‘And I didn’t cover myself with glory?’ Instantly, Mackenzie seemed to switch into defensive mode. ‘Is that what you’re suggesting?’
‘No, I’m bloody not. If I had to do that again, I’d be just as happy to have you alongside me. But people died there: that can affect the strongest among us, after the event, when we expect it least.’
‘I’m fine, Neil. I’ve had no aftershocks.’
‘There’s something, though.’
The chief inspector shifted in his chair. ‘Okay, if you insist. Maybe I didn’t like being booted off the Drugs Squad.’
‘What makes you think you were booted off? The boss told you what’s happening. There’s a restructuring in CID: we’re trying to create more jobs by reallocating resources; to put it bluntly we’re trying to swap chiefs for Indians. As part of that, the Drugs Squad will now be run by an inspector, and CID offices will be headed by chief inspectors. There’s no slight on you: part of the reason the DCC’s been able to do this is because you’ve done such a good job on drugs in the city.’
‘Thanks, but it hasn’t been good enough. There are still suppliers out there that I don’t know about.’
‘There are always one or two that we don’t know about,’ McIlhenney pointed out. ‘You sent the Irish teams packing when they tried to get in. There were big Brownie points in that.’
‘Yes, but there was one operation that I was trying to pin down. Now . . .’
‘Now Mavis McDougall will handle it. She’s capable, and with your pal Gwen Dell to help her, your excellent work will be carried on.’
‘They’re both good officers, I grant you.’
‘Exactly. Your old unit’s in good hands, and so is your new one, CID in Leith. Get yourself settled in there. Get to know the patch, and your team. You’re a man light at the moment, but that’ll be rectified. I’m thinking about shifting DC Tarvil Singh from Torphichen to your office, as soon as George Regan gets back from compassionate leave. He’s a bright young lad, plus he’s as big as a house. Even today that can come in handy in Leith.’
Twenty-one
Alex Skinner had spent much of her life worrying about her father, but she had never admitted it, not, at least, to a living soul. She never discussed him with anyone outside the family. Indeed, since his estrangement from Sarah had become obvious, the number of people to whom she could speak freely about him had dwindled to just one.
Her mother had been killed when she was a child, but she remained a constant presence in Alex’s life. Her grave was in a small cemetery a mile or two outside Gullane. It was neatly tended: daffodils flowered upon it in the spring, and the granite memorial was flanked by heather. When she was younger, still at school, she would go there often, sometimes on her bike, sometimes on foot. She was still a regular visitor even though she lived in the city: a wreath at Christmas, a bouquet on Myra’s birthday, in remembrance, one on her own, with love, another on the day she died, out of grief. On four or five mile-stone dates every year she would make the pilgrimage to Dirleton Toll, to the lair against the eastern wall; there she would stand, or sit on the grass if it was dry enough, and there she would tell her mum of the events in her life, the good, the bad and, on a couple of occasions, the downright ugly. But her talk would not be of herself alone, for she knew that Myra would want to know of Bob, and of the way his life was developing. As she had grown, she had told her of his years alone, ‘in exile from life’, as she had overheard him say to a friend at her grandfather’s funeral. Occasionally, she had told of female companions, but those had been very short stories, until finally she had been able to describe the arrival of Sarah in his life, the growth of their relationship and its flowering into marriage and new family. As she spoke Alex felt that there was a place inside her head that told her how her mother would have reacted to each new development. She knew that she would have loved the children, as Alex did, although she would have been ambivalent about Sarah from the start as Alex . . . it was the only secret she had ever kept from her father . . . had always been. And she would be worried about Bob now, she told herself.
She had gone to the grave that afternoon. Alone in the cemetery, wrapped in a parka against the winter cold, she had told Myra of the final split, of how he seemed to be taking it, and of the guilt that was lurking just beneath the surface. She had told her of the counterbalance of his friendship with Aileen de Marco; as she did so, she had felt a sudden wave of relief flow through her as if it had come from the ground on which she stood.
But there was something else, she knew it, something lying underneath it all, gnawing at him, something that had happened to him or was going to happen. She had seen it in his eyes the night before as they had dined: he had drunk more than usual; the bottle he had brought had gone quickly, and he had opened another. He had been restless, fidgety: the meal was barely over before he had insisted on taking her to a pub that he knew in Stockbridge, then to another. They had returned to the flat just before twelve and he had gone to bed, but she had heard him through the night, in the bathroom then in the kitchen. And yet, in the morning, he had been clear-eyed and clean-shaven. He had brought her cereal, orange juice and coffee on a tray, as she lay in bed struggling to focus from her disturbed night and the onset of what she had hoped was not a hangover. He had kissed her on the forehead, as he had always done, and he had left, for a golf tie at Gullane.
‘What is it, Mum?’ she found herself whispering, as she looked out at the night, as he had done twenty-four hours earlier.
‘Pardon?’ said her friend Gina, from the chair in which he had sat.
Alex had forgotten her presence. She had forgotten that it was Sunday, their girls’ night. ‘Sorry,’ she exclaimed. ‘I was miles away there.’
‘I’ll say you were. You’ve been staring straight ahead for about five minutes now. Have you got a work problem?’
‘No.’
Gina’s face creased into a knowing grin. ‘Ah, a man problem, then?’
‘No.’ Alex hesitated. ‘Not in the sense you mean at any rate. It’s my dad. I’m a bit worried about him, that’s all.’
‘I’m not surprised, after all that happened to him last week.’
‘What?’
‘Are you kidding me? That stuff he was involved in, with those gunmen, the soldiers and everything. Like Nicolas Cage did in that movie, he saved the fucking day, but there were people killed there. If it was my dad I’d be more than a bit worried, I’d be pissing myself.’
Alex looked down at her, as the obvious hit her between the eyes. Of course, that had to be it. But why had she not realised from the start? She knew the answer at once. Her father had been involved in dangerous situations before: he had emerged more or less unscathed but not always. There had been that time, that awful time, when he had been stabbed and had almost died. She had seen him in the aftermath of all those things, but she had never seen him like that. Everyone has a best-before date: she had said that often enough herself. She identified her fear: it was that his might be behind him.
‘I suppose you’re right, G,’ she said. ‘It’s just that . . . I’ve never had to worry about him before. Poor old bear: he has to face all that, plus, he’s getting divorced.’
Her friend gasped. ‘He’s not! You never told me that was happening.’
‘I didn’t know myself until last night, not for sure at any rate.’
‘Poor guy. No wonder you’re worried about him, you daft cow. But it’s down to you to help him out of it. He’s done the same for you in the past, when you and Mr Perfect split up.’
‘Don’t call Andy that: he wasn’t like that, not really.’
‘He expected you to be, though. Goose, gander, sauce, et cetera; he didn’t deserve you, girl.’
‘Well, he’s happy with what he’s got now, so that’s okay.’
‘I hope your dad will be too, one day.’
‘He will. I’m sure about that.’ She reached over and took an almost empty glass from her friend’s hand. �
��Come on, let’s go along to Comely Bank and get those pizzas.’
She had her keys in her hand, one foot in the entrance hallway, one in the flat, when the phone rang. ‘Bugger,’ she muttered. ‘Hell, it can ring.’
‘No,’ said Gina. ‘Answer it: it might be your dad.’
‘True,’ she agreed, and ran back indoors, snatching the nearest phone, from the kitchen wall. ‘Alex,’ she announced brightly, hoping it would be him, calling to apologise for worrying her with his restlessness.
‘I know.’ The voice was a whisper, hoarse and faint, almost as if its owner was trying not to be overheard.
‘Oh, shit.’ She groaned. ‘Not you again. Listen, who are you and what do you want? Do I know you? Should I know you? Or are you just some fucking greasy pervert who gets his rocks off by phoning women?’
Silence, other than background noise on the line.
Alex was aware of Gina staring at her, but she remembered her father’s instruction to keep him on the line as long as she could. ‘Did I hit a raw nerve there?’ she challenged. ‘Are you standing there with the phone in one hand and your dick in the other?’
‘Not right now.’ The voice was clearer this time. It sounded accent-free; she tried to place it, but failed.
‘Ah, you need both hands for that, do you? Listen, fruit cup. You know my first name, do you know my surname?’
‘Ssskinner.’ The word sounded like a hiss.
‘Genius. In that case, I’ll assume you know who my father is. Let me ask you something: do you have a death wish? Or a high pain threshold?’
Silence.
‘Because if you have either, you’re hassling the right girl. Weirdo, I want you to think of me as a health and safety adviser: if you value either of those, don’t phone me any more. Well, do you get the message?’
‘Sure.’ The whisper again. ‘I like your friend.’ The words took her by surprise: she was still struggling for a reply, when there was a click and the line went dead.
Twenty-two
‘He was calling from a pay-phone, in a pub called the Amphora,’ said McIlhenney.
‘The Amphora?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘Alex and I were there last night. It’s just round the corner from her flat.’
‘I know: Stevie Steele told me. Alex kept the creep on long enough for the boys to identify the number. Stevie had a car there inside five minutes, and he and big Singh were there inside ten. It was a Sunday night, so the place wasn’t packed, but there were quite a few punters in nonetheless. The barman said that nobody had come in or left in twenty minutes, so they thought they were on a winner. The trouble was that everybody denied using the phone, and they were all in groups, so they each had someone to vouch for them.’
‘At least two people were lying, then. I hope Steele got the name and address of everyone there. I want them re-interviewed, individually.’
‘Of course he did, but they could all have been telling the truth. You’ve been there, and so have I. Can you remember where the pay-phone is in the place?’
At once, Skinner knew what he meant. ‘It’s just inside the door, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right, and there’s a big partition between it and the bar. It’s quite possible for somebody to step in off the street and make a phone call without anyone in the pub knowing he was there.’
‘Yes, damn it, you’re right.’ McIlhenney heard a breath being taken, and knew what was coming next. ‘But that doesn’t mean that’s what happened: I still want all those people seen again. I’m not saying haul them in or anything like that, but talk to them. You never know, someone might have gone to the toilet and seen someone on the phone.’
‘It’ll happen, don’t worry.’
‘Of course I’ll fucking worry, Neil; he told her that he liked her friend. I take that to mean that he was watching her this evening, looking right inside her flat. You can do that, you know, and she never closes the bloody curtains.’
‘She’ll know to do that from now on.’
‘Yes, but there’s more to it than that. She’s in the telephone directory, so getting hold of her number’s no problem, but she’s just moved house and she transferred it. This fucker knows about it: he knows where she lives. This isn’t a random thing, man: he knows her or he’s picked her out.’
‘I’ll have her watched round the clock. She won’t come to any harm.’
‘Use the best available.’
‘That should have gone without saying.’
‘You’re right: I’m sorry. Now, there’s another thought that’s occurred to me. These things; quite often they start in the workplace, and Curle Anthony and Jarvis is a big firm.’
‘You want me to . . . ?’
‘Hell, no! We can’t go crashing in there asking questions: Alex would go bat-shit if we did that. No, I’ve taken care of that already. I’ve spoken to Mitch Laidlaw and I’ve told him what’s happening; he got my drift straight away. First thing tomorrow he’s going to speak to a few people in the office, those he can trust, and ask them to keep their ears to the ground, listening for hints about anyone who might have a crush on my kid. If he comes up with anything, he’ll bring it to you, nobody else, and I’d like you to handle it in person.’
‘Will do. Have you asked Alex about this idea?’
‘Yes. She told me she can’t think of anyone. But she wouldn’t necessarily know, would she?’
‘No, that’s true. Are you going to check in with me while you’re away, or do you want me to give you regular feedback?’
Skinner considered the question for a few moments. ‘It’s best if I call you, I think. My mobile may well be switched off quite often on this posting.’
‘In that case, there’s something I’d like to ask you before you disappear.’
‘Fire away.’
‘It’s about Bandit Mackenzie. I know that Kevin O’Malley’s report was confidential to you and the chief, but I’d like to know what was in it.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s been a bit funny, a shade paranoid. He thinks he’s been bumped off the Drugs Squad.’
‘Did you put him right on that?’
‘Of course, but I’m not sure the message got through.’
‘Kevin says that he’s guilt-ridden. He feels that he bottled it up there, when the bullets started flying.’
‘But he didn’t: he was okay.’
‘Not by his standards. Self-belief is very important to the Bandit. He’d never been in a situation like that before, but he always imagined that if he was, he’d be out front charging the barricades. He found out that night that he doesn’t have what it takes to do that. How he’ll handle that knowledge in the short term, remains to be seen. He’s going to need good management. He knows you, and he likes you; that’s why I put him in your team. Maybe I should have spelled it out. Sorry, mate; my eye hasn’t been one hundred per cent on the ball for the last few days.’
‘No problem. I understand. This Alex thing can’t be helping either. We’ll get it sorted, I promise.’
‘Do you want me to put Bandit somewhere else?’
‘No, he’ll be fine. I’m going to give him Tarvil Singh for a bit of extra support when George Regan gets back.’
‘Mmm.’
‘No?’
‘It’s your call, but maybe you should think about moving Stevie there.’
‘A detective inspector?’
‘You’ve got the whole city to watch now, Neil. You can’t keep an eye on Leith all the time.’
Twenty-three
‘Who did you say is calling?’ asked the telephone receptionist.
‘The chief constable, Sir James Proud.’
‘And why do you want to speak with the chief executive?’
‘That is something I’d rather discuss with him.’
‘We don’t handle police pensions.’
‘That’s not what I want to talk to him about.’
‘If you’ll tell me what sort of pension you are asking about I can put you s
traight through to the appropriate section.’
‘I give up!’ Proud barked. He slammed the phone back into its cradle, picked it up again, and buzzed his secretary. ‘Gerry, please get the chief executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, down in Galashiels, on the line for me. Don’t be fobbed off with anyone else.’
‘Yes, sir.’
As he waited, the chief constable picked up Monday morning’s Scotsman from a corner of his desk and glanced at the front page. The main headline concerned the Middle East, as was almost the norm; another covered an account of a fatal accident on a railway line in England, while a third seemed to confirm that there would only be one runner for the leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland, and with it, the post of First Minister. A day into the investigation, the Gareth Starr murder had been relegated to the inside pages: a bad sign, he knew from experience.
The phone rang. He tossed the newspaper aside and picked it up. ‘I have Mr Manners for you, sir,’ Gerry Crossley told him.
‘Sir James: it’s Simon Manners here.’ The voice on the line was youthful and friendly, not Scottish, but the chief found nothing surprising about that. ‘This is a surprise. Should I be worried?’
He gave the standard answer to the standard question. ‘You tell me, Mr Manners. Actually, this is an informal approach: I’m looking for some assistance. I’m trying to trace a couple of people for a friend. They were both teachers, at Edinburgh Academy for a while, but they seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth. They’d be of retirement age by now, so I was wondering whether you could tell me if either or both are currently receiving a pension from you.’
‘I see,’ said Manners. ‘This isn’t an uncommon approach, Sir James. Normally they come from ex-wives or even ex-husbands looking out for their rights, and normally we’d ask them to contact us formally. However, in your case, I’ll see if I can cut some corners.’
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