‘Leave it with us,’ Detective Superintendent Blackhouse said helpfully. Honey knew only too well what that meant.
‘One last point,’ Halliday said. ‘I asked for this face-to-face meeting, with the minimum number of persons present, because any leaks could undo the whole investigation. Ravitski is making as sure as he possibly can that we know nothing of what he’s doing. If he finds out what we know and what we’re doing about it, he’ll shut down, for the moment. And I don’t want any temporary shutdowns and having to start again.’ His bland face changed and suddenly Honey could see the strength that had earned him his rank. ‘I want to smash his organization before it builds up its strength and I want to put away the conspirators.
‘One officer reported an oblique approach, offering money in return for a pipeline into police communications. The kind of money on offer was such that somebody may be tempted – and not just in my territory. I suggest that we put only the most guarded words into the official domain for the moment and meet again in a week, or sooner if needed.’
‘Sir,’ Honey said, ‘I would like to be clear about this. I shall need to contact Haddington to ask about the whereabouts of a man of Dougal Walsh’s description. May I do that by phone or email or do I have to go chasing through there?’
‘I suggest that you phone and tell a senior officer to come in here. That principle applies to other questions.’ Halliday paused frowning. ‘I can quite see that communication entirely by courier and face-to-face meetings may be cumbersome. But our mobile numbers may already have been compromised. I suggest that we buy three new, inexpensive cellphones with new numbers, in the names of three persons unlikely to be looked on as significant – but trustworthy, of course. Then one of us from each team holds one, for urgent messages only.’
‘That seems very sensible,’ Mr Blackhouse said. ‘The time taken by the others to suss out the new numbers may tell us a lot.’
Mr Halliday looked so thunderous that even Blackhouse quailed a little. ‘If they suss out the numbers we’ll know that somebody in this small group doesn’t play by the rules. I suggest that the tape of this discussion goes into a safe and stays there until this case is finished, or at least wide open. Personnel working on individual murder cases should be limited to matters concerning those cases. The background of corruption surrounding the proposed refinery remains confidential. Any other personnel called on to assist on the overall investigation must be impressed with the need for confidentiality and the rules of communication.’
There was a solemn nodding around the table. Honey thought that the job had suddenly gone from difficult to impossible.
Chapter Seventeen
With a new impetus given to the two cases of murder by stabbing, Honey would have preferred to throw herself wholeheartedly into her new tasks, but police work can never be so tightly compartmentalized. Earlier cases throw up the need for action; other officers have questions; facts have to be reported or recorded. The rest of the afternoon had to be given over to a clearing of desks.
That evening, Honey would have opened up the discussion process but Sandy had suffered similar distractions and he was showing signs of exhaustion. He begged for a respite. ‘We don’t live to work,’ he said. ‘We work to live. I have always known you for a workaholic and I admired you for it just as long as you didn’t drag me along with you. I prefer to work steadily and to arrive surely. You’re the hare and I’m the tortoise. For now, I have done enough for one day, perhaps even for one week. So, let’s relax, sip a little strong drink, enjoy the company of our firstborn if June will lend her to us, comfort each other and gird our loins for tomorrow.’
‘A good programme,’ Honey said. ‘But I was only going to make a single suggestion. One of the big, unanswered questions is the identity of the proprietors or shareholders in the Edinburgh Piper, who may or may not be the same as the negotiators for the site. Who do we know who has a finger in every financial pie and who has only to ask a question in the area of high finance to have a dozen gofers answering it or dashing about looking for the answer?’
Sandy sighed. Clearly he was not going to be allowed to relax just yet. ‘Your father?’
‘That,’ Honey said, ‘is just who. The weekend that will shortly be rushing at us will also be rushing at him, but we could save at least a day if we got hold of him now and had him sending his sources galloping off in all directions – but discreetly. I have a sixty–forty chance of catching him at home in the evening, but if I leave it until tomorrow I’ll find myself chasing him from office to office and leaving messages for him to call me back. And although he’s unusually meticulous about calling back, when he does call back my phone’s busy or I’m in with the Big Chief. The only thing is that we’ve been told not to use the phone.’
‘True. But how would anyone know that you’d be drawn into the top level of this particular case? They can’t be maintaining a permanent tap on the private phone of every police officer.’
‘It’s your phone too,’ she pointed out.
‘Good point!’ Sandy thought it over. ‘I am absolutely certain that nobody could connect me with the case,’ he said. ‘I have only been doing background, clerical work. But use your mobile, just in case.’
‘My mobile’s in my bag.’ The two were fitted snugly together in one of the deep, broad armchairs that had once belonged in some gentlemen’s club. The gentlemen, Honey had once remarked, must have had arses like elephants. Sandy replied that perhaps the passing of the steatopygic generation was why the club had disposed of the chairs. He reached out a long leg and managed to hook Honey’s shoulder bag by its strap from the settee with his toe.
Honey found her father at home and free to talk. Some minutes were taken up with an exchange of family news with particular reference to the Mighty Midget. When she could force an opening she said, ‘Dad, we have a case involving Big Business and there’s no door open to us – except possibly yourself. As usual, can we keep this confidential?’
‘Of course.’
‘You know about the proposed oil refinery?’
‘Yes.’
Her father was not usually so terse. Honey made a mental note. ‘You don’t . . .?’
‘Have a finger in that particular pie? Certainly not.’
‘We have reason to believe that there’s some chicanery planned. It’s very, very important that nobody knows where this enquiry originated.’
‘I understand. I was offered the chance to invest but I heard a whisper that all was not as well as one could wish.’
‘Any names?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘One thing I’ve learned from you,’ Honey said, ‘is that the real owner is not always the registered owner. We shall be making the usual enquiries, but what we want to know is who are the real owners.’
‘Of?’
‘The Edinburgh Piper. Then there’s the site for the new refinery. There’s been no public announcement that the site has been decided, but it seems that an option is being bought. Who’s the buyer and who is the seller?’
She heard her father grunt. ‘The first is easy, the second may prove extremely difficult. What about planning consent?’ he asked. ‘That will be easier for you to discover.’
‘We’ll certainly be asking the local authorities. But the relevant planning department, whichever it is, may not even have been approached yet. You know how these things go. A promise from each of the individuals with real clout . . .’
‘I’ll ask my many ears and listen to their voices,’ her father promised. Honey knew that those words were almost a guarantee of news. Mr Potterton-Phipps had a major shareholding, if not outright ownership, of a number of firms, each of which had staff devoted to keeping one or more ears to the ground. In Big Business, advance warning may be money in the bank.
When the call finished, Honey turned to her husband. But Sandy held up his hand. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ll discuss it in the morning. I don’t want to lie awake half the night, turning ove
r all the possibilities in my mind.’
Honey said that she quite understood. She then lay awake for half the night, turning over the possibilities.
*
The next day was June’s day for doing the week’s shopping, so Honey left the Range Rover for her use. The Range Rover was rather too good for the housekeeper’s use and, being tuned by specialists during Mr Potterton-Phipps’s tenure, was rather too powerful for one of June’s limited experience, but Sandy’s male pride would have rebelled at the implication that his car was of lesser quality or more easily driven than that of his wife and he could always draw on the fact that the Range Rover had automatic gears. They travelled to the office in his Vectra. The fifteen-minute journey through rush-hour traffic was time enough for a quick discussion.
She spent a wholly inadequate hour at her desk. A phone call established that Chief Inspector Jowett from Haddington would come in to headquarters in the early afternoon. Meanwhile, a fat envelope had arrived by courier from Inverness. She distributed their copies to Sandy and Mr Blackhouse before examining her own. The information conveyed was scanty. Apart from the evidence of sexual activity and the fact that the knife had unerringly found the heart, the post mortem examination had produced nothing that would not have been expected of any young woman, who had died of a stab wound. The forensic report, as far as it went, was voluminous, but on a quick flip-through added little. The DNA and fingerprints of two people, one of them the deceased, were all through the cottage. The fingerprints on the knife did not belong to the dead girl. Much had been learned about the couple’s diet and personal habits, but frankly, Honey thought, who cared? If somebody were pushed under a train, a habit of bum scratching was unlikely to contribute towards the eventual explanation.
Another report had arrived from the local forensics team. The knife that had killed Jem Tanar had differed from the other in no discernible way and might have been the same or at least bought from the same outlet. Fingerprints from throughout the flat were being sent to Strathclyde and to Northern. Honey laid both reports aside in a secure cabinet for later and more detailed study.
Sandy arrived at her door accompanied by a plain-clothes constable. In the car park, they met one of the solicitors employed by Lothian and Borders Police. The solicitor, a small and hollow-chested young man by name of Hogwood, had a Mercedes that was roomier than the Vectra, so they travelled in it to the office of the Edinburgh Piper.
They had high hopes of catching the staff of the newspaper wrong-footed. As Honey pointed out, the existence of the two statements by the dead young woman should be a secret known only to a very small coterie of police. The staff of the newspaper should therefore believe themselves to be unsuspected.
The newspaper office showed no signs of guilty secrets. It was possible that the wicked were fleeing when no man pursued them. Or there was a leak somewhere. Or, she thought, somebody was being excessively careful. Or quite possibly the girl had been misleading them. She could almost have believed that the young woman had been referring to some other paper, but the building was exactly as she had described it and enquiries seemed to have eliminated all the others.
The receptionist was adamant; there was no Mr McRitchie employed by the paper. The receptionist was a large woman, nearer to forty than thirty in Honey’s opinion, with a forceful cast of features and a very firm manner. She had, she said, been in her post for years, and she said it with a steely look that dared anybody to contradict her. She was the sort of person, in Honey’s view, who would not have languished for long in a humble role, but would have risen through the ranks of almost any organization. Honey suspected that she was an executive, a senior PA or possibly a personnel manager, who had taken over from the receptionist for the duration of any crisis. But there was not one iota of proof of any such substitution.
The editor-in-chief, Mr Barclay, never saw anybody without an appointment. No, not even the police. It took several minutes and as many threats of legal action before she would even let Mr Barclay know of their presence. The constable remained in the hall to take note if she issued any warnings to other staff.
Mr Barclay was bald and clean-shaven as Cheryl had described him. He was also rather jolly. He welcomed them into his room, offered them chairs and sent for coffee, which arrived on a trolley, wheeled by a tired-looking woman. He had no objection to the interview being taped. He confirmed that the paper was owned by a consortium of three Edinburgh businessmen. He gave their names, which his visitors already knew from the Companies Register. His manner remained friendly but the limit of his helpfulness had already been reached. He knew of no Mr McRitchie nor had he ever been approached by a young woman under either name. It was soon evident that he was much more interested in pumping them for the reasons behind their visit. His manner suggested that he was hoping for a front-page story, but Honey suspected that his real motives were more sinister.
After an hour both parties had reached their peak of frustration. As they got up to leave, Mr Hogwood said, ‘Please bear in mind that the officers made no statements and that no conclusions are to be drawn from their questions. Any article published containing material extrapolated from those questions will be scrutinised with care and may well become the subject of proceedings.’
Mr Barclay beamed. ‘I note what you say,’ he said.
*
The detective constable, a freckled and ginger-haired young man named Nicholson, joined them as they passed through the hall, giving a small headshake to denote that no significant messages had been passed within his view and no individuals answering to Cheryl’s description of McRitchie had materialized. Honey had worked with young Nicholson before. She was aware that he was nicknamed Knickers and, what’s more, seemed proud of it.
They got back into the Mercedes. ‘Well,’ Honey said, ‘if they didn’t know that they were under investigation, they do now. Perhaps it’s for the best. Sometimes that kind of knowledge prods people into action when they might have been well advised to keep perfectly still. Like the rabbit that bolts from under your feet,’ she added in explanation. She looked at her watch. ‘Lunchtime approaches. Does anyone fancy the canteen or shall we call at Lorelli’s.’
DC Nicholson seemed uneasy. Lorelli’s was not expensive but it was undeniably dearer than the canteen. Honey was puzzling over how to word an offer to subsidise his meal when Sandy said, ‘I’ll sign your expenses.’
The constable relaxed.
‘Take a quick lunch,’ Honey told him, ‘and then get back there. There’s a pub almost opposite. Watch which of the staff takes lunch there and listen to what’s said. There seem to be rooms to rent upstairs. Try to take one for the afternoon and watch who comes and goes. I still want to know what became of McRitchie.’
‘Yes,’ Sandy said thoughtfully. ‘So do I.’
They were early enough at Lorelli’s so that tables were free. They seated themselves at the back of the room while they considered the menu. Mr Hogwood had never offered them a first name. He had been sitting and observing in silence as the best solicitors do. Now he stirred. ‘Mr Barclay came over well.’
‘Too damn well,’ said Sandy. ‘I went into his room convinced that he was going to be a liar but now I’m not so sure.’
‘He’s a liar,’ said Hogwood. ‘He had the smell. I’ll tell you something. You asked him about Miss Abernethy and her attempt to sell him a story. You played your hand cleverly. You told him a lot about her. But you never said that she was dead and you never called her black. He was so much distracted by the need never to fall into your more obvious trap and use the past tense that he very nearly slipped up, as our politicians always do, over the colour question. He said, “No blessed girl tried to sell us a story about election expenses, I can assure you.” He put it over very calmly and convincingly, as do the very best liars in the witness box. But there was just an instant of hesitation during the word “blessed”. He was going to say “black”, but he remembered in time that you hadn’t told him that bit yet.
Very quick thinking.’
‘No honest man thinks so quickly,’ Honey said.
*
The restaurant was pleasant and half empty. The food was good. Honey would have preferred to take her time, but the officer from Haddington was due. She had to hurry the others to finish their meals. Hogwood in particular was inclined to linger. He had taken several glasses of the house wine with his lunch, perhaps exceeding what his small body mass could readily absorb, and he wanted to expound on other great liars who he had met and circumvented. Honey had to threaten to call a taxi and begin her expenses claim, with a lengthy explanation of the reasons why the taxi had been necessary, before he could be dislodged in order to transport them back to HQ.
Chief Inspector Jowett, from Haddington, was a lean man, slightly stooped. He had thinning, grey hair, a matching moustache, a swarthy complexion, a sense of his own importance and a chip on his shoulder. His uniform was smart. He was not inclined to forgive Honey for keeping him waiting despite her apologies and it was soon clear that he also resented having been called in by an officer of lesser rank. She invited him to sit but he preferred to stand. What, he demanded, was wrong with the telephone, or email, or fax, or, for the matter of that, radio? He had a squeaky voice that might have been specifically designed to irritate her.
‘I am under orders,’ Honey said grimly, ‘to keep this particular matter totally confidential.’
‘Even from your fellow officers? I never heard such rubbish.’
Honey kept her head and her temper. ‘All the same, sir, I must request your assurance that you will treat this as confidential and direct any of your officers who you must instruct in the matter to do the same.’
‘None of my men would talk out of school.’
His jaw was set. Honey could see that, while she might force him to offer lip service, he would never take his own promise seriously. Well, why have a dog and do your own barking? The short-tempered and overbearing Detective Superintendent Blackhouse did have his strengths and she might as well make use of them. She picked up the internal phone and keyed his number. Immediately, the voice snapped ‘Yes?’
In Loving Memory Page 13
