by T F Muir
He frowned as she sat on the edge of his bed, next to his writing desk. Are you ill?
She shook her head and gave him a tired smile. She’d asked for, and received, a copy of his medical records, which included the results of these latest tests. But she had decided to tell Robert the outcome, rather than have him read the results for himself.
It’s about your operation for your hearing, she signed.
Alert now, concern etching his forehead.
These latest tests they did. She held his questioning look. They say there’s nothing they can do.
I don’t understand. What do you mean?
Your hearing nerves don’t exist. They never developed. That’s why there’s nothing they can do. The operation’s been cancelled. Her son’s face shimmered as tears flooded her eyes. They say they can’t fix your hearing. No one can. I’m so sorry. She reached for his hand, but he turned away and stared at his monitor, mouth tight, jaw rippling as he fought back tears of his own.
She stood up, put an arm around his shoulder and hugged him tight as his head lolled against her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, unable to speak as her son sobbed his heartfelt tears, his voice moaning in the toneless cry of the deaf.
CHAPTER 35
Thursday morning
Gilchrist woke to the sound of electronic beeping.
He reached for his mobile phone, confused but a few seconds until he realised he was receiving a series of incoming messages from Stu Pierson.
He clicked on the first message and tried to open it. But it failed. He tried again, but got the same result. His mobile beeped as another message arrived. He checked the time – 5.17 – which might explain why Pierson was sending messages rather than just phoning.
Another attempt at opening a message failed, so he dialled Pierson’s number, only to be sent to voicemail. Rather than leave a message, he killed the call, then stumbled through the bedroom darkness into his bathroom.
He clicked the switch. Light exploded into his brain.
A quick look in the mirror assured him that he looked more tired than hungover, although he did have a faint memory of opening a bottle of The Aberlour. He slid open the cubicle door and switched on the shower. As he waited for the water to heat up, he heard his mobile beeping, receiving more messages from Down Under.
Just the act of standing under the hot water, running a razor over his face, fingertips searching for unshaved patches, brought his thoughts to life and the memory of last night’s dream out of its sleep-ridden shadows.
He’d been outside a cottage on the side of a hill, riding a motorbike round and round in the pouring rain, all the while keeping his distance from a woman in a threadbare shroud who reached out to him with grappling hands each time he passed. She couldn’t catch him, and she tore off her shroud in anger, to reveal the hard musculature of a man with long arms that rippled with sinewed muscles, and strong hands with thick fingers that clutched at the air. He had the vaguest recollection of groaning with fear, stirring awake, only for sleep to pull him down again.
He squeezed a dollop of shampoo on to his palms and worked the cream into his hair and scalp. What did it mean, that dream? Was it his subconscious trying to tell him that Martha Kerr was not who she said she was? But if so, who was she?
By the time he’d rinsed his hair, he was none the wiser.
Back in his bedroom, he checked his mobile again. The messages had stopped coming in, and appeared to be attachments only, with no supporting text. He tried again to open them, but still failed. He would need someone in the Office to download them for him.
In the kitchen, he switched on the TV and filled the kettle. A local weather report warned of freezing fog, snow, and dangerous winds. Through the rain-speckled window, the morning could be midnight-black. Beads of sleet slithered across the glass from a gathering storm. As if these last couple of months had not been cold enough, it looked as if winter was now intending to batter the place into frozen submission.
On the TV he caught a glimpse of Morrisons car park, and a photo of Scott Black in the top right corner, despite that incident of assault being two days old. He had just removed a carton of cat food from the cupboard, and was about to open the back door to feed Blackie, when his mobile rang.
He picked it up – ID Jessie.
His first thought was that she was phoning to say she wouldn’t be in the Office for a couple of days. But instead she said, ‘Have you checked your messages?’
‘Not yet. Why?’
‘Aussie Stu’s sent a bunch of messages through to me. They’re all copied to you.’
‘I can’t open them,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve tried, but something’s not working.’
‘Probably don’t have enough memory on that dinosaur of yours.’
‘So what’s got you excited?’
‘Stu’s come through with the goods. Looks like he searched Alice’s home and found loads of stuff that’s of real interest – copies of handwritten and typed notes, tree-loads of the stuff, articles, photographs, police reports, witness statements and more. I tell you, Alice was one hell of an investigative journalist. She was at least ten steps ahead of us in identifying Scott Black.’
Gilchrist felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir. They were getting to the heart of the matter. ‘So who is he, exactly?’ he asked.
‘Jury’s still out. Looks like he had more aliases than a cat’s got lives, but from what I’ve read of Alice’s notes, it seems she knew nothing about Martha Kerr being his sister.’
‘But why would Black run to her cottage?’
‘To hide his motorbike?’
He chuckled. ‘Seriously.’
‘It’s a safe house?’
Well, he might be prepared to buy that. But something niggled, telling him that there had to be more to it than that. Black had taken an enormous risk launching his yacht single-handedly and setting it off across the Firth of Forth. Then to abandon the trailer on the beach, and his Land Rover in a farm lane, then bike it fifty miles in freezing conditions, these were the actions of a desperate man. Or were they the actions of a determined man, someone who knew exactly what he was doing with every assured step?
But no matter how Gilchrist looked at it, something just didn’t fit his sense of logic.
‘I can’t get past that cottage,’ he said. ‘Why head there? Why not somewhere else? There has to be a reason for it.’
‘Well, when you work it out, let me know,’ Jessie said. ‘I just think Black knew he could hole up there for a few days, longer if he had to, because he knew it was safe.’
‘Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to think.’
‘You’re forgetting we’re not supposed to think anything about the cottage, Andy. We weren’t supposed to find it at all.’
But they had found it. And now they had to act on that. ‘Check up on that warrant for the cottage,’ he said. ‘And get on to the Alloa Office and tell them to send someone to it and bring Martha Kerr in.’
‘On what charges?’ Jessie said.
‘On suspicion of being complicit in the murder of Janice Hickson.’
Jessie gasped. ‘Jeezo, Andy, that’s a quantum leap and a half.’
It was more than a quantum leap, he knew. It was a step through a black hole and into another universe. That’s how much of a leap it was. On the other hand, it was also a leap of faith. Martha Kerr might come across as hapless and innocent, but everything about her warned Gilchrist it was just a façade. She was up to her skinny little neck in it, and about to be sucked down into the steaming depths of deepest shit.
‘Martha Kerr,’ he said. ‘She’s the key. Trust me.’
‘I’d like to, Andy. But if you’re wrong?’
Therein lay the problem. There was no turning back. Not now. ‘I’ve been wrong before,’ he said.
‘That’s comforting, I must say.’
‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘what have we got to lose?’
‘Our careers?’
Well,
there was that, he supposed. Still, he could take some limited precautions.
‘Before we go in all guns blazing,’ he said, ‘we need to go through everything Aussie Stu sent us. Maybe Alice’s notes might give us a clue.’ A gust of wind battered hailstones against his kitchen window, as if in ominous forewarning. ‘Get hold of everyone,’ he said. ‘I want them in the Office within the hour. We need to find out who Scott Black is, and where the hell he is now.’
‘I’m on it,’ Jessie said.
‘And arrange for Martha Kerr to be brought to the Glenrothes Office. You and I are going to give her a right good grilling.’
CHAPTER 36
Alice Hickson’s files had taken years to prepare.
By late morning, Gilchrist and his team had established that James Crichton had inherited his late wife’s estate in its entirety. It included a mortgage-clear detached stone villa on Gallanach Road, overlooking Oban Bay and most of the town, as well as a 25 per cent share in a small fishing fleet of four trawlers that had worked out of Aberdeen on the east coast. All courtesy of Janice’s divorce settlement from her first husband, Alexander McKay. More damning, at least in Gilchrist’s eyes, was the fact that Crichton had also received one hundred thousand pounds from a life insurance policy which Janice had taken out three weeks before their wedding. It looked as if James Crichton had entered marriage with an exit strategy prepared in advance.
Calls to Will McKay, Alexander’s oldest brother who now owned the fishing fleet, confirmed that Crichton had sold his share to the family at a price that questioned his sanity.
‘Too high?’ Jessie had asked.
‘Just the opposite. Nowhere close to market price. But we were just glad to get it back, and get that bastard out of our faces.’
No love lost there, it seemed.
Within a week of Janice’s funeral, the stone villa on Gallanach Road had been put on the market and sold to the first reasonable offer. The sale of both the matrimonial home and the stake in the fishing fleet told Gilchrist that Crichton had been interested in a sale for cash only, and once banked – which raised the question of where exactly it had gone – he had then moved from Oban to an unknown destination.
This was where Alice’s notes became difficult to follow. They were clear enough to read, in concise statements like bullet points, but the flow of logic appeared convoluted. Her notes jumped forward in time, then back, casting up name after name, none of which seemed to be related to any other. How she had made the connection was none too clear, except for one constant that ran through each name – the date of birth.
Gilchrist scanned the list – seven names in total. So if each of these names was indeed Black living under a pseudonym, then he could see how it might become too much. You had to have an excellent memory to be a good liar, so it helped to intersperse the lies with a modicum of truth. A single birthdate helped memory recall.
But still . . .
The earliest date to appear on Alice’s notes was fourteen years ago, which also had the first and only mention of the surname Kerr – a fairly common Scottish name as best he could determine. But a Robert Kerr had lived in Portree on the Isle of Skye, and married Norma Kintyre, a wealthy lifelong resident of the village. As in the case of James Crichton and Scott Black, Robert Kerr appeared to have turned up from nowhere, fully formed, in the shape of a successful building contractor. Also, just like James Crichton, Kerr was married for less than a year before his wife, Norma, drowned after falling into the harbour during a heavy downpour.
The PM report concluded that Norma had too much alcohol in her system – four times over the limit – which on top of medication for a sore back, would have made walking in a straight line difficult, if not impossible. Hence the accidental fall into the harbour.
Newspaper articles at the time noted that Robert Kerr had been questioned under caution by the police, but been released without charge when Margaret McFarland had given a written statement that Bobby and Norma had invited me over for dinner, and that Norma got too drunk and went for a walk on her own. Bobby had tried to talk Norma out of it, but you couldn’t get through to Norma when she was drunk. No one could.
‘Who is Margaret McFarland?’ Jessie said.
But Gilchrist was already flipping through his notepad. It took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for. ‘Got you,’ he said, and shoved his notes over the desk to Jessie so she could read them.
‘Martha Margaret McFarland Kerr,’ Jessie said. ‘The bitch. So she is his sister?’
‘I’m not convinced yet,’ he said.
‘But she gave him an alibi, while he took his wife out for a walk during a storm and booted her into the harbour.’
Gilchrist felt troubled that the local police hadn’t questioned Martha more thoroughly. Now, they would likely never know for sure, but Jessie’s theory sounded as strong as any.
Jessie said, ‘It seems that Alice Hickson didn’t know that Margaret McFarland were Martha Kerr’s middle names. Did she?’
Gilchrist shook his head. ‘I’m intrigued as to how she made the connection from Robert Kerr to James Crichton to Scott Black, with a few names in between.’
‘Maybe Martha can answer that,’ Jessie said.
‘We have an interview room set up?’
‘We do indeed.’
Gilchrist slipped his mobile into his pocket. ‘Right, let’s go.’
Glenrothes HQ on Detroit Road is the Force Contact Centre for Fife Constabulary, and is distinct from Glenrothes police station on Napier Road, which has custodial facilities and interview rooms.
Gilchrist parked in the police station car park and switched off his mobile. He hugged his collar to his neck as he and Jessie scurried towards the station, a fierce wind whipping his hair, iced beads of rain stinging his face.
He reached the door and pushed inside.
‘Bloody hell,’ Jessie said. ‘Glasgow’s weather might be shite, but this is pure Baltic.’
Well, he couldn’t disagree with her on that. They introduced themselves at reception then headed to the Interview Suites. He opened the door to Room 2, and let Jessie enter first.
Martha was seated next to her solicitor – someone other than Tom McGarry – her lips tight, her face pale. She could have aged ten years since they’d last spoken to her.
They took their seats opposite, Gilchrist facing Martha, Jessie facing the solicitor. Once Jessie was satisfied that the recorder was switched on and working, she went through the introductions, reading off the solicitor’s business card – William Thorncroft of Becket Leeds & Associates – and confirming that, ‘Martha Margaret McFarland Kerr is being interviewed under caution, on suspicion of being complicit in the murders of Janice Hickson and Norma Kerr.’
Martha’s eyes widened at the mention of Norma Kerr.
Thorncroft leaned forward. ‘Who’s Norma Kerr?’
‘We believe her to be your client’s late sister-in-law,’ Jessie said.
‘I thought my client was to be questioned on matters relating to Janice Hickson.’
‘We’ve come across fresh evidence we believe links your client to an earlier murder,’ Gilchrist said. ‘When she gave an alibi for her brother, Robert Kerr.’
Martha’s face hardened.
‘We note with interest,’ Gilchrist said to her, ‘that your police statement was signed Margaret McFarland, which are your two middle names.’
Martha blinked, as if in confusion.
‘Why did you use those names, and not Martha Kerr?’
‘No comment.’
‘You told us earlier that you and Bobby are brother and sister. Why did you not tell the Oban Police that in your statement?’
‘No comment.’
Gilchrist sat back. ‘You’re not doing yourself any favours,’ he said. ‘This is your chance to clear your name, your chance to tell us what happened. We know your brother’s a bully and a misogynist. We know that. But what we don’t know, although we suspect we do, is that he forced yo
u to do what he wanted you to do.’ He waited a beat. ‘Against your will.’
Martha lowered her eyes.
‘Because that’s what he’s like,’ he said. ‘He’s killed two women recently – Kandy Lal and Alice Hickson. And two of his previous wives, Norma Kintyre and Janice Hickson, died in suspicious circumstances within one year of being married to him.’
‘Is there a question in there somewhere?’ Thorncroft said.
‘All of it’s a question,’ Jessie said. ‘Your client can speak any time she likes. All she has to do is say yes or no.’
Gilchrist eyed Martha. ‘Let’s go back to the night your sister-in-law, Norma, drowned in Portree. Your statement said that Norma got so drunk no one could persuade her not to go for a walk in a downpour. You remember that?’
She shrugged. ‘No comment.’
Jessie slid a batch of photocopies across the desk to Thorncroft. ‘This is a copy of your client’s statement,’ she said. ‘I’ve highlighted the relevant sections.’
Thorncroft glanced through them, then said, ‘My client had nothing to do with Mrs Kerr’s unfortunate accident. That’s clear from her statement. So what’s your point?’
Gilchrist said, ‘The point is, that your client gave her brother an alibi while he went about the business of murdering his wife.’
‘Are you implying that my client lied, that she falsified her statement?’
‘I am.’
Thorncroft turned to Martha. ‘Is this statement false?’ he asked.
Martha shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Were you coerced by anyone, including your brother, and or the police, to write anything in your statement that you did not believe to be true?’
‘No.’
Thorncroft gave a triumphant smile, and shoved the statement back to Jessie. ‘I don’t know what you intend to do with that, but it simply strengthens my client’s case.’
‘Except that she’s lying.’
‘Not according to my client.’ He turned to Martha again. ‘Are you lying?’
‘That’s it,’ Jessie snapped. ‘Here are the rules. You’re here to advise your client, not to question her. We’ll do the asking, and you do the advising. You got that?’
