Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel (43 page)

She took a huge drag on her cigarette. ‘Okay!’ she screamed. ‘Now go! Fuck off!’

‘We’re going, don’t worry, but you’re coming with us. I’m detaining you for formal questioning about a conspiracy to murder. DC Shannon, take Mrs Drysalter out to the car. Cuff her if you have to.’

She kicked up hell about her dogs. She kicked up hell all the way to Fettes. I arranged for Sasha and Pasha to be taken to the boarding kennels where they’d been housed while she’d been in Ibiza with lover boy, and I gave her a kennel all to herself when we got back to headquarters. I’d had a legitimate excuse for taking her in, but I had no illusions about being able to hold her. I didn’t need to do that anyway; I wanted only to keep her quiet until I could arrange a visit to her father.

I gathered the team and briefed them. Alf Stein came down to join us after I’d told him what had happened. ‘Who’s normally in the house, other than Holmes and the man you believe is his son?’ the DCS asked.

‘Housekeeper, chef and a personal assistant,’ I replied, ‘but they’re background. Then there’s the masseur, Vanburn.’

‘Is he really a masseur?’

‘He’s big enough to be muscle,’ I conceded, ‘but I’d say he’s for real. Holmes genuinely does need specialised care.’ I pointed to Adam. ‘Jeff, your wife’s a nurse, isn’t she? What’s her governing body?’

‘The Royal College of Nursing.’

‘Then get in touch with them and run the name Vanburn past them. It could be surname or forename, I don’t know which. See if he’s registered with them.’

Alf frowned. ‘How do you want to play this, Bob?’

‘I don’t have time to be subtle, gaffer. I want to put men at the back of the property to block any exit that way and then I plan to drive straight up there, four of us, me, Jeff, Andy and Mario, at speed. But, I’ve been in there, and I can tell you the place has a shit-hot security system. The guys at the back can’t be too close or they’ll trigger movement sensors. So when we’re ready to go in, I want the power cut off.’

‘Are you going armed?’ the boss asked.

‘We’re after an ex-soldier who’s killed three people,’ I reminded him. ‘I’ll be carrying, and so will Jeff. I’ve seen him on the range.’

Alf frowned. ‘Do you really want two young unarmed officers with you in that situation?’

It was a good point; I recognised the hazard. ‘No, sir, you’re right. I don’t want to be looking anywhere but straight ahead.’

‘Sensible. In that case, they stay back and I’m coming.’

I stared at him. ‘With respect, sir,’ I began. ‘I know you’re trained to handle a gun, but can I suggest that you take a look at yourself in a full-length mirror, then turn sideways.’

DCS Stein peered back at me. ‘Are you saying I’m a fat bastard?’ he murmured.

‘Let’s just say you used to be faster on your feet than you are now.’

He sighed. ‘Aye, you might be right there. I don’t like leading from the back, Bob, that’s all.’ He grinned. ‘I could always go in front and you and DS Adam could hide behind me, then step out and shout “Surprise!” That would make Holmes jump right out of his fucking wheelchair.’

The laughter broke the tension, and an option occurred. ‘I can pull in Brian Mackie,’ I determined. ‘He’s our top marksman. Any more than three and we’d be in danger of shooting each other.’ I paused. ‘But back to this security camera problem.’

‘There’s a problem with cutting off the power,’ Fred Leggat said. ‘It would be tricky to do it selectively. You might wind up cutting off the whole of Lothianburn and Straiton. Even then you couldn’t be sure it would work. A good security system will have back-up power that takes over within a couple of seconds.’

He was right; even my home alarm had a back-up battery. ‘In that case we’ve got a real difficulty. It’s quite a long way up to Holmes’s house. On my previous visit, judging by the time it must have taken the guy Vanburn to get from what they call the receiving area to the door, and how long it took me to get there, the cameras must have picked me up almost as soon as I’d turned in off the road.’

‘So?’ a voice from the doorway broke in. ‘Why don’t you simply drop in on him? Don’t you have a traffic helicopter in this part of the world? Land it right on the guy’s lawn.’

Six pairs of eyes swung round to look at the intruder. I laughed; Martin smiled. ‘Our friend from the south. Guys, this is DI McFaul, from Newcastle, who thinks he has first claim on our target. Yes, Ciaran, we have a chopper. Are you qualified with a pistol?’ He nodded. ‘In that case your reward for being a clever bugger is that you’ll be on it.’ I looked at Alf. ‘Boss, that rules you out, I’m afraid. We don’t have time to fit extra fuel tanks.’

For all his bulk, the head of CID could make things happen quickly when all that was needed was a phone. The operation was set up and ready to go in an hour. We’d even sourced a drawing from the local authority planning department showing the layout of the place. There was no rear driveway. That made things simpler: no getaway option. There were woods behind the house, accessible from the adjoining estate, and uniformed officers were on the way there, to cut off any escape route. I still had one logistical problem to solve, though; a personal one. Daisy Mears had an exhibition opening that evening in a gallery in Dunbar, and dinner afterwards with the owner and his wife. I called my fallback, privately.

‘Of course,’ Alison said, when I asked her. I didn’t go into detail, or mention firearms; I told her that something had come up and I was committed, that was all. ‘It’s not a problem. I take it that Alex has keys.’

‘Yes, she has. And she knows the alarm combination.’ Something came into my head, and I released it. ‘You should have a set too. In fact, when you go out, why don’t you take a suitcase and leave some clothes in the wardrobe. It’ll make it easier.’

She laughed, softly. ‘And a toothbrush in your jar?’

‘That too. You can even use my toothpaste.’

‘As long as it has stripes. When can I expect you?’

‘Dunno. I’ll let you know when I’m on the way home.’

‘Do that. Good luck with whatever it is, and take some good news with you. Things have moved on in my, your other, investigation. You won’t have to go in that helicopter after all.’

That’s what you think
, I whispered, just as I hung up.

Seventeen

‘G
o on then,’ Alison demanded. ‘You’ve eaten, and you’ve nearly finished your second bottle of red. Are you going to tell us what happened, while you still can?’

‘Yes, Pops,’ Alex chipped in, ‘we’ve been patient for long enough.’

‘Out of deference to our guest,’ I reminded her.

DI McFaul was staying over. I’d offered him the use of our spare room, and he’d accepted. A night alone in a hotel room would have been unthinkable. We were both high. It had nothing to do with the Tempranillo either; we were flying on natural fuel, high-octane adrenalin. We’d made it home just after nine and killed the first bottle before we’d even sat down to eat.

‘Let me tell the story,’ Ciaran said. ‘I saw the whole thing; Bob missed the first part.’

I held up a hand to pause him, and checked my watch at the same time: ten past ten. Before I’d opened my mouth, my daughter was on me. ‘Pops,’ she warned, ‘if you say, “Time for bed, young lady,” there will be war.’

I gave in. ‘One’s enough for today; go on, Ciaran.’

‘Good.’ He looked around the table. ‘Are we sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. So there we are in this chopper . . .’

‘What?’ Alison exclaimed.

‘This helicopter.’

‘They got him in a helicopter?’ she gasped.

‘It was only a wee one,’ I pointed out, ‘and it wasn’t going very far. Ciaran, don’t be put off by heckling.’

‘I love it when you’re merry,’ Alex laughed.

‘So there we are,’ the Geordie resumed, beaming at her, ‘in this chopper, coming down in the man’s driveway like Robert Duvall in
Apocalypse Now
. . . hinnie, all we needed was to be playing “Ride of the Valkyries” through speakers. We land and the three of us, me, Bob and Jeff Adam, jump out. Your dad goes round the side of the house and the two of us head for the front door. Jeff’s got this ram, battering ram, enormously heavy; he can hardly lift it. He hits the door with it. Normally one tap and we’re in but this just goes “Boing!” and bounces off, because the door’s made out of steel. Remember this, pet, and it’ll see you through life: people with steel front doors invariably have something to hide.’ He was pushing it with the “pet”, but Alex was too engaged to protest.

‘So he gives it another thump, and still it doesn’t budge. Finally on the third swing it does give, but the ram rebounds again and Jeff lets it slip. Thud! It lands on his foot. And did he scream? Did he ever! Like a Sunderland striker when he gets tackled. They think he’s broken a couple of bones. So there we are, this amateur FART team . . .’

‘What?’ Alex’s eyes bulged.

‘It’s a Tyneside nickname, pet, Fast Action Response Team, except they’re not really called that. Anyway, there we are, one of us hopping about on one leg and the other a stranger in town. Not an auspicious start.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘Ach, by the time I got to where I was supposed to be your dad had arrested the guy; show over.’

I reached across and touched my daughter’s hand. ‘And with that, love . . .’

She smiled. ‘I know, it’s over for me too. All right. Night, Pops. Good night, Ciaran. Good night, Alison, and please don’t let them keep me awake.’

‘I won’t,’ my occasional bidey-in promised. ‘See you in the morning.’ She waited until the door had closed and for a few seconds after that, before continuing. ‘Now tell me what really happened.’ Earlier while I was changing, I had given her a quick rundown on Hastie McGrew, and about the raid on his father’s house. I had left out most of the detail but as soon as Ciaran had mentioned helicopters and battering rams, her police officer’s brain had drawn conclusions.

McFaul’s expression changed; his head slumped a little and the humour left his face, as the last of the action juice wore off.

‘What happened,’ he repeated, ‘. . . was that after that bloody sergeant’s performance, when I got in there, where I was supposed to be, our man was waiting for me, and he was armed. He had the drop on me. Holmes was in his pool, being floated by his masseur or nurse, whatever he is. That caught my eye first and when I looked at his son he had a gun on me. I was looking right down the barrel, Alison, and I couldn’t move. He told me to drop mine, and I did. I saw his eyes narrow and I said the fastest
Hail Mary!
I’ve ever managed in my life, for I really did think he was going to fire. And that’s when Bob shot the gun clean right out of his hand from the patio door. Personally, I’d rather he’d hit him in the head.’

‘I could have,’ I told him, ‘but the hand was the safer target, for you, not for him. He could have pulled the trigger by reflex.’

‘You might have missed.’ He shuddered.

‘I don’t, from that far away.’

He chuckled, grimly. ‘I didn’t know that. All I could think was that I didn’t have any spare underpants.’

Alison was anxious. ‘He didn’t give you any more trouble, did he?’

‘No,’ I assured her. ‘He couldn’t. His left hand’s pretty much useless, as a result of a service injury. After a year of feeding his father, for a while he’s going to find out for himself how that feels.’

‘Where’s McGrew now?’ she asked.

‘I had him taken to the Royal A&E, under armed guard, to have his hand fixed. The bullet went through the base of his thumb and out the other side. As soon as they’re ready to discharge him, he’ll be moved to Fettes. He can have his sister’s old room; I released her as soon as we’d secured Hastie.’

‘And what about their father?’

‘Perry? He’s still at home. We’d no grounds to arrest him. Suppose we had, where would we have taken him? No, we left him with his nurse, and there are officers front and back of the house. It’s not that he’ll be going anywhere but I don’t want the press to get near him.’

‘How did he take it?’

‘Have you ever met Perry?’

‘No.’

‘Good. He was raging after it had all happened. It was almost frightening to see, all that anger contained in a body that’s quite unable to move. He was naked in the pool, and that made him even more furious. Vanburn took him out of the water on a trolley thing that he uses, but he had to sedate him before he even started to dry and dress him. As soon as he was back in his chair and able, I tried to question him, but by then he was back to the old Perry. Same old line that he’s been using for years: “I’m a legitimate businessman, and I’m not responsible for the actions of those around me. Now go and prove otherwise, but while you’re doing that I’ll be calling my lawyers.” Nailing Perry Holmes was never an option, love. We’ve done the best we could. We’ve got Hastie, plus we found his car round the back. I left a search team going through everything. They won’t turn up anything incriminating in the house, but they did find a knife in a scabbard, taped under the passenger seat of the car. It’s a Gurkha kukri; an army souvenir, I guess, since that’s who he served with. He’s bound to have burned the clothes that he wore the night he took care of the guys on Tyneside, but there’s a stain on the face of the squab of the driver’s seat. The SOCOs were afraid to put luminol on it in case they compromised it, but they’re sure it’s blood, and the hope has to be that it can be matched to Winston Church.’

Alison picked up the bottle, topped up our glasses and set it back down, empty. McFaul was well and truly down from his cloud. His eyes were starting to glaze over. I didn’t mind that; we were probably heading for an argument next morning over the custody of McGrew and it would do me no harm if he had a bad head.

‘Interesting stuff, blood,’ she murmured. ‘Would you like to hear my news now, while you still can?’

I hadn’t given it a thought since we’d spoken in the afternoon; I’d been focused on Holmes and son, the family firm. ‘Of course, sorry.’

‘Well,’ she began, pouring herself some white, then leaning back, ‘I took your advice. I did some
cherchez
ing. The last time I was in uniform I picked up a little inside knowledge. Do you know that we have a specialist rape unit in the force?’