Devil in the Detail (Scott Cullen Mysteries) (3 page)

The brief they had been given was that a girl had been found at the ponds. Cullen hadn't known at the time whether she was dead or not - all Bain had said was that she had gone missing. Cullen had images in his head of some fruitless manhunt being orchestrated.

"Just up ahead here," said Caldwell, a few minutes later.

Cullen spotted an entrance on the left. "Here?"

"No," she said. "Another couple of hundred metres, on the right."

There was a gatehouse on the left, an ornate building that presumably had once led to a country house and which had been replaced by the other entrance Cullen had spotted.
 

"Just here," she said, pointing to the right.

Cullen pulled in off the main road, turning right along a country lane lined with a row of five Victorian cottages. The lane was filled with cars, two panda cars and a certain purple Mondeo belonging to Bain, and it led off into the distance, seemingly for miles.
 

Caldwell passed the map she'd printed to Cullen.

"Should definitely have gone through Garleton," he said, pointing at the map.

He studied it - Balgone Ponds looked like some sort of nature reserve, two large ponds surrounded by cliffs on the south and west and a dense wood on the north, the whole area surrounded by fields. A small section of the John Muir Way ran through it, a mile of the thirty odd that ran from Edinburgh to Dunbar. Caldwell had drawn an 'X' in red pen where they were to meet Bain.

"Come on, then," he said, and got out of the car.

Cullen had a good look at the gatehouse across the road from them as they walked down the lane - it appeared to be mid-18th Century. They crossed the road and Cullen tried the metal gate. It was shut - Cullen half expected the gate to be open, with a uniform in hi-viz gear ushering people through. There was an aggressive sign warning walkers off and pointing out that the gatehouse was closed to the public. What once would have been a path was now landscaped as a garden and a drive.
 

Cullen could make the fierce glow of arc lights in the dull weather through the trees pointing them to the scene of crime. "This it?" he asked.

"Think so."

"What do you reckon?" asked Cullen, pointing to the signs. "Go through here?"

She frowned at her map. "Must be a way through," she said. "The John Muir Way is just up ahead. Bain mentioned something about it."

Cullen went back to his car and opened the boot.

"What are you up to now?" she asked.

"Changing my shoes," he replied. "It's pissing down."

He sat on the edge of the boot and changed into a pair of hiking boots. He should really buy a pair of wellies, he thought.

She tapped her own feet - sturdy Dr Marten boots - then pointed at Cullen's discarded left brogue. "You are such a girl, Scott," she said, with a laugh. "I need to check one day that you don't walk to work in trainers and change into your heels when you get in."

"Can't imagine you wearing heels," he said, tugging the second boot on and tying the laces.
 

Caldwell stood there, towering over him. "Very funny."

They walked back to the gatehouse and followed the line of the walled garden to a thick hawthorn hedge. There was a break at one end and Cullen squeezed through. Caldwell's coat was caught by the hawthorn. She tugged away at a branch and followed Cullen. They kept to the John Muir Way for a hundred yards or so then came to a crossroads. Caldwell directed them right and onto the path that led to the west, through the densely packed trees towards the ponds. They reached the Scene of Crime van which had to have ploughed along the path from the other direction, maybe from the other entrance Cullen had spotted.

Two masked figures in white coveralls stood by the van, just inside the outer cordon. As they approached, Cullen recognised the first of them - Jimmy Deeley, the Chief Pathologist for Edinburgh, who regularly worked with Lothian & Borders police. A fat, bald, middle-aged man, he was a good friend of Bain's, which meant he knew all the stories and jokes about Cullen.

"Oh look, Bain's got the Sundance Kid," said Deeley.

Sundance was Bain's less than affectionate nickname for Cullen. To Cullen's great irritation, it had spread wide through the force.

Cullen showed his warrant card to a young PC dressed in full Scene of Crime garb, and signed into the Crime Scene Access Log. "Any idea where the patron saint of policing is?" he asked Deeley.

Deeley exploded with laughter. "Just got here, so I've not had the pleasure yet," he said. "I'm anticipating yet more requests to break the laws of physics to get my work done when he needs it."

The other figure pulled his mask down. It was James Anderson, one of the lead Scene of Crime Officers – SOCOs. He was medium height, dark-haired and with a robust goatee beard.

"What kept you, Cullen?" asked Anderson, a smirk on his face.

"Bit suspicious that you got to a murder scene so quickly," said Cullen.

"Aye well, I haven't spotted any toilets for you to chuck your guts up in," said Anderson.

"Hopefully no laptops to go missing either," said Cullen.

Cullen and Anderson had been involved in a tit for tat the previous summer - Cullen had decorated a crime scene with the contents of his stomach, while Anderson had lost a laptop from a flat inventory.

Deeley chuckled. "Boys, boys," he said. "We're supposed to be on the same side."

"You'd think," said Cullen, eyes lingering on Anderson. He turned to Deeley. "Where's the body?"

"Up there," said Deeley, pointing off of the path into the trees, towards the north and North Berwick. Cullen could see a tent set up with some arc lights around it, a group of SOCOs surrounding it.

Caldwell started off.

"Not so fast," said the PC with the clipboard. He held up an overall. "Get one of these on."

*

Cullen and Caldwell followed the trail towards the lights, where he found Bain and another officer in full SOCO attire just by the inner cordon.

"Here they are," said Bain. "Batman and Robin."

Cullen and Caldwell exchanged a look.
 

"Robin was a boy," said Caldwell.

"Aye, well," said Bain, "I'm not calling you Catwoman. What took you?"

Cullen didn't rise to it. "Care to bring us up to speed?" he asked.

Bain snorted. "Got here ten minutes ago," he said. "Policing is turning into a spectator sport, I tell you. Irvine's off making a nuisance of himself, the way I like it." He gestured to the officer standing next to him. "This is DS Lamb, Haddington CID."
 

Lamb grinned at them. "Please, call me Bill."

He was a tall, fit-looking man in his mid-30s. He had one of those beards that Cullen thought Scottish men of a certain age thought added gravitas - the sort Billy Connolly had sported for the last ten or so years - a thick moustache and downward pointing triangle of stubble underneath. Cullen wondered if they thought that it made them feel like some rugged clan chieftain. Lamb's moustache was much fuller than the small grey pencil on Bain's top lip. Cullen accepted Lamb's firm handshake then introduced Caldwell. Lamb looked her up and down slowly, seemingly not caring who noticed.

Lamb pointed at two men - thin, lean and tall - in their late 20s or early 30s, both wearing smart casual wear - jeans, jumpers and long jackets. "This is Stuart Murray and Ewan McLaren, my DCs," he said. He gestured at a younger woman - pretty with red hair. "This is Acting DC Eva Law." She was wearing jeans and a hooped jumper under a leather jacket. No matter what Cullen did, she wasn't taking her eyes off of him.

They kept their distance and hung off Lamb's every word. To Cullen, it was refreshing that they weren't in Cullen's face immediately, shaking hands and antagonising him in some territorial pissing ritual.
 

"So what's happened then?" asked Cullen, retrieving his notebook from his suit jacket inside pocket.

"A woman was out with her dogs first thing this morning, stays just round the corner," said Lamb. Cullen recalled the cottages that they'd parked in front of. "They were off the lead and one of them bolted off here," continued Lamb. "I think they were whippets or small greyhounds. One of them managed to uncover a shallow grave." He took a deep breath. "It's Mandy Gibson."

"How did we get a match?" asked Cullen.
 

"A high priority call came through," said Lamb. "They matched it up at Bilston. The mother, one Elaine Gibson of Garleton, had called in at the back of seven. Her daughter had gone missing in the middle of the night, but her family didn't notice till this morning." Lamb closed his eyes. "Her father has just identified the body. Left a few minutes ago. We need to get some formal verification checks done, obviously, but he insists that it's her. He was pretty shaken up, as you can imagine."

"Come on, then, Sundance," said Bain, "let's have a fuckin' look, shall we? Get that fuckin' genius brain of yours all over this."
 

He turned and walked off towards the inner cordon.

Lamb shared a look with his officers. Murray shook his head and winked at Cullen, as if to say 'I've seen his type many times'.

Bain led them to a spot between two trees, surrounded by yellow police tape. Another officer stood there in a white scene of crime suit, billowing in the wind. Cullen signed him and Caldwell in to the inner cordon - the area around the actual discovery. Usually, it would be a room of a house or maybe the house itself, but this was an unusual case, in Cullen's experience at least.
 

"Who is the Crime Scene Manager?" asked Cullen.

"Supposed to be Irvine," said Bain. "Can't see him, though."

They signed another form and stepped over the tape, heading towards the arc lights. A hole had been dug and a mound of earth sat off to one side. A tent had been erected in a vain attempt to keep the exposed hole dry and any forensics intact. The rain must have made the digging difficult, thought Cullen.
 

Mandy Gibson's body lay in the hole, her arms and legs at odd angles to her body, her skin and hair covered in mud. She wore a pink cotton jumpsuit which Cullen took to be pyjamas.
 

Anderson and Deeley appeared and Bain was straight in their faces. "I want an update from you two," he growled at them.
 

Neither of them seemed to want to go first.
 

"Not had much of a chance to look at her," said Deeley, eventually. "Does look like murder, though. There are signs of a struggle, we think."

"We think?" snapped Bain.

"I've not done the postmortem yet, Brian," said Deeley. "But there are bruises around her wrists. I don't need to tell you that that would point to some sort of a struggle."

"How did she die?" asked Cullen.
 

"Be able to tell you once the PM's done," he replied. "Be about one or two this afternoon."

"Time of death?" asked Bain.

"Wait for the PM, Inspector," he said.

"Come on, just an indication."

Deeley exhaled and scratched his forehead. "By the body temperature, I'd say that it was more likely that she died last night rather than this morning."

"Well, you'll just have to hurry up with the PM, then," said Bain.
 

Deeley shook his head, grinning.
 

Bain turned his attention to Anderson. "What can you tell me?"

"Nothing much, I'm afraid," said Anderson, eyes looking away from Bain. "The rain has removed any footprints."

"Anything else?"

Anderson shrugged. "We're fighting a losing battle here," he said. "This is rapidly turning into a quagmire. I'd say your chances of finding anything are close to zero here. Your only hope is that Jimmy turns something up at the PM."

Bain locked onto Deeley now. "Well, we're all waiting on you, Jimmy," he said.

"No pressure, eh?" said Deeley.
 

Cullen admired the way that Anderson had deflected Bain onto Deeley. He didn't know whether it was desperation or that he had something up his sleeve. The rain had just got heavier, so Cullen very much doubted the latter.

"Right," said Bain, "off you go and get on with it. We'll be another couple of minutes here."

They stood and looked at Mandy's body. The tent was beginning to struggle to keep the rain out.

"How old was she?" asked Cullen.
 

"Thirteen," said Lamb.
 

"That was no age," said Cullen. "So what happened after she was reported missing?"

"We received the call at about seven," said Lamb. "We got a squad together, managed to round up the night shift that was just leaving and some boys came over from North Berwick. We had a grid search around Garleton and the surrounding area."

Cullen had driven through Garleton once or twice before - it was a typical small Scottish town, not dissimilar to his home town of Dalhousie in Angus.

Cullen gestured at the body. "Can't help but notice that this is pretty far from the town," he said. "We're practically at North Berwick here."

Lamb nodded. "Like I said earlier, we didn't find her," he said. "Morag Tattersall did."

"Did she see anything suspicious this morning?" asked Cullen.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," said Lamb.
 

"Is she still around?" asked Cullen.

Lamb shook his head. "We took her statement then let her go home," he said. "She's not in a great state."

"Could you get me a copy of the statement?" asked Cullen.

"Aye, will do."

Cullen looked at Bain. "You're being very quiet," he said.

"It's called thinking, Sundance," said Bain.

"What do you want us to do?" asked Cullen.

Bain took a deep breath through his nostrils. "Let me plan out a strategy here," he said. "Can you and Batgirl go off and speak to this woman that found her. I want her eliminated from suspicion."

"Scott, what are you doing?" asked Caldwell.

Cullen had opened the gate to the gatehouse garden and was marching down the path, heading towards the front door. Caldwell ran to keep up with him.