Dark Side (17 page)

‘Carrick has broader shoulders than me,' he observed. ‘So unless he travelled in backwards somehow, which is unlikely, he didn't get in here under his own steam. I reckon he was thrown in, at a guess by two people holding his hands and feet.' He wriggled out and then asked Lynn, ‘Did he have any obvious injuries?'

‘No, although his clothing had blood on it.'

‘Where?'

‘On the front of his sweatshirt and the cuffs and sleeves.'

‘Smears, splashes, spots?'

‘Smears and one more concentrated stain on his right shoulder.'

‘Do you know if he's right- or left-handed?'

‘He's right-handed.'

This was Patrick double-checking as I was sure he knew already.

‘He was reported to be delirious,' I said to Lynn. ‘Did he say anything to you?'

‘He was mumbling something when I discovered him but nothing that I could understand, then seemed to become aware of his surroundings as he was being put into the ambulance. He definitely recognized me and started to speak but then appeared to lose consciousness again.' Her voice broke and she said, ‘I hope to God he'll be all right.'

‘Don't worry, I happen to know that the man has an ox-like constitution,' Patrick said.

‘It's vital to retain a professional attitude,' Campbell insisted. ‘We must be seen to be considering this from all angles. An intelligent man like James Carrick would think of something like backing himself into a small space to make it look as though he'd been put there. He felt ill – we all know he'd never given himself sufficient time to recover from being beaten up – and thought he might collapse at any moment.'

Patrick said, ‘This was after he'd cut Cooper's throat and heaved him into the skip.'

‘No, there was no blood on the ground. Cooper was killed in the skip.'

‘So, weak, ill and feeling that he might collapse at any moment, he persuaded Cooper to climb into the skip where he killed him,' Patrick persisted derisively.

‘He could have manhandled him in and the effort caused him to feel bad.'

‘But why? Why bring him here?'

‘To make it look as though he had been killed by this mobster you keep on about.'

‘Why kill him at all? Eventually, Cooper would have been an important witness.'

‘If Carrick was ill he could have been temporarily off his head. And, as you said yourself, the man had made life extremely difficult for him for years.'

Patrick made no further comment, doubtless thinking the argument not worth pursuing. There were no actual facts to support any theory right now and everyone would have to wait for forensic findings.

The DCI's car was soon discovered in a side road near to where Cooper had lived. It was immediately impounded by Campbell and sent away for testing. As for Carrick himself, he was found to have no injuries except for some fresh bruising to his body and arms and minor grazes. He did, however, have a dangerously high temperature due to a serious infection brought on by the earlier attack.

Joanna had contacted me shortly before we left the crime scene – it was necessary for us to get out of the way of the investigating team – and, in receipt of the news, had gone straight to the hospital having, at my suggestion, dropped off the baby at the rectory for Carrie to look after for however long was necessary. To lighten our nanny's workload I went straight home to take charge of my own children.

To say that Patrick was aggrieved at Campbell's over-professional, if not negative attitude was putting it mildly; perhaps inwardly ranting and raving was more accurate. But he had recognized that nothing could be gained by hanging around at Manvers Street, said I ought to have the car and headed off on foot along the Lower Bristol Road in the direction of the city centre.

He rang me during the afternoon with the news that although DNA testing would take longer it had been confirmed that although the smaller bloodstains on Carrick's shirt were the same blood group as his, the larger ones were not and in the meantime it was not unreasonable to suppose that it was Cooper's blood. Patrick was upbeat about this, saying that if anyone was going to go to the lengths of framing a cop for murder they would have to have a damned good try at doing it properly. Worse was to follow. Half an hour later he called me again to tell me that fingerprints on the handle of the knife were definitely those of the DCI, adding that it was perfectly possible that the weapon had been wiped, put into Carrick's hand while he was unconscious and then tossed into the skip.

All this made me think that Patrick had somehow got himself into the lab, a guess confirmed when he arrived back at home at around five-thirty.

‘Scenes-of-crime people are at Cooper's house now,' he reported.

‘Campbell should talk to Paul Mallory,' I said.

‘That's the first place I went. He's not there.'

‘Or not answering the door?'

‘No, I got in and had a look round. The place is a real tip and I half expected to find him dead from a drugs overdose.'

‘Is he bright enough to have hatched this plan to kill Cooper, implicating Carrick, on account of the humiliation he's been suffering for goodness knows how long?'

‘And – or, Cooper wouldn't let him have any drugs, or pay him what he owed him?' Patrick mused. ‘Yes, I think he's capable, especially after what Nathan Forrester said about him going into his bedroom armed with a knife. That has to be taken into consideration.'

‘I don't think James did it, but what about you? If he had a sky-high temperature and finally cracked …'

‘Of course he didn't do it. If you cut someone's throat and are not experienced, or received training in how to do it properly, neatly, you get covered in blood as the arteries are severed. James has never cut
anyone's
throat. The killer, or an accomplice, smeared Cooper's blood on Carrick's sweatshirt by wiping his hands and the blade of the knife on it. There might even be some of his own DNA on the garment.'

‘But how on earth did they get hold of James in the first place?'

‘We shall just have to wait until we can ask him.'

‘I'm just hoping that Campbell doesn't arrest James without doing much more in the way of investigation.'

‘I can't believe he'd take such a risk with his career and I shall inform Greenway if he does. SOCA can get seriously involved if we, meaning us two, can find a strong lead that shitface Hamsworth's behind it. God, I need a drink. Shall we go to the pub?'

‘There's an extra baby on board. Have a drink here and nurture your kids while I cook the dinner?'

I had a struggle to joint a couple of chickens without thinking about post-mortems.

DI Campbell, being the official investigating officer, wasted no time in talking to his immediate boss and as soon as the doctors looking after Carrick gave the go-ahead, the infection under control some forty-eight hours later, he went to the hospital with Lynn Outhwaite. This, according to the latter – she had opened what can only be called a hot-line to Patrick, probably because she regarded us as allies – had been a disaster as the two men had a blazing row and she and Campbell were asked to leave. Having carefully observed Greenway's orders not to tread on Campbell's toes, the reason he had stayed away from the hospital, this caused Patrick some grim amusement.

Lynn had gone on to say that the post-mortem on Cooper's body had revealed that he had received a severe blow to the head which would have rendered him deeply unconscious, and possibly brain-damaged had he lived. But it had not killed him as his heart had continued to beat, this resulting in the huge loss of blood following the deep knife wound in his neck. Other test results were irrelevant to the immediate investigations into the murder and a report still to come with regard to internal organs was not thought likely to throw further light on the investigation either.

Initial forensic findings on Carrick's car had revealed that the only fingerprints on the steering wheel, made from a plastic compound – James has never gone in for what he refers to as ‘fancy' cars or accessories – were his. Joanna has her own car and doesn't like driving her husband's. There was smearing, destroying all but a thumb and index fingerprint, as though someone had lately handled the wheel wearing gloves with some kind of grease or oil on them, the precise nature of which was still being tested. It was when Campbell had put the suggestion to Carrick that he might have recently driven the car wearing gloves while eating fish and chips or some other kind of takeaway meal that the DCI had lost his temper and called him a Lowland moron.

‘I'd have lost my temper too if someone had said that to me,' Patrick declared after Lynn's call that evening, in the pub. ‘For one thing, it's hardly been cold enough to wear gloves and for another, people who eat takeaways anywhere near their motors or even while they're driving, let alone with gloves on, usually have multiple piercings, ditto tattoos and a pile of tinnies on the seat beside them as well.'

‘Not your average DCI or Range Rover driver then,' I said, straight-faced.

‘No.' He then laughed. ‘All right, I'm a snob. But you get my drift.'

‘To be fair, Campbell
is
trying to be even-handed.'

‘I think he's a complete arsehole.' Patrick got up to fetch himself another pint.

‘That's completely unwarranted,' I said to his retreating back. No, actually, I reconsidered moments later, there are such concepts as people being innocent before proved guilty and sticking by your colleagues.

We had not been idle during the past two days and had every intention of talking to James ourselves. Following a suggestion from Joanna – I had not quizzed her about what, if anything, her husband had said to her in connection with what had happened – Patrick had contacted Carrick's one-time colleague, DI Neil Macpherson, whom he had already met, in Scotland. Mentioning that he was now working for SOCA, he had explained the situation, reminding the DI that he was a friend of James's. He had then requested details of any work-related conversations the two men had had, offering to fly up to Glasgow should Macpherson not wish to discuss anything over the phone or doubt his identity.

Macpherson had replied that he always remembered voices and then gone on to say that Carrick's main interest had been the investigation following the murder of Jack ‘The Pits' MacDonald whose body had been found in the flat rented by Nick Hamsworth, the tenant having helpfully used that name, and then, understandably, vanished. Macpherson related that he had pulled in a few local men, whom he had referred to as ‘the usual suspects', two in particular having been known to act as heavies for a gang Hamsworth had been involved with but not run. Nothing really fruitful had come of this other than one of them saying that he had heard that the two men, Hamsworth and MacDonald, had fallen out over money the latter insisted the former owed him for a job.

In response to the next question the DI had said that the name Raptor had never been mentioned and he had no idea why Hamsworth had come up to Scotland in the first place, unless it was to distance himself from Metropolitan Police inquiries and earn himself more illegal money on the side.

The murder victim had been seen with Hamsworth – this information courtesy of an informer – in various pubs and drinking clubs and, there being no real evidence to the contrary, Macpherson could only suspect that there had been some kind of serious argument, sober or otherwise, and Hamsworth had shot him. ‘There are always power struggles, you ken.' The murder weapon had not been found but, having received the bullet that had killed MacDonald, the ballistics laboratory report indicated that it had come from a Beretta of some kind. There was a warrant out for Hamsworth's arrest.

‘Sulyn Li Grant had a Beretta of some kind,' I had commented on learning this.

‘Thousands of them are knocking around the world's streets,' Patrick had muttered.

‘I thought you'd kicked me into touch,' Carrick said when he first laid eyes on us the following morning. He was in a small side ward, the only occupant.

‘Hardly, old son,' Patrick replied. ‘Just doing as I was told and not upsetting your DI. Besides, I promised I'd help you sort this out.'

James was not placated. ‘And when the hell did you start worrying about upsetting people?'

He still looked ill, his unshaven face gaunt and pale, and I wondered if he had in fact fully recovered from a gunshot wound he had received a couple of years previously, and whether it had been exacerbated by the recent injuries. Whatever the truth, he was being discharged the following day on condition that he went home to be looked after and stayed there.

I passed over some Scottish tablet, fudge, his favourite ‘sweeties', that I had managed to track down for him, anything else that might cheer him up, and by that I mean single malt whisky, being absolutely and utterly banned while he was on strong medication.

‘You realize the half-wit's about to charge me with murder!' Carrick went on heatedly, hardly noticing the gift.

We seated ourselves on a couple of chairs, Patrick exuding the slightly lofty and patient sympathy of a commanding officer visiting a wounded sapper. This had the opposite effect of what I feared: that the DCI would re-detonate, and he slumped back on his pillows and chuckled tiredly.

‘OK,' he said. ‘I'm right over the top.'

‘Because you're on heaven knows what drugs,' Patrick pointed out. ‘Did you give any kind of account of what happened to Campbell?'

‘No, because he got my back up straight away by giving every impression that he thought I'd killed Cooper because I was found at the crime scene, my car was in a side road near his house and the murder weapon was a skene dhu with my fingerprints on it.'

‘I've seen it and told him that it's not yours.'