that out. He was as nervous as a man in the condemned cell, listening to the trap being tested just along the corridor. He looked up when we walked into the room; his face was white, his forehead was covered in sweat and his hands were clenched together so tightly that the bones seemed to show. I gazed at him, sizing him up. He was a strong-looking guy with clear blue eyes, and a complexion that might have been described as ‘fresh’ were it not for the day-old stubble on his chin and for two lines on his left cheek, criss-crossing to form a rough letter ‘X’, standing out pale blue against the paleness of his skin. ‘Scar on his face,’ Redpath had told us.
‘Good morning, Mr Telfer,’ Alison began, after she’d switched on the twin deck recorder and identified everyone. ‘Do you know why you’re here?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ he replied. His voice had a crack in it.
‘Then I’ll enlighten you. We believe that you were involved just under three weeks ago in the multiple rape of a woman. You were with two other men, Andrew Weir and Albert McCann. The victim hasn’t made a formal complaint, but that doesn’t actually matter, because we have medical testimony that says she was, and from her clothing and body we recovered forensic samples from the men involved. I’ll require you to give us samples of blood and saliva, and I have no doubt that analysis will confirm your guilt, as we’re in the process of doing with your old school pals… academic as that might be, since it’s only you who’ll be standing trial.’
He frowned, and I knew that he was about to be given the biggest fright of his life. ‘Why?’ he protested. ‘Have those idiots turned Crown witnesses?’
‘My,’ Alison said, evenly. ‘You have been out of touch. Mind you,’ she continued, ‘I suppose that you’ll only get the Press and Journal on your platform. Edinburgh stories might not get the same prominence as in our papers. Your friends will not be tried because they’re both currently in the morgue. They were both murdered, one week apart, by the same man. We don’t know who he is yet, but we’re fairly certain that he’s waiting for your offshore spell to finish, so that he can complete the job.’
His eyes stood out, his mouth hung open. She took two photographs from a folder she’d brought with her and laid them on the table. They’d been taken in the mortuary, just before the post-mortems had begun. Until then I’d never actually seen a grown man piss his pants before, but he did. We let him sit there in the wet, and the rising steam, and the shame, his face in his hands.
‘Hey,’ I called out, ‘look at me, Don.’ After a while he did. I tapped my left cheek, where his scar was. ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked. He stared back, mute. ‘It goes back to your school days, doesn’t it?’
For the first time he showed something other than fear: anger. He nodded, forcefully. ‘That wee cunt Ryan Watson,’ he hissed. ‘He did it with that fucking razor he carried up his sleeve, at the school, in the middle of the playground at a break. The fucking jannie, Ramsay, his name was, he took me to the Royal, and he told me that if I opened my mouth it would probably be my throat got cut next time, so when the hospital called the police I told them I didn’t know who did it, not that they gave a shit anyway!’
‘Why did he do it, Don?’
His eyes flared. ‘Because I tried it on with his sister. The fucking Ice Queen, Mia, who said she never shagged boys, only proper men. The wee bastard came up to me and cut me, and said she’d told him to.’
That threw me. ‘Did you believe that?’ I asked.
‘How the fuck would I know whether it was true or not? Ryan didn’t need telling. He was always heading for an early grave, that wee… Two weeks later his drugs racket was exposed in the papers and he and his uncle wound up dead because of it.’
‘What about Mia?’ I continued.
‘She left school the day the story about the drugs was in the paper. I never saw her again, until I opened a radio magazine that I read and there she was, Miss Fucking Perfect, back in Edinburgh and a big star. And me, marked for life. Women recoil from me, you know. They do, like I’m some sort of freak. Even the nice ones, I can see it in their eyes. The only way I can get a woman is to pay for it. And it’s all her fucking fault.’
Alison picked up the interview. ‘So you and your pals decided to teach her a lesson.’
He nodded. ‘It was my idea. Andy and Albie came along for the ride, so to speak. They hated that wee bastard too; when we were all at the school he actually made them buy drugs off him.’ He paused for breath. ‘So, we waited for her to finish her programme and then we picked her up outside her studio.’
‘Where did you take her?’
‘My place. We kept her there all night. No food, nothing to drink, just us. I wanted to kill her, and hide her somewhere she’d never be found, but the boys wouldn’t go for that. So we told her that if she said a word, we’d tell the Sunday Mail all about her and her evil fucking family, and then we dumped her in the street. Brutal, eh? Sure,’ he spat, ‘and you know what? I don’t give a toss.’
‘I doubt if your friends did either,’ Alison murmured. ‘Pity we can’t ask them.’
Nineteen
‘Where do we take this?’ Alison asked, once Telfer’s forensic samples had been taken and we’d charged him.
There was only one answer to that, and I knew it; I couldn’t avoid it. Well, I could have. I could have gone to Alf Stein, told him the whole story and asked him to put two other senior officers on the case. No, scratch that; I should have done that. But I didn’t; instead I ploughed on, taking what was in hindsight a reckless risk, not only with my own career but with Alison’s. ‘We have to bring her in,’ I told her.
She surprised me. ‘I’m not sure about that. She’s a rape victim, and she’s well known. If we arrest her, on the back of the charge against Telfer, and bring her in here, she’ll be recognised, and her right to anonymity could be compromised.’ She held up a hand before I could say anything. ‘I know, I’m sounding like Martina Chivers, but it’s a fact. I think we should go to her. Or I should, since you don’t want to be involved.’
I made another decision. ‘No, I can’t dump this one all on you. We interview her together.’
‘Okay. Where?’
‘I don’t know, but not the fucking Sheraton, that’s for sure.’ I flicked through the options. The radio station? Hardly. That left only one. I took out my phone and called her, mobile to mobile. She must have recognised my number but she answered nonetheless. ‘Hello, Bob,’ she murmured; she was using her radio voice on me, damn her. ‘Do you want to start with a fresh page?’
‘I need to see you,’ I replied.
‘Now?’
‘It can’t wait.’
‘Then I’m at home.’ I ended the call and told Alison that she’d given me her home address.
Cross-town at midday, a journey that might have taken as little as ten minutes, took twenty-five. Duplicitous to the last, I parked well away from the house and made a show of checking the numbers. I was nervous as I rang the bell, in case Mia answered in nothing but her T-shirt, but she must have been looking out for me, for she was fully dressed and showed no surprise when she opened the door and found two of us there.
‘Mob-handed,’ she murmured, with a quick glance at my companion as she ushered us in. ‘I’m honoured. It’s a pity you didn’t bring that dishy detective constable though, Bob. I took a shine to him.’
‘A female officer was necessary, Mia. This is DI Higgins.’
She frowned. ‘Why would that be?’
‘Think back three weeks,’ I said, ‘and the reason may begin to dawn on you. We’ve arrested Donald Telfer, and charged him with rape.’
Her eyelashes flickered, but only slightly. ‘Who’s Donald Telfer?’ she asked.
I sighed. ‘Please. Have some respect for me as a police officer, if nothing else. You know who he is. He’s one of three guys who kept you prisoner overnight, while they raped and sodomised you, repeatedly. The four of you were at school together, and Telfer was getting even for the scars that your brother Ryan left him with, twelve years ago.’
‘Wait a minute,’ a woman hissed, a woman I’d seen revealed once before. ‘I didn’t make a complaint. I told that inspector that it was a party that got out of hand, and that it was probably my fault.’
‘Your blood was clean, Mia. No drink or drugs. What you say doesn’t matter anyway, unless you’re prepared to repeat it under oath, and that won’t be necessary. Telfer’s made a full statement, admitting the whole thing.
