Ken McClure - Eye of the raven

‘ Yes?’ asked a woman’s voice.

Steven asked if Verdi was at home.

‘ Who wants to know?’ asked the woman.

‘ My name’s Dunbar. I’m with the Sci-Med Inspectorate.’

‘ He’s busy.’

‘ So am I. Tell him please.’

Steven turned his back to the wind and pulled his collar up even higher.

‘ Yes, what is it?’ asked a man’s voice.

‘ I need to ask you a few questions, Mr Verdi.’

‘ What about?’

Steven was becoming tired of holding a conversation with a grating in a wall. ‘About your time as a partner with Seymour and Nicholson.’

‘ Christ, that was years ago.’

‘ We can talk here or at the local police station if you prefer,’ said Steven.

Verdi did not reply. Instead the electronic lock on the gate buzzed and the latch snapped open. Steven took this as his cue to enter and walk up the gravel drive. If he’d thought the Greek pillars a bit pretentious they paled to nothing when he came across the classical statues he could now see standing in the lawns. He half expected to do battle with a Minotaur guarding the entrance to Aberlee when a woman appeared there instead. She was dressed in a waxed cotton jacket, beige slacks and green Wellington boots. She was struggling to hold on to the door while simultaneously restraining two black Labradors who clearly sensed they were about to be taken for a walk.

The woman didn’t introduce herself. She simply said, ‘You’ll find him through there,’ gesturing with the angle of her head towards a ground floor room. With that she left and Steven entered, thinking that who was taking who for a walk was a moot point.

‘ Mr Verdi?’ asked Steven, knocking on the door, which was half-open.

‘ In here.’

Verdi was a small, fashionably dressed man with dark hair and an olive complexion that spoke of his family’s Mediterranean origins. He did not get up when Steven came in but he did look up from the papers on his desk, wearing a neutral expression. ‘I hope this won’t take long,’ he said.

‘ Shouldn’t,’ said Steven. ‘I’d like to know why you resigned your partnership with Seymour and Nicholson. I’ve heard their version, now I’d like to hear yours.’

Verdi’s eyes opened wide. ‘What the hell has that got to do with you?’ he said angrily.

‘ I’m just giving you a chance to defend yourself,’ said Steven. ‘These new-town chaps made some pretty damning accusations about you. I’d like to hear your version of events before I think about instigating proceedings.’

Verdi, who had been thrown off balance by Steven’s all-out assault, took a few moments to compose himself. Steven could sense that the initiative was slipping away from him with each passing second. Eventually, Verdi leaned across his desk and rasped in a low voice, ‘Just who the fuck are you?’

Steven showed his ID and Verdi slid it back across the desk to him as if it were of no interest. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. Get out.’

‘ Then what Seymour told me is true?’ said Steven.

‘ Seymour told you fuck-all,’ snapped Verdi. ‘Just like you’re going to hear from me. My private life has nothing to do with you or anybody else.’

‘ It does when it involves criminal activity,’ said Steven. ‘That’s really why you had to come off the new town gravy train, isn’t it?’

‘ No, I got sick of working with a bunch of public school toss-pots who spent most of their days sending notes to each other like kids in primary 6 so I left. All right? That’s all there was to it.’

‘ Apart from your deal with Ronnie Lee’s lab,’ said Steven.

Although he remained outwardly impassive, Steven felt distinctly unsettled by the dark look that appeared in Verdi’s eyes. It was the first indication he’d had of just how dangerous the man might be.

‘ I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Verdi coldly.

‘ I’m talking about your defence of three well-known criminals and the flawed forensic evidence you exposed to get them off.’

‘ The lab was incompetent,’ said Verdi. ‘If he hadn’t been wearing the right school tie, Lee would have been out on his arse years before.’

‘ Somehow, I don’t think he was that incompetent,’ said Steven.

‘ You’re pissing in the wind, Dunbar and I’m a busy man.’

‘ Ah yes, Cuddles,’ said Steven.

‘ What kind of car did you drive up in?’ sneered Verdi.

‘ Filthy lucre, Paul,’ said Steven getting up to leave. ‘Can’t buy you love… or class.’

‘ Get the fuck out of here.’

‘ Just out of interest,’ said Steven, pausing and turning round. ‘You weren’t such a hot shot with your defence of David Little. What was the deal there?’

‘ Little got what he deserved,’ said Verdi. ‘He was guilty. Now get out!’

Feeling bad about his clash with Paul Verdi, Steven set off back to Edinburgh and sought comfort in the fact that the rain had given way to some afternoon brightness. He found sunshine therapeutic. He stopped the car by the beach near Longniddry and got out to admire the sparkle on the waves as seagulls wheeled overhead and a solitary windsurfer, clad in hooded wet-suit, braved the cold of the Firth of Forth. He sank his hands deep in his pockets and set off for walk along the beach.

His gambit of trying to put Verdi on the back foot by going on the offensive hadn’t worked and now he was in no doubt that he had made a potentially dangerous enemy. He hadn’t really expected Verdi to cave in and confess all but he regretted allowing his instant dislike of the man to have played a part in his conduct of the interview. He saw this as weakness. The only positive thing that he could take from the encounter was a strengthening of his belief that there really had been some kind of criminal association between Verdi and the forensic lab during Lee’s time. The look in Verdi’s eyes when he’d broached the subject had told him that he was on the right track. Proving it however, would be quite a different matter.

Steven took a handful of pebbles down to the water’s edge, and started skimming the flat ones out over the surface, taking childish pleasure in counting the number of skips they made before disappearing. His mood changed however, when another childhood game came to mind and with it, dark thoughts of Hector Combe and Julie Summers. ‘This little piggy went to market. Snap! This little piggy..’ With a shudder he returned to the car and resumed his journey.

He had just joined the bypass, intending to skirt round the south of the city to avoid town traffic when his phone rang. It was McClintock.

‘ The brown stuff’s about to hit the fan big time,’ said McClintock.

‘ Make my day.’

‘ The word is that some screw at the Bar-L has just funded his summer hols by blabbing to the papers. He’s told them about you having the DNA tests on Little repeated. The Record ’s going to run the story tomorrow.’

‘ Shit,’ said Steven.

‘ The brass are spitting nails.

‘ Thanks for the warning,’ said Steven.

‘ Have you seen Verdi yet?’

‘ I’m on my way back at the moment. I don’t think we’ll be exchanging Christmas cards.’

‘ Jesus, is there anyone left that you haven’t managed to alienate?’ asked McClintock.

‘ You’re right,’ said Steven. ‘I should give up the assertiveness classes.’

‘ When will you get the results?’

‘ Tomorrow,’ replied Steven.

‘ If Little’s still in the frame, I suggest you leak that information as quickly as possible. It might help stem the damage.’

‘ Will do,’ said Steven.

The morning papers did not make for good reading as Steven worked his way through a second pot of coffee at breakfast. The police force’s worst fears had been realised and the press took the opportunity to list their failings in the Summers case all over again. The Mulveys’ suicides and the subsequent resignations were revisited in detail along with a new suggestion that the police still hadn’t got it right. There was an implicit suggestion that new DNA tests heralded the case being reopened by the Home Office. One of the tabloids ran with the headline, ‘Will Julie Ever Rest in Peace?’ while another jumped the gun with, ‘Julie Case Re-opened.’