Devil in the Detail (Scott Cullen Mysteries)

by Ed James

  Russell folded his arms. "That's true."

  "Were you involved?"

  "No," said Russell, decisively. "Father Mulgrew performed the exorcism. Mandy's father and Robert Cook assisted."

  "What were you doing at that point?" asked Cullen.

  "I was just sitting with my wife and daughter, trying to not get involved," said Russell.

  "I see," said Cullen. "Does this sort of thing happen often?"

  "It's the first time I've seen it, certainly."

  "Did you see or hear anything unusual before or after?" asked Cullen.

  "I'm afraid not," said Russell. "It was like any other Sunday morning."

  "You didn't hear anything between Father Mulgrew and Charles Gibson, for instance?" asked Cullen.

  "No."

  Cullen knew he wasn't getting anything more out of him on the exorcism. "When was the last time you spoke to Father Mulgrew?" he asked.

  "Just before the ceremony yesterday," said Russell. "Can I ask why?"

  "We're just checking up on a few things, that's all," said Cullen. He turned to a new page in his notebook. "What can you tell about the counselling that Father Mulgrew gives the children?"

  "I would say that it is one of the best things that has ever happened to the community," said Russell. "In all honesty, I would say that it has certainly helped Susan to achieve top grades."

  "Can I ask what particular trauma that Susan is overcoming?"

  Russell didn't respond.

  "Is there one?" asked Cullen, starting to lose patience.

  "No."

  Cullen shared a look with Caldwell. She looked uninterested in the interview.

  "What can you tell me about Seamus Mulgrew?" asked Cullen.

  "What do you want to know?" asked Russell. "You seem very interested in him."

  "We're looking to verify a few statements."

  Russell gave a deep sigh. "Seamus is a strong and kind man," he said. "He has taken what was once a broken community and turned it right around. It is no coincidence that this town has the top performing school in the Lothians."

  "Are you sure?" asked Cullen.

  "Absolutely."

  Cullen leaned across the desk. "What if I told you that Seamus had been defrocked as a priest in Ireland?"

  "I know that he was," said Russell. "He was an outspoken critic and thought that the Catholic Church and other mainstream Christian religions had lost their way. Quite rightly as well."

  "Did he tell you the real reason?" asked Cullen.

  "I'm telling you now," said Russell, "the real reason is that they removed him because of his words."

  "What if I now told you that the public reason for his laicisation was that he had substantial gambling debts?" asked Cullen.

  "I'd say that was a good cover story," answered Russell, looking tired and irritated.

  "For who?" asked Cullen. "The church or Mulgrew?"

  Russell smiled, though Cullen thought that it was more condescension than humour. "The church."

  Cullen turned over a piece of paper on the table. "Did you know that the real reason he was laicised was that he had been abusing children?" he said.

  Cullen spotted Russell's Adam's apple bob up and down quickly. He licked his lips slowly. "I'm sorry?" he asked, his eyes almost screwed up.

  "On this piece of paper," said Cullen, pointing at the highlighted marks on the sheet, "are the results of Operation Stingray which relate to Seamus Mulgrew and a few other Priests. He had been investigated by the Garda in Ireland and their findings were presented to the Bishop in Cork."

  "That seems like a slur on a perfectly good man," said Russell. "My faith in Seamus is resolute. I believe him and his word more than I do the Irish police or the Catholic Church. This fantasy you have that he was a paedophile, just so that you can get a quick result, is deplorable."

  "He told Charles Gibson," said Cullen.

  "Did he now?" Russell leaned back in his chair. Cullen thought that he seemed bored.

  Cullen nodded slowly, trying to appear in control. He could feel that his shirt was damp from sweat again - it had only just dried. He had been pushing these people on their religious views all day, trying to find out what the hell was actually going on, but no-one had pushed back as strongly as Scott Russell, not even Charles Gibson.

  "Do you know where he is?" asked Cullen.

  "No," replied Russell. "I work in Edinburgh. I was on the half seven train this morning, and I've just got home. I'm hungry and I wouldn't mind seeing my family."

  "Did Father Mulgrew speak to you about Jamie Cook?" he asked, trying to divert the questioning.

  Russell sighed. "The whole town speaks of Jamie Cook," he said. "The boy is pure evil, a bad influence on all of the other kids in this town. We were glad when he left the group. I didn't want his poison affecting Susan." He picked up the sheet of paper and looked down it. "You know something? I just realised that Mandy's disappearances started up around the same time that Jamie left the group."

  "What are you saying?" asked Caldwell, suddenly animated.

  "That might have triggered Mandy's night wanders."

  Cullen noted it down.

  "Can I go?" asked Russell.

  Cullen nodded. "For now."

  "Well, if I were you," said Russell, "I would be looking at him as the prime suspect, not a good, honest man like Seamus."

  twenty

  Cullen had never been inside DCI Jim Turnbull's office before - their encounters were mainly at the front door, around Bain's desk or in one of the Incident Rooms. Turnbull had somehow managed to acquire a corner office on their floor in Leith Walk police station, the gleaming new building which regularly attracted strong criticism from the local press in these straitened times. The office looked down to the flow of red and white lights on Leith Walk and across to Brunswick Road, now slicked with rain in the early evening gloom. Cullen had worked for an insurance company before he joined the police and had spent three months in the Brunswick Road mailroom.

  Turnbull, already in full Highland dress ahead of the Burns Supper, sat behind his large desk. It was decorated with pictures of his family and some rugby memorabilia. A large photograph of the Victorian bridge leading into Melrose filled the bulk of a wall, underneath sat a long thin panorama of Murrayfield stadium taken in the early evening. Bain sat immediately opposite Turnbull, flanked by Irvine and Cullen, with Caldwell sitting off to the side. They sat and listened as the two senior officers continued their seemingly endless battle of wills.

  "Brian, Brian, Brian," said Turnbull, already weary of Bain's continual excuses. "We've been here before with you. You need to start squaring the circle with Lamb. He has a central role to play in this investigation. He knows the lay of the land."

  "The circle is square enough," said Bain.

  Turnbull screwed his eyes up. "Brian, that doesn't mean anything," he said. "You need to be able to work with officers like DS Lamb."

  "I can work with him," said Bain. "It's him that has a problem with authority."

  "Maybe your authority is what he has the problem with."

  "Aye, well," said Bain, "it doesn't help either of us if we've got a loose cannon running around doing what he wants."

  "Brian, you are fishing in the wrong pond here," said Turnbull. "I'm warning you now."

  "I'm just sayin'," said Bain. "He's a loose cannon."

  "Brian, I've been given operational command of DS Lamb and his officers for as long as it takes for you to secure an arrest in this case," said Turnbull. "I hope that is soon."

  "If it's not soon, Jim," said Bain, "I'm warning you now, it'll be because of Lamb."

  Turnbull shut his eyes and took a long breath. "Brian, in lieu of you being able to obtain the buy-in of the local CID," he said, his voice recovering the smooth calm, "can we do a deep dive on the case, in particular the two suspects you have?"

  Bain gave him detailed outlines of Mulgrew and Jamie Cook, giving Cullen a chance to make some notes as he tuned Bain an
d Turnbull out. Cullen didn't know why Turnbull had them all in his office, rather than just Bain, but part of him was relishing watching Bain squirm at every answer that Turnbull forced out of him.

  Cullen couldn't work out who the most likely suspect was - Mulgrew with his child abuse past, or Cook with his alleged fantasies and access to Mandy. Cook's continued absence was seriously hampering the investigation and the longer he evaded them, the guiltier Cullen thought he was - if you've nothing to hide, why hide? Cullen didn't want them to jump to conclusions about Mulgrew, either - he had seen before what would happen when Bain latched onto a suspect with insufficient evidence.

  "Thanks," said Turnbull. "Okay, let's turn the hothouse around here. Which of the two suspects is your favourite?"

  Cullen clocked that Bain was still frowning, most likely at the two phrases Cullen had never heard of - 'hothouse' and 'deep dive'. No doubt both would be added to the office bullshit bingo the senior officers played - Turnbull's mouth being the bingo caller.

  "I'm currently edgin' more towards Jamie Cook," said Bain. "For the main part, Mulgrew has five or six character witnesses that we'd need to navigate."

  "You do have the information from the Garda in your locker, Brian," said Turnbull. "If we have to mount a rearguard action then I'm prepared to, you know that."

  "I will bear that one in mind," said Bain.

  "What do you have on the Cook boy then?" asked Turnbull.

  "A police record longer than your arm before he's 18 for starters," said Bain. "Plus we've got statements from Mulgrew alluding to some child abuse fantasies that he had."

  "I'm not sure that's a particular path we want to walk down," said Turnbull, "offsetting one suspect against the other."

  "Charles Gibson could back them up if pushed, I would suspect," said Bain.

  "Brian, he's a grieving father," said Turnbull, "is that an avenue we should traverse?"

  "We might have to," said Bain. "Cook had potential access to the child. He had sleepovers with Mandy's brother, Thomas."

  "And Mulgrew?"

  "We're working on that," said Bain.

  "Have you obtained statements from the pair of them?" asked Turnbull.

  Bain closed his eyes. "Both of them have gone to ground."

  "Both?" said Turnbull. "Jesus Christ, Brian, are you seriously telling me that you've lost both of your suspects already?"

  "Well, to be fair," said Bain, sitting forward in his chair, "we've had a call out all day on Jamie Cook, and Mulgrew disappeared after we learnt about his defrocking."

  Turnbull shook his head slowly, in disbelief. "This is going south, isn't it?" he asked, looking at Cullen and Irvine for confirmation.

  "To be fair, sir," said Irvine, "we've only been at this since this morning. Can't expect us to work miracles."

  "Sergeant Irvine, the general public does expect us to work miracles, I'm afraid," said Turnbull, in a sharp condescending tone. "I'm not entirely sure that the press would deem us being able to keep a trace on two people in a small town as working miracles, either." Turnbull looked at Cullen and leaned back in his chair. "Cullen - thoughts?"

  "We need to find Jamie Cook as a priority," said Cullen. "Either way, whether he did it or not, I would say that he's the key to this case."

  Turnbull locked eyes on Bain again. "Why haven't we found him?" he asked. "Garleton is a small town. I'm sure Lamb and his boys can shake down their black books at the drop of a hat and rustle him up."

  "Aye, well, that's what you'd think," said Bain. "Trouble is, they've not been able to find him so far. They found a Big Issue seller that looks a bit like him, though. Cullen had to assault him before they realised it wasn't Cook."

  Cullen raised his hands in defence. "I was apprehending a potential suspect," he said.

  "Fair enough," said Turnbull.

  "Are there not any other local CID officers that I could use?" asked Bain. "With Lamb and his boys, it feels like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel."

  Turnbull smacked his hand on the desk. "Brian!" he shouted. "That is enough. I've worked with Bill Lamb for almost fifteen years. He is a good officer, one out of the top drawer. If you're looking for insight, passion and leadership, he is your man."

  "He's still not turned up a wee ned on his back doorstep," said Bain, leaning back and crossing his legs. "We did a phone trace - he's been in Haddington. That's where Lamb is based, isn't it?"

  Turnbull leaned forward and pointed at Bain. "That's enough, Brian," he said. "DI Cargill is back from leave on Thursday - if this isn't resolved by close of play on Wednesday then she's getting the case."

  For once, Cullen realised that Bain genuinely didn't have anything to say.

  "I'm serious, Brian," added Turnbull. "You don't want me out in Garleton drilling into the detail here."

  "Fine," said Bain. "Are you wanting us to head back out there to assist Lamb?"

  Turnbull sat back in his chair. "Brian, you know full bloody well that I want you at this Burns Supper tonight," he said. "I've got precious few of my men there tonight as it is." He pointed a finger at Bain. "Maybe you keeping out of Bill's hair will do the case good."

  "Aye, we'll see," said Bain.

  twenty-one

  Half an hour later, Cullen was sitting in the corridor outside the function suite at Fettes with a pint of Carling - the only lager they had on offer - thinking through the chaos of the day. He had left the others to the function room pre-dinner drinks so that he could meet Sharon McNeill - and she was late. As ever.

  He looked across the car park at the pouring rain, lit up by the sodium lights. He could see the January wind blowing the rain about in wild swirls. A male officer in a long grey coat ran across the tarmac and fumbled with his keys before getting in his car and driving towards the main road. Another couple of cars arrived at the entrance and trawled the car park for spaces, both seeming intent on acquiring the space just liberated.

  The Georgian houses at the far end of the car park reflected the classical architecture of Edinburgh that the HQ itself didn't. It just defaulted to the same lazy designs that all of the city's buildings had since the 60s. Cullen thought that with every passing year, more buildings with character and history were replaced by chrome, concrete, glass and a portfolio of prospective corporate tenants that never arrived. When he'd once talked about his love of old buildings, Sharon had taken the piss, but it turned out she was just laughing at yet another anachronism in him and it was a shared passion.

  There was still no yellow Punto.

  He was keeping an open mind about who had killed Mandy Gibson.

  It was now over 28 hours since anyone had seen Jamie Cook. The longer that he was missing, the worse it looked for the boy. The information that they had managed to gather so far pointed to a lonely soul, tormented by unknown demons - figurative or psychological - disowned by his community. In his mind's eye, Cullen could picture him on the run, hiding from the police, his parents and Mulgrew. Cullen thought of another of his Dad's favourite tunes, 'Police on my back' by the Clash, about some guy on the run, hiding from the police every day of the week, all the while wondering what he'd done. Maybe that was Jamie Cook.

  Mulgrew was an enigma to Cullen. Cullen would be the first to admit that he didn't have a positive view of religion - he'd seen more than enough stupid sectarian attacks in West Lothian after an Old Firm game - but he was trying to make sure that he didn't let any prejudice cloud his judgment. Cullen wanted to avoid making the same leaps of faith that Bain had the previous summer. He tried to keep an open mind but he wanted to explore Mulgrew's past further.

  He took another sip of his pint - gassy and tasteless, not like the German or Czech lagers he was so fond of - and checked his watch. He took a deep breath.

  Cullen and Sharon had been an item for nearly six months. In his head, he ticked off a few of the items on his list of things to change in his self-destructive single boy lifestyle. Although he was not drinking any less, he was behaving differently - no
more the twelve pints of lager in a club with his flatmates, instead bottles of red wine at her flat. They had both worked the Christmas day shift so there had been no issue about whose parents they visited - she'd cooked a turkey crown once their shifts had finished, although Cullen got dragged in for five hours overtime, processing the paperwork of a stabbing in the Grassmarket. Cullen knew that Sharon still had doubts about him - his notorious sleeping around being the main problem - but she seemed to have lowered her guard a bit and was beginning to trust him more and more. She was surprisingly territorial, so they always ended up at her one bedroom flat just off the Royal Mile, sometimes after an unsatisfying pint or two in the pub at the entrance to her close.

  He messed about with his iPhone, checking out football news to pass the time, rubbing at the new scratch on the screen. It didn't look like Aberdeen would do any strengthening in the January transfer window, though Cullen felt they were weaker with the couple of departures that they really couldn't afford. The only light at the end of the tunnel that Cullen could see was the threat that was beginning to hover around Rangers, the flat track bullies of Scottish football, who were inching closer to their comeuppance for the overspending in the previous 25 years.

  He looked down his received calls list and the unknown number hoax calls stood out. He started trying to figure out who it could be other than Jamie Cook. He wanted to talk to Sharon about it, offload some of his angst, and see if she had any insight.

  "Little boy lost," said Sharon.

  He looked up and immediately felt his heart surge. All the cold, cynical analysis in the world, he thought, could not replace the very human feeling at seeing your lover after some time apart. He realised then that there was something close to love for her in his heart.

  He stood up and she put her arms around him. He held her in a long kiss, his hand caressing her back and hips.

  "I could take you into the toilets and have you there," whispered Sharon into his ear as she nibbled it.