Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel

by Quintin Jardine

  The gates had been opened for us when we stepped outside. Neither of us said a word until we were off the property and back in Essex Road. It was McGuire who broke the silence. ‘What happened in there, boss?’

  ‘Tony and I had a wee chat. We’re old acquaintances. Don’t be offended that I asked you to leave. Some things are better one on one. I wanted you to see him before we got down to it. I’m sure you’ll bump into him again before you’re done.’

  As it happened he did, a few years later; it was a one-sided meeting, though, since Manson was dead at the time.

  ‘We heard a shout at one point,’ the new DC said, quietly. ‘Terry was for going in there.’

  ‘Did you have to restrain him?’

  ‘No, sir. He thought better of it.’

  They usually do with him. I grinned. ‘Thanks for your confidence,’ I remarked. ‘It might have been me that was shouting.’

  ‘I never thought that for one second, sir. Neither did Terry, from the way he reacted. Did you get anything out of Manson?’

  ‘I’d read the script before I heard the performance.’ I summed up the sequence of events for him, but left out the more physical side of the discussion.

  ‘If we know all that, don’t we have a chance of a prosecution?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. If . . . Derek Drysalter, who’s getting fifty grand from Manson for pain and inconvenience, plus, I imagine, an insurance payment that might be in doubt if the truth came out, was to change his story and make a complaint, if . . . a couple of witnesses come forward out of the blue and make it to the trial unbribable or undamaged, if . . . Alafair confesses to everything including running to Tony after Derek hit her, and if . . . big Lennie doesn’t happen to have been in a roomful of oath-taking friends at the exact moment the attack took place, then . . . yes, we might have a chance of taking it to court. The only problem is that none of those things is going to happen.’

  I understood his concern. I’d been as idealistic as him ten years earlier. ‘We just have to keep doing our best, Mario,’ I told him. ‘We get most of them in the end.’

  ‘We haven’t got Manson yet,’ he pointed out.

  ‘If we don’t, the chances are that someone else will. Look at the Holmes brothers. They thought they were untouchable, until wee Billy Spreckley showed them they were only human after all.’

  ‘Where does all this leave us with the Watson investigation?’

  ‘Good question, son,’ I conceded. ‘Back at point one, unfortunately. What were those two hooligans hired to get out of Marlon? The fact that Tony and Alafair were having it away? I can’t see that. At the end of the day who cares other than the Loyal Hibernian Supporters’ Club? And I can’t see them hiring hit men from Newcastle.’

  McGuire whistled. ‘I don’t know, boss,’ he chuckled. ‘Hibbies can be very determined people when their club’s involved.’

  ‘You can joke about it, but that’s all we’ve got at the moment. Whatever they were after, it was serious. They were brought in to do a job, we got on to them and they, for their carelessness, were killed themselves . . . to eliminate any chance of us reaching the person who hired them.’ I sighed. ‘And then there’s the leak. How did our man find out that we had indentified the van, and the men in it?’

  ‘We’ve got a mole then,’ McGuire murmured.

  ‘I’d like to think that Newcastle has, not us. But don’t call him a mole; I hate that analogy. Moles are nice furry wee things. Our traitor’s a reptile, a serpent in our garden.’

  ‘Does Manson know who’s behind it all?’

  I sighed. ‘If he does, then he isn’t worried any more. Bella’s no longer being protected . . . although he told me he never did think she was at risk . . . and his own security’s back to normal: Dougie Terry’s not exactly fucking Cerberus guarding the gates of Hell. My feeling is that Tony believes that it’s over with him having sent his message, as he calls it. It might be for him, but not for us. We’ve still got a triple murderer to catch.’

  ‘So what do we do now, sir?’ he asked, as we neared the office.

  ‘Us normal mortals, Mario, we just keep going, or we go back over what we’ve done so far and see if we’ve missed anything. You, I guess, just keep relying on flair, luck and brass neck.’

  As soon as I was back behind my desk, I called Alison. ‘How did you get on with Alf’s assistant?’

  ‘I’m no further forward,’ she replied. ‘She did a trawl of all the reports from divisions of incidents from the Wednesday night right through to the Friday, but there was nothing there involving three unidentified suspects.’

  ‘Bugger. Nothing at all?’

  ‘There was an armed robbery by two guys from a video store in Leith Walk on the Thursday night. Doesn’t quite fit the time frame and we’re one suspect short.’

  ‘Nor does it sound like the sort of thing that people get killed over. Go back to Shannon, Ali, and ask her to trawl over two further days, just in case something happened that wasn’t reported until after the event. And this too: get your boys to ask around discreetly for things that might have happened off our radar. For example, any word of a robbery where the victim might have had an interest in not reporting it?’

  ‘I will do. Bob,’ she seemed to hesitate for a second, ‘do you think we should go back to Mia Watson on this?’

  ‘And ask her what? She’s already told Stevie that she doesn’t remember any of them.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘I wondered whether, if it was woman to woman, she might push her memory a wee bit harder.’

  I didn’t really want Alison interviewing Mia, but I couldn’t order her not to, or even come up with a convincing reason why she shouldn’t. ‘Try it, if that’s what you want, but she goes on air soon for most of the rest of the day, and we’re both off the pitch for four days from tonight, including Monday when we go to interview Telfer.’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘We can’t get to see him before Tuesday. By the time we got the train up to Aberdeen it would be too late to fly to the platform and back in one day, but as you said, he’s not going anywhere. I’ve made all the arrangements with Shell. We go up Monday afternoon and leave at seven o’clock on the helicopter. All I have to do now is book us into the airport hotel.’

  ‘You’d better make it one room,’ I told her. ‘Times are tight; we should save the taxpayer some money.’

  She laughed. ‘After a weekend on a seagoing schooner, you might want a suite.’

  Sixteen

  ‘What should I wear, Pops?’ Alex asked me, as she handed me a mug of tea. ‘I don’t have a black dress.’ She was a wee bit anxious; the truth about where she was going and what we were about to do had been settling upon her since breakfast.

  ‘They tend not to be fashion items for thirteen-year-olds, kid,’ I pointed out. ‘What did Grandpa like you to wear? It’s not about what other people expect, it’s about what he’d be thinking.’

  She thought about it. ‘There’s the blue dress I bought with the money he gave me last Christmas. Would it do?’

  ‘That will be perfect, my love.’

  ‘Make-up?’ Under Daisy’s guidance and with my approval she had started to use cosmetics on the day she moved into her teens. She didn’t overdo it, for as Daisy had pointed out, she didn’t need to. ‘Would that be disrespectful?’

  ‘I’d tell you if it was.’

  ‘Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to upset Aunt Jean.’

  ‘You won’t.’ Jean was going to be sending her dad off to the good fire. I doubted if she’d even notice that her niece was wearing a bit of eyeliner and lipstick. ‘It’s not as if you’re going to be painted up like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.’ We’d watched the video a couple of months before.

  ‘You lookin’ at me?’ she drawled, and headed for the stairs.

  ‘Don’t come down with your hair in a Mohican,’ I called after her.

  The ribbing had lightened things but I was probably more tense than my daughter. I didn’t l
ike Daldowie; or rather I disliked it more than any other crematorium I knew. It was one of those places where you saw distant relations and acquaintances, promised to see them soon and then never did until the next time you were there.

  I decided to match the dress code I’d recommended to Alex, so I put on the linen suit I’d worn a few days before, but with a black shirt and tie. Then I packed a bag for the weekend, full of what I imagined might be sailor stuff.

  Alison had advised Alex about what she should take with her. She and I had arranged that we’d all set off from my place; if I’d picked her up, it would have taken at least forty-five minutes longer to reach Carluke. When she arrived, in a black suit, we were ready to go. She scored a real Brownie point by heading straight for the back seat of the Beamer, leaving Alex in her usual place, up front. It was thoughtful, and I loved her for it. Yes, you read me right; I loved her for it.

  We got to Thornton’s house just before one. There were quite a few people there, in addition to Jean, a couple of her aunts, one from either side of the family, Thornie’s much older brother, Uncle Moffat, who wasn’t quite sure where he was, and his best pal from the golf club. The great-aunts made a small fuss of Alex, and were polite to Alison, but mostly concentrated on sipping their Harvey’s Bristol Cream, and munching their salmon sandwiches as best they could with their loose dentures.

  Sergeant Lowell Payne was there too, clean-cut, about my own age, and formal in dark suit, white shirt, black tie. My Special Branch contact had called me back, giving him a clean bill of health. He wasn’t expected to rise any higher than inspector, but that would give him a decent pension one day, and he had no bad habits for me to worry about. We were introduced, ‘Bob, Lowell. Lowell, Bob,’ but didn’t say much to each other. At that stage everyone was focused on what was to come. Alex stuck close to me, tight-lipped; one of the great-aunts had insisted on pinching her cheek, and Uncle Moffat kept calling out, loudly, ‘Who’s that lassie? Is that our Myra?’

  I was grateful when the undertaker announced that we should go. There were two limos for six passengers . . . Thornie had a vehicle all to himself . . . so there was plenty of space. Jean offered Alex a seat in hers, as a close blood relative, but she chose to stay with me. The pace was indeed funereal, but the drivers were experts and we arrived at exactly the right time.

  The service took half the time that the drive had. Psalm twenty-three, prayer, hymn, prayer ending in Lord’s Prayer (the Scottish version where we forgive debtors and our debts are forgiven too; that’ll be right!), eulogy, committal, benediction. All crematoria seem to operate to the same tight timetable, but at least the place was full of Thornton’s enduring friends, the minister knew all about him and wasn’t reading from a script provided by the family, and oh, as I was reminded, those Lanarkshire Proddies sure can sing. I didn’t join them; I only do that when I’ve had a couple of drinks and I know that somebody’s listening. Alison did, though; I hadn’t realised that she had such a nice contralto voice.

  When it was all over, and Jean and I had shaken hands with the departing mourners at the door . . . I couldn’t let her do that on her own, and Lowell was too new on the scene . . . we moved on to a hotel in Bothwell, a place that must make a small fortune from the proximity of the crematorium, for more salmon sandwiches, more Bristol Cream, stories about the departed and the laughter that always comes from the release of tension. It unsettled Alex; I could see that either she was going to cry or she’d let someone have both barrels, so I took her into a corner and explained that one day she’d be doing exactly the same herself, probably after seeing me off.

  Jean saw us and came across to join us. I left them to their aunt-niece chat and walked across to the corner that Alison and Lowell Payne had commandeered. I shook hands with the sergeant properly. It had been perfunctory at Thornie’s place. ‘Good to meet you,’ I said. ‘How’s Strathclyde taking to its new chief?’

  ‘Mr Govan? He’s way above my head, and I’m a long way from Pitt Street, thank heaven, but from what I hear he’s shaking things up.’

  ‘I’d expect no less,’ I agreed. ‘He lectured at a course I was on at Tulliallan; not a man to sugar the pill.’

  ‘I’ve heard much the same about you.’

  I smiled. ‘I didn’t know I was being watched.’

  ‘We take an interest in you through here, since you’re one of us. Ever think about coming back?’ he asked.

  ‘Not once. Not once in fourteen years.’ In fact, John Govan had sounded me out, after his lecture, to see if I’d consider a move to Glasgow, but I’d declined, politely, as it pays to be with the most powerful police officer in the land.

  ‘Shoe the other foot,’ I continued. ‘Have you ever considered a move east?’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘but Jean wouldn’t like it, and what she wants she can have as far as I’m concerned.’

  On the basis of my background check and our brief acquaintance, I’d have found him a slot, but I decided not to pursue it. ‘How’s Hamilton?’ I asked him. ‘When I was a boy, the River Clyde was like the Berlin Wall, dividing it and Motherwell. The twain never met.’

  He smiled. ‘It’s okay. There’s worse places to be . . . Motherwell, for example.’

  ‘It wasn’t always like that. There was a working-class morality about when the steel industry was at its height.’

  ‘Yes, but with the Protestant jackboot on the neck of the Catholic minority, through its old police force.’

  I couldn’t argue; he knew the local history of my home town. He was an interesting guy, and forthright with it. I could see why he hadn’t been earmarked for higher rank. ‘Those were the days,’ I said to Alison. ‘I’m glad I missed them.’ I looked back at Lowell. ‘You’ll be a Hamilton boy, then?’

  He nodded. ‘Born and bred.’

  ‘Big place, I know,’ I ventured, ‘but have you ever heard of a family called McGrew?’

  ‘Sure, as in Alafair. She was a budding actress, and good at her personal PR from an early age. Her name was always cropping up in the Hamilton Advertiser, for winning awards at the Athenaeum, or getting a bit part in Take the High Road.’

  ‘What’s the Athenaeum?’ Alison asked.

  ‘Royal College of Music and Drama in Glasgow,’ I told her. ‘Some very well-known people came out of there.’

  ‘Alafair hasn’t come up to Ian Richardson’s level, though,’ Lowell added. ‘I haven’t seen much about her lately.’

  ‘Career change. She married a footballer.’ I almost added, ‘And started playing away games,’ but decided to hold that back. ‘But he plays for Hibs,’ I went on, ‘hence her absence from the Advertiser, and from the telly.’

  Sergeant Payne was sharp. ‘It wouldn’t be the guy Drysalter, would it?’

  ‘It would indeed.’

  ‘The hit and run victim?’

  ‘The same. Someone hit him, several times, with a baseball bat, and ran away . . . but that information stays within our domestic group, Lowell, okay?’

  ‘Sure, sir, Bob . . . whatever.’

  Alison laughed. ‘I have the same trouble, sometimes.’

  ‘Which she’s getting over,’ I said. ‘I’ll be calling her “Ma’am” soon.’

  ‘You will this weekend. On board my brother’s boat I’m the first mate and you’re a deckhand.’

  ‘Shit, I thought you were the stewardess.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Speaking of which, we should be making a move. We’d better collect Alex and say our goodbyes. You know what happens at these things, Lowell, don’t you? Bets are laid on who’s going up the chimney next?’

  He nodded towards Uncle Moffat, who was holding a large whisky in two small hands. ‘There won’t be too many takers,’ he muttered.

  ‘Thornie said the same thing about him after Myra’s funeral, but the old boy’s seen him off.’

  We shook hands for a third time, as Alison went to rescue Alex from the great-aunts. ‘Do me a small favour if you can. See if you can pick up any local knowledge
about Alafair’s family background.’ I took a card from the ever-present stash in my breast pocket and slipped it to him. ‘Just for fun. I’d like to know how she became the girl she is.’

  The last leg of the journey was much less sombre than the first two. Alex promoted Alison to the front passenger seat, so that she could retreat into the back and listen to the Spice Girls and others on her CD Walkman.

  ‘Well,’ I began as I negotiated the complex interchange that led to the motorway network, ‘what did you think of that crew?’

  ‘What do they think of me,’ Alison countered, ‘that’s the question.’

  ‘Don’t let that worry you for one second. You and Jean seemed to get on fine and that’s all that matters.’