Out of Bounds (36 page)

‘PC Darren Foreman.’

‘Fine.’ Tight lips suggesting the opposite.

Karen forgot herself and stood up quickly, stifling a gasp of pain as her bruises kicked in. ‘I’ll get on to it right away.’

‘And make sure you come back with his DNA. I don’t want him forewarned and primed to take off out of our jurisdiction. Do your job, no excuses.’ He turned to his computer screen, effectively dismissing her.

Back down the black ribbon of the M8 towards Glasgow, the monotony of the ride broken by the pieces of roadside art. They were all supposed to have a traceable connection to their locale. The Horn, a giant aluminium megaphone that transmitted music and messages nobody could hear above the
traffic noise; the Sawtooth Ramps, a set of grassy pyramids supposed to symbolise the shale bings that once dotted that landscape; Big Heids, a trio of giant 3D heads made from steel tubes as an engineering project for local steelworks apprentices; and the wirework and steel Heavy Horse sculpture of a Clydesdale, the local workhorse breed. Other features had appeared over the years, but Karen was never quite sure whether they were art or functional. Three crane-like structures near Livingston that looked as if they were made from Meccano, for example. The metallic cladding on a shopping centre in the East End of Glasgow. She wouldn’t have bet on any of them.

She knew she was engaging in displacement activity, riffing on conceptual art when she ought to be doing the mental prep for her interview with PC Foreman. But she wasn’t apprehensive about it. Either he would cooperate or he wouldn’t. And if he wouldn’t, she was probably screwed. He’d presumably had training both in the army and in the police on how to hold out against interrogation. None of Karen’s little tricks was likely to throw him off his stride. So there was little point in running through her options.

There was one thing she could take care of. With Jason driving, she was free to make phone calls. She rang the Police Scotland evidence facility, a large warehouse near the HQ at Gartcosh. Most of their cases relied on evidence stored at the site, where physical evidence and paperwork on unsolved cases ended up. The HCU were regular visitors, staggering back to their vehicles with boxes of files.

The phone was picked up on the third ring by someone who sounded frankly far too cheerful to be working in an evidence store. Karen identified herself and explained what she was after. ‘Four murders, May fifth, 1994,’ she said. ‘A Cessna was blown up in the skies above Galashiels. The dead were Richard Spencer, MP, his wife Mary and their friends
Caroline Abbott and Ellie MacKinnon. I’m looking for the case files. In particular, I need the DNA analysis for the four victims.’

The evidence officer recited the details back to her and she confirmed them. ‘When do you want this?’ he asked, a little of the shine going off his voice.

‘I’m on my way to Glasgow. I’ll be heading back later this afternoon. Any chance you can have them for me then?’

‘If you can leave it till after four, I’ll have them ready for you, Chief Inspector.’

‘Excellent. See you later.’ She ended the call. ‘Wee detour via the evidence store on the way back.’

‘Did I hear you saying “plane crash”? What’s that all about?’

‘It’s another cold case I’ve been taking a wee look at. It’s why the Macaroon was on the warpath with me the other day. I didn’t go down to London at the weekend for fun. I was following up a couple of leads.’

‘It’s not on the whiteboard,’ he said, referring to the list of cases in which they were taking an interest.

‘No,’ Karen agreed. ‘I wasn’t sure if there was anything for us. But the more I look into it, the more I think what happened in 1994 is not what everybody thinks.’

Jason frowned, puzzled. ‘What? You mean the plane wasn’t blown up?’

‘The plane was blown up all right. But maybe we were wrong about the identity of the killers.’

‘But … if we’re looking at it, that means it was unsolved, right? But what you’re saying sounds like we knew who did it. I don’t understand.’

Karen stifled a sigh and shifted in her seat, slipping the upper half of the seat belt behind her to ease the pressure on her bruised shoulder. ‘They assumed it was the IRA or a Republican splinter group because one of the victims was a
former Northern Ireland minister and the Republicans were pretty active at the time.’

‘And you think they were wrong?’

‘I do.’

‘How?’

‘I’m beginning to think that Richard Spencer wasn’t the target.’ Karen outlined what she’d found out so far and what she suspected about Gabriel Abbott’s death.

Jason’s apparent confusion grew as she spoke. ‘I’m not seeing what you’re seeing, boss,’ he said. ‘It all sounds like you’re making something out of nothing.’

Karen swithered for a moment. Then she decided. ‘If it’s something out of nothing, how come somebody tried to kill me last night?’

He turned to face her, horror in his eyes. ‘What?’

‘Watch the road, for fuck’s sake, Jason.’

He dragged his attention back to his driving. ‘Are you serious?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you don’t usually make jokes about things like that. But what happened?’

Karen told him. He listened in silence, then let out a long shrill whistle. ‘That sucks,’ he said. ‘How did they know where you were?’

‘That’s a good question. Either somebody was following me because they don’t like the questions I’m asking or else they were staking out the cottage and they didn’t like the idea that I’d been inside.’

‘Or maybe …’ Jason trailed off, giving her a quick uncertain glance.

‘Maybe what?’

‘Maybe it was pure chance that they turned up at the same time as you. Maybe they were looking for the same thing you found. And they just freaked out when they saw you?’

‘You’re right,’ Karen said. The boy was learning, no doubt about it. ‘Whatever, it’s clear that there’s something going on.’

‘Right enough, maybe you’re on to something. So what are we going to do about it?’

‘We’re going to solve it.’ What else? If someone was after her, dragging the truth into the open was the best way to defuse it. ‘We’ll pick up the plane crash evidence on the way home. But right now, I want your mind on Darren Foreman,’ she said. ‘Glasgow Airport, next exit.’

Darren Foreman’s boss was a taciturn Highlander with a soft voice that belied his tough appearance. He had a face as expressive as the north face of the Buachaille and almost as craggy. He took them to a tiny interview room behind the airport’s security area and left them alone. ‘I’ll get Darren,’ he said.

The only decoration was a Home Office poster showing all the objects a traveller was no longer permitted to take on board a plane. The room smelled of synthetic lemon and, beneath that, the musky darkness of body odour. Karen tried to get comfortable on the plastic chair, but it was a big ask. Her shoulder nagged at her to find a better place to sit.

They didn’t have long to wait. The door opened on a man of medium height made burly by his body armour and equipment. He carried a Heckler and Koch semi-automatic at port arms as he looked them up and down. What hair showed beneath his forage cap was as dark as Ross Garvie’s. It was tempting to conjure a resemblance, but Karen couldn’t put hand on heart and swear they looked alike. Foreman was eyeing her with shrewd blue eyes, weighing her up as one would a dangerous opponent.

His boss appeared at his shoulder and said, ‘Darren, I’ll take the piece.’

Foreman
said nothing, merely lifting the gun over his head to free the strap and handing it to him. The sergeant left, taking the gun with him and shutting the door after himself.

‘Please, sit down, Constable Foreman,’ Karen said. As he settled into the chair opposite her, legs spread apart, hands on knees, she introduced herself and Jason.

‘I don’t understand,’ Foreman said. ‘What’s Historic Cases got to do with me?’

‘We’d like to interview you under caution,’ Karen said. She nodded to Jason, who recited the familiar words.

Darren Foreman pushed his chair back a few feet. His eyes narrowed. ‘You better tell me what this is about or I’m out of here.’

‘That wouldn’t be a wise move,’ Karen said. ‘How do you think that would look to your boss? Refusing to cooperate with Police Scotland official business? I’d guess you wouldn’t have your pretty wee machine gun very long in those circumstances. Look, Darren, the best thing for everybody is if you just relax and answer my questions.’

He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I might answer or I might not.’

‘Do you know or have you ever known a woman called Jeanette MacBride?’

Puzzled but wary, Foreman straightened in his chair. ‘I used to go out with a Jeanette MacBride.’

‘Can you tell us when that was?’

His eyes moved up and to the side. ‘It must have been seventeen, eighteen years ago. I was in the army then. You could check with my records. It finished because my unit was mobilised and stationed in Berlin.’

‘Are you sure that’s why it finished?’

He shifted in his seat. ‘Why else?’

‘Nothing to do with her telling you she was pregnant by you?’

Foreman
clenched his fists, tucking them into his armpits. ‘I was shipping out to Berlin. I told her it was over between us and she should get an abortion because I wasn’t about to become a daddy. I was young and stupid in those days, Chief Inspector.’

‘Did she tell you she had the child?’

‘I never opened her letters, I binned them. Like I said, I wasn’t ready to have kids. It took me another five years to make my mind up about that.’

‘So you were unaware that Jeanette had a son?’

He shook his head.

‘And that she put him up for adoption?’

Again, the head-shake. ‘Look, I’ve got two daughters of my own now. I don’t feel any connection to some teenage lad I’ve never seen. The man and woman that brought him up, that’s his parents as far as I’m concerned.’

‘Fair enough. I think they’d agree with you.’

‘So what am I doing here?’

‘Constable Foreman, where were you on May seventeenth, 1996?’

‘What?’ He looked and sounded bamboozled.

‘It’s a straightforward question. May seventeenth, 1996.’

‘You mean, specifically where was I, or more generally?’ He leaned forward, gripping his knees with his hands. ‘Because I have no fucking idea what specifically I was doing that night or where I was doing it. But here’s what I can tell you. That night, same as every other night in April, May, June and half of July in 1996, I was in Gun Club Hill Barracks in Hong Kong.’

48

J
ason
broke the long silence that followed Foreman’s words.

‘Can you prove that?’ he asked.

‘It’s not my job to prove it, it’s yours. You can check with army records. That’ll answer your question about where I was that night. Why the hell are you asking me about that night anyway?’

Karen had gathered herself together now. ‘A young woman called Tina McDonald was raped and murdered in a Glasgow back alley. Her killer left his DNA at the scene. For reasons that I imagine you have no interest in, given what you just said, we recently took a DNA sample from your biological son. We got a familial hit on the DNA database. I take it you know what that means?’

Foreman’s eyes widened. ‘A close male relative. And you thought it must be me?’ His voice was tinged with outrage.

‘You can’t blame us for that,’ Karen said. Until she had checked with army records, she wouldn’t give up Darren Foreman as a suspect. But it would be useful to let him think she had. If only to get his DNA without further complications. ‘I wouldn’t be doing my job if I hadn’t chased you down. Are
you willing to give us a DNA sample so that we can conclusively eliminate you from our inquiries? I mean, you know it wasn’t you, so you have nothing to lose.’ She gave him her best smile.

‘Is he in trouble, this lad of Jeanette’s?’

‘I won’t lie to you. He’s in a bad place right now. But there’s nothing you can do to help him, I promise you that. So, Darren. The DNA?’

He blew his breath out in an explosive puff. ‘All right,’ he said. He knew the drill. He must have seen it often enough, Karen thought. Jason handed him the long cotton-tipped swab and Foreman rubbed it vigorously round the inside of both cheeks before dropping it into the proffered tube. Jason sealed it and wrote the details on the label – place, time, date, name of the donor, name of the officer taking the sample.

‘Do you have any other sons?’ Karen asked.

Foreman’s lip curled in a sneer. ‘What do you take me for? Look, I got a shock with Jeanette. After that, I was careful. I always used a condom. Until I got married, obviously. I didn’t want another nasty surprise.’ Then a thought clearly crossed his mind. He rolled his muscular shoulders and said softly, ‘What the hell.’ He sighed. ‘If you’re looking at close male relatives of my biological son, you should know that I have a brother. Well, I should say I
had
a brother. He died about eighteen months ago. A stupid accident on the building site where he was working.’

Karen felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. ‘Do you know where he was in 1996?’

He shook his head. ‘We weren’t close. Chalk and cheese, me and Gary. One of the reasons I went into the army was that I didn’t want to end up like him. He was three years older than me, feckless and aimless.’

‘Is there anyone you can think of who would know where he was and what he was doing back then?’

Foreman
nodded. ‘My mother. He was the apple of her eye. It didn’t matter what Gary did, it was never his fault. The world was always down on him, according to her.’ The bitterness in his voice was corrosive. ‘She’ll be able to give you chapter and verse.’

‘Thank you. And where will I find your mum?’

‘Linlithgow: 39 Strathmore Court.’

Jason scribbled furiously. ‘Will she be in just now?’

Foreman shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Look, she doesn’t keep very well. If you hold off till tomorrow morning, I’ll get hold of her and make sure she’s ready to see you. It’ll give her a chance to tap into her memories and give you the help you need.’ He stared at the floor. ‘If he hadn’t been my brother, I’d never have given him the time of day. But I can’t believe he would commit rape and murder.’