The Ardmore Inheritance

by Rob Wyllie

  'When are we due to see Pollock?' Jimmy asked.

  'Five minutes. I guess that must be when the next break is. Come on, let's go and grab a coffee before the rush,' she said, pointing to a table alongside another set of double doors that presumably led into the conference room proper.

  A few minutes later the doors opened and the delegates surged into the exhibition room in search of refreshment. These were the brass, as Frank disparagingly called then, and today each one of them was dressed true to type, attired in their formal uniforms with the shiny buttons and epaulettes, although they looked more silvery than brassy in Maggie's eyes. He had told them that ACC Katherine Frost would be in attendance, she of the home-made porno movies, and that they should look out for her, just for their amusement if nothing else, which she thought was a bit cruel. Nonetheless she found herself scanning the room, and as coincidence would have it, found Frost standing in the refreshment queue talking to none other than Sir Brian Pollock. Maggie nudged Jimmy in the ribs and pointed her head in their direction.

  'Wonder what they're talking about,' Jimmy said, grinning. 'Maybe she's offering him a part in her next film.'

  'Come on,' she said, grabbing him by the arm, 'let's go and introduce ourselves.' Assuming she could remember who she was supposed to be, that was.

  Brian Pollock was not a tall man, no more than five foot seven or eight, and not much older than herself she guessed, with greying hair and a neat goatee beard. She wondered when it was decided that brains rather than physical stature should become the main attribute for a career in the force. Frank had told her that he had been one of the first to come through Strathclyde Police's fast-track graduate scheme, and there was considerable prejudice against him in the rank and file as a result, although he had phrased it rather more colourfully. It's because the guy's a complete wanker. She remembered that Katherine Frost was also a fast-track entrant, wondering if everybody in the room had followed the same route to the top. Judging from their relative youth, she guessed they had.

  'Chief Constable Pollock, I'm sorry to interrupt but I guess you're working to a tight schedule. I'm Caroline Watts with the Chronicle and this is my photographer Robert. You remember we've got an appointment.'

  He turned and smiled to his companion. 'Yes sorry Katherine, but I've got a date with the national press. Let's catch up later shall we?'

  'Actually Robert,' Maggie said, looking at Jimmy and furrowing her brow, 'an informal shot or two in this room might be quite good before we start. Perhaps one here with your colleague, would that be ok Sir Brian?'

  He shrugged and gave a smile. 'Yes, I'm sure that would be fine. What do you think Katherine? Fancy getting your face in the papers?'

  Maggie caught Jimmy's eye, assuming he was thinking the same thing. Probably the last thing ACC Katherine Frost wants is to get her face or any other part of her anatomy in the papers. But she seemed more than happy to go along with it.

  'Yes, sure Brian, that's ok. Just let me fix my hair first.'

  Maggie smiled. No-one would call Frost an attractive woman, with plain features and a bony frame that made her uniform look ill-fitting, but everyone wanted to look their best for a photograph. She whipped a small folding brush out of her bag and quickly dragged it through her cropped hair. It didn't seem to make much difference.

  Maggie saw Jimmy had succeeded in removing the SLR camera from the bag and was now holding it against his chest, staring down at the large viewfinder.

  Just point and shoot, she remembered Yash telling him, and just don't forget to switch it on. She wondered if she ought to remind him.

  'Yeah, that's good,' he said, not looking up, 'and don't look at the camera folks please. We'll just get a couple of natural conversational shots. Yeah, that's good... hold it... yeah, got it. Thanks a lot.'

  Maggie smiled at Frost. 'We'll just caption you as a colleague in the article, unless you want to be named of course?'

  It seemed that she did.

  'I'm Assistant Chief Constable Katherine Frost of Greater Manchester Police. Do you need to write that down?'

  'No, I'll remember,' Maggie replied, catching Jimmy's eye.

  'Right then, let's do this thing,' Pollock said pleasantly. 'I expect we can find a quiet spot in the conference room. The do's not due to restart until quarter-to.'

  They went through to the adjacent room, empty except for a few stragglers, and arranged three of the chairs in a circle of about two metres in diameter.

  They're generally pretty relaxed for these kind of sessions, Yash had advised. They're expecting a pleasant half hour talking about how brilliant they are. Everybody likes that, don't they? That's the atmosphere you're looking to create. She decided to take his advice.

  'I obviously did quite a bit of research before I wrote my outline,' she gushed, 'and I must confess, I didn't realise you were so young. You must be one of the youngest Chief Constables in the country, aren't you? At forty-four.'

  'Forty-three actually. And yes, I actually am the youngest I believe, and the youngest ever of any force in Scotland.'

  'That's amazing,' she said, nodding enthusiastically. 'By the way, I hope you don't mind if we publish your age in the article? It's the first thing our readers look for. Everyone's interested in that, aren't they?'

  'No, go ahead, of course,' he said, making no attempt to hide his self-satisfaction.

  Rustling through her handbag, she withdrew the folded magazine pages that Yash had given her, expertly mocked up by the Chronicle's graphics department. The puff piece.

  'You saw this I'm guessing? Did you like it?'

  'I liked the headline,' he said, smiling, 'although I'm not sure all of my colleagues would necessarily agree.' By his tone, she guessed that wouldn't concern him one bit.

  'The rise of a policing superstar. New broom shakes up Scottish force. That pretty much sums up what you're all about, doesn't it?'

  'Well I'm not so sure about the superstar thing,' he said, 'but let's just say since I moved to headquarters I've tried to put my stamp on things. More diversity, softening the culture and making it more customer-friendly.'

  She wasn't sure whether the customers he was referring to were the members of the public or the villains who found themselves forced to enjoy Police Scotland's in-cell hospitality. But there was no getting away from the results he seemed to have achieved. In the two years of Pollock's tenure, the crime figure had been heading the right way across all categories, that was, downwards. Something that she obviously had to mention.

  'So how much do you think the encouraging crime statistics are down to you personally?'

  'One doesn't like to take too much credit of course,' he said, 'but one likes to think one has had some influence, yes.'

  'Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime, is that what it is?' Jimmy asked, evidently forgetting that it was the journalists who were supposed to ask the questions.

  He smiled. 'Well, if you like, although the police don't have much influence on the latter I'm afraid. That's down to the politicians, and they generally make a pig's ear out of that, don't they?'

  'But it must be something you're immensely proud of,' Maggie said. 'After all, I guess that's what policing is all about, isn't it? Bringing down crime, and you've done that brilliantly.'

  Was she overdoing it a bit? She wasn't sure, but it seemed to be having the right effect.

  'Yes, well that's what I've been able to share with my colleagues today,' he said, relaxing back in his chair. 'Not every force is doing so well as we are in Scotland, and as a result there's great interest in my methods, as you can imagine.'

  It was slipped into the sentence with no great emphasis but Maggie noticed it nonetheless. My methods, not our methods. No wonder the rank and file thought he was an arse. She wondered what the celebrations would be like after Frank had brought him down.

  'And how would you sum up these methods Sir Brian?' she asked.

  'As I said, it's as much about changing the culture of the force
as anything. More diversity in our ranks and policing for the people not against the people if you like.'

  'Yes, I can see that,' she said, not understanding a word of what he'd said. But the more she got to know this guy, the more she sided with Frank's opinion of him. Sure, the crime figures had come down but that was probably just because Pollock had got lucky. And now pretty soon his luck was going to run out.

  She saw him glance at his watch. 'How're we doing? The conference will be starting up again in ten minutes.'

  'No that's great,' Maggie said. 'I think I've got nearly everything I need, and to be honest the piece will come out pretty much in line with the sample we sent you. There's just one last thing if you don't mind. It'll take two minutes, no more than that.'

  'Sure, go ahead.'

  Now it was time to go for it. Now or never. Light the blue touch-paper and retire fast.

  Taking a deep breath she said, 'It's just my editor always likes a bit of light and shade in his articles, so I was just wondering... I mean you've had such a stellar career but I guess there must have been some things that didn't go quite so well? Is there anything in particular you can think of? Something that might merit a paragraph or two, just so I can keep the editor happy?'

  She saw his expression harden, although he was trying to disguise it with a forced smile.

  'Well no-one's perfect of course, but nothing specific springs to mind, no.'

  It was exactly the response she had expected. Either he wanted to keep his skeletons well-hidden or he honestly did believe he was without fault. With an ego his size, it was difficult to tell which.

  'Forgive me for bringing this up,' Maggie said, 'and this might be nothing, but an agency journalist up in Glasgow mentioned to me a story she's working on at the moment. It concerns some naval officer who killed himself in prison a few weeks ago. Lieutenant James McKay I think his name was. The whole thing sounds like an awful tragedy, because apparently this guy was convicted of murdering his wife and daughter, and now there's a suggestion that it was a terrible miscarriage of justice. The reason I'm raising it is that the journalist knew I was meeting you and she says you were the senior investigating officer at the time.'

  He continued with the forced smile but she could tell from his eyes that he wasn't smiling inside.

  'I think your journalist friend is going to be sadly disappointed,' he said coldly. 'If any story should emerge, then I fear that the late Professor Whiteside will be the colleague who does not come out of it too well. As for the police, I believe we followed all due procedure at the time.'

  Maggie nodded. 'I'm sure that's the case Sir Brian. It's just that she told me she's got some sort of mole on the inside, and apparently the file's pretty damning, and she also says there's an internal investigation going on at the moment, although it's all a bit hush-hush. Look, would it be ok if I just included a couple of sentences in my article that mentions it? A sort of cloud-on-the-horizon angle? My editor would love that you see. He calls it cross-pollination, you know, letting our readers know about another article that's coming soon. It helps to boost sales apparently.'

  But she could see that Chief Constable Sir Brian Pollock wasn't listening to anything she was saying. All he would be thinking about was the little white lie she had dropped into the conversation. The journalist's got a mole on the inside. As soon as he got back to Scotland he was going to pull that file and go through it with a fine-toothed comb and then anything that showed the investigation in anything but a good light was going to magically disappear. But what he didn't know was that super-keen WPC Lexy McDonald had gone through that file with her own fine-toothed comb and now knew it like the back of her hand. If anything evaporated, she would know and then so would Frank. But Maggie didn't see any advantage in making an enemy of Pollock, not now at least.

  'But you know, the more I think about it,' she said, furrowing her brow, 'I don't think this story, if it is a story at all, really fits in with my piece. I think what I'm going to do is just write a paragraph that says your rise hasn't all been plain sailing and there's been challenges on the way but your hard work and dedication has overcome them. Something like that, what do you think? Nothing specific.'

  He lounged back in his seat once again, visibly relaxing. 'Yes, that would be fair, because of course there have been challenges on the way. But look, it's been excellent but I think we need to wind it up here if you don't mind.'

  As they got up to leave, he shot a smile at Jimmy. 'Do you need any more pictures before we finish? Maybe with my dress hat on this time?'

  ◆◆◆

  Less than an hour after they'd finished with Brian Pollock, Frank had relayed the news that WPC Lexy McDonald had been requested to hand the Ardmore files over to her sergeant, the order coming down directly from Police Scotland headquarters at Tulliallan. Maggie had frowned and asked if that meant they would never see the light of day again, but Frank had reassured her that that wasn't going to happen.

  'No no,' he had said, 'you see they can't do that. Not when my wee investigation's in full swing. Because if that file doesn't re-appear, Jill Smart will be straight on the phone to Pollock and then what's he going to say? No, we'll get them back again, mark my words. Suitably detoxified of course, or at least that's what they'll think. But we know better, don't we?'

  So that was it then. Game on.

  Chapter 20

  Lexy McDonald had been surprised to find the tower of document boxes on her desk when she had come in that morning. No more than three days after she'd been instructed to check them back in, and against all expectations, here they were in front of her again. At first glance, they looked exactly as they did when she had passed them to Jim Muir. Fourteen boxes in all, stacked two-abreast and seven boxes high, each bearing a hand-scribbled label that approximated to what they contained. At least, what they had contained before they made the forty-mile trip to Tulliallan in Fife, where all the Police Scotland brass, including Chief Constable Sir Brian Pollock, hid themselves away.

  Of course she'd asked her sarge why they wanted them, and he'd just shrugged and said it was a routine audit that they did from time to time with all the big cases, checking the contents against the index to make sure everything was present and accounted for, dull stuff like that. Which, as she learnt from DI Stewart, was the exact opposite of the reason why they had been rushed along the motorway by express courier.

  She was just contemplating where to start when her phone rang. Not her desk phone or her work mobile, but her personal one, the one she was supposed to keep switched off during working hours. Without looking, she knew who it would be.

  'Good morning sir, how are you?' she whispered, not that there was anyone in yet who might overhear her conversation.

  'Aye, not bad Lexy,' Frank said. 'So if everything's gone to plan, you should at present be hiding behind a humongous pile of boxes. Am I right or am I right?'

  'You're right sir,' she said, smiling. 'The way they're arranged, it's like a brick wall. I could stay hidden behind them for days if I wanted to. But I was surprised to see them back so quickly sir, after what you had said might happen to them.'

  'Right, well I decided a wee bit of proactivity was required, if there's such a word. So I got my gaffer DCI Jill Smart to make a wee phone call to a woman called Marion Black. She goes under the impressive title of Police Investigations and Review Commissioner for Scotland, or so I'm told.'

  'I can't say I've heard of her,' Lexy said. 'Should I have?'

  'No don't worry, not many people have. But her job is to keep the cops on the straight and narrow and get them banged up if they stray from the path of righteousness. Chief Constables hate them as a breed, and our Ms. Black in particular seems to be a right wee terrier. Keen to make a name for herself is what I've heard.'

  'I see sir,' she said, although she wasn't sure that she did.

  'You see the thing was, she didn't even know about these question-marks surrounding the Ardmore murders,' Frank said. 'The police are
supposed to inform the commissioner about anything as significant as this, but somehow it seemed to have slipped their mind.'

  'I wonder why,' Lexy said.

  'Aye, exactly,' Frank said. 'But anyway, I'm sure she had a wee word in the right ears and we've got them back now. So I just want to make sure you're clear what the job is.'

  'Yes sir. At least I think I am sir. I've to check the files and see if anything's gone missing since the last time I looked. That's it, isn't it?'

  'That's it. Sounds simple, but believe me I'm not underestimating how hard this'll be, especially since the Tulliallan crew only had them back for two days. They would have pulled a lot of stuff I'll bet, just to be on the safe side. So it's going to be hard to see the wood from the trees I'm afraid. In fact, I wouldn't put it past them to have pulled some irrelevant stuff to deliberately make our job more difficult.'

  'No I understand sir,' she said, absent-mindedly opening the cover of the uppermost file. 'I'll do my best sir.'

  'I know you will. But the thing is, you've only got today to do it. It's really important that they still think I want this to be a tick-in-the-box exercise as much as they do. So as soon as we're done, I'm going to call your Sergeant Muir and tell him that we're just giving it one day and then we're closing it down. So good luck, and give me a call if you think you've found something. But be discreet, ok?'

  ◆◆◆

  The question was, where to start? The box files were conveniently numbered one to fourteen, so that would probably be as good as any method to go at them. Glancing at the descriptions written on the spines, it looked like the first few covered the evidence that had formed the basis of the case against Lieutenant McKay, probably the stuff Pollock and his team had assembled for the Procurator Fiscal's office, the stuff that persuaded them there was a solid case against the accused. Means, motive and opportunity. She'd covered all of that during her basic training, where she'd learnt it was just as important to establish all three in real-life investigations as it was in crime fiction. In fact, she remembered there was a brief two-page summary in the file that laid out how McKay ticked every one of these boxes. The means and opportunity bits were complete no-brainers as far as the case was concerned. With regard to means, he'd stabbed his wife and slashed the throat of his wee girl with one of his own kitchen knives, and as for opportunity, he'd just walked up the road from the base and in through his own front door. It was all so neat and tidy, except for one thing, and she had to keep reminding herself of the fact. He hadn't done it.