Pray for the Dying

by Quintin Jardine

  McIlhenney smiled. ‘I think you’ll find that she can. But we’d all prefer it if you did it, rather than us.’

  For a moment or two, the niece looked as if she might put up an argument, but there was something in the big cop’s kind eyes that told her she would lose. And so, instead, she sighed and stood. ‘If you’ll follow me.’ They did. ‘Can you tell me what this is about?’ she asked as they reached the private room on the right.

  ‘Family matter,’ Payne told her.

  ‘But I’m . . .’ she began, swallowing the rest of her protest when he shook his head. ‘Wait here, please.’ She rapped on the door and stepped inside.

  They waited. For a minute, then a second, and then a third. McIlhenney’s fist was clenched ready to knock, when it reopened and Jocelyn Radnor, glamorous, late fifties and unmistakably Golda’s mother, stepped out. She did not look best pleased, even under the heavy theatrical make-up that she wore.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she exclaimed, ‘I haven’t a clue what this is about, but it had better be worth it. I’ve been trying to get that bloody promo right for an hour now, and I had finally cracked it when Bathsheba came in and ruined it.’

  ‘We’re sorry about that,’ McIlhenney said, lying, ‘but it is important, and better dealt with in your office.’

  ‘If you say so,’ she sighed. ‘Come on.’ She led them into the other room; they found themselves looking down the Elephant and Castle, back towards the tabernacle. The furniture had seen better days, but it was quality. She offered them each a well-worn leather chair and sat in her own. ‘What’s it all about, then? “A family matter,” my niece said.’

  ‘We want to talk to you about your son-in-law,’ Payne replied.

  She tilted her head and looked at him. ‘You’re one too?’ She chuckled. ‘Scotland Yard is finally living up to its name. What about my son-in-law?’ she asked, serious in the next instant. ‘Why are you asking about Byron?’

  ‘We’ll get to that. Can you tell us, how did he come to work for you?’

  ‘We needed a buyer, simple as that. Jesse, my late husband, always handled that side of the business, from the time when he founded it. That was the way it worked; he bought, I sold. Eventually, there came a time when he decided to plan for what he called “our retirement”. What he really meant was his own death, for he was twenty years older than me and had heart trouble, more serious than I knew. So he recruited Byron.’

  ‘How?’

  She frowned at the DCI. ‘I don’t know; he recruited him, that’s all. I can’t remember.’

  ‘Think back, please. Did he place an ad in the newspapers, or specialist magazines? Did he use headhunters?’

  Her eyebrows rose, cracking the make-up on her forehead along the lines of the wrinkles that lay underneath. ‘That was it. I asked where he found him and he said he had used specialists.’

  ‘Do you know anything about his career before he joined you?’

  ‘Jesse said he had worked for other mail order firms, in his time, and for a bank, but he never specified any of them.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have a personnel file, Mrs Radnor?’ McIlhenney asked.

  ‘Please, officer,’ she sighed, with a show of exasperation. ‘This is a family business. We don’t need such things. I know he was born somewhere on the south coast, although I can’t remember where, I know that he never had a father and that his mother is dead, I know that he’s nowhere near as good a buyer as my husband was, I know that he’s a very good husband to my daughter, and I know that he spent some time in Israel, a lot of time.’

  ‘How do you know that last bit?’

  ‘The accent would have told me, if he hadn’t. He didn’t get all of that in Sussex. I asked him about it, not long after he joined us; he said that after his mother died he went to work in a kibbutz.’

  ‘Do they have mail order in kibbutzes?’ Payne murmured.

  ‘Of course not, but after that he stayed in Tel Aviv for another few years, or so he said.’

  ‘You didn’t believe him?’

  ‘Let’s say he was never very specific.’ She paused. ‘Look, to be absolutely frank, my guess has always been that when Jesse took him on he was doing a favour for a friend from the old days.’

  ‘The old days where?’ the DCI asked.

  ‘My late husband was a soldier in his earlier life, a major in the Israeli army. He fought in the Six Day War, back in sixty-seven. He didn’t come to Britain until nineteen seventy-two.’

  ‘But he kept his links with Israel? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, through work with Jewish charities. He had a couple of friends at the embassy as well.’

  ‘So, Mrs Radnor,’ McIlhenney murmured, ‘if we told you that the man you’ve known all these years as Byron Millbank was known before that as Beram Cohen, am I right in thinking you wouldn’t be all that surprised?’

  ‘Not a little bit.’ She gazed at the DCS. ‘So what’s he done, that you’re here asking about him?’

  ‘He’s died, I’m afraid.’

  Jocelyn’s hands flew to her mouth, but she regained her composure after a few seconds. ‘Oh my. That I did not expect. Golda, my daughter, does she know?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve just left her. You’ll probably want to go to her when we’re finished here.’

  ‘Of course. When did this happen? Where? And how?’

  ‘Last week, in Edinburgh, of natural causes.’ He carried on, explaining how it had happened and what his companions had done with his body.

  She listened to his story without a single interruption. ‘What was he doing with these men?’ she asked, when he was finished.

  ‘Planning a murder,’ he replied. ‘You’ve probably heard of the shooting of a senior police officer in Glasgow on Saturday evening. Your son-in-law organised the whole thing. The two guys who buried him were his comrades, soldiers like he was in Israel, working these days for money, not for flags.’

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, ‘I read of it. His buddies, they’re dead too, yes?’

  ‘Killed at the scene.’

  ‘So Byron was a soldier. That’s what you’re saying?’ McIlhenney nodded. ‘Israeli army, I guess.’

  ‘That and more. Latterly he was Mossad, the Israeli secret service.’

  ‘So was my husband,’ she told them, ‘in the old days, and for a while after he came to Britain. It all fits. So why did they send him over here?’

  ‘From what I’m told, he’d become an embarrassment, so he was relocated. He kept in touch with his old community though. The concert hall killing wasn’t the only job he did, not by a long way. I guess it all helped pay for your daughter’s lifestyle.’

  ‘I have wondered about that,’ she admitted. ‘And Golda, does she know any of this?’

  ‘Only that her husband had another identity.’

  ‘Am I allowed to tell her the rest?’

  ‘If you want to, but do you? Isn’t being widowed enough for her to be going on with?’

  ‘True,’ she agreed. ‘So why did you tell me?’

  ‘Because you don’t strike me as the sort of person who’d fall for a phoney cover story when we say we need to take Byron’s computer and all the other records he kept in this office.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Jocelyn said.

  ‘So, can we have it?’

  ‘I imagine that’s a rhetorical question, and that you have a warrant.’

  ‘Call it a courteous request, but yes, we do.’

  ‘Warrant or not,’ she retorted, ‘I’d be happy to cooperate, and let you take everything you need. Unfortunately, someone’s beaten you to it.’

  ‘Eh?’ Payne exclaimed. ‘What do you mean? Nobody else knows about this branch of the investigation.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant. This is London, Chief Inspector, and there’s a depression. Two nights ago we had a burglary. The thieves took a few pieces of not very valuable jewellery, and they took Byron’s computer. Of course, I reported it to your people, as we ha
ve to for the insurance claim, but frankly, they didn’t seem too interested. That’s how it is these days.’

  Forty-Four

  ‘What do you think, Bridie?’ Skinner asked. They were in her office; she held a mug of coffee in a meaty hand, he held a can of diet Irn Bru.

  ‘I think,’ she began, ‘that I accept his story about the fancy dress. Okay, he knew he was being spun a line, and that he chose not to ask questions, but I don’t believe that Scott Mann would knowingly be a part of any conspiracy to murder, or that if we charged him with that, we’d get a conviction.

  ‘However, we can tie him to those uniforms beyond reasonable doubt, so he’s not walking away. I would propose that we charge him with theft, and his girlfriend, assuming we do get her DNA from the packaging. We’ll get guilty pleas for sure, I could read it in Viola Murphy’s dark Satanic eyes.’

  The chief gave a small nod. ‘I agree with that. What about McGlashan? Do we let her resign quietly or do the full disciplinary thing?’

  ‘Formal,’ Gorman replied, without hesitation. ‘If I could I’d put her in the public stocks in George Square.’

  Skinner laughed. ‘I once suggested to my soon to be ex-wife that her party should propose that as a way of dealing with Glasgow’s Ned hooligan problem. She took me seriously, started arguing that the rival gangs would turn out in force to throw rocks at them. So I started arguing back to wind her up. She got angrier and angrier, wound up calling me a fucking fascist. Looking back, it was maybe the beginning of the end. We won’t go that far with this lady, but yes, I agree, she has to be made an example of.’ The humour left his expression. ‘The consequences might be worse than an hour being pelted with rotten fruit. Imagine how Lottie’s going to react when she finds out.’

  His deputy sighed. ‘Need she?’

  ‘She’s bound to. Her husband’s going to court and so’s his girlfriend. We’ll make sure there’s no mention of a relationship during the hearing, but she’ll figure it out, for sure. It might be best for the pair of them if the sheriff puts them out of her reach for a few months.’

  ‘Do you think he will?’

  ‘I’m bloody sure of it. They’ve got to go down.’

  ‘And what about the elephant?’ she asked.

  ‘Which one would that be?’ he murmured.

  ‘The great big one in this bloody room: Michael Thomas.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to pretend it isn’t there,’ the chief admitted.

  ‘But it is,’ Gorman insisted. ‘Scott Mann claims that Thomas caught him photocopying a witness list for the Brown brothers, and hushed it up. For Lottie’s sake, indeed. Do you buy that?’

  ‘No. Not for a second. If what Mann says is true, then he had an obligation to call in another officer to corroborate what had happened and then to charge him.’

  ‘So why didn’t he?’

  ‘I’ll let you speculate on that, Bridie,’ Skinner said. ‘I’m too new here.’

  ‘If you insist. The witnesses against Cec Brown were nobbled anyway, and as Scott said, that suggests Bazza had another source. According to his story, Michael Thomas saw the list, and we know that he kept quiet about Mann nicking it. That has to raise the possibility that he was that source. If he’d done what he should have, the investigation would have gone all the way to Brown, the witnesses would have been protected and both brothers would have been finished.’

  ‘I can’t argue against that. So what do you suggest we do about it? Get the brush out again and sweep it under the carpet? After all, Brown’s dead and it will only be Scott’s word against his.’

  ‘We couldn’t do that, not even if we wanted to, and I don’t believe that either of us do. Viola Murphy heard the accusation, and she has the copy of the recording that we were bound by law to give her. She’s riding the bloody elephant in the bloody room!’

  ‘Colourful but true. What’s your recommendation?’

  ‘We take a further statement from Mann, not as an accused person, but as a witness, and we give it to the fiscal. What do you say? New or not, you are where the buck stops.’

  ‘Yes and no,’ the chief said. ‘Action has to be taken, but not by us. I suggest that you call in Andy Martin, and the Serious Crimes Agency. I don’t want to do it myself, or to be involved, because Andy’s in a relationship with my daughter. That might not have mattered in the past, but we have to be spotless here. His people have to take the statement, and have to decide what happens after that. Almost certainly that will not involve the local fiscal. For all we know she could be a member of the Michael Thomas fan club. See to it.’

  ‘Will do, Bob. After the statement’s taken, what will we do with Scott?’

  ‘We charge him, and his girlfriend as soon as we have a DNA match. Murphy will probably apply for bail. Likely she’ll get it, since we have no strong grounds for opposing it, so we might as well let them go, until their first court appearance.’

  ‘What about Lottie?’ Gorman asked. ‘Are you going to tell her about this . . . new development?’

  ‘Hell no! Dan Provan can do that. I’m nowhere near brave enough.’

  Forty-Five

  Detective Sergeant Dan Provan sat at his absent boss’s desk staring at the notes he had made. He was unsure of the significance of what he had discovered. Instinctively he doubted that it had any relevance to the investigation on which he was engaged. But one thing he did know: it was well outside his comfort zone as a police officer.

  He had spent most of his thirty-something year career catching petty thieves and putting them out of business, sorting out those who thought that violence was an acceptable means of self-expression, or in one short but horrible chapter, pursuing and prosecuting those he would always refer to only as ‘beasts’, sicko bastards who preyed upon children, their own on one or two occasions, leaving them with physical and emotional scars they would carry through life.

  Always, those issues had been clear, and he had known exactly what he was doing and why. But this stuff, Glasgow hoodlums coming up with big red ‘hands off’ notices on the national intelligence database, and the latest, Mauritian mysteries, it was all unfocused, and way outside the rules of the game that he was used to playing. Yet it excited him, gave him the kind of thrill he had experienced as a young man, before it had been washed away by a river of sadness and cynicism.

  When the door opened he did not look up. Instead he growled, ‘Banjo, will you fuck off! Did Ah no’ say Ah want to be alone in here?’

  ‘Indeed?’ a strong baritone voice replied. ‘Anyone less like Greta Garbo I cannot imagine.’

  Provan gulped and shot to his feet. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said to the chief constable. ‘Ah thought it was DC Paterson. Around here we’re no’ used to the brass comin’ tae see us. Always it’s the other way around, and usually for the wrong reasons. As a matter of fact,’ he continued, ‘I was just about tae ask for an appointment wi’ you.’

  Skinner laughed. ‘You make me sound like the fucking dentist. Sit down, man, and relax. Before we get to your business, I’ve got another task for you. Not a very pleasant one, but I reckon you’d rather do it that anyone else.’

  ‘Sounds ominous, gaffer.’ He took a guess. ‘Scott Mann?’

  ‘Got it in one. ACC Gorman and I have not long finished interviewing him. He’s going to be charged.’

  ‘Conspiracy to murder?’ the DS murmured.

  ‘No, he’ll only be charged with theft. We’re satisfied that he had no specific knowledge of why Bazza Brown wanted the uniforms. He’s heading for Barlinnie though, or Low Moss.’

  ‘Still,’ Provan countered, ‘all things considered, that’s a result for him. It’ll no’ be nice for Lottie and the wee fella, but a hell of a lot better than if he got life.’

  ‘True, but it’s not as simple as that. There will be a co-accused, Sergeant Christine McGlashan, who works in the store warehouse.’

  Provan stiffened in his chair. ‘Christine McGlashan?’ he repeated. ‘She used to be a DC, until she got pr
omoted back intae uniform. She worked alongside Scott in CID and it was an open secret that he was porkin’ her. But that was before he met Lottie. Are you gin’ tae tell me he still is?’

  The chief constable nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. You’ll see that’s why you’re the best man to explain the situation to Lottie. That said, if you think it’s Mission Impossible, you don’t have to accept it. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds and I’ll handle it myself.’

  ‘No, sir, Ah’ll do it. You’re right; it’s best she hears that sort of news from someone who knows the both o’ them.’

  ‘Thanks, Dan. None of this is going to go unnoticed or unrewarded, you realise that?’

  ‘Appreciated, boss, but that “Thanks”, that was enough. There’s no way you could reward me, other than promotion to DI, and I wouldn’t accept that. I am where Ah want to be. If you can make sure that for as long as Ah’m here Ah’ll be alongside the Big Yin, tae look after her, that’ll be fine.’

  ‘For as long as I’m here myself, I’ll make sure that happens. That’s a promise, Dan.’

  ‘In which case, Ah hope you stick around.’ He frowned. ‘What’s happenin’ tae McGlashan?’

  ‘She’ll have been arrested by now, and on her way here. You and Paterson can interview her, but make sure you listen to the recording of Mann’s interview first. Once you’ve done that, you can charge them both, then release them on police bail, pending a Sheriff Court appearance.’ He took a breath, then went on. ‘Now, what were you coming to tell me?’

  ‘The thing you asked me tae do, sir,’ Provan responded. ‘Ah’ve got a result, sort of. There’s a hospital in Port Louis . . . that’s the capital of Mauritius,’ he offered, with a degree of pride. ‘It’s called the Doctor Jeetoo. Its maternity department has a record of a patient called Antonia Day Champs. She had a baby there, a wee girl, on May the twenty-third, two years ago. It was born by caesarean section, and she was discharged a week after. The address they had for her was in a place called Peach Street. I checked the local property register; it said it’s owned by a woman called Sofia Day Champs.’