Devil in the Detail (Scott Cullen Mysteries)

by Ed James

  "When was the last time Jamie talked to you about any of this?" asked Lamb.

  "Well, our sessions became more and more tense right up to when he decided to leave my church."

  "Did you ever tell his parents?" asked Cullen.

  Mulgrew scowled. "There was no way I could have told them," he said. "Not directly, anyway."

  "And you definitely did not try and exorcise him?"

  Mulgrew grimaced. "I would have needed parental approval," he said, quickly. "They knew the boy was troubled, just not how much. The boy has the devil in him, as I said. Dealing with Satan himself is way out of my remit. You would need a Bishop to even contemplate such an undertaking, if not the Pope himself, and even then... My little church does not have the resources or the number of believers. One day, hopefully."

  Cullen couldn't help shake the image of Mulgrew's church as some sort of 'Britain's Got Talent' show, aiming for a golden number of followers that would allow him to vote off the devil.

  "Did you not feel you should have gone to them with this?" asked Lamb. "Especially in light of what has just happened?"

  "Perhaps," said Mulgrew. "Hindsight is a blessed thing, though. One can only atone for one's sins in hindsight. And besides, I have been trying to tell you to focus on Jamie Cook."

  "Do you have any way of corroborating any of this?" asked Cullen.

  "Not directly, no," said Mulgrew. "Sergeant Lamb here will tell you how often he has to pick the boy up for some petty crime or other."

  Cullen rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure how much of a correlation there is between paedophilia and youthful criminality."

  "Listen, I suggest that you speak to Jamie Cook about this," said Mulgrew.

  *

  The Church of Scotland building next door to God's Rainbow towered over its neighbour. Cullen thought it looked older than the rest of the town, as if it had grown up around the church. It fascinated him how so many of the congregation had headed to the smaller affair next door.

  Cullen stood in the middle of the cavernous room, listening to Lamb asking questions of the minister, their voices echoing around the space. Andrew Pask was a round man in his mid-50s, a dark beard offsetting the baldness on top, with dark curly hair at the sides only slightly streaked with grey. Cullen himself had more than his share of grey hair already, and he wasn't even thirty.

  As he spoke about his neighbour, Pask seemed to Cullen to be increasingly angry. He had started being placatory, trying for a shrug of the shoulders and a reluctant acknowledgement of the best man winning, but also that he expected to welcome them back into the fold. As Lamb had probed further and deeper, he'd unseated a welt of rage. "The man is a fraud," said Pask. "He is telling a pack of lies, selling religion like a Pastor in some Southern US state. I'm astonished he's not bought TV adverts yet."

  "Why do you say he's a fraud?" asked Lamb.

  "Look, just before he started, I would have in the region of one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty people on a Sunday," said Pask. "That may seem like a lot, but it barely filled this place. I still get seventy on a good week, but you need to look at the people who have left. He hasn't taken those most in need of salvation and redemption, you know. He's taken the bank managers, the accountants, the doctors, the lawyers. We don't charge a tithe in the Church of Scotland but I know that he does." He started stabbing his finger in the air. "Seamus Mulgrew does not have a Vatican City to pay for, does not have a network of churches to pay for. He is taking that money for his own means. Renting that building next door will not be cheap, I tell you."

  "So what is he doing with it?" asked Cullen. "I've seen where he lives, I've seen the car he drives."

  "I should not have to tell you that fraudsters do not always wantonly display their gains."

  "So what do you think he is doing with this money?" asked Cullen.

  "I hear rumours of expansion," said Pask. "I fear that my colleagues in the surrounding area may soon face the same battle that I am just now."

  *

  "You think he's on the level?" asked Cullen.

  They were walking back to the police station, at the crossroads between the High Street and Queen Street, as it began its climb up the Garleton Hills towards the ridge at the top and the row of ancient cottages that sat atop the hill range, now worth well over half a million each.

  "Mulgrew?" asked Lamb.

  Cullen nodded in response.

  "Could be, I suppose," said Lamb. "The story sort of tallies. According to everyone you speak to, Jamie has been a bloody nightmare since he was about 15 years old which tallies with these supposed fantasies."

  "I'm no psychologist," said Cullen, "but it just seems a bit convenient to me."

  "How come?"

  "Well, Jamie Cook is the black sheep of the flock, isn't he?" said Cullen. "He turned his back on their little cult. It's a bit of a stretch accusing him of murdering Mandy."

  "You could be right," said Lamb.

  "What about Pask?"

  Lamb shrugged. "Baseless accusations aren't a particular favourite of mine," he said.

  "You have to admit that there's something funny going on here."

  "You ever heard of the Unification Church?" asked Lamb.

  "No."

  "They are a South Korean Christian cult, I suppose," he said. "They had a centre in Dunbar in the eighties and nineties. This sort of thing isn't unprecedented here."

  Cullen exhaled. "Terrifies the life out of me," he said.

  "Would you rather be dealing with a stabbing in Niddrie?"

  Cullen nodded. "I could do with a comfort zone that isn't Bain going off on one."

  Lamb bellowed with laughter.

  Cullen's phone started ringing again. He took it out of his pocket and checked the number - the unknown caller again. Instead of stroking the red bar to answer it, he pressed cancel and bounced it to voicemail.

  "Do you know anything about the expansion plans for God's Rainbow?" asked Cullen, trying to keep his voice steady. "Somebody mentioned East Linton earlier."

  "They've got pretty much everyone in this town indoctrinated," said Lamb. "Everyone they want, at least. I heard someone say that they're looking to buy the old church hall in East Linton and move in there."

  Once again, Cullen thought of Sharon's sister. It felt like a spider's web was growing around the family, with Mulgrew and Gibson pulling them into the centre, ready to share their bible and counsel the children.

  "How does Mulgrew do it?" asked Cullen.

  "No idea," said Lamb. "Wish I knew. The old bugger must be coining it in. As Pask said, they're all bank managers and lawyers."

  "What did Pask mean by a tithe?"

  "I think it's an old word for a tenth," said Lamb. "Old landowners used to take a tenth of their tenants' incomes. The Catholic Church has the same but it's usually higher than a tenth, I'll tell you that for nothing. I bet Mulgrew has applied it here. And that is a lot of income."

  Cullen pulled one of the pamphlets from his pocket. He inspected the paper again - that sort of printing would be expensive. His flatmate, Tom, was into printing his own t-shirts and had gone through a phase of doing club flyers. One club had wanted to print a load of booklets, some gimmick which explained their philosophy or ethos or something but Tom didn't manage to wangle it any cheaper than a grand for two thousand. Mulgrew's pamphlets were at the high end of the market, in the territory of small printing presses.

  "I'll get Law to look into it," said Lamb, "she's good with stuff like that."

  They walked up to the front of the station. Lamb zapped a Focus that was sitting on the High Street in front of the station, next to Cullen's Golf.

  "I'd best get on, then," said Lamb.

  Cullen opened his door. "Where are you off to?"

  "Going to try and shake down some snouts," said Lamb, "see if I can't find Jamie Cook."

  Cullen watched Lamb drive off as he called his voicemail. He took in the traffic on the street in the early evening darkness as he l
istened to the same bass line and mantra-like vocals. He stabbed his finger on the front of the phone to end the call.

  He noticed the little phone icon had a red one beside it - he had a missed call. He clicked it. The call was from Tom Jameson, his flatmate. He called him.

  "All right, Scotty," said Tom. "That was quick."

  "Sorry, I was on another call," said Cullen. "What's up?"

  "Any danger you could be in tonight at half six?"

  "Not looking likely," said Cullen. "Why?"

  "You know how the boiler's knackered?" asked Tom.

  "Of course I bloody know," said Cullen. A broken boiler in a flat that faced the full onslaught of the North Sea wind as it attacked Portobello was not a good thing. It was probably the main reason that Sharon had hardly spent any nights in their flat.

  "Aye, well, I've got a felly coming round tonight to have a look," said Tom. "I can't make it, got called into an incident at work."

  "Can't Richard do it?"

  Richard McAlpine was their newest flatmate. Johnny Fleming, the previous incumbent of his room, had moved out a few months previously to live with his fiancée, Dawn. Richard had been at school with Cullen and lived in London, working as a journalist, until he'd moved back up north to work on the Edinburgh Argus and research a book.

  "I don't want to ask," said Tom.

  "Well, you'll have to," said Cullen. "I've got a function tonight that I need to be at."

  "Fair dos."

  "You need to learn to trust him," said Cullen. "He's a good guy. Isn't he working from home today anyway?"

  "Aye, I suppose you're right, eh?"

  "I am," said Cullen. "I'd better go."

  "Cheers."

  Cullen ended the call and headed back inside to update Bain.

  DC Murray was sitting in the corner of the Incident Room, stuck in the middle of a phone call, nodding his head frequently.

  Bain wasn't there.

  Cullen spotted Bain's copy of the postmortem report sitting on the edge of a desk. He picked it up and started leafing through it, leaning to sit on the desk. There were truly gruesome pictures of Mandy Gibson throughout, made even worse by the grainy black and white reproduction of the fax machine. It sent a shiver up Cullen's spine. The cold, technical words in the document were in stark contrast to the photography. One shot showed Mandy's lifeless eyes looking at the camera, almost pleading with him to find her killer.

  "Pretty sick, eh?" said Murray.

  Cullen looking up. "That's not the half of it." He took a deep breath. "Stuart, isn't it?"

  "Aye," he replied. "Heard a lot about you."

  Cullen had no idea his reputation - good or bad - had passed into East Lothian. "Really?"

  "One of the lads in Haddington station got called into town to help with that case you were on last year," he said, "the Schoolbook killer, eh?"

  "What was his name?" asked Cullen, his interest piqued.

  "Steven Wright."

  The name meant nothing to Cullen. "Doesn't ring a bell."

  "Aye well," said Murray. "Me and Ewan were trying to get on it but Bill was having nothing of it. Some smack head in Tranent had done his mum in, and that was taking our time up. Heard you cracked it. That right?"

  "I found the killer," said Cullen, "not that it did me any favours."

  "You know that officer that died?"

  "I was with him when he was stabbed," said Cullen.

  His mind suddenly wrenched back to the early August afternoon in Portobello, hearing that blood-curdling scream.

  "Aye, well," said Murray, "us DCs have to stick together, eh? Show the brass how it's done."

  "Tell me about it," muttered Cullen, distracted.

  "Sundance!" came the familiar call of DI Brian Bain from behind. Cullen spun around. Bain was stood in the doorway, papers rolled up in his hand. "Sundance, you're coming with me," he said, ignoring Murray. He then turned around and paced off.

  Cullen had to run to keep up. He caught up with Bain outside the station.

  "What's happened?" asked Cullen.

  "Spoke to the Garda," said Bain, heading down the street to the crossroads. "Just off the phone, in fact. Luckily, I had dealt with some boys from Cork when I was in Glasgow. I did some digging. Turns out that Mulgrew did have gambling debts." He stopped. "The real reason for his defrocking is that Mulgrew had been caught fucking girls."

  seventeen

  Bain hammered the door of God's Rainbow again. "Where the fuck is he?" he shouted.

  "It doesn't look like he's here," said Cullen. He tapped Bain on the shoulder. "Do you have the details of his victims?"

  "There's not a fuckin' website of them," said Bain. "This was all hushed up. The last thing the fuckin' Catholic Church wanted was another paedophile priest scandal."

  "How young were they?"

  "Young enough to not be able to consent."

  "We were just here with him," said Cullen. "Me and Lamb. We asked him about the exorcism."

  "And?" asked Bain, his face red with anger.

  "He pointed us towards Jamie Cook," replied Cullen. "Said he'd told him about some fantasies about abusing children."

  "Jesus fuckin' Christ," said Bain. He kicked the door to the church. No answer. "Do you believe him?"

  "I don't know what to believe," said Cullen. "It was quite detailed what he said."

  Bain shook his head. "You and Lamb should have had that fucker in cuffs."

  Cullen glared at Bain, trying to resist going off the deep end at him. "I'm going round the back," he said, his voice almost level. "He can't have left. It was only ten minutes ago."

  "Be quick," said Bain. He went back to kicking at the door. "I'm calling Lamb, getting the fucker over to Mulgrew's cottage."

  Cullen headed down the narrow lane between the God's Rainbow building and the Alba Bank branch, some light escaping from a side window in the bank. The church had a barred window overlooking the lane. Cullen stood on tiptoes and looked through the window. The building was dark inside. He continued on to the end of the lane - there was a small yard at the back of the church, completely dark. Cullen opened his phone and switched on the torch app - the flashlight on the camera produced a continual glare and lit up the space. It was full of broken glass from vodka and beer bottles. Cullen carefully walked across the ground, careful not to slice open the soles of his shoes.

  The blinds on the back windows were drawn - one was Mulgrew's office and the other was the chapel. Cullen shone his light through both windows. He had a good view of the entirety of the building - there was nobody in there.

  He returned to the front and gave Bain the news.

  "For fuck sake," shouted Bain. "Right, Sundance, you didn't see me do this."

  Bain raised his foot and kicked the front door. It gave after three attempts. He stormed in and turned the lights on. "Mulgrew!" he shouted, as the strip lights flickered to life. No answer.

  Cullen headed through to Mulgrew's office. The room was empty.

  "Fuckin' bastard," snapped Bain.

  Cullen had been getting suspicious about Mulgrew earlier, mostly because of the stuff about the exorcism, and yet he'd let him go. In fact, he thought, he had probably tipped him off; if he had not come here with Lamb, Mulgrew would have been none the wiser. The fact that it was on Bain's instruction was of little consolation to Cullen.

  "Come on," said Bain, "we're goin' to his fuckin' house."

  He was running again, heading towards his car, a block away. They'd only been inside for a minute at most but it had started raining heavily again. The pavements were starting to slick with water. Cullen skidded to a stop beside the car.

  Bain shook his head. "Get the fuck in, you clown."

  The wheels spun as he took off, Cullen wrestling with the seatbelt.

  Bain drove fast. He was up the tail of every driver they encountered in the moderate traffic. Bain took a sharp left up Kilduff Street, heading the back way to Mulgrew's house. He swung around Bangley Road, the houses qu
ickly changing to concrete council houses, all of which were probably now privately owned. Cullen caught occasional glimpses of the yellow glow of the street lights lacing the hills all around them and far away across the Forth, the tributaries in the rivers of sodium light that gave Fife its nocturnal life. They came to the long stretch of Bangley Road where Cullen had earlier watched the school kids.

  'Teenage Kicks' by the Undertones blared out of the stereo at deafening volume.

  "This is my Dad's favourite song ever," said Cullen, his ears feeling like they would start bleeding any minute.

  Bain turned round to glare at Cullen. "Your Dad?"

  "Aye."

  "Fuck age are you, anyway, Sundance?" Bain growled, as he swerved around two double-parked cars, almost hitting an oncoming white Ford van.

  "Twenty-nine," Cullen replied. "Thirty in March."

  "Fuckin' hell..."

  "How old are you?" asked Cullen.

  "Forty-six in August."

  "So I take it you're a punk, then?"

  Bain grinned. "Aye. Well I was. Mind that I was only eleven when 'God Save The Queen' came out..."

  "My Dad was into all of those bands in the 70s," said Cullen. "Still is."

  "What age is he?"

  "Fifty-two."

  Bain laughed to himself. "And they say Policemen are getting younger..."

  They turned left on to the Haddington Road. Bain screeched to a stop by Mulgrew's house. The rusting Volvo was conspicuous by its absence.

  "He'd better fuckin' be in," said Bain. They raced up the path. Bain hammered at the door. No answer. He hammered again. He scowled. "You are fuckin' kiddin' me," he said. He pointed at the door. "Your turn."

  Cullen took a step back, then launched himself at the door, shoulder first. It cracked as he smashed through, the ancient timber rotten. Cullen tumbled to the floor of Mulgrew's hall.

  Bain jumped over him and raced through the house. Cullen followed him into the living room.

  "Not lookin' too promising," said Bain. "You go upstairs, I'll have a butcher's in here."

  Cullen took the stairs two at a time. The first door he tried was a small bathroom with an avocado suite and no shower. He quickly scanned the room; there was no space to hide.