Absolution (28 page)

‘All?’ said Costello. ‘Don’t think so, Tracey. Try again.’

‘Well, I think she wanted to be me,’ Tracey said with no trace of modesty.

‘She wanted to be you?’ asked Costello.

‘Yeah, you deaf?’

‘No, just confused.’

‘Look, I’m eighteen. I’m going to stay on the game until I’m thirty, and that will be me set for life. I have a plan. This is a career for me.’

‘Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?’ said Costello wearily.

‘I can imagine, but I’m clever. I don’t do drugs, I smoke only ten a day, and I don’t drink often. I have my regular clients. I’m saving for a deposit on a flat, then I’ll be up the property ladder and within five years I’ll be working in the city centre, around Princes Square. That’s where the money is.’

‘Claiming what as a profession? Don’t tell me – exotic dancer.’ Costello sighed wearily. ‘Everybody knows what that means.’

Tracey sighed with impatience. ‘Look, I can talk in company, I don’t let people down. I can behave. I’m going for escort work. That’s where the money is.’ She realized she had repeated herself. ‘I’m expensive, but I’m good. It’s a business. I work hard at it.’

‘And Arlene?’

Was just a streetwalker. She turned tricks up a lane. She
had a kid, and it ruined her body. I told her losing weight and going blonde would bring in more money. I was being ironic, but she believed me. She took everything I said as gospel. She wasn’t the brightest. She drinks – drank – too much, she used to have a drug habit. She wasn’t going anywhere. I was on the way up, she was on the way down, so she latched on to me. She was a good laugh, sometimes. End of story.’

Was she on a course of self-improvement?’

Tracey snorted, choking slightly on her Coke. ‘Sorry, that went down the wrong way.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She was an idiot, but she had this idea that if she got a better flat she could earn more money. She didn’t have her boy – Ryan, is it? – living with her because her flat was so damp and he’s asthmatic, apart from everything else. To stand a chance of getting a new flat, she had to get on some sort of training programme and show a change of profession; then she could apply for the return of her son. She needed a sponsor, somebody who’d give good references to her change of character.’

Was any of this genuine?’

‘I don’t think so.’ She reconsidered. ‘No, it wasn’t. She was just jumping through hoops for what she could get. I tell you, she had those muppets at the refuge eating out her hand. And good for her.’

‘Who, at the Phoenix? Who was her contact?’

Tracey shook her head. ‘He was kinda cute, nice voice. He was there for the taking, she said. No names.’ Tracey wriggled in her seat a little. ‘Can we go out for a ciggie?’ she asked Mulholland.

‘He doesn’t smoke,’ said Costello. What does “there for the taking” mean?’

‘Guys like that can be naive. You can say they tried
something on, blackmail them. Not for much, but most guys would give you money just to make you go away. It’s a game, isn’t it? No harm done.’

‘I think somebody was playing another game, where harm was done.’

Tracey shrugged again. ‘Look, I do know she had some photographs taken, and she took them to one of those computer-print places to get postcards made up.’

‘What kind of postcards?’

‘Oh, her dressed as a schoolgirl in black suspenders, that kind of thing. As if men are interested in that nowadays. She thought it would bring in a better class of punter, that’s how stupid she was. Anybody can pick up that type of thing.’

Costello resisted looking at Mulholland.

‘What did she intend doing with them? Phone boxes?’

‘That kind of thing, yeah.’

‘Very upmarket.’

Tracey laughed. ‘I had some quality shots done at a studio, and she thought she was doing the same thing.’

‘Either way it’s a good way to get yourself killed.’ Costello stood up. ‘Do us a favour, Tracey. Stay off the streets just now, we’re busy. I don’t want to be looking at your battered face on a slab, OK? Take care,’ she added cheerfully. ‘Come on, Vik.’

‘Yeah, go on, Vik. Bye.’ Tracey rippled her fingers at him.

Costello looked heavenwards and sighed.

At exactly eight O’clock on Tuesday evening, the Reverend Shand returned Anderson’s phone call from a small hotel in rural Minorca. The voice on the phone was the voice of a minister who had been in Glasgow all his life and had seen and heard everything. He didn’t sound surprised that they
had tracked him down – he had, after all, left the phone number with his daughter. He seemed more interested in telling Anderson about that day’s birdwatching. Anderson found himself scribbling it all down, wondering what it was with men of the cloth and their avian friends.

By the end of the phone call he had gleaned a few interesting facts about the feathered fauna of the Balearics and many more interesting things about Elizabeth Jane Fulton. Each little bit made some kind of sense, but he could in no way pull it all together. He reached for his notes, claimed the nearest empty keyboard and started to type up a report of the conversation, in the hope that it would all look clearer on paper.

True to form, it was exactly ten O’clock that night when Anderson banged a stapler on the desk for silence. And was ignored. He tried rattling a spoon against the side of a coffee mug, and the room hushed, but only a little.

‘Can you cut it out for a minute?’ He tried to raise his voice over the background noise of phone calls and computer printers, pulling his finger across his throat. The two officers still on the phone wound up their calls, taking numbers and saying they would get back in five minutes. Wyngate, having a better idea of how long this was going to take, was telling the switchboard the inquiry room would be shut for half an hour.

‘Right, boys and girls, just a minute of your time, and then half of you can go home. Christ knows we don’t have much time to spare. We have a couple of definite leads, so there is a lot to do. Littlewood will brief you as to the specifics of today in a minute, but first, a point.’ He placed his hands on his hips, waiting for absolute silence. ‘Everything goes through media liaison. The press are desperate,
and they will snap at anything. Batten says the media coverage is feeding Christopher Robin’s ego. It shows we’re under strain, so it gives him a feeling of superiority. He will interpret it as God being on his side. I’m going for a chinwag with the good doctor and Costello. Littlewood, you’re in charge, come and get me if you need me.’

When did the good Dr Batten get so bossy?’ Costello whispered.

‘I would ask why, not when.’

The canteen displayed a sign that said
CLOSED FOR CLEANING.
However, at least two shifts had passed since the place had been cleaned. From the litter of plates and discarded trays, it looked more like somebody had given the order to evacuate.

‘Great,’ said Batten. ‘No phones, no interruptions, no nothing.’

‘No food,’ muttered Costello.

Batten opened his leather bag and started to put the contents on the table. Costello looked at the clock. Time was slipping past, she had a lot of work to do, and she wanted time to allow her thoughts on Sean McTiernan and Trude to form a cohesive picture. She wanted to morph the girl in the lane into Trude. She had found an ally in Gordon Wyngate, who seemed happy to sit and trawl the computer for anything she wanted. He was now tracing the life of Trude Swann from the registration of her birth as far as he could, and he’d got on with it, no questions asked. He’d come up with only one thing they didn’t already know: her given name was Geertruijde. ‘However you pronounce
that.’
But he had found nothing else; some years earlier the girl had ceased to exist. Which intrigued Costello all the more.

‘Wyngate tells me you’ve been chasing somebody called Trude,’ said Batten, reading her thoughts.

‘Only following up the McTiernan lead,’ she replied honestly.

‘Maybe you can enlighten us,’ asked Anderson.

‘But what about this Trude, why does she attract your attention?’ insisted Batten.

‘Trude Swann – two
n
’s – is an orphan, and at the age of sixteen she walked out of the Good Shepherd Orphanage and off the face of the planet. That’s not an easy thing to do. Wyngate tried the Good Shepherd for the name of the solicitor that looked after Trude’s affairs, but they stonewalled, citing every act and statute you can think of. Wyngate can’t find a name change, an emigration application or a death certificate. A member of staff who was there at the time remembers the connection with the lawyer just led to another lawyer.’

Batten nodded as if it was of some interest, but refused to enlighten his colleagues.

Mulholland arrived, looking fresh-faced and smug, McAlpine glowering behind him.

‘How did the press conference go?’ asked Costello.

‘I dare say he used lots of big words to tell them nothing,’ said McAlpine, his rage having passed.
Which was just what you wanted, Boss.

Batten started to shuffle some photographs, keeping them face down. ‘Brainstorming session. We are going to mind-map.’ He looked at McAlpine. ‘All right if I go ahead?’

The Boss nodded, seemingly happy to take a back seat, quiet with his own thoughts, his eyes never straying far from the battered copy of the
Evening Gazette
on the table.

‘Mind-map? Like joining hands and contacting the dead? We could just ask bloody Arlene who killed her,’ said Mulholland sarcastically.

Costello reached for a can of Diet Coke from her bag,
her suspicions confirmed. This was Batten’s way. So much for teamwork from the guys in the squad; he had gathered the brains. This was divide and rule. ‘Anybody want a mouthful of Coke?’

Anderson nodded and handed over a glass, desperate for caffeine to keep him awake.

‘Three piles, one for each victim.’ Batten dealt more photographs round the table, like cards.

Irvine appeared with a brown envelope. ‘The powers that be left this upstairs for you.’

Batten took the envelope. Irvine hung around, wanting to be included. ‘Could you close the outer door, please?’

‘No probs.’

Costello watched as Batten subtly called the shots. McAlpine was muttering something over and over to himself, stroking the bruises on his face with his thumb, watching as Batten opened the envelope. The doctor pulled out six close-ups, three wounds, three faces. ‘Three women,’ he stated. ‘On the surface, we see no connection.’ His hand travelled from one to the other. ‘But Christopher Robin can.’ His hand rested on Lynzi’s picture. ‘Here we have a happily married woman, but she’s fucking around behind her husband’s back. Doesn’t even have the guts to admit to her family why she has left them.’

He moved his hands over to Elizabeth Jane. ‘Costello tells us Elizabeth Jane was to be chief bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding, and that the bride said that Elizabeth Jane was mixing it – ’

Anderson raised his hand to interrupt. ‘I got Shand on the phone from God knows where in Minorca, just a few hours ago. For a good Christian man of the cloth, he’d some harsh things to say. He described Elizabeth Jane as’ – he flipped the pages of his notebook and read from them – ‘a
highly manipulative, unpleasant piece of work.
He thinks she was determined to stop the wedding. Apparently she told him her cousin’s fiancé had the hots for her, hinted that he’d no right to be marrying her cousin, practically said he’d be in breach of his marriage vows before he started. Well, Shand was in an awkward position, as he knows all three families really well – Paula Fulton’s family, her fiance’s, and Elizabeth Jane and her parents. Of course Elizabeth Jane’s parents wouldn’t have a word said against their darling daughter, but he knew her well enough to know she’d stir enough shite – not that he said it quite like that – to cause real trouble. So he had a quiet chat with the boy.’

‘Paula was right, it was Elizabeth Jane doing the flirting?’ asked Batten. ‘She would probably be naive and maybe a little obvious in her sexual pursuit.’

‘The boy had no time for her.’ Anderson opened his palms and smiled at Costello. ‘Exactly what the bride said. But Shand felt sorry for the girl, and thought he should try to help her. So he hinted to her to come to the Phoenix. His initial plan was to get Tom O’Keefe or George Leask to act as some kind of mediator, but events overtook them. Tom had – quote –
a hairy fit
when Shand mentioned it.’

‘I’ve read the reports, all of them carefully, and everybody says they
sort
of know everybody. O’Keefe says he knew
of
Elizabeth Jane but didn’t
know
her. Her parents
thought
she knew him but only because Elizabeth Jane said so. And Leask distanced himself from his Tom comment, didn’t he?’

McAlpine nodded.

‘I phoned the Fultons. They’d never set eyes on Tom but had witnessed Elizabeth Jane talking to him on the phone,’ clarified Batten. ‘So we don’t really know who was on the phone.’

“We know Leask knew of Elizabeth Jane,’ Costello said
quietly. ‘He was in their house. But it might be the priest who’s lying. It was his number that showed up on her phone records. So Leask could be telling the truth, and O’Keefe might be lying.’

‘But anybody could answer that phone. O’Keefe is out and about a lot,’ Anderson said. ‘Just because his phone rings, doesn’t mean he answers it.’

Dismissing Elizabeth Jane, Batten pointed to Arlene’s wrecked face. ‘She was only out pissed. No crime in that.’ He frowned, as if he was trying to establish a link in his mind. ‘She was trying to stay clear of drugs, and that was the reason she was at the Phoenix. She had no problem being a prostitute. In fact, she seemed to be trying to make something good of it. That honesty does not fit with the other two at all.’

Costello replied, ‘Honesty? I don’t think so.’ They listened as she related her conversation with Tracey. ‘But does pulling a fast one justify getting your guts cut out?’

‘Maybe in Christopher Robin’s eyes it does,’ said Batten, taking a Silk Cut from his packet, remembering and putting it away again. ‘It doesn’t really matter what
you
think. It only matters what
he
thinks. So you have to think like him. And whatever Arlene, Elizabeth Jane or Lynzi may have done, it does in his eyes “justify getting your guts cut out”, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.’