The King's Prerogative

by Iain Colvin

  With that, the line went dead. Blake replaced the receiver. It was easy for them, he thought. In their plush swivelling leather and chrome chairs. Events on the ground are seldom neat and tidy. He picked up his overnight bag and the room key and went out into the hall. Five minutes later he was back in his car and on his way along the A77 towards the outskirts of town. A sign said Girvan 29, Ayr 51, Glasgow 90. Blake looked at his watch. Twelve forty-five. He should make Glasgow by two-fifteen.

  Chapter 15

  ‘See ye next time, gie the teddies a cheer fae me.’

  ‘Aye, I will. You never know, Davie Cooper might even have one of his good games. Thanks again.’ Craig climbed down from the cab, swung the door shut and gave it two raps with his knuckles. The brakes hissed at him and the gears strained against the weight in the back as the lorry rolled forward and got back under way. He’d told the driver he’d arranged to meet his mate with the football ticket in town, so the driver dropped him at Eglinton Toll before swinging east to avoid the city centre traffic. From there it was a brisk fifteen-minute walk up Eglinton Street until Craig came to Bridge Street subway station. He bought a ticket and as he went through the barrier and down the steps to the platform, the familiar smell of the Clockwork Orange filled his nostrils and immediately transported him back to the time when he used to spend his weekends here. The trip back and forward to Hillhead, the nights out, the bleary mornings. He experienced a pang of regret as he realised that those days should have lasted longer than they did. The gigs at Tiffany’s or the Barrowlands. The parties, the all-nighters at the Grosvenor cinema. He was shaken from his thoughts by the arrival of the orange underground train.

  Donald Grant looked at the wall clock one more time, then picked up the telephone receiver on his desk. He consulted the address finder sitting next to it, moving a sliding tab to the letter ‘P’ before pressing a small square button. The plastic cover flipped up to reveal a list of handwritten names and phone numbers. He selected one, dialled the number, and waited for the clicks and burrs of the automated telephone exchange to complete their metallic search before rewarding him with the sound of a number ringing at the other end.

  ‘Stranraer Police Station,’ said a polite Scottish voice.

  ‘Oh hello, I wonder if I could speak with Detective Sergeant Wilson please.’

  There was a short pause at the other end.

  ‘I’m sorry sir, there’s no one of that name here.’

  ‘Oh, you mean he’s not in the station at the moment?’

  ‘No sir, I mean there’s no officer of that name attached to this station.’

  ‘There must be some mistake. He was here in my office this morning investigating the death of Claire Marshall.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Donald Grant, manager at the Royal Bank on Bridge Street.’

  ‘Okay Mr Grant, would you hold one moment please? Perhaps you should speak to the officer in charge.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I should.’

  Twenty minutes later two uniformed officers and one officer in plain clothes were shown into Donald Grant’s office. The plain clothes officer introduced himself as Detective Inspector Bruce Cowie, temporarily attached to the Stranraer constabulary from Dumfries. He was the officer in charge of the investigation into Claire Marshall’s murder. Donald Grant invited them to sit, and then described how Wilson had arrived that morning, opened the safe custody box and then asked Craig Dunlop some questions. One of the policemen took copious notes in a small notebook as he talked. DI Cowie paused a moment, taking time to choose his first question.

  ‘Did this DS Wilson show you any identification?’

  ‘Yes, he showed me his warrant card.’

  ‘And it was a Metropolitan Police warrant card?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you seen one of those before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hmmm. Did he say where he obtained the key to Miss Marshall’s safe custody box?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. I assumed it was among the effects in your possession belonging to Miss Marshall, and of course we would wish to give the police every assistance under the circumstances.’

  ‘I understand,’ said DI Cowie. ‘The thing is, there is no DS Wilson attached to this investigation. In fact there is no one outside of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary working on this case, far less a detective from Scotland Yard.’

  Donald Grant looked nonplussed. Cowie continued.

  ‘Didn’t you think it was odd that someone from the Met was investigating a local crime?’

  ‘He told me that he was holidaying in the area and as this was his area of expertise, he had offered his services to the local CID.’

  Cowie arched an eyebrow. ‘Very conscientious of him, I’m sure.’ He sighed. ‘What did this DS Wilson look like?’

  ‘He looked in his early forties, about my height – five foot ten – short fair hair. Spoke with a London or home counties accent. That’s about as much as I can say.’

  Bruce Cowie nodded his head as he absorbed this information.

  ‘Could I speak to Mr Dunlop?’

  ‘That’s the thing, he left with this DS Wilson and he hasn’t come back.’

  DI Cowie’s expression changed.

  ‘They left together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cowie and the other police officers exchanged looks. The detective took a moment to gather his thoughts, before leaning forward in his seat.

  ‘You see Mr Grant, I checked before I left the station and there are two DS Wilsons in the Met. One is a very talented young lady called Yvonne, destined for higher things. I spoke to the other one on the phone. He’s a fifty-seven-year-old forensics specialist who speaks with a broad Liverpool accent. He’s in London right now, and says he hasn’t been north of Newcastle in his life.’

  Chapter 16

  Craig emerged into the sunlight after getting off the subway train at Hillhead station. He looked up and down Byres Road before turning left and heading towards Ashton Lane and his favourite café in the whole world, The Grosvenor. Inside was noisy and busy with students ordering food and drinks and chatting with each other and generally going about their normal lives in the normal manner. It gave Craig a comforting sense of familiarity to stand at the counter and look at the menu and wait for a table to become free and to slide in and take up residence there again. He looked at his watch. A quarter to four. A grey-haired woman who looked to Craig as wide as she was short came up to his table, took out a cloth from a pocket in her pink nylon tabard, gave his table a wipe and asked him what he fancied. Craig ordered a coffee and a cheeseburger and the waitress disappeared behind the counter again. The coffee and burger duly arrived and Craig spent the next thirty minutes making it last as long as he could, while checking out every face that came into the café.

  Two girls about nineteen bounced in, looked around, saw that there were no tables free and asked if they could share Craig’s. No problem he replied, and they sat down and ordered hot chocolate and became engrossed in their own conversation. Craig tried to calculate how long he’d have to wait and realised that he could be there a long time. There was no guarantee that Fiona would come in to the café at all. In the rare silences during the ride in the lorry, he’d pondered over how it would be when he saw Fiona again. He hadn’t seen her or spoken to her for so long. He wasn’t even sure if she stayed in the same flat any longer. Eventually he decided that it would be a chance in a hundred that she would stop in at the café and his plan of engineering a casual ‘fancy seeing you here’ meeting was clutching at straws to say the least. He’d have to go to her door and he wasn’t looking forward to that one iota. He knew he had no choice though and he’d put it off long enough.

  Craig paid his bill and walked back out into the spring air. It had turned cooler. Evening was approaching, and Craig turned up his jacket collar. He realised that he was still wearing his work suit. It seemed so long since he’d put it on that morning. He crossed Byres Road and took
Ruthven Lane up to Victoria Crescent Place. He arrived at Fiona’s door and rang the buzzer for flat four. No answer. Craig rang it again, this time for a second longer. Still no reply. He stepped back onto the pavement and looked up at the window. No signs of life. He looked around. There was a small park opposite so he walked over to it, found a bench that gave him a good view of the flats opposite and settled in to wait.

  Nearly two hours later it was pitch dark and Craig was beginning to think that he had wasted his time. He was weighing up his options when he recognised a blonde girl walking past the row of flats towards number four. Her hair was shorter and he didn’t recognise the red duffle coat she was wearing but his heart skipped a beat as he realised it was his ex-girlfriend. She skipped up the stone steps to the door of the flat. He called her name.

  ‘Fiona?’

  She turned round and stared at Craig.

  ‘Oh my God! Craig? How are you? What are you doing here?’ She rushed back down the steps and gave him a hug. Then she regained her composure, stepped back and slapped him hard on the face.

  ‘Ouch! I liked the first greeting better,’ said Craig, unable to keep the smile off his face despite it smarting like blazes. ‘It’s so good to see you.’

  It was good to see her, he realised. He’d forgotten how beautiful Fi was. Five foot seven, slim, blonde, cornflower blue eyes. She had the kind of look that people called classic or timeless. Like Louise Brooks or Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn. And smart. Fiona Rankin was intelligent. Both book smart and sharp as a tack. She’d sailed through her Highers and sailed into Glasgow University. She was in the 3rd year of her law degree and was consistently top of her class. Craig had adored her. And then he blew it. His friends told him he’d blown it, his family told him he’d blown it and worst of all, Fiona confirmed it from her own lips.

  ‘It’s good to see you too,’ said Fiona at last. ‘But you’re a fucking arse and don’t think for one second that I’ve forgiven you.’ She was building up a head of steam and Craig wasn’t ready to receive the onslaught right now.

  ‘Fiona, I’m in trouble and I need your help. I’ve got nowhere else to go.’

  Fiona stopped in mid flow and suddenly realised that his appearance here wasn’t about her.

  ‘Craig, what’s happened?’

  ‘I’ve been freezing my arse off waiting for you to come home, do you mind if we get a heat first?’

  ‘God yeah, of course. Come on.’

  They went inside and walked up the staircase till they came to flat number 4. Fiona unlocked the door and she showed Craig into the living room. She switched on the electric fire and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Craig sat on the hearth rug and warmed his hands and face on the heat radiating from the three bars. Fiona came back in with two mugs of coffee and handed one to Craig. ‘Still milk and one sugar?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ He took a sip and for the first time since that morning he felt safe and warm and able to relax. Even though he knew it was only a temporary feeling, he was grateful for the respite and he told Fiona so.

  ‘Have you warmed up a bit?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. I feel almost human.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  Craig told the whole story, from his grandfather’s funeral right through to that afternoon, and waiting for her in The Grosvenor café. Fiona listened intently, only interrupting to clarify her understanding here and there. It took Craig a full hour to finish and when he came to the end he felt grateful to Fiona for the second time that evening. Getting it all out made him feel better and it felt good talking to Fiona again. For a long minute Fiona said nothing. She’d been sitting on the sofa with her hands resting on her knee, and now she placed her hands over her nose and mouth as if she was about to sneeze. Craig recognised the look – she was thinking hard. Finally he couldn’t bear the silence any longer.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’

  Fiona put her hands back on her knee. ‘I don’t know what you should do about the police right now, but one thing’s for sure, you can’t outrun them for ever. You know that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Leaving that aside, I think there’s three things you have to do. Tomorrow, you’ll get in touch with Brian Irving at Strathclyde University. If your thinking is right and this all has something to do with the letter then you need to get him involved. But right now you’ll phone your parents and tell them you’re okay.’

  Craig nodded. ‘You’re right. What’s the third thing?’

  ‘You’ll eat something.’ With that she stood up, then bent down, kissed Craig on the cheek and walked through to the kitchen. She shouted through from the other room. ‘Phone your mum, you know where the phone is.’

  Craig took a seat on the sofa and picked up the phone that was sitting on a small table next to the arm. He noticed a large notepad that the phone had been sitting on. Written on the notepad was a list divided into two columns, one labelled Fiona and the other labelled Chris, with the duration of phone calls jotted under each name. Craig’s heart sank. Who was Chris? Just a flatmate or was it a boyfriend? It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Fiona might be seeing someone or even living with someone. The old feelings of jealousy began to seep into his head. Stop it, he thought, stop it right now. He didn’t have the time for this, nor did he have the right to feel jealous. He shook the thoughts from his head and dialled his parents’ number.

  Fifteen minutes later Fiona came back through from the kitchen carrying two empty plates and a large bowl of pasta in some kind of tomato sauce. She placed them on the small dining table, then went back to the kitchen to fetch some cutlery and two glasses of water for them.

  ‘Sorry it’s just water, I wasn’t expecting guests,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Don’t be daft, this is great, really.’ They sat at the table and Craig squeezed her hand. ‘Thanks Fiona, I don’t know what I’d have done today without you.’

  Fiona smiled her smile at him. ‘You haven’t told me that for a long time.’ She punched his arm again, only lightly this time. ‘Eat. And tell me what your mum and dad said.’

  Craig told Fiona about his phone call home. Firstly, he’d told his dad that he was okay and staying over at a friend’s. He didn’t want to say he was at Fiona’s because that would have triggered a whole other conversation he didn’t want to get into. He asked what had been happening in Stranraer and his father told Craig that a policeman had called that morning, and a further two policemen visited at lunch time. His mother hadn’t been able to tell them where Craig was. But then they had returned around six pm and told his parents that Craig had been missing since roughly ten o’clock and they were anxious to find him. His parents had no choice but to tell them that Craig had been in touch earlier in the day but that he was alright. The policemen admonished them and instructed them to telephone the local police station as soon as Craig got in touch again. His father pleaded with Craig to contact the police. Whatever had happened, they could sort it out. Craig told his father that he planned to contact someone who could help sort it all out the following morning and then he would go to the police. His father sounded relieved. Craig spoke briefly with his mother who also begged him to contact the police. Craig promised her too then rung off.

  ‘Your dad is right,’ said Fiona. ‘You should go to the police. It’s not fair on your mum and dad. You know it’ll only look worse for you in the long run. It looks bad enough as it is. You escaped police custody for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘I wasn’t in police custody, I wasn’t under arrest,’ said Craig. ‘And I ran because something’s not right, Fi. That detective, Wilson, lied to me about how he got the letter and every single thing he said or did was suspicious. He was at Claire’s funeral. He had Claire’s copy of the letter, he knew that the letter was connected to Hess, he had her safe custody key, and then he drove away from the police station when he wanted me to make a statement. This whole thing stinks. Wilson as much as confirmed that Claire’s murder was connecte
d to the letter, and by extension that means the police must suspect me. Why else was he so keen to talk to me? And where was he taking me? It could only have been the airfield at West Freugh. Then where? What else am I supposed to think other than they’re convinced I killed Claire? They haven’t found the real murderer so they’re desperate to pin it on someone. They’d only have my word that I didn’t do it, and the only person who can corroborate my story and get me out of this mess is Brian Irving. I have to speak to him.’

  ‘Craig, listen to yourself, that’s paranoia.’

  ‘Is it? I’m telling you, I got the distinct feeling that I’m being fitted up for this. Even my boss looked at me as if I’d done it.’ He stared at his hands. ‘I just need another day.’

  Fiona looked at her watch. It said nine-thirty. She looked back at him. ‘You look dead beat.’

  Craig nodded and made to stand up. ‘You’re right, I am. I should go and find somewhere…’

  ‘You can sleep on the couch tonight. I’ll get you a duvet.’

  Craig was relieved that he wasn’t being kicked out. ‘Thank you, Fi. I keep saying that tonight don’t I? I promise I’ll be gone first thing.’

  ‘Shut up. You know I’d always help you if I could.’ She went through into the hall to get a spare duvet from the airing cupboard and she took a spare pillow from her bed. By the time she went back through to the living room, Craig was already fast asleep on the sofa. She put the duvet over him and switched off the light on her way to bed.

  Chapter 17

  Tuesday 15th March, 1983

  Craig woke to the sound of curtains being opened. He experienced that feeling where he expected to see his own bedroom and was then confused for a few seconds while his brain tried to work out where he was.