‘Yes, sir, of course. But I can’t think of anyone.’
‘You haven’t had time to think at all.’
‘What will I do?’ the young man asked.
‘First, I want you to call your father. Then you need to go to the local gendarmerie and tell them that you’ve returned. They’ll take you to Perpignan airport and put you on the first plane home. My people will contact your dad and arrange for him to meet your plane, and bring you up to Edinburgh to see them. Do you understand all that?’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Skinner, this is all a joke, isn’t it?’
‘Am I laughing?’
Skinner ended the call. He stepped into the bedroom, and searched through his data organiser for the number of Lieutenant Cerdan. Happily, he was in his office. ‘Lieutenant,’ he said, ‘the boy has surfaced. He’s back at the studio and he’s just rung me. I told him to report to your local office, but to be on the safe side, I think you should go to him now.’
‘I agree, sir,’ the Frenchman replied. ‘We do not want to have to chase him all over again. I will send my men at once.’
‘Thanks. Once you’ve done that, I’d be grateful if you could spare some more resources in Collioure. There’s something I’d like checked out.’
Two minutes later, the conversation over, he returned to his interrupted shave, starting again from scratch on the side of his face that was still rough. Once again, his mind wandered as he gazed into the mirror, as he thought of his situation, the morning’s development and the stalemate he was trying to break.
As he did, a slow smile spread across the face he could see in the glass.
He finished, still beaming, then rubbed his jaw and top lip with the baby lotion that he always used, to Aileen’s great amusement, as after-shave balm. That done, he dressed casually for a journey then packed a small suitcase with clothes sufficient for three days.
Only when that was done did he pick up his mobile once more and ring McIlhenney. When they were connected, he told him about his surprise call, and asked him to contact Michael Colledge as soon as possible.
‘Will do,’ said the detective superintendent. ‘And I’ll brief the team. Anything else, boss?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ Skinner replied, ‘there is. I’ve just had a weird idea. It’s complicated, and you’ll need to move very fast, but if you can put all the pieces together, this is what I’d like you to do.’
Seventy-seven
‘Any news of Inspector Varley?’ asked Jack McGurk, as Becky Stallings stepped out of her cubicle and into the CID general office in Torphichen Place.
‘He’s in the clear,’ she told him.
The detective sergeant’s eyebrows rose. ‘Is he indeed? I shouldn’t admit it, but while most of me is pleased to hear that, there’s a small piece that’s saying, “Bugger it, there goes our speedy clear-up.” I must admit, I thought he was four square in the frame for it. What was his story?’
‘He went along to tear a strip off Weekes for naming his wife, nothing more. When he left, he was alive.’
‘Run that past me again, boss. He knew about Weekes spilling the beans about his wife?’
‘I asked the same question. Superintendent McIlhenney was less than forthcoming about it. He told me, very politely, not to take it any further.’
‘Somebody’s in the shit, then.’
‘I imagine so. Any unexpected personnel moves should give us a clue. Meanwhile. .’
‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ Sauce Haddock called from across the room. ‘I’ve just taken a call from Gayfield Square. They’ve got something there they think might interest us.’
‘What?’
‘A pale blue T-shirt. It was handed in by a cleansing worker. He found it stuffed in a dustbin in George Street when he was emptying it.’
‘And?’
‘And it’s got blood all over it. Could be it’s related to another incident, but the Gayfield people don’t have anything on their books that fits the bill.’
‘Is there a bar code on it?’
‘No. All the labels have been cut off.’
‘Call them back. Tell them to bag it and. .’ She stopped when she saw the detective constable nod.
‘I have done, ma’am. It’s on its way to the lab for analysis.’
Seventy-eight
She stared at them resentfully. ‘This isn’t fair,’ Detective Constable Alice Cowan declared. ‘I’ve been in my job for a while now, long enough to have worked for both of you. Doesn’t that count for anything?’
‘In this situation,’ DCS Mario McGuire told her, ‘fairness takes a back seat. We like you, Alice, both of us; we know you’re a good officer. But there can’t be any second chances in Special Branch.’
‘Forgive me, sir, but does SB report to you? As I understand it DI Shannon’s immediate line manager is the deputy chief constable.’
‘Like Mr McGuire said,’ Neil McIlhenney replied, ‘you’re good; you’ve got the reporting chain right. But give us a bit of credit too; DCC Skinner’s been consulted about this, and he’s delegated authority to act. Sure, you can ask for a personal hearing with him when he comes back, but whose carpet would you rather be on, Detective Constable, this one or his?’
McGuire smiled. ‘Trust us, Alice, that’s a no-brainer. Be honest with yourself: you can see the situation. You passed on sensitive information about an inquiry to somebody who was one of its subjects. It was your uncle, sure, he’s a serving police officer, sure. You weren’t to know that he’d do something reckless and inappropriate with that knowledge and land the pair of you in deep shit. But none of that is a mitigating factor, given the sensitivity of what your department does on a day-to-day basis. You’ve got to be moved out of there, and that’s that. No appeal.’
The sturdy woman’s eyes misted over; she chewed a corner of her bottom lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I should have known better. What happens to me?’
‘In career terms, nothing,’ the head of CID told her. ‘Do you think we’re complete bastards? As you said, you’ve been in that job for a while. It was time for you to be moved out anyway. Officially that’s what’s going to happen; a routine move. You’re going to be replaced by DC Tarvil Singh, from the Leith office. That’s where you’re going; it’ll be a straight swap.’
Cowan brightened up almost instantly. ‘Will that be working for DI Pye?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said McGuire, ‘and DS Wilding. But first, there’s something else we’d like you to consider. It’s a sensitive task; you should take that as a sign of our continuing faith in you. Although you’ll be under observation all the time, there will be a degree of personal risk, so it would be entirely voluntary. If you turn it down, there will be no blame, no pointing fingers.’
The detective constable looked up at him, clear-eyed once again. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said.
‘I’ve got a plane to catch,’ he replied, rising from his chair, ‘but it’s Mr McIlhenney’s operation. I’ll leave him to run you through it.’
Seventy-nine
‘That’s us.’ Becky Stallings looked at her watch. ‘We’re twenty-four hours into the Theo Weekes homicide investigation. One week since the Sugar Dean murder. And what have we achieved?’
‘That depends on how you want to look at it,’ her sergeant answered. ‘We’ve eliminated all the immediate potential suspects; now we can concentrate on the rest.’
‘Jack,’ she said, ‘we haven’t worked together long, but already I know what I like about you. You don’t seem to buy negativity. You’re like those Man U supporters who used to sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” to the opposition supporters, as their team was being thumped.’
‘You’re not a Red, are you?’ he asked her.
‘Hell, no! I’m an East End girl, a Hammer through and through. That’s why I’ve got a tendency towards the pessimistic. The way I see it, “the rest” of the suspects means the whole bloody world. It was bad enough running one investigation into the buffers, but two! “Stallings by name, stalling by nature,” my male colleagues in London used to say, whenever I got into a bind. It’ll be spreading up here soon.’