Sixty-one
‘You’re becoming obsessive about this, Jimmy. I think it’s time you stopped it, and handed it all over to Sergeant McGurk.’
The chief constable braved his wife’s scolding voice, which came from the door of his study. ‘In good time, dear: I’ve got a couple of things to check out first before I’m ready to do that.’ He heard a loud ‘Tch!’ then a sound that stopped just short of a slam.
He turned back to his computer, and opened his mailbox. The day before, he had logged on to Friends Reunited and had found Scotstoun Primary School. Once there he had looked at the years 1943 and 1944; on one or the other Primrose Jardine would have been in her final year. Of course she might not have lived in Scotstoun as a child, but the address on the marriage certificate was the only direct lead he had to the woman. There were three pupils listed, two of them in 1944. He sent messages to all three, explaining that he was trying to contact Primrose Jardine, or anyone who might have known her. It was a very wild shot in the dark, he knew: he expected nothing from it, and so his heart jumped when he saw, waiting for him, a message from the website. He opened it and, to his delight, found a reply from one of the three.
Dear Mr Proud
Fancy you asking about wee Primrose. She and I were pals all the way through primary, and then at secondary. She left to be a nurse and I got a job in the shipyard office, but we used to see each other for a while. Her dad was killed in the war and her mum died when she was twenty-two. She was left a wee bit of money then from her mum’s insurance policy and she got keeping on their council house. When she was twenty-five she married a man called Bothwell in the registry office and I was her bridesmaid. He was a teacher at Jordanhill College School and they went to live up Broomhill. The last time I saw her, in 1960 (I remember because the Olympics were on in Rome) she told me she was pregnant. When I tried to get in touch with her after that, a man told me they’d moved and that’s the last I heard.
Hope this helps.
Yours sincerely,
Ina Leslie (Deans)
‘It does, Mrs Leslie,’ he murmured, ‘it does. What’s the other thing Bob says a good detective needs, Jimmy? Luck, he says, sheer bloody luck and as much as he can get.’
Sixty-two
Mackenzie heard the footsteps on the gravel. He waited for the thump on the door, but instead he heard the ring of a bell, from the rear of the house. He stayed in his chair, staring at the muted television as Cheryl showed the visitor into the living room, listening to the shouts of his children, at play upstairs. ‘Why did you come to the back door?’ he asked.
‘I wanted to count the empties,’ Neil McIlhenney replied.
‘That’s got fuck all to do with you.’
‘Wrong. When you call in sick on the second day of a murder investigation because you’ve had too many bevvies the night before, that has everything to do with me.’
‘Hey, you’ve got some nerve!’
‘Yes, I have, and don’t protest your innocence. We both know I’m right. Are you on the hard stuff?’
Mackenzie sagged in his chair. ‘I have been lately,’ he admitted.
‘Well, you can cut that out for a start. Try having a dry week; see whether it’s easy or hard. That’ll tell you a lot. I know this from bitter early experience: if you’ve got a grudge against the job and you look for help to forget it, you’ll find it doesn’t work. And you do have a grudge, we both know that too.’
‘I’m beginning to think it has a grudge against me. I don’t fit into this force, Neil. Moving through from Glasgow was a mistake: I’m going to ask for a move back.’
‘That would be a much bigger mistake.’
‘Why?’
‘You want a straight answer? You’ve just pissed off the commander of the SDEA, and he’s a big mate of Max Allan, the Strathclyde ACC. After that they won’t take you back in a hurry. If you don’t believe me, put your request in and see what happens. Once that’s been knocked back you’ll find out how dumb you’ve been, because the boss won’t have anyone in a key position in CID who isn’t fully committed to it. You will wind up in a uniform and in an office.’
‘I’d leave the force if that happened.’
‘Then make sure it doesn’t.’
‘How?’
‘First, don’t breathe another word about a transfer. Then take a look at yourself, and work on your big weaknesses. You’re too much of a loner, Bandit, you’re too much of an extrovert and you’re too ill disciplined. You’re trying to be the sort of cop you find in crime novels, and we don’t have room for mavericks like them. They might have been able to cope with you in a force the size of Strathclyde, but we can’t, and we won’t. Top to bottom, we’re a team; nobody can play his own game without regard for proper methods, for rules and procedures. You want my very serious advice, beyond cutting down on the drink? Then use your time off to consider what I’ve said, and work out how you can be a better cop, and a better leader. When you get back you can start by apologising to Ray Wilding. He’s made no complaints about you, but I’m damn sure he’s had grounds.’
Mackenzie sighed. ‘Okay, Neil,’ he said. ‘I hear what you’re saying. I’ll give myself a good kicking.’
‘No. Remember what’s happened, but don’t dwell on it. Relax with your kids and come back to work rested and refreshed.’ McIlhenney stood. ‘I’ll leave by the front door,’ he said.
The two men walked together into the hall. ‘How’s the Starr thing going?’ Mackenzie asked.
‘Check the Scottish news tonight and you’ll hear that we’re looking for Eddie Charnwood, for the murder of Starr, Big Ming, and a dealer in Dundee.’
‘Charnwood?’ Bandit’s face went white. ‘Of course: he was too close to Starr not to have known what was going on, yet I bought his innocent act. Christ, that’s how far up my arse my head must have been.’
Sixty-three
‘How did your big meeting go today?’ Bob asked. ‘What’s the view on super-casinos?’
Aileen smiled ruefully. ‘My opposite numbers in the Westminster parliament,’ she replied, ‘still have their fingers crossed that the questionable positives will outweigh the undoubted negatives. Personally, I wouldn’t have had any in Scotland, but gambling isn’t a devolved power, so the decision wasn’t entirely in our hands. What’s the police view?’
‘We don’t really have one. We are but poor public servants put on earth to perform the tasks wished upon us by our political masters or, in your case, mistresses. If you tell us you’re going to set up bloody great gaming halls and we’ll have to police them, that’s what we’ll do.’
‘Bollocks,’ she said cheerfully. ‘The police have a view on everything.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘In this case it will have to be a moral one, founded on whether or not we agree with gambling in principle. Casinos are not a policing problem, and it’s most unlikely that they ever will be. My personal view is that I regard gambling as an entertainment; like everything else, how much a person spends on it should relate to what they can afford.’
‘There are gambling addicts, remember.’
‘And alcoholics and junkies and foodies and inconsiderate bastards in sports cars who can’t help turning up their stereo systems to full volume, then driving through my home village at night with the top down. Addiction is a fact of life: self-control is impossible for some people until it’s imposed upon them by poverty or death. Yes, some people bet more than they or their families can afford, but for the majority, gambling on a horse race or on who scores first in a football match is a reasonable investment, because they understand it and accept the odds. So why penalise them by banning it? You won’t stop it, you’ll only drive it underground, and then it will become my problem. The core task of the police service is ensuring peace and order in society: let us concentrate on preventing crime against property and the person and let everything else, wherever possible, be a matter of self-discipline, with economic rather than criminal consequences for failure.’