‘That’s a load of help,’ he sighed. ‘Thank you very much.’
Sixty-nine
‘Where’s Neil?’ asked Mario McGuire ‘When I called Fettes they said that he and the chief went off somewhere in a hurry, and that I was to call you instead. Where the hell’s he gone, and what’s he doing with Proud Jimmy?’
‘You are indeed out of touch, boss,’ Sammy Pye told him. ‘Sir James is gone. The new chief constable took up the post yesterday.’
‘Big Bob?’
‘Of course.’
‘Acting chief?’
‘No, permanent. For once in this place, nothing leaked in advance of it happening.’
‘In that case, I won’t be too hard on McIlhenney for not tipping me off, especially since it’s the result we all wanted. Now, where are they off to?’
‘I don’t know. All he told me is that it has nothing to do with our investigation.’
‘Investigations, plural. There’s no longer any serious doubt that Glover and Mount were killed by the same person.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sammy, I’m the fucking head of CID. If I tell you something as gospel, you’re not supposed to ask me if I’m sure, even if I am giving you information from the other side of the planet.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the DI, chastened.
‘That’s OK,’ McGuire chuckled. ‘I’m taking the piss because I’m pleased with myself. You have no idea the buzz you get from swanning into somebody else’s territory and clearing up his crime for him. His boss was so pleased she even picked up my hotel tab in Melbourne.’
‘Paula’s premise held up, about how he was killed?’
‘One hundred per cent. They’ve done the post-mortem and confirmed it. There were powder burns on his fingers and lips, and tobacco in his mouth. His uvula was missing, shot off, and there was an exit wound behind where it used to be. They’ve actually found the bullet. They dug it out of a window frame behind where he was standing. After it went through the top of his spine and into the wood, it was flat as a pancake.’
‘So it’s our investigation, officially,’ said Pye.
‘We pretty much knew that as soon as George discovered his computer had been stolen, but yes, it’s ours, Inspector.’
‘And like with Glover, we’ve got bugger-all forensic evidence.’
‘Ah but,’ exclaimed McGuire, in a voice so exultant that Pye could almost see him beam, ‘we do, my son, we do.’ Without pausing he launched into a step-by-step description of the discovery of the cigar box, ‘You should see the MCG from that room, mate; some view,’ and of his photographing the bar code. ‘Those images will be in McIlhenney’s mailbox right now. He must have gone off in such a rush he didn’t have time to open it.’
‘I’ll see if I can access it,’ the DI volunteered.
‘No need. We’ve cracked that too, thanks to my old grandad, dead these twenty years and more. Paula’s IT traced the bar code. That very box was stocked by the Viareggio deli just off St Andrews Square. It’s six thirty in the evening here in Sydney, so they’ll be open by now. These babies are very rare items; that lot cost going on for two hundred quid the set, and even in Edinburgh they don’t turn over many of them. If we discount the bizarre notion that Henry Mount decided to kill himself by doctoring one of his own Havanas, that means that someone either tampered with the thing after he’d bought it, or they bought it for him. You need to get somebody up to that shop to pinpoint the sale, and get the credit card details, and you need to reinterview Mount’s family.’
‘What about the box, and the cigars?’
‘We’re getting them. My new friend the chief commissioner of Victoria State Police herself has decreed that. They’re in a secure container on their way to the airport even now. You’ll have them tomorrow.’ He laughed. ‘Mind you, I don’t envy the lab, trying to lift DNA off the cigars that are left. They’re handmade, in Cuba; we might have bother summoning witnesses from there.’ He chuckled. ‘Almost as much trouble as you’ll have trying to find me for the rest of my holiday. As of tomorrow, we’re up in Queensland, in a Nissan Movano, and our mobiles will be switched off.’
Seventy
‘This is not how I imagined I’d be spending my first day as chief constable,’ said Bob Skinner to Neil McIlhenney as he swung off the A1(M), heading for Darlington. They had made good time from Edinburgh: it was still well short of midday.
‘I don’t imagine it was,’ his friend replied. ‘Your time’s even more valuable now. Then there are the perks of the job; you could have had a driver take us down here, and take you to and from the office, for that matter.’
‘I don’t plan to use that privilege unless it’s official and there might be alcohol involved; an ACPOS dinner, for example. Aileen gets picked up from home by her government car. If I had one as well, how long would it be before the tabloids caught on? I’m probably not flavour of the month with them, after our pal Laidlaw crapped all over their big picture special yesterday.’
‘Yeah,’ McIlhenney chuckled, as they joined a line of traffic on a single-carriageway road. ‘Too bad Mitch retired from our Thursday night football in North Berwick. I miss his silky skills.’
‘He’d probably sue you for describing him that way.’ Skinner sighed. ‘Maybe I should quit too; that would be a good picture for the sports page. I can see the headline: “Superintendent kicks fuck out of Chief Constable”. Yes, maybe enough’s enough.’
‘Away you go. You need it; we both do. It lets us mix with guys outside the job on a regular basis. Taking me along there was the second biggest favour you’ve ever done me.’
‘I needn’t ask what the biggest was.’
‘No. Introducing me to Louise tops the lot.’ McIlhenney hesitated. ‘She has told me about you two, you know, that you went out with each other at university. You never mentioned it.’
‘Of course not. It was for her to do that.’
‘Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d stayed together?’
‘It wouldn’t have worked. We were too career-minded, both of us. If we had, though, I suppose you and I might have wound up with pistols at dawn.’
‘Like you and Andy?’
Skinner winced. ‘No. That’s different. That won’t be a duel; if it comes to a fight, it’ll be my rules.’
‘You mean if he applies for the deputy’s job?’
‘I mean if he applies for any fucking job in Scotland; as from October, that’ll be the First Minister’s stepdaughter in those photographs. Aileen hasn’t seen them, nor will she, but she’s nearly as angry as me. But let’s not dwell on that.’
‘October?’
‘Yes. A quiet do; registry office wedding, just us and witnesses, then a blessing by Jim Gainer, with guests, then a reception in the Parliament building. . for which we will be paying the standard fee, incidentally. Keep it to yourself, but look out for the invite.’ As he spoke, a sweet female voice from his satellite navigation system told him to turn right in three hundred yards. He obeyed and found himself heading north once more, for a mile or so, until a structure that could only have been a prison came into view. ‘HMP Brankholme,’ he said. ‘Looks pretty secure; it would take a battalion to break in here, so getting out would be something of a challenge.’
‘If you have the money. .’
‘Nah. The staff here are meant to be incorruptible, and bribery’s the only way you could do it.’
‘I bet Ainsley Glover or Henry Mount could have dreamed up a plan.’
‘Maybe, but I doubt if Dražen Boras is a reader of either of them. They’re too parochial; he moves internationally, just like his old man Davor does.’ He frowned. ‘Now there is a guy I really do not like.’
‘Are you saying you like Dražen?’
‘I like some people I’ve put away,’ said Skinner. ‘Lenny Plenderleith for one. Dražen? No, I never could, because he killed my friend and he has to pay the full price for that. But in terms of evil, of ruthlessness, I reckon the father’s a league above the son. From our conversation this morning I’m coming to believe that Dražen genuinely regrets that Stevie died. But from my meetings with his dad, I don’t believe that he gives a fuck.’ The navigation system interrupted again, advising him that he had reached his destination. ‘You can form your own view of junior in a few minutes.’