by Chris Dolan
The Crichtons’ style was very different from the Millers’. Amy Dalgarno would have called the house sparse, though she guessed Clare would have called it minimalist. The kitchen, all straight lines and treacherous corners, didn’t look, or smell, like it had been cooked in for a while. The hallway was pure white, with a white raffia floor covering, and the sitting room grey – though it had probably said “silver mist” or “turtle dove” on the tin. No photographs anywhere, just one large abstract painting covering almost an entire wall. Dalgarno found her eye being drawn to it all the time she was talking to Clare Crichton. It grew on her. Washed-out yellows and blues, it was soothing, if also a bit melancholy.
“Do you and Mrs Miller sometimes go to the nights out with clients?”
“I don’t,” was all she said, that little flick of the long-gone fringe again, then taking her cup to the window and looking out on a correspondingly minimalist garden. Dalgarno had been impressed by how neat and perfectly mown it was when she had come in. Now she wondered if it was in fact AstroTurf or some such.
“I don’t like the late nights. Neither does Bill.”
“He was late enough on Friday.”
“Usually he slips away a little early if he can. If Julian will let him.” Whatever it was that was troubling Mrs Crichton, it wasn’t grief for Julian Miller after all.
“He did leave an hour or two earlier than the others I’m told. But you told the officer that you don’t know what time he came in at?”
Still looking out the window Crichton said, “I was asleep.”
“Thank you for your honesty. You sleep well, Clare?”
“On the contrary.” Now she turned to Dalgarno. “My honesty? Would another wife pretend to know when her husband gets in even if she doesn’t?”
“That can happen, yes.”
“I can’t be a very good wife.”
Dalgarno smiled; Clare Crichton did not. “Perhaps those wives suspect their husbands of something. I don’t. My husband works hard and wouldn’t harm a fly. Honesty is the best policy, isn’t it Sergeant?”
“Certainly makes our job easier.” She sat down and Clare followed, sitting in a straight-backed chair opposite her.
“I didn’t mention to your colleague… I have to take something to help me sleep. If it works – it doesn’t always, but it must have on Friday – I’m out for the count. Sorry.” She flicked her imaginary locks again.
“I’m sure it’s not important.” Amy sat back in her seat, hoping to engage the woman in a cosy chat about Bill, but Clare stood up and said, “If there’s nothing else?” Amy couldn’t imagine the woman had any pressing engagements, but she did worry that she might break down at any moment and sob.
Maddy went straight back to her office and requested all available documents on the murder. Going through DI Coulter meant she would get more, faster, and without too much bureaucracy. She mustn’t push his goodwill too far. Even Alan’s had its snapping point.
There wasn’t much she didn’t already know, or had construed from the press coverage. Marion Miller interested her. The notes on Coulter’s death knock stated the occasion plainly: “Mrs Miller did not show signs of distress.” Maddy had met her once, at a dinner. Had barely spoken to the woman and she’d left little impression, other than a middle-class wife of a successful lawyer chatting pleasantly enough to those around her. There was some comment she’d made. Maddy couldn’t remember what it was, just that it was a little barbed. Maybe at her husband’s expense.
Dan, Izzy and Manda – in that order, as though according to rank – came in to say hello, see how the golf thing went, ask her opinion about their own cases. Manda nervous and overwrought; frugal Izzy as pastel and fragile as a watercolour. Dan on the other hand seemed to swell a little more with every passing year. But it suited him, the corpulence, like a galleon with its sails full, speeding him resolutely through life. You had to look closely, past the Hugo Boss suit, the restrained campness, the subtle whiff of Dolce & Gabbana, to glimpse the rough Drumchapel edges, his squally eyes.
“I’ve heard tell you’re offering your body for the Miller job.”
“What, no words of condolence first for our fellow fighter in justice?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s a shame. Never knew him well enough to work up a proper animosity. I think you’ll do a grand job there. So long as our old boys in blue ever actually manage to find a halfway decent suspect.”
“I’ve only read a fistful of notes and I’ve already got half a dozen.”
“I said halfway decent – I’ve read bugger all and I’ve got the full baker’s dozen. I mean someone we could actually compile a case against.”
Maddy and Dan had joined the PF the same year, risen through the ranks together and were firm friends. That friendship however had been under strain since the Kelvingrove murders. They spoke about it openly – Maddy’s feeling that Max Binnie had shown prejudice towards Dan, passing over Maddy when it came to big cases. Especially any that attracted press interest. Binnie had not been pleased that Maddy’s name had been splattered all over the news. Until Kelvingrove both had expected that, when Binnie eventually retired, she would become the Procurator Fiscal. Now she wasn’t so sure, and Binnie’s time was fast approaching.
“How’s about you and I put our heads together on this one, Dan?”
“No no no. This one’s all yours.” As he was leaving he said, “And I’ve a feeling you’re going to throw yourself into it. Body first, then the soul. No place for the likes of me.”
When he was gone, she sat back in her chair and looked around her office. It occurred to her how little she had personalised the place. Been in this same little cramped space for five years or more and hadn’t so much as put a picture on the wall. Just a noticeboard, now defunct, since she’d learned to keep her diaries and notes online. On top of the nearly equally defunct old metal filing cabinet were a few work-related souvenirs. A couple of thank-you and Christmas cards from satisfied customers, an unopened miniature of whisky from some case she couldn’t remember now, a cheap medal like she’d seen the jogging ladies get when they’d completed a 10k race, from another forgotten client. Bits and bobs that, in truth, she hadn’t got round to throwing out. What was it that prevented her from celebrating what had been a reasonably successful and hard-won career?
She phoned Sam Anderson and agreed to meet at Gandolfi’s, it being roughly equidistant from both their offices, and always pleasant.
Coulter had spent the morning staring at multiple screens. Miller had been spotted several times. At Woodlands Road walking towards George’s Cross. Same suit he’d been wearing when he was shot and at roughly the right time – 4.35 a.m. Thirty-five minutes from Hyndland Road, that’d be about right if he wasn’t in a hurry. He seemed, on screen, to be ambling quite happily, maybe just a little bit unsure of his step after Tom Hughes’s brandies. Then crossing George Square at 5.07. At that rate he’d have arrived at Merchant’s Tower ten minutes later. What then? Go in, sit down, maybe start some work, until…
“John. Did anyone check? What was Julian Miller working on when he was rudely interrupted? I can’t remember any file being open on his desk.”
“You wouldn’t have seen it, drowned in a pool of blood. But there were papers, forensics are drying them out now.”
Their first team meeting of the case. Coulter, Russell and Dalgarno. Not a team in the ongoing sense. There weren’t teams these days. Everyone had their own jobs and occasionally they’d find themselves together. Management didn’t like teams. They could gang together, develop a sense of loyalty. The brass wanted everyone operating, alone, accountable on an individual basis up the lines of authority. But in a big case like this, something like team spirit revived.
“We’ve spoken to all the main parties except for Hughes’s site manager?”
“Joe Harkins,” Russell said. “I’ll chase him up again.”
“Did anybody notice – we didn’t know Bill Crichton had left the
dinner party early, until Tom Hughes told us. Interesting he didn’t mention it himself, no?”
“He was in shock sir,” DS Dalgarno said.
“True. Also, his wife can’t vouch for the time he arrived home.”
“This lot make police relationships look blissful,” Dalgarno said. “Mrs Miller looked like she’d won a watch. And Mrs Crichton’s on sleeping pills. She’s the very picture of a tense nervous headache.”
“And Douglas Mason’s banging a procurator fiscal,” Russell added.
“Did you have a good sift through the company files?” Coulter changed the subject.
“Every one of them full of pissed-off people. Paternity suit – JCG Miller successful in proving that Daddy’s wee boy wasn’t Daddy’s wee boy after all. In the last couple of months alone two families kicked out of their houses.”
Coulter sighed and sat down. “I wonder if they’ll give us the manpower to talk to all of that lot.”
“I checked with Companies House,” Russell continued. “According to JCG Miller’s company’s articles – it’s complicated, something to do with limited liability and favourable provisions but, basically, Mr William T. Crichton stands to inherit the business.”
“Does he now? Looks to me like an outfit that turns over a penny or two. He never mentioned that either.”
“A lawyer who’s economical with the truth? Hold the front page. Also, among the files there was an empty one.”
“What, just a plain folder?” Dalgarno asked. “Probably just got mixed up with the others.”
“No, it’s properly labelled like all the others. Looked to me like it had been full and well used. All frayed and baggy.”
“Labelled what?” Coulter asked.
“Just the name ‘Abbott’, and a reference number. I’ll go back and see Debbie Hart.”
“What about the murder itself,” Dalgarno asked Coulter, “you reckon someone followed him from Nick’s to his office?”
“Or was already there, lying in wait. I think we should have a longer chat with Bill Crichton. Maybe he’s got over the shock now.”
Gandolfo was the Pope’s out-of-town residence, she knew that just from being brought up a Catholic. Café Gandolfi had a certain holiness to it too. It was the first of the “new Glasgow” fancy eateries. New being from 1990, the Year of Culture, or perhaps from ’88, the year of the Garden Festival. The city suddenly getting a makeover, like a manky and brattish wean being soaped and scrubbed and told to act proper, there are visitors coming. New Glasgow actually only comprises a couple of square miles in the West End and half a mile or so here in the Merchant City. Plus a few buildings in the town centre given a facelift. The rest of the city was locked out and told to shut its face. In Maddy’s experience life in the outskirts, the schemes, had got worse, not better, in the last quarter of a century.
They were shown to a table, made from wood, like all the others, that looked like it had been washed up a hundred years ago on some tropical beach. All rounded, sculpted by the elements, so that you couldn’t stop caressing it, warm to the touch.
“How are things at the office?” Maddy asked Sam when they had ordered.
“Strange. Nobody knows what to say, so we say nothing. Get on with our work like nothing had happened.”
“There’ll be changes, eventually, presumably.”
“S’pose. I can’t see Bill running the firm by himself for any length of time. Jules was the business brain. Bill never liked that side of things.”
“Think he’ll headhunt for someone?”
“Maybe. If Jules hadn’t died I’d have expected Doug to be made a partner. But he’s a bit inexperienced to replace Julian.”
Maddy found herself saying: “Nothing happened.” She regretted it immediately. “With Doug I mean.” Maybe Sam hadn’t considered where Doug had slept. By raising the subject was Maddy admitting guilt? And why the hell should she care anyway? “I was a bit out of it. Even if I hadn’t been… Especially if I hadn’t been.”
“Poor boy’s a bit lovelorn if you ask me. Then again, I’m not sure how much anyone’s behaviour there has to do with the murder, or something else.”
“It’s not about me, Sam. I told you, nothing happened. Nobody tried to make anything happen.”
“He says he keeps phoning you but you won’t take his calls.”
“He’s tried twice. And sent two text messages, one of which I answered. I’ve got a partner.”
“You have?” For the first time Sam Anderson’s eyes brightened. Nothing like gossip to alleviate the trauma of murder.
“It’s not a secret. Louis. He’s American.”
“Meaning he’s in America?”
“He’s a policeman in New York.”
Sam nodded sagely, her short bob quivering for a second after her head had stopped moving. Not a real partner then. Real partners don’t live three thousand miles away.
Their food arrived. Maddy had, as always in Gandolfi, scallops and black pudding. A combination made in heaven, candy-sweet scallop like a day at the seaside, the sausage more adult, fleshy. Whoever first put the two together should be given a Nobel Prize. It also made her feel patriotic – something she struggled to do generally, despite her vocal support for the Yes vote. Sam got rocket and roasted pear salad which made Maddy feel guilty. Then again she’d been good ordering fizzy water – after Sam had ordered it first.
“I hear Jules’s murder is going to be your case?”
“Jesus, news travels fast. Not necessarily. We’ll see what happens. By the way, I still haven’t said sorry for Friday night.”
Sam smiled. “Stuart said you were embarrassed. I don’t know why. We had a lovely time. You were on good form.”
“Was I?”
“Very nice wine. Now I remember, you did say something about it being given to you by a boyfriend. For some reason I thought you’d said ex-boyfriend.”
“I did not. I wasn’t that pissed. Apart from anything else I wouldn’t have said ‘boyfriend’. Makes us sound like fifth-year schoolkids.”
“What do you call him, then?”
“Paramour? Inamorato? Can’t call him ‘partner’, he’s too far away. Manfriend. Bae?”
“Bae?”
“You need to keep up with the hit parade, Sam. I shouldn’t have gone to bed before you’d left.”
“It wasn’t a problem.”
“You got home okay?”
“Truth be told I was a bit the worse for wear myself. Went straight upstairs and was dead to the world. Oh, what a terrible phrase. That night of all nights. Stuart, though, you seemed to have got him going. He stayed up late. Doing God knows what, playing old records maybe – you must’ve put him in the mood. All I remember was him getting into bed in the morning when we’d normally be getting up.”
She worked all afternoon, task after task, repeating in writing what she’d said to Ewan Drummond in the morning, typing up notes on the debate, winding up proceedings so far, methodically, mechanically like the metronome she’d been supposed to use for violin practice in Girvan. Finally raising her head at 4.45 she called it a day.
A group of women met on Mondays at 5.30 for a run. It was something that, every week, Maddy promised herself she would do. She’d done it twice in as many years. This morning, like so many others she’d packed her trainers and kit – usually just to humph them back home again. But she had no excuse today. So she made her way to the baths club. She didn’t travel much by subway these days, either walking, or taking a bus, occasionally her car, to and from work. She found the experience disappointing. There used to be that smell, didn’t there? Health and Safety or some other dullard must have decided it didn’t suit the New Glasgow. Also, they’d changed the look of the stations. They used to be pokey and dark, passengers huddled together, a hint of danger and mystery. Now they were all plastic and swathes of grey. Everywhere in the world was beginning to look like everywhere else – standardised, eezy-kleen, soulless.
Getting changed she w
orried if she’d be able to run at all. A couple of weeks ago she’d been walking up University Avenue when she saw her bus approaching. She broke out into a run – only to discover it was slower than her walk. So she broke out into a walk again. She worried even more about her rusty social skills. She knew most of the women who would be going out, but not well. She wasn’t sure she could make conversation any more without being surrounded by workmates and with a glass of wine in her hand.
As it turned out social skills were hardly required as, after a few yards, she could barely breathe let alone speak. But she managed to keep up, albeit with the slowest group, all of whom had ten years on her. Happily the run wasn’t long. At the end of February it’s dark before six. The route was mainly through Kelvingrove and the Botanics. For thirty minutes she jogged along quite happily once her breath had evened out. They passed near the spot where she had seen the discarded bodies of two sad kids but she averted her eyes and fought against the internal darkness. It was getting darker in the external world too – the fading light over the River Kelvin was smoky, harking back to a pre-rebranded city. The trees of the Botanics, thinning and softening in the evening air, suggested the still older days of Burns – through its mazes let us rove, bonnie lassie O.
Their run was elongated by a few minutes when, reaching the back gate of the Botanic Gardens, they found that some jobsworth, or a parkie who wanted a pint before tea, had locked it, or hadn’t bothered opening it in the first place. They had to double back, climb a steeper hill than Maddy had ever run before, up a narrow path towards another gate. Even with the two or three stragglers around her she wasn’t sure running here was such a good idea. With dark closing in on them, who knew what lay behind those bristly, glowering bushes.
There was, at the very top, a public bench. Quite possibly a pleasant place to sit in the morning sun, less so in the gloom. So all the runners did a double take as they passed and saw there was indeed a couple sitting there now. They couldn’t have chosen a more secluded place for their tryst – reasonable enough had they been teenagers out for a fumble before dinner. They certainly wouldn’t have expected a dozen middle-aged women in ill-fitting Lycra to file right past them.