The Accused (PI Charlie Cameron)

by Owen Mullen

  Boyd spoke and I remembered the gruff voice from the telephone. ‘Diane said you’d help me.’

  I laid down a marker, setting the tone for the conversation we were about to have.

  ‘Diane’s exaggerating. I agreed to meet you. Speak to you. Nothing more.’

  ‘What do I do to convince you?’

  For me, there was more to it than that. ‘Tell me the truth. Anything else and I’m gone.’

  ‘Simple. I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Didn’t do what, exactly?’

  ‘Any of it. Not then. Not now. The guy in the car park last night wasn’t me. I wouldn’t be so stupid. Twelve hours after I’m released one of the people who put me away is murdered. A bit obvious, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s what the police think that counts. Describe what happened in Elmbank Street.’

  Boyd removed his glasses. ‘Can’t get used to these bloody things.’ He put the spectacles in his pocket and ran a hand through his cropped hair. ‘They set me up before and they’re doing it again.’

  ‘Who did? And why you?’

  ‘Honestly, I haven’t a clue. I was having a pint in a pub at George Square when the barman handed me a note telling me to be in the car park at ten-thirty.’

  ‘Where did the note come from?’

  ‘I asked the barman. He’d no idea. Don’t know what the hell I was thinking – must’ve left my brains in the Bar-L – because I went.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Wilson was on the ground in a pool of blood. It was dark but I could see he was dead.’

  ‘Did you touch anything?’

  ‘Can’t remember. I fucking hope not.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Ran. Ended up at Central Station. That’s when I called Diane.’

  ‘And you don’t know who might’ve set you up?’ Boyd had to have thought of little else in fifteen years. ‘Is it possible somebody has a grudge against you?’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘You see, I’m asking myself why anybody would bother, unless they had a reason. A good reason. They had to realise you’d come after them. Why not just kill you and be done with it?’

  Boyd stared at me as if he’d suddenly come awake and wasn’t sure where he was.

  ‘When you got out of Barlinnie, what were your plans? Did you intend to let it be? Move on?’

  His gravel voice boomed in the car. ‘I was going to find the lying bastards and make them tell me who was behind it.’

  ‘Kill them?’

  He didn’t shirk from answering. ‘If that’s what it took, yes. Year after year in Barlinnie that’s exactly what I planned to do.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘I was free. Whatever happened, I swore I wasn’t going back inside. The fuckers who set me up didn’t know that. I wasn’t about to tell them.’

  And now I believed him.

  ‘Did you know the men who testified against you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  Boyd pulled on his roll-up and studied the rowers, the mind behind the eyes considering how serious I was about the truth. ‘Wilson asked me for a job once. I hunted him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was a thug.’

  ‘Mrs Kennedy said he told the court you asked him to do a job with you.’

  He blew smoke against the windscreen. ‘Never happened.’

  ‘Never? Could Wilson have taken you turning him down badly enough to hold it against you?’

  Boyd flicked ash onto the floor and casually dismissed the suggestion. ‘Who knows? The other two were idiots; he was an animal. Hurting people was fun for him. Plenty of punters in the city will be glad he’s dead.’

  ‘What about McDermid and Davidson? Any history there?’

  ‘Until the trial, I hadn’t even heard their names. Small fish. Turned out McDermid did two years for resetting. Released early for good behaviour. The notion anybody would trust a word that came out of his mouth is laughable. Davidson was even less impressive, if that’s possible. Got caught with a dodgy credit card in Marks and Spencer, trying to buy a present for Mother’s Day. Nobody in their right mind would credit anything they said. It was ridiculous. Davidson just happened to be passing Joe’s place and saw a man who looked like me running away.’ He shook his head. ‘Unbelievable.’

  The jury hadn’t agreed.

  ‘Mrs Kennedy says her husband knew about you two. What do you think?’

  He blinked and avoided looking at me. Odd behaviour for a cold-blooded killer.

  ‘I think Joe Franks was a victim in more ways than one. Doing him down never felt right.’ He ran a restless finger over the tobacco pouch. ‘The marriage was a mismatch from the off. People called them the Odd Couple behind their backs. Diane was a looker and Joe…’ Boyd let the assessment go unfinished.

  ‘All I’m saying is, she could’ve had her pick, and she picked Joe Franks. Joe wasn’t interested in anything except gems; diamonds mostly. The novelty of a sexy wife wore off pretty fast. If it hadn’t been me it would’ve been somebody else.’

  ‘What was your relationship with Franks?’

  ‘We got on well but we weren’t friends, if that’s what you mean. Keeping me around was business. Joe didn’t deal in wedding rings, engagement rings, or any of that crap. He bought and sold. Been in the game most of his life; knew it inside out. Had suppliers in Rajasthan, Cape Town, all over. Occasionally, he’d be asked to hunt down a stone with a defined cut, colour, clarity and documentation. When that happened, he was obsessed, wouldn’t bother to go home. Slept in the office. Faxes would arrive from all over offering him stuff. Joe wouldn’t commit to buying until he’d assessed the gem himself. That meant travelling to wherever it was. He’d go to Amsterdam or India or somewhere to touch base with people he worked with and pick up stones.’

  ‘Did you go with him?’

  ‘Hardly ever. Joe would only be gone a few days. Taking me would tell the world he was carrying.’

  ‘How did he find out about you and his wife?’

  Boyd shrugged. ‘Joe wasn’t stupid.’

  ‘What was his reaction?’

  ‘Started acting strange. Secretive. At the time, I assumed it was because he’d sussed what was going on. I believed that was the reason he kept me in the dark about the diamonds in his home safe. I’ve had a lot of time to think, and it doesn’t add up. Joe wouldn’t do that. It was reckless. Didn’t make sense. I mean, if the guy working for you is fucking your wife, firing him is the least you’d do. Franks kept me on. Six weeks before he died, I heard him on the phone in the Arcade, talking to his contact in Greece. Three hundred grand was mentioned. A lot of money back then.’

  ‘It still is.’

  ‘Joe wasn’t happy; he was shouting. I asked if he needed me. He told me he’d handle it himself.’

  ‘So, probably the biggest deal he’d ever done yet he cut you out. If that wasn’t to do with his wife, what was it?’

  ‘All I can tell you is that Joe was strange those last weeks. Like I said, secretive.’

  ‘What was the contact’s name?’

  ‘Yannis.’

  ‘Ever meet him?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Crete. It was 1953 down there. No customs to speak of. Easy to walk in and walk out.’

  ‘Then it’s possible Franks and this Yannis character might have fallen out, the Greek had Joe murdered and took the stones. You were just somebody to blame.’

  Boyd rejected the notion. ‘As far as I knew, they had a good relationship so I find that explanation hard to swallow. Besides, he’d have no reason to pin Joe’s murder on me.’

  ‘To get that level of attention you’d have to have seriously pissed somebody off. Who might fit the bill?’

  ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you, would I?’

  A clever reply, though not the answer to my question. ‘The thing is, we’re dealing with murder.’<
br />
  I didn’t mention my cases often included a dead body and Boyd took my little speech in his stride. ‘No problem. Whoever murdered Joe Franks has been missing for fifteen years. Find him.’

  He opened the car door. Apparently, the meeting was over. I said, ‘One last question. Why me? How did you get my name?’

  Boyd took a final draw and threw away what little remained of his skinny cigarette. ‘Yellow Pages. And no offence, you looked like the only one I could afford.’

  Rocha glanced at Rafferty behind the wheel, confidently weaving through the motorway traffic. Sean deserved credit; when the opportunity had arrived to take over his father’s operation, he’d seized it with both hands. And he’d done well for both of them; their partnership had flourished. His mistake was in imagining he was different from the man who’d sired him. He wasn’t. Jimmy had been an ignorant thug who’d got lucky. In the Spaniard’s judgement, his son was no better. Ambition and animal cunning could never be substitutes for intelligence. The expensive clothes were a façade hiding his true nature and character – there was no guile, no substance to him. He was, in the alleged words of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ‘a useful idiot’. But while there was money to be made in this city, Rocha would keep his unflattering opinion to himself.

  He said, ‘How is married life treating you?’

  Sean hesitated. ‘Some days are better than others, you know what females are like.’

  ‘Most men would envy you. Your wife is very beautiful. I’ve seen her photograph.’

  Rafferty grunted. ‘She’s still a woman.’

  Rocha laughed. ‘Yes, indeed. Being married comes easily to them, it’s their natural state. Us men find it more difficult.’

  ‘You never married, Emil. Didn’t you find the right woman?’

  ‘On the contrary, I found her many times, which convinced me it was unnecessary to settle for just one.’

  11

  I sat for a while, turning Boyd’s story over in my head while the sun dipped over the treeline, throwing shadows on the loch, and the noise of the motorway grew louder. Rush hour. Getting back to the city would take patience. In the space of forty-eight hours I’d been offered two cases a wiser man would walk away from – one so old that solving it was almost certainly an impossibility, the other liable to get me killed. What an exciting life I led.

  Strathclyde Park wasn’t as busy as it had been when I arrived. Even the rowers had had enough. Dennis Boyd seemed to have disappeared into thin air – a talent I guessed would be useful in the weeks ahead. Fine by me. Not knowing where he was gave me deniability. I hoped I wouldn’t need it. Every police officer in Central Scotland would be looking for him: a good excuse to stay well clear. More than once, DS Andrew Geddes had warned me about the line between my business and his. I’d crossed it before. He’d made it clear the next time would be once too often.

  And that was my dilemma.

  There was nothing I could or even should do for Mrs Kennedy’s friend. As far as the murder in the car park went, Boyd was on his own. No amount of money could persuade me otherwise. Proving he didn’t kill Hughie Wilson would have to be somebody else’s responsibility. I wanted no part in it. Not least because Andrew was a good guy and I valued our relationship. But incredibly I was considering taking on a fifteen-year-old crime Dennis Boyd had already served time for. After all, that was old news nobody else was interested in.

  Patrick Logue wanted me to do divorce work. Of course, he had his reasons. There was plenty of it around and it was easy money. I hated to disappoint him; it wasn’t for me. What I did was challenging and took me to unexpected places; at times, places I didn’t want to go. Andrew Geddes often accused me of being a frustrated copper; could be he was right.

  Dennis Boyd was a case in point. A jury had delivered a guilty verdict when the evidence trail was still relatively fresh. The chances of discovering anything to alter that finding were beyond remote. Yet, I was struggling not to be drawn in.

  Boyd had made no effort to curry favour with me and I’d believed him when he’d said he didn’t do it, then or now, though my interest would need to stay firmly anchored in the then. And if the murder in the car park had put him at the centre of a manhunt, meeting again was out of the question. Mrs Kennedy would have to be my contact, adding to the improbability of solving a case from the long-gone past.

  On the road back to Glasgow, traffic moved at a reasonable speed until the infamous Junction 16, close to Blochairn, where it ground to a halt. In ten minutes, I drove as many yards. Ahead, I could see the black granite of the Royal Infirmary and the Necropolis, where once-prominent citizens of the city would spend eternity.

  Stuck in the line of stationary vehicles, I understood how they felt.

  My last visit to the Victorian cemetery had been to confront Colin McMillan, another man in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now, it was Dennis Boyd in my head. With nothing better to do I thought about his undisguised intention to seek out his accusers and force them to tell the truth.

  kill them?

  if that’s what it took, yes

  Convincing. But it was worth remembering both he and Diane Kennedy were people with a capacity for deception.

  The late Joe Franks would agree.

  The city was quiet. For most of the people who worked in town, business was over for the day. Unless you were in the same business as me. I parked the car and walked, enjoying the evening sun on my face. In NYB, the only customers were men not in a hurry to go home, maybe because there was nobody waiting for them. Or maybe because there was.

  Michelle smiled when she saw me. I ordered an espresso and watched her make it; she seemed to have mastered the process.

  ‘How’s it going so far?’

  Her reply was less than convincing. ‘Okay, I suppose.’

  I trotted out the standard lines. ‘Every job’s scary at first. You’ll get used to it and wonder what you were worrying about.’

  ‘It isn’t that.’

  ‘No? Then what?’

  She brought the coffee and put it down. ‘Jackie doesn’t like me.’

  I wanted to say, ‘Listen, kid, some days she doesn’t like me, either.’ That wasn’t what I told her. ‘I’ve known her for years. She comes across as hard, but if you were in trouble, Jackie Mallon would be there.’

  Michelle shook her head. ‘I doubt it. And I understand. My uncle was wrong to assume because he owns New York Blue he can just bring anybody in without speaking to the manager. It was a mistake and I’m going to pay for it.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Couldn’t be nicer, except I know she isn’t pleased. Apart from showing me what she wanted me to do, she hasn’t spoken.’

  ‘Give her time. She’ll mellow.’

  A guy at the far end of the bar signalled for service; Michelle went to him. I took my coffee and found a table. As soon as I sat down my mobile rang: Mrs Kennedy, following up on my meeting with Dennis Boyd. She sounded out of breath, as if she’d been running. ‘You met him? What did you think?’

  ‘I think he’s in a lot of trouble.’

  ‘But did you believe him?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I believe. My advice is to contact a good defence lawyer and get Boyd to turn himself in. He’ll get his chance to prove he didn’t kill Wilson.’

  This wasn’t what Diane Kennedy wanted to hear. Silence screamed on the other end of the line. Eventually, when she spoke, her tone was cool. ‘Like the chance he had before? That kind of chance? You’re not listening. Dennis was framed for killing my husband. The people who did it are doing it again. He needs somebody on his side.’

  ‘He’s got you.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t help him. I don’t know how. But you can.’

  I wasn’t persuaded. ‘What happened in Elmbank car park isn’t something I want any part of. You say Boyd didn’t do it. What makes you so certain?’

  ‘Dennis isn’t a murderer.’

  She’d s
aid that already. ‘Look, Mrs Kennedy. Cards on the table. You asked me to meet Dennis Boyd, and I have. I’ve no way of knowing if he’s innocent. No offence, I’m not prepared to take your word for it. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to surrender himself to the police and, when he does, I don’t want to be involved.’

  She fought back. ‘Don’t talk to him, then, talk to me. I can be the go-between. If the police catch him, your name won’t come up.’

  Diane Kennedy was back where she’d started and what she was suggesting was so ridiculous, I almost laughed out loud. ‘Let’s get something straight. As for Boyd’s current dilemma, he’s on his own. I could look into your husband’s murder, though even if I prove Dennis Boyd didn’t do it – and after fifteen years the chances of finding anything are close to zero – the police will need to be brought in. One way or the other, at some point, he’ll have to give himself up.’

  ‘Are you saying you’ll take the case?’

  ‘I’m saying what’s happening now isn’t my business. Joe’s murder is different. Before you get carried away, understand this: any new evidence will be handed over to the authorities.’

  ‘I still have some of his stuff if you want it.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Invoices, bank statements, his address book.’

  ‘Why keep them?’

  The hesitation in her voice was a clue: she was still in love with Dennis Boyd. ‘Never got round to throwing them out. Didn’t seem right, somehow.’

  I drummed my fingers on the table. Across the almost empty NYB, Michelle was chatting to two guys in their twenties. I heard her laugh at something one of them said. Maybe the job would work out after all.

  ‘Okay, I’ll collect it all tomorrow.’

  Her gratitude was spontaneous and for a moment I caught the woman behind the brassy veneer. ‘Thank you, Mr Cameron. Thank you so much. I’ll pay whatever it costs.’

  ‘Very generous, Mrs Kennedy.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?’

  12