Perfect Dead Read online

  ‘PC Paul Rossi, sir.’

  ‘We’d better go and interview the cleaner who found the body while it’s all still fresh in her mind.’

  After a last look round, they locked the door and left.

  As they reached the car, Farrell noticed a small cottage on the same side as the one they had just left, about one hundred metres away. It looked fairly rundown, but he could see the flicker of a TV screen through the front window.

  ‘Has anyone interviewed the occupant of that cottage?’ he asked PC McGhie.

  ‘No, sir, I didn’t even notice it when I arrived because it was still fairly dark then.’

  ‘Right, Mhairi and I will pop by now, just in case the occupant saw or heard anything suspicious.’

  ‘You’d think they’d have heard the gun go off at the very least,’ said Mhairi. ‘Yet, nobody called it in.’

  Chapter Two

  They walked along the icy lane to the cottage, the frost biting into their extremities. On the way up the path to the front door, Mhairi’s legs shot out from under her and she’d have fallen if Farrell hadn’t grabbed her.

  He rang the doorbell. An old man opened it and peered out at them from beneath several layers of clothing. He was small and wizened with sharp eyes.

  ‘DI Farrell and DC McLeod. I’m afraid we have some disturbing news.’

  ‘Sandy Millar. I figured as much. You’d best come into the warm,’ he said, motioning them through with arthritic fingers to a small lounge where a coal fire was putting up a valiant battle against the frost clinging to the inside of the windows.

  DI Farrell and DC McLeod perched on the edge of the hard, threadbare couch while the man settled himself into the chair opposite.

  ‘I’m afraid to tell you that your neighbour, Monro Stevenson, died last night,’ said Farrell. ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘I didn’t even know his name,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Though, I’m sorry he’s dead. Kept himself to himself, he did. When the snow came last month, he didn’t even bother to clear my path or ask if I wanted a bit of shopping.’

  ‘Were you here last night from 5 p.m. onwards?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘I’m always here,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Did you hear or see anything unexpected?’ asked Mhairi.

  ‘I did, as it happens,’ he said. ‘A car came down the lane around 5 p.m. I looked out the window, as I thought it might be my daughter come to check on me. A big bugger it was. It went by, and I went to make my tea.

  ‘Later, when I was eating, it came back up the lane heading for the main road, but I never paid it no mind.’

  ‘Any chance you could hazard a guess at the make and model?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘It was dark, lad.’

  ‘Did you hear anything unexpected?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘Not a thing. I had the TV on, mind.’

  ‘Nothing that could have been a gunshot?’

  ‘The lad was shot?’

  ‘A shot may have been fired,’ said Farrell.

  ‘No, I definitely didn’t hear anything like that. You’d have thought I would have done. The telly wasn’t up that loud as I was waiting for my programme to come on.’

  ‘What programme would that be?’

  ‘The six o’clock news.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Farrell, rising to go.

  ‘You’ve been really helpful,’ said Mhairi. ‘If anything else comes to you, please contact myself or DI Farrell,’ she said, passing him her card.

  ‘Will do, lass,’ he said, hobbling to the door to show them out.

  ‘Probably someone got lost and came down here by mistake,’ said Mhairi, as they got back in the car. ‘Once in the lane they’d have to keep going. The only place wide enough to turn is right at the end.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Farrell.

  The address Farrell had been given for Fiona Murray was a one-bedroom flat in the centre of Kirkcudbright. The block looked rundown and as if it needed a coat of paint.

  Farrell rang the bell and a portly middle-aged woman opened the door. She was as white as a sheet.

  ‘Fiona Murray?’

  She nodded. Her eyes were hooded and expressionless.

  Still in shock, thought Farrell.

  ‘DI Farrell and DC McLeod. We decided to pop round and save you the bother of coming in to the station,’ said Farrell.

  ‘Thank you. That’s most considerate. Please, come in.’

  She swung the door back and motioned them inside.

  The interior of the flat was spotless but spartan in the extreme. There were no personal photos or ornaments, except for a wooden, framed picture of the Virgin Mary on the mantelpiece. Probably the last thing she felt like was dusting round knick-knacks in her line of work, thought Farrell. He sat beside McLeod on the hard sofa, and Fiona Murray dropped straight onto an upright chair facing them.

  ‘It must have been very distressing coming upon a scene like that this morning,’ said Farrell. ‘Can you confirm what time you found the body?’

  ‘I go in every Monday morning at 9 a.m., set him straight for the week. As soon as I opened the door I could tell something was badly wrong. I found the body and called you lot right away.’

  ‘Was the door locked?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it wasn’t, now you mention it. Even when he was in he usually had the door locked but not today.’

  ‘Were the lights on when you went in?’ asked Farrell.

  She stopped to think.

  ‘No, they weren’t. I put them on myself when I went in but turned them off when I left. It didn’t seem right to light up … well, you know.’

  ‘Were the curtains in the room that you found the body open or shut?’ Farrell asked.

  ‘Shut. And I left them that way. I didn’t want anyone looking in and seeing him like that.’

  ‘How close did you get to the body?’

  ‘I went right up to him but I could see there was no hope … that he was gone,’ she said, her voice flat.

  Farrell changed tack, bringing up a photo on his phone of the crystal glass from the table.

  ‘Do you recognize this glass?’

  ‘It looks like one of Monro’s. He didn’t use them often.’

  ‘How many did he have of this type?’

  ‘Only a couple.’

  ‘Are they both still intact as far as you know?’

  ‘Well I haven’t broken one. If he did, I wasn’t aware of it.’

  ‘How long have you been working for Monro Stevenson?’

  ‘Just under two years. I answered an ad in the local paper.’

  ‘How well did you know him?’ asked Mhairi.

  ‘Well enough. I was his cleaner, not his friend. I’m not the chatty type. I think he liked that. I didn’t disturb his concentration when he was working. He kept out from under my feet, paid me on time. It was a suitable arrangement.’

  ‘Were you aware that he owned a handgun?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘No, I certainly was not. I never set eyes on such a thing.’

  ‘Had you noticed any shift in Monro’s mood of late? Did he seem depressed or worried at all?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘Quite the contrary. He seemed in fine fettle. He was very excited about being in the running for that big art prize.’

  ‘What art prize?’

  ‘The Lomax Prize. He said it could launch his career if he won. It’s Edinburgh based, I think. A big deal, apparently.’

  ‘What about the girl in the photo on his desk? Was he in a relationship?’

  The cleaner shrugged.

  ‘That, I couldn’t tell you. I certainly never met her.’

  ‘When you were cleaning, were there any signs that a girl had stayed over?’ asked Mhairi.

  ‘I was his cleaner, not a tabloid journalist,’ she shot back. ‘I wasn’t in the habit of snooping around.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that,’ said Mhairi. ‘Please can you answer the question.’

  ‘I never saw any evidence of someone
sleeping over,’ she replied, her lips compressed as though to hold back the angry words threatening to spill out.

  ‘Did he have any visitors in the past few weeks?’

  ‘I have no idea. None that I was aware of.’

  ‘Thank you for your time, Mrs Murray,’ said Farrell standing up. ‘I know this has been a difficult morning for you.’

  ‘It’s the parents I feel sorry for,’ she offered, as she was seeing them out. ‘The loss of a child is hard enough to bear without all these unanswered questions.’

  Chapter Three

  Back in Dumfries, Farrell made his way to DCI Lind’s office on the first floor. He walked in with a cursory tap on the door and surprised his boss and old school friend in a look of misery. It melted into a smile so quickly that Farrell wondered if he had imagined it.

  ‘Frank, come away in. What’s the score with that body then? Terrible business by the sounds of things.’

  ‘Well, it looks like a classic suicide,’ Frank said, taking a seat opposite Lind’s desk. ‘He appears to have pulled the trigger all right. There was a note.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Something about it seems off. By all accounts he had everything to live for.’

  ‘Maybe so, but that’s no defence against mental illness. He could have been depressed and nobody realized.’

  ‘Possibly. There was also a car passed down the lane a short while before the likely time of death. It stopped too long to have been turning. He may have had a visitor.’

  ‘Maybe they told him something that pushed him over the edge?’

  ‘Or maybe he was murdered and the whole thing was staged?’

  ‘The Super’s going to love that theory,’ said Lind with a grin.

  ‘He’ll go nuclear,’ said Farrell.

  ‘You got that right.’ DSup Walker wasn’t renowned for his calm temperament. ‘So, what does your gut tell you?’

  ‘I think we should consider it a suspicious death meantime.’

  ‘Agreed. Get the Major Crime Administration room set up and fix an initial briefing for noon. I’m appointing you as Senior Investigating Officer on this one. Assemble your team and let’s get cracking.’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Farrell, rising to his feet. He remembered that unguarded look when he had walked in. ‘How’s Laura?’

  ‘She’s doing well, joined a support group.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ said Farrell. Laura and Lind were his oldest friends; their marriage had taken a hammering last year when she had lost a baby at five months.

  ‘I’ll hear what you’ve got so far in a few hours,’ said Lind.

  Farrell took the hint and left him to it. His next port of call was Detective Sergeant Mike Byers, who was working at his desk in the pokey room he shared with DS Stirling. Personally, he couldn’t stand the man. He was casually misogynistic with a gym-sculpted body that spoke to his vanity. However, he had done a solid job of running the MCA room during the Boyd murder case a few months earlier.

  ‘Byers, I need you to open the MCA room and post a briefing there for noon. The death in Kirkcudbright is being treated as suspicious for the time being.’

  ‘I thought he topped himself, sir?’

  ‘We’ve reason to keep an open mind,’ said Farrell.

  His stomach growled just as his phone beeped. Time to refuel and take his medication. He headed down to the canteen where he managed to find a limp cheese and pickle sandwich and the muddy dark sludge that passed for coffee. He retreated back to his office and closed the door before sliding out his pill box. Ever since he had come within a whisper of having another breakdown he had been meticulous about taking his maintenance dose of lithium. During their last major case the spectre of insanity had felt his shoulder once more and he had no desire to be reacquainted with that part of his life.

  A photocopy of the suicide note was on his desk.

  Please forgive me. I have tried to fight this darkness. When I found out about the Lomax Prize I thought it was a lifeline to cling to. I see now that it changes nothing I cannot go on.

  Your loving son,

  Monro

  The note was typed and signed in blue ink. The signature was ragged and uneven, which could suggest heightened emotion, Farrell thought.

  There was a knock and Mhairi popped her head round the door. He pushed the note across to her, and she sat down to read it in silence.

  ‘How do you feel about being the Family Liaison Officer on this one?’

  To his surprise, she was silent, looking torn.

  ‘Spit it out, Mhairi.’

  ‘I would, sir, if it wasn’t for what happened to my brother.’

  Farrell recalled seeing a picture of a smiling young man in uniform at Mhairi’s flat a few months earlier.

  ‘The soldier?’

  ‘Yes. He wasn’t killed in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Oh?’ The penny dropped.

  ‘He died … later.’

  Her face flamed red, and she looked on the verge of tears.

  ‘Suicide?’

  ‘Yes. PTSD, they reckoned.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mhairi. I’d no idea. Would you prefer to be off the case altogether? It’s not a problem.’

  ‘No, sir, that won’t be necessary. I can work the case. I just don’t think I could handle being up close to all that emotion.’

  ‘No worries, there’s more than enough work to go round.’

  ***

  After Mhairi left he pondered who he could appoint as FLO in her place. DC Thomson had recently been made detective but, although hard-working and keen, he didn’t yet have the people skills for such a dual role. He had a lot of growing up to do. PC Rosie Green came to mind. She had recently flowed in to the PC-shaped hole left by DC Thomson and seemed fairly robust and sensible.

  He phoned downstairs and, five minutes later, there was a brisk knock on the door.

  PC Rosie Green was around twenty-five. She had an air of calm competence about her that Farrell felt would be reassuring to the family. Other than that, he really knew very little about her. As far as he was aware she didn’t seem to be particularly tight with anyone in the department but was well enough liked.

  ‘Rosie, take a seat,’ he said. ‘I take it you’ve heard about the suspicious death in Kirkcudbright early this morning?’

  ‘Yes, sir, only I thought it was a suicide?’

  ‘That remains to be determined,’ he said. ‘The reason I asked for you is that I’m looking for a FLO for his family and wondered if you might be interested in taking on that role?’

  She paused before answering as if she was thinking it through. Farrell liked that quality. Some might mistake it for slowness, but he would rather have a measured response than an off-the-cuff one to be regretted later.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied. ‘I would definitely be interested.’

  ‘Excellent. I’ll make that a formal request then and you can get up to speed with everyone else at the briefing. If you find DS Byers he’ll give you a copy of all the information we’ve gathered to date, which isn’t much.’

  The phone rang. The parents were here. He asked for them to be shown into the small conference room.

  ‘As it happens the parents have arrived to speak to us. I know you’re not yet in possession of all the facts, but could you join us in the conference room?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ she said, rising to her feet.

  Chapter Four

  He allowed them a few minutes to settle then entered with Rosie. The couple looked to be in their mid-fifties and introduced themselves as George and Doreen. Doreen’s eyes were red raw with weeping.

  Farrell was pleased to see PC Green immediately took the lead, taking Doreen’s hand in hers and offering her condolences. Once the couple had been given their tea, Farrell sat opposite them at the oval table and gently began.

  ‘When was the last time you saw your son?’

  ‘He came for lunch on Wednesday, Inspector. He was on top of the world,’
said Doreen, her mouth twisting as she held back tears.

  ‘Any particular reason for that?’

  ‘He’d received word the week before that he’d been shortlisted for the Lomax Prize, a major art award. His career was about to take off. It was all starting to happen for him.’

  ‘How many people knew he’d been shortlisted?’

  ‘Probably half of Dumfries by the time she’d done shouting about it,’ said George, giving his wife an affectionate pat on the arm. ‘She was that proud of him.’

  ‘When did you last speak to him?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘He normally phoned on a Sunday evening, no matter what,’ Doreen said. ‘But we didn’t hear from him last night. Now we know why.’ A thought occurred, and she turned to her husband, her hand over a mouth stretched in agony.

  ‘Oh God, George, maybe if we’d phoned him, instead of letting it go, we could have stopped him, changed his mind.’ She broke down once more, and PC Green put her arm around her making low soothing noises.

  ‘You mustn’t think like that,’ said Farrell.

  ‘We thought he must be out celebrating still with friends, didn’t want to cramp his style,’ said his father.

  ‘Could you give a list of his friends’ names and addresses to PC Rosie Green, as soon as is convenient? They might be able to help us with filling in a timeline.’

  ‘Well, the thing is, we’ve never met any of them,’ said Doreen. ‘Not his artist friends anyway. There are a couple of lads he was at school with in Dumfries that he saw once in a blue moon.’

  ‘I see,’ said Farrell. ‘Did Monro have a girlfriend?’

  ‘He’d been seeing a Dumfries girl, Nancy Quinn, for a couple months,’ said Doreen. ‘We met her once and she seemed nice enough. They went skiing together in December.’

  ‘Had he ever suffered from depression?’

  His parents looked at each other.

  ‘You might as well, tell me,’ said Farrell. ‘We’ll have to request his medical records as part of our enquiries.’

  ‘He suffered from depression a few years ago. He got in with a group of artists,’ said Doreen.

  ‘Bloody hippie commune, more like,’ said George. ‘From what I could gather they spent as much time on sex and drugs as they did on their art.’