Devil in the Detail (Scott Cullen Mysteries) (28 page)

It was missing.

"Are you one hundred percent sure?" asked Cullen, standing on the Cooks' drive.

He was on the phone to Caldwell. "Aye, I definitely saw it as well," she said. "A Clio. You made a snarky comment about it if you remember."

"I did," said Cullen. He noticed that Bain was just wrapping up his call to Robert Cook. "I'd better go."

Cullen and Bain put their phones away at the same time.

"Fuckin' shite," said Bain. "Says he was at home last night. I'll get Lamb and his clones to check on that."

"I've got something for you," said Cullen.

"Oh aye?" asked Bain. "Off duty, Constable."

Bain just didn't tire of the same shit joke, thought Cullen. He pointed at the drive. "Jamie Cook's car has disappeared since yesterday," he said.

Bain's ears raised up. "You fuckin' what?"

"There was a Renault Clio here yesterday," said Cullen, "alongside the Volvo and Robert Cook's Lexus. It's gone."

Bain stared at Cullen for a few seconds. "Right," he said, "you check with his wife, I'm calling Robert Cook right fuckin' back."

Cullen walked slowly up the drive towards the house, checking the flagstones for glass or any other sign that the car might have been broken into. Nothing. He walked up to the house and hammered on the door.

Wilma Cook answered the door again, a foul expression on her face. "What is it now?" she asked.

"I was here yesterday with ADC Caldwell," he said. "There was a Renault Clio parked in the drive. Is that your son's?"

She answered with a slight nod. "It is."

"Do you know where it is?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean," she said. "It's still there."

"It's not," he said. "Go and have a look."

Wilma Cook came down the steps. "Oh my God," she said, "you're right." She walked down the drive towards her car, as if the Clio was going to appear from behind the Volvo.

"When was the last time you saw it?" asked Cullen.

"I've no idea," she said. "It's not something I particularly notice."

Cullen didn't believe it - his own mother would have known exactly where he was and would have spotted his purple Fiesta disappearing practically before it had even gone. He couldn't accept for one minute that Jamie Cook's battleaxe of a mother didn't have his and his Clio's movements fully documented.
 

"You don't notice whether your son is at home?" he asked. "Even when the police are looking for him?"

"Well," she said, then stopped.

"So you didn't notice it disappearing during the night?" he asked.

"No," she said. "I haven't been out today, what with all that business with Father Mulgrew."

"I take it Jamie has his own keys for it?" he asked.

"He does," she said. "I've got a spare set which I keep just inside the door."

"Could you check that they're still there?"

She went back inside the house and rummaged around inside the front door in the hall. "They're still here," she said.

"Can you check the garage?" he asked.

She retrieved a key fob and came back outside. Cullen followed her over to the double garage. She pressed a button on the fob and the doors slid up. Inside the garage was the usual assortment of surplus furniture, sport equipment, bikes and garden tools. No sign of a Clio.

Cullen scribbled some notes and tried to clear his head. He couldn't think of any more questions. "Okay, thank you," he said, "we'll be in touch."

She went back inside, slamming the door shut. Cullen walked back towards Bain's Mondeo. Bain was sitting inside, face sour.

"Slippin' her a length were you, Sundance?" asked Bain.

"Hardly," said Cullen. "She'd not noticed the car for days. It's not in the garage, either."

"Fuck sake," snapped Bain. "She's probably out of her fuckin' head on Prozac or something."

"Did you get through to Robert Cook?" asked Cullen.

"Aye," replied Bain. "He noticed it had gone when he left this morning. He thought his wife had put it away last night. He said he was in a tearing hurry to get into Edinburgh for his meeting."

"He didn't think to tell us that his missing son's car has disappeared overnight?" asked Cullen, incredulous.

"He said that when he thought about it, he noticed it had gone last night," said Bain.

Cullen took a long, deep breath. "Are they trying to cover something up?" he asked.

"Could well be," said Bain. "Their son is murder suspect number one and they don't want us to find him."

"He could be innocent," said Cullen.

"It's not exactly looking that way," said Bain. "And I think they know it." He paused for a minute. "I want someone taking a statement off the pair of them."

*

"Jamie Cook's car has disappeared," said Bain, "most likely some time yesterday afternoon."

It was half an hour later and they were in the Incident Room, with more than thirty officers. Bain had made sure that every single one had been pulled back into the station - he wanted to reassign priorities and make sure that they were all focused.
 

A new addition to the squad, Cullen noticed, was DS Bryan Holdsworth, Bain's usual office manager, who had been busy organising the Incident Room. He carried a clipboard but steadfastly refused to share its contents with anyone.

"DC Cullen here noticed that the car was missing," added Bain. "He, along with ADC Caldwell, visited the property yesterday morning and identified three cars. A Volvo SUV, a Lexus silver saloon and a modified Renault Clio. The Lexus is linked to the car that was seen by Morag Tattersall, disappearing from the scene of Seamus Mulgrew's murder." He took a sip from a fresh can of Red Bull. "Jimmy Deeley has not performed the postmortem on Father Mulgrew but he gave an indicative time of death for Mulgrew at some point yesterday evening, between 8pm and 11pm. This mystery car fits right into that window and it's likely it could be our suspect."
 

Bain took a pause and opened his notebook. "I want to talk about suspects for a bit," he said, putting his glasses on and reading. "Jamie Cook is now the main suspect in this case. He now has a means with which to carry out the murder. And also DS Lamb has still not managed to find him. The most likely scenario is that Jamie Cook murdered Mandy Gibson and then murdered Father Mulgrew. It is likely that the car we have a witness statement for was Robert Cook, Jamie's father, having helped his son to kill Mulgrew."

"Any idea why Jamie would kill Mulgrew?" asked Lamb. He was leaning against the wall at the back of the room, arms folded, one hand stroking his beard.

"We have many accounts of likely motives for the murder," said Bain.
 

"Okay, so why would Robert Cook help his son out?" asked Lamb.

Bain held Lamb's look for a few moments before answering. "I'm sorry?"

"Robert Cook is one of the key members of this God's Rainbow group," said Lamb. "I find it a bit strange that he'd murder the leader."

"What about to protect his son?" asked Bain.

"But why? I don't get it."

"Fine," said Bain, "let's discuss this later." He finished the can of Red Bull and crushed it with some force. "Of the car suspects, we have alibis from Gibson, Thornton and Cook."

"It could be someone else," said Lamb. "You've focused on those three to tie it to Jamie Cook, haven't you?"

"Drop it, Sergeant," said Bain.

Lamb shrugged. "Fine."

"As I said earlier," said Bain, entirely focused on Lamb, "Jamie Cook now has the means with which to commit the crimes. Balgone Ponds is roughly four miles from Garleton and it had been a mystery as to how Cook could travel between the two. Fortunately that is now resolved."

Lamb started to speak but Bain cut him off. "Sergeant, you and I will have a conversation after this."

Cullen could guess what Lamb was going to say - there were means and motive for the Mulgrew murder but they couldn't pin Mandy on Cook. They only had Bain's assumptions and the matching MO.

"Now, I'm going to set some actions and I want hourly updates from all officers to be passed through DS Holdsworth and PC Watson," said Bain. "I will contact each lead officer every three hours for personal updates. Expect some difficult questions."

He looked at Caldwell. "ADC Caldwell, I want you to go into Edinburgh and go through the CCTV network from the A1 into Edinburgh. I want you to find Jamie Cook's car." His focus switched to Lamb. "DS Lamb, I want you to perform a similar exercise locally. Search all of the CCTV on the A1 and any other main roads leading from Garleton." Cullen noticed Lamb screw his eyes shut.
 

Bain dished out further instructions to the uniformed officers - mainly door-to-door in the Dunpender estate, checking on the movements of Charles Gibson and Robert Cook, but also searching the streets around Seamus Mulgrew's cottage.

"Finally," said Bain, "I want DS Irvine and DC Cullen to take over the search for Jamie Cook. For over 24 hours now, DS Lamb has been leading the investigation but we need to change things around and actually find the boy. Dismissed."

Time was Cullen would have appreciated being paired with his DS but now he was in a relationship with her, they had been separated at work. Now that he was to be joined at the hip with Irvine, it was a different matter entirely.

"DS Lamb," called Bain, "a word."

Bain had instructed Cullen to obtain all Lamb's information about Jamie Cook. Lamb insisted they discussed the matter away from the Incident Room, so were in the Starbucks again, sitting by the window, looking across to the police station. Most of the rain had dried off and the day was brightening up again. The first hints of a bitter wind was making its presence felt. The early afternoon shoppers making their way up the high street were struggling against it.

"You're looking better than you did this morning," said Lamb, "though it's fair to say that you can hide a hangover well."

"Aye, well," said Cullen, "you look like you survived Bain's one-on-one mauling pretty well."

Lamb snorted. "He's a pussy cat when you get him alone."

"Is he?"

Lamb laughed again. "Not really." He drank his latte. "What's with all this Batman shite with him?"

"I've no idea where he's picked that one up from," said Cullen. "He likes to have nicknames for people. You'll have noticed that he calls me Sundance. That's a cheap joke at my girlfriend's expense. He calls her Butch."

"Is she a lesbian?" asked Lamb.

"Hardly."

"Wonder what he calls me," said Lamb.

"If he calls you by your real name, you know it's bad," said Cullen. "So what happened with him, then?"

"He tore into me," replied Lamb, "usual stuff about don't question him in front of all of the officers."

"You were raising some valid points."

"I think your DI isn't someone who appreciates valid points," said Lamb. "I have to say, he's lucky that my DI has been excluded from this case."

Cullen had wondered why the local DI, based in Musselburgh, had not at least been consulted. The regional stations were staffed by DSs and DCs - like Lamb, Murray and McLaren - but they reported into a single DI in the division, more of an admin function. It was a similar set up in West Lothian, though the higher population and crime rate meant that Livingston had its own full-time operational DI as well as the divisional one. "Any idea why he has been excluded?" he asked.
 

"No idea," said Lamb. "Other than the fact that Bain seems to like a divide and conquer strategy."

"You don't know the half of it," said Cullen. He finished his espresso - the only coffee in the place that he could stomach.

"I think I'm going to have a discussion with DCI Turnbull about DI Bain's conduct," said Lamb.

Cullen was puzzled by the use of formal titles and language. "It's your battle," he said.

"I never lose," said Lamb.

Cullen took his notebook out. "Okay, onto the reason that we're here," he said. "Can you give me the list of all leads on Jamie Cook?"

"Certainly," replied Lamb. He took out a stapled document from the pile of papers he had in front of him and passed it to Cullen. "This is the detailed list of all lines of investigation that we've followed. I had Murray type it all up at lunchtime there - I suspected something like this might happen."
 

From glancing through the many pages, Cullen noticed that they'd spoken to more than eighty witnesses so far. "That's a lot of people," he said.

"I'm nothing if not thorough," replied Lamb.

"Where should I be focusing my efforts?"

Lamb grabbed the paper and turned to the last page. "Here," he said and pointed at a line of text. "That's my next line of enquiry. It's one of yours."

Cullen read the name - it meant nothing to him. "Keith Green?"

"One of Jamie's friends in Tranent," said Lamb. "It was you that unearthed that link but it still took a hell of a lot of asking around to get a name. For a young lad, Jamie Cook sure doesn't like to leave a trail behind."

"Thanks," said Cullen.

Lamb grabbed hold of the paper before Cullen could take it. "One thing, Cullen," he said. "If any of this turns out to be useful in finding Jamie, please make sure that I'm given some of the credit for it."

"You're not afraid of the big bad Bain are you?" asked Cullen.

Lamb laughed, a little too loud for Cullen to think it was genuine. "No, I'm not," he said, "but I recognise a game player when I see one and I don't want to be on the losing side."

"I'll make sure you get all credit that's due you," said Cullen.

"You mean that?" asked Lamb, his face suddenly betraying a fear.

"Of course."

*

Irvine indicated off the dual carriageway, the sporty Astra heading inland away from Prestonpans and the Forth coastline.
 

Cullen had been pretending to review his notes so as to avoid conversation. He looked up and studied the town.

The exit from the A1 hid most of Tranent behind new housing estates - Barratt, Miller, Stewart Milne and a few local builders - a sprawl of white buildings with red or blue roofs leading up from the valley floor to the town. Cullen had been to Tranent only once before and that had been a fleeting visit, driving through on the way to New Winton, a small hamlet south of the town. To Cullen, it was typical of the planning of many Scottish towns - find an area of outstanding natural beauty and put a set of hideous buildings right in the middle of it. The high street had the typical Lothians combination of pubs, charity shops and takeaways, all housed in either badly-butchered old buildings or the concrete lumps that had sprung up in the last half century.