Their Final Act

by Alex Walters

  The first man nodded. 'Over there.'

  'That must be why they've stuck a bloody great tent over the top,' McKay observed. 'What's your name, son?' McKay's manner tended to disconcert witnesses, but it was far from accidental.

  'Gavin Murdoch,' the young man said. 'This is Billy. Billy Farrell.'

  'Well, Gavin Murdoch,' McKay said, 'what brought you and Billy here down to these parts so early in the morning?'

  'We both work at the restaurant on the corner there,' Murdoch said. 'In the kitchens. We start at seven thirty so we can do the prepping for the lunch service.'

  'So what time did you stumble across the body?'

  Murdoch looked at Farrell. 'Must have been about quarter past, twenty past, something like that. We both get the bus in. That's supposed to get to the station at ten past. Then maybe five minutes to walk over here.'

  'You walked down from Church Street?' McKay pointed to the street where the body had been found.

  'We usually walk down that way. If we've time, we stop for a quick ciggie on the corner. We're not allowed to smoke outside the kitchen, so it's last chance we have before break time.'

  'Near where you found the body? That where you usually stop?'

  'More or less. Depends a bit on the weather. If we're pushed, we'll just grab a smoke as we're walking over. If we've got a few minutes to spare. It's nice to stop and get a break before we get sucked into the madness, you know?'

  'Aye,' McKay said. 'Busy life in the kitchen, I imagine.'

  'Never stops,' Murdoch agreed. 'Not till after lunch anyway. Then we get a bit of a break before we start prepping for dinner. It's a long day.'

  'I don't envy you, son. Okay, so tell me exactly what happened this morning. Sounds like the bus got in on time?'

  'More or less. So we weren't in a hurry. It was shaping up to be a decent day, so we thought we'd stop and have a smoke looking out over the river.'

  'Always good to appreciate the joys of nature,' McKay said.

  Murdoch blinked. 'We'd just got to the bottom of the street, when it caught our eye. Billy spotted it.'

  Farrell looked disconcerted at having the narrative tossed in his direction. 'I guess I saw it first,' he said. 'Just out of the corner of my eye. Thought it was just someone dossing in the doorway, you know?'

  'I know, son,' McKay said. 'Too many in that position around this city. So what made you realise it wasn't just that?'

  'I don't know, exactly. Something about it didn't look right. There was an old coat thrown across it as if it might have been someone asleep. But somehow it didn't look like that…' He stopped, as if overcome by the memory.

  'I understand,' McKay said gently. He'd already changed his tone, recognising that Farrell would need a different kind of prompting. 'So what did you do?'

  Farrell looked awkward. 'At first we just kind of laughed about it. Gavin thought I was making a fuss about nothing. But the more we looked, the more we thought there was something funny about it.'

  'Funny in what way?'

  'I don't know exactly. The way he was lying. It didn't look natural somehow. Not the way you'd lie if you were just asleep or even out of it on drugs or booze.' He stopped and it was clear he was reluctant to continue.

  'So you went to look?' McKay prompted.

  'Aye. I mean, I just twitched back the coat thing that was lying on him. Then I saw his face…'

  'Go on,' McKay said.

  'It was dead white. Almost blue. And there was blood around his neck and collar…' Farrell trailed off. 'Didn't have much doubt he was dead.'

  'Did you touch anything else?'

  Farrell shook his head, his expression suggesting he might not want to touch anything else ever again. 'No. Just dropped the coat back over him. Then went to call 999.'

  'Good lad. Anything else you can tell us?' The question was directed at both young men.

  'I don't think so,' Murdoch said. 'Like Billy says, we just left it after that.'

  'Did you see anyone else around?' McKay's assumption was that death had probably occurred some time before the two men found the body. But it was always worth asking the question.

  'Not really,' Murdoch said. 'It was early. There were a few people on the main roads, but not much down there. Reckon some people might already have just walked past without spotting it. It was only because we stopped for a smoke.'

  'You're no doubt right, son. Okay, we'll need to get a formal statement from you both for the record. And we'll need to take your fingerprints and a DNA sample, just so we can distinguish yours from anything else that might be on the body. Are you planning to head into work?'

  'I've already phoned in so we didn't get a bollocking,' Murdoch said.

  'We won't get this lot clear in time for your lunchtime service anyway,' McKay said. 'So we might as well get the formalities sorted, and then we can let you on your way.'

  Taking her cue, Horton took a step forward. 'You come with me. We can sort out the statements and other stuff in the car.'

  McKay knew that if there was any other information to be gleaned from these two, especially from Farrell, Horton's gentle persuasion was more likely to tease it out of them than his own brand of blunt interrogation. 'I'll leave you to it, Ginny. I'll go and see whether I can drag Jock Henderson away from his new best friend.'

  6

  Jock Henderson, true to form, was propped against the corner of the building, pulling on what was no doubt only the latest in a long line of cigarettes he'd already smoked that morning. He was a tall ungainly figure with a shock of greying hair that gave him the air of an off-kilter academic.

  'Morning, Jock. Practising the fine art of delegation, I see?'

  'Aye, Alec. At least some of us know how to delegate. The kids have to learn.'

  'And safer if you're not in there trying to teach them? I can see that.'

  This type of exchange was standard between the two men – ostensibly humorous but with an edge that neither could entirely explain. McKay had sometimes wondered whether one of them had inadvertently caused the other some deep offence in the far past, but he had no recollection of anything that satisfactorily explained their relationship.

  'Always a joy to see your smiling face, Alec. Makes a change from looking at corpses. Though not much.'

  'What's the story then, Jock?' McKay gestured towards the tent.

  'Male. Fifties, I'd guess. Reasonably smartly dressed. Dark suit, white shirt. Well, white blood-stained shirt. Tallish. Five eleven or six foot. Clean shaven.'

  'And I heard garrotted? Or was that little detail not worth highlighting?'

  'That what you call it then? Is that the technical term for having a piece of piano wire or cheese wire or whatever the hell it was pulled tight around your fucking neck? Aye, I was coming to that.'

  'It's true then? Jesus.'

  'Aye, it's true, right enough. Nasty old way to die.'

  'What do you reckon happened?'

  Henderson looked up and down the street, as if envisaging the scene. 'From the position of the body, my guess would be that our friend was walking down from Church Street. He must have stopped for some reason as he reached the corner. Then some bastard threw a piece of wire round his neck and pulled tight. He'd almost certainly have died from asphyxiation first, which is some blessing, but the fucking wire almost decapitated him.'

  'Not an accident then.'

  'I think we can fairly safely say, Alec, that this wasn't an accident.'

  'Any sign of the murder weapon?'

  'Nothing. It was removed from the body, which must have been a task in itself, given how deeply it was embedded.'

  McKay frowned and looked around. It was still relatively early but there were already plenty of passers-by on Church Street above them, some of them pausing to peer curiously down the alley at the cordoned area. 'Any thoughts on time of death?'

  'Nothing precise. That's for the doc. But not that recent, I'd say. Last night, rather than this morning.'

  'Any idea wh
o the poor bugger is yet?'

  Henderson's smug expression suggested he'd been waiting to be asked. 'Aye, well, that's quite interesting. We've got ID right enough. There's a wallet with all the usual stuff – credit cards, driving licence, a few quid in cash. Even his passport, just to make our life easier.'

  'Go on, Jock. You're dying to tell me. Is it maybe the Chief Constable? Or the Secretary of State for Scotland? Or is it somebody who might conceivably be missed?'

  'Does the name Jimmy McGuire mean anything to you?'

  'McGuire?' There was a vague bell ringing somewhere in the back of McKay's head, but he couldn't immediately place the name. 'Should it?'

  'Dingwall and McGuire?'

  'Jesus, really?'

  'It's him sure enough. Being garrotted's not done a lot for his complexion, but he's recognisable.' Henderson stubbed out his cigarette under his shoe, immediately lighting up another. 'I've just been looking him up on my phone. He was playing that new comedy club on Church Street. Not even top of the bill, would you believe.'

  'Sounds like the mighty have fallen quite a long way,' McKay observed. 'Never liked him though. Arrogant wee prick, I always thought.'

  'Takes one to know one, Alec.'

  McKay ignored him. 'As for the other one. Jack fucking Dingwall, for Christ's sake. What sort of name's that?'

  'A stage one, if I recall correctly,' Henderson said. 'One of those Equity things, because there was some other bugger already using his real name. McGuire was real enough though. Or at least his name was.'

  'You're obviously an expert, Jock.' Every now and then, McKay found a reason to reappraise Henderson's character. Not for the better, usually, but at least in a different light. 'It was Dingwall who got sent down, wasn't it?'

  'Aye. Five years, for rape.'

  'Unpleasant bloody story.' It was gradually coming back to McKay. 'When are we talking? Early nineties?'

  'Something like that. Don't get me wrong,' Henderson added, as if suddenly realising that he was giving McKay material for future satire. 'I wasn't a huge fan. But I saw them live a couple of times.'

  'Scotland's answer to Hale and Pace,' McKay mused. 'As if that was ever a question that needed a fucking answer.'

  'They came up through the alternative comedy circuit. Reckon it was mainly just because the telly up here was looking for some home-grown talent. They fitted the bill at the time. Never really took off though.'

  'Would that have been because they were crap?' McKay offered.

  'Let's say they weren't all that original. They were okay live, if you'd had a few bevvies. But they never broke into TV properly. They got overtaken by all that Absolutely and Chewin' the Fat stuff.'

  'I'll take your word for it, Jock. I remember the bloody rape story though. Some wee groupie, wasn't it?'

  'Not sure groupie's quite the right word. But, aye, a young fan. Went with Dingwall back to his hotel room in Glasgow, she'd had a few drinks. He reckoned it was consensual. She didn't. Jury believed her.'

  'Praise the Lord,' McKay said. 'Evidence must have been strong, given how successful we generally are at convicting in rape cases.'

  'Don't recall the details,' Henderson said. 'But there were a couple of witnesses who said he'd been trying to coerce her earlier on, and there was bruising and suchlike which indicated it hadn't been consensual. On top of that, there were suggestions he'd tried to drug her, but she'd been smart enough not to take it.'

  From someone who didn't recall the details, McKay thought, that seemed a fairly thorough account. 'Even so, professional performer like Dingwall might have pulled the wool over their eyes.' He'd seen it too often in his career. The defendant who turns up in the smart suit, looking eminently respectable, and claims he can't for the life of him understand why this unscrupulous young woman should be victimising him.

  'Judge was pretty scathing about Dingwall's evidence,' Henderson went on. 'He went to pieces in court. Inconsistent, rambling, didn't match up with the other evidence presented. The victim was straightforward, clear and stuck to her story. He was lucky to get five years, if you want my opinion. I'd have strung him up.'

  It was unusual for Henderson to express such a strong view, particularly about an issue like this. He had a couple of daughters of his own, McKay recalled. Maybe that was the reason. Henderson wasn't a man with a strong imagination – which, in fairness, was one of the qualities that made him an effective examiner. He wasn't fazed by even the most gruesome of crime or accident scenes, and didn't generally speculate beyond the available evidence. For the same reason, he could come across as insensitive to the sufferings of others. He wouldn't care much about an issue unless it was really brought home to him.

  'Must have put a dampener on their comedy partnership though?'

  'It was the end of all that. I suppose you have to feel sorry for McGuire, though they were already past their peak by then. There'd been talk of a TV series. But it never happened. They were still doing okay live, but my guess is it was dwindling by then. Then McGuire was left on his own, with no prospect they'd be able to resume when Dingwall came out. Hard to get laughs if you're a convicted rapist.'

  'So what happened to McGuire?'

  'Far as I remember, he went to ground for a while. Bobbed up in a few straight roles in Scottish TV dramas and the like. Hadn't realised he'd gone back to comedy, but it looks like he was performing solo now. Would have been interesting to see.' Henderson sounded genuinely regretful.

  'What about Dingwall? He must be out by now.'

  'Oh, aye. We're talking twenty or more years ago.'

  'Any idea where he is?'

  'Not a scoobie. I have a feeling he came back up north somewhere. Kept his head down, which I suppose is all he could have done.'

  'We'll have to track him down,' McKay said.

  Henderson raised a bushy eyebrow. 'You reckon he might be involved in this?'

  McKay shrugged. 'Who knows? But can't really see it, can you? If anyone had reason to bear a grudge, it was McGuire. And why wait so long and then do something like this?'

  'Unless there was more to the original story than met the eye.' Henderson was already moving on to his third cigarette since McKay's arrival. McKay ostentatiously pulled out a packet of gum, unwrapped a strip, and popped it in his mouth. He proffered the pack to Henderson, who had already lit up. 'Never grows old, does it, Alec?'

  'You reckon there might have been more to the story? You seem to know the ins and outs.'

  'Just a casual observer. No, not really. At the time, it was a surprise, I remember. It all seemed out of character for Dingwall. More the kind of thing you'd expect from McGuire, to be honest. But then that was just based on the way they came across on stage. Probably quite different in private.'

  'I remember Dingwall's trial was a pretty big deal, even though they were Z-list celebs by then.'

  'Someone off the telly gets sent down's always news,' Henderson agreed. 'Even if it's someone you've never heard of. They made a lot of the double act. I can't imagine that some of the tabloids didn't try to get McGuire to tell his side of the story, but I don't think he ever did.'

  'So no motive there then. Still, we'll need to track down Dingwall for a chat anyway. You know if McGuire was married?'

  'No idea.' Henderson was clearly beginning to resent being treated as the fount of all knowledge relating to Dingwall and McGuire. Quite possibly, McKay thought, because he'd realised by now that McKay was only extending the conversation to take the proverbial. 'They were single at the time of the trial, because the defence made a play of that, as if their lifestyle might somehow provide a justification for raping a young woman.'

  'Aye, and no doubt her single lifestyle was used to try to justify her being raped,' McKay said. 'How it always fucking works.'

  'I've no idea if McGuire might have got married since, though. Don't imagine it would exactly have made the front page of The Scotsman.'

  'Another avenue for us to pursue anyway.'

  'You reckon t
his was targeted then? Not just some mad bastard picking on someone at random.'

  'Christ knows,' McKay said. 'It's a fucking weird one, isn't it? Most likely some lone lunatic, and McGuire was the unlucky bugger who was walking by.'

  'It'll be a big story, either way,' Henderson observed, with a note of glee in his voice. 'McGuire's not exactly a household name any more. But someone off the telly gets garrotted is an even bigger story than someone off the telly gets sent down.'

  'Aye, Jock. You always know how to cheer me up, don't you?'

  'My role in life.'

  'At least it's a role you carry out, unlike your bloody examining,' McKay said. 'Go and chivvy up your lads. Some of us have got real work to do.'

  7

  'The two rooms are pretty similar,' Netty Munro said. 'I don't know if either of you has a preference?'

  Jane tried to catch Elizabeth's eye, but she was staring through the open doorway with a bored expression, showing no interest in any of the accommodation being offered.

  To Jane's eyes, both rooms looked lovely. They were small farmhouse bedrooms, with varnished wooden floors scattered with rugs. Three of the walls were plastered. The fourth, with its window looking out over the firth, was bare stone. Both rooms were simply furnished, each with an old oak wardrobe and dressing table and a large brass double bed. 'I don't mind. They're both beautiful.'

  'I'll take this one then,' Elizabeth said, apparently at random. She picked up her bag and strode into the room, as if about to undertake some purposeful activity.

  'You're happy with that?' Munro said to Jane. 'There's not much to choose between them.' She gestured to the vacant room. 'This one might be slightly larger.'

  Jane guessed this was meant to make her feel better about Elizabeth's peremptory choice. In truth she hardly cared. Both rooms were infinitely better than anywhere she'd slept before. 'I'll be very happy in here.' For the first time since her arrival, she'd begun to think that this might actually be true.

  'Excellent.' Munro was speaking loudly so both women could hear her. 'There are towels in your wardrobes. If you need more, there's a pile in the cupboard at the end of the landing. When they're dirty, drop them into the laundry basket in the bathroom.' She pointed to a closed door on the opposite side of the landing. 'The bathroom's there, with the loo next door. Oh, and this is Alicia's room.' Munro gestured towards another door.