by Alex Walters
'So what happened?'
'I don't know. I phoned him and asked him what had happened to McGuire. He wouldn't tell me at first. Then he got angry. He said that McGuire hadn't changed at all, and that he'd decided he had to be dealt with straightaway. Something to do with the way McGuire had behaved at the club. I panicked and thought he'd go after Jack Dimmock next. I told him not to, kept telling him that Dimmock wasn't what he thought. But I knew he wasn't listening. He just thought I was infatuated with Dimmock, that I didn't recognise that he'd groomed me.'
Grant had been half-expecting that Bannatyne would try to intervene while Hamilton was talking. But he looked as if all the fight had gone from him, as if he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Grant couldn't really blame him. 'So you decided to warn Jack Dimmock? How did you get up there?' Grant wasn't sure why she asked this question, except that she wanted to understand the sequence of events as fully as possible. The other women staying with Netty Munro had said that Elizabeth had no transport, and she herself had mentioned getting the bus into Inverness.
Hamilton laughed. 'I took my dad's old van. It was still there at the house. The house itself was all locked up, but I could get into the shed where the van was kept and the keys were still sitting in there. Took me a few goes to get it going.'
Bannatyne leaned forward. 'My client's father died intestate. Following her recent acquittal, my client was expecting to inherit his estate though clearly it will have to go through probate.'
If Bannatyne was trying to mitigate his client's apparent car theft, Grant thought, then he really hadn't understood what was going on. 'So you drove up to Dimmock's,' she said to Hamilton. 'What happened there?'
'He was friendly. He's always friendly.' Grant noted the present tense. 'He invited me in, gave me a glass of wine and a sandwich. I hadn't eaten all day, though I hadn't really noticed. I told him about Andy. I told him about what was happening. I don't think he believed me. He said he'd seen nothing on TV about any murders.'
At that point, Grant thought, we hadn't yet discovered Young's body and the McGuire killing was still under wraps. There'd just been some anodyne report on the local news about a body being found in the city centre, with no reference to foul play. 'I begged him to take care, go away for a bit. He said he'd be careful but he'd only just moved into this place so no one even knew he was there.'
'You must have known he was there,' Horton pointed out.
'We'd kept in touch. He'd sent me a text with his new details on.'
'Did you share those details with Andy?'
'No. Not knowingly. But Andy's good at winkling out that sort of information. He probably got hold of my phone at some point and found the text.'
'Okay,' Grant said, trying to get her mind around the whole story. 'So you warned him and he didn't listen. Then later that same night, unknown to you, this Andy pays him an unannounced visit so he can deal with him.'
'That must be what happened.'
'You expect us to believe that? That you went there on your own to warn Dimmock. That you didn't go with this Andy. That you didn't participate in his killing.'
The tears finally came and Hamilton dropped her head to the table, sobbing. Maybe this was real, Grant thought, or maybe it was just another act. Finally, Hamilton raised her head and stared at Grant through reddened eyes. 'It's true. What I'm saying. It's all true.'
Grant nodded, her expression giving nothing away. 'So you left Dimmock's house at… what, about ten? What happened after that?'
'I just drove around for a bit. Went to the beach at Rosemarkie.' She glanced across at Horton. 'Just sat there for a while looking at the waves. For old times' sake, you know? Then eventually I thought I might as well head back to Netty Munro's house. I'd nowhere else to go. I dumped the car in one of the back lanes round there, then went the rest of the way on foot.'
'Were you already intending to kill Natasha Munro then?'
Bannatyne was about to interrupt but Hamilton said, 'I didn't know what I was going to do. I was waiting for Andy to get back to me. I wasn't sure it wasn't all talk. I wasn't sure that he really had killed Ronnie Young. I mean, this was all different again from what happened with my father.'
'What happened with your father, Elizabeth?' Grant flicked a look at Bannatyne, daring him to speak.
Hamilton looked surprised at the question, as if Grant had changed the subject. 'The idea was to frame him. He didn't kill those women. We did. Me and Andy.'
47
Grant glanced towards the door. McKay was in the next room, listening in to all this. It sounded as if his second thoughts might have been correct all along. 'You mean the killings last year?'
Hamilton looked at her as if she barely understood the question. 'Yes,' she said finally. 'Those three women. We killed them. We left the candles and roses there. As a sort of tribute, I suppose. Me and Andy. It was us.'
'Why did you kill them?'
'Like I say, partly to put my dad in the frame for the killings. I was sick of him getting away with what he'd done. Leaving all those victims in his trail. And him living in that big house of his, making more and more money, having more and more success. I wanted to bring that to an end.'
'You told us your father was the killer.'
'That was the idea. I still think he had killed people. Other young women. Maybe the ones he couldn't pass on to his mates. And even if he didn't kill them literally, he destroyed them inside. That was what he did to me. He wrecked me, he wrecked my life. I went through life thinking it was my fault, that I'd somehow allowed it to happen. I'd nothing but those awful memories of what he'd done.' She stopped. 'That was the other reason we killed them. I wanted to release them from all that. I wanted to take them to the only places they'd been happy. I wanted them to be remembered for who they were, not what had happened to them.'
Exactly what McKay had suggested, Grant thought. God, maybe the old bugger was more sensitive than she'd given him credit for. 'But you didn't just frame your father, Elizabeth. You killed him. And Denny Gorman.'
Hamilton shook her head, as if to deny this. 'That was Andy too. He decided to have one more go at my dad. Try to get a bit more cash out of him before it was too late.'
A bit more cash, Grant thought. She wondered whether Robbins had been blackmailed by his daughter for longer than she'd initially suggested to them. 'So what happened?'
'We went round to his house, that last day.'
Grant could see that Bannatyne was on the point of interrupting, so she pre-empted him. 'That isn't what you said under oath in court, Elizabeth. You said he'd snatched you.'
Hamilton shrugged, as if this no longer mattered. 'I was lying.' To her left, Bannatyne dropped his head into his hands, his whole body a picture of submission. 'We went round there. My dad hadn't seen Andy face to face since… for years. Didn't know who he was at first. Then when we told him what we wanted, he got angry. Andy dealt with him. The same way we'd dealt with the women.'
Grant drew in a breath, startled by the calm way that Hamilton was speaking. Grant had noted the one momentary hesitation in Hamilton's story. Robbins hadn't seen Andy since… since what? Out loud, Grant said, 'And Denny Gorman?'
'He was nothing,' Hamilton said. 'But we were both angry with him. Andy was going to deal with my dad, so we decided we'd deal with both of them.'
Horton had been following everything with obvious fascination. She raised an eyebrow to Grant, seeking her permission to ask a question. They both knew how delicate the interview had become, the importance of keeping Hamilton talking. 'Where was Andy,' Horton said, 'that night on the beach? You were on your own.'
Grant herself had begun to wonder whether Andy might be some figment of Hamilton's imagination, perhaps some manifestation of whatever mental disturbance had enabled her to do all this.
'He was there, watching. He'd wanted me to leave with him, abandon the bodies in the water. But I wanted to stay there. Make sure it happened. Make sure they really were dead. He sai
d he was going, but I don't think he did. He didn't take the car, and I don't think he could have got very far when you arrived. He stayed to watch.'
Grant could see that, even now, Horton was disturbed by the thought that there might have been a third presence, watching while she had grappled with Hamilton in the water. 'So why didn't he come back?' Horton asked. 'Why didn't he come back to save you?'
Hamilton gave an unexpected smile. 'That's not Andy. That's not what he does. He doesn't really care about anything. Not even me. Not me at all, in fact. He's gone beyond that. I think he cared about Netty, in his own weird way, which is why he didn't want to believe the truth about her. Didn't want to believe she was as bad as the rest of them. He thought things were different with her. He couldn't even accept the way she'd manipulated her own sister. Henry was the only really innocent one in all of this, but Andy wouldn't believe that. He thought I'd got it the wrong way round. That I'd dealt with the wrong one.'
'You told him you'd dealt with Munro?' Grant said, her mind recoiling at the way they were all accepting this euphemism.
'I called him. After I'd done it. Told him what I'd done. He was angry. But I hung up. I didn't care any more. I just want us all dealt with. We all deserve it. I don't care what he does.'
Grant felt a chill in her stomach, prompted less by what Hamilton was saying than by her dead, expressionless tone of voice. She wondered whether Hamilton knew yet about the Baillie brothers, who were somehow presumably also part of this. She wondered what else Hamilton might know.
The silence in the room grew. Bannatyne was staring at the ground, clearly wanting to be anywhere but where he was. Hamilton was gazing blankly into the air.
Grant looked across at Horton, and said to Hamilton, 'You need to tell us, Elizabeth. Who is Andy?'
Hamilton's blank look remained unchanged. After a moment, she said, 'He's my cousin.'
48
McKay had been listening to a relay of the interview in the next room. He'd been joined, much to his irritation, by Chief Superintendent Gerry Tarrant, who'd recently been transferred to the region on a promotion and was now at least notionally their collective boss. So far, his approach had been largely characterised as 'hands off', which suited McKay perfectly. Today though, he'd insisted on joining them, presumably wanting both to ensure his backside was well and truly covered if anything went wrong and that he could claim his share of the credit if everything went well. Fair enough, McKay thought. That was what the management classes were for.
To his credit, he'd mostly sat in silence. In the latter stages, he turned to McKay. 'What do you reckon?'
McKay shrugged. 'I reckon I've largely been proven right about Hamilton, though too late. Helena was right. I should have said something at the time.'
Tarrant looked baffled at this response, which was what McKay had been aiming for. 'So what do you think we're talking about here? Some sort of paedophile ring?'
'It's looking that way. I don't know how much of it was underage, but I'm guessing some of it was. Maybe prostitution too. A network operating in the entertainment industry. Young women, and presumably young men, assuming this Andy actually exists, being passed around for the pleasure of the artistes.' McKay spat out the last word in disgust.
'Jesus,' Tarrant said. McKay had heard on the grapevine that, for a senior officer, Tarrant appeared to have lived an oddly sheltered life. Public school and one of the more upmarket 'ancients', McKay guessed, but he hadn't bothered to check. 'And one of them was Hamilton's own father?'
'Robbins? Looks like it. He wasn't really a showbiz type, but on the fringes of that world. Supposedly a therapist of some kind, originally, but did the whole motivational speaker bit. My guess is he was the main fixer behind all this.'
'And these two have been picking them off one by one?'
'Seems so.' McKay had been musing on what Hamilton had been saying, his brain barely engaging in the conversation with Tarrant. 'The question is, whether they've all been picked off yet.'
'How'd you mean?'
'I've just got an uneasy feeling this isn't done.' McKay had pushed himself to his feet and was beginning his usual prowl around the room. 'Look, I'm going to go and check something out. Just a stupid hunch. But if I'm right, I might save a life. If I'm wrong, I might waste an hour or so and look a bit daft. Wouldn't be the first time for either.'
'I don't understand–'
'Don't worry,' McKay said, biting back the suggestion that he didn't really expect Tarrant to understand.
'The interview's not finished yet,' Tarrant pointed out.
'I know,' McKay said. 'But I may have a spoiler. Just tell Helena to give me a call on my mobile as soon as she's finished. Tell her it's urgent.'
'Yes, but–'
'As soon as she's finished,' McKay repeated as the door slammed behind him.
He scurried down the stairs, deciding to take his own car rather than wasting time picking up a pool vehicle. If he was right, there was a chance he might already be too late.
* * *
It was late afternoon and the traffic up to the Longman roundabout was tailing back. It occurred to McKay that he hadn't updated Chrissie on what had happened and its likely impact on his getting home. He hesitated a moment and dialled the number.
'Let me guess,' Chrissie said immediately. 'You're going to be late home?'
'Aye, well, just a bit. Look, I'm really sorry, pet. You know how much we've got on–'
She laughed but it didn't sound like the cynical laugh she might once have offered in response. 'Don't worry, Alec. I've told you. I know it goes with the job. That's never been the problem.'
'You're sure?'
'Of course I'm sure. Just keep me updated when you can. I'll keep something warm for you.'
'You don't need to do that.'
'But I will anyway. If you're very lucky I might save you some food as well.'
It was McKay's turn to laugh. 'I don't deserve you.'
'Obviously not, but you're stuck with me again. And Alec…?'
'Aye?'
'Take care, won't you? Whatever it is you're up to.'
She ended the call before he could ask how she knew he was up to anything. That was another thing about Chrissie, he thought. They almost never discussed the detail of any investigation that he was involved in, but somehow she could always tell if he was about to do something outside the norm. Something that might involve a level of risk. Even then, she rarely said anything explicit. Just asked him to take care.
For the first time in a long while, it occurred to McKay to wonder quite what it must be like for Chrissie. Sitting there at home, waiting for his return, not even knowing what he was doing but knowing that – not often, but often enough for her – this might be the time he didn't come home.
The lights changed and he pulled away from the roundabout, picking up speed as he crossed the Kessock Bridge, the Beauly Firth glittering in the afternoon sunshine. He was being sentimental, of course. Most of the time, there was little risk in his job. He'd face more danger if he was back in uniform, patrolling the city centre on a wild Saturday night.
The traffic cleared as he crossed the bridge, and he pulled into the outside lane, putting his foot down on the accelerator, keeping just within the speed limit. There were sometimes police cameras or even cars waiting for those who accelerated too much away from the bridge. The last thing McKay wanted was to be pulled over by one of his esteemed colleagues.
He reached the Tore roundabout and continued on up the A9 until he reached the right turn off to Culbokie. As he was waiting to turn, the phone rang.
'Afternoon. Helena. All done?'
'Where the hell are you, Alec? Why do I have a bad feeling about this?'
'Just heading into Culbokie.'
She was silent for a moment. 'You didn't wait for the end of the interview?'
'Ach, I could see how it was going to end.'
'Hamilton finally told us who this Andy is.'
'Aye. Drew D
ouglas.'
'Fuck sake, Alec. You doing the psychic thing again?'
'Not really.' There was finally a gap in the traffic and he pulled onto the Culbokie road. 'It had been nagging at me. When I spoke to him, he seemed to have too much knowledge of that whole scene, all the stuff that had happened before he was born. Spun me some bollocks about writing a book, but it didn't feel right.'
'Some people are just anoraks, Alec. You must have met them.'
'Aye, people like Jock Henderson. This didn't feel like that. But the clincher was in the interview, when Hamilton said they were intending to delay dealing with Jimmy McGuire until he came up for a longer stint at the comedy club. The only person who could guarantee that that would happen is the guy who does the booking there. Andrew fucking Douglas. Andy. I'm guessing he thought Drew Douglas was a better stage name for a would-be master of fucking mirth.'
'Smart arse,' Grant said. 'So if this mere mortal can keep up with your lightning brain, I'm guessing you're heading up to Henrietta Dowling's place?'
'There's hope for you yet. Aye, that's me. I caught the bit about Hamilton and Douglas being cousins. I'd been bothered about the whole set up with this Netty Munro and Henrietta Dowling, and why Hamilton had gone there. Or, more to the point, why Munro was willing to have her staying there. She didn't seem to fit the profile of the people Munro normally took in. Jane McDowd and Alicia Swinton seem to have felt the same. They thought there was something odd about Hamilton's behaviour to Munro. So I wondered if there was another reason she was there–'
'If you'd listened to another ten minutes of the interview with Hamilton, you'd have found out, Alec,' Grant pointed out.
'That Netty Munro was her mother, aye. I'm right, aren't I?'
