The Killing Connection

by T F Muir

  Thorncroft eyed her as if she’d shot him.

  Jessie rapped her knuckles on the table. ‘Hello? Earth to Thorncroft? I said, have you got that?’

  Thorncroft looked away and appeared to find interest in his notes.

  ‘Carry on, sir,’ Jessie said to Gilchrist. ‘I think the message got through.’

  ‘What did you get out of it, Martha?’ Gilchrist said.

  Martha looked at him and blinked.

  ‘You’re not married. You live by yourself.’ He struggled to find some inoffensive way of saying that her cottage was rundown and that she dressed like a tramp, then settled for, ‘And you appear to live modestly. So I’m thinking it’s not money.’

  She lowered her gaze to the table again, but for just that fleeting moment, Gilchrist thought he detected the covering up of a lie. He waited until she lifted her gaze and her eyes settled once more on his. ‘Or maybe it is about money,’ he said.

  Nothing.

  ‘We’ve instructed our Financial Investigation Unit to apply for a warrant to carry out a search of any bank accounts in your name.’ He puzzled at the merest hint of a smile, the tiniest twitch at the corner of her lips.

  Was he on the wrong track?

  So far, they’d found nothing in Scott Black’s accounts, other than a few hundred quid to fund day-to-day living. Even the most recent bank account uncovered by Matt Duprey’s forensic search of Black’s Facebook account held no huge amount. Money came in from his contracting business, and went out in the form of direct debits or standing orders – utilities, council tax, on-going business expenses. But a detached stone villa in Oban, and a share of a small fishing fleet – albeit sold cheaply for cash – had to have been worth six figures at least, fourteen years ago. Not to mention Norma Kintyre’s estate a few years earlier – another six-figure sum? He was sure of it.

  So, what had Black done with the money?

  Or more correctly, where was he hiding it?

  He leaned forward and stared hard at Martha. ‘So tell me,’ he said, ‘what will we find when we perform a forensic analysis of your bank accounts?’

  She returned his gaze for several seconds, then said, ‘Nothing.’

  Her spoken response pricked his senses. Not what he’d been expecting. Not at all. Another blank look, or shrug of her shoulders, or a no comment.

  But instead, she’d said – Nothing. Which told him everything.

  Well, not quite everything. But it did let him see what he’d been missing.

  He offered a smile, a prelude to his coffin-nailing question, because that was what he was about to do to her, this sister of a serial killer, this cold-hearted woman with no sense of remorse for the women she’d betrayed: he was going to bury her.

  If he could, that is, because he was still working on instinct, still trying to wheedle the truth out of someone who didn’t want to talk, who when she did, spewed out nothing but lies. He would have to nudge his way forward, step into the swamp with care. For if he got this wrong, he could be the one being sucked into the clammy depths of deepest shit.

  ‘We’ve also applied for a search warrant,’ he said. ‘For Raven Cottage.’

  Martha stilled, as if her breath had caught in her throat.

  ‘What do you think we’ll find?’ he asked, one sane person beseeching another.

  Her eyes slid left, right, left again, then lowered to the table.

  ‘Want to tell me?’

  He knew he was homing in on her weakness, the one thing she thought no one would ever find – money. Not hers, he thought, but Scott Black’s. But it worried him that he could still be wrong, that his assumptions were nothing more than blind stabs in the dark, no matter how much he thought her body language betrayed her.

  He eased into it with, ‘Wherever the money’s hidden, Martha, we’ll find it. It’s what we do. It’s what we’re good at.’ He cocked his head, tried to catch her eyes. But she was having none of it. ‘And once we do, it’ll be a major problem for you. Because if Bobby denies all knowledge of it, or more correctly when Bobby denies all knowledge of it, because that’s what he does, isn’t it? Takes no responsibility. Then you’re on your own.’

  Even though her eyes still focused on some spot on the table, he had a sense of her vulnerability, an inexorable stripping away of her protective layers. ‘Then guess what?’ Five seconds ticked by, but she could be mute for all the response she was giving. ‘When Bobby denies it, Martha, you’ll be taking the blame. All that money you can’t explain away. You’ll be who we’re coming after. And believe me, Martha, there’ll be no turning back when that happens.’

  He pushed his chair back. Together he and Jessie stood.

  Thorncroft looked up at them, as if not knowing what to say.

  Jessie said, ‘Interview suspended at one thirty-five.’

  Gilchrist gathered his notes, and glared at Thorncroft. ‘We’re taking a break. But you should spend the next ten minutes advising your client of the seriousness of the charges she’s about to face. If she continues to blank us, then that’s it. No deals. Nothing. We’re going the full way, and she’s on her own.’

  He followed Jessie from the Interview Room, aware of Martha’s eyes on his back.

  In the hallway, he switched on his mobile and groaned when he saw he’d missed three text messages, within ten minutes of each other, and a missed call – all from Maureen.

  ‘Shit,’ he said.

  Jessie jerked a look at him. ‘Problems?’

  ‘You could say.’ He walked away for some privacy, and opened her messages.

  Tried calling but cant get u. R u coming?

  He cursed. He’d known last night that he probably couldn’t see her off at the airport, and should have told her so. But he could at least have given her a call that morning, spoken to her, wished her and Tom a safe trip, told her he would see her when she got back, told her that he loved her.

  The next message only worsened matters.

  At the gate. Can u pls call.

  Ah fuck it. He checked the time – twenty minutes ago – then thumbed on to the next message. But he shouldn’t have bothered.

  Boarding now.

  ‘No,’ he moaned. ‘Not like this.’ He dialled her number and stared at the message as he waited for the connection. Typical Maureen. Short, curt and to the point. No goodbye. No see you soon. No miss you. No love you. Nothing. Just boarding now, her way of shutting him out, letting him know what she thought of him.

  The call connected to voicemail.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said, and hung up. He pressed redial. Getting through to voicemail meant she hadn’t switched off her mobile for the flight yet – didn’t it?

  ‘Come on, come on. Pick up, Mo. For crying out loud, just pick up, will you?’

  But the call went to voicemail again.

  ‘Shit.’ He struggled with the almost irresistible urge to hang up, but instead listened to the recorded message, waited until the line beeped. He took a deep breath. ‘Hi, Mo. It’s me.’ He’d found a spot in the corner, which gave him a view of the outside world through a rain-clouded window. He stared at grey skies, heavy and thick enough to threaten snow. Nothing like the weather Mo was heading to. ‘I’m sorry, Mo. I know you’ve heard it before, but . . . well . . . work got in the way. It’s not an excuse. I should’ve made the effort – well, more of an effort.’ He closed his eyes. He was rambling, not getting to the point.

  He took another deep breath, tried to collect his thoughts.

  ‘I should’ve been there. At the airport. I know. I’m sorry. But I couldn’t make it. Give me a call when you get to sunny Oz. Even if it’s just to let off some steam and tell me how annoyed you are with me. Reverse the charges. I’m happy to pay.’ Fuck it. He was gibbering again. ‘Anyway, what I wanted to say was, that you’re doing the right thing marrying Tom and moving away from here. All this weather will get to you in the end.’ He chuckled to let her know he was joking, but even to his ears it sounded flat. ‘But I’ll miss you, Mo
, and I’m sorry we didn’t connect this morning. My fault, I know. But I want you to know that I love you. And I wish you and Tom the very best. Can’t wait to see you again. Stay well, princess. And stay in touch.’

  He ended the call, puffed up his cheeks, and exhaled.

  What would she do when she listened to that little lot? Probably ignore it, and delete his contact details from her mobile. Who could blame her. He’d disappointed her. No, worse than that. He’d failed her. He’d let her down so badly. How had she felt when she’d tried to contact him from the airport and couldn’t get through? What had she thought of him? What father would do that to his daughter – let her fly off to the other side of the world without a parting word? Who else had been there to see them off ? Had Jack made the effort? Well, Jack didn’t own a car, didn’t have a licence, so that was unlikely. But Jack would at least have spoken to his sister before she left.

  Of that, he was certain.

  His stomach curdled at the thought of Tom’s parents being at the airport. How would Maureen have felt then, saying farewell to them, all the while wondering where her own father—

  ‘Best I could do,’ Jessie said.

  Gilchrist jolted at the sound of her voice.

  ‘Not the greatest coffee in the world.’ She handed him a Styrofoam cup. ‘But it’s wet and hot. What can I say?’

  He took a quick sip. ‘Wet and hot it is.’

  She eyed him over the rim of her cup. ‘Nothing serious, is it?’

  He let out a defeated sigh. ‘Maureen’s emigrating to Australia.’

  She mouthed a whistle. ‘Boy, I just knew Stu Pierson was a looker.’

  He smiled to let her know he got her joke, then said, ‘I didn’t make it to the airport to see them off.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Jessie raised her eyebrows. ‘You tried calling?’

  ‘Can’t get through.’

  ‘Well, that’s always a problem.’ She nodded to his coffee. ‘Want to finish that out here, or take it in with us?’

  That was Jessie’s way of dealing with the problem – put it behind you, and get on with something else. She was right, of course. What else could he do?

  ‘Let’s give Thorncroft another five minutes,’ he said. ‘Maybe he’ll have talked some sense into her by then.’

  CHAPTER 37

  Five minutes?

  It wouldn’t have made any difference if they’d given Thorncroft five weeks. No matter how Gilchrist and Jessie poked and prodded and tried to tease answers from Martha, she gave a silent shrug, or a No comment. His scare tactics hadn’t worked either. Threats that she could receive a custodial sentence fell on deaf ears. For all the attention she was giving them, they could be rambling on about last year’s weather forecasts.

  It seemed that Martha Kerr had shut down for good.

  But even so, something niggled. No one could sit back with such casual disregard for the serious trouble they were in without showing signs of worry or nervous tension. Gilchrist had carried out hundreds – make that thousands – of police interviews, but never before had he come across someone so disinterested in it all. He wondered if she might be suffering from some mental impairment that prevented her from comprehending reality, some psychiatric disorder that kept her in a fantasy world of her own making. Of course, on the other side of that coin, she could be much smarter than she was letting on, smarter than Gilchrist, smarter than Jessie, so smart in fact that she was not just one step ahead of him, but half a dozen. Or maybe Gilchrist had become too cynical in his old age, for he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that they were being made fools of.

  Just before 3 p.m., he scraped his chair back and stood. They were getting nowhere. Even though he was tempted to charge Martha with obstructing the course of justice, he couldn’t shift the sense that, by her continued silence, she was trying to lead them to the wrong conclusion.

  And Thorncroft wasn’t making it any easier. He seemed to have gone from silent spectator to courtroom defender of the weak and helpless in the space of a few questions. ‘It seems patently clear to me,’ he pronounced with legal gravitas – or so he thought – ‘that you have absolutely nothing that connects my client to the deaths of Janice Hickson or Norma Kerr.’

  ‘Other than the fact that she spent the evening with her brother and his wife on the night his wife was murdered by—’

  ‘Drowned,’ Thorncroft barked. ‘Nothing more than an accident involving a woman who’d had so much to drink she could barely walk. All backed up by the post mortem and the police report and my client’s statement.’ He slapped the desk to emphasise his point, which had Gilchrist raising his hand to prevent Jessie from responding in kind.

  Gilchrist leaned forward and again tried the voice of reason. ‘Not once has your client given a satisfactory explanation for signing her statement using her middle names, nor for not advising the police that Robert Kerr was her brother and Norma was her sister-in-law.’

  ‘It wasn’t up to my client to provide such information. It was for the police to interview her. If they failed to ask the appropriate questions, my client was under no obligation, legal or otherwise, to inform them of their own shortcomings.’

  ‘Even so,’ Gilchrist said, ‘if your client was innocent, she would have willingly provided any—’

  ‘I simply fail to see the logic in that.’

  ‘That’s because you’re stupid,’ Jessie said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Ditch the selective hearing,’ she said. ‘You heard.’

  Thorncroft tugged his jacket, gave a throaty harrumph. ‘My client has been in police custody for over four hours. What do you intend to do about that?’

  ‘We haven’t decided yet,’ Jessie said.

  ‘If you’re not going to charge her, I insist you let her go.’

  ‘We’ve got twelve hours to hold her before—’

  ‘This is preposterous. I’ll be filing a formal complaint.’

  ‘File all you like.’ Jessie gave him a deadpan smile. ‘But you know the law as well as we do. At least, you should. Although I’m beginning to think you haven’t a clue.’

  Gilchrist did not intervene. He let Jessie and Thorncroft mouth off at each other, while he kept his eyes fixed on Martha, aware of her tiny smirk. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was enjoying the whole affair.

  When Jessie raised her voice, Gilchrist raised his hand. ‘That’s enough.’

  She pressed herself back into her chair.

  Thorncroft shuffled his shoulders. ‘Well, I have to—’

  ‘You too,’ Gilchrist snapped.

  Thorncroft adjusted his tie. Martha smiled.

  If Gilchrist had to look back on that interview, he would say that Martha’s smile to her solicitor had been his moment of epiphany, when a spark of intuition let him see another possibility, one he’d never considered until then. There had been no reason for her to smile. A shrug of her shoulders, another blank stare at that same spot on the table, or even a nervous tic might have gone unnoticed – but not a smile. And certainly not a smile directed at a barely competent solicitor. Thorncroft hadn’t been deep into the intellectual throes of winning some complex legal argument. Far from it. He’d been making an arse of himself, as Jessie had pointed out to him.

  It seemed that it didn’t matter to Martha whether she was released or kept in custody for the full twelve hours, or even charged with being complicit in a pair of murders. He was developing a sense that it mattered to her that they kept their focus on her, kept wasting their time with her. Because that’s what they were doing – wasting their time.

  Which was the whole point of her silence. He thought he saw that now.

  He’d been asking the wrong questions, looking in the wrong direction.

  And she had smiled because she believed her ploy was succeeding.

  It was only when he took a step back and asked the question – what ploy? – that he thought he saw the shadow of some different outline. But he needed more than gu
t instinct or intuitive reasoning. He needed answers, or more precisely, he needed to see how she responded to one specific question.

  So he pulled himself upright, then laid his hands flat on the table in the area where Martha had been focusing her blank stare. Then he looked at Thorncroft and said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to keep your client in custody, and tomorrow morning we’ll make a decision on whether or not to press charges.’

  A glance at Martha confirmed the smirk was still there.

  ‘So, Martha,’ he said, ‘just to be sure we’re not missing anything, you say you don’t know where your brother might be hiding.’

  Thorncroft cleared his throat again, as if preparing to say something, but Gilchrist cut him off with, ‘That’s not a question. Just a statement of where we are with respect to your client’s lack of knowledge of her brother’s current whereabouts.’ He slid his hands across the table, closer to Martha, and watched her eyes widen. He slid closer still, pleased to see her push back in her chair, as if she feared that he would suddenly make a grab for her.

  He kept his tone level, his voice quiet. ‘I know where your brother didn’t go to.’

  Thorncroft coughed.

  Jessie said, ‘Shut it, you.’

  Gilchrist kept his eyes on Martha’s. No longer fixed on that thousand-yard stare, but struggling to recover that spot on the table. ‘Your brother didn’t go far,’ he said. ‘That’s why we found no sign of him on the CCTV system. He’d not gone far from Raven Cottage.’

  Martha seemed to still, as if she were holding her breath.

  ‘Because he’d already holed up by the time we went looking for him. Not that we’d ever likely find out where he’s hiding,’ he said. ‘The Scottish countryside is a big place. He could be anywhere. But that doesn’t matter.’ His hands had almost crossed the table, and he took care to place one on top of the other. ‘What matters is that he didn’t go far. And you, of all people, you know why that matters.’ He pulled himself back, settled into his seat and glared at her. ‘Don’t you?’