‘Yeah?’
‘It’s Rachel.’
‘You okay? You don’t sound too good.’
‘I’m fine. Listen to me. I need you to get a search warrant. You have to do whatever it takes to get it.’
There was a quiet laugh at the other end of the line.
‘I’ve been waiting for this call for a while but now it’s here, you’ve got me worried. What the hell do you want?’
When she told him, she got nothing but silence from the other end of the phone for a long time. Addison was not a man often stuck for words and she could imagine his face screwed up in disbelief.
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘Nope.’
‘Fucking hell. And you’re not even sure of this?’
‘No. But I think I’m right. I’m as sure as I can be without knowing it.’
He laughed but she heard the strain in his voice.
‘You need to give me something I can take to the Fiscal. I’m not going in there to tell them you’ve got a feeling.’
It was her turn to go silent. She didn’t have much more than that to offer.
‘You need to get it done, Addy. If I’m right . . .’
‘You better be, Rachel. Christ, you better be.’
CHAPTER 69
The narrow streets of Balerno buzzed with early-morning rumour and the rumble of machinery trundling through the village. Curtains were pulled back and tousled heads pressed against glass to see what the hell was going on.
They saw the yellow and blue of police cars as they glided before and after a van loaded with forensic equipment and two others towing heavily laden trailers covered in tarpaulin. It was barely daylight and Police Scotland were going to work.
The cavalcade made its way slowly through the village and didn’t stop until it got to the white-walled cottage at the end. The lead cop car parked a few feet away and two uniformed officers got out and made for the front entrance.
The first of them banged loudly on the door, three crashing knocks that might have wakened the dead. The sergeant paused only briefly before he repeated it. He was pulling back his fist to thump the door for a final time when it opened before him. A tall figure was pulling on a pair of silver spectacles and looking bewildered.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Mr Robert Dalrymple?’
‘Yes. What’s happened?’
The sergeant held up paperwork for the man to see. ‘We have a warrant to search your house and garden. I’m asking you to step aside and allow us to do so.’
The man’s face blanched and he could only stammer. ‘What? Why? No, no. I’m calling my lawyer. You have no right.’
The cop pushed the warrant into Dalrymple’s hand. ‘We do have the right and this will confirm that. You of course have the right to have legal representation present but I suggest you hurry up. We are going to search.’
‘No, you can’t. I won’t allow it.’ Dalrymple started to shut the door but a size-eleven boot was quickly wedged into the space.
‘It really is in your best interest to cooperate, sir. Anything else might be deemed obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty.’
‘And you wouldn’t want that, would you, sir?’ The voice came from behind the cops and Dalrymple looked up to see Addison approach.
‘Are you in charge here? I demand to know what’s going on.’
‘Am I in charge? It’s an interesting question. Some would say never fully. Almost always on the verge of losing control, really. What’s going on is that we have, as the sergeant explained, a warrant to search these premises and we intend to do so. If you want a lawyer present then you have roughly the time it takes to get that lot set up.’
Addison jerked a thumb behind him and Dalrymple followed his gaze to see the men begin to unload the van and the trailer. His eyes locked on the sight of shovels, stakes and planks of wood.
‘I . . . I’m phoning my lawyer. I refuse permission for any of you to enter until she gets here.’
‘Yeah, sure. Sergeant . . .’
The uniform nodded and followed Dalrymple inside, standing over him as the man grabbed the phone and dialled, still protesting in vain. His call was answered and he began jabbering into the phone.
‘It’s Robert Dalrymple . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . I have police at my door with a search warrant. Yes, they’re inside now. No, they haven’t told me. Can you get here? Please, hurry. Okay, okay, I will.’
He slammed down the phone and whirled, eyes blazing.
‘My solicitor is on her way. She wants to validate the warrant and asks that you wait until she gets here before proceeding.’
Addison looked at his watch and shrugged. ‘Sure. I’ve got all day and we’re not going anywhere, Mr Haldane.’
The man flushed. ‘My name is Dalrymple.’
‘Whatever. This search is going to happen whether your lawyer likes it or not. Why don’t you and I have a chat until she gets here? You can save everyone some time and effort. You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you?’
‘What is this all about?’
Addison faked disappointment. ‘Now that doesn’t sound very helpful at all. You know what this is about. It’s about Martin Welsh.’
The name couldn’t have come as a surprise to Dalrymple but he still jumped as if he’d been slapped. His mouth opened and closed, finally twisting into an attempt at defiance.
‘We’ve been through all this. I was cleared. Completely. How dare you bring this up after all this time?’
It was a good question, Addison thought. He dared because he trusted Narey. He had faith in her judgement, even though he knew she wasn’t thinking as clearly as she might. He was putting all his trust and hope in her being right.
The lawyer was there in less than half an hour, looking harassed and angry at having been dragged out of her bed without warning. She demanded to see the warrant and to speak to her client. The sergeant calmly made sure that she could do both. Five minutes after arriving, she was back on the doorstep of the whitewashed cottage and making unhappy noises while admitting she had no power to stop the search.
‘This is completely unnecessary, though, Inspector. This could have been handled quite differently and without this circus at such a time of the morning. My client would have cooperated with any request. You didn’t need to make a dawn raid.’
Addison smiled. ‘I’ve always liked dawn raids, much more exciting. Come on, you can have breakfast in front of the telly any morning. Surely this is more fun. No? Okay, please yourself. I want to have another chat with your client before we get going. Give him a chance to help himself. That okay with you?’
The solicitor looked as though she wanted to argue but didn’t have either the energy or the right. Instead, she smiled sourly and held an arm out towards the cottage interior. ‘Be my guest, Inspector.’
Addison took a few steps inside and found Dalrymple waiting, nervously cleaning his spectacles and scratching at his grey goatee.
‘Do you want to tell me what we’ll find in your garden, Mr Haldane?’
He blustered. ‘I told you. My name is Dalrymple.’
‘Right. Do you want to tell us what we’ll find?’
‘Nothing. You’ll find nothing.’
‘Really?’
The man was furiously debating with himself. Maybe thinking whether to confess, or maybe whether to run or to swing a punch. Addison recognised the fight-or-flight signals and welcomed the possibility of his doing either. Nothing says guilt like trying to hook a cop or jump out of a window.
Dalrymple let him down on that score, though. He flipped his gaze back and forth between Addison and his lawyer, before finally answering.
‘There’s a gravestone. You’ll find a gravestone in the garden.’
‘Whose?’
‘Mart—’ He swallowed hard. ‘Martin Welsh’s. It’s just a headstone. Nothing illegal. I bought it.’
Addison nodded slowly, as if learning this for the first
time, and making a show of looking at the lawyer. ‘I’m not so sure it isn’t illegal, Mr Haldane. Ms Cousins here might confirm that for us. Who did you buy it from? Martin’s family?’
He had the decency to look ashamed. ‘No.’
‘Then from whom?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
Addison laughed loudly. ‘If I had a pound for every time I’d heard that one I’d own my own brewery, but I’ve never heard it said of a gravestone before. It’s a new one, I’ll give you that. Did it fall off the back of a lorry?’
The man said nothing.
‘What else are we going to find, Mr Haldane?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
Addison smiled but inside he was worried: the man sounded convincing this time. They were going to dig a hole for themselves, one way or another.
He went to the front door and waved his arm, beckoning the troops towards him. A succession of uniformed officers and forensics climbed out of their vehicles and a number of them began to climb into white protective suits. Slightly further back, an unmarked car opened and out climbed the only member of the press who’d been given permission to capture the scenes.
Winter had had the law laid down to him. Nothing that would identify officers or forensics personnel, no photographs inside the house or garden. Otherwise, the exclusive is yours. He’d grabbed it gratefully.
He had his camera in his hands and was firing off shots of the cops and crime-scene guys busying themselves around the property, being careful not to show faces. And he’d already captured Dalrymple/Haldane standing, mouth open, on his doorstep with a uniformed cop in his face. As he passed the front door, he moved close to Addison.
‘Is he talking?’
‘Nope. It’s all going to be down to finding something.’
‘And you think we will?’
‘Well we’re soon going to find out.’
CHAPTER 70
The search warrant gave access to Dalrymple’s property by any and all reasonable entry points. It also gave the police the right to bulldoze their way through such entrances if admission was denied. The choice was simple: unlock the gate to the garden or we knock it down.
Dalrymple grudgingly found a heavy iron key and the door edged open slowly and noisily, as reluctant as its owner. For the first time in many years, it shook off its rust and rolled back to let the world inside.
Winter watched with mounting frustration. He’d readily agreed to his exclusion from the garden as it had been non-negotiable, but now he was regretting it. He had front-page pictures in the bag, but the real money shot was inside the wall and out of view. And it was more than just the photograph: it was what it would mean. He wanted to know that as soon as it was revealed, and he needed it to be right. Being stuck outside was going to strain what was left of his nerve.
His phone had already vibrated a few times in his back pocket but he’d largely ignored it. He knew it was her, demanding updates, anxious to know if she’d been right. He’d sent one reply to say the cops were inside but that was it. There was nothing more he could tell her and nothing he could do. It was out of their hands.
‘Where did you get this from?’
Addison was kneeling in front of Martin Welsh’s headstone, brushing aside the foliage to trace the lettering with his right hand.
Beloved son . . .
Loving brother . . .
Never forgotten.
Dalrymple shared glances with his solicitor and Addison knew she’d briefed him on what to say.
‘I bought it.’
‘Have you remembered who you brought it from?’
‘I never knew his name.’
‘And you never asked.’
‘No.’
‘But you knew it was stolen? That it had been taken unlawfully from Calderrigg cemetery?’
He looked at his lawyer again and she gave the slightest of nods.
‘Yes. I knew that there was a chance it had been stolen.’
‘A chance?’ Addison laughed in his face. ‘Yeah, a very good chance. Robert Dalrymple, also known as Alastair Haldane, I am charging you with the crime of reset in that you did receive and keep property knowing that it has been appropriated by theft. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be noted in evidence. Do you want to say anything else?’
Dalrymple shook his head.
‘I thought not. Okay, Ms Cousins I’d like you and your client to move inside the house, please. This may take some time and you can view proceedings from the window. But I need you to move. Now.’
Addison waved an arm and a stream of officers filed through the garden door. They carried shovels, stakes, hard hats and harnesses; others carried plastic buckets and blue tarpaulin sheets. Finally, two pairs of cops squeezed through, the first carrying a jackhammer and the second pushing a contraption that look like a modified, hi-tech shopping trolley. Fresh alarm spread across Dalrymple’s face.
‘You’re digging up the headstone? Why? Why take it away? It won’t serve any purpose.’
‘We’re not digging up the headstone – not yet, anyway. We’re digging up your garden.’
‘You’ll ruin it. It’s taken years to get it like this. You can’t!’
‘Watch me. But do it from inside the house.’
The lawyer broke in. ‘This is beyond the scope of any reasonable warrant, Inspector. This is harassment. We will sue.’
‘If we don’t find anything, then be my guest.’ Addison sounded more confident than he felt but they had no option but to go on. They’d be hung for the lamb, they may as well be hung for the sheep.
The machine that was shaped like a low-slung shopping trolley was, in fact, ground-penetrating radar equipment. A yellow and black monitor was fixed to the handles that steered it and wires attached that to what looked like two large, yellow batteries, and from there to two pieces of metal that were flat to the ground.
An engineer got behind it and walked the machine across the lawn near the headstone. His eyes never left the monitor and no one’s eyes left him. He repeated the manoeuvre, his expression never changing, no matter how much Addison tried to read it.
When he’d finally finished, he approached Addison, his shoulders already forming a discouraging shrug.
‘I can’t be sure. There’s a lot of clay in the soil and that’s not ideal for making a reading.’
‘Christ! Has the ground been disturbed?’
‘Probably. But not necessarily in the way you’re hoping.’
‘Is there anything down there?’
‘Nothing in the first few feet. After that I can’t be sure. I’m reading something but my guess is that it’s rocks. It’s got to be your call.’
Addison lifted his head to sigh and locked eyes with the lawyer, who was staring at him through the cottage windows. Safe to say she didn’t look very happy. His call.
‘Fuck it! Sergeant Lyons, get your men started. We’ve got a hole to dig.’
The job was laborious. They took the radar at its word and used the jackhammer to burst through the first few feet of soil, but, after that, men dropped into the resulting hole with shovels and proceeded at a much slower and more careful pace.
Planks of wood were laid across the hole and sheets of tarpaulin laid down to collect the shifted dirt. Every shovelful of earth was sifted, analysed and metal-detected. For an hour, every one of them came up blank.
Addison kept them going, switching the men doing the digging every half-hour and encouraging them to work as quickly as they could. They were down five feet and his own belief was dwindling.
He’d turned away from the dig and from the penetrating stare of Dalrymple’s lawyer, and was now looking out over the back wall into the woods. Maybe if he just climbed that wall and ran, they’d never find him. It was beginning to sound like an inviting alternative to getting his balls chewed off by everyone from Kelbie to the DCS and the lawyer.
That was when
he heard it.
A clang of metal against something hard and resistant. The noise swept the garden and everyone inside the walls froze instantly.
‘It’s brick or rock,’ the cop in the hole announced. He jabbed his shovel a couple of feet away from where he’d just struck and got the same result. ‘There’s a whole layer of it.’
Addison waved the radar engineer back over and the man eased his way
The engineer was lowered down into the hole and knelt on the bottom layer so he could brush away soil with his hand. He stood up again almost immediately.
‘Rocks. That’s what I was reading. But these aren’t here naturally. I think you want to dig them out.’
‘Too right I do. Keep going, lads. But take your time.’
Shovels were replaced by trowels and the two cops in the hole scraped space round each small rock – their work lit by torches on the hard hats – passing them up by hand then tackling the next. They concentrated on a foot-square area, desperate to see how far the rocks went.
‘That’s it,’ one of the cops shouted up. ‘The layer is about three rocks deep but I’m through it. There’s soil again. I’m going to scrape that away, too.’
It was just moments later when the same officer stood up and faced Addison, who was peering into the hole from its edge.
‘There’s something just below this layer of soil. We’ll need to take all of those rocks out to get at it properly but . . .’
‘But?’
‘But, from what I can feel and see, it’s a cotton blanket and there’s something wrapped in it. I got a handful of it and I’d swear it’s bones. There’s a body buried under there.’
Addison turned to the window and saw Dalrymple standing beside his lawyer. His eyes were firmly closed.
CHAPTER 71
The work to remove the remaining rocks took over an hour. The two cops in the hole worked as fast as their fingers and the space allowed, trying to keep their bodyweight on the edges and not press down any further on what was below. Two further officers stood either side of Robert Dalrymple to ensure he didn’t feel the need to leave.
As the bottom layers of rock were exposed, one of the two cops climbed out, leaving his colleague to finish the job. He lifted the rocks one by one, revealing a surface of soil that was broken sporadically by dirty spears of cotton pushing through from below.
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