The Sideman

by Caro Ramsay

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Caro Ramsay

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Caro Ramsay

  The Anderson and Costello series

  ABSOLUTION

  SINGING TO THE DEAD

  DARK WATER

  THE BLOOD OF CROWS

  THE NIGHT HUNTER *

  THE TEARS OF ANGELS *

  RAT RUN *

  STANDING STILL *

  THE SUFFERING OF STRANGERS *

  THE SIDEMAN *

  * available from Severn House

  THE SIDEMAN

  Caro Ramsay

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2018 by Caro Ramsay.

  The right of Caro Ramsay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8808-2 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-935-1 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-990-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  PROLOGUE

  Wednesday, 8th of November

  Costello pulled her car up outside the big house. It looked cold and dead in the bright winter sunshine, rays glinted off the ivy-covered slates giving a sparkle to the bricks of the red chimneys. She looked at the stained-glass window, the multi-coloured mosaic of Botticelli’s Primavera was just visible through the reaching branches of the monkey puzzle tree. Behind the tall wrought-iron gates the grass was verdant, the pebbles still raked into the neat furrows that had impressed Archie Walker. On that day.

  That dreadful day.

  The trees were tall and mature, even devoid of leaves they cast long spindly shadows over the wide road, old-fashioned, gently cambered. The kind of surface that leant itself to roller-skating, so Costello’s granny had once told her.

  She turned the Fiat’s engine off, slipping down in the seat, thinking about the night she saw Malcolm try to climb out the window above the porch, attempting to get away from his father. And Costello was convinced that was exactly what the boy was doing. The message Malcolm had left on her phone? A twelve-year-old wanting help to escape from a monster.

  She’d got the voicemail the following morning. When it was too late.

  Six hours later Malcolm’s body had been found in this house, curled up on the beige carpet at the foot of his parent’s bed, his mother’s arms still wrapped round him, holding him close, giving her only son some solace as his short life slipped away. No doubt her own last breath had swiftly followed.

  That image was seared into Costello’s memory, the bodies and the speckles and spatters of crimson blood on the mirrored wardrobe doors. She could recall the events up to that, walking into the house, opening the unlocked back door; the first warning sign. Then the music floating from above; ‘The Clapping Song’. The element of theatre. Then upstairs past the little teardrop of blood on the magnolia wallpaper, the stain he thought he’d cleaned away. Then into Malcolm’s bedroom, too quiet. The Star Wars posters on the walls, the smooth R2D2 duvet cover decorated with a Celtic top, a pair of black leggings, two woollen socks, the trainers. They were arranged as if the child had been lying there, dressed and then spirited away, shedding his clothes and leaving them behind.

  In the car, Costello wiped an angry tear from her eye, remembering how she had paused on the top landing, alert to the smell of blood. She had hesitated, not wanting to go any further but the door of the master bedroom was open, intriguing and beguiling. And all the time that song was playing.

  Clap clap.

  Standing in the doorway she had seen the blood on the doors, the walls, the ceiling. She had to force herself to carry on; she gripped the steering wheel. It was hard to think past the iron-rich stench of the blood, the sweeter mulch of faecal matter. Her last memory was of Abigail lying curled, her arm up and over the smaller figure of her son; his hands wrapped round her elbow, his fingers still gripping the lilac silk of her blouse.

  She had presumed she would have tomorrow to sort it out.

  She had been wrong.

  What would happen if she didn’t act now? What if they ran out of time?

  She looked back at the gates, closed now to keep the media away from the ‘Monkey House Of Horror’. What secrets had those gates kept?

  Costello had only to wait twenty minutes before she saw some movement through the bare branches of the beech hedge. She had been following George Haggerty for a couple of weeks; she knew his routine. He would be going north to see his father in Port MacDuff now. She slid down further in her seat as the garage door opened, the gates swinging wide, the white Volvo rolling out majestically to park on the street. The driver’s door opened and Haggerty, casually dressed for him in jeans and anorak, got out and walked back up the driveway, his shoes making no noise or indent on the gravel. True to his routine, he re-emerged a couple of minutes later, locked the gates closed behind him and walked briskly back to the car where he stopped and turned. He looked straight at Costello and smiled, clapped his hands together slowly twice, and climbed into the car.

  Clap clap.

  He drove away, without looking back.

  George Haggerty was getting away with murder.

  And Costello was going to stop him, even if it killed her.

  Or him.

  ONE

  Saturday, 25th of November

  The house on the terrace was quiet on a Saturday afternoon, all week it had been like Glasgow Central on Fair Friday, but everybody was out today. Colin Anderson had the whole house to himself. He was lying on the sofa, nursing a large Merlot and two sore feet after helping Brenda make an early start on the Christmas shopping. He was musing at the wine, as it swirled round the contours of the glass, admiring the patterns it left in the light of the wood-burning stove. His grandchild, Baby Moses, was asleep in his basket at Anderson’s feet. Nesbit, the fat Staffie, was curled up on the so
fa, ears tucked in so he didn’t hear the rain battering against the windows. American Beauty played on the DVD, with the volume too low to hear.

  It was almost perfect yet Anderson was not at peace. He was still digesting the news that his partner for twenty years had resigned. Costello was gone. No notice. No chat. No goodbyes. She had walked into ACC Mitchum’s office unannounced, uninvited and slapped her letter of resignation on the desk right in front of him.

  Just like that.

  Twenty years they had worked together, fought, made up and fallen out again, shared laughs, heartache and a few broken bones. She had always had his back. He had always had hers. At times, their thinking was polar, opposite points of the compass, balancing each other into a relationship that while turbulent, was effective. Their track record proved that. Now she was gone. Brenda, his wife, had explained it simply. The events of the last few months had been too intense. Costello had found Archie Walker. Anderson had found Baby Moses.

  Both of them had moved on and maybe George Haggerty had been the catalyst that finally separated them.

  But then Brenda would say that. She had never really liked Costello.

  He checked his phone. He was meeting the guys tomorrow for fish and chips, a long-standing arrangement. Costello had been invited. She had declined.

  Anderson could accept that she had resigned in a fit of pique, saying she could do more about Haggerty without the restriction of the badge. She thought ‘killing the bastard’ would do her more good than any counselling.

  And she had been furious when her request to form a task force to investigate the murders of Abigail and Malcolm Haggerty had been refused. The case had been transferred to Complaints and Internal Investigations, purely for clarity and transparency, but to him, and Costello, it felt they themselves were being scrutinized and judged. The first two people on the murder scene were members of the law enforcement community, and not just any members; a DI and Chief Procurator Fiscal. And as the fiscal’s goddaughter was the victim’s sister, the press were having a field day.

  Haggerty was now talking to the media, playing on the ‘Monkey House of Horror’ crap. The case had rarely been out the papers for the last six weeks. Every day there was another tasty morsel revealed by the press. One thing they were all agreed on: the police weren’t coming out of it well. George Haggerty was the obvious suspect and he was the one man who couldn’t have done it. Even ACC Mitchum let slip that he too, had taken a very close look at that alibi. He had personally interviewed the two police officers who had caught Haggerty speeding in his white Volvo on the A9. One obvious suspect. Police Scotland were his alibi.

  Yet, Costello had persisted that George Haggerty had killed his family.

  He looked down at the bundle of pink skin in the Moses basket. His grandson, his link with Haggerty, the one reason they kept in touch. Anderson didn’t like Haggerty, not the way his daughter Claire did. God, she had even drawn him a portrait of Baby Moses in pastel and had left it for him, signed and wrapped. Anderson wished she hadn’t bothered. There was nothing he could define, nothing he could specify, just a very intense feeling of dislike. If he himself had one tiny piece of physical evidence against Haggerty, Anderson would have brought him in and every bone in his body would have told him that he had the right bloke. Every time, he was in Haggerty’s company, Anderson could sense smirking guilt.

  Anderson watched the Merlot, tipping it to the left and right. ‘He has a watertight alibi,’ he said out loud, ‘and no motive at all.’ He looked at his grandson, blowing bubbles in his basket. ‘Well, none that we have found.’ Moses ignored him but Nesbit cocked an ear. ‘George Haggerty did not kill his wife Abigail or his son Malcolm. He couldn’t have done it.’

  To his mind the best way of getting Costello back was to prove her wrong and get DCI Mathieson and her team to prove that somebody else did kill Abigail and Malcolm. Then maybe Costello could get closure and move on. And then she might come back into the fold as it were. He could see how the lack of progress in the case might have frustrated his colleague. The killer had ghosted in and out the house, without leaving a trace. Or a trace was there because it had a right to be there. The Haggertys were not a social couple so the only ‘other’ DNA in the house was Abigail’s sister, Valerie Abernethy, and she had stayed overnight only a few days before the killings. No fingerprints, no footprints but the blood spatter had left a clean zone where the killer had stood and that indicated they were slim, five feet ten or more. George was five seven.

  It had also really annoyed Costello to learn that Dali Despande’s proposal to pilot a new fast-track child protection service had been side-lined, again. Looking back, Anderson thought, maybe she hadn’t been right since the Kissel case, that child being starved to death, neglected by a mother who didn’t care, let down by a failing social work system. It had taken that little boy weeks to die. Costello had sat in the court and relived every minute of the harrowing abuse. Then Malcolm? Costello had in her head that Malcolm was a vulnerable child.

  Then she had walked into that scene, a scene so awful, it was reported that the crime scene photographer on duty had been off work since with stress, unable to cope with what he had seen.

  Still none of it was any of his business. He had to walk away and leave it to Mathieson and Bannon. He had his cold case rapes to work on. Mitchum had given him one more week before the file went back to the freezer.

  ACC Mitchum had been very clear; Anderson’s loyalty was to the force.

  Not that there was any conflict of loyalty, Costello had not been in contact for twenty-one days.

  The Monkey House Of Horror.

  The tabloids hadn’t been able to resist that.

  Valerie Abernethy looked up at the familiar ivy-covered eaves, the two red chimneys, the big, stained-glass window all hidden from the road by the majestic monkey puzzle tree. Had it been a happy family home for her sister? The gutter press thought so. A happy family home that became a scene of slaughter.

  Valerie took a deep breath, trying to calm the panic. They wanted her to walk round the room where her sister had breathed her last, shielding her son from the blade of a knife. She was aware of the investigative team hovering at the bottom of the gravel drive, pretending they were giving her a little moment to catch her private thoughts. She knew she was under scrutiny.

  Well, they could stand there, out in the rain, a little longer. Valerie placed her hand on a petal of the stained-glass flower, a delicate stem with Mackintosh roses. The glass felt slightly warm to her touch, almost soft under her fingertips.

  The front door was familiar and welcoming, painted claret to match the colours of the roses. The brass knocker that Malcolm used to polish managed to shine, even in this God-awful weather. The door was open. They wanted her to go in alone.

  She had no idea when she was last here. Her memory had large gaps.

  A lump caught her throat. This was too difficult. She tried lifting her foot to get her up the step, one stride and she’d be in the house. Nothing happened. Her leg was leaden, stuck to the red tiles. Valerie recognized that feeling, an old enemy returning.

  She needed a vodka.

  She closed her eyes and stepped up. She had to do this for Abigail. For Malcolm.

  She was now stock-still, one foot up, one foot down and with her fingertips still resting on the glass window. There was movement behind her. Archie Walker was about to intervene and offer his assistance.

  She needed to do this on her own.

  Valerie turned her face up to the sky and took a deep breath. The raindrops spat at her with disgust, stinging the skin of her cheek. She didn’t think it would be as hard as this.

  Did she remember that night six weeks ago? Could she remember, vaguely, walking out the hospital? Standing in the light rain in Great Western Road, watching the traffic? She was probably looking for an off licence. Then there was a smell of perfume she could recall, something familiar she recognized from Abigail’s house. Was that merely an associa
tion of ideas, her imagination filling in the blanks?

  Another pause.

  A rustle of impatience from the drive.

  That would be the boss, a small fascist detective with hard flinty eyes. That cop was mistaken if she thought her pillar-box red lipstick distracted from the incipient Hitler moustache. Her junior officer, the big bearded bloke, kept a good four paces behind her. Like Prince Philip.

  Fascist and Beardy, it was easier than remembering their names.

  Valerie heard footfall behind her as the cops and Archie, here in his role as her godfather, not in his professional role as the chief fiscal, were walking up the gravel driveway. They only moved because it was too wet for them to hang around outside but it still felt like harassment.

  Bugger them. She would do exactly what DI Costello had done on the day she had discovered the bodies. Valerie pulled away from the front door and walked briskly round the house to the back garden.

  Now she turned to confront Fascist and Beardy, wishing then away. They were standing across the path, blocking her way out. Archie gave her an encouraging smile. The rainwater ran down his face, to be cast off as he nodded his head. They were getting soaked through. Even better, Fascist had a sour look on her face, her lippy was about to run.

  Valerie took a deep breath and walked in, recognizing immediately the stink of the forensic cleaning team, a scent she knew well from her days as a fiscal. This no longer smelled like Abigail’s house; these rooms were no longer infused with the aroma of roses, fresh coffee and George’s aftershave. She walked through the pristine utility room, the kitchen – everything neatly tidied away – to the back of the hall where her boots touched carpet for the first time. This was where Costello had spotted the tiniest smear of blood on the wall, blood that somebody had attempted to clean.

  Valerie wondered how easy that had been to wipe away; probably easier to erase it from the wall than to erase from the memory. Fascist crept up behind her, and coughed in irritation.