by Rob Wyllie
'I suppose we'll have to question her ma'am?' Frank asked. 'ACC Frost I mean?'
Jill gave a despairing shake of the head. 'We need to go easy on that. We can't question her unless we have grounds that she was involved. Evidence-led, that's how it's supposed to be, remember? Even if she is the prime suspect.'
'Understood ma'am,' Frank said. He saw the look of disappointment on Ronnie French's face. 'But I'm sure we'll find something.'
'Good,' she said, giving French a stern look. 'So there's probably no need to hand the investigation over to our friend Barker right now I would say. And if you're ok with it Pete, I'd like to keep it with Frank in Department 12B for a day or two just to tidy it up, and then we'll pass it to your Serious Crimes team.'
'Sure ma'am,' Burnside shrugged. 'Fine by me. I don't need the work, believe me.'
Jill smiled at Frank. 'I assume you've still got that slightly questionable relationship with that forensic officer?'
He returned her smile. 'Eleanor Campbell you mean? I do, and it's strictly professional before you ask. But yes, I'm sure somewhere in Clarkson's cyber history is the key to his murder and she'll help us find it, no question. We've got his laptop remember? We'll get onto it right away.'
So now once again, progress in a case was in the hands of the temperamental prima donna of Maida Vale Labs. But then again he thought, it could be worse.
He might have had to rely on Ronnie French alone.
Chapter 26
WPC Lexy McDonald had woken with a mixture of trepidation and excitement that morning, as she contemplated the importance of the day that lay ahead. A day, that if it went to plan, which might very well unlock the key to who had carried out the terrible killings of Morag and Isabelle McKay. And by doing so, start to put right the horrendous miscarriage of justice caused by the sloppy police work that was fast becoming the shameful hallmark of the case. That's what DI Stewart had told her at least, and she was determined not to let him down.
The key was of course to find out who had made that anonymous call reporting that a murder was in progress. She had discovered through her initial enquiries that BT only routinely kept records of incoming emergency calls for six months, although occasionally they would hold some older ones if they were monitoring calls for training purposes during the period in question. But unfortunately they didn't have these extra ones for the time they were interested in, meaning that they would have to ask the police emergency call response centre in Govan, which had every prospect of being rather more problematic. Because she would need to tell them why she wanted them, and that would mean breaking cover. And they had already discovered that when that happened, things had a habit of going missing.
'Aye, well don't worry about that,' DI Stewart had said when she had asked his advice. 'Just tell your sarge what I've asked you to do, all tidy and above board. I'm sure it'll cause ructions behind the scenes, but that in itself will tell a wee story, don't you think?'
So she had taken his advice, going so far as asking Sergeant Muir if he would come along with her to the call centre on the basis that they might get more joy if it was an experienced officer who was asking the questions. But not unexpectedly he declined, and furthermore decreed that her visit would have to wait a day or two, due to him having a higher-priority task for her. There had been a spate of burglaries in the nearby Castlemilk housing scheme, and the police were having a crackdown, flooding the area with uniformed officers as a show of strength and conducting intensive door-to-door enquiries. All hands to the pump, that was the clear message being handed down by the brass, and all other matters would have to wait in the queue until the two-day exercise was complete. Two days in which anything embarrassing at that call-centre could be quietly tidied away.
Still, she had actually enjoyed the diversion, relishing the chance to get out and about in the real world, although it had to be said that the drug-invested real world of Castlemilk seemed rather less than pleased to see them. With fifty-five percent unemployment and the same percentage of single-parent households, it was a microcosm of the social problems that still afflicted the great city, despite years of gentrification, a gentrification that had taken a wide swerve to avoid this bleak outpost. But she'd met plenty of folks who had been brought up in places just like it, yet had gone on to do very well for themselves. There was always hope, even if you had to look hard to find it.
On the map, it had looked an easy walk from New Gorbals to the call-handling centre, but it turned out to be a good forty-five minutes at a brisk pace, and she'd worked up quite a sweat by the time she got there. The centre occupied a discreet low-rise office block with minimal signage identifying its purpose. Lexy wasn't quite sure how these places worked, but had a vague understanding that the staff were mainly civilians but under police management. A few years ago they'd gone on strike, she remembered that, over plans to consolidate locations and slash pay and conditions, or at least that's how the unions had portrayed it, but that all seemed to have settled down now as far as she knew.
The double front doors opened into a tiny reception area. A female receptionist sat at a desk, protected behind a vertical glass panel that reached all the way to the ceiling.
'Hi, WPC Lexy McDonald from New Gorbals,' she said, flashing her warrant card. 'I think I'm seeing a Jane Scott.'
'Yes that's right,' the receptionist said pleasantly. 'We have you on our list for Jane. Could you sign the register please?' She slid a visitors' book and a ball point pen through the slot. Lexy was expecting something altogether more hi-tech, and then she caught sight of the CCTV camera that was pointing straight at her and beaming her face onto a wall-mounted TV monitor. As she scribbled her name, the facial-recognition technology would be quietly working away in the background, cross-checking her identity to make sure everything stacked up. A few moments later, a door opened and a smartly-dressed woman in her mid-thirties stepped through to greet her, carrying a buff folder in one hand.
'Hi, I'm Jane Scott, morning-shift supervisor,' she said, extending the other hand. 'Follow me, I've booked a wee room for us.'
The door opened up into a vast open-plan office peopled by a small army of head-set equipped call-handlers housed in tiny cubicles, presumably to screen the sound of their voices from their near-neighbour, although she wondered if even with that protection they could hear anything, such was the volume of chatter filling the room.
'This is where it all happens,' Scott said. 'We get over a thousand calls a day. Twenty-four-by-seven. It's non-stop, as you can see.'
'I can imagine,' Lexy said, feigning interest. They got a lot of calls. They answered them. Big deal. She could see where they were heading, towards a glass-walled meeting room tucked in the corner of the office, and she could see they were to be joined by a third party, already installed at the head of a small table. And as she got close, she could make out the badges on his epaulette. A crown and one pip. A Chief Superintendent.
'WPC McDonald, is it? Welcome to our Govan facility. Sit down, please.' His manner made it clear who was going to be in charge of this meeting, if she hadn't already guessed.
'This is Chief Superintendent Watson,' Jane Scott said. 'He's in overall charge of our facility here.'
'So how can we help you McDonald?' he said, wearing a condescending smile. Surely this was a rhetorical question because she'd told Scott exactly what she wanted when she'd called to make the arrangements a couple of days ago. But he waited patiently for her to answer.
Young, keen, dumb, naive. That was the way to play it, not that it would be too difficult for her to pull that trick off. And in any case, WPCs just a week or two out of probation would be inconsequential pond-life to a guy like Watson.
'The DI I'm assigned to wanted me to get some incoming call records for that date I told Jane about sir.' She gave him what she hoped was a nervous smile. 'I'm afraid I don't really know why sir. He didn't really explain it very clearly sir. I'm sorry, I suppose I should have asked sir. Before I came, I mean sir.'<
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He smiled at her, this time with some warmth. 'Well that's all right WPC McDonald, I'm sure we can help you. And please, go easy on the sirs if you don't mind.'
Turning to Scott he asked, 'Well Jane, how did we get on with her request? Find anything?'
'Yes Chief Superintendent, I pulled the records for the period in question. We were looking for calls between around four-thirty and six-thirty. It was a fairly quiet evening by our normal standards. There were fifty-four calls so it wasn't too difficult to find the one that PC McDonald was interested in.'
Watson clasped his hands in front of him and nodded. 'Good news then.'
There was something in Scott's manner that made Lexy suspect it wasn't.
'Well yes sir, I suppose it is. Look, here it is.' She took a sheet of paper from her folder, laid it on the table facing them and pointed to a row in the list. 'It came in at seventeen forty-eight. Reported disturbance at Ardmore village, number fourteen Loch Road. That's the one, isn't it?'
'Yes, that's it,' Lexy said, wearing a perplexed expression, 'but that column there, incoming number?...'
'Yes, I'm afraid so,' Jane Scott said, giving a rueful smile. 'Number withheld.'
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Of course he had bloody well known, she could tell that from his smug expression. Because otherwise he wouldn't have gone through the whole elaborate charade, to pretend that his outfit was being so helpful when it was being anything but. She had little doubt that if there had been an incoming number on the records, then it would have conveniently disappeared, just like that white-board capture had. And now she would have to call DI Stewart and tell him the bad news, and she didn't expect him to be exactly over the moon, not that he would blame her of course. But that didn't take away from the fact that this was a setback, and a setback on her watch too. It was disappointing, and she didn't like to disappoint him.
And then, out of the blue, she remembered the story he had been regaling everyone with on that excellent evening up in the Lochmorehead Hotel. About a clever forensic officer called Eleanor Campbell and an even cleverer intelligence analyst from MI5 called Jayden Henry. And how they had instant access to every phone call in the whole wide world. Suddenly she felt a whole lot better.
As she picked up her phone to call DI Stewart, some part of her was annoyed with herself for not having thought of it earlier, saving herself having to be the subject of Watson's self-satisfaction. But then when she considered it again, she changed her mind. Yes, the visit had been a waste of time as far as the primary objective was concerned, but on the other hand it provided further confirmation of their suspicions. Now there could be no doubt there was a conspiracy, orchestrated from the highest levels in the force, to conceal the truth about the McKay murders.
And so it was that five minutes after she had spoken to Frank, he had called Ronnie French, who, five minutes after that, had called his mate Jayden at MI5, requesting a special favour. And five minutes after that, they had discovered the 999 call had come from the landline of Ardmore House, the sumptuous lochside home of Commodore Roderick Macallan.
The home of the murderer, Commodore Roderick Macallan.
Chapter 27
Maggie knew it would be the hardest thing she had ever asked Jimmy to do in the two years they had worked together, a task way outside what was reasonable for any boss to ask of an employee. Not that boss-employee was an accurate description of their working relationship, because although it might be her name on the business cards, she and Jimmy were partners in every sense. Without him, she knew there could be no Maggie Bainbridge Associates, and more than that, without him, hers would only be half a life. And floating along in the recesses of her mind was the thought she did not dare bring to the surface. Without Jimmy, there would have been no Frank. Soon, they would be back in Scotland, with a promise that this time they would find time to stop off on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond and share another of these lovely dinners. And maybe, finally, this time, that little spark of something that existed between them might catch alight at last.
But in the end, and not without considerable reservations, she had asked him to do it. Speak to Flora and ask if you can accompany her to Elspeth Macallan's funeral. From the outside looking in, it wasn't such an unreasonable request, and after all, estranged couples often found themselves thrown together, albeit reluctantly, for family events. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, school plays and such like. Now Maggie stood in the little church yard in Lochmorehead, watching them as they waited to enter the church, Flora elegant in a full-length black wool coat, her flame-red hair tied back in an elaborate double French plait, Jimmy in a dark grey suit, white shirt and black tie, the universal uniform of respect for the dead. And in the glinting autumn sunshine, they stood silently together, looking perfectly beautiful, their physical forms interlocking as if designed for one another. She had never seen him so quiet as he had been on the flight up and then during the onward drive, and she thought she knew what he would have been thinking the whole time. This may be my last chance.
She caught Alison Macallan laying a modest spray of flowers against the marble tombstone of her late husband, no more than a few metres from the open grave that would be the final resting place of poor Elspeth.
'Hello Alison,' she said, smiling and glancing up at the cloudless sky. 'At least we've got a nice day for it.'
'Yes, but I'm really sick of funerals. There's been too many. It's as if this place is cursed.'
Maggie nodded, remembering that Jimmy had expressed exactly the same emotion.
'Your family has suffered so much. I really do hope there are better times ahead for all of you.'
'Well, you've helped enormously with that Maggie,' she said, giving a soft smile. 'I really can't thank you enough.'
'It's the least I could do.' We'll leave the details to you but you can go up to a million. That was the instruction Rory Overton had given her and she always followed her clients' instructions to the letter. Except, feeling sorry for Alison Macallan, she'd gone straight in with the offer the full sum. 'Have you made any plans?'
'Yes, I've seen a nice little flat just off Charlotte Square. I've friends nearby and it will be lovely. A new city and a new start, that's what it is, isn't it? And I won't miss this place. I thought I could never leave but I was wrong.'
'And you could always come back and visit,' Maggie said uncertainly.
'No,' Alison said, quite firmly. 'I've done a lot of thinking in the last few days, and after everything Roderick put me through over all these years, I realised that most of the memories are bad ones. The loch is beautiful of course but there's hundreds of beautiful lochs in Scotland. I don't need to see this one ever again.'
Maggie wasn't sure if this was the appropriate time or place, but she decided to ask anyway.
'I knew you and your husband were separated towards the end, but I didn't know you'd had problems before that. But forgive me, it's probably something you don't want to talk about.'
She shrugged. 'I didn't know it when I married him, but then we never do, do we? It was the power you see, and it went to his head. He was the commander of the base with over two thousand men at his command and the pastoral responsibility for the families too. There were so many of them over the years. Promises of cushy postings, the right word in the right ear when it came to the promotion boards, all that sort of thing. And all in return for little favours, if you know what I mean. He nearly got kicked out ten years ago when he got an officer's wife pregnant, but it was all hushed up in the end. And it never stopped him, he just kept on doing it. So yes, you could say we had problems. But really, I don't want to talk about it ever again.'
And yet here she was at his graveside laying flowers. She knew it only too well from her own disastrous marriage. You could love someone and hate them at the same time. And then Maggie remembered what Jimmy had told her about Susan Priest and her controlling husband.
'I think poor Susan Priest may have suffered in the same way. Her husband didn't
seem to be a very nice man.'
Alison gave her a perplexed look as if struggling to recall the name, then said. 'Susan Priest? Yes of course, Susan McColl, the twins' old nanny. I heard what happened to her. It's all around the village as you can imagine. It was so awful.'
It wasn't the reaction that Maggie was expecting. 'But...' she started, then bit her lip. And then she thought about what Frank had told her, about Ronnie French's visit to Winchester, about the old Ford Focus seen lurking just along the road from where the terrible incident took place. She remembered her last visit to Alison's lochside home, where the path to the porch was blocked by the old car parked on the tiny gravel drive. It seemed impossible to believe, but surely there could only be one reason why Alison Macallan had failed to mention her visit to the Priests not more than three weeks earlier?
Now it was important to act perfectly normally, for Maggie not to betray her suspicions until she could pass them onto the police. She smiled at her,
'Yes, these teenage joy-riders are a plague, aren't they? They get high on drugs and then cause so much devastation to the lives of their innocent victims. I expect the police will catch the perpetrator sooner or later. But anyway, maybe we can get five minutes in the hotel after the wake, get your agreement signed and draw a line under all of this?'
'That would be great,' Alison said. 'But here, it looks like the service might be about to start. I'd better go in, though I'm not looking forward to it. Will you sit with me Maggie?'
'I'm not invited I'm afraid. Friends and close family only.'
Maggie turned to look at the door of the old church, just in time to catch Jimmy and Flora entering.
They were holding hands.
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