by Chris Dolan
“And what about Julian Miller, Zack. Did he bug you?”
“Seriously? Because I once went a bit mental at a party you think I’m a killer? Jesus. I hardly knew Miller.”
“You used to run with a gang, Zack.” Amy made the question sound like a childhood hobby. Zack looked at them both in turn.
“I’m beginning to see things the way you do. A series of minor events, two and two together… Yeah, me and my pals got lifted once for paint-spraying. I was twelve for Chrissakes.”
“Okay.” Coulter sat down on the wool-covered sofa. “Why did you tell us that you left medical school, when in fact you were thrown out?”
“I’m such a prick.” The lad’s self-loathing was building by the minute. “Because I can’t bring myself to say it… That, and my parents don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“You can see why we’re here, Zack, can’t you?” Coulter was feeling sorry for him, but he was right – it didn’t look good.
“You find Mr Miller, dead in his room. As far as we can tell you were the only other person in the building that morning.”
“Apart from the killer!”
“Then you lie to us. Then we find out that you have a record of violent behaviour.”
Zack stared open-mouthed at him. “Oh, dear Jesus.”
It might have been a real prayer. Coulter didn’t mention to Goldie, but the results of his fingerprinting and tests for soil on his shoes had come up blank. Zack Goldie, at best, was a long shot. “We’re not going to take you in right now, Zack. But go nowhere. We’ll check in on you every day.”
“Anything you can think of that might help,” Amy offered, “tell us.”
Coulter got up. “Like for instance, you ever hear Mr Miller or anyone else at JCG Miller mention a company or a person called Abbott?”
“Abbott?” He thought for a minute. “Rings a bell… Oh. Yes. I was coming in one day, just as the other guy, Crichton, was arriving. He was taking a whole pile of files and folders from his car to the office. He dropped a couple. I picked one up. Full to bursting it was. I wouldn’t have noticed except that he got flummoxed and grabbed it off me. Then made a wee joke – ‘Pretend you never saw that.’ I remember it was labelled Abbott because my dad and I used to watch Abbott and Costello on the telly, when I was wee.”
Costello. It was Coulter’s turn to think. Wasn’t there, in amongst the stuff on Petrus that Maddy had sent to him, mention of a company called Costello Laboratories?
WPC Morrison was taking Clare Crichton to the hospital, under instructions to stay with her throughout her visit. The woman said nothing on the way, staring out the side window, back of her head towards Alison. At the Royal Infirmary a car was leaving the only available space, so the policewoman waited. Clare Crichton didn’t however, and got out.
“Just wait a sec, Mrs Crichton?”
But she didn’t. Without looking back she walked quickly, head down, directly towards reception.
“Shit.”
The old man took an age to park. Alison Morrison ran to the entrance. Just as she was going in a man brushed past her. Middle-aged, heavy built, face like a basket of dirty laundry. She’d hardly have noticed him – it was probably true what DI Coulter had once said to her, nobody over fifty exists for anyone under thirty – had he not glanced at her uniform then too quickly looked away again. Nothing unusual in that, the public’s general response to the police. But she thought she recognised him. It took her to ask for William Crichton’s room at the desk and get into the lift before she placed him. The guy from Fulton Construction. Hughes?
Bill Crichton was in a private room within a ward. She asked a nurse if he had had any male visitors today.
“He has visitors now. And, yes, there was a gentleman. He just left.”
“Did he say who he was?”
“Family member, I think.”
Alison thanked her and went to Crichton’s room. Inside there was not only Mrs Crichton, but Marion Miller too. The two women stood at either side of the bed, staring at each other. Completely motionless and in silence. Alison wondered how long they had been like that. Their faces seemed set in stone, each, at first glance, as expressionless as the other. Even when the policewoman stepped inside they maintained their positions. The wife and the lover, acquaintances, at the very least, for over twenty years, united now in grief and betrayal. This stand-off was about seniority – which of them had most right to remain in the room. The partner of many years or the new companion. Who loved him most, who cared most, which of them suffered most and had more to lose?
After what seemed like nearly a minute, Marion Miller’s face slowly dissolved into a grin.
“Your shot.”
She was trying to look unconcerned, but it didn’t quite work – the smile quivered at the corners and her eyes glinted less with arrogance than with tears. But she straightened her back, turned smartly around, passed Alison without a word and went off down the ward, heels clicking.
Clare Crichton stood in the same position for another half minute, still staring at the woman who was no longer there. Then she looked down at her husband, showing no emotion. He looked like a power multiboard adaptor, wires and tubes coming from every part of him. His mouth, stuck to his chest, under his sheet, on both wrists. There was a bandage over his forehead and monitors at either side, beeping and humming. Not having been in the force for long, WPC Morrison hadn’t seen too many men struggling for life. She found the sight not so much frightening as just weird. Almost comic, like at any moment this extra from a medical TV show would sit up and ask for his make-up to be refreshed.
Clare Crichton sat down. Put her hand out to touch him, then withdrew it again. She made herself more comfortable in the little hospital chair, and tried again. She laid her palm on his shoulder, as if keeping it in place, her eyes fixed somewhere just over his bandaged head.
Alison sat in a chair in the corner of the room. What was etiquette? Was it okay to take out her phone? Text. Play Minecraft, Angry Birds. Check Facebook? She looked out the window where there was only a watery flavourless sky. She wondered what the point of staying here was. The man couldn’t speak, and the woman was hardly likely to blurt out a full confession in front of her. Clare looked in such a dwam that Alison felt she could phone her boyfriend and chat and laugh and the woman wouldn’t even notice.
“If you must stay here,” Clare glared at her, “at least be decent enough not to look so bored.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Go on, take out your phone. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Bill was the same, he wasn’t alive unless he had that bloody phone in his hand. Now I know why.”
WPC Morrison texted in that she was presently with Mr and Mrs Crichton and that Mr Hughes of Fulton Construction had been in earlier.
Maddy, having prepared notes for her preliminary hearing and trying to secure a first diet for Drummond versus Garner and Menzies of Giffnock Golf Club, was having her coffee and looking through maps online. Ordnance surveying wasn’t her strong point, especially on screen, and she had to screw up her eyes, nose almost touching the glass or plastic or whatever it was made of. She’d found, throughout the Petrus case, difficulty in making head or tail of the architectural and site maps. She liked the look of some of them, thin straight lines, faint and perfect.
Dan McKillop came in, cycle helmet under his arm, lime-green jacket over his suit.
“Doesn’t go with the tie, Dan.”
He’d taken up cycling to work last spring. Maddy had burst out laughing when she first saw him mount his bike. He was so large and burly that the bike looked like a kids’ toy. Watching him pedal off was a circus act, a bear on a mini cycle.
“Proud of you, though. Still at it in February.”
He slumped down on the seat opposite her. “It’s not easy, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“The actual cycling is fine. It’s this city. Everybody’s that pass-remarkable. I had my lights on the other night
– it’s still dark by five. Two guys came out a pub as I was passing. “Haw, Billy, it’s the Starship Enterprise.” Fair enough I thought. Then his pal piped up. “It’s transport, Cap’n, but no’ as we know it.”
Maddy laughed.
“Then this morning my front wheel was rubbing a bit. So I dismounted and got down and had a look at it. This apprentice jakey – in his twenties but he was getting the hang of it – stops, looks down at me and goes, “Fix your bike right. Ya fucking prick.”
After she stopped laughing, Maddy said it seemed reasonable. “Look at it from his point of view, Dan. He’s walking down the street. He sees a fucking prick fixing his bike, and he offers encouragement and advice. Bikes are dangerous things.”
“What’re those?” Dan nodded towards the screen.
“Come round. Look. You can verify this. Three maps. This one is the Belvedere development site now, or at least the plans submitted eighteen months ago. This is the same area before construction started … and this one is five years ago.”
“What’s the big grey area in the middle of that one?”
“I can see you’d be as much good orienteering as me. That, Daniel dear, is Costello Laboratories. Partially owned by Petrus International. Cathy Maguire is right.”
“Who she? And about what?”
“You remember, nearly ten years back, the toxic leaks and illegal dumping we managed to connect with Petrus?”
“We nothing, all your own work, sweetheart.”
“Polychlorinated biphenyls, and all sorts of other muck. God knows what Costello got up to in there. They closed down not long after we started snooping around. Cathy and Morag – the protestors at Fulton Construction – seem to think the site was never properly sealed.”
“So what now? Nothing you can do but let Coulter’s mob know.”
“JCG Miller played a small role in all this, advising Petrus. They delivered their report to Forbes Nairne.”
“Don’t.”
“But it’s best that I talk to him, no? I know all about the Petrus case. I know the law. I know Nairne.”
Dan got up. “I’m going to look at fancy houses in the Herald. I feel a promotion and a big wage rise coming up.”
Maddy watched him close the door behind him. Perhaps he was right. She should just hand over all the information to Coulter. Let him decide what to do with it.
Morag Boyd was waiting for them in an interview room, Coulter and Russell walking and talking.
“Nice night out with a couple of the lads from Glasgow East Command.”
“Touring the pubs? Get anything?”
“East End’s fair changed. New shops and bakeries and stuff all along Duke Street. Looks like, these days, dads don’t leave their weans outside pubs wi’ a bag of smoky bacon, but sip cappuccinos in cafés while Rufus and Arabella nibble paninis under the awning.”
He laughed but Coulter felt there was something recited about the line. No doubt one of the local coppers had given him it and Russel’s now claiming it as his own. “And the guns?”
“Everyone tight-lipped. Some punters seem to think that kind of business has moved west and south. I did however hear a name mentioned. Joe Harkins.”
“The Fulton watchman?”
“He hangs about out there, has done for years. And when guns were mentioned everybody went a bit too tight-lipped.” They arrived at the interview room. “Want me to bring him in?”
“Maybe. Maybe see what more we can find out first.”
Coulter looked in through the glass in the door. A middle-aged woman was sitting up straight in her chair, waiting. She glanced at her watch, tapped her worn-down shoes and sighed.
“Just one of them? Where’s the other?”
“She’s Boyd,” Russell said, “the other one – Maguire – couldn’t see the point in taking up both their time.”
“Oh couldn’t she?” Coulter opened the door and put on his most hospitable smile.
Now that he was sitting across from her, Coulter saw that Morag was not middle-aged. It had been her clothes – still buttoned woollen coat, thick black tights like the ones Martha wore on cold days, sensible shoes – and her posture. But her shoulders rose a little as she spoke to him, and she tried to smile. Out of habit, Coulter thought, common manners.
“Thanks for coming in, Mrs Boyd.”
“No problem.” Again, the response was etiquette. She was as disconcerted as most people are in a police station.
“Forgive me if I get the business out the way first. Basic questions we have to ask everyone. Can you remember where you were, Mrs Boyd, a week last Friday night/Saturday morning?”
“Your colleague already asked me that. My son was in overnight at the hospital. We stayed with him.”
“Our colleague?” Russell asked, already knowing the answer.
“Aye, the woman. Shannon?”
Russell rolled his eyes.
“All night?” Coulter pretended to take notes: this would all get checked out and reported back to him.
“Yes.”
“You say ‘we’ Mrs Boyd. You and your husband?”
“Kenny, aye. You can check with the nurses. And the night porter.”
“Between what times?”
“We’d have got there around, dunno, maybe half fiveish? We were a wee bitty late checking him in, then we left for work about eight?”
“You both left together?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you work, Mrs Boyd?”
“In the café in Barmulloch Community Centre. It’s a part-time job. Which suits the now, what with Jason and everything.”
“And you got there at what time?”
“Before nine.”
“Were you first in? Did you open up?”
“No. Molly’s the café manager and Christina the centre director. They were both there.”
“And Mr Boyd?”
“He was wi’ me. He’s a painter and plasterer and he’s got some work now in the centre, sprucing up the Wi-Fi area of the centre’s library.”
“Thanks for all that.” Coulter closed his notepad. “I know you have troubles of your own.” Morag Boyd gave him a very slight forgiving hug. “You wouldn’t happen to know where your friend…” he made a play of reopening the pad, “…Catherine Maguire, was at that time?”
Morag stiffened a little. “Eh, Friday night she was down the Canal. Our local. We were supposed to go too, but with Jason… There’d’ve been plenty of folk there.”
“But in the morning…?”
“Cathy’s no’ an early riser. Especially after a Friday in the Canal.”
“I see. Thanks. Shame she couldn’t make it along herself.”
“She couldn’t. Telt me to tell you she’ll speak to you whenever if it’s still necessary.”
“It might be, Mrs Boyd. Now, the following Tuesday afternoon…”
Morag’s manners couldn’t stop her from sighing.
Ninety minutes later CDI Coulter was walking down Saltmarket with Maddy Shannon. There was tension between them, and she knew he was annoyed with her. So what’s new? Most people are, generally. She’d like to think she had no idea why that was but, truthfully, she was pissed off with herself half the time. Sergeant John Russell hated her. If she were him, she’d feel the same. Bloody woman always overstepping the mark. She sometimes caught herself in a bar or at a meeting, her voice too loud, talking too much, ugly big guffawing laugh. Even Dan, she reckoned, could get his fill quickly enough. Her mum too. Louis? Who knows. But Coulter – Maddy wanted him to like her.
“Alan, if you want to see him yourself, I’ll cut off here.”
“No. No. You’re right. You’d have to fill me in on years of this Petrus thing. And you know the guy. I hear he likes you.”
Thank God somebody does. From a distance of course – the man barely knew her. She was annoyed at herself for feeling a wee thrill of pleasure, though. The big important judge liked her. Well, didn’t loathe her. Yet.
“So. Morag.”
“Much as you said,” she could hear the irritation in his voice. “She and her comrade think Fulton Construction have been up to dirty tricks.”
“Is that what they’re saying?” There she goes again. That note of keening insistence in her voice.
“Well isn’t it?” Coulter was swallowing back his exasperation.
“I’m not sure they do know that. I think what they’re saying,” she tried, without total success, to keep her tone pleasant, informative, “is that the Costello chemical factory site might not have been properly sealed. Whether that’s Fulton’s doing, or Costello’s, or Petrus, or any number of partially owned companies and interests…”
“In that case,” Coulter seemed surer of his ground, “why direct their protests at Fulton and Belvedere?”
“Where else are they going to direct it?”
“DS Russell agrees with you.”
“There’s a first.”
“He thinks we’re hassling ordinary decent folk, when we should be focussing on greedy snobs of Killearn and Cleveden.”
“Man’s not all bad.”
“And the Boyds’ alibis pan out. They were sitting at their son’s bedside in the Royal Infirmary at the time Miller was being shot, and both were at work in the community centre when Crichton fell. Staff in both places vouch for them.”
They crossed the bridge in silence. Maddy resisted the urge to put her arm through Alan’s. Where did that notion come from anyway? Trust me. Like me. You older professional man you.
“By the way,” Coulter said. “Costello’s. There’s a missing file somewhere called Abbott. Connection?”
They were directed through to a room that Lord Nairne had more or less commandeered as his own. You can do that, claim public spaces, if you’ve got “Lord” in front of your name.