I was still grinning when I put the phone down.
‘Who’s made your day?’ the boss called to me.
‘Dr Grace, the pathologist.’
‘What were you talking about?’
‘Circumcision.’
Even Jack reacted to that. ‘You what?’ he exclaimed. ‘With the chief’s ex?’
‘I’m not kidding,’ I told him. ‘She gave me a lecture on the subject: not how it’s done, but who has it. Are you circumcised?’ I asked him.
‘Mind your own fucking business. What are you asking me that for?’
‘Call it a statistical survey. More people are than you’d imagine.’
‘Ray is,’ Becky volunteered.
McGurk actually started to turn pink. ‘Can we leave DI Wilding’s tackle out of this, please,’ he moaned. ‘If you must know, yes I am.’
‘And you’re not Jewish.’
‘Of course not. You don’t have to. .’
‘I know,’ I said, cutting him off in mid-sentence. ‘That’s what Sarah explained.’ I paused, for a little effect. ‘That’s before she said firmly that our man was.’
‘Come again?’ the DI murmured, dryly. ‘Did the rabbi who did it put his initials on his work?’
‘Hardly,’ I replied, slightly narked by her sarcasm. I shook my head and repeated what Sarah had told me. . leaving out only the line about the blonde and the matzohs.
Her reaction was the same as if I’d shaken her awake. She blinked, once, twice then focused on me. If Becky Stallings has a fault as a team leader, it’s her occasional tendency to slip into cruise mode, rather than driving full on at the task in hand. When she snaps out of it, though, she’s a formidable operator. Half an hour earlier she’d begun to echo Jack, chuntering on about her team having been stuck with a job that uniform should be doing, putting a name to the dead man from the evening before, when we should have been tasked with putting the screws on Kenny Bass. That disappeared in an instant as she started to gnaw on the bone I’d given her.
‘She’s a hundred per cent certain about that?’ she exclaimed.
‘As near as damn it. “That’s the way to bet,” is what she said.’
‘How much do you know about the Edinburgh Jewish community? How big is it?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ I admitted.
‘Then find out.’
Half an hour later, after some intensive research, followed by a few phone calls, I was up to speed. ‘There are around eight hundred Jewish families in the Edinburgh area,’ I reported to the DI. ‘They worship in two active congregations but there’s only one full-time rabbi in Edinburgh, Rabbi Hyman. I’ve just spoken to him. He doesn’t know of anyone who’s missing, and he’s certain that if there had been a death among his flock, he’d have been called in. But he’s willing to look at the body, to see if he knows him.’
‘When?’ she asked.
‘Right now. It’s Friday; their Sabbath starts in a few hours. He’s preparing for this evening’s service, but he’s agreed to meet me at the mortuary in half an hour.’
‘No great hopes, though?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I described our man. He said that it only fitted three or four people, no more than that. Those are all active in the community and he said that if any of them died it would be big news. He was shocked when I told him how we found the body, but he did say that the white shroud was “appropriate”; his word.’
‘Okay,’ Becky said. ‘You’d better get down to the Cowgate, now.’
‘Yes, boss, I will, but there’s more. I did a search on kosher food as well. Like the pathologist said, there’s only that one vegetarian place in Edinburgh, and the food itself wouldn’t be easy to source. There’s one supermarket that stocks a range of kosher products, but it’s not extensive. However, I did find a kosher restaurant in Glasgow; it’s called Solomon’s, and it isn’t veggie. I phoned it, and spoke to the guy who owns it; it’s named after him, by the way. Chicken broth with matzohs and geffilte fish are both regulars on the menu. The timescale we’re looking at, according to the autopsy findings, has Mortonhall Man eating his last meal on Wednesday evening. Mr Solomon says he was open then, and busy, but when I described the man, he said yes, it was possible he might have been a customer.’
‘Did you tell him that we’re trying to find a dead man?’
‘No. I didn’t need to do that. All I said was that we were trying to trace a man who might have eaten there. Then I said that I’d pulled his menu off the internet, and I asked him how the broth and the fish were, casual like. I said they were my favourites. He said they’re his best sellers, and that I should call in.’
‘Do you have an address?’
‘Sure.’ I checked my notebook and read it out.
‘Then what are you waiting for? Get the most presentable face shot that we have of the body and take him up on his invitation.’
I raised a slightly impertinent eyebrow. ‘Is that before or after I go to the morgue?’
‘Sod that,’ she grunted. ‘I’ll meet the rabbi. It’ll be a waste of time anyway. I’m beginning to get an idea of what’s happened here.’
Lowell Payne
It’s as well that Bob had told us that the Special Branch guy was new. It went a long way to explain the caution with which he greeted us when his monstrous Indian sidekick showed us into his office.
‘George Regan,’ he said, almost apologetically, as he extended his hand to me. His grip was firm, that of a golfer. He was immaculately dressed, in a blue suit with some silk in it. What gives with these Edinburgh guys? I wondered, looking at him in Austin Reed’s finest and Mackenzie in a uniform with creases so sharp you could have shaved Parma ham with them.
David and he seemed to be sizing each other up. I wondered whether their obvious appraisal of each other had something to do with the fact that they both seemed to enjoy Bob Skinner’s confidence, and that they saw themselves as rivals as a result. If that was so, I’d be watching my back if I was Regan. The Copper Formerly Known As Bandit might have cleaned up his act, but whatever his bosses think of him I suspect that it was because he had no other option, and that an ambitious, calculating bastard still lurks close to the surface.
He was under wraps, though, as we took seats at Regan’s desk. ‘Quite a task we’ve been given, George,’ he said. ‘The chief’s briefed you on what we’re doing, I take it, and how you relate to us.’
The DI nodded. ‘Yes, he has.’ He paused. ‘But I’m not completely reactive in this. He’s given me a separate task.’
He went on to explain what it was. ‘Look,’ he continued, ‘I know you’re reviewing the Varley career files, to check for any possible improprieties, across the board. We know, for example that he’s got a track record with women, and he was even, briefly, a murder suspect because of it.’ That was news to me; I suspected it was to Mackenzie as well, although he did his best not to show it.
‘In practice though, all we have on him at the moment is his warning to Freddy Welsh. We have nothing at all on Mr Welsh, so that gives him priority status in my book, and in the chief’s. He’s told me to fill in the blanks. So, what I suggest is that you gentlemen concentrate on Varley’s dealings with Welsh, while my colleague and I do the same thing, but in reverse; we go for Freddy and tie him to Varley. Hopefully we’ll meet in the middle and get the complete picture.’
CoFKAB nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he agreed. ‘What about this man Kenny Bass? He seems to be pig in the middle between them.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Regan pointed out. ‘There’s no evidence of any connection between Varley and Bass. However, we don’t need to get involved in that, not for the moment anyway. Bass will be re-interviewed separately; hopefully it’ll be more productive this time.’
‘Who’s doing that?’ I asked him.
‘The head of CID; DCS McGuire.’
‘Ouch,’ Mackenzie chuckled. The SB man smiled too; an insider joke, I guessed. It passed me by because I was too busy wondering
what the hell I’d become involved in. Bob Skinner seemed to be playing us all like the conductor of a small orchestra. Yet he was the chief constable. Jesus! Things were a lot different in Strathclyde where you rarely saw anyone more than two ranks above you, and didn’t want to either because it usually meant you were in the shit.
This was very true, by all accounts, of our new gaffer, Chief Constable Antonia Field. She hadn’t been in Pitt Street long before she became known as ‘the queen of mean’, for the way she scoured the place, identifying weak links and showing them the door. Quite a few senior faces were no longer around, and there were even rumours that Max Allan, our old school ACC, was for the chop. The one thing that worried me about the Edinburgh assignment was that it was bound to bring me into her field of vision.
Better make sure you get a good report, then, I decided. ‘Then let’s get to it, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘Since this isn’t a nine to five job, the sooner we get it done, the sooner we can all get back to the wives and kids.’
The look that Mackenzie shot me didn’t have a trace of smooth David; it was pure Bandit. What the fuck was that about? I wondered.
Aileen de Marco
‘Bob, can we talk?’
Unlike my husband, I have no previous experience of being married. So I didn’t really know what to do when you’ve had a real up-and-downer, the kind that leaves a chill in the air even after the combatants have quietened down, and when the concept of not letting the sun set on an argument has gone for a burton. But one thing was for sure; I didn’t reckon it was up to me to make the first move. Bob was the one who’d blown up, who’d refused to listen to a single word I’d said, or to consider the logic of what the government was proposing and what I felt it was my duty to back.
I waited all day for him to phone; waited in vain. When I got back to my office from Clive’s, I hoped there would be a message from him, but there wasn’t. With nothing else to do that my stubborn gene would permit, like ringing him myself, I called my stepdaughter. I don’t like disturbing Alex at work, because her time is valuable and she has to account for every minute of it, but I felt that I had to do it; she’s her father’s vicar on earth.
‘Have you heard from your dad today?’ I asked her, once I’d persuaded her secretary that it was important, and been put through.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Was he supposed to call me?’
‘No, no.’ I felt stupid; I had no idea what I was going to say next.
She helped me. ‘What’s up, Aileen?’
‘Oh, I thought he might have, to sound off.’
‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘You’ve had an argument.’
I sighed. ‘Have we ever. I’ve never seen him like that.’ I explained what had happened, and why. ‘Alex, I really need your help.’
‘I see,’ she murmured, when I’d finished. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You and the First Minister are ganging up to threaten my father’s career.’
I’m not easily rattled, but the sudden, unexpected chill in her voice shook me up. ‘No,’ I protested, ‘that’s not how it is. We’re going to advance it, if anything. He’ll be the only serious candidate to head the unified police service.’
‘In which he doesn’t believe. I know he doesn’t; he’s told me, and he’s passionate about it. You must have known that.’
‘Maybe,’ I conceded, ‘but his opinion’s irrelevant at the end of the day. It isn’t his decision. It’s a matter of public policy.’
‘What’s that got to do with it? If this creature is introduced in the face of his protest and counter-arguments, he’s supposed to live with it? That’s your position, is it?’
‘Yes. He’ll have to live with it,’ I insisted.
‘But he doesn’t have to be a part of it,’ she snapped. ‘My old man has principles. Do you expect him to betray them?’
‘I have principles too.’
She laughed scornfully. ‘No, you don’t, you’re a politician. Your principles change with the tide, they’re based on expediency, yet you expect my father to put his own aside and yield to them.’ She paused. ‘Why did you marry him, Aileen?’ she asked me.
‘Because I love him,’ I said, quietly.
‘So you say,’ she retorted, ‘but you know what? I don’t actually believe that. I think you married him mainly because you saw it as a formidable alliance, one with a man who’s a constant, a far bigger figure than any of your crew, but one you thought you had wrapped around your pinkie. Now you find that you don’t and you’re furious.’
She was right there; I was, with the whole bloody Skinner family, and especially with her, at that moment. Before I could tell her as much, she went on.
‘Well,’ she declared, ‘don’t look to me for help to persuade him to see it your way. As it happens, I don’t agree with what you and your pal are up to, but even if I did, I’d never lean on him like that. I’ll say to you what I said to Sarah when she came back: don’t hurt my dad. But with her I didn’t really need to: she wouldn’t, because it would hurt the kids,’ she paused for a second, ‘and also, by the way, because she still loves him, although she might not even know it.’ That was a possibility I hadn’t considered, not for a second.
‘I do need to spell it out to you, though,’ she said. ‘Don’t! Hurt! Him!’ She spat the words out. ‘You do that and you’ll have made a lifetime supply of enemies, with me at the head of the queue. I was content, you know, Aileen, not because I like you all that much, which I don’t, but because I saw my father settled and happy with you. Now you’ve gone and screwed that up.’ The line went dead, as she hung up.
I hadn’t realised until that moment how like Bob his daughter is, and the sudden recognition left me shaking, literally. When she’d let go at me, she’d sounded almost exactly like him, but not quite, for there had been even more venom in her. That crack about Sarah; Jesus, that was brutal. I know the woman can’t stand me, but no, it hadn’t occurred to me that she had any feelings left for Bob. Yet it didn’t occur to me either that Alex might have made that up; there had been a certainty in her voice.
Had she been right about me also? Had I seen my husband as a good strategic match? Well, yes, I had. However, that’s not to say that I don’t love him; I wanted him from the moment I saw him, and I didn’t let his rocky marriage stand in my way. Then again, neither did he. ‘Scotland’s couple of the year’, a Sunday newspaper had christened us. It was beginning to sound like football’s ‘Manager of the Month’ accolade, or its near relative, the chairman’s vote of confidence.
Normally, I am a clear and decisive thinker. As I sat there, I realised that I didn’t know what to do, and that scared me. So I picked up the phone again, and did what I’d been determined not to: I called my husband, on his mobile.
‘Can we talk?’ he repeated. ‘Sure we can. Will either of us listen? For my part I will, I promise. Will either of us budge an inch? What do you think?’ I had no answer to that but silence. ‘Come on,’ he continued, after a while, ‘admit it. That story of yours about being persuaded by the cost argument: that was bullshit, wasn’t it? You believe in a unified force for its own sake.’
‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry, but I do.’
‘Aileen,’ he said, heavily. I had a sense of alienation; he never calls me by my given name. Once I asked him why; he replied that he didn’t need to, that he talked to me in a different way than to anyone else. ‘Don’t apologise, please,’ he said, ‘that’s demeaning. It’s what you believe, and I’ll respect you for it. I’m sorry I roared at you last night; that was demeaning too. I was angry that you’re prepared to shaft my career, and I let it get the better of me.’
‘It’s not a matter of shafting your career. .’
‘It is from where I’m standing,’ he declared. ‘Tell me something. Have you and Toni Field had your heads together over this?’
‘What?’ I hadn’t intended to snap at him, but he’d set me off again. ‘Do you think I’d plot against you with that bloody
woman?’
‘No,’ he replied, calmly. ‘Of course I don’t, not as such. But the two of you are in the same camp.’
‘For entirely different reasons.’ Change of subject called for, urgently. ‘Bob, Clive Graham’s given me a couple of tickets for a charity gig in Glasgow tomorrow evening. It’s a classical pianist called Theo Fabrizzi. Let’s go to it, eh?’
‘Will Clive be there?’
‘He’s the guest of honour.’
‘And Toni Field?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Doesn’t matter, I’m best avoiding Mr Graham for a while. Sorry, love, but he can stick his tickets up his arse, and the piano with it.’
‘Oh please,’ I sighed.
‘No, really, it’s better I don’t go. I couldn’t trust myself to stay quiet if my dear colleague was there and tried to stir it.’
God forbid, I thought. ‘Okay,’ I conceded, ‘I understand. I’ll have to go, though, now I’ve accepted the tickets.’
‘Fine,’ he replied with an equanimity that might have annoyed me at another time. ‘You do that. Why don’t you take Sarah with the spare ticket? You can spend the evening picking me apart.’
‘I don’t think she’d come, somehow,’ I murmured, dryly.
‘I wasn’t being serious,’ he said sharply. ‘How about Alex?’
‘I don’t think she would either.’
My tone must have given me away. ‘Oh my God,’ he exclaimed. ‘Please tell me you didn’t ask my daughter to try and talk me round.’
‘I didn’t get that far. Bob,’ I moaned. ‘I thought she liked me.’
‘She does, as far as I know. She’s never criticised you to me, not ever. But if you asked her to side with you against me. .’ He didn’t have to finish. ‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said, ‘and try to repair the damage.’
‘Maybe you have to talk to me as well to do that,’ I pointed out.
‘I meant the damage between you and my kid,’ he replied, quietly.
‘Between you and me, I’m not so sure. Something broke last night; we both know that. Now,’ he continued, abruptly, ‘about that spare ticket. Given the guy’s name, why don’t you ask Paula Viareggio if she’d like to go. She’s mightily pregnant, but she still has a couple of weeks to go and she’s bored as hell with it all. She might jump at the chance, and you’d be doing Mario a favour too; he has his hands full right now. We all have.’
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