‘I’ve no cartridges for that thing,’ Jeremy said.
‘Don’t worry about cartridges,’ Keith said. ‘I’ve never not had a few in my coat pocket since I was ten years old.’
Chapter Ten
There were no alarms. Jeremy fetched food – scampi and chips – and he and Keith ate companionably in the outer office to the accompaniment of Hugh’s attentuated voice from beyond the door. Keith found himself half liking the solicitor. He could understand Hugh Donald’s contempt for such personal slovenliness and yet sympathise with the other’s refusal to let concern over personal appearance deflect him from more important issues such as work, carousal and silken dalliance. And he could sometimes detect wry self-derision in Jeremy’s manner.
They avoided the subject of crime. For the moment, the initiative was with Hugh Donald. But when Jeremy visited his flat to fetch beer he was reminded of his woes and thereafter monopolised the conversation.
‘That damned woman,’ he said on his return.
‘Which of many?’
‘Your wife’s blasted cousin. She’s gone and cleaned through my flat,’ Jeremy said indignantly, ‘and sent all my clothes to the cleaners. I can’t find a damn thing. And it’ll take years to replace all that carefully hoarded dust.’
Keith looked at him in his dandruffy suit. He thought that the solicitor looked secretly pleased to have found a new mother figure to resent. ‘I don’t know about that,’ Keith said with a perfectly straight face. ‘You go in there and sneeze and you’ll put it all back.’
Jeremy repressed a snort of mirth and began a querulous speech on the subject of women who wanted to change a man’s habits rather than accept them. Keith seemed to have heard it all before. Some of it had passed through his own mind on occasions.
‘You’ve got to remember,’ he said, ‘that we give way more gracefully than they do.’
Sheila, returning laden with Jeremy’s clean laundry, called him a chauvinist bastard.
*
Mr Grenville’s reappearance coincided with that of Hugh Donald, who emerged from the inner office brandishing a much scribbled sheet of typing paper.
‘Hail, hail,’ Keith said, ‘the gang’s all here.’ He put aside the shotgun but kept it within reach.
‘Let’s get down to it,’ Hugh said. ‘This is a list – we’ll call it List A – of people who could have wanted Mary Spalding dead.’
‘How many names?’ Jeremy asked.
‘Twenty-two. On disc we have what we’ll call List B, people who could have been better off for having me out of circulation. Two hundred and eighteen names, according to my affectionate colleagues.’ Hugh sounded a little awed by the number of his ill-wishers. ‘Lists C and D, also on disc, comprise people who’ve bought Armas Alicante sidelocks or put them in for alterations. Could you,’ he asked Grenville, ‘compare them in the computer?’
‘Very easily,’ Mr Grenville said.
‘Use surnames only in the first instance,’ said Jeremy. ‘Who knows what variations of initials or Christian names may have been used?’
Mr Grenville keyed in List A and transferred it to disc. He took a few minutes to write a short program. Then he ran it. ‘Absolutely nothing,’ he said.
‘Run it again without List C,’ Keith said. ‘We’ve already guessed that the gun may have been bought in Glasgow, at the shop which was burned out a couple of nights ago. That sale won’t be in the list.’
Grenville ran the program again. This time the video screen produced six names.
*
Bessander.
Craill.
Finlayson.
Harcourt.
McGregor.
Rowan.
*
‘Now compare initials,’ Hugh said. ‘There could be several men with the same surname.’
Out went Finlayson.
‘Still five different men to investigate,’ Jeremy said. ‘We’re whittling it down. But it could still take a lot of time. Do we know the numbers of the guns which were put in for alteration?’
‘Not always,’ Hugh said. ‘Some shops could only find a copy of a receipt. But if we know it it’s on the disc.’
The number of Harold Bessander’s gun was listed. It cleared him.
‘Do we know whether any of the guns were lengthened, shortened or what-the-hell?’ Keith asked.
Harcourt’s gun had been shortened slightly and had had an ebonite butt-plate fitted.
‘Three left,’ Keith said. ‘Always assuming that he hasn’t slipped through the net. The man we’re looking for may be on List B, but he may have had the gun altered at the shop which burned. Or he may have said to himself, “Mary Spalding must die. Hugh Donald would be better out of the way. And, by Golly, my friend Charlie Snooks has a gun which is still registered in Hugh Donald’s name which he’d sell me for a price and keep his mouth shut afterwards.” Or he may have acquired the gun second hand and after the alterations were made to it for somebody else. But before we do a hell of a lot more work, let’s take a look at those men. Do you know any of them by sight?’ he asked Hugh Donald.
‘Yes, of course,’ Hugh said. ‘If they’ve got reason to want me out of the road, I’ve told them the bad news face to face. I know Craill and McGregor. Can’t think who Rowan is, though.’
‘But have you ever met Craill or McGregor out shooting?’
‘Both of them. Henry Craill was invited to the Shennilco shoot last year. J.C. McGregor was one of the guns at a field trial I ran the dogs in.’
‘Is either of them a gangling sort of man with a skull-like face, not more than middle aged, careless with his gun and buys the cheapest of cartridges; but a good shot for all that, using an old fashioned, straight armed stance? Possibly left-handed?’
Hugh looked at him sharply. ‘You know Henry Craill?’
‘Never met him in my life,’ Keith said. ‘If you’d read my bloody notes you’d have known my description of the man who’d owned that gun.’
‘Mr Donald only got that page of notes this morning,’ Sheila said.
‘And I’ve been too busy to read them.’
‘All right,’ Keith said. ‘Another not proven. What about McGregor?’
‘About my height and as fat as a pig.’
‘Put him aside for now. Tell us about Craill. How does he fit?’
‘He fits to perfection,’ Hugh said. ‘He’s the managing director and principal shareholder of Subaquagalv. It’s a small to medium sized, high technology firm involved in the protection of steel rigs. They’re not doing too well at the moment. Craill was desperate to get a particular contract which we’ll be letting shortly. The quotations are just in. Craill can give a low price, but it’s my own opinion that his process will need renewing oftener than most of the others. Which gives him a good reason to wish me out of the way. I think he was already getting cosy with my depute.’
Hugh dug the long print-out from his inside pocket and unfolded it. ‘If I’m reading Mary Spalding’s notes correctly—’ he went on ‘—which is far from certain – and if SULV is Subaquagalv, which seems probable, Craill would have been at the front of the queue of those wishing her dead. She was his accountant; if I hadn’t already known it, the open accounts on the beginning of her disc would have told me. She seems to have sold the breakdown of his figures to his nearest rival, and a fictitious version of his rival’s figures to him. That means that she would have had to be well out of the country by next week when the figures will become public knowledge.’
Mr Grenville, who seemed to have no interest in the facts once they had been removed from the computer, was absently dusting the video screen. The others were listening intently and struggling to keep up with Hugh’s logic.
‘What would he gain by killing her?’ Jeremy asked.
‘Just this. If her duplicity had come to his knowledge, which it easily could, he was in a bind. She would have expected to prepare his final tender for him. If he changed it, she could sell the revised figure. If he put i
n a tender which she hadn’t prepared, she would hear about it, and that would be enough to alert his rival. Her death would not only be retribution for a substantial sum of money which she had tricked him out of, but would give him a clear run to buy his rival’s figure from that firm’s staff and improve on it by a small margin. And the figures in the tenders, which were opened yesterday afternoon, would suggest that that’s exactly what happened. He was lowest tenderer by a few thousand on a bid of several millions.’
Mr Grenville was now using the computer to draw faces on the video screen. Sheila was making a summary in shorthand. The others were still struggling.
‘Rowan,’ Keith said. ‘You must know who he is or you wouldn’t have put him on List A.’
Hugh slapped his forehead. ‘That’s right,’ he said. He ploughed back through his notes. ‘Here he is. What threw me is that he’s a comparative newcomer. According to my colleagues he bought a controlling interest in C & W Foods about a year ago. That was after I’d black-listed them. Their prices were about average but they weren’t too careful about quality and you can’t afford dysentery on an oil rig.’ Hugh switched to the print-out. ‘Miss Spalding seems to have taken him for the same sort of ride as she did Henry Craill. Rowan was after a big contract to supply another oil company’s rigs and she not only sold him some dud information but she seems to have sold his real bid to more than one of his rivals.’
‘Two names, then,’ Keith said. ‘Craill and Rowan.’
‘Hold your horses,’ Hugh Donald said. He went back to the print-out again. ‘Hold . . . your . . . bloody . . . horses. You know what they say about computers. Garbage in, garbage out. Or to put it the other way, ask the wrong questions and you’ll get the wrong answers. Here we are. Six months ago, one of my staff, Tom Marstone, got the boot for leaking our commercial secrets. Leaking them to Miss Spalding from the look of this. He got taken on by one of the firms running supply vessels. He probably faked his references, because she seems to have been blackmailing him for cash and information ever since.’
‘He sounds like one of our babies,’ Jeremy said. ‘What did he look like?’
‘That doesn’t matter. The point is that about – oh – donkey’s years ago a character introduced himself to me at a clay pigeon shoot as being Tom Marstone’s cousin. A lanky chap with protruding cheekbones. He had an unforgettable name which, unfortunately, I . . . have . . . forgotten. No, I haven’t,’ Hugh added suddenly. ‘It was Smelly. I remember thinking that if ever there was a case for a deed poll job, or whatever happens in Scotland, that was it. See if a Smelly figures in Lists C or D.’
With some reluctance, Mr Grenville obliterated the face on the video screen, which had begun to resemble his own, and keyed in the questions. Within a second or two, they had the answer. An Armas Alicante sidelock had been altered to fit a Brian Smelly three years before.
‘Now, hold everything,’ Hugh Donald said. ‘I know there’s a temptation to gallop madly off in all directions. But today’s almost gone and I’ve got work to do.’
‘I also,’ said Jeremy.
Hugh seemed unimpressed. ‘What’s more,’ he said, ‘we’re going to transfer this operation to the Shennilco building.’
‘Oh, come on, now,’ Jeremy said. ‘I can’t go trailing out there every time we need a consultation.’
‘And I can’t spare the time to trail in here,’ Hugh retorted. ‘But that’s not the reason. Use your tiny mind for a minute. We now have three names. Among them, we think, is the name of a man who is prepared to hire Glasgow toughs to break and enter or burn or to kill for him. Don’t forget that one of those toughs is running around loose again. We also have evidence, much of which will have to come out if there’s a fresh trial, and which will disgrace if not ruin some of the best-paid executives in the oil industry. God damn it, when the news gets around, Harry Snide will probably be rubbing his hands in expectation of boom business! Do you really want all the papers kept here, and ourselves here for most of the time, virtually unguarded?’
Jeremy swallowed noisily. ‘My objection is withdrawn,’ he said.
Hugh nodded grimly. ‘I thought it might be. We can take over a spare office, and there’s an entertainment suite on the top floor with sleeping cubicles. They’re supposed to be for visiting VIPs or for staff who’ve worked late, but in fact they only get used after a trade booze-up if somebody’s too pissed to go home. The whole building is secure. I suggest that all four of us move in there until we can feel safe again.’
Sheila looked at him. ‘Safe?’
‘Somebody may very much want to find out how much we know,’ Hugh pointed out gently.
That quashed any possible objections.
‘That’s settled then,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ll get on the phone and see how many cars and drivers we can produce. The drivers will be armed,’ he added, ‘and I suggest that none of us goes anywhere unaccompanied from now on.’
*
When Keith returned later to Gregor’s Hotel, to collect his luggage and to check out, he was escorted by two armed chauffeur/security guards who seemed to think that they were guarding a Head of State. It would be easy, he thought, to develop a swollen head in such company.
No reporters were lying in wait, but an inspector of police from Strathclyde had arrived to see him. Keith would have sent the guards to pack his cases while he met the inspector, but Hugh Donald had ordered otherwise. One of the men went to do that duty while the other followed Keith into the lounge and took up a strategic position at another table.
Inspector Donelly was a sharp-cornered and uncompromising man with grizzled hair and a look of having seen all that Glasgow could throw at him. He shook Keith’s hand but refused a drink.
‘Do you usually go around with an armed escort?’ he enquired grimly.
Keith glanced at the security man, who was sipping an innocuous tomato juice. No gun was visible although there was a barely discernible bulge on his hip. ‘Not usually,’ he said, ‘but the local constabulary – God bless our boys in blue – decided that, despite Galway being found in my room with a knuckleduster and no explanation, he could be allowed to run around loose. So Shennilco decided to give me a guard.’
‘Lucky for him we’re not on my patch.’
‘I almost hate to tell you this,’ Keith said, ‘but some of the foreign oil companies have men manning their gates with submachine-guns slung over their shoulders. These oil companies have a lot of clout. When they threaten to move away, taking a few thousand jobs with them, blind eyes get turned.’
‘Not on my side of the country they don’t.’
Keith was already getting a little tired of the inspector. He decided to introduce a topic which could usually be counted on to reduce any policeman to a state of incoherent fury. ‘When the oil boom moves round to the west,’ he said, ‘you may find that your policy of ensuring that only the criminal is armed and that the law-abiding citizen is at his mercy may have to get modified.’
He paused, but Inspector Donelly came from a tougher mould than Superintendent Munro in Newton Lauder. He refused the bait. ‘You said that Galway was still running around,’ the inspector said. ‘Why didn’t you mention McHenge?’
The riposte had been swift and dangerous. Keith decided not to underestimate the inspector. ‘I haven’t seen McHenge,’ Keith said. ‘But Galway came to my room and threatened me, and your local brethren didn’t oppose bail. So of course he was the one I thought of. What have you brought me from Superintendent Gilchrist?’
‘Mr Gilchrist’s more interested in what I can take back to him,’ Donelly said, but he produced a large, buff envelope. ‘You’ll find photographs, descriptions and an outline of their m.o.s in there. It’s not a lot, but it may encourage you to keep out of their way.’
‘I don’t need a lot of encouragement. Do we know where they’re staying in Aberdeen?’
‘Small private hotel. The address is in there. Now, what have you got that might help us with our arson case?’
<
br /> ‘Does this go straight back to Gilchrist?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Because the local police have already made up their minds about this one. They’re convinced that Hugh Donald killed Miss Spalding and got off on a technicality. That being so, they’re not going to give you much help to prove that your arson arose out of the need of a different murderer to cover his tracks. But if you rush into following up what I tell you, my chances of finding the man behind the murder will vanish. And I’m becoming ever more convinced that he inspired the burning of the shop. Give me a few days to find him and your case will solve itself.’
Omitting any mention of McHenge, and therefore of the note from McHenge’s wallet, Keith gave the inspector a summary of progress so far. ‘So,’ he finished, ‘we think we may have narrowed it down to a list of three men, each of whom is a perfect fit for motive. Each had access to a gun which matches the one Hugh Donald originally bought.
‘But that’s three suspects, and we can’t even be sure that there isn’t another who’s slipped through the net. Any chance of your finding a connection between one of these men and Harry Snide?’
‘Not a hope in hell,’ the inspector said. ‘Snide’s the most careful villain I ever knew. Nothing’s ever in writing. He uses public call-boxes more than his own phone and he has a system of code words which changes regularly.’
‘Sod it!’ Keith said. ‘I was going to ask you to organise a phone call in Harry Snide’s voice to Galway – or McHenge. Something like, “The client won’t pay his bill. Go round and put pressure on him.” At least we’d then find out whether either of those two knows who their client is.’
‘Almost certainly, they wouldn’t,’ said the inspector thoughtfully. ‘Knowing how Harry Snide works. And the code words would beat you. But the client might not know that. The voice would be easy enough, rasping and with a strong Glasgow accent.’
Keith blinked at the inspector. He had not yet had time to think the idea through and to have the other take it seriously caught him off guard.
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