‘Right. Or at least, maybe it is. We’ve got firm evidence tying him to her killing and we’re going to charge him.’
‘And yet the tone of your voice tells me this doesn’t make you happy. Wait. Do you have a body? Have you found Eloise?’
She blanked him. Tony was a journalist, a reporter for the Scottish Standard, and she insisted on strict demarcation lines between his job and hers.
‘No comment. Not till tomorrow at the earliest.’
He sat up straighter, shifting her from where she lay. ‘You’ve found her? Christ. Where?’
‘I’m saying nothing. You know I’m not giving you a heads-up on this. And it’s not what I want to talk about. It’s Harkness.’
He huffed, knowing she wouldn’t be shifted. And he got it. If he started turning up exclusive after exclusive from her cases, then she’d be facing a disciplinary panel in no time.
‘Okay, tell me about him. Although this is killing me. What’s the deal with Harkness? You’ve always been sure he killed her.’
‘Yeah. I was sure. Until today. We have evidence, very firm, stand-up-in-court type evidence that would put him away for Eloise’s murder. And yet I don’t believe he did it. It’s like everything I thought is upside down. Now I’m not sure what to think or what to do.’
‘Jesus. And you thinking he didn’t do it is based on what?’
She managed to look embarrassed. ‘Instinct. Experience. Something like that. The evidence being too good to be true and just turning up now when a certain location has probably been visited a number of times and nothing found.’
‘Okay . . . so this evidence . . .’
‘That I’m not going to talk about tonight.’
‘Yeah, I get that. But this evidence. You think it’s been planted to frame Harkness?’
‘Maybe. It would explain it but there’s so much that I don’t know.’
‘So, you accept that planting evidence could happen?’
‘Well it always . . . wait. Whoa. Christ, you’re not going to start on that Keith Hardie stuff again, are you?’
‘It’s not stuff. It’s an investigation. It’s a miscarriage of justice.’
‘He was caught bang to rights.’
‘Most of that was circumstantial. You know that.’
‘Apart from the bloody evidence? Apart from the DNA that actually convicted him?’
‘Apart from one piece of evidence. One highly disputed piece of evidence. You take that away and there was precious little holding that case together. Sound familiar?’
‘Keith Hardie killed a fifty-six-year-old woman. He left her to bleed to death. Stevie Crichton might be a bit of a bellend, but he’s a solid detective. He made that case and the jury agreed with him. You really sure you want to spend so much of your time trying to prove this guy innocent? I can get you the scene of crime photos if you want. We both know you like that sort of thing.’
It was a low blow and she regretted it immediately but there was no taking it back, not least because it was true. It was enough to send Winter into a rage.
‘Bullshit! The jury agreed with him. Aye, because judges and juries always get it right. Keith Hardie was at home with his partner. Two other people, with no motivation to lie, saw him go in. No one saw him leave. His neighbour, who was a nosey old cow, swears she’d have known if he’d left and come home again. He had no motive to kill Irene Dow. He had no knowledge of how to kill Irene Dow the way she was killed. He had no history of violence or any other criminal activity. The one bit of evidence was lapped up by the cops and the prosecution and the jury. But it was some bullshit plant. Take that away and there was fuck all. He didn’t do it.’
She took a breath. It was a long-established working practice that if one of them got mad, the other had to stay calm. If they both lost it then the walls of the house might come tumbling down.
‘Tony, you can’t just discard the biggest piece of evidence in the case as if it never existed. It existed. It still exists. Hardie’s DNA was on her. A note written by him was in her coat pocket.’
‘Yet you can discard it when it suits you? You’re telling me you have evidence to put Harkness away and you’re going to ignore it?’
‘That’s different. I—’
‘No. I’m not seeing it as different at all. Listen, I was with Keith’s mother this morning and you want to go and tell her he’s bang to rights. Helen knows her son. She knows his partner and knows she’s telling the truth. That woman is in bits because of the injustice that’s been done. She’s going to keep at this whether the cops like it or not. And I’m with her. I’m writing stories on this until the truth is there for everyone to see.’
She stared back at him, saying nothing but refusing to blink.
‘You’re pretty sexy when you go full-on All the President’s Men, you know that? The fearless reporter seeking truth, justice and the West Highland Way.’
‘Piss off, I’m serious.’
‘I know you are. Still sexy though.’
‘How sexy?’
‘Let’s go to bed and I’ll tell you.’
‘Okay, but I’m still serious. Keith Hardie is innocent and I’m not giving up on that.’
‘I know. I know. Keep talking.’
CHAPTER 16
O’Neill and Salgado watched the young man talking to himself, seeing his tongue loll out of his mouth like a dog in the middle of the afternoon. He was speaking too low and sat too far from the camera for them to hear what he was saying but they could guess.
His body language shouted where he couldn’t. He was dying of thirst and the agony of it was tormenting both his physical being and his mind. His head shifted drunkenly from side to side like he was arguing with himself or the world. Occasionally he convulsed in a desperate kicking, lunging motion as if his body were shrivelling before them and rebelling against it.
‘I can’t bear to watch him,’ O’Neill admitted. ‘He’s dying in front of us. We can maybe track down Walker Wright but there’s no guarantee it’s going to bring us any closer to finding this guy.’
‘It’s all we can do, Cally. We do our job, we follow the case, we make progress, and we do get closer.’
‘I know it, I know it. It’s just . . .’ she waved a hand at the screen by way of unnecessary explanation.
A knock on the outside of the open door interrupted their tortured viewing.
‘Detectives?’
O’Neill looked up to see a tall, slim man approaching the desk alongside Charlie Randall. He was dressed in dark suit pants and a pale-blue open-neck shirt, his head dusted in fair hair.
‘Howie Kelsey!’ From behind her, Salgado was out of his seat and shaking the newcomer’s hand. ‘How you doing, man? Not seen you in a while.’
‘I’m good, I’m good. I hear you’re trying to steal one of my cases.’
Salgado laughed dryly. ‘That’s the last thing we need. We’ve got plenty to do without taking on anything else. Howie, this is my partner, Cally O’Neill.’
Kelsey smiled and they shook hands. ‘Good to meet you, Cally. I—’ He stopped mid-thought. ‘Shit, this is your guy?’