Perfect Crime Page 11

  ‘Well, the first thing you have to recognise is that decision-making immediately prior to an attempt isn’t always logical, not what you’d deem logical anyway. There are people who’d rather extend death and deal with the psychological trauma of knowing what they were doing but thereby avoiding a dramatic impact. For example, taking sleeping tablets over a few hours to get a good build-up in their system. Ensuring there’s no way to back out isn’t unknown, particularly if a person has had failed attempts in their past; although I’d say human psychology usually tries to build in get-out clauses.

  ‘If it were me, I’d make an attempt to find out more about your victim’s personality in life and then see if the scene makes sense. You can’t just look at a suicide as an event on its own. Every part of it is always intrinsically linked to the person’s life.’

  ‘That’s good advice,’ Ava said. ‘How long have you been working in this area?’

  ‘Fifteen years,’ Maclure said. ‘How about you? You’re a detective chief inspector, so I’m guessing you’ve put in a few years on the job; although I wouldn’t have thought you were old enough.’

  ‘Some days it feels as if I’ve been in the police forever, and then I see another crime scene and realise the universe thinks I’m still a child who needs to be taught a lesson. I should go, but I’m really grateful for your time.’

  ‘No problem. Take this …’ He extended a blue business card. ‘The number on there is my personal mobile, not my emergency work line. It’s on most of the time. If you have any questions, day or night, please call me. I’d love to be able to help. Do you know if the information I gave your DI helped at all? There was somebody at the Queensferry Crossing scene they thought might have been of interest.’

  ‘I haven’t caught up with the ongoing enquiries yet, but I’m guessing DS Tripp who you met will be pursuing that.’

  There was a knock at the door, and a stocky young woman with the palest of skin and gleaming ginger hair looked in, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Rune, you’ve a walk-in. Seems fairly upset. Will you be much longer?’

  ‘We’re just finishing,’ Maclure smiled. ‘Get them a hot drink, talk to them about nothing for a few minutes and I’ll be there, Vicki.’

  Vicki Rosach plodded away.

  ‘I’m keeping you,’ Ava said. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘It’s all right. Vicki hasn’t been here long and she still thinks everyone who walks through the door is secretly hiding a weapon that they’re about to turn on themselves. I try to discourage that sort of drama. A laid-back approach is usually more reassuring for the people I treat.’

  Voices in the corridor beyond the closed door made both their heads turn at once.

  ‘Can you tell me who’s in there with him?’ a man demanded.

  ‘No idea. Some woman,’ Vicki said.

  ‘That’s not terribly helpful, Vicki,’ came the reply. ‘Is he counselling, or is the meeting to do with something administrative?’

  ‘I dunno, but she looked fine to me, except her face looks like she plays a bit rough.’

  Ava couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows at Rune Maclure at that. He stood up and went to the door.

  ‘Charlie,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m dealing with a police enquiry in here and for the record, these doors don’t do much in the way of soundproofing when you’re right outside.’

  ‘Maybe this isn’t the appropriate place to be talking to the police considering the sensitive nature of what we do here,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I’m nearly finished. Give me a minute. We can discuss this later,’ Maclure replied softly.

  The door opened again and Maclure reappeared, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry. My colleague, Charlie Packham, doesn’t suffer fools and he’s rarely one to hold back from offering an opinion. He’s a great counsellor, though. We see a lot of military personnel here and he’s specially trained for that. Whatever he does for them, it works.’ He smiled. ‘Listen, I hope you don’t think I’m taking advantage of you needing help in a difficult case, but the number on the card is there even if you don’t have any other questions. You know, in case you ever just feel like chatting. I learned a long time ago not to wait until there’s a good time to do something like ask someone out. It’s a surefire way never to get another opportunity.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ava said. ‘Thank you. Things are a bit difficult right now,’ she added noncommitally.

  ‘I get that,’ he said. ‘Just, you know, whenever.’

  Ava returned to her car and stared at herself in the rear-view mirror. What the hell was happening? First, she took an insane risk out at Tantallon Castle, then she spent two nights in Callanach’s bed, now she was giving out signals that had men she’d only just met handing out their mobile number to her. All when she was looking like she’d recently escaped an abusive relationship. Then there was the weird conversation with Selina at the hospital.

  Perhaps it was an age thing and everyone around her was simply assuming it was now or never for settling down. Her track record with men showed a startling lack of good judgement. Most of the relationships she’d been in were either to please her mother or to reassure herself that she wasn’t entirely married to her job. Ava sighed. Now wasn’t the right time to be navel-gazing. A call to her best friend, Natasha, later on would sort out any personal issues, through the inevitable response of some high-grade piss-taking. Right now, she was late for Ailsa and that just wouldn’t do.

  The city mortuary was busy. Ava kept her head down and quietly made her way round the back of the group of three families who were there to see their loved ones. A drunken helium-inhaling session had left Edinburgh with teenagers to mourn. Every time she saw parents crying for their children, she was glad she’d gone down a different path than parenting. The fear it brought was terrifying.

  Dr Ailsa Lambert waved her into the postmortem suite, the dark shadows under her eyes reflective of too little sleep and too many deaths. Edinburgh was unarguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but it saw its share of tragedies.

  ‘Were you here all night?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Not by choice. Do people really need floaty balloons so badly that it’s worth giving the general public access to pressurised helium canisters and the temptation of making funny voices? There was no need for a single one of those young people to die last night. It’s not just a tragedy, it’s an avoidable waste of human life.’ Ailsa slammed a pen down onto a metal counter and composed herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ava said. ‘I don’t know how you cope with the pain of what you see day after day.’

  ‘Someone has to,’ Ailsa said. ‘Now, Mrs Hawksmith. First name, Fenella, I’ve been notified. A friend of hers came in and identified her body this morning after seeing the police at her flat yesterday.’ She pulled the sheet back from the body. ‘I had to do a limited reveal. Didn’t want to give the poor woman nightmares, but she was able to describe two tattoos in detail, as well as height, weight and eye colour. We’re double-checking her fingerprints against the database following a drink-drive conviction some years ago.’

  ‘All right, what else do we know?’

  ‘Nothing good,’ Ailsa said. She busied herself pulling the sheet down to reveal the whole body. ‘Are you taking your antibiotics?’

  ‘Yes, and Luc’s been looking after me. He’s so scared of you, he’ll hardly leave my side.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with fear,’ Ailsa said. ‘Take a deep breath; this isn’t what you were expecting. We’ve located the weapon that was used to make the incisions into Mrs Hawksmith’s arm. It’s a penknife, one of those multitool jobs, too. Expensive.’ She looked disapproving. ‘I’ve been able to match the precise width of the blade to the cuts, as well as blood on the blade itself, so I’m one hundred per cent certain that this is the weapon. Fingerprints on the blade match Mrs Hawksmith’s and there are no other prints on it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ava said slowly. Everything Ailsa said was making sense g
iven the scene, but the pathologist seemed tense and angry. ‘That indicates suicide. I saw an expert this morning who said that while an organised suicide scene might be unusual, it’s far from impossible. So what are you not telling me?’

  ‘It’s not suicide,’ Ailsa said. ‘I’ve been doing this job thirty years and I’ve seen more people end their lives than I care to recall. This is something else, Ava, and while everything that happened to this poor woman might, technically speaking, possibly be self-inflicted, I refuse to believe it was.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The blade couldn’t be found at the scene because it was inside her body,’ Ailsa said. ‘I found it while I was checking the body cavities. The blade had been folded back into the knife after the incisions were made and then it was inserted into her rectum, as high as it could be pushed using a digit.’

  Ava stood silently. There weren’t many things she heard in the mortuary that left her lost for words, but just occasionally she still found herself dumbstruck.

  ‘Can I go back out, come in again and see if you give me different news?’ Ava asked eventually.

  ‘Only if I can come with you,’ Ailsa said.

  Either side of Fenella Hawksmith’s body, they stared down at her. Ava shook her head.

  ‘So either she cut herself, folded up the blade, inserted it into herself, then did up the handcuffs and waited to die …’ Ailsa began.

  ‘Or someone did all those things for her,’ Ava finished the sentence.

  ‘It’s the latter, I believe. Look at this.’ She turned the corpse’s left arm outwards to display the incisions more clearly. ‘The callusing on Mrs Hawksmith’s right hand is indicative of a right-hander. Over the years, the hardening of the skin on the ends of the fingers and the palm leaves its mark. Writing, cutting vegetables, picking things up, opening jars, you name it. Also, the muscles of the dominant hand are always fractionally more developed. Now look at the cuts.’ Ailsa pulled a mobile light over the top and swung a magnifying glass to highlight the gashes. ‘The deepest end of the cuts is on the inner elbow nearest the body, moving from the right side of the inner elbow to the left. When you compare the blade, it has a flat edge on one side and that flat edge was inserted closest to Mrs Hawksmith’s core.’

  ‘So the blade would have to have been pushed outwards rather than have been pulled towards her body,’ Ava noted.

  ‘Which isn’t natural at all. You’re taught to write pulling the pencil towards you. You cut food pulling rather than pushing. It’s inconceivable to me that she started the cut on the inside of her arm and pushed to the outside, not least because she’d have been holding the knife with the blunt side of the blade inwards, which doesn’t fit with a right-hander.’

  ‘Someone else made the cuts,’ Ava said.

  Ailsa nodded. ‘It’s not that she couldn’t have done all of this to herself, don’t misunderstand me, but it makes no sense at all. None of it. And as for where the blade was found …’

  ‘It’s a debasement. Signs of sexual assault?’ Ava queried.

  ‘No evidence at all. Neither vaginal nor anal. There’s no tearing or injury; although fluids might have disappeared, as she was sat in the water for so long before being found. We’ve taken swabs for DNA tests but I’m not expecting anything.’

  ‘It’s a very personal thing to do and I don’t mean physically. It suggests anger at a deeply personal level, wanting to degrade a dying woman like that. There would have to be a specific motive,’ Ava said.

  ‘There’s one last thing,’ Ailsa said. ‘There’s a substantial amount of bruising beneath the handcuffs and cable ties. It’s very area specific and wasn’t apparent on the surface of the skin owing to discolouration of the corpse, but it appears that Mrs Hawksmith struggled. Now, playing devil’s advocate, I could say that perhaps she made all these preparations then changed her mind too late, but the bathwater stayed in a long time. We know that because of the tidemark and because of the water inside the body. If she changed her mind, though, why not pull the plug at least, in the hope that her wounds might clot, buying her time until she was found?’

  Ava thought back to the bathroom.

  ‘The plug was between her feet, a normal rubber plug on a chain, right?’

  Ailsa turned back to the counter behind her, picked up a large photo and handed it to Ava. In it, the plug was clearly visible still in the hole.

  ‘Any physical reason why she couldn’t have sat up to pull that plug out?’ Ava queried.

  ‘No. Mrs Hawksmith likely hadn’t done any sit-ups for a couple of decades, but she could have pulled against the binding around her ankles. She was fit enough to have done that once and to have reached the plug, particularly given that her ankles were bound to each tap, leaving the necessary space between her legs.’

  ‘So why didn’t she?’ Ava mused.

  ‘That, my dear, is your question to answer.’ Ailsa snapped off her gloves. ‘Do I need to take another look at the wound on your leg, or can I trust that you’re taking better care of yourself?’

  ‘I am, I promise. I’m even eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day,’ Ava murmured, removing her own gloves and depositing them in a bin.

  ‘Probably best to minimise the lying. It’s not your strong point,’ Ailsa reprimanded gently.

  ‘I need to get back and brief the team.’ Ava smiled and reached a hand out to touch Ailsa’s shoulder.

  ‘And I have families waiting for explanations that won’t make them feel any better at all. Before you go, Stephen Berry. The tox results came back. He had high levels of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in his body.’

  ‘In plain terms?’

  ‘Antidepressant medication. If you block the reabsorption of serotonin into the brain, there’s more available in the body. Keeps you feeling more positive and works against the depression. It’s commonly prescribed for bipolar disorder and it’s in line with the medical notes provided by his doctor. Given the fact that we now know he’d recently attempted suicide, I’m going to sign it off as a deliberate taking of his own life. Wherever the bruise on his middle finger came from, there’s no corroborative evidence to suggest the death was suspicious.’

  ‘All right, that makes sense,’ Ava agreed, privately wishing she’d known that before climbing onto Tantallon’s walls in her misguided fit of heroism.

  ‘There’s a girlfriend, lovely thing – came in to speak to me about Stephen. Rosa, if I remember correctly. Perhaps you could have a member of your team speak with her.’

  ‘No problem,’ Ava said, leaving Ailsa to get on with her day.

  Sitting in her car, she took a couple of minutes out to text Natasha. Antibiotics or not, she was going to need a drink later.

  Ditch the girlfriend for an evening and meet me, she typed.

  Natasha replied immediately.

  Thought you’d never ask. Whighams Wine Cellars 8 p.m. And change your clothes first. Cocktails are on me.

  Exactly what was required, Ava decided. Cocktails with Natasha was usually a recipe for disaster, but the way she was feeling right now, it could only be an improvement. That was the theory, anyway.

  Chapter Twelve

  5 March

  DI Pax Graham and DC Janet Monroe sat in the interview room opposite Callanach, each of them tense and awkwardly polite. Having handed in his statement first thing to give the investigating team time to peruse it, Callanach had made it clear he was happy to be interviewed formally, on tape.

  Callanach ran through the history he’d discussed with Ava, leaving out any parts that gave him a potential motive for harming Bruce Jenson, then described his visit in brief terms.

  ‘So the vase,’ Graham asked. ‘How did that come to get broken?’

  ‘Mr Jenson had dribbled down his chin. It seemed overkill to ask a nurse to come and deal with it but callous to leave it as it was, so I walked round the room looking for a towel or tissue paper. In the process, I knocked the vase with my elbow and upset the conten
ts onto the floor. The vase smashed and there were a few old flowers and a small amount of water to clear up. I wiped his chin first with a paper towel, then cleared up the floor and put the debris in the bin,’ Callanach explained.

  ‘Did you notice any problem with the glass in the patio door when you were in Mr Jenson’s room?’ Graham continued.

  Callanach gave it a moment, drawing his eyebrows together as if concentrating.

  ‘I didn’t notice anything wrong.’

  ‘It was smashed when the nurse found Mr Jenson dead,’ Graham said. ‘It would have been easy for an intruder to have reached in and unlocked the door to gain entry. There was glass found on the floor inside the room, suggesting that it had been kicked in from the outside.’

  Callanach hid his surprise.

  ‘There wasn’t any glass on the floor when I was in there. I would have noticed, especially given the fact that I cleared up the broken vase.’

  His shoulders relaxed a few centimetres. No one had told him about the glass. Whatever had happened to Bruce Jenson was nothing to do with his visit. It was just unfortunate timing. Even if he had put a crack in the glass, that didn’t make him responsible for Jenson’s death. Except that he’d left the room more easily accessible to would-be burglars. Cracked glass didn’t require much force to break.

  ‘Was anything taken?’

  ‘Mr Jenson’s son says not,’ Janet Monroe answered.

  DI Graham shot her a look that made it clear she should have kept quiet.

  ‘Did you know Mr Jenson was suffering from dementia before you visited?’ Graham asked.

  ‘Yes. It was a nursing home, so I knew there were health problems, but not how advanced it was. Had I known, there would have been no point going.’

  ‘So, what was it exactly that you wanted to talk to Mr Jenson about? I understand your father used to work for him, but was there something specific you were pursuing?’

  ‘No, I was just curious about my father’s history. I suppose I wanted to know if Jenson remembered my father. Being back in Scotland has made me curious about my past and my family. I was looking for more of a connection with Edinburgh.’