Ken McClure - Eye of the raven

They had arrived back at Fettes. As Steven got out the car he said, ‘Like I said, I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do.’

‘ Get wise,’ advised McClintock. ‘Go back to the sunny south.’

Steven smiled but added, ‘If you could find out where Lee is living, I’d be grateful.’ He gave McClintock his mobile number.

The sun had come out and Steven decided he didn’t want to go back to his hotel room. He wanted to be out in the fresh air, away from the smell of stale tobacco that accompanied McClintock. He needed to stretch his legs and time to think. He opted for a walk through the botanical gardens, which were close to police headquarters and where spring was definitely in the air as he walked along avenues lined with budding trees.

He found a quiet bench near the Chinese garden where he could enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face while he went through the paperwork that McDougal had given him. He started with the list of forensic samples taken at the scene of the crime. It seemed thorough and comprehensive and recorded Ronald Lee and John Merton, as the forensic lab staff attending the scene of the crime.

Half way down the list he found what he was looking for. Scrapings had been taken from under Julie Summers’ fingernails. A visual examination had suggested that blood and possibly skin were present under the three fingers of her left hand, all of which had been broken. Three separate samples had been taken and were labelled 21, 22 and 23 in the inventory.

Steven raised his head and closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the sun on his eyelids and thinking that this more or less cleared up any worry he might have had about what Combe had claimed. Biological material had been found under Julie’s fingernails and although he hadn’t seen the written report, Carol Bain remembered Lee saying that the analysis had positively identified David Little as her assailant. ‘Hallelujah,’ he murmured. Combe’s confession could be buried with the rest of him.

Feeling more at ease, Steven started reading through the medical officer’s report on David Little. He only got to the second paragraph before he felt a hollow feeling in his stomach and it grew bigger by the second. According to the doctor who’d examined him, there were no marks on Little’s face. The only recorded scar on his entire body was a single three-inch scratch mark on his left forearm.

Steven looked at the date of report. The examination had been carried out on January 14 ^ th, eleven days after the murder. Would scratch marks have had time to heal? He thought not — at any rate, not completely and the examining doctor would have looked in great detail for evidence of any such marking. How could Julie Summers have had Little’s blood and tissue under three of her nails when he only had a single scratch mark on his arm? This was something he thought he would now have to ask Lee personally.

Steven called McClintock.

‘ So you’re off back to London then,’ said McClintock hopefully. ‘You just called to say good-bye?’

‘ No,’ replied Steven. ‘I’m phoning to see if you’ve got that address for Lee?’

‘ I was afraid you were going to say that,’ said McClintock wearily. There was a rustle of paper and he said, ‘He lives a couple of miles outside Grantown on Spey in a house on the Ardlung estate called Ptarmigan Cottage.’

‘ Thanks,’ said Steven.

‘ What decided you to stay?’ asked McClintock.

For a moment Steven considered not telling but then he said. ‘There was blood and skin under three of Julie’s fingernails. ’

‘ So?’

‘ According to the doctor’s report, there was only a single scratch mark on Little.’

‘ That’s not impossible if she moved her fingers horizontally,’ said McClintock. ‘I mean, if she swiped her hand across his face then

…’

‘ The scratch was on his arm. His face was unmarked.’

‘ Well, his bloody arm then,’ said McClintock.

‘ Little said his cat did it.’

‘ He bloody would, wouldn’t he?’

‘ She was murdered in January.’

‘ What’s your point?’

‘ Little would hardly be out and about in a short-sleeved shirt, would he?’ rapped Steven, sounding equally annoyed.

‘ I guess not,’ McClintock conceded. ‘But Christ, his sleeve could have been pushed up in the struggle.’

‘ Maybe,’ said Steven in a tone that suggested he thought it the least likely explanation.

‘ So just what are you going to ask Ronnie Lee, assuming he’s still on the same planet after all these years?’

‘ I’m hoping he might still have the original lab reports on what was found under Julie Summers’ nails,’ said Steven. ‘If he has, I want to see them.’

‘ You don’t let go easily, do you?’ said McClintock with a sigh.

‘ Nope,’ agreed Steven.

‘ I understand the local police are getting touchy about your presence,’ said John Macmillan when Steven called Sci-Med to say that he would be staying on in Scotland for a bit.

‘ I’m not unsympathetic,’ said Steven, ‘but there are one or two things about the secondary evidence that I want to be perfectly clear about. You wouldn’t think that should be too difficult but they’re certainly making it look that way. Not only were all the forensic samples discarded in some lab screw-up at the time but even the lab reports on them have gone AWOL. I’m reduced to hoping that the police pathologist of the day still has them somewhere, hidden away in his personal files or even in a box under the bed. It’s crazy.’

‘ Does no one remember what was in them?’ asked Macmillan.

‘ Oh yes, I’m told that they confirmed David Little positively as Julie Summers’ killer.’

There was a short pause before Macmillan said, ‘So what’s the problem or am I missing something here?’

‘ I’ve seen the inventory of samples taken at the scene of the crime,’ said Steven. ‘The only real candidate for providing a second positive ID of the killer apart from the semen itself was the material taken from under three of Julie Summers’ fingernails. Data obtained from the other samples collected at the crime could have provided circumstantial evidence to put him at the scene of the murder but for a positive ID it would have to have been the nail samples.’

‘ Because they could have got DNA from them?’

‘ Precisely.’

‘ So?’

‘ According to the police doctor’s report on David Little when he was arrested, he only had a single scratch mark on him and it was on his forearm not his face.’

‘ A single scratch from three fingernails,’ murmured Macmillan thoughtfully. ‘Not entirely impossible I suppose…’

‘ No, but pushing it. I need to be sure about this.’

‘ I admire your attention to detail,’ said Macmillan, sounding as if he didn’t. ‘Chances are all this will probably turn out to be some filing mistake. Try not to upset too many people.’

‘ I’ll do my best,’ said Steven but the line had gone dead.

Steven got an early start next morning and stopped after a hundred miles or so in Aviemore to find something to eat — he had made do with just coffee and orange juice for breakfast so he was feeling hungry. It had rained all the way up and the roads had been busy with commercial traffic sending up clouds of spray so the break was going to be welcome on both accounts. He found a seat in the bay window of a hotel restaurant advertising all-day food and ordered scrambled eggs and bacon and a pot of coffee.

‘ We don’t do pots,’ the waitress informed him.

‘ Well, whatever you do,’ said Steven.

‘ Cup or a mug,’ said the waitress.

‘ A mug.’

Steven looked out of the window while he waited and watched little groups of people in waterproof gear wander aimlessly up and down the main street of the village that promoted itself as Scotland’s premier ski resort. The colour of their jackets added brightness to the otherwise grey and depressing scene.