Ice Cold Blood Read online

  Now seated in the incident room at Fort William Tosh sighed, putting the notes of that interview back in their folder. Then it took him ten minutes of pacing alone up and down the incident room before mustering the courage to go through to reception where Sergeant Shona Watson was on duty behind the desk. She smiled at him before the phone rang diverting her attention. When the call ended, she leant on the desk, raising her eyebrows.

  ‘Can I help you with anything Detective Chief Inspector?’

  ‘I’m pursuing a line of enquiry that might require some assistance.’

  ‘I see and where might that line of enquiry lead?’

  ‘To a certain seafood restaurant by the pier at around eight o’clock this Friday evening.’

  She nodded her head in pretend thought. ‘And you feel there might be something worth investigating there.’

  ‘I have it on good authority that the food is of a very high standard.’

  ‘Well I can’t confirm that, though I have heard rumours that the prices are of a criminal nature.’

  ‘Then perhaps I would need back up should it be necessary to have the manager arrested on grounds of profiteering?’

  ‘And DS McIntyre is unavailable for duty that evening?’

  ‘My colleague is otherwise detained on marital duties.’

  ‘Then perhaps I might be able to render some assistance, but first I might have to caution you regarding your rights.’

  ‘Please continue,’ Tosh smiled, thoroughly enjoying the game and impressed how quick she was with her replies.

  ‘You have the right to buy the first round of drinks but from then on all expenses incurred from this investigation will be evenly split between both parties.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I think you should reserve your right to remain silent before you say something that might be used in evidence against you.’

  Tosh burst out laughing. ‘Agreed, I will secure us a table at the potential crime scene if we can rendezvous there at seven forty-five.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to my first plainclothes assignment,’ she smiled as the outside door opened and McIntyre appeared clutching two cartons of coffee.

  ‘Hi boss,’ he grinned knowingly. ‘Anything to report?’

  ‘Oh, there been some progress on one front anyway. I’ll fill you in later.’

  McIntyre flashed Shona a smile before following his boss into the incident room.

  ‘How did you know she wasn’t in a relationship? Come on, you didn’t just go and ask her.’

  ‘First, I just used all my training as a detective. And I’m surprised that as a DCI you didn’t think of it too.’

  ‘All right, in this case I admit you’re smarter than me, now out with it.’

  ‘I just looked at her Facebook page where she’s listed herself as single.’

  ‘God I should have thought of that. But what made you think she’d go out with me?’

  ‘Well that’s where I used my charm and flirted a bit with her, asked what she thought of the big chief from Glasgow, and surprisingly, she thought you an interesting man.’

  ‘Thanks Ian, that was really kind of you, and I appreciate it. We’re going for a meal on Friday.’

  ‘Right, what news on the murder,’ his colleague asked, slightly embarrassed by the compliment. ‘When are you seeing Mr Hunter?’

  ‘He’s back in the country this afternoon and agreed to come to Fort William first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Do you want me here when you interview him?’

  ‘Yes, I need you there. He has to have information about Ellie, and we need every bit of assistance right now.’

  ‘Is he a suspect?’

  ‘He’s a suspect all right.’

  ‘He doesn’t have any police record, not even a speeding ticket.’

  ‘Love, passion and jealousy can do strange things to man. The pain builds up with time and then all it takes is the wrong word or gesture and suddenly he snaps. It can be a fist, a knife or even an axe.’

  ‘Be quite calculating to kill his former girlfriend and then fly off to Seoul as if nothing had happened.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened in murder cases.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking this ice axe thing over and over in my mind and for me there’s another problem.’

  ‘Ok shoot.’

  ‘I know we’ve been over this before so bear with me. There’s still a problem with the lack of blood at the crime scene. I’ve seen blood on snow from a wound after an accidental head injury and it just pours out. Then there’s the pathologist’s hesitancy over the cause of death, with the possibility of hypothermia exacerbated by whisky or drugs. What I want to say is that swinging an axe in a snow-hole is not easy as it sounds. There’s not much height in these things and it looks like the blow was delivered when she was lying on the ground with him astride her. And the axe had penetrated deep into her skull. It might be difficult to generate that much force with a low ceiling.’

  ‘But not impossible.’

  ‘No not impossible, though to me nothing really fits well here. It just doesn’t feel right.’

  Tosh nodded. The problem of swinging an axe had not really occurred to him and initially he wanted to dismiss it as of minor concern. Being a good detective meant considering everything, however and he was annoyed at overlooking something that should have been obvious. ‘Ian it looks like she walked up the mountain with someone that evening. She didn’t make it back. Now the person who walked up with her is clearly the main suspect and I wouldn’t be surprised if that person wasn’t our Mr Hunter.’

  ‘Her friends said she’s had quite a few casual acquaintances in the past few years,’ McIntyre countered. Why not one of them?’

  ‘You’ve traced a few and they all have solid alibis.’

  ‘Yes, not watertight though.’

  ‘Ian, were any of those casual partners mountain climbers? Does it not sound like to you that this person who walked with her up the mountain was a climber? Euan Hunter is a climber. And there’s another thing. Ellie Saunders was someone he’d loved for almost 30 years, yet he doesn’t show up at her funeral to say goodbye. That sounds suspicious to me.’

  ‘He’s had other relationships too, one of them long term and he’s got a daughter.’

  ‘It’s not his daughter I’m interested in, it’s where he was at the time Ellie Saunders was walking to her death up that mountain.’

  Chapter 16

  The meal with his family went well, better than he could have hoped. Their two children, Patrick and Emma, had surprised them by coming back a day earlier and had been easily persuaded into joining them for dinner. The food was wonderful, served promptly while an attentive waiter ensured their wine glasses were always full. The conversation stayed mostly light and humorous with the occasional foray into politics and the state of the NHS. His wife looked relaxed for the first time in months no doubt feeling, like him, some pride that their children had grown into very likeable adults. Both had left-wing leanings, viewing the large sums they knew he often charged as a counsellor quite excessive. It was mostly gentle badinage and he accepted it all graciously.

  Making people comfortable was second nature as a counsellor and he put all his experience to effective use to make the occasion a relaxed and blissful experience for his family. But Serafini knew the reason he was able to help facilitate such a convivial atmosphere was that he had made a major decision, something he knew he would not go back on. There would be no contact with the police regarding his night with Ellie Saunders on Coire Leis.

  It was a gamble, though one he regarded as worth taking. If he handed himself in then the police would arrest him and probably charge him with her murder. It would be the same outcome if he said nothing and they somehow found out he was with her that night. So what did he have to lose? And every day that
passed gave him renewed confidence that the police were no nearer to solving the crime. It was obvious they had little to go on and were struggling for leads. If he did get a phone call or a visit from a detective enquiring whether he had counselled Ellie, then he would tough it out - denying any knowledge of her. And in any case, he had not murdered her and had no information to give them as to who the killer might be. Maybe as his friend suggested she was expecting someone else that night or in the morning. It might well have been Euan Hunter, invited for a second fuck as she often called it. Then, enraged to find out she had been with another man, he had killed her.

  Then maybe she was just unlucky, a lone night climber stumbling into the snow-hole in the dark and killing her for pleasure. That was for the police to discover. He was completely innocent.

  It was a decision that calmed his mind, stopping the internal struggles. As a counsellor he knew the worst torture for any mental state was indecision. Having acknowledged to himself the dangers of not handing himself in it was time to move on and accept what the future brought. Live life and take what it served on the chin, that was what the cognitive behaviourists said, and in this case, he believed it. However, that did not mean he could stop thinking about Ellie and the effect she’d had on his life and that of others.

  Serafini knew in detail about Ellie’s relationship with Euan Hunter. It had been a common thread that ran through many of the counselling sessions. It was clear to him that Euan had loved her to distraction, but Ellie had always felt she could never return those feelings. Serafini and she had discussed what he saw as a form of dependence that had developed with Euan: Ellie wanting him in her life but never able to commit to a full partnership. In Serafini’s view it made for a toxic mix, contaminating both their lives. It was something he told her repeatedly and something she dismissed by saying she simply did not love him. When Euan started a relationship with her best friend Annabel, Ellie had felt angry and betrayed, despite the fact she and Euan had split up months previously. And when he had a child to the same woman after a short relationship, Serafini could feel Ellie’s pain during intensive counselling sessions.

  Then there was the occasional dalliance with Joe Flint, another potential suspect. Though it seemed a symbiotic arrangement, both benefiting from sex, companionship and a convenient working relationship in the mountains. Yet in the last counselling session weeks before she died, Ellie had accused Joe of letting her down when she most needed him. Despite subtle questioning, Serafini had been unable to ascertain the reason. When she had returned from New Zealand her bitterness towards Joe seemed more intense. Then, as was typical of Ellie, the resentment subsided, and she and Joe started climbing and working together again.

  Aware she was on medication for her mood swings, Serafini urged her to follow the prescribed dose and see the doctor regularly if that had to be increased or the drugs changed. It was a difficult battle, Ellie always convinced that diet and exercise would bring her life back into balance. When she went vegan, he had urged her to consider the effect this change of diet might have on her mood, but she dismissed it as nonsense, saying she was also taking natural supplements. However, she remained volatile and was prone to mood swings that could often drag on for days.

  She seldom complained, usually just accepting her condition and striving to get the most out of life. Ellie pushed herself hard, never wanting anyone’s help or pity. It was a modus vivendi of which Serafini approved. They had shared good times together. She was someone who had enriched his life and, despite the complications her death was bringing to his own life, it made him sad to realise that he would never see her again.

  ---oOo---

  Joe Flint had only ever received one letter from Ellie. That was about fourteen years ago when she had returned from New Zealand. He knew it was somewhere in his filing cabinet in Wales. On returning from the funeral, he finally found it in an old file containing some ancient receipts. Rereading her words after all those years he still struggled to find any meaning.

  Joe

  You know I have been in New Zealand, travelling the country and having a break from work while also seeking out new contacts and markets for my company. Like you I now have a successful business giving employment and helping the economy of the UK. In that sense we have both achieved something admirable. I know you are a considerate employer not obsessed with profits, pay your employees well and l have witnessed how well you look after clients out on the mountains. You are a good man; someone I have come to admire.

  But I need to tell you that you have let me down big, big time by not coming to Edinburgh to meet me that day when I told you how important it was. Whenever you asked me to come on an expedition you were running, and I had agreed, then I always turned up because I am a woman of my word.

  Because of your lack of consideration, loyalty or whatever you want to call it, I made a decision that I know I might regret later on. Maybe one day you will learn of the consequences I suffered because of your rather selfish action.

  Ellie

  He wondered if she had wanted him to go to New Zealand with her to consider a business proposition, setting up an outdoor company there. But if that was the case why had she not just asked him directly about it? What was so special about the meeting in Edinburgh? Wild speculation led him down the most unlikely routes. Did she want to propose to him, and was it some sort of test? It was a crazy thought as marriage had never been on her agenda or his. That wasn’t to say Ellie couldn’t have dreamt up something so outrageous. Then surely if she was planning a romantic meal to pop the question it could have been arranged at any place and at any time.

  Despite the fact it was so long ago, Flint remembered they had been close before he had messed things up by not being in Edinburgh that day. Their lovemaking had been tender, less hurried and with more eye contact. She had suggested he could come down some time to Gloucester and she would show him around, but time wasn’t something they both had a lot of, and it never materialised. Maybe she did want some sort of formal relationship and thought, with that in mind, he should meet her parents.

  He knew they didn’t love each other but had nonetheless forged a great friendship over the years. That had been built on mutual respect, born out of putting your life in someone else’s hands when dangling hundreds of feet up a sheer cliff. She had told him once she thought she loved someone, refusing to give a name. And while Flint knew it wasn’t him, he also knew it wasn’t Euan Hunter.

  ---oOo---

  Tosh decided there was no need to wait all morning for Euan Hunter to arrive. If his flight was delayed it might be the following day before he presented at the station. And there had been a break-in at a hotel in Inverness where the duty manager had been seriously assaulted. The man was in hospital undergoing an operation to try to release the pressure caused by internal bleeding from blows to the head. It was a serious enough crime to demand Tosh’s attention and he had spent the day interviewing the hotel staff and taking statements. By the time an arrest had been made, it was two in the afternoon before he set off back to Fort William. McIntyre called him when he was still twenty miles from the station to say Hunter had just arrived. Tosh told him to give Hunter tea and wait for him to get there. It would do no harm for Hunter to spend some time alone.

  When they shook hands, Tosh was struck by how fit Hunter appeared. He looked six feet plus, lean with broad shoulders and a hand grip no doubt honed from years of rock and ice climbing. He would have no difficulty wielding an axe.

  Tosh formally cautioned him before switching on the recording machine. ‘You know you’re here in connection with the murder of your former girlfriend and I need to know where you were on the evening before Ellie Saunders’ body was found in Coire Leis.’

  Hunter said nothing for a few seconds, just nodding his head. The interview room was cold, and he had kept his coat on.

  ‘I was at home in Glasgow doing some preparation for my trip to Sin
gapore.’

  ‘Anyone who can verify this,’ McIntyre asked.

  ‘I had lots of work to do so was stuck at home all evening looking at technical drawings online.’

  ‘No phone calls to anyone, no visits to your parents or your friends. Did you call your boss or work colleagues? You must have written some emails that would verify the time they were sent.’

  ‘I did send some emails and a few texts from my phone.’

  ‘When was the last time you had sex with Ellie Saunders Mr. Hunter?’

  ‘For the sex part of your question several months ago. We have not been in a relationship since then and have hardly seen each other.’

  ‘So, when was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘I bumped into her in Edinburgh about six weeks ago. She persuaded me to go for a coffee and catch up with our news.’

  ‘You didn’t want to go?’

  ‘I loved Ellie as I’m sure you know by now. Our relationship was painful for me. She suffered from mood swings which were a permanent fixture of our time together. Seeing her again brought that pain back. She suggested climbing together again. I managed to say no.’

  ‘How did she take your rebuttal?’ McIntyre enquired.

  ‘It took every ounce of willpower for me to turn her down. I suppose I never stopped loving her. She said she understood and gave me a hug.’

  ‘And that was the last time you saw her? You didn’t climb with her that evening up to Coire Leis, dig a snow-hole, have sex and then kill her?’

  ‘No, I didn’t kill her. In some ways she blighted my life, but she also gave me wonderful experiences. I never stopped loving her and that affected so much of my life. I had other relationships and a lovely daughter from one of them. But Ellie dominated my existence. It was like I was cursed because I loved her so much. And her bi-polar condition got progressively worse. We split up a few times but always got back together again, usually at my request.’