‘Well, Clyde, if it ever occurs to you that it might be a good idea to get out of this hellhole and get a life that gives you a chance to be different, you call me, on one of those numbers, and I’ll show you how.’
I unlocked the pristine Beamer, started the engine, and drove off. In the mirror, I saw that Clyde was still looking after me as I turned at the junction and passed out of his sight.
Three
I dropped Martin at the St Leonards police office, where Jay’s team were based. I looked into the CID suite, but its detective superintendent was long gone, and the place would have been empty, save for a young woman PC who was covering the phones, Martin’s job, I guessed, if I hadn’t snaffled him.
‘When do you finish?’ I asked her. She looked at me, severely, as if I was going to ask her on a date. ‘Just curious,’ I added.
‘Officially I haven’t started yet,’ she replied. ‘I’m night shift, ten to six, but I got here twenty minutes early and DS Bryce borrowed me from the front desk.’ She was an attractive girl, in the same age bracket as Martin. Her hair was as distinctively red as his was blond.
‘Coke and Mars bars,’ I said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Stock up with Coca-Cola and Mars bars. There’s instant energy in both. They’re murder on your teeth, but when you need them they help you make it through the night.’
She threw me a sideways look; I guessed that she gave away her smiles reluctantly. ‘I’ll bear that in mind, Mr… Sorry, I don’t know who you are.’
‘Bob Skinner, DCI, until tomorrow morning, then it’s detective super. I work out of Fettes.’
‘Drugs squad, I assume,’ she added, solemnly. ‘That explains why you know a lot about stimulants.’
‘Most are legal, PC…?’
‘Rose. Margaret Rose.’
‘Have a good night, PC Rose. When you feel your eyelids begin to droop, remember what I told you.’
I told Martin to be at headquarters for half past eight next morning, and to be prepared to witness a post-mortem. ‘Have you been to one before?’ I asked, cautiously. I’d learned the hard way to stand well clear of inexperienced colleagues while watching Joe Hutchinson at work.
He nodded. ‘A couple, with DI Higgins.’
‘See you tomorrow, then.’ I’d noticed before, the guy had vivid green eyes, unusual in itself, but these were really different.
I must have been staring at him. ‘I wear contacts,’ he said. ‘They’re slightly tinted, for the sun.’
It was pushing ten thirty by the time I got home, but barely dark, for high summer was approaching. Alison’s car was parked on Goose Green alongside my Land Rover, opposite the cottage. The curtains were drawn in the living room, but a silver sliver showed through a gap. There was no light, though, in the attic dormer, Alex’s room.
I tapped my watch as I walked in. ‘What’s this?’
As a teenager, my daughter set her own hours, within limits, but she tended to begin the process of bedding down for the night around ten o’clock. ‘I couldn’t let Alison sit on her own, could I?’ she declared.
‘Maybe not, but she’s not on her own now.’
‘Okay.’ She jumped out of my armchair. ‘Goodnight, Alison, goodnight, Pops.’ She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then headed for the stairs.
‘Thanks,’ I said, as soon as the living-room door closed, ‘a million thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ Alison replied. ‘I should be thanking you.’
‘Why?’
‘You could have sent me to see the bereaved mother, instead of doing it yourself.’
‘If I’d done that, I’d have had to second you to Serious Crimes.’
She was holding a mug in both hands; she raised it and took a sip. ‘But you’re not going to?’
‘No, I’ve got a DI there already; besides, I’ve already made up my mind to take young Martin from your squad. If I said I wanted you as well, Jay would scream bloody murder.’
‘You were hard on my boss tonight,’ she murmured.
‘Your boss is a double-dyed, chromium-plated shite, and you know it. If he ever gets to be head of CID, we’re all fucked.’
‘Do you think he might?’
I grinned, and winked at her. ‘Not a chance.’ I walked into the kitchen; Alison rose from her seat and followed me. I took two bottles of Becks from the fridge, popped the caps and handed one to her.
She smiled as she laid down the mug and took it from me ‘You know, Bob, you can be really devious, when you set your mind to it.’
‘Now what does that mean?’
‘Cunning, crafty, wily, Machiavellian; I could go on.’
‘I know what the bloody word means, woman; I’m asking why you’re hanging it round my neck.’
‘Because you’re an operator. You make things happen without people knowing that your hand’s behind them… at least you don’t think they know. You’re driven by ambition, and you won’t let anyone stand in your way. I’ll bet you’ve got your whole career planned out.’
I took her hand and led her back through to the living room, sat on the sofa and drew her down beside me. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t. But Alf Stein and the chief have; they spelled it out for me yesterday. I do two years in this new job, then I make chief super. I go back into uniform for a year, or do a secondment somewhere… James Proud has contacts that you would not believe… then Alf retires and I succeed him. After that… they did not elaborate.’ I put an arm around her shoulders, and she settled in against me. ‘But honest to Christ, Alison, it’s their plan, not mine. I don’t suffer fools, and I cut corners when I have to, but I’d never stand on anyone to get to the top.’
She squeezed my hand. ‘I didn’t mean that you would. I was talking about me. You got me off the drugs squad, didn’t you? My move back into mainstream CID, you told me it was routine, career development, but it wasn’t, was it? You guys in specialist units, you can do what you bloody like; I’ve seen you. You had me moved.’
She had me there. ‘Yes, I did,’ I admitted. ‘Confession time; I fixed it up. But you know why. I don’t have to spell that out for you, do I?’
‘Maybe not, but Bob, I’ve hardly seen you since. I know it’s difficult for you domestically, but…’
‘You were the one who told me it wasn’t going anywhere,’ I reminded her. ‘I distinctly remember you saying that, one lunchtime at your place.’
‘Maybe so, but… Bloody men! I didn’t mean you to take me so literally. Whoever said that I wanted it to go anywhere beyond where it was. I don’t want to marry you, Bob, don’t worry about that, but the way it was between us, it suited me. Now I feel as if you’ve dropped me.’
I ran my fingers through her hair; it was dark, but with blond highlights. ‘Don’t think that, Ali, not for a minute. Look, you see the way I am here; you see the way Alex and I are. I’ve always tried to keep my life with her separate from everything else, and I’ve succeeded. I wouldn’t have brought her with me tonight if I’d had any other option. Well, maybe I did, maybe I could have told Jay to fuck off, that I’d look at his body in the morning.’
‘No, you couldn’t,’ she contradicted me. ‘It’s against your nature.’
‘Be that as it may, one side effect of us being in different offices… our thing started out of proximity, and that way it was easy to maintain, but…’
Her gaze dropped to her lap. ‘I get it. You only want low-maintenance women.’
‘No! Fuck, I’m tripping over myself here. What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry I’ve neglected you, and now you think I’ve dumped you, but I haven’t. You want proof, yes, I could have told you and Martin to go and see Bella yourselves, but I didn’t. I wanted you to be here when I got back.’ I nudged her. ‘See, you’re right; I am a devious bastard.’
‘Well, you got what you wanted. Now I must be going.’ She made as if to rise, but I held on to her.
‘You’re not going.’ I tapped the empty bottle in her hand
. ‘We both knew that, when you took that beer.’
‘But Alex…’
‘Sleep in the spare room if you like, but as you drop off think on this: my daughter tried to pair me off with her auntie earlier on tonight because she couldn’t think of anyone else suitable. If you’re still here in the morning, you’ll see those blue eyes of hers light up.’
Four
A nd did they ever, when she came into the kitchen in her dressing gown and saw Alison cramming a slice of toast into her face, as she slipped on her jacket. No, she hadn’t slept in the spare room, but she had gone in there, crumpled the sheets and punched a head-sized hole in one of the pillows. She was gone by seven thirty; I spent the next fifteen minutes before Daisy arrived waiting for the cross-examination, but it didn’t happen. It was only when I was leaving myself that Alex whispered, ‘She’s nice.’
I had reached the Land Rover when something that had slipped my mind slipped back in. I went back to the cottage. ‘Hey, kid,’ I called out from the door. ‘Does the name Mia Sparkles mean anything to you?’
She stepped into the hall from the living room. ‘Yes! Airburst FM. She’s good!’
‘How does she sound?’
‘Smooth… but not too smooth, not phoney. Plays really good music. Why, Dad?’
‘I’m probably going to be meeting her today, that’s all.’
‘Get me an autographed photo.’
My new team was ready and waiting when I walked into the Serious Crimes office for the first time as their leader. I’d been presented to them the day before by Alf Stein, but none of them were strangers to me. The DI was a sound, forty-ish guy called Graham Leggat… everybody called him Fred; he told me why once, but I can’t remember now… I had a DS named Jeff Adam, who had ‘competent’ stamped all over him, and a couple of time-serving DCs, Macken and Reid. They were all wondering who Martin and McGuire were, and what they were doing there. I explained what had happened the evening before, and that the pair had become caught up in it.
‘In theory, they’re both on secondment, but you can regard Andy as permanent. Mario’s still on the uniform strength, but if he earns his spurs, he might get to wear them here. What did you get last night, PC McGuire?’
‘No sightings in any of the pubs, sir; I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be too bothered. Half the IDs we get from mugshots are wrong anyway; some are people trying to be helpful, others just taking the piss.’
‘There was one thing, though.’
‘Oh yes? Enlighten, please.’
McGuire looked untypically diffident. ‘Well, it might be nothing, boss, but the manager of the Irish pub on the South Bridge, he told me that he’d locked up on Tuesday and was walking home past Infirmary Street, a bit after midnight, when he saw something happening down there. He described it as a scuffle, two men grappling with a third.’
‘You showed him the image?’
‘Sure, but he didn’t recognise it.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He kept on walking. He’s no have-a-go hero, boss.’
‘Maybe as well for him. Did he give you any sort of a description?’
The PC nodded. ‘He said that two of them were wearing suits. He thought at first that they were pub bouncers, but there was nothing still open then. The third guy he thought was dressed in black, shirt and trousers.’
‘Good. Well done.’
‘He gave me a wee bit more, though,’ he continued. ‘He said they were up against a Transit van, and that one of the back doors was open.’
I was impressed. ‘We should get the guy in and show him some photos, just in case. Take care of that, please.’
‘Can I wait till he’s really busy, sir?’ McGuire asked.
I smiled, puzzled. ‘Sure, but why?’
‘He deserves it. If he’d been a bit braver, even if he’d only made a noise, yelled at the guys, they might have legged it and Watson, if that was him, might still be alive.’
I nodded. ‘Do it in your own time, Mario. But don’t ever let Marlon’s mother hear that story. I don’t want her paying a call on the guy. Meantime, I want you to get on to the council. Check out all the street cameras in the area and get their tapes for Tuesday evening. Maybe we’ll get a sighting of the van and, better still, the two guys.’
I was about to send everyone off to work, and take Martin with me to meet Bella Watson at the morgue, when I paused for second thoughts. If I did that, I’d be marching into my new unit with my own small team and sidelining everyone else. ‘Listen, guys,’ I said to Leggat and Adam, ‘there’ll be time later on today for you to brief me on the team’s current workload, but we have an immediate situation. The man who was found dead last night was Tony Manson’s driver, and I don’t need to set out the questions that throws up. Fred, I’d like you and Martin to find out where Manson is. Bella Watson told us that he’s out of town. Is that true? If it is, what’s the reason for the trip? Is it genuine, or could he simply be putting distance between himself and what happened in Infirmary Street Baths? I’d suggest that you talk to his lawyer.’
‘That shifty wee bastard Cocozza?’
‘That’s the one, Fred.’ I looked at the two DCs. Most probably they were going to be moved on, but they were what I had to work with at that moment. ‘While that’s happening, I want you gentlemen doing the rounds of Manson’s known associates. Talk to them and see if they let anything slip about Tony’s territory being under attack from outside. Fred, have a word with the Scottish Crime Squad and the NCIS. I wouldn’t put it past them to be sitting on something they should have passed on to us.’
‘Do you want to involve them?’ Leggat asked
‘Not until the investigation moves out of our territory, and even then only as far as I have to. DS Adam, I want you with me.’ I caught Martin’s glance out of the corner of my eye. ‘Nothing personal,’ I whispered, as I walked past him towards the door. ‘Work it out and tell me later.’
I let Adam drive to the mortuary. We’d crossed over on a few investigations when I’d been working with Alf Stein. He was never going to drop the ball, but he’d used up all the original thoughts he’d ever had in his head. I liked him, though, and his absolute trustworthiness meant that he was going to stay on my team. ‘Do you know the Watson and Spreckley families?’ I asked him, as we crossed Heriot Row.
‘I wasn’t around when Gavin and the kid got it,’ he replied, ‘but I saw the colour of Billy’s brains after big Kraus spread them all over Perry Holmes’s office. I never met him, though; he dropped out of sight for a while. I did interview Bella, though, with Tommy Partridge. We were both sure that she put him up to it.’
‘She told me as much last night. Ancient history, but still, that’s why I don’t want her hearing the story McGuire was told.’
‘That lad,’ Adam murmured. ‘Do you know who he is?’
‘Sure. He’s a police constable on my team.’
‘Yes but…’
I held up a hand to stop him. ‘Jeff, of course I know McGuire’s back story. He’s the nephew of Beppe Viareggio, and the grandson of old Papa Viareggio, who snuffed it about ten years ago, after he’d built up a very successful deli, importing, and property business. His mother married an Irish building contractor and founded one of the most successful secretarial employment agencies in the city. I know also that over the years there have been stories about the Viareggio clan having links to the Mafia. There isn’t a prominent Italian family in Scotland that hasn’t had that whispered about them at one time or another. It’s a load of bollocks in most cases, and most certainly in theirs. Yes, the old man and his wife, who’s still full of beans, incidentally, were first-generation immigrants from an Italy where secret societies were rife, but they came here to get away from that, not to import it. You would never, ever, have fucked with Papa, but he was absolutely straight. Same with Beppe, only he’s a wimp who would crap himself if he was ever in the same room with the faintest scent of organised crime.
This was all established years ago, when I was here last, and if I should find that the Serious Crimes Unit has been wasting resources monitoring McGuire’s family…’ I took a deep breath. ‘If it has been, the files will be useless, so if they exist, shred them before I come across them, or before McGuire does. Understood?’
‘Yes, boss.’ He smiled. ‘Not that there are any such files, you understand.’
They were ready for us when we arrived at the mortuary. Marlon Watson’s body was in the viewing room, laid out on a trolley under a sheet, face uncovered, with the right, less damaged, side of his face in profile. The pathologist was there too, with a young assistant, one of his PhD students, I suspected.
Joe Hutchinson was every cop’s carver of choice, occupant of the Chair of Forensic Pathology at Edinburgh University, and top man in his field. The force booked him whenever it could, even for jobs that didn’t appear at first sight to need his special skills, just in case there was more to it than we thought and we wound up facing him as an expert defence witness.
‘Didn’t you get the message, Joe?’ I asked. ‘I said ten o’clock start.’
‘Busy day, Bob,’ the diminutive professor replied. ‘We’ll get under way as soon as you’ve got the formal identification over with. While you’re doing that I’ll take a look at the photographs, and at the report of my colleague who attended the scene.’
He’d barely gone when Bella Watson arrived. We met her in the anteroom. She was wearing a different outfit, a dark trouser suit over a white blouse; not her working clothes, of that I was sure. ‘Have you got them yet?’ she snapped, even before the door had closed behind her.
‘Them?’ I repeated.
‘Ma boy could take care of himself. It would have taken more than one.’
‘Not if he was shot,’ Adam pointed out.
She glowered at him. ‘Another blast frae the fuckin’ past,’ she growled. ‘Where’s the other yin, the fair-haired lad?’ she asked me.
‘Doing other things.’
‘Pity. He had a bit o’ sympathy about him.’
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