The Meating Room (9 page)

‘Wet and hot. How’s the head? You look like shite.’

‘Surprised you noticed.’

‘With dog’s balls for eyes? Who wouldn’t?’

‘I’m getting too old for it all now.’

‘Men never learn.’

Gilchrist could not fail to catch the venom in the word
men
. He kept his speed at a steady thirty as he eased on to Strathkinness Low Road. He thought he knew the reason for Jessie’s change of mood and edged into it with, ‘So, Lachie called?’

‘Fat prick.’

‘Maybe he should go on a diet.’

‘Maybe he should jump in the Clyde.’

‘Want to talk about it?’

‘How about we talk about Veronica Lake instead?’

‘I don’t think Rebecca looks remotely like Veronica Lake—’

‘No, Veronica Lake’s dead. With Jabba on the hunt, I could be so lucky.’

Gilchrist thought silence was the best option, so he took a sip of latte. It was still warm, and did wonders for the turmoil in his stomach. His hangover was diminishing, and pangs of hunger nibbled at his innards. Beyond the junction to Strathkinness, he depressed the pedal and nudged the speed to sixty, then seventy, and held it there.

‘Penny for your thoughts?’ he said.

‘You can have them for free if you promise to take Jabba for the day.’

‘Ah,’ Gilchrist said. ‘So he’s going to spend the day in sunny St Andrews?’

‘Not just the day. The whole bloody weekend, so he tells me. Jesus, Andy, what the hell is it with men?’

Once again, he chose silence. Chief Superintendent Lachlan McKellar of Strathclyde Police – or Jabba the Hutt, as Jessie preferred to call him – had a thing for Jessie. As far as Gilchrist knew, they’d had a brief fling, which Jessie immediately regretted, ending their affair before it started. But Lachie did not know the meaning of the word
no
and pestered Jessie until she finally transferred to Fife, which did little to dampen Lachie’s ardour. His recent threats to leave his wife had finished it for Jessie, and now she wanted nothing more to do with the man. End of.

Five minutes later, Gilchrist tried again. ‘Has he left his wife, then?’

‘She flung him out, more like.’

‘So, he’s up for grabs?’

‘Grab-hooks, I hope. Then over the side with the fat blob.’

‘What does Robert think about all of this?’

‘What is it with you this morning? Robert’s off limits. You know that. I don’t go asking about your family, so don’t go asking about mine. Why don’t you just stick to driving the car and getting over your hangover?’

‘I’m feeling better, I have to tell you.’

‘Well, it must be contagious. I feel like shite now.’

‘You’ll perk up once you get your teeth into Chief Super Whyte.’

She chuckled and shook her head, which had Gilchrist frowning at her, wondering what the joke was. Chief Superintendent Billy Whyte was the SIO in the Thomas Magner rape investigation. He worked out of Glenrothes HQ, and was scheduled to meet Gilchrist and Jessie at 10 a.m.

‘I forgot to tell you,’ she said. ‘Well, actually, I remembered last night, but I didn’t want to spoil your evening.’ She tried to tease him with silence for five long seconds, but he refused to bite. ‘Chief Super Whyte asked me if the meeting was really necessary.’

‘Why would he say that?’ Gilchrist asked. ‘Billy and I go back years.’

‘That’s what he said.’

Maybe he was still hung over, his brain too befuddled from its recent dose of alcohol to work out the obvious, but he could not think of any reason why Billy Whyte would not want to meet him. ‘You’ve lost me,’ he said.

‘Does the name Logan mean anything to you?’

Gilchrist shot a glance at Jessie.

‘Well, that brought the colour back to your cheeks,’ she said.

‘Don’t tell me . . .’

‘Afraid so.’

Gilchrist gritted his teeth as he waited for Jessie to confirm his fears.

‘DI Carol Logan’, she said, ‘is assisting Chief Super William Whyte in the Thomas Magner case.’

‘Ah, shit,’ Gilchrist said, tightening his grip on the wheel.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Jessie said. ‘A fucked-up weekend for both of us.’

Gilchrist drove on in silence, the memory of
that
evening flickering back to life.

Lafferty’s on South Street, and deep into a Saturday night. It had seemed such an innocent comment for him to make: ‘Are you coming on to me?’ Well, Logan
had
bumped into him and caused him to spill his drink, and he had meant the question as nothing more than a bit of banter between colleagues. But the flash of anger on her face warned him she had missed the point.

So, he apologised. Mistake number one.

‘I seen what you done.’

The voice from behind surprised him, from a woman he had never seen before.

‘You touched her up. I seen you.’

‘I’m not that desperate,’ Gilchrist said, regretting the quip the instant it spilled from his mouth. Mistake number two.

He retreated to the corner of the bar with his pint, and tried to catch Logan’s eye when she and her friends left for the evening. But she was having none of it. And that should have been the end of that.

But it wasn’t.

Logan had witnesses – four women who swore they had overheard Gilchrist’s sexual innuendo and seen him brush his hand over her breasts. Gilchrist was interviewed – more like interrogated – by Complaints and Discipline for over two hours, and it took the intervention of Chief Superintendent McKay from HQ, and the promise of a recommendation for promotion to DI, to persuade Logan to drop her complaint.

Since then, Gilchrist had not set eyes on her.

He pulled the Merc into the car park at Glenrothes HQ at 9.50, in plenty of time for their ten o’clock appointment.

Chief Super Whyte welcomed Gilchrist like a long-lost friend. A tall man with white hair cut as short as bristle, Whyte looked all of his fifty-plus years. Folds of flesh as loose as chicken wattles were tucked into the neck of his shirt, evidence of the five stone he had lost over the past two years.

Once introduced to Jessie, Whyte said, ‘DI Logan has been warned but, as she pointed out, she is involved in an investigation of her own.’

Gilchrist gave a smile of reassurance. ‘The past is the past.’

Whyte raised his eyebrows, then said, ‘Right. This way.’

Gilchrist and Jessie followed Whyte into an office that overlooked the car park. Two detectives were seated at a centre table – Logan and a man Gilchrist did not recognise.

Whyte announced Gilchrist and Jessie by their titles, then introduced his team as ‘DI Carol Logan and DI Mac Smith, assisting in the investigation of Mr Thomas Magner.’

Gilchrist reached forward, shook Logan’s meaty hand, then Smith’s. Jessie did likewise. Then they all took their seats.

‘Right,’ Whyte said to Gilchrist. ‘You asked for this meeting.’

Gilchrist placed both hands flat on the table, then eyed Whyte, Smith and Logan, one by one, his gaze lingering on Logan a tad longer than the others. But if he was searching for any sign of discomfort or forgiveness, they were nowhere to be seen.

‘Yesterday,’ Gilchrist began, ‘as you are no doubt aware, we found the bodies of the McCulloch family. The father, Brian, was the business partner of Thomas Magner. We know that the mother, Amy, and her daughters, Eilish and Siobhan, were murdered. But the jury is still out on Brian. His death may or may not have been suicide.’

Gilchrist went on to explain the history and business relationship between Magner and McCulloch, the fact that Stratheden had an unusually high number of contentious billings, and his assumption that the company was in financial difficulty. He talked of the deepening rift between the two directors, the fallout with staff and the threat of dismissal, but chose not to mention Magner’s alleged sexual relationship with Amy McCulloch’s sister, Janice. In conclusion, he gave details of their interview with Magner, and of his seemingly watertight alibi.

‘Got a transcript?’ Logan asked.

Gilchrist knew that Logan did not want or need the transcript, only for Gilchrist to spin his wheels. ‘I do.’

‘Let’s have it.’

‘It’ll be uploaded on to the Command and Control STORM system soon.’

‘When?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘What’s wrong with this morning?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with this morning. But it’ll be available this afternoon.’ He waited until Logan slumped back into her chair, then held Chief Super Whyte’s enquiring gaze. ‘The reason why we’re here is to ask if, in the course of your investigation, you’ve come across anything that could conceivably be a motive for Magner to murder Amy and her—’

‘Sounds like you’re looking for straws to clutch,’ Logan said.

‘Exploring all avenues is how I’d prefer to put it.’

‘All avenues?
What are you now? Traffic Division?’

‘From the look of things,’ Jessie cut in, ‘we wouldn’t catch you speeding.’

‘That cuts both ways, Slim.’

Whyte raised a hand like a referee.

Logan sat back, tried a smile, but the fire in her eyes gave away her true feelings.

Whyte said, ‘The short answer to your question, Andy, is: no, we haven’t.’ He eyed Smith, who shook his head. Then he gave Logan a warning glance. ‘You’re welcome to have a look through our files, of course, but we’re still building our case and I’d ask you not to use anything relating to it without checking with me first. Does that work for you?’

In front of Logan and Smith, Whyte was playing it by the book. But if Gilchrist came across anything critical to his investigation, he knew that Whyte would assist him in any way he could.

‘That works perfectly.’

DI Smith cleared his throat. ‘Do you mind if I ask a few questions, sir?’

Gilchrist was aware that Smith was putting the request to Chief Super Whyte, not himself, so he waited for Whyte’s nod of approval before answering, ‘Sure.’

‘Do you have anything concrete that leads you to suspect Magner?’ Smith asked.

‘No. But until we identify a prime suspect, we’re suspicious of everyone.’

‘From what you’ve said so far, it seems highly unlikely that Magner would have had the means to commit the crime, in terms of time and place, sir.’

Gilchrist found it hard to disagree. Jessie’s journey to Stirling yesterday afternoon to check the Highland Hotel’s CCTV records had confirmed Magner’s story. He had arrived at the conference a few minutes after seven and taken an aisle seat – verified by Gilchrist during a short five minute review of the tapes, with Magner powering down his mobile before entering the conference hall. The room number also checked out with Magner’s car registration, and his account had been settled with an RBS debit card in his name. The bank confirmed that the number and account did indeed belong to Magner.

‘We’re not ruling out that Magner could have hired someone to carry out the killings for him.’

‘Get real.’ Logan again. ‘Brian McCulloch did in his family, then topped himself. Plain and simple. It’s an open and shut case. You’re barking up the wrong tree again. It’s not Magner’s style. He’s innocent . . . at least of murdering his business partner’s family.’

Gilchrist could sense Jessie stiffening next to him, so he lifted a hand off the table, just a touch, to signal that she should keep quiet. It pleased him that they had kept the brutal details of the murder out of the public domain, and from those in the constabulary not directly involved in the investigation. The tidiness of McCulloch’s clothes, and the absence of blood on his body and in his car, strongly suggested that he was not the murderer. But few people were privy to those facts.

‘You’re probably correct,’ Gilchrist conceded, ‘but we’d still like to review your files. Just to be thorough.’

‘What’re you up to?’ asked Logan.

‘I thought we’d explained that,’ Gilchrist said, and rose to his feet. He was through trying to reason with her.

Logan jerked to her feet. ‘I don’t like it, Billy,’ she said. ‘He’s fishing. I know him. I wouldn’t put it past him to slip something into our files to make us look like pricks and—’

Whyte raised a hand to silence Logan, then he eyed Gilchrist. ‘Are you fishing?’

‘Only trying to find a possible motive.’

Whyte turned to Smith. ‘Show DCI Gilchrist and DS Janes our files.’

‘I’m telling you, Billy, I’ve seen this guy at work. He’s up to—’

‘I hear you, DI Logan.’ Whyte’s sudden formality sent a message to Logan, who pursed her lips as if to stifle a curse. ‘But I’ve made my decision.’ He walked round the table and held out his hand. ‘If you need anything else, Andy, let me know.’ Then he faced Jessie. ‘DS Janes. A pleasure,’ he said, and shook her hand. Then, ignoring Logan, he said to Smith, ‘They’re all yours, Mac.’

Smith looked embarrassed as Logan walked from the room without a word.

‘And then there were four,’ Jessie said.

‘Quite,’ Whyte said. ‘The less said the better.’

From what Gilchrist and Jessie could ascertain, Chief Super Whyte and his team had left no stone unturned in their investigation of Magner. They’d even gone all the way back to his primary school records at St Cyrus – about fifty miles north of St Andrews – where he was brought up as a single child to churchgoing, disciplinarian parents. He completed his secondary education in Mearns Academy in Laurencekirk, leaving at the age of sixteen with just two Highers – an A in Art and a C in English.

Magner then headed north to Aberdeen to work on the oil rigs, first as a roustabout, then graduating to assistant driller, working two weeks on and two off. It was during one of these two-week spells ashore that he first got into trouble with the law – nothing serious, just a drunken brawl outside a bar in Aberdeen city centre on a Saturday night. The incident was reported to Grampian Police, and both Magner and his assailant – Magner maintained he had been hit first, although witness statements suggested otherwise – spent two nights in custody. They then received identical fines on Monday morning at the Sheriff Court.

Throughout their search, DI Smith answered every one of Gilchrist and Jessie’s questions, led them to names and places in the files, pulled out witness statements, and let them take notes, all with the patience of a saint. He confirmed that eleven women in total had filed complaints of sexual abuse against Magner. All the alleged assaults occurred within an eight-year period – 1979 to 1986 – after Magner left the rigs to work as a salesman in the construction industry, but before he started Stratheden Enterprises with McCulloch. Gilchrist theorised that the itinerant life of a salesman lent itself to overnight stays away from home, and plenty of opportunities for short-term sexual liaisons that were readily forgotten or, as in Magner’s case, came back to haunt him.