‘Sounds like a lunatic was definitely running that bloody asylum,’ Dunbar muttered. ‘Neil!’ he barked. ‘Get on the blower to Strathclyde, find out if either of these detectives are still on the job and where I can contact one or both of them if they’re not.’ Conroy got straight on the phone. ‘Then find out everything you can about Doctor Thomas Robert Ferguson, oh, and Sister Patricia Kerr – is she still around? If so – where?’
***
It was going to prove a day of revelations. DC Reece had been doing his thing on the internet again. He had discovered that Sebastian Anthony Vasquez had been adopted by Emile and Marion Vasquez from Arbroath within days of being born. Unusually, representatives of a children’s charity with close ties to the Church of Scotland had acted as intermediaries in the adoption process, not the social services. His adoptive father, a Catholic, and second generation immigrant from Ullapool, had been a successful fish-trader and haulier, and his adoptive mother, nee Buchanan, a Presbyterian lass from Perth. It was going to take a lot more digging to uncover the identity of the birth mother though.
Lacking the evidence to arrest Vasquez, they could not apply for access to those records without running the risk of alerting him. Protocol would dictate that the registrar’s office would at the very least notify the adoptive parents that an enquiry had been initiated to discover the identity of the birth mother, even if the registrar did not directly contact Dr Vasquez, which was just as likely now he was an adult. Yet another intriguing development that might possibly lead them nowhere, but an avenue of enquiry Dunbar had to carefully explore.
***
The answers to his questions soon came rolling in. DC Diane McLean had since married and emigrated to New Zealand in 1993. DS Kathryn Muir retired as an Inspector at Paisley and now lived in Oban. At least, her last known address was given as Oban and pension was still being paid into a bank there. Human Resources at what was formerly Strathclyde’s HQ – now Police Scotland, Glasgow HR Administrative Centre – assured Neil Conroy that they would get back to them with a full postal address and phone number in due course.
As for Sister Patricia Kerr, now eighty-one and in declining health, a resident at Kirkhaven Nursing Home in Kirkintilloch, but the good news – she still had all her marbles.
The nursing home’s manager went as far as to say, ‘Sister Patty, ach! The old lass still thinks she runs the show; always pulling the staff up over tardiness and cleanliness and their appearance, so she is.’
‘Ever been to Kirkintilloch?’ Dunbar asked Tyler, as he passed her desk. She shook her head. ‘Now’s yer chance.’ He stepped up to Conroy’s monitor and tapped on it to get his attention. ‘Call me with Kathryn Muir’s number as soon as you get it.’
‘Will do, boss.’
He didn’t have to wait long. Conroy had the former Strathclyde DS’s home number by the time he got to the car park.
Dunbar dialled it and waited. ‘Island Sights and Sound Tours,’ an unmistakably Glaswegian accent answered.
‘Kathryn Muir?’ Dunbar asked.
‘Aye, who is –’
‘Hi, my name’s Alec Dunbar, I’m a DCI in Edinburgh, can you spare a minute?’
‘What can I do for you, Chief Inspector?’
‘First off – Island Sights and Sound Tours – tell me more.’ Always show interest in what a retired colleague is doing, it gets them on-side. Too many feel neglected once they retire, forgotten even, because all too often, they have been.
‘It’s really my son’s business. We run sailing trips for tourists up the coast, and the Sound of Mull. We go up as far as around Eigg and Rum. I just answer the phones but my husband still skippers for him; he always did prefer sailing the boats to running the business.’
‘Mmm, that’s interesting, always fancied seeing the isles from that angle.’
‘Shall I take your booking then?’
‘Right now, I was wondering what you might recall about the internal sex abuse enquiry at Heathlands secure unit near Wishaw?’
She fell silent for a moment. ‘Ach! I remember the door gettin’ slammed in my face. – Well, as good as. That doctor what’s-his-name?’
‘Ferguson,’ Dunbar offered.
‘Aye, that’s him! Arrogant bastard. He wasnae happy when we showed up.’
‘So he didn’t call you in?’
‘Nae way! The parents of one of the female patients made a complaint, encouraged by one o’ the staff if I remember rightly, for all the good it did.’
‘Sister Kerr by any chance.’
‘Name rings a bell, but I cannae remember if it was her the parents were talking to, or their names for that matter. It’s a canny wee while ago, must be close on twenty years.’
‘Fifteen and a few months.’
‘Ach, I’d need to see my old diary and pocket book to be sure o’ anything.’
‘Would you mind if I requested them?’
‘Not a bit, Chief Inspector – that whole business was a damned scandal from start to finish. A bloody white-wash, so it was.’
‘How come you didn’t proceed with the parents pressing for –?’
‘Overruled!’
‘By who?’
‘Ferguson for a start,’ she said, in a voice that still crackled with bitterness. ‘He assumed loco parentis once a patient was signed over to their care – and my boss, when he got a copy of Ferguson’s report. He wasnae bothered about rocking Ferguson’s boat, but figured he was right. They wouldnae have made good witnesses, and the boss didnae fancy locking horns with the establishment over it – end of! You’re an SIO. None o’ yis like a dodgy sex crime on the books as I recall?’
‘I’d like to think I’d have been a bit more supportive, Kathryn.’
‘Wish yis had been my boss back then – an’ it’s Kathy to you, Chief Inspector.’
‘Okay, Kathy, and I’m Alec. So – loco parentis, uh? Ferguson could overrule even the parents’ wishes?’
‘Oh aye, it was in the small print o’ the documents they had to sign. Whether they knew it or not, they were effectively washing their hands o’ them. Such an arrogant mon he was. Big in the church, his office was like a feckin’ religious shrine. Pictures o’ him shaking hands with the Moderator o’ the day, archbishops and their like. Became a lay somethin’ or other after he retired I gather.’
‘Really? In Glasgow?’
‘That I dinnae know – heard him on a Sunday morning Radio Scotland programme no’ that long ago, a debate show ye know – talkin’ about his role as a trustee and then they got onto abuse issues. Ach, I turned the bugger off. Pious, hypocritical bastard.’
‘Well, thanks for your time, Kathy.’
‘You’re welcome, Alec – pop up an’ take that trip some time.’
Dunbar hung up. He just might, he thought, as he rang Neil Conroy back.
‘Yes, boss,’ Conroy answered.
‘Dr Thomas R. Ferguson is a Church of Scotland trustee. See what you can find out about that. What his role is? – that sort of thing.’
‘Will do.’
‘And put a request in to Strathclyde for Kathy Muir’s pocket notebook and diary for the relevant dates, and any other relevant material regarding that Heathlands fiasco.’
‘Got it!’
Dunbar was just about to hang up when Conroy caught his attention again.
‘Doc Monaghan’s been knifed.’
‘Fatally?’
‘I wish, ach, we all wish!’ Conroy hissed, then cackled, ‘but the bastard’s got two more orifices that he had before he left the house yesterday.’
‘Anybody in the traps for it?’
‘Nae! Doc’s callin’ it a DIY accident, but a guy with a bandage over his left hand was seen hanging about near his place not long before the shithouse had his – accident.’
‘So, he knows who it is and will be dispensing his own summary justice.’
‘Doesn’t he always?’
‘Division better find this Pickle Hickson, before Doc does
. If that’s who it was. One way or the other we’ll have another murder on our hands before long.’
‘My money’s on Doc findin’ him first.’
Dunbar hung up. Conroy was right. It was one of the many reasons Gordon Monaghan had always managed to stay one step ahead of them. His intelligence network was more efficient, and he had the added advantage of the fear factor. Everyone in Edinburgh knew, or soon learned, to fear him over the sanction of the law.
***
The Kirkhaven Nursing Home smelt of masking agents, sterilising solutions and old age but was markedly cleaner, brighter and more welcoming than the place where his father lived. The cheerful manager showed them through to Sister Patricia Kerr’s compact but well-appointed ground floor bed-sit, and with a light rap on the door, led them in.
‘Visitors, Patty,’ she announced.
The old lady slouched in one of those electronically controlled armchairs, staring blankly out of the window. She looked frail and withered, but on hearing the manager’s voice, straightened up.
‘Antiques, pahh!’ she spat, in a voice that still resonated with authority.
The TV set was not on. Dunbar eyed the manager who shrugged.
Patty half turned her head to see who the manager was speaking about. ‘I’m older than most o’ that tat they’re calling antiques, but I’m nae relic yet,’ she grumbled, before gesticulating towards the TV set. Flog it!? I’d flog them. Selling family heirlooms for a break someplace or te spoil their wee brats! Disgusting so it is. I turned the bugger off. And that girl didnae get into the corner behind the telly again, Jean.’ She complained. ‘Ach, she makes out she doesnae ken what I’m saying, but understands well enough when I offer her one o’ my sweeties.’
The manager gave the two detectives a knowing look. ‘It looks clean enough but –’
‘Aye, and so does many a Petri dish in a lab,’ Patty cut in firmly. ‘Until that is, you pop it under a microscope. They wouldnae get away with it on my ward, Jean.’
‘I’ll have a word with her, Patty,’ the manager offered wearily.
‘Speak Vietnamese, do ye?’ Patty then craned her neck and scowled with curiosity over her horn-rimmed spectacles at her visitors. ‘Who’s this then? Dinnae know them.’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Alec Dunbar and Detective Inspector Briony Tyler, Sister Kerr,’ Dunbar answered, stepping forward with his hand extended. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets, so she could stay focussed on his face, as he gently took her extended hand.
‘My, you’re a canny handsome chap, and smart with it, aren’t ye though?’
He smirked. ‘Not for me to say, ma’am.’
‘Patty,’ she replied firmly. ‘Well, I can – and do.’ She looked beyond him at Tyler. ‘And will you look at her, Detective Inspector, ye say. A wee bonny lass like ye, doing a job like yours, tschh!’
‘I suspect yours was no less hazardous than mine can be, Sister Kerr,’ Tyler answered moving closer.
‘I’ll leave you all to chat,’ Jean said, before closing the door behind her.
‘Had its moments, lass. And I just plain Patty these days. Will you no’ take a seat. I’ll get a crick in my neck looking up at you two,’ she said.
They complied, Dunbar offered the only chair to Tyler and he perched his backside on the end of her bed. She pushed her bag off sweets towards Tyler, who politely declined.
‘Nae wonder you’re so skinny, lass. How about you?’ Dunbar took one and she nodded her approval. ‘So – what I’m wondering is, what would you two fine young polis officers be wanting with an old loony-bin, ward sister like me?’ Patty said her face cracked with a mischievous smile. ‘Could nae call it that once all that PC nonsense came in but – that’s what they were – loony-bins. Somewhere to dump the troublesome unwanted, the emotionally damaged and mentally scarred, or just a wee bit too cuss’d for civilised society’s tastes – poor buggers.’
The manager had not exaggerated, there were no flies on Patty Kerr, and had a memory like a computer hard-drive, and apart from a slight tendency to digress, proved a mine of information. She was unable to throw any light on Wilson Farish’s time at Heathlands, because he had left not long before she took her up her post in 1983. From the moment she started there though, she said that she had begun to harbour suspicions about ‘Bad-Penny-Kenny’ Murray, as he was known amongst the staff. Rumours abounded that he had got a young patient pregnant in the late seventies, maybe 1979, but Dr Ferguson, who was then only a registrar, had kept it all hush-hush. She retired in 1992, never having got to the bottom of it.
In her opinion, Murray had some sort of hold over Dr Ferguson, what sort of hold she was never sure of, but they were as thick as thieves, she said, and Murray had always got off lightly for his numerous breaches of the rules. As for Murray’s disciplinary tribunal – it was a farce, a cover-up, a case of sweeping the scandal under the carpet; which, she said, was Ferguson’s favourite means of dealing with anything remotely controversial. In her opinion at least one of Murray’s victims would have been capable of giving evidence but for some reason refused to cooperate. Tyler’s suggestion that she may have been too frightened was categorically dismissed.
‘Ach! Not wee Mary-Mo, a wee tigress that one.’
‘Mary-Mo!?’ Dunbar blurted, unable to disguise his surprise. She had even used the same nickname as Joyce McCoist and Tam Liddle.
‘Aye, one o’ those cuss’d types I mentioned, Mary Morag English,’ she confirmed. ‘Wouldnae answer to owt’ but Mary-Mo and she was –’ Patty stopped when she saw the look on their faces.
‘Please, go on,’ Tyler encouraged.
‘Well, I think she got a kick out of teasing them – ye know – will she – won’t she – talk to the polis? And used it to try and win some extra credits; days out, more recreation time, TV time, shopping trips, that sort of thing. To be absolutely fair, that wee madam could be extremely manipulative and vindictive. She was always accusing someone or other of touching her up, or sexually abusing her, staff, other patients, ach, her ean father, her GP –’
‘Dr Petrie?’ Dunbar cut in.
‘Ach, I cannae remember the name, the family doctor though, that’s what she would say. But then, it was her father and GP that had her sectioned. Anybody who crossed her or upset her, did so at their peril, ye see?’ She spotted them exchanging another look. She screwed up her face, shrugged then continued. ‘Nearly all the male staff got accused, and some o’ the women, even Dr Ferguson himself, so I suppose she –’ she hesitated again.
‘Go on, Patty. This is really important to our investigation,’ Dunbar reassured.
‘Well, I was never sure she was in the right place, or on the right medication, but Dr Ferguson was adamant, so he was. He kept her on some pretty strong antipsychotic drugs and sedatives.’ She shook her head. ‘Shame it was, such a bonny wee thing – but angry. Ach, always angry, and if the drugs wore off, look out!’ Patty chortled at the memory. ‘A wee tiger, so she was, and so strong. In a temper, as strong as a wee bull, so she was.’
‘What became of her?’
‘Dinnae know, son – there were a few escape attempts and suicide attempts. I’d retired by then and moved away. And of course, they closed the place in 2004 and dispersed the residents. I hope she didnae do away with herself, but I dinnae know how she’d cope out there in the big wide world, what with her thing about men – aye, and men definitely had a thing about her. Had to confine her when contractors were on site; she’d offer them sex – probably gave it to some of them as a foretaste. Then she’d try to get them to hide her in their vehicles, on the promise of more when they got her out. A crafty wee bugger she was.’
‘And you’ve no idea what became of her?’
Patty shook her head and it lolled, she was getting tired. ‘A lot o’ them will have gone into community projects – under supervision of course. Who knows, maybe she did. Some will have been transferred into other secure hospital and institutions, some even back to their famili
es, I imagine.’
‘So she was definitely one of Murray’s victims?’
‘I’m damned certain, aye – but couldnae prove it. Like I said, she would nae cooperate, a deep little madam that one – very deep. Didnae trust the staff, and wouldnae talk to the two Glasgee polis women. Wouldnae have a thing to do with it. But boy, did she hate Bad-Penny-Kenny, and she must have had her reasons. Aye, and Dr Ferguson too for that matter. She looked around as if concerned they might be overheard and lowered her voice. ‘Some said Murray – others said it was him – that got her pregnant.’
‘Pregnant! Ferguson!?’ Dunbar asked incredulously.
Patty shrugged then nodded. ‘Aye that was the crack – him or Murray, take ye pick!’
Dunbar and Tyler were stunned. ‘Did she have the baby?’
Patty nodded again. ‘I believe so, but like I said, before my time.’
‘And if she did, what would become of the child?’
‘The Church took it on – for adoption,’ she answered, spotting the look the two detectives exchanged. Before they left, Patty gave them the names of a couple of members of staff that were there during that critical period without having any idea of where they might be now. They thanked her for her time and saw themselves out.
***
Facts were falling into place but Dunbar could not decide where exactly they fitted into his case, or even if they had any bearing on it at all. As usual on this job, the one thing he was not short of was questions. What he needed was answers.
At least one piece of the puzzle had been solved. Mary-Mo English did not run away with a gypsy or an agricultural supplies rep. She was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, probably because she had borne her father’s child and become too much of a liability. How complicit was Dr Ferguson in that process? Was he part of some wider conspiracy? And was the church the common denominator? It’s a familiar enough strategy for sexual predators, to hide in plain sight as pillars of the establishment. Is that what all these men had been doing? Fraser English, the fearsome lay preacher; Dr Petrie, his loyal aide du camp; and Dr Ferguson, now a trustee of the same ministry. Where was he now? Playing the pious church stalwart somewhere, or in that same fallow field waiting to be discovered?
A Deviant Breed (DCI Alec Dunbar series) Page 29
