by T F Muir
Now, another wave of tiredness swept over Gilchrist, and a glance at his wristwatch had him toying with either nipping out to the Central for an overdue pint and a rare spot of lunch, or calling Dainty for an update. Just then, his phone rang.
Without introduction, Smiler said, ‘My office, DCI Gilchrist,’ and hung up.
CHAPTER 47
Standing outside Smiler’s office, Gilchrist thought he caught the low-pitched whisper of male voices from within. He gave the door a light rap with his knuckles, and cracked it open.
‘Come in, DCI Gilchrist.’
As he entered he had the oddest sense of silence settling, as if he’d interrupted some secret convention. Chief Superintendent Smiley stood facing him from behind her desk. Her uniform looked as if it had been laundered that morning. The tall figure of Chief Constable Archie McVicar stood to her left, aristocratic and imposing as always. To Smiler’s right, two men in dark-blue business suits, white shirts, red ties – model’s dummies sprang to mind – followed Gilchrist’s progress into the room like cheetahs calculating if they were close enough to make a sprint for the kill.
McVicar was first to greet him, his grip dry and firm. ‘Good to see you again, Andy.’
‘Sir.’ He nodded to Smiler. ‘Ma’am.’
She gave a tight smile in response, one he couldn’t tell which way it fell – good or bad? He would just have to wait and see. Then she held out her hand as an introduction to the men to her right, and said, ‘Mr White is with the Home Office, and would like to ask you a few questions. I’ve already advised him that we will of course provide all the help we can.’
Well, it seemed he wasn’t being given any say in the matter. ‘Of course,’ he agreed.
One of the men stepped forward for a brisk handshake, and it took Gilchrist a few seconds to realise that he was not about to be introduced to the other man.
‘Tell me how it happened,’ White said to him.
‘How what happened?’
‘How four men were killed in Wren’s Garage, and you and DS Janes were not.’
Maybe it was the English public school accent that made the question sound more accusatory than intended. But a glance at Smiler warned Gilchrist that it wasn’t. No support from McVicar either, who stared at him with a look as direct as an eagle’s. It didn’t help, of course, that he’d failed to mention his first meeting with Shepherd, or Jessie having visited Shepherd’s home and handing over a copy of Christie’s logbook. Which was the problem with rubbing shoulders with the criminal element. Sooner or later you were going to be associated with them.
‘They must have known we were with the Constabulary,’ he said.
‘How?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘Were you in uniform?’
‘No.’
‘Plain clothes?’
‘What else.’
‘Display your warrant cards?’
‘No.’
White smiled at that, a baring of uneven teeth that looked at odds with the sartorial perfection. ‘So they couldn’t have known you were with Fife Constabulary.’ A statement, not a question.
‘I don’t think it mattered,’ Gilchrist said.
White frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Understand what?’ he asked, which earned him a harrumph from McVicar.
But White was not up for playing games. ‘Explain,’ he said.
‘We were tied up with our hands behind our backs.’ Well, not strictly correct to begin with. But they had been in the end. ‘Clearly no threat to anyone. So, why shoot us?’
‘Why not?’
‘You’d have to ask them.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘I’ve given you my answer.’
‘Them,’ you said. ‘Did you see them?’
‘I did.’
‘But you’re unable to offer anything that might help us identify them.’
Again, not a question. Gilchrist glanced at Smiler, then McVicar, but he was on his own. Back to White. ‘Have you read my report?’
‘I have.’
‘Did you understand it?’
McVicar harrumphed again, but White seemed untroubled. ‘I did,’ he said.
‘So you’ll have read that they wore balaclavas.’
‘How did you know to go to Wren’s Garage?’
Something close to anger flashed through Gilchrist at the change in tack. He was being toyed with, White’s cat to his mouse, flipped from one paw to the other and back again. He felt as if he still needed to keep his distance from Shepherd, and said, ‘We received a tip-off. It’s in my report. I suggest you read it again.’
A pause, then, ‘We’re intrigued by your friendship with Mr Shepherd.’
Not what he wanted to hear, which told him they already knew about his contact with Shepherd. But he said, ‘We’re not friends.’
‘More along the lines of, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. That sort of thing?’
Gilchrist thought silence as good a response as any.
‘You met him in Dundee last week.’
Gilchrist struggled to keep his surprise hidden, but wasn’t sure he pulled it off. Only Jessie and Mhairi had known he was meeting Shepherd. So for White to know, it must have come from Shepherd’s side. Time to change tack, so he said, ‘It’s odd, don’t you think?’
‘What is?’
‘The Home Office showing interest in Jock Shepherd.’
‘We have our reasons.’
‘Which I presume you’re not going to share with me.’ He glanced at McVicar, then Smiler. ‘Or with us.’
For the first time, the other man spoke. ‘When did you first meet Detective Sergeant Fox?’ He stepped forward to stand next to White, but didn’t offer his hand. ‘Nathanial Fox,’ he added, as if to make sure there could be no misunderstanding.
Gilchrist returned his gaze for several seconds, and came to understand that jumping from one line of questioning to the next was not a ploy to confuse him, but an attempt to keep the purpose of their meeting hidden. ‘You’re not with the Home Office,’ he said. ‘Are you?’
‘DCI Gilchrist,’ Smiler interrupted. ‘We have agreed to cooperate with the—’
‘It would help if I knew who I was cooperating with—’
‘I would remind you DCI Gilchrist that—’
‘If I may?’ The second man had his hand inside his suit pocket, and retrieved a slim leather wallet, which he unfolded and held out for Gilchrist to read – Bartholomew Winter in an extravagant font, on a cream-coloured business card. Nothing else, just a name. ‘Mr White is with the Home Office,’ Winter said. ‘I work with Joint Intelligence.’ He flipped his wallet shut. ‘Was your meeting in the West Port Bar the first time you’d come across DS Fox?’
The question was intended to shock Gilchrist into thinking he was being watched, that he was under suspicion for some criminal act, that they knew everything about him and what he’d been up to the last week or so. After all, this was the British government he was now dealing with. But Winter’s question had the opposite effect, causing the sequence of events to slowly unfold for Gilchrist.
Fox had been a rogue cop, a maverick of sorts, whose investigative cases extended into that murky area between the law and criminality. And with government offices tracking Fox’s every move since arriving in Fife, Gilchrist had by default incurred a tail of his own. Which explained how they knew of his meeting with Shepherd, and also their suspicions of how he came to find out about Wren’s Garage. It might even explain how Shepherd had known they’d found Christie’s logbook.
But it didn’t explain the massacre.
Or did it?
He fixed Winter with a firm stare, and said, ‘You know it was the first time.’
‘No, I don’t. Which is why I asked the question.’
‘You think I was in cahoots with Fox? Is that what you’re implying?’
‘I’m implying nothing, Mr Gilchrist. Only asking a simple question. Was that the
first time you met DS Fox?’
Gilchrist let his gaze shift to White, then back to Winter. ‘You’re with MI5,’ he said. ‘Both of you.’
Winter gave a wry smile. ‘That’s quite the quantum leap, Mr Gilchrist.’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Gilchrist.’
Winter’s smile held for a moment, then he nodded, the subtlest hint of apology.
Gilchrist had a sense of the mood changing, the air tightening, as if he’d landed some lucky punch and his opponent was about to let him have it back in spades. ‘Your recklessness could have had you killed,’ Winter said. ‘Both of you. You and DS Janes.’
Gilchrist sensed a toughening in Winter’s stance.
‘We had Wren’s Garage under observation,’ Winter said. ‘We knew Operation Clean Out was going to fail. We knew the consignment was to be moved that night. But we did not know to where, or to whom. We had a surveillance network that stretched from Edinburgh to Dundee, more than one hundred highly trained professionals on duty that night, watching and waiting. Then along you came with your associate, DS Janes, and your schoolboy antics, and blew millions of pounds worth of covert expertise to kingdom come in a few minutes.’
If Gilchrist wanted to know what that something big had been, well, there he had it.
But he wasn’t through. Not by a long shot.
‘Is that what you government people call a murder investigation? Schoolboy antics?’
Winter drew level with Gilchrist. ‘Our inability to follow that consignment to its final destination due to your unwarranted interference could ultimately cost the lives of millions of innocent people over the years, Mr Gilchrist. Perhaps a great many more. So, yes, schoolboy antics would be an appropriate term.’
‘And would cold-blooded murder be an appropriate term, too?’ He thought it odd that neither Smiler nor McVicar stepped in to interrupt him, as if they were enjoying the show, eager to see how it played out. But not so odd, if you thought about it, for neither Winter nor White to answer. An image of the massacre in Wren’s Garage flashed into his mind with such clarity that he wondered why it hadn’t struck him until that moment, the deadly precision with which the hitmen dispatched their victims – single shot to the head; a burst of three rounds to the chest; all with pinpoint accuracy, without a single bullet wasted. Not Jock Shepherd’s men, as he’d allowed himself to believe, but highly specialised military personnel. Battie might not have been the only person that night with SAS training.
‘You didn’t have to kill DS Fox,’ he said.
Winter recovered his voice. ‘You may recall that your own life was in danger, as was that of DS Janes. Would you rather such decisive action had not been taken?’ A smirk tickled the corners of Winter’s mouth. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought not. You may also be interested to know that your meeting with DS Fox, and your conversations with Mr Shepherd … how do I say it …? piqued our interest in you. So when you turned up at Wren’s Garage we obviously suspected the worst, that Fox had bought you off.’ He glanced at McVicar, and said, ‘But we were soon assured otherwise.’
Winter’s flickered smile at McVicar told Gilchrist that the Chief Constable had stood up for him and Jessie, assured Messrs White and Winter of their professional integrity. Of course, if McVicar had taken Gilchrist into his confidence right from the get-go, none of this need have happened.
Winter turned to McVicar and Smiler, as if to announce the end of their meeting, when Gilchrist said, ‘So you knew.’
White frowned, and faced him. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You knew DS Fox was a rogue policeman, and that he was in Maxwell’s pocket, yet you allowed him into our Constabulary, gave him access to confidential files and records, and in doing so could have jeopardised the admissibility of critical evidence.’
Winter’s eyes deadened. ‘Our intention had been to track the drugs consignment to the buyer, not to have to abort months of work to step in and save your lives. I thought I’d explained that. Be as it may, we did. And for that, both you and DS Janes should be eternally grateful.’
Not once had Winter’s voice changed tone, every word spoken with precise elocution, clipped and calm at the same time. If Winter had been a murderer, he could convince you he was doing you a favour by shooting you in the head. Gilchrist had the oddest feeling that he was expected to drop to his knees and give thanks to the government for blasting four people to death.
Winter pressed on. ‘The government will of course deny any and all association with Wren’s Garage. Much more convenient to point the finger of blame at Glasgow’s drug lord, Mr Shepherd, who does not have long for this world and who will take all his deadly secrets with him to the grave, including all that happened in Pittenweem.’
Well, there it was. Winter was washing his governmental hands clean of any killings. No doubt, an official statement to the press would be made on the timely passing of big Jock, for which the government, and pen-pushing creeps like Winter and White, would come out squeaky clean.
Gilchrist managed to keep his temper under control, and he faced Winter and gave him a dead-eyed smile. ‘Did DS Fox have family?’ he asked him.
Winter blinked. White looked to his feet.
Gilchrist turned to Smiler. ‘Will that be all, ma’am?’
A glance at White and Winter, who both stepped back, as if glad to be out of it. ‘Yes, Andy,’ she said. ‘That’ll be all. Thank you.’
Gilchrist nodded to her, and said, ‘Ma’am,’ and to McVicar, ‘Sir.’
Then he turned and strode from the room.
CHAPTER 48
When Gilchrist returned to his office, he felt drained.
Winter seemed to have been always one step ahead of him, maybe more. Until that meeting, Smiler and McVicar et al had been praising Gilchrist for bringing Maxwell’s BAD Squad to heel, a rogue band of killers, drug lords and money launderers that would disgrace the police force, and which would undermine public confidence and trust. The damage would take years to set right – if it ever could.
And now, here he was, Detective Chief Inspector Andrew James Gilchrist, the man who caused the collapse of a multimillion-pound surveillance operation that could have led the powers that be to uncover the drug empire of some global mastermind, and keep billions of pounds worth of drugs off the streets and save countless lives of innocent men, women and children. Christ, it really didn’t bear thinking about.
From hero to zero in a matter of minutes.
He slumped into his chair and stared at his computer.
His reflection gazed back at him from a blank screen, a grey face with heavy eyes and a downward twist to the mouth that spoke of unhappy times. Where had the years gone? His irrepressible zest for life, too. Now he felt tired of it all, tired of the job, tired of being at the professional mercy of a hierarchy that seemed more focused on fiscal management than on bringing criminals to justice. Or maybe the lethargy that enveloped him like a deadweight was nothing more than lack of sleep, or maybe he was low on energy from having too little to eat in the past three days.
He let his hand hover over the mouse, undecided whether to open his emails and get on with the job, or just give it up and go home. He closed his eyes for a long moment, let his body relax and the need to sleep slide over him. Give it up and go home sounded good—
His phone rang.
He jerked awake and stared at it for a moment, an old-fashioned handset that sat on the corner of his desk. He watched it as it rang out, and felt a wave of relief sweep over him when the caller finally gave out. He felt a wry smile tug his lips.
Was this how it ended? Was this what happened when you reached the end of your career, the realisation that you’re no use to anyone any more, that the job is all too much for you, the hours, the reports, the meetings, the endless fight for … for what …? For justice? Or had you just been looking for a result, any result, guilty or not, it didn’t matter, so long as you could close the books on one case and move on to the next? Or maybe you just reached a certa
in time in your career and lost interest and couldn’t give a toss any more—
His mobile rang.
Out of habit, he reached for it – ID Dainty – then slipped it back into his pocket, unanswered. Well, he supposed that told him everything. At long last, he was through with it once and for all. He slid his chair back from his desk, pushed to his feet and walked from his office. In the doorway he paused to give his room one final, farewell look, a visual inventory of sorts for his memory.
Then he gripped the handle, and pulled the door shut with a satisfying click.
Outside, the wind had stilled. The air hung damp and cold. The sky spread grey and dull in all directions, a blanket of clouds as smooth as a bedspread. He turned into College Street as his mobile rang again. He slipped it out – ID Dainty – and surprised himself by taking the call.
‘Fuck sake, Andy, I’ve been trying to reach you.’
‘Was tied up for a while, getting my arse grilled.’
‘You, too?’ Dainty laughed, a throaty growl that could have come from a large man. ‘I tell you, Andy, this fucking lot down here need to take a shite in the Clyde. And as for that wanker, Randall? Complaints and Discipline? Some fucker needs to complain and discipline that bastard’s arse. Hang on a second.’ The line scraped and rattled, as if Dainty had dropped his phone into a bucket.
Gilchrist walked on, mobile to his ear. He was tempted just to hang up, call Dainty back when he’d had a bite to eat and a couple of beers, but once again he was surprised by his need to know, his desire to ask one more question. He’d turned the corner at Market Street by the time Dainty came back.
