It was her manner, single-minded, gearing up for a fight, heavy footfall. She looked the part and I dare say her old man was something big in the Edinburgh banking houses, but the silly little cow reminded me of those poison dwarves who come up from Hawick or somewhere with big chips on their little shoulders. You know the type, don’t know how to move and are full of prejudice.’
‘Why did she stay with Spicer?’
‘You know the type as well as I do: only happy with a hostile relationship.’ Samantha Simonds tapped her pipe out on a big black ashtray. ‘You’ve seen it, the “I’m going to be faultless at my job so’s you can’t give me the push” attitude, but me and my awesome psyche are going to ruin you and your little operation. She kind of fed on other people’s positives like a bit of anti-matter.’
‘Anti-what?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘Anti-matter. It’s a sci-fi concept, earthling. That which feeds on matter, consumes positives. She went to work each day spruced up and clean as a new pin, bent on the continuing destruction of Spicer’s little empire. This was five years ago, see how She still infests my life.’
‘Odd girl,’ said King.
‘Odd! She had a cleanliness fetish. She used to accuse me of cooking chips only to ruin her sheets which were hanging drying in the kitchen. When she’d finished in the bathroom you’d have to take a spanner to the taps, she’d screwed them down so tight. Ugh!’
‘Do you think she was effective with Spicer?’
‘Yes, very. He came here like I said and they fought Guadalcanal over again. Bloody vicious it was—I loved it.’
‘What were they saying?’
‘Difficult to remember and I didn’t hear that much. These walls are very thick. But one thing sticks, he called her a criminal and she laughed and said that that was rich coming from him.’
‘So they disliked each other?’
‘Right to the end. Now you mention it, I do remember that she lost her house keys just before that Fair Friday night when that clochard did the citizens of Big G a favour. She had to wait for me to come home before she could get in. I was late one night, having been bending my elbow with some of the chaps from work—I teach, crime hound—so Miss Anne Forbes-McDonald had to kick her heels longer than usual. She’d been kicking them in some bar apparently, because when I came home she was sitting on the stairs pretty steamboats, I mean half cut. Anyway she said something about having “got” him, and “screwing him stupid”. I remember that.’
‘Screwing?’
‘Not sexually. All her men paid and paid but the ones she wore were made of galvanized steel. So why all this sudden interest in fair Anne of Morningside? You’re the second this week.’
‘Who was the first?’
‘That reporter. Wanted to see her things. I was to meet him later on Rutherglen Main Street to talk about Anne bloody Forbes-McDonald, but I never made it, the car wouldn’t start. I read in the paper how he was attacked. Sad that, he was a nice old boy, had a kind of juvenile excitement about him, as though he was a Catholic and had actually listened when the priest had told him never to lose that sense of childish wonder.’
‘Priest said that to you, did he?’
‘Once. I won’t tell you what I said in reply but I hear he’s still lighting candles and praying for me.’
‘You still have her things here, then?’
‘Some. All her clothes and some papers. Nobody’s ever collected them, earth cop, and I am humble and honest, so I haven’t chucked them. I got the factor to let me take over the full tenancy so I can sub-let to my friends. Felicity uses snotty Annie’s clothes, they fit very well. We see it as creative storage.’
‘I bet you do. Can I see her room?’
King was shown a small bedroom which smelled of lavender and had a poster of a horse on the wall and some cuddly toys on the pillow.
‘This is sweet little Felicity’s room,’ said Samantha Simonds, who was standing close enough to King for him to catch whisky as well as strong tobacco on her breath. ‘Annie’s things are in the corner.’
In the corner were half a dozen boxes stacked in a pile. All seemed to contain her papers, or books.
‘Clothes?’ asked King.
‘Wardrobe,’ said Samantha Simonds. ‘Creative storage, as I said.’
King grunted. He said he was taking the boxes of papers away.
‘You can do that?’ asked Samantha Simonds.
‘Just watch me,’ said King, but eventually he succeeded in enlisting her help to carry the boxes to his car.
King emptied the contents of the boxes on to his desk in the CID rooms and sifted through them. He knew that Spicer had been through them before, five years before, looking for something on the pretext of helping the bereaved Carol, who was soon to become his wife, sort through her late sister’s things. By the time King was able to sift through the boxes they mostly contained only press cuttings about the good life, expensive homes, exclusive resorts, fashion, men in the public eye, movie moguls, industrialists, top right-wing politicians. The pipedreams of a street kid. King worked with patience and care, examining each cutting, but found nothing of any relevance to Spicer or Gilheaney or the Jardine brothers.
He was disappointed. The sun was beating through the window and sweat was trickling off his forehead and over his fleshy cheeks. He went to the canteen to make himself some coffee, working on the theory that if you’re hot the best way to cool down is to take a warm drink and heat up your inside, so reducing the heat differential. He reached for his jar of coffee from the top of the refrigerator and noticed that it had been plundered, but shrugged his shoulders and took what he needed, putting the jar back on top of the refrigerator. He carried his drink back up to the CID rooms as he entered the office where he worked a draught blew one of the newspaper cuttings off his desk. As it floated over and over in the sun’s rays King caught a glimpse of indentations on the paper. He picked it up and held it against the light. The indentations had been caused by a bold, old-fashioned typeface, as though the cutting, having been selected for its news content, had then been seen as a handy bit of paper to slip behind a sheet of typing paper to protect the typewriter roller. That it was still discernible after five years gave an indication of how the keys had been hammered. It was possible to read it in full:
One-armed Bandit.
How long did you think you’d get away with it? I cottoned on to you right from the start, I’ve photocopied your crooked accounts. You want me to go to the police? If you don’t you’d better pay up. Otherwise I’ll keep it shut for £50 per week to begin with.
Think it over, Spicer. I’ll let you know who I am in a week or so. The money will be backdated to today’s date anyhow.
King rummaged through the cuttings, holding each one up to the light. He found only two others which had been used as backing paper and he put them in obvious chronological order: Spicer, Work late tonight. I’ll be the only one left in the office typing pool by 7.00 p.m. We can talk business, maybe over dinner. They say the best thing to do when you’re being blackmailed is to go to the law—why don’t you? You could fix me up with at least two years suspended sentence for doing this. First offence, previous good character and all that. You of course would get at least five years. You would also lose your livelihood and would have to sell your house and boat in order to repay all those poor punters who you have ripped off. I’ve only gone back eighteen months and already you have embezzled enough to buy a new Rolls-Royce. And what about poor Mr McNulty (not so poor, though—hah!)—what will it do to him to have all this come out? Such a scandal and one of the most respected firms of solicitors in the city. But I don’t think you’re really interested in Mr McNulty. Anyway see you at seven, blue eyes. Let’s go somewhere good—after all, this is the beginning of a business partnership and since it’s based on mutual distrust it should last quite a long time.
On a magazine cutting about the good life in Corfu
was written:
Spicer, I saw the way you looked at me this morning. Don’t try it, pal. Remember I’ve got evidence against you, it’ll be found as soon as my parents come and collect my things. My father is in banking, remember, he reads accounts like you read the glossy magazines in your desk drawer.
King copied the letters down and included them in a report about his visit to Samantha Simonds’s house. He had completed it ready for typing when Sussock and Donoghue arrived back from Dunlane Gaol. Sussock flopped in a chair and mopped his brow. Donoghue stood and read over King’s report, grunting occasionally. He walked across the room and slipped King’s report in the already overflowing basket which was marked ‘for typing’. He told Sussock and King to sign out and get some rest; he told them they’d be working tomorrow.
Donoghue walked along the corridor to his office, sat at his desk and picked up the phone. He consulted a small notebook and then dialled an unlisted number.
‘Can I talk to Dr Reynolds?’ he asked when a female voice answered.
Moments later a rich male voice said, ‘Reynolds.’
‘DI Donoghue, sir,’ said Donoghue. ‘I’m sorry to call at such an inconvenient time, but I feel it’s urgent. It concerns a murder enquiry of five years ago, the so-called Fair Friday Murder.’
‘I remember the newspaper reports but I don’t recall the post mortem. Did I perform it?’
‘Yes, sir. I have a copy in front of me. I wonder if it’s possible for us to go over the notes you made?’
‘I dare say that that is very possible. Could you meet me at the Royal Infirmary in half an hour?’
‘Certainly, certainly. Thank you, sir,’ said Donoghue. ‘It really is very good of you to come out at short notice for such a request.’
Just be on time, please.’ said Reynolds. I’m performing a PM in three-quarters of an hour. I could give you about fifteen minutes. I don’t wish to be rude, but it is a holiday.’ He hung up.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Donoghue into the dead phone.
Donoghue was waiting in the car park as Reynolds drove up in his Volvo. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and as he approached Donoghue he smiled and commented on the weather. Donoghue followed the tall silver-haired pathologist down to the basement of the hospital and into the path lab. They walked between a row of seats on one side, a glass screen on the other. On the far side of the glass screen a body lay under a sheet on the marble slab and a mortuary assistant with greased-down hair was laying instruments on a trolley.
‘He was washed on to the beach at Saltcoats this morning,’ said Reynolds as they walked. ‘Probably put a lot of trippers off their lunch.’ Drowned?’ asked Donoghue.
‘Probably. Some linear contusions though.’
‘Knife attack?’
‘That sort of thing.’ He pushed open the door of his office. ‘All right, the famous or should I say infamous Fair Friday Murder.’ He ran his fingers over the labels on his filing cabinet drawers. ‘Five years ago, Fair Friday, that would be July. What was the lassie’s name?’ He yanked open a drawer.
‘McDonald, Anne.’
Reynolds pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘I didn’t do it, Mr Donoghue. No McDonald here,’ he said, walking his fingers over the spines of the files.
‘Try Forbes-McDonald,’ said Donoghue.
‘Fanshaw…Forbes-McDonald.’ He extracted a file and laid it on the table. ‘Female Caucasian, aged twenty-three. Apparent age twenty-five/seven.’
‘That’s the one,’ grunted Donoghue.
‘Tragic death,’ said Reynolds. ‘All the young ones are.’
‘Can we go over your notes, Doctor?’ asked Donoghue. He thought better of disillusioning Reynolds by telling him that in life this particular tragic death had been a vitriolic and twisted blackmailer.
‘Surely. Well, it’s all here in black and white. Multiple stab wounds to the stomach and chest, one pierced her heart at the aorta—that was instantly fatal. There was pin-point bruising around the throat and other individual bruises, some superficial abrasions to her back and back of her head. That’s it. She was stabbed to death.’
‘What form do the stab wounds take, sir?’
‘Well, according to my notes, there were seven in total, they penetrated three to four inches on a vertical plane angling from right of anterior to left of posterior.’
‘I’m sorry…?’ said Donoghue.
‘Well, the blade of the knife was pushed in on the right-hand side of the front of the body at such an angle that, if it had impaled the woman, had gone right through her, it would have emerged on the left-hand side of her back, as if she was attacked from behind by a right-handed person.’
‘Or a left-handed person standing directly in front of her,’ said Donoghue.
‘Yes, indeed.’ Reynolds nodded. ‘That would be my guess, but guesses are one thing I’m not allowed to give in evidence.’
‘Were you questioned closely in court, sir?’
Reynolds turned to the file. ‘You’ll get a transcript of the trial without difficulty, but according to my notes I was merely asked to give the cause of death, which was the stab wound which penetrated the cardiac cavity, and to identify the murder weapon.’
‘Which you were able to do?’
‘Oh yes, easily—the knife I saw was a single-edge weapon which fitted the depth and width of the wounds. There was also the characteristic “fishtailing” around the puncture which you get with single-edged knives.’
‘Were you cross-examined, sir?’
‘Not according to my notes. I’m bound to have recorded being cross-examined because it’s always an uncomfortable experience.’
‘The wounds on the neck, what are they?’
‘Strangulation marks. One hand, left-hand, single bruise on the left of the windpipe close to the angle of the jaw caused by the assailant’s left thumb, and three bruises on the right of the neck caused by fingers of the left hand. Only three because the little finger doesn’t usually have enough pressure to bruise.’
‘So she was strangled by a left-handed person?’
‘She was strangled by the left hand of her assailant, that is all I can say, but given the direction of the stab wounds I’d say it was a fair possibility the assailant was a left-hander.’
‘The strangulation didn’t kill her, though?’
‘No. The venous return wasn’t blocked.’
‘Was she strangled before or after being stabbed?’
‘I couldn’t tell. The skin tissue will still bruise for a few minutes after the heart has stopped.’
‘So without committing yourself, she could have been attacked by a left handed person?’
‘Yes.’
‘Using his right hand to restrain her while his left was doing all the damage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could he have had only one hand, his left, and still have perpetrated this attack?’
‘Yes, but it’s difficult to see how.’
‘Supposing he throttled her, to near or absolute unconsciousness, which would also have stopped her screaming, and then as she slumped to the ground he finished her off with his knife. Is that possible?’
‘Of course,’ said Reynolds. ‘It’s perfectly feasible. You don’t need a pathologist to tell you that.’
Donoghue walked across the baking heart of the bitch city. The inquiry was disturbing him but felt he was making progress. He felt he wasn’t driving in the dark any more.
It was Fair Sunday 6.00 p.m.
CHAPTER 9
Montgomerie sat in the window of the upstairs bar sipping a lager and looking down on to Byres Road. It was a hot, hot day and the girls were in their summer clothes, he was young and handsome, he was healthy, the lager was good, the inside of the bar was cool, with not too many punters around.
He felt like a dog.
It hadn’t got easier as Sunday had dragged towards Monday, walking round the West End, checking bars, hanging around in street corners, strolling through the park a
nd the Botanical Gardens looking for Jardine’s heavies and not seeing any. It was just the monotony of one foot in front of the other, that and no action, that had let it play on his mind until the guilt began to crush him, lowering his eyes to the ground, rounding his shoulders. He’d forced himself to walk in the heat up and down and down and up Byres Road until it was opening time and, like all problem cases, he’d sought refuge in booze. The fact that he had wrecked the investigation and his career was curiously easier to cope with than his sheer incredulity that he had driven up and knocked on Tony Jardine’s door in the first place.
He was on his second lager when he saw Jug and Steamroller get out of a white Bentley. He got to the street as the Bentley was being driven away by Phil Jardine. Jug and Steamroller were standing on the street, they wore beards, had huge beer guts, they were roughly the size of a house and moved like tanks. The two men talked for a few minutes before Steamroller turned and lumbered off toward Partick. Jug hung around: so did Montgomerie.
Montgomerie crossed the road and stepped into a close, out of the heat, but still managed to keep an eye on Jug who was hovering near a bus stop. Eventually he hailed an inner circle bus. Montgomerie broke cover and jumped on the bus as Jug was squeezing his way up the stairs. Montgomerie flashed his transcard and sat downstairs. He left the bus at the city centre as it was about to start its fourth circumnavigation. He walked down Sauchiehall Street and found Ray Sussock in the canteen.
‘Heavy stuff,’ said Montgomerie when Sussock told him about the trip he and Donoghue had made to Dunlane Open Prison.
‘It’s not cut and dried yet, but damn near it. There’s enough to question Gilheaney’s guilt, that’s for sure.’ There was a fine edge to Sussock’s voice, like a blade that’s so sharp you don’t realize it’s cut until a thin line seeps red over everything. ‘Five years is a big chunk to take out of anybody’s life, Mai. There’s no excuse, I should’ve dug deeper, but the surface of the case was so glossy I didn’t want to spoil it. I didn’t just need a murder conviction, I needed one. Five years ago I was in a big mess at home, all at sea here, I needed a feather in my cap.’
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