'I wondered how long it would take you to get to a loose end. Bob.' ACC
Willie Haggerty laughed. 'Are you worried that Edinburgh's descending into lawlessness, with the Chief on holiday this week and you in the States?'
'I have no doubt,' Skinner replied, his voice echoing on the satellite link, 'that my city is safe in your hoary hands. But I just thought I'd give you a call to say hello, see how you're doing.'
'I'm doing fine, big fella, just fine. How's it with you? How's Sarah coping?'
'Simply "coping" is not a term you apply to my wife. She deals with life with a capability that's just... well, fucking awesome, as they say over here. We're more or less set for the funeral on Friday, the cleaners have done their bit here at the house, and now she's taking me out to find a caterer for a reception afterwards.'
'How about the investigation?'
'It seems to have run into a series of brick walls, from what I gather
... not, mind you, that the police need to tell me anything. I'm just a civilian, you understand.'
'Aye, and so was Attila the Hun,' Haggerty barked. 'But stil , if they're stalled and it's over a week, we know what that usual y means.'
'We do, Willie, we do; it means they're stuffed. So how's it going over there anyway? Have I missed any action?'
The DCC heard a loud booming laugh in his ear. 'Have you ever .. .
and I'm loving it! Pringle's taken over from Andy, and found himself in the middle of a right pile of shite. First, Mario McGuire's uncle gets his head blown off in his own living room. Next, Maggie Rose discovers that a parish priest from Lanarkshire who's on the missing persons list was actual y certified dead of a heart attack in Edinburgh, under another man's name, and turned into ashes at Seafield last weekend. Then the man who's no' dead after al turns out to have been a tenant of Beppe Viareggio, who's well and truly fucking dead.'
"The faked death,' Skinner interrupted. 'An insurance scam?'
264
'A big one; there were four policies, adding up to a million, so Pringle just told me. They were written on the basis of an outstanding medical report by a GP, the same doctor who certified the phoney death. They've al been paid out and the money's been moved.'
The DCC's mind raced as he took in and analysed everything that Haggerty had told him. 'Have we gone public on al of this?' he asked.
'Only on Viareggio's murder.'
'Good; that's a help. Where's this doctor now?'
'Found this morning; up the Lammermuirs with a big hole in his chest.'
'Fucking hell! But what about Beppe Viareggio?' Skinner asked himself, aloud. 'He was just a harmless clown with a Marion Brando fixation. Who'd want to kill him?'
'His daughter Paula,' Haggerty answered, 'or so Pringle's telling me; Greg Jay took a statement this morning from her ex-boyfriend, a DI no less, who said that he once stopped her from sticking a steak knife in her old man in the middle of a restaurant.'
'Who's the DI?'
'Steele.'
'Sound lad; not prone to exaggeration.'
'So I'm told. But this is where it gets nasty. I've just had Pringle in to see me ... and not before time either. The couple in the insurance fraud had false identities, built around two birth certificates of long-dead people, obtained from Register House. Paula Viareggio's just been fingered as the person who obtained them.
'As it happens, Greg Jay's had her under observation since last weekend, in case whoever killed her old man had it in for her as wel . His people reported that Mario McGuire's been seen with her twice since the murder; once on Saturday, then again last night. He arrived at her place about ten and stayed till after midnight.
'Now, Pringle tells me, Jay wants to lift McGuire for questioning as a suspected accomplice in the conspiracy, and maybe as the brains behind the whole thing.'
'What!!!' Willie Haggerty had the foresight to hold the telephone receiver away from his ear just before the explosion sounded across the transatlantic link.
'You tell him from me,' Skinner roared, 'that if he does, he'd better get his lawnmower sharpened, because he'll be spending a fucking long time in his garden from now on! And you can tell Pringle the same, while you're at it.'
'Relax, Bob, I have done already. Jay's been told to wind his neck in.
I've asked Mario to come up to see me personally this afternoon; he's on his way now.'
The DCC's rage abated. 'Good for you. If the late-night visit means that Mario's having it off with his cousin . . . well, I'd be disappointed in him, but until it affects his work it's his business. Unlikely as that is, it's far more credible than the notion that the pair of them are involved in a conspiracy. I know Paula Viareggio, and I know about her sauna businesses too; Mario told me a long while back. She's a classic case, that one; her granny reborn. She didn't kil anybody, least of al her father.
'Tell me, Willie. Do you think it's occurred to Detective Superintendent Jay that if someone's going to acquire a couple of copy birth certificates for an il egal purpose, they'd be major league stupid to use their own name when they're doing it?'
'I don't know,' said Haggerty evenly, 'but I'm going to find out. It certainly hasn't occurred to him that if the money's gone, then so are the couple behind the fraud.'
'Yes indeed; so you'd suppose. Willie,' Skinner continued, after a moment, 'this con-man, how did he come to be Beppe's tenant?'
'It looks as if he and his partner set up a fake wine-importing company to show the insurance companies, so that they could take out key executive policies on his life. The names they used were Magnus Essary and Ella Frances.'
'Who's met them?'
'According to Pringle, Beppe signed the lease personally; he's the only one who actual y saw the man who cal ed himself Essary.'
"Then that's why he was killed; so that he couldn't identify him. But if the bloke and his partner are long gone with the money. . .'
'Why bother about that?' Haggerty exclaimed. 'I see what you mean, Bob.'
'Right. As an entity, Magnus Essary's dead and gone, no one's left to identify him, and the money's in the bank. Therefore this man and his lady accomplice can go back to being who they were before. If we haven't publicised the fact that we've identified the body, they'll be sitting there thinking they've committed the perfect crime.'
There was a silence. 'Or maybe, just maybe before he heads off to the sunshine with his woman and his mil ion ... he's got something else to do.'
266
66
'This is getting crazy,' Maggie murmured, almost to herself. 'What else did Haggerty tell you?'
'That was about it,' her husband answered. 'After your man at GRO
came up with Paula's name, and you told Pringle, he went haring into Leith to see Jay. The two of them pul ed the watchers' notes and saw that I've been to her place twice since the murder, and Gregjust went crazy.
'I must real y have upset him; he was for sending a couple of senior officers down to Gala to bring me up to Edinburgh for questioning. Old Dan was sensible enough to tell him to hold his bloody horses, while he
went to see Willie Haggerty. The ACC ordered him to calm Jay down, and said that he would talk to me personally, which he duly did.'
Mario sensed her bristling, and saw her sit stiffly upright in her dining chair; that was as close as her icy control would allow her to come to ful -blooded, exploding anger. 'The nerve of that man Jay,' she exclaimed.
'Just as wel that Dan was there, or he might actually have done it. I tel you, love, if he had done that, it would have been him or me. I'd have gone to the DCC and told him that.'
'You wouldn't have had to. First of al , I'd have beaten you to it, and second the Big Man wouldn't have needed any threats from us. The ACC
told me he had a cal from him this afternoon. They discussed the case; Haggerty said that he sends us his condolences about Beppe. He also said that they've come to a conclusion about Essary.'
'That he's stil around, even though the money's gone?'
'That's right, and that he's sitting there thinking he's a genius, having pul ed off the perfect crime, and that we don't know that he's even done it, far less that we know who he is.'
'The second part of that's true.'
'Maybe so, but if Big Bob and Haggerty are right, he's still around for you to catch.'
Mario paused to slice off a strip of his fillet steak. 'There was something else, though,' he continued, forking it up. 'I wasn't late home because I was with Haggerty.' She looked at him, curiously, as he chewed.
'I was just leaving Fettes when I had a cal from Paula, doing her nut. So I had to go back there again ... another one for Greg Jay's book, no doubt.
'She was stil shaking with anger when I got there. Apparently while Dan was off having his arse chewed by Willie Haggerty, Jay went ahead
and lifted her. He had her picked up from the deli and brought to his office, then questioned her about the restaurant incident, and about those birth certificates.'
'What did she tell him?'
'She accepted the story about the restaurant . . . although Stevie Steele's had his last Christmas card from her, I can tell you ... and she told Jay that she's never been in Register House in her life, far less gone there to pick up other people's birth certificates.
'He hammered away at her for over an hour, then he let her go, with a warning that when they found the clerk who issued the certificates, he was going to stick her in a line-up.' He paused to eat the last of his steak.
'He's wasting his time, though,' he added, at last.
'Why?'
'Because ... although she was too shaken up to remember it at the time ... on the day in question, Paula was on holiday in Italy.'
'Can she prove that?'
'Oh yes. It was a girlies' trip; she went for a week with her mother and her favourite auntie. I'l tell you something; Greg might have been within his rights in questioning Paula, but if he has my mother hauled down to Leith in a patrol car, he and I are going to have hard words again.'
'Mmm,' said Maggie. 'So Paula's well off the hook, is she? Yet someone used her name to get those certificates. Why, I wonder; why hers?'
'Thinking ahead, probably. This whole thing was planned in minute detail; I reckon that if Stan had gone to sign those leases rather than Beppe, he'd be dead now.'
'Or your mother,' Maggie murmured, and regretted her words, as she saw the look which passed across his face. 'I'm sure you're right,' she went on, quickly. 'Yet I wonder.. . maybe Paula's met Magnus Essary or Ella Frances, and doesn't even know it.'
He looked at her, darkly. 'Never mind Paula, love. Maybe we have.
That's how clever these people have been.'
He was in the act of rising to clear the dinner plates from the table, when the doorbell rang. Grumbling at the interruption, he walked through to the hal to answer it. Neil Mcl henney stood on the doorstep. 'Glad it 268
was you,' he said. 'I don't have to persuade Maggie to let you come for a pint.'
'But I don't want a pint,' McGuire protested. 'And you don't drink any more, remember.'
'Nonetheless, we're going for one. I'll wait; you get your jacket.'
'That quick?'
'That quick.'
Mcllhenney's car was parked just along the road. 'What did you tell Maggie?' he asked, as they drove off.
'The plain truth; that you had turned up out of the blue with a pink ticket from Lou and were hauling me off into the night.'
'She'l be used to that, by now. Tell me some more truth. Are you screwing your cousin Paula?'
Dusk was gathering; so was the silence inside the car. At last, Mario broke it. 'Why are you asking me that?'
'Because I hear things; even more in this new job than I did before. A little bird ... to be exact a woman DC in Special Branch whom you know well. . . told me this afternoon that she heard that you were, from a pal in Greg Jay's team.'
'So the word's got out, has it,' McGuire growled. 'I wonder who else Alice Cowan's pal's talked to.'
'Does that mean that you are?'
'What do you think?'
'I don't think you're that stupid; daft yes, but not stupid. Mind you, she's some piece of woman, your Paula. I can see how anyone who saw you go into her place at night and stay for three hours might jump to that conclusion.'
'Aye, well you tell Alice from me to let her pal know that if one more whisper of this reaches my ears, then I'll pull every string I've got to make sure that a few detective officers down in Leith wind up on uniformed night shift in Craigmillar, or worse, find themselves transferred down to the Borders under my command.'
'She needed no telling; that's exactly what she said to her pal. She's a fan of yours, even though she didn't fancy the Borders herself.'
'I'm touched,' said McGuire, sourly, as his friend drew up outside the Liberton Inn. 'Why here?' he asked.
'It's as good as anywhere else; plus, they know us here from the old days, and they'll give us a wide berth. It'l be as good as talking in a phone box.'
'You've got something for me, then?'
'Oh yes,' Mcllhenney grunted as they stepped into the lounge bar.
'Have I ever.' A few heads turned as they entered, then looked away quickly. Neil went to the bar, while Mario found a table in the furthest corner.
'Well?' the big superintendent asked quietly, as his friend returned with a pint of lager and another, of orange squash.
'Tennent's.'
'Bugger the beer. What is it?'
'Okay; to business. I've done those checks you asked. You wanted to know al about your dear old dad-in-law, and here it is.
'For a start he has no criminal convictions, either here or in Portugal, where he lived from the time when he made his sharp exit from Maggie's mum, until about three years ago. When he went back there, he settled in Setubal, just south of Lisbon, where he lived with his parents, during the war. I spoke to the chief of the local police, who was very helpful.
'When he arrived in town, Jorge bought a bar and restaurant that had been pretty well derelict and turned it into a decent business, good enough to keep him in a degree of comfort, but not one that was ever going to make him rich.