Double Mortice (11 page)

‘I went to the bedroom door, fully expecting to see Anne lying on the bed. But not like that!’ Michael opened his eyes wide and sat bolt upright, beads of sweat forming at his temples.

‘Lie back and try to relax. We can take a break, if you like?’

‘I don’t want a break. I want to keep going.’ He lay back down and closed his eyes. ‘It was horrible – utterly sickening. Anne was bound to the bedposts, thick white rope round her wrists and ankles. She was gagged with brown sticky tape – the kind removal companies use. She was wearing the same white blouse and green leather skirt, but her throat… her throat was slit wide open. She was staring… staring straight at me – with her cold, blue eyes……- just like McFarlane’s.’ Michael’s breathing was coming in short gasps, his voice laboured. ‘Blood was pumping from her body. Her blouse was changing from white to crimson before my very eyes. Dark
stains were spreading across her skirt. Blood was seeping through the duvet. I fell to my knees and closed my eyes. The cat was shrieking even louder. I threw up all over the bed. I couldn’t help myself.

‘When I forced my eyes open, all I could see was my vomit mingling with Anne’s blood. I nearly passed out. I staggered to my feet and tugged out my mobile. But again, there was no signal. I wanted to run from the room but I made myself pick up the phone, even though I knew the line would be dead. It was. I dropped the receiver and ran to the lift and when I got to the ground floor I hammered on the caretaker’s door.

‘Harry let me in and I phoned Charlie. He was there in less than fifteen minutes. Charlie went upstairs and when he came back down he told me he’d found nothing. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to go up again, but Charlie made me. There was nothing,’ he gulped. ‘Nothing at all.’

McCartney paused before speaking. ‘You mentioned that Anne’s eyes were like McFarlane’s. Who is McFarlane?’

Michael stared across at Charlie, then turned back to McCartney. ‘He murdered Anne,’ he whispered. ‘I knew he would. He comes after me in my dreams – always the same nightmare. His face appears out of nowhere and he’s mocking me. His eyes lock onto mine and no matter how much I try I can’t deflect my gaze. I can’t close my eyes and I can’t lift my arms to shield my face.

‘His face grows bigger and the purple scar on his cheek becomes more and more vivid. My body starts to shrink and he opens his mouth wide as he approaches me. I’m running backwards as fast as I can but he’s closing on me relentlessly. There’s no escape. He’s licking his lips. He’s going to swallow me whole when he gets close enough. I stumble and fall and…’ Michael sat up and sank his face in his hands, his whole body quaking.

McCartney waited until Michael had recovered his composure before taking him by the shoulder and guiding him back to the prone position. ‘Do you know McFarlane, Michael? Or is he just someone who appears in your nightmare?’

‘I know him all right. I defended him in the High Court twelve years ago – I was an advocate at the time. He got sent down for armed robbery, but he’s out of jail now and he’s after me.’

‘Why would he be after you?’

‘He blames me. He thinks I let him down.’

‘Do you think you let him down? Do you blame yourself?’

Michael swallowed hard. ‘Though he protested his innocence, I was sure he was guilty. Nevertheless, I’d taken on his case and it was my responsibility to present his defence in the best possible light. I failed miserably. I wasn’t sharp. I missed numerous opportunities to pressurise prosecution witnesses, to challenge circumstantial evidence.

‘When it became apparent the case was slipping away, I tried to persuade him to change his plea to guilty in order to get a lighter sentence. He took exception to this advice. He dismissed me as his advocate and proceeded to conduct his own defence. However, he was found guilty by a majority verdict and sentenced to fifteen years.

‘As he was being led from the dock he screamed out – I’ll never forget his words:
When I get out I’m going to fucking-well kill you, Gibson. You – and your wife – and your kid
.’ Tears welled in Michael’s eyes. ‘I should have represented him much better than I did. I was under a lot of stress at the time – personal problems, family problems. If I’d performed to the best of my ability, there was a possibility he might have got off with a ‘not proven’ verdict. The episode affected me badly. I had a breakdown and I was off work for several months.’

‘Did you seek psychiatric help at the time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who did you consult?’

‘Dr Trayner.’

‘Tell me about your nightmare. How often does it occur?’

‘It used to be about once a month. But since the headaches started it seems like every other night.’

‘How long have you been suffering from headaches?’

‘About six months.’

‘Do you know what brings them on?’

‘Not specifically.’

‘Describe them.’

‘Sharp, stabbing pains at the base of the skull and behind my eyes. They’re at their worst first thing in the morning. They tend to ease off during the day.’

‘Are you taking anything for them?’

‘Just paracetamol.’

‘How many?’

‘I don’t know. Quite a lot, I suppose.’

‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m… I’m scared… my father… I’m scared I might be going the same way as my father.’ Michael’s voice was barely audible.

‘Do you now accept, logically, that Anne’s suicide and murder couldn’t have happened as you described?’

‘Last Wednesday, I didn’t accept that. It was all so real and there could’ve been a logical explanation for everything that happened, however unlikely. Someone could’ve removed Anne’s body and tidied up the flat before I returned with Charlie. But last night – no.’ Michael shook his head. ‘It couldn’t have happened. It all seemed so real at the time, but no one could possibly have cleaned up the mess I saw in fifteen minutes.’

‘Had you been drinking before you came home?’

‘I’ve been hitting the bottle pretty hard recently, but not yesterday afternoon. I’d been to the office and I was stone cold sober when I came home. What’s going on, doctor?’ Michael pleaded. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

McCartney leaned across to switch off the recorder. ‘I don’t know, Michael. This is only a preliminary session. Clearly, there’s a lot to be looked at in more detail. Are you going to be in Glasgow for the next few days?’

‘Of course. Where would I go?’

‘In which case I’d advise you not to go back to your apartment for the time being. Is there anywhere else you could go?’

‘I stayed at the Marriott last night.’

‘Then check in there for a few more days and come back to see me on Friday. Would ten o’clock be okay?’ he asked, consulting his desk diary.

‘Yes.’ Michael hesitated. ‘What about the cat? I’ll have to go back to the flat to feed the cat and change its litter.’ He sounded strangely distant. ‘If Anne comes home, the first thing she’ll ask about will be the cat.’

McCartney looked across at Charlie. ‘Is there someone who could handle that?’

Charlie thought for a minute. ‘The caretaker. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind doing it. I’ll have a word with him.’

‘Good. Take two of these in the evening before you go to bed,’ McCartney said, writing out a prescription. ‘They’ll help you sleep. Cut down on the paracetamol – and I recommend you lay off the booze completely.’

Michael folded the prescription and slipped it into his wallet. ‘There’s one other thing, doctor. When I went to pack my toilet bag last night – before going to the hotel – my razor – I use a cut-throat – was missing.’

‘When did you last see it?’

‘Yesterday morning. I shaved with it before I went to work.’

McCartney exchanged a quick glance with Charlie. ‘I think you’ve been through enough for today. We’ll talk about the razor on Friday.’

Michael got up from the couch and shook McCartney’s hand. ‘Thank you. And thanks for staying, Charlie.’

‘I’ll call you at the Marriott as soon as we have any news,’ Charlie said.

When Michael had left, Charlie turned to McCartney. ‘What do you make of it, Stephen?’

‘It’s all pretty weird. The guy is clearly unstable and needs careful handling. What can you tell me about this McFarlane character?’

‘He’s bad news – dangerous and violent. It runs in the family. I sent his old man down twice for armed robbery. I knew Gibson was uptight about him coming out of prison, but not to the extent of having nightmares about it.’

‘Gibson’s story – was it the same as the version he gave you?’

‘Essentially, yes. A few more details on some points, a few less on others. But that’s inevitable when you recount something twice. One thing I did notice. He said that when he thought Anne had committed suicide she ‘looked very peaceful’. I don’t recall him saying anything like that at the time.’

‘That figures. When he got to the bit about entering the bedroom yesterday it was almost as if he wanted to find her body lying peacefully on the bed, just as he’d imagined her the previous week. He’d adjusted to the fact that she was dead and he wanted to confirm in his mind that it was a peaceful suicide.

‘However, his subconscious wouldn’t let him off so lightly. He had to suffer more. He had to witness a violent murder. Did you notice that, at the start, when he referred to his wife it was in the past tense? ‘She
was
a couple of years younger than me’, ‘she
was
fiercely determined’ – as if he knew she was dead. Later on, he left open the possibility of her being alive when he said: ‘If Anne comes home, the first thing she’ll ask about will be the cat’. His mind seems to be struggling to make the distinction between fantasy and reality.

‘However, would I be right in saying that all that’s actually been established is that Anne Gibson is missing?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘So, apart from Gibson’s story, there isn’t a shred of evidence that his wife is dead. Maybe she’s run off with another bloke, for God’s sake. Perhaps Gibson’s ego won’t let him face up to that possibility and his subconscious is trying to block the idea out of his mind.

‘First, he imagines suicide. But Gibson has a logical mind. If his wife had committed suicide her body would have been discovered by now. As time goes by he has to go a step further and imagine she’s been murdered and her body’s been hidden.
But why he invents such a violent murder is hard to fathom. I’m surmising, Charlie. It’ll take time to unravel what’s going on inside his head.’

‘What about his wife having a hold over him? He’s never mentioned anything about that before.’

McCartney grinned. ‘He didn’t seem too keen to expand on that in your presence. I’ll try to get him to open up on that when we’re on our own on Friday.’

‘And his mobile phone and his land line mysteriously not working for a while, then working normally again. What’s that all about?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘And what about the missing razor? Presumably he’s not imagining that?’

‘I don’t know. That’s something else I’ll probe into on Friday.’

‘He said he had psychiatric treatment around the time of McFarlane’s trial. I wasn’t aware of that. From a Dr Trayner – do you know him?’

‘It’s not him – it’s her. And yes, I know her well. We were in the same year at Glasgow University. She has a practice on the south side.’ McCartney stroked his chin reflectively. ‘Tell me about Gibson’s bedroom. Is there any possibility that Anne Gibson could have been murdered as he described and then the killer cleared up the evidence before you got there?’

Charlie shook his head emphatically. ‘None whatsoever. The bedroom was as clean as a whistle. As Gibson said himself, nobody could’ve cleared up the mess he described in fifteen minutes. To be on the safe side I’ve sent the forensic boys across to crawl all over the place, but I’ll bet anything you like they’ll draw a blank.’

‘Do you know anything about the family background? Is there a history of instability?’

‘I know his father, George, very well. He also was a solicitor – spent most of his career working for ‘Coppell and Morris’. He did a bit of conveyancing but his speciality was defence briefs in the Sheriff court. That’s how I got to know him. A shrewd old bugger
was George. He’d mastered the art of plea bargaining before the term had been invented. But as honest as the day is long. When you did a deal with George Gibson, you could be one hundred per cent sure he’d honour his side of the bargain.

‘George had always aspired to be an advocate, but he failed the bar exams. When Michael took up law he worked for several years as a solicitor, then trained as an advocate. I was never quite sure if this was Michael fulfilling his personal ambition or George pushing him to achieve what he himself had never managed. In any event Michael turned out to be a competent, rather than a brilliant, advocate – that was, until a wheel came off about twelve years ago.

‘A couple of weeks prior to McFarlane’s trial, Michael had got very bad press for his handling of the defence brief in a high-profile rape case. When you questioned him this morning he told you he ‘wasn’t sharp’ during McFarlane’s trial. That was the understatement of the century. I was in the public gallery throughout the proceedings. He was pathetic. He seemed to be in a constant dwam – lost in another world. Several times the judge had to call his name two or three times before he responded.

‘McFarlane’s trial put the kybosh on any aspirations Michael might have had of becoming a top-flight advocate – though I hadn’t realised until today he’d undergone psychiatric treatment as a result.

‘Old George took it very badly. He’d been planning to retire round about that time, but in order to allow Michael to step down from advocacy without losing face he sank his capital into setting up ‘Gibson & Gibson’. I know they struggled for quite some time to get the practice off the ground – a solicitor who was overdue for retirement and a failed advocate wasn’t the ideal combination to inspire confidence. But, credit to them both, they worked their arses off and they managed to build the firm up to be one of the most successful in the city.’

‘Michael’s reference to ‘going the same way as his father’. What
was that all about?’