‘Kosher cookies, sir. They’re called rugelach. Solly pressed them on me; I couldn’t refuse. Would you like some?’
‘What’s this? An apple for the teacher?’ I handed him a mug. ‘Aye, why not? Let’s have a taste.’
They weren’t half bad; a lot of cream cheese about them, but okay. I let Sauce ingest some of the coffee. It had been on the warming stand for a while, so it must have been well stewed, but the boy took it without flinching.
‘What was that you said when you were driving?’ I asked him. ‘What you got from your interview? It sounded like “wrestler” to me. What was it really?’
‘That’s what I did say, sir. Solly, that’s Mr Solomon, the restaurateur that I went to see, confirmed that Mortonhall Man did eat there, very shortly before he died, with two other guys. Solly said that one of them looked like a smaller version of Brock Lesnar. He’s a. .’
‘I know who he is,’ I said. ‘My younger son is into that sort of stuff.’ I wonder how many dads there are like me, people who would never dream of admitting that they watch TV wrestling themselves, and blame their knowledge on their kids. ‘I doubt if we could circulate his picture, though.’
‘No, sir,’ he conceded, ‘but there’s a good chance I’ve got a set of the third man’s prints.’ He slipped an evidence bag from his jacket pocket and held it up. It contained two large banknotes. ‘He paid with these.’
‘Good work, Sauce,’ I told him. ‘Banknotes though,’ I wondered, ‘how many prints will they have on them?’
‘Hopefully, not too many, sir. These are brand new. Solly’s agreed to give us his fingerprints, for elimination; I’ll have to arrange that. I thought that if we circulated all that are left. .’
I nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right, son. You will never know, unless you ask the question. Feed them all into NCIS and see what pops out. If your friend Solly doesn’t have a record you can circulate his too, and no harm done, so forget about printing him.’
I could see something else in his eyes, the hesitancy of a young man who doesn’t want to seem to be too pushy. ‘Go on,’ I said to him.
‘Jack isn’t here to take the piss. What else have you got?’
‘Maybe nothing, sir, but if Solly’s right we might need to go beyond the NCIS if we want to trace these men. He doesn’t think they were British. He told me that they were speaking a foreign language among themselves, one he didn’t recognise.’
‘Could they have been Israelis?’
‘No, sir, he said he’d have known their language and also the other two guys didn’t have a clue about Jewish food.’
That did set my antennae twitching. But I wasn’t about to tell young Haddock as much. One thing at a time with him, and that wasn’t why I’d asked him to come to see me.
‘Let’s not fly too high,’ I told him. ‘You get those banknotes processed straight away up at the lab, priority job on my orders, and run what you get through NCIS. You should send me copies of all the prints through the force intranet, but on the quiet, to keep me in the loop without Becky thinking I’m looking over her shoulder. Meantime,’ I added, ‘I’ve got some real undercover work for you.’
I thought I detected a tremor of excitement run through him, but maybe it was just the coffee. ‘The tip that you brought me,’ I continued, and knew right then that his reaction had nothing to do with caffeine, ‘the one about Kenny Bass and his import venture, the one that opened this whole pit of mischief that Jock Varley’s fallen into. You told me that your source insisted that you brought it to me and me alone, and that there wasn’t to be a hint to anyone else in the force of where it had come from.’
I stared at him until he nodded.
‘If that had been anyone but you, Sauce,’ I murmured, ‘I’d have melted you into fucking ingots. But I didn’t; I went along with the whole presumptuous thing. As a result, only you and I know about this, as requested; nobody else, not the deputy chief, not the head of CID, just the two of us. I agreed because we both know who your source is, although you never named him: it’s your girlfriend’s grandfather.’
He opened his mouth, but I closed it for him. ‘Shut up,’ I said.
‘You don’t have to break any promises. I don’t need you to say his name. I’m fine with the way it is. I bought into it because I reckoned that it was Grandpa McCullough’s way of sending me a signal that he wasn’t thinking at all of using your relationship with Cheeky to suborn you. But when one of the top figures in organised crime that this country has seen since Perry Holmes died co-operates with the police in any way, at any level, I have to treat it very warily.’
I took another kosher cookie from the bag and made him wait while I munched my way through it. When I was good and ready, I went on. ‘I’m sure that when Grandpa told me, through you, that he’d heard on the grapevine that a wee crook from my patch called Kenny Bass was trying to make himself a big crook in the illegal tobacco business, he reckoned that I’d take it as some sort of peace offering. But with the intervention of Freddy Welsh it’s become more than that. Welsh is a completely unknown quantity, a surprise player. Whatever his role is, he’s caused chaos within this force. Therefore, I need to know. . and that means that we,’ I said, heavily, ‘need to know, Sauce. . whether Grandpa’s playing some game or other. You’re the conduit, or part of it, and so, even though it’s way above your pay grade, it’s down to you to find out. This is what I want you to do.’
Lisa McDermid
It was well past eight by the time I got back to my flat in Haddington, and my evening was well and truly busted. I’d had a supper and possible shag date with a guy I’d been seeing for a couple of months, and I certainly wasn’t up for the second without the first, so I’d called him earlier to cancel. I would have been happier if he’d sounded more disappointed.
I’d picked up a takeaway tandoori on the way home, and chose a nice Semillon blanc from the fridge to go with it, but when I looked at it on the plate I decided that I didn’t really fancy it at all, so I binned it and settled for the wine and a bag of crisps.
Then I thought about George. He’d told me to check in with him in the morning, but I was restless, so I picked up the phone and dialled his number. The dead voice answered. I’ve never met Jen, but I’ve spoken to her a few times. She’s always polite, and never asks me why I’m calling, but her tone still gets to me. That’s because there isn’t one, no intonation at all; she sounds as if she’s medicated, but apparently that’s not the case. I can’t imagine what their home life must be like but I hope to God nothing like that ever happens to me. I have quite a few childbearing years ahead of me, and I can appreciate the horror of having one then losing it.
He took the call on an extension; I knew this because there was television noise in the background when he picked up. ‘Hi, Lise,’ he murmured. ‘You done?’
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘I got as far as I can go; the well’s dry, trail’s cold, whatever.’ I looked at my glass; it was still half full, so I was nowhere near the limit. ‘Fancy a drink?’ I asked, taking myself completely by surprise. ‘Business meeting,’ I added.
‘Nice idea,’ he replied, ‘but I’ve had a couple already, and I don’t think you and me should meet in the Longniddry Inn. People who know me might wonder. So maybe we’d better not. Another time, yes?’
‘Sure,’ I said, wondering how likely that was.
‘No links to Varley in Welsh’s records then?’ His voice changed, became more businesslike; I wondered if Jen had come into the room.
‘Not a light. The auditor said the accounts were meticulous and he wasn’t kidding.’
‘Nothing at all out of the ordinary?’
‘Nothing that I could see; trust me, boss, I spent long enough looking. The bookkeeping’s flawless and every tax return is accepted. There are even a couple of over-payments, where the taxman’s issued refunds without even being asked.’
‘God, the man’s a philanthropist,’ he chuckled. ‘Over-paying tax indeed.’