16 - Dead And Buried

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Indeed,’ the director general agreed. ‘Nevertheless, the warning you sent to Armstead through Ms Gower was a shrewd move: of some assistance to him.’

  ‘Yes, but still, taking on a tough old bastard like that with a knife was a pretty stupid thing to do.’

  ‘How would you have handled it?’

  The DCC scratched his chin. ‘I’d probably have hidden in his garage and blown his head off when he came in to get his car.’

  Grey smiled thinly. ‘How glad we must be that you’re on our side.’

  Skinner was out of his chair like a flash, reaching across the table to slap him, back-handed, across the face, with such force that it sent him flying sideways out of his seat. ‘I’ve never been on your side, you bastard, and I never will be. You’re a traitor, the worst this country has ever seen. You’ve run this whole operation, from the very start, through your stooge, Ormond Hassett, and his son.’

  He glared at Grey as he picked himself up. ‘Sewell was never involved; he was a victim. We were led to believe that he had directed Amanda’s team towards the theory that the Albanians were drug-dealers, away from their real objective, but the truth was that he was following your orders. You had your fall-back story planned out, all four of you, and it involved setting up poor old Rudy, then throwing him to the wolves. After Adam Arrow was shot, he named him as the leader of the conspiracy, to protect you. I fell for it, bought the story and reported it to you when you debriefed me in Edinburgh after the attack. Christ, I’ve just called Sewell a mug. What does that make me?’

  He glanced to his side, where Shannon and Amanda Dennis sat, then picked up a document and thrust it towards the director general. ‘Winston Chalmers isn’t nearly as tough as he looks, Evelyn. This is his statement, witnessed by Dottie; I had the whole story out of him in about two and a half seconds. He admitted to me that he strangled Sewell, on your orders, before I had a chance to interrogate him. He throttled him and then fixed it to look like suicide. If I’d chosen to see Sewell first, he’d have done it the day before. He also released Miles Hassett, again on your orders, into Piers Frame’s custody. As for Frame, he was astonished when you told him to pick up Hassett, but he didn’t question it, not until I did, not until I told him the truth. When you ordered Chalmers to release Hassett to Frame, we were meant to assume that he had asked you to turn him over to MI6. But that’s not how it was, Evelyn, was it?’ He glared at Grey. ‘Was it?’ he repeated.

  ‘As you know, it was not,’ the DG replied, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. ‘I told Piers to go and get him, and to take Ormond with him so that Miles would know he was safe, that he wasn’t going to be driven off to a convenient hole in the ground somewhere. Piers thought he was being released into his father’s custody; given Ormond’s intelligence background that was entirely reasonable.’

  ‘Sure, but actually, he was just being released, to take care of the Titus Armstead problem, because by that time, you knew I would link him to his stepson, and through him, to you.’

  Skinner looked around the room, the big upstairs apartment in the Surrey safe-house, the same one in which he and Shannon had interrogated Miles Hassett a few days earlier. ‘What do you think of your new accommodation, Evelyn? I hope you like it, because you’re going to be here for a bloody long time.’

  Anger seemed to ooze from the Scot’s pores. ‘I haven’t hated many people in this life, but you’re high up in the group. Why? For many reasons, but chief among them is the fact that you played me, man, and you did it by using my weakest point, my inflated bloody ego. Why the hell should you have invited me to run this inquiry? Logically, I should have been a witness not an investigator, but no, you said you had to have me, and that the Prime Minister himself had backed your choice. I was hardly even flattered at the time; I believed you, took it as my due, until doubt crept in, and I went to see the Prime Minister, to discover that he had no knowledge of my involvement.’

  His eyes blazed. ‘In fact, he had no knowledge of the conspiracy at all: he had been fed the official version, that it was a kidnap attempt, foiled at the last minute by his gallant forces. But once he knew what was happening, he opened all the doors for me, and he gave me access to the information I really needed, your own service record.

  ‘Evelyn, you’ve been hovering behind these guys for the last thirty years: when Josh Archer and Ormond Hassett were getting to know each other in Germany, you were their boss, the senior NATO intelligence officer out there. That’s when the three of you got together. When young Moses Archer needed referees on his Sandhurst application, who did it? You and Ormond, that’s who. Titus Armstead asked you both to do it, and you did. Anything for an old comrade’s son, and to oblige a CIA buddy as well . . . and, who knows, the boy might prove useful in the future. You and Titus met in Germany too. All I have to do is run that tape some more and you’ll hear him admit that, and the rest. You and he have been pursuing your own agenda ever since.’

  Skinner resumed his seat, facing the prisoner. ‘I knew all that before I went to America, and I had Piers Frame let you in on my plans. So you sent Miles to kill Titus . . . but I warned him through Merle Gower that he would be coming. From the moment I left the PM’s room in the House of Commons you’ve all been under surveillance. Once I left Armstead with his video confession in the bag, I made a phone call and you were pulled in. The Americans are taking care of Titus, by the way: they set a team from the Dover air base on my signal and took him, and Miles Hassett’s body, away in a black van.’

  He leaned across the table again, until the spymaster flinched. ‘You chose me to run your so-called investigation, Evelyn, because you thought you could control me. A soldier died in your plot after all, and you had Defence Intelligence to placate, so within your own community you had to be seen to do something. You planned to silence Sewell, and have Miles implicate him and name him as Bassam’s controller. Everything would have been closed off, and I’d have written a classic whitewash report for you to show to MoD and to take to the PM when you chose, to cover your arse.’

  He looked at Shannon. ‘That’s what it was all about, Dottie, except for the part I’ve missed out: if Hassett had killed Armstead, he’d have been waiting for me to arrive, probably armed with part of the small arsenal that Titus kept in his cellar. That’s why I had to leave you in Washington.’ He gave a small involuntary shudder.

  ‘The irony of it all, Inspector, is that it wouldn’t have come to that, the whole thing would have worked, if only Miles hadn’t embroidered his carefully planned story by saying that he met Sewell on the Bulrush. Rudy was never there: it was Arrow he met, Arrow who gave him Bassam’s location, courtesy of his stepfather. I’d never have gone looking for a houseboat but for that slip. If I hadn’t, I’d never have found out who Moses Archer was, and I’d never have been led to Armstead, Ormond Hassett, and ultimately to the arch-traitor across the table there.’

  ‘And to what conclusion?’ Grey asked quietly. ‘As you said of Sewell and Miles at the beginning of all this, they can hardly try Ormond and me for all this, and we’re too important simply to disappear.’

  ‘Wrong,’ said Amanda Dennis, as she took a small-calibre pistol from the pocket of her grey jacket and shot him between the eyes.

  Eighty-nine

  Alex was at her desk, thinking about heading back to Gullane, when the phone rang. She had spent Sunday night there, and still did not feel quite ready to return to her flat. She had spent the morning giving Mario and Sammy Pye a formal statement, describing every stage and detail of her relationship with Willis Gannett. She had found parts of it embarrassing, but there had been the consolation that she was speaking to people she knew and could trust. Once she was finished, she had covered her bruises from the dressing-gown sash with cosmetic and had gone back to the office, blaming her brief absence on a sore throat, with the voice to back it up. No one related it to the stories in every Scottish newspaper about the arrest in Edinburgh of a suspected serial killer;
only Mitch Laidlaw knew the truth and his discretion was absolute.

  Work was the best therapy she knew. She was aware that it would not keep the horror at bay for ever, but the longer it did, the better she would be prepared to handle it. The worst thing for her was her father’s absence. He had always been there for her; she had never experienced missing him, and she found it a strange and disturbing experience.

  She picked up the phone, and gave her standard office answer. ‘Hello, this is Alex.’

  ‘Hi.’ She recognised the voice at once: it was only a few days since she had heard it, recorded, on the phone. ‘It’s Raymond. I was wondering how you are?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’d like to see you. Not for long, just a quick drink.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now, if you like: I’m downstairs in Saltire Court.’

  As she thought about it, she realised that she was feeling a little guilty. She had suspected Raymond Weston; more than that, she had been ready to believe his guilt without question, something of which she was ashamed, personally and professionally. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m finishing a couple of things here: go across to the Shakespeare and I’ll join you in ten minutes.’

  She took some time over her makeup and her hair; it had been a few years since she had seen him and it was important to her that she made the right impression. She did not want to appear vulnerable; she did not want to appear weak; she did not want to appear a victim.

  The bar was quiet when she stepped inside; she spotted him at once, sitting at a table facing the door, with a second chair pulled up, and a pint of lager and a tall glass of what looked like orange juice waiting. He stood as she approached, offering her a smile, but no handshake. She was shocked when she saw him, and hoped that it did not show on her face. Raymond was at least four years younger than her: when she had met him, and enjoyed their brief fling, he had been a teenager. The man she was looking at could have passed for thirty: he was pale, gaunt, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He was well dressed and well groomed, but still he looked to her like someone who had packed too many heartbeats into too short a time.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, as she sat, then pointed to the tall glass. ‘Is this for me?’

  ‘Yes. I thought you’d probably be driving so I got you an OJ. You can have something stronger if you like.’

  ‘No, that’s fine. A perfect choice in fact. So, how are you?’

  ‘I’m okay, thanks, and you’re wondering why I’ve turned up like this.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Well, first, I want to apologise for that message I left on your phone on Friday. It was inconsiderate, it was crude, and it was unforgivable. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Apology accepted. In turn, please accept mine for suspecting you in the first place.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘So what you said about me wasn’t true?’

  A flash of the younger Raymond shone in his eyes as he grinned. ‘Oh, that’s still true,’ he exclaimed. ‘It shouldn’t have been told to an answering-machine; that was all.’

  ‘Well, thank you, sir. We’re not going back there, but for the record you were more than adequate yourself.’

  ‘I’ll cherish the compliment. The other thing I wanted to ask is, are you all right?’

  There was something in the way he put his question that made her hand go to the scarf around her neck to check that it was covering the marks: they had darkened, and foundation cream no longer did the job. ‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I went to see you on Saturday morning, Alex. I was going to drop by and apologise then. I admit I was pissed off at first that you should suspect me, but when I thought longer about it, I could see why you might have. I could see as well what sort of an effect calls like that can have on a person. So I thought I’d just turn up at your place with a box of chocolates and make amends. I was nearly there when this police car went crashing past, blues and twos, pulled up at your door, then hit the buzzer to get inside. I stood there for a while at the end of the street, watching, until they brought this bloke out, in handcuffs and with his face all bloody, chucked him in the back and drove him away. Then more cars arrived, and all I could think of was you and those fucking phone calls. Finally you came out with another guy, not looking your best, I have to say, and he drove you away. I did my head in all day, wondering, and then I read in yesterday’s Express about the guy they’ve arrested, the serial killer from England.’ His eyes widened a little. ‘Was that him?’

  She looked at him, then removed her scarf.

  ‘God!’ he whispered.

  ‘Have you told anyone about this?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then do me a favour and keep it that way: the press don’t know about my involvement, and I don’t want them to find out.’

  ‘Not even Gina?’

  ‘Not even her. I’ll tell her myself if I feel the need.’

  ‘Okay, I promise. I’m glad you are all right; you didn’t look it on Saturday, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I didn’t feel it either.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’ He watched her as she drank, noting the tiny pain lines from her still swollen throat that suddenly appeared on her face. ‘Take care of yourself, Alex,’ he murmured. ‘Having to be strong all the time can get you down.’

  She replaced the scarf before anyone else in the pub noticed her. ‘You too, Raymond. Gina tells me you’ve been making a mess of your life lately.’

  ‘That’s what the family believe, but it hasn’t been all bad; my business side has been okay. Still, I admit that I’ve spent the last few years being a general fuck-up, hurting people without giving a damn about it. I’m going to change, though, I swear: I have to, or it’ll be terminal.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do to help you, I will.’ She sipped some more orange juice. ‘You’ve got my number, so keep in touch. Now, I’ve got to go: I promised my young brothers I’d let them annihilate me at some video game or other.’

  She rose from the table. ‘Before I do, though, there’s something I just have to ask you. Why the hell are you wearing that mitten on your right hand?’

  Ninety

  ‘I’m looking forward to spending Christmas in Italy with your mum,’ said Paula Viareggio. ‘Not just because I enjoy it there, but because it means she’s accepted the way things are between you and me. I know she liked Maggie: she blamed me for the break-up for a while.’

  ‘You’re imagining that,’ Mario protested. ‘Mum’s always had a soft spot for you.’

  ‘It didn’t stop her from giving me a few frosty looks when it all happened.’

  ‘Babe, that’s nothing to what she gave me at first. We can both thank Maggie for going to see her and telling her that our marriage had run its course, on both sides. She even told her that I’ll never be one of nature’s husbands, and that you and I are carved from the same stone.’

  ‘How is Maggie?’

  ‘Happier than I ever thought she’d be. I’m dead chuffed for her.’ He headed the discussion in another direction. ‘What do you want to do tonight? Movies?’

  ‘Sure, there’s a new Hugh Grant film on along at Ocean Terminal.’

  ‘Will it be much different from any other Hugh Grant movie?’

  ‘Probably not, but they’re funny, as a rule.’

  ‘Okay, let’s try it. Pizza first?’

  She laughed. ‘You and your bloody pizzas; you don’t have to prove to me that you’re Italian.’

  ‘I have to prove myself to you every day.’

  She slid herself along the couch and pressed herself against him. ‘Forget about the days,’ she murmured. ‘Concentrate on the nights.’

  He grinned. ‘I do . . . as hard as I can.’ He kissed her softly, tenderly, feeling her flick his teeth with her tongue.

  ‘Beats old Hugh any day,’ she whispered, as they broke off. ‘Maybe we’ll just watch a DVD.’

  ‘That’s not a bad .
. .’ The phone rang, insistently. ‘Fuck!’ he swore, as Paula picked it up. ‘That is one of nature’s bloody laws.’

  ‘And another,’ she said, holding it out, ‘is that it’s always for you. It’s Neil.’

  ‘Hi,’ Mario grunted into the mouthpiece.

  ‘Bad time?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Sorry, but it’s important.’

  ‘Everything’s important these days.’

  ‘This is interesting too. I’ve just had a call from Alex Skinner: she wants to meet the two of us tonight, soon as possible, in a police office.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She didn’t go into detail, but she said that it has a bearing on a live investigation.’

  ‘I thought we’d sorted all her problems.’

  ‘So did I, but this didn’t sound like one of them. She told me that she was calling as a solicitor, not a pal. I’ve told her to be at Fettes in half an hour. Can you make it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. See you there.’ He made his best ‘sorry’ face for Paula, as he handed the phone back.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she told him, ‘it’ll keep. Bring in the pizzas when you get back.’

  Ninety-one

  They were waiting in the head of CID’s office when Alex arrived, just after seven thirty. She was not alone: the man with her was young, somewhere in the first half of his twenties, if a little careworn. He was taller than either McGuire or McIlhenney, but slightly built. He was well groomed, well dressed and, from his expression, very, very nervous.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us so swiftly,’ Alex began. McGuire looked at her and saw that this was not the boss’s daughter; this was the razor-sharp young lawyer he knew from his business dealings with what had just become Viareggio plc.

  ‘This is Raymond Weston,’ she said. ‘He’s here to make a voluntary statement, and I’m here as his solicitor. I know it’s not my specialist field, but I’ve cleared my temporary involvement with my firm, since Raymond would only agree to come here if I accompanied him. Earlier this evening, in the course of what had begun as a social meeting, he told me something that put me in a difficult position as a lawyer, as an officer of the court and, not least, as my father’s daughter. I’ve persuaded him that he must share it with you, but before we go any further, I’d like you to give me an undertaking.’