Private Investigations (27 page)

Forty-Seven

‘It’s a hell of a story, boys,’ Mario McGuire said, ‘but how does it relate to your inquiry? Your target is the person who killed Francey and the Polish girl, because it’s almost certain that he paid them to kidnap Zena. The other thing, this corporate skulduggery, there’s no way that it relates.’ The DCC scratched his chin. ‘Mind you,’ he mused, ‘I’m interested, for other reasons, that Eden Higgins is caught up in it.’

Sammy Pye had called him the previous evening, almost as soon as the doors in Bert’s Bar had stopped swinging after Macy Robertson’s departure, to ask for a review meeting on the investigation. McGuire had been on his way south from Inverness at the time, and had been only too eager to grab an excuse for avoiding the chief constable’s routine morning meetings with his deputies and assistants. He would admit it to nobody but his wife, but he was becoming irked by the micromanagement of the new force at the very top level and the spread of that culture downwards.

‘Surely Bob Skinner was a classic micromanager?’ Paula had argued, when he had voiced his concerns, over dinner.

‘Bob was an interfering so-and-so at times,’ he had replied, ‘on the criminal investigation side, but when he did stick his nose in, it was always to support the people on the ground, never to second-guess them. Andy Martin is trying to keep a grip on everything that’s going on, rather than trusting people to do the job he’s given them. Today he came down on me like a ton of bricks because Sammy Pye took a decision that he saw as questioning his judgement. I never told Sammy, but he ordered me to take him off the case and replace him with Lowell Payne.’

‘Who’s Lowell Payne?’

‘He was a Strathclyde man, the head of organised crime and counter-terrorism; what we used to call Special Branch. Bob appointed him, and I’d have kept him in post, but Andy told me to move him out and replace him with Renée Simpson from the old Grampian force. So now Payne’s a detective superintendent without portfolio.’

‘Did you replace Sammy?’

‘Like hell I did! I told Andy that I wasn’t going to undermine one of my best detectives and that he could replace me if he had a problem with that. He backed down, but the boy Pye’s future in CID is hanging by a very thin thread if he doesn’t get a result.’

‘And you? How are you placed with him?’

‘Honestly? I have no idea. I don’t know the man any more.’

He was still brooding as he sat with the two Edinburgh detectives in the Fettes canteen, a mug of tea enveloped in his very large right hand. He was focused on one single objective, preserving his own authority as deputy in charge of all criminal policing, and protecting Pye’s position was inextricably linked to that.

If the Zena investigation collapsed, and Martin carried out his threat to transfer Pye out of CID, it would be a resignation issue for him . . . and he would not go quietly.

‘The man Mackail’s death,’ he murmured. ‘What’s your thinking on that?’

‘We reckoned . . .’ Haddock began, but went no further as he felt the weight of McGuire’s heavy black eyebrows.

‘Sergeant,’ he growled, ‘when I put a question, unless I’m actually looking at you, it’s for the senior officer at the table to answer me.’

The DS gazed at the tabletop. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he murmured, icily.

‘Sauce and I reckoned,’ Pye began, then paused.

McGuire glowered at him; then he grinned, breaking the tension. ‘Nice one, Sammy; I appreciate you standing up for your sidekick. So go on, give me the benefit of your combined wisdom.’

‘We don’t have any,’ the DCI confessed. ‘We are stuck; we have no positive lines of inquiry left open. Callum Sullivan’s bank withdrawal was a red herring, as DCs Wright and Dickson have confirmed, and the banknotes found in Francey’s flat are untraceable. The Mackail connection to Grete Regal was all we had, and now that’s blown.’

He paused as the DCC drank some of his tea.
‘You’re right,’ he continued when he had his full attention once more, ‘that the corporate skulduggery, as you call it, doesn’t relate to the main investigation in any way we can see, but the aftermath . . . what about that? Hector Mackail was involved in a physical confrontation with Eden Higgins and a few days later he died in a hit-and-run, on his way home from the pub in North Berwick.’

‘Shit happens,’ McGuire grunted.

Pye laughed. ‘Sir, that’s just about the worst piece of devil’s advocacy I’ve ever heard.’

‘Maybe, but are you saying that one of Scotland’s richest men ran over a guy just because he’d stuck one on him?’

‘No, because his foot was in plaster; but he could have paid someone to do it, someone who knew the lie of the land and might even have known that Hector Mackail drank in the Nether Abbey bar with his pals every Friday and then walked home.’

The DCC swirled the dregs of his tea around the bottom of the mug. ‘North Berwick’s not awash with hit men, is it?’ he said.

‘No, sir, it’s not,’ Pye agreed. ‘But there is one, or rather there was, that we know of, someone who actually knew Mackail, or knew of him, through his daughter. What if . . .’

McGuire beamed. ‘Some of the greatest results in the history of criminal investigation began with those two words,’ he observed. ‘Go on.’

‘What if the money we found in Francey’s flat wasn’t a down payment for the Zena abduction, but payment in full for knocking over Hector Mackail?’

‘What if . . .’ The deputy chief paused. ‘Okay, you’ve established that Francey took the child and injured her mother, but nothing in your investigation of the bloke has suggested that he had a reputation for that sort of work.’

‘No,’ Pye accepted. ‘Maybe Mackail was killed by a drunk who panicked and drove off. But if he wasn’t, then at the very least, Francey should be investigated as a suspect. And if he was involved, is it likely that two different people, entirely unconnected, would approach him and hire him to commit violent crimes?’

The DCC leaned back and looked at the ceiling. ‘But what possible connection is there between one of Scotland’s richest men and an obscure graphic designer from Garvald?’

‘That’s the question, sir,’ Sauce Haddock ventured.

‘Then don’t just sit there,’ McGuire boomed. ‘Go and fucking answer it!’

Forty-Eight

‘Did it not occur to you to advise CID of Mr Mackail’s death?’ Sammy Pye asked.

Inspector Carmel Laird gazed at him. ‘Why should it have?’ she replied. ‘It was a traffic fatality.’

‘It was a hit-and-run,’ Sauce Haddock pointed out. ‘A man was killed, and the driver left the scene; that’s a crime. FYI, the “C” in CID stands for Criminal.’

She kept her eyes on Pye. ‘Is your gopher always insubordinate?’ she murmured.

‘Detective Sergeant Haddock is a law unto himself,’ Pye replied quietly. ‘I kick his arse occasionally, but never when he’s right.’

‘Hold on a minute,’ Laird protested. ‘This is Haddington; we’re East Lothian, you’re Edinburgh. Suppose I had asked for CID assistance, it wouldn’t have been you I’d have gone to.’

‘We share information in the department.’

‘We share information too. We posted a report of the fatality on the ScotServe website . . . and we appealed for witnesses. Naturally, we also reported the fatality to the procurator fiscal. Those are the laid-down operating procedures, so don’t question me, question the senior command if you’ve got a problem.’

‘I question them all the time,’ Pye replied. ‘In fact I’ve just come from a meeting with my big boss where I asked him how a man’s violent death isn’t automatically the subject of a major criminal investigation. He’s just gone off to ask your immediate boss the same question, and I don’t think he was planning to ask politely. Time to circle your wagons, Inspector, and cooperate.’

‘So how can I help?’ she asked, stiffly.

‘You can begin by taking me through the story. So far the only information I have came from the victim’s wife.’

‘You could have looked at the website . . .’

‘But we didn’t,’ Haddock said, ‘because we’re technically inept, and old fashioned enough to believe that there’s still room for common sense in the service.’

‘See when you’re back in uniform,’ she hissed, ‘and posted out here . . .’

‘If that ever happens,’ the DCI snapped, ‘he’ll be an inspector at the very least. You, on the other hand, will be lucky to be a sergeant, if you annoy me any more. Let’s forget what you did, and focus on what you should have done. Take us through what happened.’

Laird picked up a folder from her desk and found a document; she began to read through it, commenting as she went.

‘Deceased was found in Station Road, just past the fire station.’

‘Who found him?’ Haddock asked.

‘A passing motorist saw him and called 999. Deceased was lying on the pavement, against a stone wall and a traffic sign. Paramedics arrived, followed by a medical examiner. Deceased was removed by ambulance but he was DOA at the hospital.’

‘What about the attending officers?’

‘Sergeant Chocolate . . . that’s Sergeant Brown, and PC Raymond.’

Pye frowned. ‘When did they get there?’

‘A couple of minutes after the paramedics, and just before the ME.’ Inspector Laird seemed to wince, slightly. ‘They’d been attending a reported disturbance at a rugby club dinner in Aberlady, and there was no other patrol car available.’

‘So they got there more or less as Mackail was being removed.’

‘That’s right. They followed the ambulance.’

‘And he was found lying on the pavement, you said.’

‘That’s right too. He was still in the position he was found in when my officers arrived.’

The two detectives looked at each other; Pye raised an eyebrow, Haddock nodded.

‘So when did they realise it was a hit-and-run?’ the DS asked.

The inspector’s face flushed. ‘Not until he was examined at the hospital,’ she replied. ‘The admitting doctor suspected crushing injuries, and that was confirmed by a post-mortem.’

‘What about the medical examiner who attended?’

‘From what the lads told me, the paramedics had everything in hand by that time. The ME took a quick look but he didn’t do anything. He waved the ambulance off, more or less, and went back to being on call.’

‘At what point did . . . the lads . . . identify the victim?’

‘He wasn’t identified until the ambulance reached the hospital. By that time he was dead. His driving licence was in his wallet.’

‘Did they return to the scene once they realised what had happened?’

‘No. I ordered other officers to do a house-to-house first thing next morning.’

‘Next morning?’ Pye exclaimed, his voice rising. ‘Why didn’t Brown and Raymond go straight back there?’

‘They were called out to another road traffic accident on the A1, from the infirmary,’ Laird protested. ‘They were tied up with that for hours. That’s the resources we’ve got; that’s the real world.’

‘Okay, leave that to one side. You canvassed householders at the scene the next morning. Any response?’

‘A woman in a house in Old Abbey Road said she thought she heard a squeal of tyres, around eleven forty-five, but that was all.’

‘Did you order a forensic examination of the scene?’

‘No, I decided that too much time had passed.’

‘No you didn’t; you decided to keep the whole thing under the carpet. Your guys arrived, saw a man on the ground and assumed he was a heart attack victim or a drunk.’ The DCI paused for a second, then flew a kite. ‘On Monday morning, when Grete Regal was found in Garvald, who attended that scene?’

Laird reddened. ‘Brown and Raymond.’

‘No bloody wonder they were so quick to decide that one was a hit-and-run.’ Pye sighed. ‘So, now we have no way of knowing whether Mackail staggered off the pavement after a few pints and into the path of a vehicle, or whether it mounted the pavement and hit him.’

Inspector Laird sat, silently staring ahead.

‘Who told Mrs Mackail?’ the DCI murmured.

‘I did. Brown called me; although I was off duty, I went to the address he gave me, and informed the widow.’

‘What was her reaction?’

‘What do you think?’ Laird retorted. ‘Shock.’

‘Did she say anything?’

‘Yes, she did. She said, “Finally they’ve taken everything.” Then she went into hysterics; her daughter appeared from upstairs, and the whole thing went into meltdown. I sent for a doctor, and waited till he arrived. He sedated both women; I left a WPC from the North Berwick office to stay with them overnight.’

‘Who took Mrs Mackail’s statement?’

‘Nobody. I’d established from her that her husband had been for his usual Friday session in the Nether Abbey. I didn’t deem it necessary to trouble her further.’

‘Okay,’ the DCI said. ‘I get the picture. I see why you kept this in-house. This whole thing reeks of sloppiness and even negligence. You were protecting your officers, and as their manager, protecting yourself.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ she retorted.

‘Possibly. But I wouldn’t have sat on my hands. I’m taking this situation over, and I’m going to see what I can rescue.’

‘Feel free, but please, keep Brown and Raymond out of it.’

‘They were hardly ever in it from what I can see.’ He turned to Haddock. ‘Sauce, get a forensic team out to Station Road. You never know, even at this very late stage we might scrape something up.’

‘But suppose you do,’ Laird said, ‘you won’t be able to tie it conclusively to this incident.’

‘That depends what we find. And by the way,’ he added, ‘until we know for sure to the contrary, we’re treating this “incident” as a homicide.’

Forty-Nine

‘I didn’t expect to see you here, Arthur,’ Sammy Pye said.

‘I fancied a trip to the seaside,’ the senior scene of crime technician replied, gruffly. Arthur Dorward was renowned for being no respecter of persons, a reputation he had earned even before he transferred from the police force to the new civilian central service operated by the Scottish Police Authority.

‘On your own?’

The former inspector frowned at the serving DCI. ‘You call me out to look at a piece of pavement weeks after an incident occurred, and you expect me to come mob handed? Why should I waste another specialist’s time as well as my own?’

Pye nodded. ‘Fair enough.’ He recognised the near impossibility of the mission.

‘Where’s your sidekick? He called me, so I thought he’d be here.’

‘Sauce has gone up to Edinburgh. I sent him in search of a post-mortem report.’

‘Tell me what happened. Young Haddock didn’t go into detail; he just said it was a fatal RTA, driver left the scene.’

‘That sums it up.’

‘So why am I a couple of months late in getting here?’ Dorward asked, casually.

‘SFU,’ the DCI replied, tersely. ‘Somebody fucked up. I’m not looking for miracles, Arthur.’

‘That makes a change for you guys. But suppose you were, then as always you’ve come to the right man. What am I looking for?’

Pye turned to a uniformed officer who was standing a few yards away, leaning against a patrol car. ‘Sergeant Brown,’ he called out, ‘draw an outline of where Mr Mackail was lying when you arrived at the scene.’

‘Sir.’ Solemnly he stepped forward and did as he was told, chalking a crude outline of a human form, tight against the high stone wall that ran along the inside of the pavement, with its midsection against a grey pole that held a yellow ‘No waiting’ sign.

‘What were the weather conditions?’ Dorward asked.

‘Dry. It was a clear night,’ Brown replied.

‘Was the victim bleeding?’

‘He’d a cut on the side of his head and there was blood coming from the corner of his mouth. There was a strong smell of booze and he’d been sick.’

‘Conscious?’

‘No’ really. He was moaning, but he didn’t respond to questions. My neighbour and I thought he was a drunk, and that he’d fell over and banged his head. I said as much to the paramedics and the doctor and nobody argued with us.’

‘It wasn’t their place to argue with you, Sergeant,’ Pye pointed out, ‘any more than it was yours to jump to conclusions.’

‘What was the victim wearing?’ Dorward asked.

‘A dark coat, it could have been black or navy; we couldn’t tell in the light, and they’d taken it off him when we saw him in the hospital. By that time he was dead.’

‘Was it a raincoat?’

‘No, it was heavier than that. Woollen, I’d say; it looked expensive.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘I’ve got no idea. They’d give it to the widow, I guess.’

‘Okay,’ the crime scene investigator said. ‘You’ve got a supposed drunk who turns out to be a hit-and-run victim. With that knowledge, if you think back to the scene, can you recall anything that might be of interest to me?’

‘Nothing,’ Brown replied, instantly.

‘That took a lot of consideration,’ Dorward growled. He turned to Pye. ‘This guy’s in the wrong business, Sammy; he should be a chocolate fireguard salesman. They’re bloody useless as well.’

‘Hey,’ the sergeant exclaimed, ‘you hold on a minute!’

‘No,’ Dorward barked. ‘You hold on. You were at the scene of a fatal hit-and-run accident, but you never even considered that possibility. If you had, we’d have had something to work with, because it’s pretty much impossible to kill somebody with a motor car without leaving some sort of a trace. Now we’re several weeks down the road and everything is compromised.’

He picked up his equipment case. ‘Sammy, you might as well leave me to it. There’s nothing you can do here other than get in the way, and listen to me swear. I won’t be long here, and if I find anything that might be relevant, I’ll let you know soonest. If I don’t, well, it’s a no-hoper, so you’re not going to be disappointed, are you?’

Leaving the investigator to his nearly impossible task, Pye had Sergeant Brown drive him to Edinburgh. He sat in the back of the car and the journey was spent in silence.

When he walked into the squad room in the Fettes building, Haddock followed him into his office.

‘Did you get it?’ the DCI asked, as he hung his coat on a hook behind the door.

‘Yes,’ his sergeant replied. ‘One of the deputies had the case file in his out tray, ready to go to the fiscal with a recommendation that they write it off as an untraced hit-and-run, with no fatal accident inquiry necessary. He seemed a wee bit nonplussed when I told him we were taking an interest in it. The cheeky bastard asked me whether we were having to invent crimes to keep ourselves busy.’

‘He sent you the file, though?’

‘Oh yeah, once he’d had his wee moan. I’ve been through it; there’s not much to it. Apart from the PM report, there’s the two cops’ statements, and another from the barman in the Nether Abbey. I’m a bit suspicious about that. He was interviewed by Brown and Raymond, and the way it reads . . .’

‘You think they were coaching him?’ Pye asked.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me. One minute he’s saying he’s not sure how much Mackail had to drink, the next he’s saying he was unsteady on his feet when he left.’

‘What about his pals? What did they say?’

‘They weren’t interviewed.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘Do I have my Joker mask on?’ Haddock retorted. ‘They’re not even named on the report. The way I see it, Brown and Raymond preferred the official version to be that Mackail might have been partly culpable himself, so that the fiscal wouldn’t look too closely at their performance.’

The DCI nodded. ‘You could be right. Brown certainly wasn’t in a rush to help Arthur Dorward, and he got quite aggressive when he was challenged. What did the post-mortem say about Mackail’s blood alcohol level?’

‘A hundred and thirty milligrams per hundred millilitres; not quite three times over the driving limit. In other words, he’d have been a bit pissed but he shouldn’t have been falling about.’

‘What about the rest of it?’

‘He died from massive internal bleeding; his spleen was ruptured, and his liver was torn. Several ribs were fractured and one had pierced his lung. He’d a broken right hip as well.’

‘Poor guy,’ Pye said. ‘CID should have been informed on the night. I’m going to have that pair,’ he promised, ‘and their inspector too.’

‘How long is it since you’ve been in uniform?’ Haddock murmured.

‘Come again?’ his boss retorted.

‘You heard. Brown and Raymond reacted to what they saw, a badly injured man on the pavement. The priority was get him to hospital; that’s what happened, but his injuries were unsurvivable. They were in the middle of a hectic night shift, and they followed their instincts.’

‘What about Laird?’

‘She was off duty at the time,’ the DS reminded him. ‘When she was advised she probably realised straight away there had been a screw-up, but she hid behind protocol to protect her guys.’

‘Nobody’s protecting us.’

‘Are you sure? Big guy, half Irish, half Italian, wears a DCC’s uniform and hates it?’

‘Mmm. Maybe.’

‘No maybe about it,’ Haddock declared. ‘Look, Sammy, we were talking about priorities. Pursuing two fellow cops who might have been sloppy under pressure isn’t one of ours.’

‘Okay,’ Pye admitted, ‘you’ve got a point. I feel under pressure myself, and probably I’m lashing out.’

‘Well, I’m buggered if I do. Have we done anything wrong in this investigation?’ The question was bluntly put.

‘No,’ the DCI replied. ‘I don’t believe so.’

‘Are we following every possible line of inquiry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then where’s the pressure? It’s not coming from big Mario. It’s not coming from Mary Chambers.’

‘No, it’s coming from the man at the top, because I crossed him over that media briefing. That would . . .’

Haddock laughed. ‘I know what you’re going to say: that would never have happened in Bob Skinner’s time.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t.’

‘Probably not, but that time is over. Now, it is what it is, but one thing remains: all we can do is our best. So, remind me. Why are we looking into Mackail’s death, when there’s every chance that he was hit by a driver who was even more drunk than he was, and who buggered off into the night when he realised what he’d done?’

Without allowing his boss a moment to reply, he answered his own question. ‘The investigation that began in the Fort Kinnaird car park has turned into a hunt for a double murderer. Now we’re looking at the outside possibility that he might have been responsible for a third.’

Pye smiled. ‘Do you want to swap desks, Sauce? You’re enjoying this job a hell of a lot more than I am just now, and you’re better at it.’

‘Not a prayer. I’m still learning from you. Gaffer, if anyone can catch this bloke it’s you and me. If we don’t, it won’t be your fault, and if our fearless leader tries to follow through on his silly threat to take it out on you personally, I will personally go to Stirling, kick his fucking door in and tell him that he’s not fucking on.’

The chief inspector sighed. ‘Thanks for that, Sauce. You’re right; it’s our investigation, not his, so let’s focus on it. Have you heard from Lucy Tweedie?’ he asked.

‘Yes, she called a couple of minutes before you got here. She’s recovered the coat; Mrs Mackail still had it, although twenty-four hours later it would have been off to the dry cleaners, then the charity shop.’

‘Good. It must be a chunky garment if it’s still wearable after what happened to its owner. Maybe forensics will be able to . . .’ Pye stopped in mid-sentence as his phone sounded. He snatched it from his pocket and took the call. ‘Arthur,’ he exclaimed.

‘The impossible I do at once,’ Dorward said, in his ear. ‘Miracles take a little longer and need a bit of imagination. Before I go any further, the caveat to what I’m going to tell you is that everything I’ve found could relate to a completely different incident, or incidents, but here goes. Is your pencil poised?’

‘As it ever will be; go on.’

‘Right. First, on the pavement, just beside your man’s crude chalk victim, there are traces of rubber, burned into the slabs. It’s consistent with marks left by wheelspin, and it could have been there from the time of the incident, fading gradually, but still just about visible.

‘Second,’ he continued, ‘I was able to extract from the stonework of the wall against which the victim lay traces of white paint, consistent with a vehicle having scraped against it. The height of these marks indicates that they weren’t made by a saloon, but by a mid-sized van, a Transit or something similar.’

‘Well done, Arthur,’ Pye exclaimed. He looked up at Haddock. ‘Remember Chic Francey’s van?’ he asked. ‘What was it?’

‘Vauxhall Vivaro,’ the DS responded, immediately. ‘Dirty white; it’s seen better days.’

‘Have I made your day?’ Dorward asked.

‘Potentially.’

‘Well, here’s some more.’ He paused. ‘I don’t have to tell you that I’ve forgotten more about crime scenes than you high-flyers will ever know.’

‘Can you hear me touch my forelock, Arthur?’ Pye chuckled.

‘I wondered what the grovelling sound was,’ the scientist retorted, deadpan. ‘Anyway, based on a career’s worth of experience, I took a look at the broader scene. The fact that two CID bigwigs are involved in this told me that it isn’t your standard knock-down, panic, and drive away, like we see most of the time. So I asked myself, if this bloke was hit deliberately, how was it done?’

‘We . . .’

‘Shush! Don’t interrupt. From what young Sauce said I assumed that the driver knew of, or had worked out, the victim’s habits, and knew his route on his way home. I reasoned that he was hardly going to follow him all the way, looking for a chance. No, he was more likely to have waited for him, somewhere along the road. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘Right. If you remember the location, you’ll recall there’s a wee street joins Station Road from the left, at an angle. I went and had a look there and I found, in the gutter, three cigarette ends. They’d been there for a while, and been stood on, squashed, rained on and run over, but one of them was still recognisable. If a vehicle was parked there, on the wrong side of the road, and the driver was smoking, that’s where he’d have dropped the ends. The brand is Camel, filter tips. Again they could have been left by any bugger, but . . .’

‘Will there still be extractable DNA on them?’

‘I’ll find that out when I get them back to the lab, but in theory yes.’

‘If there is,’ the DCI said, ‘I want you to compare it against a body found on Monday night just outside Edinburgh, shot and left in a car that was burned out. Male, early twenties, went by the name Dean Francey.’

‘Will do. If I do get a match, it’ll be as well he’s dead, for it would be no use as evidence at any trial, any more than the paint scrapes would be.’

‘Don’t be so sure. If we can find the van . . .’

‘Maybe,’ Dorward conceded, ‘but who are you going to try if your prime suspect’s a cadaver?’

‘I’ll tell you that when we catch him. Before you leave North Berwick, I want you to call by the police station. The victim’s coat’s there, waiting to be collected.’

‘How do you know it’s my size?’

‘Fuck off, Arthur,’ Pye laughed. ‘I’ll be back in touch when we have a vehicle for you to examine.’

He ended the call, and turned back to face Haddock. ‘Think back to Dino’s flat,’ he said. ‘There was an empty cigarette packet on the coffee table. What brand?’

‘Camels,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Is that what . . .’

He nodded. ‘This is beginning to pay off. I want Chic Francey’s van impounded for examination, today, and I want Chic, in a room with you and me, tomorrow morning.’

‘North Berwick?’

‘Hell no, even I’ve had enough of the place.’