The Impossible Dead mf-2

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Name was William Benchley,’ Paul said. ‘Operated out of Essex. Left the army after the campaign – even picked up his medal. But stolen weaponry became his business.’

  ‘Did he sell the revolvers?’

  Paul shrugged and looked to his boss.

  ‘No idea,’ she confessed.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Fox was studying the photo of the shaven-headed, scowling Benchley.

  ‘Died in Barbados a few years back. Drowned in his swimming pool.’

  ‘Moved there after serving his sentence,’ Paul explained. ‘Bearing in mind his lifestyle, I’d say some of the arms money was waiting for him when he got out.’

  ‘Much good it did him,’ Fox said quietly, reading the news report of Benchley’s death.

  ‘Anyway,’ Paul cautioned, ‘we’ve no reason to suppose he sold those particular guns.’

  ‘But someone did.’

  ‘Someone did,’ the young man agreed. ‘The one found at the scene of the Vernal car smash – I’ve got nothing else for you on that.’

  Fox took the hint. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Took a bit of tracking down…’ Paul paused. ‘The internet was no use – a lot of stuff in the Fife Constabulary vaults hasn’t been digitised.’

  ‘Paul had to actually spend time poring over something other than a screen.’

  Paul stuck his tongue out in response to McFadzean’s sarcasm. Then he handed Fox a set of stapled photocopied sheets. ‘The revolver found next to Alan Carter had been handed in to police in October 1984. It was found in a hedge in Tayport.’

  ‘Near Dundee?’ Fox asked.

  ‘The Fife side of the Tay Bridge. Police at the time wondered if it might have been used in a robbery. There’d been a bookmaker in Dundee relieved of the week’s takings by a masked man toting a handgun. This was three days before the revolver was discovered.’

  ‘So the gun had gone from the Falklands to Dundee?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Could have ended up there after being passed along a chain of owners.’

  ‘Was the gunman ever caught?’

  But Fox could see well enough from the printout that the case had never been solved. The profit from a week’s betting – just shy of nine hundred pounds. Would that have been enough to tempt the likes of the Dark Harvest Commando? It was hardly a bank heist…

  ‘Any of this useful?’ McFadzean asked as Fox continued reading.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he confessed. Then he patted Paul on the shoulder. ‘But it’s bloody good work, all the same…’

  Once home, Fox called Tony Kaye.

  ‘How’s the report going?’

  ‘We’re managing to make it look like it was put together by a pair of Einsteins.’

  ‘No change there, then. What are you up to tonight?’

  ‘Dinner with my good lady. Want to join us?’

  ‘Can’t spare the time, Tony.’

  ‘I keep forgetting about your busy social calendar.’ Kaye paused. ‘Well, the offer’s always there…’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m sorted. Any news from the kid?’

  ‘He’s headed back over to Fife. Been to the barber and everything.’

  ‘Cheryl Forrester again?’

  ‘He’s smitten.’

  ‘Warn him off, will you? We don’t know what titbits she might be collecting for Scholes and the others.’

  ‘You reckon her for a Mata Hari?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ Fox was lying along the sofa, the TV remote in his free hand. He flicked to a news channel, keeping the sound muted. ‘Did you hear about Stirling?’

  ‘Sounds like a copycat to me – these nutters see it on TV and think: I could do that; stir things up a bit.’

  ‘The brass seemed to be taking it seriously enough.’

  There was silence on the line while Tony Kaye digested this. ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘Looking for DCI Jackson.’

  ‘The guy from Special Branch?’

  ‘I had something I needed to ask him.’

  ‘This is Vernal, isn’t it? You’re still digging?’

  ‘And I think I’m hitting a few worms, too. According to Jackson, the spooks had nothing to do with Vernal’s death. But Donald MacIver says there was a chunk of cash hidden in the car boot. Thirty to forty grand’s worth.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Donald MacIver?’

  ‘He led one of the splinter groups at the time.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  Fox hesitated before answering. ‘Carstairs.’

  ‘You’ve been to Carstairs?’

  ‘Had to be done, Tony.’

  ‘Was he in a straitjacket?’

  ‘Bit high-strung, but coherent with it.’

  ‘And you believe him about the money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kaye seemed to think for a moment. ‘Then Gavin Willis got it,’ he surmised.

  ‘And did what with it?’ Fox countered. ‘Plus, how would he have known it was there?’ But of course there was every chance Willis might have known – guns exchanged for cash, maybe at dead of night in a deserted car park…

  ‘More questions than answers, Malcolm,’ Tony Kaye was saying. ‘Mind if I give you a word of advice?’

  ‘You’re going to tell me to drop it.’

  ‘Something like that, yes. Hand the whole lot over to CID – not Fife necessarily; there’s got to be someone in Edinburgh you can give it to.’

  ‘Just when I’m starting to enjoy myself?’

  ‘Is that what you’re doing?’ Kaye gave a sigh. ‘You’ve not got anything to prove, Malcolm. To me or the High Hiedyins or anyone else.’ He paused for a moment. ‘At least take a night off – go see a film or something.’

  ‘I should visit Mitch.’

  ‘Except that’s not exactly a night off, is it? Bound to be a Jason Statham playing somewhere.’

  ‘Lots of explosions and cars getting wrecked? Those’ll help me feel the benefit, will they?’

  ‘Don’t just sit there stewing – that’s all I’m saying.’

  Fox thanked Kaye and ended the call. He didn’t fancy going out for dinner, not on his own again. He looked online and saw that the Filmhouse was showing The Maltese Falcon. For five minutes, he told himself he would go.

  Then he drove to Lauder Lodge to see his father instead.

  Mitch was drowsy. There was whisky on his breath, and though seated in his chair, he was already in his pyjamas. Fox checked his watch: it wasn’t even eight o’clock. He sat opposite his father for over an hour, sifting through the photographs from the shoebox, concentrating on cousin Chris, Jude as a toddler, and Fox’s own mother. He would glance at his sleeping father from time to time, the mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling.

  We played football, you and me: you wanted me to be a goalie – less chance of an injury, you said. And you sat with me night after night as I tried learning my times tables. You laughed at bad TV sitcoms and shouted at refereeing mistakes, as if they could hear you from behind the glass screen. On Remembrance Sunday you stood to attention for the minute’s silence. You were never much good in the kitchen, but always made Mum a cup of tea before bed. She wanted two sugars but you only ever added one, telling her she was sweet enough already.

  And look – there’s Jude on a donkey at Blackpool beach. You’re walking beside her, making sure she’s safe. You’ve rolled the legs of your trousers up, a concession to the sunshine. You saved all year for the summer holiday, a little bit out of each week’s pay packet.

  Are you happy with the way we’ve turned out?

  Will you ever stop worrying about us?

  So many of the photographs showed faces Fox didn’t know, none of them still alive. Moments in time captured but also flattened. You could see the beach, but not feel its salty heat. You could study the smiles and the eyes above those smiles, but not see beyond them to the hopes and fears, ambitions and betrayals.

  When a member of staff opened the door, it took
Fox a moment to realise anyone was there.

  ‘We should be getting your father into bed,’ she said.

  Fox nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ he said quietly.

  But she shook her head. ‘Regulations,’ she explained. ‘Got to stick to the script, or they’ll have my head on a block.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Fox replied, starting to put the photographs away.

  On his way home, he stopped at a fish-and-chip shop and bought a haggis supper. While he waited for a fresh batch of chips, he stood at the counter and stared at the TV. The Scottish news was on: the press conference from earlier. Flashes going off and the Chief Constable, Alison Pears, reading from a prepared statement, taking a couple of questions afterwards. She had tidied her hair and was wearing regulation uniform. She seemed to speak calmly and authoritatively, though he couldn’t hear any of it above the sizzle of the deep-fat fryer. The report cut to the car park at Kippen and the same reporter Fox had seen earlier. Live from the scene, according to the on-screen banner. There were fewer vehicles now that night had fallen, and no barking dog to mess things up. The reporter held one of those big fluffy microphones in front of him. It was starting to drizzle, rainwater dotting the camera lens. The reporter was trying to look both knowledgeable and interested, but Fox could sense fatigue in his unblinking gaze. He seemed to get a question in his earpiece and nodded before starting to answer. The director cut to a blurry photo of the bomb crater. It looked to have been taken with a mobile phone, presumably snapped by a member of the public before the area could be cordoned off. A second picture followed, this time showing a close-up of one of the trees with the metal shards embedded there.

  ‘Bloody hellish thing,’ the proprietor of the chip shop said. He sounded Polish to Fox, but it could have been Bosnian, Romanian – just about anywhere really. Fox was not exactly an expert. On another night, he might have asked, just out of curiosity.

  But not tonight.

  Back home, he ate on the sofa, and caught the press conference again. When it cut to the studio, the presenter had some news.

  ‘Police confirmed just a short time ago that they are working on a definite line of inquiry. And we’ll keep you up to date as that story progresses. Now all the latest sport with Angela…’

  Fox must have dozed off at some point, because he woke up stretched along the sofa with his shoes still on and the half-empty plate resting on his chest. The food was cold and unappetising. He could smell sauce on his fingers, and went to the kitchen to dump the remnants of the meal into the pedal bin and wash his hands in the sink. He returned to the sofa with a mug of tea and found himself face to face with Chief Constable Pears again. They had gone to her live as she stood on what he guessed were the steps of Central Scotland Force HQ – presumably in Stirling itself. She had to push the hair out of her face as the wind gusted around her. She had no statement this time, but still sounded coolly professional. Fox was blinking the sleep out of his eyes. When she stopped speaking and listened to a journalist’s question, she jutted her chin out a little. Fox tried to think who it was she reminded him of – Jude maybe; the jutting chin denoting concentration. But it wasn’t Jude.

  It was a photograph.

  Fox hauled his laptop on to the sofa and punched her name into the search engine.

  Alison Pears was one of only two female Chief Constables in Scotland. She was married to the financier Stephen Pears. Fox knew that name. Pears was in the papers a lot, pulling off deals and seemingly keeping the straitened financial sector afloat in Scotland. He found photos of the couple – had to admit, the Chief Constable scrubbed up well, and filled a little black dress with easy glamour. On the TV, however, she was fighting the elements and dressed in the same uniform as before. The rain was coming at her near-horizontally. The ticker tape along the bottom of the screen read: Three arrests in bomb scare.

  ‘Fast work,’ Fox said, toasting her with his mug.

  Then he got to work himself, finding as much of her curriculum vitae as he could, while failing to locate any historical photos of her. Nevertheless, he was fairly sure.

  Very fairly sure.

  In 1985 she’d been a recent graduate of the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan. Not Pears back then – she was yet to meet her husband and take his name.

  Alison Watson, born in Fraserburgh in 1962. Not such a jump, really, from Alison Watson to Alice Watts. He reached for the photo in Professor Martin’s book, and the two matriculation snaps. There was the slightly jutting chin. It was evident in some of the online photos, too – at a film premiere, an awards dinner, a graduation ceremony, hand in hand with her husband. Stephen Pears glowed. Did the tan come from skiing or a salon? The hair was immaculately clipped, the teeth shiny, a chunky watch on one wrist. He was stocky, his face fattened by success. Twelve years since they’d first met, married for ten of those.

  ‘Quite the pair, Mr and Mrs Pears,’ Fox muttered to himself. But she was even better connected than that, because her brother Andrew was a Member of the Scottish Parliament. He was part of the SNP government: Andrew Watson, Minister for Justice.

  Minister for Justice…

  Fox pushed the computer aside and slumped back against the sofa, head arched towards the ceiling.

  What the hell do I do with this? he asked himself.

  And what exactly did it mean?

  Eleven

  34

  ‘Bloody hell, Foxy, did you get any sleep at all last night?’

  ‘Not much,’ Fox admitted, as Kaye dragged out a chair and sat down across from him. It was just after nine in the morning, and the Police HQ cafeteria was doing a roaring trade in breakfast rolls and frothy cappuccinos. Fox had a half-drunk cup of tea in front of him, alongside an apple he had yet to start. Kaye’s tray held a mug of coffee and a Tunnock’s caramel wafer.

  ‘Good dinner last night?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Cost enough,’ Kaye grumbled. ‘Did you go out like I told you to?’

  Fox nodded slowly.

  ‘Whatever film you saw,’ Kaye commented, ‘looks like it was downer enough for both of us.’ He took a slurp of coffee, leaving a white milky mark on his top lip, and peeled the wrapper from the biscuit.

  Fox started at the beginning – more or less. First sighting of Alison Pears in the flesh, then on TV. And then the connection and his findings and theories.

  ‘Her photo’s on page one of Metro today,’ Kaye said, picking bits of caramel from between his teeth. ‘Three home-grown terror suspects in custody.’

  ‘Her brother was on the box this morning too,’ Fox added. He had watched from his sofa, having spent much of the night there, some of it busy at the laptop. Andrew Watson: four years younger than his sister; short red hair, steel-framed glasses, a pudgy face with some traces of acne. Peely-wally, Mitch Fox would have said.

  ‘He’s only Justice Minister because everyone before him either screwed up or fell out with the “Great Chieftain”.’ By which, Fox knew, Tony Kaye meant the First Minister.

  ‘Handy to have him on your side, though, if you’re a Chief Constable…’

  Kaye managed a rueful smile. ‘You’re really going to stand up and accuse her of being a terrorist?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘A spy.’

  Kaye stared at him. ‘A spy?’ he repeated.

  ‘Infiltrating Dark Harvest Commando and God knows who else.’

  ‘And shagging Francis Vernal into the bargain?’ Kaye took a deep breath. ‘If that ever got out…’

  ‘Wouldn’t do her reputation any good,’ Fox confirmed.

  ‘So you’ll be having a quiet word with her?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Rather you than me. She’s suddenly the face of equality in the police – glass ceiling shattered; nobody’s going to want that to change.’

  ‘No,’ Fox agreed.

  ‘Bloody hell – look what the cat dragged in!’ Kaye smiled as Joe Naysmith trudged his way towa
rds the table, nothing in his hand but a can of some super-caffeinated energy drink. Naysmith’s eyes were bleary, and he had skipped a shave.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he commented, sitting down next to Kaye.

  ‘She’s too much woman for you, young Joseph,’ Kaye persisted. ‘Maybe I should take her in hand.’

  Naysmith gulped at his drink, eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them, he looked from Kaye to Fox and then back again. ‘Something I should know?’ he asked.

  Fox gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head in Tony Kaye’s direction.

  ‘Man talk, Joe,’ Kaye went on to explain. ‘Nothing for you to worry your little head about.’

  ‘How’s DC Forrester?’ Fox asked.

  ‘She’s fine.’

  ‘Any word on Paul Carter?’

  Naysmith thought for a second, then nodded. ‘Another witness,’ he decided to confide. ‘Saw a man walking along the high street some time after midnight. A man with shoes that squelched.’

  Fox frowned. ‘Not Carter?’

  ‘This guy was bald. Shaved head, anyway. But he’d definitely been in some water, according to the witness. Worried look on his face. Might have had a tattoo on his neck.’ Naysmith paused, eyes on Kaye. ‘The side of his neck.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Fox asked.

  Kaye rubbed a hand down his face. ‘Sounds like someone I know,’ he conceded.

  ‘Who, though?’

  ‘Tosh Garioch,’ Kaye answered. ‘Billie’s boyfriend.’

  Naysmith was nodding. ‘Might not be, of course – but it fits the description you gave me after you interviewed him.’

  ‘Garioch’s the doorman?’ Fox checked. ‘The one who worked for Alan Carter’s firm?’

  ‘That’s him,’ Kaye confirmed. ‘Big tattoo of a thistle creeping up his neck. Shaved head. Criminal record.’ He turned his attention back to Naysmith. ‘Did you let on to Forrester?’

  Naysmith shook his head. Kaye and Fox shared a look.

  ‘Decisions, decisions,’ Kaye commented. ‘But I like our choices better than yours, Foxy…’

  Stirling.

  There were armed officers and security checks outside Central Scotland Police Force HQ, keeping the media at bay and on the lookout for terrorist sympathisers and demonstrators.