Chapter One – The McQueen Legacy

As soon as she began speaking, McQueen knew she was lying. Maybe it was in the little cough to clear her throat or her general tone and body language, or perhaps it was something less obvious that his training and experience had flagged up to his subconscious. The off-key music of lying? Whatever it was, he was certain that what she was saying wasn’t the truth, the whole truth, or anything like the truth. Sometimes you have to trust your human instincts, see the whites of their eyes. There’s a good reason why the lie detection results of polygraph machines aren’t admissible in court, even though their shocking lack of reliability doesn’t seem to trouble the name-and-shame day-time TV shows.

As a forensic psychologist and criminologist now turned private detective, McQueen had spoken to a lot of very good liars in his time, a few of them had completely fooled him, but not this one.

‘It’s absolutely outrageous,’ she was saying. ‘I didn’t steal that money.’ And then she said it again, this time reaching out to tap the syllables on McQueen’s desk with her bony finger. ‘I. Did. Not. Steal. That. Cash.’ She leaned back again. ‘Oh, they’ll make up some nonsense, false accounts but I had nothing to do with it, so that’s why I’m here. You’re a private detective and I need you to work with my solicitor to prove I’m innocent. It’s terrible, Mr McQueen. I worked for them for years. Day after day. And now I’m being victimised and made into a scapegoat. But I’ve kept the evidence, I’ve got a computer memory stick with all the spreadsheets on it.’

McQueen sat back in his chair and looked her over carefully. He’d read the briefing sheet his assistant, Sekalyia, had prepared for him which summed-up Mrs Bolton’s case. She was an aging company bookkeeper who had worked for a successful multi-national firm called Summertown Industries for many happy years, until they’d discovered a two-million-pound hole in their accounts and decided that she was the thief. Sitting there with her short grey hair and friendly eyes, she looked every inch the trustworthy grandma. She was clutching a large mustard-coloured shopping bag on her lap and was fiddling nervously with the strap. He wanted to believe her, he really did, and so would a jury, but he hadn’t seen the prosecution’s evidence yet, although Sekalyia’s note described it as “compelling”.

Whether she was lying or not, McQueen didn’t want this case. A big part of it was going to be tedious number crunching. Forensic accountancy wasn’t his specialty, which would mean he’d have to outsource that aspect of the work and he’d be left interviewing her colleagues and acquaintances. He’d have to spend endless hours trying to piece together a glowing character reference while at the same time attempting to point the finger of suspicion at someone else. McQueen wasn’t sure why Sekalyia had let this one slip through the client-vetting process, probably felt sorry for the old lady and her sob story, but McQueen had already decided to let the kind old woman down gently.

‘Mrs Bolton,’ he said. ‘Something like this could take a lot of time. Many painstaking hours and, to be frank with you, you’ve seen my rates.’ He smiled and shrugged apologetically. ‘This could get very expensive for you and it wouldn’t be fair for me to—’

But the seated woman didn’t let him finish, she held up a crinkly hand to dismiss his concerns.

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about the money,’ she reassured him. ‘That’s not going to be a problem. And if it works out as a little more tax-efficient for you…’ With surprising dexterity her hand dipped into her bag and came out with two large bundles of twenty-pound notes which she tossed onto McQueen’s desk with a thud. ‘A good faith retainer,’ she added. The word that immediately forced its way into his mind from Sekalyia’s notes was compelling. He looked her straight in her slightly watery but unblinking eyes and then he stared hard at the money, trying to give it the respect it deserved. He didn’t ask where she’d got her hands on that kind of cash, he didn’t really want to know. Above him he could feel the weight of his accountant’s expectation pushing down on him and could almost see the unpaid bills being waved in his face.

‘It’s okay,’ he said after a long pause, ‘you can put that away. I’m sure you have other important uses for it.’ She kept her eyes on him as she plonked the stacks back into her bag. He wanted to tell her he just wasn’t interested, that he didn’t believe her story and she had very little chance of fighting the case, but something was stopping him. He didn’t know why but his usual unwavering decisiveness seemed to have deserted him. Based on his clinical training he was a big fan of the medical approach of telling a patient the unvarnished truth. Better to be upfront with bad news than to nurture false hope. But for some reason today, watching her fiddling with her bag as she fixed him with an almost-pleading stare, he just couldn’t do it. Instead he took the coward’s way out.

‘Listen, Mrs Bolton,’ he said attempting a reassuring tone. ‘I’m going to speak to my colleague, we’ll review the case and the evidence and then I’ll get back to you. I’m not saying I’ll take the case, but as I say, we’ll be in touch.’ He stood, smiled, and then moved towards the door hoping to usher her out. Mrs Bolton stayed seated.

‘But do you believe me?’ she asked, an annoyed tinge to her voice. ‘Because if you don’t believe I didn’t steal their money there’s no point to this.’ It was unsettlingly blunt and McQueen felt cornered. The politician’s answer to the question would have been to not answer the question. To avoid committing and loop back to, “it’s too early to say” and “we’ll review the evidence”, but McQueen took the other gutless route favoured by politicians the world over.

‘Of course I believe you,’ he said in a confident voice.

After the woman and her bagful of money had gone, McQueen went into the adjoining office and flopped down onto a small sofa that was across from Sekalyia’s desk. He was fairly clueless when it came to office furnishings or any other kind of furniture for that matter, so the couch had been her idea, a touch of comfort for any traumatised clients. There was also a box of tissues on the desk. Patiently he watched and waited while she finished typing, knowing better than to break her train of thought while she was in full flow.

Although McQueen had an ex-wife, he had no children but he was still able to recognise that his feelings towards Sekalyia were paternal. He felt warming pride at her every achievement and stinging pain at her occasional missteps. Straight out of university Lia, as everyone called her, had started as his office manager but with her ambition and talent it hadn’t taken long for her to also become his assistant and co-investigator. Initially he had simply valued having someone with a different perspective to listen to his theories as he picked his way through the vagaries of any challenging cases. She had her own opinions and a confident voice that was more than prepared to tell him if he was talking nonsense. He had started to rely more and more on her youthful insight and reasoning until she had become an integral part of his work. Sometimes she saw things he hadn’t even seen or perhaps hadn’t wanted to admit. There was also the fact that, on one occasion, she had risked her own life to save his by driving her car at a gunman. It was an incident they rarely discussed but of course neither of them had forgotten.

These days Lia worked a few of their cases by herself, but at the same time she was still the perfect first point of contact for the prospective new clients that came in. Like a one-person triage department, she quickly assessed the merits and risks of their problems as they arrived and decided whether they would interest McQueen. In short, she decided which ones needed immediate detective attention and which could be sent home with a paracetamol and a pat on the back. Her instincts were usually impeccable, that’s why McQueen was curious to know why she thought the Bolton case was worth pursuing.

When she’d triumphantly tapped the keyboard to end her email Lia swivelled in her chair to face McQueen. She held up her hands in surrender, she knew he’d been waiting to ask her about the Bolton woman.

‘I know, I know,’ she said apologetically. ‘Looks like a terrible job. Mountains of boring spreadsheet work, I mean she even left me her precious memory stick.’ She smiled and showed him the small object, its silver casing glinting in the light. ‘We’d be facing off against the well-funded legal experts of a hugely powerful organisation. Trusting the word of a single elderly woman. And I know you’re wondering why I thought this might be something for us.’ She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders, ‘What can I say, David and Goliath?’

‘I get it,’ he said, nodding. ‘The hero complex, helping the old lady across the street, but Lia, what makes you think she’s telling the truth?’ All playfulness dropped away from Lia’s demeaner as she straightened in her seat and pointed at the door that Mary Bolton had exited.

‘Oh, she’s telling the truth, McQueen,’ she said, ‘That woman isn’t lying, I’d stake my career on it.

The McQueen Legacy (Detective McQueen, #3) – Stewart McDowall

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Category: Fiction, Thriller/Crime