Devil in the Detail (Scott Cullen Mysteries) (12 page)

Cullen looked around at the strange faces and the few familiar ones amongst them. "We have a ... not quite a suspect just yet but someone we need to speak to," he said. "Jamie Cook. You've already mentioned him. His parents are members of the same religious group as Mandy's parents. Nobody can say a good word about him, including his parents. Seamus Mulgrew said that if there was a chief suspect in this case, it's Jamie Cook. We need to bring him in."

"Right," said Bain. He looked straight at Lamb. "Bill, can you use your local colour and get your lot out looking for Cullen's almost suspect?"

Lamb grinned. "Will do."

"I do have Jamie Cook's mobile number," said Cullen, leaving out the phone call he had received. "We should get a trace done on it."

"Fine," said Bain. He looked at Caldwell. "Think you can manage that, princess?"

She nodded but her face flushed with the obvious anger of being publicly patronised yet again by Bain.

"We need to get background checks done on Charles and Elaine Gibson," said Cullen, "if they haven't already been done, and also on Seamus Mulgrew."

"What sort of name is that, by the way?" asked Bain.

"Irish," said Cullen.

"Aye, very good, Sundance," said Bain. "Don't you get too smart with me, all right?"

Time was that sort of comment from Bain wouldn't have rolled off Cullen so easily.

"What do we know about him?" asked Bain.

"He's Irish, runs a religious group which most of the local community seem to have joined," said Cullen.
 

"What do we know about this group then?" asked Bain, looking at Lamb, McLaren and Murray.

Lamb answered. "What we do know is that it's called God's Rainbow," he said. "That's pretty much it. We have been getting some checks done on it. It is set up as a charity so the records should be public."

"I don't want us to go in two-footed on some group like this," said Bain. "We're investigating a murder, not a mass suicide. Keep focused on that." He took a deep breath. "Before we get too much on them, I'd like you to dig up any further local gen that you can."

"We're not going in too aggressively, Brian," said Lamb, his voice hard and forceful. "Us simple country hick officers are only used to investigating housebreakings, not infiltrating religious groups. I will defer to your authority."

There was a stifled laugh from Lamb's officers plus a few of the uniforms. Cullen himself had to look away.

"Okay," called Bain, trying to regain control. "Angela, can you do some digging into this Mulgrew's background while you're getting the trace done? Same with Mandy's folks."

Caldwell nodded. "Will do."

"Cheers," said Bain. He looked at the wider group again. "We have interviewed the parents, though we didn't get much. Scene of Crime have been through Mandy's room, but haven't completed their investigation yet. We need a connection between Mandy and Jamie Cook, other than this religious group."

"Jamie Cook's parents told us that Jamie used to have sleepovers at his friends' houses," said Cullen. "Those friends are Thomas Gibson and Malcolm Thornton."

"Wait, how old is this boy?" asked Bain.

"Seventeen."

"And the other two?"

"They're seventeen as well," said Lamb.

"So you're saying that Jamie Cook had the opportunity to get at Mandy?" asked Bain.

Cullen shrugged. "It's possible."

Bain shook his head and closed his eyes. "What the fuck are these lot up to at these sleepovers?"

"They're probably too pissed to go home so they crash out at the house of the most lenient one."

"And you're saying that's Charles Gibson?"

"Malcolm Thornton's parents, as well," said Cullen. "They don't seem to have stayed at Jamie Cook's house too often."

"Fine."

"One last thing about the family," said Cullen. "You know that Mandy Gibson had severe learning difficulties and brain damage from an accident with a bus in Edinburgh a few years ago. It instigated the family moving here."

"Aye, we've been over that, Sundance," said Bain, "if you'd actually bothered listening."

"What I mean is that they might have run away from something."

Bain squinted and focused on Lamb and his team. "Bill, thoughts?"

It was Lamb's turn to screw his face up. "I'd say this is more like running to, than running from, Brian," he said.
 

Cullen had noticed that Lamb kept addressing Bain by his first name which would no doubt be grating on the DI already.
 

"They have come here to restart their lives," continued Lamb, "in a nice small town with a good school. Do you live in Edinburgh yourself?"

Bain raised an eyebrow. "Bathgate."

"There you go, Brian," said Lamb. "You've escaped the city for a quieter life."

Bain didn't seem to want to labour the point. "Bathgate is hardly quiet," he muttered. "Right, Cullen, anything else?"

"I'm not going to mention the possibility of abduction because of Charles Gibson's job," said Cullen, "but-"

"Good for you," said Bain, cutting him off.

"But we need to spend some time working out how Mandy escaped from her house last night," said Cullen. "The Gibsons' statements had Elaine Gibson putting her daughter to bed at about nine. Then it turns out that Charles Gibson left in the evening to see Mulgrew. Could he have left the door open when he got back?"

Bain nodded slowly. "I see what you're saying," he said. "It's a bit of a blunder if he did, to say the least. I'll have a think about it." He stroked his moustache. "Right, are you done now?"

"For now," said Cullen.

"So what next for you and Batgirl, then?" he asked.

"I'd like to speak to Malcolm Thornton and his parents about these sleepovers," he said. "It would be useful if we could speak to someone at the school."

"Speak to the Thorntons and report back here," said Bain. He took a deep breath. "Right, DS Irvine, what's been going on up at the crime scene."

Irvine snorted. "I'll be honest and say that nothing much has," he said, his jaws pounding and his lips smacking together. "Of the four cottages, we've now spoken to all the residents. Two key things to note. The first is that the elderly couple that DC Cullen told us about saw nothing. The wife has a cold so they didn't walk the dog at the usual time." He was looking at Cullen, as if blaming him for wasting his time speaking to them. "The second thing is closing out whether the gatehouse owners saw anything - they didn't. We spoke to the couple in cottage number two - they're both teachers in Haddington - and they confirmed that the owners of the gatehouse are in France skiing. I can't even spell the name of the resort, so I won't try to pronounce it."

"That's fine," said Bain. "Tying up loose ends is good."

"Thanks," said Irvine.

"Okay," said Bain, "time for actions for the rest of the afternoon. Bill, can you and your boys get on top of finding Jamie Cook?"
 

Lamb gave a reluctant nod.
 

"Take as many uniform as you need," he said. He looked at Cullen. "Sundance, you and Caldwell get over to speak to the Thorntons."

"Fine."

"The rest of you, please speak to DS Irvine," said Bain. "And last but not least, Irvine and I will attend the postmortem." He checked his watch. "It should be kicking off just now. Anything else?"

Nobody had anything.

The Thornton family lived on Dunpender Loan, around the tight corner at the junction with Hopetoun Street with Dunpender Road. From the relative positions of the Thornton and Gibson houses, Cullen figured that the gardens would have pretty much bordered at the back. The house was to the same spec and plan as the Gibsons but occupied a larger plot and had a much more impressive garden.

They sat in the living room, Cullen and Caldwell across from Rebecca Thornton on matching leather settees. The room was full of generic neutral tones, equipped like a show home. The place was spotless, not a magazine or newspaper out of place. There were wooden side tables beside the sofas, both of which had iPads sitting on top. Aside from that, there was an absence of much furniture - the place reminded Cullen of a Danish furniture showroom Sharon had dragged him to the last time they were through in Glasgow for the day.
 

Rebecca wasn't the trophy wife that Gibson and Cook had. She looked harassed and drawn - her skin was red and blotchy, her dark hair grey at the roots and she seemed a good ten or twelve years older than the others. She had an expression on her face as if the world was out to get her.
 

Cullen had let Caldwell lead the conversation. She had asked the same questions that Cullen had the others and received roughly the same responses. Rebecca trotted out pretty much the same junk about God's Rainbow. Again, they attended the ceremony as usual the previous day, Mandy was a lovely girl but troubled, it was a strain on her family, etcetera, etcetera. Cullen found himself wanting to jump in and ask them about Jamie Cook and the sleepovers, but he held himself back, hoping that Caldwell would eventually ask about it.

Cullen noticed a silver Mercedes park outside the house.
 

"That'll be my husband," said Rebecca, getting to her feet.

"Were you expecting him?" asked Caldwell.

"It can be fairly sporadic when he comes home for lunch."

She left the room and went into the hall.

"How am I doing?" asked Caldwell.

"Fine," said Cullen. "Just focus on why we are here."

She nodded. "The sleepovers."

"Aye."

"I'm leading up to that."

"Good."

William Thornton barrelled into the room, a flood of blurring energy. He shook hands with Cullen and Caldwell and then stood there, hands on hips, seemingly waiting for a cue from the officers. Cullen thought he was late fifties, at least ten years older than his wife, and it looked like they'd waited years to start a family. He was tall and lean, well over six foot, and his eyes jumped all over the place, like he was on amphetamines. He was dressed in a three piece pinstripe suit with shiny patterned brogues on his feet. As his wife had told them, he was the local Chartered Accountant, a Partner in Thornton & McCulloch, a company that had six offices spanning East Lothian.
 

"One of the advantages of being one of the big cheeses locally is that I can come home for lunch every day," said Thornton. "I had a client meeting today, a young couple looking to buy a house locally. You're lucky to catch me."

Cullen thought God's Rainbow certainly attracted the more affluent local residents - of the families they'd met that day; all of the women had been housewives, all of the husbands had been successful professionals – Bank Manager, Company Director and now Chartered Accountant.

Thornton sat next to his wife on the sofa.

Caldwell glanced at Cullen and he responded with a nod. "Mr Thornton," he said, "I believe you have a son, Malcolm?"

"Yes," he replied. "We're very proud of him. Sits his Highers in the summer."

"I imagine you are," said Cullen. "Is he friends with Thomas Gibson?"

A brief flicker of surprise flew across Thornton's forehead. "Yes, he is," he said, looking from Cullen to Caldwell. "They're the best of friends. There's a real competitive streak runs through both boys."

"And is he also friends with Jamie Cook?" asked Cullen.

Thornton sighed and looked away. "I wondered if you'd heard of the local legend."

"Well, is he?"

Thornton looked over at the window for a moment. "Malcolm hero worships the boy," he said, his bragging tone dropping to almost an aside. "He thinks that Jamie is some sort of rock star."

Cullen felt a spear go through him - the phone call, the song. "Is Jamie Cook into music?"

Thornton gave a slight chuckle. "The boy's never played an instrument in his life," he said, "or even sung a note – other than in church – but he lives the lifestyle, that's for sure."

"What about DJing?" asked Cullen.

"I'm not the right person to ask about that," said Thornton.
 

"Are you friendly with his parents?" asked Cullen. "I notice that you're all in the God's Rainbow group."

Thornton bit his lip. "Nice people," he said, almost reluctantly, "but I have to say that the way they've brought that boy up is ... well, it's un-Christian."

"In what way?"

"Well, it's..." He broke off. He stared into space for a few moments then seemed to regain his composure. "The way the boy has turned out. It shows that they must have not done the right things, you know?"

"So you describe yourselves as Christian?" asked Cullen.

Thornton frowned. "Well, maybe not strictly Christian any more," he said, "but at some time in the past, yes."

"Does Malcolm see Jamie much?" asked Cullen.

"More often than we'd like," said Thornton. "They're down at that bloody park most nights, though fortunately Malcolm doesn't partake in any of the substances."

"Substances?" asked Cullen, sitting forward in the seat.

"Nothing too risky, I gather," said Thornton. "Marijuana, cider, that sort of thing."

"So Jamie Cook is a drug user?" asked Cullen.

"Well, it's pretty much common knowledge," replied Thornton. "He's been picked up by the police more times than I'd care to mention."

"Did Jamie ever stay here?" asked Cullen.

"I'm not sure what you mean?"

"I gather that there have been times when Jamie and Thomas Gibson would have stayed over here."

"You're right, yes," said Thornton. "They would stay at the Gibsons' far more frequently, though."

"Did anything untoward happen on these occasions?" asked Cullen.

"Not that I'm aware of," said Thornton. "It was generally at weekends, and they would generally have been at the park. I think they'd be mucking about, watching films, playing games, that sort of thing. I don't imagine they did much sleeping." He took a deep breath. "Our view was that it was better to let them do what they want here, under our supervision."

"Even with Jamie's reputation?"

"Even so," said Thornton. "He may have been a bad boy, but Malcolm looked up to him. He's at such a precocious age. We wanted to make sure that he had an outlet but that he stayed focused on his exams. Boys like Jamie will end up nowhere. Malcolm will take over my firm."