‘Okay, thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s something to go on. I wish you had a credit card slip, though.’
‘Sorry.’
But. . wait a minute, Sauce. ‘You said one of the other guys paid the bill?’
More dandruff flew. ‘Yes, the other dark-haired one, not the wrestler lookalike; seventy-two quid and twenty pence, I knocked it down to seventy. He peeled two fifties off a roll and told me to give him back twenty and we’d be square.’
‘And you’ve still got them?’
‘Like I said.’
I picked up the evidence bag that had held the photo. ‘Solly,’ I began.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Ah, I know what you’re going to ask.’
‘I’ll give you a receipt.’
He laughed. ‘Now, I really will have no choice but to declare it to the tax man.’
He took a cash box from his desk and unlocked it, then pushed it across to me. I tipped the contents out, a few hundred quid, and saw the two fifties straight away, reddish things with the Queen’s head on the front and some bloke in a wig on the back. I wondered how much fifty pounds had bought in his day as I picked them up, each one by a corner, and slipped them into the protective case. They looked fresh, and hardly used; bound to yield decent prints and, with luck, not too many of them.
I wrote Solly the promised receipt, signed it and clipped one of my cards to it for added authenticity.
‘Will you let me know what happens?’ he asked. ‘Whether you get a result or not?’
‘I don’t even know what the game is, sir,’ I admitted, ‘let alone how to work out the score.’
He offered me a sampler of the chicken broth, but I declined. Undeterred, he pressed a bag of rugelach on me, for the road, he said. I thanked him and headed for my car.
I didn’t rely on the satnav for the return journey, for that would have taken me through the centre of Glasgow at gridlock time. Instead I took a simpler route through East Kilbride. I had just cleared the place when my phone sounded. I hit the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel and said, ‘Sauce.’ That’s my standard greeting; on the rare occasion I have a wrong number it confuses the shit out of the caller.
I expected to have Becky Stallings in my ear, wondering why I hadn’t given her a progress report. . as I’d neglected to do. Instead I heard someone I hadn’t expected, not at all.
‘Chief Constable here. Are you on the road?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve been to Glasgow, in connection with Mortonhall Man.’
‘Oh yes? Any progress?’
‘Of sorts, sir. I don’t have a name for him, but I’ve got a couple of new lines of inquiry.’
‘What are they?’
I paused as I was overtaken by a clown in a Mercedes, braking as he pulled in too soon, to be overtaken himself by an even bigger idiot in a Golf GTI. ‘Fingerprints and a wrestler,’ I said, when I could.
He laughed. ‘Where the hell are you, son? It sounds like Brands Hatch. I couldn’t make out a word you said there. Tell me all about it when you get back.’
‘Sir?’
‘I want you to come straight to Fettes, to my office. I need to speak to you.’
If the great man wants you to know why, he tells you. When he doesn’t, don’t ask. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, and Sauce,’ he added. ‘Switch your phone off, now. Just in case DI Stallings or Jack try to call you. I don’t want them in on this, and I wouldn’t want you to have to lie to them.’
The buzz of an empty line filled my humble, non-racing, Astra. ‘Me neither,’ I murmured.
Mario McGuire
Some people actually volunteer to visit prisons. I can never get my head round that, because they are the most depressing places I know. Even today, when our society is forced by human rights conventions and such to care about the conditions in which it locks people up, even without pisspots during the night, they are grim places, devoid of all but the darkest humour, and with an air of pent-up aggression that’s so pervasive it’s almost palpable.
I’ve helped to send a right few people there in my career. While all those results were satisfying professionally, I’ve taken no personal pleasure from any of them, save one, perhaps, a police officer who’d betrayed us all, and who’d earned our righteous anger. That guy killed himself inside, possibly before someone else could do the job for him, and as I turned into the access road that leads up to HMP Saughton, I found myself wondering what would be waiting for Jock Varley when he found himself banged up, as I was determined he would.
‘That sign always gets my attention,’ Andy Martin said as we drove past a pole by the roadside.
‘How come?’ I asked. I’d never noticed it.
‘It says “Beware possible traffic queue”. It’s hard to imagine folk queuing to get into a jail. Out, yes. In, no.’
‘You’re in a cheerful mood,’ I remarked.
‘Am I?’ He sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Yes I suppose I am. I’ve got my weekend sorted out.’
‘Are you going to see the kids?’
‘Sunday, yes.’
‘How’s Karen?’ I’ve known Andy’s soon to be ex-wife for as long as he has.
‘She’s fine. We’ve sold the house up in Perth, and she’s bought a place in Lasswade; she moves in September. Once Robert’s old enough for nursery school she’s going to apply to rejoin the force.’
‘She won’t have any problem getting back in, not with her experience.’
‘I know that, Mario,’ he said. ‘But everything will have to be done by the book.’
And I knew whose book it would be. Karen’s re-employment was a racing certainty.
There was no traffic queue at the newly built entrance to the prison complex, and there was plenty of space in the car park. The video camera picked us up as we walked to the door next to the vehicle entrance. I told the entry system who we were and why we were there, and it was opened for us.
Kenny Bass was waiting for us in an interview room in the remand unit, to which we were led by one of the gate officers. He’d been told that we were coming and had called in a brief, a smart-suited midtwenties kid from Criminal Lawyers R Us or some similar operation. His name was Laurence. . his surname escapes me; I don’t think I’m ever going to need to remember it. . and he was keen, but he had the wrong idea.
‘Let me set the ground rules for this meeting, gentlemen,’ he began. ‘My client. .’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Andy murmured, just as I was about to tell the lad to shut the fuck up. ‘This is an informal interview with your client, and it doesn’t relate directly to the offence with which he’s charged. So you don’t need to worry about him incriminating himself, or about protecting his human rights.’
‘Nevertheless. .’ the young solicitor exclaimed, then stopped short, as Andy nailed him with those green eyes of his. They’re made unnaturally bright by the tinted contact lenses he wears, the only sign of an affectation in the man. He can make them seem as if they might turn red in an instant, without pausing at amber, and I guess that’s what he’d done with Laurence.
‘There’ll be nothing recorded,’ he promised. ‘Unless your client wishes it, of course.’ He beamed at Kenny. ‘Do you, Mr Bass?’
The prisoner shook his head. ‘It’d be a waste of a tape,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve got fuck all to say to yis. I’ll take my chances in the Sheriff Court.’
‘Oh yes?’ I laughed, softly. ‘It may not stay at that level, Kenny. You should know the Edinburgh sheriffs by now. Plead guilty if you like, and I’m sure your lawyer here will put in a very eloquent plea in mitigation for you, but the guy on the bench will have your whole criminal history in front of him. Worse, you might get that new lady sheriff, Levy. Have you heard about her? A pal of mine in the fiscal’s office told me they call her Miss Whiplash in the court. She’s allowed to put you away for five years, but on her current form, she might decide that’s not enough. In that case she’ll send you to the High Court for sentence.’
He frowned and tried a shrug that didn’t quite come off.
‘But as my colleague said,’ I went on, his attention secured, ‘we’re not here to talk about that. Are we, Mr Martin?’