Perfect Crime

by Helen Fields

  ‘May I ask how?’

  ‘Electrocution,’ Ava said. ‘Is there anything in particular you remember about your discussion with the victim?’

  ‘A sense of regret towards his family in Japan, of having let them down. There were issues within his marriage that he didn’t feel equipped to deal with. If I had to sum up the real problem, it was that Mr Shozo wasn’t at all prepared for conflict, to the point where he was letting himself be treated very badly. I should add that I’ve only heard one side of the story – I obviously had no contact with Mrs Shozo – but Osaki seemed genuine and he wasn’t dramatising more than was necessary. He didn’t seem to want either sympathy or support. Just facts and a sounding board. Like I said, it was a session that I felt was unusual in nature.’

  ‘I appreciate you letting me know,’ Ava said. ‘We’re in the process of trying to reconstruct Mr Shozo’s final few days and that information fills in a blank.’

  ‘You don’t think, so soon after Stephen Berry’s death … is it possible they’re linked? I appreciate you probably can’t tell me much, but I had this sick feeling this morning, as soon as I heard the name. That’s two people the agency have helped in a short period and now they’re both …’

  Ava let the pause do its work as she considered how to reply.

  ‘We’re not sure how or why Stephen Berry died, Mr Maclure. The two deaths are likely unrelated, although I can see how it would be troubling and upsetting for you. May I ask, who allocates the cases to you as counsellors?’

  ‘At the office, it’s a question of a walk-in being met at the door and presented to the next available counsellor. There are four of us there every day, two doing outside visits and two others off duty. If more than one of us is free, whoever does the meet-and-greet makes an ad hoc decision. Sometimes if it’s a female patient, she’ll specifically request a woman counsellor, so there are some variables. With a phone-in situation, a suicide attempt in progress, it’s about whoever’s geographically closest and able to attend. Very much up to fate and who happens to have their mobile on.’

  ‘That’s helpful, thank you. Could I ask, does the name Fenella Hawksmith mean anything to you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, and it’s one that would stand out. That’s the woman who was found dead recently in the city, right?’ Maclure leaned forwards, head resting on his upturned palms, elbows on his knees.

  ‘It is. I wonder if we could send an officer over to check your walk-in records?’ Ava asked. Not that she needed permission, but it was always better to operate with goodwill than court orders.

  ‘Absolutely, as soon as you like. Our records are brief, basic identification information, together with a couple of lines’ summary from the counsellor. Also, walk-ins aren’t obliged to give any information at all. Some fill in the form with false information. Obviously, our priority is simply to see anyone who needs to talk. I guess it’s like emergency medicine. Filling in forms is the least important part of the process. It’s an odd fact in today’s society that both feeling suicidal and asking for help to prevent suicide can be viewed as rather embarrassing or abnormal. It’s one of the reasons we find it so difficult to reach the people who need us.’

  ‘I understand. In that case, perhaps we could also bring photos of all three of the deceased to show staff members, see if anyone recalls any contact with them, in addition to those you’ve reported. Would that be all right?’

  ‘That sounds sensible,’ Maclure said. ‘We have a fairly hefty rota, as some of our counsellors do home visits or are on call to hospitals and prisons, so we travel widely. I’ll provide you with a complete staff list. That way your officers can get round to everyone more promptly.’

  ‘I appreciate that. You’ve been very helpful, Mr Maclure.’

  ‘Rune, please,’ he reminded her. ‘And forgive me for taking advantage of the most ghoulish of circumstances, but the offer of coffee or tea – or something stronger – is still on the table, so to speak. I’m hoping that even during a case this serious you still have to leave the police station once in a while.’

  ‘Actually, it’s difficult right now,’ Ava sighed. ‘My time’s not really my own mid-investigation.’

  Maclure smiled. ‘And the look on your face is telling me that being asked out on a date isn’t what you need right now, case or no case.’

  ‘You should have chosen a career in the police with powers of observation like that,’ Ava replied gently, managing a half-smile.

  ‘Oh no, I talk people out of acts of violence. Can’t stand the sight of blood myself, but I’m in awe of people like you who do what’s necessary. It must entail sacrifices the rest of us simply cannot comprehend,’ he said, standing. ‘At least give me permission to ask you out again, in a couple of months’ time, when hopefully things are simpler. Early summer, maybe? Things always seem brighter when the sun shows herself.’

  ‘How do you know you’ll still want to go for coffee with me by then?’ Ava asked honestly, no flirtation, no agenda. She was all played out of games.

  ‘Because all good things take patience,’ Maclure said. ‘I’m old enough at least to be able to recognise those things when they cross my path.’

  Ava nodded. ‘No promises,’ she said. ‘But you can ask me.’

  ‘Good,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll get all the information you need about staff. Let me know when your officers can attend to go through our records. Will it be DI Callanach attending?’

  ‘More likely it’ll be Detective Sergeant Tripp,’ Ava said, walking him to the door. ‘Callanach’s about to go on leave.’

  She had no idea when she’d made the decision, but it was suddenly clear in her mind and inevitable. Callanach simply couldn’t continue working inside MIT while both Jenson’s and Western’s murders remained unsolved.

  Rune Maclure reached out his hand to shake hers. ‘I wish we could have met in almost any other situation than this. It feels like a terribly guilty pleasure coming to see you today.’

  Ava watched him leave, considering his final words and realising that for the previous decade she’d only ever met men courtesy of investigating violent crimes. Small wonder every relationship she had went wrong. She picked up the phone and dialled Callanach’s number.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  13 March

  Ava was watching the clock in MIT’s briefing room. As it flicked to 8 a.m., she stood and began to speak, ignoring the squad members still filing in and the conversations still taking place noisily in the background. The quiet didn’t so much settle across the room as drop like a rock. The latecomers hustled into corners and raised eyebrows were exchanged.

  ‘As of yesterday afternoon, having checked the records of a national suicide prevention charity called Reach You, we’re officially treating the death of Stephen Berry as probable murder. The crime scene at Tantallon Castle offered us no evidence at all, but that was expected after the storm that followed the discovery of the body. However, both victims were spoken to by a counsellor from the charity who works in the Edinburgh branch, Rune Maclure. Mr Maclure came forward and raised his concerns with us after seeing Osaki Shozo’s name in a news article.’

  ‘What about Fenella Hawksmith? Any link there?’ Janet Monroe asked.

  ‘There’s no link at all to Reach You – teams checked that extensively yesterday – but her medical records show that she received treatment for severe depression and previous suicide attempts from other agencies, and she spent time in at least one hospital unit having been committed by her GP.’

  ‘So is this some sort of quasi-medical psychopathy? Does the killer think he’s putting these people out of their misery?’ was Monroe’s follow-up question.

  Ava liked Janet Monroe. She paused to consider the question.

  ‘It’s possible, but unlikely. You’re suggesting something like “angel of death” syndrome and typically in those cases the victims are killed by medication or without extreme violence. These deaths have all been traumatic to an extreme.’
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  ‘More like a punishment,’ DS Tripp contributed. ‘These feel more like hate crimes.’

  ‘I agree,’ Ava said. ‘So I want to go back to Stephen Berry’s death and see what we missed. The forensics has given us little to go on. Stephen previously made a very public suicide attempt on the Queensferry Crossing that was shared widely on social media. There was a large crowd on the bridge, and we know that both photos and videos were taken. There was a man laughing there. That information came from Mr Maclure, who talked Stephen Berry down, and it was confirmed by several officers at the scene. Our priority is to find that man. I want the identities of all the people at the scene. We should be able to get car registrations for those vehicles that were stopped behind the police line during the incident and drivers should be able to account for who was in their vehicle.’

  ‘That won’t prove who the person laughing was,’ someone added from the back.

  ‘No, it won’t, but we’ll be able to ask those present for any photos or video footage taken and maybe that’ll get us a step closer. Stephen Berry was likely the first victim, so it’s possible that someone at the scene took a lasting interest and seeing him attempting to jump was some sort of trigger for them.’

  ‘But how would they have found out about Fenella Hawksmith?’ Tripp asked.

  ‘Check media reports at the time. Speak with Mrs Hawksmith’s doctor, see if there was any public suicide attempt that might have got into the papers. Look at her medical records, find out the circumstances of her committal. I’ve already requested that uniformed units take statements from staff members at Reach You detailing their contacts with both Berry and Shozo, including their movements and whereabouts when all three crimes were committed.’

  ‘The murderer’s ramping it up, though, right?’ Janet Monroe said. ‘Three killings in three weeks, each more extreme than the last. We’re going to need to be more proactive to catch him or her before anyone else dies.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ Ava asked.

  ‘An attempt to attract the killer’s attention?’ Monroe suggested.

  ‘I don’t think so. It’d be difficult to set something like that up convincingly, not to mention dangerous, and a spate of public suicides can lead other vulnerable people to follow the same path. We know that from the online teenage suicide pacts. The last thing we need is to contribute to a pattern. If we do that, and other people follow suit, we may well end up focusing the killer’s attention on the wrong person and unwittingly end up helping him or her find his next victim.’

  Monroe nodded.

  ‘So, DS Tripp’ll be in charge of day-to day operations, answerable directly to me. I want all hands on today and we’re not stopping until we have something to work with.’

  ‘What’s DI Supermodel working on, then?’ Lively called out.

  Ava hadn’t realised he was in the room. She took a deep breath. She hadn’t been intending to break the news to the squad so brutally or so soon, but now that they were all gathered, it seemed the easiest course.

  ‘DI Callanach’s on leave at the moment. A conflict with the Jenson and Western investigations has come to light and he’s had to step away from an investigative role until that matter’s settled.’

  Lively stepped forwards. ‘The Gilroy–Western brake-cutting is my case. How come I wasn’t told about this?’

  ‘The decision was made late last night for the good of everyone involved. It won’t affect your investigation; in fact, I’m hoping it’ll make for a cleaner resolution,’ Ava said, picking up her file and readying to leave.

  Lively was having none of it.

  ‘It might not affect my investigation, but you’ve got a triple murder on your hands that Callanach was heading up. You don’t think MIT might need its most experienced detective inspector at the moment? No disrespect, Max,’ he directed at Tripp.

  ‘None taken,’ Tripp said quietly. ‘For what it’s worth, ma’am, I agree. This isn’t a good time to be losing the DI.’

  ‘Thank you all for your opinions,’ Ava said. ‘My decision has been agreed with the detective superintendent and is not reversible for legal reasons. I’m sure DI Callanach would be pleased to know that he has so much support from the unit, particularly from some people he might not have anticipated.’ She gave Lively a brief glance, knowing as she did that the bitchiness was beneath her. ‘I’m sure you’ll be seeing your DI again very soon. That’ll be all.’

  ‘What’s the point of suspending Callanach from duty, if you don’t mind me asking, ma’am? There’s no way he was involved in the murders of either Jenson or Western. You know that and every person here knows that. This is bullshit,’ Lively said.

  Absolute silence – a rarely observed quality within one of Police Scotland’s occupied buildings – stretched gulf-like between Ava and Lively.

  Eventually, with leaden legs and a thumping head, Ava walked across the room clutching her files in front of her like a bulletproof vest, stopping directly in front of her detective sergeant.

  ‘I said, that will be all. You have work to do.’

  Forcing herself to pause en route to her office to make coffee, rather than being perceived to have bolted and hidden, Ava could imagine the conversation happening behind her. That her promotion had finally gone to her head, that she’d lost her judgement, that Luc Callanach was being unfairly treated and was suddenly – in spite of all the ribbing and grief he’d received since joining Police Scotland – something close to a local hero.

  She stirred her coffee slowly, inexplicably adding sugar, tasting it and promptly dumping it in the sink before returning miserably to her office. Delivering the news to Callanach of his full-pay, non-disciplinary, temporary suspension the previous evening had been stilted at the start and entirely one way by the end. Utterly confused by what she was feeling, Ava had ended the call coldly before weeping furiously, alone in her office.

  She’d returned to her own home only long enough to shower and change. Sleep, at least that part of it that required you to lie quietly trying to relax with only your thoughts for company, was the enemy she was avoiding at all costs.

  Callanach had accepted his fate without complaint and Ava had known he wasn’t thinking about either Bruce Jenson or Gilroy Western but trying to keep a lid on the memory of his previous suspension in Lyon, France, when he’d been not only removed from duty, but also arrested for a rape he didn’t commit. In spite of the harshness of her words with him, she was sure about that one thing: Callanach was no rapist. Still, the deaths MIT were investigating bothered her. If two men conspired to rape a woman she cared about, her own now-deceased mother in her thoughts, Ava knew she’d have stopped at nothing – absolutely nothing, consequences notwithstanding – to have destroyed them. If Callanach had managed to show the restraint he’d claimed in Bruce Jenson’s presence, it would have been a miracle.

  Her desk phone rang and Ava picked it up absent-mindedly.

  ‘Turner, it’s Overbeck. Are you there?’ she snapped.

  ‘Yes,’ Ava mumbled. ‘Sorry, trying to do too much at once.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Overbeck said. ‘It’ll come as no surprise to you that I’ve just had a visit from DS Lively. I thought he might really have a heart attack this time.’

  ‘I was hard on him,’ Ava said. ‘I can understand why he’s angry. I’ll apologise.’

  ‘Stupid girl. I’m not phoning to discipline you. You’re his superior officer and he had no right to challenge you in that manner, particularly in front of the rest of the squad. If you hadn’t given him such short shrift, you’d have been in for an absolute bollocking from me. How did Callanach take the news last night?’

  ‘Quietly,’ Ava said.

  ‘Hmmm,’ Overbeck drawled. ‘Hierarchical relationships are complex little buggers. I don’t think Lively’s going to be gracing me with his after-hours company for a while.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ava said awkwardly. Overbeck’s relationship with Lively was always the elephant in t
he room.

  ‘Don’t be. Lively and I both knew what we were getting in to. You’ve done the right thing, Turner. Can’t have Callanach fucking up the investigation. When we arrest a suspect, we’ll have defence counsel crawling all over us if there’s an active member of the investigating team involved as a witness.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ava said. ‘Does DS Lively understand that or do I need to speak with him?’

  ‘You most certainly do not. I told him it was my decision and that you’d argued against it. He’ll probably turn up clutching a packet of chocolate Hobnobs by way of an apology any minute.’

  ‘You didn’t have to do that, ma’am,’ Ava said, disliking the sensation that the world had turned on its head. She and Overbeck on one side, Callanach and Lively on the other. Who the hell could have foreseen that turn of events?

  ‘Yes, I did. Comes with the territory. And before you get all teary-eyed and mushy on me, you should know that this is how it works. You have to control those officers and while they need to respect you, they also have to want to follow your commands. I take the shit from them on your behalf and when I get shit from the top brass, I likewise pass it on to you, because I need to keep a good relationship with them. I always did say you were a bit slow with the office politics. Now, get off your self-pitying arse – and please don’t deny it, I can hear it in your voice. You’ll feel much better when you’ve got someone in custody. Or at least I’ll feel better and that’s pretty much the same thing.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ava said. ‘And could I just say I really appreciate the support …’

  She was talking to a dead line. Overbeck’s speciality, she remembered.

  Pax Graham knocked and entered as she was actively working to pull herself together. Overbeck, as harsh as she was, was right. Lively trooped in at Graham’s rear clutching a packet of biscuits. In spite of everything, Ava had to fight not to laugh when she saw the chocolate digestives in his hand.

  ‘I forgot the coffee,’ Lively said, depositing the biscuits on Ava’s desk and staring at them, evidently stuck for where to go next.