Dalziel winced as she realised what was coming.
Parlabane smirked. He tried not to, but it was too good.
‘You mean someone got murdered across the street from this station and not one flatfoot noticed anything suspicious?’
‘Go on, lap it up,’ she muttered impatiently.
‘I’m sorry,’ Parlabane said, smothering a laugh. He wondered how many times he had heard frustrated cops ask whether people go around with their eyes shut, how come nobody ever notices a bloody thing . . .
‘So what’s the story?’ he asked.
‘Way too early to say, although it seems a safe bet it wasn’t premeditated. As a lot of the mess couldn’t have been made by a fight, McGregor reckons it was a burglary gone wrong.’
‘But you don’t.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Oh, but you did.’
At that point, McGregor came back into the room, and all was quiet.
‘Right, Mr Parlabane,’ he said with a strangely light, almost cheerful tone. ‘We’ve been through your flat and belongings. We tried to mess the place up as is standard procedure, but as you don’t seem to own very much it was a bit of a poor effort, I’m afraid. DC Callaghan went through your wallet and has confirmed your identity, occupation and – from the ticket stubs – your recent arrival from Los Angeles. He probably also removed a small sum of money but there’s not much either of us can do about that.’
He handed Parlabane the keys to his flat.
‘They didn’t force the door, in the end. Someone followed your lead and climbed in from Dr Ponsonby’s place. You’re free to go when you wish, but I’d ask you not to stray too far for a few days – it’s just that if we draw a total blank on this one, we’ll need someone to fit up for it, and you’re the obvious choice.’
***
‘What are you so bloody happy about?’ Dalziel asked as Parlabane shuffled out of the room.
‘It took a second climber to get into Mr Parlabane’s flat,’ McGregor replied contentedly. ‘The first one fell in the attempt and broke his ankle.’
Dalziel didn’t need to ask who it was.
FOUR
Stephen Lime lay back in his bath and farted contentedly to himself. If he pressed his chubby legs together just the right way, he could send the bubbles rolling along beneath him until they emerged between his ankles near the taps. And if he got his timing right he could let some of the next volley emerge between his knees at the same time, twin currents disturbing the calm surface eighteen inches apart.
He was not, he was convinced, fat. Poor people were fat. Stupid people were fat. He was a man of imposing stature. Like a great oak, the wider rings of girth were evidence of health, strength and vitality.
He smiled to himself.
It was all coming together, the orchestra of his business plans finished their cacophonic tuning and now playing in concert, conducted expertly by his baton. To plan, to organise, to execute and to reap from such complex and multifarious components as he was doing required a talent that was no less than exceptional. And exceptional abilities deserve exceptional reward. He wasn’t in the half-a-million-plus-twice-that-in-share-options bracket, far from it, but the success of his present enterprises was proof, to himself at least, that he was of that calibre. And talent like that does not go unrecognised for long.
These insect pipsqueaks who were always questioning the salaries of top British management were not only ignorant, but bigoted and bitter if they couldn’t – or simply wouldn’t – appreciate the priceless brilliance that it bought. Cheap at twice the price.
He had been furious when he saw footage of those select committee hearings on the news that time. Malignant, unworthy and ungraciously envious worms, sneering little bastards and tub-thumping luddites. He knew you had to watch what you said these days, and that they were elected members and all, but there was still something patently very wrong when the finest of Englishmen could be spoken to like that by blacks and Jews.
And why weren’t they scrutinising the fact that some bunch of layabouts could pick up millions just for strumming three chords and going without shampoo for six months at a time? Or that there were northern scruff earning more than he was simply for kicking a ball around a patch of grass in front of hordes of other neanderthals.
But not for long. The cash was piling up, and the floodgates were about to open; within a couple of years he might be making more per annum than his father did in his whole life.
However, what meant most now was not the money, but the sense of achievement, and there was no fitter crown to it all than the Trust being on the verge of going into the black for the first time.
His father had taught him well, given him the basics. A climate of job security is a climate for stagnation. In management, you are the benefactor who has granted the worker a job; it is you who is putting food on his table and clothing his grubby litter – and for that he owes you diligent service. That kind of thing. Truths that you couldn’t stick your head above the parapets and openly declare in these topsy-turvy times, but truths nonetheless.
No man works harder for you than your money, his father had always said, and had made sure he got an assured, worthwhile but unspectacular return on every last brown penny he invested anywhere. A valuable lesson to the young Stephen, possibly the most important he ever learned, with the attendant warning that risk and reward were inseparably proportionate.
But what had distinguished Stephen Lime, what had afforded him the opportunities to soar above heights his father had never imagined, was that he had been the one with the vision to realise that there was an exception to the rule – that there was something you could invest in which guaranteed vast returns for negligible risk.
It was called the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain.
Obviously it was not just a simple matter of pouring in ostentatious contributions and being awarded lucrative contracts, although that did happen at a more upscale level than he was operating on, and usually carried the obligation to employ one of the appropriate senior minister’s useless offspring. No. It was a question of having still more vision to see where the returns would appear, strategically placing oneself to reap their benefits to the full.
Stephen had served his management apprenticeship under his father’s tutelage, been given control of the old man’s biscuit business in his early twenties after he and his university had discovered a mutual incompatibility. He knew the old man had clearly seen the bigger picture when he encouraged him to seek a post with another firm, obviously appreciating that the sudden high-gradient plummet into debt of BakeLime Biscuits was merely a teething problem of a doubtlessly brilliant long-term strategy.
Out on his own in the real world, his on-going investment worked a little like a nest egg or even a trust fund, helping him make a proper start in the business world through contacts and management appointments. Observing his superiors, he knew he had a lot to learn, but was sharp enough to see the qualities that made them so invaluable. They could see the wood for the trees, were not distracted by trivia and kept their eye on the bigger picture. They knew the fact that the last three companies whose boards you served on went rapidly and resoundingly bankrupt did not reflect on your management abilities or your suitability for a vacant post. Eddies in the currency markets, union skullduggery, interest rate fluctuations – these such unstable factors were what knocked companies for six in spite of first-class leadership and visionary business strategy.
He watched the men above him bravely rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a closed concern, to take the reins elsewhere with an optimistic smile and a fatter pay-packet.
And, as he reassuringly discovered, many of them had invested too.
Never forgetting his father’s words, he put most of his money to work, and in the family tradition, backed favourites at low odds, watching his personal assets slowly but steadily multiply.
Above all, he was patient, always aware that he was still
on a learning curve, gathering the knowledge that would serve him when the right opportunity presented itself and when he was ready to take it.
***
When opportunity knocked, it did so fairly quietly, so much so that it took a while for him to hear and to recognise.
It was vital to the direction the government was taking the NHS that the right people had their hands on the helms of the nascent Trusts, and his reliable political sympathies plus a healthy annual tax-deductable charitable contribution made him ideal material for a quango post. He was appointed to the board of St George’s NHS Trust in his native Romford, 30K a year to attend a few meetings a week, very much the kind of occasional, mid-level dividend he had expected from his on-going investment.
But when he took up his position and looked a little closer, he could not believe the magnitude of the opportunities that lay before him. The government were slicing up the biggest public pie in British history and he would be well placed to fill his plate.
The National Health Service was an aberration, no other way to describe it. It was such an affront to Conservative values and ideology that he was sure Thatcher would have happily closed the whole thing and grudgingly paid for the humane putting down of anyone who got ill but couldn’t afford private healthcare. It had a terrifying, massive, insatiable appetite for public funds, chewing up and swallowing billions of pounds every year; but unlike other greedy mouths at the public tit – defence being a shining example – precious little of it found its way into the pockets of Party members and contributors. It was just one huge, amorphous, unanswerable entity, running its own ship, its spending dictated almost entirely by patients’ healthcare needs. No familiar faces at the top with the power to award hefty contracts; indeed, precious little in the way of external contracts at all. No six-figure executive posts with company Beamie.
The only way to score from it was perhaps to buy into one of the big drug firms, but anyone could do that, and as purchases were all in accordance with doctors’ prescriptive practices, there wasn’t even an easy way to manipulate the market. It just swallowed up public money and circulated it within itself until it needed more.
Nightmare.
Aberration.
The basic fact of the matter was that if public spending could not be avoided, it should at least be spent in the private sector.
But then came the NHS reforms and the dawn of the Trusts, and the picture got suddenly and dramatically brighter.
Stephen Lime made great play of resigning two part-time, higher-paying consultancies to concentrate on his duties with St George’s Trust, and dramatically increased that year’s tax-deductable charitable donation, thereby subtly indicating to the right people that he was claiming his long-term investor’s bonus. And after less than nine months on the St George’s board, he was appointed Chief Executive of the Midlothian NHS Trust in Edinburgh.
Then he really went to work.
But this evening he was relaxing, having a good soak before getting ready for dinner, and waiting patiently for the phone call that would confirm the removal of one last small obstacle from his path.
He had his portable on a table by the bath, having carved a space out for it among his self-multiplying aftershave collection. He picked it up, enjoying the feel, the weight of it in his hand, and yes, he would probably admit, willing it to ring.
Strange that such a small and relatively inexpensive item could give him so much reassurance, but there was no denying it, his portable always made him feel good. Smooth, compact, sleekly black, satisfyingly heavy, he always thought of it as his light-sabre. Few could guess from its appearance what power this harmless-looking little electronic object could wield in his skilled hands.
There was a knock at the door which startled him momentarily and gave him a nasty fright as the phone slipped from his right hand but nestled itself between his left forearm and a fold of fat on his stomach, barely a centimetre above the water.
‘Mr Lime?’ It was Mrs Branigan, the housekeeper.
‘Yes, Theresa?’
‘The newspaper is here.’
‘Thank you, Theresa.’
Lovely. As such a busy man he seldom got time either to enjoy more than a brief shower a couple of mornings per week or a decent read at the paper, so when he did have the opportunity he loved to combine a good bath with a glance at the local rag. And perhaps there might be a brief reference to what he needed to know, although chances were it might not be discovered for another day or so. He looked down over the side of the bath to see his copy of the Evening Capital sliding under the bathroom door, dried his hand with a towel and leaned over to grab it.
Farting once more as he sat up, he unfolded the unwieldy broadsheet to reveal the top half of the front page, read the headline and shat in the bath.
FIVE
‘Yeah, but a fucking polis station Duncan, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Aw, come on, Jack. You didn’t exactly give me much notice. I don’t think I did too badly.’
‘I’m not ungrateful Duncan, and I’m not complaining about the flat. I’m just saying you could have warned me.’
Parlabane sat with his friend, Duncan McLean, on high stools at the bar of the Barony on Broughton Street, Parlabane sipping a tomato juice with Worcester, Tabasco and quite definitely no vodka. It was late afternoon, the sun bathing the wooden surroundings in a slow-fading glow.
‘And as for this, fuck’s sake.’
He flipped over the Evening Capital from the sports section at the back so that his picture was staring up from the front page under the headline: MAN HELD AFTER RITUAL SLAYING, with the strap: GORY FIND: Police question half-naked suspect over Maybury Square bloodbath.
‘“Half-naked suspect"? What are the sub-editors on at that bloody place?’
Parlabane distastefully examined the photograph again, his profile visible next to the back of Dalziel’s head, which she had turned away from the camera in sharper anticipation. If he looked very closely he could make out the smudges of spew on the sleeve of his T-shirt as well.
‘I’m supposed to be turning up there to get some shifts in a few days,’ he said bemusedly, his companion trying not very hard to suppress a laugh.
‘Well, Jack, I did tell the news editor you’d fill the front page in no time.’
‘Oh, very fucking amusing. And what’s this: “Police believe the murder may have been the result of a burglary-gone-wrong – although as both the victim and the suspect were found in states of undress, they have not ruled out a sexual motive.” I fucking hate when they do that. I have never done that.’
‘Done what?’
‘Say that something has not been ruled out when you know fine that no one ever ruled it in. And I would just like to stress that I was not a suspect. I volunteered to assist the police with their inquiries.’
He stared angrily at the byline again. ‘Who the fuck’s Finlay Price?’
Duncan shook his head and sighed. ‘You don’t like it up you, do you, Jack?’
‘What, is this you finally propositioning me, Duncan?’
‘No, I’m just thinking about your unfettered glee as you stuck it to all those people on all those front pages when we worked together through in the West. The words “taste” and “own medicine” keep inexplicably popping into my head.’
‘Yes, but they all did it. Those fuckers were all guilty. I wasn’t.’
Duncan spluttered a mouthful of his Guinness back into the glass and put it down on the bartop, wiping his mouth.
Parlabane put a hand up in a gesture of backing off.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll take it like a man. But Christ, you could enjoy it all a little less.’
Duncan folded up the newspaper and handed it to one of the bar staff who put it back on the rack by the door, next to the Evening News, Daily Record and Shavers Weekly, a self-styled pisshead fanzine which enjoyed greater editorial clarity than any of its neighbours.
‘Forget about it,’ he said. ‘Co
me on, have a pint, chill out. You’re back in the old country. Haven’t you seen the beer adverts?’
Parlabane shook his head distractedly.
‘Somebody tried to kill me, Dune. Chilling out is going to be a protracted process.’
Duncan gaped. ‘Last night? Here?’
‘No, in LA. That was the emergency. That was why I came home in such a hurry.’
‘Jesus, sorry, Jack. I had no idea.’
Parlabane sipped at his tomato juice and looked around the pub, the motes of dust and smoke swirling in the dying rays through the big window at the front. He was catching his breath for the first time in seventy-two hours, eight time zones and Christ knew how many thousand miles. The Barony was beautifully placid, comfortingly calm, inescapably Edinburgh. Shining, polished pump handles priolling along the bar, open fire being stoked up in anticipation of a cold but clear night, single malts glinting in pale gold on their shelves. He couldn’t imagine anything less LA; in the difference there was distance, in the distance there was safety. The cops, the spew and the dead guy were just temporary inconveniences. He had survived.
‘You know, we must have joked about it a dozen times, remember?’ Parlabane said. ‘Someone trying to light me up for sniffing too close to something. It was kind of an ego-trip fantasy that I never for a moment believed in. I received a few veiled and not-so-veiled threats in London, but . . .’ He shook his head.
‘Do you know who it was, what it was about?’
He shook his head again and stared into space.
‘You don’t want to talk about this, do you?’ Duncan asked, putting a big hand between his friend’s shoulders.
Parlabane smiled. ‘Your move into sports reporting hasn’t blunted your keen powers of journalistic observation, McLean.’
Duncan ordered another pint and protestingly asked for a second tomato juice for Parlabane.
‘So, the cop-shop aside, is the flat all right?’
‘Well, not counting the slaughtered bloke in the Hammer House of Vomit downstairs and the knife-wielding, finger-munching psychopathic jobbieman on the loose, it’s fine. How long have I got it?’
Quite Ugly One Morning Page 3