'Even when they're dead?' The detective's thick moustache twitched
slightly in a faint attempt at a smile.
'Even then, I'm afraid. Now, which employee do you wish to
discuss? My secretary should really have asked you when you made
the appointment.' Pringle looked at the neat, dark-suited, humourless
little man and tried to imagine asking him for an overdraft. He
shuddered at the thought, and resisted the temptation to tell Mr
William Drysdale, in his own special way, that detective superintendents
did not necessarily need appointments.
'A man named Murray: Anthony Murray.'
'Ah yes. Mr Murray; Tony. Yes, I remember him. He was a manager
in our Queen Street branch, until he ran out of steam around the middle
of last year. It happens more and more these days, as banks transform
themselves into properly run businesses instead of gentlemen's clubs.'
Drysdale leaned back in his chair and puffed out his chest.
'There was a time, not so long ago either, when a chap would join
a bank straight from school in the confident expectation that he had a
job for life, with status in the community and a comfortable pension
at the end of it. Not any more; in the current banking environment, if
you don't perform consistently well and hit your targets, you're out.
People pay the ultimate price these days for poor lending decisions.'
'What?' muttered Pringle, not quite under his breath. 'You mean
you shoot them?'
'Pardon?'
'Nothing, sir, nothing; just thinking aloud. And Mr Murray, what
about him? Was he drummed out of the Cubs?'
'What? Ah yes, I see, Hah, very funny, yes. I wouldn't say that
exactly. Tony had thirty-eight years' service, so when he asked to
retire early, the area general manager was pleased to accommodate
him.'
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'And if he hadn't asked?'
'Then yes, he probably would have been told to go.'
'Why was that?'
Drysdale shrugged. 'He just wasn't cutting the mustard any more;
he knew it, too. The Chief Executive had asked a couple of questions
about his performance review.'
'And that's all it takes to end a career these days, is it?'
Pringle's voice was loaded with irony, but the banker gave no sign
of noticing. Instead he hooked his thumb into his waistcoat pocket
and looked blandly across the desk. 'There is a time,' he pronounced, 'in every man's life, when he should just go and play golf.'
'So Mr Murray was a golfer, was he?'
Drysdale blinked and looked bemused. 'I've no idea. I was speaking
figuratively.'
'Ahh. I'm sorry. Thick of me.' The superintendent glanced out of
the window of the opulent office. On the skyline, he could see the top
of the Scott Monument, surrounded by scaffolding as usual.
'When Mr Murray left,' he asked, 'did he strike you as being in a
good state of mind? Did he seem depressed to have outlived his
usefulness to you?'
'He was never a very cheerful sort, to be truthful. Morose,
sometimes; when he spoke to me, at least.' I'm not bloody surprised, thought Pringle.
'Did he seem worse after his wife died?'
'Did she? I didn't know that. It's my policy, you see, not to become
involved in the family situation. I mean if I did that all the time, I'd be
a damned counsellor, rather than a businessman.'
'But isn't a happy employee an efficient employee?'
Drysdale frowned at this radical thinking. 'My job is to make the
shareholders happy, Mr Pringle. I'm afraid in this day and age you can
spend very little time treating the wounded, before - to borrow your
word - you have to shoot them.'
'Oh aye,' said the detective, heavily. 'The ultimate price, eh.'
'That's right,' said Drysdale, rising to his feet to signal the end of
the interview. 'Tell me, superintendent,' he asked, as he walked his
visitor to the door. 'Do you bank with us?'
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60
'Who do you bank with, Sarah?' Clan Pringle asked.
'The Bank of Scotland. But before I was married I was with the
Royal. Why d'you ask?'
'I've decided to change mine. Are they okay?'
'Yes, both of them, as far as I'm concerned.'
'Thanks. I'll bear that in mind. Now, what have you got to tell me?'
'First of all, let me ask you something. How closely did your ME at
the scene look at the body?'
'He just pronounced life extinct and gave me a probable cause.
That was all I asked him to do. I saw no reason for anything more.'
'Mmm,' said Sarah. 'No harm done, but if he had looked a little
closer, he'd have seen that the deceased was wearing a colostomy
bag.'
'What does that mean?'
'In this case, Clan, it means that he had cancer of the bowel. He had
most of it removed at some point. The survival rate from colonic
cancer is better than some forms, but not for this man. Mr Murray had
secondaries in his liver and bladder, plus a developing spinal tumour
which must have been approaching the unbearable stage. I'm slightly
surprised that a man in this condition was still at home.'
'I see,' murmured Pringle. 'Would he have been given drugs to
control the pain?'
'Almost certainly. The drugs in his system didn't kill him though.
In this case the injection rendered him unconscious and he suffocated.
Your ME's probable cause was absolutely right. That's what's going to
give you all a headache, I'm afraid.'
'Eh? How come, if it's as simple as that?'
'Two reasons. First of all, I don't think this man would have had the
strength to tape the bag so that it was airtight. Second, he didn't inject
himself; someone else did. The syringe went into the right thigh; I've
traced the angle and there's no way that dying man could have
administered that shot himself.'
Pringle whistled down the telephone. 'Is that right?' he paused for
a moment or two. 'So how does that give us a headache? We've got a
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murder investigation on our hands. That's a bugger, I know, but
routine.'
Sarah laughed, sharply, the unexpected sound making the divisional
commander hold his phone away from his ear. 'Ah,' she exclaimed, 'but have you? I can't say for certain, not under oath, that Mr Murray
didn't fix that bag on himself. And it was the bag that killed him,
remember, not the injection. So was it a murder or was it a suicide? I
don't see how you'll ever prove either way, until you find the person
who gave him that shot, and persuade them to tell you what happened.'
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61
Bob Skinner smiled at his wife as, lying sprawled on the sofa, he
pressed the television remote. 'You're getting too sure of yourself,
doctor.' BBC Scotland's trademark red balloon drifted across the big
wide screen for a few seconds, before the portentous signature music
of the Nine O'clock News boomed out into their living room.
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, my love, that postmortem evidence isn't the only sort.
There is a way of proving whether the late Mr Murray topped himself
with the poly bag, or had some
one do it for him.'
'What's that, Mr Detective?'
'The scissors. The roll of tape. The poor chap wasn't wearing
gloves was he?' Sarah shook her head, quickly. 'Right then. If his
fingerprints don't show up on those scissors - or even better, if they're
clean - most juries will accept that as proof that he didn't cut off the
tape roll.'
'Wait a minute,' she argued. 'That doesn't prove that he didn't
secure the bag himself, though. Conceivably, he could have wound
the tape tight round his neck then the person who injected him could
have cut it off. I can't rule that out.'
Bob grinned hugely, ignoring the latest political drama from
America which was being played out on the television screen. 'That's
fine,' he exclaimed, with a touch of delight in his voice. 'In that case,
we'll still charge the accomplice with murder; he took part in the act
of securing the bag, an act which killed Mr Murray, as you will state
under oath. That's enough for me and it'll be enough for the Crown
Office.'
'Will it be enough for a jury to convict on, though?'
'As long as we have other evidence that places the person in the
house at the time, then it probably will be. Of course if he's left us a
print on the end of the tape roll as well, and there are none of Mr
Murray's, that'll be game, set and match.
'I doubt if we'll be that lucky though. Assuming that this is the
same person who was with Gaynor Weston--'
'You are sure?' Sarah interrupted.
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'Ach, of course I am; and so's Andy, and so are you. Look at the
similarities; clear poly bag - it would be undignified to end your life
in something with "Tesco" printed on it would it not - secured by
black tape, victim injected; there's no doubt about it. As I was saying,
on that assumption, the way I see it is that the helper assumed that the
Weston death would simply be seen off as a suicide. When we started
to make ambivalent noises after the body was found, he realised just
how sloppy he'd been.
'That's why you've got a different pattern with Mr Murray's death.
This time the tape, scissors and syringe have been left there. He's
getting better, but there are still flaws in the setup.'
Bob picked up the remote once more and snapped off the television
picture, then swung himself into a sitting position. 'Actually,' he said, 'you and I can sit here having a detached, professional discussion
about this thing, but I've got to remind myself at the same time just
how serious this is.'
'How come?'
'How come?' he repeated. 'Listen, if someone walked into a bank,
shot a teller and ran off with a pile of money, we, and every tabloid
newspaper in the country would go bananas about it. But if the same
person walked into another bank a few weeks later and did it again.. .
Christ, love, just imagine the reaction!
'Yet that's what we're dealing with here. Forget the semantics,
forget our clever technical debate about the whys and wherefores of
Murray's death. We have a double murderer loose in our city, we made
a porridge of catching him first time up and now he's done it again.'
Sarah frowned. 'Yes, I hear what you're saying. But what about the
moral issues involved? In that respect, the two situations are completely
different.'
'You say that to Andy Martin, who tends to be our collective
conscience in situations like these, and he'll tell you that there is only
one black and white moral issue involved - the taking of a human life
by another person. Maybe in personal ethical terms you can argue that
there might be shades of grey, but in legal terms you can't.
'It doesn't matter whether someone gets on their knees and begs
you, "End my life, I can't stand it any more." If you do that you're
breaking the law - and it's the oldest law that our society has. Now the
fact is that when we didn't get a quick clear-up on the Weston case,
some of us weren't too sorry. We saw it as a one-off, and maybe our
private beliefs let us sympathise with Mrs Weston, and even with
whoever helped her.
'But it isn't a one-off any more, Sarah. I'm .. . we're faced with
clear evidence that same person has done it again, and our duty is just
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as clear. Catching him goes right to the top of our priority list. Consider
this: Gaynor Weston and Anthony Murray were both terminally ill.
They were going to die nasty, drawn-out deaths. But what if someone
else asks for help; someone who does have a chance of survival?
'No,' he said, emphatically. 'It has to be stopped here.'
She looked at him, soberly. 'Yeah,' she murmured. 'Looked at like
that, you have to be right.'
He leaned back into the sofa and nodded. 'And there's more to be
investigated.'
'What do you mean?' she asked him, for the second time that
evening.
His eyes, narrowed, very slightly 'What if Gaynor Weston wasn't
the first? What if there's been a death in the past that has been written
off as a suicide at divisional level? Or more than one, even? Christ,
there could be a network operating here.'
'You're seeing the worst, aren't you,' said Sarah.
He shrugged, with a sad, resigned grin. 'Honey, that's my job. The
trouble has been that from inside the Chief Constable's office,
sometimes you just don't see it early enough.'
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62
Martin, 'but normally he waits to be asked these days before offering
advice on investigations. So when he does call me to raise something,
especially when it's half-nine on a Monday evening, it emphasises
how serious it is.
'I don't have to remind you two that he's back on the prowl,
mornings at least.'
He looked at Detective Superintendents Mackie and Pringle. 'As of
now, the investigation into the Weston death is re-opened, full strength.
I've spoken to the Fiscal and had the FAI postponed indefinitely. It
will run in conjunction with the Murray investigation, with you two
in joint day-to-day control, reporting everything to me.
'I'd take full responsibility myself, but for my involvement with the
preparations for the economic conference.'
The Head of CID hunched over his coffee. 'We don't need a big
team on this, since there isn't any door to door work involved, but we
do need integration so that we pick up any overlap between the two
investigations. Brian, I want you to review the Weston papers, yet
again, and see if there's anything we might have done that we didn't. Clan , Murray's death happened on your patch, so you're the leader on
that one. In Maggie Rose's continued absence, since DS Steele was
heavily involved with Weston, he's going to work with you directly on
Murray, as the principal link between both inquiries.'
Pringle nodded. 'Fair enough,' he said. 'I like young Stevie. If we
do come across any coincidences, he's not the boy to miss them.'
'Where are you going to begin, then?'
'I have already,' the superintendent replie
d. 'Remember? I saw the
guy at the bank. He was worse than fuckin' useless, mind you. Today,
we're looking for relatives. Mr Murray had no children apparently,
but there's a younger sister. She's the next of kin; I've got a car taking
her to the Royal this morning to make the formal identification. After
that I'll go and have a chat with her, to see what she can tell me.'
'Where does she live?'
'Down in sunny Joppa by the sea.' He glanced at the window of the
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Head of CID's office. Rain, driven on cold north-east wind, lashed
against its panes. 'It'll be really nice down there today,' he added,
mournfully.
'I'll envy you every minute of it,' said Martin, grinning as he stood.
'Okay, gentlemen, that's it. Remember, keep me informed all the
way.'
He walked with the two divisional commanders to the end of the
corridor, waving them off at the top of the stairs. Then, instead of
returning to his office, he walked along the length of the Command
Corridor and down the flight of stairs which led almost directly to the
makeshift conference control centre.
Looking around he noted that all but two of the desks were manned.
As usual, Mario McGuire was seated in the far corner, from where he
could see everything that went on in the big room. He ambled across
towards the Special Branch commander.
'Hi, Mario, how's it going?'
McGuire shot him a mock scowl. 'Exciting as ever,' he grumbled.
'I've rejected a journalist from the Financial Times; that's been the
highlight of my day so far. No, scratch that; the highlight of my
week.'
'Why did you bomb him out?'
'Her,' the inspector corrected him. 'She wouldn't put her date of
birth on the application form; refused point blank. So we couldn't run
a full computer check.'
'Couldn't you have done it through her National Insurance number?'
'Not this one. She's South African.'
'Her name wasn't Hawkins, was it?' Martin asked, with a faint
smile.
McGuire shook his head. 'Naw, and she isn't dead, either.'
The Head of CID shrugged. 'Well, it's up to her, but if she doesn't
have a ticket, she can't come to the party.' He paused. 'Listen Mario,
can I ask you a favour?'
The dark eyebrows rose in surprise. 'Of course you can.'
'Right; it's like this. The Weston case, the one that Maggie was