made a few enemies, proof of which being his paralysis and the bullet that’s still lodged in his head. He’ll say that when he heard someone battering at the front door, his first thought was that his dad’s life was in danger, and that when DI McFaul burst through the door, armed, he had no proof, nor even any idea, that he was a police officer. He was defending his father from attack, with a registered and legally held handgun.’ He looked at me. ‘That will be his story, and to tell you the truth, Bob, I can see a jury going for that.’
I felt my eyes narrow. ‘But you’ve got the balls to give them the chance, Davie, yes?’
‘If you dig your heels in, I’ll prosecute. But if we lose, then the civil suit will follow. Drop all charges and Green will go away, quietly.’
I stared at the wall, trying to burn a hole in it as I thought. Paula Cherry might be chicken, but Davie was a good guy, and I had learned to trust his instincts almost as well as my own. Holmes and son had me by the balls; I knew it, and I did not like the feeling.
‘I’m going back to the office,’ I announced. ‘I’m going to keep him for as long as I can, and then I’m going to charge him with attempt to murder. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have a night to think about it, and to decide whether we walk away from it.’
Pettigrew nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
‘Of course I reserve the right-’ Mrs Cherry began.
‘This is Scotland,’ I snapped. ‘You don’t have any rights here. I’ll call you later, Davie.’
‘Is she always like that?’ I asked McFaul, when I could trust myself to speak. By that time we were within sight of the office.
‘That was her being cooperative. She works on a ninety per cent chance of conviction; that’s her benchmark. I’ve never met anyone with a more extreme view of what’s a reasonable doubt. We’re screwed, Bob.’
‘Not necessarily. I’m going to ask our specialists if they can place anyone else in his car. If they can’t, that might add a couple of points to her calculation.’ I smiled, for what seemed like the first time in a while. ‘Mind you…’ I paused, to consider possibilities more rationally than I had in Pettigrew’s office. ‘Are you as angry as me?’
‘Too bloody right.’
‘Then charge him.’
‘Eh?’ he murmured. ‘How can I do that?’
‘On the basis of the evidence. McGrew’s in Scotland, you’re in Scotland in pursuit, with a right to be here. As I told her, she has none. She’s invisible to me. You charge him, and I’ll use all my media friends to make sure that the story goes national. Then if she wants to stick to her line, she’ll have to explain it publicly, instead of hanging failure round our necks.’
He glanced at me. ‘I’d love to do it, but there’s one major obstacle in the way: Paula Cherry’s husband. His name’s Norman, and he’s one of our assistant chief constables. She may be invisible to you, but he’s very real to me. If I charged McGrew, after the meeting we’ve just had, it would be a disciplinary offence. I’ve got a wife and three kids, a nice house in Hexham and a pension to protect. I’ve even got promotion prospects. I can’t, Bob.’
‘He’d hang you out to dry,’ I said, ‘even though the man pointed a gun at you?’
‘ACC Cherry,’ he sighed, ‘would hang Mother Teresa out to dry if Paula told him to.’
‘You realise that I’m probably going to have to release the bastard?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘The fucking Holmeses!’ I spat. ‘Like father, like son.’
‘Having seen him, I wouldn’t say that the father’s got away scotfree.’
‘He’s still breathing.’
‘We’re not judges, Bob,’ he said. ‘If you judge people, you have no time to love them. Mother Teresa said that.’
‘And she’d probably have told us that Perry’s Jesus in disguise,’ I countered. In spite of myself, I smiled at the image, and at the memory of the scene when we had raided the house, the naked form in the water. ‘Would that make Vanburn John the Baptist?’
Back at headquarters, McFaul came upstairs to say goodbye to the team; that done, I walked him back down to his car. We shook hands. ‘If ever you get to the point where you can’t take any more of ACC Cherry and his wife,’ I told him, ‘let me know. I’m not a decisionmaker here, but I’ve got some influence with the people who are.’
‘Thanks, Bob,’ he replied, ‘but I’ll outlast him. The word is that he’s going in a couple of years, and when he does, a lot of people will be after her.’ He opened the driver’s door, then stopped. ‘Hell, I almost forgot.’ He leaned in and across, to the back seat, produced a plastic bag, and handed it to me. ‘My people went over Glenn Milburn’s house. They got no meaningful evidence to help you, but they did find half a dozen pay-and-go mobile phones. They’re spares as far as we can make out, unconnected to the investigation and of no use to us, but I seem to recall you saying that you were looking for one. Long shot, but you never know. Sometimes all we can do is keep scratching away; we are all pencils in the hand of God, as Mother Teresa also said.’
I laughed as I took the bag. ‘And as Bob Skinner says, right now, fuck off back to Tyneside, and mind how you go.’
I wandered back upstairs, full of the huge frustration that came from the knowledge that in all probability I was going to have to let a triple murderer go free. The more I stared into it, the muddier the water became. Pettigrew had been right: attempted murder would never stick, and even a reduced charge, assault by presenting a loaded firearm, would probably fail against Ken Green’s defence.
With Jeff Adam on the ground, McFaul had gone in alone, without anyone to witness that he had identified himself properly, other than Vanburn, the nurse, who had been too busy protecting his patient to remember any of the detail. Yet again, I was stuffed by lack of corroboration. I decided to keep McGrew locked up for the rest of the day without charging him. At least that way I could keep his lawyer out of my hair, for until a charge was made, I didn’t have to give him access to a brief.
I gave the bag to Andy Martin, and told him what it contained. ‘Go through the call logs on each one, incoming and outgoing numbers, and see if any of them mean anything at all. It’s a balls-aching job, I know, but it has to be done.’
I retreated into my small office, nursing a mug of coffee. My team had the good sense to leave me alone. As I brooded, I had the wild thought of calling my friend Xavi at the Saltire newspaper, and telling him… don’t quote me personally, mate, but… that I had a man in custody who couldn’t be charged with murder because an English lawyer thought there was a one in five chance of an acquittal. I was tempted, but I’d have been taking a chance with McFaul’s career, so I stayed my hand. Instead I called Alison.
‘How goes your morning?’ I asked her.
‘Better than yours, from the sound of you. Good and bad, really. As we expected, Martina Chivers identified Mia Watson as the victim. But,’ she paused, ‘before you start doing a lap of honour, I’ve spoken to both of our witnesses and they’re adamant that the attacker was a man. So any notion of Mia Sparkles turning into Catwoman by night is right out the window.’
I growled at her, but she ignored me.
‘That lets me focus on Don Telfer. I’m expecting him inside half an hour; the Grampian car’s just handed him over to us this side of the Forth Bridge.’
‘Can I sit in?’ I muttered. ‘I feel the need to eat somebody.’
She laughed. ‘That bad, is it? You’re the boss. I can have him taken to Fettes if you like.’
‘No, I’ll come to you. The accommodation here’s full of a guy I don’t want to see for now.’
I drove to Torphichen and arrived there one minute before Donald Telfer and his escorting officers. Alison had him taken straight to an interview room, while we sat at her desk, with Alastair Grant watching from his kennel in the corner of the CID suite. ‘I’m guessing McGrew hasn’t confessed,’ she began.
‘It’s worse than that, but let’s not go there; let’s stay focused on the job in hand. You take the lead in questioning, I’ll just sit there and stare him down. The first thing you need to find out is how much he knows about what’s happened to his pals, given where he’s been for the last couple of weeks. If he doesn’t… it’ll be interesting.’
It’s a popular misconception that in the circumstances in which Telfer found himself that morning, the innocent are apprehensive and the guilty are angry. In my experience, the opposite is true, and our prisoner bore
