‘What is it you don’t understand?’ I asked. We were in an interview room at Livingston Police Station. The soundproofed walls were covered in a brown hessian material, our chairs, two either side of a plastic table, bolted to the floor. There was a camera in the corner of the ceiling and a DVD recording unit by the DI’s right hand. Both were switched off. Fleming preferred his notebook. He flicked through a few more pages, tapping the end of his pencil on the table. Perhaps if I humoured him he wouldn’t insist on going through the whole thing again in minute detail, just so that he could try and pick up on any slight discrepancy.
I thought it would save time if I summarised. ‘Earlier on today, I went with my client, Mr Jake Turpie, and his colleague, Derek Pudney, to the home of his customer, Mrs . . . sorry, I don’t know her first name, Adams. The reason I was there was to warn her of possible court action in relation to an unpaid debt.’
‘When did you start doing civil court work?’ Fleming asked.
‘And I take it Mr Turpie’s got all the paperwork to prove that debt?’ chipped in Fleming’s sidekick, an extremely thin DC with lots of hair. It had been the skinny cop’s first input to an interview that had lasted almost an hour. Before that I’d had a two-hour wait. Dougie Fleming liked his interviewees to marinate in worry for a while before he spoke to them. I’d spent the time reading through a stack of out-of-date National Geographic, and was now well up on, amongst other useful topics, the healing power of snake venom and crabs of the British shoreline.
‘The side door was broken. I went in—’
‘Uninvited?’ the skinny cop asked.
I wasn’t for being sidetracked. ‘I went in, saw the dead guy on the table, heard crying from upstairs, found the girl and drove straight here.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Fleming placed his stump of a pencil on the table between us. ‘Why did you do that? Why not phone it in?’ I didn’t answer. I’d already explained that the farmhouse phone was out of order on account of it having been ripped from the wall. Fleming snorted. ‘Strange how not one of the three of you possessed a mobile phone.’ Fleming turned over a few pages. ‘According to you, you’d left your mobile phone at home.’
‘Not at home,’ I said. ‘At my office.’
‘Not a very mobile mobile phone is it?’ said DC Skinny.
Fleming turned to the last page of the pencil-written statement, took a pen from his breast pocket and slid both items across the table to me.
My turn to sigh. I slid the book and pen back at him and stood up.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
Skinny pointed at the chair.
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m leaving.’
The DC got up and blocked the door.
I turned to Fleming. ‘If I’m being held against my will, I want to know why and to have a lawyer informed.’
‘You are a lawyer. And why do you think you’re being held?’ Skinny said. He was really beginning to piss me off. ‘This is a double homicide investigation and if we tell you to stay—’
‘Double homicide?’ I asked.
Fleming glowered at his colleague and then at me. ‘Sit.’
I didn’t.
‘Please.’
I sat.
‘Another body’s been found,’ Fleming said. ‘A female. We think it’s the householder.’
‘Does that mean the dead guy isn’t the householder?’
Fleming’s little helper stepped forward and bent over, his face close to mine. ‘You’re here to answer questions, not ask them.’
‘Yes, if you don’t mind, I’ll conduct the interview,’ Fleming said, and the DC withdrew to resume his position guarding the door.
Fleming continued. ‘Obviously, we’re at an early stage in our enquiries and don’t want too much information leaking out at this time,’ he said, glowering at his colleague as he squeezed out from behind the table. ‘You can leave.’ He jerked his head to the side, a signal for skinny cop to move away from the door. ‘But we’re keeping hold of your clients for the moment. Just until we check out their stories,’ he said, stifling my protests. ‘That may take some time – which is no bad thing. Better that than the pair of them spreading the word around every boozer in West Lothian.’ He gestured with an open hand to the door. ‘DC Grant will show you out, but I mean it, not one word of this to anyone, understand? Nobody.’
8
‘Are you telling me you’ve gone and got yourself involved in a double murder?’
My dad was not at all happy at my prolonged absence and there’d been no danger of me getting away without a proper explanation for my extreme tardiness. I could have made something up, but that would only have brought on an interrogation far more robust than anything Dougie Fleming was capable of, so I’d told him everything.
‘How do you do it, Robbie? How do you always manage to mess things up?’ There was a chat show on the TV. The host was telling a famous actor how wonderful the famous actor was, even though the famous actor seemed to know how wonderful he was already. My dad pressed mute on the remote. ‘Well?’
‘It’s not like that, Dad. I’m not involved. I didn’t kill anyone. I’m a witness, that’s all.’
‘It’s that man, Turpie, isn’t it?’
‘Not really . . . well . . . sort of.’
‘No sort of about it.’
‘He was there when I found the body.’
‘I thought there was two folk dead?’
‘There is. I only saw one and I’m not supposed to talk to anyone about them. Dougie Fleming wants to keep it top secret, so can we talk about something else? And keep your voice down.’
Through the living room wall I could hear Tina humming a tune to herself. She’d been in bed when I got home, and when I’d popped in to say goodnight I’d been suckered into a bedtime story. Since then she’d been up three times; first for a drink and a biscuit, then because she needed to brush her teeth again and finally for the toilet.
‘That social worker was here earlier on,’ my dad said after a period of silence. ‘Vikki, she’s called. It’s not short for Victoria or anything. That’s it. That’s her name. Vikki. With two Ks.’
‘She’s not a social worker, Dad. She’s a lawyer. What did she want?’
‘To see you, of course, except you weren’t here so I had to tell her you’d nipped out to the shops.’
‘What’s she like? Some dried-up old spinster with no kids who thinks she can go about telling everyone else how to bring up theirs?’
‘No. She’s young and a bit of a looker actually. We didn’t discuss her marital status, but she seemed all right to me.’
‘I like Vikki.’ We both turned around to see Tina in her pyjamas, wide awake. I beckoned to her and she came over and sat beside me on the couch. ‘Vikki smells like flowers.’
‘Does she?’ I said. ‘Was she talking to you?’
Tina nodded vigorously.
‘What about?’
‘She asked if I liked living here and going to nursery and stuff.’
‘And do you?’
Tina nodded again, smiling.
‘What do you like best at nursery?’
‘Painting.’
‘And what sort of things do you like to paint?’
Tina thought for a moment, head to one side, then her face quivered, crumpled. She leaned away from me, planted her face into a cushion and started to cry. I picked her up, sat her on my knee and bounced her up and down. It only made things worse. When I tried to give her a hug, she broke away, ran over to the end of the couch and, head on the armrest, continued to break her heart.
My dad made to climb out of his armchair. I shook my head at him.
‘What is it?’ he whispered, lowering himself again. ‘What’s wrong?’
I didn’t reply. Tina’s tears flowed for a few more minutes and then stopped. She looked up and asked for a drink. When I came back from the kitchen with a glass of milk she was sitting on my dad’s ankle, playing horsey and laughing as though
nothing had happened.
‘She does that,’ I told my dad when, milk drunk, tucked up in bed and one very short bedtime story later, I returned to the living room. ‘She misses her mum. Certain things jog her memory. It can be anything and it’s usually around bedtime. One night I was reading her nursery rhymes, and when I got to Little Miss Muffet she was off into floods and completely inconsolable. I don’t know what to do when it happens. You can’t tell a four-year-old to pull herself together.’
‘Malky was like that,’ my dad said. ‘After your mum died. You were too young to know what was going on. It takes time.’ He switched off the TV. ‘So, the murders. Who’s dead? Anyone I know?’
‘Doubt it. I saw one of them and had a pretty good look at his face.’ That was a mental image I wasn’t going to lose anytime soon. ‘It was definitely nobody I recognised.’
‘Why were you even there?’
‘Jake wanted me to speak to the householder. She’s a farmer and owes him money for a car. I think hers is the other body. It’ll all be in the papers sooner or later.’
A car pulled up in the street outside. My front door opened and Malky poked his head into the living room. ‘Where is she? Where’s my niece?’
‘In her bed where she should be,’ my dad said.
‘At this time? Why? Has she got work in the morning or something? Come on. Let the girl live a little.’
Ten seconds later he was giving my wide-awake daughter a piggyback around the room.
‘Look what Uncle Malky got me!’ Tina yelled, waving a Freddo bar above her head.
Great, that would mean a clean nightie after she’d smeared chocolate all down herself and then the whole rigmarole of teeth-brushing again, an activity Tina could spin out endlessly if the alternative was bed.
I tried to take the chocolate bar from her, but she was gripping it like a NRA member grips his semi-automatic.
‘How about we play a game of something,’ I said, hoping to distract her long enough to make the chocolate disappear.
‘Don-i-moes!’ Tina squealed.
Dominoes? I didn’t know Tina could play dominoes.
My dad cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think you have any dominoes, do you, Robbie?’
I did. Somewhere.
‘Gramps and me were playing don-i-moes today,’ Tina said.
‘Cup of tea, anyone?’ my dad asked.
‘I’ll have a cup,’ Malky said. ‘Either that or a beer. You got any beer in, Robbie?’
I explained to Malky that I hadn’t seen a beer or any other alcoholic beverage for a week and that there wasn’t so much as a wine gum in the house in case Vikki the child welfare lawyer happened by and wanted to inspect the fridge or smell my breath.
‘Me and Gramps went to a smelly shop,’ Tina said.
‘Tea it is, then.’ For a big man with a bad knee my dad made the trip from living room to kitchen swiftly and nimbly enough.
‘Gramps had special lemonade and I had cola and the man gave me three straws,’ Tina continued. ‘And we had crisps and—’
Malky laughed. He tickled Tina, who by this time had most of the wrapper off the Freddo bar. ‘Are you trying to get your gramps into trouble?’
‘Dad!’ I shouted through to the kitchen. ‘Did you take Tina to the Red Corner Bar after I left you at Sandy’s?’ But my question was drowned out by the sound of the kettle being filled with enough water to boil a missionary.
The phone rang. Saved by the bell, my dad popped back into the living room carrying the kettle. ‘That’ll be for you.’
He was right. It was Joanna.
‘I’m at the police station. I wouldn’t bother you, it’s just that the cops couldn’t get you on your mobile and they called me. They’re wanting to arrest Jake Turpie,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘Murder. And he’d very much like a word.’
9
I wasn’t sure what took the longest time, the video-recorded questioning of Jake by two detectives, or his pre- and post-interrogation rants at me in one of the interview rooms.
Afterwards, ears burning, I left him in the care of the custody sergeant, four bare walls and a plastic-coated mattress while I went off to sit in with Deek. I must have sat through hundreds of such interviews and it always amazed me that no matter how much you advised some clients to make no comment, they usually felt they had to have their say, not realising that, no matter how innocent they were, or how exculpatory they thought their answers, they were only helping the police to build a case against them. In the history of all police enquiries, I doubted if there had ever been a time when halfway through an interview a cop had stopped asking questions and said, ‘Oh well then. In view of what you’ve told us, Mr Suspect, you’re clearly innocent and are now free to go.’ It just didn’t happen. The cops might say they were only trying to help or just wanted to know the truth, but during a detention interview the only thing on a police officer’s mind was convicting the person sitting in front of them, and nothing that person said could possibly help.
No such worries with Jake and Deek, however. Both were past masters of the no-comment interview. Even then, it didn’t stop the cops asking endless questions.
Once the formalities were over, I tried to catch a few words with Dougie Fleming. He must have known from the outset that he’d get nothing out of my clients because he’d left the interviews to a couple of his junior colleagues while he worked away in the background. If I had asked to speak with him, he’d have given me a body-swerve and sneaked out of the back door, so instead I waited at the front desk and caught him as he headed home after his long shift.
‘They’re staying put,’ he said, anticipating my question as he came around the counter to where I was standing. ‘So don’t bother harping on about it. The decision’s been made and now I’m officially off duty.’
‘What evidence can you possibly have to keep them?’ I asked, trotting after him to the front door.
‘I don’t need evidence. I have a reasonable suspicion. That’ll do for now.’
‘A reasonable suspicion? Based on what? Being at the murder scene this afternoon? Whoever the dead guy is, he wasn’t killed today.’
‘Really? Is that a special knowledge statement? Is there something you’d like to get off your chest, Mr Munro?’
‘You’ve seen the body. It was way past its kill-by date.’
Fleming shrugged and pulled on a pair of polished, black leather gloves.
‘And they were both with me.’ I positioned myself between him and the big glass front door. ‘How many murderers come to the police station with their lawyers direct from the crime scene? Do you see how unreasonably suspicious that is? You wouldn’t even know about the murder if we hadn’t reported it.’
Fleming tried to push past. ‘If you don’t mind. Some of us have got a home to go to.’
I’d loved to have ripped off one of those Gestapo gloves and slapped him about the face with it. ‘So, tell me, what is your reasonable suspicion?’
Fleming smiled thinly, showing less porcelain than a doll’s house tea set. ‘It’s like this. I’m a reasonable man and anything Jake Turpie does, I’m suspicious of. Good enough for you? Because it’s good enough for me.’ This time his attempt to shove me aside was successful. He pushed open the glass door. ‘And the same goes for you. So just think yourself lucky you’re not in beside them.’
10
I arrived home in the small hours of Thursday morning to find Malky gone and Tina curled up on the couch sound asleep, her wee chocolaty face poking out from beneath the fleecy dressing gown that had been thrown over her. Sitting in the armchair next to her, a partially completed newspaper crossword across his lap, my dad let rip a series of snores. He woke up when I gave him a shove, snorted through his moustache and looked around wide-eyed.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, composing himself. He folded the newspaper then looked at his watch. ‘What time do you call this?’
Apology tendered, if
not accepted, I offered to drive him home.
‘Don’t bother, I’ll call a taxi,’ he said, prising himself out of the chair. ‘You just concentrate on putting that bairn to her bed.’
‘Dad, there’s something urgent I’ve got to do in the morning . . . ’
‘Turpie? Let him rot.’
‘It’s business. I can’t turn it down. How else am I going make enough to keep Tina in ballet pumps and tutus?’
But it was too late for an attempt at humour and, anyway, ballet wasn’t a subject open to discussion. My dad was as yet undecided as to whether Tina would be the first woman to win The Open Championship or skipper Scotland to a World Cup final.
After a lot of persuasion, and mainly because he wanted to get to his bed, he agreed to take Tina home with him, but only once I’d promised to pick her up around lunchtime the next day.
And it was a promise I might have been able to keep if Dougie Fleming hadn’t left instructions to drag out the arrest of my clients so that they weren’t officially charged until after midnight and into Thursday, which in turn meant that the next lawful court day was Friday. I phoned the Procurator Fiscal’s office first thing. As usual there was no one taking calls.
‘I’m pretty sure Mr Ogilvie’s not in.’ The admin assistant stared innocently at me through the glass shield when, half an hour later, I arrived in person at the front desk.
I was pretty sure he was. Procurators Fiscal seldom made it the length of the courtroom. That was a job for the ranks of morale-deflated deputes, stuck on fixed-term contracts and easily got rid of at the first sign of initiative.
‘Could you check and make sure?’ I asked.
Apparently she couldn’t.
I took a letter from my inside jacket pocket. ‘I have a letter for him.’
The admin assistant flicked hair out of her face and pointed to the metal trough dug into the counter and under the sheet of glass between us.
‘Love to, but can’t,’ I said. ‘It’s a witness citation. I have to give it to him personally.’
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