By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2) (20 page)

If Vanessa had seen that after she stepped out of the shower at 0445 hrs., she might have felt less bleak as she dressed, threw up in the toilet, grabbed a bottle of fizzy water, and went down to meet the team from Strathclyde Police that would accompany her to the West End.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Strathclyde Police had traced Simon Mathieson to a first floor flat in a Victorian sandstone tenement in Ruthven Street, off Byres Road, the main thoroughfare through Glasgow's fashionable and, in an apologetically Scottish sort of way, Bohemian, West End. The area is home to students, mainly those attending Glasgow University, less than half-a-mile away, recent graduates, and young professionals renting flats while they try, against the economic odds, to save for a deposit to buy their own place.  It's not a cheap area, a fact that raised again in DCI Fiske's mind the question of how Mathieson managed to maintain an address there.  DS Sara Hamilton and DC Aisha Gajani had found no record of employment for him, either currently or in the previous three years.    They now knew, however, that Andrew MacIlwraith had worked as a porter at Grampian Regional Hospital for about a year until a few months before, but that was the only record of his having been gainfully employed.  They also knew that neither suspect was receiving social security benefits.                                 

Fiske and MacNee had spent their short night in a budget hotel on the south side of the River Clyde, almost in the shadow of the high-level Kingston Bridge.  Hamilton and Gajani had been staying there since their deployment to Glasgow and they were waiting with Colin MacNee in reception when Vanessa came out of the lift.

'Morning, all', she said, with unconvincing brightness. 'Are they here?

'Two unmarked cars, one to take you and Sara to the West End and one to take me and Aisha to sunny Saltcoats, jewel of North Ayrshire.'

'Don't be cynical, Colin.  It doesn't suit you.'

'Have you ever been to Saltcoats, boss?'  MacNee didn't wait for an answer. 'Four Strathclyde officers and two SOCOs will meet you at Mathieson's address at half past five, and a similar team will meet me and Sara at MacIlwraith's place at six.  So we should be on our way back to Aberdeen just in time to miss the Glasgow rush hour.'

'Search warrants?'

Sarah Hamilton pulled some papers from her backpack and handed them to Vanessa, who examined them, put one in her bag and gave the other to Colin.

'OK.  Let's do it.'

*

Ruthven Street is a one-way street with vehicular entry only from Byres Road.  Just before five-thirty, two unmarked cars drove into the street and stopped, in the middle of the road between two lines of parked cars, outside Mathieson’s address.   The third car, in the livery of Strathclyde Police, parked across the entrance to the street.   There was unlikely to be much traffic so early, but if any vehicle tried to turn in from Byres Road, the uniformed driver would wave it on.

DCI Fiske and DS Hamilton, accompanied by the four Strathclyde officers, went into the building, using the entry code that had been provided by the building’s management company.  The Scenes of Crime Officers waited in one of the cars.  They would start work in the flat as soon as the arrest had been made and the search warrant served.

The arrest of Simon Mathieson, on suspicion of the murder of Harvey Jamieson, took only a few minutes.   After he had been cautioned, he was taken to Govan Police Station, about ten minutes away, while DCI Fiske, assisted by DS Hamilton and the SOCOs, did an immediate search of the two-bedroom flat.  A full forensic examination would be done later.  For the moment, Vanessa was looking for a computer, documents, mobile phones, memory devices and anything that might link Mathieson to Vermont One, to Andrew MacIlwraith, or to Paul MacIver.

DS Sara Hamilton opened a door leading off the hall, expecting to find a bedroom.  Instead, she walked into a windowless box room measuring about 2.5 by 1.5 metres.  There was a built in desk along the left-hand wall, behind the door.  On the desk there was an array of IT equipment: computers, hard drives, modems, wi-fi hubs, scanners, boxes of memory sticks.

‘Boss, you should see this.’

Fiske came across the hall from the living room.   ‘Rather more than your average home computer set up.  There’s a laptop in one of the other rooms and we’ll take that to Dongle.  But I’ll have to ask the hi-tech boys from Strathclyde to deal with this.  We’ll need to know why a man with no record of paid employment could afford this amount of kit.  And we’ll need to know what he’s been doing with it.’  

*

Andrew MacIlwraith’s address in Saltcoats was less easy to secure.  It was on an estate of semi-detached council houses, some of them sold to their tenants under the right to buy scheme.   Colin MacNee noticed that the percentage still in council ownership was, on the face of it (the clue was the replacement front doors on those that were now owner-occupied), higher than in similar estates in the major cities.  It was an economically depressed area, with an unemployment rate higher than the Scottish average.   If MacIlwraith had been living here as a student, Colin thought, as Cam Ritchie had suggested, he had probably inherited the house, either as tenant or owner, from his parents.

The target was on a stretch of the road with houses on only one side. It faced on to a slightly unkempt open space where, even this early, a couple of people were out walking their dogs by the light of the street lamps that flanked the path through the "park".   Just before six o’clock, to the obvious curiosity of the dog walkers, three unmarked police cars drove into the street.  MacNee’s car stopped directly outside MacIlwraith’s house. Its front door hadn’t been replaced. The other two cars stopped laterally across the road to prevent vehicles driving past.

Unlike Mathieson, MacIlwraith was reluctant to open the door.   Colin MacNee rang the bell and rattled the letterbox.  A sleep-muffled voice from inside said, ‘OK, OK, I’m coming.  What’s going on?’

Through the letterbox, MacNee said, “Police, please open the door!’

Looking into the house through the slot, MacNee saw a man in pyjamas turn and rush back into one of the rooms.

‘Break it down!”

One of the Strathclyde officers was carrying a battering ram, known in the trade as the FBK or ‘fucking big key’, and within seconds, the door was swinging open, the lock broken and the jamb splintered.

‘Mr MacIlwraith, don’t do anything stupid.  I’m Detective Inspector Colin MacNee of North East Constabulary, and I’m here to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Peter Keller at Grampian Royal Hospital.  I also have a warrant to search these premises.’

MacIlwraith was sitting at a laptop computer in a back room.  MacNee assumed that he was trying to delete incriminating files.  MacIlwraith didn’t know about Dongle Donaldson, Colin thought.  More significantly, if he didn’t know that deleted files were recoverable, he was unlikely to be responsible for the cyber attack on Mercury Fulfilment.  No link there, then.

MacNee told MacIlwraith to get dressed - ‘Do it where I can see you’ – and one of the Strathclyde officers handcuffed him. 

‘I’ll be here for about half-an-hour, so take him to Govan and we’ll pick him up later.’

As MacIlwraith was being taken to one of the cars, the SOCOs went into the house, and lights began to go on in neighbouring houses.   MacNee was always impressed, and a little bewildered, by how quickly news of an arrest got around.   Usually, little knots of spectators assembled within minutes and the first of them was coming together, most in nightwear and dressing gowns, just as the car left the street on its way back to Glasgow.

Colin MacNee turned to his colleague. ‘Aisha, can we rely on the custody officer at Govan to ensure that MacIlwraith and Mathieson don’t see each other?’

‘I think so, boss. Sara spoke to the Area Commander yesterday.  Mathieson should be on his way to Aberdeen before MacIlwraith gets there.  I’ve asked Sara to send me a text when he’s off the premises.  I can then give the driver the all clear.’

‘Good.’   She’s really on the ball, Colin thought, misses very little. Must speak to the DCI about her.

‘Right.  Let’s collect the obvious stuff.’

They both pulled on latex gloves and Aisha produced a bundle of evidence bags of various sizes.

*

The first car to Aberdeen left Govan Police Station at 0730 hrs.   DCI Fiske was in the front passenger seat.   Mathieson, handcuffed and silent, sat in the back with DS Sara Hamilton.  The driver who had brought Fiske and MacNee from Aberdeen the previous evening took the car on to the M8 at the junction just north of the station, easing into the already thickening morning traffic.   He crossed into the outside lane and headed towards the city centre, and after a few miles took the slip road on to the M80 towards Stirling.  From there he would take the M9 and the A90 to Aberdeen.

The car was doing a steady 75 mph towards Cumbernauld and, as she caught sight of the Mercury Fulfilment logo on a huge hangar-like building just off the motorway, Vanessa’s mobile buzzed.   She took it out of her bag, looked at the display and said, as quietly as she could consistent with being audible, ‘Hi, Harry, what can I do for you?’

Harry Conival, the press officer assigned to the investigation, apologised for phoning at this hour.  ‘I knew you had an early start but when I spoke to Duncan Williamson about this he said you’d want to know.  It seems that Jason Sime is, probably without knowing it, being very helpful to you.’

Vanessa, who had had nothing to eat but a cereal bar, wasn’t in the mood for Harry’s sometimes elliptical style of communication. ‘What are you talking about?  I’ve got a murder suspect in the back of the car, and I’m knackered.’

‘He called me last night and told me to have a look at the website of the Boston
Globe
.   They’ve run a front page story about how that health company is blocking your enquiries into the murder of an American citizen.  And there’s also a wee piece by Sime that’s very nice about you.’

‘That is interesting.  How did they get the story?’

‘A
Globe
reporter phoned Jason, and it went on from there.  But what you’ll really like is the possibility that this will go big in the States.  Jason’s contact told him that the local TV stations in Boston have picked it up and he thinks that other papers, and maybe the networks, will run with it. The
Globe
went to Hedelco for a quote, but they refused to comment.’

‘Thanks for that.  It’s what? About 3.30 in the morning over there, so nothing’s likely to develop for a few hours.  I’ll be in the office by about half-past ten.  I’ll talk to you then.’

Before she leaned back on the headrest and tried to sleep, Vanessa texted Colin MacNee.  As the SIO on the Keller case, he needed to know.

Boston paper having a go at Hedelco for blocking us.  Maybe first time you’ve been grateful to the reptiles.

*

It was nearly 10.30 when they reached the outskirts of Aberdeen.  Vanessa had dozed a little, but rather regretted it as she reached for her fizzy water to try to wash away the acrid taste of sleep.    She thought about how she would use the rest of the day.  Neil would collect her at 3.30 in the afternoon to go to the hospital.  That left four and a half hours to work on the case.   She didn’t want to interview Mathieson until MacIlwraith arrived from Glasgow, and she reckoned that that wouldn’t be until between 11.30 and noon.   In any case, she couldn’t talk to him without his lawyer present.  His solicitor, whom he had phoned before they left Govan, was unlikely to get to Aberdeen before the early afternoon.

She wouldn’t be ready for a full session with him until Dongle had looked at his laptop, but the clock had started ticking on the time she could hold him without charge as soon as she had arrested him.  She had no idea how long the hi-tech unit at Strathclyde would need before they gave her a preliminary analysis of the computer equipment.   When his solicitor arrived, she could question Mathieson about his theft of the identity of Thomas Nuttall but she would have to play for time until she got the other evidence.

She would also need to bring DCS Esslemont up to date and talk to Colin MacNee to co-ordinate their interviews with the suspects.   And she would have to decide, by the end of the working day, whether they had enough evidence to arrest Paul MacIver.   She would have to come back in after her scan.  Neil wouldn’t be happy.

*