Blood Torment

by T F Muir

  In bed in London? On the road to Castle Douglas?

  Or had Kevin and Annette Kirkwood abducted Katie?

  But if not them, then who?

  His head was spinning from too many questions, and he felt an overwhelming need to put a lid on it for the time being. ‘Get on to Chambers again,’ he said to Jessie. ‘We’re about to make another arrest and, until we do, he can’t tell the media a thing. Not a bloody thing. You got that?’

  ‘Let me guess. Novo?’

  Gilchrist wanted to agree, but he wasn’t sure. He could ask the Met to detain Novo, but if she found out that Katie had been found, how would she react? And it struck him that he might have more to gain by not arresting Novo, but by watching her instead. Decision made, he said, ‘And get on to the Met, too, and see if they’ll tail Novo for us. But they’re not to detain her unless she’s about to leave the country.’ He eased his speed up to fifty as he left the town’s limits.

  ‘And what about your midday sacking?’ Jessie said.

  Despite having found Katie, Gilchrist knew his job was not yet secure. Not by a long shot. If anyone found out how he’d managed to track Katie to Kevin Kirkwood’s mother, he could still be walking the West Sands in the morning, searching for seashells.

  ‘Leave Greaves and McVicar to me,’ he said.

  He powered through the roundabout, floored it on to the A75 as he listened to Jessie instruct Chambers to put a lid on the media.

  ‘I know you heard that from DCI Gilchrist first time, sir. I’m not disputing that. No, sir, yes, yes . . . but DCI Gilchrist intends to question another suspect. If we let slip that Katie Davis has been found, he would lose . . . yes, I know . . . ’ She held on to her mobile for several seconds, then slapped it shut. ‘Jesus,’ she hissed. ‘What is it about men taking orders from a woman? You’d think I was going to crush his balls.’

  ‘That might come later.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  By the time Gilchrist pulled into Loreburn Street and parked opposite the police station, Jessie had arranged for the Met to tail Novo.

  Dumfries Police Station is a modern-looking brick building that echoes when you push through the main door. He and Jessie were led to DS Chambers’s office. A quick shake of the hands, with Gilchrist reiterating Jessie’s phone request to keep the media out of it, and Chambers confirming that Kevin Kirkwood was in Interview Room 1, his wife Annette in Room 2.

  ‘They’ve requested their family solicitor,’ Chambers said.

  ‘Do they know we’ve found Katie?’ Gilchrist asked.

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘Let’s keep it that way,’ he said. ‘What about their solicitor?’

  ‘She’s already here. Her office is just along the road.’

  ‘Good,’ Jessie said. ‘Let’s tackle the wife first.’

  Interview Room 2 was nothing more than a windowless room with a table and two chairs either side. Annette Kirkwood’s eyes were swollen from crying and she tried to give Gilchrist her best angry glare as he entered. But it fell short. Her solicitor sat by her side, a plain-looking woman – Gilchrist put her in her mid-forties – with salt and pepper hair that looked like scouring wire scraped straight, and a black jacket that was far too tight, testing the stitching around the buttons.

  Jessie walked to the end of the table and switched on the recorder. She took a seat and introduced herself and Gilchrist, stating the time and date. Gilchrist slid a business card across the table, in exchange for one from Kirkwood’s solicitor, and stated that Mrs Annette Kirkwood was being detained under Section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act 1995 on suspicion of the abduction of Katie Davis from her home in St Andrews, and that she was being represented by her solicitor, Jane Whetlow of Whetlow and Associates LLP.

  Whetlow began with, ‘I’ve been advised that you forced entry into my client’s home earlier this morning.’

  Gilchrist returned Whetlow’s cold stare. ‘Forced entry?’

  ‘Were you invited in?’

  ‘When a child’s life is at stake, we have to move quickly.’

  ‘Nonsense. I want my client’s complaint formally acknowledged.’

  ‘Noted,’ said Gilchrist, and turned to Annette. He waited until he established eye contact, then said, ‘Do you have anything you’d like to tell me?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Speak for the record,’ Jessie reminded her.

  She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t have anything to tell you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Gilchrist pried.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How well do you know Rachel Novo?’ he asked.

  Annette blinked with surprise, then recovered with a shrug. ‘Not very well.’

  ‘But well enough to know she shortened her surname from Novokoff to Novo.’

  Her face flushed at being caught out so easily. ‘Someone must have told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Probably Kevin. But I can’t remember.’

  Gilchrist waited a couple of beats, then said, ‘When did you first meet Rachel?’

  ‘In primary school.’

  ‘You must know Andrea, too, then?’

  ‘Yes, but not as well as Rachel.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t know Rachel very well.’

  ‘I . . . I meant that I knew Rachel better than I knew Andrea. Rachel invited me to her tenth birthday party. That’s when we first became close, if you could call it that.’

  ‘Being twins, it must have been Andrea’s birthday party, too.’

  ‘But Rachel invited me, not Andrea.’

  ‘Who did Andrea invite?’

  ‘No one. It was just the three of us.’

  ‘At the birthday party?’

  Annette nodded. ‘Her mother was very strict.’

  ‘And her father?’

  ‘I never saw him. He was at work, or away on business. I never asked.’

  ‘And you kept your friendship with Rachel through primary and secondary school?’ Gilchrist said, trying to edge the interview towards the present day.

  ‘Yes. But we were never really close.’

  Gilchrist had a sense of Annette trying to distance herself from Novo, so he said, ‘But you were close enough to go to university together.’

  She nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘York University?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you live together?’

  She frowned for a moment, then glanced at her solicitor.

  ‘We can confirm that easily enough,’ Gilchrist said. ‘And I would remind you that this interview is being taped for the record.’

  She lowered her eyes, and said, ‘We shared a flat.’

  ‘So, after graduating from York University, you kept in touch over the years?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘But you have been in contact with each other, am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you last talk to her?’

  She shook her head. ‘Years ago, I think.’

  ‘Before she became Rachel Novo?’

  Her eyes danced, then stilled. ‘It must’ve been after that, but I can’t remember when.’

  The problem Gilchrist faced was that he’d found the Kirkwoods by Dick listening in on Novo’s calls – which was illegal as hell, and could have him pensioned off in a heartbeat. It wouldn’t matter that doing so had helped recover a missing child. It mattered only that he’d broken the law. So he thought it best to distance himself from that line of enquiry, and focus more on how desperate the Kirkwoods must have been to have a child.

  But Whetlow advised Annette not to answer any questions of a personal medical nature and, five minutes later, Gilchrist decided to cut his frustration short by bringing the matter to a head.

  ‘So what can you tell me about Michelle?’ he asked.

  Annette jerked a gasp, clasped her hand to her mouth, and shut her eyes tight. Tears squeezed from under her lids and slid like raindrops down her cheeks.

&nbs
p; Whetlow glared at Gilchrist. ‘Michelle? Who’s Michelle?’

  ‘Katarina Davis,’ Gilchrist said, wondering if the Russian name would light a spark.

  But Whetlow’s wild look evaporated, and she mouthed a silent What? then turned to Annette. ‘We need to talk,’ she said to her.

  Jessie said, ‘I’d like to—’

  ‘In private.’ Whetlow turned on Jessie, eyes blazing. ‘I’m instructing my client to make no further comment.’

  ‘You’re doing your client no favours,’ Jessie said.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

  Gilchrist leaned closer. ‘Who put you up to it, Annette?’

  ‘No comment,’ snapped Whetlow.

  ‘We’re asking your client, not you,’ Jessie snapped.

  ‘Annette?’ Gilchrist urged.

  She lowered her head and, in a barely audible voice, said, ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did you and Kevin both drive to St Andrews?’

  A frown creased her forehead, and her eyes flickered a puzzled glance, as if she was struggling to understand what was going on. Then she focused on her hands once more, and said, ‘No comment.’

  ‘Or was it only Kevin?’ he asked.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘I think it was Kevin.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘That wasn’t a question,’ Jessie said.

  Whetlow glared at Jessie, her lips white with anger. But rather than persist with the petty needling, Gilchrist pushed his chair back. ‘DCI Gilchrist leaving the interview at . . . ’ He glanced at the recorder. ‘ . . . 12.44,’ then said to Jessie. ‘I’m taking a ten-minute break. Once you’ve done the necessary, give me a call.’

  He walked to the door, Jessie’s voice trailing after him.

  ‘Annette Kirkwood, I am arresting you for the wilful abduction of Katie Davis and . . . ’

  Outside, the sky had dulled, an uncanny reflection of his mood. Despite the fact that they’d found Katie alive and unharmed, he felt oddly deflated. It had been Annette’s eyes that had him doubting his rationale. When he’d mentioned driving to St Andrews, he thought he caught her momentary confusion, making him see the possibility that the adoption – and most probably the truth – had been kept from her. After all, Novo had phoned Kevin, not Annette.

  But just how deep was Novo’s involvement?

  Could she have removed Katie from her sister’s house that morning? But for the life of him, he could not see her motive, even if she’d had the opportunity. Had her business trip to China been nothing more than a front, an excuse to fly out of London? Lloyd’s was a global company, so it would be simple enough to establish if her Chinese trip was fabricated.

  But perhaps her mobile-phone records could reveal more.

  On the off-chance, he called Dick again.

  ‘You find anything interesting on Novo’s mobile records?’ he asked.

  ‘Got a list of numbers she called last week,’ Dick said. ‘Some of them from overseas – China, as best I can tell. Not too many. I cross-referenced them to the names on the registered phone accounts. There’s only a dozen or so but, if you’ve got a minute, I can rattle them off for you.’

  Gilchrist agreed, and waited while Dick retrieved his file.

  ‘Here we go,’ Dick said, and recited a list of names, none of which meant anything, until one jerked his senses alive – Rumford.

  ‘Wait,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Say that last one again.’

  Dick did. ‘Does it mean anything to you?’

  Alex Rumford had been Sandy Rutherford’s name before he changed it. Coincidence? Or not? But if you believed there was no such thing as coincidence, you would be surprised at what you could uncover.

  ‘That’s not a mobile number, is it?’

  ‘Landline.’

  ‘Do you have an address for it?’

  ‘I do,’ he said, and read it off – an address in Blackford.

  ‘Where’s that?’ Gilchrist asked.

  ‘Close to Gleneagles Golf Course, I think.’

  Somehow, hearing that deflated Gilchrist. The Blackford property could be one of several owned by Rutherford’s management company, leased out to golfing parties. And the landline could have been registered in Rumford’s name before he changed it to Rutherford all these years ago. And Novo’s call could be completely and utterly coincidental.

  And in a perfect world, pigs could fly.

  He thanked Dick and killed the call.

  The Met should have someone tailing Novo by now, so he phoned her mobile.

  She answered on the third ring with, ‘This is becoming tedious.’

  ‘Does the name Alex Rumford mean anything to you?’

  The line went quiet for a couple of beats, until she said, ‘If you want to talk to me again, you speak to me through my solicitor.’

  The connection died.

  Gilchrist held on to his mobile for a few seconds longer before closing the screen.

  His call to Novo had hit a nerve, smack dab in the centre, but given him no answers. He was still not seeing the whole picture. Which had him thinking that talking to Rutherford – or was it Rumford? – before flying to London to interrogate Novo would be worthwhile.

  For someone who claimed never to talk to her family, Novo was turning out to be a persistent fibber – one sure way to grab his attention. But his head was spinning, his thoughts confused, and it really was time to bring CS Greaves up to speed.

  He dialled his number.

  ‘Good afternoon, DCI Gilchrist,’ Greaves said, his formal address warning Gilchrist that McVicar was close by. ‘It’s good of you to call. We had a meeting scheduled for over an hour ago. Are you calling to confirm that you’re running late?’

  ‘Sorry, sir, I got held up.’

  ‘I have the Chief Constable with me. He’d like a word with you.’

  ‘Can you put him on speaker phone?’

  ‘I don’t see any need for—’

  ‘On speaker, sir, please, if you don’t mind.’

  The line clicked a number of times, went dead for a few seconds, then came alive again with, ‘Can you hear me, Andy?’

  Gilchrist recognised the authoritative voice of Chief Constable Archie McVicar. ‘I can indeed, sir, yes.’

  ‘Good, well, I won’t beat about the bush, Andy. This to-do with the missing child.’ A pause, then, ‘I have to tell you that it’s turning into a bit of a mess. So, I’m going to—’

  ‘I can update you—’

  ‘Let me finish, Andy. This isn’t pleasant for any of us—’

  ‘We have her,’ he said. ‘We’ve located Katie Davis.’

  It took two beats for McVicar to say, ‘Good Lord, is she . . .?’

  ‘She appears to be in good health, sir. But I’ve arranged for a medical—’

  ‘DCI Gilchrist,’ Greaves cut in. ‘How quickly can you get here?

  We need to set up a press conference, and—’

  ‘No we don’t,’ Gilchrist snapped. ‘We can’t afford to let this out yet. Sir.’

  ‘Andy? Is there a problem you’re not telling us about?’

  Overhead, blue patches punched holes in a slate-coloured sky. Yes, there’s a problem, he wanted to say. I don’t know who abducted her. I don’t know why Novo’s involved. I don’t think this case is as simple as it seems. We might have Katie safe, but—

  ‘Andy?’

  ‘DCI Gilchrist. I am instructing you to—’

  ‘Listen to me,’ Gilchrist said. ‘And listen carefully. I am about to make another arrest. But if word gets out that we have the child, I could lose any leverage I might have. It’s vital that we keep this quiet for the time being. I’ll be in a better position to advise you later. Do you understand, sir?’

  ‘What time will you know, Andy?’

  ‘I can’t say, sir.’

  ‘How about the child’s mother? Does she know yet?’

  This was the worry for Gilchrist, that the press could pick up on this point later, blast it back
at the constabulary in a journalistic fusillade. Surely any mother has a need to know that her daughter is safe. What right does anyone have to withhold such vital information, particularly when the mother is devastated? – or so the media would have you believe.

  ‘We might be in a position to tell her later tonight,’ he said. ‘But if I’m being honest, sir, it’ll more than likely be tomorrow morning, and probably later.’

  Another pause, then, ‘Very well, Andy. Tomorrow it is.’

  Gilchrist killed the call, and powered down his mobile.

  He needed to get back to the local Office and interrogate Kevin Kirkwood. After that, they had reports to complete, forms to fill out, before the drive back to Fife. But now the Met were tailing Novo, he could tackle Rutherford first thing in the morning.

  CHAPTER 32

  Friday morning, Perth

  Gilchrist arrived in Perth after 6. a.m., driving his BMW with four new tyres – the garage had returned it to its spot on Castle Street on Wednesday afternoon. He’d also picked up Tosh’s CD, lying on the hallway floor where Dick had slipped it through his letterbox. But, after giving it a quick review, he realised it was too late in the night to have it out with Tosh. Instead he sent him a text.

  We need to talk. Call me tomorrow.

  After that, he had slept fitfully, his mind firing questions all night long.

  It had been that tenth birthday party, when the Davis twins had been allowed for the first time to bring only one friend to their home – Annette Kirkwood – which had sealed it for Gilchrist. Dougal Davis had not been there, which told him that Vera had not dared risk the welfare of any children in his presence. So she must have known, and must have lived with the secret of Dougal’s incestuous abuse, rather than report him – she must have.

  Unable to sleep, Gilchrist had risen from bed close to four o’clock.

  Now, despite his urge to get on with it, his stomach was grumbling. He slowed down as he neared the Rutherfords’ home. The garage door was closed – Range Rover tucked away securely, no doubt, and Bentley parked alone on the driveway. Again, it struck him as odd that such a majestic car would be exposed overnight to the elements, while a common-or-garden Range Rover was garaged.