Perfect Crime

by Helen Fields

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Thank you,’ Ava replied, reaching out and drawing the biscuits a few inches closer towards her, peace made over baked goods as only Lively could. ‘I take it there’s an update.’

  ‘There is,’ Graham said, perching on the edge of Ava’s desk as Lively took the seat. ‘Gilroy Western’s wife says he travelled here at Jenson’s solicitor’s request as there was to be a reading of the will after the memorial service and he’d been left a bequest. The email didn’t say what, only that he should attend.’

  ‘I take it there’s a but,’ Ava added.

  ‘There’s a “butt” even bigger than mine,’ Lively said gruffly. ‘The memorial service date and time was given correctly, but there was never going to be a will reading, as Jenson’s entire estate has been left to the rape crisis charity.’

  ‘So, if he checked the memorial service details online, for example, he would have had verification, but it was the promise of getting something in return for travelling that made sure he’d come?’ Ava asked.

  ‘That and the added temptation of what his wife says was a long-term liaison he had in Edinburgh. Looks like he was headed to see a lady friend when his car crashed. He had a pair of diamond earrings nicely wrapped and ribboned in the car with him. According to the wife, she wasn’t supposed to know about any of it, but knew when to put up and shut up. She doesn’t have the woman’s name but is pretty sure we’ll get the details from Mr Western’s phone. I think the term she used was a cheap piece of street-corner decoration,’ Lively said.

  ‘High-end prostitute?’ Ava asked. ‘Trace her and speak to her. See where she was the night before Western died and if she’d ever had any contact with Bruce Jenson. Prostitutes get raped more than any other sector of society.’

  ‘You think there’s a link to Bruce Jenson’s final monumental decision about where to leave his money?’ Graham asked.

  ‘I think we should check and see if Gilroy Western had made any recent changes to his will,’ Ava said. ‘He was a businessman who must have had plenty of contact with lawyers over the years, so how did he fall for a fake email?’

  ‘It was good. Whoever had sent it had gone to the trouble of setting up a false email address, including the law partnership’s name. They used all the company details and reproduced the logo. They’d signed it from Jenson’s personal lawyer. It was no botch job. Left nothing to chance.’ Lively checked his watch. ‘I’d best go. We’ve got the tech nerds checking the mobile phone and I’m hoping they can give me some answers. Am I allowed to speak with DI Callanach at all, just as a mate?’

  ‘You’re mates now, are you? Was I in a coma when that happened?’ Ava folded her arms.

  ‘All right, I shouldn’t have faced you down in the briefing, but it’s …’

  ‘Sergeant, I’ve already forgotten about that, but you can’t contact Callanach. He’s on administrative leave for a reason. You’re involved in an investigation that Callanach needs to be protected from. Getting in touch with him right now would be the worst thing you could do.’

  ‘I get that,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s just that, well, he and I haven’t always got along. I just wanted him to know that the team’s going to support him.’

  ‘He doesn’t need the team’s support, or anyone else’s, given that he’s not implicated in any way, but the sentiment would be appreciated, I’m sure. I’ll pass it on.’

  ‘Right, I’ll be off, then. I, er, bumped into the superintendent earlier,’ Lively mumbled, his eyes darting to Graham and back.

  Lively was about as good at subterfuge as he was at dieting.

  ‘I spoke to her, too,’ Ava said. ‘She’s got MIT’s back, Sergeant. You should probably give her more credit.’

  ‘Aye. Maybe,’ he said glumly as he left.

  Graham waited until Lively was well down the corridor before asking the inevitable.

  ‘You all right? Seems like you’re having a tough day.’

  ‘I’ll survive. What’s your gut instinct on the Jenson–Western case right now?’

  ‘I think it goes way back. It’s either something both men were implicated in or it’s an unresolved issue between them. Western’s wife was clear they’ve had no dealings for a decade,’ Graham said.

  ‘You’re sure the two deaths are linked?’

  ‘I’m not sure of anything right now, but the email enticing Western to come for Jenson’s funeral is too much of a coincidence. Otherwise, why not just fly out to Spain and cut Western’s brakes at his own home?’

  ‘Maybe there was too great a risk of killing another family member,’ Ava offered.

  ‘Or maybe travelling abroad risked leaving a trail – passports, tickets, credit cards.’

  ‘All right, see what you can turn up, but let me know quickly. Now that Callanach’s on enforced leave, we’ll have to resolve it without delay.’

  ‘Must be difficult. You two were colleagues before you got promoted. I can’t imagine how hard that conversation was. Let me know if you need anything, won’t you? And we never got that drink, not that anyone was in the mood for celebrating promotions with bodies piling up. Remind me, I owe you a pint still when this is over.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Ava said, attempting a smile, aware that it was strained.

  Graham wandered out of her office, remarkably lithe in spite of his frame, carrying his height well. So many tall people stooped, but Pax Graham seemed content to fill the entire corridor. He was a good man. Observant. Perhaps a little too observant for her right now. As for the offers of coffee and drinks, it was hard to remember a time when she’d been so popular. The truth was that the last thing she wanted was to encourage advances from either Rune Maclure or Pax Graham, as attractive and intelligent as they both were. There was only one man she could think about and if she’d been able to wipe her memory clean of all they’d done two nights before, she’d have pressed that button with no hesitation at all.

  Callanach picked up the glass of red wine he’d failed to finish the previous night and knocked it back, staring into the empty glassware before sending it flying to connect with the door into his kitchen. The resulting shards flew and skittered into every corner of the lounge. After Ava’s phone call, he’d immediately changed into joggers and a T-shirt, and hit Edinburgh’s streets at a pace that had left every muscle torn to shreds. The pain this morning was a welcome distraction from the fact that he had nowhere to go and nothing to do, except wait for other people to do their jobs so that he could get back to his.

  It didn’t help that Ava was right. Continuing to work when there was an active investigation in which he was involved – even as a peripheral witness – was asking for trouble and Ava had found a means to get him out that avoided having to declare his deep loathing of both Jenson and Western. Still, his anger was barely controllable. It seemed that however hard he fought, fate was determined to slap him back down. As if leaving his former life in France wasn’t enough, not to mention his prized career at Interpol, now he had another question mark over his head. There were only so many times your colleagues would accept you were innocent in the face of scandal. Sooner or later it stuck. The worst of it was, his career wasn’t the loss he really cared about any more. He’d screwed up something of much greater value to him.

  Retreating to his bathroom, he crashed to the floor and stared into the cupboard where he’d previously hidden Ava’s slate, untouched and largely forgotten. In spite of his attempt to explain what had been going through his mind when he’d taken it, he was only guessing at his motivation. To say he’d been an emotional wreck back then was an understatement.

  He’d regretted his decision to join Police Scotland almost as soon as he’d signed on the dotted line. Only the knowledge that he had to fill his time with something positive or spiral into depression had made him board the plane to Edinburgh. That, and the sense that if he didn’t continue to do some sort of police work, then he’d have let his accuser, Astrid, take absolutely everything from him.

&nbs
p; Then he’d found Ava in MIT, tried to keep her at arm’s-length, realised she was way too strong and decent a woman to tolerate that, and given himself permission to make a friend. Just as quickly, she’d been taken from him by a man who was capable of the most grotesque acts of torture and violence.

  Taking a personal item from her home had been wrong, but it was the only thing that had given him any comfort at the time. As for the other items, he’d simply been searching for a way to make the victims matter to him, in spite of the emotional void in his life. Not returning the victims’ personal belongings when the investigation had come to an end had been part denial, part shame.

  He stared at the towels still littering the floor that had covered the possessions he’d taken. Like most things in his life, his stupidity had been born of fast living. Use a towel, wash it, put it back on the top of the pile. And at the bottom, the objects he’d taken from three different victims of crime had sat untouched, until now.

  It was a disaster. Ava, finally in his arms, and now she couldn’t bear to look at him. Trying to rationalise what he’d done would do no good. She might be the most level-headed woman in the world when it came to an investigation, but her heart ruled her brain in her personal life.

  Slowly, folding carefully as he went, he rebuilt the stack of towels and put them away, closing the cupboard doors behind them. Then he stood and tidied the surfaces in the bathroom. After that, he turned his attention to his bedroom, straightening the covers on his bed, remembering the celebrated recent quote that if you wanted to change the world you had to start off by making your bed. Such a trivial activity, but the sense of it resonated with him.

  He couldn’t afford to feel sorry for himself the way he’d slid into introspection after Astrid Borde had accused him of rape. True, the implications of his current predicament were nowhere near as grave, but he wasn’t going to run away this time. It had taken all his strength to establish himself in Edinburgh and only a fool would let so much effort go to waste.

  In the lounge, he brushed up the broken glass and made sure there were no outward signs of the chaos in his head. By then, it was lunchtime. The easiest option by far was coffee and toast, but he forced himself to grill some fish and prepare a salad to go with it.

  Then he did the one thing he really didn’t want to do. He got in touch with his friend, Lance, arranged to join him for dinner and prepared to tell him everything. Absolutely everything, missing none of the details of what he’d been through before and what he was going through now. It was the final hurdle, learning to trust again, and he couldn’t lay it all at Ava’s door. He had to find some balance in his life, that careful layering of family, friends, colleagues and lovers.

  As he stacked the dishwasher, Ava’s final words came back to him, as they had every few minutes since she’d left his flat, echoing with so much pain that he’d thought he might never be able to hear anything else. The man she’d thought she’d fallen in love with, she’d said. He wondered how much she regretted that now.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  14 March

  The Crow didn’t have to use either ingenuity, force or persuasion to get into the farmhouse and he felt cheated. Folks out at East Saltoun were old-style, apparently, leaving their doors unlocked until late into the evening. He stepped inside, taking a deep breath and catching a strong waft of manure from a pair of discarded boots before tasting the unmistakeable sweetness of an apple pie baked with a generous helping of cinnamon as it wafted from the oven.

  The resident farmer was presumably seated in front of the television, where he’d been during each of The Crow’s previous visits, although on those occasions he’d restricted himself to peering through the windows. The main concern with a farmhouse was dogs, but with no sheep, the owner kept only one mutt for company and that appeared to sleep in front of the fire almost constantly. His assumption that it was half deaf had been borne out by its complete lack of reaction to an intruder.

  He took his time and was careful in spite of the fact that by now he was surely invincible. His strength was increasing daily and since he’d consumed the original feathered version of himself, he’d noticed a substantial improvement in both his eyesight and his balance, real – not imagined – in spite of what others would say if he told them.

  The world was limitless. Those people who thought science had uncovered all the secrets of the world were blind to potential and cut off from the mysteries of the universe. The Crow was an open mind. He could accept and therefore receive the benefits the natural world had to offer him. He’d evolved into a focal point of natural power.

  Those who’d call him insane – the small people – had had their senses dulled by electronic gadgets, screens, machines to keep them fit, machines to measure their fitness, machines to read books from, the list was endless. He was raw, real and untainted. He had a mobile phone, of course – sometimes you had to adopt common necessities to function and fit in – but he saw such accessories for what they really were: a conductor that drained humankind’s base energy.

  Better armed this time, The Crow had a handgun in one pocket and doubled up by taking a butcher’s knife from the block in the kitchen. The farmer might be in his mid-sixties, but he’d spent a lifetime working on the land and was still likely to be strong and, perhaps more of a threat, unafraid. The farmer’s shotgun was in a cabinet in the hallway, stupidly visible from the lounge window; although he did at least bother to keep it locked.

  A bang from upstairs took him by surprise. He froze, tipping his head to get a better location on the noise, summoning all his considerable new senses, sniffing the air for anything he might have missed. A scent that seemed not to fit, items abandoned that indicated the presence of a person other than the farmer, who wasn’t married and had no children, the reason for that as plain as the hideous scarring on the farmer’s face. Also, he suspected, the reason the farmer had attempted to flee this world before his allotted time on many occasions in the past.

  Burn victims were cruelly treated by society. The staring, constant rejection, the polarisation between everything society plugged as perfect and the reality of looking in the mirror. The Crow could understand how hard it was, but not forgive. Animals didn’t sit around feeling sorry for themselves, wishing they could die. They foraged, hunted, killed, fed, mated, irrespective of how they felt at any given moment.

  They strove. That was the right word.

  Satisfied that the noise from the upper floor was nothing more than a door slamming in the breeze, he began, drawing the gun from his pocket and disengaging the safety catch. It wasn’t that he needed the weapon – he had no doubts whatsoever about his physical prowess – but it was going to make controlling the farmer substantially easier. The point was that the evening had to go exactly as he’d played it in his head. That was the surest way that the farmer’s life force would transfer to him. There had to be circularity and meaning to the death, otherwise he was simply committing murder and that would be a trivialisation of his work.

  Walking into the lounge, it took a few moments before the farmer even noticed him. The old man huffed loudly, then picked up his remote control and flicked off the television.

  ‘I paid my frigging taxes. I don’t care if you’ve got a bloody court order, I called the sheriff’s office myself and made sure my file was closed. So go on then.’ He gave a wave of his hand. ‘Bugger right off and close the door behind yerself.’

  ‘I’m not here about your taxes,’ The Crow said. ‘And I’m not a sheriff.’

  ‘Well, you’re not polis. Polis have to announce themselves before they come in. Are you one of those new immigration bastards? I told you, I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  He stood up now, in full finger-pointing flow, anger compensating for a blossoming confusion. No fear yet, but that would come.

  ‘Are you carrying a gun?’ he asked, peering at the small black object, largely concealed in The Crow’s hand and currently pointed at the threadbare carpet.

/>   ‘I am,’ he replied, levelling it at the farmer’s gut. ‘I know you have one, too; although at present it’s in its case, like the law-abiding citizen I’m sure you are.’

  The farmer glanced through the doorway and into the hall where his gun cabinet stood beside the staircase.

  ‘That’s the one, just out there. All I need you to do is give me the keys.’

  ‘Like hell I will, you daft wee prick. What’re you gonna do, shoot me over a knackered auld shotgun?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’ll do if you don’t hand it over. Just that, then I’ll be on my way,’ The Crow said calmly.

  The farmer glanced into the hallway again. He was about to give in. The Crow felt it as certainly as he could smell that the pie had begun to burn, the former sweetness rolling into charcoaled bitter.

  ‘Then you’ll go? That’s all you came for?’ the farmer double-checked.

  The Crow gave what appeared to be a related shrug of his shoulders. What the farmer couldn’t see – invisible to mortals who’d not become anything greater than their human selves – were the huge wings The Crow felt on his back. He gave them a flutter and in his mind they filled the back wall of the poky lounge. He felt the breeze they created ruffle his hair.

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  The farmer dug deep into his pocket and pulled out a rusty keyring holding just four or five keys. The smallest he took between his thumb and forefinger as he walked slowly to the gun cabinet.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ The Crow instructed, holding his hand out, keeping the gun aimed at the farmer’s chest.

  Keys in hand, he walked to the cabinet, motioning for his hostage to stand in the far corner. He wasn’t worried about the man making a run for it. The farmhouse was a good mile from any other buildings and if he had to fire a shot to persuade him to stop running, it wouldn’t be such a surprising sound in a farming community well used to controlling fox and badger populations when the need arose. The Crow pulled the gun from the cabinet, checked it was loaded. It was, which was sloppy gun care, but useful for him.