Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel (47 page)

‘I see,’ he murmured. ‘Lucky Mia.’

‘Why did you leave?’ I continued.

‘Where are my brothers-in-law?’ he asked. ‘Those fucking Spreckleys?’

I pointed, downwards.

‘Both of them? Now that is good news. Billy maybe not so much, but Gavin, yes. If I’d had the guts I’d have put him there myself. He was the reason I left.’ He looked at us. ‘I was a bit wild in my youth. Check your records and you’ll find my name there, although for nothing serious. But I had no idea when I married Bella what her family was like. She was pregnant with Mia and we did the old-fashioned thing, then we had the other two. I was away at sea a lot, so it took me a while to find out what Gavin was up to, with the drugs and everything. When I did, I went mental. I told Bella we were moving away. But she’d have none of it. She did her nut. We had a big argument. A couple of days later, I had a visit from her brothers. Gavin put a gun to my head and said that if I was still around in twenty-four hours he’d pull the trigger. He told me to disappear and not to even think about going to the police as he’d friends who would find me and put me through an industrial mincer, feet first. He scared me all right, enough for me to leave my wife and family behind, and never even think about coming back.’

So: Mia had made up the story she’d told me about her father’s departure, but she hadn’t been that far off the mark. ‘If you’d known he died twelve years ago, would you have?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I had another family by then, a wife and a daughter. Not bigamous, mind; I divorced Bella as soon as I could when the law let me.’

I wasn’t too bothered about that. I had other matters on my mind, for example that mirage-like wall. ‘Give my colleague your contact details, please, Mr Watson,’ I said. I left them to it. I walked away, across two double ranks of graves, and sat on a long, flat, mossy tombstone, giving myself time and space to think.

Mia had lied to me. She’d told me that after Ryan’s murder she’d run off to live with her father, her tragic, lost-at-sea trawlerman father, who’d given her the stability she’d needed, and let her build a proper life for herself away from the remnants of her doomed family. That was all fiction, a farrago of Mills and Boon candyfloss, but she had gone somewhere, that was for sure. It was probably likely that the degree she’d told me of was real, and her CV. She wouldn’t have expected me to check any of it, but her bio would have to stand up to the scrutiny of others as her career developed.

So where had she gone when she was barely sixteen? I ran through everything she had ever said to me, looking for a hint. Her contempt for her family had been evident, for her brother Ryan, for Gavin, her uncle. Not a psycho, she’d insisted, but what was it that she’d said about him, only a couple of hours before? I searched for her words and they came back to me. ‘Gavin had aspirations, he wanted to be Mr Big, but he was never in the same league.’ And the vehemence with which she had spoken them, as if she was speaking from . . .

No, come on, Skinner, stay focused. But couldn’t it be? What had she said, according to Telfer? She didn’t shag boys, only proper men. Not Gavin, surely? Not her uncle? No, even Bella would have drawn the line there, but did he take her about with him? Did she meet any of the crew he worked for? Could she ever have met . . . Fuck!

‘So where did she go?’ I whispered. And answered myself, intuitively.

I snatched my phone from my pocket, and searched through incoming calls until I found a number with a prefix I recognised. I knew it was a long shot, one that I hoped wouldn’t pay off, but didn’t Foinavon win the Grand National, didn’t Ali dismantle the monster Liston, then topple the invincible Foreman?

Lowell Payne was on duty when I called. He was surprised to hear from me, but sharp and efficient as usual. I asked him for a telephone number, and he found it in seconds. The lady who answered my call was posh Lanarkshire; her voice was the sort that I’d heard as a child, mostly on my occasional visits to my dad’s office, when clients arrived for appointments.

‘Mrs Shearer?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m a police officer,’ I told her. ‘My name is Skinner, and I’m a colleague of the sergeant who spoke to you the other day.’

‘About poor Violet and her children?’

‘That’s right. I need to ask you something else. Can you remember, was there a third child living with them at any point? It would be about ten to twelve years ago.’

‘Oh yes, dear. I remember her well. Not really a child, though. She’d be about sixteen when she joined them, about halfway between Peter and Alafair in age. I have to confess I didn’t care for her at first. She was a little . . . well, a little coarse, I have to say. But she improved; Peter, when he was there, and Alafair, were a good influence on her, and Violet, of course. She was a clever girl as I recall . . . I was a teacher myself, you know. She went to Hamilton Grammar with Alafair. Violet told me that she had problems at first, but that she caught up very quickly. She did a very good group of Highers, and went off to university. I don’t recall seeing her after that.’

‘And her name?’ I knew, but still, tension gripped me tightly.

‘She had a funny name.’ Mrs Shearer laughed softly, genteelly, the way posh Lanarkshire people do. ‘But no funnier than Alafair, I suppose. She was called Mia.’

I sat in silence for a while, until I realised that I had to start breathing again. ‘One last question,’ I continued. ‘I know that Violet is . . . was,’ I corrected myself, ‘a widow. But when the family lived there, do you recall if they were ever visited by a man?’

‘Oh yes,’ she exclaimed with the enthusiasm of a gossip too long out of practice, ‘there was. Violet’s cousin, she said,’ she paused, ‘although, to be honest, from time to time I did wonder. A very nice man. She introduced me once; he was quite charming, in a formidable sort of way. His name was Perry. That was his first name, dear,’ she added, ‘she never did tell me his surname, and one doesn’t like to be nosy.’

I killed the call. I didn’t even thank the dear lady, shame on me. The only excuse I can offer is that I was completely stunned. Mia had been under Perry Holmes’s wing for twelve years, since she was a precocious girl, disdaining boys, with an eye for proper men. She’d spent two of her formative years with his children and their mother. With Violet, and Alafair and, when he was home, with Peter or rather Hastie, who was sitting in the cells at Fettes, smirking, because he knew he’d got off with . . .

I jumped to my feet. Clark Watson had gone, and McGuire was keeping his distance. ‘Come on,’ I shouted to him, heading for the gateway and the road beyond where I’d parked. When we reached the car I tossed him the keys. ‘You drive. I need to make a phone call. But we’re going to the lab, not the office. Do you know where that is?’

‘Yes, boss. And the quickest way there.’ He wasn’t fazed. He eased his bulk behind the wheel and set off as if he’d been driving elderly off-roaders all his life, while I called directory enquiries for the Edinburgh University number. A few were offered, but I called the main switchboard. Inside a minute, I was put through to Joe Hutchinson’s secretary. ‘This is Detective Superintendent Skinner. Is the prof in?’

‘He’s lecturing,’ she told me. ‘He should be finished in ten minutes, though, if you want to call back.’

‘No time for that. Ask him if he’d be good enough to meet me at the city mortuary, as soon as he can. I should be there in half an hour.’

I hung up and called Alison. ‘Find Wyllie and Redpath,’ I said, as soon as she answered. ‘I want them both at Fettes, but kept apart. If Redpath’s on an away trip, have him brought back.’

‘Will do.’ She didn’t bother to ask why; she knew that I’d tell her in time, and where her priorities lay.

McGuire headed for the bypass, then turned off at Sheriffhall. ‘Wait here,’ I ordered as he pulled up outside the lab.

I’d been there before but it was new and I didn’t really know my way around too well. I asked the first person I saw where I’d find Arthur Dorward. She sent me straight to him and two minutes later we were back on the road again. ‘Mortuary?’ McGuire asked. I nodded.

We arrived there at the same time as the professor. Indeed our cars almost collided as we swung into the car park. ‘What the hell’s up?’ the tiny pathologist exclaimed as we met at the entrance. ‘Has one of your victims risen from the dead? It had better be something of like importance.’

I held up the object I’d collected from the lab. It was a Gurkha kukri, scimitar-shaped, in its scabbard, an object of veneration among its bearers, covered in fingerprint dust and contained inside a clear plastic evidence bag. ‘It is,’ I replied. ‘I need you to prove that this killed Weir and McCann.’

He blinked, then smiled. Joe loves a challenge. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ He took it from me, carefully. ‘Give me a little while and I’ll tell you one way or another.’ He looked up at me. ‘But Bob, please calm down. I wouldn’t want you on my table before your time.’

I took his advice. As we followed him inside I took some deep breaths, to bring my heart rate back to normal and to calm my mind.

Joe’s a genius, with few professional peers, if any at all. He was gone for fifteen minutes. When he returned, grinning all over his face, he didn’t have to announce his findings. ‘Do you have a Gurkha in custody?’ he asked. ‘If so, he did it.’

‘Stack of bibles?’

‘One will be sufficient.’

I let McGuire drive us back to Fettes. Alison was waiting for me there, and so was Robert Wyllie; she told me that Redpath was on his way in from Haddington, but I decided not to wait for him. I sent Mario on a trawl of the building looking for five men, in the twenty-five to thirty-five age bracket, slim, clean-shaven and dark-haired. There were plenty of them about, so it didn’t take long to set up the identification parade. By that time, Alison had twigged what was happening, but she said nothing, leaving me to get on with it. I had Hastie McGrew brought from his cell. He was puzzled when he saw the waiting line-up, but shrugged his shoulders and gave his escorts a patient, indulgent smile, as he chose his place among the other five, on the extreme left, the first man. I saw his lips move and read the words ‘Anything to oblige’, although I couldn’t hear him, since I was behind a one-way mirror.

When they were ready, I called Wyllie in from the room where he’d been waiting, with Alison. ‘Before you do this,’ I told him, ‘you should know that you will be in no danger from this man, or from anyone else. You’ve got my word on that. Now, I want you to take your time, and when you’re—’

‘Number one,’ he murmured. ‘The man on the left.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘A hundred and ten per cent.’

‘Thanks, Robert. We’ll need you to sign a formal statement confirming that you’ve identified him, then you can go. And I repeat, no worries.’

I left Alison to take care of the paperwork, and to run the second parade when Redpath arrived. I was in my office when she rejoined me forty minutes later. She looked as if her patience was wearing thin. She had no idea who the prisoner was.

I told her.

‘The same man?’ She was stunned, as I’d been.

‘The same,’ I repeated.

‘But how?’

‘Sit down and I’ll tell you.’ And I did, about Clark Watson turning up at his son’s funeral and the chain of circumstances that his appearance had revealed. I didn’t tell her everything, though.

‘So Perry Holmes . . .’ she began.

‘You can come with me to find that out, after.’

‘After what?’

‘After you’ve charged Hastie McGrew with two counts of murder and taken the press briefing that I’ve told Inspector Hesitant to set up.’

‘But this is yours,’ she exclaimed. ‘You—’

‘I made you a promise at the start of this, and I’m keeping it. It’s your arrest, your credit.’

‘While he walks on Marlon, and you’ve got an unsolved against you? No thanks.’

I smiled. ‘But yes. It’s the rub of the green, Ali.’

‘You realise what everybody in here’s going to think? That you’re screwing me, and that you’ve thrown me another bone.’

‘Listen,’ I told her, ‘anyone who matters knows that you are a top cop, a class act. As for the rest, do you give a toss what they think? Because I don’t. On you go now, do what I tell you and then we’ll top and tail it.’

‘You know what I’d like to do with you, don’t you . . . sir,’ she murmured.

‘Yes, Detective Inspector, but not here, not now; later on, after the champagne.’

She left, to take her plaudits.

And no, before you ask, I hadn’t told her everything. In particular I hadn’t told her that I’d got three men killed. No, I hadn’t confided in her that I could see as plain as the . . .

. . . that Mia had played me.

She’d swallowed me whole with those bedroom eyes and with those warm, enveloping honey walls of hers.

I’d given her the crucial info that Perry and Hastie needed when she’d heard me speak to Fred Leggat: the fact that we’d made the link to Newcastle, the fact that we’d found the van.

I put the timescale together. Yes, it had been torched after I’d told her, inadvertently, that we knew about it, and Milburn and Shackleton had gone off the radar at the same time.

Then, only after I’d told her that we knew who they were, Hastie had gone down to Tyneside, and removed any threat to him and to his father . . . just to be on the safe side.

And me? The wild reckless bastard that I was, I’d tossed the blame for the leaks to Ciaran McFaul and his colleagues, when all along it had rested with me, and with me alone.

No, I hadn’t told Alison that, nor would I; nor would I tell anyone else.

Twenty-One

I
t was six fifteen when I parked at Perry Holmes’s front door. I noticed that it creaked, and looked decidedly insecure when Vanburn let us in. ‘He doesn’t want to see you,’ he said to my companion and me.

‘He doesn’t have a say in it,’ I replied. ‘Take some advice, mate. Get on to your agency and have them find you a new placement. Every time you go into that pool, you’re swimming with a shark.’

‘A shark with no teeth, Mr Skinner.’ The guy had a gentle, sympathetic smile.