By the time I’d extricated myself from my traffic queue and found a parking space, it had taken twenty-five minutes. And I was annoyed. I strode into Pettigrew’s office, full of hell, with McFaul tagging along an my heels. ‘Okay, Davie,’ I began, when I was no more than halfway into the room, ‘what the fu-’ I stopped short. He wasn’t alone. He was sitting at his meeting table with a woman, around forty, slim, dark hair, dark suit, frowning and all business.
He rose, she didn’t. ‘Bob, Detective Inspector,’ he greeted us, ‘thanks for coming. This is…’
‘I know who she is,’ McFaul said. ‘Morning, Paula. Bob, this is Mrs Paula Cherry, from the Crown Prosecution Service, Newcastle office.’
She nodded, but still didn’t crack a smile.
‘Is this your back-up, Ciaran?’ I asked, not best pleased. ‘I thought we’d agreed that I’d question McGrew about the Watson murder then let you take him south.’
‘I didn’t send for her,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got no idea…’
‘Take a seat, gentlemen,’ the fiscal said, ‘and let me tell you why we’re here. We have a situation. Ken Green is demanding that we release Mr McGrew immediately. Apart from the usual bluster, he is also threatening a civil suit against the police. Bob, it would be helpful if you ran through the circumstances that led you to raid Perry Holmes’s house yesterday and to arrest his son.’
I did, in detail, step by step from the finding of Marlon Watson’s body in the disused public baths, through McGrew’s sister’s fling with Tony Manson, to our discovery of his existence and of his true identity, finally tying him to the murders in Newcastle.
‘Okay?’ I concluded, annoyed more than ever by the woman’s silent frowning presence. ‘Where’s the problem with any of that? Now, can Ciaran and I go and hit the guy with rolled-up Yellow Pages or whatever it is you imagine we do to suspects?’
‘The problem, Mr Skinner,’ she replied, ‘from a CPS standpoint, is that you haven’t given us enough evidence to proceed.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I bellowed, slipping into Taggart mode in spite of myself. She’d set me off. ‘We’ve put him at the hotel for you, we’re going to give you Winston Church’s blood in his car and we’ve recovered what I’m certain will prove to be the murder weapon, in his possession. Are your English juries so demanding that they want more than that?’
‘The CPS is,’ she shot back. ‘You’ve put his car at the Seagull Hotel, but you haven’t put him in it, not on that night. You’ve given us a person of similar build, in a hooded black tunic wearing black gloves, but you haven’t proved that it was Peter Hastings McGrew.’
I stared at her. ‘Fuck me,’ I gasped. ‘Where is the reasonable doubt?’
‘To my mind it exists. I require an overwhelming chance of conviction before I will commit the Crown to the expense of a trial. I don’t have it here.’
‘Then you go back to Newcastle, lady,’ I told her, ‘and send us someone higher up the tree.’
‘The decision is mine, and I’m telling you what it is. Until my scientific people can put McGrew in that hotel room, and in Church’s house, I won’t proceed against him. They say there’s no prospect of them doing that.’
I smiled. ‘If that’s how you feel, you’re welcome to take the flak. Because I’m damn certain that Ciaran’s force won’t let you shift the blame for three unsolved murders on to them, just because you’re protecting your conviction ratio against all comers. And don’t look to me to keep quiet about it to the Scottish media either.’ I started to rise. ‘Davie, if that’s all, I’ve got a telephone directory to roll up.’
He waved me back down. ‘I wish it was, Bob, but it’s not.’
I sighed. ‘Oh shit. Not you and all, Brutus. What’s your effing problem?’
‘It’s tied in with Mrs Cherry’s.’
‘How?’
‘Well,’ he ventured, cautiously, ‘legally, what happened in Tyneside has nothing to do with us, and she isn’t giving me grounds to hold McGrew on her behalf. But as far as the Watson murder’s concerned, with those guys out of the road, there’s nothing linking him to that either, and I doubt if there ever will be. So as things stand, you’re not going to get a conviction in Scotland either.’
‘In that case, Davie,’ I growled, ‘I will do him for the attempted murder of a police officer.’
He sucked his teeth. ‘He’ll have a defence for that too.’
I laughed, in lieu of a roar of rage. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ken Green’s already floated it. He’ll argue that his father, in an interesting and varied business life, has made a few enemies, proof of which being his paralysis and the bullet that’s still lodged in his head. He’ll say that when he heard someone battering at the front door, his first thought was that his dad’s life was in danger, and that when DI McFaul burst through the door, armed, he had no proof, nor even any idea, that he was a police officer. He was defending his father from attack, with a registered and legally held handgun.’ He looked at me. ‘That will be his story, and to tell you the truth, Bob, I can see a jury going for that.’
I felt my eyes narrow. ‘But you’ve got the balls to give them the chance, Davie, yes?’
‘If you dig your heels in, I’ll prosecute. But if we lose, then the civil suit will follow. Drop all charges and Green will go away, quietly.’
I stared at the wall, trying to burn a hole in it as I thought. Paula Cherry might be chicken, but Davie was a good guy, and I had learned to trust his instincts almost as well as my own. Holmes and son had me by the balls; I knew it, and I did not like the feeling.
‘I’m going back to the office,’ I announced. ‘I’m going to keep him for as long as I can, and then I’m going to charge him with attempt to murder. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have a night to think about it, and to decide whether we walk away from it.’
Pettigrew nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
‘Of course I reserve the right-’ Mrs Cherry began.
‘This is Scotland,’ I snapped. ‘You don’t have any rights here. I’ll call you later, Davie.’
‘Is she always like that?’ I asked McFaul, when I could trust myself to speak. By that time we were within sight of the office.
‘That was her being cooperative. She works on a ninety per cent chance of conviction; that’s her benchmark. I’ve never met anyone with a more extreme view of what’s a reasonable doubt. We’re screwed, Bob.’
‘Not necessarily. I’m going to ask our specialists if they can place anyone else in his car. If they can’t, that might add a couple of points to her calculation.’ I smiled, for what seemed like the first time in a while. ‘Mind you…’ I paused, to consider possibilities more rationally than I had in Pettigrew’s office. ‘Are you as angry as me?’
‘Too bloody right.’
‘Then charge him.’
‘Eh?’ he murmured. ‘How can I do that?’
‘On the basis of the evidence. McGrew’s in Scotland, you’re in Scotland in pursuit, with a right to be here. As I told her, she has none. She’s invisible to me. You charge him, and I’ll use all my media friends to make sure that the story goes national. Then if she wants to stick to her line, she’ll have to explain it publicly, instead of hanging failure round our necks.’
He glanced at me. ‘I’d love to do it, but there’s one major obstacle in the way: Paula Cherry’s husband. His name’s Norman, and he’s one of our assistant chief constables. She may be invisible to you, but he’s very real to me. If I charged McGrew, after the meeting we’ve just had, it would be a disciplinary offence. I’ve got a wife and three kids, a nice house in Hexham and a pension to protect. I’ve even got promotion prospects. I can’t, Bob.’
‘He’d hang you out to dry,’ I said, ‘even though the man pointed a gun at you?’
‘ACC Cherry,’ he sighed, ‘would hang Mother Teresa out to dry if Paula told him to.’
‘You realise that I’m probably going to have to release the bastard?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘The fucking Holmeses!’ I spat. ‘Like father, like son.’
‘Having seen him, I wouldn’t say that the father’s got away scotfree.’