The Ardmore Inheritance

by Rob Wyllie

  Sifting through box one, she found the document still in place. She glanced down it to the section that covered motive.

  1. According to the base commander, the accused has a history of mental health problems and had sought help for these in recent months. A circle had been drawn around 'base commander' and a few words scrawled underneath. Commodore Macallan RN to testify.

  2. The accused had been having marital problems as witnessed by the email exchanges whilst at sea, to be submitted in evidence. Accused has denied sending or receiving correspondence. Communications Officer Daniel Clarkson RN to testify.

  This last guy was presumably being called to the stand to refute the frankly crazy suggestion that somehow the email exchange between McKay and his wife was fake. The more Lexy thought about it, the more she became convinced that this more than any other factor would have sealed his conviction. She tried to put herself inside the head of a man who knew that he was innocent, but who also knew that the case against him was overwhelming. A man who had been caught red-handed at the scene, holding the blood-soaked murder weapon. Simply saying it wasn't me just wasn't going to cut it when all of that was against you. So obviously he'd decided on a different tack. Challenging the motive.

  I loved my wife and daughter more than anything in the world, why would I want to kill them?, that's what he would have said. Yes, but what about these emails? the police would have said in response. I didn't send them. I've never seen them before in my life.

  As a defence it was dumb beyond belief, and Lexy had no doubt that the navy's expert witness, this Daniel Clarkson guy whoever he was, would have had no trouble in demolishing his frankly ridiculous assertion. Poor McKay, and with that line of defence destroyed, his credibility would have been shattered too. It was no wonder that the jury returned a guilty verdict after being out for just sixty-five minutes.

  Except that he hadn't done it.

  Boxes eight to fourteen were labelled 'investigation notes', and she remembered they were a random collection of notes and observations, along with a regular photo snapshot of the investigation's whiteboard, inexpertly captured by the camera-phone of one of the team was her guess. There was about a dozen of them, and she remembered finding them interesting during her first review because they gave an insight into the thinking of the team as the investigation evolved. She presumed most of the content was just the random brainstorming of team members, scribbled on the board and generally appended with a question mark. Unanswered questions for the whole team to consider and hopefully answer. The problem was, she hadn't counted these whiteboard captures first time round, so there was no way of knowing for definite if any of them had been made to disappear.

  She removed them all from the box and laid them out mosaic-style on her desk. They were dated, so she was able to sort them into more or less chronological order, which gave some insight into how the investigation had unfolded. They'd taken a snap-shot generally every two to three days, a good indicator as to how fast things were moving. Comparing one to the next, she saw that usually a couple of items had been erased and a couple more added. Gentle evolution but all moving in the right direction. But then she noticed it. There was a gap. Two and a half weeks into the investigation's timeline, there was a six-day gap between the last whiteboard image and the next. She could feel her heart begin to speed up as she realised the significance of what she had just deduced. At least one of these routine captures had been removed, which meant there was something on them that Pollock didn't want them to see. But what the hell was it? Was there something she remembered first time round, something that had caught her attention as especially significant? Like DI Stewart had said, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But there was nothing for it but to start looking, because today was the last chance they had before the pile of boxes was spirited away forever.

  She realised she needed to look at it from the perspective of back then, when no-one was questioning the time of death and they were dealing with a suspect that had been caught at the scene of the crime. She'd come to like DI Stewart in the short time they had been working together, but she couldn't help but think he was being a bit harsh on her Chief Constable. Putting herself in his shoes, she was pretty sure she would have come to the same conclusion at the time. Means, motive, opportunity. It was all there, neat and tidy. Tidy enough to convince a jury, which it had.

  And yet someone had scribbled something on that whiteboard, something that posed a question to the investigating team. Are we sure about this? Something that didn't quite square up, something that didn't quite fit with the facts. Something that Pollock now didn't want them to see.

  Then quite out of the blue, it came to her. She was thinking of her visit with DI Stewart to Jess Sinclair and then the drive from Helensburgh to Lochmorehead, most of which he had spent with his eyes closed and his foot jammed down on an imaginary brake pedal. What was it, twenty-five or twenty-six miles at least, and she remembered that she hardly got above thirty miles an hour anywhere along the twisty route. The same route the police had taken that night when they'd answered the anonymous call summoning them to the McKay house on Ardmore base. The same call that saw them arriving at the house just in time to catch Lieutenant James McKay in the act of murder.

  And now Lexy could see that the timing just didn't stack up. Someone, a neighbour or maybe a passer-by out walking their dog, hears a disturbance and dials 999. It takes at least five minutes for the operator to establish the facts and decide whether to take action. The call then goes out to Helensburgh police station and a patrol car is sent on its way. Probably just a domestic is the assessment, so there's no undue rush. An hour later the police arrive to find a man holding a knife, a knife that had been used in two murders. Two murders that had apparently taken place just a few minutes earlier. Of course it didn't stack up, and someone on Pollock's investigation team must have come to that conclusion too, causing them to scribble a bloody great question mark on that whiteboard.

  So who had made that phone call, scheduling it to perfection such that the police arrived at the scene just a few minutes after Lieutenant McKay? There could only be one answer to that question.

  The murderer. And a murderer who knew that at around eight that evening, Lieutenant James McKay would be walking up the hill from the berthing dock of HMS Azure.

  Chapter 21

  It was the first time Frank had managed to make it back to Atlee House after his Scotland trip, what with one thing or another, and the second thing he was going to do after tracking down a coffee and a Twix bar was to track down the geeky forensic officer, to see if he could work out what the hell she had meant by that bloody emoji-festooned text she had sent him last night. He was hoping it signalled some progress on the Geordie affair, and it couldn't come at a better time too. Because earlier that day he'd been on the end of a bollocking from Jill Smart due to his failure thus far to find any trace of the hacker. This was out of character for his boss and he knew instantly what had prompted it. It was the news that a selection of ACC Katherine Frost's amateur porn videos had now surfaced on the web and as was to be expected, were gathering 'likes' by the ton. This guy had to be caught, and quick.

  The fact that Eleanor had concluded the text with a kiss had been a surprise which, not being a normal feature of their communication, he assumed was either a reflex action or maybe an effort on her part to soften the blow of this unexpected failure. He found her at her adopted desk, which seemed to be now her permanent location, her visits to her official office over in Maida Vale labs now few and far between. Like himself, she preferred to work on her own, and by keeping out of sight in his Department 12B enclave, she could avoid the tedious schedule of weekly stand-ups and team meetings and communications briefs she hated so much. It also meant that, out of sight of her boss, she could spend more time on the phone to her on-off boyfriend Lloyd. Time when really she should have been working. But for the second time in a fortnight, Frank had failed to catch her out, which he reckoned mig
ht be some sort of a record.

  'Hi Eleanor,' he asked brightly, pulling up a battered plastic chair alongside her desk, 'Lloyd ok?'

  'Like yeah. Why do you ask?' she answered, giving him a suspicious look.

  'No reason, it's just what people do. It's called exchanging pleasantries. You should try it some time.'

  'Whatever.'

  He smiled. 'Aye, whatever yourself. So wee Eleanor, are you going to explain that cryptic message you sent me last night? Because first you got me all excited then you broke my heart.'

  'Yeah, soz,' she said, furrowing her brow. 'I thought I'd cracked it until I talked to Rosie.'

  'Rosie?' he said, giving her a puzzled look. 'Who's Rosie?'

  She shrugged. 'Rosie Winterton. She's like Director of IT or something. My mate Zak put me on to her.'

  He smiled to himself. He'd learnt this was how Eleanor operated, informally drawing in a diverse range of expertise from across the law-enforcement landscape, her tentacles spreading beyond the Met into MI5 and MI6 and GCHQ and other more secretive groups that didn't even have the benefit of an acronym. And most of her contacts it seemed only had first names, this Rosie Winterton being the exception that proved the rule, he guessed on the basis of her obvious seniority in the organisation.

  'Right, well you better tell me the whole grim tale,' he said. 'Go ahead please, leaving no stone unturned.'

  'Do you want the good news or the bad news first?'

  'I think I already know the bad news, which is that you.. sorry, I mean we can't actually do whatever it is needs to be done. So you'd better give me the good news then I suppose.'

  She gave him an uncertain look, which was not at all like her, because generally speaking, self-doubt was not Eleanor Campbell's thing. 'I don't suppose it really is good news if we can't actually do it.'

  'No no, I'm sure that's not the case,' he said encouragingly. 'Come on, let me be the judge.'

  'Ok. So when you gave me the task, I needed to get all the data together on this Georgie guy...'

  'Geordie.'

  '... yeah, that's it. So I talked to Pete and he sent me a summary of the incidents that we had recorded in London.'

  He didn't need to ask who Pete was, because he already knew. His good mate DI Pete Burnside, as obliging a bloke as had ever been issued with a warrant card.

  'So there were like eight incidents in our area and I added the porno woman from Manchester to make nine in all.'

  Frank laughed. 'Can I remind you that the porno woman as you call her is Assistant Chief Constable Katherine Frost, so please, show a little respect for the rank. And don't say whatever again, ok?'

  'Whatever. So with that data set,' she continued, ignoring his sharp look, 'I realised we could do a cross-reference against the cell-phone databases and look for a match.'

  'Explain please,' he said, interested.

  'So we know where he was at particular points in time because of that weird graffiti he leaves behind? That means if we have the cell phone databases for each of those times and places, we could in theory do a giant cross-reference search and see if a particular phone number appeared in all the locations. Because it would be more than a coincidence if more than one number appeared in each of these places and at these specific times. Do you see?'

  It was a lot of words to take in, but for once, he did see, a rare occurrence when he was on the end of one of her convoluted technical explanations.

  'Christ that's bloody genius Eleanor, so it is.' But then he remembered the bad news. 'So why can't we do it then? This cross-matching thing.'

  'I talked to Rosie,' she said, the disappointment obvious in her voice, 'and she said we would have to stand up a mountain of tin and then implement a bank of multi-threaded database servers. To do it, that is.'

  'I'm sorry Eleanor, but I didn't understand a word of that. Can you simplify it for a technical cretin like me?'

  She was happy to oblige. 'We'd need a really big computer. Rosie said it would cost three hundred grand and take about six months to set up. And we would need to get all the individual databases from about ten mobile phone companies and join them all together which would take a ton of project management because of all the data protection hoops we'd have to jump through.'

  Frank sighed. 'Well it does sound like a hell of a job, and I don't think DCI Smart's going to sign off an three hundred grand budget. It's a pity, but you tried your best and I'm grateful for your efforts.'

  'Sweet,' she said. 'It's just like a shame we don't work for MI5 or MI6.'

  He looked at her sharply. 'What do you mean?'

  She shrugged. 'They monitor every phone call in the universe. They've got the phone databases mounted twenty-four-by-seven, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Permanently online.'

  Frank leapt to his feet, knocking over the flimsy chair in the process.

  'Eleanor, come with me.'

  ◆◆◆

  They found DC Ronnie French in his normal repose, leaning back in his swivel chair with his feet on the desk, phone jammed between his shoulder and cheek whilst he swigged from a beverage can. For a worrying moment Frank thought he was enjoying a sneaky beer, but on closer inspection he saw it was one of these caffeine-boost drinks, the kind that were supposed to give you wings. But never mind wings, it would have its work cut out just to get Frenchie off his fat arse.

  He looked up and seeing Frank, shot him a nervous smile before judging it would be prudent to bring his call to a close.

  'Yeah...yeah Harry, look mate, got to go. Thanks for that nugget mate, yeah nice one. See ya.'

  'On to your bookie then Ronnie?' Frank said, conveniently forgetting that gambling had moved online ten years ago or more.

  'That was Harry guv,' he said, unconcerned, 'one of me snouts. Given me a tip-off for a jewel job up the West End he has.'

  Frank shook his head. 'You've been watching too many old episodes of the Sweeney mate, nobody nicks jewels these days. But what we're here for is to ask you about that pal of yours, Jason or something like that. The guy we used on the Aphrodite case, you remember?'

  'Yeah, Jayden guv. The Jamaican lad with the dreadlocks.'

  'That's him. Is he still at Thames House, with the MI5 crew?'

  Frenchie gave an uncertain look. 'Yeah, I think so, although we've not touched base for a while. Got a job for him have you?'

  'Aye we have. I'll leave you in the good hands of Eleanor here who'll tell you what we need him to do for us.'

  'And what would be in it for him?' Frenchie asked. 'Because me and Jayden have always worked on a you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours basis. He won't do nothing for nothing, Jayden won't.'

  Frank gave a sardonic smile. 'Aye, really public-spirited then. But I seem to recall that your mate loves the ladies, am I right?'

  'Yeah, he loves them all right guv,' Frenchie grinned. 'Mind you, they like him too. He's always getting himself into bother on that score. He's a bad lad.'

  'Perfect,' Frank said, 'so you can tell him there'll be a hot date waiting for him up in Manchester when he's done. And tell him we'll supply the handcuffs.'

  ◆◆◆

  It was just six days later when Eleanor and Frenchie got back to him, considerably quicker than he'd expected given his admittedly vague understanding of the complexity of the matter. But then again, he assumed that the spooks had all of this stuff off to a fine art, with the phone records of every one of the UK's sixty-six million souls on tap, twenty-four-by-seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, as she had said. He thought it must be a giant pile of tedious routine, sixty-six million instances every day of I'll be five minutes late or I've just got on the train and suchlike, which made Frank wonder about the value of keeping it all. But in amongst it all, like the tiniest needle in a haystack the size of a galaxy, would be the stuff in which they were really interested. The coded messages arranging the terrorist outrage, the exchange of images between members of the paedophile ring, the malign activities of the hostile forei
gn power. That was the good stuff, and all the other crap was the price the authorities had to pay to get their hands on it.

  She'd booked one of the big conference rooms in Maida Vale labs, the one with the full-wall multi-media display panels, which he took as a good sign. There was a lot of online form-filling required to get your hands on one of them, and he knew she wouldn't have gone to all the bother if she hadn't some good news to report. The room was big enough to host fifty or sixty, but today only three others besides himself were in residence. Eleanor Campbell, Ronnie French and a tall rangy Rastafarian in a Hawaiian shirt who Frank assumed was Jayden the MI5 spook, or Intelligence Analyst, to give him his proper title.

  'Morning all,' Frank said brightly, tossing his notepad down on the table and pulling out a chair. 'I guess you're Jayden.'

  'Sure man,' the Rastafarian replied, 'that's me.'

  'Well thanks for helping us out with this,' Frank said. 'It's much appreciated.'

  Jayden raised a languid hand and lounged back in his chair. 'Pleasure man.'

  Frank smiled to himself. That was the thing about stereotypes. They so very often turn out to be true, not that he was bothered, because Jayden seemed like a cool guy. The only think that was missing was his piña colada. Or, when he thought about it again, his joint.

  Eleanor hammered a few commands into her wireless keyboard and the wall was filled with a giant map of the UK.

  'So Jayden mounted the cell phone data records for the dates where we had the information on Georgie's activities.'