‘I know,’ Pye sighed. ‘But what have we got? All I can see is the end of the tunnel, and the only light’s an oncoming train.’
‘That may well be, but there’s still one line of inquiry that we haven’t explored, one strand that links our two crimes. We’ve got two victims, the Gates family and now the Mackails; and in each one the father was, or is, in the Navy. Do they connect, and if so, how?’
The DCI pulled himself up in his chair. ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said. ‘I’m tired and I’m under pressure. Thanks, Sauce, I needed that kick up the arse.’ He paused, frowning. ‘We should check Mackail’s Navy background, but let’s not get too excited. The two families were connected professionally; if the two men did know each other in the Navy and kept in touch afterwards, yes, I can see where that could have led Grete to work for Hector, but the likelihood is that the link extends no further than that.’
‘It still has to be ticked or crossed off,’ Haddock insisted.
‘Agreed, but that might be easier said than done. Remember, Lieutenant Gates set off all sorts of security alarms last time we asked about him. That might happen again.’
‘And it might not. Stay positive, gaffer.’
‘I’m trying,’ Pye said, ‘but I know in here,’ he tapped his chest with his middle finger, ‘that there’s something we’re just not getting, a link in this chain of events that we can’t see, and my problem is I have no idea where to go looking for it. I tell you this, Sauce, and only you; this new set-up makes me feel completely exposed. Oh how I wish Bob Skinner was here!’
As he spoke, with a huge frustrated sigh, his office door opened, and a familiar voice exclaimed, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
Fifty-Three
I will carry with me to the grave the expression on Sammy Pye’s face as I stepped into his office. He turned towards me, in his old swivel chair, eyes wide open, jaw slightly dropped, and he murmured, ‘Have the last six months been a dream?’
Even young Haddock was taken aback by my inadvertent timing. He jumped from his perch on the edge of his boss’s desk; for a moment I thought he was about to come to attention.
‘As you were,’ I said.
‘How did you get in?’ he asked.
I grinned at him. ‘Seriously?’
Mind you, I did feel a little weird myself. Twenty years before, that room had been mine, when I ran Serious Crimes as a detective superintendent, surrounded by good cops, among them much younger versions of Andy Martin and Mario McGuire, and with Alison Higgins not very far away.
It hadn’t taken me long after Carrie McDaniels came up with the name Mackail to realise that I had to touch base with the guys. I didn’t rush into it, though. Instead I paid a visit to Mario, not in his office in Stirling but in his very posh penthouse in Leith, in the evening.
My friend, the deputy chief constable, is probably the most dedicated cop I know, if only because he doesn’t need the money and never has done. On his mother’s side he’s a member of one of the most successful business families in Edinburgh, and his dad was a building contractor. He could have taken up either option at any time but he never did. Instead he joined the police force in his early twenties after completing a degree in business administration that he never talks about.
Initially, his choice had something to do with a simple desire to prove to his family that he could be a success in his own right, on his own terms. He achieved that years ago; by that time he loved the job so much that he never contemplated leaving.
I arrived at Eamon’s dinnertime; he’s a little over six months old and looks very like his dad. The sight of him reminded me of what Sarah and I have coming to us later this year.
Mario and I left mother and son to it and went out on to the deck. It was a brilliant, cloudless, starry evening, with a cold edge to it, but an electric space heater made it tolerable.
He understood that I hadn’t come to socialise. ‘I know about it,’ he said, as soon as we were alone. ‘I had Sir Andrew in my ear this afternoon, threatening to boot Mann off the Hodgson inquiry, and out of CID altogether. He did the same with Sammy Pye the other day; if he carries out all of his threats we’ll have no bloody detectives left.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked. ‘I’m deeply involved in this thing, by accident in the main, but if that’s threatening officers’ careers, I’ll back off, just disappear. I can tell Eden Higgins to get somebody else to find his boat and be no more than a witness, in Edinburgh and in Ayrshire. That’s what your boss wants me to do, I’m sure.’
‘I’m sure too,’ Mario agreed, ‘but it’s not what I want. Andy’s vision is of everyone across the country conforming to strict rules and protocols, yet still being expected to maximise clear-up rates. But it’s not mine; in my visits to CID around the country, I’m preaching pragmatism and flexibility.’
I whistled, softly. ‘You’re ignoring him?’
‘That’s not how I see it,’ he replied. ‘My version is that I’m exercising my own authority as DCC Crime. He and I are heading for a bust-up, no question, but I won’t be anybody’s message boy.’ He rolled his massive shoulders inside his heavy jacket. ‘It can’t go on,’ he said quietly, then looked me in the eye. ‘Can you help?’
‘You mean can I sit him down and talk to him?’ I asked. ‘No, we’re way beyond that. We have no relationship on a personal or professional level, not any more.’
‘The service is in crisis,’ Mario murmured. ‘Can you really sit back and watch it implode?’
‘Are you asking,’ I countered, ‘whether I’ll go public and attack Andy’s management? If you are, the answer’s no.’
‘I was thinking more of going private. The First Minister’s a friend of yours.’
‘I’m not so sure that he is any more,’ I said, ‘not since I told him he could stick the chairmanship of the Scottish Police Authority where the sun doesn’t shine. Look, if it gets to the Caine Mutiny scenario, if Andy turns into Captain Queeg and starts counting the strawberries, it’ll be up to you, and Maggie Steele, and Brian Mackie and the other deputies and assistants to sort it out. Effectively the command team of ScotServe is a board of management. If you pass a vote of no confidence in your executive chair, and stand behind it strongly enough . . .’
He nodded. ‘I get it. I think that Maggie and I are heading towards that conversation. She’s his nominated deputy, yet she told me the other day that she doesn’t know what her job is.’
‘Then let it play out,’ I advised. ‘In the meantime, in the current situation, what do you want me to do?’
‘What is the situation?’ he asked.
‘The two investigations are overlapping,’ I told him. ‘By that I mean Zena and the subsequent murders of her abductors on one hand, and the torture and shooting of Jock Hodgson on the other. Their convergence, I know for sure: the link is a man called Hector Mackail. He’s emerged as a person of interest in the disappearance of the Princess Alison. At the same time, I’ve discovered that the Menu have been looking at him as well. I know nothing about their inquiry, but if I’m going to carry on, I need to.’
Mario’s shoulders relaxed and he settled deeper in his chair. He took a deep breath of the frosty air, then exhaled. ‘You must carry on,’ he declared. ‘If you’re willing, I’d be a fool not to use your insight and experience. I want you to coordinate the two investigations, to be the link between the teams, and,’ he paused for a second, ‘to advise as you see fit. You’ll be acting in a private and confidential capacity, but I’ll tell Sammy, and I’ll tell Lottie Mann . . . you’re right, by the way; she is a fucking monster of a detective . . . that any suggestion from you should be seen as a direct order from me.’
I held his gaze. ‘You sure?’
‘Certain.’
‘What about Andy?’
‘I am DCC Crime,’ he repl
ied, ‘until he tells me otherwise. I don’t feel the need to report on every operational matter. Now, let’s get inside; it’s bloody freezing out here.’
As it transpired, next morning I beat Mario to the punch, but only just. Pye and Haddock were still recovering from my surprise, and perfectly timed, arrival when the phone rang. As soon as I heard Sammy say, ‘Yes, sir,’ I knew that he was being given the message.
‘So,’ he said, smiling as he hung up, ‘just like old times.’
‘No,’ I countered, ‘my role will be advisory, that’s all.’
‘I know what your role will be, boss,’ he laughed. ‘That’s just been made clear. Where do we begin?’’
I took one of the two uncomfortable chairs in the room and motioned Haddock towards the other. ‘Bring me up to speed, please, from the time when you asked me to identify Dean Francey.’
I sat back and listened as they related every detail of their investigation in a shared presentation style that they seemed to have developed. It struck me that for a fairly junior DS, young Sauce wasn’t slow to offer a view, but it neither surprised nor annoyed me. He’s always been that way and he will be all the way up to the top of the tree, where he’s headed.
Some of it I knew from the media, but I didn’t know of Hector Mackail’s naval background. I did my best to stay impassive when Sammy dropped those pieces of information, but I made a mental note to chide Carrie McDaniels for not digging a little deeper into the man.
The fact that he was dead, and the circumstances of his demise, were hugely significant for me, but I sat on that initially. Instead I focused on the journalist Macy’s pillow talk gossip about a confrontation between Mackail and my client, Eden Higgins.
‘Knocked him down a flight of stairs, she said?’
Haddock nodded. ‘And smashed his ankle.’
‘That explains why Eden was limping when we met,’ I said.
‘We’ve been thinking it might also explain why Mackail wound up squashed against a wall.’
‘I wouldn’t spend too much time on that thought,’ I told the youngster. ‘I don’t believe for one second that Eden Higgins would countenance anything as foolish as that. There was a known connection between them and, besides, the man Mackail was already broken, financially.’
‘What about the minder Macy mentioned?’ Pye asked. ‘Could he have taken it into his own hands?’
‘Walter Hurrell is a volatile and potentially dangerous man,’ I conceded. ‘But he wouldn’t act on his own initiative. No, I believe we, sorry, you, should focus on the naval connection, Mackail and Zena’s dad, with a third man in the equation.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘His name was Jock Hodgson,’ I said. ‘He was the inside man on the theft of Eden Higgins’ boat and he’s just as dead as Mackail. He’s also ex-Navy. I want to know whether the two of them and Gates ever served together.’
‘We wondered the same about Mackail and Gates,’ Sauce volunteered, ‘but Gates seems to be a no-go area. The Ministry of Defence won’t say a word about him.’
‘You can leave that to me,’ I told him. ‘I’m not going to ask the MoD.’
Sammy Pye rocked slightly in my battered old chair. ‘What’s your thinking on this, boss?’ he ventured.
I didn’t bother to correct the ‘boss’, for at that time, effectively I was. ‘I won’t go there yet,’ I replied. ‘I need confirmation on a few things. What I’d like to do now is make a couple of phone calls; then I’m going to take you guys for lunch.’
Fifty-Four
‘I need some more information,’ I told Clyde Houseman. ‘Some of it I could get from the Ministry of Defence, but I don’t have time to wrestle with their bureaucracy.’
‘Will I have to clear it with my boss?’ he asked.
‘Part of it, no; but I don’t mind if you check with her. I’d phone her myself but I’m sure she’s busy enough already.’
‘Meaning I’m not.’ He chuckled softly.
‘Meaning you’re not the Director of MI5; one day, maybe, but not yet. I need information on three people, all of them Navy, like Walter Hurrell. The names are Jock Hodgson . . . although I’d guess that might be John in the records . . . Hector Mackail, and David Gates. The first two have left the service, but are recently deceased; the third is still operational. I know that Mackail and Gates connect professionally, but I’d like to know if and how Hodgson relates to either of them.’
‘That shouldn’t take long,’ Clyde remarked. ‘Do you want the MoD to know that you’re asking?’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, ‘not about that part. But the next bit’s a little more sensitive. Gates is an engineering officer on a Trident sub; that means he’s totally isolated.’ I told him about the attack on his wife and the abduction and death of his child. ‘Even then, the investigating officers are being denied access.’
‘That’s very tough,’ my young friend agreed, ‘but you can understand why, sir, can’t you?’
‘Sure I can,’ I replied. ‘And that’s why I need you to get involved.’
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘On your own authority, no, you can’t. But this is the part where you will need to involve Amanda Dennis. She does have the clout to ask certain questions, and insist on an answer.’
‘Okay,’ Clyde said. ‘What do you want to know?’
Fifty-Five
There wasn’t much conversation on the journey. Even Sauce Haddock stayed silent until we were well clear of Edinburgh, heading west, until his tongue just wouldn’t stay at rest any longer. Finally, from the back seat of my slightly damaged car, his voice raised above the Miles Davis playlist that I had on that morning, he asked the question that I’d been expecting for over an hour.
‘This man Hodgson, sir: you said he’s dead.’
‘That’s right,’ I agreed.
‘How did he get that way?’
‘Suddenly,’ I said. ‘Hopefully I’ll be able to expand on that over lunch.’
‘Where are we going?’ I sensed that his curiosity was giving way to impatience.
‘Mystery tour,’ I chuckled. ‘It won’t be long now.’
We passed the newish Heartland interchange, then the old, isolated Kirk O’Shotts on the left, heading on until I ended the game by leaving the motorway at junction six. I negotiated two more roundabouts, and we had reached our destination.
Pye looked up at the sign over the entrance. ‘The Newhouse,’ he murmured as he stepped out of the front passenger seat, reading the sign above the entrance.
‘Used to be the Newhouse Hotel,’ I told him, ‘a place of legend. Back in my father’s time,’ I explained, ‘the only way you could get a drink on a Sunday was in a hotel, and even then only if you were what the law called a bona fide traveller. That meant you had to be on a journey of at least three miles. You even had to sign a declaration in a book. In those days, this place was pretty much three miles from everywhere. They used to have bus parties coming here, every Sunday afternoon.’
‘That’s weird,’ Haddock exclaimed. ‘My grandad used to talk about that but I always thought he was taking the piss.’
‘No,’ I assured him, as I led the way inside and through to the dining room. ‘It’s a genuine relic of our colourful Presbyterian past. Where I live, in Gullane, it’s about a three-mile walk to and from Dirleton, the next village. The old-timers say that on Sundays the drinking populations of the villages used to pass each other on the road, there and back. The licensees changed the date on the book every week, to save time.’
‘Is this a nostalgia trip for you, boss?’ he asked.
‘Hell no,’ I replied. ‘The law changed not long after I was born. I chose this because it’s a midpoint. We’re being joined here.’
The head waiter recognised me . . . sometimes I hate
my media profile . . . and showed us to a table for five, by the window. The quorum was completed a couple of minutes later, when Lottie Mann and Dan Provan came through the door. I stood, and waved them across to join us.
I allowed my former colleagues to size each other up for a few seconds; each of them looked as puzzled as the others but none of them was ready to break the silence.
Finally I did. ‘Each of you guys has been under my command at different times and in different places,’ I began. ‘Now I’m gone, and you’re all colleagues; it’s time you met.’ I made the introductions, and stayed on my feet as east and west shook hands.
Provan looked across at me as he took his seat, his eyes narrowed. ‘It’s nice of you tae invite us to lunch, big fella . . . I’ll be havin’ fillet steak, by the way . . . but . . .’
‘Dan!’ his DI hissed.
‘It’s all right, Lottie,’ I said. ‘His irreverence is part of his eccentric charm. You’ll be having it well done, I’d imagine, Sergeant.’
He nodded. ‘Absolutely. Anything else is too big a challenge for my teeth these days.’
As I mentioned, Provan and I are around the same age, although I like to believe that I look about ten years younger. Possibly that’s why he shows me less respect than most people do. Even when I was his chief constable it had taken the little toerag all his time to call me ‘Sir’. Clearly there was no chance now I was a civilian. ‘You should get a new set,’ I suggested. ‘The ones you’ve got look a bit yellowed; age and tobacco, I guess. When are you chucking it, Dan?’ I asked.
He nodded to his right, towards Mann. ‘When she does,’ he replied. ‘They cannae kick me out on age grounds now.’
No, I thought, but ‘they’ could make your life a misery if ‘they’ chose.
‘Not if you behave yourself,’ I agreed. ‘Which could be a problem for you.’
‘I know when to touch my forelock,’ he assured me.
‘You couldn’t find your fucking forelock,’ I laughed, not only at his malignant leprechaun act, but also at the obvious puzzlement of Pye and Haddock, neither of whom seemed to know what to make of him. By the way, you might wonder about my industrial language with a female officer present, but Lottie is more likely to be offended by its omission than its use.
Private Investigations Page 32