Stranglehold

by Rena George

  'Then what are we waiting for? Spill.'

  The DCI shifted in his chair as he listened intently to Drummond relating the information Joanna Flugg had given them and how this led him back to Inverness – and the Free Church and Angus McLeod. His eyebrow lifted again. 'And you think this could be your man?'

  Drummond frowned. 'Not for sure, no, but we're certainly not ruling him out.'

  Fraser shook his head. 'It all sounds very unlikely. Why would a serial killer drive from Inverness to Glasgow to commit these murders? If this McLeod really is your man, why doesn't he seek out victims right here?'

  'You're right, sir. It doesn't make any sense, but we're not dealing with a normal, rational person.' Drummond held Fraser's stare. 'This is why I need your help. I'm only here for another day or so.' He glanced at Rougvie who returned an expressionless stare. 'And I really need Nick's help and maybe the use of a computer or two?' He gave a hopeful smile.

  DCI Fraser pursed his lips and nodded. 'I'm not sure I go along with this, DI Drummond. I'll have to speak to your governor in Glasgow, but for the time being I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.'

  'Does that mean I can carry on working with the DI?' Rougvie was clearly pleased.

  Gavin Fraser nodded. 'Just don't go disappearing without keeping me in the picture. Understand?'

  Both detectives gave him a broad smile. 'Thanks, guv,' Drummond said. 'I appreciate this.'

  Drummond grabbed the empty desk next to Rougvie's and settled himself in front of the computer. 'So, what's first?' Rougvie asked, tapping at his keyboard.

  'Everything. I want to know everything about this man. Where he was born, what school he went to, what girlfriends he had. If he breaks wind, I want to know about it.'

  'We can't access his phone data unless we arrest or detain him,' Rougvie said.

  'Not yet.' Drummond was frowning at his screen. 'It doesn't stop us seeing what he gets up to on social media.'

  'Have you found him on Facebook?' Rougvie asked.

  Drummond shook his head. 'But I've got his church here and there's pictures and biographies on the three church elders.'

  'Including McLeod?'

  'Yup. Not much, but according to this he's the son of a Free Church minister 0n Stornoway.'

  'I have a good friend up there. I'll give him a ring.'

  'Let's do it,' Drummond said, hitting the print tab. Somewhere across the room a printer clattered into action and two copies of Angus McLeod's bio slid out. He studied the longer biography on the minister, the Reverend Andrew Guthrie, his eyes sliding to the picture of him and his wife, Elizabeth, who according to Rachel McLeod, Angus had managed to capture in his thrall. She was a plain, severe-looking woman. She didn't look like someone who would be easily led, but photographs didn't always reflect the true nature of the subject. There was an address for the manse and Drummond scribbled it into his dog-eared notebook. They would speak to her later.

  Rougvie was finishing the call to his contact on Stornoway as Drummond returned from collecting what he'd printed. 'Well?' he said. 'What've you got?'

  'Loads,' Rougvie said, flicking through the pages of his notebook. 'The McLeods were practically infamous on the island for their fierce, Bible-thumping Free Church philosophies. Angus moved to the mainland years ago, but Mac says he vaguely remembers some scandal involving his mother.'

  'Scandal?' Drummond's ears perked up.

  Rougvie nodded. 'Apparently she had affair with a local man. Angus's father, the Reverend Murdo McLeod disowned her and she was forced to leave the island in shame. I'll see if I can dig out some newspaper cuttings and photos.'

  'Where is McLeod's mother now?'

  'Mac wasn't sure, but he's going to do a bit more scratching around.'

  Drummond nodded, flicking his hand at the notebook for him to continue. Rougvie went back to his notes.

  'When the mother left, Angus's father brought a local woman into the manse as housekeeper. She took the boy under her wing, but according to the gossip she wasn't above bad-mouthing his mother. It's rumoured she coached Angus into hating his mother.' He looked at Drummond. 'Word has it that this woman took over more than her housekeeping duties. She took on the mantle of the boy's mother. The pair of them would be in the front pew every Sunday hanging on every word the minister ranted at the congregation.'

  'It sounds like this man was a big influence on his son.'

  'Absolutely,' Rougvie said, consulting his notes again. 'He was a crusading force in the Free Church community and a leader in the campaign to stop the ferries sailing on the Sabbath.'

  Drummond's brow wrinkled into a frown. 'If this minister was such a crusader and Angus looked up to him, why did he opt for banking over the church?'

  Rougvie took a deep breath. 'You're going to love this, Jack. Apparently, the scandal wasn't restricted to Angus's mother. His father was said to have "borrowed" money from church funds. The local bank manager bailed him out with a loan and said nothing so long as he agreed to let Angus come under his wing. An agreement was made, and young Angus was duly put to banking.'

  Drummond caught the excited glint in Rougvie's eyes. 'There's more?'

  Rougvie nodded. 'I've kept the best till last.' He blinked. 'According to my contact, the bank manager tried to abuse the boy, but Angus was sixteen years old and having none of it. He threatened to expose him, and the man was later found hanged at his home.'

  'Christ,' Drummond said. 'Do we know if Angus's father still alive?'

  'Yes, he's in his eighties now and retired. The housekeeper still lives with him and looks after him.'

  Drummond chewed his lip. 'I think we need to go over there. Can you check ferry sailings, Nick?'

  Twenty-Nine

  'You're what?' The voice exploded at the other end of the phone.

  'On the ferry to Stornoway,' Drummond repeated. 'Now don't get excited, Joey. We'll be right back after we've spoken to McLeod's father.'

  'You're having a laugh, aren't you? You were told to get yourself back to Glasgow by tomorrow. And less of the Joey. It's DCI Buchan to you.'

  'Sorry, Ma'am.' Drummond grinned into the phone. 'I thought you would have wanted me to tie up all the loose ends here before we arrest McLeod.'

  'Arrest him? You didn't tell me you had evidence to arrest him.'

  'Emm, well I don't. At least not yet, but if I'm right his father will hopefully supply that.'

  Joey Buchan gave a loud sigh. 'You'd better hope the strangler doesn't get himself another victim down here while you're messing about on ferries.'

  The words gave him a jolt. He'd arranged for Inverness CID to keep an eye on Angus McLeod while he and Rougvie were away, but the man was a devious character and more than capable of giving his Highland colleagues the slip. 'I'm having him watched,' he said.

  'Oh, that's all right then.' Joey Buchan did nothing to disguise her sarcasm. Drummond tried not to let it unnerve him, but they did need hard evidence. He was pinning his hopes on getting that from McLeod senior.

  Rougvie watched him end the call. 'Everything all right?'

  'Just my boss getting her knickers in a twist again. I think she's missing me.'

  'I booked us back on tomorrow afternoon's ferry, so you could drive back to Glasgow and be there by tomorrow night if it would make your DCI any happier,' Rougvie suggested.

  'Let's not jump the gun. We could have arrested a killer by this time tomorrow, in which case I'll be staying for as long as it takes.'

  'You really think McLeod is our man?'

  Drummond narrowed his eyes against the wind as the ferry approached the quay on Stornoway. 'He's guilty all right. I can taste it. Let's just see what his old man has to say.'

  Rougvie slung his rucksack over his shoulder as they disembarked from the ferry. 'I've booked a couple of rooms at the B&B across from the harbour. I've also arranged for us to meet my contact in the pub once we've signed in and dumped our bags.'

  Drummond cocked his head and gave him a look. 'Is there
anything you can't organize, DS Rougvie?'

  'I thought that's what you wanted.'

  'It is. This is me being impressed.'

  The rooms Rougvie booked were small and basic, but they were cosy. Drummond wasn't interested in the comfort. It was a bed for the night. He was anxious to get on with things.

  The contact they were meeting was standing at the bar nursing a pint. He looked up as they came in and shot his hand out to Rougvie. 'How're you doing, you old devil?'

  'Yeah, I'm good, Mac. How about you?'

  'Can't complain. How's the family?'

  'Elaine and the bairns are fine. What about your lot?'

  The man laughed. 'Mad as ever.'

  Rougvie turned to Drummond. 'This is the DI I told you about, Mac.' The man offered his hand. 'Michael Mackenzie, police sergeant and general dogsbody around here. Call me Mac.'

  'Jack Drummond,' Drummond said, shaking the man's hand. He nodded to his glass. 'Same again?'

  They waited for their pints to be filled and then took them to a table on the far side of the pub. 'Thanks for agreeing to meet us,' Drummond said.

  'Nick mentioned you were interested in the Rev Murdo McLeod. What's the old devil done now?'

  'You make him sound like a troublemaker.'

  'He was…in his day. He was the Free Church minister here in Stornoway before he retired. And if you haven't already heard, he was ferociously against the ferries operating on the Sabbath. He and some of his cronies also campaigned against shops trading on the island on Sundays.'

  'Campaigning isn't against the law,' Drummond pointed out.

  'No, but intimidation is. The Rev McLeod and his followers intimidated people, threatened to boycott local shops and incited their followers to do the same.'

  'I take it they didn't succeed?'

  'What do you think?' Michael Mackenzie said.

  Drummond lifted his beer. 'So, not a popular man?'

  'Oh, don't get me wrong. His congregation loved him. In their eyes he could do no wrong. But he ruled his flock with an iron fist. He could make life very difficult for anyone who defied him.'

  'Like his wife,' Nick Rougvie cut in.

  Mac nodded. 'So the story goes. It was before my time, but nobody was surprised when Mary Ann left him. What did surprise people was her taking off with James Shaw.' He gestured around the pub. 'He used to run this place.'

  Rougvie pulled a face as he put his glass back down. 'Disloyalty, fornication, and the demon drink. In McLeod's eyes she had committed all the sins in the book.'

  'And this was Angus McLeod's mother?' Drummond asked.

  Mac nodded.

  The pieces were beginning to fall into place. 'Tell me, how old would Angus have been when all this was going on?'

  Mac screwed up his face and studied the ceiling as he worked that out. 'About ten I'd say. Certainly old enough to know what was going on.'

  Rougvie frowned. 'Can't have been easy being abandoned by his mother.'

  'The story goes she wanted to take the boy with her when she left, but old McLeod wasn't having any of that. I'm told he threatened to kill her if she came near Angus again.'

  'So where did Mary Ann and James go?' Drummond wanted to know.

  'James had a croft up on the hill so they moved in there and kept a low profile until the bairn was born.'

  'Bairn?' Drummond's head snapped up. 'They had a child?'

  'They did, a wee lassie they called Morag.' Mac shook his head. 'But she was a sickly bairn and didn't survive beyond a few weeks. The couple reportedly moved away after that.'

  'Some folks said losing the bairn was their punishment. It would have been more ammunition for Angus's father and the old crone he took on as housekeeper to brainwash him.

  Drummond was remembering Nick saying the woman took the boy to church every Sunday to sit in the front pew to hear his father addressing his flock.

  'What about this woman? Was there any talk that she was more than a housekeeper?'

  Michael Mackenzie laughed. 'Tongues never stopped wagging about that. Sarah Duff wasn't, and still isn't, popular in the town. She has a vicious tongue in her head and you felt the lash of it if you had the audacity to mention the Sunday word.'

  Drummond frowned. 'What's wrong with Sunday?'

  'The Free Church doesn't recognize it. According to them it has heathen origins. It has to be the Sabbath or the Lord's Day.'

  Drummond was thinking back to his conversation with Rachel McLeod. She had talked about the Sabbath.

  'Most people reckon Murdo and Sarah were having it off even before the wife left,' Mac said. 'Not that either of them would ever admit it.'

  Rougvie pulled a face. 'Do as I say, not as I do.'

  'That's about the size of it,' Mac said.

  'I've been telling Jack what you said about Angus McLeod and the banker.'

  Mac's brow wrinkled. 'I've been thinking more about that since you called, so I looked out the old police files. Alan Rogers, the bank manager, wasn't liked around here. People didn't trust him. Rogers enjoyed bragging about how much he did for the local youth club, but there was talk he was over friendly with some of the boys. Nothing concrete but talk sticks.'

  Drummond's eyebrow lifted. 'So the bank manager was a paedophile?'

  Mac spread his hands and shrugged. 'It was only talk. Apparently he was very strict…looked after his job.'

  Drummond nodded.

  'One loan he did approve, however, was £500 to no other than the Rev Murdo McLeod, but it seems the minister missed more than a few repayments. Soon after this, young Angus is taken on by Rogers as an apprentice.' Mac looked up, his glance travelling from one to the other. 'And Murdo's loan was mysteriously paid in full.'

  Drummond stared at him. 'Are you saying Murdo sold his son to this man?'

  'That was the word at the time and very soon after this Angus left the bank. Alan Rogers was found days later. He'd hanged himself in his shed. My colleagues at the time found a diary. Apparently, he had made advances to Angus that weren't well received. Angus threatened to report him.' Mac broke off and reached for his glass. 'It was all in the diary,' he said.

  'Could we have a look at those files, and the diary?' Drummond asked.

  'No problem. I'll get them ready for you in the morning.'

  'I meant tonight,' Drummond said. 'We could go back to your nick with you.'

  Mac blew out his cheeks. 'OK, but that just might cost you another pint tomorrow.'

  Drummond flashed a grin to Rougvie. 'It's a deal,' he said.

  Thirty

  They were back in the B&B and Drummond had spread the police files Mac supplied across the bed.

  'What are we looking for?' Rougvie asked.

  'Anything that suggests Alan Rogers' demise was not self-inflicted.'

  Rougvie frowned. 'You don't think it was suicide? But everything at the time pointed to that.'

  'Exactly,' Drummond said. 'So, nobody would have been looking for anything else.' He was flicking through the pages of the post-mortem report. 'Listen to this.' He read from the report. "Slight bruising to the neck from the rope used by the deceased to hang himself." He looked up. 'Surely there would have been massive bruising?'

  'I suppose that would depend on how efficiently the deed was done,' Rougvie said. 'I've known suicides where the bruising wasn't that bad.'

  But Drummond's lips were pressed hard together. 'Something's not right here. Come and have a look.'

  Rougvie came to stand beside him. He tilted his head, frowning at the images. 'What am I supposed to be seeing?'

  'How high is that beam?' Urgency had crept into Drummond's voice. 'Look man!' He jabbed a finger at one of the pictures.

  'I'm sorry.' Rougvie blinked. 'I don't know what you want me to see. I…' He frowned, staring at the image. 'The chair? Something about the chair?'

  The wooden kitchen chair lay on its side under the hanging man. 'Look at that beam Rogers is hanging from,' Drummond said. 'Can you see how high it is?'
r />   'Well, yes, but…' Rougvie was still uncertain.

  'And how far off the floor the body is? If he had put that noose around his neck and jumped off that chair, as we're meant to assume, the body would have been suspended much closer to the floor, not five feet in the air.' He swallowed. 'So how the hell did he get up there to hang himself?'

  'Jesus,' Rougvie said. 'How did they miss this?'

  'They weren't looking for it,' Drummond said.

  'Or they deliberately ignored it,' Rougvie suggested. 'We need to know who the investigating officers were.' He was already on his phone. 'Mac? Look I'm sorry about this, but we could really do with your help. We need a list of everyone involved with the investigation into Alan Rogers' death.'

  Drummond gestured for Rougvie to put his phone on hands free so he could hear Michael Mackenzie's responses. He was reeling off names of the officers involved and Rougvie was frantically scribbling them down.

  'Ask him if he knows if any were members of the Free Church,' Drummond cut in.

  'I heard that,' Mac said. 'I can tell you right now. Douglas Mathieson – Sergeant Mathieson – was a cousin of Angus McLeod's. What's this all about?'

  Rougvie held out the phone for Drummond to take over the call. 'Is this Sergeant Mathieson still living?' Drummond asked.

  'He died about five years ago. You still haven't told me what's going on.'

  'We need to make a few more enquiries, Mac, but we'll put you in the picture as soon as we can. Thanks for your help.' He ended the call and looked up at Rougvie. 'How do you think Mac will feel about reopening the case? This time as a murder enquiry.'

  Rougvie blew out his cheeks and stared down at the photographs of the death scene. 'I don't think we're going to be popular if we stir all this up again.'

  Drummond gave him a hard stare. 'You're not suggesting we let a murderer go free? Think about it, Nick. Alan Rogers makes an attempt to sexually abuse Angus McLeod, the kid he's supposed to be taking under his wing. But young Angus is having none of it. He's the Free Church's minister's son after all and Alan Rogers has just proved he is a paedophile. He has to be punished. Angus is only sixteen, but he's big for his age, bigger and stronger than Rogers. He makes the man write that entry in his diary saying how ashamed he is. The scene is now set for suicide, except it's not suicide. It's murder.'