Night Sessions, The (11 page)

Ferguson hoped his own face gave as little away. The investigation team had spent the past hour and a half coordinating with the St. Andrews police and applying for search warrants for Thomas's boat and his two houses. The warrants had come through but were being held in reserve. A spy drone well out of Thomas's sight had zoomed on his boat, and had recorded Thomas concealing a hunting rifle in the boat's locker shortly after receiving the phone call. A deceptively casual brushing of his hand by Skulk had detected the residue of a recent firing.

“Ready?” Ferguson said.

Thomas nodded. “Aye.”

Ferguson switched on an external recording device. It was superfluous, considering all the recording that was going on in the room, but it was still a requirement.

“Video and audio on, time and date as shown, DI Ferguson and DS Hutchins of Lothian and Borders A Division present, Inspector Anna Polanski of Fife Constabulary Eastern Division present, leki number LB178 in attendance. Interview with witness Connor James Thomas.

“Mr. Thomas, do you understand the basis on which you're here?”

“Aye—voluntary, as a witness, no under caution.”

“Do you wish to have a solicitor or other adviser present?”

“No the now, thanks.”

“Very well. What is your occupation?”

“I'm a self-employed electronics engineer. Wee robotics add-ons, kindae thing. No exactly cutting edge. Work from home three, maybe four days a week. Weekends I go to Ainster, do some fishing, potter about the place, come back on the Sunday or the Monday.”

“Not many small-business people,” said Ferguson, “can afford to take so many days off.”

Thomas shrugged. “Like I said, it's small jobs. One-off commissions, mostly. I get a decent Army pension, plus a wee trickle of compensation for”—he passed an artificial hand in front of his artificial face—“this, plus a very good veteran's annuity fae Saudi—the UAR, I mean—under the Oil for Blood programme.”

“Could you tell us how you knew Father Liam Murphy, and when you last saw him?”

Thomas swallowed. “Am I allowed to mention the Church and that?”

“You can mention anything you like, Mr. Thomas.”

“Aye, well, thing is, I'm a Catholic. No a very good one, I'm no saying, but a practising one. Father Liam used to say I didna practise enough.”

He sniffed, looked down, pulled a paper tissue from his pocket and blew his nose.

“Sorry,” he went on. “I canna greit but my nose can run. Funny that. Anyway. I'm—I was—a member of Father Liam's congregation, and I went along to confession every month or so I guess. Mass not so often.” He sniffed again. “Knew him as a friend, too. Over the years. He helped me to organise the local chapter of Face Forward. There's quite a few Catholic veterans in the group, see.”

“I don't see,” said Ferguson.

“We're not baby-killers, you understand.”

Ferguson recoiled. “I never suggested you were.”

“What I mean is,” said Thomas, “we don't use tissue regeneration or any of yon stem-cell biotech stuff.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Stem cells come fae embryos.”

“Yes?” said Ferguson.

“Which means killing babies.”

Ferguson blinked and shook his head. “What? You're saying embryos are taken from dead babies?”

“They
are
babies.”

“Oh, that! I didn't realise you people still held to such a stupid…”

Ferguson stopped himself, raised his hands and leaned back. “Sorry. I apologise for an unprofessional remark. The witness is at liberty to request termination of the interview without prejudice and for another officer to take over.”

“I'm no bothered,” said Thomas. “Course, it's no just Catholics. The others are guys—and some women, none too many I must say—who don't want to
go through wi’ getting a regen job. It's messy, it's painful, it's months of being disfigured or maimed all over again.” He tapped his cheekbone. “This thing's no a mask, you know. It disna come off. It's all integrated wi’ the nerves and muscles and veins and that. And moreover, your prosthesis becomes part of you, your body image, like, and…well. Point is, we're stuck wi’ the prosthetics, which are a sight better than previous poor bastards have had but still don't look quite right. And there's a few who don't have prosthetics, even, for one reason or another. Hence, various personal problems. Psychological and interpersonal issues, as they say. So we meet and talk.
Mutilados
anonymous.”

“Very interesting and worthwhile,” said Ferguson. “And Father Murphy was involved in the support group?”

“No involved, no. He gied me some advice, helped wi’ getting the room and a bit of charity funding and that. Behind the scenes, like.”

“Still, the members of the group would have known of his help?”

“Oh, aye. I acknowledged him by name fae the start.”

“OK,” said Ferguson. “Now, can we get back to the question of when and where you last saw Father Murphy?”

“You did ask,” said Thomas. “It's all connected, anyway. Last Friday, that's a week ago today, I called around at Father Murphy's to gie him a parcel. It was a present for him from another
mutilado
, who gave it to me at the Face Forward meeting the previous night, to deliver, right.”

“So you took the parcel from this other man and delivered it.”

“That's right.”

“Why?”

“As a favour. Save him the postage an’ that.”

“Did you know what was in the parcel?”

“Yes,” said Thomas, nodding emphatically. “A book. A volume of sermons of the Blessed Benedict the Sixteenth. I saw Graham—that's the guy's name—sticking it in the Jiffy bag and sealing it up.”

Ferguson couldn't help glancing sidelong at Hutchins.

“A Jiffy bag?” Ferguson said. “You said ‘a parcel’ a moment ago.”

“A Jiffy bag's a kind of parcel.”

“All right,” said Ferguson. “You're certain it was a Jiffy bag, and not some other kind of wrapping—brown paper and string, say?”

“Positive,” said Thomas. “Big Jiffy bag, self-sealed.”

“With a book in it.”

“Aye, a big thick book. Heavy. Sermons and lectures by the good—by the old Pope. Graham told me he'd found it in a second-hand bookshop, asked me
to tell the padre it was a present, and that he'd understand. So I did. I took it around to the church—the house on Easter Road—hands it to Father Liam, and I says: ‘It's a present from Graham, one of the boys in the group, he says you'll understand.’ And Liam smiles and thanks me, asks me if I'd like tae come in for a cup of tea, and I say thanks but no thanks, I've got a car double parked and I got to run.”

“Was there anything written on this Jiffy bag?”

“Aye, I scribbled Father Murphy's name on it.”

“Why, if you were delivering it yourself?”

Thomas leaned back and smiled. “If you saw my house you wouldn't need to ask. I have Jiffy bags all over the place. I'm up tae here wi’ the things, all shapes and sizes. Do a lot of business by mail, right. I didn't want the bag getting mixed up with any of the others.”

“I'm sure you didn't,” said Ferguson. “As a matter of interest, did you happen to record your conversation with this Graham? Do you have a visual, on contacts perhaps, of him placing the book in the bag?”

Thomas shook his head. “Dinna need contacts. That stuff's all built into the eyes.” He rapped a fingernail against one, as if to demonstrate. “Thing is, Face Forward meetings, they're like I said,
mutilados
anonymous. It's the custom to turn off any and every recording gear before the meeting starts. Phones, phone clips, contacts, artificial eyes—nae recording. It's very important to us. Trust, ye ken.”

“Trust, yes,” said Ferguson. “So we have only your word that this happened?”

“You have my word,” said Thomas, in a tone that suggested that should be enough. Ferguson wished it were.

“Now, Mr. Thomas,” said Ferguson, “I'd like you to think very carefully before answering the next question. Detective Sergeant Hutchins here is about to hand you an item.”

Hutchins reached down to the floor beside her chair and handed over a sealed ziplock transparent bag containing the A3 Jiffy bag found by the Bomb Squad. Thomas held it in his hands and turned it over, looking at it front and back, then laid it down.

“Do you recognise that Jiffy bag?” Ferguson asked. “Please think carefully.”

Despite Ferguson's admonition, Thomas answered without hesitation.

“Aye. It's the one I gave Father Murphy. You can see where the corners of the book dunted it. Yon's my writing on the front.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket on the seat-back and produced a ballpoint pen. “Wrote
it wi’ this. You can check the ink if you want. Check my handwriting if you like.”

Ferguson looked from side to side at Hutchins and Polanski. They were each as baffled as he was.

“Mr. Thomas,” said Ferguson, “at this point I have to say that the interview must continue under caution. DS Hutchins will explain your rights. If you give me the number of a lawyer or other counsel of your choice, I will hand you a police mobile phone with that number entered, which you can use to make that call, in private if you wish, and for no other purpose.”

For the first time, Connor Thomas looked alarmed.

“What?” he said. “What?” He shook his head. “I've done nothing wrang, and I've telt you everything.”

“The number,” said Ferguson.

He held out the phone. Thomas stared at it, then tilted his head back and blinked a few times. He looked shocked and defeated; his natural skin had paled.

“All right,” he said. “All right.” He gave the number.

Ferguson glanced at the clock on the wall. “15:55. Interview adjourned. We'll resume when the witness's lawyer arrives.”

Ferguson and Hutchins followed Anna Polanski through the corridors and the front door to the smokers’ huddle outside. Polanski lit a cigarette and sucked it as if it was an oxygen line, a resemblance which Ferguson often liked tactlessly to point out when he was dragged to the huddle. It was a standing annoyance that civilians, even suspects, were allowed to smoke inside the station but officers weren't.

“What the fuck?” Polanski said. “What the fucking fuck?”

“Is he simple-minded or something?” Hutchins said.

Ferguson turned on her. “He's not stupid!”

“I didn't mean stupid,” said Hutchins. “I meant some kind of, I don't know, brain damage maybe.”

“Autistic spectrum honesty,” Polanski offered. “A personality disorder with a plus side.”

“He might be telling the truth because he's innocent,” said Ferguson. “He was used.”

“In which case,” said Hutchins, “we should be looking very hard for this ‘Graham.’”

“There's the little matter of his recently fired rifle on the boat,” said Polanski.

“Anything more on that business?” Ferguson asked.

Polanski shook her head. “Still trying to piece together a picture.”

She sighed and stubbed out the cigarette. “Let's go in,” she said.

Ferguson had just seen a familiar figure hurrying up the steps, briefcase in hand: Peter Wilson, criminal defence lawyer.

“Have another before we go in,” Ferguson told Polanski. “It'll be a while before your next break.”

The interview resumed. Thomas and Wilson sat side by side. Ferguson recited the formalities and began.

“Mr. Thomas,” he said, “the package you identified earlier has no fingerprints or DNA on it other than the victim's. How would you account for that?”

“Easy,” said Thomas. “Graham, the guy who gave it to me, has very similar injuries to mine. Worse, I reckon, but he wears a long-sleeved hoodie for the meetings. At least his hands and the whole of his face are prosthetic, I know that. So, no prints, no DNA.”

“All right,” said Ferguson. “Now, another result from our forensic lab: the inside of the package contains significant traces of the explosive that blew up Father Murphy's flat. How would you explain that?”

Thomas looked taken aback.

“My client need not answer that,” said Wilson.

“Maybe no, but I will,” said Thomas. “I'd say it's flat-out impossible. I saw what went into the package, and it was no bomb. It was a book.”

“The explosive could have been concealed inside the book,” said Hutchins, in the tone of one making a helpful suggestion. “Isn't that possible?”

Thomas shook his head. “I held the book in my hands myself, riffled through the pages, like. There was nothing hidden inside it. I said to Graham this was just the kind of thing the padre would be delighted with, he's very keen on old Benedict, and I handed it back to him and then and there he popped it in the Jiffy bag and sealed it up.”

“Was anyone else present when this happened?”

Thomas grimaced. “Afraid not. The meeting was over. We were the last in the room, tidying up, like.”

“Could some sleight of hand have been involved?” Hutchins went on, still in the same helpful tone. “Did Graham, perhaps, turn his back on you for a moment? Or distract your attention in some way?”

“Nah. I saw him put the book in the bag and seal it up. Then he gave it to me right away.”

“So how do you account for the fact that explosives residue have been found in the bag?”

“They might have been on the book's cover all along,” said Thomas.

It was Ferguson's turn to be taken aback. That possibility simply hadn't occurred to him. He did his best not to show it. Peter Wilson noticed.

“That seems a reasonable enough suggestion,” Wilson said.

Ferguson's self-confidence recovered from its steep dive and levelled out.

“It's not at all reasonable,” he said, with what he hoped was aplomb. “The amount and distribution of the traces rule that out completely.”

He didn't know this.

“I insist on seeing the forensics report,” said Wilson.

“In due course,” said Ferguson.

“More to the point,” said Wilson, “the package my client agrees he delivered was handed to the deceased last Friday. The explosion only happened yesterday. That leaves ample time, I would have thought, for the alleged explosives to have been placed in this package by some other person. The package would have been opened by Father Murphy on delivery, the book removed and the package discarded—or more likely, given that the deceased was by all accounts a conscientious and abstemious man, set aside for reuse. He had many visitors, one of whom could have used the now-empty package to conceal the device. On your supposition, my client delivered, inadvertently or otherwise, a package containing an explosive device, which exploded as soon as, or very shortly after, Father Murphy handled it. Why on earth would Father Murphy have left the package unopened for nearly a week?”