Lies of the Land

by Chris Dolan

  “Between you and me, big man, I’m an active mole in the revolutionary movement. Tam Hughes will be sent to a labour camp in Paisley, which is the nearest thing we have to Siberia.”

  “You’re a funny guy, Mr Harkins.”

  “Listen, cunstable,” the “o” on the word heavily stressed as a “u”.

  “Sergeant.”

  Harkins shrugged. “It’s how the building game’s always been. Especially in the last five years. Nobody’s got any rights. Everybody just happy to have a job at all. Likes o’ me, I’m non-skilled. So aye, sometimes I’m security and sometimes that means nightwatchman. Other times I’m a runner between HQ and the various sites. And when Hughes wants a lift, I’m the go-to man. It’s very fulfilling.”

  “And Mr Hughes, he’s a good boss?”

  “Worship the ground he walks on.” Harkins put on a kettle and, from a plastic bag, took out one teabag and one cup. “Nah. He’s hunky-dory, really. You know the kind. Everything’s work. Loves to tell you how he’s never had a holiday in twenty years, never taken a sickie, doesnae know what to dae with hissel’ at weekends. Which means, when I point out that I’ve worked twelve hours seven days in a stretch he looks at you as though you were mental. Or a woman.”

  Russell got the impression that Harkins did, in fact, find all that quite impressive.

  “The night of Julian Miller’s murder. Tell me what happened, from your point of view.”

  “I’ve already telt wan o’ your bluebottles that.” He sat down with his cuppa. “I drove Tam from here over to Miller’s office in the Merchant City at the back ae six. Picked up Miller and drove them both up west.”

  “Just Miller? Not Mr Crichton?”

  “Naw. Don’t know how he got there. But he arrived just as I was dropping them off.”

  “Whose car were you using?”

  “Hughes’s. I could hae used my ain old Skoda but that’s no really Mr Hughes’s style.”

  “Once you dropped them off what did you do?”

  “Came back here.”

  “Directly?”

  “Well there were a few bends in the road. Corners an’ that.”

  “If we could dispense with the jokes, Mr Harkins. In what capacity did you come back here? Watchman? Handyman?”

  “Now who’s got the patter? Watchman. I’m alternating nights with Davy Nixon. I let him go when I got back – around quarter past seven.”

  “How often did Mr Hughes meet up with Miller and Crichton?”

  “Not a Scooby. Mibbe once, eighteen months ago, I drove them to another restaurant.”

  “Which one?”

  “Fine dining isnae my forte. Place near where Miller lived? Wee country pub.”

  “Killearn?”

  “Could ae been.”

  “The three of them always seemed to get on well?” It was cold in the container. Russell eyed Harkins’s steaming cup of tea.

  “Jesus, these questions are getting difficult. Pass. I run them there, pick them up…”

  “And when you picked them up on Friday, what time would that be?”

  “Fourish? And aye, they were in fine spirits. Naebody pulled a gun on naebody or called his mammy a hoor. It was just Miller and Tam. Your Crichton boy had slipped off earlier apparently. I waited in the car while Tam and Miller slapped each other on the back. You know what it’s like after a few swallies. Best mates in the whole wide world. There was nothing to make anybody think your man was a couple of hours away from getting his heid blown aff.”

  “Then you ran Mr Hughes home?”

  “To Giffnock, aye. Then he asks me to come back in a couple of hours and drive him two hunner miles to Hootsmonland for some wedding. I did that, came back,” Harkins leaned over his cup towards Russell. “Then you’ll never guess what happened?”

  “Go on.”

  “I took the rest o’ the day aff. In this outfit that’s worth noting doon.”

  Russell got up. “One last thing. How long have you been with Fulton Construction?”

  “Boy tae man, cradle tae grave. Nah, four year now.”

  “Perhaps next time we want to talk to you – and there will be a next time, Mr Harkins – you won’t be quite the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

  “They seek him here, they seek him there, they seek him every fuckin’ where. I’ll be here for you. Don’t you fret, cunstable.”

  So much of policing these days centred around the numbing whirr of the HOLMES room hard drives. Indexers, researchers, office managers staring silently at lists and spreadsheets. Coulter almost missed the grubwork of his early uniform days. But much as he distrusted that deadening electronic drone it produced results. A young officer handed him a printout of numbers and guided him through it.

  “It’s one of Mr and Mrs Miller’s joint bank accounts.”

  “They have more than one?”

  “Three that I’ve found so far. Mrs Miller has two in her own name and her husband had four. Nothing interesting in any of them, apart from this one. Look. Every month five thousand pounds is paid in.”

  “His wages?”

  “No. He pays himself regularly from JCG Miller into one of his own accounts. And a damn sight more than that, sir. About fifteen thousand pounds a month. And then there’s bonuses and shares and what have you.”

  It always astonished Coulter how much money people earned – people he knew, who lived in this same city as him.

  “So where does the five grand come from?”

  “It’s a Bacs transaction. From an organisation called Abbott’s. I keep trying to find out more about them, but I’ve come up with nothing.”

  “Abbott.” It took Coulter a moment to remember. “DS Russell found a file from Miller’s office labelled Abbott. Keep trying son. You might be on to something.”

  Around two hundred thou a year in straight salary alone. God knows how much when all the extras are added on. It genuinely puzzled him what people spent that kind of money on. Julian Miller had been in the habit of starting work at 6 a.m. and not leaving till seven at night. If Coulter had that kind of dosh he wouldn’t sit behind a desk for thirteen hours a day. To be honest, he didn’t know what he’d do. Most of his colleagues were grumbling that the retirement age had been upped. Coulter was relieved. His phone was ringing when he got back to his office. Maddy Shannon was waiting downstairs in reception.

  “Thought I should tell you face-to-face.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Lovely to see you too, Alan.”

  They took a seat away from the desk. She told him about spotting Bill Crichton and Marion Miller in the park. Coulter’s first reaction was, these guys make all this money but they still end up skulking in the drizzle in public parks? She told him how Crichton had come to her house and asked her to keep shtum.

  “That’s madness.”

  “Yup.”

  “The reaction of a man panicking.”

  “Maybe. He’d thought it through though. Tried every tactic on me. Bargained, pleaded, then said he might still deny it all, the assignation with Marion and the meeting with me.”

  “Well let’s see what he actually does.”

  “You going to bring him in?”

  “I’m going to bring both of them in.”

  Coulter started to stand up, then stopped when Maddy remained still.

  “Something else. And don’t say ‘oh no’ again.”

  “Oh no.”

  She relayed the conversation she’d just come away from with Dante Marzullo.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll have someone look into that. But if we ran a check on every citizen pissed off with a lawyer the force would collapse.”

  Maddy got up to go. “You told Maxwell Binnie about this?”

  “Haven’t managed to get to the office yet.”

  “You know what he’s going to say?”

  “Bill’s little social call might just have robbed me of preparing the Miller case. Bastard.”

  “Maybe that’s what he intended.”
<
br />   Maddy sighed. “I’ll tell Binnie – it’s a small town. I can’t help it if people talk to me.”

  “He’ll say you’re getting in too deep.”

  In his office Russell brought Coulter up to speed on Joe Harkins. “His patter would bust your balls, but he’s a nobody. We can forget about him.”

  DS Dalgarno had been working with the HOLMES team too. “Zack Goldie, the caretaker at Merchant’s Tower, he’s got a bit of a record. Nothing too serious. A couple of fights when he was a kid – he was in the Jordanhill Young Team.”

  All three of them burst out laughing. “There’s a Jordanhill Young Team?!”

  “What, do they fight with the Kelvinside Fleeto?”

  “With sawn-off croissants?”

  “You’d think they’d have the nous to change their name.”

  “West End Mad Squad?”

  “Anyway,” Amy tried to curb her laughing. “He got kicked out of medical school.”

  “That’s not what he told me,” Coulter said, rubbing his eyes.

  “He was found with cannabis in his digs. Police in St Andrews looked into it, but let it drop. Probably personal use, but enough to make the uni decide he wasn’t doctor material.”

  Coulter’s laughter turned to a groan. Kill a lawyer and suddenly half of Glasgow looks guilty. “He led me to believe he’d quit because he couldn’t stand the blood and guts.”

  “Not so.”

  How on earth were they going to keep a tab on all these persons of interest? “Crichton and Marion Miller should be here by now. I’ve put them in separate rooms. John, you and I will take Bill Crichton. Amy, find another officer and see what Marion Miller has to say.”

  “Just before we go, sir. One other thing. The firearms team recognise the serial number of the Glock Julian Miller was shot with. They’ve actually been looking for it.”

  “Stolen? From where?”

  “Here. Us. Police firearms. One of a case of six.”

  “How the hell does Police Scotland lose six guns?!”

  “Edinburgh. Not us. It was only noticed that six were missing when someone did an inventory. About a month ago. They got the thief, but he’d already sold them on by then.”

  “An officer?”

  “Nah. Some flunkey in Stores. He’s been sacked and charged.”

  “But we’ve lost sight of the guns?”

  “Until now.”

  “And only one of them. No sign of the other five?”

  “No.”

  “Well. It’s something. Come on. We’re getting there. Slowly but surely.” He led them out the door. “Well, slowly.”

  Bill Crichton, Coulter decided looking across the table at him, was an unlikely choice for a fancy man. Marion Miller was a designer-clad, figure-conscious lady who lunched – or so she had seemed. Why risk a fling with your husband’s business partner when he was smaller, shabbier, more nervous, and your man’s junior? Crichton had the face of a man perpetually flummoxed by a hard crossword puzzle. Marion and Julian had made a set; Marion and Bill, an odd couple. Coulter decided to start with the money.

  “You stand to inherit JCG Miller, Mr Crichton. Is that correct?”

  “If I were advising a client, Inspector Coulter, I’d say you were in danger of exceeding your powers.”

  “In what way exactly?”

  “Bringing me in here at such short notice. Leading questions.”

  “This time round, sir, you’re not advising,” Russell said. “We just want to check a few … omissions. Gaps in our previous conversations. You left earlier than the others last Friday night, and unfortunately Mrs Crichton is unable to say what time you arrived home.”

  “My wife doesn’t keep well.”

  “So nobody,” Coulter replied, “can vouch for your whereabouts between 2 a.m. and your arrival at the murder scene at seven. Can they, Mr Crichton?”

  “If this is where your investigation has got you so far,” Crichton was trying to look assertive, “you’re clutching at straws.”

  “Oh I don’t think so, sir.” Russell meant it, Coulter could see that. His sergeant didn’t like Crichton or Miller and, in his eyes, all the evidence was stacked against them. Russell would harry them into confession. Exterminate the nits and you get rid of the lice – one of the man’s favourite sayings. Coulter kept his voice more equable: “We are given to believe that you and Mrs Miller have been conducting an affair.”

  Crichton looked directly at Coulter then at Russell, as if he still hadn’t decided how to play this one. He plumped for hanging his head, a picture of repentance. “It’s unforgiveable, I know. Clare is not a well woman. But that’s partly the reason.” He looked up at them both again. “I tried to explain to a colleague last night… It sounds such a cliché but really, it looks worse than it is. We were both having trouble with our marriages, we found a little comfort in each other. It was never going to last. Under normal circumstances nobody would have found out, and nobody hurt.” He wrung his hands. “I assume it was Ms Shannon who told you this?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say. You were spotted together in the Botanic Gardens last night.”

  “I can assure you again, Inspector, it has nothing to do with your inquiry.”

  “Unless,” Russell leaned back in his chair, “Mrs Miller can vouch for your whereabouts at the time of the murder?”

  Crichton smiled. “Another leading question. You are both professional enough to know that whatever I answer won’t help. If I told you I was with Marion we’d simply both be under suspicion. Correct? As I told you before, I went home. My wife takes sleeping pills. It is, as you say, unfortunate that she didn’t hear me come in.”

  In the interview room next door, DS Dalgarno and WPC Morrison sat back in their seats while Marion Miller, in a full-length leather coat, leaned over the table towards them. If anyone had come in it would have looked like she was interviewing them.

  “Mr Crichton has a problem,” Dalgarno was saying, “proving where he was early on Saturday morning.”

  There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation. “Bill,” Miller smiled, “from about 2.30 a.m. to 6.30 a.m., was warmly wrapped up in my bed. I believe the time of the murder was just before six? Let me think … yes, around then Bill Crichton Esquire, MA, LLB, was fucking me mercilessly. Will that do, ladies?”

  “More detail than was strictly necessary, Mrs Miller.”

  “Oh dear. I seem to have shocked you yet again, Sergeant.”

  “Mrs Miller, I’ve read all the Irvine Welsh books and seen Frankie Boyle live.” Only Alison Morrison laughed. “But thank you again for your candour. I don’t suppose anyone else can corroborate your statement?” Before Miller had a chance she added, “And please, no unnecessary jokes about threesomes.”

  “Unless of course we were having one? But no.”

  WPC Morrison glanced at Dalgarno and the sergeant nodded. “Mr Crichton was in bed with you at six? We know your husband was in the habit of being at his desk by that time, but surely that was still taking a bit of a risk?”

  “That’s the fun of it, dear.”

  “And Mr Crichton shared your risk-taking vis-à-vis being caught?”

  “Vis-à-vis? How quaint. Not really, even though I’ve told him that if Jules had caught us he probably wouldn’t have cared. It might even have interested him. For the first time in years.”

  “Yet,” said Dalgarno, “Mr Crichton remained with you.” The tables had turned, the sergeant leaning towards Mrs Miller who had sat back. “It’s almost as if he knew Mr Miller wouldn’t be home.”

  Miller opened her mouth to speak, but for the first time words failed her.

  “Shall we take a short break, Mrs Miller? After which I’d like to talk to you about you and Mr Miller’s joint insurance policy. You have cover of six million pounds in the event of his death…”

  Marion Miller gave a satisfied smile.

  They’d agreed to break at the same time and Amy quickly told DI Coulter that Marion Miller had alibie
d Crichton. Reconvening, they asked Crichton to respond.

  “Oh Marion.” He shook his head. “I had hoped to keep her – and Clare – out of this. Well, it’s the truth. But I don’t see how it helps any of us. Is it at all possible, Inspector, that this be kept from my wife?”

  “I’ve no intention of telling her, unless I have a reason to, Mr Crichton. But I’m sure you know as well as I do that these things tend to come out in times like these.”

  “It would have been easier for all involved if you had just told us from the start, sir,” DS Russell sneered.

  “It would finish her off.”

  “Did Mr Miller know of your relationship?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “So if he had found out…” Coulter had to hand it to Russell, it was a well-timed question.

  “You mean … I killed him because…? Me shoot someone? I wouldn’t know what end of a gun to hold.”

  Russell looked at him, then at Coulter. The inspector knew that his sergeant didn’t believe Crichton, that Russell had made his mind up who had killed Julian Miller. John Russell had been right before.

  Maddy got caught in a spectacular storm walking from Pitt Street to Ballater Street. The sky darkened as though a lever had been thrown in the heavens. And behold the floodwaters! All things that are on the earth shall perish. And not a cab in sight. Then an angel of mercy, in the shape of Doug Mason, was running towards her wielding an umbrella.

  “Is that a golf umbrella?”

  “Why? Would that make a difference?” He shouted over the roar of the rain.

  “I’m a woman of principle, Mr Mason.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about but he kept it over her. Then the rain stopped just as instantly and miraculously as it had started.

  “A kind thought,” she said as he closed the brolly, “but too late. I’m soaked through. And actually I was rather enjoying it.”

  “You really don’t like me, do you?”

  “Take no notice. It’s just the way I am.” She realised he must have been coming out of his office. “They send you on an errand?”