Mary Lee closed her eyes and remained silent for a long moment. When she opened them Steven saw the anger there. ‘The Julie Summers murder is the last thing on earth he needs to be reminded of,’ she hissed. ‘These bastards destroyed my husband’s distinguished career over that ridiculous Mulvey woman and her idiot son. They completely ignored the fact that Ronnie positively identified the murderer and secured a conviction for them.’
Well, well, thought Steven. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen middle-class charm disappear like snow off a dyke to be replaced by fascist rant but he still found it fascinating. He didn’t see any point in reminding the woman that it had been drink that had destroyed her husband’s ‘distinguished career’ and that it apparently had been on the skids for some time before the Summers case so he simply said, ‘My questions have nothing to do with the Mulveys, Mrs Lee.’
‘ Then what?’ Mary Lee demanded.
‘ I’m trying to find some missing lab reports connected with the case. I thought your husband might still have them in among his personal papers. If by any chance you yourself could lay your hands on them for me there would be no need for me to disturb your husband at all.’
‘ Ronnie didn’t keep anything of his old life,’ said Mary Lee. ‘He put it all behind him when we left Edinburgh… Actually, I remember now, we had a bonfire. Any old papers probably went on top of that.’ The sweet smile returned.
‘ I see,’ said Steven. ‘In that case I really will have to speak to him.’
Mary Lee’s smile vanished again. ‘And I’ve already told you; he’s ill.’
‘ Mrs Lee, I do have the authority to insist,’ said Steven. ‘I’m sure neither of us wants the involvement of the local police in this but that’s exactly what will happen if you continue to obstruct me.’
‘ You people make me sick,’ said Mary Lee, turning on her heel and going back inside the house. As she’d left the door open, Steven assumed that should follow and did.
‘ Wait here,’ said Mary Lee without turning when they’d reached the living room. Steven stood there while she disappeared for a few moments. When she returned she said, ‘Through here. You’ve got five minutes. Any longer and I’m going to call the press about harassment of a desperately sick man.’
Steven found Lee in bed. A slight figure with white hair and round shoulders, he was wearing pyjamas, buttoned up to the neck and was propped up on pillows, watching a small television, which sat on a table at the foot of the bed. It was currently showing a cooking programme involving teams of competing celebrities playing to the camera. Their animated laughter and show business smiles contrasted sharply with Lee’s pinched, angry expression. The yellowness of his complexion spoke volumes to Steven about liver damage but a vague smell of whisky in the air said that it was still a factor in Lee’s life.
‘ What the hell do you want?’ snapped Lee; although the effort involved in being aggressive made him cough. ‘You’ve upset my wife.’
‘ I need to ask you some things about the Julie Summers case.
‘ Julie Summers, Julie Summers,’ intoned Lee. ‘Always Julie bloody Summers. We nailed the bastard who did it. What more do you want? More crap about the blessed Mulveys? That was just so much shit from a gutter press who’d nothing better to do with their time than to destroy a few good careers. Rodents!’
‘ I’m not concerned with the Mulveys,’ said Steven. ‘It’s the forensic evidence in the Summers case I need to talk to you about. I already know that the samples taken at the scene of the crime were lost.’
‘ These things happen,’ said Lee. ‘It was an accident, just one of these things. Someone in the lab put them in the wrong rack. We’re all human.’
Steven was taken aback at Lee’s shifting of blame away from himself and apparent dismissal of such a serious mistake but resisted the urge to point this out. Instead he said, ‘I understand that the samples were analysed before they were lost?’
‘ Exactly, so it was no big deal.’
‘ But to all intents and purposes the evidence was rendered useless because the Procurator Fiscal couldn’t use it in case of a Defence challenge?’ countered Steven.
‘ His decision not mine,’ snapped Lee.
Steven was amazed at the arrogance still residing within this alcohol-ravaged shell of a man. He clearly believed that he had done nothing wrong and that he was just a victim of circumstance. ‘Did the evidence back up the case against David Little?’ he asked.
‘ Of course it did!’ exclaimed Lee, but he broke off eye contact.
‘ I’m particularly concerned with the scrapings taken from under the girl’s fingernails,’ said Steven.
‘ What about them?’
‘ Did they point to David Little?
‘ Yes, of course they did.’
‘ You remember that clearly?’
‘ Yes, dammit.’ Lee still kept his head down.
‘ You got DNA from them?’
‘ Yes, how many times do I have to…’
‘ Who did the DNA fingerprinting?
‘ I did.’
‘ You personally carried out the DNA sequencing on the material obtained from under Julie Summers’ fingernails?’ asked Steven slowly so that there could be no misunderstanding.
‘ Yes,’ said Lee, finally looking up at Steven.
‘ What about the hard evidence of that? Sequence data? Gel Photographs?’
‘ It’ll all be in the lab in Edinburgh somewhere.’
‘ It isn’t.’
‘ Then I suppose they must have thrown it out. You’ll have to talk to them about that.’
‘ I already did,’ said Steven, choosing to stare directly at Lee. ‘No one there ever saw it. They don’t think you left it behind when you retired. I hoped you might still have it somewhere but your wife tells me you had a bit of a bonfire before you left Edinburgh?’
Lee looked at Steven, his sunken dark eyes sizing him up for a few moments as he considered what had been said. His reaction made Steven think that this might perhaps be the first time that Lee had heard of any bonfire. ‘That’s true,’ said Lee softly. ‘My old files may well have been confined to the flames… ashes to ashes and all that. A bonfire of past vanities, the funeral pyre of a career, sacrificed on the altar of some idiot and his loony mother.’
‘ Let’s see if I’ve got this right,’ said Steven. ‘You were responsible for losing the forensic samples and then you followed up by destroying all the lab reports on them?’
Lee’s self-satisfied muse was well and truly fractured. ‘Just what the hell are you getting at?’ he stormed, setting off a round of coughing. It was interspersed with more angry comments when he could catch his breath. ‘What the fuck does it matter if a few old lab reports have gone missing. They were never used… because they were never bloody needed! The evidence against Little was overwhelming!’
Lee now entered a prolonged bout of coughing during which his wife came into the room with a glass of water for him. As he sipped it Mary Lee turned to Steven and said, ‘Get out! Leave us alone! Can’t you see the damage you’re doing?’
‘ I’m sorry,’ said Steven. ‘But I may have to come back.’
Steven stood for a moment outside the cottage, looking at the view and wondering where to go from here. He was aware of the muted sound of Lee’s coughing coming from the bedroom at the back of the house.
‘ Shit,’ he murmured. Lee had told him that he personally had analysed the material taken from under Julie’s nails but Carol Bain had suggested that he was incapable of doing that. One of them was lying and he didn’t think it was Carol Bain.
The rain gave way to watery spring sunshine as he drove back to Edinburgh. He stopped in Perthshire at a woodland park near Dunkeld to stretch his legs. This was a place he remembered visiting with Lisa in the early days of their courtship. It had been summer and the leafy canopy of the tall trees had shaded the winding paths as they walked by the river on a gloriously warm day. Today sunlight filtered through budding branches and sparkled off the fast flowing water of the River Bran as it carried away the rains of the morning.