Statement, not a question, but Gilchrist said, ‘We do, sir.’
‘I don’t want the waters muddied by the media getting wind of any breach of protocol in the manner in which you handled this investigation.’
Gilchrist knew the breach was that they had broken into Purvis’s property without a search warrant. The fact that they subsequently stumbled upon the Meating Room and discovered evidence of a string of murders was neither here nor there. It should all have been done by the book, without which Gilchrist strongly suspected that Stan’s murder could come back to hit him big-time.
He was not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.
‘I understand, sir.’
‘I’ve already been in contact with Chief Super Whyte,’ McVicar said, glancing at the clock on the wall. ‘He’ll be along any minute.’
Gilchrist mouthed another Ah. It seemed as if he was being made privy to the other side of McVicar, a man who had not reached ACC by walking around admiring the scenery, but who could make decisions and march into the heart of hell to see them through, if he had to. Rumour had it that he was a shoo-in for Chief Constable next year.
As if to nail that point home, the door rapped, and Whyte entered.
‘Come in, Billy,’ McVicar said, then lowered his head to Gilchrist. ‘Now, I’d like to hear your side of the story, Andy.’
It took Gilchrist the best part of two hours to bring Whyte and McVicar up to speed. McVicar listened with his hands steepled to his lips, not missing a word, not saying a thing. Whyte was more inquisitive, and smart, firing off a series of pertinent questions. But when Gilchrist came to Stan’s cold-blooded murder, both men listened in silence, their faces grim, their moods solemn.
Only when Gilchrist had brought his debriefing to a close did McVicar nod to Whyte and ask, ‘Any other questions?’
‘Just the one, sir.’ Whyte faced Gilchrist. ‘Was WPC Mhairi McBride part of your original covert team?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Just the three of you? DS Janes, DI Davidson and yourself?’
Which were two questions. ‘Yes.’
‘So, how did WPC McBride know where you were?’
Gilchrist had asked Mhairi the same question, only to learn that Stan had phoned her prior to setting off with him and Jessie. When Gilchrist explained that, Whyte asked, ‘But why would Stan call her?’
‘Extra back-up from someone he trusted.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘I think you need to elaborate, Andy.’
‘Mhairi and Stan were in a relationship.’
‘I see.’
‘Of course, she was particularly upset when she found out that Stan was dead.’
‘As we all were,’ McVicar assured him.
Whyte narrowed his eyes. ‘You told her?’
‘I did.’
‘And did you tell her how DI Davidson died?’
Gilchrist thought back to comforting Mhairi in the barn. ‘No, sir.’
Whyte returned his stare with an unsettling steadiness, and Gilchrist had the strangest feeling that he was trying to work out whether to believe him or not. Then Whyte offered a tight smile and sat back.
Gilchrist said, ‘I’m happy to assist in any way I can in the continuing investigation, sir. If Chief Super Whyte and yourself approve, of course.’
McVicar narrowed his eyes. ‘Not sure I do, Andy.’
‘It might send the wrong message to the media if I’m hauled off the case, sir. If I continue to be involved, then we could simply say it’s a reassignment. Particularly as one case appears to be solved – in terms of identifying the culprits.’
McVicar glanced at Whyte, who gave the tiniest of nods. ‘Very well, Andy. The official word is reassignment. But unofficially you’re taking a back seat. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘Right. I’ll make sure Greaves gets the message.’ McVicar rose to his feet to bring the meeting to a close.
Gilchrist was about to leave the room when Whyte said, ‘I’d like to talk to DS Janes, if you could get her to give me a call.’ He held out a business card.
Gilchrist eyed the card. A call to the North Street Office would put Whyte straight through to Jessie, or transfer him to her mobile.
He declined to take the card, and said, ‘I’ll ask her to call.’
CHAPTER 44
Forensics spent the rest of the week working through Cauldwood Cottage and the property across the road, as well as the barn and basement warren that the media invariably termed ‘The Meating Room’. In turn, Magner and Purvis were christened ‘The Butchers’.
A CD of scanned images found in the cottage offered early glimpses of the crazed wildness that drove The Butchers to kill time and time again. As a teenager, Purvis had been a keen outdoorsman, excelling in mountaineering, cross-country trekking and, more ominously, hunting. A photograph of a stag’s head – with a magnificent set of antlers – superimposed on an image of a naked Purvis ejaculating appeared to be the defining moment when his sexual preferences and perverted demands took a much darker path.
Magner featured in that collection of photographs, too, attending swinger parties and caught in full penetrative mode with a series of female partners. Strangely, or so it was noted by more than one forensic psychologist, none of the photos ever showed Magner and Purvis together. To Gilchrist’s thinking, the simple answer was that one had always photographed the other. But with neither Magner nor Purvis alive to corroborate that theory, he might as well have been pissing into the wind.
And Jerry McGovern came clean, once he heard that Purvis was dead. His brother, Malky, had been selling hardcore porn on the black market. Although Jerry could not confirm who had supplied the original material to Malky, the presence of a Ford Focus at Malky’s house from time to time had led him to believe that Purvis was the supplier – the same Ford Focus he saw turning into the McCullochs’ driveway after he had stolen Amy’s jewellery that Thursday.
To McGovern’s thinking, the McCullochs had been slaughtered by Purvis, and it was the frightening prospect of retaliation by Purvis which had scared him into silence, believing Purvis had recognised him as he fled the McCullochs’ after his robbery. Of course, he had failed to notice that Magner was driving the Focus that day, and not Purvis.
As Jimmy swore that he made his exit around midday, Gilchrist determined that Magner must have lain in wait in the house until Amy returned with the girls a few hours later.
Although the boot and interior of the Focus had been scrubbed and vacuumed, a couple of fibres were identified as being from an M &S Egyptian cotton bath towel, identical to the set Amy McCulloch had purchased a fortnight earlier. The assumption was that Amy’s body parts were transferred from her home to the Meating Room in the towel. More damning evidence was a hair recovered from the weave of the boot carpet, which matched Amy’s DNA.
A brazier was found in one corner of the barn, with a connection for a propane gas bottle on its underside. Although the bottom grating had been scrubbed with a metal brush, Forensics managed to confirm that traces of ash were fabric remnants. Scrapes on the floor of the first anteroom, along with soot and scorch marks on the walls and ceiling, confirmed that all traceable evidence – bloodied bath towels, clothes, shoes – had been incinerated there.
A search through the cottage’s domestic bins for evidence of ash from the brazier uncovered nothing more, and it was concluded that Purvis had bagged and removed the ash off site. CCTV teams were instructed to review recordings from Thursday morning through Sunday afternoon for activity related to the Ford Focus, to find out where Purvis might have dumped the bags.
The BMW in the barn was positively identified from the position and angle of the tax disc on the front windscreen. A minute stonechip on the paintwork next to the offside headlight further confirmed it was the vehicle captured on CCTV driving through Anstruther on the night of Janice Meechan’s fatal hit-and-run. Finally, traces of Janice’s blood were recovered from the damaged nearside wing, which removed any lingering doubt about the car’s involvement in her murder.