Rush to Judgement

by John Carson

  ‘Sparks! Easy, ya hoor. That’ll look barry if I go flat on my fucking pancake again.’

  ‘He’s a good boy you’ve got there, Muckle,’ Harry said.

  ‘Aye, but the rooms they gave us only have single beds in them and this fat bastard takes up most of the bed.’ Muckle turned to look at Dunbar. ‘And I mean him, not me.’

  ‘I’ve only got a wee dug and he’s the same. No matter what size they are, it’s their bed and we can only try to fit into what tiny bit they leave for us.’

  ‘And he snores like a bastard. I don’t know who’s worse, him or the wife.’

  They cut into the trees and followed a path.

  ‘Harry said your pal’s here working with you,’ Alex said.

  ‘Wee Shug? Aye. And we have a woman on the team too. Miss Vern. She’s terrific. They’re both up there now.’

  ‘How many’s on the team, Muckle?’ Evans asked.

  ‘Five of us in total during the day, two on early and three of us on the back shift because it gets busier after dark. And a couple of guys on through the night, but they’re older blokes, basically just some ears and eyes to keep a watch on things and give us a shout if anybody’s creeping about touching stuff. So far we haven’t had a bit of bother. Until last night.’

  ‘Is this all private land?’ Dunbar asked.

  ‘Aye. A few thousand acres. It goes all over the place. It’s a popular spot at Christmas with the skiing fraternity, so they said.’

  They walked up through the snow.

  ‘How’s your bare heid now without that mop on top?’ Dunbar asked Evans as they fell behind a bit.

  ‘I can’t believe Harry knows Linda,’ Evans replied in a hushed tone. ‘I feel like a right twat.’

  ‘Look at it this way: you both had a good time. But you should be giving thought to settling down. Maybe get yourself hitched and have a family.’

  ‘It’s just finding the right lassie.’ He shook his head. ‘Fucking friendship ring.’

  They saw lights on in the woods, being fed by a generator. People walking about. Dunbar’s plan to get here before dark had gone sideways and darkness had jumped them when they weren’t looking.

  Harry saw the spot they had marked where the woman had been cut down. He and Alex approached it.

  Four

  ‘Whoa, whoa, fucking hell!’ said a man in a forensics suit, striding over to them on the trampled snowy path, trying not to lose his balance or his dignity as his plastic suit rustled. ‘This is a crime scene, chief. You can’t come up here and start making a bollocks of it.’

  ‘And you are?’ Harry said.

  ‘Listen to me and listen good. This is my crime scene, and while I’m in charge of it, you big-city slickers will just have to follow protocol.’

  ‘We’re hardly going to strip off and dance naked round a fire on it,’ Dunbar said. ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Ewan Gibson. Lead forensics officer.’

  ‘My name’s DCI Dunbar.’

  ‘I know who you are. And who’s the mad bastard we’ve been hearing about, the one who made a call to up here?’

  ‘You’re going to have to be more specific. There’re a lot of us down there. But we need to look around this scene, get an idea of what we’re working on.’

  ‘Aye, just as well we’re wrapping up here for now,’ Gibson said. ‘Or else I might have sent you packing to do a bit of sightseeing and kill time.’

  ‘Give us a rundown on what happened,’ Harry said.

  ‘Right then. See that rope still hanging from the tree? That’s where she was hanging,’ Gibson said.

  ‘You need a degree in forensics to figure that out?’ Evans said.

  Gibson looked at him for a moment. ‘You don’t want to cross swords with me. You’re on my patch.’ The man sneered.

  To Evan’s credit, he didn’t rise to the bait but just looked at the scene as Dunbar shot him a fucking shut it look.

  ‘There she was, hanging by her neck, when those two came upon her. Them and that big gawk with the radge dug. I warned him well not to let it piss anywhere near here. Fucking thing nearly took my hand off and I wasn’t even going to touch it. I don’t think either of them is all there.’

  ‘That your professional opinion?’ Harry asked.

  ‘It’s the opinion of any daft bastard who goes near the mutt.’

  ‘He can hear you,’ Muckle said.

  ‘Can he? Good. Maybe he’ll listen next time I’m shouting, Get that fucking dug away from me.’

  ‘What else do you have?’ Harry said.

  ‘Right. What he did was, he put a rope over a branch, yanked her up off her feet and tied it to another tree. Her hands and feet were tied. There were footprints there, at the base of the other tree, but some snow got through the canopy of trees and messed them up a bit.’

  ‘Anything forensics worth noting?’ Dunbar asked.

  ‘The rope is something you can get out of any do-it-yourself shop. We found a cigarette butt over by the other tree. And for the grand finale, we found some blood spots on the trail leading away up the hill. Miraculously, they weren’t covered by snow, and since this is a pathway, the snow was compacted, so the spots were sitting on top and we could lift samples.’

  ‘Blood from the girl?’ Alex asked.

  ‘No. She was hanged, but there were no external wounds. No bleeding.’

  ‘She maybe got a smack at him or kicked him as he was hauling her up,’ Evans said.

  ‘Could be that she fought with him before he put the rope on her. We’ll have it checked at the lab in Inverness,’ Gibson said to him. ‘He put the rope round her neck and tightened it, then he started hauling on it from over there so he could pull her up. His face wouldn’t have been near her feet when he was pulling.’

  ‘Any identification on her?’ Harry asked.

  ‘A wallet. Name, Carol Douglas. She’s a resident here. It’s been bagged and put into the van. One of my assistants can get it for you.’

  Two figures dressed in black were on the other side of the blue-and-white tape, a small man and a tall woman, standing beside a uniformed sergeant.

  Wee Shug waved and ducked under the tape, then held it up for the woman, and they walked down the path. The sergeant stopped to talk to another uniform.

  ‘Hi, people,’ Shug said, beaming a smile when he recognised Harry and Dunbar. ‘Glad you could join us. This is Vern, Miss Vern we call her.’

  ‘What’s Vern short for?’ Evans asked.

  ‘What do you think it’s short for?’

  ‘Vern,’ Evans said in a quieter voice.

  ‘And there we are. I would like to present this trophy for the Scottish Detective of the Year to…?’ She raised her eyebrows at him.

  ‘DCI Jimmy Dunbar,’ Evans said.

  ‘Don’t listen to him, hen. I’m DCI Dunbar. He’s DS Robbie Evans. Or Nob as we call him.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, DS Nob.’ She smiled and held out a hand to him.

  They shook hands and stood back when the uniformed sergeant came over to them. ‘Who’s lead investigator here?’ he asked.

  Harry nodded to Dunbar.

  ‘DCI Dunbar. Who are you, son?’

  ‘Sergeant Lamb. No disrespect meant, sir, but the superintendent on the phone started shouting after I suggested we could cope for a couple of days until MIT got here. He thought I was trying it on and being belligerent. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can have as much help as you need, and we’re here in a support role. I don’t know why he flew off the handle.’

  ‘He’s under a lot of stress. Don’t worry about it,’ Dunbar replied. ‘Tell me what you’ve got going over that hill with the blood spots.’

  ‘We followed them as far as we could, then there seemed to be a disturbance in the snow, like somebody had stepped off the path into the woods themselves, stepping in the deep snow. The blood trail stopped. If he did go through the woods, there’s a car park on the other side of the hill, near the start of another
hiking trail. I’ve sent a couple of men round.’

  ‘Good job. Where was the body taken to?’

  ‘Blairgowan hospital. It has a mortuary. It’s very well-equipped.’

  ‘Unusual to find a mortuary in a small place like this,’ Dunbar said.

  ‘To the casual observer, yes, but the Cairngorms provide us with a lot of patients, and the roads here would give the autobahn a run for its money. We have quite a few people who end their lives here, either on the mountain or on the roads.’

  ‘Okay, son. I appreciate your attitude. Don’t worry about Calvin Stewart. We’re here to help, that’s all.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  Dunbar walked back to Muckle. ‘Does the big house have cameras?’

  ‘No. The old man who owns the property lives in a separate wing on the east side. His daughter wanted to have cameras installed, but his answer was, they didn’t have cameras back in the seventeenth century, so he’s not going to spoil the look of the house now. That’s what she told me.’

  ‘We should maybe get along to the hospital, see what they have,’ Harry said. The light was completely gone now and it was getting even colder.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Dunbar. ‘You and Alex can go there. I’ll take Robbie to see where the lassie lived. Then we’ll meet up at the station.’

  Five

  The town seemed to open wider the further north they got, with civilisation being measured in how many supermarkets there were.

  ‘Seeing that Tesco over there is making me hungry,’ Harry said as Alex navigated a roundabout.

  ‘If you’re a good boy, I’ll buy you a Mars Bar for later.’

  ‘I think I’ll need a real bar later. I’m thinking about the party we were supposed to be going to.’

  ‘The bowling club will still be there when we get back.’

  ‘Aye, I know, but it’s the famous Boxing Day shindig. I haven’t missed it in years.’

  ‘There’s a bar in the hotel, Harry. We could grab a pint before bed.’

  ‘You always know the right things to say.’

  St. Luke’s Hospital was up on the left. It wasn’t a huge affair like the Royal in Edinburgh but was still substantial, big enough to accommodate the locals from all around the area and the influx of skiers whose ambitions far exceeded their abilities.

  The mortuary sign was tucked down at the bottom of the department board, sulking like a former child actor who was over the hill and now just accepted small parts.

  ‘How would you feel living in a place like this?’ Harry asked as the headlight beams from Alex’s Audi cut through the car park. It was well lit and snow filled in the shadows.

  A couple of ancillary trucks were parked beside a roller door. There was a sign on the other door next to it that told them they had arrived at their destination. Almost the final destination for some.

  ‘Now we just need some boy to come nashing out from behind the industrial bins with a chainsaw and we’ll have had the whole crapping ourselves tour,’ Harry said as they got out.

  ‘That’s only for films,’ Alex replied.

  ‘Of course it is.’ Harry kept looking around nonetheless while Alex fiddled with her keys.

  Come on, for fuck’s sake, he thought, sure he had seen a shadow creeping about over by another door. He was about to alert Alex when a kitchen worker flicked a dead cigarette away and went back through the door.

  At last, Alex rang a bell at the side of the door to the mortuary. A few minutes later, a man with a bloodied axe opened it wide and took a swing at her. Harry stepped in, grabbed the axe and took it off him.

  He closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them again, instead of an axe murderer, there was a young woman standing there smiling. She looked at Alex’s warrant card and then looked over at Harry, and he let her read his card.

  He looked at her face and was drawn to the nose piercing. He had often wondered if such a thing brought tears to the eyes.

  ‘Come in. I have the coffee on. It would freeze the nuts off a polar bear tonight. Not that it’s like the Bahamas during the day, but I like to fiddle with the thermostat now and again. We have our own temperature-controlled environment, for the guests. I’m Stacey Nichols, by the way. Should have led with that one, I suppose.’

  They stepped inside, Harry wondering if the young woman had been smoking something that made her jabber on. Or maybe it was just the way up here.

  ‘We’d like to talk about one of your recent check-ins,’ Harry said, already wishing he’d remembered his little tub of chest rub to put under his nose.

  ‘Which one?’ she asked, leading them along a corridor past the receiving area. Harry looked through the reinforced glass in a door. A van sat in the middle of the bay.

  ‘How many do you have?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Three today alone. We had four in storage. Two skiing accidents and a car crash. We really should have a pamphlet made up and put in hotel rooms with our photo on the front. Maybe alongside a photo of the mountains above. Sort of before and after pictures. With the advertising slogan, Drive like an arse and this is where we’re going to put you: into a fridge.’

  Harry thought the tourist board had dodged a bullet when Stacey decided her future was in the mortuary and not promoting Scotland.

  ‘It’s the female. Hanging,’ Harry said. Already he was getting the heebie jeebies from the antiseptic smell. Why in God’s name had Dunbar asked him to come here?

  ‘Ah, yes, young Carol. So sad. I’ll take you through to speak with the doc. She’ll be able to tell you more.’

  Through a door and along another corridor to the office. Stacey knocked on the door and the older woman behind the desk looked up. ‘Jesus, Stacey, maybe whistle, or scrape your foot on the floor, or even give us a chorus of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”.’

  Stacey raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ll bring the Blairgowan pipe band next time. Feardy pants.’

  ‘I am not feardy pants, thank you. I am, however, older than you and therefore my arteries have had a lot longer to harden. I’d rather not book a fridge drawer just yet.’

  Stacey smiled. ‘I hardly think you’ve got one foot in the grave.’ She gestured to the two detectives. ‘DCI Harry McNeil and DS Alex Maxwell, for your pleasure, ma’am. Officers, this is our esteemed leader, Dr Valerie Henderson. They’re here for the hanging.’ She made it sound like a spectator sport.

  ‘Sit down,’ Valerie said. ‘Stacey, be a love and grab us some coffee.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Not for me,’ Harry said, not wanting to puke in here; the coffee would add to an already tumultuous stomach.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Alex said.

  ‘Just you and me, boss. Be right back.’

  Stacey left and Valerie rubbed the bridge of her nose. ‘It’s always the damn eyes that get me first – tired, dry. And then the headaches. I need a good break, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. We get a little lull when the skiing season finishes, but then the hikers take over. More often than not, one of them falls down a ravine, or they go swimming in the nice, calm water, which is freezing, and drown. You wouldn’t believe the deaths up here. After a while, they stop becoming headlines and are just part of society.’

  The detectives sat and looked at her, waiting for her to finish.

  She smiled. ‘Sorry. Too much caffeine. I tried quitting but started getting caffeine withdrawal headaches, so I went right back to it.’ She sighed. ‘God, there I go again. You wanted to know about Carol?’

  ‘We do,’ Harry said, deciding to jump in now while Valerie had stopped to take a breath.

  ‘She was a nice young woman. In and out of hospital for many years. I thought she was getting better, but it seems not. To take her own life by that means is sad.’

  ‘She was murdered,’ Alex said.

  ‘What? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. We had forensics go over the scene and she couldn’t have killed herself given the way the rope was. We can’t go
into too much detail, but we wanted to talk to you about the post-mortem.’

  Valerie looked shocked for a moment. ‘I haven’t started it yet. I just finished a skier. Carol’s booked for tomorrow morning. Oh my God. Dudley will be so upset.’

  ‘Dudley?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Matthews. He was her therapist. He works upstairs.’

  ‘Did he discuss Carol with you?’

  ‘Oh, no, of course not. Not in the way you’re implying. But Carol was a local. We all knew her. Everybody knows of her.’

  ‘She’s well known around here?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Not a celebrity, but she’s known as the survivor.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Six years ago, three girls were abducted, one after the other. She was the only one who made it back alive.’

  Six

  Dudley Matthews was a tall, skinny man – in his fifties, if Harry were to hazard a guess. A beanpole, some people might call him, although the man had a bit of a beer gut on him. Harry didn’t blame the man for drinking. It was a hazard of the job, one with which he was all too familiar. He had seen many men being gripped by the bottle, unable to let go until their life was turned upside down.

  ‘Please, sit down. Thank you for coming to see me and letting me know about Carol.’

  They sat down in comfortable chairs in his office. The heat was seeping into Harry, leading him towards dozing off, so he loosened his tie.

  ‘We believe she was a patient of yours,’ Alex said.

  ‘Yes, but you understand, even though she’s dead, there’s still confidentiality.’

  ‘Oh, yes, we understand that Doctor,’ Harry said. ‘We were thinking more along the lines of you being able to think of somebody who might want to harm Carol.’

  ‘Without breaking confidentiality,’ Matthews said again, as if fearing the detectives were trying to trap him, ‘there was no mention of anybody who would harm her.’

  ‘It’s public knowledge that Carol went missing along with two other girls six years ago. Can you shed some more light on that?’