Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

Close up, my eyes were on a level with the breast pocket of his jacket. I flashed Ruth a “why didn’t you tell me?” look and ushered him in. He exchanged ritual greetings with Ruth and folded himself into the chair I pointed him towards. I swung the monitor screen round till it was facing them both. “I’m sorry I was so mysterious about this,” I said. “But if I’d told you what I had in mind, you’d have laughed in my face. You certainly wouldn’t have taken it seriously enough to come and see for yourself.”

“I’m here now, so let’s cut to the chase. We’re all busy people,” he said, with no trace of hostility. He obviously didn’t go to the same Masonic dinners as Cliff Jackson.

“It’s not a long preamble, I promise you. Last week, you found Pit Bull Kelly dead inside a shop that had previously been squatted by Dennis O’Brien. Pit Bull had told his brothers he was going down to the shop to sort Dennis out and take over the pitch for himself. Next morning, Pit Bull was found dead from a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, an unusual injury and one that’s hard to inflict. You decided, not unreasonably given what you know about Dennis, that he’d used a commando karate blow to kill Pit Bull. But given what I know about Dennis, I know it couldn’t have happened like that.”

“But putting prejudice aside, there’s a key piece of evidence that tells me Dennis didn’t kill Pit Bull. I’ve known Dennis a long time, and the one thing he won’t have anything to do with is guard dogs. Back when he was burgling, he’d never touch a house that had a guard dog. If Pit Bull Kelly had turned up with his dog in tow, Dennis wouldn’t even have opened the door. But just supposing he had, that dog is a trained killer. He was Pit Bull Kelly’s private army, according to his brothers. If Dennis had lifted his hands above waist level, the dog would have gone for him. He’d never have got as far as laying a hand on the master without the dog ripping his throat out.”

Tucker nodded sympathetically. “I’ve already heard this argument from Ms. Hunter. And if this crime had taken place out in the open, I might have been forced to agree. But what you tell me about O’Brien’s dislike of fierce dogs doesn’t mean he didn’t kill Patrick Kelly. I could make the argument that the fact the dog was separated from its master by the back door of the shop lends weight to the notion that O’Brien was in fact in the shop and agreed to talk to Kelly on the sole condition that the dog stayed in the service corridor.”

“If so, how did he escape? There’s no way out through the front without being filmed by security cameras and breaking through a metal grille,” I pointed out.

Tucker shrugged. “O’Brien’s a professional burglar. If he put his mind to it, I’m sure he could find a way out that neither of us would come up with in a month of Sundays.”

“That’s not an argument that will carry much weight with a jury in the absence of any evidence to the contrary,” Ruth chipped in drily. Tucker’s eyebrows descended and his eyes darkened.

“What I want to show you,” I interrupted before the goodwill melted, “is an alternative hypothesis that answers all the problems this case presents. It should be relatively easy to make the forensic tests that will demonstrate if I’m right or wrong. But for now, all I want the pair of you to do is to watch.”

I tapped a couple of keys and the screen saver dissolved. The

“Two of his brothers confirmed that the dog was always jumping up at Pit Bull. It’s still not much more than a pup. It’s full of energy,” I said, forestalling any protest from Tucker when he saw where this was heading.

“It’s impressive,” was all he said.

We watched Kelly and the dog arrive at the door to Dennis’s squat. He reached out a hand for the doorknob and clumsily turned it. Expecting it to be locked, he stumbled as it opened under his hand. As Kelly lurched forward, the dog yanked on its leash, jerking Kelly off balance and spinning him half around so that the vulnerable angle under his jaw cracked into the doorjamb, accompanied by a thud courtesy of Gizmo.

The screen went black momentarily. Then the point of view shifted. We were inside the shop, behind the door. Again, we saw Kelly topple into the doorjamb, the dog skittering back from his master. The leash dropped from Kelly’s fingers and the dog scampered back into the service corridor as Kelly collapsed sideways to the floor, the weight of his body slamming the door shut as he fell. The final scene dissolved into the starkness of the crime-scene photograph that had been the starting point for the whole process.

I heard Tucker’s breath leak from him, the first sign that he’d been taking seriously what he saw. “I suppose I’d be wasting my time if I asked you where exactly your source material came from?”

I nodded. “I’m afraid so. All I will say is that it wasn’t the obvious route,” I added in an attempt to give Della’s contact a little protection.

“I take it I can expect the immediate release of my client, in the light of this?” Ruth said, leaning back expansively and lighting a cigarette. Noël Coward would have loved her.

Tucker shook his head. “A very convincing performance, Ms. Brannigan, but you know as well as I do that it doesn’t change anything.”

“It should, because it explains everything a damn sight better than any hypothesis you’ve been able to come up with,” I said. “The door was unlocked because Dennis didn’t want to be responsible for the landlord having to cause any damage getting into the premises. Dennis’s alibi holds water. It also explains why the dog didn’t get into a fight with the killer, because there was no killer. I know it’s bad for your clear-up statistics, but this wasn’t a murder, it was the purest of accidents.”

Tucker sucked his lower lip in between his teeth. “You make a good case. But O’Brien’s wife has given him false alibis before, and he did have a strong reason for falling out with the dead man.”

“You will be running full forensic checks on the doorjamb, won’t you, Inspector?” Ruth said ominously.

“I’m not sure that’s justified,” Tucker said cautiously. “Besides, the crime scene has been released.”

“Because if you don’t,” Ruth continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “I will. I’ll be getting my own expert witness down there this afternoon. And when he finds fragments of skin and maybe even a bit of blood with Patrick Kelly’s DNA all over that doorjamb at precisely the height where his jaw would have hit it, Mr. O’Brien will be suing you for false imprisonment. Won’t that be fun?”

“A lovely Christmas present for the Chief Constable,” I added. I was starting to get the hang of threatening the police. I could see why Ruth got such a buzz out of her job.

Tucker sighed then chewed his lower lip some more. “I will get someone to take a look at the door,” he eventually said. “And I will also have a word with the pathologist.” He stood up, his long body unfolding to its unnerving height. “It’s been an interesting experience, Ms. Brannigan. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

Ruth extracted a promise that he’d call her as soon as he had any information, and I shepherded him out.

“Tell me, what set you off on this train of thought?” Ruth demanded the moment the door closed.

“I wish I could say it was some brilliant intuitive leap. But it wasn’t. I’m on the Internet mailing list of a forensic pathology newsgroup,” I said, feeling slightly sheepish. “Mostly I’m too busy to do much more than skim it, but every now and again, some bizarre detail sticks in my mind. I read about a similar case and I remembered it because the reporting pathologist described it as, ‘Man’s best friend and worst enemy.’”