Hold Hands in the Dark (2 page)

Chapter 2

Pitt Street Police Headquarters, Glasgow.

D
espite having worked at the Police Scotland HQ for over a decade, DCI Bevan had never been into this particular conference room before. It was located deep within the upper floors of the building, where only the most senior of the management honchos dwelt.

              DCS Ronnie Douglas was chairing the meeting. He was a tall, imposing man in his early fifties with a head of thick, dark hair. His face was surprisingly unlined for a senior policeman but his countenance was as changeable as a steel girder. You never quite knew what was going through his head.

              ‘With the sudden departure of Deputy Chief Constable Ross, the AC would like me to take on some additional responsibilities - just until his replacement can be found.’

              Dani Bevan wondered if that replacement would be Douglas himself. If so, it would be one of the most meteoric career progressions she’d witnessed during her time on the force. The DCI remained silent. She knew that it was her operation into the murders of four young women in the 1970s that had led to the removal of DCC Ross. Dani had no desire to rock the boat any further.

              ‘The AC has asked me to sweep a broom through the upper corridors of Pitt Street,’ Douglas continued. ‘Absolutely no one is to be above suspicion. I’m assuming it goes without saying that anything discussed in this room goes no further.’ He fixed a menacing glare upon each person present. ‘Good. It transpires that on a number of occasions, DCC Ross deliberately directed investigations away from his golfing pal, Gregory Suter – a man now awaiting trial for a series of sickening murders.’

              ‘Did Ross know what Suter was up to?’ Dani couldn’t help but ask, her tone tinged with shock and incredulity.

              Douglas shook his head slowly. ‘We don’t believe so. Otherwise, he’d be in the dock alongside Suter. It appears that Gregory worked very hard to develop close relationships with men in important positions. He used this influence to evade capture for so many years. It won’t only be the erstwhile DCC who is tied up in this. There will be others. It’s our job to flush out the rest.’ The DCS scanned the faces before him once again, this time his expression was softer. ‘Those of you seated around this table represent the only people within the walls of the Pitt Street station that I wholeheartedly trust, beyond the Assistant CC and the Chief Constable himself. Not least because we’ve had you all thoroughly vetted.’ Just the tiniest hint of a wry smile played upon his thin lips.

              ‘Do you want us to provide you with information, sir?’ A DCI from the vice squad asked this question.

              Douglas nodded. ‘Trust nobody in your team. Believe me, Suter was handing out bribes like they were penny sweeties for the last four decades. His control runs deep within this force.
Anything
unusual needs to be reported back to me - immediately.’    

              Dani shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘But this kind of witch-hunt is surely going to generate bad feeling within the ranks, Guv. Our teams operate on mutual support and trust.’

              Douglas’s forehead creased. ‘The term witch-hunt, suggests that our suspicions are unfounded. I only wish that they were, DCI Bevan. The First Minister herself is launching an inquiry into the Suter case. A forty-year old miscarriage of justice is enough to bring down governments. We need to have cleared our division of dirty officers by the time these investigators start work, because if you think I’m an unfeeling bastard, wait till you meet that lot.’

              Dani grimaced, nodding begrudgingly to her boss. In her heart she knew he was right. But Dani was still reluctant to imagine that anyone on
her
team would ever be in the pocket of a criminal. It was the Serious Crime Division who busted the case and exposed the miscarriage of justice, after all. But she needed to work with Ronnie Douglas, share information with him and learn to place her faith in his judgement, because the alternative just didn’t even bear thinking about.                

*

Dani called her team into their new de-briefing suite. It was one of the concessions she’d managed to gain from the DCS for their success on the Suter case. A gaggle of admin workers had been shifted into a broom cupboard somewhere to make the space available. But Dani struggled to care. They had too many pen-pushers at Pitt Street as it was.

              ‘Tony MacRae’s body was found on the steel hull of the ship he was helping to build on Friday morning, when the first of the workers began to clock into the yard.’ Dani gestured towards a series of scene photographs, showing the man’s injuries and the position of his body. ‘The
post mortem
report indicates that death was caused by massive internal injuries corresponding to a rapid descent from 120 feet. This was the distance from the hull of the boat to the working platform we believe MacRae was standing on before the fall.’

              ‘Any pre-fall injuries evident, Ma’am?’ Asked DS Andy Calder.

              ‘Not that the pathologist could identify. It was the fracture of the upper spine that occurred as he hit the ground which killed him. The force pretty much severed his spinal column.’

              ‘Then we’re talking accidental death, Ma’am?’ DS Alice Mann got to her feet. ‘Shouldn’t we be referring this to the Fiscal’s office?’

              Dani took a deep breath. ‘The case landed on my desk because Mrs MacRae has been telling every reporter who’ll listen, and there are plenty of those, that her husband was murdered by Hemingway Shipyards. She’s written to the Chief Constable
and
the First Minister, making sweeping accusations about serious breaches of safety procedure at the company. In the current climate, we need to investigate this death like any other on our books.’

              ‘So we may be looking at an incidence of corporate manslaughter?’ DI Phil Boag suggested. ‘In which case, we need to dig back into the shipyard’s safety records, their employee accident and health reports, that kind of thing.’

              ‘Aye, Phil. Can you and Andy make a start on that?’

              Dani turned her head. ‘Alice, I’d like you and DC Clifton to interview the wife. But make sure you’re diplomatic about it. She needs to be confident that we’re taking her allegations deadly seriously.’ 

Chapter 3

D
C Dan Clifton drove along the north bank of the River Clyde into the busy centre of Partick. They followed the Dumbarton Road until the grand villas had fallen away to be replaced by the tattier post-war housing that Dan associated with this area.

              The terraced property they stopped outside was more neatly kept than most on its street. Alice climbed out of the squad car first and approached the front door.

              A woman in her early fifties answered.

              She wasn’t as the detectives had expected. Nancy MacRae was tall and slender, her wavy chestnut brown hair reaching her shoulders and her face lightly made-up and attractive.

              ‘You’d better come away in,’ the woman suggested, in a thick Glaswegian accent. 

              The officers were led into a bright kitchen extension at the rear. The vaulted ceiling let in a stream of natural light. Nancy moved towards a fancy looking kettle and flicked the switch.

              They introduced themselves.

              Alice asked, ‘are you on your own?’ She made the enquiry warily, not sure what kind of reception they were going to receive.

              ‘I was offered family liaison, if that’s what you’re driving at, but I refused. The very last thing I want right now is a stranger in my house.’

              ‘Aye, I can understand that. But a relative or a friend can often be a good companion to have during the first few days of a bereavement.’

              Nancy’s face creased into a tolerant smile. ‘I’m certain you mean well, Detective Sergeant. But I’m not a great one for ‘tea and sympathy’, not when there’s work to be done. I’ve been in this situation before. I won’t do what my mother did.’

              Dan crinkled his brow. ‘How do you mean, Mrs MacRae?’

              Nancy brought three mugs out of a cupboard. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t discovered who I am yet? And you people call yourselves detectives?’ The woman chuckled humourlessly.

              ‘You’d better enlighten us then,’ Alice replied, equally dryly.

              ‘My maiden name is Duff. My father was Alec Duff.’

              This meant absolutely nothing to Alice Mann. Her expression remained blank. But Dan had recognised the name. He was searching around in his brain for the context.

              Nancy filled a cafétiere with coffee. ‘There was a time when my father’s name would have been on the lips of every member of the polis in this city.’

              Dan suddenly nodded his head in recognition. ‘Alexander Duff, the General Secretary of the MWSD. My pa was a member, when he worked down at the docks for a wee while. Your father was a hero to him.’

              Alice nudged his elbow, not liking to be left in the dark.

              Dan turned towards his superior in rank. ‘The Marine Workers, Shipbuilding and Designers Union. Mr Duff led the organisation during the seventies. He’d started out as a welder by trade.’

              Nancy joined them at the table, setting down their drinks. ‘Aye, he was a hero to a lot of people, until someone put a bullet in his heid.’

              ‘It was during the early eighties, wasn’t it?’ Dan sipped the coffee, finding it was very good.

              ‘February 1982. Ferris and Brewer’s workers were out on strike against the layoffs. Dad visited the picket line to lend his support. There was a big crowd. A shot suddenly rang out and my father fell to the ground. The bullet had hit him square to the temple. He died almost immediately.’

              ‘Did they find the gunman?’ Alice sat up straighter in her seat. This world was at one remove from her own experience. Her parents wouldn’t have dreamt of joining a union, not in a million years. They’d always taken the side of the authorities if there was ever a strike.

              Nancy nodded sadly. ‘It was some poor idiot that the bosses had turned against his own kind, filling his head with bullshit about times changing and industries having to adapt. The man was desperate – his wife and kiddies were missing out on food due to the low levels of strike pay. Ferris and Brewer must have offered him some sort of pay rise if he broke the strike. In his muddled brain he blamed my father for the effects of the walkout. But we all knew who was
really
to blame.’

              ‘The man served life for murder. I can’t recall his name now.’ Dan looked philosophical.

              ‘Eddie Lambert. He did the bosses’ bidding and got a prison sentence for the privilege. His weans were left destitute. And my Ma just sat back and took it. She never fought to bring the
real
culprits to justice.’

              Alice leant forward, trying to appear sympathetic. ‘And that’s what you want to do for Tony now?’

              Nancy brought her palm down hard on the table, some of the brown liquid spilling out of the cups. ‘Don’t patronise me, sweetheart. I was being beaten to the ground by riot shields when you were still in nappies.’

              Dan raised his hand. ‘Hold on, let’s start over again, shall we? We’ve come here to listen to your side of things, Mrs MacRae. We only want to know what happened to your husband.’

              Nancy breathed deeply, apparently calming herself down. ‘Okay, fine.’ She turned to Dan. ‘But I’ll only speak with you, alright? I want little Miss Silver-Spoon to wait outside.’

              Dan shot a pleading glance at the DS.

              Alice rose slowly to her feet. ‘I’ll be in the living room, if you need me.’

*

Within seconds, Nancy MacRae was like a different woman. Her tensed up body visibly relaxed and the lines on her face seemed to miraculously disappear.

  ‘Can you talk me through your husband’s movements on Thursday of last week?’ Dan began gently.

              ‘Tony was a foreman for the Hemingway Shipyard. They’re the last of their kind operating on the Clyde. All of their workers are on temporary contracts. If the yard hasn’t got any orders, the men don’t have a job.’

              Dan nodded encouragingly, thinking he could do without the polemic.

              ‘Right now, the yard has a major contract to fulfil. It’s like feast or famine with the management of that place. You’re either getting your hours cut, or you’re expected to work around the clock to meet some ridiculous deadline with no extra pay.’

              ‘And on this occasion, Tony was working around the clock?’ Dan didn’t want to prompt, but he needed the bare facts, not a political sermon.

              ‘Aye, that’s right. He’d already done a full day’s work on Thursday and come home for his tea. Then he abruptly gets up and says he’s going back to the yard. There was some paperwork he needed to catch up on.’

              ‘What time was this?’

              ‘About half past seven. I went into the study to mark some essays. Before I even realised, it had turned eleven. That’s when I called him, on the mobile.’

              ‘Did you get an answer?’

              Tears had sprung to her eyes. ‘Yes, he said that he still needed to check on some of the work his men had done that day. Tony promised he wouldn’t be much longer.’ She sniffed noisily. ‘So I went to bed. The next thing I knew, the phone was ringing. It just didn’t stop until I pulled myself together and picked it up. One of Tony’s team was on the other end of the line. He said there’d been an accident. They were waiting for an ambulance and could I go straight to the Infirmary and meet them there. At first, I didn’t know who they were talking about. Then I glanced down at the empty space in the bed, next to where I’d just been lying. The light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. I realised that he hadn’t come home. I knew my Tony was dead.’

              Dan reached across and rested a hand on her arm. ‘Would your husband often go up to the work platform on his own at night like that?’

              She gazed down at the floor. ‘It wasn’t usually his job, but if he was worried that his men hadn’t done the work right he’d wait until they’d gone home for the day to climb up and check.’

              ‘He wasn’t wearing a hard hat when he fell.’

              Tears were dripping straight from her face onto the stone tiles, creating a tiny puddle. ‘Tony didn’t always put one on, not if he was simply performing an inspection. If he’d been with the workers, of course he would have. It was his responsibility to set a good example to the men.’

              ‘Then isn’t this just a terrible, horrible accident, Mrs MacRae?’

              Nancy whipped her head back up. ‘I don’t care what Tony was wearing or not wearing when he climbed up that platform. It was the pressure they were all under that made him go back to the yard that late. It was the
impossible
deadlines that were being set which meant his team cut corners and didn’t finish the work properly. If the end product wasn’t satisfactory it would be
Tony
, as the foreman, who’d be asked to leave, with no severance pay or notice because of those damned
zero hours
contracts they were all on. The management of Hemingway Shipyard caused my husband’s death as surely as if the CEO had pushed Tony from that platform with his own bare hands.’