Eye of the Raven (13 page)

Steven had a lightness in his step as he left the hospital and walked back to the car. He no longer had the feeling of trying to run in soft sand. Samantha Styles had told him exactly what he needed to know; that the material found under Julie Summers’ fingernails had
confirmed the case against David Little. He could return to London with an easy mind.

Steven checked out of the hotel and drove to Edinburgh airport where he returned the hire car to Hertz before booking himself on the next British Airways shuttle flight to Heathrow. He was standing in the lounge looking out at the rain sweeping across the main runway when his mobile rang.

‘
Yes?’

‘
Peter McClintock.’

‘
And just in time to say good-bye,’ said Steven. ‘I’m at the airport.’ He expected McClintock to be pleased and come back with some kind of a joke but there was a short pause before the policeman said, ‘I thought you should know that Ronnie Lee’s gone missing.’

‘
Missing,’ repeated Steven.

‘
And his wife’s blaming you.’

‘
How in God’s name could he go missing? He didn’t look as if he could stand up let alone go missing.’

‘
His wife told Grampian Police that he was greatly upset by your questions yesterday and didn’t seem himself last night. When she got up this morning his bed was empty. She thinks he must have wandered off somewhere in his pyjamas in the middle of the night. The temperature dropped below freezing last night in the highlands. She’s been screaming harassment to anyone who’ll listen.’

‘
Who’s listening?’

‘
Luckily, no one at the moment but Grampian Police thought we’d like to be kept in the picture,’ said McClintock.

Steven considered for a moment before making a reluctant decision and saying, ‘I’ve just changed my mind about leaving. I’ll stay until they find him. Let me know as soon as there are any developments.’

Steven cancelled his shuttle ticket and went back to the car hire desk.

‘
Change of heart?’ asked the girl.

‘
Couldn’t bear to leave,’ said Steven, filling in the paperwork all over again. He saw no point in travelling back across town to the hotel where he had been staying so he checked into the airport hotel instead and called Sci-Med.

‘
Any idea where he might have gone?’ asked Macmillan.

‘
None at all.’

‘
But he was disturbed by your visit?’

‘
He was more angry than disturbed,’ said Steven. ‘I really wasn’t hard on him.’

‘
So where the hell has he gone?’

‘
I don’t think he was in any physical condition to go very far,’ said Steven. ‘I’m surprised he made it to the front door.’

‘
I don’t wish to pre-empt matters but did he strike you as the suicidal type?’ asked Macmillan.

‘
Far from it,’ replied Steven. ‘He was full of bitterness and resentment. He genuinely believes he got a raw deal when they forced him into retirement. According to him, everything that happened was just down to either circumstances or the fault of other people.’

‘
I think they call it “being in denial” these days,’ said Macmillan.

‘
If you say so,’ said Steven.

‘
And his wife?

‘
Standing by her man. She seemed to share his view. Neither seemed to acknowledge that being permanently pissed could be a drawback for a forensic pathologist.’

‘
This could get very messy,’ said Macmillan. ‘Let’s try to minimise the fall-out if this woman starts stirring things up all over again. I like to maintain good relations with our police colleagues wherever possible.’

Steven grimaced as he put the phone down. ‘Easier said than done,’ he murmured.

Steven remained on tenterhooks for the next couple of hours, not knowing what to do but feeling uncomfortable about doing nothing. He snatched up the phone when it rang. It was McClintock.

‘
They’ve found him. He’d dead.’

‘
Shit,’ said Steven.

‘
Apparently there’s a steep drop at the back of his house to the river.’

‘
There is,’ agreed Steven, thinking of the view of the Spey he’d admired from there.

‘
Some time last night he walked over it, only he didn’t make it into the water. He impaled himself on a sharp tree stump after falling fifty feet or so. The local plods are treating it as suicide. Seems like old Ronnie even fucked that up.’

‘
When’s the PM?’

‘
Tomorrow in Inverness.’

‘
I want to be there,’ said Steven. He wasn’t sure why but he didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of Lee committing suicide. A man like Lee would have seen that as letting the bastards win.

‘
Nothing I can do personally,’ said McClintock, ‘but I can give you the name of my Grampian contact. He’s DI Hamish Teal.’ McClintock gave Steven the telephone number.

‘
Thanks for your help,’ said Steven.

‘
Something tells me that a whole lot of shit is going to start flying,’ said McClintock ruefully. ‘I’d hate to be wearing a white suit.’

Steven could think of nothing reassuring to say. He took a moment to consider before calling Sci-Med to inform John Macmillan of Lee’s death. ‘I don’t think he committed suicide.’

‘
Anything to back that up?’

‘
Just instinct.’

‘
Well, it’s served you well enough in the past,’ conceded Macmillan. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘
I want to call a code red on it,’ said Steven. His request was that his inquiry in Scotland should no longer be regarded as unofficial but that he should be considered fully operational with all that entailed. In effect this would mean that he would no longer be reliant on the voluntary co-operation of individual police officers in his investigation but that his official status as a Sci-Med Inspector on Home Office business would oblige relevant police authorities to co-operate fully with any request he made. He would also be entitled to full back-up from Sci-Med who would see to it that he had everything he needed from simple information to weapons should they be necessary. He would have access to operational funds through two credit cards and access to a special phone line, which guaranteed access to a duty officer at Sci-Med at any hour of the day or night.

‘
Up to you,’ said Macmillan, as he usually did in this situation. The nuance in his voice however, suggested that Steven had better have a good reason in the long run for doing this. ‘Do you have your laptop with you?’

Steven said not. He knew that he’d need one for secure electronic communication.

‘
We’ll get one to you. Where are you staying?’

‘
The airport hotel at Edinburgh.’

Steven was called down to the lobby half an hour later. He was surprised to find McClintock standing there. ‘Room service,’ said McClintock holding out a notebook computer by the strap of its leather carry case.

‘
Should I tip you?’ smiled Steven.

‘
I came to tip you,’ replied McClintock. ‘Santini just about went through the roof when the Home Office directive came in. I think he’s considering putting out a contract on you.’

Steven smiled.

‘
Don’t laugh,’ said McClintock. ‘I’m the hit man.’

‘
Then let me buy you a beer so you’ll leave your prints on the glass,’ smiled Steven. He led McClintock through to the hotel bar where he was true to his word.

‘
Seriously,’ said McClintock. ‘The powers that be have already been on to Sci-Med asking just what the fuck you think you’re up to.’

‘
And what were they told?’

‘
Some guy called Macmillan told them that you must have had good reason for putting your inquiry on a more official basis and that was as much as they needed to know. That’s what I call backing up your people,’ said McClintock admiringly. ‘I wish I could say the same for my lot’

Steven smiled.

‘
But do you know the best bit?’ said McClintock leaning across the table conspiratorially. ‘When Santini asked the DCC what would happen if he refused to co-operate with the Sci-Med directive, he was told to look out his lollipop because he would be on school crossings within the week. Like the Titanic, that went down really well!’

Steven almost choked on his beer.

‘
Don’t ever let on to Santini that I told you that,’ said McClintock.

‘
I won’t,’ Steven assured him. ‘And thanks. I’m grateful.’

‘
I just hope you know what you’re doing,’ said McClintock, finishing his beer and getting up to go.

Steven found himself hoping much the same thing as he went back upstairs. He connected the modem of the laptop to the phone socket in the room and logged on to Sci-Med where his first message was decoded as DUNBAR GREEN, indicating that he now had full operational status. There followed details of numbers and codes to be used during the course of the assignment. Two credit cards would be delivered to the hotel first thing in the morning. He was also requested to contact the duty officer at Sci-Med directly with any immediate requests.

Steven called and asked that the Grampian Police authority be informed of his being in their area on the following day and that he would like to be present at the post mortem examination of Ronald Lee. He gave the man the name of the Grampian police officer, DI Teal that McClintock had given him as a contact name, thinking that this might be quicker than depending on things coming from the top downwards. The duty man called back just before eleven p.m. to say that the post mortem on Lee had been rescheduled from 9am to noon to give him time to get up to Inverness. He was given the address of the city mortuary, elementary directions and the name of the pathologist who would be carrying out the autopsy, Dr Robert Reid.

Steven did not sleep well. He was haunted by dreams of Hector Combe laughing at him from the gates of hell while an angry Mary Lee accused him of being responsible for her husband’s death. ‘Just leave it alone,’ advised Peter McClintock repeatedly in the background while Santini stood in the road stopping his progress by holding up a lollipop stick with ‘Stop’ written on it. Any argument he tried to mount was countered by Combe grinning at him and making a snapping gesture with his fingers as he whispered, ‘this little piggy went to market . . . Snap! This little piggy stayed at home . . . ’

Steven woke with a start before the third snap and found that he was bathed in sweat. He looked at his watch and saw that it was just after three, the hour when the human spirit was at its lowest ebb and problems were magnified most. He lay slowly back down on the pillow and watched the moving shadows of the tree branches on the ceiling as the wind rose and fell outside. He knew that the sense of unease he felt stemmed from the fact he was acting on instinct rather than on any firm grounds for suspicion. He just had the feeling that something was dreadfully wrong about the Julie Summers case although at the moment it was hard to see exactly what. What did he hope to prove? If he didn’t know the answer to that – and he didn’t – it was no wonder that the local police were thoroughly pissed off with him.

Steven was on the road by seven in the morning. He had been warned that it might take some time to get across the Forth Road Bridge in the morning rush hour and so it proved with heavy traffic backed up on the approach roads. As he waited, he watched a small helicopter circle mockingly overhead and guessed that it would be reporting traffic conditions to a local radio station, informing commuters that there was a traffic jam where there was a traffic jam every morning.

Once over the bridge and on to the M90, he made good progress as far as Perth but then slowed as the motorway came to an end and he was funnelled back on to a trunk road where the slowest vehicle determined the speed of the convoy until overtaking became possible – usually on intermittent small sections of dual carriageway.

Steven still reached Inverness in plenty of time and found the morgue where the PM on Lee was to be performed before parking the car and stretching his legs with a walk by the River Ness until it was time.

The pathologist, Reid, a tall man in his early forties who was soft-spoken and had a habit of punctuating his remarks with an unsure half smile and a look at everyone as if to reassure himself that he wasn’t upsetting anyone, greeted him cordially. The only other person present, apart from a mortuary attendant, was the Grampian policeman, DI Teal. He was a short, thickset man who acknowledged his presence with a nod.

Reid was already gowned and aproned. He invited Steven to do the same, indicating a row of clothes pegs with gowns and aprons hanging from them. There was a wooden-slatted bench below under which was a neat row of white Wellington boots. Steven went for full overalls while Teal made do with an apron over his double-breasted suit.

The attendant brought out Lee’s body from the refrigerated vault and Steven grimaced when he saw that the tree stump that had skewered Lee had been left in place. It had been sawn off at the base to permit retrieval of the body from the riverbank but the jagged stump was still protruding from his chest. A look of agonised horror was etched on Lee’s face as if he had seen what was coming as he fell.

‘
Not a pretty death,’ said Reid, again with his half smile.

‘
Poor bugger,’ murmured Teal.