Blood Tears (16 page)

‘You named her, not me,’ I smirk. ‘You go out with each of your female colleagues on an individual basis, do you?’

‘Only when they have deep concerns about the conduct of their commanding officer.’ He is wearing a smile of triumph. How I would like to wipe it off with the tread of my size tens.

‘Ray. None of this is helping.’ Campbell is talking while Peters and I stare each other out. ‘Can you then explain why you would want to doctor the evidence?’

‘Yes. I didn’t want to get taken off the case. I know I’m not the murderer, and to replace me with an arse like Peters would only have delayed catching the killer.’

‘Aye, and you’ve done a fantastic job so far,’ Peters offers in a stage whisper.

‘And that was worth damaging your career, likely beyond repair?’ asks Campbell. That would be the one thing that he couldn’t understand. I couldn’t either, so I didn’t bother attempting a reply.

‘I’ll ask you again, Ray. Where were you on the night of the murder?’

‘In bed, sleeping. Alone.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘I turn off the home CCTV during the hours of darkness.’

‘Wonderful. Sarcasm. So helpful, DI McBain,’ says Peters. If he says “DI McBain” in that tone again, I swear I’ll kick his teeth in. They can add assault to the rest of the charge sheet.

‘How would you describe your relationship with the deceased?’ Back to Campbell.

‘There was none.’

‘You didn’t know him?’

‘From Adam.’

‘And you were aware of the detail of the deceased’s wounds,’ Campbell continues, ‘before you were told? All three of us were present while DS Peters read out the details. You were able to finish off the list before he did. How can you explain that?’

‘A Catholic education.’

‘On its own that might seem plausible. But when added to the other evidence, it’s quite damning.’

‘Yes. But is it enough to put me in front of a judge?’

‘We think so,’ Peters jumps in.

‘You don’t have enough and you know it. What you have is all very nice. All very circumstantial, but you have nothing to link me to the crime scene. Because there is nothing.’ I stand up.

‘We’re not finished with you yet,’ says Campbell.

‘Yeah, well life’s full of disappointment. I’m leaving.’

‘Sit down, Ray.’ With a look of protest and a great sigh I do so, letting them know I’ll behave myself for now. Besides, it’ll look better for me if I “help with their enquiries” rather than wait until I’m arrested and then be forced to answer their questions.

The door opens. It’s Drain. Without as much as a glance in my direction, he motions for Campbell to follow him out.

‘This interview is being temporarily suspended,’ Campbell says to the tape recorder. He and Peters leave the room, leaving me to stew in my own thoughts. A technique I myself find effective when dealing with the criminal fraternity. But it’s not going to work on me.

I rub my hands together. They are slick with sweat. Why did you do it? You stupid, stupid bastard McBain. You’ve ruined your career. Fuck! What will they do with me? I was a good cop… am a good cop. Surely that will count for something? Unless they want to make an example of me. The police should not be above the law and all that bollocks. Except I agree with it. I deserve everything that’s coming to me. But what about Allessandra? Acid roils in my stomach. She doesn’t deserve to be punished. I abused the power I had over her. At least it’s in her favour that she volunteered the information. If the powers that be had discovered what had gone on without her coming forward then her career would be as dead as mine. I hope the arseholes take this into consideration.

I look around myself. Is it my imagination or is the room smaller? I shift my cheeks, the hard plastic quite literally a pain in the arse. I lean forward on to my elbows, then sit back in the chair, the lip of plastic digging into my back, just under the shoulder blades. Where the fuck are they? What are the bastards cooking up? I lean forward again. Look at my watch. Five minutes have passed. Feels like five hours.

The door swings open, Campbell enters with someone else, another cop.

‘This is Inspector Hackett from the Complaints and Discipline Branch.’

Hackett offers me his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you Detective Inspector.’

The grip from his hands is just a touch from painful. Even for a policeman, this guy is big, six feet seven at least, and almost as wide. The smile that pushes back his plump cheeks appears to be genuine. I wonder how many courses he’s been on, or is he a natural at putting people at their ease? Better not let my guard down, the nice guys can be the worst.

‘I’ve a few questions for you, Ray. Mind if I call you Ray?’ He switches on the tape recorder and mentions all of those present, to show me who is in charge in the room.

I shrug to show that use of my first name is not an issue.

‘What is your relationship with Allessandra Rossi?’ No messing about for this guy.

‘Purely professional.’

‘In your opinion, why did she comply with your request to keep your name from the list?’

‘Because I bullied her into it.’ If I make things bad for me while trying to clear Allessandra, it will be worth it.

‘You’re a bully?’ His lips flatten into a thin line as he says this, as if his distaste for the word is such he can barely say it. Then he looks into the near distance as if searching for something else to say. Then another big-daft-boy smile. A ploy to minimise my opinion of his intelligence. It doesn’t work. I can sense a quick mind is in the room. Besides, nobody gets into his job by being thick.

‘My nickname is Bastard McBain. Does that not tell its story?’ The nickname falls from my lips like a drop of oil, assisted by the lubrication of the lie.

‘Bastard McBain. Good one, Ray.’ He smiles, and his eyes slide up to the left. ‘Haven’t heard any of your colleagues call you that.’

‘Give them time. Disgraced cop and all that. They’ll be sharpening their knives as we speak.’

‘Actually, in the time that I’ve spent in this office and speaking to your team over the weekend, there hasn’t been an insult in sight. Not so much as a whisper of a bastard.’

‘Give them time.’

‘Or do you just pick on the female members of your staff?’ No smile this time. His carefully constructed control is slipping. Was that a hint of irritation in his voice? He hates that I’ve used a young officer. What’s new? So do I.

‘Yes, that’s it. I’m a discriminating bully.’ I think I see where he’s going with this. I don’t care if they think I’m sexist or a bully, as long as it helps Allessandra.

‘Very few people would admit to that in this job.’

‘Yeah, well.’

‘Tell me what happened at Bethlehem House with you and DC Rossi.’ He leans forward on his elbows, fingers entwined in prayer.

Knowing that he will have asked Allessandra the very same question, I tell him exactly how it happened, right down to the camp waiter in the crap café, and hope that Allessandra has done the same. When I stop speaking he just sits back in his chair looking at me, waiting for me to rush in and fill the silence with another little detail that will be the final nail in the coffin. I’m too experienced to fall for that particular trick. Besides I’ve told him everything.

‘This is serious, Ray.’ He must be getting tired looking eyeball to eyeball.

‘No kidding.’

‘You’ll probably lose your job over this.’

I shrug nonchalantly, stare at the scratch marks on the tabletop and ignore the pain that’s squeezing my heart.

‘And then there’s the murder.’ Silence. ‘Why did you do it, Ray?’

‘I had no hand in that murder.’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘Was changing the evidence worth it, Ray? Just what did you have to gain by doing so?’

‘It kept me on the case. I’m not a murderer. I catch the bastards. I’m the good guy.’

‘Were the good guy, Ray. Were. The moment you concealed your early life at the convent, you lost the right to call yourself that. Or was it the moment you conceived of a murder?’

‘I’ve killed no-one.’ And I’m getting tired of saying it.

‘There is evidence to the contrary.’

‘What? Hearsay? I was able to describe the wounds of the stigmata quicker than a thick DS could read his own handwriting? That’s fuck all and you know it.’

‘There is the small matter of you doctoring evidence.’

‘I told you why I did that. I needed to be kept on the case.’

‘Why? Why did this particular case mean so much to you, Ray?’

How could I give an answer that I hadn’t managed to fully articulate myself? Because I wanted to? Because I had to? All my instincts told me that I had to solve this case. My life was bound up in this murder and I had no idea why or how. How do you explain that?

‘I already told everybody. It was my case. I didn’t want some moron like Peters to ruin it and let the killer get away.’

‘Put yourself in the jury, Ray. Sounds weak doesn’t it?’ Campbell speaks for the first time during the interview.

I had no answer to that, so I said nothing.

‘You’re all we’ve got, Ray. And we can make a strong case against you. You had the opportunity, you left your colleagues during a night out. That in itself looks suspicious…’ Back to Hackett.

‘If that’s the case, why didn’t I wait and leave when they were too pissed to notice?’

‘… you had the means. The wounds of the stigmata are part of a Catholic child’s education and you are more than strong enough to subdue a weak old man.’ Campbell’s turn.

‘And how many Catholic schoolchildren are there in Scotland?’

‘And how many of them have just been caught changing evidence that removes them from the list of potential suspects?’ Hackett takes up the baton this time. It’s like they’re winding themselves up for the grand close.

The lights seem to dim, my ears clog with panic. I can sense what’s coming.

‘You are immediately suspended from all duties,’ says Hackett from the end of a long tunnel.

‘Ray McBain, I am arresting you for the murder…’ the rest of Campbell’s words evaporate into a fog of disbelief. I’m being charged with murder. I’ve lost my job… and I brought it all on myself.

Wait, I’ve an alibi, I want to shout. I was with someone. I’m protecting a married woman. What’s the pain of a divorce for Theresa when compared to life in prison for me? But I can’t speak. The words that will free me are trapped behind the bars of my strange loyalties. 

The Charge Sergeant takes me through the rigmarole of being fingerprinted and photographed. These are the delights that await the newly charged, the beginning of the process that de-humanises you. I am escorted through the building from the second floor, where the Serious Crime Squad are situated, to the bottom floor where, fittingly, the cells are housed. There are several times when I could make a run for it; when the Sergeant turns to nod at a colleague, when we pass a fire exit I know is unlocked, and just as I pass a doorway I know leads out to the front desk and from there to the street. A single thought pulses through my head. Run. But I could no more run for it than I could bare my fat arse at a football match. From a very young age I was trained to follow orders, do what I was told. This was instilled in me with a fist dedicated to God and his good works. My training as a police officer simply augmented this. So I do what I am told, walk with the nice policeman into a cell where I will be locked up for a murder I didn’t commit.

Stripped of anything that could offer me release from my life — laces, belt, tie — I am shown to my cell. The closing of a door never seemed so final. When I walk into the small box of a room, I’m faced with the final indignity; I’ve been given the 24-hour surveillance cell. One of the walls has a tiny window above head height, there is a small platform against another wall which bears a paper-thin mattress, the third wall holds a stainless steel bowl, minus flush, for all of my toiletry needs, and the wall to my right as I walk in is made of glass, from floor to ceiling.

Behind this is a desk and chair where some poor unfortunate PC will have to sit and watch me sleep, eat and defecate twenty-four hours a day, until I’m shipped off to the “Bar L” or Barlinnie Prison, as it should be known. This cell isn’t reserved for just anyone. Oh no. Only the truly fucked-up get to reside here. Only the dangerous get to be looked at like an exhibit at the zoo for every minute of every day. Just then a figure steps into the room behind the glass wall and almost apologetically sits on the chair.

I sit on the “bed” and with elbows resting on my knees, I place my head in my hands. A dispassionate voice in my head remarks that I better get used to this position. Ray McBain charged with murder. The gossips in the building will be lit up like Christmas trees. They’ll be running around making sure that everybody knows. I can just hear them. “Aye, he did it! Knew too much, the sick bastard.”

You don’t rise through the ranks as quickly as I did without raising a few enemies, and they will be crowing, “No wonder he caught so many criminals, it takes one to know one.”

No doubt the anthem of the small-minded will be getting an airing, “There’s no smoke without fire.”

The Charge Sergeant had asked me at the desk if there was any “reasonably named person” I would like to be called. Or at least that’s what I thought he asked. There was an incongruous giggle in a deep recess of my mind. Jim’s quite a reasonable name, so is John, I wanted to say. But there was no-one; I didn’t even know a lawyer. What an indictment of your life, McBain. Thirty-four years of age and you don’t even have a friend or relative who might be wondering what has happened to you. To have reason to call a neighbour might be nice: sorry to bother you and all that, I’ve been locked up for murder, don’t you know. Could you look after my imaginary cat while I’m gone?

This sets me off into peals of laughter. I roll over on to my side, pull my legs up to my chest and allow the laughter to turn into tears. Tension in my frame is causing pain to stab at my forehead, neck and shoulders. It’s squeezing my lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Tears dampen my cheeks and I ask myself for the thousandth time that day, why?