Thursday legends - Skinner 10

by Quintin Jardine

  'What do you mean?' she asked.

  'I don't know, love. I don't know.' He picked up the Chianti, topped up Maggie's glass, and poured the last of the bottle into his own.

  'See that lass Cowan?'

  'Alice? Yes. I've been asked if I'd like her in CID. I'd take her in a minute, but I'll leave the decision for Brian when he gets back from holiday. I'd rather he had the argument with her line commander.'

  'You rate her then?'

  'Very much. She's very sharp'.

  'She thinks for herself, and doesn't say any more than she needs to?'

  'Yes, I'd say that.'

  'I might save Superintendent Mackie from that Barney, then.'

  'What? You mean you might pinch her?' 'If she comes through vetting okay, yes. There's someone I've got to move out.' 'Who's that?'

  'Tommy Gavigan: the old DC. He's blown out and he's got to go now; I've sent him on leave already and I won't have him back. He's forty-seven with just over two years to go to retirement, so we'll give him the extra time on his pension rights and let him leave early. I told Big Bob this as soon as I'd interviewed Gavigan, so it's as good as done. If Whitlow the bean-counter moans about the cost, he'll get told.

  'Something else too, that should please you. In future nobody does more than five years in Special Branch ... ever. That comes from the Gaffer himself

  Maggie looked at him carefully. 'I'm glad to hear that; but Gavigan's an old soldier. You sure you want to replace him with a youngster like Alice? She's only twenty-four.'

  'I'm absolutely sure, because she is a youngster, she's uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air, and I need that in SB.'

  'What's brought this on? Am I allowed to know?'

  'I don't suppose you are but I'll tell you, because you couldn't do anything about it afterwards even if you wanted to. The Boss wouldn't let you.'

  He told her the stories of Lawrence Scotland and Shakir Basra. When he was finished, she let out a long, low whistle. 'You were asked to get a handle on Alec Smith, Inspector. You've surely done it, haven't you? I can see why you want Gavigan out.'

  Mario nodded. 'Aye, it'll make it easier to use him as bait.' 'Uh?'

  'Think about it. If Lawrence Scotland has finally plucked up the courage to get even with Smith, isn't there a chance that he might go for Gavigan as well, especially if he's off the job? Even as we speak, the man's under surveillance.'

  'And this Lawrence Scotland is one of the two possibilities you mentioned earlier. Who's the other?'

  'One Gus Morrison; a would-be tartan terrorist.'

  'Do you like either of them for it?'

  'Couldn't say yet, any more than you could. I'll know when I've had a look at them.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'Pick them both up; interrogation plus psychiatric evaluation. It takes a special man to burn off someone's balls with a blowlamp and make a movie while he's doing it. If it was either of them, we'll know.'

  'And what if it wasn't?'

  'Then the SB files have come up blank. There's no-one else.'

  'And we're back where we started.'

  He grinned, as Maggie's face fell. 'Not quite. There's still Alec's personal papers; all the things that were taken from the house. They have to be gone through.'

  'Where are they now? I haven't seen them in the van.'

  'Too right you haven't; Christ knows what could be in there. No, I've got them.' He jerked a thumb back towards the house. 'In there, in my big briefcase.'

  'You took them way from the investigation?' she exclaimed, indignantly.

  'Special Branch prerogative, my dear. Our man, our files.'

  'Time you shared them then. Come on, Mario, I'm supposed to be in charge of this investigation, but it seems as if it's you who's running it, really.' She stood and pushed back her plastic chair. 'Go on; get into the house and fetch that briefcase.'

  'Okay,' he agreed. 'DCI or not, I may have to kill you once you've seen it, but we'll discuss that later.'

  He led the way through the patio doors, into the small sitting room of their Miller villa, and fetched the briefcase from the hall. He opened it and took out a thick sheaf of material, which he laid on the long low coffee table which was set in front of their sofa.

  'Have you looked at this yourself yet?' she asked.

  'No, I gave priority to the SB file check.'

  He picked a folder from the top of the pile, opened it and began to flick though its contents. 'Household bills. Gas, leccy, and rates. All in sequence.' A second folder. 'Telephone bills; BT and Orange. As far as I can see none of them are very big, but I'll check them out tomorrow - the itemised ones at any rate - and see if any numbers jump out at us.'

  He picked up the next folder; it was lever-arched, and split into sections. 'Pension papers,' he said, after a few seconds perusal. 'Police stuff, and interest and dividend notices from other investments. Then bank statements and correspondence.'

  Maggie looked at the coffee table, at the last thick brown folder which lay there. She reached across and opened it. 'Photographs,' she murmured. 'Just dozens of bloody photographs.'

  Mario picked up the collection and looked through it, print by print. They were all seven-by-five colour photographs, and their content varied. Some were beach shots, some rural, some of Edinburgh scenes, one or two indoors. They were all clear and sharp, as if they had been taken on high-quality equipment, by an expert. And each print was numbered and dated; not an automatic camera feature on the picture itself, but handwritten annotations on the reverse side.

  He frowned as he looked through them again. 'Funny,' he murmured. 'No two dates are the same. They're in number and date order, but there's no other sequence to them. He seems to have taken his camera out on a whim, then he seems to have picked the best of his shots on each day for this file.'

  'Or as a record,' Maggie suggested, quietly. 'What if he just picked one innocuous shot from a wider selection? What if this folder is a sort of index?'

  'Then where are the rest? And the negatives, too? But hold on a minute, maybe that's all he did: pick the best and junk the rest.'

  'Maybe, but... Mario, there's something else about these photographs. They've all got people in them; every one, even the landscapes and beach scenes. It's as if...'

  Her husband frowned as he nodded. 'By God, Mags; you're on to something; these are surveillance photographs. Most of the faces are obscure, but if you knew who they were ..He turned the pile upside down and flicked through the dates. 'Some of these go back to when Alec was still in the job and they continue right up to the present. What was the man doing?'

  'I'll bet someone knows,' she fired at him. 'It could be that someone topped him because of it. How much did they take away with them, d'you think? The rest of the photos and the negs? His address book? Don't tell me Smith didn't have one ... The camcorder: were there any tapes, other than the one we were meant to find?'

  'Maybe,' he said. 'Maybe the murderer cleaned the place out, but...

  'Remember, Alec Smith was a ten-year SB commander. If he was running a private surveillance operation, for whatever purpose, he'd have kept detailed files and he'd have kept them secure. But there were no secure cabinets in Shell Cottage, at least none that we found.

  'That means that either we missed something in that house, or Alec Smith had a second site, where he kept those records.'

  Maggie's eyes flashed with excitement. 'Tomorrow morning, Inspector, you're going back to Forth Street, and you're going to tear that place apart. While you're doing that, I'm going to have people identifying the tenants of every small office in East Lothian ...' She stopped. 'Ahh, but you've got Morrison and Scotland to deal with ...'

  'No. You're right, we have to follow this up now; I'll have someone handle those two, very discreetly. Mags, we've got to share this, now.'

  'Tell the Boss, you mean?'

  'No, he's away at a conference. You have to tell your boss. Let's go and see Andy Martin, now, the pair of us.' He glanced
at his watch. 'A good part of that Chianti's still in our glasses out there; we can drive. Let's get along to his place now.'

  'Okay, but phone him. Make sure he's in.'

  Mario nodded. He dialled the Head of CID's home number, but a machine answered. He dialled his mobile, but it was not receiving. He dialled Karen Neville who told him, curtly, that she had no idea where the DCS was. Finally he left a message on his pager, saying, 'Your place, urgent. On our way, M&M.'

  23

  Something made Andy switch off his cellphone as he rang the Lewis doorbell. He was still uncertain of how he was going to play it; home game or away game, gentle quizzing or balls-out interrogation.

  He had hoped that Rhian would come to the door herself. Neither Juliet's car nor the elderly Fiesta which the girls shared were in the driveway. But it was Margot who answered the summons of the bell.

  'Oh, hello,' said the girl. 'Rhian isn't in.' There was something in her tone and as he tried to fathom it, he realised that he had never had a conversation of more than two words on either side with his lover's younger sister.

  'Will she be gone long?'

  'She shouldn't be. I'll tell her you came for her.'

  'Don't put it that way, Margot. It makes her sound like a commodity. Just ask her if she'd come next door when she gets back. There's something I want to talk to her about.'

  'Will I tell her to bring a toothbrush?' There was no doubt this time about the coldness, or about the sneer in her voice. He took a look at her, properly, for the first time. She was an inch or so taller that her older sister, and even from the way she stood, he could tell that she was an athlete. She was not unattractive, and her beautifully cut dark hair shone with natural highlights, yet there was something about her, the set of her mouth perhaps, the remoteness of her eyes, maybe both, which was instantly forbidding. Where Rhian's whole demeanour asked a gentle question, Margot's shouted an answer.

  'Look,' he said. 'I'm sorry we had to pull the plug on your party'

  She shrugged. 'No problem; my guests all went to the pub anyway ... after I made a hysterical fool of myself and your doctor put me to bed.' Her stare was unbroken; she was barely more than a child, almost twenty years his junior, yet there was something contemptuous about it. His head told him to leave it alone; normally, he would have listened.

  'Have you got a problem with me?' he demanded.

  'Happily, no,' she replied.

  'Do you resent Rhian and me in some way?'

  She gave a short, cold laugh. 'Why should I? I certainly don't fancy you... which makes me unique in this household.'

  He frowned, checking an angry retort on his lips.

  'That surprises you, does it?' she asked. 'That Mum should find you attractive? She's only forty-four, you know, and she's pretty damned attractive herself. Spike thinks so, even if you don't.'

  'I never said that I don't; but you just destroyed your argument. Spike Thomson: Juliet's involved with him. What makes you think she'd have the slightest interest in me?'

  'She told me; and she told Rhian. Look, Spike's nice, but he's more of a good reliable friend than anything else. Stable jockey, that's all; they're not engaged or anything. My mother took a shine to you from the moment you moved in next door. But she's not sexually aggressive in the way my tarty sister is. She doesn't flaunt herself like Rhian.'

  'That's enough, Margot. I don't need to hear this.'

  'Yes, you do,' the girl snapped. 'Not long after Dad ... left, Mum invited a man to dinner. He was a civil servant too, single, and quite dishy. Two weeks later she called at his place unexpectedly and found him and Rhian in bed. When she let slip that she liked you, I knew what would happen, even if she didn't.'

  'You're making all this up.'

  'Am I? She offered me a bet about you! When Mum told us ... We were just talking over supper, about men in general, you know, a "Who do you fancy?" game. Rhian said "Sean Connery," and Mum said, "The man next door, actually." I could see the look in my sister's eye as soon as she said it. When Mum went through to the kitchen, I said to her, "You wouldn't," and she said to me "Bet?" Just like that.' She glanced along to the end of the road. 'Here she comes. Ask her yourself.'

  He looked at her. For one of the very few times in his life, his mouth ran ahead of his brain. 'Who did you fancy in the game, kid? Madonna?' At once, he wished he had bitten his tongue, but it was too late: he knew that he had hit the mark. For the first time, Margot looked like a hurt child as she flinched and slammed the door.

  'What was all that about?' Rhian asked as she climbed out of the Fiesta. 'What's that brat been saying to you?'

  'Nothing. Come on in next door, there's something I have to ask you.'

  She flashed her eyes at him. 'The answer's "yes",' she joked.

  'It had better not be.' The smile left her face as she saw his; she followed him inside and upstairs. As he stepped into the living room he saw his TAM flashing to indicate a waiting message. His pager was showing a light too, as it lay on the sideboard beside a copy of the Evening News.

  He picked up the newspaper and showed it to Rhian. 'See that? It's a story about our investigation into the murder of the man in the Water of Leith. My Press Officer gave the media a statement when we issued our photo fit. It was very carefully drafted and cleared with Superintendent Pringle, who's in charge of the investigation. We have to be very careful what we say to the press, for all sorts of reasons, but most of all for fear of prejudicing a future trial.

  'Now listen to this bit. Senior officers investigating the case admitted privately that they are pessimistic over their chances of ever identifying the mystery man, far less finding his killers.

  'No senior officer has ever admitted any such fucking thing to a journo, privately or otherwise. But I seem to remember saying something like that to you the other night, in bed. Now let me read you this: The victim's face was battered to a pulp, he had multiple fractures and several toes and fingers had been cut off.

  'The only people who would know that were those who saw the body: police, paramedics, and those who were at the post-mortem examination, like you.' She made to turn, as if to walk across towards the double doors to the balcony. 'No,' he said, firmly but not shouting. 'Don't turn your back on me. Look me in the eye.' She did as she was told and he fixed his gaze on her.

  'Now I want you to tell me straight out, and no lies ... I'm an experienced detective; only a real pro could hope to get away with lying to me. Are you the source of that information?'

  She said nothing. 'Come on, Rhian, out with it. Did you feed our pillow-talk, and the things you saw at the p.m., to the bloody press? And don't think you can hide behind the notion that journalists always protect their sources; not from me, they don't. Now out with it.'

  She looked as young and vulnerable as had her sister, a few minutes earlier, as she nodded. He knew that he was giving the Lewis girls a hard night. He felt many things, sorrow and sympathy among them, but betrayal overcame them all; he pressed on.

  'Who was your contact? The guy whose by-line's on the story?'

  'Yes,' she whispered.

  'Fucking marvellous; his brother-in-law's a detective sergeant and Pringle's already given him the third degree. What's your relationship with this Paul Blacklock?'

  'He's an ex.'

  'Ex?'

  'Yes. It's over, Andy, really.'

  'Really, So when did you see him to give him this information?'

  'Yesterday afternoon.'

  'Where?'

  'At his flat.'

  'His flat? But he's married to Jack McGurk's sister.'

  'Yes, but he has a place in Cockburn Street. He uses it when he's on really early shifts.'

  'And what took you to his flat... or did you just go there to give him that information.'

  'I went there to break it off with him - for good.'

  'And how did you break it off with him? Vertically or horizontally?' She answered him, by biting her lip, unconsciously.

  'Jesus,' he
whispered, 'you gave him one for the road.'

  He drew her eyes back to his. 'Why the hell did you tell him all that stuff?' he demanded.

  'I don't know. I just started talking about you, and I told him about what happened on Saturday, and how you handled it and what you'd said about the man, and what I'd seen at the post-mortem ...

  'Andy,' she insisted, 'I never thought for a second that he'd use it.'

  'Why not? He's used you, hasn't he? Now did you tell the bastard anything else under his gentle interrogation?' 'No, nothing.'

  'Nothing I may have said about the Alec Smith case, for example?'

  'No, really, no.'

  'That's some consolation.' He moved towards her and took her arm. 'Come on, you'd better go next door.'

  She looked at him. 'Andy, I'm sorry. I was stupid. I promise I won't...'

  He looked at her, and saw that her eyes were glistening. He thought of Friday night and of himself with Karen, and he almost melted. Perhaps he could have changed the course of his life, right there, by leaving one question unasked. But his character, as well as his training, forbade that. He knew that secrets make rotten foundations.

  'One more thing. Margot told me you bet her that you could pull me. Is that true?'

  She nodded.

  'Well, you'd better not take her money. I guess you've lost.' She came to him and put her head on his shoulder. 'Give me a chance, Andy, please.'

  'I did, but you fucked it up. With me you only get one shot.' She pushed him away and ran down the staircase, ran out of the house. He heard his door slam, then hers. He thought about the two sisters together, at each other's throats. Something made him pick up the phone and dial their number. Margot answered.

  'Give me Rhian,' he said coldly. He waited for a few seconds, until he heard a mumbled 'Yes?'