‘ You’re pissing in the wind, Dunbar and I’m a busy man.’
‘ Ah yes, Cuddles,’ said Steven.
‘ What kind of car did you drive up in?’ sneered Verdi.
‘ Filthy lucre, Paul,’ said Steven getting up to leave. ‘Can’t buy you love… or class.’
‘ Get the fuck out of here.’
‘ Just out of interest,’ said Steven, pausing and turning round. ‘You weren’t such a hot shot with your defence of David Little. What was the deal there?’
‘ Little got what he deserved,’ said Verdi. ‘He was guilty. Now get out!’
THIRTEEN
Feeling bad about his clash with Paul Verdi, Steven set off back to Edinburgh and sought comfort in the fact that the rain had given way to some afternoon brightness. He found sunshine therapeutic. He stopped the car by the beach near Longniddry and got out to admire the sparkle on the waves as seagulls wheeled overhead and a solitary windsurfer, clad in hooded wet-suit, braved the cold of the Firth of Forth. He sank his hands deep in his pockets and set off for walk along the beach.
His gambit of trying to put Verdi on the back foot by going on the offensive hadn’t worked and now he was in no doubt that he had made a potentially dangerous enemy. He hadn’t really expected Verdi to cave in and confess all but he regretted allowing his instant dislike of the man to have played a part in his conduct of the interview. He saw this as weakness. The only positive thing that he could take from the encounter was a strengthening of his belief that there really had been some kind of criminal association between Verdi and the forensic lab during Lee’s time. The look in Verdi’s eyes when he’d broached the subject had told him that he was on the right track. Proving it however, would be quite a different matter.
Steven took a handful of pebbles down to the water’s edge, and started skimming the flat ones out over the surface, taking childish pleasure in counting the number of skips they made before disappearing. His mood changed however, when another childhood game came to mind and with it, dark thoughts of Hector Combe and Julie Summers. ‘This little piggy went to market. Snap! This little piggy..’ With a shudder he returned to the car and resumed his journey.
He had just joined the bypass, intending to skirt round the south of the city to avoid town traffic when his phone rang. It was McClintock.
‘ The brown stuff’s about to hit the fan big time,’ said McClintock.
‘ Make my day.’
‘ The word is that some screw at the Bar-L has just funded his summer hols by blabbing to the papers. He’s told them about you having the DNA tests on Little repeated. The Record ’s going to run the story tomorrow.’
‘ Shit,’ said Steven.
‘ The brass are spitting nails.
‘ Thanks for the warning,’ said Steven.
‘ Have you seen Verdi yet?’
‘ I’m on my way back at the moment. I don’t think we’ll be exchanging Christmas cards.’
‘ Jesus, is there anyone left that you haven’t managed to alienate?’ asked McClintock.
‘ You’re right,’ said Steven. ‘I should give up the assertiveness classes.’
‘ When will you get the results?’
‘ Tomorrow,’ replied Steven.
‘ If Little’s still in the frame, I suggest you leak that information as quickly as possible. It might help stem the damage.’
‘ Will do,’ said Steven.
The morning papers did not make for good reading as Steven worked his way through a second pot of coffee at breakfast. The police force’s worst fears had been realised and the press took the opportunity to list their failings in the Summers case all over again. The Mulveys’ suicides and the subsequent resignations were revisited in detail along with a new suggestion that the police still hadn’t got it right. There was an implicit suggestion that new DNA tests heralded the case being reopened by the Home Office. One of the tabloids ran with the headline, ‘Will Julie Ever Rest in Peace?’ while another jumped the gun with, ‘Julie Case Re-opened.’
Steven half expected it to be the police when his phone went off but it was Susan Givens at the university.
‘ I’ve got your results,’ she said. ‘Want to come over?’
Steven resisted the urge to ask her what she’d found over the phone and said that he’d be there in half an hour. His next caller was John Macmillan.
‘ How in God’s name did this happen?’ Macmillan demanded by way of greeting.
‘ I take it you’ve seen the Scottish papers then,’ said Steven.
‘ The fax machine has been spewing out little else for the last hour. How did they get on to it?’
‘ A prison officer at Barlinnie,’ said Steven.
‘ Damn him.’
‘ I’m just about to go over and get the results of the tests,’ said Steven. ‘That at least should put an end to conjecture.’
‘ If they confirm Little as the killer, Lothian and Borders Police are going to add humble pie to your diet for some time to come. Call me when you know.’
As he drove over to the science campus at the university Steven found himself uncertain of what he was hoping for. He was in what the papers liked to call a no-win situation. If Susan Givens confirmed the earlier DNA fingerprint findings, then Hector Combe’s claims were nonsense — as common sense decreed they must be — this would signal an end to the affair and he would have achieved nothing but the re-opening of old wounds. If, on the other hand, she found discrepancies which pointed to a miscarriage of justice, it would be too late to rescue David Little: he was already on death row and there was no way back.
‘ Good morning,’ said Susan Givens. She slid a copy of The Herald newspaper across her desk towards him. ‘I see that your concerns have been made public.’
Steven glanced at the heading, ‘Ill fated Summers Case to be Re-opened?’ and nodded. ‘I could have done without that,’ he said.
‘ I’ll bet,’ said Susan, getting up and moving over to another desk where she switched on a light box of the type used by doctors to view X-rays. Instead of being on the wall this one lay flat on the desk. She placed two photographic negatives side by side on the surface.
‘ The DNA profile on the left is the one I obtained from the David Little buccal smear that you took at the prison the other day; the one on the right is from one of the semen samples stored by the forensics lab.’
‘ They’re the same,’ murmured Steven, seeing immediately that the band patterns were identical.
‘ They are,’ agreed Susan. ‘Your man is guilty.’
Steven felt a sensation of extreme tiredness sweep over him. He hadn’t realised that he’d been so tense and now he felt positively deflated. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Thanks for that.’
Susan put another photograph on the light box and said, ‘This is the DNA fingerprint of the original buccal smear taken from Little at the time of the murder. As you can see, it matches the others. It was taken from him all right. There was no mix-up.’
‘ Game, set and match,’ said Steven. ‘I’m grateful to you, Doctor.’
‘ There is one odd thing,’ said Susan, rearranging the photographs and handing Steven a hand lens. ‘If you look closely you’ll see a phenomenon we call ghosting.’
Steven bent down to examine the photos and asked, ‘Do you mean these faint extra bands?’
‘ That’s right. They weren’t present on the prints that the prosecution submitted in evidence.’
‘ So you were right about them cleaning up the pictures? said Steven.
Susan shrugged. ‘Some might argue that the extra bands have something to do with long time storage of the samples.’
‘ But you don’t think so?’
