by Jane Renshaw
‘Yeah, I phoned the guy and it all seemed kosher, but the police have been round there and it’s not even commercial premises, it’s just a bungalow, and the fella who was renting it’s also skipped out without paying what he owes. Seems like the pair of them were scammers.’
‘Was there anything left in the flat? After Moir left?’
‘That was the weird part. Usually when these low-lives skedaddle they leave the place in a right mess, you know? Fridge full of mouldy ready-meals, bathroom like nothing on earth, shit in the bath, rubbish piled everywhere. But the place was pristine. It was almost like he’d had cleaners in. That’s why we could let it out again so fast. No clearing up required. At least that was something. Weird though.’
‘So there was nothing at all? Nothing in any of the cupboards... I had a whole lot of boxes of stuff.’
‘The place was picked clean. Literally. Oh, there was one thing though, a silver frame with a photo in it. The cops took it to dust for prints.’
◆◆◆
Something was obviously wrong. DC Powell wouldn’t meet her eye. He asked her if she’d like some water and then left the room, and the uniformed policewoman smiled at her and told her to take a seat.
It was the same interview room as before. She sat down in the same chair with the same blue plastic seat, moved her fingers across the same gouges in the table top.
The policewoman said, ‘We’re waiting on the DI. DI Blackburn. He’s going to sit in.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
When she’d called to ask if there’d been any progress, DC Powell had asked her to come by the station. All he’d say was that there’d been a development and they needed to talk to her in person. Like when doctors wouldn’t give you test results over the phone. That always meant they were bad.
‘Have they found him? Moir?’
The policewoman shook her head.
‘So what’s this “development” DC Powell was talking about?’
‘I think we should wait for him and the DI.’
As if on cue, the door opened and DC Powell came in with a cup of water, which he set down on the table in front of Helen. Behind him was an older, grim-faced man who barely glanced at her before taking a seat opposite and slapping a folder down on the table.
‘This is DI Blackburn.’
‘Hello,’ said Helen.
The man nodded.
DC Powell took a seat next to him, and looked across the table at Helen and then down at his hands. ‘Thank you for coming in.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Well. It seems our guy – it seems he’s not Moir Sandison. That’s not his real name.’
Helen shook her head. She was so tired. ‘But you checked him out. Not you personally, but – your colleagues. They checked that he was who he said he was.’
‘The standard checks we carry out are not, unfortunately, always proof against the determined fraudster,’ said the DI. ‘He’d gone to a lot of trouble to construct a false identity.’
‘The real Moir Sandison,’ said DC Powell, ‘lives in Corstorphine, is married with two kids, and is five foot four.’
She couldn’t speak.
The DI sighed. ‘The passport he showed us – and which he used as identification when he withdrew money from the joint account – must have been forged, as the Passport Office has no record of having issued passports to two Moir Sandisons with the same date of birth – that would have been a red flag. Fraudsters don’t tend to risk applying for a passport if the person whose identity they’re stealing is still alive. Our man must have obtained a forged passport in Moir Sandison’s name, and used it as proof of identity to get a copy of the real Sandison’s birth certificate from the General Register Office; he then used the forged passport and the birth certificate as proof of identity in his scams. As for the photograph – we’ve obtained a copy of the original from Menstrie High in Stirling, and the name given under the captain of the team isn’t Moir Sandison, it’s David Clark.’
‘So that’s his real name?’
‘If only it were that easy. No. The officers to whom he showed the photograph are both certain that the faces of the captain and the headmaster, Mr McKillop, differed in the photo they were shown from those in the original. Photoshopped, presumably, to superimpose the faces of the fraudsters, taken from old photographs of themselves.’
‘So the real headmaster...’
‘Died in 1997.’
‘But they interviewed him.’
‘Officers from Fife Constabulary interviewed a man who said he was Mr McKillop. At an address in Fountain Place in Dunfermline. The same address, by a strange coincidence, that was given for “Moir Sandison’s” former employer Ewan Mathers, who acted as a referee when he rented the flat from Dunedin Properties.’
‘So it was all fake.’
‘These people often work in teams, running several scams concurrently – we’re now looking into McKillop’s activities in Dunfermline. Presumably he and Sandison provided cover for each other – references and so on.’
‘But if you don’t know who he is...’ Helen dug her fingertips into the gouges in the table. ‘Could he be Rob Beattie after all?’
DC Powell shook his head. ‘Extremely unlikely. A murderer on the run is hardly likely to start a relationship with someone he knew in his past life.’
‘But he’d proved that he wasn’t Rob. As far as I was concerned, he’d proved it.’
She was going to be sick. She picked up the cup – it was heavier than she’d expected – and gulped some water from it.
‘But what about your family – and old school friends? There’d always be the risk that one of them would tumble to him.’
‘Mum lives in Yorkshire now. She’s only met him twice. And all the other people who knew Rob – I’m not in contact with them any more. Well, apart from Uncle Jim. But I haven’t seen him for years.’
When she and Mum had first moved to Edinburgh, Uncle Jim used to visit occasionally, but he’d never stay overnight. He had the farm to get back to, he’d say. And Helen and Mum would pretend to be disappointed, but really it was a relief when he’d gone. But then she’d think of him going back to that empty house – no Ina, no Suzanne – and feel guilty.
The DI said, ‘How would the putative Rob Beattie know that, though?’
She stood. She really was going to be sick. Her throat spasmed and she put a hand to her mouth and swallowed bile.
‘You’ve been close to him for weeks, months – if he really was Rob Beattie, don’t you think you’d have realised it by now? Did the possibility even cross your mind, when you were together?’
‘Of course not.’
She couldn’t tell them that she’d almost started to seek out similarities to Rob. To want to find them so that, in some sick way, she could find a connection to Suzanne.
The girl he’d killed.
She couldn’t tell them that.
‘But he coughed like Rob used to. And sometimes – he had a short temper. And those text messages he sent me – when I got back from Yorkshire – pretending he was going to meet me at home, pretending he’d bought me teacakes – why would a common-or-garden conman do that? That’s... that’s calculated cruelty for no reason. That’s exactly the kind of thing Rob Beattie would do.’
‘Miss Clack, I know this is –’
‘The first time I ever went to Eglinton Crescent, it wasn’t true, what I told your colleagues, about just happening to see him coming out of a door – I first saw him in my hairdresser’s and I got them to give me his address and I staked the place out – and...’ She sat back down and took another gulp of water. ‘And I had to go and get batteries for my camera, and on the way back he was suddenly there on the pavement, I think he’d been hiding between two parked cars and then he was suddenly there blocking my way, just like Rob used to in the school playground, and he smiled at me – I can’t explain it, but it was just like Rob –’
‘But again, why would Rob Beattie do
that? He recognises a woman in the street as someone he used to know – the cousin of the person he murdered – and decides to have some fun reliving his childhood? At the risk of being identified?’
‘It happens all the time, doesn’t it?’ The policewoman smiled at her. ‘You go one way to pass someone in the street, and they go the same way. Then you go the other way, and so do they. Like a silly dance. And you both say “Sorry” and eventually you go one way and they go the other...’
‘We’ll have to take another statement, if the one you gave originally wasn’t accurate,’ said DI Blackburn.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Helen. ‘I think I am actually going to be sick.’ She pushed back her chair and lunged for the door and the policewoman was right behind her, saying ‘There’s a loo down the corridor –’
When they came back to the room the two men had paper cups of coffee on the table in front of them. The burnt smell of it filled her nose and mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You must think I’m an idiot.’
‘Of course we don’t,’ said DC Powell. ‘It’s a horrible situation for you.’
‘It’s just – even the slightest possibility –’
‘Listen, Helen.’ DC Powell set his coffee cup to one side and leant forward, forearms resting on the table. ‘We will find out who he is. It might take a while, but we’ll pin a name on him. And that name isn’t going to be Robin Beattie. It’s going to be the name of some rat of a con artist who’s probably already done time for exactly the same sort of scam. A honey trap. These people are opportunists. You were just unlucky to stumble into the trap just as he’d finished setting it up. Maybe he had another woman in his sights, or maybe he got the flat before he started looking... Either way, when you turned up, accusing him of being Rob Beattie – I’m sorry, but he would’ve seen you as prime victim material. You were upset. Vulnerable, he’d have decided. But obviously educated, wearing nice clothes... I’m guessing it wasn’t long before he’d elicited the information that you owned your flat outright?’
‘I don’t remember. I don’t know.’
‘These people are very good at what they do. I can virtually guarantee we’re going to find a string of women he’s scammed in exactly the same way.’
And that was supposed to make her feel better?
She almost laughed.
‘Am I going to get any of my money back?’
The DI lifted his shoulders. ‘That depends on whether, legally, the bank is in any way liable. Generally when money is withdrawn from a joint account by one party without the other’s agreement, it’s not a matter for the bank. But there’s the false identity complication... You’ll need a solicitor to look into it. You may qualify for legal aid, given your financial situation –’
‘But he should be the one to give me the money back. Not the bank.’
‘I’m afraid the chances of that are very slim.’
‘But – you will find him? How long do you think it’ll take?’
DC Powell smiled at her. ‘We’ve got the photographs from your phone, which are going to be a big help. Chances are he’s already in the database – the Police National Database. It’s a case of plugging in what we know, his description, sending these photos round our colleagues in other forces... We’ll get there.’
‘He didn’t like me taking his picture. He used to turn his head away.’
‘I’ll bet he did.’
‘There were so many things... Things I should have picked up on.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ said the WPC.
‘If we were going out after work, we’d never meet at his office – always at the museum, or in a café or a pub. Or a shop, if we needed to buy something.’ Like a tin opener. When Helen had moved in they’d discovered that neither of them had a tin opener that worked properly, and the next day they’d met up in John Lewis to buy one. Moir had cornered an assistant and made the poor woman explain the pros and cons of all the various models, and Helen had laughed and apologised: ‘I bet you don’t get this many questions from people buying whole kitchens.’ They’d decided that the one with pink handles was suitably celebratory, and carefully counted out exactly half the money each.
Was he still using it to open tins of tomatoes for his famous chilli?
‘We’re um, sorry about the confusion.’ The DI was shuffling papers on the table in front of him. ‘Over the Moir Sandison identity thing.’
Confusion. Right.
There had been no confusion. The policeman who’d phoned her – it seemed like years and years ago – had told her he was one hundred per cent satisfied that Moir Sandison was who he said he was.
DI Blackburn was here, she realised, not because he was concerned about her situation, or because he wanted to help catch a conman, but because he was worried she’d file a complaint or sue them.
As if she had the energy.
‘The man in Dunfermline – you don’t know who he really was either?’
‘Not as yet.’
She took a long breath. ‘The photograph. The photograph in the frame that he left behind in the flat. You said I could see it.’
‘Ah. Yes.’ DI Blackburn turned to the WPC.
The policewoman went to the row of tables behind the two men and lifted up a polythene bag. She took a pair of gloves from her pocket and wriggled her hands into them before undoing the top of the bag and bringing out the silver frame Moir had given her the day he’d proposed.
She set it on the table. The central photograph of the two of them and the one of his family were gone. The photograph that remained had been cropped to leave only Helen herself. Mum and Dad and Suzanne had been clipped away.
‘There’s writing on the back.’ DC Powell had gloves on too now. He unclipped the hardboard at the back of the frame and lifted out the photo and turned it so Helen could see the back.
Moir’s writing.
And Rob Beattie’s words.
Smellie Nellie and her cattie
35
‘Helen. Helen. It’s okay. Take it easy.’
She was sitting on a hard, narrow bed. The WPC was smiling at her.
‘I need to talk to DC Powell.’
‘In a minute. Just lie back down for now.’
It was better when she lay down. She felt so woozy and strange – just like waking up in the hospital all those years ago. But no Mum to hold her hand. No anyone.
Her arms and legs were sore, as if she’d been running a marathon; her throat was dry and raw from too much talking; there was a tight band of pain squeezing her forehead – and she felt sick again. Her nose was running. She pulled the damp tissue from her pocket and sat up. ‘I need to see DC Powell.’
‘Okay. Just lie back down and I’ll go and get him.’
She was in an empty room with a metal door. It smelt of bleach.
Had they put her in a cell?
There were sounds of people outside in the corridor. Echoey footsteps and voices.
When the door opened and DC Powell appeared she sat up and croaked at him:
‘He’s Rob Beattie. He must be.’
There was a cup of water by the bed. She lifted it and took a mouthful. The act of swallowing clawed against the raw place at the back of her throat, but she took another mouthful and that was better, slippery and cool.
‘There are other possible explanations.’ DC Powell leant back against the wall opposite. Keeping as far away from her as he could, evidently, in case she had some dread disease.
‘Like what? I never told Moir that that was what Rob used to call me. Smellie Nellie. I never told him that.’ She needed a copy of the writing. And copies of the photos that had been on her mobile.
‘Are you sure? Maybe you had nightmares? Said it in your sleep?’
Helen shut her eyes. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘My wife tells me I say all sorts of unrepeatable things when I’m asleep.’
‘Even if I did say “Smellie Nellie” – and he realised what it
meant – that Rob used to call me that – why would he write it on the back of this photo and leave it for the police to find? Why try to make out he’s Rob Beattie, if he isn’t?’
‘To muddy the waters? To send us off on a false trail?’
‘What, so you’re not going to even consider that it might not be a false trail?’ She pushed herself to her feet. Her legs shook. There were grey dots everywhere, growing and shrinking, growing and shrinking with the pulses of pain just above her eyes.
‘Of course we are. The Grampian force are looking into obtaining a sample of Rob Beattie’s handwriting – which will be compared with the writing on the photo by an expert.’
Just like last time, when they’d got an expert to compare Hector and Rob and Suzanne’s writing with the writing in the letters.
‘And meanwhile, what are you going to do?’
Water. She needed to rehydrate. She carefully turned and put out a hand and lifted the cup from the shelf by the bed.
‘Meanwhile, we’re continuing to look for him. “Moir Sandison”, whoever he is. We have photographs, descriptions, a description of his Dunfermline associate – we’ll get him, don’t you worry about that. And when we do, it’ll be a simple matter to compare his DNA profile to Rob Beattie’s in the database and see if there’s a match.’
She didn’t understand about DNA. This was the kind of thing she’d always been careful to remember properly so she could repeat it to Moir, so he could explain it to her. But Moir was never going to look at her again and say, ‘Are you sure you’ve got that right?’
Because Moir didn’t exist.
She swallowed water. ‘That’s why he cleaned the flat.’ She placed the cup back on the shelf and walked carefully to the door. Her head was still pulsing but the grey spots in her eyes had gone. And her legs were working as they should. ‘The Dunedin Properties man said it looked like he’d had the flat professionally cleaned, and that was weird because people who skip out without paying the rent never bother. But Moir did. And now we know why. To eradicate any traces of his DNA.’ A sudden shiver ran down her, from her shoulders to her thighs. She folded her arms round herself. ‘Are you going to – put out a press release or whatever it is you do, telling people to look out for him, telling people Rob Beattie has resurfaced –’