Their Final Act

by Alex Walters

  'This is what she's saying?'

  'This is what she's saying. He told her to get into the van then drove her back to his house. When they got there, he grabbed her then tried to use the chloroform on her, the way he had with the other victims. She fought back, somehow managed to turn the tables and forced the chloroform soaked cloth across his mouth.'

  'And this is what she's saying?' The note of scepticism in McKay's tone was growing with each repetition of the question.

  'Aye, Alec. This is what she's saying. This is what she'll apparently be saying in court under oath.'

  'So why did she get into the van with this man who she reckoned had already threatened her if she returned?'

  'Maybe she was scared. Maybe he made nice and said he'd changed his ways. I don't know. I assume the Procurator will challenge her on that.'

  'Let's hope so. So she says Robbins attacked her. She fought back, managed to give Robbins a taste of his own medicine. Then what?'

  'She says that that was when she really lost it. The trauma of being attacked again. The knowledge of what Robbins had done and the realisation that she'd almost just become another of his victims. The memories of the abuse she'd suffered.'

  'Blah, blah, blah.'

  'So she wanted to get her own back on him. She tied him up, dragged him into the back of his car, and then headed off to Rosemarkie Beach.'

  'Stopping to pick up Denny Gorman on the way. Also drugged and tied up.'

  'We're getting back into the territory she claims not to be able to remember. All she can say is that the balance of her mind was disturbed and she didn't know what she was doing.'

  'Conveniently enough.'

  'There's more.'

  'Spare me.' McKay had put down the stapler again but was back to wandering around the room. 'No, tell me the rest. I need a laugh.'

  'She reckons she never intended to kill either of them. Just wanted to give them a scare. Robbins used to dump her in the sea at Rosemarkie when she was a child. Knew she was scared witless even in shallow water because she couldn't swim. Her plan was to drag them into the rising tide, with the bodies weighted down. She'd assumed the cold water would wake them, and either they'd be able to drag themselves clear in time.'

  'Despite being tied up?'

  'It's possible. But she also says she'd intended to drag them clear if they didn't respond.'

  'So why didn't she?'

  Grant was silent for a moment. 'She's claiming that was partly our fault.'

  McKay had been staring intently at Grant's poster of the Cairngorms as if it might provide some unexpected insights. Now he turned. 'Our fault?'

  'Ginny's, to be precise.'

  'So it's my fault she didn't tell her story accurately. And it's Ginny's that she killed Robbins and Gorman.'

  'You're getting the hang of this, Alec.'

  'Oh, for fuck's sake.'

  'She reckons she'd been on the point of pulling Robbins and Gorman clear when Ginny turned up and dragged her away. She says Ginny had got the wrong end of the stick and thought Hamilton was trying to kill them.'

  'I wonder what might have given Ginny that idea. For fuck's sake, is Hamilton actually going to say this shite in court?' McKay said. 'You've read Ginny's statement. When she got there, Hamilton was sitting staring into space. Ginny didn't even realise what she'd done at first. Then when she discovered the bodies, Ginny was the one who tried to drag them out of the water. Until Hamilton hit her over the bloody head.'

  'That's apparently not how Hamilton remembers it.'

  'Then Hamilton really is bloody doolally– ' McKay stopped. 'Ach, but that's the point, isn't it? She wins every which way. Just sows confusion and if others challenge her it only confirms she was off her head.'

  'The balance of her mind was disturbed, it says here. But, aye, that's about the size of it.'

  'You think she'll get away with this?'

  'Who knows? Like I say, it's got the Procurator rattled. He doesn't like to be wrong-footed by smartarse lawyers. They were already gearing themselves up for some negative press when Hamilton was convicted and sentenced. You know, the abuse victim who's punished by the state. Her lawyers have been winding up the media to influence the tone of the trial coverage.' Grant paused. 'I'd never say it outside these four walls, but there's a part of me thinking good luck to her. I mean, murder's murder, but Robbins and Gorman won't be missed by anyone, and Hamilton had suffered a hell of a lot. We had no option but to charge her and I want to see justice done, but if she avoids a long sentence, however she does it, I won't be entirely sorry. The one who deserved to rot in prison was Robbins, and he never will.'

  McKay was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments. 'Aye, I take your point. But there is one other thing.'

  There was something in McKay's voice that sounded an early warning to Grant. She'd heard that tone before, usually when McKay was about to confess to some particularly egregious flouting of procedure. 'Go on.'

  'Something I haven't told you.'

  3

  'God, you scare me, Alec,' Helena Grant said. 'What is it this time?'

  'Probably something and nothing. But I've always had a niggling doubt about that case.' McKay was standing in front of Grant's desk, with the air of a defiant schoolboy who'd been summoned to the headmistress's office. He was a short wiry man, with slicked back greying hair and a faintly intimidating presence. 'It was those last interviews we did with Hamilton– '

  'The ones where you were,' Grant looked back down at her notes, '"acerbic and unsympathetic"?'

  'I was sweetness and light,' McKay said. 'Actually, I really was. You ask Ginny. Anyway, it's true that Hamilton seemed away with the fairies half the time. It was difficult to get her to focus or to tell her tale coherently. But halfway through she mentioned the candles and roses.'

  Robbins' victims had been found, sometimes buried, sometimes not, always accompanied by an apparent tribute of candles and roses. 'So what?'

  'You remember,' McKay said. 'That was a detail we haven't released to the general public. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me to wonder how she knew about it.'

  Grant rubbed her temples as if to ward off an incipient headache. 'You're not suggesting that Hamilton was involved in the killings?'

  'I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just telling you about a question that's been troubling me. And which set off a whole chain of other questions in my mind.'

  'Such as?'

  'Such as whether Robbins had really put her on a train to Aberdeen in the way she told us. Maybe he gave her that clapped out old van to get rid of her, or maybe she just took it. He wouldn't have wanted to run the risk of reporting her, given she'd been threatening to blackmail him.'

  Grant was looking back at her notes. 'Did you check on any of this at the time?'

  'A little, but I didn't think anyone would thank me for rocking the boat.'

  'That's untypically considerate of you, Alec. You're normally only too happy to rock the boat just for the sheer hell of it.'

  'Aye, well. There's fun and there's fun. Robbins was dead. Hamilton was likely heading for prison in any case. There didn't seem much point in opening up another can of worms. Don't tell me you'd have been happy.'

  'I'd have given you the bollocking of all bollockings. But you should have said something, Alec. If you had any doubt.'

  'Maybe. But where would it have got us?'

  'Nowhere probably,' she conceded. 'Did we find any trace of Hamilton's DNA in the van?'

  'I did check that. There was nothing mentioned in the report, but that wasn't what they were looking for. At the time, I decided not to pursue it. In any case…'

  'In any case, she's now saying she was in the van anyway, when Robbins picked her up in Inverness.'

  'Exactly. So it would prove nothing.'

  'I'm struggling to get my head round this, though. Why would she have killed those women?'

  McKay nodded. 'That's the question. But another, related, question is why w
ould Robbins have killed them.'

  'Because he was a violent, sadistic, controlling bastard?'

  'Aye, he spoke highly of you too. You're right, obviously. He was all that. But he was also smart. He manipulated these women to get what he wanted, then when he was bored he "disposed" of them, to use Hamilton's elegant phrase. But previously, as far as we know, he'd disposed of them by paying them to bugger off out of his life. We've no evidence he killed anyone before this, although Hamilton was happy to let us think he might have done.'

  'So why would he start? Is that what you're asking?'

  'He was a successful man. If he had been responsible for previous killings, he must have carried them out very discreetly. So why kill three women he'd not seen for years? And why leave their bodies displayed so ostentatiously?'

  Grant was feeling as if she really was developing a headache. 'Maybe they were trying to blackmail him, like Hamilton wanted to.'

  'It's possible. But we've found no evidence of that. We've found nothing to suggest Robbins had had any contact with those women in recent years.'

  'Okay,' Grant said. 'But I come back to my first question. Why would Hamilton have wanted to kill those women? They were fellow victims of her father’s.'

  'I'm not a psychologist,' McKay said. 'Thank Christ. But they were all brought back to places where they'd been happy in their childhood. They were all commemorated with the display of candles and roses. We know Hamilton herself had been living a miserable solitary life. We know that the victims were all living alone with no obvious friends. Maybe Hamilton thought she was saving them from a life like her own.'

  'For someone who isn't a psychologist, you're more than capable of talking your own brand of fluent bollocks, Alec.'

  'Aye, well, I've had plenty of chance to listen to it over the last few weeks.'

  'How's that all going?'

  At the insistence of his estranged wife Chrissie, she and McKay were having another shot at couples counselling. McKay had been resistant, given their previous negative experience, but had finally recognised that Chrissie would never agree to a reconciliation otherwise. 'It's going,' he said bluntly. 'Not much sign of Chrissie flinging open the door to invite me back into the marital home though.'

  'Give it time, Alec. Give her time.'

  'Not like I've much choice, is it? Anyway, I'm happy enough in my little Black Isle bachelor pad.'

  Grant knew better than to challenge that, and decided it was probably safer to move the conversation back to their original topic. 'Do you seriously think that Hamilton might have been the killer?'

  He was silent again, as if giving her question serious consideration. 'Everything pointed to Robbins. The van, his business life and his trips down to Manchester. And everything we knew about his history. With Robbins dead, we were all more than happy to put a lid on it. Case closed.'

  'But?'

  'But a lot of what we've got on Robbins came from Hamilton. She was the one who painted the picture of him as the serial abuser, the one who picked up young women and discarded them.'

  'We found some corroboration of that from other witnesses,' Grant pointed out.

  'We did. I'm not for a minute suggesting that it's not an accurate portrait of Robbins. He was a nasty manipulative bastard. Christ, I experienced that for myself. But it's a big step from that to saying he was a multiple killer. We didn't find much evidence in his house.'

  'We found stuff in his van. The chloroform. Ties, plastic sheeting. Stuff that matched what was used with the victims.' Grant stopped. 'But you're saying that it might have been Hamilton using the van all along.'

  'I'm saying it's a possibility.' He'd risen to his feet again and was pacing up and down the narrow office. 'It's been keeping me awake. Well, not exactly. It's other stuff keeps me awake, but this is one of the things that troubles me in the wee small hours.' He'd stopped behind her desk and was staring out of the window. Outside, it was a glorious spring day, one of the best they'd had so far, although at this level the view largely comprised a string of unprepossessing retail and business parks.

  'You think we should reopen the enquiry?'

  'Ach, I don't know. I'd persuaded myself it didn't matter. Hamilton was likely to be sent down for a fair few years in any case. Like you say, she was probably doing a public service by ridding the world of Robbins and Gorman. But if there's a chance she might walk away scot-free…' He turned and gazed back morosely into the room. 'On the other hand, all my original reservations still hold true. No bugger would thank us for reopening this can of worms. Even if we could persuade the Procurator we've reason to.'

  'Aye, and good luck with that one,' Grant agreed. 'Given the sensitivity of this, they're not going to be rushing to stick their necks on the block. Imagine the media reaction if she manages to walk away from the original charges, only for us to open a new enquiry implying she was actually the original killer all along.'

  McKay nodded. 'And even if we could persuade our Procurator buddies that it was the right decision, how likely are we to make any progress? We've got nothing substantive on Hamilton other than one passing comment in the interview. And, aye, there are countless ways she could have found out about the candles and roses. This place leaks like a fucking sieve, and she could just have heard some officer or staff member mention it while she was in here. That's what she'll claim anyway if we challenge her. We could try to prove she'd driven the van, but even that wouldn't be anything more than circumstantial. Her partial amnesia is extremely convenient because, unless we find some hard evidence, she can just be vague about anything that might incriminate her. What else can we do? Disinter the bodies, assuming any of them haven't been cremated? Hope to find some DNA evidence linking the murders to Hamilton? It's a massive long shot.'

  'There may have been more victims,' Grant said. 'We're not exactly short of missing persons over the years.'

  'Maybe. But nothing's emerged since the original story broke. We'd just be chasing shadows.'

  'All of which suggests there's really bugger all we can do. Except wait to see how this pans out.'

  'Looks like it, doesn't it?'

  'Most likely she'll go down anyway, at least for a while. The Procurator might be getting a touch of the jitters, but he still thinks this strategy of theirs is a hell of a gamble that'll probably backfire on them. He reckons she'd have been better just pleading guilty, setting out all the mitigating factors and throwing herself on the mercy of the court. That way, she'd probably have walked away with a relatively short sentence. This way – well, it's all or nothing.'

  'Aye, but the Procurator's the sort who only ever bets on the favourite. Hamilton strikes me as one who likes playing for the higher odds.' McKay was still staring blankly into the room, his expression suggesting he was thinking back to those last interviews with Elizabeth Hamilton. 'And,' he added finally, 'she also strikes me as someone who likes to win.'

  That had been two months before. Now, with the trial completed and the verdict delivered, it looked as if, as so often, McKay had been right. Hamilton had played against the odds, and had somehow managed to come out on top.

  4

  Jane had never been up here before as far as she could remember. Or maybe that wasn't true. Perhaps she had, years before, as a child. She had no memory of that, nothing really before the age of ten or eleven. It was quite likely, she thought, that there had been a time when she'd been happy, when her only cares had been childish ones. She had no reason to think that wasn't true. It was just that she could recall none of it.

  Occasionally, in her dreams at night, she'd felt a trace of it. She could remember nothing of the dream later, only the aftertaste of an emotion. A sense of freedom. An absence of anxiety. The opposite of anything she felt in her daily life.

  They were only a little way north of the city, and had been driving for no more than twenty minutes but it already felt as if they'd entered a different world. She was beginning to realise how constrained her life had been, how little freedom sh
e'd really had. She'd been aware of the mountains in the far distance, but they'd always seemed little more than a backdrop, a stage setting, something unreal and unreachable that had nothing to do with her life. Now they were close enough that she felt she could reach out and touch them. Yet they'd travelled such a short distance.

  Jane glanced back at the young woman sitting in the rear seat of the taxi. When they'd left the centre, Jane had climbed into the front without really thinking, and the other woman had sat in the rear. They ought to have tried to make conversation, given they'd presumably be living together for some time to come. But they hardly knew each other, except to nod a greeting as they passed in the corridor. Jane had not known how to initiate a conversation, and the other woman had shown no inclination to try. The taxi driver had made a half-hearted attempt to engage them both in some diatribe about local politics, but had quickly realised he was talking to himself. The rest of the journey had passed in silence, the two women staring out of the window at the passing landscape.

  Jane wondered whether the other woman had ever been this way before. She looked more confident, more knowing. It probably wasn't the first time she'd travelled over the Kessock Bridge, seen the Beauly and Moray Firths stretching away on the two sides, the green hills and afternoon sunshine reflected in the strangely still waters. All this was a wonder to Jane, but she guessed that, for the other woman, this was just another taxi ride.

  Jane wondered what her story might be. Jane had been in the centre for long enough to know that every story was different, even if, in the end, they all amounted to the same thing. They'd all come there by a different route, sometimes short, sometimes long, always painful. Most looked worn down and diminished by what they'd been through. Sometimes you could almost see them come back to life as the days went by.

  This woman, though, had a different look to her. Yes, she looked as if she might have been through a lot, as if she might have even more of a story to tell than most of them. But she also looked confident, assured, as if she was now the one in control. There was nothing browbeaten in her demeanour or behaviour. Jane had noticed her from the day she had walked into the centre. Most of the women looked as if they were trying to hide themselves, disappear into the background, avoid being noticed. That was how they'd survived before. Jane had been the same. It was only now that she was beginning to regain some confidence. In herself. In her right even to exist.