He dragged it back across the table. ‘There are a lot of big words, so I’ll summarise for you,’ he said. ‘It’s a fingerprint and DNA analysis report. It shows traces of Pudney all over the crime scene.’
‘Hugh, I’ve explained his fingerprints already.’
He held up a hand. ‘What about his blood? Can you explain that? It’s all over the kitchen floor.’
Not good, but not all that bad. ‘He was in the farmhouse with me. I said so in my statement. He was wandering about the place and out of my sight for at least ten minutes, while I was talking to Molly.’
‘Molly?’
‘Daisy Adams’ daughter.’
‘I see,’ Ogilvie said, in an Eureka moment sort of a way. ‘It’s all so clear now. While you were talking to the girl, your client took the opportunity to do a spot of personal grooming, cut himself shaving and dripped blood everywhere.’ He feigned a frown. ‘No, wait. It wouldn’t explain this.’
He reached out, flicked over a few pages of the report and pushed it towards me. Under the heading, ‘Knife’, the report confirmed that there was a mixture of blood on the blade, and several distinct spots on the handle. These could be attributed to both Deek and the dead guy.
‘Seems strange to me how your client’s blood is on the knife along with that of the deceased. Unless, of course . . . ’ The PF rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, I see it now. The man on the table strangles Daisy Adams, then so filled with remorse is he that he goes through to the kitchen, lies on the table and stabs himself through the heart.’ He smiled at me. I thought I had been smug at our last meeting. I realised now I was a mere novice in the presence of a master. ‘No, that wouldn’t explain your client’s blood on the knife and all over the floor.’ He snatched the report from under my nose and placed it back into the red folder. ‘Would it?’
‘But something else would,’ I said.
‘Really? What’s that then?’ Ogilvie’s open-eyed fake innocence was annoying and worrying in equal measures. Surely he couldn’t have missed the obvious.
‘Deek Pudney had a cut on his face,’ I said.
‘Did you see him bleeding from it at any time?’
‘Like I say, I was busy rescuing a starving wee girl at the time, but he did have quite a nasty wound, held together by a few paper-strips. In fact when your colleagues in Glasgow charged the man who assaulted him, they described it as a severe injury. It could easily have opened. Come on, Hugh, you know what those forensic girls and boys are like. A little blood goes a long way with them. They find a molecule of DNA, and their reports make it sound like there’s ladles full of the stuff sloshing around.’
‘Ah, yes, the injury. The one your client received at the hands of Mr Sneddon while visiting a public house in Glasgow. I’d almost forgotten about that.’ Ogilvie’s tone suggested he very much hadn’t. I had the horrible feeling I knew what was coming next. ‘Turns out Sneddon didn’t lay a finger on your client. Oh, wait, they’re both your clients, aren’t they? Derek Pudney and Marty Sneddon. Strange that. I’m not sure the two of them could come up with what day of the week it was if they put their heads together, but someone seems to have come up with a cunning plan to give Derek an alibi. Unfortunately for him, the CCTV outside Sneddon’s local in Bo’ness, suggests that not only was he not assaulting anyone that night, he wasn’t even in Glasgow. He was in the Lighthouse Bar. And guess what?’ Ogilvie coughed up a short dry laugh. ‘No sign of Mr Pudney. Especially not around the Post-Mortem Interval that Doctor Wiltshire refers to in his report. So the good news is that not only do I have one of your clients locked up on a double murder charge, I have both your clients looking at a charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice too. It really couldn’t have worked out better. Anyway, thanks for coming. It’s been good to talk things through. After all, we’re both part of the justice system, aren’t we? By the way, I’ve given it some thought and decided to continue to oppose bail for Pudney, after all.’ Ogilvie pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Will we be seeing you at the full committal this afternoon?’
I got to my feet mumbling something about having to look after Tina and that I’d be asking Joanna to cover the court appearance.
‘Didn’t think you’d manage.’ The PF held the door open for me. ‘Never mind. I’ll maybe see you at the trial. Unless your client would rather just plead guilty and save us stakeholders in the criminal justice system all the bother.’
25
A wet Friday afternoon. I’d been sitting in my car for nearly an hour, trying to keep Tina amused by racing raindrops down the window and feeding her Starbursts, when Jake Turpie eventually rolled into his yard behind the wheel of a low-loader, half a dozen smashed cars at his back.
By the time he’d unbuckled and jumped from the cab, I was right by his side. ‘You going to tell me what’s happening?’
‘Is this about Deek?’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s about Deek – who do you think? And Marty Sneddon.’ How had Jake got me to believe that drunken Marty could so much as look sideways at Deek, far less carve the big man up, and live to tell the tale? The same way, I supposed, that he’d persuaded me to go with him to speak to Daisy Adams about an unpaid debt. It was all fatherhood’s fault. I’d never have been so gullible if my mind hadn’t been on other more important matters.
For a moment Jake looked like he might keep up the pretence, then he scratched the back of his head with a grimy hand and looked around at the vehicles coming and going. ‘Not here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Too many folk about.’
‘Nobody’s listening, Jake. This is urgent. I need to know what’s going on.’
‘My office.’
He jerked his head at the prefabricated hut on stilts that served as the HQ of Turpie International Salvage Limited; a firetrap accessed by a flight of shoogly wooden stairs and guarded by a sociopathic mutt that snarled as we approached. Jake gave the dog a boot. While it retreated I lifted Tina and carried her up the stairs and into Jake’s office. ‘Be good and watch telly for five minutes,’ I said, plonking her down on a sofa that had once been orange, but was now predominantly black and stinking of diesel.
‘It’s smelly here,’ Tina announced, once she had assessed her surroundings. She pointed at Jake in his oil-stained overalls. ‘He’s smelly too.’
‘Don’t be cheeky,’ I said.
‘But he is.’
‘Well, it’s not nice to say it out loud.’
‘How else can I say it?’
I switched on the portable CRT television with the wire coat-hanger aerial and flicked through the channels until I found a kids’ programme. The picture was snowy, but it would have to do. I turned the volume up and went down to the other end of the hut where Jake was at the sink, rolling up his sleeves.
‘She didn’t mean the smelly thing,’ I told him. ‘You know what kids are like.’
‘I’ll get over it.’ Jake dug into an open tub of Swarfega, rubbing the green gel over his hands, scrubbing at the oil and grease under his nails. ‘What’s the problem with Deek? I thought you said he was getting out today?’
‘The problem with Deek is that he’s guilty,’ I said.
‘How d’ye mean?’
‘I mean the PF knows that the Marty Sneddon alibi is a huge pile of mince. Not only that, Deek went and left enough of his own blood at the murder scene to make a black pudding. Why did he do it? Tell me it wasn’t over the price of a second-hand motor?’
The bright-green gel now a murky-grey colour, Jake rinsed his hands off under the sink’s only tap and then undid most of the good work by drying them on a filthy towel fixed to the wall of the cabin by a six-inch nail.
‘You want a beer?’ He opened the fridge door and threw me an ice-cold can.
‘Better not,’ I said, and tossed the can back to him. He caught it, ripped it open and captured the resulting foam in his mouth in one flowing motion.
‘Most of what I told you was sort of the truth,’ he said, b
urping and wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. ‘The woman owed me for the car and I sent Deek to get it off her. There was no answer at the front door so he went round the side. He knew she had to be in because the jeep was there. He booted open the door and some guy came at him with a knife.’
‘You saying that’s how he got injured?’
Jake nodded. He downed the rest of the can, crushed it and lobbed it at a cardboard box in the corner that was already full. It rolled off the top and fell onto the floor. If Jake noticed, he didn’t do anything about it. ‘When Deek gives you first hit, you’ve really got to make it count. Whoever that guy was, he didn’t.’
‘What about the woman?’
‘She was already dead.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The other guy must have done it. Don’t ask me why.’
Was this the truth or another one of Jake’s tall tales? ‘If it was self-defence, why didn’t Deek go to the police?’
Jake let loose another loud belch. ‘Who’d have believed him?’
Tina giggled. Whether it was at something on the TV or Jake’s release of excess gas I wasn’t sure. There was a sudden blast of cold air on my legs and I turned to see her standing at the open door, peering down at Jake’s guard dog. She said something to it. There was a growl in reply. I leapt across, and slammed the door shut. Jake laughed. ‘It’s all right, the dog’s on a chain.’
‘Maybe you should have kept Deek on one too,’ I said. ‘Then you wouldn’t have had to involve me in your daft scheme.’
‘Could’ve worked.’
‘Could’ve, but didn’t.’ I swept Tina up into my arms.
Jake sauntered over. He reached out and pinched Tina’s cheek, while staring me straight in the eye. ‘Then you’ll need to think up something better.’
I put Tina down and gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the dirty, orange sofa. So far I’d been prepared to overlook the fact that Jake had treated me like a mug by taking me to Sunnybrae Farm in the first place. I’d even chosen not to mention the fact that Hugh Ogilvie thought I was behind the attempt to fabricate Deek’s now well and truly burst alibi; not that the PF’s opinion of me could sink much lower than its already subterranean level, but that wasn’t the point. There I was doing everything I possibly could to liberate his gormless minder, and here was Jake pinching my daughter’s cheek and ordering me around. If he wanted to order me around there was a queue, with my dad and Grace-Mary at the front. My daughter’s safety – that was very different.
‘Is that some kind of a threat?’ I asked.
Jake didn’t say anything, just kept staring.
‘You think it’s all right to pinch my daughter’s cheek and order me around? It’s you who’s landed Deek in it. Did you think that stupid plan with Marty the alky was ever going to work? All you’ve done is give the PF even more ammunition.’
The corner of Jake’s lip rose to reveal an upper canine. They say people take after their dogs. With Jake and his mutt it was more likely to be the other way around.
‘If somehow I get Deek off with this, you’d better be telling the truth about giving me the office,’ I said.
Jake spat on the floor and wiped it into the stained carpet with a couple of scuffs of a steel toe-capped boot. ‘You think you’re the only lawyer in Scotland?’
‘I’m the only one you trust.’
Jake looked from me to Tina to out of the window.
I took a step closer. ‘And trust me, if you come near my daughter, I’ll—’
Jake grabbed my face. ‘What?’ He let go, laughing. ‘You just do your law stuff. Keep your end of the bargain . . . ’ He let go and gave the side of my face a gentle, but not too gentle, slap, ‘and I’ll keep mine.’
26
‘Quiet!’ Tina yelled. She was the only one in the room making any noise. ‘Uncle Malky’s on the radio.’
My dad turned up the volume. The presenter introduced himself and the ex-soccer-legend that was my brother Big Malky Munro. The two of them would laugh, joke and bounce off each other as for the next ninety minutes they discussed the weekend football fixtures and took calls from a series of Friday night football fans, some serious, some drunk, some seriously drunk.
‘Your brother wasn’t on the show last week,’ my dad said, at the first commercial break. ‘Never gave much of a reason. Girl trouble he told me.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s Malky for you. Only works one day a week and can’t make it on time.’
‘He’s got his newspaper column too,’ my dad said.
‘You don’t think he actually writes that crap, do you?’
‘Oh, you said crap,’ Tina butted in.
‘Well, don’t let me hear you say it,’ my dad said.
‘I won’t,’ his granddaughter assured him. ‘It’s too rude.’
My dad patted her leg. ‘That’s right. Good girl. What do you have to say for yourself, Robbie?’
By the time I’d thrown myself on the mercy of the court, Malky was back on air, telling a story about the time he’d been playing Elgin City and one of the home support had lobbed a turnip at him. When Malky had pointed it out to the ref, he’d been told that if his head had fallen off he’d have to leave the field of play for treatment.
It was one of the few tales from Malky’s professional career suitable for a family audience. My dad, like most of the listeners, would have heard it told a hundred times before, but laughed anyway and Tina joined in, though she wouldn’t have had a clue what was so funny.
At the next break I went through to the kitchen to make my dad a cup of tea, fetch Tina a glass of milk and a biscuit, but most of all to think. Thinking time was what I missed most about having a child. What had I done before Tina came along? I must have had endless hours to myself. Now all I wanted was ten minutes peace so I could think about Deek and the dead people at Sunnybrae Farm.
‘Hurry up, Dad!’ Tina shouted from the living room.
‘Yeah, what are you doing, growing a tea bush and milking a cow?’ my dad joined in.
More laughter from Tina. I’d have to go back. If it was just the radio, it wouldn’t have been so bad. I’d had years of practice blanking out my brother’s inane blethers. Tina was a different prospect all together. Given half a chance she’d have talked Malky under the table and, as for sitting still, she was the nearest thing to perpetual motion on the planet. I needed to concentrate, clear my head and start looking at things logically. I leaned over the sink and splashed my face with cold water. Jake Turpie was a liar, I knew that. What if, his earlier lies having failed so spectacularly, he was now telling the truth? Could it be that Deek had acted in self-defence? If so, then whoever he’d stabbed must have murdered Daisy Adams. Not that it would have taken a leap of imagination to look at things another way. Deek goes to put the squeeze on Daisy. She doesn’t have the money. A visiting male, boyfriend or whatever, intervenes, Deek overreacts and next thing you know it’s carnage.
If Deek was to claim self-defence, at the very least he’d have to show that the dead guy had some kind of motive for killing Daisy. A better motive than his own.
There were two things I had to establish: firstly, that the new and allegedly true version given to me by Jake was consistent with the findings at the scene, and, secondly, the identity of the dead guy; something the cops had been unable to do despite their DNA and fingerprint databases.
‘It’s for you.’ My dad came into the kitchen with the phone. I’d been so deep in thought I hadn’t heard it ring. ‘Vikki,’ he mouthed silently.
‘It’s about us,’ she said, once I’d taken the phone and shooed my dad away. Was there an us? ‘I’ve been thinking.’ Not a good sign. Over the years a number of women had done a fair bit of thinking about me. It seldom ended well. ‘I’m not sure if we should meet . . . socially. Not while I’ve still got professional duties to do with Tina. It wouldn’t look good if I was thought to be dating the father of the child I was writing a report about. Not exact
ly independent.’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘I’ve no problem bringing Molly to see Tina again,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It was the first time the wee thing has looked like she was having any fun since Daisy died, but . . . ’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you? Am I being too cautious?’
‘You’re being professional. You’ve got a job to do.’
‘Too true,’ she said. ‘And not a pleasant one either. I’ve to go back to Sunnybrae to collect Molly’s clothes and other belongings. They need me to do it while the crime scene people are still there so that they can supervise. I’ve said I’ll go up to the farm tomorrow morning to get it over and done with. I’m not looking forward to it. That time when I met you, I thought I could do it, but I had to leave. It was too soon, too horrible to think that Daisy . . . ’ Something caught in her throat.
‘Send someone else.’
‘That wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Why not? Ask someone to go who didn’t know her.’
‘I couldn’t do that. I feel like Molly’s my responsibility.’
‘If you want, I could go with you,’ I said. Vikki hesitated, but she didn’t say no. ‘Why not? You couldn’t call it a date, me escorting you to a crime scene. Even I can show a girl a better time than that.’
My dad was waiting for me in the living room. ‘What did she say? How does she think we’re doing? Is she happy with the arrangements? Did you tell her you were looking to buy a new place and—’
‘Everything’s fine, Dad.’
‘Dad was trying to kiss Vikki,’ Tina said, still looking at the radio as Malky wittered on about an upcoming Dundee derby and doing his best to make it sound remotely interesting.
My dad looked from Tina and back to me. I smiled.
‘You and Vikki?’ he said. He flung himself back in his seat and ran a hand over the top of his head. ‘Oh no.’
‘Calm yourself, Dad.’
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