Twenty-One
Halfway up the drive, Xiu pulled the car over and they stared at the Cutler house through the trees up ahead.
Both had visited the property several times before, but the place had not lost its power to impress.
Miller knew that was precisely the reason Wayne Cutler had bought it; the less-than-subtle statement that he and now his less-than-devoted wife were trying to make.
Look at us, losers!
‘I’ve certainly been at both ends of the property ladder today,’ he said. ‘From Barry Cheshire’s dismal cellar of doom to …’ he nodded ahead, ‘this monstrosity.’
‘I had a quick look in that cellar when I first went into the house,’ Xiu said. ‘It didn’t seem that bad to me.’
‘Trust me, it could only have been worse if Cheshire was sharing it with a decomposing cow, someone was piping in avant-garde, plinky-plonky Icelandic jazz twenty-four hours a day and the place was riddled with asbestos.’ He placed a hand against his chest and coughed. ‘I’d meant to ask about asbestos.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be fine,’ Xiu said.
Miller looked at the house again and shook his head.
‘What is it with drug dealers wanting to live as if they’re minor members of the aristocracy?
Don’t get me wrong, there’s probably a few earls and lords and what have you who are drug dealers and I’m damn sure a lot of the nobs are seriously good customers, but you know what I mean. ’
‘Perhaps they secretly aspire to respectability,’ Xiu suggested.
‘Wayne Cutler couldn’t even spell it, but they’re definitely pretending to be something they’re not.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Cutler coat of arms. That’s just the sort of massively naff thing Wayne would have had arranged, and Jacqui would have loved.
’ Miller let his head drop back, imagining the resulting atrocity.
‘I’m picturing a massive cannabis plant, rampant above crossed sawn-off shotguns, with some kind of appropriate motto on a scroll at the bottom.
Whatever the Latin is for “I’m the Daddy”. ’
‘Sum Pater,’ Xiu said.
‘What?’
‘“I’m the Daddy” in Latin. Well, “I am the father”, if you want to be precise, but I think the meaning would be clear enough.’
‘Since when do you know Latin?’ Miller asked.
‘Since I went to a school that taught Latin,’ Xiu said.
‘Blimey, get you!’
‘I take it you didn’t.’
‘Kind of school I was at, parents went to PTA meetings under assumed names,’ Miller said.
Xiu turned to stare at him. ‘Why would they … oh, I see.’
‘Right, then.’ Miller rubbed his hands together. ‘Let’s go and see if Lady Muck’s at home to visitors, shall we?’
Miller had encountered Malky McDougall on a fair few previous occasions, so felt no compulsion to show his warrant card.
The Scotsman had been prime suspect in several cases of GBH as well as a couple of aggravated assaults, and had made demands with menaces so often that it more or less qualified as a hobby.
Miller knew that he’d done far worse, though.
He was all but certain that McDougall was responsible for the death of a local cocaine supplier a year or so ago; an over-confident idiot who’d become a little too fond of sampling his own merchandise and ended up dead as mutton in the boot of a Honda Civic.
Bits of him, at least. Nothing had ever stuck, however, because, thanks to his talent for intimidation and a gaggle of expensive lawyers paid for by the Cutlers, Malcolm Sinclair McDougall had also proved himself to be an accomplished escape artist.
Thus far, at any rate.
Xiu had not previously had the pleasure, so she brandished her ID for McDougall to examine. Being a stickler for procedure she would almost certainly have produced it anyway, even if the man who’d answered the door had been a close relation, or someone she’d slept with the night before.
McDougall stared at the warrant card, clearly befuddled by the name.
‘If you’re struggling, Google, it’s pronounced “jus”,’ Miller said. ‘As in … jus. Mind you, I doubt it’s something you’re familiar with being a Scot, as I don’t think it’s very easy to deep fry.’
McDougall conjured a thin smile. He said, ‘Hilarious as ever, Miller,’ then turned and walked back into the house.
Miller and Xiu followed him down a long corridor, past a series of open doors revealing, in turn, a billiard room, a gym and a home cinema, until they eventually arrived in the lounge, where the lady of the house was waiting.
Jacqui Cutler did not seem remotely taken aback at the arrival of unexpected guests, and the slightly unnatural way in which she was stretched out on the sofa, enjoying a cigarette, suggested that she’d arranged herself in readiness.
Miller wasn’t surprised. He knew there were security cameras everywhere and guessed that he and Xiu had been watched ever since they’d got out of the car.
McDougall announced them anyway – as though this was a high-end reception and the two coppers were a pair of visiting dignitaries – then sat down opposite his boss.
Miller and Xiu remained standing.
‘Always nice to see you, Detective Sergeant.’ Jacqui sat up, stubbed out her cigarette, then leaned across to the fancy tea set arranged on a small side table. She poured herself tea and put the china pot back down next to the milk jug and a three-tier cake stand. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘Courtroom Three, wasn’t it?’ Miller said. ‘Last time we saw each other?’ He watched her cut a slice of cake for herself and lift the plate on to her lap. ‘Happy days.’
McDougall sat forward suddenly. ‘So … what can we do for you?’
‘It’s just a heads-up, really,’ Miller said. ‘But, before I forget, have you been in Claremont Park recently?’
‘I don’t think so,’ McDougall said.
‘Not popped down there to feed the ducks, maybe? To ask a few questions?’ Miller was thinking about what Imran had told him. ‘No? Ah well, must have been a different Scotsman.’
McDougall was glaring. ‘A heads-up, you said.’
‘Yes, that’s right. We wanted to let you know that a vehicle registered to one of your companies …’
‘JMC Limited,’ Xiu said. ‘An Audi A5.’
‘ … was picked up late last night on one of our ANPR cameras, driving past Layton cemetery. Out by the biscuit factory.’
‘You came all the way here to tell us that?’ McDougall said. ‘Have you really got nothing better to do?’
‘You got any idea who was driving it?’
‘Not the foggiest.’
‘We’d appreciate it if you could find out,’ Xiu said.
‘Come on, Detective Sergeant.’ Jacqui dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a serviette. ‘I thought we had an understanding.’
Miller walked across and leaned against the end of the sofa. ‘Sorry, Mrs Cutler, but just because you provided some evidence that helped us put your husband away – and believe me, it was very much appreciated – you don’t get a free pass.’
‘I never expected I would,’ Jacqui said.
‘And while we’re talking about debts, I thought the fact that I solved your youngest boy’s murder might at least be worth … I don’t know, something nice at Christmas?’
‘Miller!’ Xiu looked horrified.
Miller waved her concerns away. ‘I wouldn’t take it, obviously, but with these things it’s the gesture that counts.’ He turned back to Jacqui Cutler. ‘So, this car … ?’
Jacqui turned to McDougall, who stayed silent. ‘Look, I’m always keen to help the police, you know that. So … hypotheti-cally, a car registered to one of my firms was spotted—’
‘There’s nothing hypothetical about it,’ Miller said.
‘We’ve got it on camera,’ Xiu said.
‘But if it makes discussing things a bit more comfortable, let’s crack on by saying that hypothetically this car was being driven by someone who was going to see the man they believed … you believed … had killed Ezra Simmons.’ Miller looked at McDougall. ‘One of yours, wasn’t he, Google?’
‘Never heard of him,’ McDougall said.
‘Hypothetically.’
‘Oh, fair enough, then.’ Jacqui smiled, enjoying the game every bit as much as her husband – from whom she’d learned the rules – used to, before she’d done her bit to get him banged up. ‘Yes, he was.’
Miller straightened up again and began to pace slowly around the living room, studying photographs and picking up knick-knacks as he went.
‘So, whoever was in that car drove to the house of the man they believed was to blame for Simmons’s death.
How they got this information is a conversation for another day, but the man who answered the door was, unfortunately for all concerned, not the man the driver was actually there to see. ’
‘Ah.’ Jacqui glanced across at McDougall.
‘Ah, indeed,’ Miller said.
‘Right house, wrong man,’ Xiu said.
‘Wrong man in every sense as it happens, because the man he was after … you were after … didn’t kill Ezra Simmons after all.
’ Miller picked up a small pottery hedgehog from a window ledge, examined it for a few seconds, then put it back.
‘No, because poor old Ezra tumbled into the lake and bashed his head in. It was just a stupid accident, so there’s really no need for you to look for revenge against anyone. ’
‘I’m not,’ Jacqui said.
‘Course you aren’t. But just letting you know, Jacqui, that it would be utterly pointless if you were.’
‘Good of you to pass that on,’ McDougall said.
‘You’re very welcome.’ Miller sighed and shook his head. ‘It’s the pointlessness of it which makes what happened afterwards all the more tragic and stupid.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jacqui asked.
‘Oh, just the fact that the man who did answer the door at that address last night was subsequently stabbed to death.’ He let that sink in, but did not need to look particularly carefully to see the shock register on Jacqui Cutler’s face; to deduce that this was wholly unexpected and unwelcome news. ‘Sorry to spoil your afternoon tea.’
Jacqui said nothing, while McDougall stared at the swirly pattern on the carpet.
‘Well, I think we’re all on the same page now,’ Miller said. ‘Needless to say, our investigations are ongoing.’
‘Very much ongoing,’ Xiu said. ‘We’re still examining camera footage from a variety of sources, awaiting forensic results and conducting extensive house-to-house inquiries.’
‘So, all being well … well for us as opposed to well for you … next time we swing by we’ll be having a natter that isn’t quite so hypothetical—oh, hello!’ Miller marched across to the fireplace and pointed to the pair of ceramic leopards that had caught his eye. ‘Are these new?’
Jacqui looked across and nodded proudly. ‘They arrived just before you did. What do you think?’
‘I think they’re unutterably hideous.’ Miller stared at them, shaking his head. ‘In fact, I think they might just be the most appalling things I’ve ever clapped eyes on. In a perfect world they’d have a lump-hammer taken to them immediately, so that nobody else ever has to look at them again.’
Jacqui stood up so fast that her cake fell to the carpet. ‘I’d like you to leave now,’ she said.
‘Come on, you did ask.’
McDougall got to his feet. ‘On your way, Miller.’
‘I’m not wrong though, am I?’
Jacqui was red-faced and clutching a cushion to her chest. ‘Get out of my house!’
‘Touchy,’ Miller said.