Hold Hands in the Dark Read Free

so many years. It won’t only be the erstwhile DCC who is tied up in this. There will be others. It’s our job to flush out the rest.’ The DCS scanned the faces before him once again, this time his expression was softer. ‘Those of you seated around this table represent the only people within the walls of the Pitt Street station that I wholeheartedly trust, beyond the Assistant CC and the Chief Constable himself. Not least because we’ve had you all thoroughly vetted.’ Just the tiniest hint of a wry smile played upon his thin lips.
                  ‘Do you want us to provide you with information, sir?’ A DCI from the vice squad asked this question.
                  Douglas nodded. ‘Trust nobody in your team. Believe me, Suter was handing out bribes like they were penny sweeties for the last four decades. His control runs deep within this force. Anything unusual needs to be reported back to me - immediately.’    
                  Dani shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘But this kind of witch-hunt is surely going to generate bad feeling within the ranks, Guv. Our teams operate on mutual support and trust.’
                  Douglas’s forehead creased. ‘The term witch-hunt, suggests that our suspicions are unfounded. I only wish that they were, DCI Bevan. The First Minister herself is launching an inquiry into the Suter case. A forty-year old miscarriage of justice is enough to bring down governments. We need to have cleared our division of dirty officers by the time these investigators start work, because if you think I’m an unfeeling bastard, wait till you meet that lot.’
                  Dani grimaced, nodding begrudgingly to her boss. In her heart she knew he was right. But Dani was still reluctant to imagine that anyone on her team would ever be in the pocket of a criminal. It was the Serious Crime Division who busted the case and exposed the miscarriage of justice, after all. But she needed to work with Ronnie Douglas, share information with him and learn to place her faith in his judgement, because the alternative just didn’t even bear thinking about.                
     
    *
     
    Dani called her team into their new de-briefing suite. It was one of the concessions she’d managed to gain from the DCS for their success on the Suter case. A gaggle of admin workers had been shifted into a broom cupboard somewhere to make the space available. But Dani struggled to care. They had too many pen-pushers at Pitt Street as it was.
                  ‘Tony MacRae’s body was found on the steel hull of the ship he was helping to build on Friday morning, when the first of the workers began to clock into the yard.’ Dani gestured towards a series of scene photographs, showing the man’s injuries and the position of his body. ‘The post mortem report indicates that death was caused by massive internal injuries corresponding to a rapid descent from 120 feet. This was the distance from the hull of the boat to the working platform we believe MacRae was standing on before the fall.’
                  ‘Any pre-fall injuries evident, Ma’am?’ Asked DS Andy Calder.
                  ‘Not that the pathologist could identify. It was the fracture of the upper spine that occurred as he hit the ground which killed him. The force pretty much severed his spinal column.’
                  ‘Then we’re talking accidental death, Ma’am?’ DS Alice Mann got to her feet. ‘Shouldn’t we be referring this to the Fiscal’s office?’
                  Dani took a deep breath. ‘The case landed on my desk because Mrs MacRae has been telling every reporter who’ll listen, and there are plenty of those, that her husband was murdered by Hemingway Shipyards. She’s written to the Chief Constable and the First Minister, making sweeping accusations about serious breaches of safety procedure