Authors: Katherine Pathak
Tags: #International Mystery & Crime, #Mystery, #Thriller & Suspense, #Police Procedurals
The detectives had already shared the details of their domestic arrangements and barely existent love lives. They were rapidly running out of things to say to one another. Alice sat back in her chair and observed the room instead.
‘Watch out,’ Dan said to his colleague. ‘You’re starting to look just like a cop.’
‘I
am
a bloody cop,’ she muttered. Then she leant forward again, squinting her eyes at the crowd. ‘Is that Tony Lomond over there?’
Hendry and Clifton scanned the men’s faces as surreptitiously as they could manage.
‘No,’ said Dan. ‘I can see the bloke you mean. He looks a bit like him but he’s a lot older.’
‘Yeah,’ Alice replied. ‘I see what you mean. False alarm.’ The DC sighed, picking up her glass and finishing off the drink in one final swig.
Chapter 48
I
t wasn’t easy for Andy to find a machine where he could use the memory stick. Eventually, he and Carol found an old laptop in a cupboard, that they’d hardly used since both getting their tablets.
Calder powered it up, cursing the amount of time it took to chug into life. He had no idea if the ancient storage system on the little stick was still going to work. John admitted he hadn’t loaded the contents for at least five years, not since they’d dumped their old computer.
The process was painfully slow, but eventually, a Word document appeared on the screen. Calder experienced a wave of emotion. Here were Donny’s words - stuff that no one had read except his uncle himself and John. From what the boy had told him the previous night, he’d not really taken in much of what his father had written.
Andy glanced at the word count in the bottom left hand corner. ‘Jeez,’ he muttered solemnly. This was going to be a long haul.
*
DCI Bevan felt as if she’d wasted an entire morning at New Scotland Yard in London. The officers she’d been introduced to had been extremely helpful but absolutely no one she’d spoken to possessed any direct knowledge of the Ian Cummings case.
Finally, she was called into the office of Detective Superintendent Goldman, a man of sufficient rank to take her news seriously. Samuel Goldman remained seated as Dani entered his domain, simply reaching across with his hand as she took the chair opposite.
‘I appreciate you giving me your time, Sir,’ Bevan began.
The man had strikingly dark hair and hooded eyes that appeared almost black in colour. ‘It sounds as if you may have uncovered a serious development. I’ve sent a couple of officers to take a fresh statement from Harry Kyle.’
‘Are you familiar with the case?’ Dani tried to assess the man’s age but found it tricky to place.
‘Yes. I was a detective constable back then and although I wasn’t on the investigation myself, everyone at the Met knew what was going on. It was a media circus.’
‘What do you think our chances are of finding this accomplice?’
Goldman pursed his lips. ‘We’ll do our best, of course, but from what you’ve said, Kyle’s account doesn’t provide us with very much. It all comes down to whether Cummings will give the man up. It seems incomprehensible that he hasn’t done so up to now.’
‘You should liaise with a psychologist based at Glasgow University called Professor Rhodri Morgan. He’s interviewed Cummings extensively. My theory is that Cummings feels under the protection of this other man in some way. Perhaps he promised Ian special conditions and privileges in prison if he kept his existence a secret.’
‘Do you believe this person really wields that kind of power and influence?’ Goldman looked suddenly worried.
‘Not necessarily, but he’s used to manipulating people, young boys specifically. I suspect you need to begin your search for him in the children’s homes that Cummings attended as a lad. I expect this individual groomed Ian from a young age. Perhaps he was a manager or an inspector in one of these institutions. Ian must have come to rely upon this person for protection. Or he’s simply terrified of him. But somehow, I believe the relationship will be more complicated than that.’
A shadow passed across Goldman’s jowly features. ‘Of course, we must hope this man has not harmed others in the intervening years.’
Dani nodded, her expression grim. ‘For what it’s worth, I have a hunch that this second man’s motives were sexual. He committed the indecent assaults on the victims. I think it was Cummings who did the killing. Ian wanted revenge on the types of men he felt had abused and taken advantage of him as a child. His accomplice was one of these men himself but he was also Ian’s protector. They had a very complex dynamic.’
‘Finding this man won’t be easy.’ Goldman sighed.
‘No, but we have a duty to those poor victims to do our best to try.’
Chapter 49
D
onald Calder had devoted several chapters of his book to the moving of St Columba’s to its current site off the M8. Andy felt his eyelids drooping as he scanned through the pages. He wondered if Don had lost sight of what was important in this project and got bogged down in the detail. He couldn’t imagine this section of the book being of any great interest to fans of the club.
Then, certain entries began to intrigue the detective. In the mid-nineties, the club had worked closely with west Renfrew council to obtain planning permission to take over a strip of industrial land that lay a quarter of a mile east of the motorway. The process was long and drawn out, but eventually, they’d been granted the necessary permission.
Despite the club’s press releases, that claimed they had regenerated an ugly piece of wasteland to build St Columba’s Park, creating dozens of new jobs for the area, Don had discovered that it wasn’t quite so straightforward.
In 1995, the industrial site was occupied by an extensive traveller community, their caravans and equipment covering a significant area. Many of the children of the travellers attended local schools. Don had found evidence of protests being lodged by the community against the development, but their presence on the land was illegal and unpopular with nearby residents. They also lacked the resources to fight the football club’s plans.
Calder could tell that his uncle’s investigative journalist’s instincts had kicked in at this stage in his research. The club and the council had, by 1996, reached a compromise with the travellers. Most of them were willing to take money to be rehoused in other parts of Scotland and those that chose to remain were given a plot, just a tiny proportion of their previous settlement size, in an area shielded off from the new development.
This had appeared to put an end to the dispute. Until the club found that they wanted to extend the ground once again, after the board were offered a hefty investment from Walmer Beers and Spirits in 2003. Two million smackers, to be precise. Then, the presence of that little encampment of travellers became much more of a nuisance.
Andy closed down the screen and logged off. He placed the memory stick in his trouser pocket, entering the hallway and grabbing a jacket. ‘I’m just popping out for a while,’ he called through to Carol in the kitchen, before stepping out of the door and closing it firmly behind him.
*
This time, when he pulled up at St Columba’s Park, Andy didn’t have an appointment. It was a Saturday afternoon and there were people milling in and out of the main gate. Calder walked in behind a family sporting purple and white scarves, ducking through a side door and striding down a corridor he recognised from the last time he’d been there.
When he reached Terry Finch’s office, the detective didn’t bother to knock. Finch half stood as Andy barged inside, a bottle of scotch placed unscrewed on the desk in front of him. ‘Calder? What the hell…?’
‘Guilty conscience, eh?’ Andy tipped his head towards the bottle.
Finch narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you doing here - is this an official visit, or should I be calling your superiors? I’ve got a lot of friends at your headquarters.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you have, pal.’ He stretched out his arms in a conciliatory manner. ‘I’m here for a wee chat, that’s all.’
Finch seemed to relax just a fraction. ‘Then please take a seat. There’s no need for animosity between us.’
Andy did his best to remain cool. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of reading these past few days.’
A vein at the side of Terry’s temple twitched. ‘Oh aye, I didn’t have you down as the studious type.’
Andy laughed. ‘You’ve got that right, Terry. But Donny certainly was. In fact, I think a lot of folk underestimated him. Is that what it was like for you? I expect you thought Don was your typical local hack numpty, just the kind of nonentity to create a nice little whitewash history of St Columba’s Football Club.’
‘I’ve been extremely cooperative, Andy. But I think it’s probably time you left now. Out of respect for your family, I wouldn’t want there to be any trouble.’
Calder snorted. ‘I don’t believe you hold my family in particularly high regard.’ He edged forward, gratified to see Terry withdraw from him ever so slightly. ‘When Don came to see you, in the week before he died, was that the point at which he told you what he’d found out?’
Finch didn’t bother to reply.
‘In the summer of 2003, your board were becoming increasingly frustrated. You’d been pledged two million quid if you could build an entertainments terrace onto the park. But you knew full-well that as part of your 1996 planning agreement, a small traveller community were permitted to remain in the area you wanted to expand into. Donny smelt a rat whilst completing his research for the book in 2005 and decided to poke into your dealings a little more deeply.
He discovered that a fire had broken out at the traveller camp a couple of months before work began on your shiny new extension. An old couple were burnt to death in their caravan. It persuaded the council that the camp was unsafe and needed to be dispersed. This meant that your application was a shoo-in. A police investigation was launched. It concluded that the fire was caused by faulty electrics on the site. These kinds of tragedies happened all the time, they said.’
The blood had drained from Terry Finch’s features. ‘It’s perfectly true. The investigators found it was just an accident.’
‘But Don didn’t like the feel of it, so he tracked down some of the old residents of the traveller site. He spoke to a few folk who were willing to testify to being harassed by men from the club who tried to intimidate them into leaving their homes. My uncle was piecing together a nice little exposé when he conveniently went missing, his body finally being discovered by my division, weighted down at the bottom of the reservoir.’ Andy suddenly lunged forward, grabbing Finch by his collar and pinning him to the back wall of his own office. ‘Did you have Donny killed, eh? If you don’t tell me the truth right now, I swear I grind your skull into this corrupted, godforsaken brickwork.’
Chapter 50
C
alder wiped his hands down his trousers as he stormed back to the car, feeling as if they’d been contaminated. He pulled away slowly, taking a long hard look at the buildings around him as he did so. Andy was certain that at least two people had died in order for the complex to be built. His da’ was quite right when he said that moving out here had ruined the club he’d loved since boyhood.
But according to that scumbag Finch, Don’s disappearance had nothing to do with him or his heavies. He’d been shitting himself that Don was about to bring the police into the investigation. Finch had tried to offer his uncle a payoff to silence him. But Finch swore on his kids’ lives that it was as much of a surprise to him as anyone when Don disappeared that Saturday in July.
Finch said he was guilty of nothing more than being bloody relieved that Don was gone. Which to Andy was bad enough. So he poured the best part of a bottle of single malt over the guy’s head. The bastard had it coming. The question of what Don had got himself involved in during those last days of his life still remained. At least the book had given Andy a good idea of what was going on in his uncle’s head at that time. It was a start.
On his way home, Andy decided to stop for a drink. He parked up and walked the length of Sauchiehall Street. The Saturday revelries were already in full swing. He entered one of the quieter bars and sat at a table with his bottle of beer. For the first time, he considered sharing what he’d discovered with DCI Bevan. It felt as if he had a solid new lead. Andy ran through the evidence in his head. Don had been digging into a possible deliberate arson at the St Columba Park that killed two travellers. In the process, he’d questioned several members of the traveller community that he’d tracked down. Was this how Don’s path had crossed with his killer? Maybe he was planning to meet one of his contacts on the afternoon of the Glasgow Fair?
Calder had been lost in his thoughts and hadn’t noticed a man approach him. He looked up. The guy was tall and handsome, perhaps a little older than Andy himself.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
‘If you like,’ the detective replied, thinking it might be a good idea to ask the regulars a few questions.
‘Thanks,’ the man responded affably. ‘I couldn’t allow you to sit there all on your own, especially looking so sad.’