Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ROBBIE
The interview room at Bannock police station hasn’t changed in the years since I was last here. Same grey walls. Same scratched metal table. Same fluorescent light that buzzes like an angry wasp, flickering just enough to grate on your nerves. It’s surreal to think that thirty minutes ago I was with Cat— in Cat—and now I’m here in this cold box.
I slump into the chair opposite Sinclair and Muir and cross my arms over my chest. The handcuffs are off now, though my wrists still feel the phantom pressure of the metal.
“Interview commencing at twenty-one thirty-seven,” Sinclair says, pressing a button on the recorder that sits between us. “Present are Detective Sergeant Gordon Sinclair, Police Constable Ailsa Muir, and Robert MacDonald.
“Robert, you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”
“Aye. I heard it at Cat’s flat. And every time you hauled me in here as a kid.”
Sinclair ignores my dig. “You’re entitled to free and independent legal advice. Would you like a solicitor present?”
“Don’t need one. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“This interview is being recorded as evidence,” Muir chimes in, her voice crisp, professional. “Do you understand that?”
I nod.
“Verbal response for the recording, please,” she prompts.
“Aye, I understand.”
“Would you like anything to drink before we begin?” Sinclair says. “Water? Tea?”
“I’m good. Let’s just get on with it.”
He nods and folds his hands on the table. “We’re here to discuss the thefts at the Glen Garve Resort. Three incidents in all. A watch, valued at approximately twenty-five thousand pounds, vanished from one room. Then there was the pair of diamond earrings. And finally, a signet ring was taken, along with two thousand pounds in cash.”
“Look, this is all a misunderstanding. I think Samantha Drummond?—”
Sinclair holds up a hand. “I’ll be asking the questions here, Robbie.”
I clench my jaw. Didn’t he say I’d get to tell my side of the story at the station? And yet here we are, at the station, and I’m still not being given the chance to speak. When exactly will my chance come?
“Let’s start with your employment at the resort,” Sinclair continues. “You worked in maintenance, correct?”
“Aye.”
“And that gave you access to guest rooms?”
“When necessary. For repairs.”
“According to the keycard logs, you accessed room 118 on the fourth of August at sixteen thirty-seven. Can you explain why?”
I straighten. “I didn’t. I wasn’t in that room on that date.”
Sinclair raises an eyebrow. “The logs show your keycard was used to enter the room. They also show your keycard was used to access room 207 on August the twelfth and room 203 on August the fourteenth. The guests in each room reported items missing shortly afterwards.”
The walls seem to press in slightly. I’ve been in here enough times to know how these interviews go, but unlike the younger version of me—cocky, defiant, not giving a shit—I care about the outcome this time.
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me,” I insist. “Someone must have taken my keycard, or?—”
“Are you suggesting,” Muir cuts in, “that someone took your keycard, used it, returned it without you noticing, then took it again for the second theft, returned it again, and then took it a third time?”
I can hear how daft that sounds. Can almost see my younger self sitting here, spinning wild tales to explain away whatever trouble I’d landed in. The difference is, this time I’m telling the truth.
“No, that’s ridiculous, obviously. More likely they cloned my card somehow, or tampered with the logs to make it look like it was me.”
The silence in the room is heavy, thick with doubt, and I know they both think I’m talking shite.
“Let’s move on,” Sinclair says, sliding a photograph across the table. “Do you recognise this?”
It’s a signet ring. Gold with a crest on it. The same one that fell out of my locker. The same one I begged Johnny to claim he found elsewhere. But I can’t tell these two that.
“No,” I say. “Never seen it before.”
“Never?” Sinclair probes. “You’re certain about that?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So you’ve never held this ring in your hand? Never touched it?”
Something cold slides down my spine. I suspect this is a trap, but what am I supposed to do? Change my story? Oh aye, because that’s famously something innocent people do.
“No,” I say, but my voice lacks conviction now.
Sinclair exchanges a glance with Muir. “That’s interesting, because we found your fingerprints on this ring, Robbie.”
Fuck.
Of course they did. When it fell from my locker, I picked it up. Held it in my bare hand before I gave it to Johnny.
“I don’t—” I begin, but my throat dries up. I rub my palms against my jeans under the table.
“Your fingerprints are still on file from your previous convictions,” Sinclair explains. “The match is conclusive.”
A dull ache starts behind my eyes. “It’s not what you think. Okay, I did touch that ring, but I found it in my locker. Someone planted it there.”
“And who would that be?” Muir asks.
“Samantha Drummond. The head of housekeeping.”
“That’s quite an accusation.” Sinclair leans back. “Do you have any evidence to support it?”
And there’s the rub. There’s Cat’s photos of the overdue bills, but explaining how we got those would mean admitting she and David broke into Samantha’s office. And anyway, those only prove that Samantha’s been having money troubles, not that she stole anything.
Still, I try to sound confident. “She’s recently divorced and struggling financially. She’s been spending beyond her means. And she’s had it in for me for years.”
“That’s motive, perhaps,” Sinclair acknowledges, “but not evidence. Nothing that explains how your keycard was used or how the ring ended up in your locker. And what did you do with the ring after you found it in your locker?”
“I handed it over,” I say carefully.
“To who?”
I hesitate, knowing I’m walking into dangerous territory. But I’ve already lied about the ring once. I can’t lie again. So I say, “To Johnny.”
Sinclair and Muir share a look.
“That’s interesting,” Sinclair says after a pause, “because according to the statement your brother gave us, he came across the ring while walking through the resort grounds. Always seemed a little convenient, if you ask me.”
“Johnny had nothing to do with this. He was just?—”
“Covering for you?” Sinclair suggests.
“Look.” I lay my hands flat on the table. “I found that ring in my locker. Someone planted it there—Samantha, I’m sure of it. I panicked and asked Johnny to help. That was my mistake, not his.”
“When you say you asked your brother to help ,” Muir says, “you mean you asked him to lie for you, is that right?”
Fuck. I never wanted to get Johnny into trouble.
“I put him in an impossible position. He shouldn’t be punished for that.”
Sinclair sighs. “You know what disappoints me about all of this, Robbie? For years, you were in and out of this station. Vandalism. Fighting. Shoplifting. But then things changed. You seemed to settle down. I actually thought to myself, MacDonald’s finally grown up .”
His words shouldn’t sting, but they do. Not because I particularly care what Sinclair thinks of me, but because he’s echoing what everyone in Bannock has always thought—that I’ll never amount to anything but trouble. That’s what my da believes. And it’s what my maw believed when she walked out.
“I have grown up. That’s why I’m sitting here telling you I didn’t do this. I’m not the same arsehole I was in my teens.”
“Let me lay this out for you, Robbie,” Sinclair says. “We have keycard logs showing you entered rooms from which items were later reported missing. We have no maintenance records to explain why you were in those rooms. We have your fingerprints on one of the stolen items. And we have a fabricated story from your brother about how that item was found.”
Put like that, it sounds bad. Really bad.
“I didn’t steal anything,” I insist, but the words sound hollow even to my own ears.
Sinclair shakes his head. “Robert MacDonald, you are being charged with theft from the Glen Garve Resort. You will be detained pending a court appearance where you can apply for bail.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. This is really happening.
“Do you understand the charge against you?” Muir asks.
I nod numbly.
“Remember, a verbal response for the recording, please.”
“Aye,” I manage. “I understand.”
“Interview terminated at twenty-two oh-three.” Sinclair reaches to stop the recording, and the red light on the device blinks off.
I stare at the scratched surface of the table, trying to process what’s just happened. Seven years ago, I knocked a guy out cold in an underground fight. An hour or so after that, I found the McIntyres’ car wrapped around a tree. That night changed me. Made me walk away from fighting, from the rush of violence. Made me try to be better.
And now here I am, back in this bloody interview room, about to be locked up for something I didn’t even do.
The irony would be funny if it wasn’t my life falling apart.