The Devil Upstairs Page 4

‘And even when I’m not thinking of ways to kill him, I’m dreaming of ways he might be killed. Maybe that light plane I hear buzzing overhead will drop out of the sky and crash into the top floor – just the top floor. Maybe the landing gear will fall off that jetliner. Maybe that storm will send a branch spearing through his window. Maybe that shooting star is a meteor heading straight for his head. You can’t imagine how many ways I’ve fantasised about this guy getting crushed, sliced open, ripped apart. And yeah, that’s shocking, and yeah, I wake up in the morning thinking, “My God, what’s the matter with me?” But that’s what happens when you’re at your wits’ end. When you’re tired. When you’re not thinking straight. When your peace of mind is suffering, when your health is suffering, when the only answer seems to be doing something that was previously unthinkable. You don’t need me to tell you that people under pressure can crack. The very best people can crack. I’ve been close to cracking – ridiculously close to cracking – this very week.’

  She glanced at Agnes, who was staring at her with awe, and back at Connor, whose mouth was as wide as a sideshow clown’s. But still she hadn’t finished.

  ‘So I understand you, Connor. You’re not a bad man, of course you’re not. Trust me, I’ve investigated hundreds of people and some of them are genuinely bad. People who ignore the consequences of their actions, people who feel no remorse, people who seem to enjoy the thrill of crime. Next to them, Connor, you’re pocket lint – and I’m not saying that to belittle you. You stole minor amounts of money to protect your mother. In similar circumstances I might have done the same thing. Bottom line is, your case is nothing. It’s kids’ stuff. And we can arrange to have the whole thing settled with a minimum of fuss. This region you’re in – Stirling? – is charming but it’s small. I can tell that everyone knows everyone and word gets around fast. Well, we don’t want to embarrass you any more than necessary. So what we can do is this. If you agree to resign from the bank and pay back the money you stole, we’ll guarantee two things. One, not to inform the police. And two, to fudge the reasons for your resignation. You can even tell people that you were insulted by the suspicions and decided you’d had enough. Whatever. You get to move on with your life with dignity. You get to apply for another job without fear that your record will come back to haunt you. Did you ever believe you’d hear such a thing? Well, I’m putting myself out on a limb for you, Connor. But I need you to tell us the truth. That’s non-negotiable. Just admit what we already know and then we can get back to hunting down the real bad guys.

  ‘So how about it, Connor?’ she said, leaning back. ‘Did you deactivate the cameras? And take some money to help your mother? A simple nod of the head will suffice . . .’

  Connor Bailey stared at her, then stared at Agnes, then stared at Cat again . . . and looked as though he didn’t know what to say.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  ‘Well,’ said agnes, ‘that was quite a show.’

  Cat, at the wheel of her own VW this time, shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean to take over like that. I really don’t know what got into me. Displaced aggression, probably – anger with the guy upstairs. And I hate displaced aggression. It’s a cardinal sin for me.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You manipulated him perfectly. And gave him the kid-glove treatment in the end. That offer you made, I mean – shit, he couldn’t do anything but confess after that.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I overstepped my boundaries, right?’

  ‘Let’s just say I don’t think the Wing Commander is going to approve.’ Nick ‘Wing Commander’ Bellamy was the officious department chief.

  ‘Bellamy doesn’t like me anyway. He’s never been happy about the way I was foisted onto him – I can tell.’

  ‘Bellamy is a fud. Everyone – even his wife, even his dog – thinks it. He’s a fud.’

  ‘Well’ – Cat sighed – ‘I’ll deal with his objections later. We got a quick result, didn’t we? Connor Bailey will pay back what he stole. And it’s always better to get the money back in dribs and drabs, from some guy in gainful employment, rather than writing it off as a loss because he can’t get another job.’

  ‘Sounds a wee bit logical for the Wing Commander. He likes his pound of flesh.’

  ‘Then he’s in the wrong industry. He should be a butcher.’

  ‘Or an op-ed writer.’

  ‘Bottom line is, Bailey isn’t an evil person. There are plenty out there, and he’s not one of them. It was a release for him to acknowledge his dark side.’

  ‘And you sure showed him how to do that.’

  ‘You have to,’ Cat insisted. ‘For your mental health. For your sanity. It’s why the Catholics have confession. You up for a snack, by the way?’

  Agnes giggled at the change of tone. ‘Say again?’

  ‘You hungry? I think we deserve a good meal – on me.’

  ‘Thinking about the dark side gives you an appetite, does it?’

  ‘Not eating all day gives me an appetite. Just keep your eyes peeled for a decent bar.’

  ‘Pub.’

  ‘Sorry, pub.’

  Ten minutes later, changing gears, Cat steered into the car park of the Snarling Wolf.

  * * *

  Agnes ordered pork and haggis sausages with hand-cut chips, garlic bread and three beers. Cat had aubergine stew and a mineral water with a slice of lime.

  ‘Don’t know how you can eat that shit,’ Agnes said, finishing the last of her chips.

  ‘I’ve been vegan for so long now,’ Cat said, ‘that I gag as soon as meat hits my tongue.’

  ‘Best not mention that on a first date.’

  Cat ignored her. ‘This is richer than I prefer, really, but I always cave in when I’m under stress.’

  ‘The guy upstairs?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cat, ‘I’m not getting time for any of the things I usually like to do. Running, reading, cooking. It’s affecting my work too.’

  Agnes wiped her mouth with a napkin. ‘You really thought of all those ways of killing him, by the way – that stuff you mentioned to Connor?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘And that bit about murdering him in his car – that for real?’

  ‘The only reason I know how to do that is because someone tried it on me once.’

  ‘Ha! You’re serious?’

  ‘Dead serious,’ said Cat, putting down her fork. ‘A crime syndicate in Florida. The fallout from that investigation is the real reason I’m here in Scotland.’

  ‘Oh aye? You never did tell me the full story.’

  In fact, Cat had resolved to be circumspect about the full details: people in her field were almost superstitious about discussing the ins and outs of major cases openly. But the cosy nature of the pub – oaken ceiling beams, crackling fire, quaint illustrations of cravat-wearing wolves – served to lower her guard. So she took a sip of water and went for broke.

  ‘There was a bank manager in Miami, sixty years old, a pillar of the industry, and someone from head office happened to see him in New York in a five-star grill dining with the kingpin of a crime syndicate. Or thought he did – the details were a bit sketchy. Anyway, I got lumped with making a routine check on his financial history. Now there wasn’t much to see at first, and in normal circumstances I would’ve given up after a week. But I thought I smelled something fishy. So I went into his branch, because I wanted to see him personally. Not officially: I only wanted to look at him. And when he breezed past wearing a thousand-dollar suit, not a hair out of place, whitened teeth, botoxed forehead – well, my radar told me this guy was shifty. So I kept digging. I looked into all the loans he’d approved and the accounts he’d opened. And finally I found something. Largo Hospitality. Supposedly an employment agency in Florida and the Carolinas, but with no website, no mention in the yellow pages, nothing. I dug deeper. The company turned out to be a subsidiary of Scicluna Holdings, a company I knew had links to organised crime. I looked at its account transactions. And a lot of them turned ou
t to be amounts paid into the accounts of hotel staff across the south-east. Always hotel staff – maids and janitors and what have you. But that’s still nothing to ring any alarm bells, right? Maybe Largo Hospitality is a temping agency. Maybe their clients get a few days of employment here and there at hotels or guest houses or whatever. Maybe that’s why the payments are irregular. But I kept digging anyway. I put myself in the shoes of these people – subsistence workers on crappy wages and shift patterns who change filthy sheets, mop the pee off bathroom floors – and in the end I had a hunch. So I booked into one of the hotels where these people worked – after hours, mind you, and on my own budget – and set up a hidden camera. Now this—’

  ‘I thought entrapment was illegal in the US.’

  ‘This wasn’t entrapment,’ Cat said. ‘I wasn’t interested in the hotel staff or using the footage as evidence. And at first it showed nothing unusual anyway. So I tried again. Still on my own money, you understand. And eventually I got exactly what I suspected. The cleaners were breaking into the luggage of the guests. They were taking address details. Passport details. Credit card numbers. Wax impressions of house keys.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘And, to cut a long story short, the impressions were immediately forwarded to an intermediary so that duplicate keys could be cut. And then the duplicate keys were dispatched to accomplices in the guests’ home state. This is before the guests, whoever they were, even got back from their vacation. So for the thieves it was like stealing candy from a baby. The houses were empty and they literally walked in the front door. They ransacked the place and took anything that was valuable, including cash if they were lucky, and later the guests would come home, discover they’d been burgled, and never link it to the hotel they’d stayed in. Someone must’ve been watching our house, eh? Those light timers didn’t fool anyone. The crime syndicate got cash and jewels and contraband to sell on the black market. The maids and janitors, the ones who’d waxed the keys, got a small kickback for every robbery they’d made possible. These payments were distributed through Largo Hospitality in the form of temp payments. Our guy, the bank manager who helped launder the money, was also getting kickbacks. But it wasn’t just him. Turned out this was a nationwide scheme with bank managers in twelve states implicated. A huge story. And all because my nostrils flared.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Agnes. ‘You should be famous.’

  ‘No,’ Cat said. ‘Fame was the last thing I wanted. In fact, my name was supposed to be suppressed for safety reasons, but it got out anyway. And I started to get these threats from the crime syndicate. The usual stuff. Rocks thrown through my windows. A dead cat on my doorstep. They tampered with my car. I was lucky I wasn’t blown up.’

  ‘No wonder you’re here.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Cat, with a philosophical air. ‘But you know what bothered me the most? It was the people they chose as victims – the dupes, the hotel guests. They were never rich because the wealthy can afford round-the-clock surveillance and sophisticated security systems. It was always the battlers – penny-pinching couples in three-star hotels on their first big vacation in years, heading out to take in the sights and leaving their cases back in the room with the locks off, never knowing any better. Then they get home and find they’ve been ransacked and everything – even the memory of the vacation – is ruined. And they live in fear for the rest of their lives. Ordinary, everyday, lower middle-class schmucks. Just like my parents. Just like me, for that matter. I spent years scrimping and saving, right from my first job as a teenager, just so I’d have enough capital to buy a place of my own. And now it’s a nightmare. A goddamn nightmare.’

  Cat drained the rest of her mineral water and slammed the glass down on the table.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of here. I need to get home to bed.’

  ‘Why? Sounds like you won’t sleep anyway.’

  ‘True,’ Cat said, rising. ‘True.’

  * * *

  They were hurtling down the M9, having just passed the Kelpies – the colossal water horse sculptures at Falkirk – when Agnes, unusually self-conscious, made a suggestion.

  ‘You should come with me, you know. I might be able to solve your problem.’

  Cat blinked. ‘What problem?’

  ‘You know. With the guy upstairs.’

  ‘How, exactly?’

  ‘Come with me and find out.’

  ‘Come with you where?’

  ‘To a meeting. With some friends of mine.’

  ‘What sort of friends?’

  ‘Friends friends.’

  ‘Hitmen?’

  ‘Not hitmen, exactly.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Come along and find out. I don’t do this for everyone, believe me.’

  Cat, shifting lanes to avoid the choking black exhaust of a campervan, shook her head. ‘Well, this is all very mysterious.’

  ‘Only if you want it to be. In reality, this is very logical. Supremely logical. You have all the right qualities, you know.’

  ‘What qualities?’

  ‘Certain attitudes. Inclinations. And intelligence.’

  ‘Intelligence.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And why is intelligence important?’

  ‘Because we don’t tolerate stupid people nowadays. Fanatics. Exhibitionists. Perverts. Times have changed.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me who “we” are.’

  ‘Come along and find out,’ said Agnes. ‘Put in your request. See what happens.’

  Part of Cat felt the need for clarification; another part told her it was best not to ask.

  ‘I must be dreaming already,’ she said. ‘Because for a second I was taking you seriously.’

  ‘You should take me seriously.’

  ‘I’m a realist,’ said Cat.

  ‘So’s he. The ultimate realist, in fact.’

  ‘Who?’

  But Agnes didn’t answer. Didn’t say a word. And Cat decided that she’d heard enough.

  ‘Let me concentrate on the road, will you? This is the first time I’ve driven this far in Scotland. And on the wrong side of the freeway, too.’

  ‘Motorway.’

  ‘Sorry, motorway.’

  They drove in silence until they neared Edinburgh Airport. Overhead, a huge jetliner, like an oversize Christmas tree, was lumbering through the darkness.

  ‘Hope the landing gear doesn’t fall off,’ mused Agnes.

  ‘Huh?’ It took Cat a few moments to realise Agnes was referring to her confession. ‘Oh – you’re not still thinking about that, are you?’

  ‘I’m still thinking about how to solve your problem.’

  Cat was silent, negotiating some complex lane-changes, but something continued to niggle at her. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something . . .’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘It’s about that tattoo on your arm.’

  ‘The Saltire?’ Agnes sniggered. ‘It’s the Scottish flag, dummy.’

  ‘I mean the other one. The one higher up.’

  Agnes peeled back her sleeve. ‘This thing?’

  Cat looked back at the road, nodding. ‘Yeah – what is it?’

  ‘It’s an autograph.’

  ‘Whose autograph?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea.’

  ‘Let’s just say he goes by many names . . .’

  Cat thought about it and snorted. ‘Uses a tattoo needle, does he?’

  ‘A pen. I later had it tattooed.’

  ‘I’m surprised he didn’t use a talon.’

  ‘Now you’re being silly,’ Agnes said, and both women laughed.

  ‘But seriously . . .’

  ‘But seriously,’ Agnes admitted. ‘I got this on my eighteenth birthday – that’s why it’s so faded. It was copied from a book about the Loudun witches. The pact that Urbain Grandier made with Lucifer.’

  ‘The Loudun witches,’ said Cat,
vaguely remembering something. ‘Now that was a famous case of fraud, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s the consensus. Though only an expert would be able to say if it was a genuine fraud.’

  ‘Pity we weren’t around back then, I guess.’

  ‘Pity for a lot of people,’ said Agnes, and the two women laughed again.

  They plunged into outer Edinburgh and Cat was pleased to end the bizarre conversation. This was a moment to be alert, not distracted. She certainly didn’t need to be dealing with the sense that her life was about to take another monumental detour.

  It was Friday, 24 August.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Over the next three weeks, as festive August surrendered to stately September, Cat ignored Agnes’s suggestion about the mysterious ‘meeting’ and deflected any questions about the ongoing problem with the guy upstairs. As predicted, her supervisor Nick Bellamy was less than impressed with the deal she’d cut with Connor Bailey in Callander and even sought interdepartmental advice about overturning it. When the legal team suggested that might create more problems than it was worth – the stolen amounts being so minor – Cat was removed from field investigations for two weeks and ordered to put together an intra-office lecture on a new study, written up in Psychology Today, measuring the traits inherent in a fraudster’s mind.

  Trying to reduce this into the form of a soundbite-friendly speech drove Cat to the brink of exasperation:

  Insensitivity (ß = .16), Self-Interest (ß = .27) and Moral Disengagement (ß = .12) increased in measures consistent with the HEXACO model (see Chin, Monagle and Rodway, 2008) but well beneath the threshold of expected Psychopathy (ß = .38) as predicted by Contoyannis, Arrigo and Ahern (2012), keeping in mind the free parameters, manifest variables, and the possibilities of misspecifications in the log-likelihood ratio (LLR).

  In better times Cat might have made sure she understood it, at least in essence; now, she resorted to quoting large chunks of it verbatim, feigning full comprehension of its principles, and trusting that no one would seek a coherent explanation. And mercifully no one did.