Troubled Waters (26 page)

‘Boss?’

A photographer, pale-faced and unshaven, had emerged from the flat and was now standing beside them.

‘Yes?’

‘You wanted a preliminary view? I’d say there’s nothing. The place is spotless, everything in order. I don’t think anything sinister’s happened here. It’s clean, but not because someone’s been mopping away anything untoward, it’s because it didn’t happen here. ‘

‘OK. Tell the boys to do the stair too, just in case. You never know, do you? And Mr . . . ?’ She looked at the neighbour.

‘McKellar – David McKellar.’

‘I’ll take the parcel, if I may. You’ll get a receipt for it, so don’t worry. But for the moment I’ll take custody of it. There will be other officers coming along shortly to take a statement from you, and from the others, your neighbours. Just tell the officers, if you would, that I’ve got the package, tell them Detective Inspector Rice has it.’

While the police-woman was making her way down the stairs, resuming her superficial inspection of the tenement as she went, within the murder room of St Leonard’s Street station, a process of elimination was taking place. Perth abounded with Campbells; Scott Street and the other addresses around the Inch alone produced twelve possibilities, and the phone directory for Dundee listed twenty-three of the name. DC Elizabeth Cairns, a slice of ginger cake in one hand and her phone in the other, continued for hours in her relentless chivvying of people, never taking no for an answer, bullying the uniforms who were doing the legwork, making sure that they tried to talk to everyone, Sunday or no Sunday. Of the six on her list, one, Trish Rennie discovered, already had a criminal record; one was incarcerated in Cornton Vale, one was now dead and another lost somewhere in the USA. DS Sharpe, leaving a trail of empty coffee cups wherever he went like the slime track of a snail, busied himself with garden centres, nurseries, B&Q and Homebase stores in or around Dundee and the capital. At four o’clock, feeling peckish, he patrolled the room in search of a snack. Seeing a plate near Elizabeth Cairns he rushed over to investigate.

‘Have you eaten that
whole
cake yourself?’ he said to her, dismayed, his eyes on a bit of grease-proof paper which appeared to be all that was left of the block of
gingerbread that she had consumed, piece by piece, throughout the afternoon.

‘Yes,’ she replied, her attention still fixed on her screen, ‘but at least I’m not an addict. Cake, I might remind you, is not a drug, unlike caffeine.’

‘Then what’s your excuse? And there are fewer calories in coffee,’ he replied, puffing out his cheeks derisively.

‘What exactly are you . . .’

‘Sssh!’ Trish Rennie exclaimed, her hand over the receiver, frowning at them as if they were naughty children. ‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘I’ve got that. You’re at Canal Street, Perth. Thank you very much for your help. Yes, don’t worry, we just need to speak to her. Do you have a mobile number for her? No, I’m the same – can’t remember my own, never mind anyone else’s. If you do find it, would you let me know? Thanks, that’s perfect and we’ll be there with you within the next two hours.’

She put down her phone and breathed out, ‘Result!’

‘Result?’ Ranald Sharpe repeated, ‘Is our search over, then?’

‘It is, I’m sure it is,’ Trish Rennie replied. ‘Not that I could hear myself think with the two of you at it like that. So, who’s going to tell our esteemed leaderene?’

‘Who were you speaking to?’ DC Cairns asked, glaring at Ranald Sharpe and scraping the film of ginger cake off the paper with a knife.

‘Her old dad. He’s a widower, losing the plot a bit too, I suspect. Senile dementia or Alzheimer’s or something. But his daughter is one Anna Louise Campbell, aged 19, now living in Gorgie.’

‘Has she been in Edinburgh long?’ Sharpe asked.

‘The last four months, at least. She was at the university in Dundee before that, but dropped out – and guess what?’

‘What?’ Elizabeth Cairns asked, licking the bits of gingerbread off her knife.

‘She’s working afternoons only, he thinks . . . in a florist’s shop.’

At eight o’clock the next morning, Anna Campbell opened the door of her boyfriend’s flat in Melville Terrace, unaware that she had been the subject of a manhunt overnight. She was dressed only in an oversized T-shirt and pyjama trousers and, with sleep still in her eyes, let in the two detectives who had come to see her. In many ways, she fitted the description that they had been given, being dark-haired and of roughly average height. Still half-asleep, she left them in the cramped kitchen while she went to find more clothes. Returning with a man’s black leather jacket over her night-clothes, she lit up a cigarette and attempted to get her mind into gear and to answer their questions.

‘So, can I ask you why you weren’t at your job yesterday?’ DC Cairns continued.

‘I only work afternoons on Saturdays, Thursday and Fridays at Bloomers,’ the girl said, defensively. ‘The rota’s not changed. I haven’t not gone to my work.’ Then as an afterthought, she added, more confidently, ‘You can check with Julia, my boss, if you like. Did Paul tell you I hadn’t turned up? Paul’s half-witted, he never knows the rota. It’s a miracle they keep him on. He was in a car crash, supposedly he was normal before it. He’s meant to be in charge, just on the days I’m off, but he’s always in a muddle. He can’t remember our shifts, his shifts, from week to week, day to day actually. But Julia will tell you. I can give you her number right now, if you like. Her home
number. I’ve got it on my mobile. If I can just find it – I know it’s somewhere in here or maybe I left it in my car. Or my bag, it might be in my bag.’

She stubbed out her cigarette on the plate in front of her and began searching in a red leather shoulder bag which had been hanging on the back of her chair. In her haste, she plucked out a lipstick, her purse, a make-up bag, another packet of cigarettes and a mess of paper hankies.

‘Sod it, it should be there,’ she said, staring down at her stuff as if mystified by the phone’s absence.

‘And you’re sure you’ve never met anyone called Miranda Stimms – never lived, or stayed, in Casselbank Street?’

‘I told you, I haven’t a clue who you’re talking about. I live in Gorgie, unless I’m here, with Roddy. This is surreal . . . like in a film or a nightmare or something. I don’t get it at all. What am I supposed to have done? Why are you so interested in me, or whoever you imagine I am?’

‘Do you know a man called Hamish Evans?’ DC Cairns continued.

‘No. No Hamish Evans, no Amanda . . . Miranda Stimms. I don’t know any of these people you’re asking me about.’ Bemused by their questions, and frustrated that they did not appear to believe her, tears welled up in her eyes.

‘Have you met a man called Mr Dowdall?’ Alice persisted.

‘No.’

‘Margaret Stobbs?’

‘No. No! Why don’t you believe me?’ she shouted, shaking her head violently from side to side as a very young child might.

‘Can you tell us where you were last Monday evening from, say, six o’clock onwards?’

Hearing the sound of a key turning in the lock, she jumped up and, as a stocky young man came in, flung her arms around his neck, saying ‘Roddy, thank Christ you’re back! Get them off me!’

Gently, he freed himself from her embrace, taking in as he did so the two women sitting in his kitchen. Looking hard at them, he put down a bag of shopping on the kitchen table and said, belligerently, ‘Who are you? What the hell are you doing in my flat?’

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ his girlfriend said, wiping her eyes, feeling less vulnerable with him beside her. ‘They’re the police, I let them in. But they keep asking me questions. Just tell them, will you, tell them where I live, tell them where I work. Tell them I was here, with you, all last week. Every evening . . . every night. I never went back to my flat all last week, did I, I was here with you every night, wasn’t I?’

‘Yes, sure, babe. Sure you were. Why are you asking her all these questions?’ Roddy demanded, putting an arm protectively round her. The pair of them were about the same height, but next to his muscled bulk the girl appeared fragile, sylph-like.

‘We’re carrying out investigations relating to two people . . .’ DC Cairns began, shifting on her seat, quailing slightly under his hostile gaze.

‘So, what happened to them then? Were they murdered or something?’ he asked sarcastically. But the sneer on his face vanished when he saw the glance exchanged by the two policewomen.

‘They were, too!’ he said, pulling the girl tighter to him, inadvertently squashing her face against his.

‘This is a murder investigation,’ Alice confirmed, watching as the remaining colour in the young girl’s face slowly drained from it.

‘Look,’ said Roddy, coming towards the policewomen, ‘you’ve made a mistake, honest. I don’t know why you’re interested in Anna, she’s the softest person you’d ever meet, wouldn’t harm anyone. Doesn’t stick up for herself enough, she wouldn’t harm anyone . . . not even a . . . what the hell is it? A fly, she wouldn’t harm a fly. This is mad.’

‘Just tell us, Anna, please, what you were doing last Monday evening?’ Alice said, looking at the man as if to say that if she answered it this would be the last question.

‘Tell them, Anna, then they’ll go. We were probably here weren’t we? Monday . . . Monday . . . weren’t we here?’ he said to the girl, pleading, kissing the side of her face by way of encouragement.

‘No,’ she replied quietly, looking into his eyes.

‘No? Weren’t you here?’ he asked, unable to hide his surprise, and suddenly keen to know himself. ‘I’d forgotten. Where were you, then?’

‘I . . . I was seeing a friend.’

‘Where does that friend live?’ DC Cairns asked.

‘In Musselburgh,’ she whispered.

‘Musselburgh?’ the boy said, starting, taking his arm from her shoulder, standing back and staring at her.

‘OK Anna,’ Alice interjected, ‘that’s fine, what we were after. Could you tell us who you were seeing in Musselburgh? Just give us your friend’s name and address and then we’ll be on our way.’

‘Yes,’ the boy said, voice dripping with disdain, ‘just tell us who you were seeing in Musselburgh and we’ll be on our way. By the way, did you spend the night there?
You’re right, you weren’t here, now I think about it. So where were you?’

‘It’s not what you think, Roddy. I was just . . . seeing . . . just seeing him. I went home afterwards.’

‘Who?’ Alice asked.

‘Simon . . .’

‘Simon effing Shawton . . . residing at Fisherrow, Musselburgh,’ Roddy said, staring at the girl and adding, ‘You went home afterwards, did you? After what exactly? No, don’t bother. You gave me your word. Your word! So that’s it, Anna. We’re history. Just get your stuff and go. I wish we’d never met . . . And leave my jacket behind. And I want my TV back, too. I never gave it to you, so you can bring that back as well. Leave the key on the kitchen table when you go.’

Elizabeth Cairns was the first to speak as the two police-women walked towards their car, their footsteps ringing on the pavement.

‘What do you think, boss?’

‘It’s not her. I’d bet my life on it. No one could fake that, and she’s not much like the girl in the photo either, what you can make out of that blur. She’d no idea what we were talking about, genuinely. You could see the astonishment on her face. She’s an Anna Campbell alright but not
the
Anna Campbell – if such a person exists. We’ll get Simon Shawton checked out at that address, but she was there, with him. If she hadn’t been so frightened, so bamboozled by us, she might have just let the boy go on saying they were together. He, obviously, couldn’t remember, wasn’t bothered, worried or anything. Instead, she told the truth. I’m sure it was the
truth. We’ll see if she’ll give her prints, but it’s not her. I’d bet my life on it.’