‘Who did you say is calling?’ asked the telephone receptionist.
‘The chief constable, Sir James Proud.’
‘And why do you want to speak with the chief executive?’
‘That is something I’d rather discuss with him.’
‘We don’t handle police pensions.’
‘That’s not what I want to talk to him about.’
‘If you’ll tell me what sort of pension you are asking about I can put you straight through to the appropriate section.’
‘I give up!’ Proud barked. He slammed the phone back into its cradle, picked it up again, and buzzed his secretary. ‘Gerry, please get the chief executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, down in Galashiels, on the line for me. Don’t be fobbed off with anyone else.’
‘Yes, sir.’
As he waited, the chief constable picked up Monday morning’s Scotsman from a corner of his desk and glanced at the front page. The main headline concerned the Middle East, as was almost the norm; another covered an account of a fatal accident on a railway line in England, while a third seemed to confirm that there would only be one runner for the leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland, and with it, the post of First Minister. A day into the investigation, the Gareth Starr murder had been relegated to the inside pages: a bad sign, he knew from experience.
The phone rang. He tossed the newspaper aside and picked it up. ‘I have Mr Manners for you, sir,’ Gerry Crossley told him.
‘Sir James: it’s Simon Manners here.’ The voice on the line was youthful and friendly, not Scottish, but the chief found nothing surprising about that. ‘This is a surprise. Should I be worried?’
He gave the standard answer to the standard question. ‘You tell me, Mr Manners. Actually, this is an informal approach: I’m looking for some assistance. I’m trying to trace a couple of people for a friend. They were both teachers, at Edinburgh Academy for a while, but they seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth. They’d be of retirement age by now, so I was wondering whether you could tell me if either or both are currently receiving a pension from you.’
‘I see,’ said Manners. ‘This isn’t an uncommon approach, Sir James. Normally they come from ex-wives or even ex-husbands looking out for their rights, and normally we’d ask them to contact us formally. However, in your case, I’ll see if I can cut some corners.’
‘That’s very good of you. Do you have our number, so you can call back?’
‘I won’t need it for now. Just give me the names of your targets and I’ll look them up on our system. I may have more than one hit initially, you understand, but your mention of Edinburgh Academy should help me be precise.’
‘Let’s see how you do, then. The names are Claude Bothwell and Annabelle Gentle.’
‘Gentle as in meek and mild, or Gentile as in not Jewish?’
‘The former.’
‘Okay, here we go. It’s just a matter of keying them into my terminal.’
Proud leaned back in his chair and waited, leaving the Scotsman undisturbed as he held the phone to his ear. Manners was back in seconds. ‘It was definitely Claude Bothwell?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘No joy, I’m afraid. There are contributions credited to someone of that name, but they stopped over forty years ago. He has pension rights accrued, but he’s never claimed them, nor has an executor. He must have left the profession and forgotten to reclaim his contributions.’
‘How about Miss Gentle?’
‘Annabelle, you said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give me a second.’ Again Proud waited. ‘No, but here’s a coincidence. There are contributions credited to her as well, and they ceased in the same month as Mr Bothwell’s. They haven’t been claimed either. Were you expecting this, Sir James?’
‘Let’s just say it doesn’t take me by surprise. Thanks, Mr Manners. I owe you a favour: don’t hesitate to take me up on it.’
‘That’s easy. If you find these people, let me know. I don’t like untidiness in my records.’
The chief hung up. What he had said was true: Bothwell and Annabelle Gentle had disappeared in mid-career, so abruptly that he had found it hard to imagine that there would be an easy way back into the profession for either of them.
He reached for the phone once more. ‘Gerry, I want you to get me another chief executive: the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association.’
He returned to the Scotsman as he waited. He found only a few paragraphs on the Gareth Starr homicide, most of them quotes attributed to Detective Sergeant Wilding. ‘We are pleased with the response to the E-fit image,’ he had said. ‘The response from the public has been gratifying and has given us a number of leads to follow.
‘We are also appealing for anyone who knew the victim to come forward. We are trying to establish what he did in the last few hours of his life, and any information to this end will be helpful to us.’
‘In other words you’ve got nothing,’ he murmured. He found himself wondering why a DS was taking such a high profile in the investigation, but before he could consider the matter too deeply, the phone rang.
‘General secretary, sir,’ said Gerry Crossley, ‘not chief executive. Her name is Miss Cotter.’
‘Christian name?’
‘Not volunteered. I don’t think it’s used much around the office.’
‘I’ll be on my best behaviour then; put her through.’
He waited until the connection was made. ‘Miss Cotter,’ he began. ‘James Proud, police headquarters at Fettes.’
‘How can I help you?’
There was something about her tone that made the chief constable conclude that he would be wise to let her believe that his call was official. ‘I’m trying to trace someone, a member of yours, almost certainly a former member now. His name is Claude Bothwell. When he was last heard of, he was on the staff of Edinburgh Academy.’
‘And when was he last heard of?’
‘Forty-one years ago.’
Something close to a snort sounded in Proud’s ear. ‘Forty-one years ago! Why don’t you ask Russell Goddard, the rector back in those days? He’s still alive, and from what I hear as sharp as a tack.’
‘I’ve spoken to Mr Goddard. He gave me all the help he could, but he also suggested that since Mr Bothwell was an active member of your association, you might have a more recent record of his whereabouts than he had.’
‘Mr Proud, we have our hands full keeping track of our current members.’
‘This is quite important, Miss Cotter. How far back do your records go?’
‘They go back sixty years, to our foundation, but even if I found this man Bothwell, they wouldn’t tell me much about him, other than where he taught, and you know that already, you say.’
‘I know that he taught at the Academy, but that’s all. I have no other information about his career.’
‘And Mr Goddard said that he was an active member?’
‘Yes.’
‘That probably meant he was our representative there. However, in an independent school in those days, it’s quite likely that he was our only member.’
‘Is it possible that your predecessor might have heard of him?’
‘Officer,’ said Miss Cotter, heavily, ‘I have been general secretary of this association for twenty-eight years. My predecessor was a contemporary of Mr Goddard, but wasn’t nearly as long lived. If you give me some time, I may be able to find a record of his membership with details of other places he taught, but I’m not promising anything.’
Twenty-four
He was unaware of it, but Bob Skinner smiled as the train emerged into the daylight. He had never suffered from claustrophobia to his knowledge, but he never felt comfortable in railway tunnels. Whenever he was in London, and he had the option, he chose bus or taxi over Underground.
The deputy chief constable was casually dressed, in jeans, a heavy cotton shirt and a lined cow-hide jacket that he had bought in America on one of his visits there with Sarah. He had packed a medium-sized suitcase for the trip: it held, among other things, an overcoat, a suit, several shirts, a pair of black shoes and, still in their wrapping, two packs each of new socks and underwear from Marks amp; Spencer. On extended trips away from home he regarded such items as disposable. It was easier to replace them as necessary than to have them pile up in his room, or hand wash them and dry them on radiators.