Song of the Dead

by Douglas Lindsay

  Phone back up to my ear. Sutherland is talking.

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant,’ I say, cutting him off, ‘didn’t catch all that. Can you start again, please?’

  ‘Gibson was beaten to death. Head pummelled in. To a pulp. The beating continued long after he would’ve died. Whoever did it really didn’t like him.’

  ‘What’d they hit him with?’

  ‘A large crystal ornament – amethyst – that Gibson had in his living room. You know, like you get in these crystal shops. The big chunks of the stuff.’

  ‘He had that in his house?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve spoken to a few people already. They identified it.’

  ‘So the killer didn’t necessarily turn up with the intention of killing him.’

  ‘Or if they did, they were always going to pick something up and hit him with it. Maybe they knew the crystal was there. Maybe they thought they’d just get a knife from the kitchen.’

  ‘Either way, he must have happily let them in.’

  ‘Certainly no sign of the door being forced.’

  Pause to think, to watch the world. At the far end of the carriage, the attendant, or whatever her official job title is, starts another walk through the carriage. Might be time for coffee.

  ‘Anything else? Anything from the neighbours?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘OK, stay on it. You working with Aberdeen?’

  ‘Robertson.’

  ‘Good. Right, let me know if something else comes up. I should be back in the office before eight.’

  ‘How’d it go with Baden?’

  ‘We’re getting there. The Met have got him in custody, and they’ll bring him up in the next day or two. We’ll see how it plays out once he’s spoken to a lawyer.’

  ‘Custody?’

  ‘Admitted his part in an historic body parts smuggling operation. Ultimately the procurator might decide not to pursue it, given that he’s been locked up all this time, but we need to bring him in. Will just have to handle any crap from the press once it starts.’

  ‘Right, boss.’

  I hang up. A spot of rain sprints across the glass at eye level. I turn at the arrival of the attendant.

  ‘Coffee please, just milk.’

  * * *

  I wonder about Gibson. Who has he left behind? Who’s going to be upset by his death? There’s usually someone. Who’s going to be happy about it? If Baden is telling the truth, then it sounds like Gibson might well be a divisive, contradictory character. Using people, playing with people, helping some, casting others aside.

  Spend a couple of hours on the Internet getting into his life, as much as it reveals. He’d published a couple of papers on political party financing (seemingly of no particular use to the investigating police officer, but then, the things he said would have been at odds with big business, and he might well have been in dispute with money and power, so these things have to be checked out), there was some old stuff written by him relating to the Young Conservatives (again, seemingly of little use), and then there were the comments from students on Facebook (potentially very useful). Spend the longest amount of time on that, although ultimately all it does really is confirm the thought I’d had when I’d started, like an exit poll revealing the precise result of a vote. There’s some disgust at him, there’s a lot of love for him. Two girls in particular had a nice Internet slanging match two weeks ago. I note their names, and they will be on the list of people to be interviewed. We can make the assumption that Gibson’s death is related to all the others, but you can never rule anything out. It’s the first time that someone I’ve spoken to in the course of an investigation has subsequently been murdered. I know, happens all the time in television series. Just not to me. Unless we count Rosco, of course, in which case Gibson is the second.

  The train continues up the east coast, running on time, running through the rain. I have a hot sandwich and a can of Diet Coke just before arriving in Glasgow.

  43

  It doesn’t take much sometimes – maybe it never does – to get your mind working. This time, it’s a family of Asians walking through the carriage. They get on at Perth, bundling past, all luggage and enthusiasm and chatter, and then park themselves at a table for four near the end. Amongst them, two women and a young girl talk incessantly, a silent teenage kid, headphones on, stares at a small screen.

  I wonder what nationality they are. Feel like I ought to know. Feel bad, on some level, for not knowing. Like there’s a part of my brain that looks at Asians and thinks they’re all the same. I don’t think that, but then I wonder why I can’t work out which country they come from.

  And it has me thinking of Mrs Waverley, the serene Thai woman, sitting at her window in the house beyond Cromarty, looking out at the waves on the Moray Firth. I hadn’t been thinking about her much, but now that she’s in my mind, now that the thought is there, I have to examine it.

  What made me think about her? The Asian family, that was all. But I’ve just been in London. I’ve seen lots of Asians. What made me think about her right now, at this moment? There must be something. Thoughts don’t present themselves out of nowhere without reason.

  Back online. Different train, have to pay for the privilege this time. Just get on with it. Don’t get very far, as I don’t have her previous name. Get on the phone to Sutherland, as I don’t have notes.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Mrs Waverley,’ I say. ‘Anything further with her.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, not so far. Haven’t really had th–’

  ‘–You said she’d been married before. Can you remember her name?’

  Pause, and then, ‘Yes, yes. It was Cameron, sir. Calls herself Melanie, but her original name was… Just a moment… Those Thai names, sir…’ Hear the rustle of paper.

  ‘Charoenrasamee. I think she still uses it for some things. Not too sure.’

  He spells the name out for me, then says, ‘On to something?’

  ‘Don’t think so, just sitting on the train, looking for things to check up on. You got anything else of note.’

  ‘The pathologist in Aberdeen–’

  ‘–Maxwell?’

  ‘Maxwell. She’s done a preliminary. She thinks the heavy beating inflicted on Gibson might have been done to disguise any indication of the direction and strength of the blows. But there were another couple, high up on the neck, that remained distinct from the general mishmash.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And she thinks the blows were struck by someone considerably shorter than Mr Gibson, possibly a woman.’

  ‘OK, that’s good.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Good to know. Any further thoughts on that?’

  ‘The people around there, they just assume… they say he was something of a Lothario.’

  ‘Yes, I got the same from Baden. Would appear the years never changed him.’

  ‘Obviously they don’t know any of the past stuff, so they’re assuming he’s been killed by some girl that he’s pissed off. Or a jealous boyfriend.’

  ‘Any suspects in particular?’

  ‘Got a couple.’

  ‘OK, good. Make your enquiries, fill me in when I get back.’

  ‘Already back at the station, sir. The Aberdeen guys are handling things.’

  ‘K. See you shortly.’

  Hang up, and then back onto the Internet. Melanie Waverley. Melanie Cameron. Charoenrasamee Waverley. Charoenrasamee Cameron. Cross-checking, ploughing through endless pages, linked from Google. The trouble is, of course, that there’s no reason why she should rank particularly highly. She’s just someone staying in Scotland, whose name has changed a couple of times, and who hasn’t done anything particularly memorable. Unless, of course, she murdered both of her husbands. The Thai name doesn’t show up at all, at least, not with either of these surnames.

  At this stage, I’m not as interested in her as I am in her husbands. I don’t know anything about her first husband. Where he worked, even what he did for a
living.

  Despite the fact that it took several minutes for the phone to finally connect to the Internet, I quickly cut it off and call Sutherland again.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The original husband, Cameron. What was his first name?’

  ‘David,’ he says.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Straight up.’

  Suppose it can’t be that unusual a name, but it’s liable to make it hellish tracking him down on the Internet.

  ‘Date of death?’

  ‘Just a moment.’

  I can hear the rustle of paper again, a slight muttering beneath the breath.

  ‘Sixth December, 2009,’ he says. ‘Alcoholic. Had eviscerated his liver by the time he was forty-five.’

  ‘God… OK, thanks.’

  Hang up again, and back onto the Internet. Even slower to connect this time, as though it’s saying, you had your chance. I find a mention of him pretty quickly, by looking for him and his wife together, but it doesn’t give me much. Keep searching.

  Another mention, another dead end. The night flies by, now through the Highlands, but there’s nothing to see outside except the dark hills, an occasional light. There’s more noise in this cabin, but I’m not paying any attention. Glance out the window and see little more than myself looking back. Another link, click on it and wait.

  ‘Would you like anything to eat, sir? Or drink?’

  Look up. The steward, who’s been on this train since Glasgow, is smiling down at me. He’s kept up the smiling the entire time, even though I ate and drank a tonne on the first leg of the journey and have taken nothing from him so far.

  Look at my watch. It’ll be easier to eat now than stopping off on the way back to the office, even though I’m not that hungry yet.

  ‘You got a sandwich?’

  He continues to smile, even though he’s explained to me before what kind of sandwiches there are, and he must have told the tale of the sandwiches several times now, up and down the carriage.

  ‘There’s a ripe French brie, with Spanish merlot grapes on organic Italian ciabatta, and there’s a roasted Mediterranean chicken with spring vegetables and original Speyside onion marmalade on wholemeal bloomer.’

  We stare at each other for a moment. The smile begins to waver.

  ‘Can I have the chicken, please? And a still water.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He turns to walk back to the end of the carriage, satisfied that he’s finally enticed me to take something, and I look back out at the night, as we begin to slow on the approach to Kingussie. Facing forward now, on this second train, and I watch the station approach, the lights of the town bright in the dark, Highland evening.

  Get lost in the night for a moment. The arrival at a station. Would be nice to finally be getting off, going to stay in some hotel somewhere. Getting up in the morning, a large breakfast, and then out onto the hills for the day.

  The sandwich and water arrive as the train comes to a stop.

  ‘Can I get you some wine or beer? Or a hot drink, perhaps?’

  Maybe they have to keep asking until they get a no.

  ‘I’m fine with this, thanks.’

  ‘Very good.’

  The carriage seems a little quieter, almost as if the passengers are waiting to see if anyone else is going to get on, someone who could ruin the atmosphere. No one does.

  I look back at the phone. The link to another, longer obituary of Melanie’s first husband, David Cameron, is there, and the obviousness of the connection leaps off the small screen, and I wonder how we managed not to find this before.

  The same reason we miss anything. Understaffed. Although, on this occasion it might have something to do with the death of Natterson.

  I contemplate calling Sutherland again, but decide to wait until I get back to the station.

  44

  Almost soaked walking from the car to the front door of the station. When I walk in, Constable Andrews is on the front desk.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ she says.

  I nod in reply, head up the stairs and into the office, taking off my wet jacket as I go. Not many people around. 7:47 p.m. Sutherland at his desk, on the phone. We acknowledge each other as I put my jacket over the chair. I glance at Quinn’s door, but there’s never any way to tell whether he’s there.

  Sutherland shakes his head slightly to indicate that the boss isn’t in, and I sit down. Computer on, will get online quickly, and take another look at what I saw on the train. See if there’s anything else to be established, and then we’re heading back out, to see the serene widow, who will more than likely be sitting at her window in the dark, watching the rain fall, skirling in the wind.

  He hangs up, shakes his head again.

  ‘Aberdeen,’ he says. ‘Still nothing from the neighbourhood. No one saw anybody arrive or leave, nothing suspicious. No one heard anything. Then again, Gibson lived amongst a young crowd, most of whom would have been out at work.’

  ‘Why wasn’t he at work?’

  ‘Not sure. Possibly took a call. He didn’t have a lecture this morning, but he was usually in his office. We don’t know why he went home.’

  ‘So, he returned home? He’d been in the office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Someone must have called him. Do we have his phone records?’

  ‘Already checked his mobile, and there’s nothing significant. We’re waiting on the university. It’s possible that it had been pre-arranged, of course.’

  ‘OK. When are we expecting the university phone records?’

  He shrugs. ‘We’re on it.’

  He looks at his watch and I nod. We’re not getting them now. Need to get back to it tomorrow morning.

  ‘When you were looking into Mrs Waverley’s background, and you found out about her first husband, how much checking did you do?’

  He pauses for a second, sensing that there might be some sort of rebuke in the air.

  ‘Mainly around the circumstances of his death,’ he says. ‘I thought that was what was important, and it seemed all above board.’

  A slight hesitation, then he adds, ‘What did I miss?’

  ‘It’s OK, you’d really have had to dig. Anyway, take a guess at where Mr Cameron, Melanie’s first husband, was working twelve years ago?’ He looks confused for a moment, and then he shakes his head. It’s fair enough. It only seemed obvious to me after I’d read it.

  ‘Aberdeen University,’ I say.

  He looks confused again for a moment, then, ‘Seriously? How did I miss that?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. It was four or five years before he met his wife, so there’s no reason why it should have been of relevance.’

  ‘So, what do we think?’

  ‘At the moment, we don’t think too much, but it places her two dead husbands in the same establishment at the same time. I know, it’s a big place, but this isn’t a coincidence we can ignore.’

  ‘If only everyone wasn’t dead, we could ask someone about it,’ he says.

  ‘Funny. We need to dig deeper. Speak to the engineering department, there must be someone who was there twelve years ago, see if they remember Waverley.’

  ‘Do we go and see her?’

  ‘I was driving from Inverness thinking that, but it’s too early. Let’s see where we can get. Much better turning up at her place armed with some facts, rather than some vague link that she can easily laugh off. Work on it tonight, make some calls in the morning, take it to Quinn. Maybe then we go over there with a full complement. We’ll see.’

  Sutherland nods, then tosses over a photograph he’s got sitting at the top of his in-tray.

  ‘Found this at Gibson’s place. What did he say to you he called them? The Four Musketeers was it? Not very original.’

  I look at the photograph. Baden, King, Waverley and Solomon on a beach. The beach at Aberdeen presumably, although there’s nothing in the background to indicate where
it is.

  I realise I’ve hardly seen any photographs of them. These people we’ve been investigating have been largely faceless, apart from the couple of photos we have pinned to the board. Even Baden, who I’ve met, seems so detached from this young smiling man on the beach. And now, he’s the only one of the four left alive.

  * * *

  As it is, after a few hours online and making calls, we probably have enough to bring Mrs Waverley in for questioning. Eleven o’clock in the evening, and we have Waverley and Cameron, who would both ultimately be married to the same woman, as friends. Not as part of the Conservative gang, and in completely unrelated departments, but they knew each other. Played rugby together. The rugby was the clincher. Always the same with teams. Shared experiences and the number of people who are aware of things that were going on, suddenly get much larger. Waverley and Cameron were tight, even though there were ten years between them, and at least a couple of people knew of them keeping in touch.

  Another check of the clock. Turning up on someone’s doorstep at eleven at night is the preferred approach of many a police officer around the country.

  ‘What d’you think?’ I say to him.

  Sutherland is currently staring at his screen. He looks exhausted. Looks like I feel. Neither of those is a reason not to go and speak to someone who may be a suspect in several murders. Neither is the fact that it’s eleven o’clock in the evening. ‘You’re the boss,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t think she’s going anywhere, and there are a few more people we can contact in the morning, so…’

  Long sigh, wave an undecided hand.

  ‘If she’s not involved, it hardly matters; if she is, we get her in the morning, and it could be we go there with even more than we have now. At the moment we have a piece of circumstantial… whatever. Circumstantial whatever, that’s all we’ve got. But then…’ Wave the hand again, then continue talking. ‘What if she’s involved, but not the killer, and she gets murdered? Tonight. Or, worse, she’s not involved at all, but someone takes her out the game anyway.’

  Stand there nodding at my own words. Look at my watch again.

  ‘Nah, we can’t think like that. We’re not bringing her in tonight, because we hardly have enough to do that. So, what then? We go and see her, talk to her for a while, then likely leave and she’s still alone in her house. And then someone, if they’re going to, can kill her anyway. We’ve got nothing on which to base putting a watch on her house. No, no, we’ll forget it. Go home, get some sleep. If, you know, if she gets killed in the next twelve hours, it’s on me.’