Devil in the Detail (Scott Cullen Mysteries) (15 page)

"What is this counselling?" asked Cullen.
 

"It's sort of like a confession, you know, like you see in films," said Malcolm. "But Mulgrew's sitting in the room across from you, not in some box next to you, like. And he doesn't tell you to do punishment for sins. He asks you what's been troubling you and stuff. He points out chapters of the Bible that might help."

"Do you find it useful?" asked Cullen.

"Not really," said Malcolm. "It's a load of nonsense. It feels like they're trying to indoctrinate us. Jamie used to do a funny impression of Mulgrew in the confession, used to crack me and Thomas up. That was the only good thing about the group, seeing Thomas and Jamie. It was never the same after Jamie left."

Cullen looked at Lamb, who just nodded. "Thank you, Malcolm, you've been very helpful."

*

"How come when I actually want to speak to Bain, he doesn't answer his phone?" said Cullen, as he pocketed his mobile.

Lamb laughed.

Cullen and Lamb were driving to Mulgrew's cottage. They had barely spoken since they left the school - that was the first either of them had said since they'd agreed to speak to Mulgrew.

Cullen's phone rang again as they pulled up in front of the small cottage. He noticed a small scratch on the screen, no doubt as a result of the skirmish with the youth earlier. The display had Bain's name.

Cullen answered it and Lamb got out of the car.

"Had a Missed Call from you, Sundance," said Bain. "I'm driving. You're on my hands free."

"Got some news for you," said Cullen, watching Lamb walk up the path to Mulgrew's cottage. "Mandy Gibson was apparently exorcised yesterday at this church service."

Bain was silent for what felt like minutes. "What fuckin' year is it, Cullen?" he said, eventually. "Nobody fuckin' exorcises anyone any more."

"We have it on good authority," said Cullen. "We're dealing with a pretty strange religious cult here. Malcolm Thornton told us that Mandy Gibson had been exorcised by Seamus Mulgrew during the session yesterday. She'd had some sort of fit and that's how he dealt with it. A few of the parishioners joined in with this exorcism."

Lamb turned and looked at Cullen. He shrugged his shoulders - no sign of Mulgrew.

"Fuckin' hell," said Bain. "What are you doing about it?"

"We're trying to speak to Mulgrew again," said Cullen. "Doesn't look like he's at his cottage."

"Don't make a fuckin' pest of yourself, Cullen, okay?" said Bain. "Christ knows I'm in enough fuckin' hot water already."

"Don't worry, I won't."

"When did you speak to Malcolm Thornton?" asked Bain.

"Just now," said Cullen.

"Sundance, I fuckin' told you to stay away from that fuckin' school."

"DS Lamb approved it."

"Right, well, Sundance," said Bain, "Irvine and I are just on our back way out. Head over to Garleton nick and we'll see you there in ten minutes."

"What about speaking to Mulgrew?" asked Cullen.

"I want to speak to you pair first," said Bain.

"Fine," said Cullen. He hung up the phone.

"Was that Bain?" asked Lamb as he sat back down.

"Aye," said Cullen, rubbing his forehead. "He wants us to head back to the station."

"Fine," said Lamb. "Mulgrew wasn't in."

"No surprises there," said Cullen, looking out of the window. The kids from before had moved on. He checked his watch - it was after school time. No doubt they'd still insist on bullying boys and chatting up girls despite not actually attending that day. He could see a steady stream of kids heading up Bangley Road, the most direct route from the high school, though it was a good two miles distant.
 

"The kids in these houses don't get dropped off by four by fours," said Cullen.

Lamb laughed. "Very true," he said.

"I spoke to some kids playing truant earlier," said Cullen.

"Spoke to or threatened?"

"Bit of both," said Cullen, with a laugh. "Mulgrew had been out trying to convert them, they said."

Lamb shook his head. "Nothing like having a zealot, is there?"

Gradually the line had broken up as the kids walked along the drives to their respective houses. There were still two or three heading up to the far end, most likely to the houses around Mulgrew's cottage.

Cullen opened his door. "Come on," he said, "let's do some more digging."

He climbed out and marched down the street. The first kid was a boy of about thirteen, overweight with bright ginger hair. Cullen held his warrant card out.
 

"Are you police?" the kid asked.

Cullen nodded. "Worse, we're detectives," he said, waiting for Lamb to catch up. "Detective Sergeant Lamb is local, but I'm from Edinburgh."

"Cool," said the boy, his eyes wide.
 

"Do you know the man who lives in the cottage at the end there?" asked Lamb.

The boy nodded his head. "Father Mulgrew," he said. "I live next door."

Cullen looked back down the street - wedged next to Mulgrew's old stone cottage was a row of four brown-harled council houses, the adjacent one almost touching.

"Do you ever speak to him?" asked Cullen.

The boy shook his head. "Mum told me not to," he said. "He's a weirdo."

"In what way?"

The boy shrugged. "She wouldn't say. I think it's the bible stuff."

"What bible stuff is this?" asked Lamb.

"He used to put things through our letter box," said the boy. "Books and papers and things like that. Mum just shoved them straight in the bin."

"Does he ever speak to you?"

The boy shook his head even more vigorously than before. "The only time that I heard him speaking was when he was out shouting at Dean and Kieron."

"Who are they?" asked Lamb.

"They live round here."

"Are they the boys that don't go to school?" asked Cullen.

The boy nodded.
 

"Thanks," said Cullen. He doubted he'd do anything with it, but it was good to have names for the kids he spoke to earlier.

The boy smiled. "Can I ride in a police car?" he asked.

Cullen laughed. "Even I don't get to ride in a police car," he said. "I have to use my own." He pointed to his Golf. "See, that's my car."

The boy frowned. "Is it GTI?"

Cullen shook his head. "Just a standard one."

"Can't you afford a better car?"

Lamb laughed. "Time to get on home to your mother," he said.

The boy smiled and walked off, heading down the path to the last house before Mulgrew's.

"I feel positively enlightened," said Lamb.

"How?"

"Even a little ned from the worst bit of this town thinks your car is crap."

*

"Gather round," called Bain, standing at the front of the room, hands in his pockets. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his tie loosened off, his suit jacket casually hanging from the back of a chair. Cullen thought that his skin looked whiter than its usual grey pallor.

They were in the Incident Room - Bain, Irvine, Lamb, Murray, McLaren, Law and a couple of uniforms, including PC Watson, the one who had been keeping guard at Balgone Ponds. Cullen was standing near Bain.
 

Bain waited till everyone was looking at him. Most were leaning against walls or furniture. Lamb rocked slowly back and forth on a desk chair, his legs crossed. Bain took a sip of his Red Bull clone. He had lain off the Red Bull of late, just the one can a day, but Cullen saw him drink one that morning. He had experienced first hand what happened when Bain was all caffeined out of his head.

"Right," said Bain, "I've just got the results of the PM just now. It's not looking too good, I'm afraid." He held up a thick wad of paper, at least fifty sheets of A4 - some sections had already been highlighted in yellow. "Jimmy Deeley's secretary has just faxed over a copy of the transcript. Fortunately, the fax machine is the one thing that works in this station." He pulled cheap-looking reading glasses out of his top pocket and put them on - Cullen had never seen him wear them before. He squinted at the paper as he read aloud.
 

"The cause of death is asphyxiation," read Bain. "Several signs point to suffocation - there are a couple of Tardieu Spots on the victim's liver, consistent with death by suffocation. Additionally, there are minor contusions to the wrists but not to the throat or face which could point to signs of struggling. From the shape and size of the bruising, we can tell that these contusions were inflicted perimortem, i.e. around the time of death. From this I deduce that the most likely method of suffocation is with a pillow, though I would look to forensic confirmation from the scene of crime officers. Initial analysis points to white cotton being present in her gums, which confirms the theory. We have not found any traces under the fingernails but samples will be analysed."
 

Bain took his glasses off and looked around the room. "For those of you who aren't as well-versed in the arts of the post-mortem as myself," he said, looking directly at Lamb, "what that translates to is that she was suffocated with a pillow and it looks like she had been held down while it happened."

He put the glasses on again. "Time of death is hard to pin down, due to the environmental circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body, but I would put it as any time between ten PM on Sunday night and four AM this morning."

Bain leaned back against the desk and put his glasses down on the table beside a yellow highlighter. "Believe you me," he said, "I will be up James Anderson's trouser leg like a fuckin' ferret to get some of the forensic analysis accelerated. We may be able to get samples of the pillow used or some trace evidence from the fingernails."
 

Bain took a long deep breath. "One of the things that we didn't expect Deeley to find, however, was that the girl was not a virgin."

"You what?" said Lamb, suddenly sitting forward in his seat. "She wasn't a virgin?"

Cullen was stunned. He felt dizzy - this case was taking a turn for the worse. So far, he'd been in information-gathering mode and now they were dealing with something even worse than child murder; child rape and murder.

"Her hymen was not intact," said Bain, "which is not conclusive in and of itself. However, Deeley found several factors pointing to the fact that she had been penetrated, most likely by a penis."

"That's a pretty bold statement for Deeley to make," said Lamb, still sitting bolt upright. "I've seen that sort of stuff before and it can fall apart in court."

Bain gave a sharp nod. "I know," he said. "Believe me, I've given him a pretty thorough grilling on this. I dealt with a fuckin' mercy killing in Glasgow about fifteen years ago where an Indian lassie was killed 'cos she wasn't a virgin. Similar shite happened there as here. It turned out that the lassie had burst it while riding a horse." He fixed Lamb with a glare. "Deeley is pretty certain on this one. There are sufficient physical deformations to suggest that she had been sexually active."

"Hang on," said Cullen, "are you saying that she was sexually assaulted before or after she was killed?"

Bain shook his head. "It doesn't look like she was," he said. "Deeley only said that she showed signs of having been sexually active. There was no trace evidence pointing to the potential of her being raped last night, no pubic hairs, semen, blood, anything like that."

"What do you want us to do, gaffer?" asked Irvine, casually pounding away on gum.

Bain stroked his moustache. "I want to speak to the parents," he said. "I want Cullen and Lamb with me. I want the rest of you to do some digging in the town, speak to people and get some more info on this." He looked at Law. "What about that behavioural psychologist?" he asked. "Did you get anywhere with it?"

Law nodded. "Finally managed to speak to her," she said. "She said that they didn't find anything conclusive that caused Mandy to try to run away. She put it down to a result of the trauma she'd suffered in the accident. I've asked for a copy of the report but..."

"Sounds like you'd be wasting your time," said Bain, finishing her sentence for her.

The room sat in silence, all of the officers avoiding each others' gazes. Caldwell appeared through the door to the Incident Room and nervously looked around at the faces. She clutched a wad of papers tightly to her chest.

"Sir," said Caldwell.
 

"Here she is," said Bain, looking at Cullen, "Batgirl coming in to save the day despite Batman telling her to stay in the Batmobile."

Caldwell rolled her eyes. "That's going to get you into trouble one of these days," she said.

Normally there would have been laughter at Bain being taken down a peg or two by an ADC but there was little or no reaction, given the circumstances.
 

"I've done some digging into police records like you asked," she said.
 

"Go on," said Bain. "You might as well tell half of East Lothian so I don't have to."

She started reading from the first sheet. "For the Gibsons, there's not much," she said. "There's a report about Mandy being involved in an accident with a bus in Edinburgh by the looks of it."

"That ties in with what we were told," said Cullen.

"This better be going somewhere," said Bain, slowly shaking his head.

"Now, Seamus Mulgrew," she said, ignoring Bain. "I got an email through just now about him from the Garda."

"The Garda?" echoed Irvine. "Eh?"

"Mulgrew came across to Scotland nine years ago," she said, "he lived in Ireland before."

"What were you bothering them about?" asked Irvine.

"Something funny happened," she said. "Mulgrew had said he was in the Roman Catholic Church. I tracked him down to a town just outside Cork. I asked the local Garda if they knew anything about the circumstances of his departure."

Cullen was beginning to be impressed by Caldwell - Irvine was being a cock but she was keeping professional, avoiding rising to the bait.

"You found something?" asked Bain.

"Aye," said Caldwell. "The email says that he was laicized."