Dead Still (DCI Andy Gilchrist) Page 4

  No eyewitnesses in or around Mallaig had come forward, and the Mallaig Police received no reports of anything untoward, other than a couple of drunk and disorderlies that weekend. Search teams had been organised, and the local community came out in force to assist. But after six days the search was called off when a major snowstorm threatened to close all roads in and around the town. Besides, it was the festive season, and from the notes thereafter, it seemed to Gilchrist that everyone had gone home to celebrate Christmas and bring in the New Year.

  January proved no better, with what Gilchrist could tell were half-hearted attempts to revitalise the investigation. Witness statements had been taken from people who knew Hector or worked with him. But as Gilchrist read them, he realised that the only statements of import were those of Dunmore’s sister, Katherine, and her husband, George, the last people to see Hector alive. It seemed that Calish simply took their statements, then did little follow up. Hector had driven to Mallaig for reasons unknown, and abandoned his Land Rover.

  And that was it.

  Reading on, days passed with no additional entries recorded, then weeks, until the end of May when the case was finally assigned to cold storage. End of.

  Not one of Fife Constabulary’s better efforts, he had to say.

  He pushed his fingers through his hair in frustration, and faced the window. Outside, winter was making its presence felt. The skies had cleared and the temperature had dropped to below freezing. Ice sparkled on frosted asphalt in the car park below. He found his gaze creeping over the boundary wall into the gardens beyond, his mind simmering away in the background, trying to make sense of what had happened all these years ago.

  Hector Dunmore had been murdered and his body hidden in a cask in a distillery on the outskirts of St Andrews. Meanwhile, his Land Rover had been driven to Mallaig for the sole purpose of faking his disappearance, by someone unknown, someone not sought by the police due to Calish’s presumption that it could only have been Hector who’d driven it there in the first place.

  Which was when another possibility flickered to life.

  Gilchrist returned to the files, flipped through them until he found what he was looking for—

  ‘Have you read the case files?’ Jessie said.

  Gilchrist looked up, and grimaced. ‘I’m working through them.’

  ‘Doesn’t exactly show the Constabulary in the best light, does it?’

  What could he say? It would be pointless trying to talk to Calish. Even if he were still alive, he would have to be in his eighties at least. ‘There had to be two of them,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘One to drive the Land Rover to Mallaig, and one to drive him back.’

  He smiled. Jessie had figured it out, too. ‘But what if only one person was involved?’

  ‘How would that work?’

  ‘He drives the Land Rover there, parks it, cleans all the fingerprints off it, then takes the train back. Everyone thinks Hector’s disappeared in Mallaig, so no one would’ve thought to check out the trains. Is there a railway station anywhere near?’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Someone did check train times. Even spent a couple of days reviewing CCTV footage in the station. But they got nowhere.’ She flipped through the notes. ‘That line of enquiry was stopped about the same time the snowstorm hit. If you think about it, they’re looking for Hector in the area where they found his Land Rover, and not looking for someone who’d abandoned a car then hopped onto a train to St Andrews.’

  ‘So they work on the theory that Hector drove to Mallaig then just disappeared?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What better way to do that, than to jump on a train?’

  ‘Even if he did,’ Jessie said, ‘all we’ve got to go on now after twenty-five years are these files.’

  Jessie had a point. Whatever CCTV footage and ticket records existed at the time of Hector’s disappearance, were long gone—

  ‘Maybe the killer lived in the Mallaig area,’ Jessie said, ‘and bumped off Hector in St Andrews for whatever reason, then drove the Land Rover home.’

  Gilchrist shook his head. ‘Good try. But I’d put my money on there being two people from Fife who collaborated in Hector’s murder. Not just for the drive back from Mallaig, but to hide the body in the whisky cask in the first place. Did you know that sealant isn’t used in whisky casks?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly that,’ he said. ‘The casks are made from wooden staves held together by steel hoops that go around them like metal belts, and pull the staves tight.’

  ‘Don’t they nail the lid on?’

  ‘No. Nails rust and deteriorate. The lid fits into a rim formed in the top of the staves, and the pressure from the hoops being hammered into place holds the whole thing together, tight enough to make it watertight – even whisky-tight.’

  ‘And where did you get your woodworking degree?’

  ‘What I’m saying is, that it’s not easy to dispose of a body in a whisky cask.’

  ‘Humph it up and dump it in,’ Jessie said. ‘A bit awkward, maybe.’

  ‘The body’s not the problem,’ he said. ‘The cask is.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Did you notice how the distillery staff had taken the lid off Hector’s cask?’

  ‘Can’t say that I gave it much attention.’

  ‘You remove the top pair of hoops, and slacken a few others. The staves that form the cask are bent into a curved shape, and held together by the hoops.’ He held up both hands, fingertips to fingertips, as if praying with bent fingers. ‘When you remove the hoops …’ He straightened his fingers. ‘The wooden staves slacken, and hey presto, you can remove the lid. After twenty-five years they would remain curved to some extent, but they would be slack enough to let the lid be pried off.’

  Jessie let out a frustrated sigh. ‘And the point of this woodworking lesson is …?’

  ‘This,’ he said, and turned the file so that she could read it.

  ‘D uncan Milne?’

  ‘Exactly. Twenty-five years ago Milne was Gleneden Distillery’s manager. But in his statement – if you care to read it in detail – he says he worked his entire life in the whisky business, and started out at the age of fifteen as a cooper.’

  Something shifted across Jessie’s face, but she was still not seeing it.

  ‘The only way to hide a body in a cask full of whisky,’ he said, ‘is to put the body into the cask before the whisky. And to do that, you have to dismantle the cask and slacken the hoops, then put the lot back together again. Once the body’s inside and the cask’s sealed, you fill it with whisky, then store it some place where you know it’s not going to be touched for twenty-five years, even longer.’

  ‘Can anybody do that?’ she said. ‘Dismantle a cask and put it back together again?’

  ‘And make sure it’s secure and watertight for twenty-five years?’ He shook his head. ‘I’d say you’d need to have the skills of an experienced cooper.’

  ‘So DI Calish would’ve been searching for a missing person in Mallaig, not realising that the body was under his bloody nose all the time.’ She smacked her thigh. ‘Do we have an address for this cooper guy?’

  ‘Not yet. But Milne was nearing retirement, so he could be in his late eighties, early nineties, by now. If he’s still alive, that is.’

  ‘If your theory of two collaborators is correct, who do you have in mind as the other person? One of Milne’s associates?’

  ‘Too early to say.’

  ‘In that case, it might be worth talking to Molly Havet.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Hector Dunmore’s girlfriend.’

  Gilchrist frowned. He hadn’t come across that name in the files.

  Had he missed something?

  Jessie flipped open the original files. ‘I found Post-its on the inside of the folder. One of them,’ she said, peeling it from the page, ‘gives Molly Havet’s name and phone number.’

  ‘How do you know she was Hector’s girlfriend?’

  ‘Because I phoned her.’ She slapped the folder shut. ‘You ready?’

  CHAPTER 6

  Before leaving, Gilchrist stuck his head into Jackie’s office and returned the files. ‘Find out what you can about Duncan Milne. He was the manager of Gleneden Distillery at the time of Hector Dunmore’s disappearance. I’m looking for home address, phone number, if he’s still alive, and if he isn’t, is his wife alive? We may need to have a word with her.’

  Jackie’s hair wobbled with enthusiasm.

  ‘And hand over to Mhairi whatever you find.’

  By the time Gilchrist left, Jackie’s keyboard was clattering like a machine gun.

  It didn’t take them long to find Molly Havet’s home, a two-storey semi-detached on the northern outskirts of Ladybank, about thirteen miles west of St Andrews as the crow flies. Gilchrist pulled his BMW off the main road, worked his way down a narrow side track, and parked at the rear of the property.

  Havet’s address was the nicer of the two homes – tidied garden, bushes and hedge pruned tight for the winter. Windows sparkled in the January air. Wood glistened with fresh paint. A polished brass knocker in the shape of a bull’s head centred a white door.

  Jessie had phoned ahead, so Havet was expecting them.

  A slim woman with grey hair worn far too long for middle age opened the door with a non-committal smile. She barely glanced at their warrant cards as she invited them in and led them through to the front lounge. She directed them to their seats – a soft-cushioned chair by the fireplace for Jessie, and a less inviting hard-backed chair for Gilchrist. She took her own cushioned chair opposite Jessie, picked up a poker from the grate, and stabbed it into the fire. Flames sparked. Wood crackled. She returned the poker to the grate, then stared at Jessie.

  ‘Have you found him?’ she asked her.

  Jessie had told Gilchrist of her initial conversation with Havet, an exploratory phone call to introduce herself and, because she didn’t know if the number was current or not, to say that they were trying to locate Molly Havet and would like to talk to her.

  She’d made no mention of having found Hector’s body.

  Gilchrist said, ‘Found who?’

  ‘Hector Dunmore.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Why else would you be here?’ She wrung her hands, and said, ‘Well? Have you?’

  Jessie said, ‘Yes. We believe we’ve found him.’

  ‘In St Andrews?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Havet closed her eyes and hung her head. She seemed to shrink into her chair as if her body had deflated. It took twenty seconds of silence before she lifted her head and stared into the fire as if she’d lost the will. ‘I knew it,’ she whispered.

  ‘Knew what?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘That Hector hadn’t driven to Mallaig. Why would he drive all that way in weather like that?’ She turned to face him, and he could read her pain from her eyes. ‘And what was there in Mallaig for him to drive there?’

  Jessie leaned forward. ‘We found your name in the files,’ she said. ‘You didn’t give a statement.’

  ‘Because they didn’t want me to give one.’

  ‘What?’ Gilchrist said, louder than intended.

  ‘They told me I was of no interest to them. They didn’t even bother to interview me. Just spoke to me over the phone.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Gilchrist said, struggling to hide his exasperation. ‘No one had a face-to-face interview with you?’

  ‘Not only that. I went to North Street Police Station in the first place, to tell them I was Hector’s … I was …’

  Gilchrist let several seconds pass, then said, ‘We’re listening.’

  Havet shook her head, dabbed a finger to her eyes. ‘Hector and I were going to get married the following year. A quiet wedding. No fuss. That was Hector. We’d told no one. We were just going to go away one week, and come back married.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jessie said.

  Gilchrist let a few more seconds pass. ‘And when you went to the Police Station, what were you told?’

  ‘That there was no one there, and someone would give me a phone call.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And that was it. Nothing more. No interest. Exact words.’

  Gilchrist frowned. What she was saying might have happened, but it didn’t make any sense. ‘Did they say why you were of no interest?’

  ‘Because I’d been in England visiting my parents when Hector went missing. I’d been there a week, and didn’t even know he’d disappeared until I phoned him, and his sister, Katherine, answered.’

  ‘What number did you dial?’

  ‘Hector’s home number. What else?’

  The distillery number, he thought. But he had his answer. ‘Katherine was in Hector’s home?’

  ‘She must’ve been, to pick up the phone.’

  ‘Was that not odd? Her being in his home?’

  Havet scowled. ‘I’d never really thought about it, but yes, I suppose it was.’

  ‘Can you remember the name of the police officer who phoned you?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Tom Calish.’

  No hesitation. ‘You have a good memory.’

  ‘No. I just remember him being rude. I was Hector’s fiancée, but that didn’t seem to matter.’ She let out a gush of breath. ‘When I told him that, he said, Where did he buy your engagement ring? And when I said I didn’t have one, he said, How can you be engaged if you don’t have an engagement ring?’ She picked up the poker again and stabbed the wooden logs. They could have been Calish’s eyes. ‘An engagement ring? What’s that got to do with Hector’s disappearance?’

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ Jessie said, ‘why didn’t you have an engagement ring?’

  ‘Because we wanted to keep it quiet. I told DI Calish that we were going to buy rings for each other in the gold souk in Dubai, where we were planning to go for a short stay. But he just laughed at that.’

  ‘He laughed?’

  ‘I remember that. Because I felt hurt by it.’

  ‘So he didn’t believe you?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘He told me that I was only trying to wheedle my way into Hector’s will. But Hector didn’t have a will, so I don’t know how I could’ve wheedled into anything.’

  ‘If they wouldn’t take you seriously face to face,’ Jessie said, ‘did you try writing to them? Giving them a formal statement that way?’

  ‘No. I called once more, and that’s when DI Calish told me that I wasn’t a person of interest, and they wouldn’t be interviewing me.’

  If not for that single Post-it in the files, with Havet’s name and number on it, Gilchrist realised they might never have known of her existence. It struck him then that there might be others out there, people who knew something, whom Calish had decided were of no interest.

  ‘Did Hector have friends who might have been told the same?’ he said.

  She gave the logs a half-hearted poke before shaking her head. ‘No. Hector kept to himself. He was the quiet one of the family. Nothing at all like that Katherine.’

  ‘And what’s Katherine like?’

  ‘Full of her own importance. She used to try to order Hector about, tell him that she wanted more of a say in running the family business. But Hector would have none of it. If you met him, you’d think he was a big softy, but he had a hard side to him, his business side that not a lot of people knew about.’

  ‘So there was no love lost between brother and sister?’ Jessie said.

  Havet frowned at the logs. ‘I think it was that husband of hers that was the root of all the trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Arguments. Between Hector and Katherine. I never really knew George, but the few times I did meet him, I didn’t like him. Hector once told me that George was the wrong man for Katherine, that he was a womaniser, and a misogynist. He even said George would shag a barber’s floor given half a chance, excuse my French.

  ‘I don’t know what Katherine saw in him. And he was a bad influence. She would argue with Hector about something or other, and it would often turn into a screaming match. Well, the screaming would come from Katherine. Hector always stayed calm, at least on the outside, although he did tell me there were times he thought of just stuffing her into a cask of whisky and closing the lid.’

  Gilchrist almost jolted. Jessie’s widening eyes pulled her mouth open. But she pressed her lips tight, caught his eye, and gave the tiniest shake of her head – No, I didn’t tell her that Hector’s body was found in a cask of whisky …

  ‘But he never did, of course,’ Havet went on. ‘Although, I notice that it’s twenty-five years since he went missing. So, I presume you found his body in a cask of whisky?’

  ‘That’s quite the quantum leap,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Hardly,’ she scoffed. ‘You said you’d found his body in St Andrews. So where else would it have been all that time?’

  Well, he supposed she had a point. ‘How long have you had these thoughts?’ he said. ‘About Hector’s body being hidden in a cask of whisky?’

  ‘I mentioned it to DI Calish—’

  ‘There’s nothing in the files about that,’ said Jessie.

  ‘Of course there isn’t. Haven’t you been listening? DI Calish was a stupid little man whose only interest was to get to the end of the day so he could go to the pub. He laughed at me when I suggested that.’ She slapped the poker against the logs. Sparks flew. She reached into a wicker basket at the side of her chair, and threw another log into the flames. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘every cask is stencilled with its batch number and date of filling, and the details entered into a logbook. Before computers, anyone could deliberately stencil the wrong date on a cask. So how would you really know what cask you’re looking for?’

  ‘But that didn’t happen,’ Jessie said. ‘The cask was opened, as you said, twenty-five years since Hector’s disappearance.’

  Havet stared at Jessie for a long moment, before shifting her focus to Gilchrist. ‘I’d say that was a mistake.’