Last Resort

by Quintin Jardine

  I was passing John Knox’s House on my way home when Griff called me.

  ‘All sorted?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, it is, case closed. Thanks, mate, I owe you one. If you ever need any help involving my new best friend Easson Middleton, let me know.’

  ‘I’ll pass that on to George Regan. When I told him what had happened he went straight up to see Mario McGuire. I’d have been in big trouble if Lizzie Baines had dug her heels in.’

  In fact, he wouldn’t. After my candid conversation with young Jamie, there’s no way I’d ever have entered a not guilty plea, so Griff wouldn’t have been required as a witness. But that wasn’t something he needed to know, so I didn’t tell him.

  However, I did feel like sharing with someone: my dad. My day had been freakish, with two positives that only just balanced a very large negative, and I felt an urgent need to talk about it. There was also the small matter of my new career; now that it had been launched in a way I hadn’t imagined, I knew I had to tell him before the Edinburgh legal grapevine got to work and word got to him.

  After I’d plugged in the new phone I’d bought on my way home, I called the L’Escala number. There was no reply; I left a short message, ‘Pops, if I don’t get you on the mobile, call me.’

  As it happened, I did reach him on the mobile. There was background noise, but he came through loud and clear.

  ‘I know what you’re going to tell me,’ he said, before I had a chance to utter a word.

  Bloody hell! I thought. Has Middleton spread the word that fast? Or has Mario McGuire spoken to him?

  Neither, it transpired.

  ‘Andy called me this morning,’ he continued. ‘So you two have come to the parting of the ways again.’

  ‘So it seems. What did he tell you?’

  ‘That he’s leaving Edinburgh and you’re not, and that it got pretty heated.’

  ‘That’s a fair summary. Did he ask you to talk sense into me?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘Are you going to try?’

  He took an extra second to respond. ‘Do you want me to?’

  ‘No. You’d be wasting your time and mine. I didn’t realise it until very recently, but he’s boring. Since I’ve turned thirty and he’s turned forty we’ve become different people. I’ve outgrown Andy, and what with his job . . . his very important job, he was at pains to tell me . . . and his kids, he doesn’t really have time for our kind of relationship. So he can bugger off to Glasgow with my blessing.’ I paused. ‘Does that upset you, Pops?’

  ‘Me? No, kid, why should it? You sound cheerful enough. I may be the wrong guy to be saying this, given that Sarah and I are second time around, but I never thought you should have got back together.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Andy’s a throwback; he believes in a stable family unit, but one in which the man is the head of the household. He’s had one go at it and that didn’t work, but it hasn’t changed him. If anything it’s made him harden his attitude. He can’t help it, but you’ll never be the dutiful little wife who knows her place. I’m glad you worked that out for yourself, without me having to tell you.’

  ‘It’s as well you didn’t try,’ I retorted.

  ‘I was sure I’d never have to. I wasn’t surprised when he called me, you know. I’ve been aware that things weren’t right. I could sense it.’

  ‘Could you indeed?’ I said. ‘I told Roger McGrane yesterday that I was in a comfortable long-term relationship, and I meant it.’

  ‘Sure, and which of those words doesn’t work for you? “Comfortable”, Alex. You’re higher maintenance than that. Move on, enjoy your life . . . and your new career.’

  I felt myself redden. ‘How did you . . .’ I began, and then I realised. ‘Andy. He let it slip.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pops, I was going to tell you, honest, once you’d sorted your own life out.’

  ‘I appreciate that. Again, I’m not going to give you grief about it. I understand exactly why you’re doing it, and I’ll do everything I can to help you.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want that,’ I told him. ‘I want to make my own name, not be dragged on your coat-tails.’

  I heard him sigh. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I am who I am. I can’t change that and neither can you, so if my reputation and contacts can do you some good, accept it and benefit from it. Things are changing now, but the Edinburgh legal establishment was built on nepotism for a couple of hundred years.’

  ‘There’s a new establishment,’ I said. ‘I’ve just met one of its pillars.’

  I told him about Mitch Laidlaw’s surprise call, and how things had played out.

  He was laughing before I finished. ‘Priceless. “Of all the gin joints” and all that, it had to be Montell in that crapper.’

  ‘I know. My client was as guilty as sin, too. “First time buyer”? His dad might have accepted that, but I didn’t.’

  ‘You did your job, though, and you saved the daft laddie’s skin.’

  ‘It was pure luck.’

  ‘No, you had the nous to know that Montell would be at worst a reluctant witness and that at best Mario or someone like him would veto him ever being called.’

  ‘What if it had been someone I didn’t know?’

  ‘Hell, you’d probably have asked me,’ he chuckled, ‘and I’d have looked for a weakness in him. I can do that, now I’m a free agent.’ Before I had a chance to react to that remark, Dad ploughed on. ‘How are you getting on with the other thing, the man Baillie?’

  ‘You told me not to do any more than advise Polmont and check out the lab in Glasgow.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that, but you haven’t done exactly as you were told since you were twelve years old. That being the case, what have you found out about him?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ I replied. ‘But I am seeing him tonight.’

  I explained how I’d gone about tracking down the mysterious Linton, although he seemed less than keen to be found.

  ‘You’re seeing him at his place?’ he exclaimed. ‘Alone?’

  ‘Pops,’ I said, ‘I’m a big girl and I can look after myself.’

  ‘I know you can, but you will have blagged your way into the man’s home, a stranger’s home. When he finds out who you are . . .’

  ‘He may not. I may stay as Lexie Martin all through the meeting. It depends what he volunteers when I get round to asking him about what he’s doing currently.’

  ‘Alex, he may recognise you as soon as you walk through his door. Take someone with you, for Christ’s sake.’ He was as close to pleading as I’d ever heard him.

  ‘Do you have anyone in mind?’ I retorted. ‘Andy’s out of the picture . . . not that I’d ever have asked him . . . Ignacio’s in the nick, and James Andrew, although he’s a bruiser, is just a wee bit too young.’

  ‘Then have somebody drive you, even if they wait outside. I’ll call Sarah and ask her.’

  ‘Pops, I will have my pepper spray in my pocket and my black belt handy to strangle the man if need be. I will be fine.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Alex,’ he sighed. ‘You have to do this while I’m away.’

  ‘Pops, if you were here, you’d be water-boarding the fucker to find out why he’s been having you followed, even though in Glasgow.’

  ‘In Glasgow?’

  Oh shit! He hadn’t known about the two in the car outside Forest Gate. When I told him, that did not improve his mood.

  ‘Sauce Haddock has a couple of images,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have him forward them to you. When you get them send them to McGrane and ask him if they look anything like the people he saw.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘One’s the woman McDaniels, that I told you about. The other might be Baillie.’

  ‘Okay, but you’d better do it quickly if you want me to catch Roger today.’

  ‘I’ll do it right now,’ he said.

  All the time we’d been talking he’d sou
nded tense, and throughout, that strange rhythmic background noise had continued.

  ‘Are you all right, Pops?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m fine. In fact, I think I’ve got my mojo back . . . whatever the fuck that means,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the moment? I’m on a train, heading for Madrid.’

  ‘Madrid? Why?’

  ‘That’s a long story, which I’m not going to go into right now. Let me get on with phoning Sauce.’

  He left me holding a dead phone, with nothing to do but wait for an email. It arrived within ten minutes, and this was fortunate, because when I rang Roger McGrane, his guardian, Mrs Harris, told me that he was on the point of leaving. It might have been my imagination, but when she came back on line to say he’d take my call, I thought she sounded a little disappointed.

  ‘Alex,’ he said, ‘I thought we left it that I’d call you.’ His voice sounded more honeyed on the phone than across the lunch table.

  ‘We did, and that still stands, but this is more business than personal.’

  When I explained what I wanted him to do, he was intrigued. ‘Are you telling me those people weren’t police?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘That’ll depend on whether you recognise either of them from the images I’m going to send you.’ I had taken his email address from his business card, and was ready to go.

  ‘Let me see them,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep the line open.’

  I clicked to send my message and attachments on its way.

  ‘There’s a show in the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh just now,’ he murmured, as we both waited for their arrival. ‘It’s a musical, and I can get tickets for tomorrow. If that’s too soon, how about next week?’

  ‘Call me next week,’ I replied, firmly.

  ‘The tickets might be gone by then.’

  ‘Something tells me they won’t.’

  ‘I . . . Hold on, your email’s here. Let me have a look.’

  I waited while he downloaded the pics, and studied them.

  ‘It’s been a while since I saw them,’ he said, when he was ready, ‘but she’s a yes. Him, I’m not so sure about. He was on the far side of the car. There’s a vague similarity, but I didn’t get a good enough look at his face to be able to say one way or another.’

  ‘Thanks anyway. She’s a bonus.’

  ‘Not cops, then.’

  ‘No, private sector.’

  ‘And following your father? They must have been out of their minds.’

  ‘She still is,’ I told him. ‘She hasn’t gone away.’

  ‘What are they after?’

  ‘I hope to find out later on this evening.’

  ‘Can I help in any way?’

  If he’d been handy, I might have asked him to drive me to my meeting with Baillie, but he was fifty miles away, so all I said was, ‘You just did.’

  ‘Anything to oblige. I will call you next week, possibly Sunday.’

  I smiled at his persistence, and decided to reward it. ‘Oh, all right,’ I laughed. ‘If you’re keen enough to come to Edinburgh, tomorrow’s a date. But I tell you now, don’t pack an overnight bag, because you will be going home.’

  I called my father back, to tell him what Roger had said about the photos, but the train must have been in a tunnel, for his phone was unavailable. I left a message instead, then turned my attention to the remainder of the day.

  ‘Any time after eight,’ Coyle had said. That gave me a couple of hours to hit the books. I’d been a little nervous that full-time study would come hard to me after such a long break, but I’d surprised myself by the ease with which I’d taken to it.

  In a big law firm, you have to account for almost every minute of your working day; you’re judged more than anything else by the fees you bring in, and as much of your time as possible has to be chargeable.

  Freed from that pressure, I’ve rediscovered my interest in the law for its own sake, and I enjoy the cramming to which I’ve committed myself.

  I do most of my work in the Signet Library, of which I’m a full member, but that closes at four thirty, so I dug out my own textbooks and immersed myself.

  By seven o’clock I was a little wiser, and also hungry; time was a consideration, so I stuck a two-minute rice dish in the microwave and sufficed with that, washed down by an energy drink.

  That done, I turned myself into Lexie Martin. I was amused to discover that I enjoyed being her. She may have been a part of me that I’d suppressed for years, or she may have been a projection of my image of my mother, to whom I’m closer than anyone could imagine, for all that she’s more than a quarter century dead. Whatever, Lexie’s gaucherie was fun, and a contrast to the serious worldly-wise woman that I’ve become.

  Since my meeting with Coyle, I’d begun to fantasise that I might actually try to turn the shamefully pirated ideas that had formed my synopsis into a full-length manuscript, and see how it read. I know enough about the law of copyright and plagiarism to know if I stepped over the line.

  I took a quick shower and dressed in Lexie-style clothes . . . with the addition of a bra . . . smothered myself in scent that my lovely brother Mark bought me for my last birthday, and set off to meet Linton Baillie.

  My bag matched the Afghan coat, more or less; it was soft and floppy, not huge but big enough to hold my purse, keys, another printout of my outline, a digital recorder with a microphone sensitive enough for covert use, and of course my pepper spray.

  I knew roughly where Portland Street was, but before leaving I checked it out on street view, to get a feel for the place. It looked as if it had been built this century, and was made up of three-storey blocks of flats on either side.

  Parking is less of a problem in the evening in Edinburgh, and so I took the car. When I reached my destination I found a space on Slateford Road, and walked the final few hundred yards. I reasoned that Baillie was expecting a naive, star-fucking, would-be writer; if he happened to be looking out of a window and saw her climb out of a swish sporty model, he might begin to wonder.

  Number twenty-seven slash two slash c was on the first floor. There was no secure entry at street level, and so I walked straight in and up one flight of carpeted stairs.

  There was no name tag, only the flat number, by Baillie’s door. It was half-glazed and I saw light inside, not in the entrance hall itself but spilling in there from another room. I reached into my bag and switched on my voice recorder, then pushed the bell button. I heard the first few bars of the Star Trek theme ringing out inside the flat.

  I waited for a minute but there was no sign of Mr Spock. On the basis that even a Vulcan might be in the toilet, and might not have heard the first time, I tried again, but again, no response.

  I was on the point of calling Coyle and asking him in my best Lexie voice whether he’d been pulling her chain, when I noticed that the door was very slightly ajar. Less than half an inch, but it was unlocked, no question.

  ‘Leave it alone, Alex!’ Three voices spoke in harmony in my head: Dad’s, Andy’s and my own sensible self. I ignored them all, and pushed one of the glass panels. The door swung open, very gently.

  ‘Mr Baillie,’ I ventured, Lexie-like. There was no reply, but I could hear a sound, a man’s voice, then a woman. As I listened more closely, I heard him counter, ‘Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.’

  Not casual conversation in Slateford; no, a line from Twelfth Night. Linton Baillie liked Shakespeare; I wouldn’t have guessed that from his bland prose style.

  I stepped inside the flat, closing the door behind me, and headed for the source of the light, as the play unfolded. The first thing I saw in the living room was a Bose radio, on a sideboard. The sound was as good as the maker claims.

  ‘Mr Baillie,’ I called out again, a little more firmly than before. He must be lost in it, I thought, for again I went unanswered.

  Tentatively, I stepped through the door.

  The room was capacious, big enough for a dinin
g table to the left and for a two-seater couch and a swivel chair in the centre of the room, facing a wall-mounted flat screen TV between two windows.

  The chair was occupied. A man was sitting in it. He had a leaf-shaped birthmark on top of his bald head, which lolled sideways on to his right shoulder. His arm hung over the side, the hand touching the carpet. His neck was exposed, showing a raw red circle, the skin broken in places.

  ‘Mr Baillie,’ I said yet again, but by then I had no hope of an answer.

  I stepped close behind him, standing on something dark and rodent-like as I put my hand on the black leather, and swung it round.

  Glazed dead eyes stared up at me. The eyes of Thomas Coyle.

  Eighteen

  ‘What’s happened here?’ Xavi asked, of nobody in particular, as I finished my call to Amanda Dennis. I doubt that he’d even noticed me making it.

  ‘Seems rather obvious to me, mate,’ I grunted. ‘Wait here.’

  I left him and did a quick check of the place, to make sure that Bernicia Battaglia was the only dead person there; she was. The apartment had two bedrooms; one was untouched, but the other was a mess, with drawers left open as if someone had grabbed clothes in a hurry. It was in stark contrast to the neatness of Hector Sureda’s atico in Begur.

  When I re-joined my friend the situation had caught up with him; he was starting to hyperventilate.

  The big man had seen violent death before, up close and very personal, but he wasn’t nearly as inured to it as I was. He was shocked and trembling as he stared at the figure on the floor. I took hold of him by the arms and made him look at me instead, waiting for his heart rate to get back to normal.

  ‘What do we do?’ he asked, when he was steady and in control of himself.

  ‘One of two things: either we fuck off out of here and get back up to Girona, or we call the Mossos d’Esquadra. The first of those options is tempting, but you in particular are not a guy that even the most casual observer is likely to forget, and the car we’ve got parked outside, that’ll draw attention too, even in a city this size. Besides, it would run against all my instincts. So we make that call.’