by Ken McClure
‘ That’s also possible,’ agreed Steven.
‘ But what has this to do with David Little?’
‘ Nothing,’ admitted Steven. ‘Apart from the fact that Verdi defended him and Little’s wife Charlotte was his secretary at the time.’
‘ I didn’t know that,’ admitted McClintock. ‘But at least you’ve found out why Verdi defended him.’
‘ Yep,’ said Steven, reminding himself that this is how he should have viewed the news himself instead of allowing it to fuel his feelings of uncertainty.
‘ Maybe this isn’t a job for a one man band anymore?’ suggested McClintock. ‘Why not talk to Santini?’
‘ Let’s keep things the way they are for the moment,’ said Steven. ‘At least until I’ve had a chance to talk to Verdi.’
‘ Okay,’ said McClintock. ‘Verdi lives in a gin palace in a place called, Silverton Gate. It’s a small, exclusive development of four or five houses by the shores of the Forth near Aberlady. His is called Aberlee. You don’t get much change from three-quarters of a million for one of these babies. It’s on the North Berwick road. Know it?’
‘ I’ll find it,’ said Steven.
Verdi’s business doesn’t really start running till the sun goes down so there’s a good chance he might be home in the afternoon,’ said McClintock. ‘Who says crime doesn’t pay?’
‘ Not me.’
‘ Be careful.’
Steven took a cab back to his hotel. He connected his laptop to the Sci-Med server via his mobile phone and checked for new mail. There wasn’t any. He checked his watch and saw that it was nearing twelve thirty. He didn’t want to arrive at Verdi’s place until after lunch time so he thought he’d grab a sandwich in the hotel bar before driving the twenty miles or so down to East Lothian. He caught up with the newspapers while he ate.
Ronald Lee’s murder had dropped from being front-page news a few days ago to a couple of column inches on page eight. Police were reportedly still searching the ground around Lee’s house and conducting door to door inquiries in neighbouring Grantown on Spey. The chief constable of the local force had rejected the idea of asking Strathclyde police for help with the investigation but the paper — which had made the suggestion in the first place — had somewhat undermined him by listing just how little there had been in the way of murder cases in his region in the past twenty years.
Steven slowed as he saw the sign ahead announcing Silverton Gate and signalled a left turn. There followed a succession of signs stressing the fact that this was private property and no through road to anywhere. The houses, when he finally reached them, were, as McClintock had suggested, very large and very modern. Stone had been used extensively in their construction to create an air of timeless respectability but Steven thought the Greek-columned portico on Aberlee a step too far.
Aberlee enjoyed a prime position, facing the sea and with views across to Fife and the hills beyond. It had a six-foot wall around it with security cameras mounted at each corner. High-railinged gates afforded a view of the front entrance at the head of a semi-circular drive surfaced with white granite chippings. A dark green 7 series BMW sat there, its fat front wheels turned out at a roguish angle.
Steven walked over to the communicator set in the wall to the left of the gates and pressed the brass button. He pulled up his collar against the wind while he waited.
‘ Yes?’ asked a woman’s voice.
Steven asked if Verdi was at home.
‘ Who wants to know?’ asked the woman.
‘ My name’s Dunbar. I’m with the Sci-Med Inspectorate.’
‘ He’s busy.’
‘ So am I. Tell him please.’
Steven turned his back to the wind and pulled his collar up even higher.
‘ Yes, what is it?’ asked a man’s voice.
‘ I need to ask you a few questions, Mr Verdi.’
‘ What about?’
Steven was becoming tired of holding a conversation with a grating in a wall. ‘About your time as a partner with Seymour and Nicholson.’
‘ Christ, that was years ago.’
‘ We can talk here or at the local police station if you prefer,’ said Steven.
Verdi did not reply. Instead the electronic lock on the gate buzzed and the latch snapped open. Steven took this as his cue to enter and walk up the gravel drive. If he’d thought the Greek pillars a bit pretentious they paled to nothing when he came across the classical statues he could now see standing in the lawns. He half expected to do battle with a Minotaur guarding the entrance to Aberlee when a woman appeared there instead. She was dressed in a waxed cotton jacket, beige slacks and green Wellington boots. She was struggling to hold on to the door while simultaneously restraining two black Labradors who clearly sensed they were about to be taken for a walk.
The woman didn’t introduce herself. She simply said, ‘You’ll find him through there,’ gesturing with the angle of her head towards a ground floor room. With that she left and Steven entered, thinking that who was taking who for a walk was a moot point.
‘ Mr Verdi?’ asked Steven, knocking on the door, which was half-open.
‘ In here.’
Verdi was a small, fashionably dressed man with dark hair and an olive complexion that spoke of his family’s Mediterranean origins. He did not get up when Steven came in but he did look up from the papers on his desk, wearing a neutral expression. ‘I hope this won’t take long,’ he said.
‘ Shouldn’t,’ said Steven. ‘I’d like to know why you resigned your partnership with Seymour and Nicholson. I’ve heard their version, now I’d like to hear yours.’
Verdi’s eyes opened wide. ‘What the hell has that got to do with you?’ he said angrily.
‘ I’m just giving you a chance to defend yourself,’ said Steven. ‘These new-town chaps made some pretty damning accusations about you. I’d like to hear your version of events before I think about instigating proceedings.’
Verdi, who had been thrown off balance by Steven’s all-out assault, took a few moments to compose himself. Steven could sense that the initiative was slipping away from him with each passing second. Eventually, Verdi leaned across his desk and rasped in a low voice, ‘Just who the fuck are you?’
Steven showed his ID and Verdi slid it back across the desk to him as if it were of no interest. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. Get out.’
‘ Then what Seymour told me is true?’ said Steven.
‘ Seymour told you fuck-all,’ snapped Verdi. ‘Just like you’re going to hear from me. My private life has nothing to do with you or anybody else.’
‘ It does when it involves criminal activity,’ said Steven. ‘That’s really why you had to come off the new town gravy train, isn’t it?’
‘ No, I got sick of working with a bunch of public school toss-pots who spent most of their days sending notes to each other like kids in primary 6 so I left. All right? That’s all there was to it.’
‘ Apart from your deal with Ronnie Lee’s lab,’ said Steven.
Although he remained outwardly impassive, Steven felt distinctly unsettled by the dark look that appeared in Verdi’s eyes. It was the first indication he’d had of just how dangerous the man might be.
‘ I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Verdi coldly.
‘ I’m talking about your defence of three well-known criminals and the flawed forensic evidence you exposed to get them off.’
‘ The lab was incompetent,’ said Verdi. ‘If he hadn’t been wearing the right school tie, Lee would have been out on his arse years before.’
‘ Somehow, I don’t think he was that incompetent,’ said Steven.
‘ You’re pissing in the wind, Dunbar and I’m a busy man.’
‘ Ah yes, Cuddles,’ said Steven.
‘ What kind of car did you drive up in?’ sneered Verdi.
‘ Filthy lucre, Paul,’ said Steven getting up to leave. ‘Can’t buy you love… or class.’
‘ Get t
he fuck out of here.’
‘ Just out of interest,’ said Steven, pausing and turning round. ‘You weren’t such a hot shot with your defence of David Little. What was the deal there?’
‘ Little got what he deserved,’ said Verdi. ‘He was guilty. Now get out!’
THIRTEEN
Feeling bad about his clash with Paul Verdi, Steven set off back to Edinburgh and sought comfort in the fact that the rain had given way to some afternoon brightness. He found sunshine therapeutic. He stopped the car by the beach near Longniddry and got out to admire the sparkle on the waves as seagulls wheeled overhead and a solitary windsurfer, clad in hooded wet-suit, braved the cold of the Firth of Forth. He sank his hands deep in his pockets and set off for walk along the beach.
His gambit of trying to put Verdi on the back foot by going on the offensive hadn’t worked and now he was in no doubt that he had made a potentially dangerous enemy. He hadn’t really expected Verdi to cave in and confess all but he regretted allowing his instant dislike of the man to have played a part in his conduct of the interview. He saw this as weakness. The only positive thing that he could take from the encounter was a strengthening of his belief that there really had been some kind of criminal association between Verdi and the forensic lab during Lee’s time. The look in Verdi’s eyes when he’d broached the subject had told him that he was on the right track. Proving it however, would be quite a different matter.
Steven took a handful of pebbles down to the water’s edge, and started skimming the flat ones out over the surface, taking childish pleasure in counting the number of skips they made before disappearing. His mood changed however, when another childhood game came to mind and with it, dark thoughts of Hector Combe and Julie Summers. ‘This little piggy went to market. Snap! This little piggy..’ With a shudder he returned to the car and resumed his journey.
He had just joined the bypass, intending to skirt round the south of the city to avoid town traffic when his phone rang. It was McClintock.
‘ The brown stuff’s about to hit the fan big time,’ said McClintock.
‘ Make my day.’
‘ The word is that some screw at the Bar-L has just funded his summer hols by blabbing to the papers. He’s told them about you having the DNA tests on Little repeated. The Record ’s going to run the story tomorrow.’
‘ Shit,’ said Steven.
‘ The brass are spitting nails.
‘ Thanks for the warning,’ said Steven.
‘ Have you seen Verdi yet?’
‘ I’m on my way back at the moment. I don’t think we’ll be exchanging Christmas cards.’
‘ Jesus, is there anyone left that you haven’t managed to alienate?’ asked McClintock.
‘ You’re right,’ said Steven. ‘I should give up the assertiveness classes.’
‘ When will you get the results?’
‘ Tomorrow,’ replied Steven.
‘ If Little’s still in the frame, I suggest you leak that information as quickly as possible. It might help stem the damage.’
‘ Will do,’ said Steven.
The morning papers did not make for good reading as Steven worked his way through a second pot of coffee at breakfast. The police force’s worst fears had been realised and the press took the opportunity to list their failings in the Summers case all over again. The Mulveys’ suicides and the subsequent resignations were revisited in detail along with a new suggestion that the police still hadn’t got it right. There was an implicit suggestion that new DNA tests heralded the case being reopened by the Home Office. One of the tabloids ran with the headline, ‘Will Julie Ever Rest in Peace?’ while another jumped the gun with, ‘Julie Case Re-opened.’
Steven half expected it to be the police when his phone went off but it was Susan Givens at the university.
‘ I’ve got your results,’ she said. ‘Want to come over?’
Steven resisted the urge to ask her what she’d found over the phone and said that he’d be there in half an hour. His next caller was John Macmillan.
‘ How in God’s name did this happen?’ Macmillan demanded by way of greeting.
‘ I take it you’ve seen the Scottish papers then,’ said Steven.
‘ The fax machine has been spewing out little else for the last hour. How did they get on to it?’
‘ A prison officer at Barlinnie,’ said Steven.
‘ Damn him.’
‘ I’m just about to go over and get the results of the tests,’ said Steven. ‘That at least should put an end to conjecture.’
‘ If they confirm Little as the killer, Lothian and Borders Police are going to add humble pie to your diet for some time to come. Call me when you know.’
As he drove over to the science campus at the university Steven found himself uncertain of what he was hoping for. He was in what the papers liked to call a no-win situation. If Susan Givens confirmed the earlier DNA fingerprint findings, then Hector Combe’s claims were nonsense — as common sense decreed they must be — this would signal an end to the affair and he would have achieved nothing but the re-opening of old wounds. If, on the other hand, she found discrepancies which pointed to a miscarriage of justice, it would be too late to rescue David Little: he was already on death row and there was no way back.
‘ Good morning,’ said Susan Givens. She slid a copy of The Herald newspaper across her desk towards him. ‘I see that your concerns have been made public.’
Steven glanced at the heading, ‘Ill fated Summers Case to be Re-opened?’ and nodded. ‘I could have done without that,’ he said.
‘ I’ll bet,’ said Susan, getting up and moving over to another desk where she switched on a light box of the type used by doctors to view X-rays. Instead of being on the wall this one lay flat on the desk. She placed two photographic negatives side by side on the surface.
‘ The DNA profile on the left is the one I obtained from the David Little buccal smear that you took at the prison the other day; the one on the right is from one of the semen samples stored by the forensics lab.’
‘ They’re the same,’ murmured Steven, seeing immediately that the band patterns were identical.
‘ They are,’ agreed Susan. ‘Your man is guilty.’
Steven felt a sensation of extreme tiredness sweep over him. He hadn’t realised that he’d been so tense and now he felt positively deflated. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Thanks for that.’
Susan put another photograph on the light box and said, ‘This is the DNA fingerprint of the original buccal smear taken from Little at the time of the murder. As you can see, it matches the others. It was taken from him all right. There was no mix-up.’
‘ Game, set and match,’ said Steven. ‘I’m grateful to you, Doctor.’
‘ There is one odd thing,’ said Susan, rearranging the photographs and handing Steven a hand lens. ‘If you look closely you’ll see a phenomenon we call ghosting.’
Steven bent down to examine the photos and asked, ‘Do you mean these faint extra bands?’
‘ That’s right. They weren’t present on the prints that the prosecution submitted in evidence.’
‘ So you were right about them cleaning up the pictures? said Steven.
Susan shrugged. ‘Some might argue that the extra bands have something to do with long time storage of the samples.’
‘ But you don’t think so?’
‘ I’d still bet on a clean up,’ said Susan.
Steven, remembering their earlier conversation about what kind of alteration was acceptable, asked the question.
‘ A toughie,’ smiled Susan. ‘Usually ghosting occurs as the result of small amounts of material leaking away from the inoculation wells and causing faint bands at the side of the main track — a simple mechanical fault, if you like — but these are different. The extra bands aren’t ghosts of the originals because they occur at different positions and they also occur in the same track as the major bands.’
‘ What do you think that means?’ asked
Steven.
‘ Possibly breakdown products because the samples are old.’
‘ But if that were the case, they wouldn’t have been present on the original gels so there would have been no need to clean them up?’ suggested Steven.
‘ Good point,’ conceded Susan. ‘The truth is I simply don’t know.’
‘ Would an expert viewing these gel photographs at the time have noticed that they had been cleaned up?’ he asked.
Susan said, ‘Almost certainly. The technology wasn’t good in these days. Gels were usually a bit messy so a very clean one would immediately have aroused suspicion.’
‘ If it had ever been shown to an expert,’ murmured Steven, thinking about Verdi’s failure to question the prosecution evidence.
‘ I take it it never was?’ said Susan.
Steven shook his head and said, ‘Do you think the presence of these ghost bands would have been grounds for questioning the evidence?’
‘ No,’ said Susan firmly. ‘I daresay some lawyers might have tried it but the bottom-line as far as science is concerned remains that the semen came from David Little. There’s no doubt about that.’
‘ As long as that’s clear,’ said Steven; he took another look at the gel photographs lying on the light box and murmured, ‘Truth lies at the bottom of a well.’
‘ Who said that?’ asked Susan, smiling at the pun.
‘ It’s a Greek proverb,’ said Steven.
‘ Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,’ said Susan.
‘ I fear the Greeks…’
‘ Even when they bring gifts,’ completed Susan. ‘Virgil. A Roman sentiment.’
Steven smiled and said, ‘Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.’
‘ You’re welcome. I’m sure the university will charge the Home Office handsomely for it.’
‘ Don’t you get paid personally?’
‘ That’s not the way the university does things,’ smiled Susan.
‘ Then maybe I could buy you dinner?’
‘ That would be very nice,’ said Susan, sounding at first surprised and then pleased. ‘Thank you.’
‘ I’ll be away this weekend — I’m going down to Dumfries to see my daughter — but I’ll be back on Monday. How about Monday night?’