by Lin Anderson
43
Rhona tried the communal button. If McNab was here he wasn’t answering his buzzer. The main door clicked open and Rhona headed up the stairs. McNab’s door was off the latch, obviously in anticipation of her arrival. She called his name as she stepped into the hall, then waited for his reply.
It never came.
‘McNab?’ she tried again.
There were no forensic treads set out in the hall. No evidence that any examination had taken place. It wasn’t that unusual for a police officer’s home to be targeted, but if it was, the matter was taken seriously. No one wanted their address to be common knowledge, or their phone number. McNab had been responsible for putting away a lot of criminals. Men and women he’d had banged up were often back on the streets all too quickly. And McNab wasn’t one to disguise his role in any conviction he was responsible for, which meant his profile was always at its maximum.
Rhona listened for sounds of anyone in the flat. There were none.
She pushed open the sitting-room door.
The first thing she noticed was the acrid smell. McNab had been cleaning, or at least spraying a great deal of bleach about. Then she spotted the arc-shaped yellow stain on the wall, which looked suspiciously like a urine trail. Someone had had a go at the mark, but had only succeeded in whitening the wallpaper.
They’d been at the carpet too. The proof being a couple of colourless patches in the pattern. Even the coffee table hadn’t escaped the frenzy, the varnish lifted in a circle in the centre.
McNab wasn’t the cleaning type. According to him the tidy nature of the flat on her previous visit had been down to Iona. But this wasn’t basic housekeeping. This was something else entirely. This is what you found when people wanted to remove forensic evidence.
What the hell had he been trying to clean up?
McNab was a loose cannon at times, hence her fear for him in his new post, but removing evidence was not something he would do. But evidence of what?
She’d been there a good five minutes and McNab still hadn’t appeared, despite the door being left off the latch. Rhona checked her mobile. There were no further texts. When she tried calling him, she got the messaging service.
The only sensible explanation was that he’d been called away, so had left the door open in expectation of her imminent arrival. Which meant he’d assumed she would respond to his order. The thought rankled, but she set about checking the rest of the flat anyway.
The bed had been stripped, the washed and still-wet sheets in the washing machine. The wardrobe doors were open and it looked as though McNab had been rummaging in there. There were a few empty hangers and an open drawer.
Had this been a suspect’s flat she would have made the assumption that the bird had flown the coop. Rhona tried to recall last night’s events. McNab hadn’t been carrying any luggage when he arrived. Not even a backpack.
So why the missing clothes?
In the bathroom, McNab’s shaving utensils were conspicuous by their absence, which suggested that he had in fact decamped and probably to Iona’s. The thought irritated Rhona, plus the suspicion that having ordered her here, McNab had had no intention of being here himself.
Not for the first time did she call herself a fool for her response.
What she should do now, was leave. That’s what her rising anger told her. Concern gave her a different message. Something had happened here. Something that worried McNab. He’d broached the subject the previous night then fallen asleep before elaborating on what it was. He’d contacted her this morning and asked for her professional help.
Despite the circumstances, that’s what she was here for.
Rhona donned the regulation boiler suit, shoes, mask and gloves. If there was something to find, then she would discover it, despite the obvious attempts to clean up.
Two hours later she had a forensic picture of the room before the cleaning frenzy. It was a troubling one, especially the presence of cocaine on the work surface and the bloodstains on the sheets. Whoever had put them in to wash had set the water temperature too low to remove the marks. The stained wallpaper had turned out to be urine as she’d thought. The bleach attack on the carpet hadn’t managed to remove all traces of human faeces.
Different scenarios played out in her head, none of them good, and all of them involving Iona, which was probably why McNab had chosen to keep it off the record. If a crime had been committed here and Rhona failed to report it, then she became an accessory.
She went back through each room, standing long enough to ask herself what she had sampled and why. The bathroom came last. She dusted the toilet seat for prints, just in case an intruder had used it, although if he’d urinated against the wall that was unlikely.
That’s when she saw the wire just under the lip of the cistern. She laid down her dusting equipment and lifted the lid. The orange balloon was attached to the ballcock. Rhona untied it and lifted it out. If it contained what she thought, there would be others. She put the filled balloon into an evidence bag.
This time her search wasn’t for traces of an intruder, but for teabags of cocaine. The rifled wardrobe produced three of them, one from a shirt pocket, two inside rolled-up socks.
A fourth bag she found taped behind the poster on the wall above the fireplace. All juvenile places to hide your stash, she told herself. Therefore more likely done by Iona. The question was did McNab know his girlfriend was using and hiding the stash in his flat?
Rhona tried not to think the unthinkable. That McNab was the one who was using.
She packed up her samples and stripped off the boiler suit. During her sojourn at the flat she’d made three attempts to contact McNab, all of them fruitless.
When she left she pulled the front door firmly shut behind her.
She would store all the evidence she’d collected at the lab, then she would locate McNab and sort out this mess before things got any worse.
44
McNab flung the bag in the back of the car. He would have preferred to wait for Rhona but the instructions had been very specific and time was of the essence. He was taking a chance, but his instinct told him this was what he had to do if they were to have any prospect of catching the perpetrator.
If it all went wrong, he didn’t want Rhona to be involved, but he did want her to know the truth. Using the mobile was now out of the question. He would need to get word to her another way.
The jazz club was quiet, with just a scattering of lunch-time visitors. McNab did a quick check to make sure none of his colleagues were there before heading for Sean’s office. Sean and he might be love rivals but McNab had reason to trust the Irishman.
‘McNab, what brings you here?’ Sean said in surprise at his entry.
‘Rhona.’
Sean immediately rose from the seat in concern. ‘What’s happened?’
Not for the first time did McNab recognize just how deep were the ties that bound Rhona and Sean together. ‘Nothing,’ he said swiftly. ‘I need you to deliver something to her. If necessary,’ he added.
Sean examined him closely. ‘Okay.’ He resumed his seat. ‘And how will I know if it’s necessary?’
‘You’ll know.’
‘You in trouble?’ Sean didn’t say ‘again’, although he might have.
‘I have a little undercover job to do. I’ll be out of contact for a while.’
‘How long exactly?’
‘Twenty-four hours.’
‘And I deliver whatever it is if …’
‘I don’t come back for it,’ McNab finished for him. He laid the mobile down on the desk.
Sean looked down at the phone, then up at McNab. ‘I hope you have someone watching your back?’
McNab didn’t answer. ‘Twenty-four hours,’ he repeated. ‘No longer.’
Sean called something in Irish as McNab departed. McNab hoped he’d wished him good luck.
DS Clark was used to McNab’s way of working when he’d been the DS and she the detective c
onstable. But the next rung up the ladder had changed things for both of them. Their relationship had always been prickly, because McNab didn’t take rejection very well. Like every other female in the office, Janice had been tempted by the roguish smile, but the thought of being swiftly dropped was worse than the prospect of the encounter, so she’d turned him down. McNab hadn’t given up easily. After the third time, he’d made a remark that had seen him called into DI Wilson’s office. Whatever had been said in there had put an end to things. Janice had been pleased and sorry at the same time.
Since McNab had taken on the role of inspector, Janice had watched him fight his old self, while trying to become a version of DI Wilson. It would never work and Janice knew it. No two DIs operated in the same way, despite carrying the same title. McNab needed to stay his own man if he was ever to be as successful as he had been at DS level. She would, of course, never tell him this. Her plan had been to take the sarcasm, the blame and the sudden reversal of decisions on the chin, until McNab found his true way.
Janice didn’t doubt that this would happen, but she knew he needed someone to watch his back in the interim. In the absence of DI Wilson, that role fell to her.
McNab had been out of contact now for four hours and there were things he needed to know, the first one being that the geocaching guy who’d seen the cocaine stash had been located and was willing to speak to someone about it. The second, and even more important development, had come from Dr MacLeod.
Of the two hairs found on Alan MacKenzie’s clothing, one had been identified as belonging to Alan’s flatmate, Jamie. DNA from the other had produced two partial matches when run through the database, which indicated both were related to the hair’s owner, and both had been convicted of a crime. One of the two was a man of seventy who had committed a series of burglaries over a period of ten years. Angus Patterson was now living in a care home in Paisley and was suffering from dementia. The other partial match belonged to Isabel Kearney who’d been convicted of manslaughter, having stabbed her abusive husband to death. Her story was an uncomfortable read. She’d been sent to prison five years ago, but had only served six months of her sentence before finding an opportunity to hang herself.
Janice entered McNab’s empty office and laid the report on his desk next to the paper espresso cup. She lifted the cup to throw it in the bin and caught the whiff of whisky. McNab had returned from the Tech department with a face like thunder. Her attempt to speak to him had been thwarted when he’d disappeared in here and shut the door in her face. Whatever had happened when he’d tried to play the online game had made him so angry he’d resorted to drinking on duty.
Something that Sutherland would just love to find out.
Janice gave a quick glance round, wondering if the bottle was still in here somewhere. The top drawer of the filing cabinet stood partially open. She walked over as though to shut it, but really to see if that was the hiding place.
It was, and the bottle, two-thirds consumed, was still there.
Janice closed and locked the cabinet and slipped the key into the desk drawer. McNab would go mad when he found out she’d been snooping, but she could cope with that. On her way out Janice picked up the paper cup and took it to the ladies toilet where she rinsed it clean of the smell of whisky, crushed it and threw it in the bin.
Once back at her desk, she gave Dr MacLeod a ring.
Rhona listened to Janice’s story, without reciting her own. ‘And you’ve no idea where he might have gone?’ Rhona said.
‘No, apart from the fact his mobile’s either switched off or out of range.’ Janice hesitated, which suggested there was more.
‘What else?’ Rhona said.
Janice’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I found a bottle of whisky in his office.’
‘He’s drinking on duty?’
Janice’s silence was enough answer.
‘Does he know about the familial DNA matches?’
‘No. The report arrived after he’d gone out.’
Rhona hesitated. ‘The woman he’s been seeing. Her name’s Iona. He met her in the pub the night of his party. Any chance you can locate her?’
A moment’s silence, then Janice said, ‘I’ll ask around. See if anyone knows her.’
Rhona rang off without mentioning her visit to McNab’s flat, which, she acknowledged, was her first step on the wrong path.
She threw down the phone. Damn and blast McNab for putting her in this position. She should have known he wouldn’t handle being a DI. He always thought only he could figure things out.
The labelling of the trace evidence from the flat had caused her some problems, the main one being Chrissy. She stored them out of Chrissy’s immediate view, but it was unlikely they would go unmarked for long. What exactly she would say to Chrissy, Rhona had no idea. Lying wouldn’t work. Chrissy was a veritable lie detector, being so good at avoiding the truth herself.
Rhona made a coffee and sat down to think.
McNab had disappeared off the radar and he wasn’t answering his phone. Those two things worried her even more than the state of his flat and the cocaine stash.
‘Coffee time?’ Chrissy’s expression was inscrutable. She busied herself pouring a mug and scrabbling about in the biscuit tin. When she emerged, she got straight to the point.
‘So what does McNab think about the familial matches?’
‘No idea.’
‘But you were on the phone to Janice. I heard you.’
Jesus. Could Chrissy hear through walls?
‘McNab’s out. He hasn’t seen the report we sent yet.’
Chrissy made a sound that suggested she was on to Rhona. ‘Didn’t you call him?’
‘He’s out of range, or his mobile’s switched off.’ Rhona tried to sound unconcerned.
‘Mmm.’ Chrissy attacked a Jaffa Cake.
Rhona thought it symbolized going in for the kill. She was right.
‘He’s gone awol, hasn’t he?’
‘What makes you say that?’ said Rhona indignantly.
‘Remember the time he took me to The Poker Club and you wanted to come? We wouldn’t let you, because you are incapable of bluffing. Your face is an open book. Where’s McNab?’
‘I have no idea,’ Rhona said.
‘Now, I believe you.’ Chrissy helped herself to another biscuit. The second Jaffa Cake was swiftly demolished.
‘I think McNab’s fucked up big time.’ She observed Rhona. ‘Want to tell me how?’
45
DS Clark stood outside the interview room, collecting herself before she went in. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t done this before. A million times. It was just that …
Before she thought any further, she opened the door.
The guy was sitting just as she’d left him. The room smelt of male sweat mingled with strong aftershave. An unappealing combination. She found herself making judgements on the occupant. Judgements she wasn’t comfortable with. Such as he wasn’t fanciable, because he sweated too much and didn’t use deodorant.
It was cruel. She knew it and disliked herself for it. It was also unprofessional.
On the other hand, the guy didn’t seem to care that being smelly might make things difficult for those around him. Especially in the close confines of an interview room.
If she was assessing him, he was also assessing her. Janice was used to such looks from men, especially in her capacity as a female police officer. Phrases such as ‘obviously a dyke’, ‘tits too small’, ‘doesn’t get it often enough’, ‘frigid bitch’ and ‘cunt on legs’ sprang to mind.
‘Mr Munro,’ she said quickly to stop that train of thought. ‘Detective Inspector McNab isn’t available to speak to you—’
‘I’d rather talk to you.’
‘But I thought you asked to speak to him?’
‘I told them I didn’t want to speak to him. Anyone but him.’
Janice wondered if he’d met McNab before and didn’t fancy a second round. ‘I understand you w
ant to make a statement?’
He nodded. A trickle of sweat descended his cheek. He made no attempt to wipe it away.
‘I saw him, that detective, take the cocaine.’
If Steve Munro had declared his undying love for her, it would have surprised Janice less.
‘Sorry …’
He interrupted her. ‘Is this recording? I want it recorded. I went back to see if the holdall was still there. I saw him dig it up and take it away.’
Janice almost laughed, it was so ridiculous.
‘You say you saw Detective Inspector McNab remove a holdall you claim held cocaine, which was buried on Cathkin Braes?’
‘I saw a guy remove it. I didn’t know then it was the detective. Then I saw him on the news. It was him all right.’
Janice ignored that for the moment. ‘When exactly did you see someone remove the cocaine?’
‘Late Sunday night.’
Janice tried to remember when McNab had first mentioned the report of the cocaine stash. It had been on Monday at the strategy meeting.
‘When did you first report finding the buried cocaine?’
‘On Sunday, after I saw the body.’
‘You reported the body and the cocaine at the same time?’
He shook his head wildly. ‘No. I wasn’t sure about mentioning the cocaine in case someone had seen me with it. I called back later and they put me through to the detective.’
‘But you saw it removed on Sunday night?’
He looked puzzled as though she had gone off script and he couldn’t remember his lines. ‘I thought it was one of them who’d taken it. Then I saw him on the telly. It was definitely him. The detective.’
The guy was talking bullshit, but she couldn’t stop him if he wanted to give a statement, and once he did that it had to be dealt with.
Allegations against police personnel occurred with monotonous regularity, usually with respect to assault. McNab had been involved in an assault charge on more than one occasion, and cleared, mostly down to his commanding officer at the time, DI Wilson.
Janice wished DI Wilson was here now. She cleared her throat.
‘You want to make a statement regarding DI McNab?’