The Blood of Crows (13 page)

Money, Costello thought. It took money to build a fine house like a castle with a spectacular view, and money to send your child to be educated there. She’d have to keep her gob – mouth, she corrected herself – firmly shut. She picked up a few more books, including one that had a full chapter on the naval base at the other end of the glen. Just looking at it sent shivers down her spine. With the beautiful mountains behind, the huge submarine basking in the loch looked like a James Bond film set, the evil lair of Dr Death. She wondered what that meant for the kids at the Academy. Then she realized it made perfect sense. The school being so isolated, and with massive security at the top end of the glen, helped reduce the risk of the billionaires’ brats being kidnapped.

Near the till she saw a huge display of
Little Boy Lost
, piles of autographed copies, and the smug face of Simone Sangster smiling out at her. Costello accidentally knocked it flat on her way past.

5.45 P.M.

Mrs Carruthers had been trying to keep her sister in her flat, but Rene, complete with turquoise eye shadow and bobble hat, was determined to go out. They were both behind the front door when Lambie rang the bell, setting off a metallic screech of ‘For These Are My Mountains’.

‘Oh, that’s fine,’ Mary said, relieved at Lambie’s request for a quick word. She slipped her heavy black coat from her shoulders and placed it back on the coat stand in the hall, asking him if he was a friend of that nice wee lassie and having a good look at his warrant card.

Lambie suppressed a smirk at Costello being described as such and took his own assessment of Mary Carruthers. She still had the look of a widow on the day after the funeral. She was a big woman, grey-haired, dressed in a long-sleeved jumper with a green pinafore over the top. She smiled at Lambie nervously; she had bad teeth and a slight growth of grey hair sprouting from her chin. She indicated that he should go through into the living room while she escaped to the sanctuary of the kitchen. Rene, the smaller sister, was hovering; Lambie said hello. She smiled back with manic enthusiasm, and Lambie judged her to be a good ten years older than her sister. She was carrying a photo frame around with her, tucked under her arm, against the folds of her cardigan, as if it was a precious thing. She scuttled off, following her sister into the kitchen.

The living room was beige, the hall was beige, the whole flat was beige, unbelievably beige, and Lambie thanked God he was marrying a woman whose idea of interior decor ran no further than white emulsion.

Left alone, Lambie took his chance to have a look at the window. It was about six feet wide and four feet high. The old safety catch had been replaced with a brand-new one. He ran his fingers over the newly painted wood, feeling the gouges. Somebody had been in a hurry to remove the old catch. The sill was at the level of his hip, so it wouldn’t have been exactly easy to climb out. But it would have been very easy just to upend somebody and turf them out. And it would have been quick. Nobody had seen anything, Carruthers had not cried out, and the sole eyewitness said they’d only looked up to see the open window after the body hit the ground. Lambie regarded the width, and imagined a man in his sixties trying to climb out of the window and then pausing to compose himself before the final jump. He’d have to place his hands on the frame, there would be handprints on the gloss paint. And no such fingerprints had been found.

Lambie had been to a few suicide scenes – and a few that had been considered suicide before being ruled as unfortunate accidents – but this didn’t seem right at all.

He heard the doorbell, the tuneless chime again, followed by the soft shuffle of shoes on the thick carpet and Rene chattering about there being somebody at the door without going to open it. For something to do, he picked up a photograph that stood on a pile of red and blue notebooks – diaries, he supposed – on the sideboard. It looked like Mary and Thomas on their wedding day. More photos – Mary and Rene on the beach in Benidorm, a much-younger Tommy on the top of a mountain – were littered across the top of the piano.

The bride, forty years on, appeared carrying a tray laden with cups and scones. Her eyes darted from him to the door. ‘Oh, I need to get that. Can you pull out the stool from under the piano? You can just close the top down.’

Lambie replaced the picture, and closed the top of the piano stool, but not before he had noticed the older, battered diaries piled in the wooden well of it. Somebody was having a clear-out.

‘It’ll be Father McCabe; mustn’t keep him waiting. Do you think you can do anything about the money? Can you find out where it came from?’

Lambie knew he had seen enough to warrant a close look at the file, so he got to his feet. ‘I’ll have a wee look around for you, but don’t you worry. I’ll leave you and the Father to it.’

6.30 P.M.

The girl from IT had been good, better than good. She had enhanced a shot taken from the CCTV camera at the railway embankment next to the Apollo flats. The face that stared back at Anderson from the high-spec version could be both James’s ‘pretty’ young man and Janet’s ‘cute guy’. With his slightly curly shoulder-length hair, his big brown eyes, he could easily be termed a hottie. ‘Wyngate, get on the phone to the security guy on the gate at Thorndene Park. Email him that image of the boy’s face, and ask him if he recognizes him, and if he has a name. Then tell him to delete it and say nothing to anybody. His number’s
in the file. Mulholland, do the same with Janet. Text it, email it, just get it to her no matter where she is on the face of the planet.’

Anderson placed that picture upright on his desk and looked at the scene photograph of the Bridge Boy, pinned on the evidence board. Behind all the swelling and blood it could have been anybody – Lord Lucan, even – but for that telltale tear in the cartilage of his ear where his earring had been. Dr Redman had called back from the hospital saying that, to his totally untutored eye, the ear in the photograph was a ‘probable’ match for the ear on the boy but he couldn’t be pushed to a ‘positive’. Anderson had asked if it was OK to put somebody on duty to protect the boy. Somebody had already tried to take him out once, and would probably try again. He asked if a photographer could go in now, and take a picture of the boy’s face. Then they could superimpose it on the CCTV image and tinker with it to see if there was a match between the bone structure.

Redman had snorted.

‘It’s a technique used for juries,’ Anderson explained. ‘They don’t like looking at the battered faces of little old ladies, so the photographers retard the image to before the assault, airbrush out the swelling, bleeding and broken teeth, then put them in again using nice clean graphics. It sanitizes the violence.’

‘But to do that you do need some bones in the face unbroken.’ And Redman had rung off, leaving Anderson staring at the phone.

Lambie came in, talking on his mobile about getting measured for a kilt. Anderson glared at him. Lambie caught the look and said a quick goodbye.

‘Sorry, sir. Jennifer’s worried that I’m putting on too much weight.’

‘You are. How did you get on?’

‘I’m feeling more uneasy about it. I want to look through the files for pictures of the window frame at the time.’

‘Of course.’

‘I didn’t really have a chat with Mary and her sister, as the priest arrived just after I did and I made myself scarce.’ He shrugged slightly. ‘It looks like Tommy kept diaries going back years. So, if he was a man who recorded every innermost thought then that is the place to look. I’ll chip away at getting a glance at them.’

Anderson handed Lambie the blown-up picture of the Bridge Boy. Lambie took it just as Wyngate, still on the phone, gave them a thumbs-up. The security man had recognized him right away.

‘Get a full description if you can. Well spoken, he said. But any idea of height? Anything he said in conversation?’

Wyngate looked flustered, so Lambie took the phone from him. ‘Hello, James? DS Lambie here. We met earlier …’

Anderson scribbled him a note to ask about a white Transit van, then left him to it. He walked over to the wall and moved Melinda Biggart’s name from the bottom of the list to the top.

Anderson was wondering who to send round to interview Melinda, and wished Costello was back on the squad. Neither was a woman easily intimidated. Better to apply to the sheriff for a warrant and do a search of all the Biggarts’ bank records, then question her about the boy. First thing was to find out who he was, where he
came from, and how he was involved. Maybe Melinda was indeed thinking about taking over her husband’s empire. Anderson wouldn’t put it past the woman to hire a young lover to take out her husband.

So, if the boy had been set up to take out Biggart, had he left a trail of some kind? Had some Mr X, on a mission to find out who had killed Biggart, been surprised it was a young boy and ordered him tortured to find out who was behind it? Anderson went back to his desk and sat down and thought about the boy’s injuries. Nobody could have stayed silent under such torture; even the strongest would have succumbed eventually. He himself wouldn’t have lasted two minutes, and the boy on the bridge had lasted longer than that. Much, much longer. Maybe he had held out to the very end, after all.

He swung round in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. ‘Have we got the CCTV from the bridge yet? I did ask …’ His eyes scanned the room.

‘Er, what do you think I’ve been working on for the last two hours?’ asked Wyngate, trying not to sound aggrieved.

‘Sorry, Wyngate. You got anything?’

Wyngate pressed Print. ‘Best so far is this.’

Mulholland, who was nearest the printer, pulled out the sheet of A4 and looked closely at it before handing it to Anderson. The angle made it impossible to see much – the van door, and a male passenger in a white T-shirt and dark glasses, his forearm leaning on the window, the impression of a tight bracelet round his left wrist. There was no clear view of the driver.

‘What time was this? Four in the morning? I know the nights are light but they don’t need bloody sunglasses!
Trace it up and down the street, will you, Wyngate, see if you can see the plate?’

Wyngate rolled his eyes.

‘Sorry, of course you’ve already checked that. Sorry,’ Anderson said again.

‘Janet said something about one of Biggart’s visitors having a scarred eye – “a funny eye, with a white bit across the iris, as though he’d damaged it”. That might explain the shades,’ said Mulholland. ‘And that he had a tattoo there, on his left wrist.’

Lambie hung up the phone, and it immediately rang again. ‘Yes, James’s description matches that picture, and he nearly pissed himself laughing when I asked about a white Transit van – ten a penny.’ Then he said very politely into the phone, ‘DS Lambie, how can I help you?’ He pulled a face, and handed the phone to Anderson.

‘Yes,’ Anderson said. Then he looked at the clock and again said, ‘Yes.’ He smoothed down his tie, as though whoever was on the phone was important. ‘Pitt Street? Yes, I can make Pitt Street if that suits you. Tomorrow at half eight then, sir.’ He put the phone down. ‘Bloody hell! That was ACC Howlett.’

‘Bloody hell, indeed,’ Lambie agreed. ‘Does he want to see you about Fairbairn?’

Anderson shook his head nervously but said, ‘I doubt it. Do you think lightning ever strikes twice?’

‘Might be your promotion. What about this LOCUST thing? That’s Howlett’s initiative, isn’t it?’ said Lambie, allowing the upward inflection to ask a question.

‘Hardly, judging by the way MacKellar is acting. Surely he’d be told first.’

‘You’d think so.’

Anderson didn’t even want to think about it. He could hardly dare to hope.

Instead, he reached for the original CCTV still. He sat back and examined the lower half of the picture. T-shirt, an expanse of flat stomach, low-slung jeans, and a set of keys clipped to the belt. The iPod was in the boy’s front pocket, his left hand slightly covering it. The right hand had reached round to steady the rucksack.

‘Wyngate? Can you get a close-up of those keys? Make that image a bit clearer? They might match the keys we have for the flats.’ Wyngate’s fingers ceased their rapid tapping over the keyboard, clicked on the mouse, dragged, then another click, and an image of the key ring almost filled the screen. A curtain of pixel activity descended the screen, as if cleaning it from top to bottom, leaving a crystal-clear image behind.

‘Sometimes, Wyngate, I understand why you were put on this planet,’ said Anderson, giving his constable a pat on the back. He leaned over Wyngate’s shoulder, looking at the screen. ‘Now what is that, there?’ he asked carefully. ‘Mulholland, come over here. Can you make out what that is, hanging from his belt? It looks like a knife, one of those pointy things martial arts people use, those things they throw about in kung fu.’

‘The thing that looks like a can opener? It’s a key ring for the BMW Z3, in the shape of a Z,’ Mulholland said loftily.

‘And so we have him: the cute guy, the Bridge Boy, the pretty one and the arsonist?’ Anderson peered at the image. ‘But who the hell is he?’

7.45 P.M.

Anderson was sitting in the garden, having enjoyed a rare picnic of fajitas and salad with Brenda and the kids. He was now sipping a beer and looking at the sky, wondering when the weather would break and trying to gather his thoughts on what had been a long, hot and eventful day. DCI Niven MacKellar had some kind of hold over his career, and there was no trust between them – none at all. He wondered if the River Girl being Russian made MacKellar think she could be a stepping stone to a squad like LOCUST. Even in death that wee lassie was being used, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. He was glad that his ruminations on the day were constantly interrupted by Nesbitt dropping a stinky half-chewed tennis ball into his lap, waiting for it to be thrown so he could scamper down the lawn on his three matching legs and the other one, skid past the ball and then return, good ear up, bad ear down, with his prize. Then he would drop the slaver-wet ball, ready for the game to start again. He was starting to wear out the lawn.