Archie Walker, the fiscal, looked to be his immaculately dressed self, but the constant drumming of his fingers, the frequent glances at his watch, betrayed him. He might have been trying to fool himself that all was OK in his world but he was having no luck fooling the three detectives round the table with him. His goddaughter was suspected of murdering her sister and her son. And she had no alibi. No memory. Only now was he discovering the issue of her alcoholism, mostly from reading his online newspapers.
Viktor Mulholland was watchful, keen to enhance his career here. This situation was a mess and he knew Diane Mathieson. He might hear something round this table that he could casually mention to her. Indeed, she was already approaching him, not any of the others, for any information she needed. That might be a simple matter of rank, but Mulholland suspected something more political. Mathieson was a player and Mulholland hadn’t quite come to a decision about which team to back. His present career trajectory was on shaky ground.
With Costello gone, and the increased likelihood of Anderson going, the solid peg he had pinned his entire career on was now looking very shoogly indeed. And Mathieson had a reputation as a two-faced wee bitch. Being a cop who investigated cops was bad enough, but her track record was worse than most. She was after Costello for harassment of George Haggerty. And that complaint was justified.
Mulholland didn’t like being associated with Anderson’s team, not now Complaints were sniffing around, but he didn’t enjoy the thought of being exposed in a new team led by a woman with only her own ambition at heart, so he was watching both Anderson and Walker carefully. Both men seemed deep in thoughts that he would like to have access to.
However, Gordon Wyngate was happily eating his cheesecake, aware of the tensions round the table and easy in the knowledge that he would be the one who would unwittingly broach any forbidden subject. So he did.
‘When’s the trial starting?’
The silence fell like a rock through a cloud.
Wyngate wanted the ground to swallow him, Mulholland merely smiled.
‘No date set yet,’ said Walker calmly.
‘Do you think—’ Wyngate stopped as Mulholland accidently stabbed him in the thigh with his fork and interrupted with a question of his own.
‘Is Braithwaite still blaming everybody else?’
‘Yes, and he has Tomlinson defending. Well, I have heard.’ Walker intertwined his fingers and placed his chin on the mound of knuckles.
‘You have Valerie’s testimony. She survived. You were out with her yesterday, she must be getting more . . .?’ asked Anderson, the question had to be asked now.
‘Sober? Do you mean will she be fit enough to appear as a coherent witness? Is that what you are asking?’ Walker snapped. He was touchy on the subject of the darling goddaughter who had fallen from grace so spectacularly.
‘No, that’s not what I meant, not at all. I meant, can she stand up to that questioning.’
A roar of excitement went up at the Jenga table.
‘She lost her niece, then her sister and her nephew.’ The fiscal raised three fingers. ‘The three people in the world she was closest to. How do you expect her to be?’
‘Archie, I know she’ll be in tatters . . .’
‘Are you asking if she’s stopped drinking?’
‘No,’ placated Anderson. ‘I’m genuinely asking after her welfare. She was half-strangled and left to die in a cupboard, so I’m asking how she’s doing.’
‘She’s doing OK,’ answered Walker. ‘Sort of.’
‘You’re her godfather, and that excludes you from having any place in the investigation.’
‘And as Mary Jane’s father, you can have no place in it either,’ snapped Walker.
It wasn’t like them to stick the knife in. Wyngate began to find the morsel of cheesecake on his plate mesmerizing as Mulholland slid back in his chair, enjoying this gladiatorial exchange. He found Valerie Abernethy fascinating. A successful young woman who had everything: a career, a Porsche, a £600,000 flat and then threw it all away when she tried to buy a baby. The investigation into her life had revealed a story much more sordid than anyone would have thought. Mulholland thought it had broken Walker. His darling goddaughter was a delusional drunk, and then Mathieson had actioned the investigation into Valerie Abernethy as a viable suspect for the murder of her sister and her nephew. As far as Mulholland knew, the only motive was sibling rivalry; Abigail hadn’t fucked up her life quite as much as Valerie had. A thin motive, but they had all known addicts kill for less. Alcohol messed with your thinking, that whole compass of acceptable behaviour was reset to where the next drink was coming from. Mulholland had not voiced the opinion, but it was obvious Valerie being the wielder of the knife solved a few unanswered questions. The lateness of the night yet Abigail opened the door. The neighbour said they had been alive at 1 a.m. Who else would Abigail take up to the bedroom? Who else would take Malcolm’s beloved Millennium Falcon? Who else but the woman who gave it to him? Strange trophy for a killer. There were six stab wounds to the woman, twelve to the boy. The weapon had come from the house, a new set of knives George had bought the month before at Abigail’s request. Or so George Haggerty had said. And there was no witness left alive who could say whether Valerie had been in their house that evening.
That was all he knew, common knowledge round the station, there would be a whole other layer they were not privy to.
‘God, those two arseholes still think Valerie had something to do with killing her sister.’ Walker clapped his hands over his face.
Mulholland looked down, avoiding their eyes.
‘Who? Mathieson and Bannon?’ clarified Anderson.
‘They are a couple of arseholes,’ agreed Mulholland, playing along.
‘Well, she is.’
‘Too right.’
‘But Valerie was in the hospital recovering. Didn’t Andrew nearly strangle her during the Braithwaite case?’ Mulholland asked, fishing for information, seeing Anderson rub his own neck, remembering.
‘Somebody had a real go at her. She has blackouts. Had blackouts,’ Walker corrected himself. ‘And she was not in the hospital the night of the murders. She’d walked out at the back of seven that night.’
‘Yes, I’d heard that rumour,’ said Mulholland, a little too readily.
‘Why?’ asked Wyngate. ‘Had she not just been strangled?’
‘Yes, but she had recovered from that. There was no brain damage. No damage to her larynx. And she has other issues. It was very stressful for her to be in the hospital and as she needed peace more than she needed medical attention they came to a compromise. She was free to come and go.’ Walker pulled a face. ‘I wish to god she had stayed in, got herself a rock-solid alibi.’
The table fell silent. One by one they looked at the empty chair.
‘Diane Mathieson asked me where I thought Costello was. As if I would know,’ said Wyngate.
‘None of us know. I think we have all that quite clear,’ said Walker.
‘But you have heard from her?’ Anderson wanted confirmation.
‘Well, I get an odd text now and then. She asks about Pippa. Nothing else,’ he snapped, then reconsidered. ‘Nice of her to ask about my wife. I think Costello understands how difficult it is, losing somebody with dementia, but apart from that, not a word.’
‘Bloody hell. I knew she’d fallen out with me but I thought she’d keep in touch even if to tell me what a fair-weather friend I was, if in less polite terms.’
‘You