Cause of Death

by Peter Ritchie

  62

  O’Connor was trying to focus in the bathroom mirror, but it was hard – his head was thumping like an Orange walk drumbeat. He steered the razor across his face and swore he could hear it screech across his dehydrated skin. It had been a wonderful day, and he accepted the pain but wondered what they’d drunk later in the evening. All he could remember was that they’d done some kind of bar crawl – and the rest was a blank. They trained them hard in Northern Ireland in all aspects of the job, and he decided that he was never again going to try and go drink for drink with someone who had served there for as long as Macallan had.

  He wiped his face and sipped his tepid coffee before heading to the kitchen area for some much-needed hydration. Macallan was lying face down on the bed and still sleeping – or was she just suffering with her eyes closed? It didn’t matter – she looked wonderful, and in that moment he wished he had the talent to draw her.

  He took his water out to the balcony and watched white scraps of cloud bouncing across the sky on a sea-chilled wind. The sunshine they’d enjoyed had been a freak weather front, but now low winter pressure was back in charge, and he could see lines of rain pushing north-east across the bay.

  Beside him, O’Connor’s phone hummed across the table as if it had a life of its own. He felt a lead weight in his stomach and thought about ignoring it, though he knew that was impossible. The job was a drug. They’d been off it for a few days but it was just as potent as a junkie’s gear, and eventually being without it would eat them up from the inside out.

  He picked the phone up just as Macallan lifted her head off the pillow, the same lead weight in her gut. She shifted up onto an elbow so she could watch his face, but the adrenalin was already rushing through her body and she knew the holiday was over.

  O’Connor had turned pale, and she wondered why she wasn’t surprised. He put down the phone, as she flicked the switch on the kettle, and then scribbled some notes. She fixed the coffee and waited while he did his thinking, and she was just pouring it into two cups when he came inside and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  ‘An Edinburgh prostitute was taken last night and beaten to death, and there’s similarities to the Barclay case,’ he told her. ‘Jesus Christ, what does that mean? A copycat or what?’

  The words opened up the pending files she’d put away in the back of her mind. ‘Let’s get packed,’ she said.

  But as they did so, she chewed her lip, the mist swirling again in the back of her mind. There had been loose ends in the Barclay case – that nagging feeling that something was wrong – and she knew she should have said more – even if no one had listened.

  True, they’d landed a big scalp, but they were about to be punished for it. She just knew it.

  63

  They didn’t bother dropping off their luggage and headed straight to HQ, Macallan calling Harkins as O’Connor drove them from the airport.

  ‘We’ll be back in half an hour. Can you be prepared to brief us when we get in? If there’s anyone else from the analysts or the science lab required then get them there. Are there any developments?’

  Harkins voice was flat and she wondered again what was wrong with him.

  ‘Everyone’s working flat out but there’s nothing new at the moment. The girl was local and you can guess the CV. She was a junkie with a habit that would have killed a horse if it was stupid enough to stick that crap in its bloodstream.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think we need to do the job and see where it goes.’

  She pulled the phone away from her ear and wondered where the legendary bastard that had been Mick Harkins had gone. O’Connor looked round and asked her the question without talking. She stared straight ahead – France was a long way behind them. ‘No developments.’

  The briefing left them with more questions than answers, and O’Connor started to feel that their short holiday was something he’d dreamed. Here they were again scraping up a mess, trying to make sense of the death of a young woman called Mary Waddell, who had no one to care about her besides her junked-up boyfriend – and he only cared about what she could earn or steal from the punters.

  Harkins had attended the post-mortem but all they could confirm was that the girl had been in poor health before her death, and according to the pathologist would probably have been dead within a year without the help of the killer. He told them that the pathologist did say that the violence and pattern of the assault were almost identical to the other victims, but that was as far as she’d go. There would be more to come, but it would take time to finish the tests and tissue samples.

  Harkins sat back, waiting for O’Connor.

  ‘Okay, Mick, is that it? Any theories on what we’re dealing with here? I don’t think there are that many options, so we might as well get to the elephant in the room.’

  Harkins should have had an opinion but said nothing, so Macallan broke the silence. ‘Well, it’s a copycat nutter who’s as bad as the original – or it’s the boy for the other victims, which means that Jonathon Barclay is yet another casualty of the big bad police. But it can’t be the latter because the forensic evidence against him was solid. We didn’t fit him up and the forensics clinched it.’

  She looked at Harkins for any reaction, but he didn’t move a muscle. Macallan didn’t believe what she’d said; her subconscious was racing through everything she knew, trying to find a question mark, somewhere to stop and confront the doubt.

  The phone buzzed on O’Connor’s desk and his face twisted as he took the call. He dropped it back on the cradle a minute later and shook his head.

  ‘No rest for the wicked an’ all that. The ACC wants to see me – and it sounds like he’s had better days. Crack on and I’ll see you when I get back. If he doesn’t transfer me to the traffic department, that is.’

  O’Connor left the room and Macallan poured coffee into two paper cups, handing one to Harkins. ‘You okay?’ she asked him. ‘You don’t look like the demon detective I once knew. Anything I can do? A couple of drinks along the road when we get finished?’

  ‘I’m okay, but thanks for taking an interest. Think I’m just done and can’t do this any more. I’m putting my ticket in and collecting my pension at long last.’

  ‘Jesus, Mick! I thought you were enjoying the job again. Is it something to do with Felicity or what? I don’t want you to go. We probably need you now more than ever.’

  ‘It’s over with Felicity – she was always too good for me anyway.’

  He tried a half-smile but it didn’t reach his eyes, and Macallan realised that something was broken inside Harkins. But if he didn’t want to share then it wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘What about that drink then? That always did us both good when you were my nursemaid.’

  ‘It’s okay, you’ve more than enough to do with this job, so we can see how it goes. I’ll be here for a few days yet then I’m off.’

  Macallan felt helpless. ‘Talk to me, Mick. We’re friends.’

  ‘What do you want me to say? It’s time to go, and that’s all it is. You’ve sorted a huge part of this squad now, and you’ll do fine without me. I have to get on.’

  She gave up but it all felt bad. ‘Okay, but while JJ is out of the office, tell me what you really think about this.’

  He was halfway out of his seat but dropped wearily back into the chair, where he scratched the stubble on his chin and stared at the floor. ‘I think that we’ve been played from the start and all the talent in this squad couldn’t see it. I know you weren’t happy with the smell of the Barclay case, but you didn’t follow your nose and that was a mistake. We were just too anxious to get the headline capture. You’re better than that, and given what happened in Northern Ireland, you’ve already proved you don’t follow the pack unless it’s going in the right direction. Follow the leads, Grace. This guy is asking us to find the truth. Fuck knows what it’s about, but he’s not far away and just wants to get something finished.’


  She wasn’t sure it was the right move but she put her arm round his neck and squeezed him, noticing how frail he felt. He didn’t resist, but when she released him, he left the room without saying another word, and she just stared after him and shook her head. How would she cope without Mick?

  Macallan started reading through the evidence to get a feel for the job. She would wait for O’Connor before making a move, but what she saw was a mirror image of the other cases, and she found she couldn’t concentrate on the evidence with Harkins’ voice rattling round her mind. What she needed to do was go back to the start of the other crimes and work the whole case again.

  She called Felicity Young, who arrived a few minutes later with coffee in one hand and a pile of paper in the other. She looked strained but Macallan decided to avoid the subject of Harkins unless she wanted to mention it.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you this latest case is a problem, however it turns out, but I want to talk to you off the record before Mr O’Connor comes back. He’s going to be under tremendous pressure and might be forced to take a line that he doesn’t necessarily want to follow. As regards the previous case, is there anything we didn’t follow up because of the arrest or because there just wasn’t time?’

  Felicity Young heaved a sigh and started to polish her glasses, which she always did when she was stressed. She was much prettier and younger looking without them.

  ‘There’s always something but HOLMES doesn’t let us get away with much so we really have to focus on answering the outstanding questions in the system. But there are always details of a person’s life that can be checked. You can always go further and deeper into the lives of the accused – and the victims or crucial witnesses for that matter. In a way, it’s endless, and with an unsolved case you could be following up evidence for years, as we’ve done in the past.’

  Macallan decided to push: ‘Okay, I know that, but I want you to think about Barclay and let me know if there’s anything we have that still needs to be checked or re-examined for that matter.’

  ‘Will this be authorised by Mr O’Connor?’ The analyst pushed the glasses back onto her nose.

  Macallan blinked and tried to look routine, though there was nothing routine in her thinking.

  ‘It might be but I have to talk to him first. What if he doesn’t give his authority and I still want it done?’

  Felicity removed her glasses again and polished them even more frantically. ‘I’ll see what I can do. I’ll do it myself but I might need some help.’

  ‘Thanks. Think about it, and I’ll get back to you after I speak to the boss.’

  When O’Connor arrived back in his office, he looked drained and his shoulders were slack. A few more grey hairs seemed to have taken up residence at his temples. He dropped into his seat and looked across the Edinburgh skyline as the copper sun began to set and darkness started to creep through the streets and alleys in the old city. Macallan decided not to tell him that he looked like shit because she was sure he knew that already.

  ‘The ACC has just given me a kicking, and needless to say this latest development has put his blood pressure through the roof.’

  ‘Fuck him. We’ve talked about this.’ Her lips were a tight line; she was in no mood for executive bullshit.

  He looked up from the desk ‘That’s not the problem, at least not at this point.’ She knew by his face that she wasn’t going to like where this was going.

  ‘He said that the rubber-heel squad have been conducting an internal investigation into the leaks and analysing the phone traffic from various officers. Apparently you’ve been in contact with Jacquie Bell on a few occasions.’

  They stared at each other and the pause was long enough for Macallan to decide that she could lie, though he might spot it. There was no time for another option and it wasn’t the moment for full disclosure about her and Jacquie’s relationship. O’Connor had enough problems.

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t go behind my back. Not you.’

  ‘I was in contact with her. She wants to do a story about me, so we had a couple of drinks. I gave her some trivia, but she has other sources. And isn’t it an open secret that this force has been leaking like a tramp’s shoes for years?’

  She was angry and she wanted him to know it. ‘I worked in Northern Ireland, and we used the press as a tool to suit us. We all do it, and don’t forget that when it comes to self-promotion, you’ve nothing to learn from me.’

  He looked beaten and she felt sick. One kicking was enough for him in a day. ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Well, there are only a few calls recorded, and you can get away with that. There are better suspects than you, and actually they think it’s me. I won’t mention anything that’s been said here so you can carry on.’

  Macallan thanked God quietly that she’d bought a pay-as-you-go mobile or used public phones to contact Bell. ‘Are we okay, John?’ she asked him. ‘That’s all that matters to me.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I thought you were different and now I get this kicked in my face. Let’s just get on with the job for now.’

  He’d turned cold and stiff. The protective wall had gone back up around John O’Connor and Macallan felt her heart sink. ‘Okay, if that’s how it is,’ she said. ‘Last thing: can I go over the evidence again in the Barclay files in case we missed something?’

  ‘No, and this is from the top. Follow the evidence on this case. You have more than enough to do, and the official line is that this has to be a copycat.’

  ‘John, this could come back to haunt us so at least let me try.’

  O’Connor looked like a man who’d been drained of emotion, and Macallan realised that both Harkins and O’Connor had left the team in different ways and they were all working to their own agendas now. It could only lead to disaster and she heard Harkins’ words again warning her about becoming involved with O’Connor.

  She walked away from his office and called Young to start reviewing the Barclay evidence.

  64

  The investigation was drawing blanks. Mary Waddell had been nineteen years old when she was murdered, and most of those years had been a waste – abused as an infant, and from there to the gutter she’d died in, she’d been a fairly untalented petty criminal. Reading her life story was enough to depress the most cynical detective and Macallan swore that she was going to be the last for this killer.

  She gave up trying to find sense in anything Waddell’s boyfriend had said and read the rest of the file. The investigation team had managed to find what passed for a family, and Macallan struggled to contain her anger at the mother who’d managed to shed tears even though she hadn’t seen or cared where her daughter had been for the last five years of her life. Waddell’s mother had been a prostitute in her own time, and although she hadn’t yet hit fifty was ravaged by the effects of drink and depression.

  Macallan was convinced it was the same killer they were dealing with, but O’Connor was sticking to the party line that it was a copycat. The media, and particularly Jacquie Bell, were pressing buttons and annoying Lothian and Borders top floor, and they were taking it out on O’Connor. He was cold or, at best, detached with her, and the news that Harkins had put his ticket in seemed to have driven him further into his shell.

  There were few secrets in murder squads, and the effect on morale was almost instantaneous and poisonous. The team loyalties fractured and most went with Macallan, which made her position even more difficult. O’Connor smelt it in the air and Harkins seemed to be past caring and worked on automatic. He did the bare minimum, left after eight hours and stopped handing out advice or bollocking the junior detectives. None of it made any sense.

  65

  Young had worked the Barclay material on top of the endless workload she had in hand with the Waddell case. She knew that the squad had gone toxic, so she was careful not to alert O’Connor to what she was doing for Macallan, although he seemed to spend his time brooding in his office now rather than trying to track down
the killer.

  She came to Macallan’s flat so they could talk openly and Macallan poured her some wine, letting the exhausted analyst relax and get used to her surroundings. She knew that, by helping her, Young had put her career on the line, and the force would be unforgiving if it all went wrong. She’d come to like the analyst, who was much warmer than her office image portrayed, and didn’t want to see her in trouble.

  ‘Okay, what have we got – or not got as the case may be?’ Grace lifted her glass to the analyst.

  Young took an unladylike slug of her Merlot then polished her glasses. ‘Something and maybe nothing, but that’ll be for you to find out.’

  Macallan nodded and tried not to show the impatience she was feeling.

  ‘There’s no point in going through the physical evidence used at court as that was all checked and double-checked by various officers, scientists and SOCOs. Given the proposition that Barclay might not be the killer, or at least not the killer of all the victims, I researched all sources on his day-to-day life. Whether it was a newspaper clipping on a case or a speech at a dinner . . . everything.’

  Macallan topped up her wine, waiting to be disappointed or intrigued.

  ‘There was nothing I could find other than what we already knew – that he was in various cities at the same time the attacks took place.’

  Macallan nodded and realised that her hand was trembling. She took another hit of the wine.

  ‘However, I’ve found something missed in the original examination. To be fair it was easily done, and I was lucky to catch it myself. I was looking through one of Barclay’s pocket notebooks and at one page I placed it face down to get a drink. I’d pressed it down hard, and when I turned it over I noticed that a page had been removed – very carefully.’

  ‘Could it just have been torn out to leave a note for someone?’ Macallan felt it coming, they’d missed something and she’d always known it.