Perfect Dead

by Jackie Baldwin

  ‘Cos I followed them, didn’t I?’ He sat back with a smirk. ‘I figured I would leave the package where it was for the time being and tail them for a while at a safe distance, but whoever it was turned in to that posh house they live in. That’s how I knew.’

  ‘Have you any information that anyone else in Kirkcudbright is involved, apart from that one person?’ asked DI Moore.

  ‘Their top man is meant to live in Kirkcudbright. He’s the one behind the forgery ring.’

  ‘Says, who?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘Says Billy Ryan, the barman at The Smuggler’s. Said he overheard some out-of-town boys talking. Proper hard nuts they were. By the accents, he pegged them as being from Glasgow.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked DI Moore.

  ‘Not a clue. You’d have to ask him yourselves. Don’t mention my name either. Billy Ryan’s not someone I want to mess with. He’d stab you soon as look at you, that one.’

  ‘So tell us, Shaun,’ said Farrell, ‘how did you come to be mixed up in all of this?’

  ‘Someone contacted me by text. Said they’d heard I could drive a tractor and might be willing to put a wee bit of delivery money my way.’

  ‘Who owned the tractor you were driving?’

  ‘The farmer I was working for at the time. They said to text back if I was interested in taking it any further. Then, they were going to arrange a dummy run and, if it went well, there’d be a couple of hundred quid in it for me.’

  ‘Did you know you were delivering forged paintings?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘Not at the beginning, though they did tell me it wasn’t drugs when I asked. That’s the one thing I didn’t want to be mixed up in.’

  ‘And later?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t rocket science. They were wrapped in oilskin and packed in cylinders. Light, not heavy. I thought at first they might be stolen, but when there was no fuss in the papers, I figured they were forgeries.’

  ‘How many deliveries did you make?’ asked DI Moore.

  ‘Nine, until I was caught. It was on the first Monday of every month. I was on my way to Stranraer for the last one, when some numpty cut in front of me and caused the accident. I had no choice but to leg it.’

  ‘Did you contact them to say what had happened?’

  Shaun nodded.

  ‘They gave me a burner. I texted them when I got away.’

  ‘You’re sure that you didn’t let on that you’d left the painting behind?’

  ‘No, I didn’t dare. I was playing for time till I could scratch some money together to do a runner to Ireland. They said to lie low until the heat dies down then they’d put another burner at the drop site when I got back to it.’

  ‘Have you still got the original phone?’

  ‘No, I dumped it. I didn’t manage to get back to pick up the new one.’

  ‘So, to the best of your knowledge no one you’ve been dealing with knows what you look like?’

  ‘No,’ said Shaun.

  ‘Interview suspended,’ said DI Moore as they both got to their feet.

  ‘We’ll get you something to eat, Shaun.’

  They left the room and moved along the corridor.

  ‘I’ll take a run out to Kincaid House tomorrow and bring in that kitchen maid,’ said Farrell. ‘If she’s been shooting her mouth off, she could be in grave danger.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  DCI Lind put the phone back in its cradle with a sigh. Maureen Kerrigan was on her way up to his office. It had been at least three years since he had seen her, though she always phoned him around the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance. The case had weighed heavily on him.

  There was a light tap on the door and a young woman with a long mane of dark brown curls entered. She was the spitting image of her sister Ailish. A walking monument to her loss.

  Lind stood up and smiled at her.

  ‘Maureen, come away in and sit yourself down.’

  She attempted to smile but her skin was chalk white, and she had purple shadows under her eyes that gave her a bruised look.

  A young PC brought a tray with tea and biscuits then left. Lind waited until Maureen had raised a cup to her lips, with shaking hands, before saying anything further.

  ‘How was the trip over on the ferry?’

  She groaned and looked queasy.

  ‘That good?’ said Lind.

  ‘I’m no sailor,’ she said.

  ‘I thought your mother might have come over with you?’

  ‘She left us about a year after Ailish went missing. Broken-hearted she was. Left a note saying she needed to get away from all the reminders. Said she wouldn’t return until she was able to bring Ailish home. We’ve heard nothing from her since. Dad lost heart himself after that. He started drinking, withdrew into himself.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Maureen, I had no idea.’

  ‘There’s been times I’ve hated Ailish through the years,’ she said with a twisted smile. ‘If she hadn’t been so selfish and ran off with that no-good Patrick Rafferty, my family would still be intact. It’s been … hard, you know?’

  ‘Those feelings are perfectly normal,’ said Lind. ‘You’re bound to have felt conflicted.’

  ‘When I got the phone call to say that all this time my sister had been lying in an unmarked grave, I …’ She broke down in tears.

  Silently, Lind passed a box of tissues across to her. She took one, blew her nose loudly, and gave him a watery smile.

  ‘I want to arrange her funeral in Donegal. How soon can her remains be released for burial?’

  ‘It’ll be a while yet,’ said Lind. ‘We’ve managed to establish that the cause of death was most likely that she was stabbed more than once. However, due to the length of time that has passed and the exposed nature of the burial site, we can’t be more precise. Given the remote location of the remains, and the text that she sent to you immediately before she disappeared, we are most definitely treating Ailish’s death as a murder investigation.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’ said Lind.

  ‘For using her name. For talking about her as if she was a person and not just a dead body, a pile of bones. You’re a good man, DCI Lind.’

  He reached across and enfolded her small pale hand between his two large ones.

  ‘I’ll do everything in my power to get you answers, Maureen. You can count on that. In the meantime, where are you staying?’

  ‘I’ve booked a B&B in Kirkcudbright.’

  Lind looked worried.

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Don’t worry, DCI Lind, I’m no Nancy Drew. I simply want to walk in my sister’s footsteps, feel the essence of her in the last place that she walked the Earth. I’m not about to do anything rash. I’ve got a friend in the area. I’ll be fine.’

  Lind wasn’t sure that he believed her, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.

  ‘Promise me you’ll be careful,’ he said.

  ‘I promise,’ she replied.

  ‘In the meantime, here’s all the numbers I can be reached on,’ he said, handing her his business card, to which he had added his own personal mobile. ‘I’ll keep you posted on any developments in the investigation.’

  She handed over her own contact details on a slip of paper for the duration of her stay.

  Lind escorted her down to the front door of the station and had just waved her off when Laura got up from one of the seats in the waiting area. He had walked right by her. The smile froze on his lips, as he took in the stormy expression in her eyes. What he was meant to have done this time was quite beyond him, but he was not going to have a ding-dong in reception, that was for sure.

  ‘Laura, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’

  ‘Evidently,’ she snapped.

  Lind ran his fingers distractedly through his thinning hair. He had to get her out of here before she blew. A wave of fatigue rocked him on his feet. It had already been a helluva day and now this �
�

  DI Moore appeared from behind the public information counter with her coat on, her face wreathed in such a warm smile that Laura was left with no choice but to return it.

  Lind felt the tension ebb from his body as she hugged Laura and turned to him.

  ‘John, do you think I could borrow your lovely wife for half an hour? I’m due a break and I’m hoping she’ll join me for a coffee at Mrs Green’s Tea Room. I have an unholy craving for a piece of their delectable carrot cake. Laura, what do you say?’

  ‘Far be it from me to stand between women and their cake,’ he said, aiming for jovial but falling somewhat short.

  Laura allowed herself to be led away by Kate, who was succeeding in being unusually chatty, and a relieved Lind retreated back upstairs. No doubt he was only postponing whatever grievance, real or imagined, had propelled his wife in here.

  He knew that Frank, and probably Kate too, had twigged that they were going through a hard time, but he had never been comfortable talking about his private life. It felt disloyal somehow. He was fast running out of ideas though. Frank would be the obvious person to turn to, yet to do so would feel like an admission of failure. He had always known that if Frank hadn’t gone off to the seminary, in all likelihood, he would have married Laura. Knowing that his friend had been her first love had been difficult at first, but he had made his peace with it a long time ago.

  He forced his dark thoughts down. He wished Maureen hadn’t come straight over. Her presence complicated things. The killer could well still be living in the area. There was no way of knowing what had drawn him or her to Ailish, but Maureen was the spitting image of her sister, and he couldn’t help but worry that might stir the appetite of the killer.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Farrell took his place at the front of the small lecture room, nodding a greeting to Lind and Moore. Such was the scope of the investigations now they had had to move the last briefing of the day here. As it was, every seat was filled and the clamour of voices and rising heat made Farrell undo the top button beneath his tie. The various investigations were growing arms and legs, but they were now stretched to breaking point, with officers drafted in from tiny police stations all around the region to assist with the legwork. The Super appeared in the backlit doorway and paused before briskly walking down to the stage with a jaw set like granite. The civilian press officer, Andy Moran, sat in the front row, with his notepad open, oblivious to the jostling going on around him.

  The Super stepped on to the stage and held up his hand for silence, which was immediately forthcoming.

  ‘As you all know, there appears to be something of a hornet’s nest in Kirkcudbright. There’s the murder of the artist Monro Stevenson, headed up by DI Farrell, the murder of Ailish Kerrigan, led by DCI Lind, and DI Moore’s looking into the operation of a forgery ring. To what extent these investigations are connected is not yet known but it seems likely that there is at least some overlap.’

  ‘How many of you hail from Kirkcudbright or have grannies, cousins or friends who live there?’

  A sizeable number of hands were raised.

  ‘Excellent, I want you all to mine those connections for information and report back to one of the three investigative heads. I want anything relating to The Collective, from when it was first set up to the present date, and everyone who has been associated with it. I also want any and all information in relation to Monro Stevenson, Ailish Kerrigan and their known associates. If anyone has some dodgy relatives who drink in The Smuggler’s or swim about in the shallows of petty crime, work out how you can extract information from them that might feed into our investigation.

  ‘At this stage of the investigation, we’re looking to subtly utilize our connections so that, hopefully, we can identify potential witnesses. It goes without saying that I expect you all to exercise the utmost discretion. And do not put yourselves at risk! Is that clear?’

  The Super then sat down and gestured to DCI Lind to take the floor.

  ‘Ailish Kerrigan was only nineteen years of age when she texted her sister Maureen to say she was on her way home to Ireland. This text was received at 9.15 a.m. on the 15th of June 2009. The next bus to Stranraer to catch the ferry would have been at 11 a.m. She didn’t get the bus. Nor, as far as we are aware, did she ever make it to the ferry port. She simply disappeared into thin air. Sometime after 9 a.m. she left The Collective. There, she was involved in a relationship with Patrick Rafferty, who also hails from Northern Ireland. Her remains were found on the Dundrennan Firing Range, in a shallow grave, within a patch of trees at the top of a hill.’

  Lind pointed to the image on the whiteboard. ‘There were some as yet unidentified marks beside where her body was found that are suggestive of someone visiting the site after she died.’

  ‘I wonder if someone might have been sitting there with an easel? I’ve done a bit of work outdoors with an easel in the past. The marks don’t look dissimilar,’ said DI Moore.

  You could have heard a pin drop as everyone took in the horror of her words.

  Lind studied the marks closely.

  ‘I suggest you liaise with SOCO, Kate, and see if that theory is consistent with their findings.’

  ‘Do we know if she was killed at the burial site or moved there from somewhere else?’ asked DS Stirling.

  ‘Not yet determined. The body has been in an exposed position for some time. Cause of death is likely due to stabbing, as evidenced by two nicks on the ribs. The body was positioned on its back with the hands by its side, as you can see from the scene photo on screen. Extensive soil samples have been sent off for analysis, but they will take a few weeks to process.’

  ‘Again, we need to look into the members of The Collective around the time Ailish went missing. It is necessary to establish whether there were people we don’t know about, who left between Ailish’s arrival in Kirkcudbright in 2006 and the present day. These people, if any, need to be traced, identified and interviewed as soon as possible.’

  ‘You should also be aware that Maureen Kerrigan, the younger sister of the deceased, is over here just now staying in The Cormorant B&B, Kirkcudbright. I want every courtesy to be extended to her if any of you come across her.’

  Lind moved away and motioned to Farrell, who stood up to take his place.

  ‘Turning now to Monro Stevenson. We received the toxicology results back this morning, which confirmed that he was drugged with ketamine. This is now a murder investigation. There was none in the bottle of whisky left on the table, so it must have been added to the glass tumbler. The pathologist has confirmed that there was no apparent puncture mark on the body of the deceased. After the briefing Andy Moran will be releasing an update to the press.’

  ‘The handwriting expert has confirmed that the signature on the so-called suicide note was very similar but not identical to Monro’s. It was a skilled imitation. The Tech boys have confirmed that there was no trace of it on Monro’s laptop. It was probably brought into the cottage, already prepared, by the killer. This was not a spur-of-the-moment attack, but a carefully premeditated murder.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like standard printer paper, does it, sir?’ asked PC Rosie Green.

  ‘That’s correct. The note was printed off on high-quality cream stationery. Unfortunately, not sufficiently high-quality as to be considered bespoke. There were no other such sheets of paper in Monro Stevenson’s cottage.’

  ‘So, if we find the stationery, we find the killer?’ asked PC Green.

  ‘Possibly,’ said Farrell. ‘DC McLeod could you contact all the stationery shops in Dumfries and Galloway to ascertain whether they stock this particular paper? If so, try and ascertain whether there is CCTV coverage. It’s a long shot but you never know.’

  ‘Will do, sir,’ said Mhairi, making a note.

  ‘That reminds me, we still haven’t heard a peep out of his girlfriend, Nancy Quinn. PC Green, I asked you to bring her in?’

  ‘No one’s heard from her. The parents did ca
ll on her the day the body was found, but she wasn’t there, and she hasn’t responded to the note they put through the door asking her to contact them. I called round a few times too.’ She coloured. ‘Sorry, sir, I should have said something sooner.’

  Yes, she should have done, thought Farrell. Mind you, he should have been all over it as well. They’d just been spinning a dizzying number of plates.

  ‘No harm done,’ he said, hoping it was true. ‘We must tie up this loose end, though.’

  Another hand shot up. One of the Kirkcudbright coppers, PC Calum McGhie.

  ‘I managed to get hold of the landlord to the victim’s cottage, sir. He’s been away visiting family. He confirmed that when the cottage was rented, there was only a basic Yale lock on the door. The deceased had asked if he could upgrade it at his own expense.’

  ‘So, either he was hiding something valuable, or he felt under threat. I want you to trace the locksmith and interview him. See if he gave him any indication as to why he needed the extra security.’

  ‘Sir,’ said PC McGhie, writing in his notebook.

  The heat in the room had risen to an intolerable level, with so many bodies crammed in to the small lecture theatre combined with the heat from the storage heaters. Farrell glanced at DI Moore, and she gave a small shake of her head.

  ‘That’s given us enough to chew on for one session. DI Moore will be holding a separate briefing on the forgery ring same time tomorrow.’

  Everyone surged out of the two exits to catch up on their paperwork before heading home for the night. Farrell felt the energy drain from him, as if it had hitched on to the tail end of the departing bodies. It was his body’s way of informing him he had been overdoing it. Wearily he ran a hand through his hair. After his near breakdown last year he wasn’t taking any chances. He needed an antidote to the baser side of human behaviour that was threatening once more to engulf him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grabbing his overcoat, he left the building and headed for St Margaret’s. It was so cold it took his breath away. Lengthening his stride, he could feel his cramped muscles start to loosen, and ten minutes later he was dipping his fingers into holy water and entering the church. There was only a smattering of the Catholic faithful there for evening Mass on a weeknight. Genuflecting, he made the sign of the cross and slipped in to a pew at the rear of the huddle; his natural reticence making him more comfortable in his own space. He could see his mother seated near the front, in the middle of a row of women, the ones who got things done. She too had switched from St Aidan’s and was doing the best she could to expunge the terrible memories of what had occurred there. As if she sensed his presence she turned round and stared, acknowledging him with a nod and a small smile. He did likewise. They had been long estranged until last year, and it was with slow cautious steps they were exploring their rapprochement.