Chapter 52
Joanna trooped into the office shortly before five that afternoon. She took the working brief for Kirkslap’s case from her handbag and thumped it down onto my desk.
‘All yours,’ she said.
‘How’d it go today?’ I asked.
‘Quickly. I can’t believe how fast the Crown case is going. We had six witnesses in and out.’
Six witnesses in one day was insanely quick for the High Court. Fiona Faye was really rattling though the Crown case. She would know from having read the transcripts of the previous trial that the defence was short on explanations for a lot of the damaging circumstantial evidence, and hoped to fire it at the jurors thick and fast, while they remained interested.
Joanna recapped. ‘There was the girl on the cosmetics’ counter at John Lewis who sold Violet lipstick,’ Joanna said. ‘She knew Violet quite well, even knew the shade of lipstick she liked. Then a CCTV operator talked us through Violet leaving Buchanan Galleries on the afternoon of thirty-first October, followed by a phone expert speaking to the text from Violet arranging to meet Kirkslap the following night and his reply. And that was us just at lunchtime. In the afternoon a guy from the credit card company said that they had authorised payment for an on-line order for a home delivery of groceries. The order was made around mid-day on First November for delivery to Violet’s house. The next witness was a cracker, though.’
‘The mobile phone tracker?’
‘Afraid so. Former Edinburgh University professor, now a consultant on mobile technology and running his own informatics business.’
With a little help from the phone companies, this latest expert had been able to say with certainty that Kirkslap’s mobile phone had been in the general area of Violet Hepburn’s apartment around six on the evening of 1st November and then later at Kirkslap’s lodge, before going for a tour of the countryside in the early hours of the following morning.
‘The entire workforce of P45 Apps have iPhones,’ Joanna said. ‘The battery doesn’t come out and even when it runs down it still sends out signals for a few hours. Big Brother is watching you as long as you have that thing in your pocket.’
It was terribly damaging evidence, but I had been expecting it. ‘How did Crowe cope with it all?’
‘As well as could be expected. Better, in fact. He came off sounding more like an expert than the expert, going on about triangulation and interference and false signals. It was going fairly well until the final witness.’
‘The cop who found Violet’s phone down the side of the couch in Kirkslap’s sitting room?’
Joanna nodded.
‘How did the jury take it all?’
‘Hard to say, but they were definitely listening.’
Never a good sign.
‘By the way, where is my ex-phone?’
Joanna’s former phone was in a thousand tiny pieces, somewhere outside Shotts and the one before that was in my dad’s possession.
‘I lost it,’ I said.
‘Too bad for you.’ Joanna opened her handbag, took out a phone, identical to her last. ‘Grace-Mary got me a new one.’ She waggled it at me, teasingly. ‘And you’re not getting your hands anywhere near it. You’ll just have to learn to be more careful.’
It wasn’t just the loss of the actual phone that bothered me. It was the SIM card with all my contacts.
‘What kind of phone are you going for this time?’ Joanna asked. ‘Same as the last two? Three phones in a month? Samsung must really love you.’ She looked at hers. ‘This is a great phone. I’ve only learned how to use about fifty per cent of the functions.’
That was approximately forty per cent more than I had. I could make phone calls and send texts, that was about it. ‘Might as well get the same one as you,’ I said. ‘Keep the Munro & Co. corporate identity.’
‘You should put a tracking app on it. That way I could know where you really are when you say you’ve been held up in court, and I have to see your Friday afternoon clients.’
‘Wouldn’t do any good,’ I said. ‘I’d just leave the phone in my locker in the agents’ room and go to the golf course anyway. Big Brother might be watching, but that's not to say he's looking in the right place.’
Joanna’s cheerful expression changed when she noticed mine had. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ I asked.
She wasn't, but she soon would be.
Chapter 53
Cameron Crowe was never pleased to see me, but he was even less so than normal when, later that Thursday evening, Joanna and I turfed up at his apartment, a fine example of Georgian architecture and part of the beautiful circular terrace that was Moray Place in Edinburgh’s New Town.
‘Very well, then. Tell me what’s so bloody important?’ he said, after I’d persuaded him we had extremely urgent news, and he’d reluctantly allowed us into his drawing room. It was seven o’clock. Crowe and a glass of brandy had been watching yet another TV debate on the pending Scottish referendum.
Crowe dragged himself across to the corner of the room. ‘Independence,’ he said. ‘Serve us right if we get it. Democracy - eight stupid people telling two clever people what to do.’ He switched off the television and ordered us to sit.
‘It’s about a possible line of defence,’ I said.
‘Please don’t tell me you have some kind of cunning plan,’ he said wearily.
Joanna read my mind. To Crowe I’d always be a red rag to a bull. I sat back.
‘What if Kirkslap is innocent and was fitted up by someone else?’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘Mike Summers.’
‘His lawyer and business partner, Mike Summers?’
Joanna nodded.
‘Motive?’
‘We’re working on that.’
Cameron puffed out his cheeks and blew, flubbering his lips. ‘Let’s have it.’ He took his balloon glass from the arm of his chair, swirled and took a sip. ‘Let’s have your theory.’
‘Okay.’ Joanna sat forward in her chair, hands clasped in front of her. ‘Mike Summers killed Violet Hepburn. We don’t know why, yet,’ she said, hurriedly, when it looked like Crowe was about to interject, ‘and then disposed of her body.’
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere as yet unknown.’
Crowe winced.
Joanna continued. ‘And then sent a text from her phone to Kirkslap’s to make it look as though they were going to meet up the next day.’
‘Would you listen to yourself?’
‘It makes sense. Why would Kirkslap arrange to meet Violet if he’d already made it very clear that their relationship was over?’
‘Perhaps he had certain needs,’ Crowe said. ‘Any port in a storm and all that.’
Joanna ploughed on regardless. We’d talked about it all the way through in the car. ‘You know Kirkslap’s side of things—’
‘Quantum valeat,’ Crowe said.
‘He was at a business meeting with Zack Swarovski until late-afternoon on thirty-first October. He’d had a drink at lunch-time, so Zack drove him home in the evening. They watched a movie, Zack left late and next day Mike arrived and he and Kirkslap went off shooting furry animals.’
‘Yes, yes, I know all this.’ Crowe sipped some more brandy, while taking a glance at the blank screen of the television as though he longed to hear more on the benefits of Scottish independence from the First Minister of a Government intent on destroying the last vestiges of Scotland’s once proud legal system.
Joanna was not to be put off by Crowe’s impatience. ‘They come back from the hunt late afternoon, Mike leaves and Kirkslap settles down for a night of television and heavy drinking. Nothing unusual happens, then, the following morning, Zack and Mike collect him and whisk him off, hangover and all, to yet another meeting, this time in Glasgow.’
‘I understand all that. I just don’t believe it and neither will the jury.’
Joanna sat back and held up a fi
nger. ‘What if by the time Mike went to see Kirkslap on the first November, Violet was already dead? What if he didn’t go home after the hunt, but borrowed Kirkslap’s car?’
‘Did he?’ Crowe asked.
I pitched in at this point. ‘We can’t say. What we do know is that Larry, Mike and Zack all drive the same make and model of car. How hard would it be to have new number plates made up and slap them on with double-sided tape?’
Crowe closed his eyes, kneaded his brow between thumb and forefinger. He was tired. Four days of making bricks without a straw of a defence had obviously taken its toll. Now he was being asked to enter the Munro & Co. alternate universe.
Joanna took over again. ‘Mike borrows Kirkslap's car, or puts dodgy number plates on his own or something, then, having swapped iPhones with Kirkslap, goes for a late drive, making sure he can be traced not only by the phone, but by a speed camera that anyone who was caught by the first time, would surely have noticed the second.’
‘And the blood stains?’ Crowe asked.
‘Easy to leave behind if you have already killed Violet.’
‘And Violet’s phone at Kirkslap’s lodge?’
‘Ditto.’
‘What about the threats Kirkslap made to Violet?’
I’d been thinking about that. ‘Kirkslap has no recollection of ever having gone to Violet’s, far less making threats. It was something Mike told him had happened, and he believed it because on the night it’s supposed to have occurred, like most nights, he was drunk. Mike simply fabricated it to beef up the Crown case this time around. He roped in Candy McKeever to make it look to us like she was the source of this new piece of damaging evidence, not him.’
Crowe sneered. ‘So she’s in on it too? What about his wife? What about Swarovski or whatever his name is?’
Was Zack in on it too? I knew how my next words would sound. ‘We can’t entirely rule Swarovski out yet either.’
Crowe downed the rest of his brandy and stood up. ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t go making accusations of murder against everyone who knows Larry Kirkslap, purely on the basis of your creative imagination. I can’t even raise the subject of incrimination, because we’ve never given notice of an intention to do so. What’s more, one of your imaginary incriminees, Mike, has already testified and been excused further attendance. Don’t you think it’ll look a tad strange that I never took the trouble to ask him any obvious questions such as, by the way, are you the murderer?’
The period of time from the end of that sentence to our arrival on the New Town pavement could be measured in seconds, not minutes.
‘He’s right,’ Joanna said. I could tell that her excitement during our earlier discussions had begun to fade. ‘There’s only one person who had any motive to kill Violet and that was Kirkslap. It was obviously a volatile relationship; on one minute, off the next. Kirkslap’s got a temper, there’s been an argument and whammo!’ she slammed a fist into her open palm. ‘The reason he’s botched everything up; taking his phone with him, leaving bloodstains, getting caught, not once but twice by the same speed camera, is because he was drunk.’
Crowe had really done a job on her.
‘You’ve said it to me before, Robbie. Murders are usually assaults that go badly wrong. That’s why the cops play the odds. The most obvious suspect is usually the person who did it. Why on earth would Mike Summers or Zack, for that matter, want to kill Violet Hepburn? They’re not killers.’
What Joanna didn’t know was that I firmly believed Mike was a murderer, not by his own hand, perhaps, but he had ordered the death of Nathan Boyd and tried to have his brother and me killed. The dying words of Tam ‘Tuppence’ Christie had satisfied me on that count.
‘One’s a lawyer, the other is a software designer,’ she said, talking herself out of our earlier defence strategy, such that it was. ‘Both men owe Larry Kirkslap their careers. They have absolutely no motive.’
Follow the money my dad had said. Even though he was an expert on many subjects about which he knew very little, this was the first time he’d ever advised me on a possible defence. What if he was right? Follow the money, find a motive, find the killer.
We reached my car. ‘Joanna,’ I said. ‘What do you know about corporate law?’
‘I got the University of Glasgow prize for company law.’
‘Did you, really?’
‘No.’
‘Then we’re going to have to rely on my expertise,’ I said.
‘But you don’t have any.’
‘I think I may have enough to find a motive.’
‘Really? A motive why Mike Summers would kill Violet?’ Joanna opened the car door and climbed in.
‘No.’ I started the car engine. ‘A motive why Mike would want to send Larry Kirkslap to prison.’
I drove from New Town to Old and parked in Chamber Street, outside Old College, from where it was a short walk to the Scotsman Hotel. After some unsuccessful knocking at the door, we had a porter allow us entry to Larry Kirkslap’s room and found him sitting on a chair at the big window, in a state of such inebriation that he couldn't understand what I was asking him, far less why I was asking it.
‘Really, Robbie is this worth it?’ Joanna asked, attempting to revive Kirkslap with a cup of coffee she’d made using the in-room facilities. ‘I’m not trying to be cheeky, but you don’t know anything about company formation.’
‘When I was at Caldwell & Craig we were a limited liability partnership, not a company. We didn’t have shares as such, but the members’ agreement did have certain provisions about what would happen in the event of wrong-doing. I’d like to know what happens to Kirkslap’s shares if he goes to prison.’
‘Won’t his wife get them?’
‘If he died, then I’m sure they would go to whoever inherited his estate and that would depend on whether he left a will or not. What I want to find out is who gets his shares if he goes to prison.’
We waited with Kirkslap for around two hours, Joanna topping him up with black coffee at regular intervals.
Eventually we gathered from him that there had been a share agreement, but that he didn’t have a copy. The papers had all been drawn up by Mike a few years back. He could remember that the shares were split forty-seven, forty-seven, between the two directors, himself and Zack, with the six per cent balance going to company secretary Mike. He couldn’t provide any more details than that.
Around ten o’clock, when Kirkslap returned from a trip to the bathroom, sat on the bed and started chuntering on about how much he loved Joanna and, more worryingly, me, we put a pillow under his head and threw a quilt over him. By the time we’d put on our jackets he was snoring.
‘So much for that idea,’ I said.
‘Are company share agreements public documents? Can we order a copy up from somewhere?’ Joanna asked; a question to which neither of us knew the answer. She looked at her watch. I offered to drive her home. She declined. ‘If I run, I can catch the ten-thirty to Queen Street.’
I accompanied her the few hundred yards to the station concourse, discussing the next day’s schedule. It was my turn to sit in on Kirkslap’s trial: day five. Joanna would cover the intermediate diets at the Sheriff Court.
‘I’ll go straight to Livingston in the morning,’ she said, ‘but I’ll take a look when I get home and see what I can find on the Company House web-site. There must be some way to get a copy of that agreement without Mike Summers knowing.’
I thought so too and, forty minutes later, I was well on my way to Addison House to find out if I was right. The way I saw it, if Marjorie Kirkslap had granted the bank a security over her estate to inject capital into P45 Apps, she must have had a lawyer draw up the deeds. For conflict of interest reasons, she would have had to have sought independent legal advice. Whoever that was, it couldn’t have been anyone connected to the company, so that ruled out Mike Summers. Could I persuade Marjorie to give me her lawyer’s name or even call them for me?
It was wor
th a try I thought, and then, with half a mile to go, I began to wonder if I was doing the right thing. Should I wait until the morning? How would Marjorie view my prying into her personal affairs? If I’d been given the bum’s rush on my last visit, I was unlikely to meet with a more cheery welcome at eleven at night.
It was as I crept the car up the drive towards the big house, still in two minds whether to go through with my visit or not, that I saw up ahead, parked outside the front door, a black Audi Q7. Immediately, I brought my car to a halt and switched off the headlights. I reversed back down the drive to the road. Change of plan.
Chapter 54
I drove straight to my office. Joanna had left our set of papers on the desk. In amongst them I located Zack Swarovski’s precognition. At one point we’d thought about using him as a witness to confirm that he’d picked up Kirkslap the morning after the disappearance of Violet and that he’d seemed perfectly normal. Perfectly normal for Larry Kirkslap, on any given morning, being hung-over.
The precognition had his name, address, mobile and home number at the top. I called the landline. All three P45 officials owned a black Audi Q7. If Zack answered his house phone it was safe to assume it wasn’t his parked up at Addison House.
After several rings I’d almost given up, when Zack answered. ‘Yeah?’
Was Zack involved with Mike? I was prepared to take the chance he wasn’t. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you Zack—’
‘Is that you, Robbie? Do you know what time it is?’
I told him I did and that I wouldn’t be calling at that time of night unless it was extremely important.
‘I’m really tired,’ he said. He sounded like a wee boy. I imagined him standing there in his Dr Who pyjamas. ‘I was at court most of the day and had a lot of work to catch up on when I got back. I’ve a whole load more to do first thing and that’s before I take Larry to court in the morning.’
I expected that Zack had a struggle every morning rousing Kirkslap, far less dragging him up Edinburgh High Street to the Lawnmarket.
Killer Contract (Best Defence series Book 4) Page 24