Authors: Val McDermid
Karen frowned, pretending puzzlement. ‘I don’t understand why you went to Frank. Why not just tell Gabriel the truth?’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Gabriel was … unstable. I had no idea how he would react. He was quite capable of posting it online. The fact of his paternity. The claim that I’d done him out of his inheritance.’ He spread his hands and tried a boyish smile. ‘I have shareholders to keep happy. Frank has a position in public life. I don’t want my wife and kids to think of me as some kind of crook. I wanted to make sure Gabriel understood that he needed to be discreet.’
‘I see that,’ Karen said. ‘So what was Frank’s reaction?’
‘He wasn’t happy,’ Abbott said. ‘At first he wanted to keep the lid on things. For me not to give Gabriel a DNA sample and, if I had to, to keep Frank’s name out of it. But I knew that wouldn’t work. People love to gossip, you know how it goes. If Gabriel started going round all Mum and Ellie’s friends looking for a potential father, it wouldn’t be long before Frank’s name came up. I said it was better to make a clean breast of it.’
‘And that’s what you were planning that night in Kinross?’
Abbott
nodded. ‘Frank said he didn’t want to give Gabriel advance warning of the meeting in case he started shooting his mouth off about it. Frank’s driver brought him up to Newcastle – I’ve been working with a new subsidiary company there recently – and the two of us came up to Edinburgh together. We both checked into the Balmoral and then we went across to Kinross. I knew Gabriel’s habits. He was like clockwork. I knew I could meet him coming out of the pub and walk him along the path towards his cottage. And Frank was going to wait for us on the bench.’
‘Why all this rigmarole? You could just have turned up at Gabriel’s cottage, surely?’
Abbott gave a derisive snort. ‘Because Frank’s a public figure. He thinks everybody recognises him wherever he goes. He was terrified someone would spot him and wonder what he was doing there. I told him there was no chance of that, but he was adamant. Of course, I realise now why he didn’t want to meet at the cottage. He didn’t want to leave forensic traces.’
‘He was planning to kill Gabriel all along?’
Abbott pressed his fingertips against his forehead in a mime of pain. ‘I didn’t realise that, obviously. I believed him. He sits in the House of Lords, for God’s sake. I’ve known him since I was little. Why would I think for a nanosecond he was going to murder my brother?’
‘So what happened?’
‘I met Gabriel in the street near the pub. He was surprised to see me, but I explained that I’d brought someone who wanted to talk to him about his personal history. He was excited by the idea.’
‘You told him it was Frank?’
‘No, I said it was to be a surprise. We walked down the path by the loch for about quarter of an hour and when we came to the bench, Frank was there. Gabriel was thrilled to
see him. He’d not seen him for a couple of years or more. They sat down and started talking. I hung back a bit, to keep a lookout in case anyone came along. I had my back to them. The next thing I knew, I heard a shot and, when I turned round, Frank was standing over Gabriel.’ He covered his face with his hands. Karen couldn’t have said why, but she didn’t believe his performance of shock and grief. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’
‘What did Frank say?’ Karen knew she had to keep pushing forward.
Abbott dragged his hands down his face. ‘He was totally calm. He just said, “There’s nothing to worry about now, Will.” Like he’d fixed a leaking tap or something. He leaned over Gabriel and put the gun in his hand. I noticed he was wearing gloves. I was in a state of shock; you notice the strangest things.’
‘You could see what he was doing? From where you were standing?’
He froze for a moment, almost imperceptibly. ‘I must have moved closer, I don’t remember doing that. Look, you have to believe me. I loved Gabriel. I grew up thinking of him as my brother. I took care of him, I paid his school fees, I paid his rent, I looked after him.’
‘In fairness, what he should have inherited from his real mother would have paid for all that several times over.’
His mouth tightened. ‘I was legally entitled to everything I got.’
‘Legally, maybe. But morally? You know you stole Gabriel’s money. And who knows what the courts would have to say if he’d decided to sue you?’
‘I didn’t know the truth at the time. Not till I was twenty-one.’
Karen gave him a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger look. ‘Not good enough. You must have seen both wills at the time. And
it’s quite clear that Ellie’s intention was that Gabriel should inherit her estate if Caroline wasn’t around.’
‘I don’t make the rules,’ Abbott said. ‘The money was legally mine. Look, when are you going to arrest Frank and make him answer for what he did?’
‘Where did the gun come from?’
‘How would I know? Frank has all sorts of contacts and they’re not all in the government.’
‘And you never touched the gun?’
‘No, I told you. I had no idea he had a gun with him. It’s all been down to Frank. It was his idea to keep tabs on you when you started sniffing around. He got one of his minions to follow you and let us know where you were and what you were doing. Frank thought you’d give up, but you didn’t, did you?’ The bitter words were out before he could stop himself.
Campbell leaned forward and whispered urgently in his ear. Abbott looked angry but he controlled himself. ‘My client has given you full and frank disclosure, Chief Inspector. In the light of that, I suggest you consult with the FD and consider waiving the more serious charges against him. To ensure his continued cooperation.’
‘I don’t think so, Mr Campbell. We’re going to have to speak to Lord Sinclair and check out your client’s story. In the meantime, Will Abbott, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder …’ This time, she got to the end of the necessary words.
And that was that. A furious Campbell lingered after Abbott was taken away to the cells. ‘This is an outrage,’ he kept repeating.
‘Continually repeating that doesn’t make it so,’ Ruth Wardlaw said, walking up to them. ‘I suggest you sit down with your client and explain the sentencing advantages of a guilty plea. Because he knows and we know that there are
a lot more skeletons in his cupboard. And DCI Pirie is not about to leave them there.’
Karen left them, Campbell spluttering and Ruth calmly asserting the upper hand. Abbott’s story hung together. It was credible. Right now, she didn’t know what to think. Somebody had to go and bring in Frank Sinclair and, given her current bag lady image, she didn’t think she’d get past the front lobby of the Balmoral. Maybe a pair of uniforms would do the trick. At the very least, it would annoy the living shit out of Lord Sinclair.
F
rank
Sinclair glared at Karen across the interview room table, his bushy brows pulled down low over his bright blue eyes. ‘You were at the Lords Select Committee on Monday,’ he said. ‘I never forget a face.’
‘I was,’ Karen admitted. ‘I wanted to see you in the flesh.’
‘I thought you were up to no good. You stole a glass at the end of the meeting.’ He cocked his head to one side, a predator sizing up his prey. ‘My glass.’
‘You’re very observant.’
‘If you used that as a source of DNA, it has no evidential value.’
Karen nodded. ‘I know. Not everything our labs analyse is for evidential purposes. Sometimes it’s just for investigative value.’
‘Why are you investigating me? And why am I here?’
‘Your name came up in two separate but possibly connected investigations. The fatal bombing of a small plane in 1994, and the recent murder of Gabriel Abbott.’
His frown deepened. ‘I understood from his brother Will that Gabriel’s death had been classified as suicide.’
‘Initially
there was some doubt, but we have revised that opinion. We consider his death to be suspicious.’
‘That’s sad. But I fail to see the connection to me?’
Karen left a long pause while they held each other’s gaze. At last, she said, ‘He was your son.’
Sinclair snorted. ‘Only in the way that a sperm donor is the father of the babies born to women treated with his genetic material. I had no emotional connection to Gabriel Abbott. I scarcely knew the boy.’
‘Yet his mother was one of your oldest, closest friends.’ She saw the involuntary shift in his seat. ‘Yes, I know the truth about that too.’
‘They wanted a child. I provided sperm. I saw very little of Ellie after she took up with Caroline. I did not approve of their relationship.’ He sighed. ‘But Ellie persuaded me against my better judgement. I suppose you could say it was a mixture of flattery and emotional blackmail. I regretted it almost as soon as I did it. I knew the damage it would do me if it ever became known. But I was not his father. I am father to my daughters, but I was never a father to Gabriel.’
‘Not everyone would understand that. You’re seen as someone who occupies the high moral ground on pretty much every issue. Fathering a love child for a pair of lesbians is the kind of thing your papers put on the front page. And not in a good way.’
He said nothing. Fair enough, she thought. It hadn’t been a question.
‘You were at the Elstree aerodrome on the morning of the crash.’
Now he looked surprised. ‘It’s not a secret. I spoke to the police at the time. I gave Richard and Mary a lift. I was trying to persuade Richard to write a regular column for me, so I thought it might be helpful to do him a small favour. I did a courtesy tour of the control tower with the ladies and I
was gone before the plane was even on the tarmac.’ His face twisted in an expression of distaste. ‘I was deeply upset by the accident. Even though I saw very little of Ellie by then, she was, as you said, one of my oldest friends.’
‘And you didn’t plant the bomb?’
Sinclair looked completely astonished. ‘Are you mad? Of course I didn’t plant the bomb. These were my friends. How …? How could …? How could you consider such a thing?’
‘I have to ask. Nobody ever stood trial for the murder of your friends.’
He shook his head with a baffled air. ‘Madness. Is that why you dragged me down here? To make a preposterous allegation going back twenty-two years?’
‘A very serious allegation has been made against you,’ Karen said. ‘Not to do with the plane crash.’
He frowned. ‘Well. If it’s as ridiculous as your last question, I have nothing to fear.’
‘Will Abbott alleges you murdered Gabriel.’
Sinclair’s mouth fell open. His face screwed up in an expression of utter incredulity. If it was an act, the man could have auditioned successfully for any major theatre company. He twisted his neck like a man hard of hearing thrusting his good ear towards the speaker. ‘What?’
‘Will Abbott alleges you murdered Gabriel.’
He shuddered. Karen had never seen anyone actually do that in an interview. ‘I’ve woken up in a Kafka novel,’ he said faintly. ‘This is madness.’
‘Gabriel was trying to draw up his family tree. Discovering the truth about his parentage would have been deeply embarrassing for you.’
‘That’s true. It would have been personally difficult.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘But the world has changed a great deal in recent years. And ironically, a revelation of that sort might
serve, bizarrely, to raise my standing in some quarters. My daughters would find it hilarious. Chief Inspector, I am far from perfect, but I do try to adhere to my Christian principles. I have found that “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the easier precepts to stick to.’
‘So you say. You also have a reputation for ruthlessness. Coveting your neighbour’s columnists, if not their asses.’ There was nothing humorous in Karen’s tone.
‘When am I supposed to have done this?’
‘A week past Sunday. Some time between quarter past ten and midnight.’
He threw his head back and laughed. As he struggled to regain his composure, he gasped an apology. ‘You have no idea …’ And he laughed again.
‘So tell me.’
He gathered himself together. ‘I did come up to Edinburgh from Newcastle with Will. We had a business meeting in Newcastle to discuss some cross-promotion between our online platform and his new company, Spartacular. And I was continuing to Edinburgh where I had a series of meetings on Monday morning. Will wanted to continue the conversation, to iron out some creases. He offered to drive me, so I agreed. We both checked in at the Balmoral. He said he was going to go over to Kinross to see Gabriel. I told him I was going to have an early night. We said our farewells in the lobby.’
He shrugged. ‘I was lying. I did, in fact, have a meeting that evening. A meeting of absolute confidentiality.’
‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’
‘I appreciate that. You are probably aware that my newspaper titles and our online presence were deeply hostile to the independence movement during the referendum here in Scotland.’
No shit, Sherlock
. ‘I had noticed a certain level of vitriol.’
‘It
has become regrettably clear that Ms Sturgeon and her nationalist cohort are here to stay, both in Scotland and in Westminster. Our position is hurting our sales. So I set up a meeting with a senior Holyrood minister and a couple of high-ranking party officials to discuss the terms of a rapprochement.’
As alibis went, it was a stonker. If it was true. ‘I’m going to need names.’
‘I am not going to say them aloud. Not for the tape.’ He took a small notebook and pen from the inside pocket of his beautiful grey suit. He scribbled a few lines on the page, then tore it out and handed it over.
Karen, who was far from an assiduous student of politics, recognised the names. She’d been right. A stonker, right enough. She couldn’t imagine any set of circumstances that would unite those three people behind Frank Sinclair. ‘And they’ll confirm this?’
‘Reluctantly, I imagine. But I will ask their indulgence.’ He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. ‘I have no idea who killed Gabriel, if indeed anyone did. But it really wasn’t me.’
‘Did you see Will Abbott again on that trip?’
‘We ran into each other in the breakfast room. I asked him how Gabriel was doing. He told me he was worried that he was heading for another of his episodes. That he seemed depressed. That he was getting wound up about some friend of his in Myanmar being persecuted. To be honest, it sounded like almost every conversation I’d had with Will about Gabriel. I wasn’t really paying attention.’ He paused, working his jaw from one side to the other. ‘Are you …? Do you …? Is Will a suspect?’