‘Politics are none of my business,’ Stallings replied tactfully.
‘Nor mine, constitutionally,’ the judge murmured. ‘But if I see a bad law being proposed, I’m going to try and stop it.’
The detective pressed on: ‘Have you ever seen anyone on the path that you knew or recognised?’
‘No.’ The reply was immediate and unequivocal. ‘I take that to mean that there’s no identification on the body.’
‘Correct.’
‘Do you know how she was killed?’
‘What makes you think she was, sir?’
Lord Archibald looked at her almost benevolently. ‘My dear inspector,’ he said, ‘I was head of this country’s criminal prosecution service for three and a half years. Before that I was in practice at the Bar for more than twenty years. I know a crime scene when I see one. People are not cats; they don’t crawl away to die somewhere they’re not going to be found. When they decide to end it all, they do it in bed or their favourite chair with a bottle of whisky and a handful of pills, or in the bath with a razor, or they go into the garage with the engine running. In my experience, suicides want their body to be found. . unless they chuck themselves in the sea, and that isn’t the case here. No, that poor woman was killed, and somebody put her there.’
Stallings’s silence signalled her agreement.
‘Good luck with your inquiry,’ Lord Archibald exclaimed. ‘But do one thing for me, if you can. When you apprehend the killer, persuade him, if you can, that a guilty plea would be in his interests, rather than going to trial. The last thing any judge wants is to find himself in the witness box; counsel on both sides would have an absolute field day.’
Stallings smiled. ‘I’ll do my utmost, my lord.’
‘Good. Now can you answer the question I’m going to be asked by everyone I meet in this place? When can we have our golf course back?’
‘That’s one I’ll need to pass up the line.’
‘Oh, God!’ Lord Archibald sighed, as she turned to leave. ‘That means McGuire and McIlhenney, and neither of them are golfers!’
Six
‘I’m going to need a list of members,’ Neil McIlhenney told the golf club manager, a prickly little man who had introduced himself as Major Leo Fullbright as he entered the mobile police station that had been set up in the car park. ‘We’ll have to interview everyone to establish whether the woman was seen just before her death.’
‘Am I obliged to provide that?’
‘Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?’
‘Data Protection Act.’
‘And general get-out excuse,’ McIlhenney growled. ‘Technically, Major, this isn’t a criminal investigation, not yet. It’s an inquiry into a suspicious death. However, I could argue in court that the general administration of justice exemption applies here. Do you want me to get a warrant from the court?’
‘For my own protection,’ the man smirked, ‘as well as for the protection of the data.’
‘This isn’t funny, but if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.
Of course, I can’t proceed until I have it,’ he paused as the door opened and Becky Stallings stepped into the van, ‘and until I can proceed, this course stays closed.’
He looked over at the inspector. ‘Did you see Lord Archibald?’
‘Yes, I’ve just left him.’
‘He’s still here?’
‘I think so. He hadn’t finished his coffee.’
‘In that case, I want you to get back in there and ask him if he’ll put on his wig, metaphorically, and hear a formal application for authority to access the membership records of this club for the purpose of interviewing potential witnesses. You can tell him that the club manager’s worried about his personal position.’
‘I’m on my way.’ She headed for the door.
‘You can tell him also that once he gives me the authority I need, and once the forensic people are finished, I’ll cordon off the area around the scene and the course can be reopened. If his lordship has any doubt about being able to hear our application, that should sway him.’ He turned back to the club manager. ‘All that should take about ten minutes, tops. I want those records here as soon as I have the judge’s written order in my hand.’
‘Very good.’ Fullbright followed Stallings out of the office.
‘Well, Jack,’ said McIlhenney to McGurk as they left, ‘how do you see our priorities?’
‘Number one, identify the victim; no question about it.’
‘Absolutely; we have to put a name to her soonest, so get on to Missing Persons, here and nationally. You were at the scene for longer than I was: can you set search parameters?’
‘Dark hair, approximately five feet four, slim build; the doc estimated her age as mid-twenties.’
‘We can’t rely on that, given the state she was in. Ask for details of all women reported missing in the last month, aged between twenty and thirty-five.’
‘The last month? She’s been dead for a fortnight at most.’
‘So maybe she was abducted, and reported missing before she died. Let’s overlook nothing, Jack. If we don’t find her listed we’re in trouble. We’re not going to have a photograph to publish, not without doing a facial reconstruction from her skull.’
‘Can’t we use dental records?’
‘Not until we’ve got a name, or a list of names to match against them. We’ll try that route, sure, and the national DNA database, but I don’t fancy our chances.’
‘Okay, boss. First off, I’ll get on to Missing Persons.’
‘Good. When you’ve done that, there’s another area I want to explore. I hope to Christ I’m wrong, but if the pathologist does say, “murder,” and we are looking at a copycat, what’s the betting he’s continuing to prey on artists?’
Seven
‘I was expecting to see Gregor Broughton,’ said Detective Superintendent McIlhenney, surprise written on his face as he stepped into the room.
‘I’m sorry,’ replied the dark-suited, bespectacled woman who sat behind the desk. ‘He’s away. I’m his assistant.’ As she stood and extended a hand, he realised that they were almost eye to eye. ‘Joanna Lock. You’re the CID gaffer in the city, aren’t you?’
He nodded, sighing inwardly; he had made the journey to the procurator fiscal’s office in Chambers Street expecting to see Broughton himself, and he never appreciated wasted time, especially not in the early hours of an investigation. ‘How far away is he?’ he asked. ‘If he’s in court, I’ll wait for him.’
‘No, he’s not. He’s part of a liaison visit to our opposite numbers in the Catalan government; I’m filling in for him. Why did you want to see him?’
McIlhenney eased himself into a chair. ‘I wanted to share something with him.’
‘That’s intriguing. What could that be?’
‘The ton and a half of grief that I’ve just had dropped into my life; I didn’t see why I should carry it all.’
The assistant fiscal frowned. ‘Let me take some of the load. I was brought up in Drumchapel; I’m tougher than I look.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘I moved through from Glasgow in April.’
‘Are you familiar with the Zrinka Boras-Harry Paul murder inquiry?’
‘Of course; and Amy Noone. . and Stacey Gavin too. I wasn’t here when that one happened, but I read it up. All four homicides officially attributed to the late Daniel Ballester, dead by his own hand in Wooler, Northumbria. I helped to draft the final report with Gregor.’
‘What?’ the detective exclaimed. ‘Your submission said that Ballester killed himself?’
‘Calm down, it didn’t; that’s just what I’m saying to you. It was absolutely factual; it said that the circumstances of his death were the subject of a coroner’s inquest in England. That’s not relevant anyway: all we cared about was that he was found with overwhelming evidence of his guilt. Are the cops in Northumbria now telling us that he wasn’t a suicide?’