‘Have we tried everything, Sauce?’ Tiggy Benjamin ventured. ‘Does nobody know anything about the man?’
‘There is one last shot,’ Haddock replied. ‘Reid’s an author, with a publisher. It’s called Portador Mystery and within that outfit, he’ll have an editor. I’ve reached out to him and I’m waiting, no, I’m hoping for a call. If I don’t hear from him in ten minutes, I’m ordering pizza takeaways because that’s as near as I can get to taking everybody out to lunch in this bloody lockdown and wrapping up this investigation.’
‘Has it got to be pizzas?’ Singh moaned.
‘Yes, but you can have two, you fat bastard.’
‘Then why wait for a call that’s not going to happen?’ the DS asked. ‘We might as well order them now.’
‘True,’ the DCI conceded. ‘Get on line and everyone can make a cho—’ His ringtone stopped him in mid-sentence.
He snatched his mobile from his pocket. The number displayed meant nothing to him, but he hoped for the best and took the call, on speaker. ‘DCI Haddock,’ he called out, ‘with three others.’
‘How intriguing,’ a young male voice exclaimed. ‘I’m Freddie Hagen, Matthew Reid’s editor at Portador Mystery. What’s the problem? Has he crossed a line in one of his novels? I do hope not.’
‘No,’ Haddock replied. ‘We’re trying to contact him, that’s all. So far we’ve been unable to find him and I’m wondering if you know where he is.’
‘I’ve been trying to contact him too,’ Hagen said, ‘with as little success as you. I’ve just finished reading the manuscript of his latest book. He sent it to me two days ago, and I want to tell him it’s brilliant. It’s the perfect mystery novel. I’ve never read anything like it; a crime story without a crime and without a perpetrator.’
As he spoke, Noele McClair heard his words in her mind as she had heard them before, trying without success to suppress a shudder, although no one saw it. He really did, she thought, and he lived it. We all did. Jesus we’re all bloody characters. I’ll bet he even shags one of the cops.
‘Is it first person?’ she asked.
‘No, but he’s built it around himself, obviously.’
‘Using his own name?’
‘No, in the book he calls himself Alan Campbell.’
‘Fuck!’ Haddock hoped that his whisper had been inaudible. ‘Can I ask you something, Mr Hagen?’ he continued, quickly. ‘Does any of the story take place in Glasgow?’
‘No, it’s all set in his home village. Why do you need to speak to him?’ the editor asked.
‘Nothing important,’ he replied. ‘It’s just something that’s happened at his house, only he’s not around. Given that we’re in lockdown conditions here in Scotland, we’re surprised by that.’
‘Really?’ The first note of concern sounded in Hagen’s voice. Haddock wondered if he had described scenes in the novel.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘It involves his dog, that’s all. ‘
‘Sunny? Oh dear, what a shame. As for getting in touch with him,’ he continued, ‘I don’t know that I’m going to be able to help. I’m his editor, but I haven’t been with Portador for long. We’ve never managed to meet face to face and the only contact I’ve had with him is by email. Ours is a very basic relationship. He sends us a book every year and we send him money rather more often than that; probably less than they’re worth, truth be told, especially this one. The best I can do, Mr Haddock, is to ask him to call you if he gets in touch with me.’
‘Please do that, Mr Hagen,’ the DCI said, ending the call and looking around the table, at three stunned expressions.
‘Mine’s a calzone,’ Singh whispered. ‘Double.’
Seventy-Seven
‘He really has done us, Noele,’ Haddock sighed, gazing at the discarded pizza boxes. Singh and Benjamin had gone home, leaving their senior officers to clear up. ‘Every step of the fucking way, never giving us anything we could pin down. But leaving no DNA trail behind him, nothing tucked away anywhere. Imagine that; it’s bloody genius.’
‘Maybe not quite,’ Noele McClair murmured. As they had eaten, in silence, she had been thinking, analysing, wondering. Haddock had called Hagen back and persuaded him to send them a copy of Reid’s manuscript. Would she be in it, in a thinly disguised form? Would their relationship be exposed or had that been something really private?
‘Glasgow was different,’ Haddock continued, unaware of her observation. ‘The real life, real death, story he created in Gullane, the three murders that we can never prove, the red herring of the gaffer’s prints in his car . . . all of that was a game, an intellectual exercise, an ego trip by a minor author trying to prove that he really is the best, before disappearing off into the shadows. Glasgow though, that was different; that was vicious, malicious, rage-fuelled. I believe that was the real man, and he’s a fucking monster.’
She nodded. ‘He surely is.’
As she had devoured half of her four-cheese special, as much as she could manage, Noele’s mind had wandered, until it had taken her to her earliest days in CID, when she had been a detective constable on a rape unit in Glasgow. What had she been taught? A viable sample could be recovered from a victim for up to five days; she counted back on her fingers, one at a time . . . without reaching her thumb.
But nobody’s perfect, she thought. He didn’t use a condom.
‘Yes, he’s really done us,’ Haddock sighed.
‘Maybe not quite,’ she repeated.
She looked at him directly, eye to eye. ‘Sauce,’ she said, ‘there’s something I need to tell you.’
New year’s Day, and Edinburgh lies sleeping. But two men will never wake again . . .
When struggling ex-copper Terry Coats was discovered in bed with an air hostess, his excuse that he was ‘going undercover’ cut no ice with the force – or his wife. But now he’s been brutally killed on Hogmanay night, it seems there may have been more to his plea.
Dragged from the New Year celebrations, Special Constab le Sir Bob Skinner is shocked to find Coats’ body alongside that of Griff Montell: his erstwhile protégé, and former lover of Skinner’s own daughter, Alex. Could there be some dark truth under Coats’ cock-and-bull story, after all?
As the secrets start unravelling, Skinner realises he has gravely underestimated someone close to him – and the effects will cost him, and those he loves, dear . . .
Turn the page to read the opening chapters . . .
One
‘Happy New Decade, my love,’ Sir Robert Morgan Skinner murmured to his wife, as the fireworks lit the darkness outside, and he had finished shaking hands with everyone around him, as tradition demanded. ‘May it bring you all you wish for.’
‘The last one did pretty well in that department,’ Professor Sarah Grace replied. ‘It brought a few surprises too.’ She inclined her head towards a pair who stood a few feet away from them, watching the scene through the bay window of the golf club’s first-floor dining room. ‘For example, if you’d told me this time last year that those two would be here, let alone as a couple, I’d have sent you for a cognitive test.’
‘How many times?’ he murmured. ‘My daughter and Dominic Jackson are not a couple. They are house-mates, no more than that.’
‘So you say.’
‘So Dominic assures me.’
‘Are you telling me you asked him?’ she chuckled.
‘I didn’t have to. Before Alexis moved in with him full-time, he came to me and asked if I had any objection. He told me something she’d kept from me herself, that she hadn’t been able to settle back into her flat after she was attacked there. More than that, he said that psychologically she was on the edge. He believed she had never had a really close friend outside of family, and that it was telling on her. The more success she had in her career, the more it contrasted with what she perceived as failure in her priva
te life. She felt empty inside.’
‘But everybody loves Alex,’ Sarah protested.
‘Everybody but Alex herself, it seems,’ Bob murmured. ‘I said what you just said, but Dominic was adamant, that her self-esteem was at a critical point. “She’s never failed at work,” he told me, “so when she perceives that she’s a failure as a person, she has no idea how to cope with it. Let her move in with me, Bob, and I will be the friend she needs so badly . . . but nothing more than that, I promise you.” Given that the man has an honours degree, a masters and a doctorate in psychology, I wasn’t about to argue with him, so I agreed. And it’s worked. Look at her, for Christ’s sake! Compared to how she was, she’s blooming.’
Sarah looked again at her stepdaughter. ‘I’ll grant you that,’ she admitted. ‘Why didn’t you share this with me at the time?’ she asked.
‘You were away at that forensic pathology conference in Paris when it happened. By the time you came back she’d moved in. I told you then what the arrangement was.’
‘And I doubted you then. This is Alex, remember.’
‘Her mother’s daughter? Is that what you’re saying?’ His voice was low; his smile was not reflected in his eyes.
‘No, I didn’t mean that at all,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘But I do know her; we are close.’
‘Not so close you can’t accept that she’s capable of sharing a house with a man but not a bed?’
‘And can you? Really?’
‘I believe her. So should you. End of story.’
‘That story, okay.’ As the fireworks climaxed, she glanced once more at Alex’s huge companion. ‘I wonder what this crew here would say if they knew his history, that all those qualifications of his were gained in prison doing a life sentence for murder, under another name?’
‘They would say nothing, because he’s here as my guest. God knows what they would think,’ he conceded, ‘but trust me, nobody would utter a word.’
‘Not in your presence,’ she said, ‘but as soon as you left the building, the place would be chattering like a tree full of starlings. This is a golf club, for heaven’s sake. Rumour and innuendo spread faster than on Facebook in places like this.’
‘Yeah, maybe they do, but nobody is going to find out this secret. Dominic keeps a low profile professionally, and the circles he moves in, nobody’s likely to link him with Lennie Plenderleith.’
‘Until Alex calls Dominic as an expert defence witness in a High Court trial,’ Sarah suggested. ‘There are still plenty of advocates and a few judges who were around when he was there last.’
‘Yes, but he’s changed a lot since then; the beard, the change in body shape since he stopped pumping weights.’
‘He’s still two metres tall.’
‘That’s not as exceptional as it used to be.’
‘Isn’t there a parole officer who knows who he is, or was?’ Sarah argued.
‘They would be bound by confidentiality,’ her husband countered, ‘but Dominic doesn’t have to check in anymore. Yes, he’s still on licence as a life-sentence prisoner, but the terms of that licence are as limited as they can be. He has a passport; he can go anywhere he likes without asking permission or informing anyone.’
‘How about the USA? My home country is very choosy about who gets in. He’d be required to declare his personal history, and withholding information from US immigration is never a good idea.’
Bob grinned. ‘We let your president into the UK.’
‘Our president doesn’t have any murder convictions.’
‘There are those who would say he doesn’t have convictions of any sort.’ His attention was caught by the three-piece band shuffling back into position. ‘Come on, kid, let’s dance the night away.’
‘Give my feet a break, Twinkletoes,’ his wife groaned. ‘They’ve suffered enough for one night.’
‘Are you suggesting I’m not a Strictly candidate?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything, I’m telling the world out loud: cops can’t dance.’
As she stepped away from the window, Alex heard her. ‘That’s a given,’ she agreed. ‘I did my level best with him, but my old man has no sense of rhythm, none at all.’
‘How about you, Dominic?’ Sarah asked.
‘I don’t think that dance floor’s big enough for me,’ he laughed as they approached. ‘Besides, I think it’s time to
run the gauntlet and drive home. If I’m not pulled over
between here and Edinburgh, at one a.m. on January the first, it’ll be a sad reflection on the state of policing in modern Scotland.’
‘But don’t let us drag you away, Pops,’ Alex insisted. ‘This shindig still has a while to go, by the looks of things.’
‘No, I think we’re done.’ Bob glanced out of the window. ‘All of a sudden it’s chucking it down out there. If you are going, maybe you could drop us off at home, and wish your brothers a Happy New Year in the process.’
‘Brothers?’ she repeated.
He grinned. ‘You don’t think Jazz is going to be in bed, do you? Mark certainly won’t be, and Ignacio doesn’t have the clout to make them. Trish would lay down the law if she wasn’t spending Christmas with her folks in Barbados, but the boys won’t take it from him. Besides, I promised him that we’d be back in time to let Pilar and him catch up with some pals at a party.’
‘I haven’t met the girlfriend yet,’ Alex observed. ‘They’re on the same uni course, yes?’
‘That’s right, she’s a would-be chemist too. She’s from Madrid; her father’s a banker, and her mother’s Norwegian. The mum did her degree in Edinburgh too; she got a two one in chemical engineering at Heriot Watt.’
‘Do you think it’s serious between them?’
‘Ignacio’s in love,’ he conceded, ‘and the lass seems smitten too, but everybody does when they’re twenty. You’ve heard me talk about my old Uncle Johnny . . . he wasn’t really my uncle though; he was my dad’s best pal. He was a man of many sayings and one was that you shouldn’t look at your girlfriend, you should look at her mother, because that’s what she’s going to look like in twenty-five years or so.’
‘He sounds like a real old sexist pig,’ his daughter declared. She glanced towards her stepmother, who was making her way to the toilet. ‘Mind you, if that’s true, my little sister’s boyfriends will be impressed when that time comes. Sarah looks fantastic with the new silver hair. I’m still getting used to it.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘me too . . . and it’s natural!’
‘You’re kidding me!’
‘No, she’s been covering grey streaks for a few years now. One day, after we’d been out for dinner with Mario McGuire and Paula, on a whim she copied her and spent a small fortune having all the dye removed. What you see is pretty much how it looked.’
‘Maybe I should try it,’ Alex mused.
‘No way!’ her father said. ‘You’re far too young. Plus, your Grandma Graham didn’t start to go grey until after your mother died, and you’re very like her. If you did have the tint taken out, you’d be wasting your money.’
‘I’m also very like you,’ she pointed out, ‘and you were grey in your mid-thirties.’
‘True,’ he conceded, ‘but I still say don’t do it. One’s enough.’ He nodded towards the door where Dominic was waiting. ‘Let’s go . . . once I’ve said goodnight to the Captain. Got to observe the formalities.’
‘When will it be your turn for that job?’
‘Never. I was a cop for thirty years, love, and I finished at the top of the tree. I’m an autocrat to my bootstraps, not a committee man. In fact, I rage against those, like Jimmy Proud did, God bless and keep him.’
Skinner said his farewell to the golf club captain and his party, joining his own on the back stairway that led out to the car park. He recovered an umbrella from his locker, sheltering h
is wife and daughter from the bite of the cold rain as they bustled back to Dominic Jackson’s massive SUV.
It was a short distance to the Skinners’ home, no more than three minutes’ walk, but they were both grateful not to have to make it as the rain grew heavier, battering on the roof of the Mercedes G Class. Their driver pulled up as close to the door as he could, and all four leapt out and into the porch of the modern villa. As Bob had expected, only their two youngest children, Seonaid and Dawn, were in bed; Mark and James Andrew were still awake, but both were flagging. Alex kissed her half-siblings . . . Mark was half her age and Jazz was twenty years younger . . . then she and her escort disappeared into the night, as Bob and Sarah went upstairs to change out of their formal clothing into casual.
‘Who are you first-footing?’ Skinner asked Ignacio, his oldest son, as he came back down.
The young man stared at him. Clearly, the phrase meant nothing to him.
‘Christ,’ he lamented. ‘Did your mother tell you nothing of your Scots heritage when she was bringing you up in Spain? Traditionally, the first person across your threshold in the new year should be a tall dark handsome man. In an ideal world he’ll be carrying a lump of coal and a bottle of whisky.’
Beside Ignacio, his girlfriend Pilar Sanchez Hoverstad laughed. ‘I don’t think I would let anyone in if he was carrying a bottle of whisky,’ she said. ‘Vodka, yes, or maybe schnapps.’ She pulled a face. ‘But not whisky, never. And what is coal?’
‘Yes,’ Ignacio echoed. ‘What is it?’
‘Seriously? You mean . . . ? Fuck! I give up. Where are you going?’
‘To our friend Ronnie’s house. She lives on Goose Green, where you used to live with Alex.’
‘Ronnie? She?’
‘Veronica, Dad, Veronica Goodlad. She’s at uni too, studying English.’
‘Well, you’d better get moving,’ Bob said, ‘or she’ll have graduated by the time you get there. Have you got a bottle of anything to take with you?’
‘Two,’ Pilar replied. ‘Spanish wines; a Tempranillo and a Verdejo.’
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