by Ian Rankin
She climbed the two flights. He had left the door ajar for her so she headed for the living room. The case files had been gutted. Sheets were stacked in a dozen separate piles, while Rebus’s various jottings and notes were laid out next to his computer.
‘You’ve been busy,’ she said.
‘Just don’t touch anything.’
‘You mean there’s a system here?’ She handed him a croissant and a Styrofoam cup.
‘A system that makes perfect sense to me.’ He dunked the croissant and sucked the coffee from it. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘Day off.’
‘Then you should be in bed.’
‘Whereas you look like you’ve been up for hours.’ She tore off a chunk of croissant and gave it to Brillo.
‘I reckon Dallas and Seona have to be an item,’ Rebus stated.
‘They say not.’
‘But if they are, Ellis is bound to have known. The three of them under the same roof? Dallas tiptoeing up the creaky stairs of a night?’
‘You’ve been in the house?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘But I’ve visited plenty like it.’
‘And if they are sleeping together?’
‘Ellis might not have been happy about it. Maybe he sees his mum cheating on his dad, and gets the notion his own girlfriend might not be all sugar and spice.’ Rebus lowered himself on to his armchair, still holding both coffee and croissant. ‘He’d been hanging out with his mates that day; maybe one of them said something. He lied to his mum about where he was going. Seems to me that might not be the only lie coming out of that house. Then there’s Kristen. Her pals say she hadn’t said anything about splitting up from Ellis, but maybe she’d made up her mind. Her parents had told her often enough they thought she could do better. I’m wondering if she took up with Ellis specifically to piss off her God-fearing parents – hardly the basis for a strong and stable romance.’
Clarke frowned in concentration. ‘Was any of that in the files?’
‘Some of it I was told.’
‘Who by?’
‘A couple of lads who know Ellis.’
‘So you have been to Restalrig?’
‘Never said I hadn’t. Bumped into the uncle while I was there. Another thing about Kristen, she liked to flirt – again, according to the word on the street. And when she was round at Ellis’s house …’
‘Her and Dallas?’
‘He told her there was a drink waiting behind the bar at McKenzie’s for her.’
‘He said that in front of Ellis?’
‘According to the two lads.’
‘She was only seventeen; she’d never have been served.’
‘Sure.’ Rebus bit into the croissant and chewed. Clarke had pulled out one of the dining table chairs and sat down. She sipped her coffee and gazed towards the piles of paper.
‘So now we have Ellis jealous of his uncle?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I’m not sure this is what Dallas wants to hear.’
‘He’s come to the wrong place for fairy tales and happy endings.’
She nodded. ‘So is that what I tell him?’
‘He won’t be thrilled.’
‘Which means he won’t give me Steele and Edwards.’ She looked at Rebus. ‘You’ve had no time at all, John. Maybe another few days?’
Rebus offered a shrug. ‘I’m not sure how many more spadefuls are there, Shiv. Unless …’
She put her cup down. ‘What?’
‘A visit to the prisoner.’
‘He won’t talk to you.’
‘A risk I’m willing to take.’
‘Maybe if you took Dallas with you …?’
But Rebus was shaking his head. ‘Could mean me getting a story rather than the story.’
‘Worth a shot,’ Clarke eventually conceded. Her phone was vibrating. She dug it from her pocket. ‘Got to take this,’ she said. Then, pressing the phone to her ear: ‘Yes, Graham?’
She listened for a moment. ‘No, that’s fine. Absolutely. Yes, of course I’ll come in. I can be there in twenty minutes.’ After ending the call, she stared at the screen.
‘I’m all for a bit of suspense,’ Rebus nudged her.
‘A potential break. Looks like my day off is buggered.’
‘Spit it out then.’
‘A fingerprint on the handcuffs. Well, a partial. It’s fragile but it’s there.’
‘And do we know who it belongs to?’
She looked at him but didn’t answer.
‘Christ’s sake, Siobhan, you can trust me not to blab!’
‘I know I can. And it’s Jackie Ness. The print seems a good match for Jackie Ness.’
‘Well, well,’ Rebus muttered, staring towards the window. ‘Don’t let me keep you then – not when you’ve justice to dispense.’
In the MIT office, Graham Sutherland was in conference with a fiscal depute. Clarke recognised the woman. Her name was Gillian Ramsay and Clarke had worked several previous cases with her. She was questioning Sutherland about the tests on the handcuffs. The partial had been identified because Ness had been fingerprinted during the original inquiry. Why? Because he had visited Bloom’s flat, and even been given a lift in his car once. When they dusted the flat, and if they tracked down the car … well, the prints were useful. Weren’t prints supposed to be expunged from the records after a time, though? It seemed these weren’t.
‘Defence counsel won’t like that,’ Ramsay said, making a note to herself.
‘We’re looking to see what else might be in the car; maybe a hair or something.’
‘But DCI Sutherland, we already know that Mr Bloom gave Mr Ness a ride home one night. A hair left behind doesn’t prove anything. Say the cuffs belonged to the victim, say they were lying there on the passenger seat and Mr Ness merely moved them?’
‘Why would Bloom keep handcuffs in his car?’
‘Wasn’t his partner the son of a serving police officer? Could the partner have acquired them, perhaps to be used during role play in the bedroom?’
‘I doubt it, but we can ask.’
‘You certainly will ask. Meantime, I’m minded to advise that there’s precious little here to form a serious criminal charge.’
‘But we can still bring him in?’
‘Of course. Accompanied by his solicitor and then asked some serious questions under caution, to be recorded for posterity.’
‘But not charged?’ Some of the air had escaped from Clarke’s boss. He’d sounded elated on the phone. Now, the balloon had sunk back to earth. Ramsay was gathering together her things.
‘Not quite yet,’ she answered, rising to her feet.
After she’d left, there was silence in the room until Sutherland collected himself, clearing his throat. ‘Forensic lab had the fingerprint by close of play Friday. Sat on it all bloody weekend while they swanned off to watch the football or rugby and go for long afternoon rambles. Don’t think I won’t be taking that to DCS Mollison. But meantime, we do have a positive ID. It’s not nothing – don’t go thinking it is. Procurator fiscal needs everything to be watertight pre-trial. Means they’re always sceptical. But this is something, and we need to run with it.’ He looked to Clarke. ‘What time do you think Ness gets to the office?’
‘Probably not before ten.’
‘So he’ll be at home until nine thirty, nine forty? It’s just gone nine now …’ He sought out Callum Reid. ‘Take George with you. Go wait at his office.’ To Clarke again: ‘Is there a receptionist?’ She nodded. ‘If she gets in first, don’t let her warn him. In fact, stay in the car till you see him.’
‘What does he look like?’ Gamble asked.
‘Like that photo there.’ Sutherland pointed to where Reid was standing, next to the map and the headshots. Reid tapped Ness’s.
‘He’s actually changed a bit since then,’ Clarke felt it necessary to qualify.
‘Fine,’ Sutherland said. ‘George, you stay. Siobhan, go with Callum.’ He saw the disappointment on Gamble’s face. ‘No need to be glum – if you’re a good boy, I might let you sit in on the interview.’ Then, switching his attention between Reid and Clarke: ‘Why in God’s name are you two still here?’
‘We’re not,’ Reid said, grabbing his coat on his way to the door.
Detective Constable Christine Esson made her way out of Gayfield Square police station and looked both ways before crossing the road and climbing into Rebus’s Saab.
‘Still got this old thing, I see,’ she said, closing the door.
‘Are you talking to me or the car?’
Esson decided this was worth a smile. Her hair was short and dark; Rebus had always seen a resemblance to Audrey Hepburn, though Siobhan Clarke had never agreed.
‘You didn’t want to come in?’ she asked him.
‘Better if people don’t start joining the dots.’
‘You’re making progress on Ellis Meikle?’
‘There’s a bit of expertise I’m lacking, Christine. I’ve looked at all the social media stuff, but it’s really only Ellis’s and Kristen’s. I wouldn’t mind knowing what was being said among their various friends – before the murder and after.’
‘Just friends, or family members too?’
‘The more the merrier.’
She puffed out her cheeks and expelled some air. ‘It’s a big ask.’
‘Complicated, you mean?’
‘Time-consuming,’ she corrected him. ‘In a perfect world, I’d maybe start a few fake accounts, friend all and sundry, wait for them to friend back, chat with them …’ She looked at him. ‘It’s weird, but people online will share stuff with strangers that they wouldn’t say to their nearest and dearest.’
‘Sounds like that might take a while.’
‘It definitely would – weeks, maybe a lot longer.’
‘So if that’s not an option …?’
‘I’d just trawl where I can, butt into threads, add my tuppence worth. Might end up blocked or muted here and there, though. Plus a lot of kids use Snapchat, and those messages get wiped. And bear in mind they’ll keep things private if they think it’s sensitive …’ She paused, eyes still on him. ‘Whereabouts in all of that did I start to lose you?’
‘A sentence or two back.’
She smiled again. ‘The good news is, this is something I can be doing in my free time. But it’d help if you gave me what you’ve got – accounts and user names for killer and victim; names of their various friends and family members …’
‘I can email you all of that.’
‘Not to my official account.’ She took out her phone. ‘I’m sending you my email address.’ They waited until his own phone buzzed. ‘Job done.’
‘Thanks, Christine. Drinks on me when this is finished.’
She nodded slowly, her face darkening a little. ‘We all worked damned hard on that case, John. We got the right result.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘Yet here you are looking for holes the family can take to an appeal. If you find any, there’s omelette all over our faces.’ She paused. ‘On the other hand, I saw how ugly everything got between Siobhan and ACU. It’s just funny that to get at them, we end up messy too.’
‘I’ll help you clean up the kitchen after.’
‘Oh aye? Bit of a speciality of yours?’
‘I get the feeling someone’s been talking.’
‘Spilling the beans, you might say,’ Esson commented, pushing open the door of the Saab and getting out.
26
All the way to the police station, Ness had asked what was going on. They’d been waiting for him outside the main entrance to Locke Ness Productions. In the car, they’d let him phone his PA. He’d said simply that he was held up and might not be in until the afternoon. Then he’d asked the two detectives again: what was going on?
‘You got a solicitor?’ Reid had answered. ‘If not, one will be provided for you.’
They’d left him to stew in the interview room while his lawyer was summoned. Emily Crowther had taken him a weak cup of tea.
‘Still thinks I could be in films,’ she reported back. Sutherland meantime was as good as his word. Despite pleading looks from Clarke and Callum Reid, it was George Gamble who accompanied him into the interview room once the solicitor turned up. Phil Yeats had fetched the A/V equipment.
‘Won’t be new to you, Mr Ness,’ he had commented.
‘I’m happier on the other side of a camera, son,’ Ness had replied. The room was stuffy, the heating having been turned up to maximum. Ness’s jacket was over the back of his chair, and he had loosened an extra button on his shirt. The lawyer, Kelvin Brodie, was wise to such strategies, however, and asked them to either turn the radiator down or leave the door open.
‘Don’t want to abandon the interview over health and safety concerns, do we?’
Clarke knew Brodie from court appearances. She had expected Ness’s solicitor to be the sort that specialised in business contracts, but Brodie was criminal law through and through. She was about to alert Sutherland to this when the door was closed from within, leaving her in the corridor along with the rest of the team.
Nothing much to do after that but wait.
Crowther had dug up a little more background on the DP and sound recordist, so they put their heads together in preparation for the following day. Fox and Leighton were in their own little empire, appearing in the MIT room only for coffee and tea top-ups.
‘Heard from the Chuggabugs?’ Clarke asked Fox when he approached her desk.
‘No.’
‘Going to tell them about the fingerprint?’
‘I doubt I’ll need to – they don’t seem to lack sources.’
‘Which is precisely why you should get in first. That way, you look keen. As you say, they’ll find out sooner or later anyway.’
Fox nodded at the sense of this and went out to make the call while Clarke checked her own phone. Rebus had texted her to ask for an update, but she was ignoring him. Same went for Laura Smith, who was, in her own words, ‘hearing jungle drums’. Which meant someone at the forensic lab had to have blabbed. Or maybe the fiscal’s office. Or DCS Mollison had started spreading the news at Fettes or St Leonard’s. No point really speculating, except that these days by the time a whisper reached the internet it had become an ill-intentioned and half-formed yelp, a yelp capable of spreading like the most virulent flu bug.
She thought of the pile of paper on Rebus’s dining table, the one comprising social media messages to and from Ellis Meikle’s various accounts, filled with young men’s bravado. She knew there were porn clips and GIFs mixed in with it all, and demeaning commentary about local girls and their mothers. One of Ellis’s friends had let Ellis know his mother Seona was ‘pure MILF’, leading others to chip in with thumbs up and thumbs down. How toxic would this culture eventually become? Clarke hoped she’d never find out, but as a detective, she feared she probably would.
Dallas Meikle’s anonymous phone calls and graffiti had been innocent by comparison with some of the online abuse she had encountered. She wondered about that. Dallas could have sent anything to her mobile: images, texts, the lot. She reckoned he had known, however, that these would involve either a computer or a mobile phone on his part, and that those could always be traced back to their source. Maybe Steele and Edwards had given him the benefit of their wisdom.
‘Wouldn’t put it past them,’ she muttered to herself.
After an hour and a half, Sutherland and Gamble emerged from the interview room and headed for the kettle, followed by the MIT team. Sutherland asked Yeats to go do guard duty outside the interview room door. Not that it was neede
d, but it would keep Ness on edge.
‘He’s having a confab with his lawyer,’ Sutherland explained. ‘And he’s admitting nothing, says he’s no idea how his print could have got on the cuffs, never seen them before.’
‘Brodie meantime,’ Gamble added, spooning coffee into a mug, ‘wants to know how reliable the print can be after all this time. He went straight for the car and the fact Ness has never hidden that he was given a lift in it. So we’d expect to find his prints there for a start. His line is: Ness could have reached a hand down the side of his seat and touched the cuffs without realising.’
‘He also,’ Sutherland broke in, ‘wants to know why we’ve kept an innocent man’s prints on the database all these years.’
‘Pretty much as the fiscal anticipated,’ Clarke commented. ‘Interesting that Ness went for a criminal lawyer, though – not everyone knows one.’
‘Not everyone’s been in a war with Sir Adrian Brand,’ Sutherland said, stiffening his spine. ‘Anyway, we’re not done with him yet, not by a long chalk.’
‘Juries love a bit of forensic evidence,’ Emily Crowther stated. ‘Let’s not forget that.’
‘Be nice to have something more than a partial fingerprint, though – I don’t suppose the lab have come back to us in my absence?’
There were shakes of the head.
‘I hope the soil expert’s earning her fee,’ Sutherland sighed.
There was a knock at the door. They turned to see Brodie standing there. ‘Could my client trouble you for a sandwich or something? He’s not had any breakfast.’
‘The café does a reasonable BLT,’ Clarke offered.
‘My client is vegetarian.’
‘LT it is then, always supposing they’ll stoop to it.’
Jackie Ness was eventually released at 2.45 p.m. From around noon, Brodie had been complaining that they were going over the same old ground. A copy of the recording was handed over, while those in MIT who were keen got the chance to watch the interview courtesy of the copy they’d retained. Clarke studied Ness’s body language; not that it was such a big deal these days. A lot of people knew the tricks, and she reckoned someone who had worked all his life with actors would know them better than most. Once the room had cooled down, he had buttoned his shirt and slipped his jacket back on, then sat without moving, hands clasped in his lap, face a mask, answering questions with the briefest possible responses and letting his solicitor do the bulk of the talking.
