"An insurance job, then," Pringle muttered.
"Who'd benefit? Only the owner, and that's the Guggenheim in Bilbao, so you can forget that. In this case there wouldn't be a benefit anyway, since I'm told that the painting would almost certainly have fetched more at auction than its insured value, which relates to the original purchase price. No, I've got another question. Instead of asking what the benefit of the crime might be, let's ask ourselves, what was its effect?"
He looked at Rose and saw a smile cross her face. "What was it, then?" asked the head of CID.
Steele looked up at him. "It tied up just about every fire appliance in Edinburgh, when the roads were at their busiest. So when there was a second outbreak in the city centre, very shortly after the Academy incident, the fire services were unable to turn out in sufficient strength to prevent major damage being done to the building."
"But that wasn't a suspicious fire," Maggie countered. "If it had been, the brigade would have alerted us right away."
"How many major fires are there in Edinburgh city centre in the course of the year? Half a dozen in a bad year, that's the answer. Yet last
Saturday, we had two, the one at the RSA, and a second, in an empty office building in the Exchange, no more than half an hour later. If that's not suspicious, I don't know what is."
"Have you spoken to Matt Grogan?" asked Pringle.
Steele nodded. "This morning. He told me that it was an electrical fire, probably starting in a piece of equipment that had been left on, and spreading rapidly through the wiring of the computer network. There were sprinklers but they were ineffective because of the type of fire it was. There was also an automatic alarm system that alerted the security staff right away. Normally the Fountainbridge Station would have responded inside three minutes, and the fire would have been contained, but all their appliances, and those from Macdonald Road, had been despatched to the relatively small fire at the Academy. It took them twenty minutes to turn out, given the traffic situation. By that time all they could do was stop it spreading up or down. The floor where it started was melted."
The head of CID tugged at his moustache. "But you said it was empty?"
"Not unoccupied, though; it's the head office of Tubau Gordon, a major investment manager. And here's something else that's interesting; normally there would have been people in on a Saturday, Far East traders following up on Hong Kong deals. Last weekend, though, there was a general holiday in China, so there was no one there." The inspector looked at Pringle. "What does that tell you, sir?"
The ageing, crumpled detective grunted. "That I was a fucking idiot for telling you to shut up. Apart from that, it tells me you'd better look into that firm right away, to see if you can find a connection between them and the exhibition fire."
"I have done, sir. Their chief executive was on the invitation list, signed in, too. When the picture went up in flames, he was right there."
"Better go and see him, then."
"I plan to, sir."
"Just be careful, then, Stevie. If there's anything in this, then, unlike me, he's a right clever bugger."
Fifty- Seven
Neil Mcllhenney smiled at the woman as she led him through to what passed for her office in the New Town basement. "I never thought of you as a businesswoman, Joanne," he said.
"What are you talking about, man?" she retorted. "I've been in this business for years."
"Maybe," he agreed, 'but on the shop floor, not in management. What happened?"
She shrugged her broad shoulders; she looked much different from the last time he had seen her, when she was working the streets and had picked up the wrong customer. Joanne Virtue was still a striking woman, but the blonde dye and heavy make-up had gone. Her hair was back to what he had guessed was its natural brown, and her face was scrubbed and fresh. He had wondered on occasion about her age; now, without the cosmetic cover-up, he could see that she was in her early forties, a little younger than he had imagined.
"Too many close calls," she admitted. "I can take care of myself, but every night you go out on the game, you push your luck a bit. I'd been at it too long, and I was getting nervous. A guy said the wrong thing to me once, and I had a knife at his throat in a second. He nearly pissed himself, then he started raising bloody hell. I wound up having to give him money to stop him calling the polis."
"Would he not have settled for a freebie?"
"What would he have used?" Joanne asked, dryly. "Ah'd scared all the lead out of his pencil."
Mcllhenney grinned. "So how did you get this job? Or do you own this place?"
"Christ, no. I manage it for an ex-client, a bloke called Kenny Bass, from Falkirk. Officially he's in the scrap metal business, but he's got other things too, like this place, and another one in Broxburn.
He's a nice enough guy, Kenny, but…"
"Sure, he can get a bit severe if he's crossed." The inspector nodded.
"I know Kenny Bass. I know what he owns and I know how close to the edge he comes. But he's nothing. If he ever gives you any bother,
Joanne, just you tell me."
"Thanks, Mr. Mcllhenney; I'll bear that in mind. Not that I've got any problems with him, though. For a while I thought I might have, but
I got it sorted." She reached to her left and pulled open the top drawer of a metal filing cabinet. "Do you want a whisky?" she asked.
His eyebrows shot up. "Hell no! It's not even midday yet."
She glanced at her watch. "It's only a minute or two short. Anyway, that never stopped you before."
"Times have changed."
"And mountains have moved, eh. So what did you want to talk to me about?"
"About your recent bit of bother, but first I want to ask you about something else. I've fallen by some information that you might have had, shall we say, professional dealings in the past with a colleague of mine, Detective Superintendent Jay. Is that true, Jo?"
"You don't really want to know that, do you?"
"Too damn right I do," said Mcllhenney. "I've got a new job now, one that means I want to know everything."
"Ah," she exclaimed, 'you have, have you? I heard big Mario'd been moved, right enough. Some boy, him; his uncle's barely deid, and he starts ridin' his cousin. Not that I've got anything against Paula, mind; she's got a touch of the saint about her, has that girl."
"Never mind that; they're only business partners, anyway. So what about Jay?"
Joanne nodded, once, briefly. "Yes," she whispered. "He was only an inspector then, though. He used to call by when I was working, and if there was no one about we'd do a bit of business."
"You mean he paid you?"
"Don't be daft."
"You mean he accepted sexual favours? In exchange for what?"
"Nothing, Neil; he never asked for anything, and I was never stupid enough to ask him for money. I never had any police bother around that time though, so I put it down to expenses, so to speak."
"Do you still hear from him?"
"No, not since he got his big job down in Leith." She looked at him nervously. "What are you going to do with that?" she asked.
"Nothing at all," he told her, 'unless I need to."
"Why would you need to?"
"If there was ever any thought that he might be promoted again; I couldn't have that."
"Just keep my name out of it, then."
"No worries on that score. Now, this other business; the angry residents versus the White Rabbit sauna… some name that, by the way."
"Better than a sign of the zodiac, like most of them."