14 - Stay of Execution

by Quintin Jardine

  He unscrewed the cup on top, then the inner plug, and sniffed. ‘Bastard,’ he growled. ‘Fuckin’ oxtail. Ah hate fuckin’ oxtail.’

  47

  Bob Skinner’s day was looking up. His worst waking nightmares about a wave of cyanide deaths across the country had not come true, and negative test results were being reported from all over the country by the toothpaste manufacturers.

  More and more the investigation was being focused on Newcastle; the DCC had spent some of the morning in telephone conference with his opposite number on the Northumbria force. He had been told that the sale of Bartholemy Lebeau’s fatal toothpaste had been identified, thanks to bar coding and a computerised till system. It had been a cash transaction, at four thirty-five in the afternoon; one item only, five-pound note tendered, three pounds thirty-seven pence change.

  Further enquiries were being pursued and when Ruth Pye called to tell him that DCC Les Cairns was on the line once more, he had been expecting him.

  ‘Have your people spoken to the assistant?’ he asked at once.

  ‘Yes, but she’s a kid,’ Cairns replied, ‘a sixteen-year-old part-timer; there’s no way she remembers the sale, let alone anything about the buyer. We’ve taken her prints, though; I guess you’ll need them for elimination.’

  ‘Yes, thanks. Have they got video surveillance in this store?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I wish to hell they had, because in the absence of any other contaminated product, there’s a growing possibility that the victim’s tube was stolen, spiked, then put back on the shelf. It would have been nice to catch the perpetrator on tape.’

  ‘Sure it would, but since when did real life get that nice? You’re right, though, Les. We’ve got an integrated investigation here; I’ve got a murder on my patch and you’ve got product sabotage on yours. It needs high-level handling; I’ve put my head of CID in charge up here.’

  ‘And mine is in Newcastle,’ Cairns interjected, ‘so do we exchange information through them?’

  ‘For efficiency yes, but let’s you and I talk on a daily basis. Meanwhile, I’d be grateful if you’d e-mail that girl’s prints to DI Arthur Dorward, at our forensic lab.’

  ‘Will do. Cheers.’

  Skinner hung up and walked across the corridor to brief the chief on developments, catching him just before he left for an ACPOS meeting in Glasgow. He was smiling as he came back to his room, having put the poisoning investigation to one side for the moment as he contemplated his meeting with Aileen de Marco. He wondered what they would have to talk about, and how much insight she would give him into her own thinking on policy.

  ‘She’s still a politician, though, Bob,’ he whispered to himself. ‘She’ll be out to pick your brains and that’ll be it.’

  The phone on his desk cut into his thoughts. It was his direct line, and that meant urgent. He snatched it up. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Boss, it’s Neil. I’m on my mobile, and there are people here, so I can’t talk, but I need you down here straight away. Albert Dock, Leith.’

  48

  Interviewing Belgians was not the way that Jack McGurk would normally have chosen to kick off the working week, but the opportunities to escape the office were few and far between. He felt that he had turned an invisible corner with Bob Skinner over the previous few days, but he still welcomed the trip to Haddington with Ray Wilding.

  Their interviewees had been waiting for them in the Town House, a public building at the fork of Market Street and High Street. There had been thirty-five of them listed, twenty-two bandsmen, twelve musketeers and the bus driver who had driven them from Brussels. Dan Pringle had also recruited two interpreters, secretaries from the staff of the French Institute in Edinburgh, thanking his stars that he had not needed to find a Flemish translator.

  The one name missing from the list was that of Colonel Malou. The head of CID had told the two sergeants that if he needed to be re-interviewed, he would do it himself.

  McGurk and Wilding both felt that the interviews were a formality, but neither of them was about to argue with the DCC or the chief super, so they began, splitting the group into two and taking a desk and an interpreter each.

  There’s something about them, McGurk thought, as he surveyed the group of men before him. They were all dressed casually, but some wore expensive leisure clothes while others were clad in shirts and jeans that could have come from any Sunday stall-holders’ market in Europe. They sat three or four to a row on the stacking chairs, waiting for their turn to be called to the interview table. But it was the look in their eyes that caught the sergeant’s attention. He had never seen anything quite like it before; he guessed it was the expression he had seen, descriptive of men in warfare, and how they looked after their closest comrade had been blown away at their side, shocked, but with an undisguised element of relief.

  He called the first one forward. ‘Parlez-vous anglais?’ the interpreter asked. The man shook his head.

  ‘Did you know Monsieur Lebeau well?’ McGurk asked him, then waited for the translation. The Belgian shrugged, then muttered a reply.

  ‘Not much,’ his aide translated. ‘He’s been in the band for fifteen years and he was there when he arrived, but they never got close.’

  ‘Did you all go shopping in Newcastle last Friday?’

  ‘No. He certainly didn’t. There was little time, he says.’

  ‘Did you speak to Monsieur Lebeau that day at all?’

  ‘Only once when he missed a beat . . . he was a . . .’ The interpreter blushed, then paused. ‘He was not a very good drummer,’ she concluded.

  McGurk noted the man’s name and moved on to the next. The result was the same, as was the next, and the next. ‘A waste of bloody time,’ he murmured to his helper, as the fifth man approached. This one spoke English, and gave his name as Bernard Simenon. ‘Same as the writer,’ he grunted.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about Monsieur Lebeau?’ the sergeant asked him.

  ‘Barty? There is little to tell. He had his own group within the band, his own friends, but I was not one. He and his lot were ex-military, old bandsmen; I’m an engineer who likes to play the trombone.’

  ‘That’s funny. Someone said that he wasn’t a very good drummer.’

  ‘I never noticed, not behind the noise I make. He couldn’t have been that bad, though, or Auguste would have kicked him out.’

  ‘You don’t call him “Colonel”, then.’

  ‘I told you, I’m not a soldier.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you went shopping with Monsieur Lebeau, did you?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘On Friday, in Newcastle. We know that’s where he bought the toothpaste that killed him.’

  ‘I don’t know when he managed to do that. We played at a school in Sunderland in the morning, and then in a big shopping mall in the afternoon . . . the Metro Centre, damn big place. What time’s Barty supposed to have bought this stuff?’

  ‘Just after four thirty.’

  ‘Impossible, he was still banging his drum at quarter past. We didn’t get to the city till almost five, and then we went to the British Legion club, because Auguste had said it was okay to have just a couple of beers. How sure are you of the time?’

  ‘It came from the till in the shop; every transaction’s recorded.’

  ‘Then its clock must be wrong.’

  McGurk frowned, and made a note on his pad. ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll have it checked.’ He glanced up at the trombonist. ‘Your beer’s on the ration, is it, Monsieur Simenon?’

  ‘It is for this trip. Our little colonel wants us marching in straight lines before the Holy Father: but he’s not alone, for we all want that. I cannot tell you how great an honour this is for us, or how great a surprise it was when we were invited. It’s a mystery almost worthy of my namesake. I asked Auguste if he knew the reason, but all he did was shrug his shoulders and tell me I should take it as a gift from God.’ The Belgian frowned. ‘But if it is, then since He gave it
to us He’s clearly had second thoughts.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame Monsieur Lebeau’s death on God,’ said McGurk, quietly.

  ‘You say that,’ Simenon exclaimed, ‘but coming on top of poor Philippe . . .’

  ‘Who’s Philippe?’

  The man stared at him across the table. ‘Philippe Hanno. Who else?’

  ‘I’m sorry, that name means nothing to me.’

  The Belgian’s face took on an agitated expression. ‘It means everything to us,’ he shouted. ‘I cannot believe you can say that.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because Philippe Hanno was knocked down and killed in England, in Hull, by a drunk driver. They still haven’t found him.’

  It was Jack McGurk’s turn to stare. ‘You’re not kidding me, are you?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Simenon protested.

  The sergeant shoved his chair violently back from the heavy table. ‘Ray!’ he bellowed across the hall.

  49

  A security guard tried to stop Skinner’s BMW as it swept through the entrance to the Leith docks complex. He flashed his warrant card at the man and drove on, barely slowing his road speed. He had no idea where the Albert Dock was, but he followed signs until, on taking a left turn, he saw a temporary screen by the waterside, and knew that he had reached his destination.

  He swung off the roadway and pulled up alongside Neil McIlhenney’s car, which was parked between a patrol vehicle and an ambulance. Its rear doors were open and its paramedic crew sat inside, their life-saving skills clearly not needed.

  The DCC stepped out on to the dock, glad of his heavy jacket in the November cold, and walked behind the big green screen, past the two uniformed constables who stood guard, bracing himself for what he would see. He hated moments like these, but did his best to keep that to himself.

  The first person he saw was not McIlhenney, but Mario McGuire. The big superintendent’s back was turned to the thing on the ground, beneath the tarpaulin, but the look on his face told Skinner everything he needed to know and confirmed the conclusion to which he had leaped following the guarded call that had brought him there.

  ‘Fuck,’ he whispered to himself, as he approached.

  McIlhenney heard his footstep and turned. ‘Boss,’ he began.

  ‘It’s the American, yes?’ the DCC asked brusquely.

  His colleague nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘What happened?’

  It was Mario McGuire who answered. ‘He’s drowned himself,’ he told him, in an anguished voice.

  ‘Easy, big fella,’ Skinner murmured, stepping up and taking the superintendent by the elbow. ‘You’ve been close to Inspector Mawhinney for the last couple of weeks, maybe too close to be here.’

  ‘This is my patch, sir. I belong here.’

  ‘Okay, but keep it under control.’ He turned to Detective Sergeant Sammy Pye, McGuire’s assistant, who had transferred with him that morning from the Borders division. ‘Sam,’ he ordered, ‘send those two PCs up to the main entrance. I just drove past one of the security guys on the gate like he wasn’t there, and I don’t want the press doing the same thing. Get another couple of uniforms from the Queen Charlotte Street office to take their place here. A lot of people work in these docks; we could need some crowd control.’

  He moved over to McIlhenney. ‘Has the ME seen him?’

  ‘Not yet. We’re still waiting for him. Do you want to look?’

  ‘I’d better, I suppose. Will Mario be okay?’

  ‘He’s had a shock, but he can handle it. He and Sammy were on the scene first; he called me while they were on the way.’ He leaned over and turned back the tarpaulin.

  Skinner looked down at the body of Inspector Colin Mawhinney. His hair, slacks and his heavy navy-style pea-jacket were slicked with green slime from the dock, and in death, his face had a similar, if very faint, tint in its colouring. He looked as if he could simply have fallen into the dock and drowned, had it not been for one thing; a long, thick and very heavy chain lay on the ground beside him, its links leading under the jacket. Skinner crouched beside the dead man, turned back the garment, and saw that it was twisted and lodged in his belt.

  He turned and glanced up at McGuire. ‘Again, Mario, what happened?’

  The detective superintendent pointed towards two men who were standing a few yards away at the water’s edge, watching the scene; one wore worker’s overalls, and the other a suit, beneath a raincoat. ‘They found him, sir,’ he replied. ‘You’d best hear it first hand.’ Skinner straightened himself and followed him across to the pair. ‘This is Benny McCaffrey,’ he said, introducing the labourer first, ‘and this is Stanley Guinness, from the port office. Tell the DCC what you told me, Benny.’

  The man nodded; he looked to be in his mid-fifties, with a grimy face; strands of grey stringy hair protruded from a dirty woollen cap. ‘Ah saw a fella,’ he began. ‘Ah was working over there and Ah saw this wee bloke. Ah thought he was maybe frae the pipe works or somewhere. He nivir saw me, mind.’

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘Just walkin’, like, mindin’ his ain business, ken. He was carrying a bag thing, that wis a’. He stopped, and he took a quick shooftie round, then he had a pish in the dock.’ McCaffrey chuckled. ‘Probably improved the watter quality. But when he wis finished I saw him looking doon, doon the dockside. Then he picked up a pole somebody hid left lyin’ and poked it in the watter, like that.’ He made a prodding movement as if he was gripping a pole himself, one hand above the other. ‘Next think I kent he wis runnin’ like fuck.’

  ‘And what did you do after that?’

  ‘Ah came doon here, tae see what had scared him, ken. Ah saw all right. That poor bloke there. Ah went straight tae the port office and got Mr Guinness.’

  ‘Who took the body out of the water?’

  ‘My men did,’ the port official replied. ‘I always have a couple of people handy who are trained divers and who can go into the dock in . . . emergencies like this. They freed him and brought him to the surface.’

  ‘When you say they freed him,’ Skinner interrupted, ‘what exactly do you mean?’

  ‘That chain you can see there,’ said Guinness. ‘He’d secured it in his belt as you see, and wound it round his waist, several times, for ballast I assume, to make sure he’d go down. There were stones in the pockets as well.’ He paused. ‘But when he went in, the end of the chain seems to have caught in the dock wall and held him there. The basin’s tidal as well, so when the water level dropped a few feet, he became visible.’

  ‘What about this man? The guy Mr McCaffrey saw pissing in the dock?’

  ‘I can’t help you there, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Sammy had a word with Site Security, boss. One of them saw a bloke legging it through the gate and up Constitution Street, but he couldn’t get near giving a description.’

  The DCC scowled. ‘That’s a poor show,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t suppose it makes any difference, though. Mawhinney was in the water for longer than a couple of minutes. Whoever that guy was he can’t tell us anything we haven’t found out already. Come on, Mario,’ he said, turning and leading him away from the other two men. ‘Let’s you and Neil and I go up to your new office; there’s some things I need to ask you, away from here.’

  ‘I want to stay, boss, till the ME’s been, and they’ve taken him off to the morgue.’

  ‘No. Sammy Pye can do that, and organise formal statements from McCaffrey, Guinness and the divers. Then he can fix up a pathologist to do the post mortem.’

  ‘But, boss . . .’

  ‘It’s not for discussion, Mario.’

  The superintendent sighed. ‘If you say so, sir. But there’s something else I’ve got to do, and that’s break it to Paula. She’ll be gutted.’

  ‘So will Sarah. She liked the man too.’ Skinner looked at him. ‘Tell you what, where will Paula be right now?’

  ‘In her office, round in Commercial Street.’

  �
��Okay. Let’s go there. We should probably talk to both of you.’

  ‘Why?’

  The DCC looked at him patiently. ‘Mario,’ he said, quietly, ‘I know you’ve had a hell of a shock, but get your heid in gear, will you? As far as we know right now, you two were the last people to see that man alive.’

  50

  Dan Pringle glared at Auguste Malou across the table in the Dalkeith police office. When Ray Wilding had called to explode the bombshell in his lap he had gone incandescent, and ordered that he be picked up and taken to the East Lothian divisional headquarters, rather than to the Haddington office.

  ‘I’ve been dancing to those buggers’ tune since yesterday. I’ll be fucked if I’ll do it any longer.’

  He had calmed down a little on the drive from Fettes, but not so much that he was about to defer to the Belgian. Equally, the peppery colonel was irate at the sudden and unexplained summons, which, he protested, had been presented with all the indignity of an arrest.

  ‘Father Collins shall hear of this,’ he bellowed at the chief superintendent. ‘Monsignor di Matteo shall hear of it. Before I am finished, His Holiness himself will hear of it. When he does, sir,’ he gave a grim little laugh, ‘yours will be a heavy penance.’

  ‘This may seem like sacrilege to you, Colonel,’ Pringle drawled, ‘but I answer to Sir James Proud and Bob Skinner. If you’ve got a problem with me, you tell them about it. In fact,’ he picked up the interview-room telephone, ‘if you like I’ll call DCC Skinner right now and you can speak to him. I don’t advise it though. If you think I’m a bear when I’m angry, you don’t want to rattle his cage.’

  Malou gave him one last icicle stare. In spite of himself, Pringle found it strangely disconcerting: it was as if the old eyes were made of frosted glass. ‘I will accept your apology,’ he said, in a grudging tone, as if one had been offered. ‘Now get on with it. Tell me the reason for this outrageous behaviour of yours.’

  ‘My reason, Colonel,’ the head of CID replied, ‘can be expressed in one name: Philippe Hanno.’ The eyes seemed to mist over. ‘I want to know why the first time I heard it was this morning, when one of my officers phoned from the place where they’re interviewing your bandsmen. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about Hanno yesterday?’