by Rob Wyllie
'And this didn't come up at the time?' Frank said, struggling to hide his disbelief. 'What I mean is, the investigation team didn't look at the CCTV?'
'I don't know sir. I've not really had time to look thoroughly at the file. It's quite thick. But no, maybe when Kenny Wilson trashed his wife's alibi they didn't think to look.'
Couldn't be arsed to look more like, he thought, especially when they already had the word of the country's top forensic guy that she had done it. Why look any harder? But he knew it was easy to be clever in retrospect, and what was it they said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? He'd been there himself, burying the private doubts and throwing a case over the wall for the CPS and the jury to sort out later. Although of course it was the Crown Office of the Procurator Fiscal up there, not the CPS. Same difference.
'Aye, I guess that's it,' he said. 'So what changed?'
'Well sir after his wife died Kenny Wilson had a change of heart. His local MP runs a surgery in the community centre once a fortnight and he went along to one of her sessions with his DVD and his story.'
'And then I'm guessing that's when the shit really hit the fan?'
'Well, sort-of sir,' she said, sounding unsure. 'His MP went straight to the Procurator Fiscal's office but apparently she had quite a job to get them to re-look at the case.'
That didn't surprise Frank. In his experience the prosecutors on both sides of the border weren't interested in justice. They were only interested in statistics, and re-opening a case that had already been neatly shut down screwed up their spreadsheets and so was something to be resisted at all costs.
'That figures,' he said. 'But I assume they must have agreed in the end?'
'Yes sir. They sanctioned a review of the evidence first of all as I understand it.'
'Aye, they would do that,' he said, smiling to himself. 'Lexy, you must promise me you won't turn into a grizzled old cynic like me, but you know why they did that don't you?'
'No sir I don't.'
'It's because they wanted to make sure it wasn't their screw-up before they broke cover. You know, check if they'd been sloppy with the evidence at the time. Covering their arses in other words.'
'I think you're right sir. But eventually they decided to look again at the forensic evidence in particular. Because obviously if the forensics said she was there at the scene and she definitely wasn't then it had to be the forensics that were wrong.'
Frank laughed. 'I tell you what Lexy, for someone who's only been on the job thirty-two hours by my calculation, you know a lot about this stuff. I'm impressed.' And he wasn't flannelling her, he was impressed.
'I stayed up to two o' clock last night sir,' she said, her voice oozing enthusiasm. 'I just got really interested and couldn't leave it alone.' He knew it wouldn't take long for that to be knocked out of her, but right now it was going to be a massive benefit to him on this case.
'So I'm assuming our good professor cocked something up big-time? Something like that is it?'
'Yes sir, he did. It was the time of death. I don't understand the technical details, but when the Procurator's forensic team looked at the photographs of the scene they worked out that the victim must have died at least eight hours earlier than what the professor said. Something about foaming and skin pallor, but as I said I don't understand the details.'
He was conscious that the victim was as yet un-named, an oversight he mentally kicked himself for not asking. The dead deserved at least that respect, no matter what kind of person they had been in life.
'That's interesting Lexy. And our victim, what do we know about him?'
'Thomas Johnstone's his name sir. Forty-one years of age and with a string of convictions on his record. Drugs and petty larceny, but mainly living off immoral earnings.'
Having worked his Gorbals beat as long as he had, the revelation didn't come as a surprise to him. Senga Wilson, with her three young kids and a deadbeat husband, had trodden a path that he'd seen a hundred other poor women like her being forced to follow. A path that led her first to Cragton Valley and then to despair.
'It's a bloody tragedy so it is, but it'll not be the last time we see it I'm afraid. But I interrupted you, sorry. You were telling me about the time of death.'
'Yes sir. So as I said, it looks like the time of death was about six to eight hours earlier than Professor Whiteside said. And that meant that Senga couldn't have done it, because she worked on the checkouts at Tesco and she'd been on a long eight-to-six shift that day.'
And now he began to see it, the outrageous miscarriage of justice unfolding before his eyes. The investigation team would have had their prime suspect and of course it would have been no trouble to scrape up a bit of her DNA at the scene. Tommy Johnstone was her pimp and lover and no doubt abuser too and she'd have been at his flat plenty of times. His place would be awash with the stuff. The only problem was, Tommy-boy had been killed whilst Senga was busy swiping the barcodes at her local supermarket. A minor difficulty for the senior investigating officer that could easily be solved by applying a wee bit of pressure on the distinguished forensic pathologist who'd turned up pissed at the scene. No one needs to know about this prof. Our little secret. Just fix it. It made him sick at the thought of it.
'So what are they going to do about it? The Procurator Fiscal I mean?'
He already knew the answer. The murder of a low-life pimp and the tragic suicide of a desperate mother who was just trying to make ends meet wasn't going to keep anyone in authority awake at night. This was going to be swept back under the carpet.
'They're doing a case review I think sir, but my sarge says it'll get dumped in a filing cabinet in some basement and never see the light of day again.'
'Aye, smart guy your sarge. So come on, let's get on to our case shall we. I hope you've been up all night on this one too.'
'I was sir,' he heard her say earnestly. 'Three o' clock the night before.'
'Ok then Lexy, tell me all.'
'All right sir. So this case concerns the murders of Mrs Morag McKay and her two-year old daughter Isabelle.'
'Christ, I didn't know there was a toddler involved,' he said, taken aback.
'Yes, I'm afraid so sir. It was a terrible thing altogether. It happened about four years ago at the naval base up at Ardmore. I don't know if you know of the place, it's on Loch More.'
Frank knew of the place all right but not as well as his brother. Or his former sister-in-law Flora, who'd grown up there. Actually, he wasn't sure if former was the right term, maybe it should be estranged sister-in-law, not that it mattered. He hadn't got to know her that well, it was true, but it had been well enough to know she was smart, funny and beautiful. What he did know for certain however was that Jimmy had been a right arse to lose her.
'Aye, I know it. So this one involved our Professor Whiteside too I'm assuming?'
He already knew the answer but he asked the question anyway. After the Senga Wilson case had inconveniently reared its ugly head, there would have been a panicky review of every case that Whiteside had been involved in, in a desperate attempt to make sure the bodies, both metaphorically and physically, remained buried.
'Yes sir, and it was the same problem. He got the time of deaths wrong again, meaning the man who was convicted couldn't possibly have done it.'
'Another cast-iron alibi then I'm supposing?'
'Yes sir. You see her husband Lieutenant McKay was still at sea at the time of the actual death. In fact, he was under the sea sir. On board a nuclear submarine. Thirty miles off the Scottish coast. They were just coming back to port after a seven-month training voyage.'
'Well well,' Frank said, laughing, 'that is a cast-iron alibi. And it was him that got done for the murders was it?'
'Yes sir, it was.'
'And so where's he being held? Doing life somewhere I guess?'
'He was in Low Moss sir, and you're right, he got a life sentence. But he took his own life four weeks ago. In his cell. He slashed his own
wrists.'
'Christ, another one? So what's the Procurator Fiscal's office saying this time?'
'I don't know sir. I asked my sarge and he said they'd put it in the hands of these boys down in London. I assume he meant you sir.'
Yes, but why? What was so different about this one that it had to be shunted off to a department four hundred miles away, a department that nobody had heard of? And why had the prosecutor's office come direct to them rather that routing it through the Police Scotland hierarchy? Experience told him that this kind of thing only happened when there was the need for a massive super-sized cover-up. But the question was, who was it that both wanted and needed to keep this under wraps?
On a hunch he said, 'Lexy, does the file say who the senior investigating officer was on the case?'
'Yes sir,' she replied brightly, 'It was a DCI Pollock.'
'Fuck's sake,' he blurted out, immediately apologising for the profanity. 'Not Brian Pollock?'
'Yes it was sir,' she said, sounding perplexed. 'Do you know him sir?'
'Aye, I do,' he said. 'And so should you. I expect he did a wee speech at your passing-out parade.'
'Not Chief Constable Pollock sir?' He could hear the disbelief in her voice.
'The same. Chief Constable Sir Brian Pollock. The guy with more letters after his name than a box of Scrabble.'
And now he understood what Jill Smart had meant when she'd described the case as weapons-grade dynamite. And it was a stick of dynamite that was liable to blow up in the face of anyone who got too close to it.
'Are you still there sir?' PC McDonald asked.
'Aye sorry Lexy, I was just thinking.'
And when he thought about it, he knew exactly what he had to do. This was a matter that could destroy wee Lexy's career before it even got started, and he didn't want to be responsible for that, no way. And that nice friendly sergeant of hers, you could bet your arse he would be reporting everything that was going on back to the brass. So for now he'd need to tell her a wee white lie, but one that he would put right in the future. He adopted what he hoped was a disappointed-sounding tone.
'I'm really not sure there's much my department can do about this one Lexy. I'll obviously give it some more thought and I'll talk to my guvnor, but maybe you should ask your sarge to find you something else to look at in the meantime. Sorry. But let me have your mobile number just in case.' That was so if he needed anything from her, he wouldn't have to call her at the station.
So what a turn-up for the books this was. Brian Pollock, would you believe it? He knew the guy from way back, and he'd been a complete and utter shite then. Now Frank was going to take great pleasure in destroying the bastard's career. But first, their case needed a name. He pondered for a minute and then gave a half-smile.
The Ardmore Cover-Up. Not one of his best, but it would have to do for now.
Chapter 9
They'd agreed to meet once again at their local Starbucks, the establishment conveniently located just a stone's throw from Riverside House, the shared office suite housing the investigative powerhouse that was Bainbridge Associates. In truth it wasn't much of an office and it wasn't by the side of the river either, nowhere near it in fact, but 238A Fleet Street EC4 was the sort of address that gave Maggie's embryonic firm the aura of solidity and professionalism that it needed to prosper. Nine other start-up firms shared the accommodation, their administrative needs catered for by the feisty Miss Elsa Berger, a capable young Czech woman who also happened to be deeply in love with Jimmy Stewart. It was a love that as far as Maggie was aware was currently unrequited, and if she knew anything about her colleague, it was destined always to be so. Regardless of that, the coffee-house had become their go-to meeting place ever since they had discovered it as a result of one of Elsa's clandestine schemes to get up close and personal with Jimmy.
'The bloody coffee machine's run out of beans again,' Jimmy would say, making no attempt to hide his annoyance, and unaware that Elsa had deliberately engineered the shortage. 'I'll need to go to bloody Starbucks again, and the drinks cost a bloody fortune in there. I mean nearly four quid for a latte, it's ridiculous.'
'I come with you, bring petty cash,' Elsa would pipe up in her appealing Eastern European accent, and then twenty minutes or more later they would return with the drinks, invariably giggling over some private shared joke. Maggie always found that mildly irritating, but only in the same way as when you weren't invited to a social occasion that you'd never wanted to go to in the first place. But today Elsa had been excluded from the visit on account of the phone call Maggie had received earlier that morning from Frank.
'Got a bit of a business proposition for you guys,' he had said mysteriously. 'I've not properly run it past Jill yet so I've asked her to pop along to our meeting as well.'
Jill and Frank had got there before them, which surprised Maggie because Frank was generally only on time if they were meeting in the pub. She assumed his prompt presence could be accounted for only because his boss had commanded him not to be late. So what of DCI Jill Smart? Overall, she thought she quite liked her, the senior policewoman being smart, efficient, professional and occasionally quite witty, characteristics that she would normally find endearing. But there was an enigmatic quality to her bearing that meant you were never quite sure if you were seeing the real woman beneath the super-smart exterior. And if Maggie was being honest with herself, she recognised the hint of jealousy she felt towards the woman, mainly on account of her annoying slimness, the result of a maniacal devotion to the gym, but also because of something else she had observed that last time they'd met, when they were in that restaurant celebrating the successful resolution of the Aphrodite case. DCI Jill Smart had a thing for Jimmy. But then, what woman didn't? No-one she'd ever met, that was for sure. It wasn't as if she had a thing for him herself, she was fairly sure of that. Sure, he was good-looking, outstandingly so, but she was nearly ten years older than him for a start, not that that need be an insurmountable obstacle. The truth was she simply felt possessive towards him, protective even, because he'd single-handedly rescued her when she was at the lowest point in her life. No, she didn't want Jimmy for herself, but she wasn't going to hand him over to just anyone either.
Today however she had resolved to push all that to the back of her mind.
'Hi guys,' she said, more brightly that she felt, 'have you ordered?' It had been nearly two in the morning before she had got back from her Scottish trip, and she had found Ollie wide awake and anxious to share the minutiae of his day with her, a request she could hardly refuse.
'Aye, the usual poison,' Frank said, smiling. 'Just waiting for them to shout my name then you can wander over and collect them wee brother.'
Jimmy shot him a look of mild disdain but didn't say anything.
'So how's tricks?' Frank continued. 'Making any progress on your Macallan thing?'
'I'm not,' Maggie said mournfully. 'I wouldn't say my trip north was a complete waste of time but no, I wouldn't say we've made much progress either.' In fact, the only reason the trip hadn't been a complete write-off was because of her very satisfactory meeting with Flora Stewart, but she couldn't very well reveal that in the presence of his brother. 'I'm just hoping Jimmy's got something positive to report.'
They heard a barista bellow 'two americanos, a skinny latte and a cappuccino for Frank'.
'That's us,' Frank said, nodding towards the serving counter. 'Nip over and fetch them and then we can hear all about it when you get back.' With a resigned shrug, Jimmy got up and shuffled off as instructed, returning a couple of minutes later with the drinks, secured in a sturdy cardboard cup-holder. As he set them down on the table, she noticed Jill reach out and almost imperceptibly, slide a finger across the back of his hand, he reacting with the faintest of smiles.
'So Jimmy,' she said, trying to erase the image from her mind, 'how did you get on with the Macallan twin? I can't remember which one you were seeing, Pixie or Posy.'
He smiled. 'Well ac
tually it was neither. What I mean is they're re-branding, as they call it. They're going back to their original names. So it was Elspeth Macallan I saw yesterday.'
'Frank told me a little about your case,' Jill said, 'so I googled them. It must have come up with about a million pictures of them. They're pretty girls, but a bit in your face for me.'
'Yeah, they're everywhere,' Maggie said. 'As Jimmy said, it's all about brand Macallan.'
'Sounds like it should be a make of whisky,' Frank said, smiling.
'It is one already,' Jimmy said straightforwardly. 'No connection though, at least I don't think so. But anyway, coming back to my meeting, well to be honest I got precisely nowhere. In a nutshell, Elspeth Macallan insisted she was first-born and she gave me the metaphorical two fingers when I suggested a compromise might be a good idea.'
'Yeah, I got pretty much the same treatment from Alison Macallan too,' Maggie said, frowning. 'She's pretty sore about the way her husband treated her and she's willing to take her chances in front of a judge.'
'See you in court?' Frank said, shooting Maggie a sardonic look. 'The only guys that'll profit from that are you lawyers. No offence of course.'
'None taken,' she said, smiling. 'We'll just have to hope we get on better with Posy, the other twin.'
'Kirsty, you mean,' Jimmy said. 'She's rebranded, remember? But there was something else that came out of my meeting with her sister. Something I need to run past you Maggie, to see what you think about it.'
'What was that?' Maggie didn't know how or why, but she thought she knew what he was going to say.
'She asked me out. To dinner.'
She smiled, pleased that her intuition had proved accurate. But then again, you didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to predict what would happen when any woman was within touching distance of Jimmy Stewart.
'So what did you say?'
He laughed. 'I sort of said maybe. That I'd let her know when we'd decided about the case. I think I gave her the impression that I had to get your permission first.'