Perfect Crime

by Helen Fields

  They must have made sure someone was at home to look after her, Lance thought. No psych evaluation. No prescription. Of course, it was possible Janet had all the medication she needed waiting for her in her flat, but that just begged the question: why hadn’t she taken it, or why it hadn’t worked? The seed of the story, already firmly planted in Lance’s mind, sprouted and did its best to reach for a light source. Too soon for that.

  He identified a sufficiently inconspicuous parking space, checked his emergency car stash of drinks and packs of crisps – bugger the low-fat diet – and settled down to watch Janet Vargas’ building for no other reason than because that’s what his gut was telling him to do. In an hour or so, he’d wander in, grab one of the pieces of junk mail that would have been dropped on the floor somewhere and stick it under a door on the top floor. Give himself what looked like a reason for being inside while he got the lay of the land.

  If the police were watching and they got suspicious of him, he’d use Callanach’s name to clarify who he was. At least it would be confirmation of the bigger picture: that those attempting suicide in the city were prey to a ruthless murderer who saw them as bait. And that Janet Vargas, so recently saved from taking her own life, might soon be wishing she’d gone through with it, compared to the horrors that Hawksmith and Shozo had been subjected to.

  Lance waited an hour, considered going home but didn’t. Some habits you just couldn’t break. He had no idea at all what, or who, he was looking for, but the journalist – and perhaps, he acknowledged, the egotist in him – assured him he’d know it when he saw it.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  17 March

  The briefing room was full to capacity with members of both investigative teams. Pax Graham stood up to speak first.

  ‘We still have no suspect,’ he began. ‘Gilroy Western’s long-time escort has an alibi for the entire period and after some pressure was applied, the gentleman she was with has confirmed her version of events. Suffice to say, if she was lying there’s no way he’d have put his political career on the line for her. Likewise Western’s daughter and wife, while having potential motives for wanting Western dead, were both in Spain at the time. That leaves someone who hasn’t yet figured into our investigation, or the possibility that someone ordered a hit on Jenson and Western.

  ‘The DNA found on the engine of Western’s car isn’t in the police national database, but the same DNA has also been identified on the cushion used to kill Bruce Jenson. What we do have, though, courtesy of the staff member who finally came forward to say a female figure ran through the gardens while he was having a cigarette, is CCTV footage from the security camera of the industrial building opposite the care home.’

  He turned around and hit a few buttons on a laptop while someone killed the lights. A large screen flickered into half-life, showing little other than darkened blurs with the occasional car headlights flashing past. The roof of the care home was visible in the top section but shrouded by trees and vegetation at the front. Large gates looked like an impressive enough security measure, fixed to sections of wall than ran for several metres either side.

  Graham fast-forwarded the footage by a few minutes once the audience had found their focus. There was movement in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, leaves and branches displaced in ill-defined shades of grey, then a patch of darkness appeared where the bush had been. A figure stepped through and out onto the pavement: slim, graceful, unmistakably female, even with only a shaky silhouette on view. The hair was either short or tied back and the line of her neck was clear. She leaned down.

  ‘We think she’s brushing off debris from the hedge,’ Graham said as the figure straightened again. ‘And here, she does something with both hands then reaches into her coat. It seems likely that she’s removing gloves and putting them in her jacket pockets to avoid looking suspicious. That night wasn’t exactly warm but it wasn’t necessarily gloves weather. She exits down the street and we lose sight of her. After that we were unable to catch her on any other CCTV on nearby roads, so we assume she got into a vehicle at some point, or even called a cab.’

  Ava stared at the screen as if the woman might reappear. In spite of the darkness and the horrible pixellation of the footage, there was something about the woman that struck a chord with her. A familiarity, something to do with the way she moved. How she’d cocked her head to one side and smoothed her hair before walking off down the road. She closed her eyes and tried to catch the threads of her subconscious mind that were already slipping away.

  ‘If she was wearing gloves, how did her DNA get onto the cushion?’ someone asked.

  ‘We think from her saliva, possibly from the effort of pushing the cushion over his face, or from spittle flying as she spoke to him during the event,’ Graham replied. ‘Full DNA results from all the Bruce Jenson exhibits only came back this morning. It’s possible we might be able to tell a bit more about her, in generic terms, in a few more days.’

  He nodded at Ava, ceding the floor.

  ‘DS Tripp has made some headway in the Berry case. The male on the Queensferry Bridge we’ve been referring to was captured on another onlooker’s mobile phone. We don’t have a clear facial view. He was wearing winter clothes, hood up, scarf on, but we’ve got the outline of his head. You’ll see from this footage’ – she took Graham’s former place at the laptop and selected a file – ‘that there’s a man shown in a rear view. He shouts encouragement at Stephen Berry to jump – we see his mobile phone held up at one point – and then he begins to laugh. Although we only have the rear view, the movement of his head matching the shouting of words and laughing makes us certain enough that this is the man we’ve been looking for.’

  She closed the file and opened another one. An audio track began to play as the camera panned across a crowd. The words, ‘Go on, do it!’ could be heard clearly above the background noise, then a break, then laughter.

  ‘We had a speech recognition expert compare the two overnight. She’s confirmed that it’s the same man. We can’t place him at a crime scene, not yet, but we’re putting all of our efforts into identifying him. Tripp, I want your team pursuing media outlets to see what footage was posted of Janet Monroe yesterday.

  ‘We know the laughing man was filming, so let’s see if we can’t trace him through that. We’ll be able to exclude any innocent parties easily now that we have the speech pattern. We estimate that he’s in his twenties, roughly six feet tall. I saw him in the crowd yesterday but was unable to follow.

  ‘Assume he’s local and has a vested interest in potential suicides. It can’t be a coincidence that he appeared at two events in progress, so he’s either watching the media, or he has a contact – emergency services, possibly – who’s notifying him when a possible suicide is called in. Find him. Notify all progress to me immediately.

  ‘In the meantime, I’ll be showing the footage to Rune Maclure, the counsellor who assisted Stephen Berry on the bridge. I’d like results by the end of the day. If we can’t do this quietly, we may be forced to ask the TV stations to broadcast the footage to see if anyone’ll call in with a name, but that’s a last resort. If we do that, it’s a sure thing he’ll run.’

  Ava closed the laptop lid and picked it up, making for the door. Pax Graham caught her as she went.

  ‘Could I have a word, chief?’

  ‘Can it wait? I’ve got Maclure waiting in my office and I know he’s got appointments to get to.’ She began to walk.

  Graham fell into step at her side.

  ‘It won’t take long,’ he said.

  Ava hoped he wasn’t going to ask her for a drink again. He’d called to update her on the case the previous evening, inviting her to meet for a face-to-face chat at a pub, asking if she’d eaten. She’d claimed tiredness, which although not a lie, wasn’t the reason she didn’t want to see him. Pax Graham was single, attractive and much too attentive, which she needed in her life like she needed the measles.

  ‘You’ve got
two minutes,’ she said.

  ‘All right.’ He paused, taking several strides before continuing. ‘When the forensic results came back from the cushion used to kill Bruce Jenson, we didn’t just find Gilroy Western’s killer’s DNA on there. Not unexpectedly, we found several different sources. One of them, though, was DI Callanach.’

  Ava kept walking, reminding herself to breathe.

  ‘Callanach placed himself at the scene and admitted he made physical contact both with Mr Jenson and the cushion. I’m not surprised his DNA came up. It’s one of the reasons he’s on administrative leave – to keep the investigation untainted.’

  ‘I agree, but the DNA wasn’t from skin cells or sweat, which I was expecting.’

  Ava stopped walking.

  ‘There was blood on the cushion, almost invisible to the naked eye, the droplet was so small.’

  ‘He told us he broke a vase. He reported it to the nurse on duty. It’s possible he nicked his skin then.’

  ‘It is, but Callanach said he knocked over the vase looking for a towel to wipe Jenson’s chin. His chronology is that it was only later he went back to clean up the broken vase. He didn’t say anything about going back to Jenson again after that.’

  Ava smiled and nodded. ‘You’re absolutely right,’ she said. ‘It needs clarifying. Thanks for letting me know first. Have DI Callanach come in and deal with it.’

  ‘No need at the moment,’ Graham said. ‘It’s not as if he’s a suspect. I just wanted to give you advance notice, in case it comes up when the file gets passed over to the procurator fiscal for trial and that’s not going to happen until we catch whoever’s responsible. I’ll let you get on.’

  ‘Sure. Thanks,’ Ava said quietly.

  She still hadn’t notified Callanach that it was a woman they were looking for in connection with the two murders. Things were too hectic and even if they weren’t, passing on information about the investigation was just another breach of protocol. If push came to shove, he’d have to come up with an explanation for his blood ending up on Jenson’s cushion. That was Callanach’s problem, not hers. She had enough to deal with.

  Rune Maclure was waiting in her office, chatting with Superintendent Overbeck, when Ava entered. Overbeck was stirring a cup of coffee slowly, all eyes, in a manner that made Ava glad she hadn’t brought DS Lively to the meeting with her. The sergeant was feeling insecure enough without watching the woman he was inexplicably drawn to flirting with a man as charming as Maclure. Overbeck, on the other hand, had called for coffee to be delivered in cups with saucers that actually matched and which weren’t even chipped, something of a miracle in a police station. Ava steeled herself for the usual onslaught of insults.

  ‘Ava, we’ve been waiting for you,’ Overbeck purred.

  So it was all first names and smiles, then. Overbeck must have been massively overselling herself, Ava decided.

  ‘Mr Maclure, apologies for keeping you. Detective Superintendent, I can update you later. We just need to view an exhibit. It shouldn’t take long. I can come to your office immediately afterwards.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Overbeck said. ‘You know I prefer a hands-on approach. Why don’t I stay and work through this with you? I might be of assistance.’

  Ava tried not to sigh audibly. If Overbeck couldn’t see how laughable the use of the phrase ‘hands-on’ was, with cerise nails that could easily be classified an offensive weapon, then she really was operating police command from a different planet.

  ‘I’d really appreciate that, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Let me just set up the laptop.’

  ‘So, how long have you lived in Edinburgh, Rune?’ Overbeck continued.

  ‘All my adult life,’ Maclure said. ‘It gets into your blood, I think. You can travel the world, but if you’re from Scotland, she calls you back sooner or later.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. Where did you get your degree?’

  ‘St Andrews,’ Maclure smiled, catching Ava’s eye-roll as Overbeck was taking a sip of coffee.

  Overbeck was forgetting she was dealing with a psychotherapist. Her body language alone was enough to send any sensible man running.

  ‘Here we go,’ Ava said quickly. ‘You said there was a man laughing on the bridge when you were with Stephen Berry. It took a while, but we managed to trace other people on the bridge by their car registration plates. Someone was filming from behind this male.’ She brought the footage up on the screen. ‘He filmed the laughter and some shouting. Can you confirm that this is the voice you heard?’

  Ava pressed play. Maclure watched it once, asked to replay it and listened again, leaning in to study the screen.

  ‘Yes, absolutely, that’s what I heard; although I was some distance away and the wind was muffling it. Can I just ask—’

  ‘Sorry, one moment, while it’s fresh in your mind,’ Ava said. ‘I’d like you to look at another clip. There was a suicide threat in the city yesterday. Police attended to secure the area and assist the emergency services, and a camera happened to catch this from general footage of the crowd.’

  She pressed play. The camera panned across heads. Almost manic laughing erupted and a man yelled. A view of his head, face almost entirely obscured by his hood, came and went, slightly blurred, as he turned his back and began weaving through the bodies around him.

  ‘Take it back,’ Maclure said. ‘Let me see it again.’

  Ava scrolled along the timeline.

  ‘You should know we’ve had an expert consider both voice patterns. She’s concluded it’s the same man.’

  Maclure didn’t respond but pulled the laptop closer to himself, increasing the screen brightness as the clip began to play again. At the end, he sat back and crossed his arms, frowning.

  ‘If that’s our suspect, we’re going to have to get a much better picture than that before we release details to the public,’ Overbeck said. ‘Have the techies tried to enhance it or whatever they do in that little cave of theirs?’

  ‘You can’t enhance it. If we increase the size, it’ll just get blurrier,’ Ava said, wishing Overbeck would just leave her to it.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll need to,’ Maclure said softly. ‘God, I hope my office isn’t responsible for any of these deaths, but …’

  Ava gave him time.

  ‘I have an idea who this is. I’m not definite, and I have no reason to believe he’s the sort of person who’d ever be violent, but there’s been a young man hanging around the drop-in centre recently who fits this description.’

  ‘Do you have a name?’ Ava asked.

  ‘I don’t, but I’ve seen him with one of our administrative assistants, the girl who does our filing and makes coffee for visitors if there’s a delay getting them in to see a counsellor. Her name’s Vicki Rosach.’

  ‘Does Vicki have access to the personal details of the people you help?’ Overbeck took over.

  ‘They’re all held in our files; although she’s instructed not to open the files or access the information. It’s in her contract.’ Maclure put his head in his hands. ‘I’m sorry, I was so certain this wouldn’t come back on us. We’re there to help people when they need it most. If we lose the public’s trust, people won’t feel able to come to us when they need us most. It’ll be devastating.’

  Overbeck laid a manicured claw on Maclure’s forearm, squeezing gently.

  ‘You’re obviously doing a marvellous job. Please don’t blame yourself.’

  ‘I need Vicki Rosach’s personal details,’ Ava said. ‘Don’t alert your office. It’s important Vicki has no idea anything’s wrong. Do you know if she’s at work now?’

  ‘I think so,’ Maclure said. ‘If I call in to check, it’s likely to be her who picks up the phone.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Ava said quickly. ‘Brief description?’

  ‘About twenty, ginger hair, pale skin.’

  ‘I remember her,’ Ava said.

  ‘She’s not great at her job, to be honest. Perhaps I should have got rid of her, bu
t I always thought of her as distracted or a bit thoughtless and I like to give people a proper chance. It never occurred to me there might be anything more suspicious going on.’

  ‘We’re not certain yet that Vicki’s got anything to do with it,’ Ava said, shutting her laptop and picking up her coat. ‘We’ll bring her in and ask about her associates. If we move forwards, I’ll need you to attend and identify the man you think you recognised.’

  ‘I’ll help in any way I can, especially given that my office is responsible.’

  Ava paused on the way out of her office.

  ‘Mr Maclure, if I’ve learned anything in the police, it’s that psychopaths always find a way. There’s an inevitability about what they do. A determination that beats any barrier put in their path. Your organisation isn’t to blame here. All we can do now is make sure there are no more victims.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  17 March

  Whatever computer glitch had been keeping his emails from him was suddenly mended. Callanach opened his laptop to find forty-two messages he hadn’t yet read. He started at the top.

  Good morning, sir.

  Tripp had messaged, no less formal in email than he was in the flesh.

  I heard from DCI Turner that you’re on administrative leave. I hope it’s all right emailing, but I wanted to let you know that we’re making good progress with the cases here. If you need anything, please call my mobile. I hope you’re well.

  Callanach smiled. His newly promoted detective sergeant was understandably formal, but the message was well-intentioned. Tripp was nothing if not loyal and together they’d made an unlikely but successful team. Until now.

  Callanach opened the next email, which was from his bank, then one reminding his about a dental appointment – at least he had plenty of time for that sort of thing now – before deciding to get himself a coffee. No point using up all his distractions at once when his days were so long and uneventful.