by Caro Ramsay
The 22nd of July 2005. Midsummer, he told himself, a hot day. The park around the Botanics would have been sweating with people. There’d have been ice cream vans, a puppet show, hot dogs, a man making hats by tying balloons together.
Lynda’s parents had taken their wee girl to see the fun. The whole family had seen the bus driver and waved hello to him. Then they had met some friends, who wanted to talk about arranging a birthday surprise. So the friends’ two boys were given some money and told to take Lynda and buy ice creams. But the boys had met some pals from school and had left Lynda to join the queue on her own. They’d seen her go to the front to join a man she seemed to know. Their description of him matched Fairbairn. But a short while later, they’d lost sight of her and run back to their parents.
Ten minutes later, wee Lynda was found wandering out from the trees.
Mulholland looked at a plan of the park. The little girl had gone away from the crowd, and a tall man – Mulholland checked a few eyewitness statements, and they all said tall – was seen following her. But few people would describe Skelpie Fairbairn as tall. In fact, the man was marvellously average. Yes, Fairbairn admitted, he was there, saw Lynda in the queue, and bought her an ice cream. He said he’d watched as she went back to join the two boys. Then he’d returned to the pub on Great Western Road. Two dubious characters, Wood and McAdam, had each given a statement to back him up. And a statement was a statement. The timing was a little inconvenient, out by about ten minutes, but nobody really believed the two guys. Most important, none of the investigating officers believed them. Or maybe they did, and realized it was too convincing to put in front of a jury, so they buried it. And that could well cost Anderson his career.
Mulholland drew a big question mark, and read on.
Lynda was very quiet after they found her, her mum and dad said, but she knew she’d done wrong to wander off – and anyway, it had been a long day. So, they took her home, tired and drowsy. Her mum took her upstairs and popped her into her bath. It was only when she was putting Lynda’s things into the laundry basket that she found the blood on her knickers, by which time a whole load of evidence had been washed away.
Lynda’s clothes were examined. Fairbairn’s DNA was found on her dress, but he claimed he’d licked his finger and scooped up a spilled drop of raspberry topping. The defence argued that she knew the bus driver and, at six years old, was more likely to describe somebody she knew than say it was a stranger.
Mulholland looked again for any indication that the two statements from the guys in the pub, McAdam and Wood, were ever put through to the defence by the fiscal. He didn’t find anything. Deliberately and thoughtfully, he wrote the words ‘cover-up, evidence disregarded’, and saw his own promotion. Though some, he thought, would say there were a few wee girls out there now who might be six feet under if Fairbairn had been out for the last four years.
He shrugged to himself and flicked through more statements, loads of photographs. He soon realized that, for all the stuff in the file, what wasn’t there was much more significant. There’d been no timed walk of the route Fairbairn said he’d taken to go back to the pub. And there should have been. He came across some page-filler photographs taken throughout the day by the photographer from the West End News, and pored over them, studying faces in the crowd, particularly the queue for the ice cream van. And there, near the trees, eyeing the queue, was the figure – the tall figure – of Billy Biggart.
Mulholland picked up the phone and called ACC Howlett.
9.30 A.M.
When Anderson arrived at the lecture room, he had a brief word with O’Hare, who reported that the compliance effect of the R2 might be working off and that Costello was getting stroppy again.
Batten and Wyngate were already there. In the car park he had phoned Helena, but the call went straight to her voicemail. He didn’t know what to say. He stuttered out a few words, and rang off.
Wyngate looked up as he came in. ‘Still no sign of Mrs Carruthers, sir. Do you want us to go out to the solicitor’s office and have a look? A uniform went round yesterday and said it was all locked up. Do you want us to track down a keyholder?’
‘What does the sister say – Rene?’
Wyngate shrugged. ‘She’s not making much sense, just knocking on her sister’s door every two minutes. But the neighbour has been phoning us. She’s worried because Mary rarely leaves Rene alone, for obvious reasons.’
‘Just try to find her as soon as you can. We need to know more about that missing diary.’ He sat down heavily. ‘Anybody heard how Jennifer’s doing?’
‘I think she’s gone into hiding, courtesy of her father.’
‘I wonder if he’d take me into hiding. Wyngate, do you have your car out there?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Call up Central Records, and go and collect the Marchetti files in person. Get a uniform from Partick to go with you, and tell them Howlett said. Come straight back here, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred pounds. Understand?’
Wyngate nodded.
‘So, why are you still standing there?’
‘I hear Costello found the boy’s remains,’ Mick Batten said, once Wyngate had gone. ‘Do we gather she was blindfolded and led there, but not hurt?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Typical gangland behaviour. It avoids untidy tip-offs. And they score Brownie points with you guys, while being seen to flex their muscles.’
Anderson scrolled through his emails, trying to ignore the psychologist.
Batten pulled his chair very close to Anderson, and the smell of cigarettes came with him. ‘Do you really know what we’re getting into? You seem to think you guys are handling this. You are not, Colin. All you’re doing is allowing yourself to be pulled along by them, every step of the way. You have to be careful.’
‘Look, what would you have me do, Mick? What do you want me to do? I’m trying to get ahead of the game, that’s all. You might be able to sit about all day and ponder the nature of the criminal mind, but I, sitting here at this desk, have the rather more stressful job of dealing with what the criminal mind comes up with.’ He pointed at the whiteboard for emphasis. ‘Do you think I don’t know that I’m being played like a fish? But –’ he rammed his forefinger into his own chest ‘– it was me who was drugged, tied up and shot at, it was my colleague who was put down a hole, and my friend who was killed. And I take grave exception to all of it. I will get the people who did it. Do you see that?’
‘But you weren’t shot at in the same way that David was stabbed, or you wouldn’t be here,’ Batten said reasonably.
Anderson had to control a sudden rush of temper.
‘You were shot at in the same way that Costello was kidnapped last night. One was fatal, the other benign. I’d say you’re being helped along the way here. After all, that bullet found its mark, and it wasn’t you.’
10.30 A.M.
By ten thirty the bearded man swigging the Red Bull had been sitting at the computer for an hour, alternating hitting the keyboard and flicking his unruly ringlets back from his face. His eyes had never left the keyboard.
‘Who’s that? asked Anderson, getting absolutely no response from his cheery hello.
‘IT guy, can’t you tell?’ said Mulholland.
‘Has he cracked the code on the CD yet? Has he found anything?’
‘Only a lifelong friend in Wyngate, so far. He ran a Brute Force program; don’t ask, but it worked. He called an old colleague of Rosie’s, who was a bit of help – he knew what Rosie had been trained in. The document is coded but it looks simple. And it might be in Russian, so he says he will crack it and then we can decode it and read it.’
‘What have you been doing?’
‘This!’ said Mulholland, putting something down on Anderson’s desk. ‘It’s the tape of the Fairbairn interview. I’ve been going through it.’
‘Why, are you bored?’ Anderson was flicking through a set of A4 sheets, looking up all the plac
es they had searched for Fairbairn. ‘Look, he’s gone to ground. Is that the action of an innocent man? What the fuck are we meant to do?’
Mulholland took the papers off him. ‘Colin – sir. This situation is not going to go away. Whether you like it or not, questions are going to be asked. And you need to have answers to them before it goes to an enquiry, or before we get him to court for Rusalka.’
Anderson tried to ignore him.
But Mulholland opened up McAlpine’s notes and stuck them under Anderson’s nose. ‘Here – there’s a break of twenty minutes when the tape isn’t running. There’s the time, recorded. McAlpine went out to speak to Lynda Osbourne and her dad, leaving you and the accused, Cameron Fairbairn, alone. An officer of your experience, alone with the accused? The same accused whose evidence you neglected to safeguard? Up to that precise minute Lynda Osbourne’s account was none too clear, to her mum, her dad, or to the nice police lady. The bus driver bought her an ice cream. A big man took her into the trees and hurt her. Was the big man the bus driver? You can’t tell. Then suddenly, after talking to McAlpine, she’s absolutely sure. Yes, it was the bus driver. But during those twenty minutes Lynda only had her dad with her – no independent observer, no child protection officer. The interview was in a room with no observation window. There was no one to see that her dad was not coaching her or guiding her answers. Or that the cop was, for God’s sake! That was an unsupervised, uncorroborated interview with a minor. A six-year-old minor. That’s against the law.’
‘I don’t take kindly to suggestions of witness tampering, DC Mulholland.’
‘Nothing to what you’re going to be accused of at the appeal, when those two statements are produced, with your signature on them. And the buck will stop with you. McAlpine won’t be around to help you out – or say it was his idea to have you in one room, him in the other. Both those infractions … God, you’ll be out on your ear!’
Anderson ignored him and went back to his papers, a list of Fairbairn’s known recent haunts. There weren’t many; Skelpie had been living a quiet life since he’d got out of jail. Too quiet. Was he waiting for something?
Mulholland tried a different tack. ‘OK, look at it like this. You all knew he was a paedophile. The dad knew his daughter had been assaulted. McAlpine suggests to him – just suggests – that it was Fairbairn. He was at the scene, the girl had been seen with him, and the ice cream man identified him. Mr Osbourne gets Lynda to tell her story, just helping out with the bits he says Lynda had told him before. The kid is traumatized and compliant, and probably just wants to be given some chocolate and go home; she goes to role-play and does exactly what you’d expect, given the injuries she’d sustained. But that does not point conclusively to Fairbairn. It could have been anybody. It was probably Biggart.’
‘You saw that film. We know Fairbairn was involved. So, get out my way!’
Anderson’s phone rang. He stood up and swung his jacket back round his shoulders. No matter who was on the phone, he was using it as an excuse to get out.
‘OK, go and talk to David Osbourne before you go any further. Then get back to me, if you still think you have to.’
11.00 A.M.
Matilda had been up all night, processing the root of a tooth so they could get a DNA sample and maybe a definite ID. But she had also been busy on the handcuffs. Standard police issue thirty years ago, they had a serial number showing that they had been issued to Strathclyde force. But in those days they had no designation to any particular officer. O’Hare was still trying to grapple with the idea that a Strathclyde officer had been involved.
Matilda came scuttling in efficiently, waving a white envelope. ‘Trace DNA from inside the clip of the handcuffs,’ she announced. ‘Guess who?’
‘Apart from Alessandro Marchetti? Tell me.’
‘It matches Wullie MacFadyean’s. I’ll do a chain reaction on it, and make sure, but the markers are there.’
O’Hare said carefully, ‘It means he touched them – so what?’
‘He was a working cop,’ Matilda persisted. ‘So, everybody and his dog’s DNA should have been on them.’
‘And you’re saying it wasn’t? You’re saying they were cleaned beforehand?’
Matilda shrugged. ‘Of the five who went hill-walking, five are dead. One of them was handling handcuffs found near the remains of the Marchetti boy. And he lived in hiding out near Glen Fruin Academy.’
11.30 A.M.
All the cops had gone. The last of them had left the car park of the Highland Glen Hotel at half seven that morning. The word was the hotel’s laundry van had been involved in some road traffic incident, but Skelpie knew different. The housekeeper and her staff had been interviewed. And now they were talking to anybody who had driven the van recently. It had been a tense few hours. But, technically, Skelpie’s room at the Highland Glen Hotel was unoccupied – the booking system had it marked as vacant – so as long as he stayed in here, they would not come looking.
He had no idea who was looking after him – Wee Archie O’Donnell had been vague in the Bar-L, talking almost in riddles, like a spy. Skelpie’d thought it strange that a player like O’Donnell would lower himself to speak to him, but maybe he himself was now a player too. Maybe Archie O’Donnell, with his life sentence, had chosen him, Cameron Fairbairn, to be the Daddy – as a just reward for his loyalty in the Marchetti kidnap, and his loyalty to Biggart.
Outside, the heat was relentless, and the patchworked repairs on the tarmac car park were melting. Skelpie thought about going out for a fag but decided against it – too easy to run into a cop. He still had a red patch on his arm where his tattoo was gradually being erased. Another five treatments and it would just look like a burn. But an eagle-eyed cop with not enough to do might spot it for what it was, and wonder why he was getting rid of it – not worth it.
Lynda Osbourne. Lynda with a Y. Funny how you never forgot those things. She’d be ten or eleven now. Twice, he’d walked right past her. Fairbairn closed the Black Watch tartan curtains and the room fell instantly dark.
And Wee Archie’d promised him the chance to settle a score with DI Anderson. He wasn’t going to let that pass.
He jumped as the phone went. It was a female voice, husky, sexy-sounding. She called him Mr Fairbairn, as if she respected him. She knew his codeword, which meant she was legit. She said she had a list of instructions for him. He was to get the train to Helensburgh, and they would send a car to pick him up. The driver would be expecting Mr Fairbairn.
Mr Biggart had always been very grateful for his loyalty, the woman added – it wouldn’t go unrewarded.
12.00 P.M.
The offices of Napier Grey were on the second floor of five in an old building just off Otago Street. Outside, a few black bin bags had spilled over. Their contents had been further decorated by kebab-ridden vomit and urine from the drunks coming out of the comedy club at the bottom of the street, and the heavy air hung on to the stench. Now the street, at midday on a Sunday, was deserted, devoid of traffic or parked cars apart from the police vehicles pulled up around Number 4.
As Anderson got out of his car, he subtly checked his phone. There was a text from Helena. Five words. Call me when you can.
No Love, no X. Just Call me when you can. He deleted it.
Mulholland was on the door of the building, having taken refuge within range of the fresh pine disinfectant.
‘So, what do we have?’ asked Anderson.
Mulholland indicated that Anderson should go up the stairs first. ‘Cleaners got here before we did. The place was locked up as usual, except that the alarm hadn’t been set properly. They found Mr Grey with a head injury from the usual unidentified blunt instrument. He’s already been taken away in the ambulance.’
Anderson paused on the first flight and took a deep breath. Just what I need, he thought. ‘Any sign of Mrs Carruthers yet?’
‘No, just the solicitor.’
They went through the reception area, which was cluttered
with SOCOs’ equipment. A SOCO handed them a couple of shoe covers each and said, ‘We haven’t collected any samples yet, so –’
‘I know. Touch nothing.’
As Anderson walked into the office, the tart chemical tang of adhesive hung in the air. A SOCO was videoing the scene, panning slowly all the way round the room from a central point. Filing and paperwork lay everywhere. Grey was a successful family solicitor, and he had looked after the Carruthers since they were married.
‘I don’t think they wanted to get any info out of him – otherwise, he would look like the Bridge Boy.’
‘Richard,’ corrected Anderson.
‘Well, they just whacked this guy over the head.’
Anderson nodded and retreated. ‘Well, whoever killed Lambie did it for the diary. If he didn’t get what he was after then, he is still going to be looking for it. Sorry for stating the bloody obvious.’
‘Something on the missing pages? Sorry for also stating the obvious.’
‘Must be. The solicitor wouldn’t know anything – but what about Mary? Has anybody found a desk diary here, an appointment book? Do we know who was supposed to be here yesterday?’ Anderson squeezed past the SOCO and went back out to the reception area, where another SOCO was sitting at the desk. He pointed to the computer. ‘Can you get that thing up and running?’
‘No,’ the SOCO said. ‘We’ve tried but it’s not booting up, not doing anything at all.’
‘No wonder.’ Mulholland leaned over the computer and sniffed. ‘Smell that? Probably some sort of insulation foam – polyurethane. Like the stuff they use to take out speed cameras. I bet they’ve sprayed it in the guts of every machine here. Go round and have a sniff at them all.’
‘I’ve also looked for a desk diary, but there isn’t one.’
‘OK, but we know that Mary Carruthers had an appointment here yesterday. And we know it was about a will, about that twenty grand. Thomas Carruthers will be the file name. Have you seen anything lying about?’