The Red Road (31 page)

Morrow sat back and took a deep breath as if she was telling a story. McCarthy tipped his head, listening. Rose glared at the table.

‘The night Diana died was a strange night, for everybody. But here’s a really weird thing: within half a mile of each other there are two murders and two children charged with them. Everybody involved – the people charged, the people killed – are all associated with Turnberry and Cleveden. Both of them were killed with knives. Both of them with pretty much the same
type
of knife. One knife is found,’ she touched Rose’s arm, ‘the one you used – the other one is never found. But – and here’s the really weird thing for me – no one ever puts the two murders together.’

Rose looked at her dumbly. ‘Is this about Julius?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did he leave letters or something?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Why are you here?’ Rose was pleading with her and Morrow didn’t understand why.

‘Michael Brown got life. He’s just been done for something else. He’ll spend the rest of his life in prison. I need to know if it’s right.’

Rose scratched her chin. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Michael grew up in prison. He got out three years ago and he’s back in now. What do you think he’s like?’

Rose turned suddenly, to look out of the door. She was worrying about the kids.

‘Rose, did they fingerprint you when you were arrested?’

‘Course.’

‘Your prints aren’t on file.’

She frowned at that. ‘They should be. They took them.’

‘Who took them?’

‘I don’t know, but they took them. I had ink on my fingers for days after, it wouldn’t come off ...’ She rubbed at her fingertips.

‘They’re not on file. I looked at the set of prints on your record. They’re Michael Brown’s prints. They match his prints
now
. The old prints, the ones he was charged with his brother’s murder with, those aren’t his.’

Rose curled her fingers into her palms and tried a smile. ‘How could you tell they’re not mine?’

‘Because I ran them through the database.’

Rose looked her straight in the eye. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘I’m a police officer.’

‘It’s history,’ Rose whispered. ‘What difference does it make?’

A soft buzzing in the hallway startled Rose. She stood up, excusing herself, walking dreamlike to the door.

She stopped there and turned back, opened her mouth to say something but didn’t. She went out to the hall. Morrow was on her feet and signalled to McCarthy not to let Rose out of his sight.

Together they went out to the hall and watched Rose answer the buzzer, check the video screen carefully and open the door.

Two tall men filled the doorway. Morrow saw for the first time what death looked like from the inside of a house. The concerned but calm faces, the request to speak to the family. Rose fell back on her heels and turned, jogging up the stairs with her head tucked into her chest. The cops at the door saw Morrow and McCarthy and recognised them.

‘What are you doing here?’ one of them said, his frown a presage of bad news.

Morrow was explaining that they were just doing a bit of follow up on an old case when Francine McMillan came to the head of the stairs.

She was beautiful. Slender and willowy with blond hair that verged on silver, pale skin and thin limbed. She was wearing grey silk pyjamas and Rose was holding her arm to help her down the stairs. Francine held the banister with the other hand.

Though moving was a struggle for her, she looked up at the assembled cops and gave a little smile and said hello.

She arrived at the foot and looked a little puzzled. ‘Who’s ...?’

‘Oh,’ said the visitors, ‘that’s us. Would you like to sit down?’

Francine began the shuffle to the kitchen. ‘Yes, I think I’d better.’

At the doorway she faltered, tried to move on but couldn’t. Rose held her elbow and Francine looked at her and they smiled at each other.

Rose looked back to the hall. ‘Francine has—’

‘Parkinson’s,’ said Francine.

Rose smiled at her. ‘Doorways—’

‘I stall,’ said Francine, managing to lift her right knee high and drop it into the kitchen.

Morrow and McCarthy watched them disappear into the back of the house. They saw Rose sitting Francine carefully down at the table, her eyes never leaving her face, and take a seat next to her. The shadow of the police officers blocked the exit from the kitchen as they took their places on the other side of the table.

They couldn’t hear more than a low rumble of a voice delivering the news, an irreversible act of destruction. Francine keeled slowly over the table, her vertebrae a perfect mountain range through the silk. Rose’s hand came slowly towards her, landed with gentle mercy on her back and the stripped frame of Francine swayed and collapsed into Rose’s arms.

‘Maybe we should go,’ said McCarthy.

Morrow didn’t want to but there was nothing they could do. If they had more evidence they would be able to justify arresting Rose Wilson and taking her fingerprints but right now they had nothing. The family had just lost a father. It would look like harassment if they stayed.

‘Get the coats,’ said Morrow.

They were pulling them on, finding their scarves, when Morrow realised that her bag was in the kitchen. Steeling herself, she went back to get it.

Francine was still sobbing into Rose as Morrow picked up her bag, keeping low, as if that would make anything better for anyone. She was on her way out when Rose suddenly pushed Francine off and stood up.

‘Dawood killed Robert.’ Rose was talking to Morrow, not the cops at the table. ‘It was Dawood.’

Francine was pulling Rose by the arm, trying to make her sit down, crying and frightened.

‘Dawood McMann?’ said Morrow.

‘Yes,’ said Rose. ‘He had Robert killed because he submitted a report to SOCA.’

‘
SOCA?
’ said Morrow, wondering how she knew the acronym. ‘SOCA report? How do you know that?’

Rose looked down into Francine’s panicked face. ‘It’s on Robert’s laptop. I’ve got it upstairs. It’ll be all right, Francine.’ Rose gently peeled her arms free from her friend. ‘It’s the only way to get them. They killed Robert. Our Robert.’

Francine let her go.

Rose hurried for the stairs and Morrow went after her, keeping after her, trying not to look as if she was chasing.

A SOCA report would confirm where the money was coming from, where it was going to, who the agent was. With a SOCA report they’d be able to find the next level up from Michael Brown and trace the weapons. She followed Rose to the top of the stairs and down a corridor to the right, through a double set of doors into Francine’s dark bedroom. Rose slid the double doors on a wardrobe back, dragged an ottoman that stood at the end of the bed over and stood on it, tiptoe-reaching into a high shelf in the wardrobe.

She pulled out a laptop that looked paper thin. She looked at it. Then she turned and handed it down to Morrow.

‘In there,’ she said. ‘That’s his.’

Morrow took it, hugging it to her.

Rose stepped down with one foot and then, as if she was spent, dropped to sit on the stool. All the fight had gone from her. She sat still, hands limp by her sides, staring at the carpet.

Morrow sat on the bed. They stayed there for a long time. Eventually, Morrow spoke.

‘Rose, I need to fingerprint you.’

‘I know. For Aziz. I know.’

‘And Atholl.’

Rose nodded. ‘And Atholl.’

‘What happened with Aziz?’

‘He punched Julius in the chest. Julius called me, that’s how the ambulance found him. His lungs collapsed.’ She began to sob. ‘He was on the floor, his eyes were—’ She covered her face and fought for breath. ‘They tried. But it didn’t ... Next day I called Aziz, said meet me at his office. He ran when he saw me. I can’t tell you what was in my mind.’

‘You had a knife. It’s pretty obvious what was in your mind.’

She shifted her legs. ‘I suppose. He ran up the stairs, he thought it was too scary, that I wouldn’t follow him. He didn’t know me ...’

‘You were sick afterwards?’

‘I was!’ She laughed, surprised and still crying. ‘I was, I was sick! Ridiculous! As if, you know, as if I’d never ... before. Stupid.’

Morrow watched her crying and laughing at herself. ‘You ask a lot of yourself.’

‘It’s stupid, being sick for God’s sake, I’ve been in worse ...’

Morrow nodded. ‘We found the photo at Atholl’s. The face was scratched out.’

Rose flashed her a warning.

‘You knew Sammy McCaig, didn’t you? That night wasn’t the first time you’d met him.’

Rose wouldn’t look at her.

‘I’m saying that because if you tell them that in court they’ll take it into consideration.’

When Rose spoke her voice was very small. ‘No. I’m not telling ’em.’

‘Don’t you trust them?’

Rose smiled and looked up through her eyebrows. ‘I
know
them. I know them
all
. And they know me.’

‘That’s not all you are,’ said Morrow.

‘What they took.’ She froze then, like Francine in the doorway. She looked up. ‘Why do you care about Michael Brown? Is he someone you know?’

‘No.’

‘Why then?’

‘It was wrong,’ she said. It was a stupid thing to say. It was wrong to break up this family, to take Rose from Francine, to have Michael Brown released into a world he couldn’t handle. It was wrong to hold a child of fourteen to account for the murder of a man who had pimped her out. It was all wrong. Morrow had done it all so that she could sleep at night, so that she could feel like a better person than Riddell and Danny. She longed for some high ground to scramble towards but there wasn’t any.

Rose stretched out a leg. ‘Bet he’s a nutcase now, is he?’

‘Michael’s done all right with a bad hand,’ lied Morrow. ‘You’ve done all right. Francine loves you, she trusts you.’

Rose slumped over her knees, tears dripping onto the carpet – she looked ancient and broken. ‘But it was Julius I loved the best. I loved him. And he didn’t love me.’

Morrow came down the stairs with Rose and the laptop and found the cops standing there, waiting. Francine was in the games room and had turned the television off to talk to the children. Everyone wanted to get out right now.

‘Ma’am,’ said McCarthy, ‘quick word. They got a film of two suspects on the ferry to and from Mull.’

‘Anyone we know?’

‘One unknown and Pokey Mulligan.’

31

Morrow was not allowed to arrest him. It could fatally compromise the case when it came to court if the defence called her and asked if he was her brother. She wasn’t even allowed to attend his arrest. The honour was handed to Wainwright, even though it was her case, her evidence and she had put the whole thing together. But the McMillan case overlapped and it was decided higher up that Wainwright’s division was a good fit.

‘Are you annoyed?’ asked Wainwright as they left the briefing in Peel Street.

‘Aye, I’m annoyed. I did all the work.’ But she was only half annoyed. The rest of the emotion fizzing up through her knees, making her stomach flutter, was reckless thrill.

‘This is like a diabetic giving me a cake,’ grinned Wainwright. ‘You can’t even have any.’

He laughed loudly, bending back, aiming it over her head and Morrow laughed along, thinking about the demolition of the flats in the Gorbals and all her imagined complaints against Danny. He had never harmed her, she had to admit that to herself, and here she was, relishing the explosion.

The viewing room in Stewart Street was as busy as a pub during an Old Firm match. DCs and DSs crowded in, wasting their piece breaks and after shifts for a glimpse of Danny’s interview. Morrow stayed at the back so that she couldn’t be watched. Every so often someone would take a chance and turn to glance at her, only to be met by her eye, making them flinch and turn back.

Danny did himself proud. He didn’t fight or shout as Michael Brown had. He didn’t sneer. He didn’t speak more than to acknowledge his name, date of birth and home address. He fell in a straight column to the ground, without smoke or flying debris. There was no glass shower, no blood on the table.

Cheated, the audience began to disperse.

His lawyer answered for him, mostly. He did know Mulligan but Mulligan did not work for him. Danny did not arrange the murder of Robert McMillan and Simon Hume-Laing. He knew nothing about it.

Wainwright presented him with some bits of evidence: the Stepper photos, which proved he’d met Pokey but nothing more; a receipt for a cash payment of petrol bought at the ferry terminal for Mull, found in Danny’s car – he had driven them up there but, again, that proved nothing. Morrow knew they were well served with CCTV cameras at ferry terminals and she doubted Danny knew where the cameras were.

Then Wainwright told them that Mulligan was prepared to give evidence in court saying that Danny had paid him to kill Robert. Mulligan had the money and the money could be traced back to Danny through his taxi business. The accountant’s fingerprints were on it.

Danny snorted and shifted in his chair. The lawyer glanced sideways at him, anxious, knowing they were off the script now.

‘Why would I pay him to kill guys on Mull?’ Danny was smirking but she could tell he was nervous.

‘Money,’ said Wainwright.

His laugh was genuine this time, if bitter. ‘I’ve got money.’

‘You’ve got 3.2 million,’ said Wainwright.

Danny didn’t flinch but his lawyer sat forward. ‘Where are you getting that number from?’

Wainwright kept his eyes on Danny. ‘Taxi business turnover last year. Accounts file at Companies House. You’re the licence owner.’

‘No,’ said Danny, ‘I’m not.’

The lawyer leaned forward, trying to sit between them. ‘And it doesn’t answer the question: if he had that much money why would he take money to commission the murder of someone?’

‘As a favour to a powerful friend ... There’s only so many big cars a man can buy. Past a certain point everyone has to start making connections abroad, don’t they, Danny? But you’ve got no connections.’