Pray for the Dying

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Well, I’m here now, Doctor,’ he replied stiffly, ‘so we might as well take the chance. I’ll make sure I don’t land on anything important when I fall over.’

  ‘Not necessary.’ She peeled off her mask. ‘You’re a legal necessity but in practice don’t have to watch every incision or every organ being removed. This is not going to be a complicated job. Cause of death is massive brain trauma caused by gunshot wounds; we know that before I touch her. But the law needs a full report and that’s what it will get.

  ‘You can go sit in the corner and read a book, or listen to your iPod. If I find something I believe you need to look at up close, I will tell you and you can look at it. But that’s not going to happen. And from what I’ve seen of our next customer, that’s going to be the case with him as well. He was shot from so close up that some of his chest hairs are melted. So go on, get out of my space.’

  He looked at her, gratefully. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He started to move away, then paused. ‘Doctor Grace,’ he ventured, ‘this is a silly thing to ask, I know, but Toni and I, well, we were friends as well as colleagues. Be gentle with her, yes?’

  ‘As if she were an angel,’ Sarah replied, feeling pity for the man, then adding, in case he thought she was being sarcastic, ‘Who knows, by now she may be one.’

  Thirty-One

  ‘Ye cannae do this,’ the prisoner protested, ‘ma lawyer’s no’ here. I’m saying nothin’ till he gets here. And this charge! What the fuck yis on about? Conspiracy tae fuckin’ murder? That’s pure shite. Ah never murdered onybody.’

  ‘Technically that’s true, Cec,’ Dan Provan admitted. ‘The jury was stupid enough tae convict you of culpable homicide, and the judge was even dafter when he gave you five years. But the boy ye killed was just as fuckin’ deid, so let’s no’ split hairs about it.’

  ‘We can do it,’ Lottie Mann assured him. ‘We can do pretty much what we like.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ Cecil Brown stuck out his jaw, with menace, then took a closer look at the expression on her face and realised that aggression was not his best option.

  ‘Oh aye.’ She pointed at the recorder on the desk. ‘That thing is not switched on. When your brief gets here it will be and we’ll get formal, but until then, tell me what business you and your brother had with the South Africans.’

  He stared back at her. When they had arrested him, the DI’s impression had been that he was genuinely surprised. As she studied his big, dumb eyes, that feeling moved towards certainty. ‘What fuckin’ South Africans?’ he asked.

  Provan leaned forward. ‘Son,’ he murmured, ‘off the record, who’s your biggest rival in Glasgow?’

  ‘Ah don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’

  He laughed. ‘Of course you do. Don’t fanny about, Cec. I’m askin’ you who you’ve got in mind, what mind ye have, that is, for toppin’ your brother. Paddy Reilly? Specky Green? Which of those have you crossed lately? Which of those are we liable tae find in the Clyde any day now?’

  When the sergeant floated the second name he saw Brown’s eyes narrow; very slightly but it was enough. ‘It’s Specky, right? Let me guess; you and Bazza ripped him off on some sort of a deal, or moved gear intae one of his pubs. So you’re thinkin’ it was him that bumped off the boy. Well, if ye are, ye’re wrong.’

  ‘Aye, sure.’ The tone was a mix of scepticism and contempt. ‘Ah might be thick, but no’ so thick Ah’d believe youse bastards.’

  ‘He’s not kidding, Cecil,’ Lottie Mann assured him. ‘This is how it was. We found your brother’s body yesterday afternoon crammed into the boot of a car in the multi-storey park next to the Buchanan Street bus station. It had been there for a day, and it was starting to hum.

  ‘It was a hire vehicle from London, and it was meant to be the getaway car for the two men, those South Africans I mentioned, who shot and killed our chief constable in the Royal Concert Hall on Saturday evening. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t get away, and they’re no longer,’ her eyes narrowed and she smiled, ‘in a position to assist us with our inquiries.’ She paused, letting the slow-moving cogs of his mind process what she had said.

  ‘Now we don’t actually believe,’ she went on, ‘that you and your brother were the masterminds behind a plot to kill Ms Field, but the fact that we found him where we did, and also that our forensic team will prove that he was killed by the same gun that was used to shoot two police officers outside the hall, that puts you right in the middle of it.’

  Cecil Brown’s mouth was hanging open.

  ‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘I can see you get my point. So we need you to tell us what your role was, and how Bazza came to meet up with those guys. You help us, before your brief gets here to shut you up, and your life will be a hell of a lot better. For openers, you will have a life.

  ‘We are going to put somebody in the dock for this, make no mistake, and at the moment you’re all we’ve got. I’m not talking about five soft years for manslaughter here, Cecil. If you’re convicted of having a part in Chief Constable Field’s murder you’ll be drawing your old age pension before you get out.’

  ‘Personally, laddie,’ Dan Provan yawned, ‘Ah’d love tae see that happen. You sit there and say nothing and we’ll build a case against ye, no bother.’

  ‘Ah don’t know anything!’ the prisoner shouted. ‘Honest tae Christ, Ah don’t. Bazza said nothin’ tae me about any South Africans.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Nothin’.’

  ‘Come on,’ the DS laughed, ‘when did your big brother keep secrets from you? The pair of you wis like Siamese twins. You lived next door tae each other, drove the same gangster motors . . . what are they, big black Chrysler saloons . . . ye both married girls ye’d been at the school with, ye shared a box at Ibrox. Come on, Cec. You cannae expect us to believe that Bazza was involved in the shooting of the chief bloody constable and he kept you in the dark about it.’

  ‘Man,’ the surviving Brown brother protested, ‘ye’re off yir heid. Bazza would never have got involved in anything as crazy as killin’ the chief constable, or any fuckin’ constable. The amount of shite that would have brought down on our heids! It’s the last thing he’d have wanted. He had nothin’ to do with it.’

  ‘But he had, Cecil,’ Lottie Mann boomed. ‘Like it or not, he was with Smit and Botha, the two men who shot Ms Field. He was involved with them, and he could have identified them, so they killed him when they had done whatever business they had with him.’

  ‘If you say so,’ the prisoner muttered, his lip jutting out like that of a rebellious child. ‘But he never telt me about it, okay?’

  She sighed. ‘Yes, right. Let’s say I accept that, for the moment. Did Bazza keep a diary?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Did he keep any sort of written record of his life; his meetings, deals, and so on?’

  ‘In a book, like?’

  ‘Book, computer, tablet.’

  ‘Ah don’t know. Maybe on his phone.’

  ‘We don’t have that,’ Mann said. ‘Would he have had it on him?’

  ‘Oh aye, a’ the time.’

  ‘Did he have a contract or did he use a throwaway?’

  ‘He had a top-up. He took it everywhere, even tae the bog.’

  ‘Then Smit and Botha must have dumped it after they killed him.’ She leaned closer to him. ‘Cec, we want whoever was behind them. So do you, for your brother’s sake. Help us.’

  He met her gaze. ‘How can Ah, if Ah don’t know anything?’

  ‘Where’s Bazza’s car?’

  Brown turned, at Provan’s question. ‘Parked outside his hoose,’ he replied.

  The DS looked at the DI, eyebrows raised, as if inviting a response.

  It came. ‘Did Smit and Botha pick him up from home?’ she asked.

  ‘Naw. Ah’d have seen them,’ Cec volunteered, with certainty. ‘We’ve got CCTV. It covers both houses. Ah checked it this mornin’, as soon as Senga told me he was deid. Ah was
looking for Specky, or his boys. There was nothin’, other than us, the paper boy and the postie.’

  ‘So that makes us wonder. How did he get to wherever he met them?’

  ‘Ah suppose Ah must have took him.’

  ‘Where? When?’

  ‘Friday evenin’. Ye know that big park with a’ the shops, beside the motorway? Bazza asked me if Ah’d take him there for seven o’clock. He said he was meetin’ a burd. He always had bits on the side,’ he added, in explanation. ‘Our cars are a wee bit obvious, so if he is . . . when he wis . . . playin’ away he liked tae use taxis. Ah took him there and Ah dropped him off, in the car park, must hae been about seven, mibbes a wee bit after.’

  ‘And that was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘But you didn’t see the woman?’

  ‘Naw.’ His eyes were fixed on the table. ‘There couldnae have been one, could there? Ah must have delivered him tae the guys that killed him.’

  ‘Then it’s too bad for him he didn’t tell you what was going on. You could have hung around and watched his back.’

  ‘Fuckin’ right,’ Cec muttered.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ Mann asked him. ‘Anything that could help us?’

  ‘I wish there wis. If Ah could, Ah would, honest.’

  ‘You know what,’ she said, ‘I think I believe you. Cec, you’re free to go, but I warn you, we’ve got search warrants for Bazza’s house, and for yours, and for the office of that so-called minicab company that you run. We’re enforcing them right now, going through the records, and looking for anything that’ll tie your brother to those guys. If we find something, and you’re involved after all, you’ll be back in here before you’ve even had time to take a piss.

  ‘In the meantime, my advice is to watch your back. If the man we’re after gets it into his head that Bazza might have confided in you, he might decide that it’s too big a risk to leave you running around loose.’

  Brown’s eyes seemed to light up with a strange intensity, that of a man with two bells showing on a one-armed bandit and the third reel still spinning. ‘Ah hope he does, Miss. Ah’d like tae talk tae him.’

  Thirty-Two

  ‘So there you have it. Sir Bryan Storey, the Met commissioner himself, has approved your trip. Funny,’ Skinner mused, ‘I met that man for the first time at a policing conference a few weeks ago. D’you know what he said, “Ah, you’re Edinburgh, are you?” as if he was a Premier League manager and I was mid-table Division Three. Just now when I spoke to him, he was almost deferential. It seems that this office does have clout nationally, more than I’d realised.’

  ‘I don’t have to report to him when I get there, do I?’ Lowell Payne asked.

  ‘No, not even a courtesy call. I doubt if he’s spoken to a DCI since he got the final piece of silver braid on his cap. You just catch the first London flight you can tomorrow, go to New Scotland Yard and ask for Chief Superintendent McIlhenney. He’ll be waiting for you.’

  ‘What’s he like, this man?’

  The chief smiled. ‘Try to imagine a quieter, more thoughtful version of Mario McGuire; but when he has to, Neil can be almost as formidable. The division he works in, covert policing, has some tough people in it. He’d never be any good in the field himself because he’s too conspicuous, but he will always have the respect of the people who are.’

  ‘How do we play it with Millbank’s family?’

  ‘You should take the lead in the questions. You’re the investigator, in practice; Neil’s just your escort. He knows that and he’s okay with it. I’d suggest you begin by being circumspect. Remember, we’ve only just identified Cohen under the name Byron Millbank. Now we have done, Storey’s going to send two female family support officers to break the news to his widow, but you’ll be going in soon after.’

  ‘How much will they have told her?’

  ‘Only the basic truth, that he died suddenly, of a brain haemorrhage, and that he had no identification on him at the time, hence the delay in getting to her. It’s your job to fill in the rest, and find out as best you can whether she has a clue that her old man had another identity. The book’s open on that. My bet is that she doesn’t, but you reach your own conclusions, gently.’

  ‘Once we get past gentle, what then?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Skinner told him, with emphasis. ‘You ask to see her husband’s computer, to check his calendar, recent contacts, all that stuff. Kid-glove stuff, Lowell. It’s only if she doesn’t play ball that you have to make the request formal, and take it all away.

  ‘It should be the same with his workplace, this teleshopping outfit. It’s pretty obvious that it’s a family business, given the similarity with the wife’s maiden name, so unless you find a box of Uzis in his desk, you maintain the front that it’s a formal sudden-death inquiry, required by Scottish law, and that all we’re doing is confirming his appointments, movements, etc.’

  ‘Understood.’ Payne stood up. ‘When do you want me back?’ he asked.

  ‘When you’re done; that’s all I can say. I have no idea how this thing will go, but I do know this. An outside agency has an interest in it, and I want to head it off. So, any leads that are thrown up have to be followed up, fast. If you need to stay tomorrow night, or even beyond that, so be it.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll take enough clothes and stuff for a couple of days.’ He smiled. ‘There’s just one thing, though, Bob. It’s our wedding anniversary on Thursday, and I’ve got a table booked at Rogano. If it comes to it and I have to cancel, I’d appreciate it if you call Jean and tell her, and say that it was your fault.’

  Skinner whistled. ‘There ought to be no absolutes in the field of human courage,’ he said, ‘but it would take an absolute fucking hero to do that. If necessary, her niece and I will take her to Rogano ourselves, and I’ll pick up the tab.’

  ‘That’s a deal. Hopefully it won’t come to that. Here,’ he added, ‘what will you do for an assistant while I’m away? You’re still on a learning curve here.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m going to rely on my ACCs to instruct me. Mr Thomas and I had a getting to know you session earlier on. I asked him to attend the post-mortem on Toni Field and to sit in on Bazza Brown’s while he was there.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Payne murmured.

  The chief frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe I should have told you, but I never thought to, because it was no more than office gossip. Not long after Field arrived, when she lived on the Riverside, a couple of PCs in a Panda car saw Michael Thomas leaving her apartment block at three in the morning. The story was all round the force inside a day. ACC Allan heard about it and put the word out that anybody who even thought of posting it on Twitter or Facebook would wind up nailed to a cross.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Skinner murmured, with a thin smile. ‘Typical Max; he’s too nice a guy for his own good. Yes, it sounds like I really have put Thomas on the spot. Was this a continuing relationship?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.’

  ‘How sure?’

  ‘Not a hundred per cent, I admit. Why?’

  ‘Oh nothing. Between you and me, Marina Deschamps gave me a rundown on her sister’s sex life. It hadn’t occurred to me till now, but the numbers didn’t quite add up.’ He nodded, as if he had reached a conclusion, then spelled it out. ‘That’s made my mind up,’ he said. ‘I’m going to tell Marina she can come back to work. If any more Toni skeletons pop out during this investigation, it’ll be useful to have her around.’

  ‘Do you want me to . . .’

  ‘No, I’ll call her myself, after I’ve told the fiscal that I want the body released tomorrow morning.’

  ‘The fiscal here doesn’t like to be told, Chief,’ Payne warned.

  ‘Then I’ll make it seem as if it was his idea all along.’

  ‘He’s a she.’

  ‘Aren’t they all these days? When my dad was in practice just after the war, there wasn’t a single female solicitor in the burgh
. Now the majority of law graduates are women, like our Alex. It’s magic; it hasn’t half shaken up the establishment. What’s her name?’

  ‘Reba Paisley. Mrs.’

  ‘Get her on the phone for me, please. Then you’d better get off home, once you’ve booked your flight.’

  ‘Will do. By the way,’ he volunteered, ‘that bloody safe; you were right. It was installed at Chief Constable Field’s request and we do not have the technical capability in-house to open it. I’ve asked our plant and machinery people to source the supplier and get someone to deal with it.’

  As Payne headed back to his own office to make the call to the procurator fiscal, the regional chief prosecutor, Skinner moved from the table to his desk. As he eased himself into his seat . . . not a patch on my Edinburgh chair, he grumbled, mentally . . . his mobile buzzed and vibrated in his pocket, signalling an incoming text. He dug it out and read it.

  ‘In Glasgow. Can I blag a lift? We came in Roshan’s car. Be about 6. Sarahx.’

  He keyed in a reply, awkwardly because of the thickness of his index finger; he had never mastered using his thumbs on the mini-keyboard.

  ‘I know, & what ur doing. Sure. Take a taxi to Pitt St when ur done. L Bob.’

  He had no sooner sent the message than the phone rang. ‘Chief Constable,’ he said as he picked up.

  ‘Procurator fiscal,’ an assertive female voice replied. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Skinner?’

  ‘Nothing, Mrs Paisley. I don’t ask for favours. Let’s get that clear from the start.’

  ‘So this is a social call?’

  ‘Yes, partly.’

  ‘Even “partly” makes a change. In the time she was here I never once heard from your late predecessor.’

  ‘You won’t be wanting to hang on to her then,’ Skinner chuckled.