“Oh?” Conall looked politely interested, but his eyes soon wandered off again. “What will you be selling?”
“Just some little wooden pieces I make in my spare time,” Shay told him. “Laptop stands, and little boxes, and things.”
“Mm.” A mildly encouraging noise. “That sounds very nice. Would you mind fetching your driving licence and stall booking for me to look at?” A duck of the head and the gorgeous young man scrambled quickly into his van to get the requested items. He emerged with them moments later, and Conall extended his arm at full reach to receive them. “Just a quick shot of both please, Sergeant Murray.” He held them so that I could get clear pictures.
The stall booking was a printout of an email confirmation, and the driving licence had his home address and date of birth on it. That last made me blink. Shay Keane wore his thirty years very lightly indeed.
“Thank you, Mr Keane.” Conall handed them back, again, stretching out to do so, and fished his phone out. “Do you have a web page, with some of your work on display? I’d rather not impose on your hospitality unless you especially want to show us the stock you have with you.” He’d put his best kid gloves on for dealing with this one, and I couldn’t blame him. Shay Keane had the skittish air of a stray dog who’d been given good reason to be mistrustful of strangers. Every offered treat might just be a lure to get him to come close enough to kick. The distancing strategy Conall was using was working really well on him. Shay gave us the web address of a site whose homepage was headed by an artful ‘Shayvings’ rendered in curls of lathed off wood. His pieces were beautiful work, extremely tempting. I saw quite a few things I wouldn’t mind treating myself to.
“Very nice indeed.” Conall looked up from his phone and gave him an appreciative little smile. “That’s quite some hobby you have there, Mr Keane. May I ask what your main line of work is?”
“I’m a translator, books and manuals and stuff. Would you like those site details too?” He fished a card from his pocket.
“Thank you.” Conall stretched out again and pocketed it after a brief glance. “Well,” he said, “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Mr Keane, but we don’t need to take up any more of your time. I’m sure you’re in good, safe hands with Miss Kerr and her friends here. I hope you have a pleasant and successful stay. Good afternoon to you, and to you, Miss Kerr.” He nodded to each of them in turn.
Miguel, hovering outside his own camper, gave us another friendly wave as we set off together in the direction of the nearby cottage and I saw him make an immediate beeline back to Shay and Jessica. Well, I didn’t think either of those two would have any complaints to air about the way we had behaved. Conall’s handling of that potentially awkward little meeting had been masterful. We reached the wall by the cottage, and the handy, narrow, stepped stone stile there and were soon walking down the gravelled track a little beyond it.
“You don’t think he’s dangerous then?” I asked lightly, as we rounded a curve and cut off the track to make a straight line for the house. “The Seelie child? The delectable Mr Keane?” The grass was well-trodden down just there, so it must be the way they all took, going back and forth.
Conall snorted. “To himself? Or to anyone else?” He shook his head. “I’d be astonished to find that Shay Keane had any part in the murder of Gareth Ramsay, or in any other crime that could land him in prison for that matter, poor devil, but I’ll run the usual background checks on him, anyway. I don’t want anyone anywhere near this place who hasn’t been vetted.”
I had to agree with his assessment, on all counts. Conall had that focused, faraway look he sometimes got for the next minute or so as we walked, then he snapped out of it again.
“I want to talk to Bryce and Collins as soon as we get back,” he told me. “Bryce first, alone. And then I want Collins to drop whatever he’s working on and find me Mr Boyd and Mr Peters.” Oh dear, what had little Colum Bryce done wrong now?
“And before that?” I asked. “Are we popping into that cafe where they met Jessica on the way back?”
He sighed. “It’ll be a total waste of time, but yes, I suppose we should. Let’s get that box ticked off the list, eleven weeks too late to be any use at all.”
Yeah, any CCTV footage, if there had ever been any, would be long gone by now and you try asking the staff at one of those places if they remember a table of three walk-ins from that long ago; see how that works out. Funny though, how Conall hadn’t brightened up even a little at the thought of a chance to knock back a decent coffee, especially after turning his nose up at the perfectly good stuff we’d been offered at lunch. I wondered what complex, mental gymnastics he was putting that analytical brain of his through, to not even have thought of it.
Seventeen
Back at Old Perth Road, after our brief, time-wasting call at Jessica’s cafe, the first thing I did was going to have a word with DC Colum Bryce to find out what he’d managed to dig up on Billy McGregor, Gerry Mitchell, and Pete Ferguson. I found that he’d managed to track Billy as far as Shay had, before losing his trail, and even managed to emulate most of my cousin’s findings on Gerry Mitchell, deceased. He hadn’t got far with Pete Ferguson’s history yet. Considering his limited experience, Bryce hadn’t done that bad really, on the research side of things. By the time he’d finished reporting all of that to me, Caitlin had taken Collins off to the break room for a cuppa, and we had the main office to ourselves.
I’d wanted to give Bryce some more practice at this kind of work, and he’d only had about four hours or so to get the job done in, if I accounted for his lunch break and some other interruptions. Sometimes I found it hard to keep my expectations down to a realistic level, especially when dealing with the most junior department members. Leaning casually against his desk, I looked down at him with as neutral an expression as I could muster.
“Well, Bryce, I can see I’m going to have to give you a lot more work like this before you’re up to the standard we’re aiming for,” I told him, quite plainly. “And that’s fine, really, we all know it takes everyone time to build up a system that works well for them and pick up some real speed. I’m not asking for, or demanding, miracles from you. We were all in your shoes once.”
“Sir,” he agreed morosely, impatient with his own progress. Sadly though, I couldn’t let him off the hook that easily, because he’d messed up badly today, and I couldn’t let that go unremarked or uncorrected.
“What I cannot understand, or excuse, Colum, is your failure to send me the results that you did obtain just as soon as you had them,” I went on, keeping my voice even and low. “I made myself perfectly clear about wanting them as soon as possible. Why didn’t I get your file on Billy McGregor as soon as you moved on to Mitchell? Or your file on Mitchell when you started on Ferguson?”
Poor lad, despite the calmness of my tone he knew he’d screwed up there.
“I’m sorry, Sir, I’m afraid I misunderstood. I thought you only wanted them sent over when they were all done.”
“Even though I said Billy McGregor was the first priority?” I stifled a sigh and leaned further back against his desk, crossing my arms. “That’s quite an odd conclusion for you to come to, isn’t it? Did you think to check with Collins, to see what he thought you should do?”
“No, Sir, I’m afraid I didn’t, Sir.” He wasn’t a slacker, DC Bryce, quite the opposite. I was certain that he had been working hard and doing the best job he could whilst I was out. But he did need to be broken of some bad habits and steered quickly into ways of thinking that would improve his overall performance. And it was my responsibility to make sure that happened.
“Well,” I did allow myself a little disappointed sigh at that point, “I can’t spare the time to come chasing you up every time you’ve been given a job to do; that isn’t how this works. From now on, just make sure that you ask one of the others when you have any reason at all to suspect that you may be going about something the wrong way. Collins would have told you to get them
to me immediately, and then I’d have been able to decide, hours ago, what I wanted to do about finding Billy McGregor. We do have other resources at our disposal, beyond this department, that I can call on at need. Maybe I’d even have an outside report on Billy McGregor at my fingertips by now.” All technically true, and this was about training my people up with real work, whether they were being outperformed elsewhere or not.
“Yes, Sir.” The poor lad was giving himself such a kicking, I could see it as clear as daylight in his self-censuring, inwardly directed glower. I patted his slumped shoulder encouragingly, glad that I’d made sure to do this without an audience.
“Cheer up, Colum, this is how we learn, this is how we grow. Assume nothing, understood? Not ever. Question everything, especially your own conclusions. Start really using the team as a personal resource and sounding board, like all the rest of us do, all the time. It’ll soon become automatic.” He straightened a little.
“I will, Sir, thank you. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
No, it would be a different one next time, then another and another until all the green was scraped off his tender hide for good and all. He’d do though, would DC Bryce; give him a year, and he’d be a bloody good DC, sharp, efficient and thoroughly professional. I gave his shoulder a last pat and left him to it, crossing the main office to our tiny break room at the back.
“How did you get on with Jenny Reid’s housemates?” I asked Collins as I refilled my water bottle at the sink. “Did they confirm Jenny’s version of Tuesday evening?”
“Yes, Guv,” Collins was smiling to himself rather smugly as I took a seat across from him at the only table in there, next to Caitlin. “Sergeant Murray and I were just comparing notes. It all matches up.” Not unexpectedly. That smile though…
“Get another date out of it too, did you?” I asked “Which one was it? Sue or Linda?” Caitlin snickered.
“Linda,” she told me. “She asked him out for drinks, the cheeky thing, not that I blame the girl, our dashing young Mark here is quite a catch.”
Collins flushed slightly at the compliment but seemed totally unembarrassed about his latest conquest. He was a bit of a lad, was Mark Collins, our blue-eyed boy. And not afraid to give as good as he got either, or we’d be a lot more careful what we said to him and how we said it.
“Why, thank you, Sarge,” he tipped her a mock salute, “but I’m not so sure of that myself. The girls who like boys hardly seem to notice me when DCI Keane’s around for them to drool over instead.” I huffed out a scornful breath.
“You wouldn’t want those after you either,” I told him testily. “They’re just drawn to authority figures with better salaries.” Caitlin choked on her tea, perhaps not entirely on purpose. Ignoring her, I pulled out my phone and opened the email with the detectorists’ details, then slid it across for him to see it. “Another job for you, after you’ve finished your break. Check out that blog for any useful information and trace those emails and phone numbers. I want addresses on Mr Boyd and Mr Peters as quickly as you can get them. We really need to speak to those two.”
He nodded, forwarding it to his inbox before handing my phone back.
“Any breaks on our open B&Es yet?” I asked.
“Actually, yes, Sir, possibly,” he said, surprising me. “A match on the plasma TV taken from the second house went up on Marketplace today, down near Fort Augustus. We won’t know if the serial number matches until we see it, but McKinnon’s lent us one of his people with a good social media cover, plenty of buying activity, to go round and pick it up from the seller later.”
“And if it’s a match?” I asked.
“She’ll check it once she’s away a bit and the constabulary boys will be waiting to swoop in, with a pre-prepared ‘reasonable grounds’ warrant, if she confirms and calls it.” That was excellent news.
“Fingers crossed then.” I stood up. “Buzz me when you have anything, or if something new comes up. I’ll be in my office.” I heard a low murmur from Caitlin as they leant across the table towards each other as I walked away. She loved a good gossip, did Caitlin. Whatever it was, it made Collins laugh appreciatively.
Settled in properly, I eagerly opened up the reply from Shotts that had come in whilst we were on our way back from the Kerr estate. Archie Ramsay had only had two visitors over the last few years of his life. His son, Billy McGregor had been there once, and once only, about three years ago, very shortly before he disappeared. The other visitor, who’d been by a few times every year, had been his old pal Pete Ferguson. All of Archie’s infrequent phone calls had been with Ferguson too, except for a few to his lawyer, and he had no postal correspondents. I fired off a polite thank you reply and sat there thinking about that information.
I wasn’t at all sure what to make of Billy McGregor’s one visit to Shotts, but I didn’t like it. Billy, finding out the truth about his real dad, had, possibly, given in to curiosity and gone to face him. I doubted very much he’d been happy with what he’d found, but that didn’t explain why he’d abruptly leave the life he’d built for himself, stop communicating with his family and friends and simply vanish. Those, to me, seemed more like the actions of someone who was either very frightened or had come into a large but illicit windfall. Which one was it? We hadn’t found any sign of even one of the stolen coins being sold anywhere, but that didn’t mean they weren’t very carefully parcelled out in private little deals that we had no way of tracing. And the bulk of them, not being rarities, could be melted down and purified, if the seller was happy to settle for the bullion price and sacrifice a chunk of the value on them.
And Ferguson? His criminal record didn’t paint him as the sentimental type. He was both a known fence and a petty drug dealer, of the most loathsome variety. As I read between the lines of his file, it was my hunch that his mode of operation was to get some young lad hooked on free samples then send him out on jobs to keep the supply going. Maybe that was even how a young and foolish Archie Ramsay had been first introduced to the darker edges of society. I would have to wait for a full report from Shay to find out if I was on the mark with that line of speculation though. Still, I very much doubted it was friendship, or any kind of nostalgic affection, that took Ferguson to see his old pal with such dedicated consistency. But the allure of those missing gold sovereigns? Yes, for a bottom-feeding thug like Ferguson, a payoff of that size would be well worth investing a little time and effort into.
I spent the next half hour composing a thorough report on our progress for McKinnon and sent it off to him, then wrote up a summary and an urgent request list for Shay, attached the same report and sent that off too. I really hoped that my cousin could shake off his over-eager new fan club for long enough to get some real work done later tonight. Jessica Kerr, poor girl, was in for nothing but disappointment there.
Don’t get me wrong. Shay was far from being the coldly detached machine he might have preferred to be. The emotional bonds he did form were deep and abiding and, in some instances, terrifyingly strong. I had waking nightmares, sometimes, imagining what he might do if someone took me and my da from him. Those psych tests he claimed to ‘fudge’ probably weren’t nearly as inaccurate as he chose to believe. The wrath of Achilles, maddened beyond reason, would seem like a toddler’s ineffectual little temper tantrum in comparison to the havoc that Shay, unfettered, would wreak if that ever happened. None of which altered the fact that my cousin seldom chose to share his bed with anyone and was extremely well-practised at evading the kind of pursuit that Jessica Kerr had seemed primed to engage in. And his brilliant adoption of that chronically bashful persona I’d seen in action today would make a cautious and slow campaign of any attempt to get close enough to tumble him.
He’d be long gone before any of them could even steal a real kiss.
With my little ‘to do’ list cleared again, temporarily, I decided to give Davie Baird a buzz and find out how he was getting on. He picked up after the seventh ring.
“
Did your folks never tell you that patience is a virtue, DCI Keane?” I couldn’t tell if he was irritated or amused; Davie had a funny sense of humour. “Honestly, Conall, do you think it speeds things up out here when I have to stop what I’m doing to answer the bloody phone? Hang on a sec.” Then, in a loud shout, some distance from his quickly lowered mobile. “Aye, that’s a tenner you owe me, Jamie! He didn’t even last ‘til five o’clock.”
I was rather glad I couldn’t make out what Jamie called back, the tone alone was enough to give me the general idea of what he thought of his boss and me both. I could hear Davie’s bloody grin in his voice when he’d pulled himself together enough to come back to me.
“The mouth on that one, and with his little ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ face too. My arse, it wouldn’t!” A swish of bushes being squeezed through as he changed position. “Right. The gist of it for you Conall. We got the bat from the brambles alright. Cherry picked it out neat as you please and it’s all bagged up for the lab boys. Plenty of blood and hair and bits of tissue still stuck well on there.” I hadn’t doubted that it was ‘our’ bat, but it was still good to hear it confirmed. “Now,” Davie sounded especially pleased with himself suddenly, “As your self-appointed fairy godfather for the day, I’ve another wish come true for you too.”
I sat up then, halting the arc of my last swing so that the chair stilled beneath me. He wouldn’t tease, not Davie, not over evidence in a murder case.
“They went after it?” I breathed, hardly believing it.
“Oh, aye, they did that.” He sounded as delighted as I felt. “My busy little cutters had a lovely pruning session of it. I’ve got quite a few snagged threads in more little baggies and some cuttings with massive, bloodied thorns all down them too. The higher growth kept a lot of them dry enough for it to stick. Some city boy didn’t know not to yank their arm back in a hurry when they got well snagged. I reckon the back of their hand and wrist must have some lovely deep scratches.”
Dark of Night Page 17