A Brush With Death

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Are you saying she left?’

  ‘I can’t say that, but I didn’t see her again for a while, not till after midnight, when the music was in full swing and I’d finished painting. She was back then, but she avoided me for the rest of the night.’

  ‘Had Leo gone by that time?’

  ‘Yes, a little while before. He came to say goodbye to me, in that big biker jacket he loved to wear. Last time I saw him, and he looked really happy. In fact I said to him, “You look as if you’re in a really good place.” He smiled, kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “I am, Gus; you’ll know why soon.” Then he was gone . . .’ her eyes glazed over; a tear escaped and rolled down her cheek, ‘and I never saw him again to ask him what he meant.’

  Provan paused, allowing her time to recover her composure. ‘Did you tell him about the thing with Faye?’ he asked, when he judged that she was ready.

  ‘No. Why ruin his night when he was so high?’

  ‘Thanks,’ the DS concluded. ‘We’ll follow up on some of that. If I need to speak to you further about it, I’ll call you.’

  ‘There’s someone else we’re interested in,’ Mann added, before Cambridge could close the connection. ‘The Italian guest, Moscardinetto.’

  ‘The man who was murdered in Glasgow? Are you telling me he was there?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t Leo point him out to you?’

  ‘No, he didn’t, and that surprises me. I know who Moscardinetto is, or was, and I’d have thought that Leo would have wanted him included in the finished work. Can you describe him?’

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Provan said. ‘Wait a minute.’

  He rose, walked into the main CID office and removed a blow-up of the Italian’s passport photograph from a whiteboard on the far wall. Returning to the DI’s office, he held it close to the monitor’s inbuilt camera. ‘Do you recognise him from that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, yes I do,’ Augusta Cambridge replied firmly. ‘And now that I do, I can tell you I did see him on Friday. I noticed him several times; he spoke to a lot of people, including me at one point, although I was too busy to be distracted when he did. I shooed him away when he tried to see what I was doing. I made a lot of sketches that will go towards the main work – I’ll finish it anyway, as a tribute to Leo – and he’s on some of them.’

  ‘Can you remember who the people he spoke to were?’

  ‘Yes, those that I knew. There was the white-haired man from Dundee, McCullough, him and his wife. They spoke for quite some time. The politician woman, the Shadow Cabinet woman, Aileen de Marco, they chatted for a while, and of course there was Joey, the lovely Joey Morocco. Moscardinetto looked pretty intense most of the time, but he was relaxed with him. I imagine they knew each other from the film world.’

  ‘They did,’ Mann confirmed. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Several people; young Gordon for one, Leo’s son. They spoke for a while too. I can’t guess what they had to talk about, but the boy looked very serious. Then there were the fight people, Bryce Stoddart and that dragon of a woman, Gene Alderney. Benny, Bryce’s dad, wasn’t there. They used ill-health as an excuse, but Leo told me that Benny’s gone the same way as his mother; vascular dementia, he called it. He’s out of it.’

  ‘How did they all interact?’

  ‘They looked pretty sombre, especially Alderney, but she does that to people.’

  ‘Were you painting when Leo gave his retirement speech?’

  ‘Of course, I was focused on him and as many people as I could.’

  ‘When he got to the bit about the new promotional venture?’

  ‘Alderney was the only person in the room who didn’t clap when he announced it. No, she wasn’t; neither did the Italian, but don’t read anything into that. It isn’t really his gig, is it?’

  ‘So what is, and why was he there?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I can tell you this. Just before Leo left, the two of them spoke. They had a conversation away from everybody else, and I think . . . no, I’m certain that I saw Moscardinetto hand him something. I didn’t see what it was, but something passed between them, something small enough for Leo to slip into the pocket of his biker jacket.’ She paused momentarily. ‘Then he came over to me,’ she resumed, ‘he said goodbye like I told you, and then he left.’

  The scarf had fallen from her right shoulder. She pulled it across once again. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s all I can tell you, unless there’s something specific you want to ask me.’

  ‘No,’ the DI replied. ‘That’s all, and that’s fine.’

  Cambridge frowned at her camera. ‘Asking me about Moscardinetto; are you trying to tell me that his death and Leo’s are connected?’

  Mann chose to stonewall. ‘We have no evidence of that, none at all.’

  The painter smiled sadly. ‘I don’t think that’s quite what I asked you, but never mind. So long.’

  A second later, she vanished, and the two detectives were left staring at their own faces in the screen.

  ‘Well,’ Provan exclaimed, ‘was that interesting or was it no’?’

  Mann nodded. ‘It leaves us with a very big question: what did Aldorino hand to Leo? But it tells us something too. If Faye disappeared between nine thirty and midnight, that gave her plenty of time to get to Ayr and back, and plenty of time to spike Leo’s drink. We need to talk to Dorward, to ask him what prints or DNA his people were able to recover from that fridge. If the answer is nothing, I’m going to ask him to send someone back to Ayr to check it again.’

  ‘No’ just that, Lottie,’ the DS added. ‘I don’t recall seeing a biker jacket when we were at the scene on Saturday, but we didn’t know about it then. We need to get back down there ourselves and take another look.’

  Thirty-Three

  Among the many things that Bob Skinner disliked about the Scottish national police service, one that he would have changed if he could, was its lack of a suitable headquarters building. Andy Martin, in his brief tenure, had chosen to base himself in Tulliallan Castle, where part of the Police College was located. His successor preferred to maintain her office in an undistinguished building in Stirling.

  He would have had neither of them. Had he not walked away, and had he been appointed chief, as most observers had expected, he would have based himself in the seat of government, Edinburgh, with command teams in the cities of Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. He would have done everything in his power to prevent the sale of the Pitt Street building and the imminent move to the East End of the city.

  Skinner saw this lack of a focal point as a sign of the politicians’ failure to give any sort of direction to the creature they had made, beyond the creation of an appointed Police Authority, a supervisory body whose existence was unknown to most Scots and whose purpose and functions were a mystery to most of the rest.

  As he sat in Mario McGuire’s office, his mind drifting as his friend went through a folder page by page, he recognised his own failure. It had been a mistake not to concede that the new service would happen, and not to use the considerable influence he had, with the First Minister, Clive Graham, and with his then wife, Aileen, who was leader of the main opposition party but in favour of police unification. If he had done that, instead of sulking and glowering as he waited for the end of his career, he could have played a part in shaping the governance of the new force. He would have advised putting central services, including forensics and strategy, under the direct command of the chief constable, leaving the Authority as a largely advisory body, a bridge between police and politicians.

  ‘If wishes were horses we’d a’ get a hurl,’ he recalled his grandfather telling him. He had done nothing, simply sat and watched the construction of a new level of bureaucracy that would swallow any cost savings that were made by rationalisation.

  But he knew also that nothing that was made by governm
ent could not be unmade by its successor. A few months before, he had turned down an offer that would have given him real political power. As Mario McGuire closed the folder and pushed it across to him, he realised that he regretted that decision, as much as he regretted withholding his experience as the mess was being made.

  ‘There you are,’ the deputy chief constable said. ‘Sandra Bulloch’s HR file.’

  Skinner shrugged. ‘There won’t be a hell of a lot in it that I haven’t seen before,’ he replied, leaving the folder where it lay. ‘When’s she due here?’

  McGuire glanced up at the clock on the wall, to his right. ‘Ten minutes, assuming she’s on time.’

  ‘Who’s ever late for a summons to the Command Suite?’

  ‘People who’ve never been here before,’ the DCC retorted. ‘That’s quite a big pool. Welcome to modern policing, gaffer.’

  ‘You can keep it.’

  The DCC’s dark eyes flashed and his smile dazzled. ‘You really hate this, Bob, don’t you?’

  ‘This place? With every fibre of my being. Are you going to tell me that you like it here?’

  ‘It is what it is. I prefer it to Tulliallan, where Andy Martin perched. They called his office “the Eyrie”, would you believe?’

  ‘He fell to earth, though,’ Skinner muttered tersely. ‘Fucking Icarus.’

  ‘Do you ever hear from him?’

  ‘Not a dicky bird. We’d stopped speaking even before he left.’

  ‘How about Alex? Does she?’

  ‘You are joking, Mario, aren’t you? In a way, I’d like him to get in touch with her, so that he can see she’s better off without him. Her new career is blossoming, as quite a few prosecuting counsels have found to their cost.’

  McGuire scratched the dimple on his broad chin. ‘There’s an irony in that. You spent thirty years putting people in the dock, and now she’s making a name for herself by getting them off. Look at that supermodel murder; she got a result there and no mistake. Her client was as guilty as sin; you know that as well as we do.’

  ‘Blame it on the bossa nova,’ Skinner chuckled. ‘Better still, blame it on the Crown Office. If you want to be even more specific, blame it on the former solicitor general, Rocco de Matteo. He went into court with a hole in his case that was so big, Alexis used it as a gateway to the highway for her client.’

  ‘Sammy Pye and Sauce Haddock weren’t too pleased, though. Acquittals never reflect well on the investigating officers.’

  ‘Nobody blamed them. They just gathered the evidence; de Matteo’s people made the case. The co-accused was convicted, happily with a different defence advocate representing him. Lawyers like my daughter are actually good for the justice game,’ he argued. ‘They keep the prosecution on their toes.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the big DCC murmured. ‘Just like we used to. You’re right, by the way,’ he added. ‘I don’t like this place. It’s dull and it’s drab and it’s not where we should be. Worst of all, it’s invisible. I had a major row with the communications people the other day. I had a look at our website and I tried to find myself. I couldn’t. Neither the chief constable’s office address nor mine is listed on it. There’s a single reference to the senior officers working out of Tulliallan and here, but nothing to tell you who’s where. It’s as if we’re hiding from the people we’re supposed to protect. I tackled Perry Allsop about it; he muttered something about security. I told him to fuck off and fix it, but he told me it would have to be done through the Police Authority, his department being a central service. Utter bollocks.’

  ‘Are you going to stay the course? You could walk into the next chief constable vacancy south of the border.’

  ‘I won’t be doing that,’ McGuire retorted. ‘Will I stay here? Honestly, I can’t say for certain. As long as Maggie’s in the room along the corridor, I suppose I will, but if she decides she’s had enough of the bureaucracy . . . I don’t see myself replacing her, that’s all I’ll say.’

  The end of his confession coincided with a knock on the door; it opened and a young man in a black tunic leaned into the room. ‘Sir, your ten o’clock is here.’

  ‘Pretty good,’ McGuire murmured with another glance at the clock. ‘Only a couple of minutes late. Show her in.’

  Both men stood and waited, watching the door until it reopened and Sandra Bulloch stepped through it. She was dressed to impress, in a grey trouser suit, with black patent-leather shoes and a matching bag slung over her shoulder.

  ‘Sir,’ she began, then gasped slightly as the second presence registered.

  ‘Chief Inspector,’ the DCC said brusquely. ‘Thanks for answering my mystery summons. Look, I have a meeting with ACC Mackie that I need to deal with now, so I’ll leave you two to have a chat until I’m done.’

  ‘As you wish, sir,’ she replied quietly, with a slight frown that could have been either apprehension or curiosity.

  McGuire swept out of the room by a side door.

  ‘Take a seat, Sandra,’ Skinner told her, resuming his own. He looked at her appraisingly; when she had been his assistant in Pitt Street, she had worn very little make-up to work, but she had prepared herself carefully for her Wednesday morning appointment with the DCC. Even so, her face looked drawn, and he wondered whether the cosmetics were there to hide tell-tale circles under her eyes.

  ‘I will,’ she replied, ‘for now, until you’ve told me what the hell’s going on here.’

  ‘Let’s call it a rescue mission.’

  ‘What’s being rescued?’ she retorted.

  ‘Possibly your career, that’s if you’re still interested in it. You can walk out of this room if you want, but not out of this building. You are going to speak to me, either here, one on one, or in another room, with someone alongside me and video and audio recorders running.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘They know you were sleeping with Leo Speight. That of itself isn’t the problem. What is is your failure to disclose the fact to the officers investigating his death. That lays you open, potentially, to criminal charges, and it is absolutely a disciplinary issue, one that could be career-ending.’ He paused. ‘They’re not guessing at this, Sandra. There is physical evidence that you had sex with Leo Speight in the week of his death. You may say that you had nothing useful to tell Lottie Mann because your mind wasn’t on conversation at the time, but that wasn’t your call. If Lottie was you and you were she, you’d be down on her like a lorry load of bricks; we both know that.’

  ‘Lottie isn’t Leo’s type,’ she whispered.

  ‘You can cut that right out, Sandra,’ he snapped. ‘This isn’t funny. The chief and the DCC aren’t disposed to go easy on you. They asked me to interview you formally, under caution, with an ACC alongside me. We’re only in this room alone because I insisted on it – as a first step. The rest of it hangs on what’s said here . . . if we proceed. So, do we have a chat, or do I call Mario back, have you cautioned, switch on the recorders and make it adversarial?’

  She gripped her bag, and for a moment he thought she was about to stand up and walk out, until she relaxed and settled against the padded back of her chair. ‘On the basis that you’re the devil I know, sir, let’s do it the way you suggest. Where do you want to begin?’

  ‘I want you to tell me all about your relationship with Leo Speight. How long have you known him?’

  ‘We first met ten years ago,’ she replied quietly. ‘He had just started seeing Faye, and one day he picked her up from my flat. She introduced us, we said hello, and that was all, for a while. I didn’t see him again until wee Leonard was born; I visited them at the maternity hospital and he was there.’

  ‘How did he meet Faye?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Through Gino Butler. The two of them had had a few dates, nothing serious. It cruised along until Leo had a big fight in London, a world championship unification against an Am
erican in the Millennium Dome, and Gino took her down with him. Naturally, Leo won, there was a party afterwards, they met and that’s where it all started.’

  ‘Leo moved in on his mate’s girlfriend?’

  ‘No he didn’t, not just like that; they chatted the first time, that was all. At least that’s what she told me. Faye did cool on Gino afterwards, though, no question. She never admitted it to me, but the impression I got from Leo was that when she was ready, she made the next move, not him. Have you met my sister?’ she asked, unexpectedly.

  ‘No, why should I have?’

  ‘You’re here, so I’m guessing you’re involved in the investigation in some way. Did they call you in to mentor Lottie, is that it?’

  ‘No, because Lottie doesn’t need mentoring; she’s as good a detective as you are – and wee Provan’s better than the pair of you,’ he added. ‘However, you are right: I do have an involvement, from another angle. I haven’t met your sister, though. Why did you ask me if I had?’

  ‘I’d have been interested to know what you thought of her.’

  ‘What do you think of her?’ Skinner countered.

  ‘I think she’s a greedy, conniving woman,’ Bulloch replied bluntly. ‘Leonard was no accident, sir. She set Leo up. She’s a couple of years older than he was, three years older than me. She was thirty when she fell pregnant and she’d been on the pill since she was eighteen.’

  ‘Whether she set him up or not, it worked for her. They had two kids together, and he bought her a house.’