Flesh and Blood (DS Vicky Dodds Scottish Crime Thrillers Book 2)

by Ed James

  17

  Vicky stepped inside Craigen’s house and called out, ‘Hello?’

  No sights, no sounds, just her voice echoing round the empty hallway.

  She looked into the kitchen, empty of people, but the countertops were rammed with packets of food and bottles of various types of alcohol, all bagged and tagged.

  Considine started inspecting it. ‘Oh, some nice stuff here.’

  ‘And it’s all catalogued, so none of that should go walkies.’

  ‘Sarge, I’m not a bloody tea leaf!’

  The stairs crunched and Vicky darted back through.

  Zoey Jones was slouching down the staircase, dressed in a crime scene suit, her mask dangling free as she lugged an evidence box almost as big as her. She frowned at Vicky. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hi, Zoey.’

  ‘Mr Craigen, whoever he is, has a ton of computers. I’m going to be forever going through these.’ Zoey rested the box on the floor at the bottom of the steps and showed off a sizeable baby bulge.

  As hard as she tried, Vicky couldn’t shake off this sickening feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.

  Vicky hadn’t seen her in at least two years and if anything she looked even younger, despite her pregnancy. ‘You shouldn’t be lugging IT equipment around.’

  ‘Christ, I’m pregnant, not disabled.’

  ‘Even so. Have you found a mobile phone?’

  ‘Found three. Sneaky AF.’ Zoey grimaced. ‘I mean, one for personal and one for work. But filthy perverts usually have a third for secret shit, right?’

  The sickening feeling deepened. ‘Can you work with DC Considine here?’

  Zoey nodded a smile at him. ‘Sure, but my husband told me to speak to him first.’

  ‘Euan. Right. Is your boss around?’

  ‘Jenny? Oh, she’s upstairs.’

  Vicky shot a warning glare at Considine. ‘You stay here and help her out with all that.’ She took the stairs two at a time.

  Jenny was in the back room, running through a box of evidence and cross-referencing it to a tablet. ‘Hey, Vicky.’

  ‘You didn’t even look at me.’

  ‘No, I heard you berating poor Zoey.’

  ‘I wasn’t berating anyone. And if I was, it’d be you for letting a pregnant woman carry a box downstairs.’

  ‘What?’ Jenny sighed. ‘She won’t take a telling.’

  ‘Never your fault, is it?’

  ‘No, it will be when she falls and has a bloody miscarriage. But I’m not getting in the way of your love triangle.’

  ‘Jenny…’

  ‘Oh, come on. The number of times you’ve spilled out your heart about Euan MacDonald over a few glasses of wine…’

  ‘He’s a creepy bastard.’

  ‘And if you had a type, creepy bastard would be it.’

  Vicky ignored her and walked over to the bed. ‘You wanted to speak to me?’

  ‘Come on. You’ll want to see this.’ Jenny led her through the house’s upper floor, away from the sun porch towards the master bedroom. ‘Here.’

  A study lined with bookcases, and a desk in the middle, a power supply trailing across from the wall but no sign of the laptop.

  Jenny walked over to the nearest shelf. ‘We’ve catalogued them, but haven’t dusted them or anything.’

  Vicky took it all in and recognised some titles from Rob’s collection at home. Mindhunter by John Douglas. Zodiac by Robert Graysmith. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. Even some Scottish stuff — three editions of The Schoolbook Killer: The Ghost in the Machine by William Porteous. An entire room devoted to books about serial killers. Videos and DVDs too. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘You haven’t seen it yet, have you?’

  ‘What?’ Vicky searched through the cases. And stopped dead. A whole section on Atreus. Twelve books, twenty DVD cases, and binders stuffed full of press clippings. ‘So Craigen was clearly interested in the case.’

  ‘Anyone who grew up in Dundee when that was going on still is, Vicky. But these books are his wife’s.’

  Vicky frowned at her. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘There are signed copies to her from the authors.’ Jenny opened a hardback with a black cover and red writing. To Kill for Love: The Truth behind the Atreus Killer by William Porteous. Inside, it was signed:

  To Louise,

  My number one fan. See you at KillerCon in Glasgow.

  Bill X

  Christ.

  ‘Thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So why do you look like you’ve just found out that someone’s married your love interest and got up the duff to him?’

  ‘Jenny… This isn’t necessarily what I wanted to find. Louise Craigen had a clear motive to murder her husband. Inheriting two expensive houses and a successful business after he chucked her and her kids out of here. Enough to make anyone at least think about killing him and his new girlfriend. I just don’t get why she’d copy Atreus.’

  ‘Are you pulling my leg? She was obsessed.’

  ‘I know that, it’s just…’ Vicky looked through the bookcase stuffed with folders full of news clipping. ‘This is all about that case?’

  ‘We haven’t started cataloguing it yet.’ Jenny pulled out one folder, bulging at the seams. ‘Holy shit. This is all about your dad, Vicky.’

  ‘What?’

  Jenny pulled out a page of handwritten notes attached to a USB stick. ‘She interviewed him three years ago.’

  18

  Vicky went up on tiptoes to check in the front window but there was no sign of anybody. Not her mum, her dad or her idiot brother.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  A patch of sunlight broke through the haar and lit up the old dump that was now a burgeoning millennium forest. Not that she’d been here when it was planted. At that time, she was as desperate to get as far away from this town as possible, though Aberdeen was maybe not quite far enough.

  She thought she could make out a Rod Stewart song blasting out. Sounded close though, so she gave it another knock, then called through the letterbox. ‘Mum? Dad? It’s Vicky!’

  No response.

  No movement, no sounds. Nothing.

  Desperate times, though, so she opened her purse and took out the old keyring, and found the one for her parents’ door. Slightly bent and she couldn’t fit it in the lock.

  A shape misted the glass and the door opened. Andrew leered out into the morning gloom, hair standing up on end, and maybe a week’s worth of beard on his face. He looked like death warmed up at a very low setting on the microwave. ‘You. Right.’ And he slumped off into the house.

  Vicky shut the door behind her and followed him through to the kitchen. The dull smell of burnt toast lingered in the air. ‘Is Dad in?’

  Andrew was sitting at the kitchen counter, his dressing gown shrouding the stool he was perched on, and he tucked in to cereal, splashing milk back into the bowl with each spoonful. ‘He’s in his study.’

  ‘My old room?’

  ‘Right, that.’ He chewed slowly. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘Right.’ Andrew took another splashy spoonful but didn’t eat any. ‘Be careful. Dad’s in his obsession phase again.’

  She grimaced. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t remember what he was like.’ Andrew dropped his spoon into his bowl. ‘When we were kids, there was this time where he was really angry all the time. Barely saw him and every time we did, he was a total dick. Shouting at Mum and me.’ He winced. ‘Never at you, mind.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘You were what, ten? I was seven. Definitely at school. I remember it all.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’ Vicky exhaled slowly. ‘How you keeping?’

  Andrew shrugged, staring into his breakfast. ‘Catch you later.’

  Vicky wanted to help him, but she didn’t know how. And boy did she have her own cross to bear, with
nails driven deep into her wrists and through her palms. ‘Take care, Andrew.’ She turned heel and walked through the house towards the din of Rod Stewart.

  Dad was hunched over in front of the ancient computer in her old bedroom. Downtown Train blasted out, though the voice sounded too rough and ragged to be Rod Stewart. He looked round at her, then nodded and said something lost to the music. He hit a key on his laptop and the noise cut out.

  ‘It’s too early for Rod Stewart, Dad.’

  ‘That’s Tom Waits!’ But Dad was back to his laptop, squinting through his supermarket specs. ‘You here to smack me around again?’

  ‘Only if you don’t tell the truth.’ Vicky stood in the doorway, arms folded like she was a detective sergeant in her late thirties and not a little girl asking her dad for a puppy. ‘You didn’t think to tell me about you speaking to Louise Craigen?’ Her voice sounded thin and shrill.

  ‘Who?’ Dad took a slurp of coffee from a giant white mug that he’d got from a toxic sportswear shop. ‘Nice to see you, by the way.’

  ‘She interviewed you, Dad.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dad frowned, but was lost to his coffee mug. ‘She’s just a daft wifie.’

  ‘Sexist, much?’

  ‘What?’ He looked round at her, frowning. ‘What does that even mean?’

  ‘Dad, we’ve found a load of books about the Atreus killer in her house, and interview notes with you. You didn’t think to mention this?’

  ‘Sorry. Why is it important?’

  ‘Dad, I need you to tell me everything. Now.’

  He finished his coffee, but held onto the mug. ‘Couple of years ago, she was doing this radio thingy. On the computer.’

  ‘A podcast?’

  ‘Aye, something like that.’

  ‘And it was about Atreus?’

  ‘Jim Sanderson, aye.’

  The podcast Karen was supposed to be looking into.

  Vicky got out her phone and checked for messages. Nothing. So she either hadn’t got round to it, or overnight she’d become as useless as Considine. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Almost three years back. Someone had written another book about the case and the lad tore me apart. My whole career. Everything. These people, journalists, writers, they’re scum.’

  ‘Who wrote it?’

  ‘William Porteous.’

  ‘He signed a copy of his book to Louise.’

  ‘He’s a piece of work. Lives up north somewhere, so I ventured up there one morning and made it clear that he’s not to include any of that in any books he’s writing.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘As far as I know. Removed half of it from the paperback. Made me seem better. And this woman, she… She wanted me to go over it all again, said it would offer closure, a chance for me to get my side across, but it was a disaster.’

  ‘A disaster how?’

  ‘She was interviewing me about it, just asking all these silly questions, but she started digging into stuff she shouldn’t have known about.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘The knife going missing. The blame on me. Part of the deal was nobody would know about it. That I’d get away with it, even though I hadn’t done anything.’

  ‘Was this in the book?’

  ‘No, even that arsehole hadn’t been that brave. But she had.’

  ‘You should’ve told me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I could’ve helped.’

  ‘Vicky, I did my time in Forfar. That’s like being sent to Siberia when you’re a DI in Dundee CID.’

  ‘Did it ever go out?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘What do you mean? You didn’t check?’

  ‘I didn’t know how to. After I’d stewed on it for a few days, I called her but she didn’t answer.’ He pointed out of the window along the road towards the Craigen home overlooking them. ‘But she lives in that big fancy house up there. Went round there and persuaded her not to use it. Why are you asking, anyway?’

  As much as Vicky wanted to, she couldn’t tell him the truth. Could she?

  She opened the podcast app on her phone and searched. The See No Evil podcast had ten episodes, between twenty and thirty minutes each, though only the first had any reviews. Vicky figured it was Louise trying to jump on the Serial bandwagon when everyone in the world seemed to listen to that show and true-crime podcasts were huge for about five minutes. Still might be, she didn’t know. Maybe she thought she was using her old journalism skills for something useful, or at least exorcising some personal demons. Growing up with those Atreus murders on your doorstep seemed to traumatise enough people.

  But there was no mention of DI George Dodds in any of the episode listings, so maybe Louise had heeded his warning. Only way to be sure was to listen through them all.

  ‘You want to tell me what you’re looking at, Victoria?’

  She took a long, hard breath, weighing up the pros and cons, then just decided, fuck it. ‘Okay. The reason I’m asking is because the body we found, the one who died on Saturday night, it’s her husband. Soon to be ex.’

  ‘Ah, crap.’ Dad slumped back in his office chair, but it was more like relief than tension building up. ‘You thinking she copied Sanderson?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Vicky sat on the dining chair next to his desk. ‘She might have a good motive, namely inheriting her husband’s homes and business, and probably getting a big life insurance payout.’ She shrugged. ‘And even if all that comes to nothing, it could just be plain revenge. Her husband left her for a younger woman.’

  ‘Well, that makes sense. Hiding her simple motive under a complex MO? Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s pulled that trick.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t quite know why, but it doesn’t feel right to me.’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘I didn’t like the woman, but I just don’t see her as a killer. What you and David showed me, that was brutal.’

  ‘What, like a woman couldn’t do that to a man?’

  ‘I’m not saying that.’

  ‘What are you saying, then?’

  ‘I’m saying that, having sat with Louise Craigen for four hours, I don’t think that woman could do that.’

  Vicky had only spent a few minutes in her company and in truth didn’t have the measure of her. Then again, the number of times she’d seen someone spill their guts and still have no idea of the rage burning inside them. ‘Even to her husband who’d made her and her kids virtually destitute?’

  ‘Who knows what that could do to someone? And I know you. You’re going to speak to her, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course I am. I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘Be very careful. If she’s—’

  ‘I know, Dad.’

  ‘All I’ll say is, have you considered how far advanced the divorce is?’

  19

  Considine got out onto the street first. ‘Thanks for letting me drive this bad boy.’ He caressed the Subaru’s bonnet like he would a lover.

  Actually, she didn’t want to think about Considine with a lover.

  ‘Just don’t crash this one.’ Vicky set off along the high street, but at least the haar was starting to burn away.

  The Chinese takeaway on the corner was where she’d worked for a horrible year dealing with drunks and drug fiends, but the worst of the abuse was reserved for her boss and his lovely wife. And they’d just smiled through it all.

  Vicky crossed the road. The war memorial was still lit up despite it being almost nine in the middle of July.

  Considine stopped outside what used to be the Carnoustie branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Where Vicky had opened her first bank account as a kid and got her first mortgage as an adult. They shut it the previous year, cue constant moaning from her mother, despite having no need for any of their banking services.

  The door now led into the Costa branch that filled the downstairs. On the left, a sign advertised properties for sale and rent, under ornate
lettering reading “Gray and Leech, Solicitors”.

  Which made Vicky groan. ‘You didn’t tell me it was them.’

  ‘Should I? Why?’

  ‘Stephen, I wish you’d remember things. It’s kind of your job.’

  ‘I spoke to her on the phone, but she wouldn’t help.’

  ‘Stephen, you need to be on top of your game. We constantly come across lawyers who have grievances against us for just doing our jobs. You need to overcome it without coming running to Mummy or Daddy.’

  ‘Mummy or Daddy?’

  ‘Me and DS MacDonald.’

  ‘So you are shagging?’

  ‘No. God no.’ Vicky shut her eyes. ‘I’m just saying that you need to be more resourceful.’

  Considine blew air up his face. ‘O-kay.’

  Vicky pushed through the door and started climbing the stairs, but Considine raced up ahead of her. She caught the swinging door at the top and pushed into the office. It smelled like a bank, that weird paper and ink tang hanging heavy in the air.

  A smallish woman took one look at Vicky and glowered. Polly Muirhead. She had the face of a middle-aged woman but the body of a teenage girl. ‘You’ve got some cheek.’

  ‘We need a word somewhere private?’

  ‘Through here.’ Polly led through a heavy oak door into a tiny meeting room, out of step with the rest of the place. A small desk with two chairs on either side, all bolted in. Just like a police interview room.

  Considine took the first seat facing the door.

  Vicky stayed standing. She didn’t doubt they had plush offices here for property clients, and they probably didn’t get too many criminal defence cases down here in Carnoustie. ‘We’re investigating the death of one Derek Craigen.’

  Polly didn’t sit either, just stayed by the door like she was going to make a run for it. She couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact. ‘And you just expect me to help you?’

  ‘You are his solicitor.’

  ‘For my sins.’

  ‘And it seems like you’re expecting me to apologise.’

  Polly laughed, wide-eyed. ‘I don’t see how you can expect me to help you with this after what you did to me and my husband.’

  ‘What exactly did I do?’

  Polly took the seat next to Considine. ‘I liked my life. I loved my husband.’