The Impossible Dead

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Thank you, Eddie,’ he said to the porter, who bowed and left them to it. Mangold had risen and was shaking Fox’s hand.

  ‘Charles Mangold,’ he said, introducing himself. ‘Inspector Fox, is it?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Mind if I see some proof?’

  Fox pulled out his warrant card.

  ‘Can’t be too careful these days, I’m afraid.’ Mangold handed back the wallet and gestured for him to take a seat. ‘I forgot to ask Eddie to fetch us some drinks …’

  ‘Water’s fine, sir.’

  Mangold poured them a glass apiece while Fox studied him. Portly, early sixties, bald and bespectacled. He wore a dark three-piece suit, pale-lemon shirt with gold cufflinks, and a tie of maroon and blue striped diagonals. His confident air was edging towards smugness. Or maybe ‘entitlement’ was the word.

  ‘Been here before?’ he asked.

  ‘First time.’

  ‘Most other clubs have closed their doors, but somehow this place soldiers on.’ He took a sip of water. ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you very much time, Inspector. As my secretary may have said …’

  ‘You have another meeting at half past.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mangold said, glancing at his watch.

  ‘Did you know Alan Carter was dead, Mr Mangold?’

  The lawyer froze for a second. ‘Dead?’

  ‘Put a gun to his head yesterday evening.’

  ‘Good God.’ Mangold stared at one of the wood-panelled walls.

  ‘How did you know him?’

  ‘He was doing some work for me.’

  ‘On Francis Vernal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Had you known Mr Carter long?’

  ‘I barely knew him at all.’ Mangold seemed to be considering what to say next. Fox bided his time, sipping from the glass. ‘There was a profile of him in the Scotsman a while back – focusing on his various business interests. It mentioned that he was an ex-policeman and that he’d played a small role in the original investigation.’

  ‘The Francis Vernal investigation, you mean?’

  Mangold nodded. ‘Not that there was much of one. Suicide was the story everyone stuck to. There wasn’t even an FAI.’

  Meaning a Fatal Accident Inquiry. ‘Bit odd,’ Fox commented.

  ‘Yes,’ Mangold agreed.

  ‘You reckon there was a cover-up of some kind?’

  ‘The truth’s what I’ve been after, Inspector.’

  ‘Twenty-five years on? Why the wait?’

  Mangold bowed his head a little, as if to acknowledge the acuity of the question. ‘Imogen isn’t well,’ he said.

  ‘Vernal’s widow?’

  ‘Six months or a year from now, I doubt she’ll be with us – and I know the papers will dredge it up again.’

  ‘The stories that she drove him to it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t think she did?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Did you work alongside Mr Vernal?’

  ‘For a long time.’

  ‘Friend of his, or friend of his wife?’

  Mangold stared hard at Fox. ‘I’m not sure I can let that insinuation pass.’

  ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry Alan Carter’s dead, but what precisely does it have to do with me?’

  ‘You’ll be wanting to take charge of all his research material. Might have to get used to a few blood spatters, mind …’ Fox looked to be readying himself to rise from his chair and leave.

  ‘Francis Vernal was murdered,’ Mangold blurted out. ‘And no one’s done anything about it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say officers at the time went beyond wilful negligence.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning they were involved. By the time they found out he’d been shot, his car had been removed from the scene, the scene itself trampled over, obliterating any evidence. Took them a full day to find the gun – did you know that? It was lying on the ground, twenty yards from where the car had stopped.’ Mangold was talking rapidly, as if needing to put the words out there. ‘Francis didn’t own a gun, by the way. Papers from his briefcase strewn around nearby. Car’s back window smashed, but not the windscreen. Things missing …’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Cigarettes, for one – he smoked forty a day. And a fifty-pound note he always carried – the fee from his first case.’ Mangold ran a hand across his head. Then he looked up at Fox. ‘You’re not what I expected … not at all.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I thought I was going to be warned off. But you’re … too young to have been part of it. And your warrant card says Professional Standards. That means police corruption, yes?’

  ‘It means complaints against the force.’

  Mangold nodded slowly. ‘Francis Vernal should be a story, Inspector. So many holes in the original investigation …’

  ‘Was Carter making any progress?’

  ‘A little.’ Mangold thought for a moment. ‘Not much,’ he conceded. ‘A lot of the players are no longer with us. I doubt he would have taken the job if Gavin Willis were still alive.’

  ‘Gavin Willis being …?’

  ‘Alan’s mentor. He was a DI at the time Francis died. And he led the inquiry. Only ten years or so older than Alan, but Alan definitely looked up to him.’ Mangold leaned forward a little, as if readying himself to share a confidence. ‘Did Alan tell you about the cottage?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It belonged to Gavin Willis. When he died, Alan bought it – that’s how close the two men were.’

  ‘In which case,’ Fox said, ‘Carter was hardly going to blacken Willis’s name.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. People like to get to the bottom of things, Inspector, don’t you find?’

  ‘So what will you do, now that you’ve lost your researcher?’

  ‘Find another one,’ Mangold stated, staring intently at Fox. There was a tap on the door, and the porter, Eddie, announced that the first of Mangold’s guests had arrived downstairs. Mangold got to his feet and walked around the table, shaking Fox’s hand and thanking him for coming: ‘Just a pity the circumstances couldn’t have been different …’

  Fox gave the slightest of nods and allowed Eddie to show him back down the staircase.

  Just inside the front door, a new arrival was handing his overcoat to a porter while discussing the weather. He glanced towards Fox as if to check whether he warranted some greeting. In the end, the curtest of nods was all Fox got.

  ‘Will you be in your usual spot, Sheriff Cardonald?’ the porter was asking. ‘I’ll bring you your drink.’

  ‘Usual spot,’ Cardonald agreed.

  Fox paused to watch him head for the stairs. Sheriff Colin Cardonald, the man whose decision had put Paul Carter back on the streets …

  He hadn’t felt like another takeaway or microwave meal, so had treated himself to a restaurant in Morningside – an Italian place with plenty of fresh fish on the menu. The evening paper kept him occupied for about ten minutes, after which he tried not to look as if he was interested in the other diners. Really, he was thinking. Trying not to, but thinking all the same.

  About Ray Scholes and Paul Carter.

  About Paul Carter and his uncle.

  About Alan Carter and Charles Mangold.

  Charles Mangold and Francis Vernal.

  Vernal and Chris Fox.

  Chris and Mitch.

  Mitch and Fox himself.

  Bringing him right back to Scholes and Carter again. No wonder his head was spinning; there was a dance going on in there, an eightsome reel with too many couples and not enough floor space. When his waiter came over, looking concerned and asking if everything was okay, Fox realised he’d hardly touched his main course.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said, scooping up another forkful of monkfish.

  You were never happy there …

  You’ll be a bit rusty then …

  Should he have offered a stronger
argument? Defended himself against the charge? Two old men with a couple of drinks under their belts – what was the point? He thought back to his time on the force prior to the Complaints. He had been diligent and scrupulous, never a shirker. He had put in the hours, been commended for his error-free paperwork and ability to lead a team: no egos and no heroes. He hadn’t been unhappy. He had learned much and kept out of trouble. If a problem arose, he either dealt with it or ensured it was moved elsewhere.

  Ideally suited to Complaints and Conduct, his reviews eventually started concluding. But was that altogether a good thing, or was it CID’s way of telling him he didn’t fit in there?

  Too scrupulous.

  Too willing to sidestep problems.

  When he caught his waiter’s eye, he told him he was finished.

  ‘Not as hungry as I thought,’ he offered by way of apology.

  Back at the house, he switched on the TV and found multiple channels of dross. The news was focusing on a royal engagement and not much else. Fox lasted ten minutes, then went in search of his computer. He knew he could wait until morning: Joe Naysmith would stick to his word. But all the same, he typed Francis Vernal’s name into the search engine and clicked on the first of 17,250 links.

  Half an hour later, a text came in from Tony Kaye.

  Copycat blast – Peebles this time. Bloody kids!

  Fox couldn’t think how to reply, so turned his attention back to the computer screen instead.

  Copycat … Bloody kids …

  As usual, Tony Kaye was seeing what he wanted to see. Fox wasn’t so sure.

  Five

  15

  There was a lay-by near the spot where Francis Vernal’s car had left the road. A small cairn had been erected, with a plaque on it commemorating ‘A Patriot’. Someone had even left a bouquet of flowers. The flowers were shrivelled – could be they dated back to the anniversary of the crash. Mangold’s work maybe, on behalf of himself and Vernal’s widow.

  Fox had brought his own car over to Fife this morning, leaving the M90 and skirting Glenrothes, heading for what was known as the ‘East Neuk’: little fishing villages popular with landscape painters and caravanners. Lundin Links and Elie, St Monans and Pittenweem, then Anstruther – pronounced ‘Ainster’ by locals. Francis Vernal had died on a stretch of the B9131, north of Anstruther. He didn’t play golf, but had a weekend place on the outskirts of St Andrews. Nobody was sure why he hadn’t stuck to the A915 – a quicker route. The only theory was a picturesque detour. Once you headed away from the coast, it was all farmland and forestry. No way to tell which particular tree his car had collided with. Another theory: mud left on the roadway by tractors had caused the car to skid. Fine, Fox could accept that. But something had happened afterwards. Not everyone who smashed their car then felt compelled to reach for a handgun. Had Vernal’s lifestyle caught up with him? Stress, a rocky marriage, too much drink. The drink makes him swerve off the road – maybe he wants to end it all. But he’s still alive afterwards, so he reaches into the glove box for the revolver.

  A revolver: same sort of gun used by Alan Carter.

  By him – or on him.

  Fox ran his fingers over the memorial. Kids down the years had scratched their names into it. A couple of souped-up cars had flown past him a few miles back, stereos blaring, maybe driven by ‘Cambo’ or ‘Ali’, ‘Desi’ or ‘Pug’. Straightening up, he breathed deeply. Not a bad spot: peaceful. The drone of distant farm machinery, the half-hearted cawing of a few crows. He could smell freshly turned earth. A trudge around the vicinity provided no further clues. No one had left a bouquet resting against any of the trees. None of the news reports had been able to provide a photo of the car in situ, and even the few monochrome pictures of the site were speculative, apparently. Mangold was right: the Volvo had been removed and taken to a local junkyard before any forensics could be done. The early newspaper reports didn’t even mention suicide. It was a ‘tragic accident’, robbing the country of ‘a bright political talent’. The obituaries had been plentiful, but sticking to the same anodyne script. A book had been published a few years later, and half a chapter had been dedicated to the ‘mystery death’ of ‘political activist Francis Vernal’. The book had been a short compendium of unsolved Scottish crimes, but it produced no new evidence. Instead, its author had posed questions, the same questions Fox had been asking himself throughout his online reading of the previous evening. He’d printed out quite a lot of it, finishing one ink cartridge and replacing it with a spare. Back at his car, he lifted the heavy folder from the passenger seat and considered opening it. But then his phone buzzed, meaning he had a text message. It was from Tony Kaye.

  Summat’s up.

  Fox called Kaye’s number but he wasn’t answering. He turned the ignition key, did a three-point turn, and headed back towards Kirkcaldy.

  The cop-shop car park was full, so he parked on the street outside. Single yellow line, so he had to hope he wouldn’t get a ticket. The sign next to the front desk stated that the Alert Status had been raised from MODERATE to SUBSTANTIAL. The storeroom was unlocked and empty, so he made for the interview room. Opening the door, he saw Paul Carter slumped in a chair. On the other side of the table sat Isabel Pitkethly.

  ‘Out,’ Pitkethly ordered.

  Fox muttered an apology and closed the door again. Kaye and Naysmith were coming along the corridor towards him.

  ‘Might have warned me,’ Fox growled.

  ‘I just did,’ Kaye responded. Sure enough, Fox had another text message.

  IR a no-no!

  ‘Thanks,’ Fox said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket. ‘So what’s going on?’

  ‘You should see CID,’ Naysmith interrupted. ‘They’re going mental.’

  ‘It would be nice if someone told me why.’

  ‘Some spotty little reporter,’ Tony Kaye obliged. ‘There’s a petrol station on Kinghorn Road and he went there to fill up his putt-putt—’

  ‘And,’ Naysmith butted in again, ‘he asks the attendant if he saw anything the night Alan Carter died. Turns out the guy did.’

  ‘Paul Carter,’ Kaye added. ‘He saw Paul Carter.’

  ‘Looking agitated.’

  ‘Stopped his car at the pumps, got out but didn’t do anything about filling it.’

  ‘Pacing up and down.’

  ‘Looking at his phone.’

  ‘Punching the buttons but not seeming to get an answer …’

  ‘We already know Paul Carter phoned his uncle,’ Fox felt it necessary to state.

  ‘But he was heading for the cottage,’ Naysmith stressed.

  ‘So half an hour ago it was a clear case of suicide, and now the nephew’s a murder suspect?’ Fox’s stare moved from Kaye to Naysmith and back again.

  ‘He’s going to go to jail,’ Kaye argued, ‘in no small part because of his uncle …’

  ‘If nothing else,’ Naysmith added, ‘it probably means he went to the cottage. Whatever they talked about, it ended with a gunshot and a corpse.’

  They heard footsteps. Two men and a woman had come through the swing doors, led by Sergeant Alec Robinson. Robinson was stony-faced. The new arrivals took the measure of Fox, Kaye and Naysmith, then knocked on the interview-room door and went in. Robinson avoided eye contact with Fox as he headed back to his desk.

  ‘Glenrothes?’ Kaye speculated.

  ‘Aye,’ Fox said.

  A minute later, the same three officers were leading Paul Carter out. He saw Fox and his colleagues and came to a stop.

  ‘I’m being stitched up here,’ he snarled. ‘I never did nothing!’

  The two male officers gripped him by either forearm and led him away.

  ‘Hands off me!’

  The woman offered a glance back in Fox’s direction as she followed them.

  ‘Know her?’ Kaye asked, his mouth close to Fox’s left ear.

  ‘Name’s Evelyn Mills,’ Fox admitted. ‘She’s Complaints, same as us.’

  ‘And sh
e wears Chanel.’

  Pitkethly was standing in the doorway of the interview room. The look she gave Fox told him it had been her decision to bring Glenrothes in. He nodded to let her know he’d have done the same.

  ‘What does he say?’ he asked.

  ‘Got a call from his uncle’s number. Caller hung up. Another call, same thing happened.’ She folded her arms. ‘Wondered what was going on, decided to go ask him in person, but got halfway and changed his mind.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what happened, then.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You don’t sound convinced.’

  She glowered at him and decided against answering. Fox, Kaye and Naysmith watched her stride down the corridor away from them.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ Kaye said, making to enter the interview room. Fox saw that Naysmith was lifting a heavy-looking shoulder bag from the floor at his feet.

  ‘That stuff you wanted,’ the young man explained. ‘Took me half the night, a ream of paper and a change of printer cartridges.’ He made to hand the contents of the bag to Fox. ‘You’ll never guess how many hits there were on Francis Vernal’s name.’

  He looked stunned when Fox got it exactly right.

  It was over an hour before Mills had the chance to call Fox. He hesitated a moment before answering.

  ‘Your girlfriend?’ Kaye guessed.

  ‘Yes, Inspector Mills?’ Fox said into the phone, letting her know he had company.

  ‘I’m not sure what this means for the surveillance,’ she told him.

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘If we catch Carter talking to Scholes and owning up to something …’

  ‘Might be inadmissible,’ Fox concurred.

  ‘I’ve got the Procurator Fiscal’s office working on the pros and cons, but knowing them, it’ll take a while.’ She paused. ‘Might be safer just to pull the plug.’