Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel (18 page)

‘No, but it’s just round the corner from that pub, the Giggling Goose.’

I knew why she’d been called. ‘That’s a gay bar, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Mr Stein’s told the boss to get involved; he wants me to meet up with the Gayfield Square CID team.’

‘Why the fuck’s Grant not going?’ I complained, as she headed for the bathroom. ‘You haven’t been involved in the Grove Street investigation.’

‘Because he’s been at a family party in Perth, and he’s staying there overnight.’

‘Who’s in charge from Gayfield?’

‘DCI Pringle. I’ve never worked with him before. Do you know him?’

‘Yeah. Dan’s a sound guy,’ I added. ‘He’s old school, and he looks a bit like PC Plod, but underestimate him at your peril. You get ready, and I’ll make some coffee.’

She was showered and dressed inside ten minutes. Her hair was still damp, but it would dry in the car. She was flustered. ‘Be cool,’ I told her as she took a wolf-sized bite from a slice of toast, ‘and don’t go charging in there. As far as Dan’s concerned, it’s his crime scene; you’ll be there more or less as an observer.’

‘Fine by me. All I’ve done is read the paperwork on our inquiry. A fat lot of use I’ll be.’

I handed her a mug of Nescafe, strong, and heavy with sugar; I didn’t want her nodding off at the wheel. ‘You don’t need to be any use. Keep your head down, take notes and compare the scene with the photos you’ve seen of the other one. Were there any exceptional factors about that?’

‘One that struck me: the witness statement from Grove Street. I told you that the guy, Robert Wyllie, kept changing his story, yes? He started off by saying that he and his mate, Archie Weir, were attacked, no more than that, but finally admitted that they were out to rough up a gay bloke. However, he maintained that they never actually got that far. What he claims is that their target rumbled them.’

‘That he didn’t act in self-defence?’

‘Not according to Wyllie; his final account reads as if they were lured into Grove Street. He says that the man was heading up Morrison Street, then took a quick turn. They followed him but he was nowhere to be seen. They went a few yards and then he was on them. Wyllie was stabbed first, in the leg. He went down, Weir started to run away, but the man with the knife pursued him and went to work on him. Seven stab wounds in all, two in the back, one in each arm and three in the abdomen. He turned back towards Wyllie, who was still on the ground holding his leg, but just then the fourth person came round the corner and the attacker ran off.’

‘Okay,’ I said, as she gulped her coffee, pulling a face at its sweetness. ‘You have that background knowledge, they don’t. So go there and find out what they do have. Another live witness would be a good start. How’s the guy Weir, by the way?’

‘On a ventilator. They don’t expect him to make it.’

‘Mmm. Not good.’ I took the empty mug from her, and kissed her; on the forehead, to avoid smearing her lipstick. ‘On you go now. You’re a star, and you’re going to leave us all behind.’

‘Thanks,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll see you.’ I thought she’d go then, but she stayed in my arms. ‘Not for a while, though. I’ve got to be careful; waking up with you could be habit-forming.’

I’d been thinking the same thing. I locked the door after her, then went back to bed, but I was done with sleep for the night. I lay there, aware of Alison’s scent on the duvet and on the pillow, my mind working, contemplating the crime scene that she was driving towards. My curiosity wasn’t idle. I found myself hoping that by the time they got there it would have been wrapped up, plenty of eye witnesses and an arrest made, either a gang killing or a dispute between a couple of macho guys that had gone too far, and nothing to do with the Grove Street attack that sounded as if it was going to become a full-scale murder inquiry before long.

But if it wasn’t, if the evidence pointed to a link between the two, then it would be a single homicide investigation, crossing divisional boundaries. I had no intention of volunteering, but I knew there was every chance that Alf Stein would decide that it fell within the loose remit of my unit and thus would dump it in my lap.

I could see the headlines as I lay in the darkness . . . ‘Gay Blade Strikes!’ . . . and I didn’t fancy it at all.

Ten

I
gave up trying to sleep just after six; apart from my pressing work problems, Thornton’s visit was weighing heavily upon me. He was the last of our parents’ generation, mine and Myra’s, and such a hearty fit guy, that it had never occurred to me that he wouldn’t be around for my fiftieth birthday, and for a few after that. I tried to imagine what I would say to Alex when ‘It’ happened, but I couldn’t. Instead, I had a vision of Jean, Alex and myself in the front row of the church where Myra and I had been married, and my eyes filled with tears.

I rose and took my time about getting ready for the day. The face that I saw in the mirror as I shaved was creased and lined, with dark bags under the blue eyes. My hair was all over the place, and looked greyer than ever. I could still find a few dark strands, but they were as outnumbered as the Spartans at Thermopylae. They had begun to retreat on the day that I cut off a lock and put it in Myra’s coffin, and had been quickly overcome by the silver hordes.

‘Vulnerable?’ I grunted. ‘No, you’re just a sad old bastard.’

I chose a suit, a pale cream linen thing that was meant to look crumpled . . . or so I’d been told by a dickhead in Austin Reed, who hadn’t bothered to tell me that it would need dry cleaning after almost every wearing. I complemented it with a black shirt, but didn’t bother with a tie. I remembered my admonition to McGuire about flashy dressing but disregarded it; I wanted to leave my image with the man I’d be seeing that day long after I’d left him.

I was on my second coffee, and had run almost half a loaf through the toaster, when Alex joined me, also dressed for action. ‘Why did Alison go?’ she asked, a little anxiously, as she filled a bowl with cereal. ‘Did you have a row?’

‘No, of course not,’ I reassured her. ‘She had a work call.’

‘Oh,’ she said, relieved. ‘That’s all right, then.’

I laughed. ‘There will come a day in your life, kid, when you get a business call at half past one in the morning. When it happens, I promise you that it will not be all right.’

‘Lawyers don’t get calls in the middle of the night.’

‘No? I reckon that if this career choice of yours is definitive, it’s time I introduced you to a couple I know. There’s a man called Mitchell Laidlaw, one of my five-a-side football chums. I’ll ask him if he’ll have a talk with you. And there are a couple of advocates that you ought to meet.’

She shrugged. ‘If you want.’ Then she turned to what was really on her mind. ‘This trip of Grandpa’s, Pops. Do you know where he’s going?’

‘No,’ I said . . . honestly, I believe. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

‘I think it’s weird, going on holiday and not knowing where you’re going.’

‘Not at all. People used to do it all the time, before the days of packages to bloody Benidorm, back when you went on holiday in your own country, not in other people’s. When I was a kid, we went to Fife.’ That was the only place my mother would go, but I didn’t tell Alex that. She looked at me with a kind of pity.

I was in the office by quarter to nine, but I wasn’t first. McGuire was there before me. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the suit. ‘You really do need to meet my tailor, boss,’ he said.

I waved a middle finger in his direction and retreated to my sanctum. I hung my jacket on a hook . . . no sense in creasing it more than necessary . . . sat behind my desk and called Alison’s mobile. ‘How’s it going?’ I asked. ‘Has Dan got a result yet?’

‘Can’t talk now,’ she replied, quietly. ‘Office?’

‘Yes.’

‘Give me five.’

I replaced the phone in its socket and waited, looking out into the outer office, and waving, first to Andy Martin, then Jeff Adam, as each arrived. The DS stuck his head round the door. ‘Want me to get back on to Newcastle, boss, and ask them to dig up that car auction manager?’

‘No. Get them to give you his name and number and call him yourself. Cut out the middle man.’

‘Will do.’

Alison called back a couple of minutes later, on my mobile. ‘Sorry about earlier,’ she said. ‘I was with Mr Pringle.’

‘Nuff said. I understand. Where are you now?’

‘I’m back at Gayfield now, in the ladies. Did you get a decent night’s sleep after I left?’

‘Log-like,’ I lied. ‘How goes it?’

‘No result, but we do have a witness, though. Mr Pringle’s team did a door-to-door; they knocked up everyone living in the area. The owner of a mews house in Jamaica Street Lane told them that he came home just after midnight and was just closing his garage after putting his car away, when a man came running past him, heading in the direction of India Street. He gave a decent description: twenties, tall, slim, clean-shaven, black hair, khaki-coloured cotton jacket.’

‘That’s a start.’

‘More than a start. Bob, this is the same man; I’m sure of it.’ Just what I did not want to hear. ‘He’s changed the hair, as you said he would, but the rest of the description matches Wyllie’s. And that’s not where it ends. When you called earlier we’d just left the home of the manager of the Giggling Goose, a man called Ferrier. We ran the description past him. He told us that it fitted someone who’d been involved in a dust-up in his pub, earlier on. What you have to understand is, his customers aren’t exclusively gay; there’s no sign over the door, and his clientele’s usually mixed.’

‘Bet on it,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a pint in there myself before now.’

‘Okay, so you know what it’s like. Well, according to Ferrier, a wee bit before twelve, our man bought a pint.’

‘Was he alone?’

‘Yes, as far as Ferrier could tell. Anyway, as he was backing away from the bar, he bumped into two guys and spilled his Guinness all over them. It was his fault, but he started to swear at the other two, and it got a bit heated. There were a couple of homophobic remarks, and Ferrier told them to shut up. Khaki jacket wouldn’t, though. He called them a couple of wankers, said they were hiding behind the barman’s apron, threw what was left of the Guinness in their faces and headed for the door.’

‘Did they go after him?’

‘Only one of them. The other one, his pal, tried to stop him, but he shook him off. He went charging out and he never came back.’

‘Did nobody go and look for him?’ I asked.

‘Ferrier said that about ten minutes later, his mate asked him to mind his drink and went looking for him. He came back though, and said he couldn’t see him. That’s not surprising. Just at the end of the lane, where it splits, there are a few steps leading down into the courtyard of the Jamaica Mews flats. The body was hidden down there in the shadows, out of sight of the lane. It was only found when a couple of girls tripped over it on the way home. It was a hell of a mess; multiple stab wounds, big ones, including one in each eye.’

‘So the khaki jacket would be pretty bloody,’ I suggested.

‘Not necessarily. He must have died very quickly, for there wasn’t as much spread of blood as the number of wounds would suggest.’

‘Have you got an ID for him?’

‘No, he had nothing on him. Ferrier didn’t know him by name and there was no wallet found. He had one when he was in the pub, so khaki jacket must have taken it.’

‘Fuck!’

‘I agree, but what’s it to you?’

I told her of my fear. There was a multiple murderer out there, or there would be when Weir’s life support was switched off. It was always possible that Alf Stein would take over the hunt himself, but that wasn’t his style, not when he had the Serious Crimes Unit up his sleeve to put a bit of PR gloss on it.

‘What should I do now?’ she asked.

‘You should tell Dan Pringle what you know, and then bring Alastair up to speed when he gets back from Perth. They’ll report to Alf, and next thing you know,’ I sighed, ‘I can see now, it’ll be pass the fucking parcel to yours truly.’

I left her to follow my suggestions, or not, as she chose, and went back to my own day. Once everyone had arrived I pulled my team together, and brought everyone up to speed on developments in the Marlon murder investigation, the van, the Newcastle connection, my Friday visit to Lennie Plenderleith, what he’d told me about the reason for Tony Manson’s absence, and the speed with which he’d been moved in to ‘babysit’ . . . some baby! . . . Bella.

‘What do we read into that?’ Fred Leggat wondered.

‘It says to me that Marlon’s death was as big a surprise to Tony as it probably was to the boy himself. We can expect that the man will be taking it very seriously, now he’s back. I’m going to see him this morning to make sure that he knows he’s in our thoughts.’

‘But are we any closer to understanding why Marlon was killed?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know about any of you guys, but I’m not. Newcastle: that’s all we’ve got.’ I looked across at Jeff Adam; he was at his desk, seated, leaning forward, shoulders hunched, phone pressed to his ear, in his left hand, scribbling in his notebook with the other. I waited till he was finished.

He turned in his chair as he replaced the phone, with a small involuntary jump as he realised that every eye in the room was focused on him. ‘What?’ he exclaimed, provoking a round of laughter. It made me feel good. I was brought up to believe that a happy team was usually a successful team. (Too bad that my dad didn’t realise what was happening within his own small squad.)

‘A name,’ Adam announced. ‘I have a name. The Transit was bought by one Glenn Milburn, number seventeen Woodvale Avenue, Wallsend, Newcastle.’

‘Real name, or could it be a fake?’ I asked.

‘Not very likely, boss. The auction house insists on proof of identity from all buyers. Milburn produced his passport, so unless that was a phoney, it’s him. The manager even gave me a description. Big bloke, face like a front-row forward, he said. Whatever that means.’

‘Usually it means that only a short-sighted mother could love it,’ Martin chuckled.

‘Excellent, Jeff,’ I told the DS. ‘A good start to the day.’