Falk rarely got excited, at least he was not inclined to over-demonstrative responses to anything, but there was definitely something in his voice akin to excitement when he phoned to tell his boss. Another name had jumped off one of the pages in the lists of former employees – Wilson Farish. He had worked there for two years as an educational therapist during a period that coincided with Murray’s tenure as an auxiliary.
Dunbar put the phone down, walked through into the murder room and over to the whiteboard. He picked up the marker pen and turned to face his team.
‘Your attention please, we have a positive ID on victim two.’ At that he saw them all stiffen. ‘It is Kenneth Edward Murray –and – Wilson Farish spent two years working at Heathfields at the same time Murray was there. So I think it’s safe to assume that their paths will have crossed, and we all know how paedophiles like to exchange information.’ He drew over the lines he had made the previous night from Murray to Farish and emboldened the intersection where those lines met. ‘Now! What connects Murray to Fraser English? Was it Wilson Farish? And why was Murray’s decapitated body dumped in English’s grave?’ Dunbar tapped at the board with the marker pen. ‘I’ll break out the bubbly if and when any of you can name the bugger who put him there.’
An excited murmur went around the room.
‘Right! Get busy people – find me that link.’
‘Archie’s the link between Farish and granddad, sir,’ DC Reece offered.
‘Indeed he is – and we can now connect Murray to Farish but not directly to Archie or Fraser English,’ he replied, using them as a sounding board. Theories were gaining traction, now all he had to do was convert them into proof.
‘Like you said, sir – paedophilia,’ Conroy chirped up.
‘A possible, nae – probable common denominator.’ Tyler appeared and nodded towards the corridor. Doctor Sebastian Vasquez had arrived. ‘Falk’s on his way back with the goodies,’ Dunbar continued, ‘Neil, organise photocopies of everything and a master file for the system, one for me and another for the DI. Then go through your copy with a fine tooth comb – we mustn’t miss a single detail.’
‘Will do, boss.’
There is nothing like a breakthrough in an enquiry to re-energise and re-motivate a foot-sore team of murder detectives, and the buzz around the room the news had created would keep them going for quite some time.
***
Vasquez had chosen the same chair Archie English opted for but unlike Archie, he paid no heed to the two-way mirror. They knew this because Tyler had been watching him since his arrival, apart from when she left the viewing room to tell her boss he had arrived. His posture was nonchalant and gave off the air of a man that had far more important things to do. When Tyler and Dunbar entered the room Vasquez forced a half smile.
‘Thank you for coming in, Dr Vasquez.’
‘The lesser of two evils, better than having flat-foots wandering the halls, fuelling gossip amongst the faculty’s chatterati,’ he replied smugly.
Dunbar placed his accent in the Angus region with a haughty inflection that suggested he has been trying for quite some time to shake it off. And the term ‘flat foots’ – derogatory but not too offensive; asserting his sense of superiority. Making sure they were aware that he held them in qualified contempt.
‘Flat-foot, what an archaic expression. Haven’t heard that very often in my whole service,’ Dunbar replied, taking his seat.
‘The archaic is my speciality, I suppose, and the Braur Glen dig and subsequent police investigation has been the subject of avid speculation amongst students and lecturers alike. At least from the moment the newspapers got wind of your presence down there.’
‘M-I,’ Dunbar said bluntly. For a moment, he thought Vasquez was going to try and bluff him until a thinly veiled smile betrayed him.
‘Yes?’
‘You?’
‘Was – haven’t blogged in a while.’
‘Since our enquiry got underway,’ Dunbar observed, checking his notes.
‘No, I think I’d stopped a month or so before that.’
‘A week or two maybe.’ Dunbar asserted. ‘Why internet cafés?’
‘To disguise my identity and distance the faculty from Mr English.’
‘Why did you stop?’
‘It was no longer a matter of conjecture, and we were all very busy.’
‘You mean the site of Obag’s Holm?’ Tyler asked for clarification. Vasquez nodded.
‘Why?’ Dunbar pressed.
‘I’d have thought it obvious.’
‘Why M-I, was what I meant?’
‘Ahh’ – M-one! Not M-I, Chief Inspector. ‘Roman numerals.’
‘Why?’ Dunbar repeated, aware that it was beginning to irritate the historian and that was exactly what he was trying to do. Anger is a much more honest state of mind. When angry, people have less control and that was what Vasquez was trying to avoid. He was trying to restrict his answers, to keep them as brief as possible and to control his responses to their questions – and thus, control the conversation. The truth often finds its way to the surface through anger. That was why Dunbar often resorted to provoking suspects. Once the interviewee loses their cool, the truth will eventually be revealed, in one form or another.
Vasquez sighed. ‘It was a hint and a tease rolled into one. Naughty, but I couldn’t resist.’
‘Couldn’t resist what?’
‘Archie English pestered the faculty for years before he made his discovery. When I received my doctorate it was for a thesis on that very subject.’
‘Obag’s Holm?’ Tyler asked.
‘Not specifically, but naturally, that legend crept into it. I’d specialised in the history of The Reivers, and in particular, the East Lothian and Northumbrian Clans. So the head of the faculty landed me with the task of discouraging our monomaniacal friend from Bentock.’
‘But you couldn’t?’ Dunbar cut in.
‘You’ve met him; nothing if not tenacious. Anyway, unfortunately, in one of my many exchanges with him I wrote, “Dear, Mr English, I could give you a thousand and one reasons as to why Braur Glen is the unlikely location of Obag’s Holm” – which, as you can imagine, he has reminded me of, at every opportunity since.’
‘M-I – One thousand and one,’ Tyler offered.
Vasquez nodded again. ‘And – well, I knew Archie might interpret it as you obviously have and – well, sorry but as I said, I couldn’t resist.’
‘And M-two?’ Dunbar asked.
He shrugged. ‘Another surfer of the blogosphere, with even less imagination than I.’
‘Interesting then that it was M-two that convinced Archie English that he had been right all along.’
‘If you have read all the exchanges, you would notice that M-two, though a latecomer to the discussion, was something of a sycophant, agreed with him from the very outset as did many others that contributed to his website.’
‘So why not you?’
He shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Ego, intellectual snobbery, academic arrogance, call it what you will. I had convinced myself that the Inglis Clan operated south of what is now the border between Scotland and England. I was not having some amateur tell me otherwise. One has to bear in mind that the border was rather fluid during that period – hence it became known as The Debatable Lands. My research seemed to suggest somewhere south west of Coldstream.’ He paused and looked at each of them in turn. ‘How foolish do I look now?’
‘Why did you oppose the expansion of Professor Geary’s search area?’
Vasquez hesitated before answering and that was what Dunbar had been waiting for; the time lag between the question, his physical reaction to it and his response. Up until that question he had not had to tell a direct lie. At least that was how the wily DCI had been reading his body language. For the unaccomplished liar, that is where truth intrudes and betrays the lie they are about to tell, and in that same moment the skilled interviewer knows he is about to be lied to.
‘Shelagh always wants to go the extra mile but there are – there have to be, constraints to almost every archaeological investigation. Time factors, seasonal implications and not least – budgetary issues and I’m afraid Shelagh allows her enthusiasm to run amok once the turf is broken. I am the voice of reason at such times.’
And that last sentence was a lie. The last thing Dr Sebastian Vasquez struck Dunbar as being was reasonable. Impatient, ill-tempered, arrogant and tetchy would be how Dunbar would describe him; none of which are the traits of a reasonable man. Geary and Holmquist had alluded to those negative qualities in their colleague during that pleasant evening around the fireside at the pub. The problem Dunbar had was how far to press him with so little evidence? Vasquez did not strike him as the type of guy who was going to crack under cross-examination. No, they would have to have an ace up their sleeves if they were to catch him out.
‘Had she listened to you though, we’d have never discovered the those two heads, Dunbar pointed out.
Vasquez feigned an apologetic shrug raising his palms upwards as he did but it was a gesture, not genuine regret; he was acting. It was a dismissive reaction passing itself off as an apology. Vasquez considered the discoveries of English’s skull and Murray’s head an inconvenience, much in the same way Archie English did. More interesting to Dunbar though was the lack of reaction to Murray’s name. It came as no surprise to him or it would have registered, even if only out of curiosity. After all he had spent many weeks supervising the excavation with Shelagh Geary’s team.
‘Am I a suspect, Chief Inspector?’
An interesting question; he was trying to establish his status, so as to plan a strategy to deal with it. ‘No,’ Dunbar lied. He had not been when he walked into that police station, but he most definitely was now.
‘Why all the interest in my purely academic role in this drama then?’
‘The M-I thing,’ Dunbar explained.
‘M-one!’ he corrected.
‘You might have mentioned it.’
‘On the contrary, I’ve been trying very hard to forget it. An embarrassing contribution to the debate, from a man with one eye on the head of faculty position, wouldn’t you say?’ He waited for a response but this time it was not forthcoming. Dunbar was seeing if he could be drawn into digging for more information. ‘So are you any closer to trapping this animal?’
‘Animal? No, this isn’t the work of an animal, Dr Vasquez. This level of depravity reeks of self-awareness. Whoever perpetrated these heinous acts had a fascination with the gruesome history of that glen, and death, and in particular – how to bring it about in a manner befitting that location.’ Did Dunbar just see him flinch? He would replay the DVD afterwards. No obvious tape of course, Dunbar had not wanted to put Vasquez on his guard, just a discreet camera and microphone disguised as a light fitting.
‘Don’t get me wrong, he’s a sick individual.’ Another favourite tactic of his, cause offence, see if he rises to defend his actions. But nothing. Vasquez would not be drawn. ‘We’re not talking about a lost moral compass here. Our killer has probably never owned one. Psychopaths are invariably unmoved by horrors that would see the average person recoil, and invariably reinvent themselves and their relationships. It’s a kind of coping mechanism. Our guy stands above, or apart from his actions, and somewhere deep in his psyche, he finds the justification for his actions that none of us would recognise as such.’
‘Well, you seem to have a handle on what you are looking for, even if you don’t know who,’ Vasquez responded.
‘That’s the trouble with me – it’s just a job,’ he lied again. It was anything but. ‘If I could tap into that passion you people have for uncovering the past.’
‘Ahh, but we all make history every day, Chief Inspector. But our contribution is of little interest until it becomes history. Would your discoveries have generated as much press coverage had they not lain there for many years and in such a significant place?’
‘I doubt it,’ Dunbar replied. ‘All we can do is keep plugging away at it and gather what facts we can. The trouble with our job is we almost always pick up the story where it ended. The best we can do is to provide this sorry tale with a satisfactory footnote. What I could really do with is a rewind button.’ And he was looking forward to pressing that after Vasquez left.
‘Wouldn’t that be handy?’ Vasquez said with a smile. His confidence had returned and that was something else Dunbar had hoped for. Cocky perps make mistakes. If he left the room worried that they were onto him, he would become even more cautious.
‘Any investigation is part intuition, part craft, part science with a smidgen of luck. Add a dash of common sense, weigh the evidence and facts and you’re part way there.’
‘Part way?’
‘For sure. It’s invariably in the stuff you don’t know that the answer lies, don’t you find?’ Vasquez shrugged then nodded his agreement. ‘Aye, short of a cough, and that’s why you can only offer educated conjecture. Trust me, Dr Vasquez. The answer will be complex and won’t make much sense to a rational mind.’
‘That depends on one’s definition of rational.’
Dunbar and Tyler watched him leave from a window overlooking the car park. Eventually she turned to look at her boss.
‘Shit!’ she exclaimed.
‘I want to know everything there is to know about that man.’
‘It’s him, isn’t it, sir?’
‘Let’s just say, our suspects’ list now has a name on it.’
‘And another thing.’ She turned to fix him sternly. ‘I thought you said luck was the last resort of any enquiry.’
‘Only if you’re counting on it – not when you make your own. So let’s get busy, Inspector.’
19
A key detail missing from the copies of the NHS documents Falk had secured was the victim’s, or a list of victims’ names. On the plus side, although no criminal proceedings followed owing to the vulnerable nature of Murray’s alleged victim(s); two police officers from Strathclyde’s Child Protection Unit, at the time, DS Kathryn Muir and DC Diane Maclean, had been drafted in to lend their expertise to the enquiry. The final decision, however, had rested with the clinical director, Dr Thomas R. Ferguson. He had listed his three main concerns and reasons for not initiating criminal proceedings as follows:
(A) “The victim(s) would find the police procedure and intimate nature of evidence gathering, interviews and potential trial process too traumatic, and that in turn would be detrimental to their wellbeing, which, as senior consulting psychiatrist, has to be my primary consideration.
(B) Because of the nature of their varied and complex psychoses, any evidence gleaned from such vulnerable witnesses is very likely to be deemed unreliable by a judge and/or a jury. As a result, the process may prove futile and unnecessarily stressful for the patient(s), and ultimately a waste of everyone’s time, and of precious resources.
(C) Any press attention and publicity surrounding the investigation (which – given the nature of the allegations, would almost certainly prove to be the case) would also prove detrimental to the welfare of those involved, to other patients and distressing for the families of the victim(s) and those of others in our care.”
***
In short, he did not want the police involved, and wrote in conclusion:
“The burden of proof is less rigorous under internal disciplinary rules, and grounds for dismissal have been cited. Therefore, the matter could be addressed without putting the patient(s) through further trauma. I feel that in the interests of justice, the wellbeing of those in my charge and staff morale, the most satisfactory outcome will be achieved by means of an internal review of proven facts, any substantive allegations and mitigating circumstances. Once all the evidence is gathered, and Mr Murray and/or his representative (be they Union and/or legal), has been given opportunity to dispute or refute the charges, I shall adjudicate and take whatever action I deem appropriate, having weighed all the oral and writ
ten testimonies and other relevant evidence.”
Rationale or convenience? Either way, Dr Ferguson had raised a number of salient points. Despite all that, Dunbar still believed the case had warranted an arrest and interview at the very least. The dirty bastard might well have cracked under pressure, coughed the abuse and copped a guilty plea? Consequently the outcome was anything but just. Dismissal without prejudice, and instead of answering to the law for his crimes, Murray walked away with a slap on the wrist and his P45, and continued to work with vulnerable women in the community.
The overall tone of Dr Ferguson’s report raised suspicion in Dunbar’s mind that the clinical director wanted the matter dealt with quickly and quietly, and without any fuss. Why? Yes, he could cite his patient’s wellbeing, but this was not an isolated complaint. These were allegations of historic abuse. Reading between the lines it sounded as if he was worried about the effect the fallout from such an enquiry would have on him personally, and on his institution, rather than on Murray’s victim(s). A line manager, Ward Sister Patricia Kerr had clearly not been too happy about the proceedings, having placed on the record her objection to the closed-door manner in which the complaints were handled and even less by leniency shown to Murray.
Privacy aside, why the hell had the alleged victim(s) not even been named in his confidential report? It was not as if the record of the internal tribunal was to be released into the public domain. And why had questions not been asked at a higher level? Dunbar was leading a double murder and potential serial killer enquiry, and had been forced to resort to pulling some fairly long strings to get his hands on a copy of Dr. Ferguson’s report. Not only had the allegations been buried, but the subsequent record of it took some digging out. Somebody somewhere had never wanted it to see light of day. Then he came across a letter in the documents to the Acting Chief Executive for the Scottish NHS from Detective Sergeant Muir, in which she clearly indicated her disquiet at the way in which the allegations had been dealt with. So the consulting detective sergeant and at least one senior staff member were unhappy with Dr. Ferguson’s handling of the matter.
A Deviant Breed (DCI Alec Dunbar series) Page 28
