19 - Fatal Last Words

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Then you can stop trying, right now, for this is the only answer: you’re going home to your kid. I’m going to forget about your stupid runner from Sammy Pye . . . although he’ll remember being embarrassed, so you’d better not cross him again.’

  ‘Sure, I go home, and you charge me with possession along with Anthea. You’d love that, Bob.’

  Skinner laughed. ‘You know, Bruce,’ he said, ‘one of the many differences between you and me is that when you have a grudge against someone, you shout about it for everyone to hear, like you did on Saturday night apparently, with Ainsley Glover, in a hall full of people. I don’t. To be honest, I like to think I don’t bear grudges, but if someone does me a bad enough turn for me to be bothered about getting even, I don’t tell a living soul, I just wait for my moment. You betrayed me back in our past, sure, but from that I took the knowledge of the sort of guy you are, and that was enough. You were a bad Secretary of State, because you were weak, and you were a liar. We both know that, and that’s all the satisfaction I need. You’re not on my hit list, mate; and you never were. I’m not going to charge you with possession, or anything else for that matter, out of personal spite. Go home and look after your kid, like you did once before; that’s the only thing I’ve ever even half respected you for.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to go back to Darnaway Street,’ Anderson murmured.

  ‘I don’t blame you. But that’s not your only home, is it?’

  ‘No; I still have my house in Glasgow, but it’s rented out. But I also have a cottage near Oban.’

  ‘Then if you want some advice, take Tanya up there until it’s time for her to go back to school. But before you do that, you need to complete your interview with DI Pye. You say you didn’t know about your girlfriend’s drugs, and I’ll accept that, partly because I’d have a bit of a job proving that you did, given where she’d hidden them. I could ask you to submit to a blood test to prove that you’re not a user yourself, but I won’t. You say you didn’t kill Ainsley Glover; I believe that also, but we have a witness statement that contradicts yours, and that has to be dealt with. Understood?’

  ‘If that’s the way it has to be, yes.’

  ‘OK. So this is what you do. Go back to Edinburgh, and take charge of your daughter; either stay at Darnaway Street tonight, or check into a hotel, if you can find one in the Festival month. Whatever you decide, I want you in my office, here at Fettes, at ten a.m. tomorrow morning, to be interviewed under caution by DI Pye and me, about your movements on Saturday night. You may have legal representation if you wish, but you will tell us the truth.’

  ‘To do that, it may not be a lawyer I need.’

  ‘Bring whoever you like, man. But be there or, trust me, you will be arrested. Your girlfriend will be a hot story in tomorrow’s Saltire. Make sure you don’t follow her on Wednesday morning.’

  Skinner closed his phone, ending the call, then re-dialled Xavi Aislado. ‘The one I owe you,’ he began, as the Scottish Spaniard answered. ‘It’s not Anderson, and it doesn’t have anything to do with him, but would I be right in thinking that a duke’s daughter charged with possession of industrial quantities of smack might make the columns of even a quality newspaper like yours?’

  Forty-four

  ‘Don’t be in a rush to climb the promotion ladder, Lisa,’ Neil McIlhenney told the detective sergeant. ‘When I opened the door back there, it took me three goes, where it used to be just the one. Rank softens you up; no mistake about it.’

  ‘I doubt if your pal the chief super would agree with you,’ Regan pointed out.

  ‘McGuire? Ah, he’s a special case; in the old days he could open them with his head. You know he wears a nineteen and a half shirt collar?’

  ‘I didn’t realise he had a neck.’

  The superintendent chuckled. ‘Only just.’ In the next instant he was serious once more. ‘This man Playfair hasn’t left much behind him, has he?’

  ‘No, sir,’ the DI concurred. ‘There’s even less here than there was in Mustafic’s van, and a hermit’s cell’s better kitted out than that was. Some dirty dishes and that’s it; he’s even cleared out the fucking fridge.’

  ‘And he knew that Mustafic’s body had been found?’

  ‘We have to assume that,’ said McDermid. ‘He approached Sergeant Hope, casually, and asked him what was up. Kenny told him; he gave him a physical description and asked him if it meant anything to him. Playfair replied, “Nothing at all,” and left.’

  ‘And ten minutes later he was gone. What does that tell you?’

  ‘That he’s our prime suspect?’

  McIlhenney frowned at her. ‘Think that through, Sergeant. If it was Playfair that bashed our man’s head in, then one, why did he ask Hope what the trouble was and, two, why didn’t he clear off last night, straight after he had done it? It seems to me it makes him no suspect at all.’

  ‘Then why would he run if he had nothing to do with it?’

  ‘Exactly. We need to find out all there is to know about this guy. Lisa, get on to the charity he worked with . . . What was it called, Fred, or something?’

  ‘REG, boss.’

  ‘Near enough. Ask them exactly what he did for them; if they have a personnel file on him, find out what’s in it. George, let’s put a description of his car out there, and the number, and get it found.’

  ‘Yes, but do you think he’ll still be in it?’

  ‘That depends what he’s got for brains. If he’s panicking, he probably is, but if he’s thought it through, he’s dumped it by now. Make sure that we check all the railway station car parks: North Berwick, Longniddry, Dunbar, Prestonpans.’

  ‘And Drem, that’s the nearest.’

  ‘Fine, get it done, soon as possible.’ He paused. ‘George, we’ve got a dead guy on his way to the mortuary. Have we got any physical evidence at all at the scene, or any witness sightings that take us anywhere?’

  The DI shook his head solemnly. ‘Dorward’s people have found nothing up around the body. The uniforms have searched the encampment for a murder weapon, with Derek Baillie’s cooperation, and found nothing. The crime scene is fairly isolated, but we’ve spoken to the nearest neighbours and none of them can help us.’ He reached into his pocket, produced the envelope that he had discovered in Mustafic’s jacket, and held it up. ‘All we have are these, the only personal items he had: two photos that might be his family, but equally might not, and a couple of old letters written in Bulgarian. To make it even less decipherable, the lettering’s Cyrillic.’

  ‘Then let’s find someone from our list of approved translators and turn them into English, pronto.’ The superintendent hesitated, as if considering an afterthought. ‘Where were they, George?’

  Regan described how he had found the packet, accidentally.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘The only things that tell us anything about the man were hidden away. Could that have been deliberate on his part?’

  ‘It’s possible. He could have cut the lining.’

  ‘Then let’s find out. Send the jacket to the lab for examination, but cut the label off and send that to the translator. Maybe that will tell us where he bought the bloody thing. Less than twenty-four hours ago, that poor wee dead guy was having a pint with our chief. He’s got a personal interest in this one, so he’ll expect us to pull out all the stops as we normally would, then look under the pedals as well.’

  ‘Will that include speaking to him, sir?’ asked McDermid. ‘He met the man, so maybe he has knowledge that’s important to the investigation. In which case . . .’

  McIlhenney nodded. ‘The answer is yes,’ he told the young sergeant. He smiled. ‘Is that an interview you’d want to carry out yourself, Lisa? Or would you rather delegate it to me?’

  Forty-five

  ‘You know what really pisses me off, Anthea?’ Sammy Pye asked angrily. ‘No, and you don’t give a shit either, but let me tell you. We’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and we’ve got some importa
nt questions that need answering, but we can’t, because DC Haddock and I have been sidetracked to deal with you and your miserable little habit, because we had the misfortune to be the officers who found your stash.’

  ‘My client denies having a habit.’ The woman leaned across the interview table as she spoke, blonde, sharp-faced and just as sharply dressed, in a silver suit. Her name was Susannah Himes, nickname, the ‘Barracuda’; she was Lady Walters’ solicitor, instructed by her father, and the interview had been delayed by half an hour to await her arrival, to the detectives’ intense annoyance. The DI had never met her, but he knew of her reputation as a ‘fixer’ at the top end of the criminal market. (‘The poor people get Frankie Bristles,’ he had told Haddock, ‘the well-off call Himes.’) ‘And it’s Lady Anthea, by the way,’ she added.

  ‘Your client can deny all she likes, but the blood test results that I have before me say different. So do the packets of brown that we found in the toes of her shoes, in her house. So does the copper teapot, liberally dusted with heroin and with her fingerprints . . . and nobody else’s . . . all over it. As for her title, Ms Himes, welcome to the twenty-first century. I’m doing her the courtesy of addressing her by her forename; be happy with that.’

  ‘I’m not happy at all,’ the lawyer replied with a show of belligerence.

  ‘Aw, cut the bluster, please,’ the DI told her. ‘We both know the game: you’ll earn your fee by persuading the fiscal to reduce the charges against your client in return for a guilty plea, and you’ll keep her out of jail on the back of a promise to enter rehab. Plus, you’re expected to persuade me to bail her this afternoon, pending a court appearance. The first of those aren’t within my control, but the last is, and I’m not playing. Your client will be held in custody overnight, and she’ll appear in court tomorrow; you can make your bail plea to the Sheriff, not to me. But when the fiscal tells her that Lady . . .’ he paused ‘. . . Anthea, was in charge of a child while zonked out of her head, you might find that your task is that bit tougher.’

  ‘And what of Dr Anderson?’ Himes shot back. ‘My understanding is that he fled the scene when the drugs were found. When will he be charged?’

  ‘There isn’t a scrap of evidence linking Dr Anderson to the heroin. It was in her wardrobe, in her shoes, on her premises, not his, and he denies all knowledge. As for his leaving, it’s been established that he had other reasons for that. He’s on his way home as I speak, to collect his daughter. If I were you, I’d be trying to persuade the Duke of Lanark to turn up in court tomorrow in person, to put in a word for his daughter. The Sheriff might just be persuaded to release her into his custody, and we might not oppose that.’

  ‘How very gracious of you,’ the accused woman exclaimed. ‘Bloody little policeman. As if my father could be summoned to—’

  ‘Ah, shut the fuck up!’ Pye snapped, silencing her, and startling DC Haddock by his side. He stared hard at the lawyer. ‘We’re finished here, Ms Himes,’ he said, rising from his chair. ‘See you tomorrow morning. Sauce, take the prisoner back to the cells and hand her over to the custody sergeant.’

  ‘Susannah!’ Anthea Walters protested, but her solicitor looked at the desk top and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, ‘but if the inspector chooses to take this line, there’s nothing I can do at this stage.’

  ‘My father knows a couple of High Court judges. He’ll call them if you ask him.’

  ‘That would not help, I promise you.’

  The woman’s eyes flashed, as if an inspired thought had broken the surface of the cloudy pond that was her mind. ‘He knows Sir James Proud too; the chief constable. Get him to phone him and tell him to put a stop to this nonsense.’

  The DI and the lawyer exchanged glances. ‘Lady Walters,’ Pye explained, ‘the chief retires tomorrow. I think your father would find that his call would be referred to his deputy. But it wouldn’t matter, because either one of them would back me up.’ He glanced at Haddock. ‘Sauce, take her back. I’ll escort Ms Himes out of the building.’

  As the DC stepped towards her, he thought for a moment that the woman would resist. He smiled at her, saying, wordlessly, ‘Help me, please.’ Finally her shoulders slumped, and when he took her lightly by the elbow and guided her towards the door, she went with him, meekly.

  ‘This isn’t a class thing, is it, Detective Inspector?’ asked Himes as they walked back to the Torphichen Place front office.

  ‘No,’ he replied, sincerely, ‘not in the slightest. I don’t care who she is, and even less who her father is. With the amount of heroin she had in her possession, it’s automatic that the Sheriff decides whether or not she’s bailed. And don’t tell me you don’t know that.’

  Himes smiled, and suddenly her face did not seem quite as sharp. ‘I won’t,’ she said, ‘and don’t tell me you don’t know when you see a lawyer performing for the cameras either . . . even if there wasn’t one in your interview room. Will you oppose bail?’

  ‘Truthfully, I’ve got no interest. You won’t see me tomorrow morning. I’m involved today because I found the stuff, that’s all. The drugs people will make the running from now on, ours and probably the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency, given the media profile this will attract. They’ll interview her as well before she goes to court; if she gives up her supplier, they might ask the fiscal to take his foot off the gas. If not, it’ll be full speed ahead, and you will have some job keeping her out of prison.’

  ‘But I will, don’t you fret.’

  ‘We’ll see. I’ll tell you one thing, although you probably realise it anyway. I wouldn’t let her anywhere near a jury; she’d be her own worst enemy.’

  ‘What about Anderson?’

  Pye made a face. ‘I don’t think she’ll find him rushing to be a character witness; his daughter told my DC that she saw her using the kettle once. When she asked, Anthea said it was an inhaler for a chest cold, so she didn’t mention it to her dad. Apparently Tanya’s worldly-wise for her age, but dragon-chasing’s a bit beyond her, thanks be.’

  ‘Thanks for sharing that, but what I actually meant was what about Anderson and your murder inquiry? Am I likely to be having a call from him?’

  ‘He says you’re not. I’ll hear the rest of his story tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What made him stop running?’

  ‘Not what, who. My DCC did.’

  The blonde solicitor whistled. ‘That’s a surprise. The word is that if Dr Bruce is ever crucified, Skinner will hammer in the nails.’

  ‘Our big boss is full of surprises,’ said Pye as they reached the main entrance. ‘Good luck for tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘And one more thing: I might know when somebody’s playing to the gallery, but my young DC doesn’t, not yet, so when it happens, I have to do the same thing. Next time our paths cross, let’s agree a truce before the interview, not after it.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ Himes agreed, ‘but you know how it is with clients. They like to see a bit of drama for their money. So I’m sorry, Mr Pye, it looks as if we’ll always be going to each other’s throats.’

  Her smile stayed with him for a while after she had gone, until he turned and jogged up a nearby flight of stairs, to the CID suite. Becky Stallings was in her office as he reached it, sat behind her desk, frowning at a flat-screen monitor.

  ‘Sammy,’ she exclaimed as he entered. ‘Just the man I want to see. Your victim’s daughter’s computer.’ She reached down and slapped the top of a PC tower by her side. ‘It’s been a bit of a bugger, but I finally got into Mr Glover’s files. I went through all the obvious passwords, daughter’s name, son’s name, combinations of names and birthdays; nothing worked. And then I went back to basics, tried the screen name fatallyg as password. No joy there either, but when I reversed it and keyed in gyllataf, then “Bingo”, as we said in the Met, or “Ya fuckin’ beauty”, the local equivalent, or so I understand from my Ray.’ And then her pleasure seemed to evaporate before his eyes. ‘But you know what
? It’s been largely a waste of time.’

  ‘How come?’ Pye asked.

  ‘Your victim was a very thorough man. He wasn’t content with hiding an email entity on his daughter’s internet service, he left barely a trace on that of what he’s been up to. The programme Miss Glover uses automatically files incoming and outgoing emails, not within the computer itself, unless you tell it to do that, but on line, in the provider’s main server. You’ll find them there for a couple of months, until they go off line,’ she grimaced, ‘or until the user deletes them manually, as your murder victim appears to have done. I’ve checked and there’s damn all there; incoming, outgoing, it’s all been wiped.’

  ‘But you can recover deleted files, can’t you?’

  ‘Not these ones, because they were never stored inside this computer.’

  ‘How about the service provider’s terminal? Won’t they still be there?’

  ‘Not with the one that Miss Glover uses. I’ve checked, and customer deleted files are gone for all time.’

  ‘Is that usual?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m only interested in what’s happened here.’

  ‘No, I meant is it usual for email users to do that?’

  ‘I’m guessing, but I wouldn’t have thought so. Your man’s been super-careful. He has not wanted anyone, not even his daughter, apparently, if she couldn’t give you his password, to find out what he’s been up to.’

  ‘So we’ve got nothing?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Stallings. ‘There’s one thing he didn’t delete, presumably because he needed to keep it somewhere and this was his most secure location. His mailing list, his address book; that’s still intact.’ She handed him a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve printed a copy. That’s it, the sum total of my labours.’ She glanced down at the computer. ‘The box itself can go back to its owner.’

  Pye frowned. ‘Not yet, Becky,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry to be so persistent, but I’d like you to go back in there, into Carol’s files.’