Still Life - Karen Pirie Series 06 (2020)

by McDermid, Val

  ‘Trust me, we’ve been struggling to get our heads round it for the past wee while. It’s a very clever scam the pair of them have pulled and it only started to unravel because an actress in London thought she’d seen a ghost.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Nugent exclaimed. ‘You’re making my brain bleed. Let’s go back to the simple stuff. So this dealer told you Connolly is coming for a visit.’

  Karen nodded. ‘He’s due in Dublin between eleven and half past. Which suggests to me he’ll be here around nine.’

  Nugent looked startled. ‘That barely gives us an hour to get set up.’

  ‘You look like a man who relishes a challenge,’ Karen said.

  ‘You’re sure about this?’ Nugent pushed back in his chair. ‘I’m all for inter-jurisdiction cooperation, but this feels like it’s hanging by a very slender thread.’

  ‘As soon as we get both of them into custody, that thread will turn into a rope that’ll hang the pair of them,’ Karen said, letting the grim creep into her voice.

  ‘I hope I’m not going to live to regret this, DCI Pirie.’

  ‘Trust me, if the wheels come off, it won’t be your arse in the fire,’ she said, spirits sinking at the thought of the joy on the Dog Biscuit’s face if it all went wrong.

  ‘Well, let’s give ourselves a wee bit more leeway,’ he said. ‘We’ll pick him up on the ANPR cameras and put someone on his tail. But we’ll set up a roadblock a few miles down the road at Garvaghy and pull him in then.’

  ‘I might be able to give you a better idea of where he is right now,’ Karen said.

  ‘How’s that?’

  Karen spread her hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘Modern technology, Chief Inspector. We all leave an electronic trace wherever we go. Me, I’m a bit of a digital bloodhound.’

  Nugent guffawed. ‘When you came in here, I thought you were going to be one of those big-city coppers who thinks we’re all bumpkins out here. But you’re a woman after my own heart. Let’s be having it, then. Where the actual fuck is he?’

  Karen took out her phone and checked the app. The BMW had moved some distance while she’d been charming Nugent. ‘He’s on the A5 between Sion Mills and Victoria Bridge.’

  He stood up. ‘We’d better get our skates on, then. Wait here, would you? I need to set some wheels in motion at the double. I’ll send your bagman in to keep you company.’ He strode across the room, a man with a purpose. ‘Tiernan,’ she heard him shout as the door closed behind him. ‘Get me Traffic Control, right now.’

  A few minutes later, Daisy stuck her head round the door. ‘Wow, your pal is stirring up a whirlwind out there. Can I come in?’

  ‘Sure. I think he’s thrilled to have something a bit different to get his teeth into.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘We wait. Like the surfer in the Guinness advert.’

  There wasn’t much to divert her in the chief inspector’s office. He manifestly didn’t like clutter. On his desk, he had a set of stacking trays, none of which held more than a few sheets of paper. The box files stacked on top of his filing cabinet were all neatly, if obscurely, labelled. There were three framed photographs on the wall. Nugent in an eye-wateringly bright outfit standing by the flag on a golfing green shaking hands with a young man who looked unmistakably Irish. Karen vaguely recognised him but couldn’t put a name to him. One of Nugent in dress uniform being handed some kind of award by Arlene Foster, Martin McGuinness behind her. The third, Nugent bursting out of black tie with his arm round a woman in an evening dress who looked like she brooked no nonsense. Presumably Mrs Nugent, Karen thought.

  And that was the extent of it. The office looked on to the car park at the side of the building. There had been a swift flurry of activity, three liveried vehicles having left in short order, followed by two unmarked cars. But now it was quiet.

  Karen checked her emails while Daisy talked to her world on Snapchat. A message popped up from Ruth Wardlaw and Karen opened it immediately.

  Dutch unimpressed by McAndrew’s complaints about due process. She’ll be back in Scotland by the end of the week. We owe ourselves a large drink.

  ‘No argument from me on that,’ Karen said under her breath.

  She messaged back: Nice one. Stand by your bed, I may have need of you later today. Speak to Charlie Todd about the James Auld case, tell him you need to get the DNA ducks in a row.

  Ruth came straight back to her. Any more cryptic and you could get a job on The Times crossword. Good luck with whatever you’re up to.

  Buried further down among the routine Trash fodder was an email from Jason:

  Hi boss. I’m back at my mum’s. I have a massive stookie that Ronan’s already drawn a willy on. My leg’s still pretty sore but I’ve got painkillers so its not to bad. Did you get her?

  Karen was annoyed with herself for not letting Jason know what had happened. She’d meant to email him so it would be waiting for him when he was well enough, but in the general whirl of events, it had slipped past her. At least now she had time to put that right. She started writing a message, but soon realised it was too complicated, so she called him instead. He sounded not only pleased but also relieved to hear from her. She guessed his mother was doing his head in. It had been a while now since he’d lived at home; he’d lost his acquired immunity to her fussing over him. ‘I’m sorry you got hurt,’ she said.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, I got railroaded by a pensioner,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ A pensioner? Surely even the Mint could outwit a pensioner? Karen listened to the whole sorry story. It had clearly cascaded like a row of stacked dominoes when he’d asked for directions looking more like a polis than an art lover. She couldn’t entirely blame him for that. She’d probably sent him into battle unprepared in the wardrobe department.

  ‘Anyway,’ he wound up. ‘Thanks for coming to get me. So where are you now? In the office?’

  ‘I’m in an office. But not mine. I’m in Northern Ireland with Daisy, hot on the trail of Auld and Greig.’

  ‘Daisy? You’re with Daisy?’

  ‘Aye, she’s been seconded to the unit while you’re on the sick.’

  A pause. She hadn’t expected him to see Daisy as any kind of threat. ‘I could come into the office and do all the stuff I do on the computer,’ he said. ‘Next week. Eilidh wants me to come back to Edinburgh anyway. It would be no bother.’

  Her heart went out to him. He tried so hard, even though he kept butting up against his limitations. ‘Only when you’re ready, Jason. It’s not the same without you. Now away you go and annoy your mother, I’ve got to show Daisy how we catch killers in this team.’

  ‘OK, boss. Thanks.’

  Before she could replay the conversation, Nugent was back, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. ‘We spotted him on the ANPR and there’s an unmarked car picked him up at Newtownstewart. The lads are setting up the roadblock at Garvaghy and they’ll bring him straight back here so you can interview him. You’ll have him in your hands within the hour, I promise.’

  Karen hated tempting fate. To her ears, Nugent’s speech had the ring of famous last words. She really hoped she was wrong.

  51

  For once, Karen was delighted to be wrong. Nugent had been as good as his word. In under an hour, he barged back into his office and announced, ‘Your man is waiting for you in Interview Room Two. Now, I don’t know how youse do things in the Historic Cases Unit, but I’m going to want to sit in on this, DCI Pirie. So’s I know exactly how it played out if there are questions down the line.’

  Karen was reluctant but she knew there was a price to pay for Nugent’s cooperation. ‘I can live with that. DS Mortimer and I will conduct the interview because we know the ins and outs of the case, but I’m happy for you to be in the room. And of course you can chip in if there’s anything you’re not clear about.’

  Nugent’s face radiated self-satisfaction. ‘Grand.’

  ‘But before we go in, I’d appreciate a w
ord with the officers who brought him in.’ Firm but frank, that was the way to play Nugent.

  ‘If you think that’s necessary, I’ll get the sergeant in question.’ He opened the office door and roared, ‘Tiernan? Get yourself in here.’

  The sound of hurrying feet then a man who could have been Jason’s older brother barged in, pink-cheeked and ginger hair in disarray, his cap rammed under one arm. He was long-limbed and his uniform seemed to have been made for someone wider in the shoulders and the chest. ‘Sir,’ he barked, far louder than the small room demanded. He caught sight of Karen and straightened to attention. ‘Ma’am.’

  Nugent introduced everyone then said genially, ‘DCI Pirie would like a report on your roadblock stop.’

  ‘Sir. As per instructions, myself and four constables proceeded—’

  ‘Hold on, Sergeant,’ Karen interrupted. ‘Relax. You’re not in court, nobody’s taking notes—’ A stern look at Daisy, whose hand froze over her notebook. ‘Give us the pub version.’

  Tiernan smiled shyly and blushed, turning the pink cheeks puce. ‘We knew your man was on his way from the unmarked car on his tail so we were ready to pull him over. I asked him for his documents and he produced his ROI driving licence and passport. He seemed quite relaxed.’ He shrugged. ‘People round here, they’re used to routine checks from time to time. I asked him to step out the car and he was, “For why?” and I was, “Because I say, so, sir.” So he grumbles a bit but he gets out and then I ask him to accompany me back here to assist with an inquiry. He wasn’t keen, he was all, “What’s this to do with? I’m off to an important meeting in Dublin,” and I just acted the eejit, said it was my boss’s orders. He says, is he under arrest, I says no, he says, “So I’m free to go?” And I go, “Well, no, because if you don’t come willingly I will arrest you.”’ He took a deep breath. ‘So he decided he’d maybe make the best of it by coming along peacefully. All the way back, he was going on about being an Irish citizen and this being totally out of order. Me, I ignored him and delivered him to the interview room.’ His face twitched in the kind of involuntary frown that Karen recognised from years of working with Jason. ‘Did I do right, ma’am? Not arresting him?’

  ‘You did, Sergeant Tiernan. Thank you.’

  Nugent patted him on his shoulder. ‘Off you go, Sergeant. Good lad.’ He gestured towards the open door in Tiernan’s wake. ‘Shall we, DCI Pirie?’

  Interview Room 2 resembled its equivalents in every other modern police station Karen had been in. It was anonymous, bland and smelled of bodies and anxiety. Iain Auld sat on one side of the table, dressed in a tobacco-brown needlecord suit, a mushroom-coloured flannel shirt and a knitted heather-mixture tie. With the curling hair, the facial hair and the glasses, he could have escaped from a conference of curators. He looked relaxed. Palms resting on his thighs, feet flat on the floor. He barely turned his head when they walked in. ‘Finally,’ he said. ‘Is someone going to tell me what’s going on here?’

  Karen sat down opposite him, Daisy next to her. Nugent moved the third chair behind her other shoulder then moved round the table to press record. He recited the formal opening of the interview and the officers present. ‘Also present is—’ He frowned and looked at Karen. ‘What do we call him?’

  ‘My name is Daniel Connolly.’ The voice strong and steady.

  ‘Also present is Iain Auld, alias Daniel Connolly,’ Karen said. There was a momentary flash of something behind his eyes as he clocked her accent. ‘Iain Auld, you are attending a police station voluntarily and this an interview under caution.’ She recited the familiar mantra about the right to remain silent and the possible damage to a future defence by doing so.

  He looked her straight in the eye and said, ‘My name is Daniel Connolly and I am a citizen of the Republic of Ireland and you have no right to hold me here.’ He pulled a passport from his inside jacket pocket and slapped it down on the table, the unmistakable clarsach symbol of the Irish Republic on the front cover.

  ‘Three lies already. That’s pretty good going for an opener,’ Karen replied, picking up the passport and thumbing through it as she spoke. ‘Let me correct you. Your name is Iain Auld, you are a UK citizen and I have every right to hold you here to answer questions about crimes you have committed or been an accessory to in various UK jurisdictions.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ he insisted, leaning forward slightly. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am an Irish citizen, I have lived in the same house in Ramelton for ten years and I have no criminal record.’

  ‘Another lie. According to the stamps in your passport, you seem to have spent …’ she made a show of scrutinising it more closely, ‘between three and four months a year in St Kitts and Nevis. A handy wee tax haven, I believe?’

  ‘We have a cottage on Nevis. That’s not a crime.’

  ‘As long as it’s tax avoidance and not tax evasion. A bit more expensive than a fortnight in the Canaries, though.’ She switched tack. ‘Your passport says you were born in Dublin. Your accent says the east of Scotland.’

  ‘I lived in Scotland as a boy. It was the accent I heard around me when I learned to talk.’

  ‘Good try.’ Karen leaned back in her seat and gave him an indulgent smile. ‘It’s over, Iain. Better get used to the idea. You’ve had ten good years of living off the fat of other people’s land, but that’s history now. I can prove you’re Iain Auld in a matter of minutes. Your fingerprints will match the ones we have on file, the ones lifted from your home when your wife reported you missing ten years ago. You remember Mary? She certainly remembers you and it will break her heart when she finds out what you’ve done to her.’

  A muscle in the corner of his mouth twitched but that was the only tell that her words had hit home.

  ‘You might get a good lawyer who would question the validity of the fingerprints, I’ll grant you,’ Karen continued. ‘The same argument with the DNA samples the Met Police took at the time of your disappearance. You might argue against their accuracy, or you might even claim you’d been in Iain Auld’s flat and used his toothbrush. Disgusting, but better to be thought disgusting than a thief, a fraudster and an accessory to murder.’

  The last line jolted him. His lips tightened and she could see his hands ball into fists. But still he said nothing.

  ‘So you maybe think you can still wriggle out from under Iain Auld? Well, I suppose there is a universe where that might enter the realm of the possible. But that’s not this universe. You see, since you did your disappearing act, the science of DNA has come a long way. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the concept of familial DNA?’

  She waited. He said nothing but he blinked more rapidly for a few seconds. ‘I’ll explain it to you, shall I? Close family members share some of their DNA. The closer the relationship, the more extensive the sharing. So you can look at two DNA profiles side by side and say, “These two are siblings. But these two are no more than cousins.” I take it, by the way, that you know your brother Jamie’s dead?’

  He breathed in deeply through his nose and dashed the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘My name is Daniel Connolly. I have no brother.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Karen said gently. ‘We are entitled to take a DNA sample from you right here, right now. Because we are holding you on suspicion of involvement in a homicide. And, Iain? You know as well as I do that your sample will prove that you’re the brother of a murder victim. You’ve got a few hours of hiding behind, “I am Daniel Connolly”, and then it’s truly over. You’ll be facing quite an array of charges. Wasting police time. Theft of art worth millions of pounds from the Scottish national collections. Conspiracy to defraud by replacing the originals with forgeries. Conspiracy to obstruct the police by colluding in David Greig’s fake suicide. Travelling on a false passport. Arson. Money-laundering … Stop me when you’ve had enough. No? Then the big one. Conspiracy to commit murder.’

  Auld maintained his pose but a tiny trickle of sweat crept down one temple.


  ‘You’re taking this very calmly,’ Karen said. ‘But then, I suppose if you’ve aided and abetted the cold-blooded murder of your own brother, this is a walk in the park to you. Your brother Jamie, who was always a friend to you. Always had you in his heart. First you stood by when the finger pointed at him over your disappearance back in 2010. You skulked in your hideout in Ramelton while he faced police interrogation and fingers pointing. Was it you or David who put the bloodstained T-shirt in the bin to incriminate him? Did you secretly hate the brother who loved you?’

  Auld shifted in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. But still he met her gaze. Karen was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to crack. What would it take, she wondered. There had to be the perfect pressure point. But she hadn’t found it yet. ‘Jamie learned one thing from you, though. How to go on the run and become somebody else. You forced him to do what you chose to do. Seven long hard years in the French Foreign Legion fighting other people’s wars while you swanned around being Daniel Connolly in your lovely big house in the country. I bet you didn’t even know where he was or what had happened to him. But then you didn’t care, did you?

  ‘The only person who knew, the only person who actually cared about your loyal brother Jamie was the other person who was loyal to you. Mary. The woman you married. It broke her heart when you vanished into thin air. You didn’t even have the guts to tell her you were leaving her for someone else, you left her high and dry in a wilderness of pain and ignorance. All those nights she lay awake in the bed she’d shared with you, working her way through all the terrible fates that could have happened to you. Because how could she believe you’d condemned her to a fate like that for your own selfish pleasure?’ Karen let the disgust show. ‘What a contemptible piece of shit you are.’

  Now he looked away. He stared up at a corner of the ceiling. ‘My name is Daniel Connolly. I don’t know these people you are talking about and I demand that you release me at once. If you had a shred of evidence of these insane claims, you’d be arresting me.’