raised an eyebrow and nodded.

  ‘See you, then,’ said Mulholland under his breath.

  ‘So remember: intelligent, religious, charismatic. How many boxes are being ticked?’

  ‘Has forensics come up with anything?’ asked Anderson. ‘I know O’Hare is thinking about having somebody rebuild Arlene’s face, scraping enough skin together to get a shoe print, but that’ll take for ever. No disrespect, Doc, but I’m a stickler for fingerprints and DNA.’

  ‘No forensic evidence as yet, no nothing. I’m all you have,’ said Batten. ‘What you don’t have is time until the next one.’ He didn’t sound all that happy about it.

  Mulholland said, ‘What about McTiernan? Nobody is mentioning him.’

  Both Batten and Anderson looked at Costello. ‘What do you want me to say? I think it’s a long way from whacking Malkie Steele, who deserved it, in my opinion, to whacking these women … who didn’t,’ she added.

  ‘No violence against women at all?’

  ‘No,’ she confirmed. ‘And in the café Arlene spoke to a man before she spoke to and left with Sean. Littlewood showed the waitress in the Ashton Café a photograph of Arlene; she’s certain about Arlene leaving with Sean. It was Saturday lunchtime, they were busy, and the staff were keeping an eye on punters who were just taking up tables and not eating much, so she noticed when Arlene shimmied over to Sean’s table. And she remembered the green stiletto ankle boots.’ Costello felt the three men were looking at her, so she geared herself up to play her ace. ‘But before that, a man called in to speak to Arlene and left without ordering anything. Dark clothes, lighter hair, dog collar or something similar. I’m sending Littlewood back to the café with photographs of Leask and O’Keefe.’

  ‘Leask was at the Fulton house by lunchtime?’ queried Mulholland.

  ‘He has a car he never mentions,’ said Costello.

  ‘And Sean was having a chat to some old bird earlier as well,’ said Costello, a slow dawn of realization coming over her. ‘We didn’t follow that up, though. Did anybody?’

  ‘Scraggy old bird with glasses and a mole on her face? That was Littlewood’s description,’ Mulholland snorted. ‘Hardly his type.’

  ‘You said a mole. That wasn’t in the notes. Where was the mole?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘But they were talking?’ Costello persisted.

  ‘For quite a while.’

  Costello bent over her notebook, the biro digging into the paper as she scribbled agitatedly, trying, and failing, to bend the features of that beautiful little girl to match Arlene’s. Then she tried the image of the girl running out of the disco, Sean following. She could make that fit.

  ‘So do we bring McTiernan in?’ asked Mulholland.

  ‘Not enough yet. It’s only circumstantial. We can’t put him and Arlene together at any time that’s relevant. The locus is easily explained: there are two lanes here, 50 per cent chance it would be the same one.’

  ‘He has returned to his previous killing ground,’ commented Batten.

  ‘And the damage to the face!’ said Mulholland. ‘It must be him.’

  ‘It doesn’t fit the profile. Sure, stamping on a face does. But just using a kick to disable an attacker doesn’t. Christopher Robin would have turned back while Steele was on the ground and had a real go.’

  ‘I’ve seen the photos. He didn’t have to.’

  ‘I’m not sure
the use of Whistler’s Lane is relevant either. Both Ashton Lane and Byres Road are busy 24/7. Whistler’s Lane is always quiet … apart from the drunks and the druggies,’ argued Costello. ‘McTiernan knows that, he has a strong connection with the area and with White’s the Joiners.’ Sheepishly she went on to explain the connection, to stony silence. ‘But that other witness said Christopher Robin had an Irish accent, and Sean doesn’t.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say all that before?’ asked Anderson.

  Batten put his hand up. ‘Wait a mo. I’ll come back to that. This O’Keefe has an Irish accent. He’s the right age, right build.’

  ‘Leask would sound Irish if you didn’t know. Not many can tell the difference between an island and an Irish accent,’ said Costello. ‘And I’d say he has little time for the fairer sex.’ She tucked her hair behind her ears. ‘However much he may act differently.’

  ‘Christopher Robin does appear to like women; that’s what Batten’s been saying,’ said Mulholland. ‘O’Keefe is charming, I would say extremely so when he wants to turn it on. His entire career relies on his charm.’

  ‘But,’ Batten said quietly to Costello, ‘McTiernan is the one who is charming you. And you haven’t even met him yet.’

  Costello snapped her notebook shut and waited for Batten to move away from her before she breathed out and clipped the top back on her biro.

  ‘So – from having no religious nutters we now have two, plus a joiner on life licence. Good going,’ Batten said with some enthusiasm. ‘I want to do a profile on McTiernan, ASAP. Can I have five minutes of your time in the office upstairs, Costello?’

  ‘In the DCI’s office? Yes, of course,’ Costello answered coolly.

  ‘Tomorrow we are going to go through the Phoenix with a fine-tooth comb. I want Leask and O’Keefe laid out in front of me like suckling pigs. Costello can go for McTiernan, seeing as she is the expert.’

  ‘What about DCI McAlpine?’ asked Anderson, but nobody was listening. They had drifted away up the stairs. He heard Littlewood’s rough accent barking at the meeting upstairs as the doors opened and closed again. There was a clatter of footsteps as somebody came down to use the toilet. Then silence. He put his head in his hands and rubbed at his eyes; he needed sleep, but he couldn’t face going home to be met with Brenda’s rantings. He reached over and picked up the newspaper and started reading, wanting to see for himself what everybody was getting so worked up about.

  Outside Partickhill Station, McAlpine stood for a moment letting the wind blow the rain in his face. The meeting had been suffocating; he needed a shot of nicotine in his bloodstream and the cold spatter of the rain to clear his head.

  He turned up the collar of his raincoat and began the short walk up Hyndland Road, choosing to have the wind behind him rather than in his face. Although he could hear the ever-present snarl of traffic on the Great Western Road, Hyndland Road itself, winding between the houses and flats, neat gardens and parked cars, was quiet. He felt his breathing relax, the tension seep away.

  Out on the main road again, windborne rain pecked at his face, awaking his senses for the first time in ages. He had begun to feel as though his brain had stopped working, but he could think straight now. He had always prided himself on his ability to get a squad working, squads bigger, more disparate, than this one, and without half their abilities. And there was the truth of it: they didn’t need him any more. Ten years ago he would have been two steps ahead of Anderson and Costello, even with a hangover and both hands tied behind his back. At least he knew he had taught them well.

  Now the whole investigation seemed to be sliding past him, out of his grasp. At glacial speed, but sliding it was. Mick Batten, so bright and charismatic, with his wise words, seemed able to rally a team the way he himself used to. McAlpine couldn’t pinpoint when it was that all that had slipped away from him, when his ability to stay in charge had left him, like a slow-setting sun. And left me in darkness, he thought.

  ‘Why are you not happy with McTiernan being a suspect?’ Batten asked. He was sitting on Costello’s desk, chipping fragments off the rim of a polystyrene coffee cup and flicking them in the direction of the bin.

  ‘Intuition tells me we’re barking up the wrong tree.’

  ‘Exactly the intuition Christopher Robin will give you, Costello You have been warned.’ His words were brutal, though his voice was kind.

  ‘You know,’ said Costello, ‘I’m starting to think that if I say I think some guy is OK, then he’s bound to be Christopher Robin. And if I say I think someone’s a creep, then it’s because he’s Christopher Robin. So I can’t win.’ Costello flung her empty cup against the wall, and it bounced to the floor. ‘This is not a game. Women are dying, and sometimes you lot talk about it as if it’s an intelligence test, a case of who gets there first.’

  ‘But why are you not happy with McTiernan being a suspect?’ Batten persisted.

  ‘Female intuition,’ she sneered.

  Batten was in psychologist mode. ‘But why do you feel that way?’ He was like a dog with a bone. ‘Female intuition is in fact a scientific thing: women pick up the nuances of body language, of weakness and strength, of guilt, of honesty. So – why is it not McTiernan?’

  She looked at him blankly. ‘Like I said …’

  ‘You’ve reached a conclusion. But you’ve no idea how you reached it. If you explain it to me, you’ll explain it to yourself.’ Batten pressed his hands together, taking great care to push each fingertip precisely on to its counterpart.

  ‘The situation with Steele doesn’t ring true,’ Costello said.

  ‘I’ve read the report. I agree. I believe it was premeditated. A case like that has a voice. It’s as if the killer were a master puppeteer … with Steele as the puppet. Brains over brawn. If it proves to be McTiernan, there will be a connection between him and Steele. Or between him and somebody who wanted Steele taken out. What was happening in gangland Glasgow in those days?’

  ‘It’s always been a power struggle between the same two families – the Laings and the Fernies.’ She made a note in her notepad. ‘The previous investigation team couldn’t make a connection from Sean to either of them. There’s been something bothering me about Sean. He bought a husky puppy. I tracked down the breeder, and they remember selling a dog to someone, then two days later seeing the guy on the front page of the Daily Record. He was going to call the dog Gelert, they remember that.’ She waited to see if that meant anything.

  Batten pulled his hands apart. ‘Gelert. So?’

  ‘It’s a famous story. Welsh. King Owen has a dog to protect the baby prince. Owen leaves to go to war, he comes back, the baby is missing, the dog has blood round its mouth. He makes the natural assumption that the dog has killed the baby and slays the dog.’

  ‘And then finds a dead wolf, and the baby alive and well. The dog had killed the wolf to protect the baby. I do know that story. Isn’t there a place called Bedgelert, the grave of Gelert?’

  ‘He got a village and a monument and a sword through his heart for his trouble, poor dog. What do you make of that, Mr Psychologist?’

  ‘I see where you’re coming from. It’s a romantic notion. I’m going away, so here’s a great hairy beast to protect you. But how does that help us?’

  ‘The thing is: Sean knew he was going away. The breeder tried to trace the puppy after Sean’s arrest. But it had gone. And Sean effectively made himself homeless before he went to meet Steele.’

  ‘So you agree he knew he was going to kill him?’

  ‘Of course he did,’ answered Costello without hesitation. ‘He’s a sharp cookie. He’s only done three and a half years for a premeditated murder masquerading as self-defence. The woman in the Ashton Café – not Arlene but the old one with the mole …’ She flicked open the file and removed two photographs from the back. ‘That one, the old dear in the pinny – that’s who I need to trace. She is the one link with Sean’s past, the only link. Everyone else goes nowhere.’ Then she put down in fro
nt of Batten the other photograph that Lorna Shaw had given her, of the gaggle of little boys on the beach, and the enigmatic little fairy child off to one side. ‘Just look at that face. Tell me what you think.’

  Batten was impressed. ‘She would be a beautiful young woman by now.’ He put the photograph to one side. ‘OK, while there’s no evidence that he had sex with Arlene, we’re pretty certain he did have sex with the girl up the lane – you’re saying it was this girl?’

  ‘Maybe. But we do know it was the place where he killed Malkie Steele. What’s the psychology of that?’

  ‘Going back to the scene of a previous crime? Common psychological trait. Can be many things. But we should be careful to distinguish between the facial injuries. If you were trained in martial arts, a kick in the head is instinct. Stamping on someone’s head while they are on the ground is deliberate, and stamping on the face is very personal indeed.’ He looked steadily at the black-and-white snapshot for about a minute. ‘Look at this again. Look at him and her particularly. What’s the first word that comes to your mind?’

  ‘Protection, devotion,’ answered Costello without hesitation.

  ‘But who’s doing the protecting?’

  ‘He is. She’s just an object of adoration. He looks as though he never takes his eyes off her.’

  ‘And how powerful an emotion is that in a kid with a background like Sean’s?’ Batten raised his eyebrows, questioning.

  Costello’s answer choked in her throat.

  Wednesday, 4 October

  It was raining again, cold, constant, dark, dirty, Glaswegian rain. McAlpine stood in the queue of late-night drunks and taxi drivers at the Tardis Kiosk, soaked through, his cotton shirt glued to his shoulders. He glanced at his watch: the gold hands told him that it was ten past midnight. He was too wired to sleep tonight. He ordered a bagel and a double-shot Americana. The caffeine wouldn’t make any difference.