In Place of Death

by Craig Robertson

  ‘And I’m not saying that’s right. I don’t want to do anything behind your back. And I definitely don’t want to do anything to harm us. It’s too important to me.’

  ‘So why do it? It’s easy to say but I can only go on what you actually did.’

  ‘Because Euan was my friend and I let him down. I treated him badly and I wasn’t there when he needed me. I had to put that right. I owed him. Look, I don’t want to drag your dad into this but you know what it’s like when it’s too late to help someone you care for but you still feel you have to do something for them.’

  She narrowed her eyes at him but conceded the point. ‘That’s a bit of a cheap shot but yes, I get that. I do. But—’

  ‘But nothing. You’re asking me to change my nature and I can’t do that.’

  ‘What? How did this turn round so that it’s my fault? I’m asking you to change your behaviour, not your nature. I’m asking you not to be such a dick. Above all, I’m asking you to be honest with me.’

  ‘Honest I can do. But it might mean telling you something honestly that you won’t like.’

  ‘Fine. I’d rather it was that way. If you’re going to kill yourself or get arrested then at least I’ll know about it.’

  ‘Fine. So we’re sorted.’

  She laughed. ‘No we’re not. Look, you’re who you are and I love you. So fine, I accept there’s times you will need to be you and do what you need to do, however crazy and risky it is. I can live with that but what I still can’t live with is it crossing into my professional life. I’ve got a career and you can’t mess with that. Take your own risks, not mine.’

  He pulled a hand through his hair and exhaled hard. ‘Okay, so it’s the problem it’s always been from the start. I work with the police, you are the police. That line that’s always been there will always be there.’

  ‘Yes. And I don’t think I can change that.’

  ‘Maybe I can.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If that can be sorted then we can be sorted. If whatever I’m doing doesn’t cross that line, doesn’t interfere, doesn’t compromise your job then we can make it work. Right?’

  ‘Yes but I don’t see—’

  ‘I don’t want to explain right now but if I can . . .’

  They were so in the middle of it that they didn’t hear Addison approach until he’d placed two pints of Guinness, a vodka and tonic and a newspaper in front of them.

  ‘Evening, campers. That bastard McCormack may be at home with his feet up but here’s a reason to celebrate and the drinks to do it with. Don’t say I’m not good to you.’

  The newspaper was the Scottish Standard. Plastered across its front page and two inside were a report and photographs of the Rosewood Hotel. The words were Winter’s, the photos were Euan Hepburn’s and the headline, Hellhole, was the newspaper’s.

  ‘Nice work,’ Addison admitted grudgingly. ‘I didn’t even know you could write sentences.’

  Winter shrugged it off. ‘The work was all Euan’s. I just wrote it up from his notes and from what I saw in the photographs. And from what Rachel told me about what it was like in there. It was easy enough.’

  Hellhole. The shame of the Rosewood Hotel. Exclusive investigation by Euan Hepburn.

  ‘Were they okay with putting a dead man’s byline on the piece?’

  ‘They didn’t have any choice. I told them it was the only way they were getting the story.’

  Addison nodded. ‘How much did they pay?’

  ‘A thousand for the front page and the two-page spread inside. I gave the money to the City Mission. Seemed the right thing to do.’

  ‘Very generous,’ Addison raised his glass in salute. ‘I’m sure that guy Colvin at the Mission will be pleased. He might even take Rachel out to show how grateful he is.’

  Narey sighed theatrically. ‘Very funny. You did do the right thing, Tony. I’m sure Euan would have been happy with the Mission getting the money. And he’d have been even happier knowing the place is going to be closed down.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Yes.’ Addison confirmed it. ‘Your story, Hepburn’s story, kicked it all off this morning. Local MSPs and a couple of MPs have jumped on the bandwagon and they’ve forced the council to act at last. They’ve said they’ll review the Rosewood’s licence and privately they’ve let it be known they’ll withdraw it. The Department for Work and Pensions is feeling the heat too so basically the shit has hit the fan as far as the owners are concerned. Kilgannon and Wells are going to pull the plug and close the place down before they’re told to.’

  ‘Great but . . .’ Winter’s glass was still half-empty. ‘Kilgannon and Wells still get away with having run that place the way they did.’

  ‘No. They won’t. Thanks to Rachel, they’ll still pay a price.’

  Winter looked at her questioningly. Wondering not only what Addison meant but why she hadn’t told him.

  ‘I only got the word this afternoon,’ she stressed it as if anticipating his complaint. ‘David McGlashan, the homeless guy whose body was found at the old saw works in Houldsworth Street. He did die of natural causes but we’ve been able to put a time of death on it plus check when he last stayed at the Rosewood. Those bastards had been claiming his housing benefit for eight weeks after he died. They’ll be charged and there’s no way they’ll be opening up anything similar. We might even manage a bit of jail time for them both.’

  ‘Nice. So why was he sleeping in the saw works? No urbexing thing, I take it?’

  ‘No. We can’t be sure but it seems he just wanted somewhere dry and warm, a roof over his head that wasn’t the Rosewood. The poor sods that are there just now will be looking for the same once it’s closed down. We don’t know who’s going to look after them.’

  Addison shrugged. ‘The City Mission will be glad of Tony’s donation. And council services will have to take up some of the slack.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘What do you want me to do? Arrest them? Look, the Rosewood is being shut down, Rico and Johnny Jackson are on Saturn Property’s case and we’ll be asking Bobby Mullen some very difficult questions about torched buildings. Let’s just be happy about that for now. And we’ll make sure McCormack’s put away for life. I’ll drink to that.’

  ‘There might be a complication with McCormack,’ Winter began slowly. ‘He and Remy Feeks weren’t the only people in the Gray Dunn factory that night.’

  They both looked at him. Until that point it had gone unsaid in Addison’s company but he didn’t seem surprised by Winter’s statement.

  ‘I saw the CCTV images,’ Addison told them flatly. ‘The third man looked familiar but I couldn’t make any definitive identification. Too blurry. If McCormack has something to say in court then we’ll contend with it then. For the moment, he’s saying nothing so let’s leave it like that.’

  ‘If I could give evidence —’

  ‘Just shut up, Tony,’ Addison told him firmly. ‘Don’t say another word. We’ll have to deal with your photographs from the Botanics as it is. That’s enough to be getting on with.’

  Winter shrugged. ‘So be it. I’ll take whatever’s coming my way.’

  Anger flashed in Narey’s eyes and it could be heard in her voice. ‘You made a mistake. Playing at being a detective and nearly getting yourself killed. Lucky for you that you didn’t make that mistake twice.’

  ‘No, I got good advice and I paid attention to it.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  Addison laughed. ‘Do you two think I’m daft? You think I can’t hear the private messages in amongst what you’re saying to each other? Or that maybe I’m blind?’

  ‘No idea what you’re talking about, Addy.’

  ‘No, of course not. Anyway, you’ve got bigger problems than what I know about your relationship. The Chief Constable knows about you taking those photographs and your relationship with Hepburn. He’s put two and two together and it’s fair to say he isn’t impressed.’

 
; ‘Great. Where does that leave me?’

  Addison and Narey looked at each other again, not a smile or flicker of hope between them. He’d feared as much. Campbell Baxter had been building a funeral pyre for him for some time and now Winter had given him all the fuel he needed to set it alight.

  Narey was about to speak when her phone began ringing in her pocket. She pulled it out and her face wrinkled in surprise when she looked at the screen.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Narey.’ The voice was instantly familiar. ‘I think you’ll want to speak to me. I suggest you come right away.’

  Chapter 59

  David McCormack lived in the West End in half a million pounds’ worth of blond sandstone on Lancaster Crescent. The first patrol car had beaten them there and two uniformed officers were standing guard outside the open front door.

  They’d called for a car of their own, none of them being able to risk driving. Narey sat up front with the constable while Addison and Winter sat in the back, the latter with his camera bag on his lap. They said little in the few minutes it took them to get there, preferring to let the sound of the siren drown out their thoughts and words.

  Narey was first out and up the short flight of steps to the glossy black front door before the others had got out of the car. She talked to the cops on the door and waited impatiently for Addison and Winter to catch up.

  ‘He’s inside. They’ve kept an eye on him through the window but haven’t been in. They’ve left him to us, as instructed.’

  ‘Okay, let’s do it. Let me go first.’ Addison was the senior officer and the responsibility was his. He pushed at the door and it swung back to let him stride into the hallway. Narey and Winter followed in silence and single file. The two constables went in behind them.

  The hall was dark and minimalist, McCormack clearly taking his work home with him. Dark blue walls and black flashes but no clutter whatsoever. It looked unlived in. Maybe it was.

  Addison held his right hand out to the side as he neared the first door, slowing them down. They eased to a halt behind him and let him work his way round so that he was face on to the door, so he could see as much as he could of what he was walking into. He stepped inside and although he pulled up quickly at the scene in front of him, they followed hard on his heels.

  David McCormack. In a room of virgin white, an interior designer’s orgasmic fantasy. White walls, white carpet, white furniture. A snowstorm of statement. Spoiled only by the violent splashes of red.

  McCormack lay on his back on the white shagpile carpet, his arms and legs wide as if he was making a snow angel. You might have thought it was exactly that but for the blood spatter that formed a sickly halo round his neck and head and beyond. The sticky red clung to the thick white pile of the carpet like an invasion from another world.

  Winter eased past Addison and Narey as they stood looking at McCormack, slipping between them and taking his first shot. The contrast between the room and the blood was a photographic gift. The man was sprawled helplessly, his life seeping into his living room, his skin draining of colour till it was beginning to fade into the surroundings.

  The man’s throat though . . .

  It was a riot of red. Winter’s internal shade chart put it at crimson, meaning it was as fresh as it was warm, no more than twenty minutes since it was spilled. It had soaked into McCormack’s shirt and through it to his skin.

  Winter zoomed in, seeing the throat ripped, stabbed, cut, destroyed. This wasn’t one slice of a knife, it was a succession of frenzied assaults. The knife had been wielded savagely long after life had gone.

  A tilt of his camera brought it all into focus. On the white-leather sofa above McCormack’s body sat Douglas Cairns. A large knife, its blade still dripping blood onto the once pristine carpet, was clutched in his hands. Winter fired off a succession of shots, catching the open-mouthed, distracted wonder on the man’s face. He’d done this yet he seemed barely capable of believing it. He might have worn the same expression to gaze at a goldfish bowl.

  ‘Mr Cairns? Douglas?’

  The man lifted his head lazily, roused from his deliberations. ‘Detective Inspector Narey. And you’ve brought friends. That’s nice.’

  She spoke calmly. ‘Douglas, I need you to put the knife down. Slowly, please.’

  ‘What?’ He looked down at the kitchen knife in his hands as if surprised to see it there, so easily forgotten amidst everything else. ‘Of course. Sorry.’

  He bent forward and placed the blade on the carpet by his feet. Winter couldn’t help himself and caught a close-up of the black-handled knife as it settled into the white carpet, the remainder of the blood drenching the fibres.

  Cairns sat back and they could all see that his shirt was as soaked as McCormack’s. The other man’s blood was all over him, drenching his hands and splattering his face and streaking his beard. He leaned against the white leather behind him, breathing hard as if relieved. His work was done.

  ‘Tell us what happened, Douglas.’

  His face screwed up in bemusement as if she’d asked why the sky was blue or why five followed six.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he replied at last. ‘Have I killed him because he fucked my wife or because he killed her? Or because you let him go free and I was scared he’d get off in court? I’m right, aren’t I?’

  She answered for all of them. ‘You’re right, Mr Cairns. I was wondering that and I do want to know why you killed him. But first I need to read you your rights. Douglas Cairns, I am arresting you for the murder of David McCormack. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be noted in evidence. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So what’s the answer?’

  He laughed. A high-pitched, highly stressed laugh that didn’t suit him. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. All of it? Because he fucked her, because he betrayed me, humiliated me. Because as angry at her as I have been since I found out, I loved her and he killed her. He admitted it was no accident. He admitted all of it.’

  Narey and Addison looked at each other, hoping and fearing in equal measure. She had Cairns’ attention though and she spoke for both.

  ‘We only have your word for that, Mr Cairns.’

  The man smiled weakly and picked up the mobile phone by his side and held it in front of him. ‘I recorded it all on this. I made him confess.’

  ‘With a knife to his throat?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s the truth. He was too scared to lie. He killed my wife then he killed two men to cover it up. I didn’t know anything about them but he told me anyway. It spilled out of him like . . .’

  Cairns faltered, staring at his business partner’s body, seeing the blood that was everywhere but where it should have been. His mouth jammed, lips trembling. The reality of it had suddenly bitten him hard. Unable to work words that would make any sense, he pushed one button on his phone, waited a few moments, then pushed another. McCormack’s voice filled the room.

  ‘. . . I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t mean to do it! I was terrified, Douglas. Terrified. The boy was asking too many questions and I didn’t know what he knew. Didn’t know what he could tell the police. I arranged to meet him and . . . It just happened. I couldn’t have it all come out. Jesus Christ, Douglas, I didn’t want any of this! You have to understand!’

  Cairns pressed the button again and McCormack stopped talking as surely as if his throat had been cut.

  ‘He thought I might let him live if he told me it all. I couldn’t do that though. I couldn’t. He disgusted me. He . . . he betrayed me.’

  ‘You did this? You killed him? I need you to confirm that, Mr Cairns.’

  ‘Yes. I killed him. I meant to kill him. I’m glad I killed him. I did it alone. I came here intending to kill him. Is that enough? I won’t deny any of this if that’s what you’re worried about. I killed him.’

  Narey nodded, rarely unhappier at getting confirmation of what she needed to know.


  ‘You need to come with us now, Mr Cairns. You know that, don’t you?’

  He smiled at her and let his head bob in agreement. He made as if to push himself up from the sofa but let his hands slide off the leather and made a grab at the floor where the bloodied knife still lay. He managed to grasp the handle and turned it towards himself. He got as far as lining it up with his heart when Addison swung a boot viciously into his ribs and caused his arms to drop. The two constables were on him in a second and his wrists were twisted until the knife fell from his grasp.

  ‘Don’t touch the handle!’ Narey shouted. ‘Just get him away from it.’

  She stood above Cairns, seeing the fight drain from him. He had no interest in hurting any of them, just himself. With that chance gone, he’d collapsed.

  Addison stood by her side, shaking his head at the stupidity of it all. He turned to Winter who was standing a few feet away with his camera in his hands. ‘Did you get that?’

  ‘Every frame.’

  Chapter 60

  Monday morning

  Winter was on one side of the table; on the other sat Two Soups Baxter and a blonde-haired woman in her early thirties who said she was from Human Resources. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot human about her though. Winter wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t some form of advanced robot with fake tan, peroxide hair and a designer business suit. He dismissed the idea on the basis that a robot would exhibit more intelligence and certainly more emotion than the HR woman.

  She was doing most of the talking; Baxter just sat smirking behind his whiskers. The fat bastard was clearly loving every moment of it. He was getting what he’d wanted since the day Winter started on the job.

  The woman was using words like expediency and streamlining, efficiency and lean, needs and excess. Winter wasn’t really listening: he already knew what the bottom line was and just wanted her to get there. He was out. It was cost-cutting but it was also just that his face didn’t fit any more. Perhaps it never had. Specialty was always going to take a distant second place to multi-tasking when accountants ran the world. Why pay two people to do two jobs when you can pay one person to do both?