Ghost in the Machine (Scott Cullen)

by Ed James

  Cullen introduced himself and Miller.

  "This is my pal Jenny," said Kim.

  "Hi," said Jenny.

  "She's going travelling to Thailand," added Kim, "and we were out last night. She left her purse in the restaurant and I'd picked it up."

  "Was Mr Thomson with you?" asked Cullen.

  Kim and Jenny exchanged looks. "No, it was a girl's night out," said Kim.

  "I see." Cullen handed Jenny one of his cards. "Can I take a mobile number in case I need to contact you again?" he asked.

  She shared a look with Kim. "I'm leaving for Thailand tonight," she said.

  "I'd still like to make sure I can get in contact with you. I don't want to overlook anything in this case."

  She relented and he scribbled her number down in his notebook.

  She looked at Kim. "I'll be off, then."

  "I'll just show her out," said Kim to Cullen.

  They left the room and Cullen could hear the front door opening.

  "Tasty bit of skirt," said Miller. "Very tasty. She wouldnae have to change her name much if we got married." He laughed at his joke. "You were pretty swift there, though, getting her mate's phone number."

  Cullen smiled reluctantly. "That's in case this alibi falls apart and I need to retrace both of Kim and Rob's steps."

  "You're the boss."

  Cullen looked around the kitchen. It was in dire need of modernisation, totally at odds with the rest of the flat. It had some old tired melamine door fronts, yellowed with age, and a laminated wood worktop that was curling up at the edges. The counter was festooned with gadgets - coffee machine, coffee grinder, electric pepper mill, four-slice toaster, glass kettle - and a range of high-end pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. On a large, modern, expensive-looking kitchen table, made from waxed oak, sat a laptop. The screen showed Schoolbook. An iPhone and a Blackberry sat next to it. There were two coffee mugs on the table, showing it hadn't been a fleeting visit from Jenny.

  Cullen heard the front door close and Kim returned.

  "Sorry about that," she said. "Can I get you a coffee?"

  "We're fine," said Cullen. Miller looked irritated. Cullen pointed at the laptop. "I see you're working hard here."

  She laughed. "Aye, I'm addicted to Schoolbook. I'm on it all the time, on my phone, on my laptop."

  "I'm on there too," said Cullen. "It's compulsive."

  They sat down around the table, Kim at one end, Miller and Cullen at the other. The room had an impressive view out across the gardens at the back through a sash and case window. No wonder Kim sat in that room despite the lack of modern furnishings.

  "Ms Milne," said Cullen, "I need to advise you that we're investigating the disappearance of your partner's ex-wife."

  She rubbed her hands together slowly. "Aye, Rob phoned and told us."

  Cullen wasn't surprised.

  " Caroline went missing at some time on Wednesday evening. It would appear that she went on a date with a man, and didn't return to her flat or collect her son."

  "Christ," said Kim.

  "Can you detail your and Mr Thomson's movements on Wednesday evening?"

  She opened her eyes wide. "You don't think...?"

  "Ms Milne," said Cullen, "I'm sure you want to help eliminate Rob from any possible suspicion."

  "Is he under suspicion?" she asked.

  "At the moment, there is nothing to be suspected of," said Cullen. "As far as we know, no crime has yet been committed. However, we need to make sure that any investigations we undertake now are appropriate and that we don't disappear down any rabbit holes. So, can you confirm your activities on Wednesday evening?"

  "Aye, well, we were both in work late."

  "And you work at Alba Bank?"

  "Aye. I'm in Corporate, he's in IT." She bunched her hair up and placed it over one shoulder. "We went for dinner to that Italian on Leith Walk, Vittoria or Victoria, whatever it's called, then we went home. Rob paid, so I don't have a receipt or anything."

  "And you then went home?"

  "Aye," she replied. "Think we watched some telly then went to bed."

  Cullen scribbled it down. Thomson's alibi checked out but neither of them had a receipt for the meal, though.

  "Can I ask about your relationship with Mr Thomson?"

  "You can ask," she said, "but I'm not really happy talking about it."

  "I understand that, but can I remind you that we're dealing with a disappearance and we need to check all avenues with a view to finding her."

  "Okay." Kim bit her lip, seemed to think for a moment. "Rob and I got together at a night out. We'd just finished a project, migrating from some old mortgage systems in Ireland to some new ones." She picked up one of the coffee mugs on the table and set it alongside the one in front of her. "We tried to keep it under wraps for a bit cos of Rob's family. But Caroline found a text from me on Rob's Blackberry at home. She went mental."

  "And when was this?"

  "This was in March," she said. "They got divorced in August, but Rob had moved in with me in April, I think. I had a flat in Polwarth at the time. Then we bought this place in September. Rob earns a decent amount of money so it helped. It was in a bit of a state at the time, but we're slowly getting there." She pointed around the room. "This is the last room, except for the box room. I've got a kitchen designer coming round this afternoon. I want a nice kitchen."

  "Thank you." Cullen finished jotting the information down - he'd already managed to form a loose timeline. "Were you close to Caroline at all?"

  She looked out of the window. "We used to go out together occasionally - Rob, Caroline and my boyfriend at the time. That obviously stopped after Rob and I got together."

  "And how do you get on with Jack?" he asked.

  "I'm not the maternal type," she said. "Not yet anyway. It's good for Rob to see him, I suppose, but it's not like I get all broody or anything. Far from it."

  "And do you spend time with them on Rob's days?"

  "I just let them get on with it, to be honest. I prefer to go shopping, maybe meet them for a bit to eat later on."

  "Okay," said Cullen. "I think that's all for now."

  He got Miller to read out her statement.

  Cullen was already driving by the time Miller had got his seatbelt on.

  "Can't believe how much you were flirtin' with her there."

  "I wasn't!" exclaimed Cullen.

  "You fuckin' were."

  "How do you think that went?" asked Cullen, trying to distract Miller.

  "Went alright, eh?" replied Miller. "Feels like a bit of a waste of time, though but."

  "Even though it feels like we're just going through the motions," said Cullen, "we need to cover absolutely everything. Last thing we want is Bain going mental cos we forgot to ask her about the alibi, or some lawyer tearing the case to shreds cos of something we did or, more likely, didn't."

  Cullen knew that he'd have to give chapter and verse when they got back to the station, so he wanted Miller to get some much-needed practice at note taking. Plus, he wanted to spend some time looking for Martin Webb.

  "Can you write up the notes?" asked Cullen. "If you want to be a proper DC then your note-taking has to be perfect. It can be brutal, especially if you're in court."

  Miller looked irritated. "How do you mean? You're not exactly Gene Hunt, are you? How long you been a DC?"

  "Three months as a DC, six months Acting, and two six month attachments before that."

  "Aye, fair enough, then," said Miller, looking out of the window.

  Cullen crossed the roundabout at London Road and continued down Leith Walk. Two blocks down and the main entrance of the Leith Walk station welcomed them in, still lit up in the rain.

  Leith Walk was a long stretch lined by tenements and shops, arterial streets leading off both sides to Viccy Park and Bonnington Road in the north, and Easter Road in the South. Its completion in the 1920s was the final nail in the coffin of Leith's independence, when the town was subsu
med into the City of Edinburgh. The Walk had been attempting to gentrify itself for the past fifteen or so years, but struggled to match the New Town at the Edinburgh end or the upmarket Shore in Leith. Style bars were wedged in amongst charity shops and bookies, an old gym had turned into a designer light shop, stuck next to a knock-off KFC clone. Leith Walk police station was nestled between tenements on one side and Macdonald Road library on the other, eight wide storeys of glass and stone facing, located on the site of a former petrol station and some waste ground.

  Cullen flashed his warrant card to the security guard in the booth, and then drove down to the basement, where he dumped the pool car.

  "Pretty swanky in here," said Miller, as he slammed the car door shut far too hard. "Still can't get over it, likes."

  Cullen nodded agreement; he'd previously only known crumbling local stations and cheaply built new stations in West Lothian, and the already dated St Leonards, built in the mid-90s.

  The station had only opened in the summer, balancing the A Division egos out by giving the former Eastern Edinburgh division a gleaming new office equivalent to the St Leonards HQ on the south side, though much newer. It was to serve as a community policing hub, and to provide much needed permanent office space for CID and other investigatory teams, and a replacement for the City's mortuary, previously sited in the Cowgate. The Gayfield Square station, the previous home of CID, now served as a uniform-only station. It was much closer to the east end of Princes Street where a lot of petty crime was still focused, though Cullen thought its days must surely be numbered.

  "I was in Fettes for six month," said Miller as they started climbing the stairs at the back of the building, "that's a total shite hole. You'd expect it to be gleamin' with all the brass in there, eh? No idea where they got the money for this place, likes."

  "Doubt it'd get built now," said Cullen.

  "How's that?" asked Miller.

  "Government cuts and all that."

  Bain and McNeill were at their desks, each glaring at their computer. Bain shot a glance up at them. "Well, if it isn't Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. Found her yet, Sundance?"

  "Not yet," replied Cullen.

  "Been keeping Monkey Boy out of trouble, though, I hope."

  Cullen shrugged. "We've been making progress."

  "Oh aye?"

  "Do you want a timeline?" asked Cullen.

  "Suits me."

  Cullen, Bain and McNeill moved to the meeting table just behind Bain's desk. Cullen shook his jacket off, chucked it on his chair. He got his notebook out and flicked to the relevant pages.

  "Caroline Adamson," said Cullen. "She dropped her son, Jack, off with her friend Amy Cousens at the back of six on Wednesday night. Caroline was going on a date with a man she'd met on the internet. None of the friends I've spoken to even knew the name of this guy. I found her laptop at her flat; he's called Martin Webb."

  "I hope you weren't messin' about with it, Sundance."

  "Hardly. Bloody thing timed out on me. She was meeting this guy somewhere on the South side."

  "You've no idea where exactly?" asked McNeill.

  "That's right. We've spoken to Amy Cousens, a school friend called Steve Allen and a former work colleague called Debi Curtis. None of them knew where she was going. Spoke to her ex-husband, but he's not seen her in a while." He turned the page of his notebook. "We had a couple of text messages in the hour between seven and eight, one to Amy and one to Steve. Both replied, but didn't get replies back. Both stated that this is unusual for her."

  "Does it look like she's run away?" asked McNeill.

  "I doubt it," said Cullen. "I had a good look through her flat. Her wardrobe and chest of drawers were absolutely rammed with clothes, and her suitcases were still under the bed. Plus, it doesn't fit. According to her friends, Caroline lived for her son. She wouldn't just leave him like that."

  "Wasn't pissed off with him or anything?" asked Bain. "Didn't think he'd ruined her life?"

  "Quite the opposite, I gather."

  "Go on, then," said Bain.

  "Okay. Next is the following afternoon, when Caroline was supposed to pick Jack up from Amy Cousens."

  "When was this?"

  "They hadn't set a time, just early afternoon. That's when Amy started getting worried. She tried calling her a few times, went round to her flat, but there were no signs of her."

  "And so she called Queen Charlotte Street this morning?" asked Bain.

  "Yes."

  He scratched the top of his head, face scrunched up. "Right, Sundance, so this ex-husband?"

  "Rob Thomson," confirmed Cullen. "They got divorced in a bit of a hurry; he had an affair with someone at work, it all seemed to go through fairly quickly."

  "And you boys spoke to him?"

  "Aye," said Cullen, nodding at Miller. "He has an alibi for Wednesday night; his girlfriend, Kim Milne. She's the cause of the divorce, by the way. They had an affair when they were working together. Keith's got a statement from her to write up."

  Bain nodded. "Good work. Well, obviously he's got a motive; wants his son back, or revenge for something that happened in their divorce – too much money, maybe."

  "Something funny about the alibi, though," said Cullen. "Might be something, might be nothing. They both worked late, to the back of eight and then went for a meal at an Italian just down the road. Neither of them got a receipt."

  "You think she could be lying for him?"

  Cullen thought it through. "Wouldn't rule it out," he said, "but I wouldn't build a case around it either."

  "Did this Kim lassie have anything to do with Caroline?" asked Bain.

  "They used to double-date as couples before the divorce. Didn't appear to have anything against her."

  "And she doesn't want to grab this Jack laddie off Caroline?"

  "Don't think so. According to her, she isn't interested in kids."

  "Aye, according to her," said Bain. "Right, Monkey Boy, can you go and visit this Italian, see if they had the pair of them in?"

  "Aw, come on, gaffer."

  "Shut it and do it, Miller," snarled Bain.

  "I was going to look for this Martin Webb guy next," said Cullen.

  "Right," said Bain. "So is that all the leads done?"

  "For now," said Cullen.

  "Has anyone spoken to her parents yet?" asked Bain.

  "Amy Cousens did."

  "Probably don't want to overly concern them just now." He stroked his moustache.

  "What do you want us to do then?" asked Cullen.

  Bain looked at McNeill. "Butch, you can continue the sterling progress you're making with our Cold Case there," he said. He had a look through the file on Caroline. "Looks like plod have already called round the hospitals and that, but it won't harm to do it again. Miller, once you've finished with the Italian, I want you on that. And typin' up that lassie's statement, too."

  "Fuck's sake, man."

  Bain smacked his hand off the table. "Miller, can I remind you that you're an Acting DC so you do what I fuckin' say, unless you want to go back to wearing a woolly suit rather than the cheap fuckin' nylon one you've got on."

  six

  Cullen slumped back in his chair, unsure what to do next. The rest of the team were away from their desks. He decided that he could get his timeline nailed while he waited for inspiration - he didn't want to get pulled up for his note taking after the pep talk he'd given Miller.

  McNeill appeared with a coffee for them both. He thanked her.

  "You got a minute?" he asked.

  "Sure." She sat on her desk chair facing him.

  He rubbed his hand over his face. "I'm struggling to find Martin Webb," he said.

  "This is the guy she was on a date with, right?"

  He nodded.

  "Where have you looked?" She wheeled her chair over to his desk.

  "I've checked all the databases we've got access to, twice. I've phoned three directory enquiries numbers. So far, I've found seventeen matches fo
r the name within the UK."

  "And?"

  He counted them off on his fingers. "Four OAPs, two guys in their fifties, seven guys in their forties, a teenager, two children and a severely disabled man in his thirties."

  "Could our man not be one of the old men or the guys in their forties or fifties?" she asked.

  "Well that's just it," he replied, "this guy is in his 30s at the very most and looks pretty healthy." He tapped on the monitor. "This is his profile on Schoolbook."

  McNeill rolled her chair over to look. She wolf-whistled. "He's a looker, all right."

  "Aye, well."

  "Could it be spelled with a 'y'?" she asked.

  He tapped the screen. "Martin with an 'i'. But anyway, I've searched for that, not a single one."

  She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "Have you tried phoning Schoolbook?" she asked.

  "Aye." He checked his notebook. "Spoke to a Gregor Aitchison. They've actually got an office in Livingston."

  "And who's he?"

  "Said he was a manager, but didn't give a clear title. He said we'd need a warrant for any information on their servers."

  McNeill nodded slowly. "Doesn't mean that we can't head over there, see what we can force out of him."

  Cullen parked outside the Schoolbook building. "Here we are," he said to McNeill.

  It was a corrugated iron warehouse painted purple over the rust, the Schoolbook.co.uk logo etched on in light blue. The building was totally dwarfed by the BSkyB campus next door, one of the biggest employers in West Lothian.

  McNeill followed Cullen across the car park, her heels clicking on the tarmac. The clouds were dark grey again, a sign to Cullen that the day hadn't finished with its rain.

  The front door was unlocked and there was no obvious reception area. They walked past rows and rows of computers, walls piled high with servers - racks and racks of desktops with no monitors, all with banks of flashing lights. It reminded Cullen of a mailroom he'd worked in as a student but with computers rather than post boxes. They came to an open office area, filled with twenty-something men with loud t-shirts and headphones on, all tapping away at laptops. One guy walked along the far end of the room with a PC under each arm. Nobody looked around at them.