11
Thursday
Irvine logged on to her computer at Pitt Street and checked her e-mails. There was one from Armstrong timed at six-thirty the night before telling her about his visit to the agents who handled the lettings for the accountants. It was short and to the point:
Dead end. Speak tomorrow.
Irvine took her file of papers out and went through what they had so far. It might not lead her anywhere, but at least it would focus her mind on things. Maybe it would allow her to figure out where they went with the inquiry now. She jotted down some brief notes on a pad as she read. When she was done, she looked over the notes she had made:
Fentanyl/Heroin – Russia?
Overdoses – bad drugs
Lewski body dump – dealer did it?
Dealer and Lewski involved – sex
Cops and Lewski?
Accountants and Lewski?
Suzie Murray – is she lying + does she know the dealer?
She leaned back in her chair and thought about the last point. In the aftermath of the encounter with the man on the stairs she had kind of rushed through the interview with Murray. She looked in the file again for the notes she had made after the interview and re-read them.
Murray had said that Lewski moved into the flat about a month ago and she was the one who knew the dealer – the man who had assaulted Irvine. According to Murray’s story, Lewski had brought him to the flat a couple of weeks later. But Murray never used his gear. Lewski traded sex for her stuff. The stuff that had probably killed her.
A question nagged at Irvine’s mind – if she was right in thinking it was the dealer who had dumped Lewski’s body in the river, why had he gone back to see Murray the day after Lewski’s death? He would have known that the flat would be checked out by the police and that Murray would be questioned. So it was a risk for him to go there. A big risk.
Irvine couldn’t think what the reason might be. She looked down at the notes again. The only thing she could think of was drugs. That the dealer had left some of the bad gear at the flat and went to get it. But she couldn’t convince herself that a small stash of the stuff – only enough for personal use – would be worth the risk to him. And he had not been carrying any large package when she had encountered him.
She called Armstrong. It rang three times before he answered.
‘Kenny, I’ve been thinking about this Lewski thing again. It occurred to me that there might be something Suzie Murray hasn’t told us. About her relationship with the guy who gave Lewski the drugs.’
‘The guy who gave you the black eye?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about him?’
‘Well, I mean, why would he go back to the flat the next day and risk a confrontation with us? He would know that we would go to the flat and try to speak to Murray. What was so important to him that he would risk that?’
‘Drugs, probably.’
‘I thought of that. But he wouldn’t risk it for a small stash, would he?’
Armstrong was quiet for a while.
‘I wouldn’t do it if it was me. But I’m not him. These guys are not the smartest, you know.’
‘The top guys are.’
‘They think they are.’
‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me.’
Armstrong sighed.
‘Remind me what she said. Murray, I mean.’
Irvine went through it all again for him.
‘What do you think?’ she asked when she was finished.
‘I don’t know. Let me think about it some more and we can speak later.’
‘When are you coming here?’
‘I need to go to SCDEA in Paisley. Catch up on some other work. See you before lunch.’
Irvine hung up. She thought that Armstrong would be the best person to look for a discrepancy in the story. He knew the drugs scene and she did not. She blew out a breath and tapped her pen on the desk.
She decided that she would go and find Jim Murphy and press him again for progress on the blood results and the CCTV footage. They were the only live leads that were still to bear fruit.
‘I’m going through it now,’ Murphy said, pointing at the screen in front of him.
Irvine saw familiar images from the city centre cameras.
‘Anything so far?’
Murphy tapped on a notepad by his mouse mat where he had written what looked like some kind of code to Irvine. She picked it up and looked at the random numbers.
‘What’s this?’
‘Reference points on the film for where there might be something you want to look at. An individual or a vehicle. Something like that.’
‘How much more do you have to go?’
Murphy opened another window on his screen and pointed at it. Irvine was none the wiser.
‘Another file after this one. And I’m about halfway through it now.’
‘Can you send that other file to me and I’ll look at it. Speed things up.’
He nodded and clicked on the file, sending it to her e-mail address.
‘Anything from the lab yet?’ she asked.
He looked up at her from his seat.
‘You are a pain in the arse, you know that.’ He smiled.
He opened a drawer in his desk and handed her a report.
She scanned it quickly and saw the expected references to fentanyl and heroin.
Irvine thanked him again and went back downstairs to her desk, feeling a little more positive now that there was progress being made.
There was a message on her phone when she got there and she saw that she had a missed call from Armstrong. She dialled into her voicemail.
‘It’s Kenny. Look, I just got a call on something. Another body. It’s unconnected to our thing but it’s my case and I need to go to the scene. If you want to tag along and we can catch up that’s fine. Give me a call.’
Irvine called him back and said that she had news to report and would tag along.
‘I’ll swing by and pick you up in five minutes,’ Armstrong told her. ‘It’s on my way.’
Irvine said fine and hung up. She was getting far too used to the sight of dead bodies.