Funeral Note bs-22

by Quintin Jardine

  And so I answered, ‘Officially, no, because as you know, the reason was never made public within the force, but she told me.’

  ‘Did you know where she’d been before?’

  ‘Yes, Special Branch.’

  ‘You know where I’m going with this, Griff, don’t you?’

  She used my Christian name, I thought. A good sign.

  ‘Of course. You’re going to ask me why it didn’t occur to me that she might be a security risk. I can’t answer that properly; all I can say is that I trusted her.’

  ‘And she let you down.’

  The interview was taking a turn I hadn’t expected. I’d assumed that it would have taken her about two minutes to bust me down to village cop in Breich, or to have me sign my goodbye letter. Instead she appeared to be offering me a way out; shop Alice and let them rubber-stamp the official inquiry.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ I contradicted her, regardless of it. ‘I wouldn’t put it that way. I let her down by being indiscreet, and putting her in a position that’s led to her blowing her career.’

  She smiled again. ‘That’s noble of you. But there’s still a question left, the key one as far as I’m concerned. Did you know of her family connection with this man Welsh?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I knew that Inspector Varley was her uncle, but that’s all. I’ve never met any of her family, and I didn’t know of the Freddy Welsh connection until DI Pye told me. I’d never even heard the man’s name until I was pulled into the Lafayette’s thing.’

  ‘So you didn’t know that she had a personal connection with him?’

  What the hell did she mean by that? My face must have answered her question and asked one of my own.

  ‘I’ve got to be blunt here,’ she said, gently. ‘Alice was interviewed this morning at Leith, by DCS McGuire and another senior officer. She admitted to them that she had a brief sexual encounter. . a quickie, if you like. . with Welsh at a family celebration about six years ago. Did you know about that?’

  And if I had, then I was done for; out on my ear, and that would be at best.

  I took a long breath, blew it out and looked her in the eye. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘She told me. .’ I began, then stopped, considering how best to put it. When I saw how, I continued.

  ‘At the beginning of our sexual relationship, I told Alice all about me, about my marriage, about my family, and about the extent of my relationship with Alex Skinner. I’ve come to believe that it’s best to be frank about these things.’ I didn’t tell her how. ‘Alice told me that she didn’t have a past anything like that. She said that she’d had very few relationships, that she wasn’t promiscuous, and that the worst thing she’d ever done, and I quote, “was banging a married guy at an in-law’s wedding a few years ago, after too many tequila sunrises, and feeling guilty as hell next morning”. She added that she’d hardly been able to speak to the man since. It sounds as if that was Freddy Welsh, but she didn’t put a name to him, not then and not since. In fact we’ve never discussed it again.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Certain.’ I held her gaze. ‘Look, ma’am, Alice is not routinely untrustworthy. Yes, she told me she’d been booted out of SB for tipping off her uncle about something, but when she did she was cracking a joke at my expense. Usually she’s tight-lipped about the time she spent in the Branch. You have to be. .’

  Detective Chief Inspector Lowell Payne

  I came close to saying, ‘No thanks,’ when my boss told me that Bob Skinner needed a senior officer from another force to work on a sensitive investigation, and that he’d asked for me, specifically. I’ve nothing against Bob, but when the chief super went on to say that I’d be working with Bandit Mackenzie, the prospect of a few days in the capital became less attractive.

  He used to be one of ours, and I remembered him as an arrogant bastard; he made DI after I did, but he made no secret of the fact that he expected to leave all of us in his wake. When he left to run the drugs squad in Edinburgh, very few people contributed to his going-away present, but we’d all have been happy to chip in for his train fare.

  The gaffer read my mind. ‘He’s changed,’ he rushed to tell me. ‘Apparently he’s cleaned his act up. He had some sort of a breakdown, possibly alcohol-related. When he recovered he was a different man. He’s a superintendent now, in uniform, and he’s the exec officer in the command suite through there. It seems that nobody calls him “Bandit” any more.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I grunted. ‘Have you ever seen a stripy leopard?’

  He laughed at that one. ‘Come on, Lowell, forgive and forget. Look, Bob Skinner would not have entrusted this investigation to him if he had any doubts about him. From what the ACC told me, it’s a very delicate situation. You should take it as a compliment that you’re wanted on it. Do it, get a result and. . no promises mind, but it might give you an edge when the next superintendent slot comes up.’

  I took that with a pinch of salt. I’d been passed over for promotion three times already, and I was pretty sure that them upstairs had decided I’d reached my ceiling. Not that I was complaining; I’d never expected to make it beyond inspector, but my career surged in my mid-thirties. It started with a move to CID about fifteen years ago, as a DS. I was promoted fairly quickly after that and for the last five years I’ve been a DCI. I’m a year short of fifty and have thirty years’ service, so I’ll be in the happy position of being able to retire on full pension while I’m still young enough to enjoy myself, and with a lump sum that will help Myra, my twelve-year-old, through university if that’s where she wants to go.

  One more promotion would be nice, but that wasn’t the carrot that made me say, ‘Okay, sir, I’ll take it on.’ No, when it came to it, it was the prospect of working close to Bob Skinner. It’s not that I’d ever held that ambition, rather that I was curious to find out what sort of a boss he really is, without it being permanent.

  I first met Bob at the funeral of his father-in-law, Thornton Graham. Thornie would have been my father-in-law too, but my wife Jean and I weren’t married when he died. I’d heard of Skinner even then, and not just from her. He’d been running the drugs squad in Edinburgh for a few years, he’d had a number of high-profile results, and the grapevine talk had him as a certainty for the top job in Strathclyde one day, since he’d been a Motherwell boy. A few senior officers were said to be afraid of that happening, for he was reputed to be a very hard man with no sense of humour and no time for below-average performance.

  Some of that talk must have come from his enemies, for when he and I did meet, he didn’t scare me a bit. Yes, he’d just made detective super at that time, while I was still a sergeant, and yes, since he’s only a couple of years older than me, that did put our careers in perspective straight away. But he didn’t treat me as other ranks. He was polite, pleasant and generally friendly, although I did have the impression that behind it all he was quietly assessing my suitability for Jean, his late wife’s sister.

  His daughter Alexis was there too, early teens, a year or two older than my lass is now. I recall that one or two of the senior relations frowned on the way she was dressed, but Jean would have none of it, telling them that Thornie would have wanted her that way. She told me, afterwards, when the funeral sandwiches were finished and everyone had buggered off to get on with their lives, that one of them had also muttered that the kid took after her dead mother, and that it hadn’t been meant as a compliment.

  ‘They thought our Myra was flighty,’ she said, ‘to put it politely.’ Then she laughed. ‘She was too, and Bob was putty in her hands.’ Another crack in that legendary armour. ‘He’s been a lost soul since my sister died; maybe the one he had with him today will make him happy.’

  She did, as it happened, but only for a while: Alison, her name was. When they split, Jean’s take was that it hadn’t worked because she’d been as career-driven as him.

  Since that first meeting, I haven’t seen a lot of him, but Alexis has always kept in touch with her aunt and with the you
nger Myra; she takes a special interest in her cousin, because she was named after her mum. His path and mine did cross, professionally, though, just after the funeral. He had an investigation in progress and a line of inquiry led him to Hamilton, where I was stationed, in the sergeant’s uniform that I thought I’d be wearing for another twenty years. I checked something out for him, informally, but I never did find out if it led anywhere. It wasn’t long afterwards that I hung up the tunic and moved into CID. I did wonder at the time whether he had anything to do with it, but when I asked him, at my wedding reception, he laughed, and said, ‘Do you think your bosses would listen to a single word of mine, Lowell?’

  ‘When do I start?’ I asked the chief super.

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon; ask for the chief constable when you get there. Stay till you’re done, in a hotel if you have to. They’ll be paying your expenses.’

  ‘Jesus. It’s that urgent?’

  He told me to report to the Edinburgh headquarters building, two o’clock sharp. I’d been there once before, for a liaison meeting, but that had taken place in what looked like a gymnasium, near the entrance, so I knew very little about the layout of the building. I showed my ID, two minutes early, to an unsmiling civilian on the reception desk. He peered at it until a light went on in his eyes, then he nodded, with an attentiveness that would have shamed Uriah Heep. ‘Yes, Mr Payne. The chief constable’s asked me to send you up to his room. Go up those stairs behind me, then along the corridor that you’ll find straight ahead of you. You’ll see his office on the left. I’ll call and let his assistant know you’re coming.’

  The directions were spot-on. When I reached the chief’s outer office, the door was open and a man stood framed by it. He was in his thirties, medium height, well groomed and in civvies. ‘DCI Payne,’ he greeted me. ‘I’m Gerry Crossley, Mr Skinner’s personal assistant; he’s asked me to show you right in.’

  The Man Himself was standing in front of his desk when I entered. He stepped towards me, hand extended. ‘Lowell, I’m glad you can do this,’ he greeted me as we shook. ‘How are Jean and the wee one?’

  ‘Jean’s fine, thanks, and the wee one’s not so wee any more. She’s twelve.’

  ‘Twelve?’ he gasped. ‘Bloody hell! It all goes by so fast. But why should I be surprised? My own kids are shooting up. Mark’s starting high school, James Andrew’s becoming a bruiser, and Seonaid’s too damn smart for her own good.’ There was a gentleness in his eyes as he spoke of them. Then he switched to official mode; in that instant they turned hard as steel, and I admit that I was shaken as I found myself looking at a man I’d never met.

  He led me to a small meeting table in the corner of the room; as I sat he poured two mugs of coffee from an ancient, battered, filter machine on a stand against the wall. ‘Milk?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, please, but no sugar.’

  He nodded. ‘Alf Stein, my old boss, gave me this contraption when he retired and I succeeded him as head of CID. He also taught me how to get the most out of it. When I leave, it’ll stay here.’

  He handed me a mug. I took a mouthful and wondered how Stein had survived to retirement.

  Bob spotted my reaction. ‘Alf smoked a pipe,’ he volunteered. ‘His room was always as stuffy as hell, but nobody ever got drowsy at his meetings, not when we were drinking that stuff.’ He sat, facing me.

  ‘David Mackenzie’s going to join us shortly,’ he continued, ‘but I want a quiet word with you first. I need to emphasise that he’s not the character you knew. I’m well aware of what he was like. He tried to come the smart-arse with me once, and I had to put him right. But I still rated him highly enough to poach him and bring him to Fettes.’ He leaned forward, frowning. ‘David had a rough time, in a rough situation, a few years ago. He came out of it full of self-doubt, and for someone as he was that’s not good. He hit the bottle, and it hit him back. For a while I thought we were going to lose him from the job, but I refused to allow that. Now he’s one of my real trusties, and a better officer than he was before he crashed. Just don’t call him “Bandit”, not even in fun.’

  ‘Noted,’ I said.

  ‘Good; now, the job I’ve brought you here to do. I’ve got a cop who’s gone bad. I need to know how bad. Best case, you may come to say simply that he’s let himself down. Worst case, you might find that he’s disgraced my force. If that’s how it turns out, I will fucking crucify him, upside down.’

  ‘What’s your instinct?’ I asked him, bluntly.

  ‘Worst case,’ he grunted. ‘This man has had a respectable, but low-profile career, so circumspect that a man who left this force with the rank of chief superintendent was able to come back this morning as an independent interviewer because he’d never met him. When you’re that good at not being noticed, what the fuck else are you good at?’

  I took another swig of the coffee. It must have made me reckless, for I asked him, ‘What about you? Presumably you knew him.’

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed. There might have been a warning in his tone, but I pressed on.

  ‘In that case, has he ever crossed you?’

  He stared at me, and I knew how the legend had risen up around him. ‘Are you asking whether I have a personal grudge against this man?’

  I nodded, because if I’d spoken it might have come out as a croak.

  Then he smiled, if only briefly, and I found that I could breathe. ‘Fair question,’ he conceded. ‘So it deserves a truthful answer. I hadn’t until half an hour ago, when I heard a recording of his interview this morning, and I heard him trying to pin the blame for his own action. . fuck, no,’ he barked, ‘his own crime. . on a junior officer, his own sister’s daughter no less. That girl’s resignation is in my in-tray, and I am bloody angry about that, because I did not want to lose her, but now I have to, because the way it’s turned out, if I accept it, and let her leave chastened but unblemished, I will be saying publicly that I believe her account over his. On the other hand, if I reject it, and let her go to an independent disciplinary hearing, as I’d have to, people might infer the opposite, that I don’t. . and she would be sacked anyway. So yes, as of now, I do have a personal grudge against Inspector John Varley, and I am looking out the longest and bluntest nails I have in my toolbox.’

  There was a knock on the door, but he ignored it. ‘That’s why I’m going to set you and David up in an office outside this building, and why I don’t want either of you to come anywhere near me until you’re in a position to tell me just how dirty this fucking bastard is.’

  Maggie Steele

  ‘Usually she’s tight-lipped about the time she spent in the Branch. You have to be, because that’s the way it is.’

  It was an epiphany moment. As soon as the words left his mouth, I knew what Bob Skinner wanted me to do.

  I picked up Montell’s file from the coffee table. His whole police life was in it, and I’d liked what I’d been reading when he’d come into my office. I looked at it, and then at him. I’d done my best to put him at his ease, because I don’t believe in treating people with anything but respect, whatever the circumstances, but I could see that he was still a little on edge.

  No way was I going to recommend dismissal; that had never been an option in my mind. It would have set an impossible standard for the rest of the force, and it would have been unjust. Technically, Montell had broken the rules, but I’ve never met a cop who hasn’t done what he had, and I don’t see one when I look in the mirror. He and Cowan were a couple, as Mario and I, then Stevie and I, had been. I didn’t talk shop with either of them over every dinner table, but I shared things with them and they did with me, as Griff had with Alice. We had done so casually; Montell actually had a reason for telling her what was going on, because it had disrupted their plans for the evening.

  She’d let him down and she was going to have to pay the price. It was end of story, all done with for her, but not for her uncle, and not for her boyfriend. If Varley went to trial he’d be a key witness, not just in respect of
what he had told her, but also where and when. Mario had told me about the inspector’s version of events, and I knew that we would have to knock that story down, by demonstrating if possible that Alice couldn’t have got from wherever she was, to the place of the alleged meeting in the time available. When Griff went into the witness box to explain that, mud would be thrown at him, it would be reported, and among his fellow officers it would stick, fairly or not.

  ‘You had an impressive record in South Africa,’ I commented, as I laid the file back on the table. ‘Specialist experience of violent crimes, sex crimes, political protection, and good performance reports in every one; sergeant by age twenty-four and scheduled for promotion to inspector, when you upped and quit.’

  ‘Was I?’ he remarked, sounding genuinely surprised. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘If you had, would it have made a difference to your decision?’

  He shook his head. He wore his hair quite long, but not shoulder length. It might have been dark, but the sun had given it straw-coloured highlights, the kind that cost women a hundred quid a pop to maintain. Good-looking with it; I understood why Alex Skinner had been happy to wear him on her arm for a while.

  ‘No, not a bit,’ he replied. ‘My wife’s lawyer and her good friend the judge stitched me up so tight that I couldn’t afford to be a cop in South Africa any longer.’

  ‘Will you ever go back?’

  He looked me in the eye. ‘That may depend on you, ma’am.’