Ghost in the Machine (21 page)

"That's what she just told me," said Cullen. "I'll maybe re-interview her later."

"Take it you've confirmed all this, aye?"

"With the friend anyway," said Cullen. "We could probably do with checking a few other sources."

"What do you think happened?"

Cullen stood up and started pacing along the pavement. "I think there are probably three possibilities. One, she was attacked on the way home from the station. Two, she's run away. Three, the husband's killed her when she got home."

"Go on."

"The friend confirmed there have been problems between Gail and the husband," said Cullen. "Gail's talked about leaving him. I'd say it's most likely she's run away. The husband seems like he's a bit dim and I'm not sure it's an act. I'm struggling to imagine him planning to kill her, or anything like that. Could have been a spur of the moment thing, I suppose, but it's not like there's a dismembered body in a ditch. If he did kill her, he's done a good job of covering up and he just doesn't seem capable."

"Right. So basically, any one of your three could have happened?"

Cullen took a deep breath and thought it through. "I suppose so."

Bain paused. "Do you think it could be linked to Caroline and Debi?"

Cullen thought about it for a few seconds. "Doesn't look likely, but there are a few things I'd like to look into."

"And if you were a gambling man?"

"I am one," said Cullen. "If I had to put money on it, I would say she left him. It's the likeliest scenario, I'd say."

Bain sighed with relief. "Jim's shitting himself we've got another one. Good work. I'll get some officers on to it. I've palmed this off onto Wilko. I've got my fuckin' plate full with this case as it is and he's doing bugger all other than get in my way."

"What about me?"
 

"Wilko's on his way out," said Bain. "Get back over to Musselburgh. He'll meet you at this boy's house."

"So I'm one of his officers then?" said Cullen.

"Try not to use your initiative till Wilko gets there, Sundance."

Cullen spotted Wilkinson sitting in a panda car around the corner from Musselburgh train station. He parked along the road and went over. The window in the car was wound down, Wilkinson smoking an untipped cigarette, TalkSport blaring out, a Scouser railing against Liverpool's pre-season form. Cullen slid into the passenger seat.

Wilkinson ignored him, taking a long drag on his cigarette then laughing at what the caller was saying. "There's no way they'll finish top four this season. They've had their time."

"Thought you'd be more a Rugby League guy," said Cullen.

"What, you mean cos I'm a fat bastard?" Wilkinson laughed. "Can't stand either flavour of bloody rugby. I'm Leeds United through and through."

"Bain asked me to report to you," said Cullen.

Wilkinson laughed. "So he did." He took another drag, taking his time exhaling. He held up the
Evening News
, the still of Martin Webb at the supermarket beneath the headline
Caroline Killer: Photo
. "She's still the main story. Poor Debi's not getting the coverage she deserves. And Caroline's a single mother, too." He tutted.

"What do you want me to do?" said Cullen.

"Need another body to go door-to-door," said Wilkinson. "And Bain sent you."
 

As Cullen was formulating an objection, Wilkinson reached over and picked up an Airwave, the latest generation police radio, and called for PC Campbell. "I want you to pair up with Vicky Campbell. She's a good cop and no mistaking."

Cullen wasn't too chuffed by being paired up with her.

Wilkinson gestured round the crescent. "You pair are to do the houses leading away from the McBride's on that side."
 

"Anything specific you want to know?" said Cullen.

"Just use the initiative DI Bain praises you for." Wilkinson turned up the radio. "Now, out you get."

Cullen got out and walked back to his car. He reached in and retrieved the roll he'd bought from a petrol station on the way back over. He leaned against the side of his car and ate it as he waited, pissed off at Bain, Wilkinson and pretty much everyone else.

*
*
*

It was just after one and they'd managed to visit eighteen houses. Campbell agreed she would make some return visits that evening, then went back inside Simon McBride's house to check on any updates at that end.

Cullen got in the squad car and informed Wilkinson of the lack of progress they'd made, having no idea what he had been doing all that time, other than sitting on his arse.

"So that's it?" said Wilkinson. "Nothing at all?"

"Afraid so," said Cullen. "I'm going to head back to the station. I don't think you need a DC for this, not when I've got other actions Bain wants me to close down."

Wilkinson grunted. "Go and see McAllister before you leave."

Cullen deflated. "McAllister?"

"Aye, lad," said Wilkinson. "I've had him looking for anyone who was on the last train yesterday. He's on the platform, bottom of the hill."

"What's he doing down there?"

"Speaking to people getting off the train, what do you think?"

"And what do you want me to do?"

Wilkinson looked at him for a few seconds. "See what he's found, then tell me."

"Can't you do that?"

"No," said Wilkinson. "I'm supervising everything."

Cullen reluctantly headed off for the train station, checking out the new Queen Margaret's University campus sprawled on the other side of the tracks. Looking down he saw a train pulling off, a group of about twenty people starting the march up the hill. He moved out of the way at the top to let them past.

As he waited he spotted McAllister with a young PC, standing in the middle of the path up from the platform. They were talking to a woman who looked mid-thirties, but dressed mid-twenties. Cullen started down towards them, the woman walking off as he approached.

"DC Cullen," said McAllister. "Heard you'd be sniffing around."

McAllister's protégé moved away towards the platform.

"Wilkinson's asked me to see how you were doing," said Cullen.
 

McAllister got into Cullen's face. "Snooping around, are you? Going to grass me up to Bain again?"

Cullen stepped back and sighed. "Not unless you've been messing about again. I'm just doing DI Wilkinson's job for him."

McAllister actually laughed. "He's like that."

"Well? Have you made any progress?"

McAllister shrugged. "Spoken to five people now who were on the last train. That lassie I was just speaking to was one of them. None of them saw anything. A couple actually recognised this Gail lassie, mainly by her face, not her name. They didn't see her on the train last night."

Cullen frowned. "Really? So it doesn't look like she was on it?"

McAllister raised his hands in the air. "Christ knows. I'm wasting my bloody time here. Most of them would've been pissed, wouldn't remember if their husband or wife was sitting next to them on that train. I mean this is bloody Musselburgh, hardly the smartest bit of the Lothians." He yawned. "I doubt I'll get anything until later on when the commuter crowd start heading home."

"I guess you're right," said Cullen. "Have you told Wilkinson?"

"What's the point? He's just listening to the radio."

Cullen grudgingly smiled at the PC before climbing back up the hill and pacing over to the patrol car. Wilkinson snapped the radio off as Cullen got back in. The car stank of stale cigarette smoke, so Cullen wound down the window on his side. A gentle breeze started to flow between the two windows.

"Did you get anything, Curran?"

Cullen took a deep breath and decided not to correct him. "McAllister's found a few people who were on the train. None of them saw Gail."

"Did any of them know her, like?"

"Yeah," said Cullen. "Two of them knew her by sight. They didn't see her."

"That's interesting," said Wilkinson.

"This doesn't feel right."

"How come?"

"Well, Sian Saunders told me Gail got off the train at Musselburgh," said Cullen. "Now, McAllister has found five people who were on that train. Two of them knew her, but nobody saw her getting off."

"Were they in different carriages?"

"Don't know," said Cullen. "Wouldn't have thought it's an issue, though, there's only one way out, up that hill. It's not exactly a big station."

Wilkinson looked out of the window, distracted. "Aye, it's a bit funny, Curran."

Cullen tried to avoid getting irritated by Wilkinson's continual mispronunciation of his name. "I don't imagine there'd be a lot of folk on the train at that time of night, maybe twenty at most getting off at Musselburgh."

Wilkinson looked around. "So what?"

"I think there's something going on here," said Cullen. "We've got people going door-to-door and nobody's seen or heard anything."

"There's still a fair amount left to check, though," said Wilkinson.

"Do you think she was on the train or not?"

"I've no idea. Hopefully McAllister will unearth something."

"I think you need to look into this a bit harder," said Cullen.

Wilkinson glared at him. "Yeah, well, I'm the Senior Investigating Officer here and I'm not far off handing this back to uniform. Wild goose chase." He checked his watch. "I've got a date with a pint of lager in a couple of hours, so can you piss off back to Bain?"

Cullen was on the phone to Colin Green, friend thirty-four of Caroline's. Green knew her from school in Carnoustie and had already been called by Caldwell on Saturday afternoon.

Contacting people was much slower the second time around - they were either less available than on a Saturday and Sunday, or were now irritated at being called again. They had selected a subset of people, but it appeared to contain all of the harder-to-contact friends.

Green gave Cullen a rambling story about how he had returned to live in the area and still kept in touch with people from school. In Cullen's mind, he should have been a good source to validate the death threats.

"So you're saying you never heard of any threats made by Rob Thomson against Caroline Adamson?" said Cullen.

"I am. More than happy to put it in a statement."

Cullen was tempted, becoming irritated by the singular lack of confirmation. He thanked him and hung up.

This whole death threat story wasn't stacking up. Bain had Rob Thomson in his sights with the main piece of evidence being the death threats. Everything else wasn't even circumstantial - sightings of a man who loosely fitted his description.

He looked over at Caldwell, just wrapping up a call. His phone rang.

"DC Cullen? This is Margaret Armstrong. We spoke the other day about Caroline."

Cullen sat forward on his seat - he couldn't work out why she'd called, other than Dave Watson or Charlie Kidd blundering in there to have a look at Caroline's work PC. "Is this about my Technical Support colleagues?"

"I'm sorry?" said Armstrong.

"They were going to have a look at Caroline's work computer. There may be some important information left on it."

"No, no, they left an hour ago with Caroline's machine." Armstrong paused for a moment. "The reason I'm calling is... Well, I had a visit from your Asian colleague yesterday at home. I can't recall her name, but I found your business card, and well... I'm sorry, I'm not handling this as well as I should."

"It's okay," said Cullen, "take your time."

"Thank you," said Armstrong. "Your colleague was asking me some questions about Alistair Cruikshank."

Cullen recalled the name from the previous afternoon - McNeill and Chantal had uncovered someone from Caroline's past, the man who'd been objectionable about her divorce on religious grounds and who Caroline got sacked. "Have you remembered something?"

"No, Mr Cullen, he was here at the office. He's just left."

McNeill came back into Armstrong's office with a cup of water and handed it to her. "There you go."

Armstrong took the most delicate of sips. "Thank you." She was sitting at her desk when Cullen and McNeill arrived, face flushed and struggling to speak.
 

"Can you tell us what happened with Mr Cruikshank?" said McNeill.

Armstrong's hands were fiddling with the St Christopher at her neck. "I'm sorry, I just can't help but think he killed Caroline and Debi and now he's been here."

Cullen nodded. "We don't know whether Mr Cruikshank was even in the city at the time of either attack. Can you tell us about your encounter from the start?"

"Okay." Armstrong took a deep breath. "I was just going through some paperwork when there was a knock on my door."

She pushed the glass of water away. "It was Alistair. He stood there smiling, as if to say 'Look who it is'. I nearly fainted, I can tell you." She gulped down some more water, a trickle slipping down the side of the cup. "I just thought he was here for me. We had to get rid of him after all that business with Caroline, I found it very hard. I struggled with the guilt. Just seeing him there like that absolutely terrified me."

"Did Mr Cruikshank say anything to you?" said Cullen.

"Why yes." Armstrong regained some of her composure. "He was most effusive. He was talking about atoning for his sins, that he'd resolved what had happened between him and Caroline and a few other things."

"Did he say what he was doing in Edinburgh?" said Cullen.

"Yes, he's here for some sort of divinity conference," said Armstrong. "You know he's studying to be a minister in whatever church he's in. He studied divinity here before at the university. I think he said the conference was on 'redemption'."

Cullen shared a look with McNeill - she raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any idea where he might be staying?"

"He mentioned something about staying at the Minto Hotel," said Armstrong.

It was Cullen's turn to raise an eyebrow - it was right next door to the Jackson Hotel, where Caroline was found.

*
*
*

McNeill parked outside the Minto. What would once have been the front garden of a Victorian house was now the car park of a heavily extended hotel. Cullen noticed the police markings were still up at the Jackson Hotel, a few doors down.