Dead Man's Grave

by Neil Lancaster

  As he walked, he tucked the files under his arm and composed a text to Janie.

  Watch the phones.

  58

  Mick McGee was hungover. Badly, badly hungover. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a parrot’s cage (whatever that tasted like) and his tongue was so dry that it stuck to the side of his mouth. He staggered out of bed, swearing as he tripped on a discarded shoe. He blearily made his way to the bathroom, belching as he stood over the grimy and stained porcelain.

  He didn’t need to check his watch to realise that he was late for work. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t get too drunk last night, but his resolve had weakened as he entered the world of drunk-barfly discussions with the other drinkers at the bar of the Crown.

  This had been his life for the last six months, ever since his wife had gone. She had just buggered off with the kids, leaving him with nothing but mountains of debt, and a proclivity for drinking far too much. He was an old campaigner, though, and hungover or not, he would always get to work. He looked at his reflection, noting the straw-like hair standing on end, heavy stubble and red-rimmed eyes. He looked dreadful, he had to admit. He stole a glance at his watch, and saw it was close to seven. If he got a wriggle on, he wouldn’t be too late, and, sod it, he was in charge, anyway. He’d send Ian, the senior PC, a message and he could deliver the briefing and get the troops out.

  He quickly ran an electric shaver over his face, removing the worst of the stubble. A lightning brush of the teeth and a damp flannel on his unruly hair and he was good to go. He opened up the smeared mirror door of the bathroom cabinet and quickly necked a couple of paracetamol and, for good measure, a couple of ibuprofen.

  Despite feeling shockingly unwell, he was starting to cheer up a little. He was due a big payday from Slattery soon, after all his efforts. That would keep every bastard at bay. And best of all, his bitch of a wife wouldn’t know about it. He smiled grimly. Ten grand would make any hangover more tolerable.

  He located his uniform trousers and pulled his black base layer police top on. He hated these tops. They were fine if you were a buff thirty-year-old, but for a fifty-one-year-old man, with a drink problem and terrible diet, they did no favours. After putting on his shoes, he began to search for his keys, but as often was the case, post piss-up he couldn’t immediately find them. Opening the front door, he was unsurprised to see them still in the lock, jangling and swinging, almost mocking him for being such a mess. He shook his head ruefully and slammed the door behind him, heading for his elderly Focus parked on the grim street he had rented a house on. The properties were uniformly ugly, with grey pebbledash frontages, all thrown up at minimal cost to deal with Wick’s expanding population.

  He blipped the fob and the indicators blinked as the car unlocked. As he opened the door, he realised he wasn’t alone. Three casually dressed figures stood watching him, distasteful looks on their faces.

  His vision cleared a little, and he recognised one of them. It was Max Craigie, the DS from Serious Crime. He was standing with a slim, young female officer and a smartly dressed officer who spoke in a soft voice. ‘Sergeant McGee, I’m DI Sally Smith from the Major Incident Team at Inverness.’

  Sergeant Mick McGee’s heart lurched, and his legs suddenly felt as if they were made of jelly. Oh shit, he thought, looking at Max Craigie and remembering their encounter a few days ago. There could only be one reason why they were here. Fear gripped him, and he began to breathe deeply, his heart rate accelerating. It was all over. He was screwed.

  Max Craigie spoke, his voice firm and resolute. ‘Open your boot, Mick.’ A requirement, not a question. His insides began to churn. Craigie knew, but how the hell did he know? He began to think of remonstrating, demanding evidence of their grounds to search. But he knew; he just knew.

  ‘Open it now,’ Craigie said, a little more strongly.

  McGee said nothing, just handed the keys to Craigie, his face falling as he did. His head swam, and he staggered slightly. The younger female officer steadied him. ‘Sit on the wall, Sergeant McGee. We’re going to search your car. You know the drill,’ she said in a well-spoken, light Edinburgh burr.

  McGee sat, as instructed, the colour draining from his face, the street beginning to spin.

  His heart sank further when he saw Craigie begin to rumple through the contents of his hatchback, the two other officers just staring at him with blank faces. He inwardly cursed his stupidity. Cursed that bastard Slattery. It had all seemed so reasonable when ten grand was mentioned, but not anymore. Why hadn’t he just got rid of the bloody thing in his boot? He could have got a new jack from a breaker for a tenner.

  Craigie nodded at DI Smith who looked in the boot of the car and shook her head, with a half-smile. Craigie showed her the screen on his phone and she nodded and turned to Mick.

  ‘Oh, Mick, keeping the jack from Duncan’s car wasn’t a great idea, was it?’ Her tone was that of a teacher talking to an errant child.

  ‘It’s not the same one,’ he said, but there was no force in his words. He was defeated.

  ‘When Max found it in Sweeney’s,’ she said, ‘he took a picture of it on his phone, which I have here. It has the same scratches, even has the dirt from the graveyard. You know we’ll prove that this jack belonged to Duncan Ferguson. You stole from a dead man, to cover it all up. You need to tell us everything and you need to tell us right now.’

  McGee closed his eyes and tried to think, his head spinning. There was no deal here to be had. If he told them anything, he wouldn’t last a day in prison. He knew the reach that these people had. Wherever he was, they’d get him.

  ‘I want a solicitor,’ he said, still not looking up, his thoughts on Slattery and those who sat above him.

  ‘You can have a solicitor, Mick. We’re going to Burnett Road, now, but before we do, I’m about to direct a PolSA team to rip your house and car to pieces. You need to think about this now, okay? Are we going to find anything?’ the woman said.

  He knew what they would find, because PolSA teams never missed anything. He cursed his tight-fistedness. It’s not like brake callipers were expensive, he could have just bought some.

  ‘I want a solicitor. I’m saying nothing.’

  59

  Slattery pressed the button to cancel the hands-free call in his Mercedes, his heart pounding in his chest. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He would have to tell Hardie. If he didn’t tell him and he found out from other sources, then Slattery knew he would catch hell. He pulled over to the side of the road.

  He lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply, and dialled.

  ‘Yes.’ Hardie’s voice was terse and caused a crackle of distortion in the car speakers. It was always like this; he rarely smiled and was always angry.

  ‘It’s Jack.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘McGee has been arrested.’

  ‘What? What the fuck for?’

  ‘Murder. A contact at Burnett Road has just seen him getting brought in. Cops are saying that he was part of a conspiracy to murder Duncan Ferguson by setting up the accident. Apparently, they have evidence that he did something to the brakes of the car and interfered with the barrier.’

  ‘How didn’t we know this was going to happen?’ Hardie’s voice almost exploded out of the speakers.

  ‘None of my sources knew about it. Sally Smith and Max Craigie seem to be at the centre of it, leastways they’ve brought him in, with some other bird with a cockney accent.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘No idea.’ Slattery pulled on his cigarette, nervously.

  ‘Jack, I pay you to know this shit and I don’t like the way this is going.’

  ‘I don’t know. My man just said that Sally Smith has been taken away from murder teams on some project and Craigie is no longer on sick leave. He doesn’t know how. Something is happening, and no one knows what.’

  ‘Craigie, that bastard. He just won’t bloody leave it alone, will he? Right, I want you to get to his place, now, and do wha
t we discussed, right? He’s in Inverness, so he will be a while. We need to discredit him.’

  ‘Okay, Tam.’

  ‘What evidence do they have?’ asked Hardie.

  ‘Looks like Ferguson used the jack from his car when Leitch called him to help him. That’s the theory, anyway. Mick was supposed to get rid of the jack when Craigie found it in the wreck. The daft bastard put his own jack in to replace it, which wasn’t the worst idea, ever, but then he decided to keep the jack to replace the one from his car. He’s such a tight-arse that man.’

  ‘Does he have a lawyer?’

  ‘Still booking him in. Not got to it yet,’ said Slattery.

  ‘Right, get Leo Hamilton and tell him I want him at Burnett Road right away, and he will be representing McGee. I don’t care if he has a solicitor coming from elsewhere, we want our man in there. We need the appropriate message getting to the daft bastard. If he grasses, we are all in the shit.’

  ‘He won’t grass. He knows the consequences if he does.’

  ‘Damn right. Make sure Leo gives that message to him. What about his family?’

  ‘Wife left him months ago. Took his kids away down to Edinburgh.’

  ‘Right, make sure he gets the message that it’s not just him who will suffer.’ Tam’s voice was pure venom.

  ‘Aye, he knows the score,’ said Slattery, his voice low.

  ‘Best he does. No more shite on this job. Get onto your sources, right now and get to the bottom of it.’

  60

  Max sat in the incident room at Burnett Road Police Station with Sally, both scrawling arrest notes and making witness statements. They had left the PolSA team finishing the search of the vehicle and McGee’s property, but had been updated over the phone on what they had recovered. An album of photographs had been emailed to them. The initial assessment was that it was cataclysmic for McGee.

  Feeling the buzz in his pocket he reached for his burner mobile and saw it was Janie calling.

  ‘Janie?’

  ‘Slattery just called Hardie, full update given. Looks like there is a source in Burnett Road who let Slattery know, which is bloody perfect. Sounds like your explanation of the evidence, which you delivered in a tediously detailed fashion to the custody sergeant, had the desired effect. There is only one way they could have learned about all that detail, straight from someone who was listening. Were many people in the custody suite?’

  ‘A good half a dozen. Did you capture the call on the probe?’

  ‘Yep, the whole thing. Hardie ordered Slattery to get hold of Leo Hamilton to be his lawyer at the nick, with orders that the consequences of snitching are explained to him, including threats to his family. You got a mention as well. I don’t think he likes you. They were talking about visiting your place. Do we need to do anything about that?’ Janie sounded concerned.

  ‘No, I have it all in hand. We can view this as an opportunity to gain more evidence,’ said Max thankful for the cameras he had installed and the fact that Nutmeg was safely next door.

  ‘Aye, he told Hardie about the jack in the boot, and hinted about evidence of the brake components you found in his shed. I can’t believe the daft bastard held on to evidence from the crash. It’s all there, conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. The whole lot, all clear as day recorded and time stamped.’

  ‘Not enough yet, Janie. We need the rest of them, but it’s a start.’

  ‘Right, well, Slattery received a call from a mobile just before he called Hardie. I’ve cell-sited it and I’m confident it was Burnett Road. So, Slattery’s source is possibly in that building right now. It’s still pinging the same mast, and, in fact it’s on a call now.’ There was a pause. ‘Calling Slattery, predictably it looks like a burner.’ Janie read the number out to Max, who scrawled it on his hand in biro.

  Max stood up and walked across the sprawling, open-plan office to the window where he stared out seeing the busy morning traffic below him, and further away, the compact city of Inverness. He looked around at each of the officers, all beavering away at their desks, bashing keyboards, or battling with heaped mounds of paperwork. Only two were on phones, one was Paul Johnstone, the FLO.

  ‘Is Slattery on the probe now?’

  ‘No, obviously not in his car,’ said Janie. Max could hear the tapping of the keys as she spoke.

  ‘Okay. Let me know when the call finishes,’ said Max, not taking his eyes off the heavy form of Johnstone.

  ‘Will do. Hardie has already been in touch with the mystery caller who’s sorting the intercepts out, so I suspect they’re going to be listening in to anything you’re doing or saying,’ said Janie.

  ‘Well, best I give them something to listen to, then,’ said Max. ‘Call me as soon as that call finishes.’ Max hung up, looking at Johnstone, who seemed to be in the midst of a difficult phone call. Scowling, he hung up and slammed his handset on the desk.

  Max quickly composed a message to Janie. Still going?

  The reply was immediate: Yes.

  Max sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was feeling really tired. ‘Coffee?’ he said to Sally.

  ‘Save my life, Max,’ said Sally, putting her own phone down. ‘I think we’ll be ready for interview soon. Lawyer is waiting at the front, scummy bloke called Leo Hamilton.’

  ‘I heard Hardie has sent him to issue the advice about not grassing. I suspect McGee won’t say a thing.’ Max relayed what Janie had just told him.

  ‘Do we reveal this in interview?’ she asked.

  ‘No way. We keep all this to ourselves until we get Hardie in. We interview McGee just on his movements on the day of the funeral and the evidence we have found at his house,’ said Max.

  ‘Agreed. Plenty to be going on.’

  ‘Anything from CSI?’ asked Max.

  ‘Yep, there are definitely soil deposits in the base of the jack and some pale dust that could be granite on the top. It’ll have to wait for forensic comparison with the samples we took, but I’m pretty confident. Plus, they have lifted both Duncan Ferguson’s and McGee’s prints from it.’

  ‘Are we confident in the CSI, bearing in mind how far Hardie’s influence goes?’

  ‘Aye. The fingerprint expert is an old pal of mine, and we are using a different external lab for the trace material examination.’

  Max nodded. ‘That’s pretty conclusive.’

  ‘Yep. It gets worse for him, as well. The brake components from his shed are definitely from a Focus the same age as Duncan Ferguson’s, and we are fairly sure we’ll be able to match them with the wreck. You seen the photos from PolSA?’ Sally handed an iPad over with a photo slideshow open.

  Max swiped through them, taking in the general state of the place, which spoke of a man who had let himself go. He paused in the ramshackle shed where a pair of brake callipers sat on the work bench next to a tall, robust-looking aerosol canister. ‘Any ideas what that is?’ asked Max.

  Sally looked at her A4 red book. ‘It’s listed as an industrial aerosol CRY-AC3,’ she read out. ‘Max?’

  ‘Is it liquid nitrogen?’

  Sally zoomed in on the photograph. ‘Yes. Cryospray – why the hell does he have that?’

  ‘Do we know where the remains of the crash barriers are?’ asked Max, looking at the photograph.

  ‘Not yet. We can’t find the remnants that McGee claims to have sent to the manufacturers. They have no record of receiving them, which is in itself significant,’ said Sally.

  ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, Sally,’ said Max, smiling, but thinking of the shard of the barrier sitting on his kitchen table at home.

  ‘Such an old copper’s saying. Actually, scrub that, it’s such a smug twat’s saying.’ Sally grinned. ‘We have a mountain of evidence against him,’ she added.

  ‘He used this to weaken the barrier fixings,’ said Max, with certainty.

  ‘What?’ said Sally, her eyebrows shooting upwards. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  ‘L
iquid nitrogen freezes bloody anything. I think it’s like way below two hundred degrees freezing point. Put that on metal and it makes it shatter. I found a shard of barrier at Berriedale when I drove up there. In fact, I still have it.’

  ‘You think that spray could shatter metal?’ Sally said, incredulity in her voice.

  ‘I’m betting it could change the properties enough so that it would shatter on impact rather than flex. I thought it was odd how there were shards of the barrier still there. We need to get PolSA there, fingertip-search and recover every fragment.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Sally, picking up her phone.

  ‘Anyway, coffee,’ said Max walking up to the window and the fridge, on top of which was a kettle and a number of mugs. He filled the kettle and switched it on.

  As he waited for it to boil, he looked out of the window onto the car park two floors below. A solitary smoker stood by the back door, a mobile phone clamped to his ear. Max yawned as he stared at the beefy figure wearing a smart suit. The kettle clicked and Max spooned coffee into two cups and filled them with boiling water. As he splashed milk into one of the cups his eyes wandered down to the figure who finished his phone call and tucked the handset into his pocket. He turned as a uniformed cop jogged out of the door and headed to a waiting marked car. Max could now see who the smoker was. It was Detective Chief Superintendent White, his face screwed up in a scowl as he lit another cigarette and then pulled a phone from a different pocket and dialled.

  Max’s phone buzzed in his pocket with a message from Janie.

  Call finished just now.

  Max stared down at the large figure of DCS White, who was now pacing as he spoke on the phone.

  On his burner, Max dialled the number scrawled on his hand, that Janie had read out to him just a few minutes ago, having first hidden his number by preceding it with 141. He hit call and waited, his heart pounding, aware that whoever answered the phone was the link to Hardie.