‘The legwork’s been done by a young detective constable. He was reporting to me about something else, but I asked him what he’d been up to on Mortonhall Man. . that’s what they call him. When he told me, I reckoned it might be one for you. His line manager’s in the loop, though. DI Becky Stallings; she’s one of my best, ex-Metropolitan; I can call her in on this. Will I do that?’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘not at this stage. I would like to brief you on this, personally. Once you’re up to speed, you can advise on what happens after that.’
‘Fair enough,’ I told her. ‘When can I expect you and where do you want to meet? My place or somewhere anonymous, like the airport hotel?’
‘Sorry,’ she chuckled, ‘communication breakdown; I should have said “we” rather than I. You never get involved with our regional offices but you know we have them. I have a very bright and very promising man in charge of our Glasgow location. He’s heading in your general direction as we speak. Now that we’ve established where you are, would you mind very much if he came to your home? We can trust your wife’s discretion, I know.’
‘That’s more than I can,’ I retorted. ‘In any case,’ I added quickly, ‘she’s not here; only the kids and their carer. But yes, he can come; I’ll tell Trish he’s an insurance salesman.’
‘He doesn’t look much like an insurance salesman, but that will do well enough. How soon can he arrive?’
‘We’re about twenty minutes away from home, maybe less if Little Madam gets a pony ride all the way. Any time after that.’
‘Good. He was heading for your office, but I’ll tell him to divert to your home address. He should be with you within the hour.’ She paused. ‘By the way, Bob, I’m not sure why, but he’s absolutely bricking it over the prospect of meeting you.’
‘He should be,’ I said. ‘He’s buggering up my quiet family Saturday. What’s his name?’
‘Houseman. Clyde Houseman.’
Mario McGuire
It would not be an exaggeration to say that I was fucking cheesed off over the absence of Jock Varley from the place where he had been told to go and to remain, when we’d turned him loose the day before. It had been touch and go as to whether he was bailed. I’d been against it, in case we were accused afterwards of special treatment, but Andy Martin was in one of his mellower moods, inspired, possibly, by the prospect of a weekend with Alex, and he persuaded me that it would be all right.
I phoned him. I couldn’t help it. When he answered, I could hear someone female singing in the background. ‘Mario,’ he said, as if I didn’t know that, ‘this is a surprise. You’re not going to tell me you need me again, are you?’
‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘In the circs that the last thing I’m going to do. Guess where I am? I’m at Inspector Jock Varley’s house. And guess where he is? I mean it, go on, for your guess is as good as mine!’
‘What?’ he barked, laid-back no longer. ‘You are joking.’
‘Do I sound like Les Dawson? DCI Payne, our Strathclyde colleague, and I are outside the place now; Varley’s vanished and so has his wife.’
‘They’ve probably gone shopping.’
‘That’s been suggested already,’ I said, ‘but I’ve gone off the idea. Jock wouldn’t be stupid enough to break his bail conditions for a trip to the Co-op. No, he’s done a runner. We’ve turned up a solid link between Freddy Welsh and him, or to be exact, his wife. Lowell and I are here to put the thumbscrews on him over it. My feeling is that he’s anticipated that and the pair of them are off their mark. They can afford to; they’ve got going on for a hundred and fifty grand in an offshore bank account, and it won’t be easy for us to touch it.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘Wait here for a bit, just in case I’m wrong and Ella has made him take her up to the Almondvale Centre to push the supermarket trolley. When I’m satisfied she hasn’t, I’ll put a general call out for them, stop on sight.’
‘Will Varley be safe with you if he does turn up?’ Andy wasn’t kidding; he meant it.
‘Probably,’ I replied, ‘if only because my minder’s with me. But you’re right. I’m probably better off picking up Freddy Welsh than sitting here. I’ll talk to the chief before I do that, though.’
‘Best to do so,’ he acknowledged. ‘He’s got his teeth in this one. And he’s got other problems. He needs handling with care just now. One thing I can do,’ he continued, ‘and I will. I’ll warn Alice Cowan. I can’t imagine him being crazy enough to go after her but. .’
‘That really would be crazy,’ I growled. ‘Alice would fucking kill him. But you do that, Andy; you might even ask her if she has any idea where he might go, somewhere we don’t know about, a caravan maybe.’
‘I’ll do that. I’ll let you know if she has any ideas.’
I ended the call. ‘Come on,’ I said to Payne, ‘we’re out of here. We’ll head back to the office and then I’ll call Jack McGurk. . he should be on duty at Torphichen Place. . and tell him to go and lift Welsh.’
There was no way of avoiding that bloody awful traffic around the shopping centre. I took advantage of the crawl to call the Gayfield Square office and ask them to find the number of Jock Varley’s car, figuring that it was bound to be noted somewhere in the station, since he was bound to drive to work from where he lived, and must have had a parking space there.
The duty officer wasn’t too sure where to look. I told him to call the station commander if he had to, even if it meant hauling him off the golf course, and get back to me, pronto. ‘Is it that urgent, sir?’ he asked. I could sense Lowell Payne wince as the question boomed from the speaker of the Lexus’s Bluetooth system.
‘It’s a matter of life and death, Sergeant,’ I snapped. ‘Yours, unless you get the finger out and do what you’re bloody told.’
I was beginning to feel a little peckish as we reached the outskirts of Edinburgh. ‘Fancy a bite of lunch?’ I asked Payne. ‘There’s a nice Indian in Davidson’s Mains.’
‘Sound good to me,’ he replied. ‘I’ll pick up the tab and put it on my expenses.’ He may have been joking, he may not.
‘Which I will probably have to sign,’ I pointed out. ‘There may be a slight ethical dilemma there, Lowell. My idea, so I’m paying.’
They do very nice pakora in that place and an exceptional lamb bhuna; I was beginning to salivate as we got there. I found a vacant parking slot right outside and pulled into it. I was on the point of switching off, when my phone sounded. ‘Bad timing,’ I muttered but I took the call, expecting it to be the Gayfield sergeant, or, with a large piece of luck, somebody from the Livingston office to tell me that Varley had turned up at home and had been arrested, as I’d ordered.
But it wasn’t. Instead, I heard the crisp, controlled voice of Detective Inspector Sammy Pye, who is so blatantly hell-bent on being a high-flyer that some of his more cynical colleagues call him Luke Skywalker, a nickname that secretly I love. I’m sure he’ll get there, but it’s not my job to make it easy for him; rather the opposite, I have to make him prove his worth.
‘There’s been an incident, boss,’ he reported. ‘I’m there now. You might want to see this for yourself.’
‘It better not be a shoplifting, Sammy,’ I warned him, ‘or a flasher in the Commonwealth Pool.’
‘No, sir,’ he replied smoothly, ‘it’s a bit more serious than that. It’s a double homicide; found on an open area in Leith that you can see from your house.’
‘Are you suggesting that I failed to report it?’ I growled. I like to rattle Sammy’s cage every so often, for reasons aforesaid.
‘No, boss,’ he replied, ‘but Paula did.’ Before I could nail him for that he moved on. ‘We have human remains here, burned very efficiently. Dr Grace has just arrived and had a look. She says she won’t even go firm on the gender until she’s got them back to the mortuary. Are you coming down or will I let her have them as soon as the photographer and video guy are done?’