Head Shot bs-12

by Quintin Jardine

  It was breezy on the moor, md the air was redolent with the scent of heather. As soon as they stepped inside the tent, another smell overwhelmed them; the odour ofrecent death. Maggie steeled herself to ignore it, as she had done many times before. At her side she heard the constable's stomach heave.

  The photographers had finished their work; the body lay on its back, staring upwards through sockets whose eyes had been supplanted by a mass of yellow movement. It was fully clad, but the shirt had been ripped open below the ribcage and sc had the abdomen, the work of foxes, or carrion birds. Rose guessed. Tley had been at work on the face too, but it was stil recognisable as a human being, possibly… for skin discoloration made it uncertain… of Asian descent.

  'Well, Charlie,' she asked, 'do you know him? I know it's not pleasant but take a good look.'

  As if she had pul ed some internal trigger, the constable vomited voluminously against the side of the tent. Pringle must have been standing close to it, for his muffled curse floated in from outside. Rose waited until Johnston had calmed himself. 'Okay,' she said. 'Now that's out of the way…'

  The big veteran sighed and leaned over, looking the corpse in the face. He stared at it for almost a minute, before straightening up.

  'It's yon doctor,' he announced at last. 'The one frae up in Oxgangs.'

  'DrAmritraj?'

  'That's the boy. It's him al right.' He looked down again. 'So what did you get yourself into, my mannie?' he pondered.

  'More than he could handle,' Rose muttered, 'that's for sure. Thanks, Charlie; you've done your bit.' She held the flap open for him and they stepped outside, into the clean air once more.

  She nodded to Pringle. 'It's him, al right. Looks as if Mr Essary's been cleaning house. He doesn't take any chances, this fellow, does he?'

  'It was a bit of a chance leaving him up here, was it not?' the DCS grunted.

  'Not really; this place is vast. We were very lucky that those walkers happened upon him when they did; another day or two in the open and he'd have been unrecognisable.'

  'Fine,' Brian Mackie exclaimed. 'Are you two going to tell me what this is about now?'

  'Aye,' said the head of CID, 'I think we can. The stiff is Dr Raj Amritraj; we were after him in connection with an investigation that Maggie has underway at the moment. As you can see, someone didnae want us to find him. You stand down on this one, Brian; it's part of the ongoing investigation and Maggie'l handle it. Send all the technical reports and witness statements to her, and tell the pathologist to do the same with the p.m. report.'

  'With pleasure; I wish all my murder investigations were that easy.'

  As he spoke, the Land Rover appeared at the top of the rise above them. 'Let's get back then,' Pringle grunted.

  They were halfway to the vehicle when Maggie's mobile phone rang.

  She stopped in her tracks and took it out, leaving the others to go on ahead.

  'Yes?' she answered, tersely. 'Miss Rose?' 'Yes, sorry.'

  'That's al right; we can't be too careful these days. Jim Glossop here; I rang your office and a young lad there gave me this number.'

  'I told him to do that, but I admit I didn't expect you to cal back so soon.'

  64

  She heard a chuckle. 'Ah, the things we can do these days. It makes me sorry in a way that I'm retiring; maybe I can get some freelance work off your lot… compiling criminal stats and the like.' He seemed to sense her impatience. 'Anyhow, I've got a result for you. Magnus Essary, no middle name, was born on the fourth of August, forty-nine years ago, in Bathgate, West Lothian. His parents were Alexander and Margaret Essary, mother's maiden surname, Smith, residing at 28 Dundee Terrace, Edinburgh. No one else of that name registered in that year, or during the ten-year periods before or after.'

  'That's great, Jim. At least it gives us somewhere to start looking.'

  'I can probably tell you exactly where to start looking. I did another check, just out of curiosity. Your man Essary's going to earn himself a special place in our museum; according to our records this is the second time he's died. Poor little Magnus succumbed to meningitis, aged three years and one month.'

  Maggie threw back her head and stared up at the blue sky. 'Now why doesn't that surprise me,' she murmured.

  'In that case,' said Glossop, 'this won't either. I did another check off my own bat. This time I looked at infant deaths in the Edinburgh area over a fifteen-year period between twenty and thirty-five years ago, under the name Frances. Guess what? Little Ella Frances, of Prince Street, Polwarth, Edinburgh, died of leukaemia at the age of four-and-a half, just under twenty-seven years ago. She'd have been about thirty-one now, had she lived.

  'The two deaths were nineteen years apart, but they both took place in the same registration district in Edinburgh. I can't check this from here, but I'l bet you a pint of Guinness that both those children are buried in the same cemetery. Someone's gone round looking at gravestones, taken the details and then gone along to Register House and picked up copies of each of their birth certificates.'

  'Can you check that?' Rose asked. Dan Pringle, looking back at her from the open door of the Land Rover, read the urgency on her face.

  'I have done already. They were both issued to the same person, on the second of July last year. She said she was a research student doing some genealogical work. The clerk took a note of her name and address as usual.'

  'And what was it?'

  'Paula Viareggio, Penthouse One, Collier's Court, Leith.'

  The cellphone slipped from Maggie's fingers, to land softly on the heather at her feet.

  'You shouldn't be telling me this, Stevie,' said Mario McGuire. 'Mind you, when we worked together last year you might have mentioned that you'd been giving my cousin a seeing-to.'

  'Maybe, but it was al over by that time, and I didn't want to dig it up again. As for the other thing I'm telling you, put it down to professional courtesy.'

  'Appreciated; thanks. You don't real y think that Jay's going to pull Paula in for questioning, do you?'

  'It's hard to say,' Steele replied, evenly, down the line. 'But he's under pressure to come up with something; the new head of CID's got a hard act to fol ow, and he's not going to fancy starting off with an unsolved investigation.'

  'Still, he'd better be careful; if he involves me in it, even by implication, I really will do the bastard.'

  'That would sound real y great if this call was being recorded, wouldn't it?'

  'True,' McGuire muttered, ruefully. 'The sooner we find this Essary man the better. How are you getting on with your inquiries? Maggie told me what she was going to have you do.'

  'Don't tell her I told you first,' said the inspector, 'but I'm finished.'

  'Good news?'

  'She won't see it that way. There were four policies on the life of Magnus Essary, each one with a major-league Edinburgh-based insurer, for a quarter of a million. Claims were submitted in each case on Tuesday last week; al four companies have paid out, two on Wednesday, one on Thursday and one on Friday. The cheques were al paid into a Clydesdale Bank account, in the name of El a Frances. It was closed yesterday and the funds were transferred to a numbered account in a bank in Basel.'

  'Can the money be frozen there?'

  'That's doubtful, given the reputation of the Swiss. But chances are it will have been moved again by now; it'll be pretty well untraceable.'

  65

  'As wil Magnus Essary and El a Frances,' McGuire grunted. 'Have you put out an all-ports alert?'

  'I wanted to talk to my boss first.'

  'What's stopping you?'

  'She's not here. I went to look for her but young Haddock, her gopher, told me that she had a cal from DCS Pringle and headed off to meet him, with a big fat PC in tow.'

  'If I were you, Stevie, I wouldn't wait for her coming back. It's too late to be coy about Essary now; you get that alert out, pronto. Mind you, it's a case of for what it's worth. If they're travel ing as Essary and Frances, then my pass
port says I'm Cliff Richard.'

  'I wondered how long it would take you to get to a loose end. Bob.' ACC

  Willie Haggerty laughed. 'Are you worried that Edinburgh's descending into lawlessness, with the Chief on holiday this week and you in the States?'

  'I have no doubt,' Skinner replied, his voice echoing on the satellite link, 'that my city is safe in your hoary hands. But I just thought I'd give you a call to say hello, see how you're doing.'

  'I'm doing fine, big fella, just fine. How's it with you? How's Sarah coping?'

  'Simply "coping" is not a term you apply to my wife. She deals with life with a capability that's just… well, fucking awesome, as they say over here. We're more or less set for the funeral on Friday, the cleaners have done their bit here at the house, and now she's taking me out to find a caterer for a reception afterwards.'

  'How about the investigation?'

  'It seems to have run into a series of brick walls, from what I gather

  … not, mind you, that the police need to tell me anything. I'm just a civilian, you understand.'

  'Aye, and so was Attila the Hun,' Haggerty barked. 'But stil, if they're stalled and it's over a week, we know what that usual y means.'

  'We do, Willie, we do; it means they're stuffed. So how's it going over there anyway? Have I missed any action?'

  The DCC heard a loud booming laugh in his ear. 'Have you ever… and I'm loving it! Pringle's taken over from Andy, and found himself in the middle of a right pile of shite. First, Mario McGuire's uncle gets his head blown off in his own living room. Next, Maggie Rose discovers that a parish priest from Lanarkshire who's on the missing persons list was actual y certified dead of a heart attack in Edinburgh, under another man's name, and turned into ashes at Seafield last weekend. Then the man who's no' dead after al turns out to have been a tenant of Beppe Viareggio, who's well and truly fucking dead.'

  "The faked death,' Skinner interrupted. 'An insurance scam?'

  'A big one; there were four policies, adding up to a million, so Pringle just told me. They were written on the basis of an outstanding medical report by a GP, the same doctor who certified the phoney death. They've al been paid out and the money's been moved.'

  The DCC's mind raced as he took in and analysed everything that Haggerty had told him. 'Have we gone public on al of this?' he asked.

  'Only on Viareggio's murder.'

  'Good; that's a help. Where's this doctor now?'

  'Found this morning; up the Lammermuirs with a big hole in his chest.'

  'Fucking hell! But what about Beppe Viareggio?' Skinner asked himself, aloud. 'He was just a harmless clown with a Marion Brando fixation. Who'd want to kill him?'

  'His daughter Paula,' Haggerty answered, 'or so Pringle's telling me; Greg Jay took a statement this morning from her ex-boyfriend, a DI no less, who said that he once stopped her from sticking a steak knife in her old man in the middle of a restaurant.'

  'Who's the DI?'

  'Steele.'

  'Sound lad; not prone to exaggeration.'

  'So I'm told. But this is where it gets nasty. I've just had Pringle in to see me… and not before time either. The couple in the insurance fraud had false identities, built around two birth certificates of long-dead people, obtained from Register House. Paula Viareggio's just been fingered as the person who obtained them.

  'As it happens, Greg Jay's had her under observation since last weekend, in case whoever killed her old man had it in for her as wel. His people reported that Mario McGuire's been seen with her twice since the murder; once on Saturday, then again last night. He arrived at her place about ten and stayed till after midnight.

  'Now, Pringle tells me, Jay wants to lift McGuire for questioning as a suspected accomplice in the conspiracy, and maybe as the brains behind the whole thing.'

  'What!!!' Willie Haggerty had the foresight to hold the telephone receiver away from his ear just before the explosion sounded across the transatlantic link.

  'You tell him from me,' Skinner roared, 'that if he does, he'd better get his lawnmower sharpened, because he'll be spending a fucking long time in his garden from now on! And you can tell Pringle the same, while you're at it.'

  'Relax, Bob, I have done already. Jay's been told to wind his neck in.

  I've asked Mario to come up to see me personally this afternoon; he's on his way now.'

  The DCC's rage abated. 'Good for you. If the late-night visit means that Mario's having it off with his cousin… well, I'd be disappointed in him, but until it affects his work it's his business. Unlikely as that is, it's far more credible than the notion that the pair of them are involved in a conspiracy. I know Paula Viareggio, and I know about her sauna businesses too; Mario told me a long while back. She's a classic case, that one; her granny reborn. She didn't kil anybody, least of al her father.

  'Tell me, Willie. Do you think it's occurred to Detective Superintendent Jay that if someone's going to acquire a couple of copy birth certificates for an il egal purpose, they'd be major league stupid to use their own name when they're doing it?'

  'I don't know,' said Haggerty evenly, 'but I'm going to find out. It certainly hasn't occurred to him that if the money's gone, then so are the couple behind the fraud.'

  'Yes indeed; so you'd suppose. Willie,' Skinner continued, after a moment, 'this con-man, how did he come to be Beppe's tenant?'

  'It looks as if he and his partner set up a fake wine-importing company to show the insurance companies, so that they could take out key executive policies on his life. The names they used were Magnus Essary and Ella Frances.'

  'Who's met them?'

  'According to Pringle, Beppe signed the lease personally; he's the only one who actual y saw the man who cal ed himself Essary.'

  "Then that's why he was killed; so that he couldn't identify him. But if the bloke and his partner are long gone with the money…'

  'Why bother about that?' Haggerty exclaimed. 'I see what you mean, Bob.'

  'Right. As an entity, Magnus Essary's dead and gone, no one's left to identify him, and the money's in the bank. Therefore this man and his lady accomplice can go back to being who they were before. If we haven't publicised the fact that we've identified the body, they'll be sitting there thinking they've committed the perfect crime.'

  There was a silence. 'Or maybe, just maybe before he heads off to the sunshine with his woman and his mil ion… he's got something else to do.'

  66

  'This is getting crazy,' Maggie murmured, almost to herself. 'What else did Haggerty tell you?'

  'That was about it,' her husband answered. 'After your man at GRO came up with Paula's name, and you told Pringle, he went haring into Leith to see Jay. The two of them pul ed the watchers' notes and saw that I've been to her place twice since the murder, and Gregjust went crazy.

  'I must real y have upset him; he was for sending a couple of senior officers down to Gala to bring me up to Edinburgh for questioning. Old Dan was sensible enough to tell him to hold his bloody horses, while he went to see Willie Haggerty. The ACC ordered him to calm Jay down, and said that he would talk to me personally, which he duly did.'

  Mario sensed her bristling, and saw her sit stiffly upright in her dining chair; that was as close as her icy control would allow her to come to ful -blooded, exploding anger. 'The nerve of that man Jay,' she exclaimed.

  'Just as wel that Dan was there, or he might actually have done it. I tel you, love, if he had done that, it would have been him or me. I'd have gone to the DCC and told him that.'

  'You wouldn't have had to. First of al, I'd have beaten you to it, and second the Big Man wouldn't have needed any threats from us. The ACC told me he had a cal from him this afternoon. They discussed the case; Haggerty said that he sends us his condolences about Beppe. He also said that they've come to a conclusion about Essary.'

  'That he's stil around, even though the money's gone?'

  'That's right, and that he's sitting there thinking he's a genius, having pul
ed off the perfect crime, and that we don't know that he's even done it, far less that we know who he is.'

  'The second part of that's true.'

  'Maybe so, but if Big Bob and Haggerty are right, he's still around for you to catch.'

  Mario paused to slice off a strip of his fillet steak. 'There was something else, though,' he continued, forking it up. 'I wasn't late home because I was with Haggerty.' She looked at him, curiously, as he chewed.

  'I was just leaving Fettes when I had a cal from Paula, doing her nut. So I had to go back there again… another one for Greg Jay's book, no doubt.

  'She was stil shaking with anger when I got there. Apparently while Dan was off having his arse chewed by Willie Haggerty, Jay went ahead and lifted her. He had her picked up from the deli and brought to his office, then questioned her about the restaurant incident, and about those birth certificates.'

  'What did she tell him?'

  'She accepted the story about the restaurant… although Stevie Steele's had his last Christmas card from her, I can tell you… and she told Jay that she's never been in Register House in her life, far less gone there to pick up other people's birth certificates.

  'He hammered away at her for over an hour, then he let her go, with a warning that when they found the clerk who issued the certificates, he was going to stick her in a line-up.' He paused to eat the last of his steak.

  'He's wasting his time, though,' he added, at last.

  'Why?'

  'Because… although she was too shaken up to remember it at the time… on the day in question, Paula was on holiday in Italy.'

  'Can she prove that?'

  'Oh yes. It was a girlies' trip; she went for a week with her mother and her favourite auntie. I'l tell you something; Greg might have been within his rights in questioning Paula, but if he has my mother hauled down to Leith in a patrol car, he and I are going to have hard words again.'

  'Mmm,' said Maggie. 'So Paula's well off the hook, is she? Yet someone used her name to get those certificates. Why, I wonder; why hers?'