dixie1970@btconnect.co.uk;
paddy38@hotmail.co.uk; adamski01@sky.com
November 1993. Lake of Menteith. I don’t imagine that any of you have forgotten it. But I bet you were hoping everyone else had. No such luck.
Justice
There was an attachment in the email and when Tony clicked on it, a.jpg opened immediately and his heart missed several beats as he saw it was a scanned copy of the advert that Rachel had placed in the Sunday papers.
Winter managed to find his camera in his hand and focused his attentions on taking a screen grab to ensure they had a note of all the email addresses. Behind him, Danny was swearing and growling under his breath.
Suddenly a noise that came through the wall made both men stop stock-still and they could hear their heart pounding. The initial noise — maybe a floorboard creaking, maybe someone on the move next door — was repeated. Neilson motioned to Winter to stand still. After what seemed like an age, they heard a toilet flush from the next house and they both began to breathe again. Neilson gestured at his watch, indicating that they should hurry and get the hell out of there. Winter shook his head and pointed at the computer screen.
He clicked into the sent folder but it was completely empty, as was the delete one. Paton was either a very organised man, keen to conserve his mailbox limit, or else he was pretty good at covering his tracks. Winter went back into the inbox, wondering how many other emails from the man calling himself Justice had been killed off, and opened the remaining email from Paton’s persecutor.
You must pay for what you have done. There are two ways for that to happen: money or cold justice.
Attached below was Paton’s reply to the original email.
Who is this? What the hell do you want? Leave me alone.
CHAPTER 19
Kyle Irving’s ‘office’ turned out to be a house on the south side, just off Shields Road. The leafy drive and the year-old Saab that sat on it suggested the man did rather well out of his pseudo counselling advice. Narey parked up next to Irving’s car and rang the doorbell.
She thought she saw a curtain twitch in her peripheral vision, somewhere on the first floor, and it took a while before she heard footsteps approach the door. It swung open to reveal a man in his early fifties with sandy brown hair and a pair of silver spectacles low on the bridge of his freckled nose. A heavy cardigan was buttoned tightly over an open-necked shirt and a pair of slippers peeped out beneath faded denims. The man looked at Narey with curiosity.
‘Mr Irving?’
‘Dr Irving. Yes?’
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Rachel Narey of Strathclyde Police. May I come in?’
Irving’s eyes narrowed cautiously and Narey could see his brain working overtime.
‘May I ask what this is in connection with?’ His voice was the gravelly product of many cigarettes.
‘I’d rather explain inside, Dr Irving. It’s a delicate matter.’
The answer didn’t seem to appease Irving much but he pulled the door wide, reluctantly allowing her inside. Narey quickly stepped through the door and into a hallway that smelled vaguely damp underneath the pervasive odour of stale tobacco smoke. The hall was cluttered with books, bags and umbrellas and looked as if it could stand a lick of fresh paint.
Without glancing back, Irving turned right into a room, clearly expecting Narey to follow him. She’d already decided she didn’t like the man and any chances of her going easy on him were disappearing fast. He had led her into a room that seemed to double as a study and a sitting room. Two large bookshelves stood against one wall, the contents apparently split between large textbooks in one and paperback novels in the other. There was a television in one corner and a tired-looking sofa separated it from a dining table that supported a computer and printer. Despite there being radiators on two of the walls, the room was freezing.
‘Please, take a seat,’ Irving invited her, his tone more welcoming than before. A case of prudence being the mother of politeness, Narey assumed. The man had obviously thought better of his brusque approach.
Narey thanked him and eased herself into the lone armchair, feeling a spring groan inhospitably beneath her as she sat down. Irving’s furniture had seen better days. Interesting.
‘Dr Irving, I am here in connection with a client of yours. I believe…’
‘Let me stop you there, Sergeant Narey,’ Irving interrupted. ‘You must realise I am unable to discuss my clients with you. It’s a clearly established matter of patient confidentiality that cannot be breached.’
Narey sighed internally.
‘I realise you won’t discuss the precise nature of your dialogue with your client but that doesn’t preclude you from confirming someone is a client.’
Irving looked at her stonily for a few seconds before giving a curt nod.
‘Okay.’
‘Thank you. The client in question is Laurence Paton.’
There was the merest flicker in Irving’s eyes and a tiny contraction of his temples. Narey got the distinct feeling the man had already made the decision not to register any emotion whatever name was presented to him — or perhaps to the name he was expecting. Irving was deliberating before having to give the simplest of answers.
‘Yes, I was helping Laurence.’
Narey nodded. However, she wanted much more.
‘It would be very helpful if you could tell me about the nature of the help you were providing Mr Paton.’
Irving bristled and a look of undisguised frustration hung heavily on his worn features.
‘Sergeant, I told you…’
‘And while I do understand the convention of client — patient confidentiality,’ she continued, ignoring his protest, ‘I also know that in this particular case there is cause to believe you had a duty to warn with regard to Mr Paton’s state of mind.’
Irving’s mouth abruptly opened and closed again and he looked both furious and troubled.
It was a bluff on her part but ‘duty to warn’ was the one thing Narey knew overrode the psychologist — client confidentiality contract, and there was enough in Paton’s email exchange to make it worth her playing that card.
‘Now really, Sergeant,’ Irving blustered. ‘If you are accusing me of falling below professional standards, then I must protest. I can assure you…’
Narey cut across him again.
‘Dr Irving, I have reason to believe you had a duty to warn that Laurence Paton represented a danger either to himself or to others. In such a circumstance, you must inform a third party or the authorities, am I correct?’
Irving stared back at her, again seemingly desperate to betray no emotion.
‘That is correct but what evidence do you have to suggest Laurence posed such a threat, Sergeant?’
‘Mr Paton is dead, Dr Irving.’
There it was again. The same waver in the man’s eyes, the same twitch at his forehead. Knowledge or shock or something else in disguise? It had been five days since Paton had died and it was quite possible, if their only contact had been by email, that Irving wouldn’t know what had happened to him.
‘That’s… I didn’t know. I didn’t know that.’
The man was flustered and Narey went for the throat.
‘Mr Paton’s death clearly gives substantial weight to our belief that you had reason to think he might harm himself. That is something we are obliged to take very seriously.’
Irving blinked at her.
‘But he… how did he die? And how on earth did you have access to any information that might have made you think that… I don’t understand.’
‘I’m not at liberty to divulge either of those things to you at the moment, Dr Irving,’ she lied.
Irving glared at her, his attempts to keep his emotions hidden from her proving an increasing struggle. Instead he settled for another lengthy pause.