Killing With Confidence (4 page)

Whenever he was being
addressed by Cruickshank – for his superior only ever
addressed, never consulted anyone beneath his rank – Crosbie’s
inner monologue would be doing cartwheels. ‘If there was a Masters
degree in brown-nosery, you’d pass with an A – that’s A for
dirty, back-stabbing arsehole’ was the general theme for one of his
inner barrages during which he maintained a silent, fixed grin.

But he wasn’t smiling
today. Selina Seth’s death would be headline news, and with the
press meant pressure, and pressure meant mistakes. He thought back
to Jill Dando, the popular TV presenter shot dead on the doorstep
of her London home in 1999. Amidst a media maelstrom, the police
eventually did what they always do, and arrested the local
loony – a man known to stalk females. In 2008 their suspect
was acquitted after a retrial. Police had got the wrong man.

Crosbie did not
intend to do the same. But that would be easier said than done with
every newspaper and TV station in the country demanding answers,
coming up with their own theories, all of which would be his job to
investigate.

But first the
victim.

Just as DCI Crosbie
was pulling on his forensic suit and gloves to approach the crime
scene, a call was made to a reporter on the
Daily Herald
.
The dog walker had been severely warned by Crosbie’s underling
Detective Constable Marc Donohoe not to speak of his findings to
anyone and had been reminded sternly that he would be found guilty
of perverting the course of justice if he went bleating about it.
This had not stopped Donohoe himself calling his friendly newspaper
contact with the information, earning himself a handsome five
hundred pound tip-off fee. Of course, it was illegal to pay a
police officer under the Bribery Act, but newspapers had been
carrying out the practice since time immemorial. And Connor Presley
was only too happy to take the call from his contact. It meant the
new Special Investigations desk had its first case.

8

The Door Knock

The Seths
lived in Dullatur on the outskirts of Glasgow. Although technically
part of the sprawling new town of Cumbernauld, Dullatur had a
distinctly old world feel to it, with many of the pale sandstone
buildings dating back to the Victorian era. The Seths’ home was
down a bumpy single-track road called The Lane.

April loved property.
Every Wednesday morning she always made a beeline for the
Daily
Herald
’s property section. If she’d had her way she’d have been
a writer for a homes and gardens magazine. ‘What could be more fun
than poking your nose around someone else’s pad?’ she’d say.

Many believe that the
eyes are the windows to the soul, but April reckoned to really know
someone you had to see how they lived and how they decorated their
homestead. She pressed the buzzer on the gate’s video intercom.

A croaky voice
answered abruptly and asked what she wanted.

This was April’s time
to shine. She may have been past her prime but no one was better
than this old hack on a doorstep. ‘Is that Martin Seth?’ she
gushed. ‘You probably won’t remember me but we met at the
Daily
Herald
’s model contest last year.’ Truth be told, April had
only seen the Seths from a distance sipping champagne with the
previous editor Danny Brown at the city’s Princes Square shopping
complex, which the newspaper had hired for the annual event. As the
paper’s women’s editor it was April’s job to cover the beauty
pageant and look after the contestants backstage, which mainly
involved trying to stop them scratching each other’s eyes out.

‘Do you mind if I
come in?’ April asked hopefully. There was no answer but seconds
later the two cast iron gates swung open.

The staff snapper
Jack Kennedy had deliberately stayed out of sight of the video
camera while April worked her magic. Now he slipped through the
gates and fell into step behind her. There was no way he could go
back to the office without a picture of the grieving widower.

April had always
wanted to see the Seths’ mansion and it didn’t disappoint. A racing
green Jaguar sat on the long gravel driveway. The front door to the
large house was ajar. She chapped gently on the door and shouted
through the crack, ‘Can we come in?’

There was no answer,
so she took that as a yes and let herself and the photographer into
the hallway. A chessboard floor led to an extravagant marble
staircase, above which a gaudy chandelier dangled. But April
noticed that the place was in some disarray. It was beyond the
normal family mess seen in most homes. Kids’ clothes were dumped in
piles, having not quite made it as far as the washing machine, and
a slice of stale toast lay beside the hall phone. It wasn’t just
housework that had gone to pot, the place was suffering from
long-term neglect. The scuffed walls were in desperate need of a
lick of paint and several floor tiles were cracked.

April tentatively
made her way to the rear of the house, shouting, ‘Martin! Martin!’
periodically.

There was still no
answer. The rear of the old Victorian pile had a very contemporary
glass and steel extension. April didn’t think the mix of old and
new worked, but she could see why the Seths had added it. One level
down, the underwater lights of a swimming pool glittered.

She tried again.
‘Martin! Martin!’ Still no answer. April made her way towards the
pool. Like the rest of the house it had seen better days; green
slime clung to its sides and in the murky depths April could make
out a dark shape. It was a body.

She screamed,
‘Martin!’ before quickly composing herself and turning to the
photographer. ‘You’ll have to go in – I can’t swim.’



Martin Seth
coughed and spluttered as the full, and quite considerable, weight
of April Lavender bore down on him.

Fortunately, she had
remembered most of her first aid training from her days as a Navy
Wren. April filled her lungs and engulfed Martin’s mouth once more,
blowing into his airways. Then she bumped his chest again, leaning
down as hard as she could. But she wasn’t the waif-like Wren she’d
once been. Back then she’d had to kneel on the chest of the
practice dummy to make the electric buzzer go off. This time the
same manoeuvre had her subject gasping, ‘Get off! You’re killing
me, you great, big fat lump.’ So much for gratitude.

Martin Seth spat the
remains of the slimy green pool from his lungs and slumped,
dripping wet, against a sun lounger.

Having dived in to
pluck Seth from the bottom of the pool the photographer was now
busy capturing Martin’s lowest moments on camera. His suicide
attempt could be interpreted in two ways, either he was too
griefstricken to carry on or he had done it because of a guilty
conscience. That’s the way the photographer saw it anyway. After
years of peering down a camera lens almost everything became
two-dimensional.

April fussed over
Selina’s widower. ‘That was a very silly thing to do, Martin. What
about your kids?’

Martin looked
crestfallen.

‘Right, cup of tea?’
April suggested. She was of the belief that there was nothing that
couldn’t be cured with a cuppa. She wrapped a towel she found over
one of the loungers and ushered him to the kitchen, carefully
slipping in the first question: ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,
Martin. When were you told?’

‘The cops called just
after you rang the buzzer. They didn’t say what was up exactly, but
I knew it was Selina. I knew it had to be bad.’

April was many
things, but she was nobody’s fool. She knew a lie when she heard
one.



Half an
hour later the police did arrive – two CID detectives and two
female family liaison officers. April filled them in with what had
happened then was unceremoniously asked to leave as they conducted
their inquiries. She called Elvis.

‘What you got?’ he
answered without any preamble.

‘A lying bastard,’
replied April. ‘And yourself?’

‘An adulterous cow,’
said Connor. ‘Sounds like a match made in heaven. I’ll call the
Weasel.’ He knew the first rule of journalism was to call the desk
head immediately after a job. ‘See you back at the broom cupboard,’
he added.

9

The Cat and the
Hat

The Weasel
could never actually admit that April and Connor had done well on
their debut as the Special Investigations team, but he did announce
to the news room when April returned, ‘I told you to break the news
to Martin – I didn’t mean kill the cunt.’ He knew he wasn’t
being factually accurate, but he never missed the opportunity to
grandstand in front of his staff or use the c-word. In fact he said
it so often in conference, fellow executives now called the daily
meeting the Vagina Monologues.

Encouraged by the
nervous smiles around him the Weasel turned to face April and
Connor. ‘Seth’s death really was manna from heaven for you
pair.’

He was right. With
their guile, experience, contacts and a huge slice of luck, April
and Connor were way ahead of the pack. By the time the next day’s
paper hit the streets, everyone in Scotland would be aware of
Selina’s death from the TV news bulletins. But the
Daily
Herald
would have the added extra of Martin’s suicide attempt,
with the front-page splash:
Jewellery Queen
murdered: Griefstricken husband tries to take his own life
.
And a strapline at the foot of the page boasting:
See exclusive pictures on pages 2–9
. Two by-lines
would also share the front page:
April Lavender
and Connor Presley, Special Investigations Team
.

Connor and April had
battered out their copy. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the
speed of the old burd. She had churned out every ‘cough, spit and
fart’, as he described it, from Martin Seth and then added a
timeline, from the estimated time of Selina’s death to Martin’s
suicide bid. April Lavender was what was termed ‘an operator’ in
the trade. She finished her copy, well before her young colleague,
and playfully berated him. ‘What’s keeping you? I’m bloody
starving.’



April was
dog tired by the time she got home. The adrenaline of writing a
front-page story had subsided and the day’s events had left her
exhausted. Constant tiredness due to her advancing years had become
her biggest enemy. It made it harder to get up each day and face
work, and it put her off attempting to lose weight.

Even trying to get
her reluctant old cat Cheeka to go outside for a pee was a
struggle. April stood with the front door ajar, trying to coax the
moggy to move. After several words of encouragement the cat still
hadn’t budged an inch, so April gently pushed Cheeka with her foot,
only to discover it was her black furry hat she’d been talking to.
It had fallen on the floor from the coat stand behind the door.

Her eyesight was
getting worse by the day. Maybe that’s why she’d put on those odd
shoes this morning. She felt as though she was falling apart at the
seams, along with her career. Sure, she had mustered some fighting
spirit today, but there would be other days when she’d have no
stories or leads to work on. That’s when the Weasel would be right
on her case, making her feel like a failure or someone who was
cheating the company out of a wage.

In the solitude of
her bungalow in Glasgow’s Southside, April suddenly felt very low.
She had helped to pay for this place with the proceeds from her
third divorce. Now the kids had gone along with hubby number three.
Why were her relationships always doomed to fail?

Still, at least she
had the cat for company. She poured a generous gin and tonic and
went to sit in the armchair in front of the telly. As her ample
behind lowered itself into the chair, April suddenly realised the
place was occupied. She managed to catch herself just in time,
spilling half her G&T in the process. After a quick glance
April fumed, ‘That bloody hat again,’ and out of spite, plonked
herself down firmly on top of it. The ‘hat’ let out a loud,
anguished yowl. Cheeka had been fast asleep before being abruptly
woken by the full weight of her owner’s considerable behind.

∗∗∗

While
Connor was enjoying a beer in the Press Bar and April was vibrating
a glass cabinet with her heavy snoring, DCI Crosbie was still
working, poring over the statement from Selina’s husband. Like
April, he too knew Martin was lying. Something wasn’t right.
Crosbie had stood back and observed Martin intently as he’d
identified his wife’s body in the morgue. Not a flicker of emotion,
but by the time he had reached the front door where the media lay
in wait, Martin had turned on the water works, tears streaming down
his face conveniently for the cameras.

This was a man who
one minute was trying to drown himself and the next perfectly
capable of fulfilling his next-of-kin duties. He went from one
extreme to the other – it was as if there were two
Martins.

Crosbie hoped
forensic results would shed more light on the case in the morning.
Just as he was about to leave for home DS Cruickshank arrived
unannounced. He looked harassed, taking his hat off and patting his
thinning hair.

‘This,’ he said,
deliberately taking his time, ‘is a nightmare. Do we have anything
yet, Crosbie? Anything at all?’

Nothing yet, you balding
bastard, screamed Crosbie’s suffering alter ego, but as soon as I
do, I’ll make sure you take the credit, dickhead.

‘Nothing yet, sir,’
Crosbie said out loud. ‘A few discrepancies in the husband’s
statement that we’ll check out, but forensics are due back in the
morning.’