Poisoned Cherries ob-6

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘I told you at the time what I did; basic first aid stuff. I checked for a pulse, but he was as cold as the floor, stone ginger; I knew it right away.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual about him? Anything at all?’

  I began to see where this was headed, but I could do nothing but think back, and answer. ‘His face was purple and he was dead; that’s pretty unusual in my book.’

  Morrow gave me a flicker of a smile. ‘I’ll be more specific. Did you notice any marks on him?’

  ‘Nothing caught my attention.’

  ‘Did you touch anything in the hall?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you remove anything from the house?’

  ‘Only myself, as soon as I could.’

  ‘Fair enough. Now, when you found the body, how did Ms Goodchild react?’

  ‘She was shocked. She screamed, sort of.’

  ‘Did you scream?’

  ‘Not that I recall. I think my exact words were “Fucking hell”.’

  ‘Her reaction; it was instinctive, yes?’

  I glanced at the young DC, then back at Morrow. ‘Remember when you got there, the floor was wet?’ He nodded. ‘She wet herself; that strikes me as pretty instinctive.’

  ‘It would seem so; yes. She changed clothes, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah. You saw what she was wearing when you got there; his dressing gown. She took her clothes with her in a bag when she left with your people.’

  The young sergeant leaned forward, a lock of dark hair fell over his forehead. ‘That was my recollection too; I’m glad you confirmed it.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  He replied with another question of his own. ‘Did you ever meet David Capperauld when he was alive?’

  ‘I never even heard of him when he was alive.’

  ‘Before last Sunday, when was the last time you saw Ms Goodchild?’

  ‘Four years ago.’

  ‘Did it strike you as odd when she contacted you?’

  ‘Yes it did, until she explained that she wanted me to do her a business favour.’ I told him about Torrent and his ultimatum, and about David’s feud with his cousin.

  ‘So how did you come to go with her to Union Street?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘She told me her troubles. She and the boy hadn’t been hitting the high notes, and she was worried about him not having turned up at the office for a few days. I told her that if she wanted to have another go at fronting him up, I’d come with her. It was a game, really, to see if he’d answer the door to me, rather than her.’

  ‘I see.’ Ron Morrow nodded and stood up; the silent DC Green, who had been taking notes all through the conversation, did the same. ‘Okay, Oz, that’s fine. Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to us. We may need you to make a formal statement. I’ll call you if we do.’

  I laughed. ‘No, no, no, Ron. I’m not walking out of here till you tell me what this is all about.’

  Morrow looked at me for a long time, as if he could tell by looking at me whether it was safe to trust me.

  ‘Okay,’ said the young detective, finally, ‘but in strict confidence. Don’t tell anyone about this. .’ He held my eye with a stare which I took to be meaningful. ‘. . Especially anyone involved.’

  I knew what, and who, he meant. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘We got the PM report on David Capperauld this morning; he died of a cerebral incident all right. It was caused by someone ramming a needle-like implement into his brain through the base of his skull. He was killed instantaneously; that’s why there was no blood. There wasn’t a mark either, other than the puncture wound the pathologist found above his hairline.’

  I’d guessed it had to be something like that, but I still whistled. ‘When?’ I asked.

  ‘The time’s been fixed as last Wednesday evening. Just for the record, can you tell me where you were then?’

  I thought back. ‘Sure, I was in Glasgow, with my baby daughter, my girlfriend and her father.’

  ‘That’s fine. You understand I may have to check that out.’

  ‘Feel free.’ I gave him Susie’s phone number.

  As I stood there, I found myself hoping that Alison had an alibi too.

  Chapter 19

  I thought about phoning her to tip her off, but didn’t, because I had given my word to Ron Morrow. Instead, when I got back to the apartment, I phoned Susie.

  The sergeant had been diligent, right enough; he’d called her almost as soon as Ross and I had left Gayfield Square.

  ‘What the hell was that about?’ she asked, indignant as well as curious.

  When I told her, she let out a soft whistle. ‘Do you think your ex set you up to find him?’ she asked.

  I gaved her the same answer I had given Morrow. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured, with a dark chuckle. ‘A girl would have to have pretty good bladder control to fake that. Still. .’ She paused. ‘. . Some girls do.’

  ‘No,’ I insisted, ‘she was just plain terrified.’

  ‘If she had a key, why did it take her so long to go into the place?’

  ‘Who knows? I just don’t think there was anything suspicious about it, that’s all.’

  Ricky Ross, who was sitting on the couch drinking a beer and eating a sandwich, gave me a sceptical look.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ I asked him when I’d hung up.

  ‘Once a copper, always a copper, Blackstone,’ he said. ‘Nine times out of ten when a guy’s found dead like that, it’s a domestic.’

  ‘Here, wait a minute; I was a copper too, once.’

  He looked at me again; scornfully this time. ‘No, you weren’t. You were only a probationer, and you were no fucking good at it. That doesn’t count. No, if I was Ron, I’d be having your girl Alison in for a good long chat.’

  I could imagine him doing it too, and since, clearly, he was Morrow’s mentor, from being mainly annoyed that she had got me into all this nonsense, I began to feel sorry for her.

  I checked my watch and reached for the phone. ‘Hey,’ said Ricky, ‘you promised Ron you wouldn’t tip her off.’

  ‘I’m not going to.’

  Instead I dialled Miles; he had big bucks invested in the project and he was entitled to know about everything that affected it in the slightest, especially the fact that a member of the cast of his cop movie had been interviewed by the real police about a murder.

  It was very early in California but he was up and about. ‘If you’d left it much later you wouldn’t have caught me. We leave for the airport in a couple of hours.’

  ‘When do you get to Edinburgh?’

  ‘I’ll be there by ten a.m. Thursday to meet up with this guy Ross. We’ll arrive in Scotland early tomorrow morning, but we’re going straight up to Dawn’s folks’ place with Bruce and Maria, his nurse. Elanore and David are going to have their grandson for the duration. We’ll rest up to get over the jet-lag the best way we can, then come down to meet up with you in the morning.

  ‘Dawn’ll check into the Caledonian; I’ll come to your place.’

  ‘You could stay here,’ I offered, out of habit as much as anything else.

  ‘Thanks, buddy,’ he said, ‘but you need your space, and so will we. You don’t want to be living with the director. It’s a bad idea.’

  There were other reasons too, but he didn’t need to spell them out. Instead, he asked me if that was the only reason I had called.

  ‘Wish it was. No, the movie’s had another bit of vicarious publicity, and it’s my fault again.’

  I explained what had happened, in detail. Miles didn’t say a word until I was finished. ‘Has our security guy been on our side?’ he asked.

  I saw no harm in putting in a word for Ricky; sooner or later Miles would remember their past connection. ‘Very much so; he smoothed the way today at the police station. He still has strong connections in the force.’

  ‘That’s good. I’ll thank him in person when I meet him.’ He sighed. ‘Capperauld’s cousin, eh. Could y
ou wind up being a witness?’

  ‘Probably; I found him. But even if the police charge someone quickly it’ll take months before the case comes to trial.’

  ‘Okay, no worries, then.’ I heard him grunt. ‘Well, maybe there’s one. I use a PR agency as publicists on all my UK projects. Part of their brief is to let me know whenever anything affecting me, even remotely, hits the press. They should have told me about this story by now, but they haven’t.

  ‘This friend of yours; do you think she could do the job?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I honestly don’t know, Miles. Maybe you should take a day or two to think about that. She’s just lost her partner; could be she’d struggle with that sort of responsibility.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. Hey, you’ve changed, buddy. In the past you’d have said hire her just because she’s female. No harm in sounding her out though.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I said, noncommittally. Then I thought of something else. ‘Do you have a contact number for Ewan Capperauld? I want to touch base with him on something.’

  ‘Sure. He and his wife are staying with his parents; I’ve got his number noted somewhere. I’ll send you an e-mail before we leave.’

  ‘Fine.’ I hung up the phone.

  Ricky Ross had finished his sandwich. ‘Thanks for putting in the good word with the boss,’ he said.

  ‘Remember it.’

  ‘What do you want to talk to Ewan about?’

  ‘I told Sergeant Morrow about it; a business thing, the reason Alison wanted to see me.’ I sketched in the part of the story I had left out before, explaining the feud between the Capperauld cousins, and her predicament with James Torrent. When I was finished, Ross frowned. ‘I didn’t know about that,’ he muttered, as if the omission was a personal affront.

  ‘Thank Christ you don’t know everything,’ I snorted.

  ‘I try to, though, Oz; I do try.’

  ‘Why are you so interested in Ewan anyway?’

  ‘I’m handling his personal security while he’s in Edinburgh. It’s part of the contract; his, Mr and Mrs Grayson’s, Steele’s, Massey’s, the Japanese guy’s, the Waitrose girl’s and yours.’

  ‘Mine?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Aye. You’re a VIP now, son. I’ve got a team looking after all the principal cast members. Ewan Capperauld’s round the clock, and so will the Graysons be when they arrive, and the Japanese guy. The rest of you will have people responsible for you when you’re filming on the streets, and you’ll be given a number you can call if you’re being pestered.

  ‘Everyone will be told about the arrangements at the briefing on Thursday; apart from Mr Capperauld, that is. He knows already.’

  Something clicked in my brain. ‘Ricky, how did you get this gig?’

  ‘Through a guy I know from the old days; a bloke called Mark Kravitz. You’ll never have heard of him.’

  He was wrong there; I know Mark all right. I’ve seen him in action too. He had worked for Miles on my first film project, when we’d had a bit of trouble. He’s a man of mystery, and he has contacts all over the place, both sides of the fence, top to bottom.

  If Ricky Ross was involved with him, maybe he deserved a new degree of respect.

  ‘Do you want Mr Capperauld’s contact details?’ He took a diary from his pocket, flipped through it, then wrote an Edinburgh address and a phone number on the front page of my script, which was lying on the coffee table.

  He drank the last of his beer and stood up. ‘Better be going,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire just now.’ He scratched his chin. ‘I wonder if young Ron’s making anything out of the argument between the two Capperaulds? I don’t know if it was wise to let that slip,’ he mused.

  ‘Don’t be daft. He’s not going to go after Ewan Capperauld.’

  ‘I fucking would,’ Ricky grunted.

  He was just about to leave, when the phone rang again. ‘Yes,’ I said, as I picked it up. I never give my name these days when I answer a call.

  ‘Mr Blackstone?’ It was a woman’s voice, high and twittery, and full of panic.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is Mrs Goodchild, Alison’s mother. She’s in terrible trouble.’ She started to cry, on the other end of the line.

  ‘Okay, okay, okay,’ I exclaimed. ‘Now please try to calm down, and tell me what this is about.’

  I had met Alison’s mother a couple of times when we had been going out. She had been a widow for a couple of years then, and she hadn’t been handling it well. Alison had said that she had been flaky at the best of times. Listening to her burble on the phone, it was clear that she hadn’t improved.

  ‘Mrs Goodchild,’ I said. Ross’s eyebrows rose. ‘Please. Take a couple of deep breaths, and try to control yourself.’

  Eventually she could speak again. ‘Alison called me,’ she said. ‘She’s with the police, and they’ve arrested her. She phoned me just a minute ago and asked me to call you and tell you. She said you’d help her.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ I murmured.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Goodchild,’ I replied, quickly. ‘Of course I will. Now you just calm down; take a pill, or have a brandy or whatever, and try not to worry. I’ll sort everything out.’ I sounded like the Wizard of, rather than just Oz.

  ‘I’ll call you later.’

  I hung up and looked at Ricky. ‘Do me a favour and come with me.’

  ‘Sure, but where are we going?’

  ‘Back to Gayfield; I might need you to use your influence with your protege.’

  Chapter 20

  The woman in the public office looked a little more hesitant this time when ex-Detective Superintendent Ross marched in and asked to see Detective Sergeant Morrow.

  ‘I’ll see if he’s available, sir,’ she said, reaching for a telephone.

  ‘He’s available,’ Ricky snapped. ‘Now go and get him.’ Her face flushed up; but she stood and did as she’d been told.

  ‘Did you really leave the force?’ I asked him. ‘They don’t act as if you did.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘If you’d been a fly on the wall at the last discussion I had with the former chief constable, you wouldn’t ask that. The only choice the old bastard gave me was whether I resigned as a superintendent or was kicked out as a sergeant.’ He smiled, grimly. ‘I had my supporters, though; coppers who’ve actually been out on the trail of villains, rather than building their careers pushing paper.

  ‘When I left, they had a big dinner for me in the King James Hotel. It was organised by the Superintendents’ Association. They invited the boss man, but he declined, so we drank a toast to him in his absence, only none of us stood up for it.

  ‘There’s a new chief now, a bright, young guy; he was a detective sergeant under me before he went south for a spell, so my face fits again, even in the executive corridor.’

  The constable reappeared, stone-faced, with Morrow following her. He beckoned us through, and led us into the CID office. ‘For fuck’s sake, sir,’ he began. ‘I’m in the middle of an interview.’

  ‘We know you are,’ Ricky replied, ‘and we know who you’ve got in there. You let her phone her mother, and she phoned Oz in hysterics. Now is the lassie getting home tonight, or what?’

  Morrow took in a breath, then let it out. ‘I don’t know. It’s actually the second time we’ve interviewed her today. I had her in this morning before I saw you. She’s been formally arrested, and cautioned, but we haven’t charged her yet.’

  ‘What are your grounds?’ I asked.

  It was as if the sergeant was answering Ross. ‘First she doesn’t have an alibi for last Wednesday, and she’s lying about it. She told me at her first interview that she was at home, but we’ve checked with the taxi firm that has a contract with her company, and they’ve got a record of her being picked up that evening and being taken back to her office. It’s in York Place, and you could spit from there to David Capperauld’s flat.

  ‘On the back
of that, we got a warrant from the sheriff to search her house.’ He reached into a drawer in his desk, took out a clear plastic bag. ‘We found that.’

  We leaned over and looked down; it was a carpenter’s awl, small and needle-pointed, with a red wooden handle.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘I used to have one of those. My Dad still has. Why shouldn’t Alison, or are girlies not supposed to have DIY tools?’

  ‘That one was found in her house, but it has David Capperauld’s prints on it. . and one of hers.’

  ‘They were engaged. Maybe he helped her put up a curtain rail or something.’

  ‘And maybe he cut himself when he did it,’ Ron Morrow retorted. ‘It also appears to have blood on it.’

  ‘Maybe he did cut himself.’

  ‘And hair.’ Finally, the sergeant looked at me. ‘I’m sorry, Oz, but there’s a real chance that’s the murder weapon. I’m just waiting for someone from the lab to come and collect it. They should be able to tell us for sure.’

  ‘It might take a while, though,’ Ricky pointed out. ‘Can you not let the girl out on police bail meantime?’

  ‘I’m scared she’d abscond.’

  ‘Release her into her mother’s custody then.’

  Morrow’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Have you spoken to her mother? She’s a Mr Kipling job.’ Even I had to agree with that; there was a strong hint of exceedingly good fruitcake about Alison’s mum. ‘I might release her into someone else’s custody, though. How about you, Oz?’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ I protested. I thought about Susie, and, for all her independence, and her hands-off approach to me, about how she might feel about Alison spending a night or maybe more under my roof. Furthermore, what if she had bumped off Capperauld? All round, I felt uneasy. ‘I’m not fucking idle here; I’ve got work to do,’ I told him, grabbing the easiest cop-out I could.

  ‘It’s the only way,’ said Morrow, firmly.

  I looked at Ricky, then shook my head. ‘Yeah, I know, Mrs Ross wouldn’t have it either.’

  He snorted. ‘Mrs Ross hasn’t been having it for a while: at least not off me. There is no Mrs Ross, not at the moment. Okay, I’ll be responsible for the woman, for tonight at least.’