‘She what!’ I exclaimed, startling McFaul.
‘She said that she had been at a party that got out of hand.’
‘Yet she allowed herself to be brought in?’
‘Yes, but she was pretty much hysterical when she was found.’
‘And she submitted to examination?’
‘Yes again, but she said later that she’d been under the influence or she wouldn’t have. Then she demanded that they called her a taxi. She wouldn’t take a lift home in a police car, even though it was offered.’
‘Did the unit take blood samples?’ I asked.
‘With the rest, yes, of course. Tests showed neither drugs nor alcohol in her bloodstream.’
‘Did she give a name?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Alison rolled her eyes. ‘Martina shouldn’t have told me, but she did, in confidence. She called herself Mary Whitehouse.’
‘Tell me you’re ki…’ I broke off. ‘No, you’re not, are you?’ My mind was working again, and heading in a direction that I did not like at all. ‘In a case like this, complaint declined, wouldn’t all the evidence be disposed of?’
‘Normally yes, but Martina didn’t believe her party story, not for a second. She hoped she would change her mind and come back, so she carried on with the lab work, and got those results. The blood types were enough for me; three gentlemen songsters out on a spree on the evening before she was found, and thirty-three to one odds on that one of the sperm donors was McCann. I got an arrest warrant for Telfer; a couple of Grampian officers flew out to the platform this afternoon to lift him and bring him back onshore. He’ll be driven down to us tomorrow morning.’
Her initiative made me smile. ‘Do we actually have grounds for arrest?’
‘Suspicion of rape? How’s that?’
‘But there’s no complaint,’ I pointed out.
‘There is now, I made one, on Mrs Whitehouse’s behalf. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if we believe that a crime’s been committed, don’t we have a duty to investigate?’
‘You could argue that,’ I conceded.
She beamed. ‘Good, for I told the sheriff you’d asked me to apply for the warrant.’
I drew her a long look. But what could I say? ‘You know what this does, don’t you?’ I murmured. McFaul was watching us, with the flickering eyelids of someone pretending to be sober and alert.
‘I think so,’ Alison replied. ‘But I want you to be the one to say it.’
‘Mary Whitehouse equals Mia Watson: same initials. That magazine article. Mia was the victim.’
‘A fair assumption, but that’s still all it is, a guess.’
‘Maybe, but…’ I stood. ‘Just a minute.’ I left the room and went upstairs. Alex was still awake, reading Thomas Wolfe… the original, not the Bonfire of the Vanities man. ‘Think back three weeks,’ I said. ‘Was Mia on air every day?’
She frowned at me. ‘No,’ she answered instantly. ‘She was off air on Thursday and Friday. Period problems.’
‘What?’ I gasped.
‘That was what she said, more or less, when she came back next Monday; she said that she’d had an awkward visit from a persistent friend. Girl talk, Pops. Why are you asking?’
‘Never mind.’
Everything fitted, and there was one additional piece of evidence; only I knew about it, and I’d be keeping it to myself. With my new knowledge, Mia’s frightened and fierce reaction when I wakened from my nightmare made perfect sense to me if she’d been a rape victim a couple of weeks before. And yet, if she had…
I went back downstairs, and repeated the story to Alison, and the bewildered McFaul, who was a few glasses beyond understanding what we were talking about. ‘Not such a big jump now,’ I said.
‘How do you want me to play it?’ she asked, suddenly tentative.
I shrugged. ‘In whatever way you think best.’
‘What would you do?’ she persisted.
‘If it was me, I’d show Martina Chivers her photo, for confirmation, then I’d pull her in.’
‘For what reason, though?’
‘Jesus, how many do you need? Subject to Chivers’s confirmation we know she was a victim of a sexual attack by three men. We believe that one of them was Albie McCann, and we’re sure we know who his associates were. Further testing and comparison of the samples will prove it for sure. Two of them are dead, Ali, and the other one’s been out of reach since the attack. On the basis of that alone, you could bring her in for questioning. But if you go back to Wyllie and Redpath, ask them whether the person they saw could have been a woman, and if either one says that it’s possible, you could arrest her on suspicion of murder.’
‘Seriously?’ she exclaimed.
‘I said that you could do that. I wouldn’t go as far as that, not at first, but I’d certainly be inviting her in for a polite chat. If she refuses, then I’d go looking for a warrant.’
‘Shouldn’t you get involved if it comes to that?’ she asked.
The ground under my feet grew very shaky all of a sudden. ‘What?’ I laughed; a little theatrically, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Lift my daughter’s heroine and alienate her affections forever?’ I said. ‘You’re not on.’
No way could I have been involved in arresting Mia, but not because of Alex; in fact, my blood ran cold at the thought of being cross-examined by her QC in a criminal trial. Tell the court, Detective Superintendent Skinner, didn’t you have an intimate relationship with the defendant? Didn’t it end badly? Isn’t this whole thing your attempt at revenge?
‘And if I do it,’ Alison challenged, ‘how’s Alex going to feel about me?’
And what would defence counsel feel if he knew about us? Detective Inspector Higgins, isn’t your attitude towards my client coloured by her affair with your partner, Detective Superintendent Skinner?
‘That, my dear, we will deal with if it happens.’
Eighteen
Beyond all the potential for career damage, I was worried about what Mia would say to Alison about me, if they did come face to face. For all that I was pretty sure I could talk my way out of it, even if she spilled the whole damn tin of beans, still I was unsettled, not by the potential embarrassment itself, but because I realised what a selfish bloody fool I’d been, and most of all because I cared about Ali more than I had realised, and about the comfort that I was finding in our relationship.
That concern was set firmly on one side by a call on my mobile as I waited in a queue of traffic near the office, with a recuperating Ciaran McFaul in the passenger seat of the tank. (And there was I, led to believe that Geordies could hold their drink. That was a joke, by the way; a near-death experience can do that to you.) It was from David Pettigrew, in the Edinburgh procurator fiscal’s office. They’re the prosecutors in Scotland, and technically we investigate crime on their behalf.
‘Bob,’ he said, ‘I need you to come and see me, in my office now. It’s about the Hastie McGrew arrest.’
‘Has his dad’s lawyer been leaning on you?’ I asked.
‘What do you expect? He’s been shouting about wrongful arrest, attempted murder even.’
‘Fuck him. If I’d wanted to kill the guy, he’d be dead.’
‘I know that and I’ve told him as much.’
‘Who is his lawyer anyway?’
‘Ken Green.’
‘Wanker.’
‘Agreed, but he’s not the problem.’
‘So what is?’ I snapped, losing my patience.
‘I’ll explain when you get here.’
‘Fuck it, Davie, I haven’t begun to question the guy yet.’ I was giving him a hard time, principally because invitations to the fiscal’s office were never to discuss the time of day; they always signalled a crisis of some sort or another.
‘Bob,’ he sighed, ‘would I ask if I didn’t have to?’
‘No,’ I conceded, ‘I suppose not. But I tell you now, if that fucker Green’s in the room when I get there, I’m walking straight out.’
‘He won’t be, I promise; but it’s not just you I need. I’d like your English colleague to join us. Can you pick him up and bring him?’
‘I don’t have to. He’s with me. I’ll see you in however long it takes.’