Ghost in the Machine (Scott Cullen)

by Ed James

  "You having a good night?" asked Dawn.

  "Why?"

  She laughed at him. "You don't seem to be."

  "Well, I wonder why."

  Two taxis pulled up, and Cullen got into one with Dawn. Tom and Johnny appeared from somewhere and joined them. Katie's boyfriend climbed in as well. He called an address out to the driver.

  "Party at ours," he said.

  "You going out with Katie?" asked Cullen after a while.

  The guy held out his hand. "Steven," he said. "And we're not just going out, mate. We're engaged."

  Cullen looked at Dawn, looked at Johnny, looked at Tom; they all looked away.

  Why had nobody told him?

  Cullen stood at the kitchen sink in Katie and Steven's flat on Grange Loan, drinking from a can of Red Stripe he'd taken from the fridge. He recalled someone saying that Katie and Steven shared it with a girl called Alison who worked with Steven.

  Some shit French House music spewed out of the speakers. Tom was standing by the sofa in front of Cullen, playing the ten-pin bowling game on the Wii. The big lummox had almost smashed into the TV twice already. Johnny sat on another sofa, Dawn sprawled all over him.

  Katie and Steven stood by the door, laughing with kimono girl and another couple.

  Cullen took a swig of beer and looked out of the window. There was a good view across the back of the tenements, over the communal lawn, lit up from the lights in the flats. It was exactly like all of the other flats in this area that he'd been in. This was just like so many other nights, except without a drunken fumble with some random girl. He really needed to move on.

  He looked back into the room. Kimono girl was reaching into the fridge for a drink. She looked up at him and smiled.

  Cullen raised his can, and returned the smile.

  "Hiya, I'm Alison."

  "Scott."

  "Ah, so you're Scott."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Let's just say Katie's mentioned you once or twice."

  "She has, has she?"

  Alison nodded. "So I hear you're a policeman, then?"

  "I am."

  She raised an eyebrow. "I love a man in uniform."

  He laughed. She was even more pissed than he was. That was an awful line, he thought. "Yeah, well, I'm a detective so I don't actually wear a uniform any more. Just a suit."

  "Oh, right, didn't know that. So you, what, catch murderers, is that right?"

  "Supposedly."

  "Are you on a case just now?" she asked.

  "Yeah, supposed to be. I'm off tomorrow so I won't be catching anyone."

  "Hmm," she purred, leaning against the counter, supported by her arms. Cullen caught a look from Katie, who was scowling at him. "So you're like Taggart then?"

  "The reality of it is very different from TV," said Cullen. "Long hours, frustration, dealing with a boss who wants to kill you."

  "It's very glamorous on the telly."

  "Aye well, it's not. Crawling around murder scenes, chasing loose ends, dealing with wankers. That's the reality. And don't get me started on the books. Half of them have a DCI or a bloody ACC running round investigating crimes. All they really do is massage statistics and give crime prevention seminars. It's a joke. It's people like me that do all the work and get none of the thanks."

  He took a swig from his can, looking her up and down just as she did the same. He moved closer. Katie was looking over at them, even more disapproving than before. Ah fuck it, he thought.

  "So, tell me," he said, "where do you work?"

  "I work in HR at RBS."

  "Mmm," he said, "so do you get to wear a uniform?"

  Cullen's opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

  Where was he?

  And what the fuck was that noise?

  His mobile.

  He struggled out of the bed, almost tripping up. His head throbbed. He rummaged around in the pile of clothes, dug under the t-shirt, under the silver kimono, fumbled with his jeans, reached in the wrong pocket, then the correct one, all the while his head battered. The clock on the bedside cabinet said ten thirty; he hadn't a clue when he'd got to sleep.

  He answered the phone without checking the display.

  "Cullen," he croaked.

  "Sundance?"

  Bain. What the fuck?

  "You better get your arse over here. We've found Caroline Adamson."

  Cullen sat back. "How is she?"

  "She's fuckin' dead."

  Saturday

  31st July 2011

  ten

  The 'here' that Bain had referred to was the Jackson Hotel on Minto Street, three doors down from the Minto Hotel. Cullen had been in the Jackson's function room a couple times as a student for birthday parties. One of them had been in full Highland dress - kilt, sporran, jacket, the lot - he'd hated it. The night itself had been a disaster, mainly due to a row he had with Katie.

  Fuck, was he tired. He checked his watch as he entered the hotel; 10.32am.

  Cullen had walked from Alison's flat, just over a mile away. He felt guilty for leaving her still asleep in bed. He'd left his mobile number, but it didn't stop him feeling shallow. Katie had really wound him up; he hadn't expected her engagement and then she'd just flaunted it, her paws all over that guy. So he'd slept with her flatmate in retaliation.

  He followed the signs down the corridor towards the room where they'd found Caroline Adamson's body, room 20. The place was crammed with Scene of Crime Officers, dressed in their white overalls, looking to Cullen like they were almost finished their examination. He had passed their dirty white van in the car park out front.

  A short man with a goatee and slicked back hair, who Cullen vaguely recognised, passed him in the corridor heading into the room.

  He spotted Bain and McNeill standing in the hallway outside the room, looking out of the window to the car park at the back, Bain's hand stroking his moustache. Cullen caught his own reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall in the corridor; he looked even worse than he felt. He felt like he'd died twice over.

  "Sir," Cullen announced.

  "Sundance, I've told you before; just call me Brian," said Bain, turning round. His eyes just about popped out on stalks. "Jesus Christ, Cullen, what the fuck have you been up to?"

  "I was out clubbing."

  "For God's sake, Sundance, you should have bloody said."

  McNeill looked down at his t-shirt and laughed.

  "So what happened?" he asked.

  "Cleaner found her."

  McNeill picked up the thread. "There'd been a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door since Wednesday night. She came in this morning to clean. They've got a policy of disturbing after two days." She paused. "She got lucky."

  "Aye, some jokers from your old patch came sniffin' around," said Bain, alluding to St Leonards. "One of them recognised Caroline from the photograph in the Press Release we sent out last night. We've just completed a handover from them."

  "Jesus. Have the parents been told?" asked Cullen.

  Bain scowled at him. "I do know how to run a murder investigation, DC Cullen. Yes, they have. A local teuchter plod went round to their house."

  "Okay, so where's the body?" asked Cullen. "Can I have a look?"

  "In there," said Bain, nodding into the room. "Jimmy Deeley's just about ready to take her up to the morgue after we've had a look. The SOCO boys are done with her now."

  "What was the cause of death?"

  "Don't know yet," said Bain. "There was a fuck of a lot of blood in there, though. Looks like a stabbing."

  They put on disposable plastic shoe covers and Bain led them both through.

  James Deeley was the City's Chief Pathologist. He stood with his back to them, his bulk blocking the doorway into the bedroom, talking into a digital recorder, his bald head gleaming off the temporary spotlights. He turned around and nodded acknowledgement to Cullen. They knew each other from St Leonards.

  "Got a time yet, Jimmy?" asked Bain.

/>   "I'd say between 11pm on Wednesday and 7am on Thursday. She's been dead for at least a couple of days, but she's clean as a bloody whistle," said Deeley, with an air of disappointment.

  "Have you or Anderson found anything yet?" asked Bain.

  "We haven't managed to find any forensic traces here," he said, "but we may be able to get something back at the lab."

  "Thanks for that, Jimmy. I'll take that up with the SOCOs." Bain pointed into the room. "Now, talk to me. What's happened here?"

  "It looks like she was tortured before she died, mainly strangulation. Some sort of rope; hopefully we can get some fibres from the wound that Forensics can do something with."

  From the way they talked to each other, Cullen guessed they were either old friends or old adversaries, but he couldn't decide which.

  "Cause of death?" asked Bain.

  "I'd hazard a guess at the huge gash on her throat, caused by a large knife. Looks like a serrated blade."

  Bain didn't rise to Deeley's bait. "Anything sexual?"

  Deeley shrugged. "Too early to say for sure, but it doesn't look that way. What I would say is that this is definitely a deliberate killing, not some sex game gone wrong or anything like that."

  "Okay, so no signs of rape then?" asked Bain.

  "As I say, I'll know for certain once I've done the Post Mortem, but I don't think so."

  "Cheers," said Bain, scratching his scalp.

  "I'll get out of your way for now," said Deeley. "Let me know when you've finished and I'll get one of the boys to remove her. Don't be too long, I need to get that bloody PM done, cos some bloody DI wants to know if she's been raped."

  Bain grinned at the Pathologist.

  Deeley made his way past them, allowing Bain, McNeill and Cullen into the room. Cullen stopped and looked down at Caroline's body. She lay on the bed, arms and legs spread, her skin pale, as if all the blood had been drained from her. Her mouth was covered with gaffer tape. The only colour on the upper surface of her body was a set of red, raw-looking marks all over her throat, beneath a long, ragged cut. It looked like someone had crudely hacked at her rather than doing a neat butchery job. The white sheets were now almost completely dyed dark red from her blood.

  Cullen's stomach lurched. He raced through into the bathroom, just catching his vomit in the pan. Three heaves and it was over.

  "You bastard," snapped a voice behind him.

  Cullen turned around slowly, a dribble of sick on his chin.

  A SOCO stood over him, the one with the goatee. "I've no finished examinin' the bog, yet."

  eleven

  Back at the station, Cullen finished his second mug of tea just before noon. He was starting to feel a little more human, but he was still exhausted. He had changed back into his suit, and put on the same crumpled shirt he'd worn the previous day.

  Cullen, Bain and McNeill stood in front of a whiteboard, with Bain scribbling away. Bain had been running through the file Cullen had collated, trying to summarise the case so far. He looked stressed, but still he spoke calmly and clearly in measured tones. He'd already gotten through half of a litre bottle of Red Bull clone, enough to stop anyone else's heart, Cullen figured. Or start it.

  DS Holdsworth had been called in to set up the Incident Room, at the opposite side of the building, facing north towards the Forth. The large plasma screen mounted on the wall showed the standard Lothian and Borders screensaver. The opposite wall was covered with large prints of the photos taken at the scene of the crime, interspersed with photos of Caroline alive, provided by Amy Cousens, including the one used in the Press Release. People were being dragged in from the day shift - Cullen had already seen McAllister hovering around. Wilkinson and his team had now been formally allocated to the case. They were all out interviewing guests at the hotel, trying to track down anyone who had been at the hotel on Wednesday night.

  Miller had been assigned to getting the case into HOLMES – the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. He had told Cullen that he had done the training course while still in uniform - Cullen was grateful to have avoided the dubious pleasure. No doubt Miller would have mentioned his HOLMES certification to Turnbull in his promotion case.

  "Right," said Bain, "the post mortem's in an hour, so I want to get this out of the way quickly. Sharon, I want you there with me."

  "Fine," said McNeill.

  "How are you getting on with the RIPSA form?" asked Cullen.

  "Eh?" Bain evaded his gaze.

  "I thought that I didn't need to come in today and that you'd be progressing it?"

  "Well, I never got round to it, did I?" said Bain. "I was in at 7, then I got called out to that hotel."

  "Yeah, but what time was that? You called me at the back of ten."

  Bain glared at him. "Constable, drop it."

  "Come on."

  "Sundance, you've just decorated a crime scene with the contents of your guts and you turned up for work half-cut."

  "Come on," spat Cullen, "today's supposed to be my day off."

  "Okay, okay, okay." Bain shut his eyes and stroked his moustache. "What was this RIPSA request about again?"

  Cullen took a deep breath. "To get access to Schoolbook."

  "Right." Bain checked his watch. "Turnbull's in this afternoon, I'll have a word with him then."

  "Can't you authorise it now?" asked McNeill.

  "No. It needs to go through Jim."

  Cullen shook his head in disbelief.

  "Can you not get anything off them without a warrant or RIPSA?" asked Bain.

  "They were pretty hard line about it yesterday," said Cullen. "They gave what they could."

  "Can you not play the daft laddie?" asked Bain. "Or the big, scary policeman?" He laughed at his own joke.

  "I thought you were worried about how this would look to the press?" asked Cullen.

  "Aye, okay," said Bain. "As I say, I'll speak to Jim this afternoon and that's the end of the matter." He took another swig of energy drink. "Let's think about suspects." He wrote 'Rob Thomson' on the whiteboard. "So what do we know about him?"

  "The victim's ex-husband," said McNeill.

  Cullen felt his stomach lurch again. It suddenly hit him that Caroline was no longer a missing person. She was now officially a murder victim.

  "And there's no history of violence between them?" said Bain.

  "Not that we can find," said Cullen. "Miller checked his record. Nothing came up when we asked her friends."

  Bain looked thoughtful for a moment. He drew in a line connecting Rob's and Caroline's names. "They've got a wee boy, Jack, is that right?"

  "Yes," replied Cullen.

  "What's Thomson's relationship with his son like, then?" asked Bain.

  "He's not going to climb up a crane, dressed as Spiderman, to get access rights, put it that way," said Cullen.

  McNeill laughed.

  "Oh, very good, Sundance, but this is a murder now, so try and cut the humour down a bit, okay?"

  "Fine."

  "How often does he see him, then?" asked McNeill.

  "Once a fortnight," Cullen replied. "Debi Curtis said that they'd recently had a row about it."

  "Climbing a crane time?" asked Bain.

  "Thought there was no joking allowed," said Cullen.

  "Only from me," said Bain. "So was it Rob arguing about more access, or what?"

  "I got the impression it was about Thomson cancelling at the last minute. It may have happened a few times."

  "If that's true then we can rule out killing her to get access to his son," said Bain.

  Cullen thought it over. "Probably. He acts like a single guy, if you know what I mean. He's got a younger girlfriend, and neither of them seems to be that into the whole family thing."

  "Is he getting stung for a big wad?" asked Bain.

  "I don't know."

  "We can look into that. Sharon?"

  "Okay." She scribbled down in her notebook.

  "Even though he's got an alibi," said Bain, "he's
our number one suspect here."

  Bain wrote 'Martin Webb' and 'AN Other' on the board. He tapped 'AN Other'. "I've put that up just to cover all bases. We might be dealing with a random attack. But that'll come out in the wash, I guess." He put the cap back on the pen. "So, Martin Webb. Amy Cousens reckons that Caroline was meeting this guy for a date?"

  "Corroborated by her friend Steve Allen," confirmed Cullen. "I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. He lives through in Glasgow - think they were at school together, but he spoke to Caroline a lot. She'd told both Steve and Amy about a date but neither of them knew Martin Webb's name."

  "Right."

  "There were a few postings by Caroline on Schoolbook about meeting him," said McNeill. "Stuff like 'Off on date tonight'. Nothing too explicit."

  "I still don't get what Schoolbook actually is when it's at home," said Bain.

  Cullen threw his pen down on the table. He had been over this several times already. "It's like Google+ or Facebook. Haven't you seen that Social Network film?"

  "Like I get time to go to the bloody pictures."

  "But you get the general idea?" asked Cullen.

  "Right, so people go on it, find their friends?"

  "And meet people."

  "Then what?" asked Bain.

  "They chat. You can find people you were at school with. It's like an online pub."

  McNeill piped up, a wry smile on her face. "Not such a good analogy, Scott. The Inspector doesn't go to the pub to meet people, he goes to sit with his cronies and make bad jokes about me."

  Bain laughed. He looked at Cullen. "Who's been grassing?"

  McNeill grinned.

  "So Caroline met Martin Webb on this website," said Cullen.

  "Do we know that's where they met?" asked McNeill.

  "Her friends said she met him online."

  "Could she have known him offline?" she asked. "Could she have met him elsewhere on the internet, some dating site, a chat room?"

  Cullen shrugged. "Could have done. I do get the impression that it was Schoolbook, though."