The Sideman

by Caro Ramsay

  They had found Donnie McCaffrey.

  There was no doubt it was him. His DNA was on file. They had swabbed the body at the site and the sample had been brought down to Glasgow and processed immediately.

  As Anderson was in Mitchum’s office, the boss had taken the phone call, his face had turned ashen as he had put the phone down.

  Then Mitchum had warned Anderson in no uncertain terms that he was to cooperate with Mathieson and Bannon’s investigation. Totally nothing was to override this, no sense of personal loyalty, nothing.

  It has to be investigated and it has to look transparent. And where the hell was Costello?

  Anderson said he had no idea, as politely as he could, sitting there trying to be calm but thinking where, and when, Costello’s body was going to appear.

  ‘Do you think I might do better if I went north? There’s a link to my cold case rape enquiry.’ He explained about Morna’s invite, Patrick had given his consent. The look of relief on Mitchum’s face was so joyous, it was as if Santa had existed after all. ‘Go, with my blessing. It’ll keep you out of Mathieson’s claws.’

  Anderson excused himself. He went to the toilet where he threw up all the coffee he had drunk that morning, burning acrid in his throat as he wretched again and again. His phone was beeping, as a wave of text messages came in. He leant against the wall of the toilets and took out his mobile, scrolling through, messages from Wyngate, Mulholland, Bannon, another couple of colleagues all wanting to know what was going on. Plus, DCI Mathieson requesting another meeting sooner rather than later. Anderson had been hoping that one would be from Costello saying something, anything. Any kind of explanation for the death of a young man.

  Sometimes there is nothing scarier than silence.

  Isla McCaffrey sat down on the settee, not speaking, unable to speak.

  Mathieson gestured to Bannon that he should put the kettle on. They would have to get on with the investigation and the family liaison officer could do all the handholding she needed to do once they had left.

  But PC Donald McCaffrey’s wife was sniffling a lot, Mathieson thought she might get further if there were some reinforcements present. ‘Do you want a friend with you? Is there somebody we can get for you?’

  Isla nodded. ‘Can you get Pari, she lives next door?’ She shook her head, already worn out and wishing everybody would go away. Maybe she could go back to sleep and wake up again or go back out to Lidl and do her shopping, somehow she needed to rewind the day, rewind the last few days and get back to the point when his phone had beeped and he had looked at it and smiled. He had got up, and left. He had told her not to order too much from the Argos catalogue, don’t spend too much on the boys.

  Now he was dead.

  Gone. Not coming back. Ever.

  The female detective was sitting in front of her now, her small pale face all bony and full of contrition. The man had gone out to get her neighbour, her friend. Pari was one of life’s calm people. She had been good when Nathan had choked, that was a midnight rush to the hospital. And when she had gone into labour with the youngest and Donnie had been at work.

  A policewoman arrived, a beautiful coloured girl and she had muttered a few condolences and then gone into the kitchen to join the tall bloke who had been in the kitchen clattering cutlery. Isla could hear drawers being opened and closed now; they were looking for teaspoons and coffee.

  That was one of the last things he had done before he left that night, he had loaded the dishwasher, all the dishes left from that Saturday where her mother had talked about the arrangements for Christmas dinner and he had pulled faces at her over the chicken casserole.

  Now he had been killed. She couldn’t believe what they were saying now, she put her hands over her ears and kept them there, watching whose stupid red lips that never seemed to stop moving.

  When she stopped talking, Isla let her hands fall, she wiped the tears from her eyes, tears of anger not sadness. All of it would hit her later, she was sure of it, but now, here in her own living room, she had a fight on her hands. Somebody had taken her husband’s life. And now the police, his colleagues, were ready to attack his reputation.

  ‘I am really sorry to have to go through this with you,’ said the torn-faced blonde.

  Isla McCaffrey looked at her face and doubted it very much, she looked like a kid who was waiting for the gingerbread to come out the oven.

  ‘Sorry, can you tell me again what happened, I don’t think I’m getting this at all.’

  ‘I was saying that we have found Donnie’s body at a lochan up near Tyndrum,’ said Mathieson. ‘Do you know Tyndrum, thirty miles north of here, a few miles further on from Inveruglass?’

  ‘Why? Why was he there?’ Isla’s face was blank, the news hadn’t quite sunk in.

  ‘I’m really sorry, but as yet we do not know, but we are very suspicious of foul play and we are trying to ascertain—’

  ‘Do you think he was murdered? Donnie? My Donnie.’

  ‘Yes, I do. PC McCaffrey had sustained fatal injuries.’

  ‘What injuries? How did he die?’ asked Isla giving herself a comforting rub on the arm.

  Mathieson bit the side of her lip, ignoring the warning sign from Bannon. ‘We are waiting for the post-mortem results. Do you feel you can tell us what he was doing at Inveruglass? What he was doing there that got him killed?’

  Bannon had driven Mathieson from Isla’s house back to their divisional headquarters at Govan. He had tried to drive legally, with Mathieson snapping at him and swearing at other drivers who had done no wrong other than being in the vehicle in front of Mathieson. They had left Isla with speed that bordered on rudeness the minute Mathieson’s tablet had binged and she had glanced at the comments of the email attachment of five photographs. There was one nod to Isla, a brief ‘We’ll be back’ and she had stood up and was out the door, leaving Bannon to apologize, and cast a look at Pari, who caught the meaning and nodded.

  ‘Archie, you know we have found Donnie McCaffrey’s body earlier today.’ Mathieson sounded tired. ‘We are bringing the body down here for a post-mortem, of course, but nobody is telling me bloody anything.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I don’t get it. All this is connected somehow, I can’t see it. But I’m not going to stop trying. You still think that Costello has got something to do with it? And now these photographs have come to light.’ Archie Walker flicked through the photographs feeling sick to his stomach, how a whole life was about to come tumbling down. ‘Do you ever think that you never know anybody as well as you think you know them?’

  ‘In my job, all the time,’ said Mathieson.

  Walker felt sick. He’d been sympathetic and stuck by Valerie during all the chaos that she’d brought upon herself, but there was no way he could help her get over this, indeed he wasn’t sure he wanted to. She was having her private life drama. A young police officer had lost his life. No contest. ‘I’m struggling to understand these.’

  The photographs were so incriminating that even Mathieson was quietly empathetic. ‘I’m sorry, Archie, but these put a totally different spin on the situation.’ She took the photographs from the procurator fiscal’s shaking hand and flicked through them looking for one in particular. The one that showed George Haggerty and Valerie Abernethy in a tight embrace. He had his hands cupping her jaw. It was obvious to anybody that this was not a brother-in-law/sister-in-law saying goodbye. ‘Has she ever hinted that she was having an affair with George?’

  Archie snorted. ‘With George? She always said she couldn’t stand the man but I can see it leads you to the conclusion that this was an old-fashioned love triangle, maybe sparked by …? Oh, I don’t know – how do you justify something like that? Or was she playing at hating him. For Abigail’s sake, for my sake?’

  ‘A psychologist would say that Valerie was robbed of one kind of family so she was ready to take on another, one that happened to be her sister’s. If you look at what she’d been through, what she was about to go through, the
humiliation of the court case. She’d know a decent defence counsel was going to rip her apart. “Miss Abernethy, did you seriously think that you could buy a baby and get away with it?” How emotionally crippled was she going to sound when she answered that? “You were turned down for adoption, Miss Abernethy, would you like to tell the court why, because you were too drunk.” Considered too drunk to be a mother … and there’s Abigail, all sweetness, light and loveliness.’

  ‘So why would she kill the boy?’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t mean to, maybe he came in and saw her, maybe that’s what sparked the intense rage. Malcolm standing up for his mother. Nobody had ever stood up for her, had they? In her eyes, I mean, addicts always think that everybody is against them.’

  Archie shook his head again. ‘I really don’t believe this.’

  ‘Which is why we are telling you before we put out a warrant for her arrest. That arrest may take place at your house. You need to be prepared for that.’

  Archie was speechless for a moment, then said, ‘But playing devil’s advocate, it does explain what happened to that Star Wars Lego thing she was going on about. That some kind of emotional hook or trophy or whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘We are, of course, going to question George again as he has lied to us about their relationship, but he has an alibi. It’s likely he was trying to protect her – and himself. But we both know that knife was not in his hand.’ Bannon had the pictures now, three of them were taken of the couple walking up Great Western Road past the petrol station. He was studying them carefully.

  ‘Can I ask how you got hold of these? The obvious question to me is who took them and why?’ said Walker.

  It was Mathieson who answered. ‘They were sent to me directly from a private detective. He hinted that Abigail had employed him as she didn’t trust Valerie and has been waiting for Abigail’s lawyer to say it was OK to send these images to me. Believe that if you want. He refused to give his name and we will send the photographs away for forensic examination to make sure they have not been doctored, although they look genuine to me.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘We’ll trace who sent them, don’t worry.’

  They both looked at Bannon, who had coughed meaningfully after swiping through his phone. ‘The headlines on that day were … yip … So this petrol station looks like the one on Great Western Road. You can see the newspapers on the display rack outside. The firestorms in California were front page news, and that corresponds with the date. I think, you could get that enhanced and that would confirm what day it was. The Evening Times is there and it’s dark so this must be late and I suspect this guy has sent you these photographs and this one in particular because it shows George and Valerie together on the evening Abigail and Malcolm were killed.’

  ‘Which is useful,’ understated Mathieson, after a minute of shocked silence.

  ‘Which is very convenient. I’d get them checked out,’ said Walker, not able to keep his eyes off them. ‘Far too convenient. You have the murder of a young police officer to solve; I suggest you get on with that.’

  ‘And it hasn’t gone past me that she’s wearing heels in this picture. She’s five seven, plus those heels five feet eleven. I don’t need to tell you the significance of that,’ said Mathieson. ‘The height of the spatter shadow at the crime scene. The person who had that knife was five feet ten or eleven, or smaller with heels. I know it’s all circumstantial but it’s all starting to point the same way.’

  Bannon nodded. ‘Whatever way it blows, be prepared for the shitstorm.’

  Valerie walked out of Judy Plum heading down Mitchell Street. She felt better than she had felt for ages. Liberated, that was the word. She had a plan, something to do with her life. She had bought a blond shoulder-length wig.

  Susan, as the woman in the shop had introduced herself, had been empathetic but very matter of fact. It was easy for Val to say what she was looking for. A short blond wig, slightly longer at the back, with a fringe, a longish fringe if possible. She looked around, picking out two she thought would do. Susan held her fixed smile and looked at Valerie’s naturally dark hair, such a dark brown it was almost black.

  ‘It might not suit your colouring,’ Susan counselled.

  ‘I want something totally different. A totally different look,’ said Valerie looking in the mirror and feeling rather joyous.

  She walked down the road, thinking about buying a warm jacket and some outdoor boots. She was more than a little fed up with Valerie Abernethy. She didn’t know DI Winifred Prudence Costello but she intended to get right under her skin. She knew a bit from what she’d read in the paper. And had guessed that Uncle Archie had a thing going with her and Archie might be old but he was nobody’s fool. He didn’t like stupid women, so DI Costello was not stupid.

  And Costello was going nowhere, she had much more use as a smokescreen, a confusion, an obfuscation. One of Archie’s favourite words. That seemed fitting.

  She had left the hospital and made a few phone calls, mostly to the Freigate Clinic, a small private hospital that was best known for treating rich people with substance abuse issues, and as such they had three very good psychologists on the staff and two psychiatrists, none of whom had ever set eyes on Winifred Costello.

  Valerie had hired a car to take Costello, under an assumed name, from the Queen Elizabeth to the private facility where she would have her own room. And the pay as you go phone that Valerie had just bought for her would be waiting there for her.

  She had been lucky that Hannah had been convinced by her story, by her fiscal’s ID with her finger covering the name but not the picture. She had told enough lies over the truth to be convincing, and there was the obvious evidence of Costello who had been subject to an attack, and Hannah had to help in their efforts to protect her. Hannah had nodded, but not before asking a few questions about Costello’s medical care that proved she was not as gullible as she might appear.

  Valerie caught a taxi, directing the driver to Archie’s house, checking her phone in the back seat. She saw the breaking newsfeed flash across the screen, the body of the missing police officer had been found. It pulled her up short. She must have squealed as the driver asked her if she was OK. She nodded and examined her phone. Two missed calls from Archie, one from DCI Mathieson. Her mind started to race. She sensed, knew, that she was about to be hauled in to help with enquiries and she knew where that would lead. She adjusted her position in the seat, her mind racing. As she leaned forward she caught sight of the Daily Record, lying on the passenger seat. The heads on the picture were tucked under but she knew by the position, Pippa’s coat sitting in the window of the French Café. Her and George. He had set her up for the media. Bastard.

  As they turned the corner she saw a police car pull into the same street two cars ahead of them. She asked the driver to pull in feigning that she had just remembered she needed to see a neighbour. Did she need anything? She put her hand in her bag; the gun was there, that was all she needed. She paid the driver and walked the rest of the way, staying on the opposite side of the road until she could see, out the corner of her eye, the two cop cars at Archie’s house. Without missing a step, she turned right and walked down the side street back into the city. The steps she was taking felt familiar, the gardens she passed, the streets signs, as if she had walked this way before.

  Archie was keeping away from his own house. There was a warrant out for Valerie’s arrest, there wasn’t much more he could do before he could be justifiably accused of perverting the course of justice. Mathieson had decided that Valerie should be brought in and left to stew, and had acquiesced that Walker would supply her with a very good defence brief, Archie had already called Kerr, he was on standby. Walker and Mathieson were both now on very different sides of the fence, but both being experienced they were politely going by the book. Transparency above all else.

  Costello? Now Valerie?

  Was his life going to get any worse?

  So he w
as now standing watching Mathieson and Bannon search Costello’s living room. They had done everything but ask him the question they really wanted to know the answer to, some vestige of professional respect had kicked in. But Walker had no doubt of the arsenal of ammunition Mathieson could bring to bear down on him.

  He couldn’t appear as concerned about Costello as he really felt; she was a colleague, but over the years she had become so much more. He thought a lot of her, he had total respect for her, but he wasn’t in love with her. She was far too annoying for that. It was just … he was desperately worried about her.

  In response to their indirect question, he had told them he had been in the house a few times, and as far as he knew nothing had been moved or changed. Nothing looked out of place.

  ‘So you don’t know where Valerie is and you have no idea where Costello is?’ asked Mathieson, her purple Nitrile gloves clashing with the bright red lipstick.

  ‘Or the Holy Grail, or Glenn Miller.’

  It was Mathieson that got to him. She was a shady little creature who pouted as she spoke. Was she really so hard and brutal as she looked? Or was it the insecurity of her position, the fact that Bannon would always get a better response from a witness than she ever would. But then maybe that made them an effective team, like Anderson and Costello, the ying and yang.

  Her thin blonde hair was sculpted in a wave that kicked out to rest on her shoulders, a fringe that sat two inches too high was fixed on her forehead with hairspray, the overall effect was that of a blonde helmet on a Stepford wife. She kept talking to Bannon out the corner of her mouth, quietly as if he, as the chief fiscal, was not worthy to hear it, his opinion not worthy to be sought. Bannon, give him his due, was younger and believed more in engagement to get results. Whatever Costello had got herself involved in, it was directly related to what she had seen that October morning six weeks before.

  Walker couldn’t shake the news about Donnie from his head. ‘You don’t really suspect her of killing another police officer?’ His tone of voice was testimony to just how stupid he thought that idea was.