Ghost in the Machine (36 page)

Bain looked over at Wilson. He sat there expressionless. Cullen hoped there was no last minute surprise in store to get him off.

"Mr Wilson, I'm going to charge you with the murders of Caroline Adamson, Deborah Curtis, Gail McBride and Kimberly Milne. I hope to God I don't have to add Keith James Miller to that list. I'm also going to charge you with the abduction of Alison Carnegie and the assault on DC Cullen here. Have you got anything to say in your defence?"

Wilson shrugged. "Nothing."

There was a knock at the door. Buxton opened it and took a paper message from the uniform on the other side. He moved over and spoke a few words into Bain's ear, but Cullen didn't catch it.

"You do know we've found keys in your flat?" said Bain. "We've just confirmed they're for the door to the flat belonging to Caroline Adamson."

McLintock exchanged a look with Wilson. "Inspector, I'd like to confer with my client in private."

Bain slowly got to his feet and spoke into the recorder, pausing the interview. He pointed at Buxton by the door. "He's staying." He led Cullen and McNeill out. Cullen shut the door behind them.

"What's he doing?" said McNeill.

"I don't think it's good news, Butch" Bain rubbed his moustache. "He's going to try and whitewash us. This is classic McLintock - he'll try and discredit us, suggest or infer a plant. We've got him with those keys. Any jury's going to convict on those grounds alone."
 

"Can't believe he's representing both of them," said Cullen.

Bain nodded. "He doesn't give a flying fuck about ethics. He's just after the cash." He looked at McNeill. "I want to get a line-up in front of that boy who saw him in the street ASAP, but with this Wilson boy in it instead of Rob Thomson."

"Will do."

"All of the circumstantial evidence you've got for Rob backs it up, though," said Cullen. "They're dead ringers, especially at a distance."

"You might be right," said Bain.

"How do you want to play it?" said McNeill.

"See what he says, I suppose," said Bain. "We've got him by the bollocks here."

Buxton opened the door and nodded at Bain. "They're ready for you."

Bain led them back into the room and restarted the interview. "So Mr Wilson, do you have anything to say?"

"My client would like to say a few words," said McLintock.

Wilson looked between Bain and McNeill, directly at Cullen. "I'll admit to the abduction."

"I'm not accepting that," said Bain. "We're throwing the whole book at you."

Wilson looked at the table. When he looked up, it was at Cullen. "I'd like to hear what DC Cullen's got to say about all of this. He caught me, after all."

Bain looked round at Cullen and nodded.

Cullen didn't know what was going on - did Wilson think he was Moriarty and Cullen was Holmes? He took a few seconds to put his thoughts in order. "You made a couple of mistakes."

Wilson tilted his head at him. "I did, did I?"

"The death threats," said Cullen. "That was your big mistake. You told us Rob had threatened Caroline. You hoped that would push us towards charging him. It almost worked. But nobody backed you up, though. You made another mistake - you said on the phone Kim Milne told you about the death threats when you'd just killed her."

"Anything else?" said Wilson.

"The keys we found in your flat," said Cullen. "They linked you to all of the murders. But if you hadn't made up the story about the death threats, we'd never have found them. Shame we didn't find the laptops you stole."

Wilson smirked. "So why did I do it all, then?"

Cullen took his time, framing his words carefully. "I think you killed these women to get your revenge on Rob Thomson. He took Kim away from you. You lost your job because of him. And that messed you up."
 

He took a deep breath.
 

"You stalked Caroline on the Schoolbook site, read her private messages. You contacted her posing as Martin Webb and eventually persuaded her to meet you. You used an image from a male model website as the profile photo. You set up a false paper trail that led us nowhere. You bought a Pay As You Go mobile phone, which we traced from CCTV footage. You dressed in clothing that made you look like Rob Thomson if you were spotted."
 

He took another deep breath and fiddled with his bandage. "I'll admit I'm struggling to understand why you killed Gail and Debi. But you killed Kim Milne to frame it all on Rob Thomson. You wanted him caught red-handed."

"Very good," said Wilson. "Carry on, I'm enjoying this."

"You could have done a much better job of framing Rob Thomson, though. You didn't leave any DNA evidence linking him to the crimes and you didn't leave a breadcrumb trail on Schoolbook. That would have been the clincher. I wouldn't have doubted your trail if it had led straight to one of Rob's computers. And I wouldn't have doubted the stupid death threats story you'd put out there."

Wilson burst out laughing. "I'll remember that for next time I kill someone's girlfriend."

"Mr Wilson, these allegations are unsubstantiated," said McLintock. "You do not have to respond to them until they are laid before you in court, in front of a judge and jury."

Wilson shrugged. "I think they've probably got enough on me now." He stared at Cullen. "Okay, I did it. I killed them all." He looked at McLintock. "I'll save the taxpayer a load of money by not having some long, drawn out court case. Besides, I think Rob's suffering enough now and that was always the main thing. His beloved is dead. I really, really don't care. I can take prison."

Bain and McNeill shared a look.

"How did you do it?" said McNeill.

"Like Cullen said there, I used Schoolbook," said Wilson. "It was actually pretty easy. They were all on there. Everyone I needed, everything I needed. All of this led from Rob."

"Was this all about revenge?" said Bain.

"Yes." Wilson twitched slightly. "Rob took everything I had. My girlfriend, my job, my whole life. And for what? He just wanted to screw Kim, that's all. I was really happy with her, you know? Then Rob Thomson comes swooping in, steals her from me and sacks me." He took a deep breath.

"How did he sack you?" said McNeill.

"I was on long-term sick from the bank, struggling with what happened." Wilson rubbed the stubble on his head. "I had built up a future with her in my head and this bastard steals it all away. One day, I was called in for my catch-up interview - which should have been done at my house - and it turned out it was with Rob. That was totally out of order. I lost it with him. There was another guy there and he had to drag us apart. They had me on a disciplinary by the end of the day. Gave me a month's notice and that was it."

"Tell me about Caroline," said McNeill.

"Caroline was the first and the hardest." Wilson took a sip from the glass of water on the table. Cullen had no doubt Bain would have the glass kept for forensics. "She was very cagey on Schoolbook. I knew her pretty well - we used to double date a lot, you know. It seems funny now, doesn't it? I set up the Martin Webb profile to snare her. Took a few months but I got to her in the end. The messages got quite racy. I managed to skip a few stages from a traditional relationship. We went straight to meeting in a hotel."

"And this was to frame Rob?" said Bain.

"Yes" Wilson took another sip. "Kim was the second easiest. I knew Jenny was going away, so I set that up pretty well. I was hiding in the stairwell, upstairs from their flat, when Rob came in. The police came in just after that. That 999 call was a good effort."

"Who was the easiest?" said Bain.

Wilson folded his arms. "That'll be Debi Curtis. She just walked right into it. She actually started it off by flirting with Martin Webb. Caroline and I had the message thing going on and she got involved. She started messaging me. It got pretty intense. I was tempted to let her go, but I thought I should get some practice in."

"So that was you running away?" said Bain.

Wilson laughed. "Yeah. Almost got caught there."

"What about Gail?" said Bain.

Wilson crushed the cup in his fist. "Gail should have stopped those two getting together. I was disappointed with her. She had always struck me as being someone with morals. She should have stopped Rob and Kim. And she didn't."

"So you killed her?" said Cullen.

Wilson smirked. "Yes."

"And you knew her?" said Cullen.

Wilson laughed. "No. I never met her in my life until I killed her. But the way Kim talked about her, it felt like I knew her."

"Why did you go after Alison?" said Cullen.

"She was an insurance policy," said Wilson. "You were getting too close. I knew I could get at you through her if things started to go the wrong way."

"Were you going to kill her?" said Cullen.

"I think so," said Wilson. "Probably this evening. Disposing of the body would've been a challenge, but I would have found a way."

"One thing I don't get," said Bain, "is how you managed to do all that stuff on Schoolbook."

Wilson looked down his nose at Bain. "That was the easy part. You just run a daemon that tweaks the audit records. The Schoolbook boys do it themselves all the time, usually as practical jokes, or to cover tracks of some illicit activity."

"What about the CCTV?" said Cullen.

Wilson looked at the ceiling and smiled. "CCTV. You cops love it. I suggested Gail get Sian to cover for her. I'd seen their messages. You know, they were on there all day at work, chatting when they should have been working. She suggested the cover story about the train. That way I got you looking in entirely the wrong place for a while."

"That's not what I meant," said Cullen.
 

Wilson frowned. "Well, what did you mean?"

"The CCTV in Tesco," said Cullen. "We thought it showed Thomson buying the mobile phone - how did you know he was at Alba Bank Mortgage Centre, not far from the Tesco?"

Wilson nodded. "Oh, yes.
Very
simple. I called his PA, pretended I worked at the Mortgage Centre, and she told me his itinerary. She didn't even check."

"So your entire plan was to frame Rob Thomson for all of this?" said Bain.

"It almost worked," said Wilson.

"Why not just kill him?" said Bain.

"Where's the suffering in that?" Wilson's eyes were on fire as he spoke. "If I killed him it would've been too quick. If I'd tortured him, it would still be too quick. I lost
everything
. I wanted him to lose everything and have to endure his life without those things."

Cullen sat in the A&E ward, a few hours later. He'd just had another x-ray. Assuming the results were clear he could go home.

McNeill had accompanied him to the hospital. She came over with two cups of coffee from the machine and handed him one. "I got a call from Bain."

"And?"

McNeill bit her lip. "Keith Miller didn't make it."

Cullen looked at the floor and felt a tear in his eye. "Stupid bastard."

McNeill rubbed his shoulder. "He wasn't the brightest."

Cullen looked up at her. "I meant me."

"It's not your fault," said McNeill.

"Feels like it is. I'm responsible for his death. I took him there. I should have stayed with Wilson in the living room."

"Scott, you can't think like that." She blew on her coffee. "You caught the bad guy and rescued a damsel in distress. You saved an innocent man from prison. Who knows how many others Wilson might have killed before he got caught?"

"I got a colleague killed in the line of duty," said Cullen.

McNeill shook her head at him. "I know it's hard but, really, it's not your fault."

"I ordered him to come with me." Cullen rubbed at his forehead. "I was running around like Billy Big Balls, off on my mental hunt for the real killer."

"And you got him."

"I upped the body count by one. Almost by two."

"Keith was just doing his duty, though," said McNeill. "He died being a proper copper for once, you know that. Most of Keith Miller's career, he just pissed about and got away with it. That was the first real piece of police work he'd done."

"I guess." It was all he could think of to say. He tasted the coffee. "I drank this brand when I worked in life insurance, all those years ago. They'd installed a machine upstairs and a few of us would go and get a coffee. I used to get totally wired, but nowadays I drink so much coffee it barely touched the sides."

She smiled and rubbed at his shoulder.

He looked at her, a tear slicking down his cheek. "Keith worked in financial services, too. If he'd stuck at it, he'd still be alive."

"You can't think like that."

"Can't I?"

"What's the story with this Alison girl?" said McNeill.

Cullen evaded her look. "There is no story."

"Come on, there must be. She put on her Schoolbook account she's going out with you."

"That was Wilson's doing," said Cullen.

"She must have got the idea from somewhere."

He looked her in the eye. "I pulled her on Friday night, okay? A one night stand."

"I see."

"She meant less than nothing to me," said Cullen.

They sat looking at each other for a while, Cullen trying to think of things to say that didn't revolve around Alison Carnegie or Keith Miller.

In the end, it was McNeill who broke the silence. "Well, this is some drink."

Cullen frowned. "Eh?"

"We were supposed to go for a drink after work tonight," said McNeill.

"Well, once I've got my x-ray back, we could..."

SCOTT CULLEN WILL RETURN IN
 

"DEVIL IN THE DETAIL"