A Brush With Death

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Arthur,’ McGuire exclaimed, ‘I’ve told you already that I can’t order the lab to drop everything else and focus on tox testing the Ayr samples. They’re in the queue with everything else.’

  ‘I know that and I understand it; so do Mann and Provan. This is different.’

  ‘Go on then,’ the DCC sighed.

  ‘There was other testing to be done from the house,’ Dorward continued. ‘As usual, the investigation team need to put a name to everyone who’s been in the place, using fingerprints and DNA analysis. My people collected samples from every room. We’ve processed them all, and identified almost all of them. Those that we haven’t are prints we found on lavvy brushes, and they’ll belong to the cleaners, as they usually do.

  ‘Of the rest, there’s one name that stands out. No, that’s wrong. It isn’t just standing out: it’s jumping up and down and it’s fucking screaming at me. What’s it screaming? Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Bulloch, that’s what.’

  McGuire stared at the wall as he absorbed what he had been told, then he paused as he thought back to the previous Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Jesus, Arthur,’ he grumbled, ‘what are you on about? Sandra was at the crime scene. Obviously you didn’t see her.’

  ‘Oh I saw her, Mario, no question about that. But there’s more.’

  Twenty-Nine

  Skinner had to hold the line for three minutes and fifteen seconds, counted off on the display of his phone, before he was connected to the director general of MI5. ‘Sorry, Bob,’ she said, when she took his call. ‘The Home Secretary takes precedence even over you.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ he laughed. ‘I know my place. Amanda, I need some digging done. We have a second body in this investigation; that is to say, I’m confident that the two are linked. It’s that of a man named Aldorino Moscardinetto—’

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed, interrupting him. ‘Don’t tell me that. I’m a big fan of his work. He’s one of the most provocative film-makers of his generation.’

  ‘In that case, he provoked someone into cutting off his air supply with a ligature in his hotel room last night. I know that I could pull his biography off Wikipedia or IMDB in about a minute and a half, but I’m more interested in anything I might not find there. Can you help?’

  ‘If there is anything,’ she replied, ‘then given time I’ll find it for you – through colleagues in Europol and Italy if I have to. You say this killing is linked to Speight. Are you sure about that?’

  ‘It has to be. When I work out how, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Where’s this going, Bob? Is there an organised crime connection, as we thought there might be?’

  ‘In my opinion there could be, but that’s all I want to say for now. I don’t want to drip-feed you information that might or might not be important. When I’m ready to report, I will.’

  ‘You’re not getting personally exposed, Bob?’ she asked, with a trace of anxiety.

  He laughed her worries away. ‘I’m less personally exposed now than I have been for the last thirty years. I spent a career chasing bad people who knew who I was and where I lived. You spooks work in the shadows where nobody can see you. Now,’ he continued, ‘before I go, I have another request. I would like to know everything there is to know about a man called Billy Swords. That’s the name I know him by; it may be genuine, it may not. He’s known to the public as a ring announcer in boxing and mixed martial arts. I want the rest. All about him, please, including phone activity and whether he took a flight from Scotland to anywhere on Saturday morning.’

  ‘That’s all? There is this myth, you know, that the Security Service can see everywhere and get to know everything, sometimes things that aren’t even there. You’d be amazed how many people believe that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be amazed at all,’ he laughed, ‘because I’m one of them.’

  A ‘call waiting’ tone sounded on his phone; he held it out, looked at the screen and read the caller name. ‘Amanda, I have to go,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many people I’d cut you off for, but this is one of them. Think of it,’ he chuckled, ‘as me getting back at you for letting the Home Secretary keep me waiting.’

  He thumbed two icons on the screen, then put the mobile back to his ear. ‘Maggie,’ he exclaimed, ‘where’s the fire? With your workload, you don’t have time for social calls. Come to think of it,’ he added, ‘you never did.’

  ‘That hasn’t changed,’ Scotland’s chief constable replied. ‘I’ve got a major situation, and I need your help.’

  ‘I’ve retired!’ he protested. ‘Left the service. Been made redundant. However you frame it, I’m not a cop any longer. Plus, I’m rather busy, as you know, helping out somebody else.’

  ‘All that stuff I know,’ Margaret Steele agreed, ‘but there’s nobody else I’d trust with this. Also, if this isn’t related to your remit from Amanda Dennis, it isn’t a million miles away. Please, Bob?’

  ‘Okay,’ he conceded, ‘you’ve got my attention. Tell me about it.’

  ‘It’s better that Mario does. He’s with me; he brought the situation to me.’

  If it’s something he couldn’t deal with on his own authority, Skinner thought, it must be serious.

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘I’ll put you on speaker.’

  ‘Morning, Bob,’ McGuire began, his voice reverberating. Skinner knew that his friend was not normally one for the basic pleasantries; there was tension in his tone.

  ‘Same to you, big fella. Now what the fuck is it?’

  ‘Trouble. Within the last hour I’ve had two phone calls, and deemed them serious enough to call the chief out of the Police Authority meeting. The first was from the legend that is Arthur Dorward, who’s heading the forensic investigation of the Leo Speight murder. His people went all over the house, they combed everything, as they always do, to try to identify everyone who’d been there and left traces behind them. That search included the victim’s bedroom.’

  ‘You’re going to tell me he wasn’t a monk; we knew that already.’

  ‘Correct. In his bed, on his sheets, they discovered pubic hair and bodily fluids, evidence of a recent sexual encounter. They also found a partial thumbprint on the switch of a bedside lamp, and other prints around it.’

  ‘Any way of knowing how recent?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Yes. Speight employed a cleaning company. Whether he was there or not, they went in every Monday. If his bed had been slept in, they changed the sheet, pillowcases, duvet cover.’

  ‘How did they know for sure that it had been?’

  ‘They put a paper seal on when they do it. If it’s broken . . .’

  ‘Monday night on, then; go on.’

  ‘Dorward’s lot profiled the samples, digitised the prints and ran everything against the database, and came up with a name.’

  ‘Yes?’ He sensed that McGuire was ramping up the tension deliberately.

  ‘The second call,’ the DCC continued, ‘was from Lottie Mann, phoning from the office of Leo Speight’s personal lawyer in Glasgow. She’d just received by post an amendment to his will, signed by him and properly witnessed by Trudi Pollock. That ties in with what Ms Pollock told Mann and Provan about her last meeting with Speight. The amendment brings in a new beneficiary, a substantial one at that, described in the letter as Leo Speight’s fiancée.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me it’s a bloke?’ Skinner grunted.

  ‘No, I’m about to tell you it’s Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Bulloch.’

  ‘Ouch!’ he gasped. ‘I did not see that one coming.’

  ‘Who could have?’

  ‘What does she stand to inherit?’

  ‘Millions. Squillions.’

  ‘That changes everything. At the moment, I have a line of enquiry into the Moscardinetto murder that points me in the direction of the
boxing business. I haven’t fitted all the pieces together yet, but Dan Provan and I are pretty sure we know who killed the Italian. I’ve got MI5 looking into the suspect’s background; I won’t guess at what they’re likely to come up with, but it’s led us away from a domestic solution to the Speight murder. What you’ve just told me makes me think that the investigation has to look again at that option. More than that: if the team begin by looking at those who’ve most to gain from Leo Speight’s death, it puts Sandra Bulloch right at the top of the list.’

  ‘Exactly,’ McGuire agreed. ‘And that’s why we’re calling you. Fuck the niceties, we need you involved. Lottie Mann can’t interview her own boss under caution . . . well she could, but we wouldn’t put either of them in that situation. You can. You have the weight.’

  ‘Can I caution her, legally?’

  ‘You won’t have to. We’ll sit Brian Mackie alongside you at the interview. He doesn’t know Sandra at all, and he’s an ACC. He can administer the caution; in theory he’ll be conducting the interview, but in practice you will.’

  ‘My status being?’

  ‘What does it say on the Security Service credentials you’re carrying? Consultant director, something like that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On the record, that’s how you’ll be described.’

  ‘And if it does go all the way and Sandra is charged with Speight’s murder,’ Skinner asked, ‘and it goes to trial . . . how are you going to describe me in court when I have to give evidence?’

  ‘We don’t care about that,’ Steele intervened. ‘This is about more than criminality, Bob. The integrity of this force is on the line, too. We need someone there who won’t go easy on her but with whom Bulloch can empathise. It might encourage her to be more open in her responses. She used to be your assistant; there’s nobody better placed than you to take this on.’

  ‘What does the fiscal say?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she replied. ‘I learned that from you,’ she added. ‘It’s my officer, my force and this has happened on my watch. It’s my shout.’

  He had taken the call in Lottie Mann’s office. The door swung open; the DI stared at him as she entered, stopped, then stepped back out again.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it, but here are my rules. One, before we get to an interview under caution, I see Sandra on my own. If I believe following our conversation that it’s necessary to go formal, I will tell you. Two, my summary of that conversation and any subsequent statement that Sandra may choose to make will be reported to Lottie Mann, as SIO. I won’t allow her to be sidelined. Three, if necessary I want to talk to Sandra’s sister as well. Four, you say eff-all about this to the fiscal; I know him and I don’t want him insisting that an advocate depute sits in on the interview because a police officer’s involved. Does any of that give you a problem?’

  ‘None of it,’ the chief constable replied.

  ‘Me neither,’ McGuire grunted in the background.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ Skinner declared. ‘Ten a.m., Wednesday. Mario, tell Sandra to report to your office but don’t tell her why. I’ll see her there. She won’t be expecting me and I want to catch her raw.’

  ‘She’s not dumb,’ the DCC pointed out. ‘She may have guessed that Dorward would put her in the house. She might bring a lawyer.’

  ‘She won’t. That would be a show of weakness, and she isn’t weak. Let me know when it’s set up.’

  ‘What if she refuses to talk to you?’

  ‘Then you will arrest her after all, and she will be cautioned. You’re not short of reasons why you could. Let me know when time and place are confirmed. In the meantime, I’ve got to brief Lottie Mann on what’s happening, and why. The big lass isn’t as confident as you might think. She’s got other stuff happening in her life just now; the last thing she needs is to feel that her bosses don’t have total confidence in her.’

  Thirty

  ‘I’m slipping,’ Dan Provan murmured. ‘I should have known that something didn’t fit.’

  Mann peered at him. ‘Did you leave your crystal ball in Australia?’

  ‘I’m serious. Remember on Saturday, when we were all at the crime scene, when Sandra told us about her sister and Speight?’

  ‘Yes. So?’

  ‘She said there was a photo on the fridge of the wee lass, Raeleen. And there was, taken when she was two, less than a year ago. So how the hell did she know it was there? Faye and Leo were at odds for a couple of years. What reason could Sandra have had for being at his house and having seen that picture? How would she even have kent who it was?’

  The DI nodded. ‘You’re right. You are slipping.’

  He winked at her. ‘It was probably just the jet lag. What’s your excuse?’

  ‘Are you happy with what’s proposed, Lottie?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Completely,’ she replied. ‘I’m relieved, to be honest. I was expecting a formal statement from her for the record. I’m glad I haven’t had it.’

  ‘I can guess why,’ he said. ‘If she’d given you a statement that didn’t disclose the extent of her relationship with Speight, that would have been potentially criminal. She’d have withheld information from a police investigation of a serious crime.’

  ‘What if we get one from her between the now and you seeing her the morrow?’

  He looked the detective sergeant in the eye. ‘If it’s drafted by her or a lawyer, it’ll be between you and her, until you choose to enter it into the record of the investigation. It won’t have been made under oath, so you’ll have a degree of flexibility. I’ll say no more than that.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Mann told him. ‘I’ll deal with it if it happens.’ She glanced at her colleague, ‘And when I say I will deal with it, that’s what I mean, Dan. It’ll be my decision and mine alone.’

  ‘No it fuckin’ won’t,’ he growled. ‘If anything gets shredded by accident, it’ll be me that does it. I’ve got thirty-five years’ service and a full pension, and if I’m threatened with demotion, I walk out the door.’ She made to react, but he held up a hand to stop her. ‘This isnae a debate, Detective Inspector; it’s me bein’ insubordinate, and there’s no bugger better at that than yours truly. Anyway, it’s academic. She’s had three days to give us that statement and she still hasnae done it. She could have handed it in here at any time, but she hasn’t, and you can bet that as soon as she gets the summons from the DCC, the thought will go out of her mind. Sandra’s a clever woman. She’ll know she’s not being called to Stirling for a job appraisal.’

  ‘In a way, she is,’ Skinner pointed out. ‘She’s already withheld information from the investigation.’ He shrugged. ‘But will she really give a fuck about that? She’s about to inherit a fortune. Is she going to keep her job on? Will she be a police officer by the time they can put a disciplinary hearing together? Quite possibly not.’

  Provan laughed, loudly enough for two detective constables on the far side of the room to turn to see what spectacle they were missing. ‘You’re a hell of a man to be sayin’ that, Bob. Look at you! You must have the biggest pension in the history of the Scottish police service, you’ve got a part-time job wi’ that newspaper group that probably pays you even more than that, and yet you’re still here, up to your nuts in a double homicide investigation. Why? Because you can’t fuckin’ help it! What makes you think Sandra Bulloch will be any different?’

  ‘Good point,’ he conceded. ‘Not that I’m confirming your wild allegations about my wealth. And even suppose you were right,’ he added, ‘how many kids have you got, Dan, school age or younger? None, the last I heard. I’ve got five, counting the one at university.’ The smile left his face. ‘But that’s us, and it has nothing to do with Sandra. You are right, I won’t take any preconceptions into our conversation. Yes, she was my assistant in the old Strathclyde force, but not for very long. I mustn’t presume to
know her. What I must do, initially at least, is show her the consideration that’s due to someone who’s recently bereaved. I’ve been there myself, so I know how it feels. It’s over twenty-five years now,’ he said softly, ‘but the memory of that never fades, no matter what happens afterwards in your life.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the DS murmured. ‘I’m a cheeky little bastard.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. You’re still in one piece, and I’m better prepared for my meeting tomorrow. Today, though; where do you go from here?’

  ‘We haul in the man Billy Swords,’ Provan replied. ‘We’ve got him on CCTV,’ he explained to Mann, ‘approaching the Stadium Hotel just before Moscardinetto was murdered.’

  Skinner frowned. ‘Can I make a suggestion about that?’ he ventured. ‘A request even, wearing my Security Service hat?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’d like you to let him run for a bit. Clearly there’s more to the man than we know at this moment, and I’d like to fill in some of the blanks. I’ve already started the ball rolling on that, but there’s more needs doing. Do you have the resources to keep him under permanent observation?’

  ‘Yes,’ the DI replied. ‘On this one I can get whatever I ask for.’

  ‘Then I suggest you do that. You’ll find him at Leo’s Loch Lomondside hotel, Beedham’s; that’s unless he’s checked out. My guess is that he won’t have. Bryce Stoddart is staying in Scotland until Speight’s lawyer’s ready to publish the will, and I suspect that Swords will stick with him.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll start there. If he has gone . . .’

  ‘Let me know, and my friends in the south will find him for you.’ Skinner paused. ‘Then there’s his phone,’ he added. ‘You’ll want to know who he’s spoken to since . . . how long? Let’s say the last month at least. If you can identify all the calls made through the cell closest to Beedham’s since Stoddart and his party checked in there, you should be able to identify his by a process of elimination.’ He stopped and smiled. ‘Or I could ask MI5 to do that too.’