The Turning Tide (31 page)

‘Phone in a body at my own home? You know the first thing the police will do? Take me into custody until they decide what to charge me with. No way.’

‘But you didn’t do it,’ Billy said. ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate here, you understand. I wouldn’t ring them. But I’m not you. And you definitely don’t wanna be me.’

Erykah shook her head. ‘How do I tell them where I was? My alibi is either being on a train with a dead man, or being in a car with you. I’d be fucked either way. Can’t leave him there, because . . .’ She shuddered. ‘I just can’t. We do this now and I’ll report him missing in a few days. After all the media interest and the state of our marriage it will look credible enough.’

‘Yeah. Sure. I get that. But are you going to be OK with that?’

She paused. Was this it? Was this going to be the choice that changed her life forever?

No. Her life had already changed forever.

Dumping Rab’s body was not what her twenty-year-old self would have advised. But maybe it was time to stop trying to make the decisions other people thought were right, and start making the ones she thought were right. ‘I don’t see we have much choice,’ she said.

‘Your wish is my command,’ he said. ‘Then what?’

‘We’re going to the radio station,’ Erykah said. ‘And you’re going to finally meet Diana Stuebner.’ She may not have known what she wanted, but for the first time in a long time, Erykah knew exactly what she needed to do.

: 30 :

Morag popped an antacid tablet in her mouth and chewed. The chalky mint taste kept down the bile in her throat for now. Her fingers beat a staccato rhythm on her desk.

The party whip had been round to see her. Morag knew what she was in for: a tongue lashing for the radio affair. Well, fuck it. It was an ambush. A man walking off would have been said to be standing up for himself. A woman? Already the tabloids were calling her hysterical.

That PR guru, Delphine, who had been chasing her down the hallway at Westminster last week now wasn’t returning her calls. Morag had tried a couple of times during breaks from committee, but no answer. Delphine never let a call drop. Never. This was not good.

Outside her office door voices were arguing. Arjun seemed to be trying to prevent someone from getting into her office. ‘No, I’m sorry, she’s working right now, you’ll have to make an appointment . . .’

Morag flung the door open to find her assistant scowling at two uniformed police. ‘Is there a problem here?’

‘The officers are here about a murder investigation, and I told them no way, no how, not without a warrant they’re not,’ Arjun said. ‘If this is about that vile rumour – this is ridiculous. Show me a warrant or make an appointment.’

Morag laid a hand on her assistant’s shoulder and smiled for the benefit of the police. One man and one woman, she noted. It could be random but didn’t they usually send a woman if a female suspect was being taken into custody? ‘Arj, it’s fine. I’m so sorry about this,’ she said. ‘Arjun is looking out for my best interests. I’m sure this isn’t anything to do with the radio interview yesterday,’ she said. ‘Is it?’

The police exchanged glances. ‘Well, it is, in a way,’ the woman said. ‘I am Sergeant Okafor. Could we speak to you somewhere a bit more private?’

‘Come in,’ Morag said and stood aside. ‘Arjun, get the two officers a cup of tea. And one for me as well. You know how I take it.’

Morag arranged herself behind the desk and crossed her legs at the knee. There was only one extra chair in the office. Neither officer would sit, so they were both left standing. Many thought that sitting down put you at a disadvantage, but in Morag’s experience being comfortable while others shuffled and fidgeted on their feet was always a better option. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

Sergeant Okafor flipped open a notebook and clicked her pen. ‘We are here regarding the ongoing investigation into the murder of Damian Schofield,’ she said. ‘After you were on the radio yesterday, we had a very interesting phone call.’

Morag stiffened, but her smile stayed in place. ‘Do tell.’

‘First, can I confirm that the photo revealed is, in fact of yourself, and that it was taken at the Cameron Bridge mortuary last week?’ Sergeant Okafor laid a photocopy of a picture on the desk, the same one Diana Stuebner had revealed to her yesterday.

Morag looked at the picture. Her face was in profile, she was moving . . . it might have been someone else. But if she was caught out lying to the police, it wouldn’t matter what she said afterwards. ‘Well, it certainly appears to be me, doesn’t it,’ Morag said. ‘Yes – I was there. I don’t recall a photographer being there at the time.’

‘And did you post a genetic sample to the mortuary, in case evidence was contaminated by your visit?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Morag said. She laced the fingers of her hands together and rested them on the desk. Her voice was slow, calm, deliberate. ‘I sent the mortuary a cheek swab. My assistant Arjun will remember passing on the sample tube, and the phone call from – what was her name? – ah, Dr Hitchin, will be logged in our calls register.’

‘Harriet Hitchin, yes,’ Sergeant Okafor jotted down notes while her colleague scowled and tried to look tough. ‘The pathologist at Cameron Bridge.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And at the time you didn’t know the identity of the deceased.’

Morag searched the sergeant face, but there was nothing to be read there. Even less in the face of the man with her. ‘You know, I don’t wish to be rude, but – should I be phoning a solicitor before this goes any further? Because if you wish to put questions to me in a, how shall we say, more formal fashion, I am more than happy to meet you at a nearby station.’

‘No I don’t think that will be necessary,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘We were contacted by Police Scotland late yesterday. They have processed your genetic sample, and apparently, there are links with a potential suspect.’

Arjun came back in the room with three mugs. He put them on the desk, eyes shooting daggers at the police. Morag shooed him away. The dark wood door clicked shut behind him, but she knew he was probably still there on the other side, listening.

She blew on the surface of her tea and took a tiny, experimental sip. The swallow clicked in her throat, like she had something to hide. ‘Please continue,’ Morag said.

Sergeant Okafor gestured to her partner, who produced a folded printout from inside his vest. She glanced over the paper, a printout of an email. ‘Apparently they say your – what is this word, Barry?’

‘Mitochondrial,’ her partner murmured.

‘Mitochondrial
RNA
is a match with material they extracted from under the deceased’s fingernails.’

‘I don’t really understand what you’re saying, but if you mean to imply that I could possibly be a suspect—’

‘No, not that,’ she said. ‘You are not a person of interest. Not directly. Sorry, science is not my native language.’ Sergeant Okafor laid the printout on the desk next to the mortuary picture.

‘I mean, I’m sure my husband isn’t involved in anything like this, we have no children, and my parents both died some years ago.’

‘No, none of that. The mitochondrial
RNA
is maternally inherited, so it seems to be from someone you’re related to, through your mother’s side of the family. Can you tell us about your living relatives on that side of the family?’

Morag frowned. She had only fleeting contact with family since her mother’s funeral. She was not like them. They were not like her. Her mam was the eldest of four, and the others, well . . . She hardly knew their families apart from the wedding and birth announcements that had come through over the years.

‘The results have been run against the criminal database and match with no one else,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘Is there a possibility – I mean, even names would do, if you don’t have addresses.’

Morag pursed her lips and thought. ‘My uncles – as far as I know, neither had children. My mother’s youngest sister, she had a daughter. Much younger than me. Lives in London I believe, though I’ve not seen the girl since she was knee-high.’ Morag frowned and sipped her tea. ‘No, even before that. The last time I saw her in the flesh was at her baptism.’

The policewoman scribbled in her notebook and nodded. ‘Name? Age? What year would that have been?’

‘Now let me think . . .’ Morag closed her eyes and flipped back through her mental Rolodex. It had been a long time. ‘Ninety-one, is when it was. It was quite something. Very glamorous. Very unlike having it in the local kirk, where the rest of the family were all brought into the church.’

Morag, who was still on the Cameron Bridge town council back then, had made the trip down by coach. It had been her first time in London save for a school trip years before. She had watched out the window at the last slow progress of the bus into Victoria coach station, past the grand façade of the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert, the lights and crowds outside Harrods. The size and sprawl of the city was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was scary but also a little bit thrilling. She would never have imagined that she would be living there herself less than a decade later. Nor, for that matter, would any of her family imagined it of her.

‘My aunt married money,’ Morag went on. ‘A Catholic man, but they all are in South America, aren’t they?’ She chuckled. ‘He had some sort of Papal title and that set the cat amongst the pigeons – not that she cared. After that we were sure we would never see her again. She changed their name back after his suicide. Poor dears, they never wanted for anything, but her little girl growing up in boarding schools with a trust fund instead of a father? That can’t have been nice.’

‘I’m sure that’s all very useful,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘But if you could give us a name . . . ’

‘Oh, it was – what was it – Castano-Perez. Their girl is called Heather.’ A flicker of memory passed across Morag’s face. The body on the slab in the Cameron Bridge mortuary, the horrible grin of the lipless, decomposing corpse, the cut throat. The body cavity splayed wide open, and the smell. The smell. Whoever had done that to a man would have to be crazy, or heartless, or likely both. Morag leaned on her elbows and looked up at the police. ‘My God! You don’t really believe Heather might have killed someone, do you? What was done to that man was awful.’ She shivered.

The sergeant shook her head. ‘At this point we can’t know anything for certain until we speak to her,’ she said. ‘But we are taking this very seriously.’

‘And you haven’t had contact with her?’ the man said.

‘No. I heard some things because we have a few acquaintances in common. She went to work last year with the Scotland Liberal Unionists.’ Morag said. ‘Everyone who does the fundraising circuit knows everyone else. It’s only about two degrees of separation. But she never contacted me and, to be frank,’ Morag gestured at the office, ‘I’m a very busy person.’

‘Right, the
SLU
. That anti-devolution party,’ the sergeant said. ‘But you weren’t backing them, or involved in any way? Maybe financially? You were on the same side of the referendum, is that right?’

‘God, no,’ Morag shook her head. ‘I mean, yes, they also were against independence, but we never worked together. The
SLU
set out their stall to challenge the main parties. Even a hint of sympathy in that direction and I would be dumped from the front bench in no time.’

‘No donors in common?’

‘None that I know of.’ Morag leaned back again and waved her hand. ‘In any case, she comes from money; her father’s family were loaded. Doubtless she picked up a few lucrative connections growing up in those social circles.’

‘Mmm.’ Sergeant Okafor raised her eyes from the notebook. ‘You said you and Heather knew people in common,’ she said. ‘Anyone in particular?’

‘You know how it is, lobbyists get around.’ She sipped her tea. ‘Come to think of it, there was something else. That Major, you know – Abbott?’

The man perked up now. ‘Major Abbott? The one who was found dead on a train yesterday?’ The police looked at each other, and Sergeant Okafor started scribbling again.

‘The very same.’ She swung the tip of one red shoe back and forth. ‘He was there, at her baptism. If memory serves me correctly, and it usually does, he was one of her godfathers.’

‘Wouldn’t that be a bit odd, though,’ the policeman said. ‘To be a godparent to someone from Argentina. Isn’t he famous for fighting against them in the Falklands?’

‘Arguably, he’s more famous for shagging his ghost writer,’ Morag said. ‘And these days, for being a social media liability. Old military links, I assume. Before the war – and this is well before your time – Britain was fairly chummy with the junta, back when we believed in the Red Menace and the threat of Communists taking over.’

‘You mentioned her family have a lot of money,’ Sergeant Okafor said.

‘Had, in the past tense,’ Morag said. ‘I didn’t keep up with them nor they with me. But you hear things. There was a deal that went wrong, a government contract they lost. The father killed himself. My aunt came back to Britain. She had to pull Heather out of boarding school.’ She leaned back in her chair. The old leather and wood creaked. ‘They weren’t skint exactly, but most of what was left was tied up elsewhere. A pity. But perhaps a lesson to all of us not to count your chickens before they hatch.’

‘So they had money and lost it,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘What was the business again?’

‘Why, it was oil, of course.’

: 31 :

‘Hey, lady!’ The security guard leapt up from his chair. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’

Erykah hurtled through the revolving glass doors and sprinted for the lifts. She stopped in her tracks and turned to face the guard whose burly arms were planted like tree trunks on the desk. His voice was familiar – it was the same man who’d answered the phone when she rang the station.

She glanced at her watch. The radio station had been trailing Heather’s interview on air for the last two hours; she was probably in the studio right now. And only metres away from Kerry who was entirely unaware of the danger.

‘Where’s Kerry Wilder?’ Erykah gasped.

Barrington remained exactly where he was. ‘I’m s’posed to ask if you got an appointment,’ he said.

She reached into her bag and pulled out the black and yellow scarf. ‘No, no appointment, she left this at a coffee shop earlier. I thought I would drop it by, you know, say hello. Were, uh, we’re friends.’

‘Friends. Uh-huh,’ Barrington said. ‘You can leave it here and I’ll make sure she gets it.’

She glanced over the security guard’s shoulder at the
CCTV
monitors and flinched. On one screen it looked like a woman was stabbed and bleeding while a man on the other side of a glass wall tried to save her. What the hell? ‘What’s that?’

Barrington looked over his shoulder. ‘Oh. Right,’ he said, and switched it back to a sedate scene at the top of a stairwell. ‘I was watching a film.’

‘Instead of the
CCTV
?’ Erykah raised her eyebrow. ‘Uh-huh. I’m sure it’s very edifying.’

‘Watch your mouth, that’s
Bird With the Crystal Plumage
,’ Barrington said. ‘It’s a classic.’ He looked at the scarf, then at her face, then at the scarf again. ‘A’ight, I’ll swipe you through. This time. Level four.’

‘Thank you,’ she breathed and hurried away.

The lift was old and seemed to be taking forever. Erykah tapped her foot on the floor. She should have come up the stairs. They had spent too much time at the house. Seminole Billy wouldn’t let her go inside, said she didn’t need to see that. Asked her what if the neighbours saw her, what if they talked to the police later? He was right, of course. Better to leave him and Buster to take care of Rab’s body, do what they needed to do.

It wasn’t only the gore. In the time while his death was still new, while she hadn’t seen anything, it still existed in a not-quite-real space, one where she didn’t have to think through what she was doing right now or admit that things would never be the same again. Maybe she had made the decision already, when she chose staying with him over leaving with Nicole. Or when she got more deeply involved with the Major. Or maybe she hadn’t made the decision at all, maybe the decision was and had only ever been Rab’s, and he chose for her.

And maybe, as with Grayson’s trial, the situation had nothing to do with her after all. The tide just turned and you dealt with it. People did whatever they were going to do, with little or no thought of the effect on others, and only she could pick up the pieces of her own life.

The lift pinged open on the fourth floor –
LCC
was in front of her. Erykah strode into the corridor, looking left and right for a sign of Kerry. She poked her head in the green room – no one there, just a tired sofa and a collection of unwashed mugs. A row of offices was empty. She spotted, through a glass wall, the production team hovering over mixing boards. They gave the thumbs up to Diana through a window to the main studio.

Diana and Heather were inside, fiddling with the equipment. Diana adjusted her microphone, which was attached with a hinged mount from the ceiling. The she showed Heather the right distance to sit to get the best sound on the small, heavily weighted guest mics on the desk. Erykah noticed for the first time how Heather’s eyes darted around the room, the way she ran her hand through her hair, which looked lank and unwashed. Her blouse was expensive but when she raised an arm to adjust the headphones, there was a tell-tale dark patch of sweat. The formerly confident young woman Erykah had met at the press conference was beginning to show the strain.

Erykah spun around on her heel before Heather could spot her and, in doing so, nearly knocked into Kerry, who was carrying two mugs of coffee.

‘Watch it!’ Kerry scowled and gripped the mugs. Her eyes met Erykah’s. ‘You! What are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you.’ She hauled Kerry into one of the empty offices and shut the door behind them. ‘Listen to me, something bad is about to go down.’

‘Yeah, like I’m gonna get a bollocking from my boss if I don’t get in there right now,’ Kerry said.

Diana’s honeyed voiced poured out of the station speakers. ‘Joining me live on air this afternoon is Heather Matthews, spokesperson for the Scotland Liberal Unionist Party. Heather, thank you for joining us. With the sudden death of Major Whitney Abbott, and post-referendum debates accusing both sides of misleading campaigns, is it fair to say your young party has had its worst week ever?’

‘You don’t understand,’ Erykah hissed to Kerry. ‘We got it wrong. It’s not Morag behind this. It’s her. It’s
Heather
.’

Kerry’s eyes widened. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ Erykah pulled the files out of her bag and laid the papers on top of the desk. ‘Here,’ she pointed at the notebook. ‘That’s the phone number of the last person to call Damian Schofield at his office before he disappeared. He had a meeting in his diary next to the initials LL. Lady Livia, I assumed – a contact of the Major’s. One of Schofield’s co-workers said she claimed to be a journalist here. But when I phoned the station no one had ever heard of her.’

‘Go on.’ Kerry set the mugs down and bent over the files, tucking her hair behind one ear.

‘I thought it was unusual, but there was a lot else going on and it didn’t seem important,’ Erykah said. ‘Then yesterday, I was going through Major Abbott’s phone—’

‘Wait!’ Kerry said. ‘You have the Major’s phone?’

‘Ah,’ Erykah said. It was probably not a good idea tell anyone else about her presence on the sleeper train that night. Especially not someone with the habit of tweeting out every piece of gossip she heard. ‘It’s a long story. Anyway, I plugged in the phone and the same number I got off Schofield’s office phone is in the Major’s phone as Livia. So we ring it, and it’s Heather’s voice on the answerphone.‘

‘It’s her pseudonym,’ Kerry half-smiled.

‘Sort of,’ Erykah said. ‘Heather Matthews isn’t Heather’s real name, or at least, not the one she was born with. I’ve done some checking and she was born in Argentina and her name is Castano-Perez. Olivia Heather Castano-Perez. She comes from an oil family. I did some digging on the way here – once you have the right name, guess whose family’s old company turns up all over the applications for new oil and gas exploration sites in Scotland? Anyway, I believe she was trying to get close to Schofield and discover what he knew, and when she had her evidence—’

‘That’s when she decided to kill him,’ Kerry said. She bit her lip. ‘Do you think Schofield knew?’

‘Maybe,’ Erykah said. ‘Maybe he tried to confront her. No way to tell for sure. That’s why I’m here. She must know the leak is someone in this building.’ If Erykah had figured out the location of Media Mouse so quickly, it wasn’t hard to believe plenty of others would as well. ‘Or else why raise her head above the parapet? She’s here to take someone out – and that someone is you.’

Kerry started poking at the screen of her phone.

‘Are you ringing the police?’

Kerry flashed Erykah a wicked smile. ‘Are you fucking kidding? I’m tweeting this!’

Someone started pounding at the door. ‘Come on, Kelly, we’ve been waiting for that coffee for almost five minutes!’ Jonathan shouted. ‘I’m going back in the tank and if you’re not there in ten seconds you’re toast.’

‘It’s my boss.’ Kerry gave Erykah a see-what-I-have-to-deal-with look and put her phone back on the desk. ‘I have to go or they’ll know something’s wrong.’

‘Please,’ Erykah whispered, a hand on Kerry’s shoulder. ‘Whatever you do—’

‘I have to go.’ The girl shrugged her off. ‘It’ll be fine. Heather can’t do anything to me here, right? Not in front of all these people.’

Erykah slumped in the chair. Kerry still didn’t understand. She hadn’t heard that gunshot back at the house when Rab was killed. She hadn’t listened to what the people who did it had planned to do to her, or to anyone else who got in their way. She had no sense that with just one wrong choice her entire life could fall apart.

The station switched over to a weather and traffic update and Diana and Heather left the tank for a few moments. Kerry was busy fetching Jonathan his drink, so the women were left to get their own in the green room. Heather smiled and picked up both mugs while Diana jogged down the hall for a quick loo break.

Erykah watched from the crack in the door. What was Heather doing?

She picked up Kerry’s phone. Media Mouse was still logged on to Twitter. Erykah scrolled down the screen, flicking past mentions and messages, wheedling requests from students who wanted to interview her and journalists who wanted to trap her into revealing herself. But maybe . . .

If she did nothing, Heather could have Diana in her sights. But if she tweeted, Kerry would be at risk as well.

Jump before you’re pushed.

Maybe Kerry wasn’t entirely wrong. Twitter might not save her, but the phone lines could. Erykah’s thumbs hovered over the screen, shaking. What to type? ‘
BREAKING
Schofield murder. Last contact before disappearance Scotland Liberal Unionists sec Matthews, now on
LCC
.
’ She followed it up with the station switchboard number, took a deep breath, and pressed send.

Then a follow-up message, in case the meaning wasn’t clear. ‘
She is the killer. I know because I am in the station right now. I work here.
’

Within seconds, it had been retweeted ten times. That seemed a lot. Then thirty. Almost as many replies popped up to warn her of libel suits if she was wrong. But who cares about self-appointed Internet legal experts? Even more people started responding to the second message, the one saying where she was.

Erykah peeked back out at the studio. Sure enough, the lights on the switchboard were already going mad, with producers pointing and gesturing through the glass. Diana and Heather, unaware of what was happening, settled into their seats and the last seconds of the advert break ticked away.

‘Welcome back. Today I’m talking to Heather Matthews, spokesperson for Scotland Liberal Unionists, the party that was until this week running Whitney Abbott as a candidate for European Parliament. With Major Abbott’s tragic death, can the party struggle on – and what does this tell us about the landscape of Scottish politics, and Britain in general, post-referendum? We’re taking your calls now at
LCC
. Our first caller, David in Putney, you’re on the air.’

‘Hey, hi,’ the man’s voice said. ‘Long-time listener, first-time caller. I love your show, Diana.’

‘Thank you, David. Do you have a question or comment for our guest?’

‘Sure. Yeah. I was wondering if Heather could comment on the online rumour that she was involved in Professor Damian Schofield’s death?’

Diana’s eyes went wide. She signalled to the producers through the glass with a finger across her neck with one hand while she pounded the hang-up button with the other. ‘Wow! That was unexpected. Ha ha. Huge apologies to our guest. I think,’ Diana shot daggers at the team on the other side of the glass. ‘It sounds like our call screening is not as sharp as it might be today. Next caller, you’re on the air.’

‘Hi, Jenny from Bedford. Same question. Also for Diana, did you know Media Mouse was someone who works at the station?’

Diana’s finger came down again and cut the call. ‘Ha ha, well as we all know just because something is online doesn’t mean it’s true,’ she said. She looked at Heather, whose face had gone white with rage. ‘I don’t expect you to answer any of this, of course.’ She gestured again to the producers. ‘Guys, can you possibly find us a caller who isn’t trying to accuse our guest of heinous crimes? You know I love the drama, but I can hear the legal department screeching from here.’

Jonathan made a spinning circular motion in the air with one finger. Fill the time, he was telling her. ‘While our producers get on that, let’s go over some of these headlines again.’ Diana pressed a hand to her headphones, and listened for a moment. ‘Wait, yes, I’m getting some confirmation from the producers. Apparently the Media Mouse account has been online today, making accusations about our guest and claiming she disguised herself as a journalist to get close to Schofield. Unconfirmed allegations, I have to emphasise. It also claims the account is run by someone who works right here at our
LCC
studio but, ah, we have no confirmation of the truth of any of these claims.’ Erykah saw Kerry turn her head in the direction of the office, then quickly look away, then at the floor. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll be giving your solicitors a call as soon as we’re off the air,’ Diana chuckled. ‘Moving swiftly on—’

‘No, by all means, let’s talk about this,’ Heather said. ‘I’ve been meaning to pick a bone with you, Diana Stuebner,’ she said.

Diana looked surprised, but spread her hands in invitation. ‘Pick away,’ she said.

‘Don’t you think it’s a little odd that your station seems to be on top of anything negative that happens with regards to the
SLU
?’

‘Bias, you mean? We are a news organisation,’ Diana chuckled. ‘Like most we have our ups and down when it comes to being the first to break stories. I mean, it’s not as if the Scottish Liberal Unionist Party is all we cover—’

‘And the fact that you specifically had a tip off from Media Mouse with photos of Morag Munro at the Cameron Bridge Mortuary is nothing to do with that.’

Diana smiled patiently. ‘I’m sorry, Heather, but I don’t see how that’s related? Let’s turn it back to our callers.’