The Impossible Dead mf-2

by Ian Rankin

  Jamieson gave a twitch of the mouth. ‘Maybe a hunch. Hunches have got me where I am today.’

  ‘You’re a regular Quasimodo,’ Fox agreed, heading for the police station’s back door. Waiting for him on the other side stood Ray Scholes, hands in pockets, feet apart.

  ‘You know who he is?’ Scholes cautioned.

  Fox agreed that he did.

  ‘Are you giving him anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Best keep it like that.’

  Fox made to move past, but found his way blocked.

  ‘I need to show you something,’ Scholes said. It was the screen of his phone. Fox took it from his hand and peered at the message. It was from Paul Carter.

  Get Fox for me. Five minutes.

  The phone started vibrating. Fox looked at Scholes.

  ‘That’ll be for you,’ Scholes told him.

  ‘I don’t want it.’ Scholes said nothing, and wouldn’t take the phone back when Fox offered it to him. The call ended, the two men staring at one another. It rang again immediately.

  ‘Point made,’ Scholes said. ‘You can answer it now.’

  ‘Hello?’ said Fox.

  ‘It’s Carter.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Listen, I’ve pulled a few stunts in my time – I admit that. But not this. Never this.’

  ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Fox. I’m a cop, aren’t I?’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘And someone’s trying to frame me.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So somebody’s got to be on my side!’ There was anger in the voice, but fear too.

  ‘Tell that to Teresa Collins.’ Fox’s eyes were boring into Scholes’s.

  ‘You want me to own up?’ Paul Carter was saying. ‘Every time I crossed the line or even thought about it?’

  ‘Why did Alan Carter die?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘You didn’t go to see him?’ Fox’s voice hardened. ‘If you try lying to me, I can’t help you.’

  ‘I swear I didn’t.’

  ‘Did you send anyone else?’ He was still looking at Scholes, who stiffened and bunched his fists.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any idea why he phoned you?’

  ‘I’m telling you, I don’t know anything!’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Ray can’t exactly go snooping, can he?’

  ‘Wouldn’t look good,’ Fox conceded.

  ‘But he tells me you talked to my uncle…’ The sound that came from Carter’s throat was somewhere between a sigh and a wail. ‘Maybe you can do something… anything.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Carter admitted. ‘I really don’t know…’

  Wherever Carter was, Fox could hear new noises, muffled voices. He was no longer free to talk. The phone went dead and Fox checked the screen before handing it back to Scholes.

  ‘Well?’ Scholes asked.

  Fox seemed to be weighing up his options. Then he shook his head, squeezed past Scholes, and headed for the interview room. But Scholes wasn’t giving up.

  ‘Alan Carter had enemies,’ he said. ‘Some he made on the force, others afterwards. The Shafiqs – they own a string of shops and businesses. Had a run-in with some of Carter’s boys. Bad blood there.’

  Fox stopped and held up a hand. ‘You can’t just go throwing names around.’

  ‘Bombs going off in Lockerbie and Peebles – we could play the anti-terrorism card, keep them in custody till they talk.’ Scholes saw the look on Fox’s face. ‘Oh aye,’ he said with a sneer. ‘I forgot – it’s racist to lock up anyone with a funny name.’

  Fox shook his head and moved off again. This time, Scholes didn’t bother following. He called after him instead.

  ‘When he texted me wanting to speak to you, I sent a message straight back, told him he was wasting his time. A real cop’s what he needs, and that’s not you, Fox. That’s nothing like you.’ His voice dropped just a fraction. ‘A real cop’s what he needs,’ he repeated, as Fox shoved open the swing doors.

  16

  ‘Anyone else we should be talking to?’ Tony Kaye asked.

  The three of them were perched on the sea wall, eating fish and chips from the wrappings. Across the water, a ray of sun picked out Berwick Law. Far to the right, they could make out Arthur’s Seat and the Edinburgh skyline. Tankers and cargo vessels sat at rest in the estuary. It was lunchtime, and the gulls were flapping around, looking interested.

  ‘Haldane might be worth another shot,’ Fox suggested.

  ‘Really?’ Kaye asked.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think a murder inquiry might be about to happen, and we’d be better off elsewhere. Last thing Fife Constabulary is going to need is us running around, trying not to barge into their murder team.’

  ‘True,’ Fox admitted.

  ‘Yet I can’t help noticing we’re still here.’ Kaye tossed a morsel of batter into the air, watching a gull swoop and snatch it, its friends readying to gang up against it. ‘So tell me what else we could add to the sum of our knowledge.’

  ‘There’s the surveillance,’ Fox offered.

  ‘But that’s not our operation.’

  ‘Scholes, Haldane and Michaelson – we’ve hardly scratched the surface with them…’

  ‘You’re clutching at straws, Malcolm.’ This time a salted chip spun into the sky, dropping to the ground and being pounced on by four of the gulls.

  ‘All right, I give in.’ Fox turned towards Naysmith. ‘Joe, tell the man why we can’t go home just yet.’

  ‘Francis Vernal,’ Naysmith said, on cue. It had been evident to Fox from first thing: Naysmith had been reading the same online articles, rumours and suppositions as Fox – and he was hooked. ‘Taken for granted at the time that it was suicide. Media hardly touched it – no rolling news or internet back then. But Vernal had told friends he thought he was being watched, that his office and house had been broken into – nothing taken, just stuff put back in the wrong place.’

  ‘So who was watching him?’ Kaye asked.

  ‘Spooks, I suppose.’

  ‘And why would they be interested in him?’

  ‘I hadn’t realised how wild things were in the mid-eighties,’ Naysmith said, licking vinegar from his fingers. ‘You had CND demos, Star Wars summits-’

  ‘Star Wars?’

  ‘Not the film – it was a missile defence thing; Reagan and Gorbachev. Cruise missiles were on their way to Britain. The Clyde was being picketed because of Polaris. Friends of the Earth were protesting about acid rain. Animal rights… Hilda Murrell…’ Naysmith paused. ‘You remember her, right?’

  ‘Let’s pretend I don’t,’ Kaye said.

  ‘Pensioner, but also an activist. Tam Dalyell…’ Naysmith broke off.

  ‘The MP,’ Kaye stated. ‘I’m not completely glaikit.’

  ‘Well, he had a theory she’d been killed by MI5. They’d been paying a private eye to keep tabs on her…’

  ‘I’m not hearing anything about Francis Vernal.’ Kaye was scrunching the greasy wrappings into a ball.

  ‘Early eighties was also a hotbed of nationalism,’ Fox informed him. ‘Isn’t that right, Joe?’

  Naysmith nodded. ‘SNP weren’t doing well in the polls, and that led some nationalists to look towards Ireland for inspiration. They reckoned a few explosions might focus London’s attention.’

  ‘Explosions?’

  ‘Letter bombs were sent to Mrs Thatcher and the Queen. Plus Woolwich Arsenal, the Ministry of Defence and Glasgow City Chambers – that last one on a day Princess Di was visiting. All these splinter groups: Seed of the Gael, SNLA…’

  ‘Scottish National Liberation Army,’ Fox explained for Kaye’s benefit.

  ‘Scottish Citizen Army… Dark Harvest Commando. That last one, they took a wee trip to Gruinard.’ Naysmith paused again.

  ‘Enlighten me,�
�� Kaye muttered.

  ‘It’s an island off the west coast. Infected with anthrax in World War Two.’

  ‘Germans?’ Kaye speculated.

  Naysmith shook his head. ‘We did it ourselves. Planned to drop anthrax over Germany but wanted to test it first.’

  ‘After which Gruinard was uninhabitable,’ Fox added. ‘They took it off the maps to stop people finding it.’

  ‘But the Dark Harvest Commando went there and lifted some of the soil, then started sending it to various government agencies.’

  ‘Francis Vernal was involved?’ Kaye speculated.

  ‘Few years after he died, one reporter filed a piece. He said Vernal had been paymaster for the Dark Harvest Commando.’

  ‘Did he have proof?’

  ‘Information was harder to come by back then. Remember that book Spycatcher? These days it would be on the net, no way a government could stop people reading it.’

  Naysmith looked up at Fox, and Fox nodded to let him know he’d done well. Naysmith smiled and pushed a hand through his hair.

  ‘I really got into it,’ he said, sounding almost embarrassed at his own enthusiasm. ‘Even found some clips of a TV show – Edge of Darkness.’

  ‘I remember that,’ Kaye broke in. ‘Big American CIA guy with a golf bag full of guns…’

  ‘It was about the nuclear industry,’ Naysmith elucidated. ‘Catches the paranoia of the time.’ He shrugged. ‘Seems to me, anyway.’

  ‘How much did you find about Dark Harvest Commando?’ Fox asked him.

  ‘Virtually nothing.’

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘For one thing, almost nobody ended up in court. For another, it just seemed to fade away.’

  Fox nodded slowly.

  ‘Polaris and acid rain,’ Kaye mused. ‘Seems like ancient history.’ He slid from the sea wall and held the ball of rubbish above a bin. ‘See what I’m doing here?’ He tossed it in. ‘That’s what we should be doing with all of this.’ He brushed his hands together.

  ‘You really think so?’ Fox asked.

  ‘I know so. We’re not CID, Malcolm. None of this adds up to anything we should be part of.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  Kaye rolled his eyes.

  ‘Did Alan Carter kill himself?’ Fox asked quietly.

  ‘Maybe,’ Kaye stated after a moment.

  ‘If he was murdered…’

  ‘His nephew’s looking good for it.’

  ‘Paul’s adamant it wasn’t him.’

  ‘And nor is he a sleazebag who tries coercing women into giving him blow jobs.’

  ‘Oh, he’s a sleazebag all right. Doesn’t mean we should let them hang him out to dry.’

  ‘Let who hang him out to dry?’

  ‘That’s what I want us to find out.’

  Kaye had moved towards Fox until their faces were a couple of inches apart. ‘We’re the Complaints, Malcolm. We’re not Mission: Impossible.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Loved that show when I was a kid,’ Naysmith commented. Both men turned to look at him, then Kaye smiled a wan smile and shook his head.

  ‘All right then,’ he said, knowing he was beaten. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘You keep the investigation going – second interviews with the main players. That gives us our reason for being here.’

  ‘While you go snooping?’

  ‘Just for a day or two.’

  ‘A day or two?’

  ‘Scout’s honour,’ Fox said, pressing two fingers together and holding them up.

  17

  The cordon had been moved further up the track. It comprised the usual length of crime-scene ribbon guarded by a bored-looking uniform. Fox and Naysmith showed their ID.

  ‘CID must have arrived,’ Fox explained to Naysmith as the uniform lifted the tape so their car could pass under it.

  The gate to the field was open, the field itself emptied of livestock and now useful as a temporary car park. Two unmarked cars, one patrol car, and two white vans.

  A suited, shaven-headed veteran was talking into his phone beside one of the unmarked cars. His eyes were on the new arrivals as they parked and got out. Fox offered him a nod and started walking towards the cottage. He could see figures moving around inside. At least two of them were Scene of Crime – dressed in regulation hooded white overalls, hands and feet covered so they wouldn’t contaminate the locus.

  ‘Bit late for that,’ Fox muttered, thinking of the number of people who had traipsed in and out since the body had been found.

  ‘Hey, you!’

  The man with the phone was approaching from the field. He had a loping gait, which caused him to slip on some mud and nearly lose his footing. From the look on his face, Fox surmised this wasn’t the first time it had happened.

  ‘It’s treacherous,’ Fox commented.

  The man ignored him, using his phone as a pointer. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Fox.’ Fox reached for his warrant card again. ‘Inspector, Lothian and Borders.’

  ‘So what brings you here?’

  ‘How about some ID first? Can’t be too careful.’

  The man gave him a hard stare, but eventually relented. His name was Brendan Young. He was a detective sergeant.

  ‘Glenrothes?’ Fox guessed.

  ‘Dunfermline.’

  ‘You in charge?’

  ‘DI’s inside.’

  ‘Not now, he isn’t.’ The man who stepped from the cottage was six foot three and as broad as a rugby player. Jet-black hair combed straight forward, and small, piercing eyes.

  ‘I’m DI Cash.’

  ‘They’re Lothian and Borders,’ Young informed him.

  ‘Bit lost, gentlemen?’ Cash asked.

  ‘I was out here a few days ago,’ Fox began to explain, ‘interviewing Alan Carter about his nephew.’

  ‘You’re the Complaints?’

  Fox sensed a hardening of tone. Doubtless Young’s face was hardening too. Normal enough reactions.

  ‘We are,’ he concurred.

  ‘Then I was right first time – you are a bit fucking lost.’ Cash smiled at Young, and Young smiled back. ‘This is a suspicious death-’

  ‘Not murder yet, then?’ Fox interrupted. But Cash wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer.

  ‘Why don’t you just go back to strip-searching your own kind to see if they’ve pocketed any paper clips from the stationery cupboard?’

  Fox managed a twitch of the mouth. ‘Thanks for the advice, but I’m here for fingerprints.’

  Cash stared at him. ‘Fingerprints?’

  ‘Mine,’ Fox explained. Then, patiently, as if to a child: ‘I was in the living room and hallway. Might have left prints. If I give them to Scene of Crime, they can be verified and eliminated.’

  ‘Up to us to decide that,’ Cash stated.

  ‘Of course,’ Fox accepted. Cash’s eyes stayed on him for a moment, then moved to Young.

  ‘Go fetch someone.’

  Young headed into the house. Fox saw that the door jamb was splintered. A crowbar had been used to open it. He walked over to the window ledge, lifted the flowerpot, and showed Cash the key.

  ‘Kirkcaldy CID didn’t tell you?’ he guessed.

  ‘They didn’t.’

  ‘Well, you know what it’s like: this is their patch. Don’t expect any favours.’

  ‘I might say the same thing.’

  Fox gave another twitch of the mouth, nearing a smile this time.

  ‘You’ll give us a statement about the deceased?’ Cash asked.

  ‘Whenever you’re ready for it.’

  ‘How often did you meet him?’

  ‘Just the once.’

  ‘What did you think? Good guy?’

  Fox nodded. ‘Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, though.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Seems to me he didn’t suffer fools – or family – gladly. Plus he ran a security firm.’ Fox slipped his hands into his
pockets. ‘I was here again afterwards,’ he went on. ‘Not long after the body was discovered. The papers on the table had been disturbed; strewn about the place.’

  ‘Anything taken?’

  ‘Couldn’t say.’ He paused. ‘You know what Carter was working on?’

  ‘I get the feeling you’re about to tell me.’

  ‘Lawyer called Francis Vernal. Died in suspicious circumstances. Gunshot. Reckoned suicide at the time. About thirty miles from here…’

  ‘Francis Vernal? That was back in the eighties.’

  Fox shrugged. One of the overalled figures was emerging from the cottage. She removed her hood and overshoes.

  ‘Which one of you?’ she asked.

  ‘Me,’ Malcolm Fox replied.

  He followed her to one of the vans. She climbed into the back and found everything she needed. The portable scanner, however, refused to work.

  ‘Flat battery?’ Fox guessed.

  She had to resort to the back-up of ink and paper. The result was signed by both of them, after which she handed Fox a wet-wipe for his fingers. This was followed by a DNA swab of the inside of his cheek, and the plucking of a couple of hairs from his head.

  ‘I can’t afford many,’ Fox complained.

  ‘Need to get the root,’ she explained. After everything was sealed into pouches, she locked the van.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, heading back to the cottage.

  ‘When was the last time you had your prints taken?’ Naysmith asked.

  ‘Been a while.’ Fox saw Cash watching them from the living room. The DI gave a little wave, as if granting them permission to leave. Naysmith, however, had started walking in the direction of the Land Rover.

  ‘Bit of quality,’ he said, peering in through the driver’s-side window.

  ‘Mind you don’t leave any prints,’ Fox warned him.

  Naysmith took a step back and looked around. ‘Question for you,’ he said. ‘Why leave your car out here when you’ve got a garage?’

  Fox looked in the direction he was pointing. A track led up the slope behind the cottage, ending at a ramshackle building.

  ‘Afraid it might collapse?’ Fox guessed. But all the same, he started trudging uphill, Naysmith a couple of steps behind him.

  The garage was padlocked. The lock looked old. The doors comprised vertical slats of wood, weathered and warped by the elements.