“Well the gist of it is much as we expected. A nasty wee tap on the back of the skull followed by a few sharp stabs for good measure. Any one of half-a-dozen of them would have been fatal given time.”
O’Neill was aware of a sudden deflation, his shoulders weighing heavy beneath his jacket. “Nothing of note then.”
Tate regarded him sternly. “Do you think I’d drag you in here just to tell you that?” he demanded.
“Oh?”
The CSI reached across and picked up a single page from the top of his in-tray. “You recall the bag of blood which we suspected might have come from Ms Jacks?”
“Of course,” O’Neill said knowing Tate liked to spin things out and trying to hurry him along.
“I called in a favour or two at the lab for a bit of queue-jumping and a comprehensive range of tests,” Tate said. He paused, allowed himself a thin smile. “You owe me a bottle of single malt for that by the way.”
“You know I’m good for it,” O’Neill said tightly. “What did they find? Was the blood from Jacks?”
Tate gave a pained frown at this prompting but nodded. “Her DNA is on file so that part was an easy match but my pal ran a full tox screen as well.”
“Thorough.” O’Neill risked another sip and found the faux-coffee had dropped to a slightly less molten level.
The CSI briefly showed his teeth. “Did I mention it was a very good single malt?”
“You didn’t,” O’Neill said with a resigned note in his voice. “So what do I get for it? She claimed Rohypnol or something similar last time I believe. Any sign of that?”
Tate shook his head but before O’Neill could gloat he added bluntly, “It was ketamine.”
“What?”
“Special K, Kit-Kat, Super K—call it what you will. Ketamine is mostly used as a veterinary anaesthetic but it’s popular on the club scene, so I understand.”
“Would it induce a psychotic episode?”
Tate pursed his lips. “It’s a known hallucinogenic if that’s what you mean. Might induce a certain level of amnesia depending on the dose. People take it because they reckon it can give them ‘out of body experiences’ or some such nonsense.” He drew little quotes in the air with his fingers to mark his disdain. “But in this case she had enough in her system to fell an elephant. I’m no expert but I would have said she’d be unconscious pretty quickly after administration.”
“Self-administration?”
“Possible I suppose. Depends how she ingested it. In pill or powder form it would take maybe half an hour to have any effect. Injecting’s a lot faster. Looking at the concentration I’d plump for the latter. It would have incapacitated her almost immediately.” He frowned. “There was no syringe found at the scene.”
“There was no Kelly Jacks either,” O’Neill said dryly. “She could have taken the works with her when she scarpered.”
Despite his years of experience Tate looked almost shocked. “You’re suggesting this wee lassie cold-bloodedly murdered someone she claimed was a friend—I heard the tape of the phone call she made to Douet’s mother by the way—and then calmly gave herself a massive dose of ketamine in an attempt to cover it up?” The rising incredulity in his voice made it a question. “For God’s sake man, why?”
“Why did she wake up next to Callum Perry’s body six years ago?” O’Neill countered. “Who knows what was going on with her back then?”
The CSI paused a moment then said reluctantly, “Her prints were all over the place I admit, although she did have a legitimate reason to be there.”
O’Neill heard the catch, raised an eyebrow. “But?”
“We found a bloody handprint on a pillar. The handprint was Jacks’s—the blood was Douet’s. And the only blood and prints on the knife belonged to the lassie too.”
O’Neill rose, put down the last of his coffee undrunk on the desktop. “Well then,” he said, “she has some kind of brainstorm—again—realises she can’t hope to sanitise the scene before we get there so she goes through this pantomime trying to avert suspicion. How else would she know to leave us a convenient blood sample just in case we didn’t catch up with her before it was gone from her system?”
Tate let him get halfway to the door. “The blood was unnecessary,” he said. And when the detective stopped, turned, he went on, “Ketamine would be present in hair samples—much less painful to extract. These days we can test for it months afterwards. It’s a relatively new process of course—one Ms Jacks may or may not have been aware of. Perhaps she wanted to leave us something that was harder to ignore than a few strands of hair, hmm?”
“What’s this—old CSIs sticking together?” O’Neill asked softly.
Tate made a gesture of annoyance. “It’s called giving the lassie a fair crack of the whip,” he shot back. “Besides, how did she get hold of the ketamine?”
“She’s an ex-con,” O’Neill said, his voice flat. “Trust me there’ll be any number of dodgy people she could turn to.”
58
Kelly woke with a jerk and found herself propped at the chipped Formica dining table in Tina’s flat. Her head was pillowed on her folded arms and she had violent pins and needles in her hands. In front of her, in hibernation, was the borrowed laptop she’d been using to run internet searches on Harry Grogan.
She straightened up cautiously, flexing her fingers. She was suddenly aware that it was daylight outside when the last time she’d checked it was still sodium-lit darkness.
Tina stuck her head round the living room door wearing jogging pants and a skinny top both drenched in sweat. She carried a half-empty bottle of water and a plastic carrier bag. Kelly realised she must have heard Tina returning from her morning run.
“You back in the land of the living?” Tina asked, taking a long swallow of the remaining water. “You was spark out when I left. Didn’t want to wake you.”
“Maybe you should have done,” Kelly said ruefully rubbing a hand round the back of her stiff neck.
Tina bounced over, dumped the carrier on the table next to the laptop. “Cheap pay-as-you-go mobile,” she said. “Got it off the market. My treat.”
“Thank you,” Kelly said, heartfelt. “For everything.”
“No sweat.” Tina nodded to the pile of obviously unused blankets and pillow on the sofa. “You been at it all night?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Thanks for the loan of the computer too.”
“Don’t thank me—it’s Elvis’s and I don’t ask where he got it,” Tina said flashing a quick grin. “And thank the dumb fool a couple of floors down who put in wireless without no password. Half the building jumps on the back of it.”