Girls Of The Dark (3 page)

Chapter 6

T
he mid-week late night was taking its toll. Dani was sipping her third coffee of the morning when the reception desk called up.

              ‘You’ve got a visitor in the foyer, Ma’am.’

              ‘Can you ask them to make an appointment?’

              ‘The man says it’s urgent. It’s a Professor Morgan from the University.’

              ‘Oh, okay. Please sort him out a pass and send him up, Mandy. He’s a personal friend.’

              ‘Certainly, Ma’am.’

              Rhodri Morgan had trimmed his steel grey hair into a far neater style than when Dani had last seen him. Those bright blue eyes positively twinkled when they alighted upon the detective.

              ‘Good morning, Dani. It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry for stopping by unannounced.’

              Dani stood up. ‘Not a problem. I’ve been meaning to call you. I’ve just been out of Glasgow a lot recently.’

              Morgan took the seat at the desk. ‘You’re a busy person, I know that.’ He waited for Dani to settle before saying, ‘I wanted to discuss something potentially delicate with you.’

              ‘Oh yes?’ Dani was intrigued. At the same time, she really hoped it didn’t involve her late mother.

              ‘It doesn’t relate to the two of us – well, not directly.’

              Dani had forgotten what a perceptive psychologist the man was. He could tell exactly what she was thinking. ‘Go on.’

              ‘I’ve been working with a client these past ten years. He is currently incarcerated at Garwood Park, over in Dumbarton.’

              ‘The prison for those serving multiple life sentences without parole? I always think it sounds like a Scottish Trust property.’

              ‘Well, it is certainly very different from conventional prisons. Those individuals who are serving indefinite sentences are considered too dangerous to have amongst the general prison population.’

              ‘Because they cannot be bargained with by the staff - they have nothing to lose because the courts have decided they must remain locked up forever?’ Dani narrowed her eyes. ‘Some still do get out eventually, don’t they?’

              ‘As you and I both know, there is no such thing as
forever
in the British justice system. My client is called Calvin Suter. He has just celebrated his 65
th
birthday.’

              Dani shook her head. ‘I’ve not heard of him.’

              ‘You probably wouldn’t. His sentence began in October 1975, exactly forty years ago.’

              ‘He must have been convicted of murder?’

              Rhodri dug around in his briefcase, fishing out a file. ‘There’s a photo here of Calvin back when he was first arrested. The rest of the papers are the details of the trial.’ He pushed them across the desk. ‘Between 1972 and ’74, four women went missing around the Kilmarnock area. They were all aged between 19 and 25, each disappearing after a night out in local pubs. The police had focussed their attention on a particular mini cab firm from early on in the investigation, Princely Cars. One of their vehicles had been identified in the vicinity of two of the pubs the women had visited on the evenings they went missing.’

              ‘Calvin was one of the drivers?’ Dani looked at his photo, which must have been taken when the man was in his mid-twenties. Suter appeared to be of Afro-Caribbean origin.

              ‘Yes. He was questioned along with several others. Calvin was working on each of the evenings in question. The police claimed there were gaps in the timeline of who he’d picked up and dropped off on those occasions.’

              Dani sighed. ‘Why do I always suspect the veracity of 1970s policing - particularly where there’s a black man involved?’

              Rhodri smiled thinly. ‘It was a contentious case. The victims were all white, young and pretty. Although they were by no means angels, the prosecution presented them as such during the trial.’

              ‘Upon what evidence was Suter convicted?’

              ‘He was the subject of a surveillance operation. The bodies of the women hadn’t been found. The DCI in charge of the case wanted the girls returned to their families. Suter lived alone, in a one-bedroom flat in Kilmarnock. One night, he drove his cab out to the Ayrshire coast, to an area with rough shingle beaches and jagged outcrops of granite, extending far out into the sea. The man spent an hour standing on the beach. He smoked a cigarette and sat on a rock. When he returned to his car and left, the cops observing him stayed to take a look around.’

              ‘I think I’m beginning to recall the case.’ Dani nodded sadly.

              ‘One of the DCs discovered that the rocks on the promontory led into a kind of cave. You had to squeeze through a narrow opening to reach it, but once inside, the rocks opened out into a large cavern. It was very dark in there, but one of the officers had a small torch. They walked several feet into the cave system, to a section which had been scooped out by the waves to form an underground room. That’s where they discovered the bodies.

              The women had been chained together and kept alive in there for several days. The tide hadn’t reached that far into the hillside any longer.’

              ‘They must have been terrified.’ Dani let her eyes skim through the grisly details.

              ‘All the women were sexually assaulted and murdered. The technicians picked over the scene. There was no DNA analysis back then. The location didn’t lend itself well to fingerprint detection. But with Suter effectively leading the police to the murder site, a warrant was issued to search his flat and one of the taxi cabs that Suter was reported to use most regularly.

              As you will see from the evidence list in your pack, items of women’s clothing were found in the boot of the vehicle. Cheryl Moss’s mother identified them as her daughter’s. Suter spent several months on remand. The trial began on the 21
st
October the following year. By the Christmas of 1975, Suter was serving four life sentences, to run consecutively and with no consideration of parole for at least forty years.’

              ‘On
that
evidence?’

              Rhodri nodded. ‘They wouldn’t have secured a conviction these days. The Crown Office might not even have allowed the trial to go ahead.’

              ‘So, you’re telling me that Suter is due for release?’

              ‘Yes. He’ll be out on Friday. Calvin has been an exemplary prisoner. He took a degree in English Literature in 1988 and wrote a book on Samuel Taylor Coleridge a decade later. There were several attempts made to appeal the conviction, back in the early days, but each one was rejected.’

              ‘Do you think Calvin killed those girls?’ Dani looked at her friend’s face closely.

              Rhodri took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I think he probably did. But at the time of the murders, he was like a completely different person. Calvin didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. He’d had an extraordinarily difficult upbringing. The real problem was that his defence lawyer based his argument on the premise that Calvin was innocent. Anthony Alderton QC was convinced that the police evidence was flimsy and there had been institutional bias against Calvin because of his ethnic origin. If the defence team had put in a guilty plea and then argued for diminished responsibility, Calvin would have been free twenty years ago.’

              ‘What happened to Alderton?’

              ‘Oh, he’s long dead. But the second in chair was a young defence advocate called James Sinclair Irving.’

              It took Dani a moment to put the pieces together. ‘
Jim
Irving?’

              ‘That’s right. Your partner is his son, am I correct?’ Rhodri appeared a little sheepish. ‘I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but I thought you and the family would appreciate a heads up. Calvin isn’t dangerous, of course. However, he is articulate and intelligent. I expect there will be some press interviews and articles. Calvin didn’t want to generate any publicity for his case whilst the parole board were considering his release. But now…’

              ‘Yes, I see.’ Dani wondered if Jim already knew about this and that was why he was so quiet the previous evening.

              ‘Jim Irving barely lost a trial after the Suter case. I expect he learnt a tough lesson from the process. Perhaps if
he’d
been in charge, Calvin would have had a better outcome.’

              ‘I’m not sure the outcome was wrong, Rhodri. If Suter was guilty of torturing and murdering those girls, then he got the right sentence. If I didn’t think that way, I’d be in the wrong job.’

              ‘I don’t disagree with your logic, Dani. But I suspect that like mine, Jim Irving’s perspective on the events would be quite different.’

Chapter 7

T
here were very few people left on the serious crime floor when Dani finally logged off the system. She noted that the overhead light had been dimmed and tutted at the petty irritations that cost cutting had caused.

              As she raised her gaze, the DCI noticed a bulky figure standing in the doorway to her office. For a second, she wasn’t entirely sure who it was. Then recognition dawned. ‘Please come in, DCS Douglas.’

              The man entered a little hesitantly. ‘It’s dark in here, Detective Chief Inspector.’

              ‘The lights get turned down to power save at 7pm, sir. I’ve got a desk lamp. I simply hadn’t realised the time.’ Dani wondered why the DCS didn’t know about the procedure. Surely he’d worked this late before?

              ‘Of course. Clearly I don’t notice it when in my own domain. Now, I’m keen to get an update on the Lisa Abbot case. You seem to have rather a lot of officers on overtime watching her flat?’

              ‘Yes, we’re evidence gathering. I sent you the update about Nick McKenna. It seems that Abbot has other victims.’

              Douglas knitted his brow. His eyes appeared almost black in the fading light. ‘That is all well and good, but this department focusses on
serious
crime. I suggest that if we can’t substantiate a fraud charge within the next two days you should drop it. There’s no chance of a murder conviction in relation to the Kerrs’ deaths. I’ve read the
post mortem
reports very carefully.’

              Dani was taken aback. Nicholson had never read the evidence she sent him, only the precis she provided with her attachments. Perhaps she’d underestimated Douglas. ‘Fine. Give me until the end of the week, sir. Then we’ll either bring charges or push the case on to CID at Abbot’s local station.’

              ‘Good.’

              Dani could have sworn that the faintest flicker of a smile might have crossed his lips.              

              He made to leave, turning back just before he reached the door. ‘I came down to speak with you earlier in the day, but there was a man here.’

              ‘Professor Morgan, he’s on our criminal profiler database.’

              The DCS frowned. ‘We aren’t considering a profile of Lisa Abbot? I really don’t think we have the budget for that and I can’t see the point.’

              ‘No sir, it had nothing to do with the Kerr case. The Professor is an old family friend. He was discussing another client of his, a long-term inmate of Garwood Park.’

              ‘Does this inmate relate to your current case load in any way?’

              Dani opened her mouth to provide an explanation then decided against it. She shook her head.

              ‘We’ll say no more about it. But I don’t look kindly when personal considerations find their way into one of my busiest departments, is that clear?’

              Before she had a chance to respond, the man was gone, heading towards the lift at a brisk pace.

*

‘The guy’s an arsehole.’

              James laughed, topping up Dani’s glass with wine. ‘You mean you’ve never encountered one of those in the workplace before? You’ve led a charmed life my dear.’

              ‘Of course I have. Douglas is different. He’s a
well-informed
arsehole. They are the most dangerous kind.’

              ‘Very true. I always got the sense you were pretty much left alone at your rank, especially with your recent successes. It must be a shock to suddenly get micro-managed.’

              Dani shifted along the sofa, leaning her head against his shoulder. ‘It isn’t even that. The man’s just
weird
. Anyway, let’s not waste any more of our evening talking about the DCS.’

              ‘I quite agree.’ James put down his glass and slid a hand up Dani’s thigh, leaning across to plant a kiss at the base of her neck.

              ‘Hang on, there is something else we need to discuss.’

              James pulled back. ‘Sounds serious?’

              ‘It shouldn’t be. Only, the thing that Rhodri came to tell me about, it involves your father.’

              He looked puzzled. ‘In what way?’

              ‘I spent the afternoon researching it on the database.’

              James leant in again, brushing his lips against hers. ‘Naughty girl, no wonder you’re in trouble.’

              She put a hand to his chest, but couldn’t prevent herself from smiling. ‘Concentrate, will you?’

              ‘Okay.’

              ‘Rhodri was telling me about your father’s first ever murder trial. You would only have been a year old at the time. He was second chair to Anthony Alderton, QC; later
Sir
Anthony.’

              ‘The Calvin Suter case.’

              ‘You know about it?’

              ‘Of course. Dad was involved in the three appeals that followed Suter’s conviction. The case was his great regret. You know - the one that haunts a defence advocate’s career. Dad told Alderton that he had the strategy wrong. But the guy was high court royalty back then and Dad was new and inexperienced. His opinion held no sway.’

              ‘But did you know that Suter will be released in two days’ time?’              

              James blinked ferociously, the playful smile wiped off his handsome face. ‘No. I didn’t.’