Out of Bounds (42 page)

Jason scratched his armpit while he considered. ‘It’s a bit harsh,’ he said. ‘I mean, what kind of person kills his mother then kills his brother just because things might get a bit sticky?’

‘There’s a thing called narcissistic personality disorder. People who have an inflated sense of their own importance, a lack of empathy for others. They’re vain, they crave the power over others they think they deserve. They can be arrogant and callous. They think they’re better than everybody else and they don’t care who they trample on in their desire to get what they want.’

‘A bit like Donald Trump, then?’

Karen grinned. ‘Nail on the head, Jason. Controlling, blaming, self-absorbed, intolerant. And always that high opinion of themselves.’

‘Maybe that’s how Will Abbott is so successful in business.’

‘And Frank Sinclair. Which reminds me. The SUV that tried to run me over. It could theoretically have got away without being caught on a camera if the driver knew the roads round here, but I think it’s more likely that it wasn’t a local. The most likely one was a company car from an outfit in Newcastle called Spartacular. I need to check it out …’ As she spoke, she was already logging on to a company search website that Police Scotland subscribed to. ‘Spartacular,’ she muttered, waiting for results. ‘Gotcha.’ She skimmed the
page. ‘CGI specialists, apparently. Image rendering.’ Then she stopped scrolling. ‘Fuck.’

‘What?’ Jason got up and looked over her shoulder. ‘“Wholly owned by Glengaming plc since 2014.” That’s Will Abbott’s company. We’ve got him bang to rights.’

‘Hang on, Jason. Hang on. It’s just another bit of circumstantial flim-flam. It doesn’t prove anything yet.’

But even as she spoke, Jason was reaching for the phone. He keyed in the number displayed on the screen for Spartacular. Dismayed, Karen said, ‘No, wait.’ But it was too late.

‘Hello. This is Detective Constable Jason Murray from Police Scotland. We have a report of an incident on Tuesday evening involving a vehicle registered to your company … Yes, I’ll hold.’ He gave Karen the thumbs up. He covered the mouthpiece. ‘Gimme the reg, quick!’

Karen scrambled through her phone where she’d noted the SUVs’ registration plate details. She passed him the phone and pointed out the one she was interested in.

A moment passed, then Jason repeated what he’d said before, adding the registration number Karen had shown him. ‘And so I need to know who was driving the vehicle at the time of the incident … Yes, I appreciate that … Aye, well, I’m trying to spare you the embarrassment of having uniformed police turning up at your offices for something so trivial … No, no question of charges, it’s only a witness statement …’ He rolled his eyes and made the sign of hanging himself with his free hand. ‘I appreciate that. But honestly, I’d like to get this sorted out asap, you know how it is? I only need a name to finish off my paperwork. You will? Excellent.’ He recited his official email address and the Gayfield Square office number. ‘You’ve been very helpful, thank you.’ His grin was so wide she thought it must hurt. ‘He’s going to email me the details soon as he gets the chance to look at the vehicle logs.’

‘I
can’t believe you just did that.’

Jason looked embarrassed. ‘Sometimes I say to myself, “What would Phil have done?” and I do it.’

An unexpected wave of emotion brought a lump to her throat. Phil would have laughed like a drain at the thought of being a role model for the Mint. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘He’d complain that we never paid that much attention when he was alive.’

‘You did,’ Jason said. ‘You do. You pay attention all the time. There’s not many bosses would have pulled my nuts out the fire the way you did the other day.’

Karen chuckled. ‘You might be a numpty sometimes, but better the numpty you know.’ She contemplated the papers on her desk. ‘I think we’ve done a pretty good day’s work, Jason. Let’s knock it on the head now before we screw up.’

He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. ‘Do you fancy a pint?’

He’d never suggested that before, always waiting for her to take the lead. But a lot of things seemed to be happening for the first time between them. Karen nodded. ‘Why not?’

54

K
aren
wanted to be near Haymarket to make it easier for her to meet River. So Jason decided he’d have two pints and take the train home. They crossed Leith Walk and caught a 26 to the West End, heading into Ryrie’s Bar. They found space at the polished wood counter, where Jason ordered a pint of Flying Scotsman. Karen stuck with gin, going for a Blackwood’s with tonic. Shetland botanicals, fresh and fragrant. The first burst of flavour on her tongue lifted the grey from the day.

Neither of them noticed that the man in the North Face jacket at the other end of the bar had been in the same bus queue. Even after the attempt on her life, Karen had no thought that anyone would be on her tail. She was used to being the watcher, not the watched.

‘So, what will we do if it turns out Will Abbott was driving that SUV?’ Jason asked, filling his mouth with crisps.

‘I’m not talking about work,’ Karen said firmly. ‘I need to not think about what comes next. Let it churn away in the background for a wee while. Talk to me about football or politics or where you fancy living in Edinburgh.’

Jason
thought for as long as it took him to demolish the rest of the crisps. ‘Did you know that between January and the play-offs, Raith Rovers scored ten more points than any other Championship side?’

Karen, who knew this from her irrepressible Twitter feed, feigned ignorance. ‘That’s amazing,’ she said. ‘Phil would have enjoyed that.’

It was all the encouragement Jason needed to talk about the vexed questions of Scottish football for the rest of his pint and most of the next one. When he finally ran out of facts and opinions, he stopped dead and gave Karen a blank look. ‘I don’t really do politics,’ he said. ‘That Ruth Davidson’s a bit of a comic turn sometimes, though.’

Karen smiled. ‘It’s OK, Jason. You’re off the hook. I’m meeting River off the train in ten minutes. We’re going to the Vietnamese café up the road for a bowl of pho.’

He gave a weak smile. ‘That’s spicy, right?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘I don’t really do spicy.’

‘I know.’

‘Unless it’s a vindaloo after a few pints, you know?’

‘Away home to your mum’s cooking.’ Karen finished her drink and patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll have slept on things. I’ll know then what we’re going to do next.’

Karen and River perched on stools at the window counter of the Vietnamese café, waiting for their bowls of pho to cool down. River didn’t look like a professor in Scotland’s leading forensic science establishment. With her mane of red hair, her battered waxed jacket and disreputable old work boots, she looked more like a spruced-up traveller. Karen always half-expected to see a mongrel of dubious temperament at her heels. But underestimating River would be a serious mistake.

Karen
had explained her dilemma on the short walk from the station. Now they were settled with food, River was ready to engage. ‘You’re doing your usual thing,’ she said with weary good humour.

‘What do you mean, my usual thing?’

‘You’re overcomplicating the issue. You’ve got this brilliant idea and you’ve picked it up and run with it without stopping to think. You always do this. You’re so smart you never stop at the first step. You can’t help yourself running all the way up the stairs.’

Karen made a show of pretending to be offended. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Jason made a smart connection. And by the way, what’s that about? Jason showing signs of life above the neck?’

‘He’s learning,’ Karen said defensively. ‘He keeps asking himself what Phil would have done.’

River raised her eyebrows. ‘It’s not a bad mantra, as these things go. Anyway. Jason made a connection. And you were so excited by the prospect it opened up that you went straight from nought to ninety in no time at all without pausing to consider.’

‘Consider what?’ Karen sampled her pho and decided the temperature was acceptable.

‘Yes, Gary Foreman’s DNA will be present in the bodies of the recipients of his organs. But just take one step backwards. When the medics are analysing the recipients’ blood, how do they know it’s the donor’s DNA that they’re seeing in the mix?’

Karen processed the question then buried her head in her hands. ‘I am so fucking stupid,’ she said.

River tested her soup and winced. ‘What is it about you Scots and your asbestos mouths?’

‘They’ll have had to analyse the donor DNA before they even started doing the transplants. Gary Foreman’s dead so
he’s got no right to confidentiality, he’s got no human rights. There’s no reason for the transplant authorities not to release that DNA to us. OK, we might have to get a sheriff to sign off on it, but this way doesn’t compromise a living soul.’ She made two fists and punched the air. ‘You are a genius, River.’

River shrugged. ‘I’m just slower off the mark than you. So, does that resolve your moral dilemma?’

‘Pretty much. I’ll talk to Semple in the morning, see what he thinks.’

‘It’s not a hard case to argue, particularly since this is probably the last chance the victim’s family has for closure.’

The two women concentrated on their soup. In a spirit of celebration, Karen ordered an iced coffee with condensed milk, the speciality of the house. She was about to take her first sip when her phone alerted her to an incoming text. It was from Jason.

Bingo. Email from Spartacular transport guy. On Tuesday night, the SUV was signed out to Will Abbott.

Karen closed her eyes, saying a silent thank you to the fates.

‘Something wrong?’ River asked.

‘Quite the opposite,’ Karen said. ‘Something very, very right.’

55

K
aren
waved River off on the last train back to Carlisle. The revelation that had emerged from their meeting had set half her mind at rest. But Jason’s text had provoked fresh tumult in her thoughts. What was she to do about the Gabriel Abbott case? Did she have enough to go to the Macaroon and demand that Alan Noble open his case files to her? Was there any obvious way to get beyond the circumstantial to solid probative evidence? Or was she going to have to walk away? Her personal certainty that a five-times murderer would walk free if she did that wasn’t actually a valid reason for arresting someone.

She walked back through town. It would have been quicker to follow the path beside the Water of Leith but there were a few places where there wasn’t enough light pollution from the city to illuminate the way clearly. Karen wasn’t afraid of being attacked, but she didn’t trust her own sure-footedness in the dark and she was already carrying an injury that compromised her movements.

As she walked, she turned over possible ways to resolve what she saw as the irrevocably entwined cases of the plane
crash and murder of Gabriel Abbott. Once he’d uncovered the true identity of his mother, he’d only have been a couple of careless conversations away from discovering Frank Sinclair was his biological father, a revelation that would have been embarrassing at the very least.

To a man like Frank Sinclair, possessed of a towering ego and the power to pander to it, the idea of being exposed as a liar and a hypocrite would have been unbearable. And it would undermine his public position as an arbiter of other people’s morals. How far would such a man go to protect position and reputation? Did he have the sort of people around him like that English king who had wanted rid of Thomas à Becket, the kind who would do what their boss hinted he wanted? ‘Who will rid me of this lying crooked little bastard?’ It was all a bit melodramatic, a bit medieval. But she never ceased to be amazed at the lengths apparently respectable people would go to in order to keep the aspidistra flying. She knew not to underestimate the petty bourgeoisie.

And then there was Will Abbott. How far would a single-minded eighteen-year-old with a killer idea have gone to realise his dream? A narcissist wouldn’t hesitate to put his own certainties ahead of the lives of others. If he’d known the terms of Ellie and Caroline’s wills, he would have known he’d have all the capital he needed to get Glengaming off the ground. But how much did he know about Gabriel’s parentage and how long had he known it? Did he know when he took possession of his inheritance that a sizeable chunk of it wasn’t morally his? What would Gabriel have done once he found out? By all accounts, he was a smart man with a hefty dollop of paranoia in his make-up. Would he have been smart enough to work out that his non-brother had had a powerful motive for murder all those years ago?

But noodling around with motive wasn’t taking her any closer to finding the sort of evidence that would impress
the fiscal. These days, they wouldn’t countenance a prosecution unless they were more than 50 per cent certain of a conviction.

She turned on to Hamilton Place, distractedly dodging a group of young men heading down towards Stockbridge. Where was the evidence coming from? They had Will Abbott signed out as the driver of a black SUV that had been seen close to where a black SUV had tried to run Karen down. But that was will-o’-the-wisp thin. And the cameras wouldn’t have sufficient definition to reveal the driver. Will could have handed the keys to anyone. He could even argue that the SUV had been taken without his knowledge or consent and returned before he needed it next. What Karen was sure of and what she could prove were two very different things.

She still needed to place him in the area on the night of Gabriel’s murder. Had he supposedly been in Newcastle then too? What vehicles had he had access to? If they could find that out, she could set Jason up with hours of camera feeds to work through. And what about the gun that had killed Gabriel? People talked a lot about violence in video games. Could somebody have given Will Abbott a gun as a kind of joke?

‘Get a grip, for fuck’s sake,’ Karen said aloud, to the surprise of a middle-aged couple walking past. She was reaching absurdly for things she didn’t even know, never mind that she could prove.