by Ian Simpson
It took time for her to buzz open the outer door and she came to the door of her flat with wet hair, wearing a man’s silk dressing gown. More flustered than he had seen her, she grabbed his bottle and pushed him into the sitting room with instructions to pour himself a drink, all the time gabbling apologies and saying something about the bloody telephone.
It was a fine, big room with a high ceiling, more comfortable than stylish. The walls were adorned with an eclectic collection of paintings. Melanie appeared to like vivid colours and busy street scenes. To Baggo’s eye most looked rather good. Beside the substantial wooden fireplace hung a painting of a woman’s head with a fish lying across her crown. Baggo checked the signature and it was a Bellany. He hoped it was not one of Tam Walker’s efforts. A tray of glasses and bottles sat on a table by the bay window. He mixed himself a generous gin and tonic and took a seat. He could hear the whir of a hair-dryer and wondered how long this lady would make him wait.
Just over five minutes later Melanie reappeared, her hair artfully loose, her make-up subtle. She wore a brightly-coloured, loose cotton dress that might have come from India. She poured herself a gin and tonic at least as strong as his, and without asking, took his glass and topped it up with more gin than tonic. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I have the e-mails but let’s enjoy dinner first. Any interesting developments?’
He told her about Dolan but restrained himself from describing No’s humiliation. He did not mention his spat with Flick. Subconsciously influenced by the painting beside the fireplace, he told her about Tam Walker.
‘Don’t worry about that one,’ she interjected, nodding towards it. ‘It has excellent provenance.’
When he finished she screwed up her face. ‘Do you really think that these murders in the West and Knox’s killing are linked to the fraud? The connections are so tenuous.’
‘But they’re there, and that’s why we need to look for something we’ve missed so far. But what about your day?’
‘I’ve been listening to speeches. Yawn, yawn. I quite envied Smail’s wife. She’s sat through the whole thing but once Mark finished dealing with the case against her husband she upped and offed and didn’t come back till nearly three when it was time for Smail’s counsel to address the jury.’
‘Really? When did she go?’
‘I don’t know. Some time before twelve. Why?’
‘It would have been possible for her to have killed that guy in Glasgow.’
‘Oh, yes. Hmm.’ She drank her gin. ‘I hope you won’t need me as a witness. I think I’d be hopeless, too ready to admit I might be mistaken.’ She took another sip. ‘Today went well, you know. Mark was brilliant this morning, totally brilliant. He made it so simple. We had three defence speeches this afternoon, bricks without straw, I should say, but you never know with a jury. The trial should finish on Monday.’
‘Gracious.’ If he was going to make anything of their relationship he would have to move quickly.
Melanie moved the conversation to her holiday plans (Machu Pichu with an old friend from school) and then it was time to eat.
A low sun dazzled him as he entered the west-facing kitchen. She pulled down the blind and lit two candles. A CD of Turandot playing in the background, they sat opposite each other at a sturdy wooden table, eating a casserole of chicken thighs flavoured with apricots, turmeric and other spices she refused to divulge, served with quinoa. She had opened the wine to let it breathe and he could see that she loved and understood food. As he ate he was aware of her glancing at him, anxious that he should enjoy her dish. His grunts of appreciation and readiness for a second helping told her all she needed to know. When they were finished she produced a platter of exotic cheeses.
They talked easily about holidays, travel, childhood. He loved her infectious giggle, indeed everything about her. As she fiddled with the controls to repeat Nessun Dorma, he poured the last of the wine, wondering what to do next, tempted to forget about the e-mails.
‘Now, coffee and work,’ she said with a sigh. ‘At the bar you get used to having nice evenings spoiled.’
Side by side on the sofa, they sipped dark, strong coffee and went through the ring binder containing copies of the e-mails with which Knox had tormented Burns during his last afternoon in court.
The e-mails had been sent during the early stages of the scam and at face value they showed Burns to be the driving force. Those from him displayed a detailed grasp of what was involved. In evidence he claimed that he had copied and pasted from other sources, including e-mails from his co-accused. He had been no more than a collator for them. None of the accused had done themselves any good by blaming the others, in Melanie’s opinion. She thought they would all go down, with the possible exception of Maltravers, the planner, ‘even if he is a sleazeball,’ she added.
Aware of their thighs touching, Baggo was having difficulty concentrating and turned another page when he exclaimed, ‘That’s it!’ He went back to the previous e-mail, which had been sent by Burns to Maltravers and read aloud from it: ‘“The soil type is Regosols, which you will know is well-drained and weakly developed. It is loose and very coarse and many golf courses on the East of Scotland are built on it, including Culrathie near Montrose. Fescue grass would be ideal for us as it has been at Culrathie. The environmental lobby are notoriously difficult to predict, but they are likely to focus on the harmful effects of the necessary fertilisation on wild life. It may be that we might have to pay more in order to obtain eco-friendly fertiliser. I suggest that we retain meadow grass as our rough so we do not alter the natural environment too much. An undertaking to introduce Marran grass near the water might be environmentally popular. It is vital that our fairways should be of the highest standard and we should insist on Fescue for them.”’
‘Fescue sounds like a Shakespearean character.’ She stuck her hand out in a dramatic gesture. ‘“Forsooth, Master Fescue, art thou a fool?” “Nay my lord. I am a seed. Sow me well and I shall make the finest fairways in all Christendom.”’ She turned to him, grinning. ‘Not bard but not bad?’
For the first time he appreciated how irritating Flick must find him. He knew he had hit on something important and was impatient to talk it through with her. ‘On Friday, Knox said something to Rab Bertram, his ex-pupil,’
‘Devil,’ she interrupted.
‘About revisiting the Culrathie inquiry when there had been all sorts of issues about soil and grass types and wildlife. They had to learn all about them.’
‘So?’
‘One, that evening it was still in the forefront of Knox’s mind. And two, in that inquiry he was junior counsel and Hutton was his senior.’
She sat back, coming to grips with the implications. ‘So Knox decimated Burns, who knew far less about soil and grasses than he did. Then it dawned on him that if Burns couldn’t have written that e-mail, Hutton was one of those who could. The penny dropped for Knox on Friday afternoon?’
‘Exactly. And Knox said something to Hutton after dinner but before the archery. Hutton said it was a cheeky remark about the archery, but maybe Knox told Hutton he’d rumbled him. Suddenly we have a High Court judge as a suspect.’
‘And Hutton killed Knox before he could tell anyone? But why should Hutton write the e-mail?’
‘Search me. Perhaps his was the brain behind the fraud.’
‘That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? He’s a High Court judge who reputedly made a fortune at the bar, enjoys a good salary and has a cracking pension to look forward to.’
‘He’s not happy. He’s strived in his profession to reach the summit but now that he’s there he hates the view. When I talked with him last night he seemed almost bored with the job.’
‘But not bored enough to take up serious crime, surely? It’s a nice thought, though, ’Orrible ’Utton banged up beside the poor buggers he’s sent down.’ Thoughtfully, she twisted a lock of hair round a finger then said, ‘Of course it might be the other side of that coin. Perhaps, unknown to Burn
s, Knox was the hidden brains behind the fraud. He made sure he prosecuted it to control what came out, but on Friday he showed too much knowledge in cross-examining Burns. And it was for Burns that the penny dropped. He realised that the guy prosecuting him had actually set up the whole thing. Presumably because Knox had double-crossed him, Burns decided to have Knox killed. And he had the contacts to do it.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Baggo admitted, ‘but it is not very likely. One thing is for sure, you twist things beautifully. And you will do very well at the bar.’
She beamed. ‘That’s two things, but I’m not sure I like being called a twister.’
‘It is a sincere compliment, believe me.’ He took her hand and kissed it in a courtly manner.
‘Then you are forgiven. Personally I think the two theories are equally unlikely. Come on, I fancy a drink. Do you? I have a nice Glenmorangie.’
‘Why not? I’ll quickly skim the rest of these e-mails, but I’m sure we’ve hit gold.’
He finished reading as she returned with the drams. He extracted the important e-mail from the binder and folded it carefully before putting it in his pocket. She fed the Turandot CD into the player in the sitting room and pressed some buttons. Then she sat down beside him on the sofa and put a hand on his knee.
‘Nessun Dorma again?’ he asked, his hopes of a sleepless night rising.
He did not return to his B and B until breakfast time.
* * *
The door leading to the kitchen closed as Baggo crept into his B and B and upstairs to his room. He quickly showered and changed, and went down for breakfast as if it were an ordinary morning. But it was not. The last eight hours would be etched on his memory for life. Melanie the advocate had raised the bar for sexual ecstasy and as he dressed he giggled happily and shamelessly at the dreadful pun. During the walk back he had received a text from Flick: ‘Hope you can make briefing @ 9. Many developments. F.’ It seemed she was on her way to forgiving him and he wanted to reciprocate. He would need to hurry.
‘Good morning, Detective Sergeant,’ the landlord had a sarcastic note in his voice as he placed a plate of bacon and egg in front of him.
‘Good morning. It is another lovely day, I see.’
‘And this is a splendid time for a walk, before it gets hot.’
Baggo ignored this, bolted his breakfast and set off for Cupar.
Thanks to some fast driving on the M90, he was on time for the briefing. Flick nodded at him in a way that was neither friendly nor unfriendly and began to go through the information that had come to hand during the last twenty-four hours. Smiling at Baggo, Wallace pointed out that if Osborne had not been there to find Dolan’s body, everyone might have assumed that it was just another Glasgow low-life meeting a violent end. Baggo then talked about the Burns/Maltravers e-mail.
When he finished, Wallace said, ‘But you can’t get away from the fact that the Dean’s husband gives Hutton a virtual alibi for Knox’s murder and he has an unshakable one for Dolan’s as he couldn’t have been sitting in the Appeal Court in Edinburgh and stabbing Dolan in Glasgow at the same time. He could have killed Walker, of course, but a judge doing that? Surely not.’
Flick said, ‘It could have been a joint venture, Hutton with Eloise Knox. She has no alibi for her husband’s death, or for Dolan’s, and it could have been a woman’s voice that called to Dolan.’
Baggo said, ‘At least with a Hutton/Eloise conspiracy we have motives – her unhappy marriage and the insurance money. None of our other suspects has a decent motive that I can see.’
‘Let’s assume Dolan was killed because he had seen or heard something important regarding Knox’s death,’ Flick said. ‘The killer must have read the paper and immediately identified Dolan as the informant. Gary Thomson is the only person connected with this business who knew Dolan. And don’t forget that Hutton tried to give him that lenient sentence.’
Baggo said, ‘Might Dolan have tried previously to blackmail the killer, whoever that was? Perhaps they met and couldn’t agree or something went wrong, and so he decided to settle for the easier twenty thousand from the paper.’
‘Our problem is we’ve theories galore but precious little evidence,’ Flick sighed.
The phone rang and Wallace answered. ‘It’s for you,’ he mouthed at Baggo.
It was Pete Bothwell. Sounding sheepish, he said that Mona McBride had phoned him ten minutes earlier, looking for the reward. She said she had a painting in her flat that Tam had given her, telling her that if anything happened to him, she should show it to the police. ‘Maybe you’ll give me an exclusive on this,’ he added hopefully.
‘Maybe,’ Baggo said. ‘But don’t dare put anything in the paper without my say-so. Thank you anyway,’ he added, fancying that Flick had seemed impressed by his assertiveness.
When he told the rest what had been said, Flick announced that she would go through to Coatbridge immediately. ‘We don’t want anything to happen to this bit of evidence,’ she said.
Baggo detected the hand of her husband, Fergus, in Flick’s change of attitude towards him, but he wanted things to be right between them and he followed her into her office after the briefing.
‘Again, I’m sorry about Osborne,’ he said.
She sat in her chair, rubbing both sides of her stomach as she had the previous day. ‘It was very careless, but I’m sorry I went off the deep end.’
‘You did, but it is okay,’ then he added, ‘Flick.’
‘I want you on the team and working,’ she said, and added, ‘I’d like you to come through to Coatbridge with me.’
‘Delighted. But I have things to do in Edinburgh so we should take separate cars.’
‘Right. It seems you may have Good News trained at last. They were very polite about me this morning.’
‘I tried to turn the situation to my advantage,’ he said with a grin.
‘I won’t ask how, but thanks. It hasn’t been an easy time for us.’ She patted her stomach and Baggo could swear he saw movement under her clothing.
* * *
Baggo and Flick drove separately then liaised at the McDonald’s car park in Airdrie before going together in his hired car to see Mona. They did not have the local police with them and it would be unfortunate if two cars were to be vandalised outside the Whifflet flats while they were there.
There was, if anything, more glass littering the car park than there had been two days earlier. The stench of the lift that served as a urinal in their nostrils, they welcomed the overpowering musky scent with which Mona had liberally sprayed herself prior to their arrival.
This time she had squeezed herself into a black cocktail dress with dark tights and she tottered about in shiny black shoes with absurdly high heels. As far as Baggo was concerned, the effect was the opposite of what she intended as she reminded him of a human black pudding. Yet for all the caked make-up, theatrical dabbing of eyes and gushing grief, she seemed to have a warmth and generosity of spirit lacking in most of those who mocked her.
‘I’d expected Mr Bothwell,’ she said, after a lengthy speech about how wonderful Tam had been. ‘I’ll still get the reward, won’t I?’ She looked beseechingly from Flick to Baggo.
‘That’s up to the paper,’ Flick said, ‘but if it helps to identify the killer we’ll back you up.’
‘He painted it around Christmas,’ Mona said, ‘but it was just the day before he died that he told me to show it to you if anything happened to him.’
‘Which one is it?’ Flick asked, looking round the Picassos and Van Goghs vying for space on her living room walls with a huge flat-screen TV.
‘Come with me,’ she said, leading the way into her bedroom. Stretching the fabric of her dress to near bursting point, she reached under the bed and pulled out a TK Maxx polythene bag. Inside was a Bellany, perhaps half a metre by a third of a metre. Done in watercolour, it depicted a head with something across the crown. The head might have been male or female, age indeterminate, with
a long, thin face, and a lower jaw so short that the chin began just under the bottom lip. The hair was dark brown with streaks of silver running through it. A misshapen, grey object with curls that looked like eyes, hanging down both sides, lay across the scalp. The eyes were looking out to sea and on the horizon was an island. There was a chest, out of proportion in terms of size, sitting on the island.
Flick and Baggo exchanged looks. ‘We’d better take this,’ she said.
Before leaving, they questioned Mona to see if she could help with any more information, but she could not. Thanking her and promising to help her claim her reward if the painting proved helpful, they left.
In the car, mercifully undamaged, as Flick checked her phone, Baggo took the painting out of the bag.
Flick exclaimed, ‘Here we go again. Spider’s been researching Tam Walker’s trial, and guess who defence counsel was? Henry Hutton QC.’
‘Surprise, surprise,’ Baggo said. ‘Now let us have a close look at this painting.’ They both peered at it, searching for some hidden message.
‘I think it just shows Lord Hutton and a treasure island,’ she said. ‘And that could be merely a cynic’s view of defence counsel and the legal aid fund.’
‘I agree it is a representation of Hutton. Whatever message it sends is there to be seen, but I do not think we are seeing all of it,’ he said as she re-wrapped it.
As Baggo drove to McDonald’s to pick up Flick’s car, she frowned. ‘So this could be evidence pointing to Hutton being involved in the fraud and probably the murders, but it will never stand up in court. We don’t have anything against him except a whole lot of coincidences. And don’t forget, he has alibis for two of the murders.’
‘True,’ he said, ‘we are going to have to flush him out, but first we must understand the full message in the painting. Do you mind if I take it? There is someone I know who might help us and I will need to get back to Edinburgh. Oh, and I shall try to see Nicola Smail about her alibi for yesterday lunch time.’