In Place of Death (40 page)

David McCormack lived in the West End in half a million pounds' worth of blond sandstone on Lancaster Crescent. The first patrol car had beaten them there and two
uniformed officers were standing guard outside the open front door.

They'd called for a car of their own, none of them being able to risk driving. Narey sat up front with the constable while Addison and Winter sat in the back, the latter with his camera
bag on his lap. They said little in the few minutes it took them to get there, preferring to let the sound of the siren drown out their thoughts and words.

Narey was first out and up the short flight of steps to the glossy black front door before the others had got out of the car. She talked to the cops on the door and waited impatiently for
Addison and Winter to catch up.

‘He's inside. They've kept an eye on him through the window but haven't been in. They've left him to us, as instructed.'

‘Okay, let's do it. Let me go first.' Addison was the senior officer and the responsibility was his. He pushed at the door and it swung back to let him stride into the hallway.
Narey and Winter followed in silence and single file. The two constables went in behind them.

The hall was dark and minimalist, McCormack clearly taking his work home with him. Dark blue walls and black flashes but no clutter whatsoever. It looked unlived in. Maybe it was.

Addison held his right hand out to the side as he neared the first door, slowing them down. They eased to a halt behind him and let him work his way round so that he was face on to the door, so
he could see as much as he could of what he was walking into. He stepped inside and although he pulled up quickly at the scene in front of him, they followed hard on his heels.

David McCormack. In a room of virgin white, an interior designer's orgasmic fantasy. White walls, white carpet, white furniture. A snowstorm of statement. Spoiled only by the violent
splashes of red.

McCormack lay on his back on the white shagpile carpet, his arms and legs wide as if he was making a snow angel. You might have thought it was exactly that but for the blood spatter that formed
a sickly halo round his neck and head and beyond. The sticky red clung to the thick white pile of the carpet like an invasion from another world.

Winter eased past Addison and Narey as they stood looking at McCormack, slipping between them and taking his first shot. The contrast between the room and the blood was a photographic gift. The
man was sprawled helplessly, his life seeping into his living room, his skin draining of colour till it was beginning to fade into the surroundings.

The man's throat though . . .

It was a riot of red. Winter's internal shade chart put it at crimson, meaning it was as fresh as it was warm, no more than twenty minutes since it was spilled. It had soaked into
McCormack's shirt and through it to his skin.

Winter zoomed in, seeing the throat ripped, stabbed, cut, destroyed. This wasn't one slice of a knife, it was a succession of frenzied assaults. The knife had been wielded savagely long
after life had gone.

A tilt of his camera brought it all into focus. On the white-leather sofa above McCormack's body sat Douglas Cairns. A large knife, its blade still dripping blood onto the once pristine
carpet, was clutched in his hands. Winter fired off a succession of shots, catching the open-mouthed, distracted wonder on the man's face. He'd done this yet he seemed barely capable of
believing it. He might have worn the same expression to gaze at a goldfish bowl.

‘Mr Cairns? Douglas?'

The man lifted his head lazily, roused from his deliberations. ‘Detective Inspector Narey. And you've brought friends. That's nice.'

She spoke calmly. ‘Douglas, I need you to put the knife down. Slowly, please.'

‘What?' He looked down at the kitchen knife in his hands as if surprised to see it there, so easily forgotten amidst everything else. ‘Of course. Sorry.'

He bent forward and placed the blade on the carpet by his feet. Winter couldn't help himself and caught a close-up of the black-handled knife as it settled into the white carpet, the
remainder of the blood drenching the fibres.

Cairns sat back and they could all see that his shirt was as soaked as McCormack's. The other man's blood was all over him, drenching his hands and splattering his face and streaking
his beard. He leaned against the white leather behind him, breathing hard as if relieved. His work was done.

‘Tell us what happened, Douglas.'

His face screwed up in bemusement as if she'd asked why the sky was blue or why five followed six.

‘I know what you're thinking,' he replied at last. ‘Have I killed him because he fucked my wife or because he killed her? Or because you let him go free and I was scared
he'd get off in court? I'm right, aren't I?'

She answered for all of them. ‘You're right, Mr Cairns. I was wondering that and I do want to know why you killed him. But first I need to read you your rights. Douglas Cairns, I am
arresting you for the murder of David McCormack. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be noted in evidence. Do you understand?'

‘I do.'

‘So what's the answer?'

He laughed. A high-pitched, highly stressed laugh that didn't suit him. ‘I don't know. I really don't know.
All of it?
Because he fucked her, because he betrayed
me, humiliated me. Because as angry at her as I have been since I found out, I loved her and he killed her. He admitted it was no accident. He admitted all of it.'

Narey and Addison looked at each other, hoping and fearing in equal measure. She had Cairns' attention though and she spoke for both.

‘We only have your word for that, Mr Cairns.'

The man smiled weakly and picked up the mobile phone by his side and held it in front of him. ‘I recorded it all on this. I made him confess.'

‘With a knife to his throat?'

‘Yes. But it's the truth. He was too scared to lie. He killed my wife then he killed two men to cover it up. I didn't know anything about them but he told me anyway. It spilled
out of him like . . .'

Cairns faltered, staring at his business partner's body, seeing the blood that was everywhere but where it should have been. His mouth jammed, lips trembling. The reality of it had
suddenly bitten him hard. Unable to work words that would make any sense, he pushed one button on his phone, waited a few moments, then pushed another. McCormack's voice filled the room.

‘. . . I didn't want to do it. I didn't
mean
to do it! I was terrified, Douglas. Terrified. The boy was asking too many questions and I didn't know what he knew.
Didn't know what he could tell the police. I arranged to meet him and . . . It just happened. I couldn't have it all come out. Jesus Christ, Douglas, I didn't want any of this!
You have to understand!'

Cairns pressed the button again and McCormack stopped talking as surely as if his throat had been cut.

‘He thought I might let him live if he told me it all. I couldn't do that though. I couldn't. He disgusted me. He . . . he betrayed me.'

‘You did this? You killed him? I need you to confirm that, Mr Cairns.'

‘Yes. I killed him. I meant to kill him. I'm glad I killed him. I did it alone. I came here intending to kill him. Is that enough? I won't deny any of this if that's what
you're worried about.
I killed him
.'

Narey nodded, rarely unhappier at getting confirmation of what she needed to know.

‘You need to come with us now, Mr Cairns. You know that, don't you?'

He smiled at her and let his head bob in agreement. He made as if to push himself up from the sofa but let his hands slide off the leather and made a grab at the floor where the bloodied knife
still lay. He managed to grasp the handle and turned it towards himself. He got as far as lining it up with his heart when Addison swung a boot viciously into his ribs and caused his arms to drop.
The two constables were on him in a second and his wrists were twisted until the knife fell from his grasp.

‘Don't touch the handle!' Narey shouted. ‘Just get him away from it.'

She stood above Cairns, seeing the fight drain from him. He had no interest in hurting any of them, just himself. With that chance gone, he'd collapsed.

Addison stood by her side, shaking his head at the stupidity of it all. He turned to Winter who was standing a few feet away with his camera in his hands. ‘Did you get that?'

‘Every frame.'

Monday morning

Winter was on one side of the table; on the other sat Two Soups Baxter and a blonde-haired woman in her early thirties who said she was from Human Resources. There didn't
seem to be a whole lot human about her though. Winter wasn't convinced that she wasn't some form of advanced robot with fake tan, peroxide hair and a designer business suit. He
dismissed the idea on the basis that a robot would exhibit more intelligence and certainly more emotion than the HR woman.

She was doing most of the talking; Baxter just sat smirking behind his whiskers. The fat bastard was clearly loving every moment of it. He was getting what he'd wanted since the day Winter
started on the job.

The woman was using words like
expediency
and
streamlining, efficiency
and
lean, needs
and
excess.
Winter wasn't really listening: he already knew what the
bottom line was and just wanted her to get there. He was out. It was cost-cutting but it was also just that his face didn't fit any more. Perhaps it never had. Specialty was always going to
take a distant second place to multi-tasking when accountants ran the world. Why pay two people to do two jobs when you can pay one person to do both?

Now she was thanking him, actually thanking him, for his service. He wondered if she was allowed to deviate from her script at all, if she even knew what she was saying. Gratitude and regret
were thrown into the same sentence as if they were compatible when it seemed to him that they weren't. If they were so grateful for what he'd done and so sorry to let him go then
don't do it.

He had to sign a compromise agreement as part of the settlement, basically saying that he wouldn't tell anyone where the bodies were buried. Neither the literal ones nor the metaphorical.
In return he got a year's salary and a pat on the head before they slammed the door in his face.

‘I imagine you will want time to consider and have this agreement seen by a solicitor but I must tell you that you have four days to decide whether to accept this offer or else it will be
withdrawn and replaced by another, likely lower, offer of redundancy.'

Winter laughed, his eyes on Baxter rather than the woman from Inhuman Resources. ‘Four days? I don't think I'll need that long. Have you got a pen?'

Baxter's jowl wobbled as he seemed to struggle in choosing between delight and surprise. The HR woman's eyes widened and her mouth bobbed open but she composed herself enough to push
a silver pen across the desk. Winter picked it up, gave a cursory glance at the page in front of him and signed his name at the bottom. He shoved the paper back across the table and lobbed the pen
towards Baxter who fumbled but caught it at the second attempt.

Winter smiled at Baxter for long enough to make him uncomfortable, nodded at both of them and turned on his heels and walked out of Forensic Services for the last time.

‘Baxter is a self-righteous prick. A pompous, arrogant—'

Narey was stalking around her flat, propelled by the anger of hearing his news from a few hours earlier. Winter caught her right wrist as she passed and pulled her back down onto the sofa beside
him.

‘He's all those things, Rachel. No doubt about it. But this wasn't down to him. I dug my own grave. The most he could have done was give me a nudge in the direction of it.
Baxter probably thinks he engineered this but he didn't. I did. I knew my job was hanging by a thread but I still went in search of a pair of scissors. In the end I did them a favour by
saving them from making the redundancy compulsory.'

‘I still want to slap that smug bearded face of his.'

‘There's a queue of people waiting to do that but thinking like that is how sad tossers like Baxter win. He is never happy unless someone else is as miserable as he is. This is a
positive, Rachel. If we want to make it one.'

She looked at him, bemused. ‘When did you become the glass half-full guy?'

He smiled sheepishly. ‘When I realized how destructive it is to dwell on the things you can't change. How guilt and resentment just eat you up from the inside. Stuff like
that.'

‘Am I getting a new man? I was just getting used to liking the old one. Anyway, how do you plan on making this a positive? It doesn't look all that sunny from where I'm
standing.'

‘Well . . .' He took a deep breath and she could see that he was suddenly nervous. It scared her a bit. ‘It struck me that seeing as how I don't work for or with the
police any more, then the line's gone. The one that stood between us and caused us problems. There's no reason I can see that we can't become a couple. A proper couple. No secrets
from the world. You and me together and everyone knowing about it. What do you say?'

It felt good to be asked. She smiled widely.

‘Yes. I say yes. Now that you're—'

‘I haven't finished.'

‘What?'

‘I haven't finished explaining how we can make this a positive. Do me a favour and don't stop me in case I lose my nerve. I want us to take my pay-off from the job and put a
down payment on a house with it. I've . . . shush . . . I've been looking and there's a conversion in Bellhaven Terrace, back of Great Western Road. I think we should buy
it.'

‘Seriously?'