'And where do we begin?'
'We begin by interviewing the Deputy Chief Constable, who might be the only bloke here who can tell us anything about Alec Smith as a man, as well as a police officer.'
Steele gulped, involuntarily, as McGuire pushed himself up from his chair, and stepped out from behind his desk. 'Come on; he'll be waiting for us now'
The Inspector led the way out of the Special Branch suite. They marched briskly out of the high-rise section of the Fettes headquarters complex and along the link which led to the Command Corridor, above the main entrance, where the chief officers were based.
McGuire leaned into a small room, off to the right. Ruth
McConnell smiled up at him. Gorgeous as always, he thought. 'The Boss in?' he asked.
'Yes. He said to send you along when you arrived. Go on, and I'll buzz him.'
'Thanks.' Beckoning Steele to follow, he walked a few yards to Skinner's door, knocked and led the way inside.
The Deputy Chief was in uniform, unusually. He caught McGuire's surprised glance as he rose from his swivel chair and stepped across towards the low seating in his reception area, where Neil Mcllhenney was sitting. 'Visitors,' he explained. 'A delegation from the Mossos Esquadra, the Catalan national police force. Then tomorrow, I'm off to a three-day conference in London. Great week, eh?' he grumbled. He pointed to a coffee filter in the corner of the big, bright room with a wall-to-wall window which gave Skinner a view of everything going on outside. 'Help yourselves, if you want. I've had my ration for the morning.'
Steele poured coffee for McGuire and for himself and joined the senior officers around the low table.
'So, Mario,' the DCC began briskly. 'What do you want to know?'
'Everything you know about Alec Smith, sir. We've got nothing out of North Berwick, or out of his widow even. We were told that you and he used to mix socially as well as professionally. I was hoping you might help us get a handle on the man.'
'I thought you might say that. Yes, Alec and I had a common interest away from the office; he was one of the Legends for a while.'
Steele frowned, puzzled.
Skinner explained. 'A bunch of us play five-a-side football - or four, or six, depending on how many turn up - every Thursday night at North Berwick Sports Centre. We've been at it for twenty years and more; we call ourselves the Legends because these days we're all so fucking old.
4 We had a vacancy, oh, maybe ten years ago. I knew Alec had played a bit in his youth, and he lived in East Lothian, so I asked him if he wanted to come along. He was one of us for about five years, till he chucked it. He decided his right knee wasn't up to it any more.
'But that was the extent of our social mixing. The Legends is as much about the get-together in the pub afterwards as it is about the game itself but Alec rarely mixed in with that. More often than not, he'd get dressed, pay his money, say goodnight and go home to Pencaitland. He never came to any of our Christmas Dinners, no matter what time of year we held them ... they're never at Christmas.
'On the odd occasion he did come to the pub, he rarely had much to say. He was pleasant enough, you understand; I never heard Alec Smith say a hard or rude word in my life. He was just a very quiet man, that's all.'
He turned to Mcllhenney. 'Neil, you worked with him in SB once. How did you find him?'
'I was just seconded there for a short time, Boss, but I thought he was a magician. He'd allocate jobs and when you reported back to him, it was as if he'd known what you were telling him all along.'
'Who were in his inner circle in SB at that time?' asked McGuire.
'He didn't have one, Mario. He treated everyone in the squad in exactly the same way; told them what they needed to know and that was it.'
Skinner picked up a folder on the desk and gave it to the Inspector. 'I thought you'd want this, so I pulled it from Personnel. It's Alec's service record, from the day he joined up. I worked with him myself, way back, in a serious crimes set-up we had then. He was about ten years older than me; I was a DC and he was a DI so I was a couple of rungs down the ladder from him. But I remember his nickname; the lads called him 'Mysterious Mr X'. To his face, sometimes; he just laughed it off.'
McGuire held the folder up. 'Does this tell us why he chucked it?'
'No, but I can. He told me that he had got to the stage where his pension was so healthy that he would be working for half pay from then on, unless he got promoted, and he knew that wasn't going to happen. Alec's privacy was ideal in an SB boss, but a bar to higher command. So he took the pension and went to work for Guardian Security, as its Chief Operating Officer in Scotland - on the same salary as an ACC, plus a nice company Jag.'
'Yet he chucked it after less than a year,' the DI mused. 'I wonder why?'
'I asked the company that very question this morning, Mario,' Mcllhenney answered. 'I called the Group Human Resources Director, a bloke called Rylance. He told me that a job came up in London and the Managing Director wanted Alec in it. But he refused, point-blank. The problem was that they had already promised his job in Scotland to one of the MD's proteges. So they gave him six months' pay and his car, and that was that.'
'Give me the guy's number, Neil. We'd better look into the work he did while he was there.'
'That's in hand. Mr Rylance is putting together a full report; their courier division will get it to you by close of play tomorrow, at the latest.'
McGuire raised an eyebrow and smiled. 'You after my job, Mcllhenney?'
The big Sergeant gazed at him, poker-faced. 'You're still in it, aren't you?'
The Special Branch Commander rose, clutching the folder, Steele following his lead. 'In that case you and the kids can come to us for lunch next Sunday.' He looked back at Skinner. 'I report to you on this, Boss?'
The DCC shook his head. 'No. This is Maggie's shout; she and Mr Martin will keep me up to speed, I'm sure. Mind you, if you were to turn up any real nasties ...'
15
'Have you seen this, Andy?' The Superintendent pushed a folder across his desk, in the Divisional CID Commander's office in Torphichen Place. 'The floater in the Water of Leith.'
The Head of CID looked at the slim file. 'That's it?' he asked, with a faint, but discernible trace of scorn.
'There's your statement, your girlfriend's sister...'
Martin held up a hand. 'What do you mean my girlfriend?'
'One of the detective constables who took Margot's statement saw you and the older lass coming out of Bert's Bar on Friday night.'
'You better ask him if he likes the seaside,' the DCS growled.
'Aw Andy, the lad's good, and I've already lost Stevie Steele to the Eastern Division.'
'I wasn't thinking about sending him to Dunbar; I was thinking about sticking him back in a uniform and having him patrol Seafield!'
'No, really. I've had a word with him about gossip. Christ, you know what he said to me, the cheeky bastard? "But I thought that gossip was the CID's stock-in-trade, sir." He's dead right, of course.'
'You just teach him the meaning of the word "selective", then. Who was it anyway?'
'Jack McGurk.'
'You're right. He is a good lad. How many years has he been with you?' 'Three.'
'And one of your detective sergeants is just going off on maternity leave?' 'That's right.'
'Okay, I'll tell you what. We won't send him to patrol the sewage works, we'll promote him. You can tell him that the vengeful Head of CID was going to give him the shit-kicker job, but that you talked me out of it. That should make you a bloody hero in his eyes, and it should teach him something at the same time.'
He picked up the floater file. 'Two statements; that's all you've got, is it?'
'Them and the post-mortem report. Know what the cause of death was?'
'Drowning.'
'How did you know that?'
'The girl you say I know, she's a final-year medic. I arranged for her to sit in as an observer. She told me that the guy drowned in his own blo
od.'
'That's right,' said Pringle. 'Every bone in his face was smashed to pieces. His legs and his ribs were pulverised. The cuts across his chest were bone deep. The missing fingers and toes were nowhere to be found in the rug, but it looked as if they had been cut off with scissors or something similar. There were bruise marks around the wrists and ankles; the poor wee guy - he was about five seven, Sarah says - was tied up then slashed and beaten to death.'
'What was the time of death?'
'Sarah fixed it as early Saturday morning. She said that the body had been immersed for about eighteen hours, give one, take one.'
'Give me that again.'
'Time of death early Saturday morning, say three o'clock. Immersed for eighteen hours, give or take. What do we take from that?'
'It puts a limit on where he could have been killed. If he died at three, and was in the water for a minimum of seventeen hours until we took him out at ten, then wherever he was killed is less that two hours travel time from where the body was dumped. If Sarah's spot on with her eighteen, that's one hour. Allowing time to tie the poor bugger up in that carpet, on that basis, he was killed pretty close to here. If the eighteen stretches towards nineteen, then he was killed very close to where he was found.'
'That's true; unfortunately, all of it's true. It still means that the guy could have been killed in Glasgow and dumped here, if it was nearer seventeen.'
'Come on, Dan. Get real on that; who would bring a stiff through here and drop it in something that's not much more than a stream in places when he's got the Clyde on his doorstep?'
'All right,' said the Superintendent. 'I'll have Jack McGurk and a team begin interviews with people living in the vicinity of the Water of Leith, from Roseburn down to Dean Village. Mind you there's a lot more of them now, since all those flats were built.'
'Nonetheless. It'll keep the investigation moving, and you know how important that is.'
Pringle nodded and leaned back in his chair. 'You know, boy,' he whispered, under his breath, 'you're getting more like Bob Skinner every day.'
Martin gazed at the wall, oblivious to the Divisional Commander's scrutiny. 'Why was he wearing a shirt?' he asked, suddenly.
The burly veteran looked at him, puzzled. He tugged, unconsciously, at one end of his heavy moustache. 'Eh?'
'Why was he wearing a shirt and nothing else? They stripped off his trousers, socks and underwear, but they left him wearing a shirt.'
'Maybe they were going to make him eat his willie, but he died on them.'
'He died on them as an indirect result of having his teeth smashed into powder, Dan.'
'True. Tell you what, I'll have McGurk instigate a search for a missing pair of strides, thirty-six waist, twenty-nine inside leg. Maybe they'll give us a vital clue!'
The Head of CID grinned. 'Listen, it was just a thought. It strikes me as odd, that's all. Was there any sign of sexual interference?'
'You mean did they make him dance the Turkish two-step before they killed him? No, the report says that there were no genital or anal injuries. He did have sex at some point though. Sarah found a single pubic hair, not his, trapped under his foreskin.'
'That's something, at least,' Martin conceded. 'Maybe he was only wearing a shirt because he'd just been getting his end away ... or maybe the rest of his clothes were traceable. What make was the shirt?'
'Marks and Spencer, collar size sixteen. It could have been bought any-bloody-where in Britain.'
'Could it, though?'
'Aye, I've checked. There is a tab on the inside of M&S shirts, near the foot, that has a garment number on it. But this one had been ripped off - although I suppose it could have come away in the wash.'
'Nothing new on the missing persons lists?'
'Aye, plenty as always. But no medium-sized males in their early to mid-forties.'
'How about the e-fit? Did Sarah give us any ideas on that?'
'She's dealing with that today. She gave priority to the post-mortem report, but she's going to take another look at the body and try to fit the facial bones back together. She said that if she could she'd give us something to release to the Evening News tomorrow.'
'Has there been much press interest?'
'Not in comparison to the Alec Smith case. Radio Forth picked it up first, at midnight on Saturday, too late for most of the Sundays.'
'That doesn't surprise me. Spike Thomson was at the party.' 'The disc jockey?'
'That's the boy. He's friendly with Juliet Lewis, Rhian and Margot's mother.'
'Lucky him. She looked quite tasty, from what I saw of her on Saturday while McGurk and Ray Wilding were interviewing the daughter.'
He beamed across the desk at the Head of CID. 'Tell me something, Andy. When you bought that house, did you check out the neighbours first?'
16
'I know, Stevie, this is a bloody dismal place to work. But face it, man; we all have to work our way up to the likes of Bob Skinner's office. It's in rooms like this that we do it. I've been asking for a spot of refurbishment for over a year now, but that Chris Whitlow, the force's civilian bean-counter, he's a real tight-fisted bastard.
'The Boss doesn't like to lean on him himself, but he's promised me that if I get no action within the next three months he'll bring the Chief down for a visit, to let him see the place, then wind him up to do some kicking himself.'
'Doesn't the Chief come down here normally, then?'
'Proud Jimmy? About once every three years, and then only when Bob invites him. I report to the Big Man direct, you see, and nobody interferes with his operations ... nobody at all.'
'I can imagine. I've seen him in action. He saved my arse a while back ...'
McGuire nodded. 'The Russians. I remember.'
'Fucking awesome, he was. You should have seen what he did to that big guy.'
'I'd rather not. We've all done things in our time that we wouldn't have wanted witnessed.' He laughed. 'I remember one night, when Mcllhenney and I were in uniform, these gang lads thought they had him cornered in an alley; but they didn't know that I'd been checking out a shop down the street.
I came in behind them and it was them that were cornered. What a fucking mess we left them in. But it was just as well no law-abiding member of the public wandered past. It'd have been "Police brutality" and no mistake - there were only four of them.'
He walked over towards the far wall of his office which was lined with cupboards, three of them, steel doors stretching to ceiling height, each with a combination lock.
"This is it, son,' he said. "There's stuff in here that the Sun would die for. You're honoured, you know. You've been cleared to see all of it.' He smiled at Steele's surprise. 'You don't think we let any old plod walk in here, do you?'
Nonetheless, as he dialled up the first combination, he was careful to shield the lock with his body from the Sergeant's view.
He released the lock and swung the double doors open. The cupboard was full of side-racked files, row above row; the Inspector crouched beside them and flicked through the fourth row from the floor, then the third. 'This is where it begins,' he said. 'Alec Smith's reign as SB Commander. His files take up all the second cabinet and go on into the third.'
He straightened up. 'You're going to see things in here that will surprise you. Files on famous names, and I'm not just talking about the Bolsheviks. These cupboards are all about real or potential threats to national security; they cover, literally, a multitude of sins. For example, I've got files on three members of the Scottish Government. One of them's a closet lesbian, another's a thief, and the third was a once member of a group which was suspected of feeding information on potential targets to the ERA.'
'What do you do with information like that?'
'I pass it straight to Big Bob; I'm only a finder-out, he's the do-er. In those cases I happen to know that he's shown the files to the First Minister and his Deputy. The three subjects are still in their jobs, but I'd expect two of them to disappear at the
first reshuffle. Not the gay lady, though. Sex is nothing; in the fifties it was everything, but nowadays no-one cares how people get their rocks off... unless it involves children or farm animals, that is.
'Forty years ago, homosexuality was illegal, now it's almost bloody fashionable.'
'Why the file on her then?' Steele asked.
'Because it was there. SB was asked to vet her and it turned up in the process. There is a slight complication in the case which might make her vulnerable; she's married and has two children.'
'What will we find in Alec Smith's files?'
'Some right goodies. There's one on a former Lord Advocate who was into porking wee boys. Big Bob showed the file to Hughie Fulton, who was the Secretary of State's security adviser at the time. Fulton came back to him and ordered him to burn it. The DCC - he was a Chief Super then - went to see Proud Jimmy about it. The Chief called Fulton into his office and told him that if the guy wasn't removed, his file would be left accidentally in the Scotsman newsroom, and the Secretary of State's along with it. Exit Lord Advocate.'
'How do you know all that?'
'Because the file's still in that cupboard, with a note of Bob Skinner's conversations with Fulton, and a tape of the meeting in the Chief's office. Makes good listening, I tell you.'
'What happened to Fulton?'
McGuire frowned. 'That's not on file. No-one knows, but he vanished overnight, straight after the Syrian thing, and Big Bob took over his job. He did it for a while until he fell out with the Secretary of State.'
'What is the Secretary of State's security adviser anyway?' the young Sergeant asked.
'A superspook. MI5. Plays a whole different level of the security business, way above simple flatfeet like you and me.'
'And Mr Skinner used to do that?'
The Inspector gave him a long look. 'You're cleared to be in this room, so I'll tell you this. Sir John Govan, the retired Strathclyde Chief, does it now, but the Big Man's still connected. It comes in handy from time to time, like last year up in the Conference Centre.
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