It was a man who reached the pitiful, rag-doll body first. The eyes were wide open, round blue eyes like marbles, and already they were glazing over.
He took out his mobile phone. ‘Ambulance,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid you’re not needing to hurry.’
The silver Ford Focus accelerated away, overtaking the cars in front through a dangerously narrow gap. Once it was round the corner, it slowed to a more decorous pace, then took lefts and rights into a warren of little streets.
The driver was smiling, a wide, satisfied smile. His luck had held, after all. It usually did – he often joked about having sold his soul to the devil in exchange. It certainly wouldn’t have done to fall down on this part of his commission; this was meant to be the easy bit, more or less a favour for a friend. The next one would be a lot more difficult.
As he turned into a quiet side road, he heard the sound of sirens and smiled again. He got out, locked the car and walked away, tucking his driving gloves into his pocket. There was a respectable householder in Glasgow who would be very surprised when the police called to question him about a hit-and-run.
Arriving for his shift at three, Andy Macdonald bumped into Kim Kershaw as she came out of the CID room.
‘Just knocking off?’ he asked her.
‘Yes, but I’m going to the canteen first. I’m desperate for a cup of tea.’
‘I’ll come with you. You can fill me in on what’s been happening – arrests, breakthroughs?’
Kershaw pulled a face. ‘Fairly quiet today. Just the routine stuff. But I can fill you in on the Hepburn interview this morning. There was some pretty weird stuff going on with Big Marge.’
‘Nothing like a bit of scandal with my jam doughnut.’ Macdonald fell into step beside her.
There were half-a-dozen officers in the canteen, sitting at tables and watching TV. Sergeant Linda Bruce, holding her tray, was just finishing her chat with the woman behind the counter and she moved away smiling as they came up.
‘It’s all yours. And I can recommend the shortbread.’
‘Sounds good,’ Kershaw said. ‘I’ll have that, Maisie, and a tea, no milk, no sugar.’
As the woman turned away, Kershaw’s mobile rang. She scrabbled in her shoulder bag, then, glancing at the number, stepped aside. ‘You carry on, Andy – I’ll be with you in a minute.’
‘Doughnut, please, Maisie,’ Macdonald said, ‘and—’
From behind him, he heard a sound he had never heard before, a primitive howl like a tortured animal with a human voice. Frozen in shock, he barely heard Linda Bruce’s tray fall to the ground with a crash. When he managed to turn round, Kim Kershaw was on the ground, crushed in an agony of pain. She was screaming, ‘No! No!’ and her clenched fists were beating on the ground.
Bruce fell to her knees beside her. ‘Kim, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’
There was no answer, except more of those terrible cries. Macdonald bent to pick up the phone that had fallen from Kershaw’s hand, his own hands shaking. ‘DS Macdonald here. Who am I speaking to?’
The woman at the other end of the phone was in tears too. ‘It’s dreadful. It’s Debbie, Mrs Kershaw’s little girl. She – she took a sudden turn this afternoon and – and I’m afraid there wasn’t anything we could do.’
‘So, tell me about carousel fraud,’ Fleming said to Purves, as they drove out of Girvan. She wanted something to take her mind off the fear that had possessed her since Dave’s disclosure. ‘Something to do with VAT, isn’t it?’
‘VAT and fake businesses – on an international scale here, from the looks of it. At its simplest level, you register your company for VAT, then buy goods – as it might be, DVDs – from another EU country and they’ll be zero-rated. Then you add the VAT to the price when you sell them, pocket it and disappear instead of forwarding it to the taxman.
‘This scam’s more elaborate. They’ll have some sort of syndicate. Mr A, the importer, sells to Mr B, Mr B sells to Mr C and so on, with VAT being theoretically added each time. The first company pays the tax; the rest all ‘reclaim’ it and finally it’s exported to another EU business, zero-rated, of course. Then, having paid one lot of VAT and got all three, four, five or however many lots generously refunded by the taxman, the companies disappear and the whole merry-go-round sets off again. Multi-million-pound profits.’
Fleming pursed her lips in a silent whistle. ‘We did think money-laundering had something to do with Crozier’s curiously amateurish little rock festival, and the foray into building as well.
‘The Ryans and Pilapil were obviously in on it, and presumably Hepburn was involved at the American end, exporting the DVDs to Ireland. He certainly knew what was going on. He was very edgy about it.’ It was an understatement. ‘Edgy’ was not quite the word for what she had seen in Hepburn’s eyes.
‘With reason, I would guess,’ Purves said. ‘I don’t know a lot about the big boys in Glasgow, but from what Dave said, getting involved wasn’t a clever idea, whatever the rewards.’
It didn’t help the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘What’ll happen to Dave now?’
‘On his way to a safe house, even as we speak. That was the final deal. We can be sure he wasn’t followed, so no one will be looking for him – yet. And he’s an unobtrusive sort of guy. We’ll fix him up with the papers and he can find a driver’s job in a city south of the border easily enough. He’s got no family ties so they can’t get at him that way, and we’ve spelled it out to him that provided he goes straight he should be able to keep out of their way.’
‘Expensive way of weaning him from a life of crime, but effective, I would reckon.’
‘So now we hand over to the Fraud Squad? To be honest, I can’t see that this has a bearing on the murders. Indeed,’ Fleming said, thinking aloud, ‘with all this going on in the background, Williams killing Crozier’s solicitor and bringing the police down on them must have been a disaster.’
‘But the searches haven’t turned anything up?’ Purves asked.
‘Nothing on the office computer – they’ve been careful, naturally enough. And of course the only areas we were allowed to search were the ones that related directly to Crozier himself – bedroom, office. The sheriffs won’t grant warrants for anything that looks to them like a fishing expedition for evidence on suspects.
‘Incidentally, I don’t think I was here today. Even if it’s not related to my investigations, it might look as if it was.’
Purves gave her a sideways look. ‘Not only were you not here, I wasn’t here and nor was Dave. The information he gave us will be totally sanitised and passed on to the correct quarters.
‘What might become our business is the hitman he thinks is operating on our patch. That information will come through the proper channels shortly. But the big problem is, how the hell do we find out who he’s targeting?’
Fleming studied her hands, tightly clasped in her lap, for a moment. She was opening her mouth to say, ‘John, I think there’s something I should tell you,’ when her phone rang.
Parking his car at headquarters, MacNee had spotted that Fleming’s car was in her reserved space. Good! They could get things moving at once.
At the reception desk there were two of the civilian assistants talking in hushed tones, but he didn’t really notice as he punched in the security number and headed up to the fourth floor. There was no answer to his knock: she must be around the building somewhere. Then he remembered that she had said she had a ‘commitment’, so perhaps it was just round the corner and she’d walked. Or got a lift from someone; he’d noticed Purves’s car wasn’t there. Some sort of special training for DIs, maybe. Bloody stupid, all this training and conferring and setting targets instead of getting on with the job.
He looked at his watch. He was entitled to knock off now, but the thought of going home wasn’t very appealing. Andy Mac was on the second shift today; he might have a blether with him about the way things were shaping up.
When he went
downstairs, the CID room was surprisingly full and surprisingly quiet. There were groups of detectives standing talking in low voices, and MacNee looked around with a furrowed brow.
‘Dearie me,’ he said to Macdonald, who was standing near the door, ‘you’re looking a bit glum. Who’s stolen your scone?’
Macdonald grimaced. ‘Tam, it’s very bad news. Kim Kershaw’s daughter, Debbie – she’s just died.’
MacNee stared at him blankly for a second, then a red mist of unreasoning rage grew in his mind. The neglected child, fobbed off on strangers! The waste, the terrible waste! If Bunty had had a child, it would never have been out of her sight; it would have been fairly deaved with love and care.
He said harshly, ‘I’m sorry for the woman, of course. But maybe if she’d kept her at home and looked after her instead of parcelling her off to boarding school—’
The shocked silence penetrated even his fury. He stopped.
Macdonald was looking at him with revulsion. ‘For God’s sake, Tam, Debbie was in a home! She was severely disabled and the staff told me Kim was the most devoted mother any child could have. You’re sick, Tam – at least I hope you are, because if you’re not, there’s no excuse for one of the nastiest remarks I’ve ever heard.’
The anger drained out of MacNee, leaving him white and shaken. Without meeting anyone’s eyes he left the room.
Fleming listened in dismay to Macdonald’s agitated voice. ‘Where is she now?’ she asked, then, as he went on, pulled a grimace of distress. ‘For goodness’ sake!’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s got into MacNee. Leave it with me, Andy – I’m on my way back.’
‘About as bad as it could be,’ she said in answer to Purves’s concern. ‘Poor Kim Kershaw’s daughter has died.’
‘The handicapped one?’
‘Yes. Everyone knew she was handicapped except, apparently, Tam MacNee, who made such an unfeeling remark that if he goes back into the CID room, he’ll be lynched.’
23
The scene of the accident in Station Road had been cordoned off. The body had been removed, and uniforms from the Dumfries Force were directing traffic, taking measurements and interviewing passers-by.
‘The name on her bank card’s Lisa Stewart,’ a PC told the detective who had just arrived. ‘No address or phone or anything – nothing in here except clothes and stuff.’ He held up a blood-stained shoulder bag.
‘No one got the car’s number?’ the detective asked.
‘Not so far. Stolen anyway, most likely.’
‘Usually are. We’ll get her address from her bank. I take it she’s dead?’
The constable nodded. ‘Never had a chance, that poor lass.’
The dogs, at least, were pleased to see Tam MacNee when he returned, the two young rescue dogs leaping around him and the elderly white one, with a rakish brown patch over its eyes and a missing leg, wagged its tail furiously instead. He ignored them and after a moment they trotted past him into the garden.
A grey cat looked up from its cushion on a kitchen chair and surveyed him with cool amber eyes, but the other cats in favourite cosy nooks paid no attention. Tam sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands.
The kitchen was where he could always find Bunty when he came home, cooking or fussing with the animals or gossiping with a pal. There was always the smell of good food and cleanliness, and it was a bright and cheerful room, with the farmhouse pine units, and the flower-print curtains at the window. There were always flowers on the table too. Bunty liked flowers.
There was no scent of flowers now, just a trace on the air of rotting food from the bin he’d forgotten to empty, and the body smell of the animals. Bunty had always kept everything too clean for them to smell.
He couldn’t believe what had happened to his life in these past few weeks, wouldn’t have believed it was possible. He’d managed, though, to hold it together at his work, more or less, though it had cost him sometimes to go on as if nothing had happened.
Until today. He couldn’t believe what he’d done today. How come he hadn’t known about Kim’s daughter? He knew the answer, though – he hadn’t had a chat down the pub with anyone since all this happened. And Kim had got up his nose with her snippy remarks about Glasgow, and then the ‘boarding school’ – why hadn’t she told him?
He didn’t like the answer to that either. It came far too close to home.
What was he to do now? He’d felt the full force of the anger of his colleagues. How on earth was he to work with them after that? But if he didn’t have the job . . .
Tam had always had a soft spot for down-and-outs. If you talked to them, they’d often a story that would get tears out a stone – the problems at home, the drinking, the loss of the job, then the house repossessed . . .
With a surge of angry despair, Tam got up and went to the cupboard where he kept a bottle of whisky. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d started drinking to get drunk, but if he was going to be out on the street, he might as well take the normal road to ruin.
Kim Kershaw was back in the little flat in Newton Stewart by the time Marjory Fleming rang the bell. The door was opened by Kim’s mother, Dawn, a thin, wispy-looking woman who seemed out of her depth in the face of tragedy.
‘Says she’s cold. I’ve made her a cup of tea, but she’s not drinking it,’ she confided in a whisper. ‘I don’t know what else to do.’
Murmuring conventional condolences, Fleming went through the narrow hall into the sitting room. It was a small room, painted an unpromising shade of beige, with neutral furnishings – comfortable enough, but somewhere to live rather than a home. There were few personal touches apart from photographs of an unsmiling child, delicately pretty but with a blank look in the eyes that told its own story.
The electric fire was on and the room was uncomfortably hot. Kim was sitting close to it, staring straight ahead; she did not turn her head as Fleming came into the room. By her side, an untouched cup of tea had a slimy film on its surface. She gave no sign of having heard the well-worn phrases Fleming repeated, and her hands when the other woman patted them briefly were icy cold.
Fleming sat down, as Dawn drifted off to make more tea. What did you say – what could you say, when you were possessed with something like guilt about your own two healthy children who were at this moment, please God, safe and happy? An interview with a bereaved parent wasn’t a new experience, but this wasn’t an interview, where there were questions to be asked with a constructive purpose.
This was different. There was nothing to ask, nothing useful to say. With a friend, you would put your arms round her, cry along with her, but though Fleming knew little of Kim personally, she sensed that an emotional approach would be impertinent. Kim was a professional colleague, and this was, in a sense, a professional visit.
So keep it professional. ‘Is there anything you need, that we can do for you, Kim? Of course there will be compassionate leave for as long as you need—’
‘No!’ For the first time, she got a response. Kim looked directly at her with tortured eyes but said perfectly calmly, ‘There will be funeral arrangements, of course, but there’s very little to do otherwise. I don’t want to be off duty.’
Horrified, Fleming protested, ‘But, Kim, you’re in shock. You need time to recover—’
‘Recover!’ Kim gave a bitter laugh. ‘You don’t really think I’ll recover, do you? When you lose a child, you only learn to live with the pain, so the sooner I get on with doing it the better. Debbie was my purpose in life and the job is going to have to take that place. Otherwise, I’d just top myself now, wouldn’t I?’
She gave a bright, brittle smile and got up. ‘Thank you for your support,’ she said, and held out one of those cold, cold hands.
There was nothing Fleming could do but shake it and leave.
Dawn was in the hall, coming from the kitchen with yet another unwanted cup of tea. She set it down on a small table with a sigh. ‘Do her good to have a wee cry,�
�� she said, ‘but she won’t. I’d a bit of a cry at the home myself when I saw her, poor kiddie. But all for the best really, isn’t it?’
Not knowing what to say in response to such a supremely insensitive remark, Fleming muttered something indistinguishable and left, torn between her pity for Kim’s anguish and anxiety about the dreadful unwisdom of her speedy return to duty.
She had another professional problem to deal with, which she might as well tackle now.
‘It has to have been him!’ Declan Ryan said to his wife furiously. ‘Who else could have taken it from under our bed?’
The air in the white sitting room was thick with smoke and there was a pile of stubbed-out butts in the ashtray in front of Hepburn. Cara gave a little cough, sent him a reproachful glance, then looked at her husband with dull, unfriendly eyes. ‘I’m tired. You’ve asked him, I’ve asked him.’
‘I know, and it’s done no good. Where the hell is it? We’ve got to destroy it! The busies’ll be all over us like a rash, with warrants and everything now for the whole house, and then it’s—’
‘Should have dropped it in the sea, like I said.’
Ryan turned on his wife savagely. ‘And have the bosses sending messages we didn’t get, and wondering why? Get real!’
‘Well, they know now what’s been going on – some of it, anyway,’ Hepburn snapped. ‘And it’s getting seriously alarming.’
‘You could say. But tell me about your little friend Madge.’ There was an unpleasant edge to Ryan’s voice. ‘Has she backed off?’
There was a brief pause, then Hepburn said, ‘She’s thinking about it. I’ve given her the strongest possible warning.’
Ryan laughed. ‘I never thought it would work. So, when’s the news story coming out?’
Again, Hepburn hesitated. Then he said, ‘The threat was what it was about. Now’ – he shrugged his shoulders in a pantomime of indifference – ‘not worth the hassle.’ As Ryan began to protest, he went on, ‘Anyway, I’ve made up my mind. I’m getting out. I’ve stayed around so the police wouldn’t get too interested, but it’s way beyond that now. I’m on the next plane I can get, before they block my passport. If they want me, they can extradite me.’
Cradle to Grave Page 34
