The Killing Connection

by T F Muir

‘In what way?’

  ‘To send stuff to her out of the blue and tell her you want a comparison back pronto.’

  ‘Say please, then.’ He turned and strode from the room.

  Back in his office, he called Mac Fountain. Not only was Mac responsible for CCTV cameras throughout Fife, he was also in charge of the exchange and coordination of CCTV footage with other regional forces. Gilchrist had spoken to him yesterday evening about the taped-over and altered registration numbers for Black’s Ford Fiesta.

  ‘Anything?’ Gilchrist asked.

  ‘Not a thing, Andy,’ Mac said. ‘Nothing’s come through on the ANPR. And we’ve had no response to the marker on the PNC.’

  ‘He can’t just have vanished,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘He could’ve changed number plates again,’ Mac said. ‘Picked them up from any old banger off the side of the road. He’s done it once, so why not twice? Or three times for luck, if you think about it.’

  ‘Thanks, Mac. You know how to make a man happy.’

  Mac chuckled.

  ‘Keep me posted.’

  ‘You’ll be the first to know.’

  Gilchrist turned to the window.

  Outside, the sleet had stopped. Puddles littered the car park like slivers of glass that reflected a white sky. Somehow, finding that photograph of Crichton had energised him, set his mind alight with possibilities. Alice Hickson had come to Scotland to uncover the truth about her sister’s death, but in so doing had managed to get herself killed. And her friend, Kandy Lal, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But why had Black killed Kandy? Because Alice had told her something, or given her something that could identify him as the killer of Alice’s sister, Janice?

  But if so, what had she said to Kandy?

  He was missing something. He could feel it, almost touch it.

  It was there for him to bend down and pick up. If he could only find it.

  For Black to kill Alice, she must have confronted him and threatened to report him to the police. But what had she confronted him with? What had she found? And if she’d found something, where was it now? The SOCOs had carried out a forensic search of her home and found nothing – no laptop, no mobile phone, no camera, no flashdrive, no digital equipment of any kind. Not even any notebooks or handwritten notes, which an investigative journalist would use as a matter of necessity. Black must have swept her house clean and destroyed – more likely dumped in the sea – all her digital and personal belongings. But before dumping computer hardware into the sea, would he have first deleted all content? Would any of the content be recoverable after being in the sea? Gilchrist thought not.

  But you never knew what today’s IT experts could recover.

  Just that slight change in tack had him questioning his logic.

  No investigative journalist would keep digital content on a computer without making a backup. And Alice Hickson would almost certainly have created a backup of whatever she had found on Black. Had she kept it all on a removable flashdrive? Or would she have backed it up in another file on her computer?

  Gilchrist turned from the window and eyed his office computer. Not exactly the most up-to-date, but it served its purpose. It provided him with access to police files, emails, and contact with others in the Office. But if he ever needed to keep a backup of some important personal files, would he create another folder on that old dinosaur?

  He didn’t think so.

  Was storing digital files the answer? Had Alice brought a flash-drive with her all the way from Australia? And in that moment, the answer to Alice’s dilemma came to him with such clarity that it almost stunned him into immobility.

  Almost.

  He strode from his office.

  Jackie looked up as he rapped her door and entered. ‘Get me the phone number for the New South Wales Police Office in Australia, and the person who identified Alice Hickson.’

  Jackie leaned to the side, removed a sheet of paper from a tray, and handed it to him.

  He ran his eyes over the contact details – Senior Sergeant Stu Pierson – and saw that she had also obtained a home address for him, and a mobile number. ‘Well done,’ he said.

  He was halfway down the steps to the main door when he got through.

  ‘Yup?’

  Even from that one word, Gilchrist could tell that Pierson was Australian born and bred. ‘Senior Sergeant Stu Pierson?’ he asked, and received another Aussie Yup. Gilchrist introduced himself, and apologised for contacting Pierson on his mobile, and at that time of night – eleven hours ahead of the UK. Then he thanked him for identifying Alice Hickson, and getting back to the St Andrews Office so quickly.

  ‘Least I could do,’ Pierson said. ‘Did you get the bastard that done it?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Gilchrist said. ‘But we’re getting closer.’

  Pierson coughed. ‘Still can’t believe it. The wife’s read every one of Alice’s books, and I tell you what, she’s spot on.’

  Gilchrist wasn’t sure if Pierson was talking about his wife or Alice being spot on, but he said nothing as he left the building. He turned to his right as he listened to Pierson rattle off the titles of Alice’s books. When he stepped into Muttoes Lane towards Market Street, he realised he had no destination in mind, just needed to breathe fresh air and let his thoughts fire alive.

  ‘You make it sound as if Alice is famous,’ Gilchrist interrupted.

  ‘Not famous, just popular. Her books got to number one in the Amazon charts, so the wife tells me. She’s a big fan of hers.’

  Gilchrist wanted to force the conversation on to his reason for calling, but he needed Pierson’s help. So he listened to him ramble on until he reached Market Street, then said, ‘Alice lived alone, right? She wasn’t married, was she?’

  ‘No, mate.’

  ‘What’s happened to her personal possessions?’

  ‘Still in her home, I’m guessing.’

  ‘Well, here’s the scoop. I’ve got our forensic guys going through her home here, and so far they’ve come up empty-handed. We can’t find her computer, her mobile phone, or anything else that would give us information on her, and help us understand what story she was working on. Which is important, because I believe that whatever she was working on got her killed. But we can’t find any backup files, no notes, nothing. Her house has been cleaned and her personal effects removed, we think by her killer. Which is why I’m calling you.’

  ‘Sure, mate. How can I help?’

  ‘We need someone to carry out a forensics search of Alice’s home in Sydney to find out what she was working on. If I was a betting man, I’d put money on the story being about James Crichton, her late sister’s husband, but I don’t know. What I do know is that for Alice to have made that journey from Australia to Scotland, she must’ve had something more than just a hunch, something she’d uncovered in Australia, something powerful enough to make her fly halfway round the world for an answer. It’s that something that I need you to find for us. Are you able to help?’

  ‘Let me run it past my bosses,’ Pierson said. ‘And I’ll get back to you.’

  CHAPTER 34

  Wednesday evening

  Gilchrist’s mobile rang – ID an unknown number.

  He took it with a grumpy, ‘Yes?’

  A woman’s laughter rang out, then turned into a chirpy voice that said, ‘You sound as if you hate cold calls, Andy. Don’t worry, I’m not selling anything. Just calling back with the results of my comparative analysis on the photographs your office sent me earlier today.’

  ‘Heather,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t recognise your number.’

  ‘That’s because I’m calling from home. We’re about to go out for the evening, so I’ll keep it short. It’s a match, Andy. Not one hundred per cent, but the quality’s poor. If you can send me any other images, I’d be happy to look at them.’

  ‘That’s it, I’m afraid. But you’ve given me all I need to know. Many thanks, Heather.’

  �
�Happy to be of help, Andy. I’ll get a formal reply to you first thing in the morning. But I’ve got to rush. Talk later. Bye.’

  Gilchrist returned his mobile to his pocket, cheered by Heather Black’s call.

  Surely now the noose was tightening.

  But by 8 p.m., they were no further forward. No silver Ford Fiesta with a number resembling any of the variations logged on to the ANPR, and no hits reported on the PNC. The Alloa Office managed to find CCTV footage of the silver Fiesta on the road to Dunfermline – minus its number plates – which proved Gilchrist’s theory.

  But after that, the Fiesta was as good as gone.

  ‘I’m thinking he’s swapped cars again,’ Jessie said.

  ‘We’ve had no reports of a stolen car,’ Gilchrist complained.

  ‘Maybe the owners are on holiday, or maybe Black just got lucky.’

  ‘Or maybe he had some other home to go to,’ he said, ‘with some other Martha on the go.’ Not that he thought that was likely, but as the day progressed with no sightings of the Fiesta by anyone, Gilchrist found himself struggling to discount that possibility.

  The trace they put on Martha Kerr’s mobile phone turned up nothing either. She might have had a mobile for her own convenience, considering where she lived, but for all the times she used it – once to phone her local bank – she might as well not have had one. If Gilchrist had hoped for a lead from Black calling Martha, he was well disappointed.

  And attempts to uncover details of James Crichton were getting them nowhere. They managed to establish that Janice Hickson had returned to Scotland from Australia at the age of twenty-five to marry her then-boyfriend, Alexander McKay, the youngest son of a family who ran a fleet of fishing boats. Despite that marriage ending in divorce after only two years – Alexander’s infidelity being the reason – Janice did not return to Australia. By all accounts, her settlement milked Alexander for all he was worth, and she stayed on in Oban, living the life of a woman of leisure until she was swept off her feet by Crichton, a businessman new to the region, but who was already making a name as a hard-nosed competitor, willing to work long hours to establish his start-up contracting business.

  Shortly after that, things turned for the worse for Janice.

  Although Mhairi and Jessie managed to recover a history of personal tax returns and NI contributions for Janice, her new husband, James, seemed to have been nothing more than a ghost in that regard. Tax records filed by his contracting company – JC Contracting – showed it made a loss of sixty thousand pounds in its first year of operation, and no returns had been filed since. Gilchrist was intrigued by the company being named after the owner’s initials – just as Scott Black had done with SB Contracting – which had his sixth sense telling him he was on the right track. But without proof, it didn’t matter how hard your instinct twitched.

  It was nothing more than a guess.

  And Butterworth Holdings yielded nothing new. The Kerr Roberts whose name was registered in Companies House as the owner proved to be one more fictional character. No tax records or NI contributions existed for him, and even though the FIU managed to freeze all assets in the RBS Jersey Account, Gilchrist had the distinct feeling that they were all doing too little too late, and that Black really had slipped the proverbial noose.

  Gilchrist heard his stomach rumble, which reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast – once again. He was about to set out for a pint and a bite when Jessie appeared in his doorway.

  ‘Unless you’ve got anything urgent for me to do,’ she said, ‘I’m going to head home and feed my wee boy.’

  ‘Nothing in from Stu Pierson?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a squeak. Want me to call him?’

  ‘No. On you go. I’ll follow up with him later.’ She was about to leave his office, when he said, ‘Is everything all right?’

  She stopped, pressed a hand against the doorjamb. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Want to talk about it?’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t told Robert about his operation yet. And I can’t put it off any longer.’

  Gilchrist knew how close Jessie was to her son, and how young Robert had longed to make a career as a stand-up comedian. But being stone deaf from birth, the lad never had any chance to get off the starting blocks.

  ‘Do you need to take time off?’ he asked.

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks. You can’t afford to lose any staff.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in first thing tomorrow, but if anything crops up . . .’ She placed her thumb and pinkie by her ear ‘. . . give me a bell, OK?’

  He nodded in agreement, but he had no intention of phoning her. They might need every set of hands they could find, but calling someone in when they had personal issues to resolve would do none of them any favours. He was about to check up with Jackie, when his mobile beeped – ID Mo.

  He took the call with, ‘Hey, princess.’

  ‘Just calling to let you know the flights are all organised, and that we’re leaving from Edinburgh tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘That was quick,’ he said.

  ‘I told you yesterday that it would be Thursday or Friday.’

  ‘I know, I know, I don’t mean anything. It’s just that talking about it, and then getting an actual flight time, it suddenly hits you that it’s for real.’

  ‘I’ll be back, Dad,’ she said. ‘Probably in a couple of weeks, once we’ve decided where we’re going to live.’

  He thought she sounded more positive than she had yesterday, as if she and Tom had committed to making a go of it, come whatever. ‘You want me to do anything with your flat when you’re gone?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s OK, Dad. Tom’s got it covered. And a lift to the airport, too.’

  Well, what had he expected? He’d not really been in their lives of late, so why should he expect anything different now? But he found himself not wanting to ask how Tom had it covered, in case Maureen thought he was interfering, so just said, ‘That’s good to hear. If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.’

  ‘See us off at the airport, Dad?’

  St Andrews to Edinburgh Airport was a good hundred miles round trip, and with the status of his ongoing investigation, he didn’t think he could afford to take the time off. Maureen would be expecting more than a quick hug and a teary cheerio, and if he hit any kind of traffic, the whole trip could take four hours out of the middle of his day. Shit, and bugger it. Still, how many times did your only daughter fly to Australia?

  ‘I’ll do what I can, Mo,’ he said.

  ‘That sounds like a No, Dad.’

  ‘It’s not, Mo. I’ve got some juggling to do. Just text me the flight details,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get something sorted out tonight. Does that work?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He could tell from the tone of her voice that she didn’t believe him, that she thought he was setting up a good excuse not to make it to the airport. But just to be on the safe side, he said, ‘What are you and Tom doing this evening? Other than packing,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘I’d be happy to take you out for dinner.’

  ‘We can’t, Dad.’

  ‘You’re always telling me that I have to eat, right?’

  ‘We’ve already eaten, Dad. Tom’s parents took us out to the Vine Leaf.’

  Hearing that deflated him. He knew he had no right to be upset at not being invited to join them. After all, Tom’s parents would want to spend some private time with their son and future daughter-in-law. Still, it nipped, if he was being honest, made a tad more bitter by the Vine Leaf being one of the more upmarket restaurants, with a reputation for excellent food, but one he seldom visited, preferring cheaper fare. More worrying was the possibility that if he didn’t see Mo tonight, he might not see her for a couple of weeks, until her return from Perth.

  ‘How about a quick pint, then?’ he said. ‘In the Criterion. Just along from your flat.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Dad. W
e’re up to our ears.’

  ‘Is that what Tom says, too?’

  ‘I don’t need to ask Tom to know that he doesn’t want another pint.’

  Another pint. So they’d already had a few in the Vine Leaf. Defeated, he said, ‘OK, Mo. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. All right?’

  ‘Sure, Dad.’

  ‘Love you, Mo.’ But the line was already dead, leaving him with the feeling that she had only given him lip service.

  Before heading home, he walked to the incident room and eyed the whiteboard, not confident of finding anything different from an hour earlier. As it turned out, he was right. No sightings of Black or of the Ford Fiesta had been noted. No new information from the Alloa Office. Nothing from HMRC or the DVLA. No new notes on Martha Kerr or Butterworth Holdings. As he stood there re-reading his scribbled comments, he felt a burgeoning sense of failure, that his investigation was not only coming up against a brick wall, but was about to be halted in its tracks.

  The only spark of hope came from his thoughts on James Crichton.

  He slipped his mobile from his pocket and dialled Senior Sergeant Stu Pierson. But after five rings, it dumped him into voicemail. He gave his name and left a short message – Anything new? Give me a call – then hung up.

  He eyed the whiteboard again.

  His investigation was stalling. They had nothing new to go on.

  Up until that moment, the thought that Black could outfox him, and stay hidden for so long, had never truly seemed a possibility. But as he turned away from the incident room, his heart heavy with the cold sense of defeat, he couldn’t even raise a glimmer of a smile.

  Jessie pushed the bedroom door wide.

  Soft light from several table lamps cast a warm glow around the room, settling the corners into shadow. Robert was on his laptop, not playing games like most teenagers, but writing. It was what he wanted to do, become a novelist, a writer of comedy, of funny stories, anecdotal quips and tales, anything and everything that could put a smile on your face.

  He looked up as she approached. You look sad, he signed.

  I’ve got something I have to tell you. Something sad.