The Meating Room (19 page)

Gilchrist read on, remembering snippets of news from way back. He had paid little attention to the scandal at the time, but a shiver of horripilation rippled across his skin as the memory of Nichola Kelly’s fatal car accident came back to him.

Another search pulled up more articles on the young actress and her tragic death.

Gilchrist read on, intrigued by the similarities between Janice Meechan’s hit-and-run and Nichola Kelly’s. Except that Nichola’s accident had not been a hit-and-run
per se
; more of a hit-and-stop. Both Janice and Nichola had been the only occupant of the car, and both had pulled over in the quiet of the countryside. The driver of the vehicle that killed Nichola Kelly – Jason Purvis – was not convicted of causing death by careless or dangerous driving, as it turned out that Nichola was over the limit, and witnesses confirmed she had stumbled into the path of his car.

Nothing particularly striking in any of that, Gilchrist thought.

Except for a newspaper photograph of Purvis on the court steps.

Gilchrist noted the long darkish hair, the square face. But if he half-shut his eyes and imagined shorter hair dyed blond, the similarity to Magner opened up more troubling possibilities.

When Jessie slid into the passenger seat, Gilchrist handed her the printout of the article, then shifted into gear.

‘Nichola Kelly?’ she said. ‘What’s this?’

‘Anything strike you?’

‘She’s a looker. I remember watching that programme – what’s it called? – and thinking I’d love to have hair like hers. And she used to wear these short skirts, and I’m thinking how much I would give to have her legs—’

‘Should I be worried about you?’

Jessie barked a laugh. ‘Try telling Jabba that.’

The mention of CS McKellar wrenched Gilchrist back to the present, reminding him that it was deadline day for Jessie. ‘Have you spoken to him?’ he asked.

‘Twice this morning. The man’s a wonder. Never stops trying.’

‘Except where dieting’s concerned.’

‘He’s never heard of the word.’

Gilchrist eased into Bridge Street. ‘Still giving you a hard time?’

‘Fight fire with fire. He wants to play dirty? I’m thinking bring it on, sonny Jim, bring it on.’ She tapped his leg as he slowed down for the roundabout at the West Port, his indicator ticking for a left turn down Argyle Street. ‘Straight on. I’ve not had my caffeine kick yet.’

‘Starbucks?’

‘Got it in one.’

Gilchrist clicked off the indicator and accelerated through the mini-roundabout. He turned right at St Mary’s Place, and a few minutes later pulled up against the kerb outside Starbucks in Market Street.

When he switched off the engine, Jessie said, ‘I forgot to mention that Vicky Kelvin called me first thing this morning. Said she remembered something else about that night with Magner, about what he said that frightened her.’

Gilchrist faced her. ‘Go on.’

‘He said he would gut and skin her alive if she didn’t give him what he wanted.’

An image of Amy McCulloch’s slaughtered body ripped through Gilchrist’s mind with an icy chill. ‘Gut and skin her?’

‘Exact words.’

‘Alive?’

‘Thought that would get your attention.’

‘Contact DI Smith and find out if any of the others were similarly threatened,’ he said. ‘And read that article on Nichola Kelly while I get the coffees.’

He ordered two tall lattes to go. His mobile rang as he was about to collect them – Stan. ‘Is this going to be quick?’

‘Just off the phone with Anne Mills, boss. Magner’s estranged wife.’

‘What’s she got to say for herself?’ Gilchrist tucked his mobile under his chin and picked up both coffees.

‘She lives in Aberdeen, never remarried, and lives with . . . get this . . .’

Gilchrist manoeuvred his way through the shop door on to Market Street, stepping back as two students pushed past him, ignorant of manners. ‘I’m all ears.’

‘Tom Junior.’

‘Magner has a boy?’

‘He does indeed, boss.’

‘So, Tom Junior must be what . . . in his teens?’

‘Try twenty-nine.’

Gilchrist frowned as he struggled with the arithmetic. ‘I thought Magner married Anne Mills in 1986.’

‘Yes, but she’d had his child long before then.’

‘Hang on, Stan.’ Gilchrist sat the coffees on the roof of the Merc, then opened the door. ‘Was that why he married her?’

‘And also why she left him.’

Gilchrist handed both coffees to Jessie, slid behind the wheel, then put his mobile on speaker. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘According to Anne, Magner doted on his son when they got back together again.’ Stan’s voice sounded metallic through the phone’s speaker. ‘But it all began to fall apart after about a year when Magner developed these weird suspicions that his son was gay. Thomas Junior was only nine or ten at the time, so Anne thinks he was just looking for any excuse to get out of the marriage. After that, things got worse, with Magner refusing to have anything more to do with the boy.’

‘Bastard,’ said Jessie.

‘What’s that, boss?’

‘Just Jessie airing her views.’

A pause, then, ‘So Anne said she moved out of the family home, back to Aberdeen with her son, and that’s the last she ever saw of Thomas Magner Senior. Despite that, he paid for his son’s education at Robert Gordon’s, as well as maintenance until Junior turned twenty-one.’

‘So you’re trying to tell us he’s a good guy?’ Jessie quipped.

‘Not according to his wife, he isn’t.’

Gilchrist caught the change in tone. ‘We’re all ears,’ he said.

‘She said they lived together as husband and wife for about a couple of years, by which time she’d seen enough.’

‘
Enough?
’

‘Drugs, drinks, sex. She was sick of it.’

‘
Sex?
As in with other couples?’ Jessie asked.

‘Swingers, wife swaps, full massages, strip shows, nude parties, you name it, in her two years of marriage she’d done it.’

‘Does she remember any names?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘She does indeed.’ The line seemed to die, then Stan came back with, ‘Would you like me to send them through to you in a text, or read them out—’

‘Just get on with it.’

Stan recited a list of about ten names that meant nothing to Gilchrist, until he said, ‘Jason Purvis—’

‘Hang on,’ Gilchrist snapped, and reached for the printout.

‘Boss?’

Jessie already had her finger on the image of the man on the court steps.

‘I haven’t reached the good bit yet, boss,’ Stan said. ‘One wellknown swinger and drug-user was a guy called Jack Russell, a politician with his fingers allegedly in any number of dodgy pies. Which might explain why Stratheden was awarded such a lucrative contract with Fife Council a couple of years later.’

‘We need to talk to him.’

‘You can’t,’ Stan said. ‘He had a stroke several years ago, and been in a coma ever since. But it might be an idea to talk to someone else.’

Gilchrist glanced at Jessie. ‘Who?’ he said.

‘Another not so well-known swinger was . . .’ A pause, then, ‘Drum roll—’

‘For crying out loud—’

‘Martin Craig.’

‘The MEP?’ Jessie said.

‘And the man behind the drive for Scottish entrepreneurial investment in Europe.’

‘But all this went on, what, almost twenty years ago?’

‘About then, boss.’

‘So this Anne Mills must have one hell of a good memory if she’s not been to a swinger party in two decades.’

‘Better than that, boss. She’s got photographs.’

Gilchrist caught the triumph in Stan’s voice, and could not prevent a smile from stretching his lips. ‘Blackmail?’ he suggested.

‘Blackmail. For her son’s education and maintenance, boss. But mainly for her own security. She says Magner’s the most evil man she’s ever known. Her words. So when she left him, she made sure she had something to keep herself safe.’

‘She had his son,’ Jessie said. ‘Surely that would—’

‘Magner disowned Tom Junior, remember? That was when Anne knew she had to find some way to protect herself.’

‘So, what kind of photographs does she have?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘Haven’t seen them, boss. She’s now scanned them and keeps them on a memory stick in a safe-deposit box. And she filed a letter with her solicitor, which states that if she ever dies or goes missing, then the box is to be opened and its contents distributed to the press.’

Jessie said, ‘I don’t see Magner letting his wife take photographs of him having deviant sex. He might be the most evil man she’s ever met, but he’s smarter than that.’

‘Someone else took the photos,’ Stan replied. ‘Anne just nicked the negatives before she left,’ Stan replied.

‘Ah,’ Jessie said.

‘But if she releases the photographs,’ Gilchrist argued, ‘she’ll lose whatever security they give her.’

‘She’s been diagnosed with cancer,’ Stan said. ‘She’s been told she’s in remission, but she suspects she’s only got another year or so – three, tops.’

It never failed to amaze Gilchrist how people diagnosed with a terminal illness had an innate ability, maybe even a need, to think clearly through to the closing days of their lives, wrap up all the loose ends, as it were. But something was still troubling him.

‘Did Anne Mills ever meet Vicky Kelvin?’

‘Never asked her that, boss. You think it’s important?’

‘I’m thinking that if Anne and Vicky know each other, maybe it was Anne who instigated all the rape allegations against Magner.’

‘I’ll ask, boss.’

‘And let’s have sight of these photographs today, Stan.’

‘Already tried, boss. But she has to wait for the bank to open tomorrow.’

Gilchrist almost cursed. ‘Get them first thing, Stan,’ he said, and ended the call.

He wondered what sort of depravity Anne Mills’s photographs would reveal, although he suspected they would be of more use to Billy Whyte’s case than his own. But even so, he now felt that he had turned a corner. He had a connection.

In fact, he had a whole series of connections.

Magner’s late partner’s wife, Amy McCulloch, née Charlotte Renwick, had filed a rape allegation against him, albeit anonymously. Of the other accusers, five had since withdrawn their complaints. And Amy herself had since been murdered.

Magner’s bit on the side – his late partner’s sister-in-law, Janice Meechan – had been killed in a hit-and-run that bore uncanny similarities to another car accident fifteen years earlier in which Nichola Kelly had died. And Nichola’s ex-lover might well have pulled the strings in the award of a major local-government contract to Magner’s company.

Magner’s first wife, Sheila Ramsay, had died after just four years of marriage, and left a hefty life insurance payout that Magner used as start-up funding for Stratheden Enterprises. His second wife, Anne Mills – who left him after only two years – possessed a series of sexually explicit photographs with which she had kept him at arm’s length for almost two decades.

The answer to his investigation had to lie somewhere in the midst of all this sexual, political and familial entanglement. Gilchrist was sure of it. His thoughts crackled through the possibilities, and he removed the printout from Jessie’s grip and eyed the photograph again.

The man on the court steps – Jason Purvis.

He pulled the image closer. The resemblance between Purvis and Magner could be coincidence. But if you did not believe in coincidences . . .?

He slapped the photograph.

‘Get on to Jackie for an address,’ he said. ‘We need to talk to Purvis.’

Back in the Office, by 10 a.m. Gilchrist could not shift the feeling that his investigation was almost stalling again. McVicar had been on the phone to Greaves, who in turn called Gilchrist for an update. But after bringing Greaves up to speed, he received only a snort of derision. He and Greaves had once enjoyed a strong professional relationship, but ever since Greaves missed out on promotion about a year ago, he seemed to take out his disappointment on Gilchrist at every opportunity. When Greaves ended the call with a curse, Gilchrist was hard pressed not to call him straight back and tell him where to shove it.

Then Stan phoned with the disappointing news that both Anne Mills and Vicky Kelvin had just confirmed they had never met. They could both be lying, of course, but why would they?

The prospect of a break came when Jessie’s mobile beeped receipt of an email.

‘It’s from Jackie,’ she said.

On account of her disability, Jackie was the only civilian researcher permitted to work mostly from home, as long as she put in a couple of appearances at the Office each week. And no one could ever accuse her of slacking, especially on a Sunday morning.

‘Anything?’ Gilchrist asked, accessing his own email account.

‘Give me a minute.’ Jessie scanned down the tiny screen as fast as she could, then said, ‘Listen to this. Purvis has form. In 1980, he was sentenced to twelve years after being found guilty of rape and attempted murder. Spent time in Peterhead, and was released after serving six years—’

‘So that would be 1986?’

‘Where’s a calculator when you need one?’

Gilchrist felt a thrill of excitement. Stratheden Enterprises was launched in 1986.

Jackie’s email opened up on his screen and he scrolled down the page. ‘After his release, Purvis moved to England. First to Newcastle for five years, then York for two, then London for four. In each of these cities he was questioned over the disappearance of three women – in 1990, ’92 and ’94. But he wasn’t charged for any of the incidents due to lack of evidence.’

‘He must have returned to Scotland at some point,’ Jessie said, ‘if he was involved in Nichola Kelly’s fatal accident.’ She read on. ‘Born in Aberdeen in 1954. Mother and father both unidentified. Raised in an orphanage. Seems not to have had a normal family life. Worked on the rigs from ’74 to ’79—’

Gilchrist shot a look at Jessie. ‘The same time period as Magner. Did they work for the same company?’

‘It doesn’t say. But I’ll get that checked out.’

‘Here’s the address,’ he said. ‘We’re in luck. Cauldwood Cottage, Ceres.’