by Ken McClure
‘ I’m afraid so,’ said Steven.
‘ I have already told the police and the prison authorities everything I know about that… man,’ said Lawson. ‘There is absolutely nothing more I can tell you or anyone else.’
Steven wondered about the editing process that had left Lawson finally with “man”. He said, ‘I understand your frustration Rev Lawson but there are some more things I must ask you,’ he said.
‘ Would you like me to stay?’ asked Minch but Lawson said not with a resigned wave of his hand. ‘I’m fine, Angus,’ he assured him.
Steven waited until the door had closed behind Minch. ‘I understand that Combe put you through quite an ordeal?’ he said sympathetically.
A vulnerable look appeared on Lawson’s face and he paused as if choosing his words carefully. ‘I thought I understood people, Dr Dunbar: I believed I knew about the darker side of life, as people like to call it. Upgate isn’t exactly Songs of Praise territory. It’s an ugly rash on the landscape with a population more concerned with Orange Order marches than church socials — more social services than social diary, if you take my meaning. Continual poverty breeds its own kind of society over the years and believe me, it isn’t pretty. It’s life at the lowest common denominator. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you thinking that I’m some kind of middle class cleric who’s had an attack of the vapours because he suddenly came face to face with the real world. I was stupid enough to believe that I’d seen it all in my years at Upgate but I was wrong.’ His voice dropped to a whisper as he added, ‘Oh so wrong. Nothing prepared me for Hector Combe.’
‘ I think you can be excused for not having come across someone like Combe before,’ said Steven quietly. ‘That’s a ‘privilege’ afforded to only a very unlucky few.’
Lawson smiled wryly. ‘Do you know,’ he said. ‘I went there feeling
…’ Lawson searched unsuccessfully for the right expression, ‘in charge, if you like. It was my role to hear the confession of a dying man. I was the one with the power to offer comfort and reassurance. He was supposed to be the one on his best behaviour, the one displaying remorse and contrition, only Combe didn’t seem to see it that way. He had some understanding of the situation but it was a perverted one, if you know what I mean? Maybe you don’t; I’m not sure I do myself. He didn’t really seem to comprehend what sinning and forgiveness was all about.’
‘ The games people play,’ said Steven softly. ‘They’re a complete mystery to psychopaths but they’re clever; they observe; they emulate as best they can, but they can never feel the underlying emotions so sometimes it doesn’t quite come off. It’s hard to appear contrite when you don’t know what the word means.’
‘ Yes, that’s it exactly,’ said Lawson, pleased that someone appeared to understand what he was saying but then a darkness came over him.
‘ He insisted on telling me every little detail about what he’d done to that poor girl. Every evil, loathsome thing that he’d made her do and what he’d done to her… And you know, he seemed to enjoy telling me. I could see it was giving him a thrill all over again. He was…’ Lawson’s voice fell to a whisper, ‘touching himself under the blankets as we spoke… enjoying it as if he were reliving the experience.
‘ He didn’t really do these things,’ said Steven. ‘He was making the whole lot up. He was deliberately trying to shock you.’
Lawson turned in his chair and looked at him without blinking. ‘Was he?’ he asked. ‘Was he really?’
Steven found the doubt in Lawson’s eyes so compelling that he did not reply immediately. Instead, he brought a chair over to join him at the window and sat down. ‘Psychopaths feed off other people’s fear and revulsion,’ he said. ‘It’s like a drug to them. They see it as weakness, an affirmation of their own strength and superiority.’
‘ So why ask for absolution for something he hadn’t done? Why make up something like that?’ asked Lawson.
‘ I don’t know,’ admitted Steven.
‘ It doesn’t make any sense,’ said Lawson, gazing out of the window and shaking his head.
‘ The police think he was trying to get at them by attracting press attention to the case all over again. I understand they had a lot of bad publicity over their handling of it the first time around.’
Lawson considered this in silence.
‘ I’m sorry to have to put you through this,’ said Steven, ‘but I need to ask you about the girl’s fingers.’
‘ Julie!’ Lawson suddenly insisted, as if he’d just come out of his valium haze. ‘We must stop referring to her as “the girl”. Her name was Julie, not “the girl”.’
‘ I’m sorry; Julie; can you remember exactly what Combe said about Julie’s fingers?’
‘ He told me he broke them,’ said Lawson, his gaze drifting off into the middle distance.
There was nothing more forthcoming so Steven prompted him. ‘Did he say why?’
‘ She scratched him. She scratched his face so he broke three of her fingers, one for each scratch, he said, one at a time, simple as that. This little piggy went to market… Snap! This little….’ Lawson buried his face in his hands, unable to go on, the shake of his shoulders betraying a silent sob.
‘ Would you like some water?’ Steven asked, seeing there was a carafe sitting on the table by the bed.
Lawson shook his head. When he’d recovered his composure he looked at Steven and said, ‘If he made the whole lot up, how come he still had the scars on his face? He pointed them out to me; three parallel lines on his cheek.’
Steven was taken aback. Eventually, he said, ‘I’m sure a man like Combe was no stranger to scars: he’s probably been collecting them since he was old enough to start beating up the other kids. He probably thought that showing you them would make his story sound more real, keep you on the hook.’
Lawson ignored what Steven had said and continued. ‘He invited me to touch them… He seemed to know instinctively that it would have been like touching the dead girl for me… It was as if he could read my mind… see my weakness — sense my fears. He was an animal, a clever, cunning, evil animal.’
‘ Combe is dead, Mr Lawson,’ said Steven. ‘He’s filling an unmarked council grave in a muddy field. The only visitor he’ll ever have now will be the rain.’
‘ His body is in a grave,’ said Lawson flatly.
Steven’s impulse was to say, ‘that’s good enough for me,’ but, out of compassion, he didn’t. Instead he said, ‘I’ll let you chaps worry about other matters.’
‘ I don’t think I know how to any more,’ said Lawson. ‘I told him that I hoped he would burn in hell.’
‘ A sentiment shared by the rest of the population of this country, I should think,’ said Steven. ‘There’s only so much emotional baggage that one person can carry around in one life, Rev Lawson, even a man of the cloth like yourself. The world is better off without Hector Combe. Period. End of story. Forget him. Concentrate on the living and the people who need you.’
‘ Need me?’ exclaimed Lawson quietly. ‘Sometimes I feel like Canute trying to turn the tide.’
‘ We all feel like that from time to time,’ said Steven. ‘The number of people who actually make a difference in our world is painfully small. The rest of us just have to do our bit and hope that our contribution will fit in somewhere.’
Lawson smiled wanly for the first time and said, ‘You sound as if you’ve given the subject some thought?’
‘ I lost my wife Lisa to cancer,’ said Steven. ‘When it happened, I saw pointlessness everywhere. Believe me, I’m an expert on it.’
‘ I suppose it would be too much to hope that it was religion that got you through it?’
‘ It would,’ agreed Steven flatly.
‘ So…’
‘ Thoughts of my daughter, Jenny, got me through the worst. I thought she might need me — or at least I convinced myself that it would be better for her if I stayed alive rather than taking “the easy way out
”, as people mistakenly call it.’
‘ You’re still bitter,’ said Lawson.
‘ I didn’t realise it showed,’ said Steven.
‘ It does when you speak of your wife,’ said Lawson.
‘ Maybe in time I’ll get over it,’ said Steven, ‘just as you’ll get over your experience with Combe.’
Lawson pursed his lips then said, ‘Why did you ask about Julie’s fingers?’
Steven considered fielding the question but then admitted, ‘I’m trying to find out how Combe knew about Julie’s broken fingers. They weren’t mentioned at the trial or in any of the newspaper reports of the time.’
‘ I can tell you that,’ said Lawson. ‘It’s because he did it.’
Steven walked slowly back to the car. Combe could not have committed the crime and yet he’d obviously made a very good job of convincing Lawson that he had. But why? If he had been setting out to make trouble for the police as a final act of malice, why bring in a minister of the church as an intermediary? Why go through the motions of seeking absolution and losing his temper when it wasn’t forthcoming? What was that all about?
As he got into the car, Steven conceded that his visit to The Firs had resolved nothing. If anything, it had actually heightened his feelings of unease. The fact that Combe had elaborated on just how he’d broken Julie’s fingers to Lawson was something he found particularly disturbing. It was almost as if he had wanted to draw attention to this aspect of the attack and his suggestion that Lawson touch the scars on his cheek as proof of a continuing link to the dead girl was quite bizarre. He wondered if David Little’s face had been marked during the attack but most of all he wondered again why had there been no mention of the broken fingers in the prosecution evidence given at the trial. Maybe the answer to these questions would be in the police files. He checked his watch and saw that there would still be time to drive into Edinburgh and visit police headquarters before catching the last London flight home.
Fettes Police Headquarters in Edinburgh had no great claim to architectural merit but the functional buildings were situated in a pleasant area of the city near the botanical gardens and facing the impressive facade of Fettes College, one of Scotland’s leading public schools. Steven noted as he drove past that they were also close to the Western General Hospital, where David Little had carried out his research. He had given no warning of his visit so he had to show his ID and state his business to several uniformed men before finally being shown into the office of Inspector Peter McClintock.
‘This is a bit of a surprise,’ said McClintock. ‘Official is it?’
‘Not exactly,’ smiled Steven.
‘You were in the vicinity so you thought you’d just drop by and say hello?’ said McClintock.
‘You could say,’ replied Steven, instinctively feeling that, given time, he could like the man.
‘Well if it’s not official, do you fancy a pint?’
‘Sounds good,’ replied Steven, well aware that informal exchanges of information were usually of much more use than those confined to official channels — a bit like the black economy being more efficient than the real one.
‘So how come I was shown to your door?’ asked Steven as they drove away in McClintock’s car. He hadn’t come across McClintock’s name in any of the files on the case.
‘I was the one who got landed with Hector Combe’s confession when it came in. I sent it on to you guys when I found your sticker on the Summers file. Evil bastard, Combe.’
‘So I understand. So you weren’t actually involved in the Julie Summers case at the time?’ said Steven.
‘Not directly,’ said McClintock a bit too hesitantly for Steven’s liking. He let his silence prompt McClintock to elaborate. I was a DS at the time so I knew what was going on. I was friendly with a woman DC on Currie’s team so you could say she kept me in the picture. I remember she got very upset over the Mulvey affair, I think that’s what decided her to leave the force.’
‘That upset?’ said Steven.
‘She reckoned Currie’s team were going over the score, to use her words.’
‘And were they?’
McClintock paused, pretending he was concentrating on the traffic at an intersection before saying. ‘Depends how you look at it. They weren’t to know that old mother Mulvey and her simple-Simon son were going to top themselves, were they?’
‘Whether they knew or not, they appear to have been the reason for it,’ said Steven.
‘Whatever,’ conceded McClintock. ‘Well, the great British public had their way in the end. Four of our lot hit the street on the early retirement train and Jane decided to leave the force of her own accord.’
‘Jane’s your girlfriend?’
‘Ex-girlfriend.’
‘Not the best kind of publicity for the force.’
‘You could say.’
‘But it recovered?’
‘Blood under the bridge.’
FIVE
‘ So what’s Sci-Med’s interest in this?’ asked McClintock as he returned from the bar carrying two pints of beer. They were sitting in an old fashioned pub in Inverleith Row where McClintock appeared to be well known judging by the nods and asides made at the bar.
‘ David Little was a top-flight medical scientist,’ said Steven.
‘ Ah,’ said McClintock, putting down the glasses carefully but still slopping some on the tabletop. ‘I get it. You’re looking for some reason to spring one of your own?’
‘ Nothing could be further from the truth,’ said Steven, bristling at the suggestion. ‘The evidence against him was overwhelming.’
‘ Damn right it was,’ growled McClintock.
‘ On the other hand, if a man like Hector Combe says on his deathbed that he did it and that the police fitted someone else up for it — someone who just happened to be a brilliant medical scientist — then we do take an interest.’
‘ Come on man, that was just Combe taking one last swing at his natural enemy, the police. He was opening up old wounds and rubbing salt into them. It was just his way of saying good-bye. That was Combe all over, evil bastard.’
‘ Combe knew about Julie Summers’ fingers being broken,’ said Steven, taking a sip of his beer and watching McClintock’s reaction over the rim of the glass.
‘ I’m not with you,’ said McClintock, opening a new packet of cigarettes and lighting one with an old style Zippo lighter: it made the air smell of petrol.
Steven waited until McClintock had taken a first lungful and exhaled it before saying, ‘It was never common knowledge that her fingers had been broken in the attack. It didn’t come out in court and the newspapers never got hold of it but Combe knew,’ said Steven. ‘He made a point of telling the Rev Lawson all about it in great detail.’
McClintock looked doubtful. ‘All sorts of details get circulated in the prison system,’ he said. ‘And nobody knows how they get there in the first place. I bet half the buggers in pokey know where Lord Lucan is. Combe knowing that is no big deal.’
‘ Probably not,’ agreed Steven, ‘but all the same I’d like to check the forensic reports on the case before I call a halt.’
‘ The forensic stuff was all in the file,’ said McClintock.
‘ Only the stuff that was used in court,’ said Steven. ‘Come to think of it, I’d like to see the full scene of crime report, sample lists, photographs, the lot.’
‘ Are you sure this is really necessary?’ asked McClintock.
‘ No, but it’s what I want to do,’ said Steven.
‘ But why?’ exclaimed McClintock. ‘If it gets out that someone is taking another look at the Julie Summers case, the press are going to want to know why. They’ll start crucifying us all over again.’
‘ It doesn’t have to get out,’ said Steven. ‘It can be done discreetly.’
‘ But Christ, man! Little was as guilty as sin,’ said McClintock, becoming animated. ‘The evidence was rock-solid, a perfect DNA match. What more do you need? A r
ibbon round his dick proclaiming, I fucked Julie Summers then throttled the life out of her?’
‘ I want to know about her broken fingers,’ said Steven, remaining calm. ‘I want to know if the lab found anything under her nails and I want to know why no mention of her fingers was made at the trial.’
McClintock took a long drag on his cigarette and looked at Steven without speaking as if weighing up his chances of winning the argument. Finally, he looked away, exhaled out the side of his mouth and said quietly, ‘The prosecution didn’t need anything else. They had more than enough as it was.’
‘ I know they did,’ said Steven. ‘But I’d still like to know what was available in the shape of back-up evidence.’
A cloud came over McClintock’s face and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘There might be a problem with that,’ he said. ‘Ronnie Lee didn’t exactly run a tight ship.’
‘ Lee was the forensic pathologist?’
McClintock nodded. ‘He was also a premier league piss artist.’
‘ Meaning?’
‘ Meaning his work suffered. Two or three cases went arse over tit when they got to court because of Ronnie’s fuck-ups. Important cases. Big name villains walked free. The Fiscal’s office wasn’t too amused but nothing was done about it except that they preferred not to rely too much on forensics after that.’
‘ Let me get this straight,’ said Steven. ‘You’re telling me that the Fiscal’s office would present a minimum of forensic evidence because they couldn’t trust the lab?’
‘ More or less.’
‘ Jesus,’ said Steven. ‘How long did that situation go on?’
‘ A couple of years. That’s the reason they took the opportunity to get rid of Lee along with the others in the big clear-out after what happened to the Mulveys.’
‘ Nice to know something good came out of their deaths,’ said Steven sourly.
‘ It’s never easy getting rid of someone in Lee’s position,’ said McClintock defensively. ‘People tend to look the other way, make allowances; colleagues cover up as best they can. You wouldn’t believe the number of pathologists I’ve known who’ve had a problem with the bottle.’