‘Mr Skinner, Sir Robert that is,’ she corrected herself, ‘from the village resilience group. He called to drop something off for her.’
‘I’ve got a key,’ Wilson said. ‘He could have asked me . . . but I wasn’t in, was I?’
‘In the moment I doubt that occurred to him, Mike.’
‘Probably not.’ He scratched the fair stubble on his chin. ‘It rarely does. One of the benefits of living up a stair is that we don’t get casual callers. The only person who rings my bell is the postie.’ He paused. ‘There was the kid, I suppose, but nobody else in a while.’
‘What kid?’
‘A young lad, secondary-school age maybe but not by much, longish fair hair, with a bit of cheek about him, wearing a padded jacket. He knocked on my door a couple of weeks ago and asked me if the grass at the back needed cutting. I told him I took care of that. He told me he could do it cheap, but I told him he wouldn’t be as cheap as me. He went downstairs, and I heard him ring Mrs Alexander’s bell as well. I dinnae ken if she answered.’ He paused. ‘Come to think of it, he said he was part of the resilience group too.’
Something stirred in Tiggy Benjamin’s memory banks. ‘What colour was the jacket?’ she asked.
‘I think it was green.’
‘Had you ever seen this boy before?’
‘As a matter of fact, I had,’ Wilson replied. ‘A few times about the village. He cuts about on a bike. He goes all over the place, grass, pavements, you name it. Bloody wee nuisance he is.’
Thirty-Eight
Hector Sureda Roca’s on-screen image froze for a second, then became animated once more. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘here we are running a business that’s entirely dependent on internet connections and we can’t even have an office-to-office Zoom call without interruption.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Skinner assured him. ‘Girona’s ahead of Edinburgh with its fibre network but when we catch up there will be no more glitches. We won’t have a problem on Friday; the company aircraft is booked and the weather forecast’s okay. I’ll see you all at the same time as last week.’
‘We will look forward to it. Goodbye, Senor Presidente.’
He smiled as the CEO of Intermedia vanished, recalling their first meeting, which had been unconventional to say the least, at the conclusion of a nationwide search with Xavi Aislado. Hector’s parents, Simon and Pilar, had been important figures in what had been an ailing regional newspaper when Joe Aislado had bought it in the early days of democratic Spain. They had been constrained by the influence of associates of Franco, the old Caudillo, until Joe had swept them away, sanitising the company, as he had put it at the time. Released, they had helped him grow it into the multimedia empire that it had become before handing over their roles to their son, who was of the new era. Simon and Pilar had retired to their home in Begur, where they had ridden out the first wave of Covid in Spain, and were vaccinated against the second. If only Sheila had been jagged, Skinner mused.
There was a light knock on his door before it opened and Sylvia, the secretary he shared with June Crampsey, entered, carrying a tray. ‘What’s the canteen doing today?’ he asked.
‘Parmigiana,’ she announced. ‘It looks like lasagne but it’s veggie.’
‘I can barely wait,’ he murmured, glancing at the plate with a degree of suspicion.
He was lifting his fork when his mobile sounded, in the holder on his desk where he left it on charge. The screen told him ‘Number withheld’. That was an irritation, always, to a man who had known too many surprises in his life, but he suppressed his annoyance as he picked it up.
‘Bob,’ a mature female voice said, and he understood the precaution at once. The head of MI5 was not about to have her phone number in the public domain. There was a legend from decades in the past that the direct line of one of her predecessors had been engraved in the centre of a vinyl album by a punk band. It had sold millions of copies and had landed the record company and perpetrator in very hot water indeed.
‘Dame Amanda,’ he replied. ‘Where’s the crisis?’ The two had been friends for many years, but rarely called each other on a casual basis. ‘Or are you coming to Scotland and inviting me to dinner?’
‘I couldn’t, could I, with all the restaurants being closed.’
‘I could entertain you here at the Saltire,’ he offered, chuckling. ‘Our canteen’s still in business, as you’d see if we were on video. I could get them to knock out some bubble and squeak if that’s still your favourite.’
‘With gravy?’
‘If you insist.’
‘Let’s keep that offer in reserve. So,’ she continued, ‘you’re still a media tycoon, Bob. I wondered how long your enthusiasm would last.’
‘It’ll last as long as their enthusiasm for me,’ he laughed. ‘So far there’s no sign of that being curbed.’
‘I know. Chairman of the board, no less. Brexit hasn’t got in your way.’
‘You’re on the ball.’
‘We have automatic alerts set; your name popped up and it was reported to me. You know how it works.’
‘I do,’ Skinner agreed. ‘What did I have for breakfast this morning?’
‘Cereal and coffee.’
‘How the fu—’
‘A lucky guess,’ Dennis said quickly. ‘Well, the cereal was. As for the coffee, how long have we known each other?’
‘Point taken. So, Director General, a pleasure though it is, why the call? I read some speculation that you were looking at retirement. Are you calling to offer me your job? If you are, given my recent step up at Intermedia, I doubt that the Home Secretary could afford me . . . even if I could overcome my distaste for the present incumbent.’
‘I gave up trying to lure you to London a long time ago,’ she admitted. ‘As for the speculation, don’t believe everything you read in the Daily Mail . . . indeed don’t believe anything unless it’s a football result and you’ve watched the game. I’m calling . . .’ Her tone changed; it switched instantly from banter to business. ‘. . . because I have a question that needs answering. Why are your former colleagues asking questions about one of my safe houses?’
‘How would I know?’ Skinner retorted. ‘I don’t have access any longer, and they’re not knocking my door down. I feel like an old stag who’s been banished from the herd. Where is this safe house?’
‘Glasgow, in the city centre. It’s actually Clyde Houseman’s place, but all the bills and tax payments are routed through one of our dummy accounts. A detective sergeant named Cotter has been poking his nose in, trying to find out who’s behind it.’
‘I know him; a Geordie lad. He’s on the West of Scotland Serious Crimes team. I don’t recall seeing any incidents reported in the Saltire this morning.’
‘Maybe somewhere else?’
‘If it was, we’d have picked up on it.’ He frowned. ‘Amanda, why are you asking me? Can’t Houseman sort this out?’
‘He could, if I could find him.’
‘You what?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘Are you telling me that the Director General of the Security Service can’t find her point man in Scotland?’
‘Even we have holiday entitlement, Bob. Clyde booked in for some time off, but he didn’t tell HR where he was going.’
He felt the hair in the back of his neck prickle as the instincts of a lifetime kicked in. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said. ‘I’m not due in Spain until Friday. I’ll ask around.’
‘Thank you,’ Dennis said. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. Discreetly mind, I don’t want the security of the place to be blown.’
‘Amanda! Please!’
Thirty-Nine
‘Do you know who your replacement will be, ma’am?’ PC Benjamin asked her inspector.
‘Not a clue,’ McClair admitted. ‘They wouldn’t tell me. You’ll find out when the great wheel of command has tu
rned. As it is, Sergeant Jackson will be in temporary charge from Monday, but it won’t be him, unless the divisional commander decides to downgrade the post. Mind you, that wouldn’t surprise me. I worked a hell of a lot harder as a DS than I’ve done here.’
‘Will you be working harder still as a DI?’ the young constable asked.
‘As night follows day,’ she laughed. ‘I’m looking forward to it though. It’ll be good to be reunited with Sauce.’
Puzzled, Benjamin frowned. ‘Who?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Haddock. His real first name’s Harold, but I’ve never ever heard him called that.’
‘How did he get that name?’
McClair gazed at her. ‘Where are you from, Tiggy?’
‘I was born in Alberta, in Canada, like my mum, because she wanted that, but I was brought up in Oban. My dad’s a teacher there. They met at university in Bristol.’
‘Right. Consider this part of your cultural education that they obviously missed out on. DCI Haddock is called Sauce because people in the east of Scotland put brown sauce on their fish suppers. If he worked in Glasgow, I suppose they’d call him Vinegar, but it wouldn’t have the same ring to it.’
‘I suppose not.’ The young PC hesitated. ‘Ma’am,’ she ventured. ‘Is there any chance of me moving to CID with you?’
‘Is that something you’d like to do?’
‘I think so.’
‘That’s not quite enough. CID’s not for everyone. It can be boring and mundane, run-of-the-mill robberies, it can be highly technical, fraud cases that take months, even years to wrap up and prosecute, and it can be brutal, racially motivated crimes, gangland killings and so on. Some people just aren’t cut out for it.’
‘I would be, I know it,’ Benjamin insisted. ‘I have an instinct for things, I just know it. There’s the kid on the bike, for example.’
‘What kid? What bike?’
‘Remember when we were at Mr Stevens’ house, when I went back to get the bolt cutter? A kid on a bike nearly knocked me over. Age twelve to fourteen, longish hair and wore a padded jacket?’
‘I don’t remember seeing him,’ McClair admitted, ‘but I was busy talking to the carer and assessing the situation. What about him?’
‘Mike Wilson, Mrs Alexander’s upstairs neighbour said that a kid chapped his door looking for work, and he thought he was going to try hers as well. From the way he described him it was the same lad.’
‘So?’
‘Isn’t it a coincidence, him being near the scene of both incidents?’
The inspector nodded. ‘Yes, if it was him, it’s a coincidence. But Tiggy, Gullane has dozens of kids on bikes, my own son included. There’s only an outside chance that it was the same boy. If it was, so what? These were two old people who died suddenly. Mrs Alexander was an accident and so was Mr Stevens. Even if the same kid was in the vicinity of both, that doesn’t come close to justifying the opening of a criminal investigation.’ She smiled, kindly. ‘Going back to your question, no, I don’t see any chance of your coming to CID with me. That’s not the way it works. I’m going to a high-profile department, Serious Crimes, staffed by people with years of experience. I don’t mind recommending you for a transfer when the time is right. By that I mean once you’ve gathered more experience as a community officer and put a few miles on your career clock. For now, be patient. But,’ she concluded, ‘don’t stop looking out for the unusual, even if it is only a reckless kid on a bicycle.’
Forty
Chief Constable Neil McIlhenney moved from behind his impressive desk and bumped elbows with his visitor. ‘Do we still call this the Wuhan handshake?’ he asked.
‘I doubt it,’ Bob Skinner replied, as the two sat at a conference table. ‘Definitely non-PC. There’s bound to be a journalist or a blogger all too eager to label it as Sinophobia.’
‘Aye, probably employed by you too.’
‘Don’t blame me, I’m only the chairman. Those decisions are made far away from me.’
McIlhenney stared at his friend. ‘I am still getting my head round you at the head of any sort of a media organisation, least of all one of the biggest in Europe.’
‘Ach, we’re not that big.’
‘Yes, you are. I googled you. Intermedia is the third biggest of its kind outside of America. It owns newspapers in Spain, Scotland, Italy, France and Germany, and its online editions are readable in all those languages plus Chinese, Arabic and Hindi. And you’re not just the chairman, you’re the executive chairman, which mean that the head honchos in all those countries report to you.’
Skinner smiled. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘they report to a bloke called Hector in Girona, and he reports to me. We touch base once a week.’
‘Via Zoom?’
‘Face to face. I fly there every Friday.’
The chief constable was puzzled. ‘What airlines are still flying?’
‘Air Intermedia. Company jet.’
‘Fuck me,’ McIlhenney gasped. ‘Wait till I tell Louise that.’ He gazed at Skinner. ‘Are you such a high-flyer now that you think you can break the government’s rules about travelling outside your local authority area? Okay, you needed to speak to me, you said, but we could have done it by video. I should hit you with a spot fine.’ He grinned. ‘In fact I think I will.’
‘Fine, Chief,’ Skinner laughed. ‘You do that; I’ll charge it to expenses. No, Neil,’ he said, his tone changing, ‘I’m not so locked in that I needed to see the sights of fucking Falkirk . . . sooner you move the HQ to Edinburgh or Glasgow the better by the way. I have something I need to discuss with you face to face, and probably Mario too, if he’s in.’
‘He is,’ the chief confirmed. ‘I’ll get him through.’ He moved back to his desk and pushed a button on a small console, then resumed his seat at the table.
A minute later the door was opened and Deputy Chief Constable Mario McGuire strode into the room. He stopped short as he saw Skinner. ‘Bob?’ he exclaimed. ‘What the—?’
‘And good afternoon to you too. Now you’re here is some bugger going to get the coffee in, or do I have to go out to my car and fetch my cold takeaway?’
‘Sorry, Bob,’ McIlhenney sighed. ‘I should have known.’ He moved to a small sideboard on which stood a Nespresso machine.
When he returned, Skinner gazed at the cup that was handed to him, raised an eyebrow, and shook his head.
‘I know, Bob, but I inherited it. Blame Maggie. You seen her, by the way?’
‘Yes, she’s blooming. But to business. I had a call from a lady I know with an office beside the Thames. She wants to know why you lot have been stomping over a flat in Glasgow, in Candleriggs.’
McGuire’s eyes widened. ‘Jesus Christ and his wee brother Joe!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s one of theirs. And we didn’t know about it? I should have fucking guessed.’
‘I thought you had,’ Skinner retorted, ‘since nobody on our Glasgow editorial staff picked up word of an incident there, not one that was worth reporting at any rate.’
‘We decided not to make a public announcement. The city’s quiet just now and the police presence went by unnoticed. It would have been a stick for our own backs, a real Singapore cane, in fact.’
‘Why would that have been?’ Skinner asked, quietly.
‘There was a suspicious death,’ the DCC replied. ‘That’s how we would have put it; actually, it was a lot more than that. A male victim; he was aged in his thirties, Graham Scott says, but there’s no means of identification other than a tattoo.’
‘There are no fingerprints or DNA on record?’
‘None.’
‘How about his teeth?’
‘There was no fucking head, Bob. The victim was decapitated, and whoever did it took it away with him.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Skinner exclaimed; a fist seized his stomach and he felt
his blood run cold. ‘That sounds . . .’
‘Islamic? Jihadi?’ McIlhenney suggested. ‘Yes it does, but nothing else fits that scenario. The whole point of terrorism is to create public alarm. If this was an Islamic State outrage they’d have been screaming about it. They’d have filmed the beheading and stuck it on YouTube.’
‘Agreed. But it doesn’t sound like a random killing either.’ He paused. ‘Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia,’ he murmured.
Both officers stared at him. McGuire reacted first. ‘Eh? Who the fuck is Alfredo Garcia? Are you telling me that’s the victim’s name?’
Skinner sighed. ‘Oh dear,’ he whispered sadly, shaking his head. ‘It’s a great, great Sam Peckinpah movie from before you guys were born. Alfredo Garcia had knocked up the daughter of a Mexican cartel boss and there’s a million dollars on offer to the man who brings him his head. A cult classic; everyone gets killed in the end. So, was there a bounty on offer for this man’s noggin? If so, who offered it and why?’
‘That’s a reasonable question,’ McIlhenney agreed. ‘But before we can begin to answer it we need to have a name for the victim. Since the property belongs to your friend’s organisation, can you help us with that?’
He looked at the DCC. ‘Mario, you mentioned a tattoo. Can you describe it?’
‘I didn’t see the body. Scott, the pathologist, told Lottie Mann about it. He said it was military.’
‘What about the victim’s ethnicity?’
‘I confess that I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen the full post-mortem report; I only know what Mann told me.’
‘Call her and ask her,’ Skinner said, managing to alter his tone to make his words a suggestion rather than an instruction. He picked up his coffee and sipped it while McGuire took his phone to the window. His face wrinkled with distaste. ‘Neil,’ he murmured, ‘this is pish.’
‘Maybe,’ the chief constable conceded, ‘but there must be caffeine in it, for you’re drinking it regardless.’
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