I had reached the Land Rover when something that had slipped my mind slipped back in. I went back to the cottage. ‘Hey, kid,’ I called out from the door. ‘Does the name Mia Sparkles mean anything to you?’
She stepped into the hall from the living room. ‘Yes! Airburst FM. She’s good!’
‘How does she sound?’
‘Smooth… but not too smooth, not phoney. Plays really good music. Why, Dad?’
‘I’m probably going to be meeting her today, that’s all.’
‘Get me an autographed photo.’
My new team was ready and waiting when I walked into the Serious Crimes office for the first time as their leader. I’d been presented to them the day before by Alf Stein, but none of them were strangers to me. The DI was a sound, forty-ish guy called Graham Leggat… everybody called him Fred; he told me why once, but I can’t remember now… I had a DS named Jeff Adam, who had ‘competent’ stamped all over him, and a couple of time-serving DCs, Macken and Reid. They were all wondering who Martin and McGuire were, and what they were doing there. I explained what had happened the evening before, and that the pair had become caught up in it.
‘In theory, they’re both on secondment, but you can regard Andy as permanent. Mario’s still on the uniform strength, but if he earns his spurs, he might get to wear them here. What did you get last night, PC McGuire?’
‘No sightings in any of the pubs, sir; I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be too bothered. Half the IDs we get from mugshots are wrong anyway; some are people trying to be helpful, others just taking the piss.’
‘There was one thing, though.’
‘Oh yes? Enlighten, please.’
McGuire looked untypically diffident. ‘Well, it might be nothing, boss, but the manager of the Irish pub on the South Bridge, he told me that he’d locked up on Tuesday and was walking home past Infirmary Street, a bit after midnight, when he saw something happening down there. He described it as a scuffle, two men grappling with a third.’
‘You showed him the image?’
‘Sure, but he didn’t recognise it.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He kept on walking. He’s no have-a-go hero, boss.’
‘Maybe as well for him. Did he give you any sort of a description?’
The PC nodded. ‘He said that two of them were wearing suits. He thought at first that they were pub bouncers, but there was nothing still open then. The third guy he thought was dressed in black, shirt and trousers.’
‘Good. Well done.’
‘He gave me a wee bit more, though,’ he continued. ‘He said they were up against a Transit van, and that one of the back doors was open.’
I was impressed. ‘We should get the guy in and show him some photos, just in case. Take care of that, please.’
‘Can I wait till he’s really busy, sir?’ McGuire asked.
I smiled, puzzled. ‘Sure, but why?’
‘He deserves it. If he’d been a bit braver, even if he’d only made a noise, yelled at the guys, they might have legged it and Watson, if that was him, might still be alive.’
I nodded. ‘Do it in your own time, Mario. But don’t ever let Marlon’s mother hear that story. I don’t want her paying a call on the guy. Meantime, I want you to get on to the council. Check out all the street cameras in the area and get their tapes for Tuesday evening. Maybe we’ll get a sighting of the van and, better still, the two guys.’
I was about to send everyone off to work, and take Martin with me to meet Bella Watson at the morgue, when I paused for second thoughts. If I did that, I’d be marching into my new unit with my own small team and sidelining everyone else. ‘Listen, guys,’ I said to Leggat and Adam, ‘there’ll be time later on today for you to brief me on the team’s current workload, but we have an immediate situation. The man who was found dead last night was Tony Manson’s driver, and I don’t need to set out the questions that throws up. Fred, I’d like you and Martin to find out where Manson is. Bella Watson told us that he’s out of town. Is that true? If it is, what’s the reason for the trip? Is it genuine, or could he simply be putting distance between himself and what happened in Infirmary Street Baths? I’d suggest that you talk to his lawyer.’
‘That shifty wee bastard Cocozza?’
‘That’s the one, Fred.’ I looked at the two DCs. Most probably they were going to be moved on, but they were what I had to work with at that moment. ‘While that’s happening, I want you gentlemen doing the rounds of Manson’s known associates. Talk to them and see if they let anything slip about Tony’s territory being under attack from outside. Fred, have a word with the Scottish Crime Squad and the NCIS. I wouldn’t put it past them to be sitting on something they should have passed on to us.’
‘Do you want to involve them?’ Leggat asked
‘Not until the investigation moves out of our territory, and even then only as far as I have to. DS Adam, I want you with me.’ I caught Martin’s glance out of the corner of my eye. ‘Nothing personal,’ I whispered, as I walked past him towards the door. ‘Work it out and tell me later.’
I let Adam drive to the mortuary. We’d crossed over on a few investigations when I’d been working with Alf Stein. He was never going to drop the ball, but he’d used up all the original thoughts he’d ever had in his head. I liked him, though, and his absolute trustworthiness meant that he was going to stay on my team. ‘Do you know the Watson and Spreckley families?’ I asked him, as we crossed Heriot Row.
‘I wasn’t around when Gavin and the kid got it,’ he replied, ‘but I saw the colour of Billy’s brains after big Kraus spread them all over Perry Holmes’s office. I never met him, though; he dropped out of sight for a while. I did interview Bella, though, with Tommy Partridge. We were both sure that she put him up to it.’
‘She told me as much last night. Ancient history, but still, that’s why I don’t want her hearing the story McGuire was told.’
‘That lad,’ Adam murmured. ‘Do you know who he is?’
‘Sure. He’s a police constable on my team.’
‘Yes but…’
I held up a hand to stop him. ‘Jeff, of course I know McGuire’s back story. He’s the nephew of Beppe Viareggio, and the grandson of old Papa Viareggio, who snuffed it about ten years ago, after he’d built up a very successful deli, importing, and property business. His mother married an Irish building contractor and founded one of the most successful secretarial employment agencies in the city. I know also that over the years there have been stories about the Viareggio clan having links to the Mafia. There isn’t a prominent Italian family in Scotland that hasn’t had that whispered about them at one time or another. It’s a load of bollocks in most cases, and most certainly in theirs. Yes, the old man and his wife, who’s still full of beans, incidentally, were first-generation immigrants from an Italy where secret societies were rife, but they came here to get away from that, not to import it. You would never, ever, have fucked with Papa, but he was absolutely straight. Same with Beppe, only he’s a wimp who would crap himself if he was ever in the same room with the faintest scent of organised crime. This was all established years ago, when I was here last, and if I should find that the Serious Crimes Unit has been wasting resources monitoring McGuire’s family…’ I took a deep breath. ‘If it has been, the files will be useless, so if they exist, shred them before I come across them, or before McGuire does. Understood?’
‘Yes, boss.’ He smiled. ‘Not that there are any such files, you understand.’
They were ready for us when we arrived at the mortuary. Marlon Watson’s body was in the viewing room, laid out on a trolley under a sheet, face uncovered, with the right, less damaged, side of his face in profile. The pathologist was there too, with a young assistant, one of his PhD students, I suspected.