Out of Bounds

  ‘Legally, maybe. But morally? You know you stole Gabriel’s money. And who knows what the courts would have to say if he’d decided to sue you?’

  ‘I didn’t know the truth at the time. Not till I was twenty-one.’

  Karen gave him a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger look. ‘Not good enough. You must have seen both wills at the time. And it’s quite clear that Ellie’s intention was that Gabriel should inherit her estate if Caroline wasn’t around.’

  ‘I don’t make the rules,’ Abbott said. ‘The money was legally mine. Look, when are you going to arrest Frank and make him answer for what he did?’

  ‘Where did the gun come from?’

  ‘How would I know? Frank has all sorts of contacts and they’re not all in the government.’

  ‘And you never touched the gun?’

  ‘No, I told you. I had no idea he had a gun with him. It’s all been down to Frank. It was his idea to keep tabs on you when you started sniffing around. He got one of his minions to follow you and let us know where you were and what you were doing. Frank thought you’d give up, but you didn’t, did you?’ The bitter words were out before he could stop himself.

  Campbell leaned forward and whispered urgently in his ear. Abbott looked angry but he controlled himself. ‘My client has given you full and frank disclosure, Chief Inspector. In the light of that, I suggest you consult with the FD and consider waiving the more serious charges against him. To ensure his continued cooperation.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Campbell. We’re going to have to speak to Lord Sinclair and check out your client’s story. In the meantime, Will Abbott, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder . . . ’ This time, she got to the end of the necessary words.

  And that was that. A furious Campbell lingered after Abbott was taken away to the cells. ‘This is an outrage,’ he kept repeating.

  ‘Continually repeating that doesn’t make it so,’ Ruth Wardlaw said, walking up to them. ‘I suggest you sit down with your client and explain the sentencing advantages of a guilty plea. Because he knows and we know that there are a lot more skeletons in his cupboard. And DCI Pirie is not about to leave them there.’

  Karen left them, Campbell spluttering and Ruth calmly asserting the upper hand. Abbott’s story hung together. It was credible. Right now, she didn’t know what to think. Somebody had to go and bring in Frank Sinclair and, given her current bag lady image, she didn’t think she’d get past the front lobby of the Balmoral. Maybe a pair of uniforms would do the trick. At the very least, it would annoy the living shit out of Lord Sinclair.

  61

  Frank Sinclair glared at Karen across the interview room table, his bushy brows pulled down low over his bright blue eyes. ‘You were at the Lords Select Committee on Monday,’ he said. ‘I never forget a face.’

  ‘I was,’ Karen admitted. ‘I wanted to see you in the flesh.’

  ‘I thought you were up to no good. You stole a glass at the end of the meeting.’ He cocked his head to one side, a predator sizing up his prey. ‘My glass.’

  ‘You’re very observant.’

  ‘If you used that as a source of DNA, it has no evidential value.’

  Karen nodded. ‘I know. Not everything our labs analyse is for evidential purposes. Sometimes it’s just for investigative value.’

  ‘Why are you investigating me? And why am I here?’

  ‘Your name came up in two separate but possibly connected investigations. The fatal bombing of a small plane in 1994, and the recent murder of Gabriel Abbott.’

  His frown deepened. ‘I understood from his brother Will that Gabriel’s death had been classified as suicide.’

  ‘Initially there was some doubt, but we have revised that opinion. We consider his death to be suspicious.’

  ‘That’s sad. But I fail to see the connection to me?’

  Karen left a long pause while they held each other’s gaze. At last, she said, ‘He was your son.’

  Sinclair snorted. ‘Only in the way that a sperm donor is the father of the babies born to women treated with his genetic material. I had no emotional connection to Gabriel Abbott. I scarcely knew the boy.’

  ‘Yet his mother was one of your oldest, closest friends.’ She saw the involuntary shift in his seat. ‘Yes, I know the truth about that too.’

  ‘They wanted a child. I provided sperm. I saw very little of Ellie after she took up with Caroline. I did not approve of their relationship.’ He sighed. ‘But Ellie persuaded me against my better judgement. I suppose you could say it was a mixture of flattery and emotional blackmail. I regretted it almost as soon as I did it. I knew the damage it would do me if it ever became known. But I was not his father. I am father to my daughters, but I was never a father to Gabriel.’

  ‘Not everyone would understand that. You’re seen as someone who occupies the high moral ground on pretty much every issue. Fathering a love child for a pair of lesbians is the kind of thing your papers put on the front page. And not in a good way.’

  He said nothing. Fair enough, she thought. It hadn’t been a question.

  ‘You were at the Elstree aerodrome on the morning of the crash.’

  Now he looked surprised. ‘It’s not a secret. I spoke to the police at the time. I gave Richard and Mary a lift. I was trying to persuade Richard to write a regular column for me, so I thought it might be helpful to do him a small favour. I did a courtesy tour of the control tower with the ladies and I was gone before the plane was even on the tarmac.’ His face twisted in an expression of distaste. ‘I was deeply upset by the accident. Even though I saw very little of Ellie by then, she was, as you said, one of my oldest friends.’

  ‘And you didn’t plant the bomb?’

  Sinclair looked completely astonished. ‘Are you mad? Of course I didn’t plant the bomb. These were my friends. How . . . ? How could . . . ? How could you consider such a thing?’

  ‘I have to ask. Nobody ever stood trial for the murder of your friends.’

  He shook his head with a baffled air. ‘Madness. Is that why you dragged me down here? To make a preposterous allegation going back twenty-two years?’

  ‘A very serious allegation has been made against you,’ Karen said. ‘Not to do with the plane crash.’

  He frowned. ‘Well. If it’s as ridiculous as your last question, I have nothing to fear.’

  ‘Will Abbott alleges you murdered Gabriel.’

  Sinclair’s mouth fell open. His face screwed up in an expression of utter incredulity. If it was an act, the man could have auditioned successfully for any major theatre company. He twisted his neck like a man hard of hearing thrusting his good ear towards the speaker. ‘What?’

  ‘Will Abbott alleges you murdered Gabriel.’

  He shuddered. Karen had never seen anyone actually do that in an interview. ‘I’ve woken up in a Kafka novel,’ he said faintly. ‘This is madness.’

  ‘Gabriel was trying to draw up his family tree. Discovering the truth about his parentage would have been deeply embarrassing for you.’

  ‘That’s true. It would have been personally difficult.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘But the world has changed a great deal in recent years. And ironically, a revelation of that sort might serve, bizarrely, to raise my standing in some quarters. My daughters would find it hilarious. Chief Inspector, I am far from perfect, but I do try to adhere to my Christian principles. I have found that “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the easier precepts to stick to.’

  ‘So you say. You also have a reputation for ruthlessness. Coveting your neighbour’s columnists, if not their asses.’ There was nothing humorous in Karen’s tone.

  ‘When am I supposed to have done this?’

  ‘A week past Sunday. Some time between quarter past ten and midnight.’

  He threw his head back and laughed. As he struggled to regain his composure, he gasped an apology.
‘You have no idea . . . ’ And he laughed again.

  ‘So tell me.’

  He gathered himself together. ‘I did come up to Edinburgh from Newcastle with Will. We had a business meeting in Newcastle to discuss some cross-promotion between our online platform and his new company, Spartacular. And I was continuing to Edinburgh where I had a series of meetings on Monday morning. Will wanted to continue the conversation, to iron out some creases. He offered to drive me, so I agreed. We both checked in at the Balmoral. He said he was going to go over to Kinross to see Gabriel. I told him I was going to have an early night. We said our farewells in the lobby.’

  He shrugged. ‘I was lying. I did, in fact, have a meeting that evening. A meeting of absolute confidentiality.’

  ‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’

  ‘I appreciate that. You are probably aware that my newspaper titles and our online presence were deeply hostile to the independence movement during the referendum here in Scotland.’

  No shit, Sherlock. ‘I had noticed a certain level of vitriol.’

  ‘It has become regrettably clear that Ms Sturgeon and her nationalist cohort are here to stay, both in Scotland and in Westminster. Our position is hurting our sales. So I set up a meeting with a senior Holyrood minister and a couple of high-ranking party officials to discuss the terms of a rapprochement.’

  As alibis went, it was a stonker. If it was true. ‘I’m going to need names.’

  ‘I am not going to say them aloud. Not for the tape.’ He took a small notebook and pen from the inside pocket of his beautiful grey suit. He scribbled a few lines on the page, then tore it out and handed it over.

  Karen, who was far from an assiduous student of politics, recognised the names. She’d been right. A stonker, right enough. She couldn’t imagine any set of circumstances that would unite those three people behind Frank Sinclair. ‘And they’ll confirm this?’

  ‘Reluctantly, I imagine. But I will ask their indulgence.’ He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. ‘I have no idea who killed Gabriel, if indeed anyone did. But it really wasn’t me.’

  ‘Did you see Will Abbott again on that trip?’

  ‘We ran into each other in the breakfast room. I asked him how Gabriel was doing. He told me he was worried that he was heading for another of his episodes. That he seemed depressed. That he was getting wound up about some friend of his in Myanmar being persecuted. To be honest, it sounded like almost every conversation I’d had with Will about Gabriel. I wasn’t really paying attention.’ He paused, working his jaw from one side to the other. ‘Are you . . . ? Do you . . . ? Is Will a suspect?’

  ‘A wee bit more than that,’ Karen said. ‘He tried very hard to push it on to you. He didn’t know about your meeting. If you’d had your feet up in your hotel room, it might have been kind of difficult for you to talk your way out of it. Just one thing – Abbott said you’d had me followed. Why?’

  He shrugged, dismissing the question as insignificant. ‘I didn’t know who you were or what your game was. I wanted to be sure you weren’t up to something nefarious. I am targeted by all sorts of people. As we’ve both discovered this morning,’ he added, acid in his voice.

  Karen slid carefully between the sheets, her assorted aches dulled by the drugs. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired. River, summoned by Jason, was in the living room with her laptop and instructions to wake Karen every two hours. ‘Good luck with that,’ Karen had said, emerging from a shower that had done the opposite of waking her up.

  There were, she thought, different ways of serving justice. Sometimes it was enough to have the answer. Nobody could fault the cops on the original inquiry into Tina McDonald’s death. Even if they’d realised the underground ticket wasn’t hers, it would have taken them nowhere. The evidence that had nailed her killer simply hadn’t been available to them. Three more people had to die a horrible, stupid death before the crucial piece of evidence fell into her lap. Sure, it would have been more satisfying to put Gary Foreman behind bars. But at least Tina’s family had their answer now, and without having to relive those terrible days through the medium of a trial.

  But when it came to Will Abbott, there was only one way to serve justice. And that was to put him behind bars for the rest of his life. Karen knew in her bones that he had blown up that plane. But she had to let that go. She was never going to nail that. But he would pay for taking Gabriel’s life.

  So far, her best efforts had taken away his liberty. Charged with assault, attempting to pervert the course of justice, and murder. No sheriff would grant him bail. Not with the evidence against him on the police assault. The problem was, that was only temporary. There was still a long road to travel before she could be sure a jury would convict him of at least one murder. In her heart, Karen believed the necessary proof was there, somewhere. And if anybody could find it, it was her. Justice would be served. Somehow.

  Epilogue

  Three months later

  They walked down Leith Walk in step, Karen and River keeping pace with each other in the mild early evening. Only in the past week or so had Karen felt herself walking as freely as she had before Will Abbott broke her collarbone with the business end of a power strip. She still hadn’t recovered full strength or mobility in her left shoulder, but every week, the physio got easier and the range of movement improved. What baffled her about her recuperation was that hand in hand with her physical healing had come a restoration of the possibility of sleep. She had rediscovered the ability to go to bed at a reasonable time and sleep until her alarm woke her.

  She’d been so spooked by this she’d gone back to see the doctor who had given her the all-clear after her blow to the head. He’d run some tests, given her a CT scan and pronounced her well within the range of normal. ‘First time for everything,’ River had commented drily.

  So she was sleeping through the night again. Oddly, she almost missed her night walks, that quartering of the streets that had made sense of the city for her. But she had come to relish the alertness that came with long hours of good sleep. She was better-tempered too. Better able to deal with the Macaroon with equanimity.

  She’d even managed a moment of compassion for Ross Garvie. Just a moment, mind. He’d eventually surfaced from his coma to the news that he’d never walk again, he’d be in nappies for the rest of his life, blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. The speech centres in his brain were permanently damaged. The next debate would be whether he was fit to stand trial for the culpable homicide of his three friends.

  As they reached the bottom of Leith Walk and turned into Duke Street, Karen could wait no longer. She’d been hugging to her heart a piece of extraordinary news that had landed in her inbox moments before she’d walked out of the office to meet River. ‘Something to tell you,’ she said.

  River half-turned, alerted by some note in Karen’s voice. ‘The Macaroon’s taking early retirement?’

  ‘Even better than that.’

  ‘Hard to imagine.’ River thrust her arm through Karen’s. ‘Come on, tell me.’

  ‘I got a message from the lab this afternoon. I don’t know why it’s taken this long, but apparently sometimes it just does. They’ve found Will Abbott’s DNA on two of the bullets in the gun that killed Gabriel.’

  River stopped in her tracks, pulling Karen round to face her, forcing an elderly woman to execute a clumsy sidestep, tutting at them. ‘You’re kidding!’ she yelped.

  ‘No kidding.’ Karen couldn’t hold her face in check any longer. She stood grinning like a kid in a sweetie shop. ‘We’ve got him. We’ve nailed the devious slippery arrogant bastard. Ruth Wardlaw will crucify him. He’s never going to sit in his lovely Notting Hill games room playing Glengaming’s latest blockbuster again.’

  River lit up. ‘That’s great news. It’s hard to see how he can explain that away.’

  Karen swung her round and carrie
d on walking. ‘It’s the final brick in the wall. Add that to the ANPR data that confirms Frank Sinclair’s statement that they drove up to Edinburgh then Abbott travelled on alone to Kinross and back. And the jacket he was wearing? They found that when they searched his house. He’d taken it to the dry cleaner’s, so we lost any gunshot residue. But there were minute traces of Gabriel’s DNA deep in the fabric – the blowback from the wound.’

  River shook her head. ‘I can’t believe he kept the jacket. You’d think these days that everybody would be forensically aware.’

  ‘It was bespoke Oswald Boateng.’

  ‘If he can afford Boateng, he can afford to bin it and buy a replacement.’

  Karen chuckled. ‘I met his wife. She was outraged that we were taking the Boateng. So maybe he was more worried about his wife noticing it was missing. Anyway, most people, if they think about it at all, would imagine that dry cleaning would destroy DNA.’

  ‘You’ve nailed him.’

  ‘It’s never over till the jury has had their day in court. But yes, I think we’ve nailed him for Gabriel. It’s a shame we couldn’t make the cold case stick. But once he’s been sent down, I will be talking extensively to the media about the different angle we’ve been taking in that investigation.’

  River smiled. ‘Which, technically, is ongoing.’

  ‘Which, technically, is ongoing,’ Karen agreed. ‘Oh, and there’s one more odd thing. Do you remember me telling you that Gabriel had supposedly been going on about some mate of his in Myanmar who was being persecuted by the government and had supposedly disappeared? There was a letter from him in the cottage, full of paranoid ramblings that made no sense, according to somebody we tapped up in the Foreign Office. For a wee moment, we wondered if Will was going to try that as his second attempt at shifting the blame. Well, this week, a postcard turned up from his mate. Not in a government jail. Eloped with his girlfriend to another island.’

  River giggled. ‘I’m glad somebody got a happy ending for once.’