Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'Absolutely.' McIlhenney smiled. 'The sun is starting to shine on you, Inspector. I've been thinking about that too, and I reckon I can cut your workload. There was only one single investigation on which I worked with George Regan and Dan Pringle.'

Steele straightened in his chair. 'Are you sure about that?'

'One hundred per cent. I was a detective constable then, and I was drafted in from my own division because Central CID was short on manpower. Once the case was closed, I went back to Western.'

'And were there other officers involved? Do you recall that?'

'Not on the CID team. There were a few uniforms, but they wouldn't be identifiable. Dan, George and I were the police witnesses in the High Court.'

'What was the investigation?'

McIlhenney stood. 'First, let me get you a coffee. You're showing signs of zeal, the mark of a man with Bob Skinner on his tail.' He left the room, to return carrying a mug and a glass of orange juice.

'Thanks,' said Steele, as he took the mug. 'Don't you drink this stuff?'

'No. I guess that makes me an unusual copper, doesn't it?'

'I can't think of another.'

The chief inspector settled back into his chair. 'I wasn't always, though. Back then I was a real archetype. I drank eight mugs a day, minimum. I smoked, ate anything deep-fried in batter, went for a few pints after work, all that stuff. I was like a younger Dan Pringle, you might say.'

Steele detected an edge of bitterness in his tone, but did not pursue it.

'The investigation you want to know about took place ten years ago. It involved a girl called Patsy Aikenhead; she was only a kid, twenty-one years old, married to a guy called Chris Aikenhead, aged twenty-six, as I remember. They had a big flat in Marchmont. He worked offshore on an oil-production platform, making good money. She was a qualified nursery nurse, so they adapted the flat and set her up in business as a child-minder. She had a nice wee life, until one of the kids in her care was admitted to the old Royal Infirmary with convulsions. The baby died… Mariel Dickens, aged one year and one month… and the post mortem revealed cerebral haemorrhage as the cause of death.'

'Who called the ambulance?'

'Patsy did, at fifteen minutes after one. The child had been delivered to her care at half past eight that morning, and the pathologist reported that the injury was sustained between one and a half and two hours before she arrived at the hospital.'

'Where was the husband at this time?'

'On his platform.'

'Did she work alone?'

'No, she had an assistant, a Spanish girl called Magda Vilabru. George and I interviewed them, under caution from the start: they were both terrified, and they both denied harming the child. We interviewed the mother, Jocelyn Dickens, and the grandmother, who was living with her at the time. They both stated that Mariel had been happy and healthy when she was dropped off at the nursery.'

'How did you proceed,' Steele asked, 'if neither woman accused the other? Did you charge them both?'

'We didn't have to. We took each of them through their morning, and found out that at some point… neither could be specific about when that was… they had run low on disposables and baby food, and that Magda had gone to get some. We interviewed the woman in the corner shop that she used, and she told us that the girl had arrived there just before half past eleven. She was a regular customer, so she and the shop assistant chatted for ten minutes, Magda made her purchases and walked back to the nursery. We had a woman officer replicate the journey, several times; it took a minimum of sixteen minutes. That meant…'

'That Magda couldn't have been there when the child was injured.'

'Exactly,' McIlhenney affirmed. 'Enter Detective Superintendent Pringle.' He looked at Steele. 'I know you worked with Dan, but I'll be frank. He was a good officer, no question, but to my mind he had two weaknesses: he was too quick to judgement and he liked to be in at the kill.'

'I can't argue with that,' the inspector admitted. 'I've noticed the same. What did he do in this case?'

'He marched in and took it over. George and I had done all the work, and he told us to back off, that we were being too soft and that he was going to interview Patsy Aikenhead. I sat in on it, under orders not to say a word. Honest to God, Stevie, he terrorised the girl. She had no lawyer, no nothing, as he lashed into her. She was in tears inside five minutes. Inside fifteen minutes, she had admitted that she'd been in a foul mood because one of the babies was cutting back teeth and upsetting the others. Inside an hour, she had signed a statement admitting that she might have thrown Mariel into a cot and banged her head on the bars. Dan wrapped it up at that, and charged her with culpable homicide.'

'It went to trial, though? You said you were all witnesses.'

'We were. The defence withdrew the statement, but they couldn't deny that it had been made. The case hinged on that time period when Magda was away from the nursery, and the shop assistant confirmed the statement that George and I had taken from her at Torphichen Place. Magda wasn't in court herself, by the way, she'd gone back to Spain, and refused to come back to give evidence. It didn't matter, though. Juries always want to convict someone in dead baby cases, and they found Patsy guilty; unanimous verdict. The judge remanded her in custody for reports, as he had to since she was a first offender facing a jail sentence, but he warned her that he had it in mind to make an example of her, as I recall it, "to those who take responsibility for the care of other people's children". Yes, that's how he put it.'

Stevie frowned: something was beginning to niggle at the back of his mind. 'Should I remember this case? I was on the beat out in West Lothian ten years ago, just about to transfer into CID.'

'Maybe you should. Maybe you should remember the appeal too. The trial took two days; that was all. The first day was mostly medical evidence; the second day was when the key stuff happened, when we were in the box, and the shop assistant. After the verdict had been handed down, there was a full report in the Scotsman. Guess what? No, if you don't remember, you'll never guess.'

McIlhenney smiled, but there was a sadness about it. 'The next morning, Dan had a call at the office from a member of the public who'd read the paper. The woman insisted that she had to see him, so he took Regan and they went to her house. Dan came back with a face like thunder. I asked what had happened, but he wouldn't speak to me; George had to tell me about it afterwards. It was surreal, Stevie. The new witness was a customer in the corner shop. The baby died on the last Monday in October. What happens on the last Sunday in October?'

Steele felt his eyes widen. 'The clocks go back!' he said.

'Every year, without fail; but in that shop, the owner hadn't got round to changing his. The shop assistant was too thick to realise it, and we didn't interview her on the premises, so we never actually saw the bloody thing. It changed everything: it put Magda Vilabru right back in the frame, but she was in Algeciras, from which safe haven she couldn't be extradited in those days.'

'So was the case reopened?'

'Of course. The defence appealed formally against conviction and the Crown didn't oppose. The Advocate Depute told the court that he could no longer rely on the testimony of a key witness; that was all. The investigation was reactivated, but without the Spanish girl there was nowhere to go. And suppose we did bring her back now, we'd never get a conviction. Her being there only meant that she could have done it, not that she did it.'

'What if Patsy Aikenhead gave evidence against her?'

'We'd need to reconstitute her ashes for that. She hanged herself in her cell on the night of her conviction.' The big chief inspector looked at his colleague. 'It all happened ten years ago this month,' he told him. 'If I was you, I'd be wanting to know where Chris Aikenhead is right now.'