Cause & Effect (The Gemini Borders Trilogy Book 3)

by Toni Parks

  Fire alarms from near and far prevented Calum from studying his handiwork. The combined blasts set off alarms affixed to surrounding buildings and, in the distance, alarms from the emergency services’ vehicles could be heard too. The frozen foods warehouse, did not quite live up to its name of ensuring everything remained cool as flames continued to lick the walls and shoot out of the two ventilation shaft exits, increasing in strength whenever additional pockets of air combusted. The weight of the sheets of glass affixed to the underside of the roof became unstable and although not yet cracked, their mountings were weakening. Calum glanced across at the two storey building next door and could see that the heart of it had been completely blown out. Both floors looked to be equally ablaze and minor explosions occurred inside as various chemicals and gases reached their critical points. The main conclusion he arrived at for certain was that both buildings were destroyed and no one had walked out alive from either. That at least was some compensation and consolation for the loss of Gavin, one of his most loyal, right hand men.

  *

  DC Blister passed his most recent find through to DS Tarbert, who all things considered agreed that Jessica Lambert’s knowledge of pharmacy products might add an extra string to their bow. The DS suggested he contact the procurator fiscal on the case and get her opinion. The only problem was that she had been tied up in court all morning and now was not answering her phone. He tried one last time for good luck and hey presto, she answered but sounded rather harassed and, if he was being honest, a bit shirty. He had explained what he had found and how he felt it linked into the case, and rather than being commended for his diligence he was almost pushed off the line. Miss Macleod promised that she would make a note of his find but advised the DC to send it through in writing too, as things were rather hectic at her end, particularly with the accused having what looked like a breakdown. And if that was not enough for her to contend with she needed to clear the line as an important call was expected in relation to another case, which had just been assigned to her. The DC, desperate to know more but being a stickler for discipline within the ranks, immediately obeyed and wished Miss Macleod a good day. ‘Boy if only you knew what sort of a day I’m having and where it might lead,’ she mused angrily.

  The chain reaction was not long in its execution. The right person had seen the postcard and the phone number was now in the hands of Eduardo. His command of English was proficient enough to undertake and carry out this delicate mission. All he needed now was the cooperation of the receiving end. He’d had a good night’s sleep; after the celebratory drink, he had excused himself, taken an afternoon nap and in the evening eaten a quiet meal alone. And both Pernille and Pietro had formulated what seemed like an almost flawless plan, which SpiyWeb, through their connections had been able to set in motion. He had spent a considerable amount of the day awaiting the number but now it was here, it was all up to him to hold his nerve and execute his part.

  ‘Answer the call. Answer the call. Answer the call.’ “Hello, am I speaking to Elspeth Macleod?” asked Eduardo as the call was finally answered.

  “Yes, this is Elspeth Macleod. How can I help you,” she replied guardedly.

  “I like your attitude. A colleague of mine has recently written to your father, hence the reason for my call.”

  “I understand what you are saying,” replied Elspeth as she moved to a more secluded part of the building so that stray ears could not stray too close. “I will proceed if you can tell me the name at the bottom of a mutual letter.”

  “Good. The name is ‘Rawnie Tait’. Now my request. If we both understand each other’s situation it would not be advantageous to either of us to be recording this conversation. Agreed?”

  “Goes without saying.”

  “OK, Elspeth. I’ll get to the heart of it. A friend of my friend is at present accused of a series of murders. Jessica Lambert is the friend to whom I am referring. She has attended her first hearing at The Sheriff Court, what you call ‘Appearing on Petition’. At that hearing you asked the Sheriff to ‘commit the accused to further examination’. Correct so far?”

  “Yes, you are well informed. That is the procedure and that is the point we have reached in this case,” she said with a sigh, resigned to the direction this call was going.

  “OK. Now you have three choices. One: prevent that second appearance at The Sheriff Court from happening. Two: if the second appearance occurs, give direction for Jessica to be released on bail. Three: highjack the case by logging in evidence incorrectly or losing certain evidence. Do you understand those options?”

  “I understand perfectly. Although I must say I have little influence over any of the three.”

  “Oh, come on, you’re selling yourself short there. But if you feel it is beyond your sensibilities then you must accept the consequences and all that entails. Your family will be destroyed and your father vilified by all right-minded people. I will give you exactly 24 hours to think it over. I will contact you then for your final answer. And do not imagine that this is all a hoax. The photographs are ready to go and a live-feed video featuring Rawnie Tait and her story will be uploaded to the Dark Web and then forwarded to all the recognised search engines for instant access. 24 hours, starting from now Ms Macleod.” Elspeth did not respond, not out of churlishness or bad manners but more because her voice and demeanour were not under her control. She rushed to the Ladies, silently sobbing and suddenly feeling the immediate need to vomit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ‘Another day, another dollar,’ thought DI Brenda Barbour as she enjoyed the lack of attention, no matter how short lived. The Borders serial killer was still grabbing the headlines but now it would appear that there was room for more than one major criminal act to embrace the spotlight. So having batted away the dunking man, who was eventually identified as Joey Donaldson, and grown tired of seeing the grotesque man with the pixilated face, she now was badgered at every corner for information on the ‘Three Amigo Pimps’ as one rag portrayed them, by way of a taunt. She had reconstructed the scene in her own mind and then convinced her DCI that it appeared to be another episode of two gangs going at it hammer and tongs. Only in this warfare they were being more sophisticated. There was no denying that it still left dead bodies strewn about, but the attacks were so unrelated and therefore unexpected that it was difficult to fathom out the strategy if indeed there was one. So pre-empting anyone’s next move was proving to be nigh on impossible.

  The media concluded that whatever the reason for the latest murders it was certainly having an adverse effect on the service these men had been allegedly protecting. Compounded by the fact that extra dead bodies would equate to additional underground security swarming around, thus making that particular part of the docks a ‘no go’ area for would-be punters. And those looking to purchase, were not really that desperate about losing their lives over one final cheap thrill. So in a round about way, the three deaths reduced the force’s overtime rather than increasing it, which always helped to pacify the top brass.

  That was until the report came in about two buildings, attached by one adjoining wall, had been razed to the ground on St Fittick’s Road. All three services had attended the scene and firefighters had attempted to enter the two-storey building but the heat and flames had to be brought under control first. From experience, it was assumed that there would be no survivors and first instincts were that the whole catastrophe smelt of arson. Local residents had heard a series of loud bangs, some said almost simultaneously; and then the sky took on an orange glow. The buildings were leased by two different businesses and local police were endeavouring to contact the owners’ families in order to ascertain who may have perished in the disaster. Nothing further was known about the properties themselves but it was confirmed that no records existed showing threats in the past, of any kind, to either business or owner. Forensics and pathologists would be allowed to enter the buildings as soon as they were secured and it was safe to do so.

  DI Barbour sat back an
d thought begrudgingly, ‘It doesn’t just rain, now does it.’ She grabbed her coat, had a quick pee break, and then rounded up whatever team there was available in the knowledge that they would end up working well into the night. A briefing was held, to ensure everyone had up to the minute information on the tragedy and at the same time, to grab a hot drink, perhaps the last one before this side of midnight. They then arrived en masse at the site, which had quickly turned into a crime scene with the whole area being cordoned off by a phalanx of police. The cordoned area could have been reduced as the heat from the blaze died down but the perimeter remained the same so that any gruesome bodies brought out of the buildings would not be too visible from that distance. Fire service officers had rigged up floodlighting and were escorting a minimum number of specialist personnel through the safer parts of the buildings on a needs-must basis.

  The senior fire officer brought DI Barbour up to speed. “We’ve already located the positions of all the bodies and unfortunately there were no survivors found. We’ve also observed that there are two missing vent grates in the single storey building, so these could be more than likely the entrances of the fire source. Likewise the two open windows on each of the two floors of the attached property, also possible entries for incendiary devices.”

  “How soon can we enter the buildings?”

  “Not for some time. We’re still trying to isolate the exact seats of the fire, as there’s definitely been more than one and those identified all seem to have originated higher than ground level. By that I mean that a series of explosions have occurred. We’re got forensics in there sifting the floor for any metal objects, large or small, but with the power of the blasts we expect small, if I’m being honest.”

  “Well, let us get in there and help speed up the process, then.”

  “Sorry, you can’t do that. We’ve only got so many sets of breathing apparatus and without them you’d be down in seconds and hospitalised for days or even weeks. The air in there is definitely contaminated, at first we thought it was materials from the fabric of the buildings, but that was before we found the plants.”

  “What plants? I thought it was some kind of freezer centre?”

  “Yes, so did we, until we entered. We were knee deep in withering, flowering plants with not a freezer in sight. Only a couple of minutes in and our boots were sticking to the ground. Then one of the guys spotted that the flowers had bud clusters on them, oozing a sticky substance. He reckoned we might have stumbled into the most public illegal high ever experienced in Aberdeen, catching it in full swing. I mean the cannabis plants were ready for harvesting and in their pure state too. So sifting through that lot is not going to be an easy task.”

  “Makes sense when you see the vents disappearing through the walls.”

  “Yes, vents, ceiling lights and with part of the collapsed roof, they confirmed the racket. Part of the foil had come down and a section of the glass dislodged itself and crashed down by the loading bay door. That would be the reason a heat signature has never registered before. And so far what’s left of the vents have been built through the wall into the next door building.”

  “So the buildings are linked, with cannabis growing in one and what in the other?”

  “Well, that we don’t exactly know, yet. The place is totally wrecked with glass everywhere. We’re trying to decipher, what is office partitioning and what is material used in the production of baking. But based on what we’ve discovered was going on here and the connection between the two buildings the presumption is we’ve found a sophisticated laboratory specialising in drug manufacture. So the chances of recovering loaves and rowies, is out the window. Samples have been taken from various areas and I wouldn’t be surprised if my men aren’t all walking around with class A drugs on their clothing.”

  “So what’s your estimate on how long before the bodies can be brought out?”

  “I’ll have to patch forensics about that one. Do you want me to get back to you?”

  “Yes, could you. And we’ll start talking to the spectators. Quite a crowd’s built up now and someone’s got to have a handle on what was going on here.”

  *

  “Just get her out of here. Nobody said I had to be locked away with a nutcase, singing to herself and scrawling all over the walls, whatever next?” complained the prisoner as she continued banging on the door. Fortunately for her the prison officer was of like mind.

  “When there are at least one in six of the inmates in here with some mental health problem or other, beggars can’t be choosers, hen.” Came the reply as they opened up to the sight of Jessica sat on the floor in a corner, almost curled double, rocking gently and humming quietly. She was coaxed to stand and then led meekly from the room and taken to the care unit for observation, where she could be processed and assessed by a mental nurse, and then a referral made to the Multidisciplinary Mental Health Team (MMHT) and the psychiatrist. The main problem with this move was the already overcrowding in that unit. Ideally Jessica should be placed in a single cell, as much for her own protection as for protecting others. Instead she was housed in the management suite in Ross House, colloquially known as the ‘back cells’. There, two consultant psychiatrists attended to the inmates on a weekly basis but Jessica would only have an opportunity of seeing the one who dealt with remand prisoners, and then only as long as time permitted. And Jessica was not going to be in luck. The MMHT only held meetings fortnightly, which more often than not turned out to be sporadic rather than regular, dependent on both personnel and room availability. So a system on the verge of collapse was allowing Jessica to sink into the bowels of its own failings. Even though it had already recognised her questionable sanity and only just transferred her across from the main prison block, to rebalance her wellbeing, in whatever way suited.

  The prison officer guided Jessica around Ross House like a lost sheep. She was convinced her prisoner needed immediate supervision, preferably with suicide watch. The officer was well aware of ‘banking’, where inmates would internally hide whatever items they found for future use; these invariably became makeshift weapons, which could maim or possibly kill. Her worries were that Jessica with her impending high profile court case, needed to be protected from all eventualities so she could have her day in court with justice being seen to be done, and that no one claimed her scalp before that occasion. Jessica’s beauty and slim stature were no benefit to her in these surroundings either. The fact that she added meekness and submission to those attributes would certainly prove advantageous to the more hardened and possibly mad criminals with whom she was now mixing.

  Her insular world easily blocked out all the dangers for, and worries about, her own safety. She felt quite at home amongst others with mental health issues. All fighting demons, hearing voices and self-harming as a way of appeasing their non-existent self esteem. None of this was new to Jessica; she had studied it at university and had now come full circle to join the happy medicated band at the other end of the scale. Right now, she needed to rest and think, or not think, as her brain would dictate. As she was due to clock off, the officer located a harassed mental nurse and handed over her charge with the relevant files. The nurse looked Jessica up and down, checked her files for medication requirements and then logged on to a computer terminal and checked accommodation availability. “Sorry girl, we’re a bit like no room at the inn, at the mo. You’ll have to top and tail in a two cell. I’ll get you a mattress for the night. The two in there are good uns, like you appear to be. They don’t say a lot so you should get along fine with them. Just keep yourself to yourself and don’t speak out of turn. Tomorrow, we’ll see what we can do about somewhere more permanent. Word of advice, don’t say what you’re in here for. And whatever you do say, make sure it’s not, ‘I didn’t do it’. Most of them go bonkers, when they hear that line. OK?”

  Anything would have been OK. Jessica just wanted to sleep now. She followed the nurse to ‘stores’, and waited as three doors were unlocked and relocked
. Jessica signed for the mattress, two blankets and a pillow and between them they carried them back through the unlocked and relocked doors x 3, the nurse juggling with the keys as well as the bedding. At the specific cell, they stopped. The two girls, Bonnie and Cat pulled sour faces as they looked at Jessica being ushered in. The nurse told them she was only here for the night and not to get too antsy about it. Jessica dropped the mattress and kicked it into a ninety-degree corner of two walls, so as to take up as little space as possible. She lay down, closed her eyes and ignored the other two and her surroundings.

  As she relaxed, her mind cleared and she was able to revisit the episode of her abuse and accept it as a form of cathartic healing. Her two new cellmates looked on as she settled herself on the mattress and continued to keep her eyes closed. Her self-diagnosis and healing process were now able to begin and she could recall the abuse by her Grannie’s manfriend, George. Abuse, locked away in her head and compartmentalised, which had surfaced not so much as nightmares but more practically, as revenge. Not on George as Grannie had seen to that, so it had to be revenge for other innocents. And her job gave her the opportunities to kill and so make the world a better place. ‘I know I can plead diminished responsibility and mental illness, but that will be a cop out. To both my work colleague, Joe and that trainee detective, Claire: those murders had been premeditated, so I’ve no chance that they will be reduced to manslaughter charges. And I’ve left those kids behind to just the one parent each, who were probably struggling to cope and make ends meet, before the breadwinners were taken out.’ She thought and questioned, now that her mind had been unblocked and perspective had returned. ‘Perhaps I can get Emma to send them some of Jeremy’s money. Yes, that might work, there’s a certain symmetry to that. I can never buy my way out of my actions, but at least it’s a start.’