The DCI David Fyfe Mysteries

by William Paul

  The governor sat back and the sudden movement made pages inside the folder spill out, spoiling the symmetry of the desk top. He sat forward again to straighten them up and then eased himself back more carefully.

  ‘You’re lucky, Adamson,’ Black said. ‘You’re going out to a flat, a job, and the proper guidance of people who care about you. Not many leave here with those advantages. Don’t ruin it for yourself. Stay on the straight and narrow. Obey the rules.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I am lucky, sir. I know that.’

  ‘That’s all I have to say.’

  Black leaned forward. He lifted the trio of fused lead soldiers and put the green folder on top of the other one underneath it. Then he reached for the intercom and held down a switch.

  ‘Mr Stewart, you can send in…’ Black rubbed a finger across his mouth, trying to remember the name. ‘You can send in…er…send in Adamson’s sponsor.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Adamson said, grinning openly as he fought a strong urge to spit in Black’s face.

  He turned away from the desk, moving slowly and deliberately to emphasise the fact that he was not asking for permission. The waiting was over at last. The door opened and Adamson’s smile grew even wider at the sight of the person who had come to take him away from the prison.

  ‘Am I glad to see you,’ he said.

  Father Donald Byrne entered the room. Black looked on approvingly as he shook hands and embraced Adamson in a gentle bear hug.

  ‘Jad, my boy,’ the priest said. ‘Didn’t I promise your mother I’d look after you?’

  10

  Fyfe had time to let Jill and Number Five out for a run at Granton, down by the shore on the grass at Gypsy Brae, before he went in to the Fettes headquarters. He didn’t want to be too early, to be seen to jump when Hunky Dunky whistled. He hoped the little job would involve getting out of the office so he did not have to leave the dogs cooped up in the car. If he was really stuck he could dump them on Sally’s cousin Catriona at her house just along the road in Craigleith.

  He checked with the Chief Constable’s secretary when he got in then made himself some coffee and hid away to read the daily papers. One of the civilian secretaries knocked on the half-open door and entered. It was young Mary. He couldn’t remember her second name. She was young and friendly but not particularly good at the job she had been doing for only three weeks. Fyfe didn’t care about her efficiency because she was a delight to look at, all bouncing curves, shining eyes, and a jumble of gold chains at a smooth white throat. At least her heart is in the right place, he thought, surreptitiously glancing at the place where her heart was.

  ‘I typed out these reports for the fiscal last night, Chief Inspector,’ she said brightly.

  Fyfe sighed. The hem of Mary’s short skirt was several inches above the level of his desk. Her blouse was semi-see-through and her bra was lace-trimmed. The sun was shining outside without producing any heat. Stormy weather was reported to be moving down the coast from the north.

  ‘Nice job, Mary,’ he said, skimming through the pages without really looking. ‘You can be my secretary and sit on my knee any time.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  ‘Our relationship would be strictly professional.’

  ‘Strictly. As strict as you like. How about some coffee?’

  He had just finished one mug and didn’t want any more, but he didn’t want to refuse either. He could easily imagine himself and Mary in a compromising position. One of his problems had always been that he liked women too much. He liked Mary because she knew nothing about his troubled history in the force, the brush with alcoholism, the pop-eyed psychologist messing with his brain to put him right. She only knew that he was a kind of folk hero because he had shot to kill when required. They couldn’t sack heroes, only sideline them to keep them out of the way.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Another time then.’

  Detective Sergeant Bill Matthewson collided with Mary in the doorway and stood back deferentially to allow her out. He came in looking backwards to watch her walking between the desks in the squad room. Her generous buttocks swung from side to side and not a man she passed in the operations room failed to admire them.

  ‘The tourist board should declare this a site of great scenic beauty,’ Fyfe said. ‘We could charge people to come and look at the view.’

  ‘Name your price,’ Matthewson said, still looking backwards.

  Matthewson was under thirty but had old man’s bags under his eyes and looked a lot older than Fyfe. He had a well-proportioned body but somehow his face was all wrong. The ears and mouth were too big, eyes too close together, nose squint, and chin too square. He was a Highlander, originally from the far north-west, and talked with a musical singsong lilt.

  ‘Was there something you wanted, Sergeant?’ Fyfe asked. ‘Apart from young Mary, that is.’

  ‘Uh. Yes, sir. Sir Duncan wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Promotion or demotion? Which do you think?’

  Matthewson shrugged and left the office. Fyfe followed him and walked to the lift. On the short two-floor journey he began day-dreaming about slapping a resignation letter down in front of Hunky Dunky before he got a chance to explain what his little job was about. All Fyfe lacked was the letter. He might try it verbally but he would probably be regarded as drunk. Face it, he thought contemptuously, you’re not going to do or say anything. You’ll run any errand that is asked of you.

  Fyfe disliked Sir Duncan intensely because the pompous bastard was so condescending. He should have sacked him all those years ago when he was a newly promoted inspector, a faithless husband, under investigation for beating up suspects and drunk and incapable in the squad room late at night. He could have sacked him and he should have but he didn’t, thereby emphasising his moral superiority and his exclusive access to the prerogative of mercy. Fyfe was tucked nicely into his pocket for future patronisation. He wasn’t even demoted, just lectured on the evils of drink, patted on the back and shoved in front of the cure-all shrink.

  Fyfe should have resigned, but he didn’t. At the time he was just glad to keep his job. He never expected to be promoted but once he was briefly famous after the shooting incident they had no choice but to grudgingly make him up to chief. Then he was put out of harm’s way as third in command of the Fraud Squad.

  Sir Duncan’s secretary looked up from her word processor, nodded and waved him into the office. Sir Duncan was not in uniform. He was seated on a chair by the window, elbows balanced on his knees as he packed tobacco into his pipe. The watery daylight through the window endowed his generous mop of grey hair with an unusual metallic sheen.

  ‘David,’ he said. ‘Come in. Come in. Good to see you. We’ll have to make this quick, I’m afraid. I’ve got to go and meet with our esteemed council leaders to try and persuade them to fix next year’s budget at a level that won’t mean riots on the streets. Sit down. Sit down.’

  Fyfe watched Sir Duncan light his pipe. It took three matches. The tiny blip of flame fattened as it was sucked into the bowl and contracted as it emerged again. Each match burned right down to the end before being snuffed out.

  ‘That’s it,’ Sir Duncan said, satisfied that the tobacco was smouldering efficiently. ‘Now, David, I want to ask you a personal favour. Something we can keep between ourselves.’

  This was the little job. Short of a request to kill the first-born of the city, there was no way Fyfe could refuse. ‘Ask away, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Archbishop John Delaney is a good friend of mine. He and I are on a number of committees together. I was talking to him the other day. He was looking for some advice.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Are you a Catholic, David?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Church of Scotland?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘A Wee Free then?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m an agnostic.’

  ‘Good for you. Shows an independen
ce of mind and spirit. I’m a Protestant myself. United Free. I’ve been baptised so I get to go to heaven and I go to church every week to hear the latest news on the damned. Imagine me advising an Archbishop. Funny the way things happen, isn’t it? I don’t know if my minister would approve.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Fyfe guessed what was coming next. Somebody nicking the collection money or drinking the communion wine. Just about the level of serious crime Hunky Dunky would consider him competent enough to be entrusted with.

  ‘John has a slight problem,’ Sir Duncan said and the stem of his pipe clicked against teeth. ‘I’d like you to go and see him. He is expecting you. It appears somebody has been fiddling the Church accounts. Nothing too substantial but it would be embarrassing for the Church if it was to become public knowledge.’

  ‘You want me to find out who is doing it?’

  ‘Yes. John already has a prime suspect. He wants a confession and he thinks a real policeman might be enough to get it.’

  ‘Is it a priest?’

  ‘Apparently so. Temptation must have been too much for him.’

  ‘I would have thought he answered to a higher authority than Her Majesty’s police.’

  ‘Only once he leaves our jurisdiction. David, I’d be grateful if you’d play along with the Archbishop. I need John’s support on a number of other issues.’ He tapped his pipe meaningfully on an empty ashtray. ‘Politics, you understand. Back scratching. That kind of thing.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘I doubt if there will be charges involved. The Procurator Fiscal doesn’t know about it and I’d like to keep it that way if possible. A real live detective on the case is what John wants. He thinks that will put a seal on it, convince his errant priest to come clean.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘I have to go,’ Sir Duncan said distractedly. He stood up and Fyfe copied him. ‘I’m sure I can trust you with this one, David. It’s a bit out of the ordinary but I’m sure you’ll be able to sort it out quietly. John is expecting you to see him this morning. There isn’t anyone else I could ask to do this. I’ve taken to regarding you as my troubleshooter.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Fyfe left and called the lift in the corridor. He liked the idea of the job. Plenty of play-acting and no paperwork. If he was lucky he could justify running it into a few days of next week, maybe the whole week. Troubleshooter, eh? He liked the sound of that even if it was a bit of a back-handed compliment to say that there was nobody else on the force capable of handling it. Should he be flattered to be picked out or did it mean no one else could be spared from real police work?

  Downstairs he called Matthewson into his office. ‘Handing over to you meantime, Bill. I’ve been redeployed on a secret mission.’

  ‘Really? Not the murder, is it?’

  ‘What murder?’

  ‘Body on the beach at Portobello. Throat cut.’

  ‘Drugs, is it? Anybody important?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Don’t know the story yet. They think there could be another body around. Anonymous call came in this morning telling us about the body at Porty and another one, location unknown.’

  ‘He’s not mine. I can’t discuss my case, naturally, but it doesn’t yet have dead bodies associated with it. The good news is that hopefully it has nothing to do with VAT frauds or tax scams, or crooked lawyers nicking old ladies’ life savings. It is real crime. It has a touch of malice, a hint of violence, a pinch of sheer badness. A bit like a body on the beach with its throat cut.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘There are plenty of bad people out there. All we have to do is catch a couple of them every now and again and the public feel safe sleeping in their beds. That’s why I joined the police, you know; to catch the bad guys.’

  ‘You’ve caught a few in your time,’ Matthewson said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said you’ve caught a few in your time,’ Matthewson repeated reluctantly, embarrassed by the sentence when he heard it the second time around. ‘Well, you have.’

  ‘Don’t be patronising, Sergeant.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Actually, I never really wanted to be a detective, you know, Bill.’

  ‘You didn’t, sir?’

  ‘No. I wanted to be a lumberjack.’

  ‘Really, sir?’

  ‘No. I’m lying. A good policeman has to be able to suss out when people are lying or taking the piss. It makes the job a lot easier. I like to think experience contributes a lot to the way you regard people. There’s no substitute for it.’

  Matthewson’s face had turned pink. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll work at it.’

  ‘Now I have to go visit an Archbishop. Maybe he’s going to confess to something juicy.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘Not this week. Not so far anyway.’

  Matthewson left the room with the reports under his arm. Fyfe saw him flap his hand up and down in front of his face, pantomiming burned fingers to colleagues at their desks. Fyfe was disappointed that he had resorted to sarcasm to put Matthewson down. He used to have a decent rapport with other people but that seemed to have vanished. All he did now was put their backs up and antagonise them for no good reason. Maybe a blow-out to ease the pressure would help. Not a full-scale binge like in the old days but just a good night’s drinking. It might make him more bearable, more human. He was reasonably certain that, if he asked, young Mary would obligingly sit in his lap. What could be more human than that?

  Meanwhile there was the Archbishop to attend to. Fyfe looked up his number in the phone book. A mature woman answered and there was a brief silence when he unthinkingly addressed her as Mrs Delaney, slapping himself theatrically on the forehead when he realised what he had done.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said contritely. ‘You won’t be… You can’t be…’

  ‘I’m not,’ the voice announced primly. ‘I am the Archbishop’s housekeeper. You will find him at the diocesan office.’

  That was in the book under Catholic Church. Fyfe dialled and talked to a woman who sounded like the twin sister of the housekeeper. She had been expecting to hear from him and told him to come round straight away. Fyfe was getting up to go when his phone rang. He sat down again to answer it.

  ‘DCI Fyfe here. Can I help you?’

  ‘David. It’s me.’

  He recognised the voice immediately. Surprise made him sit up straight. It must have been over a year since he had last heard it but the familiarity suggested days, hours even, rather than long months. He pictured the lips forming the words that were being spoken into his ear, the line of her nose, the way her hair fell over her eyes. Fyfe cupped the receiver behind the palm of his hand.

  ‘Sylvia,’ he said. ‘It’s good to hear from you. How have you been?’

  ‘About average. And you?’

  ‘Not too bad.’

  ‘Long time no see. Have you been avoiding me?’

  ‘Not by choice,’ he protested. ‘Certainly not.’

  There was no animosity between his former lover Sylvia Cranston, the high-flying advocate, and his ex-wife Sally. Never had been. He had assumed his affair with her was over when Sally had moved back to live with him. Anyway, he had never lived with Sylvia for more than one night at a time. She had visited his home in the Borders once while Sally was ill. It was Sylvia’s way of showing that she was no longer a rival. When she left she kissed him on the cheek and squeezed his hand. Thanks for having me. See you around, old friend.

  He had seen her only a few times since then, always by chance, usually around the courts, but he had never completely blocked her out of his mind. She was always present, had been there last night and in the morning on the hillside when he was staring up into the sky. The flesh on the back of his neck prickled. She was a part of his life. He loved Sylvia dearly but would never be able to tell her so.

  ‘I’m phoning to invite you to a party.’

  ‘Good.
I haven’t been to a party for ages.’ And Sally’s away for the weekend too, he thought automatically.

  ‘It’s my engagement party.’

  ‘Your engagement party?’ He tried to sound indifferent but his voice definitely rose in pitch. There was a sharp element of jealousy in his surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were engaged.’

  ‘Well, I am, and it is a cause for great celebration.’

  ‘Who is the lucky man?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Yes. You know how incestuous the legal profession is. I’m going to marry my father.’

  ‘Do I laugh at the joke now?’

  ‘My Devilmaster. The man who trained me before I became an advocate. I call him my father. It’s a legal term we use to confuse outsiders.’

  ‘Okay, I’m confused. So who is your father?’

  ‘Graeme Hughes, aka Lord Greenmantle.’

  ‘The High Court judge?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘You’re going to marry Lord Greenmantle?’

  ‘Guilty as charged.’

  Fyfe wanted to say that Lord Greenmantle was old enough to be her father, that she couldn’t possibly be serious, that she was far too young and good-looking to throw herself away on a dried-up old fart, that she must have taken leave of her senses, that she was doing it on the rebound from him, that it was ridiculous. But then what right had he to be jealous or to tell Sylvia what to do? A spasm of anger made him clench his free fist. The coffee cup cracked and the lukewarm brown liquid spilled over his fingers.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘You little devil you.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ she replied. ‘You will come, won’t you?’

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Say you’ll come. I know it’s short notice but there will be an awful lot of boring people there. I need to see a friendly face.’