'Sure,' said Mackie. 'Why not?' He closed the door behind him and sat down, as she picked up the small bundle of folders and took her place behind her desk.
'How's the main investigation going?' she asked, casually.
A pained expression crossed his face. 'Dead in the bloody water again, thanks to a phone call I had from the boss at the weekend.'
'What, from Andy?'
'No. From the Big Boss; he's been overseeing the investigation for the last ten days or so, which is just as well. Clan and I happened upon a strong suspect for both deaths, Gaynor Weston's son, no less. We thought we had him until he came out with an alibi for number two, a story which Big Bob's call on Saturday evening confirmed.
'While Anthony Murray was breathing his last, Raymond Weston was under the duvet with the Head ofCID's fiancee.'
Rose looked at him, momentarily stunned. 'Alex? He was with Alex Skinner?'
Mackie nodded. 'She confirmed it when she got back from holiday.
And that, Mags, is now one of the deepest darkest secrets of this department. Apart from Bob, Alex and now, I guess, Andy, only Clan, Stevie Steele, you and I know about this, and that's the way it will stay. The report will be going into the DCC's safe and it will stay there.'
'Weston knows,' murmured Maggie. 'Ray Weston knows. What if he brags about it?'
'After the chat Clan and Stevie had with him, he won't be breathing a word, believe me. All that aside, though, it looks as if the kid's in the clear — apart from having made himself just about the worst enemy you could imagine — and we've got a stalled investigation: unless you can kick-start it, that is.'
'I wish I could help you, Brian,' she said. 'But I don't think so. I've been through every one of these over the last few weeks. There's not a single case in here where self-suffocation was the cause of death. I began by sorting them into categories as I was going through, by the method used in each case. I tell you, people come up with some awful ways to top themselves.
'That didn't take me any further really, other than to confirm that there wasn't a single case of overdose linked with asphyxia among the files I was checking. So I went through them all again, looking at the background circumstances of each victim. Most of them were related to depression or hopelessness, arising from a range of causes: mental illness, debt, marriage break-up were the most common. However I did find some where serious or terminal illness had been the reason for the suicide, and I separated them out.' She lifted up the pile of folders. Mackie guessed that there were around thirty of them.
'Once I had done that,' Rose continued. 'I looked at the methods used. Some hanged themselves, one woman jumped off Salisbury Crags; predominantly though, the victims overdosed. They used a variety of drugs, in pill or liquid form, and the overwhelming majority combined these with large quantities of alcohol. With one single exception, in fact, the fatal substances were taken by mouth.'
She picked up the file which lay on top of the heap on her desk.
'Out of all of these reports, this is the only one where the person injected herself. I don't think it's a winner, though. The victim was a woman from Bathgate named Nicola Marston. She had inoperable cancer of the liver, with secondaries in most of her other major organs.
In addition to that, she was an insulin-dependent diabetic. She killed herself by injecting four times the normal dose.'
'Let's have a look,' said Mackie, taking the folder from his deputy.
He laid it on the desk and leaned over it, shoulders hunched, reading carefully. It took him over five minutes to read statements which were stacked together in the thick report, and finally, the investigating officer's summary report to the Procurator Fiscal. When he had finished, he scanned through the documents once more.
'I guess you're right, Mags,' he grunted as he closed the file. 'The only common factor linking the three cases is that all the victims are single people, living alone and suffering from terminal illness. The consultant in this case, Derek Simmers, is the same man who looked after Anthony Murray, but that isn't relevant since all cancer patients in our area are referred to the same small group of consultants.' He picked up the papers as he stood.
'I'm going up to Fettes this morning for the divisional CID heads' meeting. The DCC's taking it himself today, so I'll let him see it. I don't think it'll make his morning though.'
83
'Looks like that's it then, gentlemen,' sighed Skinner. He was as frustrated as the two superintendents. 'I agree with Maggie's view that the Bathgate case doesn't fit with the other two, so there's no sense in upsetting the family involved by raking the whole thing up again.'
'It'd be difficult anyway, sir,' said Mackie. 'There's a note on the file saying that the body had been released for cremation.'
'Doesn't make any difference.' The DCC held up the folder for a moment. 'There's nothing here which would have given us grounds to ask for an exhumation order. No, I'm afraid that for all your sterling efforts, we're back to square one. All the bloody aggravation has been for nothing.'
He glanced across the desk, and to his left at Neil Mcllhenney.
'Since you two know the facts of the case, and since you have to work with him, I'll tell you this. Neil, you haven't been involved in this inquiry — in fact you know bugger all about it — but you're my righthand man so you should hear this too.
'Andy Martin and my daughter have decided to end their engagement.
I would tread carefully around the Head of CID for a bit; he's feeling very sore about it. Fortunately he's got the conference preparations to keep him distracted.'
'He's not feeling sore at us, is he, sir?' asked Pringle, a touch anxiously.
'Of course not. Nor is there any reason why he should. You guys did a very professional job.'
'We could have buried it, boss,' said Mackie. 'When the Weston lad gave us Alex's name in his alibi… I mean, the evidence against them was all pretty tenuous by that time… we could simply have sent him and the girl home and forgotten all about it.'
'No you couldn't.' Skinner jabbed the folder with a finger, emphasising his words. 'It was there; it had to be followed through and confirmed. If the boy had been lying he'd have been firmly in the frame. He wasn't though, so it looks like we've run into the buffers agam. With the two kids eliminated as suspects, aside from the coincidence of the consultant Simmers having treated both Murray and the Bathgate woman, as far as I can see we're stuffed.'
Mackie nodded. 'Short of finding this mystery man Deacey, I'd say we are boss. And even if he walked off the street right now and gave himself up-'
'Wait a minute!'The urgency ofMcIlhenney's interruption cut him off in mid-sentence. 'Who did you say?'
The other three men looked at him, Mackie's surprise tinged with annoyance at the outburst. 'Gaynor Weston had a male friend that we haven't been able to trace,' the superintendent said. 'He was mentioned in her computer diary, but no one knows who he is; not her son, not anyone. We had one lead, but that went badly wrong on us. When Maggie got cut, it was him they were after.'
The sergeant looked at him. 'But that guy's name was Joseph; or so Mario told me.'
'That was his real name. He'd been living under an alias for a while. He was our only possibility. So now we're left with this odd name, Deacey, and we haven't a clue who it fits. But anyway, as I was saying, even if we did find him, he doesn't link into the Murray investigation.'
Mcllhenney leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a while, in silence, as if he was thinking something over, very carefully.
Eventually, he pulled himself forward and looked at Skinner. 'I'm afraid he does, sir, and to the Bathgate case. But no way is he the man you're after.