Our Little Secrets

by Peter Ritchie

  ‘If it’s any consolation, neither can I. Too many villains in this one.’

  They walked into the station and found the incident room was quiet, with the team who’d worked through the night either already gone or about to leave. A DS gave them an update which wasn’t too much because they needed the forensics to tell them the story of what had happened at the locus and they still didn’t know who the fuck had kicked Tonto’s door in. But they had Felicity Young starting the analytical work and hopefully she could piece the fragments of intelligence and forensics into something they could understand. Maybe they could come up with one of those missing pieces.

  There was a mass of paperwork and notes they’d both neglected the previous day and they worked the next couple of hours to clear it before the phones started ringing non-stop again.

  48

  Janet Hadden hadn’t slept any more than Ronnie Slade. The news that Dominic Grainger’s wife had been murdered had nearly choked her. She wanted it to be just a housebreaking that had gone wrong, but there was no way she could make herself believe it. The very fact she was the wife of one of her sources was bad enough, and she knew exactly how it all worked. If there was no obvious candidate, then Dominic would be the prime suspect in the absence of anyone else. That was always the best bet, and she knew enough about Slade to realise he’d be looking very closely at Grainger.

  She spoke to her boss, who seemed pissed off at her, but then that was nothing new, and having to answer questions on a source whose wife had been topped didn’t ring his bell. She was sure that when Slade had time, he’d be all over the source-handling unit to see what they could tell him about Grainger. For the moment though, it would be absolutely need to know, so there would be no disclosure to the incident team. Slade and Thompson would be the only ones in the loop to protect Grainger, who, regardless of what might happen, was still an existing CHIS unless something changed.

  Hadden chewed the end of her pen and tried to think how exposed she was to close scrutiny by Slade and a deep investigation into her recruitment and handling of the source. She tried not to think about it. She knew the relationship between Grainger and his wife was poison, but would he really kill Arthur Hamilton’s wee girl? Grainger had to be smarter than that.

  She reassured herself that if he was clear of suspicion then Slade wouldn’t get far with the source unit. Protecting valuable human sources was paramount, and there had been too many fuck-ups in the past where detectives had exposed sources for all the old reasons – revenge, money or to fuck up a detective who owned a source better than yours. The source units had been created to remove these problems, and now the human assets belonged to the force and not to an individual officer.

  ‘Fuck!’ She stabbed the pen into the desk and rubbed her cheeks with the palms of her hands, trying to reduce the tension in her muscles.

  She swallowed the remains of a can of juice and switched on her computer to see what had happened overnight. She checked the routines as she did first thing every day and overall there was no big news story apart from the sniping at Police Scotland, but that had become the norm.

  The phone rang – it was her boss, who sounded even more pissed than usual.

  ‘Have you seen the news?’ The temperature of his voice was North Pole in mid-winter and she squashed the can, forcing what was left of the contents out through the opening and over the back of her hand.

  ‘No. What’s up?’ She tried to keep the tension out of her voice but whatever had happened, it was clearly bad.

  ‘Why don’t you read the fuckin’ thing, then my office!’

  The phone went dead and she looked at the sticky mess running off her hand onto the desk. She swore again and wiped it down with a dry tissue that didn’t really help. Her fingers punched along the keyboard and she stared at the screen, occasionally scrolling to another page. Suddenly she felt cold and her skin seemed damp. She was frozen for a few moments, trying to convince herself she wasn’t reading the words in front of her.

  Tonto was dead meat and there seemed to be evidence that he was the killer. Hadden sat back in the chair as if someone had kneed her in the gut. All the little pieces spiralled aimlessly like floaters in her eyeballs until they settled into patterns and there it was. She’d been turned over. She’d handed Tonto over to Dominic Grainger and he’d conned her rotten. The poor bastard was dead and would never be able to answer why, but she knew exactly what had happened, and she couldn’t do a fucking thing about it. Grainger had tied her into the scheme, and if he went down then so did she. The bastard had her exactly where he wanted, and she was his insurance policy all the way.

  She held the back of her hands up and found they were trembling. Her boss was waiting to unload on her and she had to work out her own strategy. At the end of the day it was simple: keep Dominic Grainger safe and she was okay. Two sources were involved, one of them dead, but her proposal to sign up Tonto and move on to Dominic Grainger had been approved and was a classic recruitment exercise.

  She calmed. Although it was a fucking nightmare, she steadied herself – it was just another problem to be dealt with. She drew her lips back, snarled quietly into the office, and hissed the words like a cornered animal.

  ‘I’ll fucking kill him.’

  She stood up, opened the cupboard behind her and stared into the small mirror hanging inside the door. By the time she was finished, she smiled at her reflection and was back on course.

  Dominic Grainger would be sneering into her face when she got a hold of him. She’d play along with that till this mess died down, then she’d see him burn – and she’d be the one to empty a can of petrol over him as he begged for mercy.

  Her boss was true to form, but she was back to the Ice Queen and only stared at him as he ranted aimlessly. He really didn’t have a point other than that the whole thing was going to cause him hassle and he had other things to do, like planning for his retirement abroad. When he ran out of steam, she spoke quietly and with absolute conviction.

  ‘You’re reacting all wrong to this one, sir.’

  She waited till he had sputtered a bit and couldn’t think of anything to say except, ‘What the fuck do you mean?’

  ‘All we’ve done’ – she emphasised the we – ‘is recruit a legitimate source in Davy McGill who was good in his short time. We had no more reason to worry about him than any other source, and he gave us decent results. We had planned to move on to Dominic and we did, and that went pretty smoothly. I might remind you that he’s indicated that he may be able to give us a shipment of arms to Northern Ireland. That’s headline stuff, sir.’

  She watched him absorb the assurances; he was swimming in her direction with his big fat gob open.

  ‘If we assist the investigation in any way we can and just present this as an unfortunate set of circumstances beyond our control then job done. McGill’s dead, and if they have enough evidence that it’s him, this’ll be forgotten in two weeks. That puts Grainger back in the clear, and if we get the result on the firearms, then we’re Scotland’s favourite detectives – for a while anyway.’

  She sat back, looking like she’d just spent a nice night out with friends. Hadden was back in her other self, the risk-taker who lived for this game. Her boss looked like she’d just delivered him a life-saving drug.

  ‘Okay, Janet, I get it. Let’s hope it is McGill, and if it is and Grainger comes up with the goodies, then we’re back in business.’ He said it as if he’d just thought of it all himself.

  ‘We’ve never been out of business, sir. After all, you signed all the paperwork for the recruitment, I know how thorough you are, and you’d never have let me near it if it hadn’t been a solid proposal. I’ll get back to work. I’ll not contact Grainger yet but wait to see what we hear from Ronnie Slade. I would suggest you call him, offer every assistance and leave it at that.’

  She turned to leave his office. Her boss stared after her and wondered just how thorough he had been with examining the Grainger recruitme
nt. He pulled the collar of his shirt a couple of times; he always did that when he was anxious about something.

  Hadden sat back in her office, and although she was tempted to call Grainger, it would have to wait because Slade had primacy as SIO on the murder and would not appreciate her pissing around someone so close to the deceased.

  The phone rang and she expected it to be her boss, having now absorbed what she’d said and looking for more answers.

  ‘Janet, thought I’d give you a call. Guess you’ve heard the terrible news.’

  It was Grainger and he’d caught her on the back foot again. He was a much bigger bastard than she’d realised and she knew she would have to be absolutely ruthless and careful in whatever lay ahead of her. There were a pile of traps opening just with the call alone.

  It was highly unlikely his phone would be bugged this early in the investigation, and as the husband of a victim where there was a dead culprit covered in evidence, the authority probably wouldn’t be granted in such a short time. There was nothing in the information she’d read that made it look like anyone other than Davy McGill, guilty as charged. If the call was being recorded that might be another problem, but they were tied into each other, and for the time being he had her trapped anyway, so what could he gain? No matter what, she had to be ultra-careful till her chance came.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Thought we might need to talk, Janet.’

  ‘You know I need to get clearance from the man running this investigation – Ronnie Slade. Do you want to talk about the Belfast thing?’

  She’d thrown the prompt, and if he took it, she would surely get clearance from her boss and Slade, though for it to be official, she’d have to take the co-handler.

  ‘Of course, yes, that’s what I want to talk about.’ He’d taken the hint.

  ‘This is a bad line. Call you back in a second.’ She put the phone down without waiting for an answer, opened her bag and pulled the zip on an internal side pocket. She always kept a clean phone available, switched it on and called Grainger back.

  ‘Meet you at the same place as last time . . . thirty minutes.’

  ‘Look forward to it.’

  The oil in his voice almost choked her, and she struggled not to scream down the phone that she was going to kill him, but her rage surged then calmed again.

  ‘See you then.’ She managed to make her voice as level as his. She was playing high stakes and felt a surge of energy pulse through her. She grabbed a set of keys and told her team she was off for an hour to keep a dentist appointment. It would do for the moment.

  49

  Jacquie Bell swallowed a couple of aspirin and lit up her first smoke of the day. She was behind and had overslept after a late night in the office, preparing a story that was looking good to go within a few days. It had been full-on and was a decent political scandal that would probably bring down a couple of Labour councillors and get her some serious brownie points.

  She was still at home and flicking though her emails to catch up with the night hours. There were a few news clips about the murder of Dominic Grainger’s wife. She’d been told the day before and had ground her teeth for a second thinking about what Mason had been on about, but she’d put it away as just a bad turn of events that had no bearing on what he’d told her. The previous days had consumed her as she dug up dirt on the political story.

  Her phone trembled from missed calls, which was nothing unusual, but she blew a cloud of smoke and stopped halfway when she saw there had been one from Mason nearly an hour before. He didn’t do calls that early so that meant he was worked up about something.

  She hit the call button and Mason answered on the second ring, so he was definitely agitated. That was nothing new for her either though, and she was a master at calming the panic-stricken.

  ‘You seen this thing wi’ Davy McGill, Jacquie?’

  She stubbed the cigarette out on the saucer she was using for her coffee cup because he was in panic mode, and Frankie Mason didn’t do panic unless there was a very good reason.

  ‘No, been up to the armpits, Frankie. What’s up?’ She tried to sound apologetic and the tone of his voice meant she’d probably need to be, though it wasn’t something she was good at. Bell normally controlled whatever situation she was in, and even in the middle of a serious shitstorm, she could sit back and stay focused.

  ‘What’s up? Davy McGill is what’s up! Looks like he did Dominic’s wife and he’s fuckin’ in the fridge now. OD. This is bad news, hen.’

  Normally she would have told him to drop the hen bit, but this was more serious than respecting the female sex as equals. She lit another cigarette as he rattled on a bit.

  ‘Calm it, Frankie.’ But as soon as she said it, she knew she’d picked the wrong words.

  ‘Calm it? Fuck’s sake, Jacquie, you an’ I know that Grainger visited that boy, and by the way Big Arthur knows. What do ye think that means, or will I draw a fuckin’ map?’

  Mason had never been lippy with the reporter in all the time they’d known each other, but he was right. Arthur Hamilton would draw one conclusion, and as far as they knew the police wouldn’t have the information they had. Bell had a close relationship with police officers of all ranks, and particularly Grace Macallan, who was one of the few people she called a true friend. She could ignore this, but if it came out that she’d withheld information on what looked like a corrupt relationship between Janet Hadden and the deceased’s husband, the doors in Police Scotland would close in her face, and that was not an option.

  In amongst that they’d seen a relationship between Grainger and the alleged killer, and unless the police found out some other way, Frankie Mason, Jacquie Bell and Big Arthur were the only ones who knew there was another suspect. It would all look bad. If Hamilton went off at a tangent, which he surely would, and Dominic was found with his eyes ripped out, then there were a series of possible endings which were all bad for her.

  ‘Need to think, Frankie. Can I call you back?’ She needed to buy time because she just didn’t have a strategy worked out, and this would need smart management.

  ‘Jacquie, listen to me. Arthur’s been on the phone and wants to meet. I didnae tell him everythin’ – never mentioned the Belfast bit. If he finds out I held anythin’ back he’ll take me apart, an’ think I know somethin’ else. I know this man. I’m fuckin’ off tae a pal’s place in Easterhouse. No way am I takin’ ma chances wi’ the big man. You can get me on this number.’

  The phone went dead in her hand and she picked up the cigarette that had been burning in the saucer, half its length turned to ash. It dropped on the table when she lifted it, but that wasn’t too much of a concern at that moment.

  She ran her hand through the hair on the side of her head and remembered she had a shitload on with the political scoop.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Jacquie,’ she muttered, knowing she had to declare it to someone. Her editor would just prevaricate and worry again that she’d taken the paper and herself close to a big black fucking hole and this time they might fall in. Hamilton would be out for blood because of his daughter – she didn’t need that explained – and if Grainger or Mason turned up dead or missing then the hole would just get bigger and darker.

  She muttered, ‘Fuck’s sake,’ one more time, took a killer draw on what was left of the smoke and dialled Grace Macallan’s number.

  As the reporter waited for Macallan to answer, across the city, Frankie Mason was stuffing half of what made up his wardrobe into a bag. He knew if he got into Easterhouse that was home territory for the subcontractor. He’d already called the man, and he was happy to accommodate him for old times’ sake. As usual, he’d sounded happy, even though Mason was obviously in a spot, and Mason wondered what the fuck was wrong with the guy – why couldn’t he just be miserable just like everyone else?

  ‘Nae problem, Frankie boy, as long as ye take yer share o’ the carry oot at night. Edinburgh gangsters don’t get in here without a pass.’ He had
laughed at his own lines, which grated with Mason, but it was a lifeline, and he was a drowning man.

  He’d put the phone down and prayed that the police would announce it was Tonto and a one-off so he could get back to normal. He’d told Hamilton he was working through in the west for a few days and he’d get back to him. He knew it didn’t sound convincing because the big man frightened the life out of him, and it was hard to lie to a man who might just kill you. His daughter was dead and someone would have to go down for that one and unfortunately it might not be the right man.

  That was the trouble with gangsters – they didn’t hold fair trials.

  He stuck his smokes, phone and lighter into his pocket then checked his wallet again. Mason looked round the flat then at his pile of horror DVDs lying on the table before heading towards the door, but when he pulled it open, he walked straight into a black leather jacket. In fact, there were two almost-matching jackets and he knew right away they weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  ‘Gaun somewhere, Frankie?’

  They knew his name and the man that had spoken had a broad Glasgow accent. It definitely wasn’t some kind of social visit.

  He stared at them, trying to find words, but nothing he could say would work – that was obvious. They were hard-looking, the same height and unusually did not have shaved heads. Pretty good-looking boys but it was there – he didn’t need a business card saying ‘Bastards ’R’ Us’.

  ‘What can I do for you boys?’ Mason finally squeezed out a few words.

  ‘Mr Hamilton would like a word. Funny that, because he told us you said you were through west. Got a helicopter, Frankie?’ He looked at his partner, who sniggered like a kid – they obviously liked exchanging a bit of humour with their victims.

  ‘Just had tae come back tae pick up a few bits an’ pieces then back through on this job.’ His eyes were wide and he wanted to run, but in his condition, he wouldn’t get to the stairs before they were all over him. Doing the pish-heid on Tonto’s stair was one thing, but these were two piles of muscle who probably did three hours a day on weights when they weren’t terrifying some punter.