‘Maybe,’ Erykah said. ‘I don’t know. He was my husband. What am I supposed to do?’
‘Sure, he was your husband,’ Billy said and crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter. ‘Just twenty-four hours ago you were telling me you weren’t sure if you ever loved him.’
She looked away. It hurt to hear it laid out plainly like that. But it was true. How many times in the last weeks – the last years – had she wished Rab was gone? But this wasn’t the way she’d wanted it to happen. Not like this.
‘Hey, it’s OK.’ Billy said. ‘It’s normal to feel everything at once right now.’
Erykah nodded. ‘Sure. Yeah.’ Her fingers stretched and twisted the cuff of her sleeve. ‘I feel as though I ought to be doing something,’ she said. ‘Instead of sitting here.’
Billy walked over and sat down in the chair next to hers. ‘When someone hits you close to home it’s easy to do something rash,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been much for quiet contemplation, but you need to take this one step at a time.’
‘I don’t even know what the first step is,’ she said.
‘A good offence is the best defence, you know? But what you’re thinking about is base revenge.’
‘You don’t believe in revenge?’
‘Not on a personal level, not unless I’m getting paid,’ Billy said. ‘You know what Marcus Aurelius said in Meditations? It is best to leave another man’s mistake where it lies.’
‘Marcus Aurelius, huh?’ Erykah said. ‘You make it sound like a Bible verse.’
‘Well, it is a good book.’
She rubbed her fingertips on the smooth waxed wood of the table. ‘I can’t just let him lie there,’ she whispered. ‘I could phone the police and report it anonymously.’
‘Woman, you know as well as I do there ain’t no such thing as anonymous,’ he said. ‘Not when it comes to murder.’
Erykah nodded. The police were definitely better at tracking calls now than they had been when Grayson was arrested. And if that happened there was no way the press would ever leave her alone afterwards. She would be fair game for the rest of her life.
The Major’s mobile buzzed and vibrated on the table, alerting her that it was now fully charged. Erykah picked it up and scrolled through the messages. A flurry of missed calls from the previous morning, then nothing.
‘That your new burner?’ Billy asked.
‘Ah . . . no. It’s the Major’s phone.’
‘You didn’t tell me you had that,’ he said. But it was appreciation, not accusation, in his voice.
‘Can’t go revealing all my secrets now can I.’ The Major must not have used the mobile to contact many people. The list of numbers stored on the phone was short.
‘Livia,’ she said. She flipped through Schofield’s notebook. ‘Look, look here,’ she pointed at a number scrawled on the paper in her own handwriting, where she had noted down the last person to ring his office phone. ‘Same number. One of Schofield’s colleagues said Livia was a radio journalist, but I rang LCC and they had never heard of her. I think it’s the woman you met the night you got Schofield’s body,’ she said.
‘You didn’t call this number?’
Erykah shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to risk it until I had some idea what might be on the other end.’
‘So do it now,’ Billy said. ‘Find out.’
‘Are you joking?’
He reached across the table and punched the buttons. The phone rang a handful of times then went through to voicemail. Erykah leaned in, the better to hear if there was a personalised message.
‘Sorry, I can’t take your call right now,’ a voice said. It was familiar . . . who was that? Erykah and Billy jumped back at the same time as they realised. He dropped the phone like it was hot and it clattered on the kitchen table. Erykah reached across and switched it off before the answerphone started recording.
‘Is that who I think . . . ?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It is.’ And if that was the case, then Erykah wasn’t the only one who was in immediate danger. But she was probably the only one who knew about it.
She had got it wrong. Completely wrong. But maybe – just maybe – there was a large enough window to make it right. She stood up from the table. ‘Get your jacket and let’s go.’
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘First, get Buster to meet us at the house,’ she said. ‘Tell him to bring cleaning supplies. You still have those Union Jack bags in the back of your car?’
‘Sure do,’ he nodded. ‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking – is that what you want?’
What did she want? Erykah couldn’t have said, exactly. Things she thought she wanted a week ago were now long gone. Never mind the things she thought she had wanted twenty years ago. A simple answer might be to say she wanted a quiet life. But no matter what she did, trouble had a way of finding her. You can try for quiet all you like. The universe might just have other plans.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Can’t go to the police with this.’
‘Let them think it was a robbery,’ he said. ‘Millionaires get knocked over all the time. And you two weren’t exactly discreet about your home address.’
‘Phone in a body at my own home? You know the first thing the police will do? Take me into custody until they decide what to charge me with. No way.’
‘But you didn’t do it,’ Billy said. ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate here, you understand. I wouldn’t ring them. But I’m not you. And you definitely don’t wanna be me.’
Erykah shook her head. ‘How do I tell them where I was? My alibi is either being on a train with a dead man, or being in a car with you. I’d be fucked either way. Can’t leave him there, because . . .’ She shuddered. ‘I just can’t. We do this now and I’ll report him missing in a few days. After all the media interest and the state of our marriage it will look credible enough.’
‘Yeah. Sure. I get that. But are you going to be OK with that?’
She paused. Was this it? Was this going to be the choice that changed her life forever?
No. Her life had already changed forever.
Dumping Rab’s body was not what her twenty-year-old self would have advised. But maybe it was time to stop trying to make the decisions other people thought were right, and start making the ones she thought were right. ‘I don’t see we have much choice,’ she said.
‘Your wish is my command,’ he said. ‘Then what?’
‘We’re going to the radio station,’ Erykah said. ‘And you’re going to finally meet Diana Stuebner.’ She may not have known what she wanted, but for the first time in a long time, Erykah knew exactly what she needed to do.
: 30 :
Morag popped an antacid tablet in her mouth and chewed. The chalky mint taste kept down the bile in her throat for now. Her fingers beat a staccato rhythm on her desk.
The party whip had been round to see her. Morag knew what she was in for: a tongue lashing for the radio affair. Well, fuck it. It was an ambush. A man walking off would have been said to be standing up for himself. A woman? Already the tabloids were calling her hysterical.
That PR guru, Delphine, who had been chasing her down the hallway at Westminster last week now wasn’t returning her calls. Morag had tried a couple of times during breaks from committee, but no answer. Delphine never let a call drop. Never. This was not good.
Outside her office door voices were arguing. Arjun seemed to be trying to prevent someone from getting into her office. ‘No, I’m sorry, she’s working right now, you’ll have to make an appointment . . .’
Morag flung the door open to find her assistant scowling at two uniformed police. ‘Is there a problem here?’
‘The officers are here about a murder investigation, and I told them no way, no how, not without a warrant they’re not,’ Arjun s
aid. ‘If this is about that vile rumour – this is ridiculous. Show me a warrant or make an appointment.’
Morag laid a hand on her assistant’s shoulder and smiled for the benefit of the police. One man and one woman, she noted. It could be random but didn’t they usually send a woman if a female suspect was being taken into custody? ‘Arj, it’s fine. I’m so sorry about this,’ she said. ‘Arjun is looking out for my best interests. I’m sure this isn’t anything to do with the radio interview yesterday,’ she said. ‘Is it?’
The police exchanged glances. ‘Well, it is, in a way,’ the woman said. ‘I am Sergeant Okafor. Could we speak to you somewhere a bit more private?’
‘Come in,’ Morag said and stood aside. ‘Arjun, get the two officers a cup of tea. And one for me as well. You know how I take it.’
Morag arranged herself behind the desk and crossed her legs at the knee. There was only one extra chair in the office. Neither officer would sit, so they were both left standing. Many thought that sitting down put you at a disadvantage, but in Morag’s experience being comfortable while others shuffled and fidgeted on their feet was always a better option. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
Sergeant Okafor flipped open a notebook and clicked her pen. ‘We are here regarding the ongoing investigation into the murder of Damian Schofield,’ she said. ‘After you were on the radio yesterday, we had a very interesting phone call.’
Morag stiffened, but her smile stayed in place. ‘Do tell.’
‘First, can I confirm that the photo revealed is, in fact of yourself, and that it was taken at the Cameron Bridge mortuary last week?’ Sergeant Okafor laid a photocopy of a picture on the desk, the same one Diana Stuebner had revealed to her yesterday.
Morag looked at the picture. Her face was in profile, she was moving . . . it might have been someone else. But if she was caught out lying to the police, it wouldn’t matter what she said afterwards. ‘Well, it certainly appears to be me, doesn’t it,’ Morag said. ‘Yes – I was there. I don’t recall a photographer being there at the time.’
‘And did you post a genetic sample to the mortuary, in case evidence was contaminated by your visit?’
‘Yes, I did,’ Morag said. She laced the fingers of her hands together and rested them on the desk. Her voice was slow, calm, deliberate. ‘I sent the mortuary a cheek swab. My assistant Arjun will remember passing on the sample tube, and the phone call from – what was her name? – ah, Dr Hitchin, will be logged in our calls register.’
‘Harriet Hitchin, yes,’ Sergeant Okafor jotted down notes while her colleague scowled and tried to look tough. ‘The pathologist at Cameron Bridge.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And at the time you didn’t know the identity of the deceased.’
Morag searched the sergeant face, but there was nothing to be read there. Even less in the face of the man with her. ‘You know, I don’t wish to be rude, but – should I be phoning a solicitor before this goes any further? Because if you wish to put questions to me in a, how shall we say, more formal fashion, I am more than happy to meet you at a nearby station.’
‘No I don’t think that will be necessary,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘We were contacted by Police Scotland late yesterday. They have processed your genetic sample, and apparently, there are links with a potential suspect.’
Arjun came back in the room with three mugs. He put them on the desk, eyes shooting daggers at the police. Morag shooed him away. The dark wood door clicked shut behind him, but she knew he was probably still there on the other side, listening.
She blew on the surface of her tea and took a tiny, experimental sip. The swallow clicked in her throat, like she had something to hide. ‘Please continue,’ Morag said.
Sergeant Okafor gestured to her partner, who produced a folded printout from inside his vest. She glanced over the paper, a printout of an email. ‘Apparently they say your – what is this word, Barry?’
‘Mitochondrial,’ her partner murmured.
‘Mitochondrial RNA is a match with material they extracted from under the deceased’s fingernails.’
‘I don’t really understand what you’re saying, but if you mean to imply that I could possibly be a suspect—’
‘No, not that,’ she said. ‘You are not a person of interest. Not directly. Sorry, science is not my native language.’ Sergeant Okafor laid the printout on the desk next to the mortuary picture.
‘I mean, I’m sure my husband isn’t involved in anything like this, we have no children, and my parents both died some years ago.’
‘No, none of that. The mitochondrial RNA is maternally inherited, so it seems to be from someone you’re related to, through your mother’s side of the family. Can you tell us about your living relatives on that side of the family?’
Morag frowned. She had only fleeting contact with family since her mother’s funeral. She was not like them. They were not like her. Her mam was the eldest of four, and the others, well . . . She hardly knew their families apart from the wedding and birth announcements that had come through over the years.
‘The results have been run against the criminal database and match with no one else,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘Is there a possibility – I mean, even names would do, if you don’t have addresses.’
Morag pursed her lips and thought. ‘My uncles – as far as I know, neither had children. My mother’s youngest sister, she had a daughter. Much younger than me. Lives in London I believe, though I’ve not seen the girl since she was knee-high.’ Morag frowned and sipped her tea. ‘No, even before that. The last time I saw her in the flesh was at her baptism.’
The policewoman scribbled in her notebook and nodded. ‘Name? Age? What year would that have been?’
‘Now let me think . . .’ Morag closed her eyes and flipped back through her mental Rolodex. It had been a long time. ‘Ninety-one, is when it was. It was quite something. Very glamorous. Very unlike having it in the local kirk, where the rest of the family were all brought into the church.’
Morag, who was still on the Cameron Bridge town council back then, had made the trip down by coach. It had been her first time in London save for a school trip years before. She had watched out the window at the last slow progress of the bus into Victoria coach station, past the grand façade of the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert, the lights and crowds outside Harrods. The size and sprawl of the city was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was scary but also a little bit thrilling. She would never have imagined that she would be living there herself less than a decade later. Nor, for that matter, would any of her family imagined it of her.
‘My aunt married money,’ Morag went on. ‘A Catholic man, but they all are in South America, aren’t they?’ She chuckled. ‘He had some sort of Papal title and that set the cat amongst the pigeons – not that she cared. After that we were sure we would never see her again. She changed their name back after his suicide. Poor dears, they never wanted for anything, but her little girl growing up in boarding schools with a trust fund instead of a father? That can’t have been nice.’
‘I’m sure that’s all very useful,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘But if you could give us a name . . . ’
‘Oh, it was – what was it – Castano-Perez. Their girl is called Heather.’ A flicker of memory passed across Morag’s face. The body on the slab in the Cameron Bridge mortuary, the horrible grin of the lipless, decomposing corpse, the cut throat. The body cavity splayed wide open, and the smell. The smell. Whoever had done that to a man would have to be crazy, or heartless, or likely both. Morag leaned on her elbows and looked up at the police. ‘My God! You don’t really believe Heather might have killed someone, do you? What was done to that man was awful.’ She shivered.
The sergeant shook her head. ‘At this point we can’t know anything for certain until we speak to her,’ she said. ‘But we are taking this very seriously.’
‘No. I heard some things because we have a few acquaintances in common. She went to work last year with the Scotland Liberal Unionists.’ Morag said. ‘Everyone who does the fundraising circuit knows everyone else. It’s only about two degrees of separation. But she never contacted me and, to be frank,’ Morag gestured at the office, ‘I’m a very busy person.’
‘Right, the SLU. That anti-devolution party,’ the sergeant said. ‘But you weren’t backing them, or involved in any way? Maybe financially? You were on the same side of the referendum, is that right?’
‘God, no,’ Morag shook her head. ‘I mean, yes, they also were against independence, but we never worked together. The SLU set out their stall to challenge the main parties. Even a hint of sympathy in that direction and I would be dumped from the front bench in no time.’
‘No donors in common?’
‘None that I know of.’ Morag leaned back again and waved her hand. ‘In any case, she comes from money; her father’s family were loaded. Doubtless she picked up a few lucrative connections growing up in those social circles.’
‘Mmm.’ Sergeant Okafor raised her eyes from the notebook. ‘You said you and Heather knew people in common,’ she said. ‘Anyone in particular?’
‘You know how it is, lobbyists get around.’ She sipped her tea. ‘Come to think of it, there was something else. That Major, you know – Abbott?’
The man perked up now. ‘Major Abbott? The one who was found dead on a train yesterday?’ The police looked at each other, and Sergeant Okafor started scribbling again.
‘The very same.’ She swung the tip of one red shoe back and forth. ‘He was there, at her baptism. If memory serves me correctly, and it usually does, he was one of her godfathers.’
‘Wouldn’t that be a bit odd, though,’ the policeman said. ‘To be a godparent to someone from Argentina. Isn’t he famous for fighting against them in the Falklands?’
The Turning Tide Page 32