The Impossible Dead

  Francis Vernal had died on the evening of Sunday, 28 April. That night, a large chunk of the population – Fox included – had been glued to their TV sets as Dennis Taylor faced Steve Davis in the final of the World Snooker Championship. Taylor, eight frames down at one stage, had staged the fightback of his career. When he potted the final black of the final frame, to take the match 18–17, it was the first time he’d been ahead in the entire contest. For the few days afterwards, his face was all over the papers. Vernal’s death rated not a mention, until his obituary appeared, including, on one line, a misprint of his name as Vernel.

  ‘Couldn’t happen today,’ Fox mused out loud. No internet back then, as Naysmith had said. Rumours could be contained. Even news could be contained. Few enough Woodwards and Bernsteins in the Scottish media at the best of times. Fox could imagine a newspaper editor baulking at reporting details of a suicide: there was the family to consider, and maybe you’d liked the guy, respected him. What good did it do tarnishing his name by letting strangers know how he’d died?

  A patriot.

  Opening the second box, Fox felt his eyebrows raise a little. Photocopies of the original police notes on the case, along with autopsy details and pictures. Someone had been into the vaults to retrieve this lot, which Alan Carter had then copied and sent to his employer. Had money changed hands, or did Carter still have friends on the force? Where did Fife Constabulary store its old case-work? In Edinburgh, they used a warehouse on an industrial estate. He checked his watch. It would take him a few hours to go through everything. He knew he should take a break. The sound of a message arriving on his phone was timely. Tony Kaye and Joe Naysmith were having a drink at Minter’s.

  POETS Day, remember!

  Fox smiled to himself: Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.

  It was all the invitation he needed.

  19

  ‘I have to tell you,’ Kaye said as Fox approached the table, ‘you’re in danger of becoming a local hero in Kirkcaldy.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Fox asked, settling into his seat.

  ‘They don’t like the Murder Squad muscling in, and so far you’re the only one who’s managed to put those particular noses out of joint.’

  ‘Is it a murder yet?’

  Kaye shook his head as he took a sip of beer. ‘Suspicious death,’ he confirmed. Joe Naysmith returned from the bar with Fox’s spiced tomato juice.

  ‘Thanks, Joe,’ Fox said. ‘How did you get on at the library?’

  ‘Eight scrapyards in Fife, six of them still going.’

  ‘Did you manage to call all six?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get lucky?’

  ‘Not exactly. One guy I spoke with reckons the job would’ve gone to Barron’s Wrecking.’

  ‘Can I assume that’s one of the two firms no longer in business?’

  Naysmith nodded. ‘The scrapyard’s now a housing estate.’

  ‘And Mr Barron?’

  ‘That’s the good news – when he sold up, he got one of the new-builds as part of the deal.’

  ‘He lives on the estate?’

  ‘It’s not really an estate – six “executive homes”.’

  ‘He’s still there?’

  ‘I’ve not managed to speak to him yet, but I will.’

  ‘Good lad.’ Fox realised Kaye was giving him a look not too far removed from pity.

  ‘Wild goose chase,’ Kaye duly commented.

  ‘How about you, Tony – anything to report?’

  Kaye considered his response while he swilled another mouthful of beer. Then he smacked his lips and said: ‘Not much.’ Fox waited for more, and Kaye obliged. ‘Incident room’s been set up in the main CID office, meaning Scholes and Michaelson have been shunted out.’

  ‘Haldane’s still off sick?’

  Kaye nodded. ‘DCI Laird has decided that CID should take up residence in the interview room, leaving Joe and me homeless.’

  ‘Have you talked to Pitkethly about it?’

  ‘She wasn’t exactly sympathetic.’ Kaye paused. ‘There is one thing …’

  ‘What?’ Fox asked.

  ‘The surveillance,’ Kaye replied. ‘With you kicked into touch, shouldn’t you hook me up with Coco Chanel? Joe and me need to know what she’s hearing from those phone taps.’

  ‘I’ll check with her,’ Fox said.

  Kaye nodded slowly. ‘And what about you, Foxy? Got enough to keep you busy?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Kaye had finished his drink and was rising to fetch another. Fox shook his head, and Naysmith said he’d just have a half to top up his own pint. Once Kaye had gone to the bar, Naysmith leaned over towards Fox.

  ‘Do you need me for anything?’

  ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing.’

  Naysmith nodded. ‘I was thinking about the gun,’ he added.

  ‘Whose gun?’

  ‘The one used to kill Francis Vernal.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering that myself.’

  ‘How outrageous would it be if …?’

  Fox finished the sentence for Naysmith: ‘It turned out to be the same gun?’ Fox considered this. ‘Pretty outrageous,’ he decided.

  ‘Any way to find out?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Want me to …?’

  Fox shook his head. ‘You’re doing fine as it is.’

  ‘The car’s the other thing.’ The words were tumbling from Joe Naysmith; Fox had seldom known him so excited. Maybe the youngster was more suited to CID than Complaints. ‘I mean, it was never given a forensic check, was it? And the technology these days is way ahead of what they had back then. If we got it to a lab, who knows what they could find …’

  ‘Up to and including your prints on the interior,’ Fox reminded him. ‘Which would give you a few awkward questions to answer.’

  This reminded Naysmith of something. ‘The stuff I got from the glove box …?’

  Fox shrugged. ‘Service history.’

  Naysmith looked disappointed, then perked up. ‘Am I right though – about forensics?’

  Fox nodded slowly. ‘Let’s see if there’s a case first, though, eh?’

  ‘The internet has his widow as a prime candidate. Nice-looking woman. Bit younger than him. Came from a rich family.’ Naysmith paused. ‘Still alive?’

  ‘For now.’

  ‘Worth talking to?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Fox wasn’t sure Charles Mangold would like that, but all the same … Kaye was returning with the drinks. Naysmith moved back to his original position.

  ‘Look at the pair of you,’ Kaye chided them. ‘Like kids plotting something and not wanting the grown-ups to know.’ He placed the fresh glasses on the table. ‘What do you reckon – should we make a night of it, it being Friday?’

  ‘I’m heading back,’ Fox demurred.

  ‘Me too,’ Naysmith added.

  Kaye sighed, shook his head more in sorrow than in anger, and lifted the pint to his mouth. ‘Pair of sodding kids,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Off you go, then, and remember to do your homework.’

  ‘We will,’ Naysmith said with a smile.

  ‘One last thing, though,’ Kaye added with a wag of his finger. ‘Don’t bother to wait up for Daddy.’

  Once home, Fox sent a text to Evelyn Mills and sat down at the table again. There was some unopened mail on the windowsill. He hadn’t opened it because it comprised a bank statement and a credit-card bill, and neither would be good news. Fees at the care home had risen twice in the past year. Fox didn’t begrudge them … Well, maybe just a bit. More than once he’d considered asking Jude if she couldn’t look after their dad. It wasn’t as if she had a job. He could pay her, make it worth her while, and he’d still be better off. He wasn’t sure why he kept chickening out. Plenty of hints for her to take … or she could always make the offer herself. Instead, she just nagged at him and said
she’d be happy to pay her share if she ever had the money.

  You could always take him in …

  ‘So could you, Malcolm,’ he said to himself. Pay a home help to do a lunchtime meal and a bit of cleaning. It would be manageable. Just about manageable. Not really, though. No, Fox couldn’t imagine it. He was too set in his ways, liked things just so. It wouldn’t work …

  It was almost a relief when his phone rang. He answered: it was Mills.

  ‘Why a text rather than calling me yourself?’ she immediately asked. ‘Are you cheap or what?’

  ‘I just thought …’ He paused for a second. ‘Doesn’t it look suspicious, me phoning you of an evening?’

  She snorted. ‘I get calls all the time – Freddie’s used to it.’ Freddie: her husband, presumably. ‘A mysterious text, on the other hand …’

  ‘I should have thought of that.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m here now, so what can I do for you?’

  ‘Wondered how the surveillance is going.’

  ‘Nothing to report.’ She paused. ‘Who do I report to anyway?’

  ‘You’ve heard, then?’

  ‘DI Cash can be like that.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘By reputation.’

  ‘Tell me he’s on your radar.’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘He’s never crossed the line, Malcolm – not yet, at any rate.’

  ‘Pity.’ Fox rubbed a hand across his forehead. ‘To answer your question, I suppose Tony Kaye is your contact now. Let me give you his number.’ He did so, then asked if it was okay to give Kaye her name and number.

  ‘Sure,’ she said.

  ‘How’s the Alan Carter inquiry shaping up?’

  ‘Slow going. Kirkcaldy hasn’t exactly thrown a welcome party.’

  ‘Evelyn … I need to ask you another favour.’

  ‘You want me to put in a word? See if they’ll let you back?’

  ‘Not that, no. But I’m interested in the gun.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘So I’m wondering if I can talk to someone about it.’

  ‘And you want me to arrange it? You don’t ask much, do you, Malcolm?’

  ‘I’m sorry. A name and maybe a contact number – that’s all.’

  ‘And what do I get in return?’ She sounded almost coquettish. Fox stared at the paperwork in front of him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just my little joke.’ She laughed again. ‘You needn’t sound so scared.’

  ‘It’s not that, Evelyn.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did you really have that bad a time at Tulliallan?’

  ‘I had a great time at Tulliallan.’

  ‘Mmm, I wish I could remember more of it.’ She paused, as if waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she said she would text him if she got anywhere with the gun.

  ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘Can you tell me why you’re so interested in it, though?’

  ‘Not really, no.’ He paused. ‘It might be nothing.’

  ‘Need to let that brain of yours ease off. I can hear it working from here. Take the weekend off, Inspector. Let your hair down.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ He managed a smile. ‘Good night, Evelyn.’

  ‘Sweet dreams, Malcolm. Do you still snore …?’

  His mouth was hanging open, wondering how to answer, but she had already ended the call.

  Six

  20

  ‘It’s not the same gun, I promise you that.’

  Her name was Fiona McFadzean and she was, as Mills’s text had put it, ‘Fife’s ballistics person’. She was based at the Constabulary HQ in Glenrothes. It had taken Fox a while to find the place: too many roundabouts and a shortage of signposts. McFadzean didn’t work in the main building. Fox had been directed to a squat brick structure behind the petrol pumps. A uniformed officer was filling the tank of his squad car.

  ‘Aye, that’s Fiona’s lair,’ he assured Fox.

  McFadzean had to come and unlock the door for him. She wasn’t wearing a white coat and seemed quite happy in her windowless space. Against one wall stood an array of building materials, from brick to wood, pockmarked with bullet holes. A glass-fronted cubicle contained a white-painted wall, speckled pink. McFadzean had explained to Fox that they used it to confirm blood spray from a gunshot.

  ‘And what exactly is it that you shoot?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Anything from watermelons to pigs’ heads. My uncle’s a butcher, which is handy.’

  She was a young, vibrant woman, and she took him on a quick tour of her domain. An assistant sat at a computer. She introduced him as Paul, and he waved a greeting without looking up from the screen.

  ‘Much gun crime in Fife?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Not really. We were set up as a kind of experiment. Carpet’s always about to be pulled from under us – budgets getting squeezed, et cetera.’

  McFadzean had no desk as such. She seemed content to perch on a stool at a narrow counter which ran the length of one wall. There was a coffee pot, and she poured for both of them, while Fox tried to make himself comfortable on the spare stool, before deciding to stand instead.

  ‘Thanks again for seeing me,’ he said.

  She nodded her head once and lifted the mug to her lips, cupping it in both hands.

  ‘How can you be so sure about the guns?’ Fox then asked. The coffee was too bitter, but he took another sip anyway, so as not to give offence.

  ‘Serial numbers for a start,’ she said. ‘Paul had some free time last year, so he computerised all the old records.’ She showed Fox the printout. ‘This is the gun Francis Vernal used. Four-inch barrel rather than six-inch. Same-calibre bullet, but six chambers rather than five.’ A second printed sheet was passed to Fox. ‘The revolver used to kill Mr Carter …’

  Fox studied the details. ‘Different gun,’ he agreed. ‘It says here the gun from the Vernal shooting was destroyed.’

  She nodded. ‘Happens to all the weapons we confiscate.’ She handed him a third sheet. It was a detailed list of weapons from Fife and Tayside Constabularies sent to be melted down. There weren’t many. The revolver found on Alan Carter’s table should have been destroyed in October 1984. The one found near Vernal’s car had suffered the same fate a year later.

  ‘Have you got a history for both guns?’ Fox asked.

  ‘We can do only so much,’ McFadzean apologised, blowing across the surface of her coffee.

  ‘Be in a file somewhere,’ Paul called out. ‘Probably at the National Ballistics Lab in Glasgow. Buried deep in the archives.’

  ‘So you don’t know where they came from in the first place?’

  McFadzean shook her head.

  ‘The revolver found in Alan Carter’s cottage … how do you think it got there?’

  ‘Somewhere between the lock-up and the furnace, it took a walk.’

  Fox nodded his agreement. ‘Has that happened before?’

  ‘Guidelines are pretty strict – lots of checks and balances.’

  ‘Not a regular occurrence, then?’ Fox studied the sheets again. ‘Someone pocketed it,’ he guessed.

  ‘Seems likely. I mean, it could have been dropped or mislaid …’ She saw the look on his face. ‘Okay, that’s not so likely,’ she admitted.

  ‘Do we know who was on the detail? Whose job it was to dispose of the weapons?’

  ‘Over the page,’ she said, motioning for him to flip to the final sheet.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, because there was a name there he recognised.

  Detective Inspector Gavin Willis.

  ‘Yes?’ McFadzean prompted.

  Fox tapped a finger against the paper. ‘DI Willis,’ he explained. ‘Alan Carter worked under him. Bought his house when Willis died.’

  ‘Might explain it,’ Paul said, swivelling round in his chair to face them. ‘Gun was in the house. Carter found it and kept it …’

  ‘Making it more likely tha
t he took his own life,’ McFadzean added.

  ‘Or at least that the revolver was lying around for someone else to use,’ Fox argued. ‘Wasn’t it you who noticed the fingerprints weren’t right?’

  She nodded. ‘First thing we do,’ she explained, ‘is check any firearm for trace evidence. After that we match the gun to the bullet, just to be sure. And then we search for provenance.’

  ‘It hadn’t been fired in a while,’ Paul continued. ‘Hadn’t been looked after.’

  ‘Rust,’ McFadzean explained. ‘And a lack of oil.’

  ‘Unused bullets in the other chambers,’ Paul added. ‘They had to be a couple of decades old.’

  ‘From the fibres we found, it had probably been stored in a piece of cloth, just plain white cotton.’

  ‘So they should be searching the cottage for that cloth,’ Fox said.

  ‘They have done – at our request.’

  ‘Nothing so far,’ Paul interrupted.

  ‘Nothing so far,’ McFadzean confirmed.

  Fox blew air from his cheeks. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘I’m not really sure,’ she confided. ‘Paul’s theory is that the gun had been taken to the cottage, used to kill the victim and then his prints pressed to it in a half-baked attempt to make it look like suicide.’ She paused.

  ‘But?’ Fox prompted.

  ‘But … you’ve just given us reason to believe the gun may have been in the cottage all along.’

  ‘Alan Carter might have had cause to be fearful,’ Fox stated. ‘Maybe he kept the revolver close by.’

  ‘That doesn’t work,’ Paul said, rising from his chair and pouring himself more coffee. ‘Victim was seated at the table. From the spray pattern, we know that’s where he was when he was shot. If someone’s taken your gun from you and is pointing it at you …’

  ‘You’re not likely to stay seated with your back to them,’ Fox agreed. He thought for a moment. ‘What if someone has the gun pointed at you and tells you to sit down? They want something from you, something that’s already on the table?’

  Paul considered this and nodded slowly. ‘You find it for them, and they then shoot you?’

  ‘Or you refuse, and they shoot you anyway,’ McFadzean added. The room was silent for a moment.