Cafferty manoeuvred his wheelchair towards the wall unit. Rebus had taken the envelope, of course he had. Satisfied, he moved to the coffee table, reaching forward to sift through the mail. There was an A4-sized envelope with familiar lettering in the top left corner: MGC Lettings. The cheapskate bastards were still using his personalised stationery.
‘Hell is this?’ he muttered, opening the flap. There was a single sheet of paper inside, a printout of a grainy photograph. The profile of a man, taken through the doorway of a living room. Cafferty checked. Nothing on the back of the photo and nothing else in the envelope.
Andrew was standing behind him. ‘Who’s that?’ he enquired.
‘Not the faintest fucking idea,’ Cafferty said. And he meant it. He didn’t recognise the man at all.
The living room, though... Well, that was another matter entirely.
2
Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke was in the CID office at Gayfield Square police station. She had been staring at her computer for almost five minutes, a mug of tea grown tepid beside her.
‘I can make you another,’ Detective Constable Christine Esson suggested. Clarke blinked herself back into the room and shook her head, then squeezed her eyes shut and arched her spine until she could feel the vertebrae click back into place.
‘I’m going to guess Francis Haggard,’ Esson went on, holding her own mug up to her face. Her dark hair was cut pageboy style and had never changed in the years they’d worked together. Her desk faced Clarke’s, making it difficult to hide, though Clarke suspected her colleague could read even the back of a head.
‘Who else?’ Clarke admitted.
Haggard was a uniformed officer based at Tynecastle police station who stood accused of domestic abuse, ‘abuse’ being the current terminology. Previously it had been called domestic violence, and before that, domestic assault. None of the three, to Clarke’s mind, came anywhere near defining the severity of the crime. She had encountered victims turned to husks; self-belief, trust and confidence scooped out. Some had suffered all their married lives — often physically, always psychologically. The abusers ranged across class and age, but this was the first time she’d had to deal with one of her own.
Haggard had fifteen years of service behind him. He’d been married for the past six, and according to his partner, the angry outbursts and gaslighting had started within the first eighteen months of marriage. Clarke and Esson had interviewed Haggard that very afternoon, not for the first time. He’d sat across the table from them, shoulders back, legs splayed, one hand occasionally cupping his groin. His solicitor, who’d had to slide his own chair further away to avoid their knees touching, had just about managed to hide his obvious disdain.
Haggard had complained about the presence in the room of not just one but two female detectives, turning towards the lawyer. ‘You sure you’re okay with this, Mikey? Couple of blokes might see things differently.’
The solicitor, Michael Leckie (Clarke doubted anyone else in his life ever referred to him as Mikey), had shifted in his chair, saying nothing.
‘I see how it is,’ Haggard had said, nodding to himself. ‘Pitchforks are out and the pyre’s nicely smouldering.’ Then, turning his head sharply towards Leckie, ‘Go on then, tell them what I told you to.’
At which Michael Leckie had cleared his throat and transferred his attention from the file of papers in front of him to the two detectives seated opposite.
‘I suppose,’ he said, spacing his words as if reciting a language he’d only recently learned, ‘you will have heard of a condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder?’
‘PTSD,’ Esson had replied.
‘PTS fucking D,’ Francis Haggard had echoed.
‘PTSD,’ Esson said now, shaking her head in disbelief. Somehow, without Clarke having noticed, the tepid tea had been switched for a fresh mug. She lifted it and took a slurp. Esson herself only ever seemed to drink hot water, at least while on duty. ‘It’ll never fly, will it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Clarke confessed. All Haggard had stated at the interview was that the job he’d been doing for the past fifteen years had left with him the condition.
‘My client is unwilling to go into details at this time,’ Leckie had commented, sounding as though he might not himself know too many of the particulars. Haggard had already been charged and was out on bail, with the stipulation that he not go within a couple of postcodes of his wife or their shared address. He’d been suspended from police duties, naturally, and interviewed several times as part of the investigation. Esson had been assigned to the case from the get-go, but Clarke had only come aboard when DC Ronnie Ogilvie, Esson’s usual CID partner, had caught COVID, leaving him isolating at home.
‘PTSD,’ Esson repeated.
‘I’ve been looking it up online,’ Clarke said. ‘It’s for battlefields and terror attacks. Surviving a tsunami or childhood trauma.’
‘He’s going to say a priest fiddled with him after choir practice, and thirty years later he’s battering his partner?’ Esson sounded sceptical. ‘Funny he’s only just decided that’s his mitigation. Pound to a penny some men’s group online will have suggested it. We should check if it’s been tried in the past. And we need to let a psychologist have a go at him.’
‘There’s a lot we need to do, Christine. Has he been stationed anywhere other than Tynecastle?’
‘A few relief shifts down the years. But otherwise, no.’
‘So this PTSD stems from working at Tynie.’
‘The dreaded Tynie. Suddenly it begins to look more plausible.’
Every cop in Edinburgh knew at least one story from Tynecastle. Officers there had a reputation for overstepping the mark and getting away with it. Countless prisoners had tripped on their way to or from its holding cells, or fallen down stairs, or somehow lost their balance and ended up planting their face into a wall. CCTV wouldn’t have been functioning at the time. Accusations of misconduct would be withdrawn or come to nothing. There were whispers, too, of larger misdeeds — manufactured evidence, cover-ups and bribes.
‘Her name’s Cheryl,’ Esson suddenly said.
‘What?’
‘Cheryl Haggard. The victim. We shouldn’t lose sight of her in all this.’
‘That’s a good point. If he’s been suffering from PTSD, wouldn’t she be the first to know? He’d have said something, wouldn’t he? Or she’d have sensed him changing.’
‘You’ve not spoken to her yet, have you?’
Clarke shook her head. ‘I know you and Ronnie did.’ She dug into the files on her desk, finding one of the transcripts. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘She’s got her sister looking after her.’
‘Well, that’s something. Who’s the liaison officer?’
‘Gina Hendry. She says she knows you.’
Clarke nodded. ‘We go back a bit. I’ll talk to her.’
‘Tomorrow maybe, eh, boss?’ Esson was holding up her phone, screen towards Clarke so she could see the time display.
‘Already?’ Clarke turned towards the window. Outside it had grown dark.
‘Been a long day, and I think it’s my turn to get them in.’
‘You make a compelling case, Detective Constable Esson.’ Clarke reached down to the floor for her shoulder bag.
Siobhan Clarke lived in a tenement flat just off Broughton Street, not much more than a five-minute walk from Gayfield Square. Esson had taken her to a bar on Leith Walk, where they’d shared some nachos to go with their drinks. Leith Walk itself was the usual mess, courtesy of the roadworks for the new tram line. Some sections of pavement were all but inaccessible, and the bar owner had hung a banner above the door to let potential customers know that Yes We ARE Open — And Ready To Serve You! Clarke wasn’t sure how far a single plate of nachos and two rounds of gin and tonics would boost his coffers. As they’d left, he’d said he hoped to see them again soon.