‘But they didn’t get in?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nobody home.’
‘Then we should go, unless we find him or he turns up in the next twenty-four hours.’
The big man nodded. ‘If you say so.’
‘I do; but first, the car. Can you make that call to your Mossos mate tonight?’
‘I can try his office. He’s a workaholic so he may still be there. Before I do, though, I’ll need to check the Boxster’s registration plate. I can access it through my computer, in my office upstairs.’
‘Good. You do that. While you’re at it, I promised Sarah that we’d speak tonight. If she’s tried me on the L’Escala landline she’ll be wondering where the hell I’m at.’ I took my phone from my pocket, and switched it on. ‘Do you have a decent signal here?’ I asked Xavi as I waited for it to fire up.
He smiled. ‘Of course. We have some influence with Movistar.’
Sure enough, my screen showed five bars. When I entered the pass code it also showed two missed calls, one from Sauce Haddock, and the other from someone I wasn’t expecting to hear from; Mia, my secret son’s mother.
I gave Sauce priority, and hit the return button. ‘Chief,’ he said as he came on line, but quietly. I guessed that he was not alone, and he confirmed it at once. ‘I’m with Sammy.’
DI Sammy Pye is his boss; he’s another of those I like to call ‘my people’. The two of them work out of the Leith office and make a pretty formidable team. As their careers develop I expect Sauce to pass his gaffer by at some point, even though Sammy is famously ambitious. Young Haddock has that edge, a quiet determination that will not allow him to put the pieces of a puzzle back in their box until he’s assembled the complete picture. Once he adds Pye’s judgement to his arsenal, he’ll be unstoppable.
‘I had to let him in on it,’ he continued. ‘Your email used my force address, so he could have accessed it anyway.’
‘I’ve got no problem with that,’ I told him. ‘I only called you because you owe me one after the help I gave you a couple of months back. Any progress?’
‘Yes, some; Carrie McDaniels is her real name. She’s twenty-eight years old and she’s no more a journalist than I am. You were right, the story she spun you is pure fiction. The Belgian tour company does exist, but it never uses freelancers on its flight magazines. She probably used its name because it flew her to Barcelona, on a flight out of Brussels, last Saturday.’
‘Do you know what she was doing there?’
‘No more than connecting, as far as I can see. She caught an early-morning FlemAir flight to Belgium out of Prestwick.’
‘Did she travel alone?’
‘Yes, but she didn’t pay for it; the booking was charged to the credit card of somebody called Linton Baillie, billing address in Edinburgh.’
‘Do we know who he is?’
‘The gaffer let me run a PNC check; it showed him as not known to the police, so I Googled him. Several hits came up, most of them on Amazon. He seems to be an author, specialising in what they call “true crime”. There’s no image of him anywhere that I can find, so we don’t know if he’s the guy in Carrie’s photos. We could try the Passport Agency, but . . .’
‘No,’ I said, understanding his hesitancy. ‘They’d want to know why, and if you told them the truth, that it’s a private inquiry, then you’d be shafted by the Data Protection Act.’
‘Exactly. But the DI says that if you want to make a formal complaint . . .’
I laughed. ‘For what? The only thing we might have against him is indecent exposure on Gullane beach.’
‘We could talk to his publisher,’ Sammy Pye called out, close enough for me to hear him.
‘Tell him no thanks, Sauce,’ I said. ‘If the guy’s a serious nuisance I’ll find him myself. Back to McDaniels: you’ve found out what she isn’t. Got any clue to what she is?’
‘Yes, believe it or not, she’s a private investigator.’
‘A what?’ I exclaimed.
‘No kidding, Chief. She’s a licensed private detective. I found her CV online; it was pretty informative.
‘It says that she started her career with an insurance company, straight from school, about ten years ago; as an assistant in its claims department. When she was twenty-one she joined the Territorial Army Military Police. She served mainly in Scotland but did a couple of short tours of duty in Germany and in Afghanistan.
‘Two years ago, she left the TA, as a corporal, and got herself what they call a front-line licence from the Security Industry Authority. Armed with that she resigned from the insurance company and set up on her own as CMcD Investigations.’
‘Working for whom?’
‘According to the website, for her old employer, for a couple of retail chains, and for “a number of private clients”. I’m quoting there, by the way.’
‘One of those being Mr Linton Baillie,’ I murmured. ‘With tracking me as her brief, it seems. The bloody woman’s had me under surveillance.’
‘Looks like it, sir. Do you want us to look closer at this Baillie guy? Sammy’s sitting here nodding, if you do.’
‘No, I don’t think so. For the moment, he thinks he’s a secret. He can keep on believing that until I’m ready to deal with him. He’s low priority at the moment; I’ve got something else to sort out here. Thanks for your help, both of you.’
Sauce’s information would probably have driven Mia’s missed call out of my head, had there not been a little red reminder on the screen of my phone. I thought about deleting it, for I wanted none of her in my life. But then I realised that she felt the same way about me, and that she wouldn’t have phoned me just to pass the time. Shortly afterwards my scrambled brain recognised that we had exchanged mobile numbers for one reason alone: Ignacio, our son.
I made the call. When Mia answered she sounded more than a little agitated. ‘Can’t talk now,’ she hissed. ‘I’ll call you back in five.’
‘That’s if you can get through,’ I muttered, after she’d gone, then hit Sarah’s number.
‘Hello, my darling.’ Her voice had an echo to it that told me she was driving. I checked my watch and saw that it was seven forty-two local time, an hour earlier in Scotland. I’d caught her on the way home from work, bound for Gullane. Our reconciliation is recent enough for us still to keep separate houses, although more and more she’s been coming to mine, especially through the week when the kids are at school.
‘Good flight? Settled in okay? Is L’Escala quiet?’
I smiled, as if we were speaking across the dinner table. ‘Yes to the first; sort of, to the second; not as quiet as I’d like it to the third.’
‘That last one sounds pretty mysterious,’ she chuckled.
‘It isn’t really.’ I decided to say nothing about Carrie McDaniels; not then at any rate. ‘I was surprised by the number of ex-pats in winter, that’s all. But I’ve been distracted.’
I told her about Xavi’s call, and that I was phoning from his place. ‘He’s in a bit of a predicament and he wanted my advice.’
‘What kind of advice?’
‘Professional. He needs to trace a missing person, discreetly. I’ve said I’ll help him.’
The chuckle became a full-throated laugh. ‘Bob, since when did you do discreet?’
She had me there. For all my high police rank, I have a reputation for leaving carnage in my wake.
‘This’ll be fine. We’ll trace the guy in a day or two, and I’ll get back to what I came here to do.’
‘Let’s hope so. I want to see a man with a plan when you get back.’
‘It’s taking shape already,’ I assured her. I wasn’t kidding; I was amazed by the buzz that Xavi’s situation was giving me. Furthermore, if somebody like Carrie McDaniels could set herself up as a licensed investigator, on the basis of a couple of years as a part-time Redcap, then what could I do?
‘How’s your day been?’ I asked.
‘Routine. This morning I did an autopsy on a
fit and healthy twenty-six-year-old man who was found dead in his armchair. It was uncomplicated; the guy drank too much beer and ate too many pakoras, then fell asleep and inhaled enough of his own puke to see him over the line.
‘This afternoon, I lectured to a couple of classes at the university, then wrote up my notes on the morning’s subject for the insurance company that hired me to carve him up. He was insured for two hundred and fifty grand, double for accidental death. The argument will be whether it was accidental or self-inflicted.’
‘Maybe the same insurance company should hire me,’ I suggested, ‘to find out who put heavy doses of Zolpidem and hydrogen peroxide in the pakoras, the first to knock him out, the second to make him vomit. I take it you’re having the stomach contents and blood analysed.’
‘The client isn’t paying for that. See, I was right,’ she said. ‘You should write crime novels.’ Then she paused. ‘Do you really think I should?’
‘I would,’ I told her. ‘In a thirty-year police career I’ve never heard of anyone dying like that, just from having a few beers and eating his dinner, least of all a young fit man.’
‘Jimi Hendrix?’ Sarah suggested.
‘Go and read his PM report. He was drugged up to the eyeballs when he choked to death.’
‘Hey, you’ve got me worried,’ she murmured.
‘No reason to be,’ I said. ‘Call the insurers; tell them you’ve consulted an independent source and been advised that tests are necessary.’
‘Okay, I will; first thing in the morning. Got to go now; I’m almost home.’
‘Give the kids a hug for me. Love you.’ And I really do.
Mia had come back to me while I was speaking to Sarah. I was about to return both calls when she beat me to it.
‘Sorry,’ she began. ‘When you called I was on air, just coming out of a commercial break.’ She sounded nervous.
‘Understood. How’s the job going?’
‘Very well, thanks. I’m building an audience already. Drive-time’s a good slot to have, because a lot of people tune in for the local traffic info. The trick is to keep them listening once they’re home, and I seem to be doing that. Healthy audience equals happy advertisers and sponsors . . . so happy that the boss has asked me if I’ll do a Sunday morning show as well.’
‘I’m very pleased for you,’ I lied; I didn’t begrudge her success, but I’d have preferred it to be happening in another country, ‘but I doubt that you called me to give me a career update. What’s up?’
‘I had a creepy caller this afternoon,’ she replied, ‘around ten past four. I get all sorts of people phoning in, all ages, not just kids like I had on the Airburst station in Edinburgh, when you and I met. They’re supposed to be vetted before they’re put through, but this one got past.’
‘How old was this caller? Was it a man or woman?’
‘It was a man; I can only guess at his age, but the voice was mature, husky, like a smoker.’
‘Did he give his name?’
‘Of course. He wouldn’t have got on air otherwise; he was called Linton, or so he said.’
I felt my eyes widen, but I did my best not to react in any way Mia could pick up on.
‘First name or surname?’
She paused. ‘I don’t know; my producer didn’t say before she put him through.’
‘What did he say that spooked you?’ I asked, trying to sound impatient.
‘He said that he was calling on behalf of a female friend who was too nervous to phone in herself. He said that she had a son who’s in prison, the product of a brief relationship back in the nineties. He said that the boy had been convicted of a serious crime, and that his father knew about it but was refusing to acknowledge him.’
‘Fuck!’ I whispered.
‘I had trouble stopping myself from saying exactly the same on air,’ Mia admitted. ‘But I managed. Instead I asked him if he had a question. He said yes, how would I advise his friend. Should she out the father, who’s a prominent figure, even though he’s threatened her, physically, if she ever does.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told him that if his friend feared for her safety she should report the father to the police and ask for protection. He was going to come in with a follow-up, but I cut him off and cued up a song, three minutes ahead of schedule. As soon as it started I told my producer never to put the guy through to me again.’
Her voice rose as she spoke, and I could hear fear in it. ‘Bob, what was that about?’ she exclaimed.
‘Maybe it was genuine,’ I replied. I was trying to talk down her alarm.
‘Are you kidding?’ she snapped back at me. ‘It was some sort of a weird message, to me, to you, I don’t know, but he was telling me something, not asking. He knows whose son Ignacio is, Bob, and if he goes public with it, God knows what might happen to him in jail!’
‘Calm down, Mia.’ I wasn’t feeling too calm myself; the mention of that name had wound me up tight. ‘Did he try to get through again?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have a record of the call?’
‘Of course; we have to record all our output.’
‘Sure, but do you have the originating number?’
‘Yes. I asked about it as soon as I came off air. It was an Edinburgh number. Do you want it?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘text it to me as soon as we’re done here. Mia, has there been any follow-up? Have you had any calls from the media? I know the press sometimes monitor live radio looking for controversy.’
‘No, there’s been nothing.’
‘Then don’t panic. Does your employer know about Ignacio?’
‘The MD does; I told him my whole life story as soon as we began talking seriously about the job. But nobody else knows, and nobody here has ever linked me to the case or to my mother’s death. I’m on the payroll here as Mia Spreckley; all the coverage referred to her as Bella Watson. Her maiden name was never used.’
She had a point: almost. When Ignacio Centelleos, a Spanish national according to his birth certificate and passport, appeared in court charged with the culpable homicide of Bella Watson and with disposing of her body, the trial judge, Lord Nelson, and the prosecutor, Moira Cleverley, knew the full story, but it was never told in open court.
It had been presented as a family dispute in which Bella had gone berserk with a cleaver and had been stabbed by the boy in his mother’s defence. Mia’s name had never been mentioned; neither had mine, but I had come clean to Archie Nelson and to the Lord Advocate, both of whom were due me a couple of favours. The affair had been kept as discreet as possible, for Ignacio’s sake, not ours, but it wasn’t watertight.
‘But it was known,’ I sighed. ‘That’s what her neighbours called her; all her household bills had that name too. If anyone wanted to find out who you were, it wouldn’t take long. Even the world’s slowest search engine would turn you up inside a minute.’
‘Who would want to?’ she wailed. ‘This Linton character: does that name mean anything to you, Bob?’
‘It does now,’ I growled. ‘If it’s any consolation, I think that call was a message, but to me, not to you.’
‘What sort of a message?’
I took a few seconds to think about that, and about the events of the afternoon, not least the timing of my encounter with Carrie McDaniels. That had happened a couple of hours before the call to Mia.
‘A threat; the clear implication is that Linton – it’s a forename, by the way; the other one’s Baillie – thinks he knows who Ignacio’s dad is, namely, yours truly. The guy’s interested in me, for some reason; I believe that he got to know that I’d found out, and decided to send me a warning. It might even have been his way of introducing himself to me.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ Mia asked. ‘Find Mr Baillie and put the fear of God in him?’
‘That would be difficult for me right now, since I’m in Spain. When I’m back, I’ll deal with him, but as things stand, I don
’t believe it’s in his interests to go public with the story that I’m Ignacio’s dad. There wouldn’t be enough money in it for him.’
‘This is about money?’ she gasped.
‘Most things are,’ I growled. ‘Baillie will have to show his hand eventually. Until he does, he’s not my biggest concern.’
‘Then what is, for God’s sake?’
‘For one, a missing man here that I’m trying to find. For another, unless he’s taken a wildly inspired guess and it’s come off, I want to know how the hell he found out the truth about you, me and our boy.’
Six
Linton Baillie hadn’t used his own phone to call Mia’s programme. As soon as her text arrived with the number the station had logged, I couldn’t resist dialling it, but something told me that if he was playing games, he wasn’t going to deal me a good hand.
I let it ring for half a minute; just as I was about to give up it was answered. A male voice said, ‘Hullo,’ tentatively.
‘Is Mr Baillie available?’ I asked.
‘How the fuck would Ah ken, mate?’ the man replied, laughing. ‘This is a phone box in John Lewis.’ I killed the call, leaving him with a story to relate to his pals in the pub.
Did I consider withdrawing my offer to Xavi to help find Hector, and heading straight back to Scotland to pursue Mr Linton Baillie?
Well, yes I did, but only briefly. As I told Mia, I didn’t believe there was an imminent threat to Ignacio’s security in Jail. However, I’m far from omniscient; if all the mistakes I’ve made in my life could be turned into mileage, they’d circumscribe the planet.
As a failsafe, I phoned my daughter Alex, and asked her to call on the Governor of Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution and let him in on the secret, so that the lad could be protected immediately, should the truth be leaked.
I tried to get away without telling her why I wanted it done, but she knows I’m not an impulse buyer, and that there’s a specific reason for everything I do. When I told her about Baillie, and Carrie McDaniels, and the call to Mia’s programme from a public phone, she went volcanic.
‘Who is this man?’ she shouted. ‘I’ll find him, I’ll go to court and I’ll tie him up in an interdict so tight his bloody eyes will pop out! He won’t be able to come within a mile of you or any member of our family.’
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