Still Life - Karen Pirie Series 06 (2020)

by McDermid, Val

  Karen shook her head. ‘I need to wait for the local police. This wasn’t an accident. This is a crime scene.’

  43

  Tuesday, 25 February 2020

  It was after three in the morning when they checked into the same hotel where Jason had stayed the night before. They’d left him at the hospital, sedated and awaiting a surgical procedure to screw his tibia back together. The local police had swung into action with commendable enthusiasm; it was, Karen thought, as if he was one of their own. They’d rousted Patience Cameron from her bed and stood over her while she phoned round the other tenants of the Isherwood Studios till she found someone who had an address for ‘Dani’. They’d invited Karen and Daisy to join them when they kicked in the door of a maisonette on the third and fourth floor of a strip of housing in nearby Gorton that looked like a barracks.

  ‘Last time I was round here, they were using it as a film set for East Germany during the Cold War,’ one of the local lads had remarked. Karen could believe that with no effort at all.

  The flat held little of interest. Karen assumed Amanda had swung by to strip the place of anything that might either have been incriminating or have given a clue to her destination. No family photographs, no letters, no laptop or tablet. Just large watercolours of the Scottish Highlands drawing-pinned to the walls. Karen recognised Schiehallion and the Buachaille. Maybe Amanda wasn’t as tough as she’d thought; the mountains she’d missed showed a degree of homesickness. It spoke of a more vulnerable side than the apparent coolness with which she’d got out from under Dani Gilmartin’s death.

  Although she was bone-weary, sleep eluded Karen once she’d crawled under the covers. Intellectually, she knew that what had happened to Jason had been Amanda McAndrew’s fault, not hers. But emotionally she felt responsible. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was sending Jason into trouble, but it probably should have done. Walking back the cat to the origins of disaster was pointless yet somehow she always found it hard to resist.

  Her phone rang at 03:39 and she nearly fell out of the unfamiliar bed in her urgency to take the call. It was the Area Control Room. ‘Hey, DCI Pirie. Sorry to wake you but I thought you’d want an update.’

  ‘You thought right,’ she said. ‘Has she been picked up?’ She squirmed round to sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, phone to her ear.

  ‘Not as such. But we know where she is. The local lads in Hull found her car two streets away from the ferry terminal. We got them to check the ticket sales and she bought a berth yesterday afternoon on the overnight Rotterdam run. It gets in around half past eight in the morning, their time.’

  Karen rolled her eyes. ‘So I’ve got less than five hours to sort out a European Arrest Warrant?’

  ‘Less than four hours. They’re an hour ahead of us, remember?’

  Karen groaned. ‘Leave it with me.’ She hauled herself out of bed and set herself up at the table with her tablet and her phone, earphones plugged in to give her hands-free. The number she called was Fiscal Depute Ruth Wardlaw. Karen knew Ruth well enough to be pretty sure that she’d answer her phone even if she wasn’t the depute on call. Like Karen, she couldn’t resist the siren call of an interesting case, and nobody would dare ring her in the middle of the night unless it was an interesting case. Not to mention that she’d be livid if Karen took the case to anyone else in the fiscal’s office after she’d done the heavy lifting of securing the arrest warrant in the first place.

  The number rang out half a dozen times then cut out. Karen heard a clatter, then a muffled, ‘Bugger,’ followed by the sound of fumbling. ‘Who is this?’ Ruth sounded justifiably grumpy.

  ‘Karen. I’m sorry to wake you but it’s urgent. Amanda McAndrew is on the night ferry from Hull to Rotterdam. She threw Jason – you remember Jason, DC Murray? She threw him down a flight of stairs and left him for dead, then legged it. We need a European Arrest Warrant and we need it within the next couple of hours.’

  Ruth sighed. ‘Good morning to you too, Karen. She threw DC Murray down a flight of stairs? Where did this happen?’

  ‘Does that matter? It happened in Stockport.’

  Ruth yawned. ‘Well, that’s good news and bad news. The bad news is we can’t add that to the warrant because it happened in a different jurisdiction to the homicide. The good news is we don’t have to complicate things by adding it to the warrant.’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘Karen, it’s me you’re talking to. As soon as we finish this call, I will contact the duty extradition sheriff of the International Crime Unit of the Crown Office and email them the arrest warrant along with a brief outline of reasons why we need the EAW. Meanwhile you will send me a short report of the assault on your officer. I’ll add that in a separate docquet as evidence of intent to flee. And then I will drag my weary body round to the ICU office to make any arguments the sheriff needs to hear and to pick up the EAW.’ Karen could hear sounds of movement in the background and the low mumble of another voice.

  ‘Will you send that on to the Dutch police and immigration officials? Or do I need to do that?’

  ‘It’ll come from our ICU. I’ll send you a copy. If by any chance we’re running out of time, we can apply for a provisional warrant. That means they can arrest her when she gets off the boat regardless, but we have a window of either twenty-four or forty-eight hours to formalise the warrant. I’m not sure off the top of my head what the limit is in Holland. We’ll get her, Karen. Trust me. These guys at the Crown Office are no strangers to urgency. Even in the middle of the night, you’d be amazed at the turn of speed a sheriff can muster. Now, bugger off and let me do what I do. We’ll talk later.’ Dead line.

  It was almost five a.m. when Ruth called back. ‘The warrant’s been issued and the Dutch have it in their hands. Police and immigration have been alerted at the port of arrival. They’re assuring us she’ll not get past them.’

  Karen wished she shared their optimism. ‘Make sure they understand how devious she is. She’s good at getting people to cover for her. She’ll not be on foot. Chances are she’ll have talked somebody into giving her a lift. They need to check all the cars and lorries as well as the foot passengers.’

  ‘I’ll pass it on. I’ll keep you posted. As soon as I hear anything, you’ll know.’

  Karen lay down again and squinched into a comfortable position. She wondered whether Amanda McAndrew was sleeping, or whether the fizz of fear was bubbling in her blood, keeping her edgy and wary. Where would she be heading for? Would she try to reach her parents and hope they’d take her in? Jason had suggested that, from what he’d seen on Facebook, their daughter had visited them two years before, but she hadn’t asked him to dig deeper. Another thing she should have done. Presumably they hadn’t known their daughter was running around on someone else’s passport, so they might have been her backstop. The place where Amanda McAndrew could re-emerge.

  The last thought that drifted through Karen’s head as she slipped into sleep was, ‘Though it would be better to arrest her before it came to that.’

  Karen had set her alarm for eight. The ferry was due to dock half an hour before that, but she reckoned it would take some time for the Dutch authorities to lay hands on Amanda McAndrew and some time after that for the news to filter back through the system to Ruth.

  The lack of sleep and the stress of the previous day had left her feeling as if she’d had an unwise night on the gin. But before she tried to shake off the sloth and arouse the cotton-wool brain, she had a phone call to make. She’d persuaded the number for the direct line to the ward from the nurse who’d been taking care of Jason and now she dialled it. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Pirie,’ she said sternly to the man who answered. ‘I’m ringing to inquire about the condition of one of your patients. We brought him in late last night. Jason Murray.’

  ‘Are you a relative?’

  Cheeky bastard. ‘I’m the detective chief inspector who rescued him and accompanied him to hospital. It’s a simple
question. How is he doing?’

  ‘We’re only supposed to inform relatives about patients.’

  Don’t do this, son. Really, don’t do this. ‘Are you seriously obstructing a police officer in the commission of her duty?’ She upped the incredulity level to eleven.

  ‘N-no,’ he stumbled. ‘It’s just—’

  Karen heard a firm voice in the background. Then a woman came on the line. ‘Is there a problem?’

  Karen introduced herself again. ‘I’m Jason’s boss,’ she said. ‘I’m the nearest thing he has to a relative in a two-hundred-mile radius and I’m responsible for him.’

  ‘Good point, well made, love. He’s in surgery – they put him at the top of the list on account of him being a copper. If you phone back in an hour or so, I can give you an update. Ask for Shirley. Don’t worry about him, he’s going to be fine.’

  Karen thanked her and closed her eyes for a long moment. She breathed deeply then searched her phone for another number. This was the call she was dreading.

  ‘Is that you, Karen?’ Surprised and wary simultaneously. ‘Are you looking for Jason? He’s not here, hen, I’m not expecting him today.’

  ‘I know, Mrs Murray. He’s been on a job down south. And there’s been a wee accident.’

  A sharp gasp. ‘Oh no, not my Jason—’

  ‘It’s not serious,’ Karen interrupted, her voice urgent. ‘He’s not in any danger, I promise you. He took a tumble down a flight of steps and broke his leg. He’s in the hospital now, they’re operating on his leg to sort it out.’

  ‘An operation?’

  ‘It’s completely routine, I came off the phone this minute with the ward and there’s no grounds for concern.’

  That’s easy for you to say, Karen Pirie. But folk die on the operating table every day of the week.’

  She could hear the tears in Mrs Murray’s voice. ‘If it would put your mind at rest, I could get an officer to drive you down here?’ Sod the Dog Biscuit and her budget.

  ‘No, I don’t want to sit in car with a stranger, I’ll get our Ronan to bring me.’

  Finally, the world had found a use for Ronan. ‘I’ll text you the details. But please, Mrs Murray, try not to worry.’

  ‘Easy seen you’re not a mother.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Karen, that was uncalled for. You’ve always been good to my Jason. I’ll get Ronan and we’ll get on the road right away. Does Eilidh know?’

  ‘I called you first.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’ll get in touch with her and we can pick her up on the road. She’ll want to be there and I don’t doubt he’d rather see her at his bedside than his old mammy.’

  It would, Karen thought, be a close-run thing. The hard job over, she turned her attention to the business of working out a plan of action for her and Daisy. But first, breakfast. Nothing would be achieved without coffee and calories.

  44

  Karen was on her second cup of coffee when the call came from Ruth Wardlaw. ‘Good news,’ the Fiscal Depute said. ‘The Dutch police followed your advice and checked the cars coming off the ferry. McAndrew had tried to give them the slip by persuading a Polish plumber to give her a lift in his van, but they spotted her. She’s currently languishing in a holding cell in Rotterdam, waiting to see a lawyer.’

  It felt like a turning of a tide that had been running against her ever since James Auld’s body had been plucked from the waters of the Forth. ‘That’s brilliant news. What happens next? What’s the timescale?’

  ‘It depends. If she agrees to return to face the charge on the warrant, she’ll be back in Scotland within ten days. But if she decides to contest it – and everything you’ve told me about her would suggest she’ll go down that route – the Dutch courts have sixty days to determine whether she should be returned.’

  Karen’s spirits dipped. ‘So she could still walk away from it?’

  ‘Don’t panic! The Dutch hearing won’t be a trial of the evidence. They’ll simply look at whether our ICU were right to issue the warrant, based on the nature of the crime and the legitimacy of the proceedings. And I’ve got no worries on that score. We’re on solid ground here, Karen.’

  ‘What if she tries to argue that it wasn’t homicide but an accident?’

  ‘That’s irrelevant. The charge on the arrest warrant is homicide and that’s what we’ll be pursuing. Whatever she argues in her defence when she has her day in court, we’ll be ready to knock holes in it.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘The bottom line is, you don’t fail to report a death, hide the body then steal your victim’s ID when it’s an accident.’

  Karen demurred. ‘I can see how you might worry about misinterpretation, especially if you were known to have a volatile relationship.’

  ‘You can see that and I can see that, but for the majority of people who sit on a jury, what McAndrew did was inexplicable in anything other than a criminal context. Relax, Karen, you’ve done the heavy lifting. Dani Gilmartin’s father finally gets to know what happened to his daughter, and that’s a result, whatever the outcome in court.’

  She was right. ‘Thanks, Ruth.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Now I’m away to my bed. See you soon.’

  Lucky Ruth. Karen poked the last couple of mouthfuls of scrambled egg with her fork and decided it had gone too far in the direction of rubber. At some point today, Tamsin would have data from James Auld’s laptop. With a bit of luck, the pathologist’s report would soon make its way to her and formally confirm that Auld’s injuries were consistent with murder rather than accident. There was nothing more she could do for Jason, not now that his mother, his girlfriend and his feckless brother were on their way.

  Karen pushed her plate away and gave in to her impatience. It was time they were on the road. She texted Daisy. See you in the foyer in 15 minutes. Plenty of time to walk back from the café and liberate the car from the multi-storey. The news of Amanda McAndrew’s arrest had reinvigorated her. The Dog Biscuit was in for a surprise in the morning.

  The drive back to Edinburgh seemed to go on for ever. The constant drizzle and the poor visibility didn’t help. Nor did Karen’s refusal to go up the M6 like a bat out of hell with the blue lights flashing. ‘Abuse of privilege,’ she muttered when Daisy asked why they were studiously sticking to the speed limit.

  Bringing Daisy up to date with the McAndrew case occupied the first part of the journey. Daisy was clearly fascinated by the step-by-step pursuit of the case, from the garage in Perth to the artist colony in Glenisla and down to the church hall in Stockport. ‘But what a bizarre beginning to a case,’ she said. ‘I mean, if Susan Leitch hadn’t had that accident on her bike, it could have been years – decades, even – before Dani’s remains turned up. Susan might even have got her nerve up and got rid of her. She could have buried her in the garden, or – I don’t know, burned the bones and ground them up. Or taken a hammer to them and driven down to the coast and dumped them in the sea.’

  ‘Or just carried on ignoring them.’

  ‘Could you do that? Could you live in a house knowing there was a dead body in the garage? It’s not like she never went in there. It’s where she kept her bikes and all her tools and stuff.’ Daisy shuddered. ‘I don’t think I could.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how people manage to block things out,’ Karen said. ‘I remember one case where a guy was in total denial for twenty-odd years about having shot his own daughter. He waged a campaign to find her killer even though at some level he had to have known he was responsible.’

  ‘That is so weird. You get really interesting stuff in cold cases, don’t you?’

  ‘The passage of time turns straightforward murders into convoluted journeys. But sometimes all the undergrowth that obscures the path withers away and you can see things clearly.’ Karen scoffed. ‘Listen to me, I sound like one of those pretentious tossers on the radio.’

  ‘No, what you said makes sense. You think one day I could maybe get a transfer into the HCU
and work with you and Jason?’

  Karen flashed her a quick look to check whether she was at the wind-up. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Most front-line polis think we’re a backwater. That the cases we investigate don’t matter the way the live cases do.’

  Daisy harrumphed. ‘That’s all swagger. What you do is much harder and much more useful. You put right the mistakes, the inefficiencies, the prejudices that stopped cases being solved in the first place. I think it’s cool.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it. Or you can take the Dog Biscuit’s view that we’re a thorn in the flesh of Police Scotland precisely because every success we have is also a reminder that the front-line heroes fucked it up. If she had her way, we’d be disbanded. We have to keep succeeding very publicly to survive. Fuck up once, and we’re dead in the water.’

  ‘Sounds like you need all the help you can get.’ Daisy gave her a cheeky glance. ‘We’re nearly at the services. Can we stop? I need a pee and they do great home baking here.’

  Karen couldn’t deny she liked Daisy’s gallus attitude. And her understanding of the importance of coffee and cake to the proper running of a case. She pulled off the motorway and parked at a distance from the entrance to the café and shop. ‘Could you bring me a flat white,’ she said. ‘I need to make a call.’

  Daisy hurried off and Karen called the hospital again. This time she dropped lucky and Shirley the nurse answered. The good news cycle carried on. Jason was out of surgery and there had been no complications. Karen explained that his family were on their way and wished the nurse good luck.

  While she was waiting for Daisy, she checked her email. To her delight, Professor Jenny Carmichael’s report had landed in her inbox. Everybody seemed to be working weekends these days. It confirmed the verbal report she’d made to Charlie Todd in the mortuary. The medical evidence pointed to deliberate homicide. And another message from Charlie himself was the clincher. One of the team of officers who’d been making inquiries on the scene had taken it into his head to clamber down the tumble of rocks beneath the tower and he’d found a metal crowbar wedged in a cleft. In spite of the rain and salt spray that had landed on it over the days since the murder, the underside had been protected. The crime scene tech who had recovered it had preserved the surface and there were traces of blood and hair that matched James Auld. Charlie Todd’s plods had come up trumps. They’re still testing to see whether they can find any other DNA or any prints. Hope this helps. And hope Daisy’s doing the business for you, Charlie had finished. She suspected he’d be less than thrilled if Daisy ever got her way and joined the HCU.