Bass glanced across at him. ‘I didnae know you were back,’ he muttered. Many members of the alternative society in Edinburgh have come to know Andy Martin personally, and nearly all of them, apart from the very young talent, will have heard of him. They’ve never quite known what to make of him, not since the early days when he was very obviously Bob Skinner’s pupil.
Some believe that he only ever played Good Cop to the chief’s Mr Nasty, but there was always much more to him than that. I could read the ambition in him on the day I met him. He knew from the start that it wouldn’t be realised by standing in someone else’s shadow, so he made his own space early on, and made himself memorable. That’s what the green contacts are about, and that leather jacket he wore for ever, and still has, I believe. He’s the second most visible cop in the country, and it’s no accident. As for those assumptions, big Bob has never gone in for that sort of stereotyped role play. Most of the time, the people he interviewed were only too keen to tell him what he wanted to know.
‘I’m not,’ Andy replied. ‘This is a special guest appearance, Kenny, just for you. We want to ask you about a man called John Varley.’
‘So ask.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘The name’s familiar. Is he no’ a comedian?’
‘No relation. This would be Inspector Varley.’
‘One of your lot? He’ll no’ be funny at all, then.’ He started to smile, but then flinched. I guessed that Andy had given him another warning look. ‘I think I met him a few years ago,’ he volunteered. ‘He might have been a sergeant then; aye that’s right, he was. I had a massage parlour then and he came in to check on the licence.’
That was news to me. ‘Why did he do that?’ I asked him. ‘Those places all have public entertainment licences; you can inspect them in the council offices.’
‘You tell me; that was his excuse for coming in. He wanted to look over the premises.’
‘And you let him?’
He sniffed. ‘Aye sure, Mr McGuire. Like I was going to tell a uniform sergeant to fuck off.’
‘Okay, so he looked over the premises. Then what?’
‘Then he left.’
I laughed; couldn’t help myself. It was so spontaneous that it startled Laurence the lawyer who sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘Bollocks, Kenny,’ I chuckled. ‘A cop comes into your massage place, has a quick look round then goes away. That’s all, and yet a few years later you remember the incident then him. Something else happened, didn’t it?’
He shook his head. ‘No, nothing,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing happened, nothing else.’
I leaned forward, not laughing any longer. ‘Don’t bullshit us, now. Did he try to extort money from you?’
‘No.’ He was staring hard at the tabletop. If Laurence hadn’t been there I’d have made bloody sure he was looking at me as he lied to me, but I couldn’t.
‘Then what, Kenny?’
‘Nothing.’ His voice was so quiet that if we’d been recording I’d have asked him to repeat it.
Andy leaned forward. ‘Listen, this is not going to get you done,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a fuck about. .’ Bass flinched again and he hit on it. ‘A fuck,’ he repeated. ‘Varley leaned on you for a freebie from one of the girls, didn’t he?’
Finally Bass raised his eyes from the furniture and met ours. ‘I’m saying nothing, okay.’
‘Why not?’ Andy asked. ‘Is it because Varley’s related to Freddy Welsh?’
Those eyes went blank, as if two shutters had dropped. ‘Who’s Freddy Welsh?’
‘Freddy Welsh is the guy you met for a drink in Lafayette’s pub last Wednesday night,’ I reminded him.
‘Gentlemen,’ Laurence intervened, tentatively.
‘Shut up!’ Andy snapped. He did.
‘I was on my own.’
‘You were sitting with Freddy Welsh,’ I countered. ‘We’ve got you on video.’
‘Sure,’ he blustered, a little animation restored, ‘a guy came and sat at my table, but I didnae know him.’
‘That’s not what the video shows.’
‘Fuck your video; that’s what I’m saying.’
‘He took a phone call then he left,’ I continued, ‘without looking at you.’
‘Exactly,’ Bass exclaimed, as if we had made his point for him.
‘Then you left too. Right away, straight after him.’
‘I finished my drink. I was leaving anyway.’
‘No, Kenny, that’s mince, and we both know it. You were there to meet Freddy. Look, we don’t want to ask you about these fags you’re being done for. We want you to tell us about Freddy himself, and why a supposedly straight-up reputable businessman should be involved in a pretty run-of-the-mill tobacco smuggling deal.’
‘Who’s Freddy Welsh? Who’s Freddy Welsh? Who’s Freddy Welsh?’
Andy stopped any further repetitions, with a warning, pointed finger. ‘He’s a guy who’s got you scared shitless, Kenny. You might be relatively small time as criminals go, but you’re experienced and you know the ropes. The fact that Welsh can do that to you makes him a person of interest to us.’
‘Fine,’ Bass hissed. ‘Then go and ask your pal Varley about him, if they’re related like you say they are, because you’re getting fuck all out of me.’
David Mackenzie
Since I became executive officer to the command ranks in Bob Skinner’s regime, I’ve met most of the senior people in the other Scottish forces. Graham Morton was an exception. As chief constable of the Tayside force, he’d been notoriously insular, always reluctant to set foot outside Dundee. They said that Edinburgh and Glasgow were as far distant to him as New York or LA. And so, when he retired, and bought a house in sunny Cramond, one of the posher parts of the capital, it made front-page news in the Courier, and even rated a mention in the Police Review.
When I mentioned it to the boss, all he did was smile and murmur, ‘Watch this space.’ Morton had been a civilian for two days when the announcement was made of his appointment as director of security for First Caledonian Bank, a small Scottish outfit that does mostly retail business, which is why it managed not to get itself massively over-exposed to toxic debt. As a result it emerged from the global catastrophe smelling distinctly of roses, and its key staff were able to trouser their modest contractual bonuses without anyone batting an eyelid.
First Caley is popular with cops, and it values us as customers, so it wasn’t a surprise when Payne and I were told that Inspector John Varley did his banking there. Straight away, I put in a call to Morton; I didn’t give his secretary any details, only that I needed to consult him on a confidential professional matter. He took my call at once.
‘Thanks for speaking to me, sir,’ I began.
‘It’s my job, Superintendent Mackenzie. Give me a name and come to my office.’
I was taken well aback. I’d expected all sorts of ritual dancing. ‘Sir?’ I said, cautiously.
‘I know who you are, and what you do. You’re one of Bob Skinner’s close people but you’re not CID. You’ve got a bent cop, am I guessing right?’
‘Yes you are, sir; spot on.’
‘But you’re not discipline and complaints either, so this one is extra sensitive.’
‘True again,’ I conceded. ‘We need to look at bank records, to trace payments from a particular person who may be involved in organised crime.’
‘Is that person one of our customers?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know yet.’
‘I can find out for you. Give me his name as well.’
‘Will do, sir. When can we see you?’
‘Now,’ he exclaimed, with a laugh in his voice. ‘It’s Friday afternoon. Do you imagine I’m going to keep a police investigation waiting over the weekend?’
‘You’re not going to ask for a court order?’ I’d been expecting that he would; the Data Protection Act allows exceptions for police inquiries, but I knew from my CID days that most people like to cover their backs.
‘No,’ he replied firmly. ‘In this bank, decisions on the release of personal information are in the hands of a designated person, and that happens to be me. Give me those names now and get yourself along here; I assume you know where we are. By the time you get here I’ll have accessed all the records.’