A Brush With Death

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I got worried about my situation. About a year ago, maybe a bit more than that, his attitude towards me seemed to change; he got withdrawn, he never spent any time alone with me, far less staying the night, which he used to do on the nights he visited the kids. I rely on him; I live on what he gives us. It was probably a drop in the ocean to him, but it was a lot to me given what I had before I met him. I was a chiropodist, DI Mann; I worked hard but I never liked the job. I didn’t stop when I met Leo. I carried on working until I fell pregnant with Leonard; when I did, he insisted that I chuck the job. I’ve lived on an allowance from him, in this house, ever since. I never knew it was in my name until after Jolene was born. All that time we were fine. I really thought I was his one and only. I know now that whenever he was away, and he was a lot, he had other women. There were a couple in America before Rae,’ she added.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘That fucking old bat Gene Alderney told me. I dropped in on Leo one day at the house in Ayr, when he was just starting to train for a fight. I wanted to see as much as I could of him before he went off to camp, and I did it to surprise him. Alderney was there; she accused me of getting in the way of his training, of being a danger to his career. I told her that I was Leo’s wife and that she should mind her own business. She laughed at me. She told me I was his concubine, and then she told me that he had home comforts in Las Vegas too. Leo heard it all; he told Gene to shut up, but he didn’t deny it. When he got involved with Rae, he told me that straight away.’

  ‘And you accepted it?’

  ‘Don’t answer that!’ Moss Lee called out. ‘It could come back to bite you in court.’

  The DI shook her head. ‘It won’t, Ms Bulloch. I have no view about your legal action, and neither DS Provan nor I are potential witnesses against you . . . that’s assuming the action can continue now that Leo’s dead.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she conceded. ‘Yes, I accepted the situation, for the kids’ sake as much as my own, and Leo and I went on being fine, until we weren’t.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘At the time I told you, early last year; he visited the kids as usual, but he never stayed over. To be blunt, we didn’t have sex any longer. Eventually, I asked him why. All he’d say was that it wasn’t appropriate. I asked him if that meant he was committing himself to Rae, but he said that he wasn’t. He said he had things on his mind that got in the way.’

  ‘Did he go into any detail?’

  ‘No, none at all. The more I pressed him, the more distant he got, and the more I began to worry about my own situation. The monthly allowance I lived on from Leo was very generous, but it was at his discretion.’

  ‘There was no legal basis to it,’ Lee volunteered.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mann retorted. ‘I’d worked that out.’

  ‘I decided that I needed to put things on a proper footing,’ Faye Bulloch continued. ‘That was when I hired Mr Lee. I’d heard Sandra mention him; she said he was the best court lawyer in Glasgow, so I went to him first.’

  ‘And began your legal action.’

  She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip.

  ‘How did Leo react?’

  ‘He didn’t like it. He accused me of a breach of trust. He said that if I’d talked it over with him, we’d have worked something out, but that he’d fight my claim for marital status all the way. He said that however good Mr Lee was, he’d hire someone better. He also threatened to ruin me financially.’

  ‘How?’ Provan asked.

  ‘He said that when I lost the action, he wouldn’t be covering Mr Lee’s costs.’

  ‘But he continued your allowance?’

  ‘Yes, for the children’s sake, he said.’

  ‘Hold on, a few minutes ago, you said you and he had a good relationship.’

  ‘We did,’ she insisted. ‘We agreed to disagree over the court action, but we were civil to each other. I loved my husband, Detective Sergeant, for all his faults.’

  ‘If you say so. What is your financial position, Ms Bulloch?’

  ‘I’ve salted away a few thousand over the years, but . . . well let’s just say I’m like most women. I have expensive tastes.

  ‘Lucky you,’ Mann drawled. ‘Faye,’ she said, ‘do you expect to benefit from Leo’s will?’

  ‘I would hope so. Mr Lee says that Leo’s death will mean that my action will almost certainly succeed, and that I’ll be awarded spousal rights.’

  ‘You realise what that means, don’t you?’

  ‘It means I’ll inherit a substantial share of the estate.’

  ‘Time will tell on that one. More immediately, it gives you a damn good reason for killing him.’

  Eighteen

  ‘What have I done this time?’ Cameron ‘Grandpa’ McCullough asked. ‘You were fair mysterious on the phone.’

  ‘Whatever you’ve done, I don’t want to know,’ Bob Skinner replied as he stepped into the villa in the Perthshire estate grounds. ‘Unless you’re going to tell me that you killed Leo Speight, in which case I’m all ears.’

  ‘That’s what happened, was it? The media seem to be scared to go that far, but that’s what I read from the body language of the man Allsop on TV yesterday.’ He held up a hand. ‘I am innocent, so help me God.’

  McCullough and Skinner had never clashed directly during the latter’s police career, the main reason being that the latter’s territory had never stretched as far as Tayside. The Dundonian was a very wealthy man, with a portfolio of successful businesses. For decades the local police had been convinced that many of them were covers for major organised crime, but they had never been able to build a case against him, and he had always protested his innocence.

  Although their professional lives had rarely overlapped, a personal link had been forged between them when McCullough had married Mia Watson, a blast from Skinner’s past and the mother of his son Ignacio.

  ‘How’s the boy, Bob?’ McCullough asked, then called out, ‘Mia, he’s here!’

  ‘He’s doing fine,’ the former cop replied. ‘He has his own space in Gullane, and he’s settled in at university; so far he seems to be sailing through the classes.’

  ‘Does he still want to be a police officer?’

  ‘Yes, he does. Alex is doing her best to talk him out of it and direct him towards the law, and Sarah’s trying to point him at medicine.’

  ‘And I’m determined that he does a postgraduate degree in business administration.’ Mia’s voice came from the living room as the two men stepped inside. ‘I think you’ll find that I still have more influence with him than anyone else.’

  Skinner shrugged. ‘I’d be surprised if you didn’t; you brought him up, even if you did let him get into a shedload of trouble on your watch.’

  Sensing an outraged response, he headed it off. ‘Let’s not rake over that, though. Ignacio will make his own mind up when he’s ready. I’m not pressurising him in any way. If he asks me what I think about something, I’ll tell him, but the worst thing any parent can do is impose their career choice on their offspring.’ He pointed to a tray on a table by the window. ‘Is that coffee hot?’

  Mia ignored his question. ‘But you do want him to be a cop?’

  ‘As it happens, I don’t. I’d be a hard act to follow, even if the selection process was flexible enough to admit someone with a culpable homicide conviction on his record. Now for fuck’s sake. I’m gasping here.’

  She relented and poured him a mug of coffee from the cafetière, then offered him a dark chocolate biscuit from a plate. He took two.

  ‘Now we’re all catered for,’ McCullough said, filling a mug for himself, ‘maybe you’ll tell us what the hell you’re doing investigating Leo Speight’s death.’

  ‘There’s an insurance issue,’ Skinner replied.

&nbs
p; ‘That’s bollocks for a start,’ his host laughed. ‘I know insurance companies. The bigger the stakes, the slower they move, and the mills of God grind faster than them at the best of times. They’d have sat on their hands until the post-mortem, then they’d have asked for a full report in writing, then they might have insisted on appointing their own pathologist to do a second examination. Once they’d done all that, they might have commissioned someone like you’

  Skinner knew that every word of that scenario was true. ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘that’s the story, and I’m sticking to it.’ He looked at McCullough’s wife, and as he did so, his mind took him back twenty years to the morning when he had awakened in her bed, surprised and disorientated, with an instant reaction that had had a catastrophic, and possibly life-changing, effect.

  ‘Before I go any further,’ he warned, ‘I need you both to promise that this discussion won’t leave this room. It can’t be talked about across the table in your hotel, and it can’t be a topic on your radio show, Mia.’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ she laughed, ‘but okay. You needn’t worry about Cameron,’ she added. ‘He never tells anyone anything.’

  ‘Thank you both. The issue is . . . if Leo Speight died at the hands of a third party, his insurance policy has a big indemnity clause. It was written to cover him as a boxer and the premium was probably sky high, but its drafting is such that if it turns out he was murdered, the insurers will have to shell out. The way things stand, conspiracy theories will run wild on social media, and maybe mainstream too. It would be good to be able to knock them down as they arise. The police are looking at his family and close friends. My brief,’ he said, ‘is to look a little wider to see whether there’s anyone else who might have had a motive to bump him off, and to eliminate them if I can.’

  ‘That’s still cobblers,’ McCullough murmured, ‘but go on.’

  Skinner bit off half of a biscuit. ‘To begin with, why were you at the party? How did you come to know Leo Speight?’

  ‘Business. You know I have interests in Russia, yes?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You also know of Bryce Stoddart, the promoter?’

  ‘Mm-hm.’ The confirmation was muffled by biscuit crumbs.

  ‘Around twenty-five years ago, Bryce’s old man, Benny Stoddart, was staging a fight card in Dundee, featuring one of our local heroes against one of his protégés. Benny wasn’t an international operator at that stage,’ McCullough explained. ‘It was Leo Speight that took him to that level. For that bill, he needed council approval and business support, and he approached me, believing that I could help him.’

  ‘And you could, of course.’

  ‘Naturally. The bill was a success. The local hero got chinned, of course, but Benny made some money and I did too. We stayed in touch; I even invested in a couple of his projects and walked away happy. Benny retired and handed over to Bryce; by that time Leo Speight was the top man in his stable.’ He paused, looking at Skinner. ‘Are you a boxing man, Bob?’

  ‘I watch fights. I even did a bit in my teens.’

  ‘And some unofficially after that, I’ll bet. Do you remember, about ten years ago, Leo Speight going over to Moscow to take on Brezinski, the guy who beat him in the Sydney Olympics, with their championship belts on the line?’

  ‘Sure I do. I watched it on Sky. Speight won every round, then he knocked him out; the Russian couldn’t lay a glove on him.’

  ‘That’s right,’ McCullough agreed. ‘When that fight was in the making, Brezinski’s promoter, Zirka, took the early initiative. Bryce was still getting used to being in charge and felt he was in a wee bit over his head, and so he came to me, asking if I’d use my influence over there to get him a fair deal. His worry was the usual: a home-town decision, that Leo would need to knock the guy out to get a draw. He was probably right about that, had I not been able to help him. I set up a Russian subsidiary company, through my associate Rogozin – you remember him for sure – and used that to get Bryce a Russian promoter’s licence. By that time, though, Leo was the main man with the top US cable TV company, and called all the shots personally, so Zirka had to deal with him and Bryce. I helped Leo make a right few million that night; that’s why I was on his party list.’

  ‘I take it the Zirka people weren’t.’

  ‘No, they weren’t. They couldn’t have been pleased by Leo’s announcement either, since Zirka’s main activity is mixed martial arts. It’s a shadow of what it used to be, and Leo’s new operation will take it on directly. Okay, to get off the ground it might need a TV platform, at least until it builds up an internet subscriber base, but he has that.’

  ‘Who are the people in Zirka? Tell me about them.’

  ‘As far as I know, there was only ever one that counted; Yevgeny Brezinski, Speight’s old rival. He retired after Leo beat him. He is Zirka, always was. He owns the company; he self-promoted his fights when he was active, but he never fought outside eastern Europe, so he never made any impact on the US market as a boxer.’

  ‘What’s your assessment of him?’

  ‘I’ve never met him,’ McCullough admitted. ‘He’s had a very low profile for the last ten years, since he stopped fighting. Rogozin did business with him, but only when he had to, while they were setting up that fight. He was wary of the man. He said he was scary, and very resentful towards Leo.’

  ‘Does Brezinski have contacts in Britain?’

  ‘None that I know of, but Zirka has used that announcer bloke, Billy Swords. I believe he’s bilingual, and they needed an English-speaking MC.’

  ‘Swords was at the party, wasn’t he?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Yes, he did his thing there, introduced the speakers.’

  ‘Did you happen to notice when he left?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was Mia who replied. ‘He went straight after the speeches, around eight o’clock. He said he had a job in London on the Saturday night and would need to be at the airport early next morning.’

  ‘And Leo was still there?’

  ‘Yes, he went at the same time as us, back of midnight. Why?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘With you there’s always a reason. Bob, come clean. What happened to Leo? What are the police not saying? We have no interest in telling anyone else.’

  ‘What makes you think I know?’

  ‘You were probably at the autopsy!’ she exclaimed. She caught the slightest tensing of his eyes. ‘You bloody were! Weren’t you?’

  He grinned. ‘I still have access, on occasion. Yes, I was. Speight was poisoned, but at the moment there’s no way of saying with certainty how it was administered. There’s a very obvious possibility, but it has to be proved. That’s why the police are being reticent.’

  ‘Of course,’ McCullough agreed, his eyes narrowed. ‘You’d better put Brezinski on your list of possible lethal enemies . . . to be ruled out,’ he added, with an ironic laugh.

  ‘How long is that list, Cameron? You’re a man in the know. How many feathers would Leo Speight have ruffled with this new promotion company?’

  ‘Quite a few, I imagine, in Britain and Europe. Not in America, though; Leo was too smart to have taken that market on directly – it’s too well developed. Europe’s the growth area for MMA, and all the boxing promoters are looking at it seriously. Not least among them Bryce Stoddart. I was watching him when Leo dropped his bombshell. Afterwards he claimed that he’d known about it all along, but that’s not what his expression said.’

  ‘I’d better have a word with him too,’ Skinner said. ‘Thanks for that.’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘Cameron, how bent is boxing? You and I are both old enough to remember the stories of our youth, about the US Mafia controlling the sport through front organisations. Has that gone away completely?’

  McCullough frowned. Skinner wondered whether he was trying to frame an answer that would not be self-incrimi
nating.

  ‘The old dons,’ he said when he was ready, ‘they’re all dead or in US federal prisons, but their organisations live on. They may have an appearance of legitimacy these days, but their driving force is still money, and they will protect their interests. Your list could be quite a long one; you might be able to eliminate most of them, but I’d still put money on those insurers having to pay out at the end of the day. Not that you really give a fuck about that. I can guess exactly what your interest is, and where it comes from. Your friends in Millbank? Am I right? God knows they’ve shown enough interest in me over the years.’

  ‘No comment,’ Skinner said quietly, reaching for the cafetière and warming up his mug.

  ‘It’s okay, I didn’t expect any.’ McCullough grinned. ‘I saw your ex there as well, the Shadow Home Secretary, hanging on the arm of her actor friend. Maybe Leo would have gone into movies if he’d lived. He was quite the arty type, really. The painter woman, Augusta Cambridge, she was there too, with her easel set up in the corner.’

  ‘Was she? I didn’t know that. Her name wasn’t on the guest list.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Mia said. ‘I spoke to her. Leo had commissioned her to paint the gathering. He was going to give prints to everyone who was there. I imagine Augusta will be in bits. I think that the two of them were close.’

  ‘What? She volunteered that to you, or did you hear it from someone else?’

  ‘She didn’t volunteer it, but . . . We got chatting in the ladies’ early in the evening. I said I knew her work and admired it very much. I asked her how she came to be there, and she told me. Then I asked if it was an unusual commission for her. She said that she wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, only Leo, that he and she were . . . I told her I got the picture, and she smiled, a sad little smile. She said I didn’t, not at all.’

  ‘Did you fancy Leo?’ he asked her, bluntly.

  ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ McCullough exclaimed. He smiled, but his eyes sent out a different message.