Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

by Owen Mullen

  In spite of that, he was a polished performer – par for the course from a guy who’d spent decades telling people what they wanted to hear – and at the end, when I threw the Sean Rafferty bomb at him, he’d fielded it like a pro.

  But a liar, even a good one, is still a liar.

  On its own, the note was intriguing though not much else. If, as was likely, Thompson stuck to his story, it wasn’t the break-through the anonymous author supposed. Nevertheless, I took heart from knowing somebody who was no friend of the gangster was watching from the wings.

  I called the council chambers and, to my surprise, got put through right away. Thompson wasn’t hostile – in fact, he was pleasant. I asked a couple of inconsequential questions which he batted back with saintly patience. When it seemed as if I had nothing more, I pulled the rug from under him.

  ‘By the way. How’s that granddaughter of yours?’

  For the first time, he faltered. ‘…She’s very well.’

  ‘Good. I’m pleased. Because I heard she’d had some trouble.’

  Thompson’s reply was stiff and unconvincing and told me I was right. ‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Mr Cameron.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The car wasn’t in the drive at the Cooper house. That surprised me. Margaret’s level of disability was severe, taking her anywhere was impossible, and anyway, what would be the point? She spent most of the day sleeping, and when awake, she didn’t know where she was. Life had been reduced to a one room limbo on the ground floor. For David and Margaret the world outside didn’t exist.

  It was a crime. Yet nobody had admitted to it.

  Since my last visit, especially in the wee small hours, the memory of Cooper tending his wife would come into my head, and for a few harrowing moments, I’d relive their tragedy and pity them. Witnessing what Margaret had become must have torn David apart. At times, he’d be forgiven for seeing her as his mute, helpless and relentlessly demanding jailor.

  James Hambley’s irritated phone call, his groundless insistence I was hounding Wallace Maitland, had struck a warning note I was unable to articulate, even to myself. But it was enough to bring me here.

  I got out of the car and walked up the path. David’s routine would run parallel with his wife’s. Time meant little to these people now; they might both be asleep. For a second I hesitated. The front door was open.

  In the hall, I called his name. ‘David? David, are you there?’

  No one answered.

  Shadows from the street fell across the lounge and, as my eyes adjusted, I recognised the stand-by on the hi-fi, glowing red in the corner. The sound of my breathing was the only sound. My fingers scraped the wall, searching for the light switch, aware this was someone’s home and I was an intruder with no right to be here.

  If the Coopers weren’t home, where were they? Where would a quadriplegic woman and her husband be on a winter’s night in Scotland?

  I reached for options – maybe the wife’s condition had taken a turn for the worse and she was back in hospital. Maybe it was an emergency and, in his hurry, David hadn’t closed the door behind him. Maybe they…

  I turned on the light and froze.

  Margaret Cooper was exactly as I remembered her: in her chair, eyes closed, head slumped forward on her chest. A spoon and a carton of ice cream lay on the floor beside the plastic bib; her hair was combed and a pillow rested on her lap.

  People say peaceful when they mean something else. Margaret was certainly that.

  She looked younger. Her features had lost the intensity her condition had imposed and there was a softness to them, a beauty I hadn’t noticed before.

  And she was dead.

  Suddenly, James Hambley’s accusation made sense though his certainty it was me stalking Wallace Maitland was off the mark. I retreated into the hall, took the mobile from my pocket and punched Andrew’s number. When he answered, I barked an address at him and ran to the car. I could be wrong, though I knew I wasn’t.

  The drive across the city passed in a blur and ended with mounting the pavement outside Maitland’s house. The blinds were drawn. Two voices carried as far as the gate; one crying, one angry. Instinct took me to the back door. It was open. I crept into the kitchen and peered into the lounge.

  Wallace Maitland knelt in the middle of the room, naked from the waist up. There were cuts on his face that didn’t look new. His hands were tied and blood ran from wounds carved criss-cross on his bare chest. David Cooper was standing behind him holding a knife in his hand. He caught Maitland by the hair, dragged his head back and whispered in his ear. Whatever he said made the obstetrician beg.

  ‘No. No. No!’

  Cooper noticed me and laughed. ‘Just in time, Mr Cameron. I take it you didn’t find Law? Doesn’t matter now.’

  He waved the knife in the air and I noticed its short blade: not a knife, a scalpel.

  ‘This bastard’s about to tell us something he should’ve said at the beginning.’

  The irony of the weapon was clear: it traced a path to Maitland’s left nipple, leaving a thin trail of sliced flesh in its wake. Maitland moaned and Cooper grinned, unrecognisable from the gentle caring husband I’d met. He was ready to kill, though he wasn’t a murderer; he’d cracked. Margaret may have died unexpectedly. In her condition, that was always a possibility.

  I didn’t believe it.

  The ice cream, the combed hair – and perhaps the most telling detail of all in that macabre still-life, the pillow on her lap – helped me guess what had gone on. A decision to bring the hell they were living in to an end had been taken. Out of love, David had smothered Margaret, and stepped over an invisible line into madness. All that remained was revenge. And here it was. I was looking at a man with nothing left to lose.

  Cooper deftly flicked his wrist and the nipple parted company with Maitland’s torso. A red rivulet flowed down Maitland’s pale skin; he screamed. The obstetrician was minutes, at most, from a violent death. If DS Geddes was coming, it better be soon or it would be too late.

  Cooper inspected the scalpel, satisfied with its work, and spoke to me, smiling. ‘Doesn’t like it, does he?’

  I moved cautiously into the room and tried to reason with him. ‘David, this isn’t the way. This isn’t what Margaret would want.’

  He snapped and turned his anger on me. ‘How do you know what she would’ve wanted? How would any of you know? All he had to do was admit it was his fault and he wouldn’t.’

  Terror distorted Maitland’s face. His eyes darted wildly as he mouthed please help me, over and over again.

  Cooper yelled at him. ‘Say it! Say it!’

  Maitland confessed to save his life. ‘Yes. I did. I did it.’

  Cooper yanked his head back and shouted. ‘Say what you did!’

  ‘I killed her.’

  Cooper relaxed his grip but held on. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘At last the truth.’

  Before I could get to him he drew the blade across Maitland’s throat. White became crimson. A jet of blood splashed the carpet in a long red line and Maitland fell to the floor, making a noise like a rubber bag releasing air. There was nothing anyone could do for him, and whether Andrew came mattered less than it had a minute ago.

  ‘Put the knife down, David.’

  Cooper talked to himself. ‘Say it. That was all he had to do. Just say it.’

  ‘David…David…’

  What happened next was more sickening to witness than the execution, and would stay with me for the rest of my life. Cooper raised his head and looked straight at me. I doubted he even recognised who I was anymore. The blade came up and he slit his own throat. Blood spurted onto the carpet and the light went out of his eyes; he stumbled forward and fell on top of Wallace Maitland.

  I was riveted to the spot; my feet were lead, unable to move. It had been so fast. A car door slamming in the street barely registered with me. Andrew Geddes arrived with uniformed officers and stopped in his tracks. The D
S thought he’d seen everything. But he hadn’t seen this. He edged round the pool of blood and the bodies on the carpet and touched my arm.

  ‘Christ Almighty. You all right, Charlie?’

  I did what Maitland, Hambley and Francis Fallon had never done – I told the truth.

  ‘Not really, Andrew. Not really.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  A fair-haired constable took an initial statement from me in a police car outside. I’d give a fuller account of what had gone on tomorrow. For now, the Maitland house was a crime scene. I was numb with shock so they let me go. Being alone tonight was a bleak and unappealing prospect. Too many pictures in my head. I almost called Alile, then, with the mobile ringing in my palm, changed my mind. That would be using her. In the end I drove home and poured myself a large one. Around eleven o’clock I had an unexpected visitor.

  Andrew Geddes stood in the doorway; he looked tired. ‘Thought you might appreciate company.’

  ‘Good thought. I think.’

  I got him a whisky. He handed it back.

  ‘If you’re worried about my licence, Charlie, forget it. Got a taxi, so stop pissing about and give me a real measure, will you?’

  I topped mine up, too.

  ‘Barr showed up at the cow’s tail. Always at the front of the queue when they’re dishing out prizes.’

  ‘Success has many fathers.’

  ‘And failure is an orphan. Too true, Charlie.’

  ‘Imagine he’s pleased.’

  Geddes gulped his drink; he was in the mood for a session. ‘Pleased as fucking punch. Can’t be sure about Margaret Cooper ’till the autopsy comes back but it looks like she’d been smothered. That would make three murders and a suicide thrown in. All nice and neat. Lovely stuff. Just the kind of police work Barr revels in.’

  ‘The easy kind.’

  ‘For him, the only kind.’

  He sat forward, warming to his new hobby of bad-mouthing his superior officer, who by the sound of him, thoroughly deserved it ‘Don’t expect credit. Won’t happen.’

  From where I was there wasn’t much to take credit for. Nobody had survived.

  ‘You mentioned three murders. You mean two, don’t you?’

  Geddes smiled. He had news and he wasn’t in a rush to tell it. ‘No, I said three and I meant three.’

  ‘Margaret Cooper, Wallace Maitland and…’

  He emptied his drink, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and dangled the glass in mid-air. ‘Stick another one in that for an old friend.’

  I ignored him. ‘And who else?’

  Andrew got out of the armchair and organised a refill. His I-know-something-you-don’t-know expression told me he was enjoying this. ‘Gavin Law.’

  ‘Law? Cooper killed Law? That doesn’t make sense. He was going to testify for the Coopers. Their star witness. Without him, their case collapsed.’

  ‘Not Cooper…Maitland.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Hogmanay.’

  He’d lost me.

  ‘Mrs Maitland was visiting her sister when we finally tracked her down. Devastated of course. Between them we pieced it together. Maitland showed up at Hambley’s in the early hours of New Year’s Day, incoherent and covered in blood. The next morning, he couldn’t remember where he’d been, or what he’d done.’

  ‘A couple of million people were in the same boat.’

  ‘There’s more. His own wife says he was convinced he’d killed Law.’

  ‘Why would he?’

  ‘Because Law put in a formal complaint against him and was ready to testify he’d made a pig’s ear of Margaret Cooper’s operation. His reputation would be ruined. Might even be struck off. Hambley confirmed his brother-in-law was in a terrible state. He’d been drinking heavily, was very confused, and looked like he’d been involved in a car crash.’

  Andrew caught the scepticism in my eyes.

  ‘Law spoke to his sister on Hogmanay, then he disappeared. We think Wallace Maitland killed him sometime later that night.’

  ‘We? Is this Barr’s theory or yours?’

  Andrew bristled. ‘A missing person and a guy with blood on him who thinks he killed somebody? Not such a stretch.’

  I disagreed. ‘How do you explain the credit card withdrawals?’

  Geddes shrugged. ‘A party animal comes across Law’s wallet and the year’s off to a great start. Oh happy day.’

  ‘Cash was taken out in London. Explain that?’

  ‘Simple: a wee holiday before they get cold feet and stop using them.’

  It wasn’t enough.

  ‘Where’s the body?’

  ‘It’ll turn up. Barr’s over the moon. Loves nothing better than a result that doesn’t get in the way of counting the paper clips.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Caroline Law?’

  ‘Not yet. We’ll interview Shona Maitland and the Hambleys again tomorrow and see where we are.’

  Geddes went quiet and played with his glass; he’d expected a different reaction. I hadn’t bought into his version of events. He made one last attempt to persuade me.

  ‘You’re a great investigator yet you haven’t come close to finding Law. Doesn’t that tell you something?’

  I shook my head. ‘Killing in a blackout, sure. Happens every day of the week. But a drunk man hiding the body? Not for me. You didn’t believe Tony Daly was capable of hanging himself, what’s different with this?’

  ‘This one confessed to his wife.’

  ‘Confessed, or couldn’t remember?’

  Andrew finished his drink; the session hadn’t materialised. He stood, and buttoned his coat. ‘There are loose ends. I don’t deny it. But when everybody dies what else can you expect? We may never know the whole story.’

  I threw him a bone. ‘Three out of four isn’t bad.’

  He put a friendly hand on my shoulder. ‘And to answer your question: it’s Barr’s theory. Racing to conclusions – his trademark. Ten minutes in the door and the case is solved.’

  ‘You were testing me?’

  He grinned. ‘Yep.’

  ‘So how did I do?’

  ‘Like you usually do, Charlie. You passed. It’s bullshit.’

  -------

  Weak sunshine on the road to Peebles seemed almost tropical compared with the weather of late. A long way to go to have lunch with a man I barely knew, but after the hellish scene with David Cooper and Wallace Maitland, the city felt oppressive; escaping it wasn’t unwelcome and I did my best to enjoy the trip.

  At Neidpath Castle, I got out on the high ground and studied what remained of the ruined tower house close to the River Tweed, imagining what living here must have been like. The sun chose that moment to dip behind a cloud and brought the obvious conclusion. Bloody cold. I got back in the car and drove on.

  Sometime today, the police would give Caroline Law the news about her brother and she’d been right about something bad having happened to him. I’d have to speak to her as well and wasn’t looking forward to it. What I had to say wouldn’t match. She’d be in enough pain without me raising a question mark against the official version, flimsy though it was. Andrew had floated his DI’s flawed reasoning and got the reaction he was looking for. Yet, something he’d said rang true – we might never know the whole story. Both of my cases had run into a dead end. Caroline and Cissie Daly were going to be disappointed women; there were a lot of them about. Alile had been gracious and understanding about Kate Calder, more than could be said for me. I was all over the place.

  I arrived in Peebles after two o’clock to find Colin McMillan waiting where I’d parked on my previous visit to the town, still wearing his expensive coat. When I turned down Port Brae to Tweed Green he waved. In the car, I followed his directions and drove up Main Street, past the Tontine hotel. McMillan seemed in good form for a guy whose whole life had gone down the toilet.

  ‘At least it isn’t raining.’

  ‘There’s always that though it’s cold. I stopped at Neidpath Castl
e for five minutes and nearly froze.’

  He laughed. ‘Tell you about the castle later. Remind me.’

  ‘Another ghost story?’

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  ‘You should write a book.’

  He let the idea settle. ‘Maybe I will. Take the Innerleithen Road. I’m about half a mile away. Is pasta okay? Thought I’d keep it simple since I’m out of practise. Or we can always go somewhere. I won’t be offended.’

  ‘No need, pasta’s fine.’

  A couple of hundred yards further on, we stopped at a cottage set back from the road. It was old and uncared for.

  McMillan read my mind and explained. ‘This was my mother’s house. Considered selling it after she died. Glad now I didn’t. Doesn’t feel like home, but then, nowhere does.’

  He led us inside, took my coat, and hung it up behind the door. In the lounge, the remains of a wood fire burned in a hearth that had probably been new in 1935 and filled the room with smoky air that caught the back of my throat. Noises from the kitchen told me my host had already started on our meal.

  He shouted to me with forced joviality, like someone not used to having company who was trying too hard. ‘Got the water on. Won’t be too long.’

  ‘No rush.’

  ‘And sit down for God’s sake.’

  I didn’t sit down. I wandered round, taking in my surroundings. A cottage in the country sounds romantic; this was anything but. The low ceiling made a small room smaller, and I guessed the heavy furniture, set against the white-washed walls, had belonged to McMillan’s mother. It reminded me of old times and hard times. There was no television, stereo, PC or magazines. Nothing of him.

  How did he spend his time? What did he do at night?