‘Then privately,’ I told him, ‘I’ll accept what you’re saying. If I do so publicly, it means that Edinburgh has an unsolved murder on its hands, and my old colleagues wouldn’t thank me for that.’ I paused. ‘As a matter of interest, what about the other woman, could she confirm that you were with her?’
‘Not any more; she’s dead. She was killed in a fire in her husband’s car showroom, down in Seafield.’
I remembered that fire. It had been no accident. I’d known the woman too, and wasn’t sorry she was dead, but that wasn’t ground I was going over with Lennie.
‘Let’s get back to Bella,’ I said. ‘Did you have any contact with her at all?’
‘I sent her a Christmas card every year. Do you want to know why? Because she was the only person I could send one to. There was always you, I suppose, but your wife might have thought it was a bit weird.’ He grinned. ‘Or should I say your wives?’
‘Touché,’ I chuckled. ‘Aileen certainly would have. Your contemporary socialist politician is pretty old guard when it comes to crime and punishment.’
‘All politicians are; they’re all things to all people. When I get out I might form a new party on the internet, and let the members determine the policies by questionnaire. They’ll tell us what they want and we’ll believe in it.’
‘I hate to disappoint you,’ I said, ‘but you’re too late. They’ve been doing that for years: focus groups, they call them. Did Bella send you a card back?’ I asked.
‘No. And we had no contact other than that. I’ve had no contact with her, in fact, since before I went in for assault.’
‘Why did you do it? Why did you look after her in that way?’
‘I did it because Tony would have wanted me to,’ he explained. . although I’d known the answer anyway. ‘He had a soft spot for the old boot; Perry Holmes had both her sons killed, and the second one died because of him. Tony took care of her when he was alive, and when I inherited his estate, I felt that I’d an obligation to carry on doing that. She’d been living in a flat that Tony owned and left to me, but it was attached to some property I wanted rid of, so I instructed the lawyers to give her a budget and let her choose her own place.’
‘I see. So you don’t know anything about her life?’
‘Nothing, not since the last time I saw her, and as I say that must be fifteen years ago. You’ve probably seen her more recently than I have.’
‘Probably not; I think the last time I saw her was at her son’s funeral. You may recall it; you were there, cord number three, if I’m right.’ Then I remembered a later meeting, with her and Manson. ‘But no, that wasn’t the last; there was one more time after that.’ I caught his eye. ‘What did you think of her, Lennie?’
He tilted his head back and gazed at the ceiling for a few moments. He was smiling when he met my eyes again. ‘Ever read Lord of the Rings?’ he asked.
‘Sure, a long time ago.’
‘Do you remember Shelob, in the third book?’
‘The bloody great spider that nearly does for Frodo?’
‘That’s the one; bloody great female spider, to be absolutely accurate. That’s how I’ve always seen Bella: clever, cunning and utterly vicious.’
‘That’s a good analogy,’ I conceded. ‘I’ve always suspected that her brothers did her bidding a lot of the time, but I’d never have got near proving it. So, from all the people she mixed with back in those days, can you think of anyone who might have carried a grudge against her for a long time? After all, she was living as Isabella Spreckley, not Watson. Could it be that an old enemy had lost track of her, then came across her again?’
‘It could. I’ll grant you that. But if that’s what happened, I can’t help you with a name. Apart from Tony, nobody liked the woman, but I can’t think of anyone who might get that extreme about her.’
‘Look at it from another angle,’ I suggested. ‘People she might have had a serious down on herself.’
‘Even there, I can’t tell you anything you don’t know already. The Spreckley family fell foul of the Holmes brothers. They made Bella’s brother and son, Gavin and Ryan, let’s say disappear. Brother Billy took out the Holmeses and died in the act. A few years later, Bella’s second boy was killed, on Perry’s orders, then Perry drowned in his hydrotherapy pool.’
‘Was drowned, we reckoned,’ I corrected him. Officially, Perry’s wheelchair malfunctioned, or so the fiscal decided, when no alternative could be proved.
‘And so did most people,’ he acknowledged, ‘but if you’re asking, I have no idea who held him under. You’re not suggesting that was Bella, are you?’
‘I know it wasn’t. I didn’t investigate it, but I know she might have been a suspect if she hadn’t been able to prove she was in Florida when it happened. . with Tony Manson.’
Lennie whistled. ‘I didn’t know that. It tells me plenty. Normally Tony wouldn’t have taken Bella anywhere you couldn’t reach on a Lothian bus. That suggests he was behind it.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s academic; ancient history. I didn’t care much at the time and I care nothing at all now.’
‘Whatever, Bob, it just about closed the book on Bella’s feud.’
‘You’d imagine so, but. . Tell me, have you ever come across a man called Peter Hastings McGrew when you were inside? He’s a lifer too, doing time for two murders.’
He stared at me. ‘As a matter of fact, I have. We met when he came to Kilmarnock, three years ago. I run group self-assessment sessions in prison, me and an outside psychologist. The idea is to get long-term prisoners to open up about their crimes, and to examine their motivation at the time. We don’t ask them about their current perspective, for they’d all claim to have reformed. It’s the job of my colleague to listen to them and reach a view on their fitness for parole. Hastie McGrew came to these sessions.’
I felt my antennae twitch. ‘He came to them, you say?’
‘Yes. He was released on licence a few months ago, at the back end of last year, in fact.’ I felt a chill run through me, but I hid it from my visitor.
‘Did you know anything about his crimes before you met him? Had you ever heard of him?’
‘No, and that surprised me, until he told me that he did what I did: he accepted his culpability and pleaded guilty to save the Crown the cost of a trial.’
‘Right. Now, do you remember a man called Derek Drysalter, a footballer?’
Lennie frowned and his big face darkened. ‘Always. Where are you going with this, Bob?’
‘Not far,’ I replied. ‘Drysalter was a hit-and-run victim. That’s how the complaint read, and that’s how it was investigated. Needless to say we never traced the car or the driver. . because they didn’t exist.’ Lennie knew that I knew exactly who had smashed the guy’s legs, but I had no wish to make him admit it.
‘The lad was a serial gambler,’ I went on, ‘and very bad at it; he’d run up a big tab with Tony Manson, so certain conclusions were drawn. He never played again after his. . accident, but he’s done all right since as a manager and a pundit.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Lennie said. ‘All I will say is that I had doubts about a few of the things Tony asked me to do, but he was my patron so. . For every action, a reaction; behind every effect, a cause. That’s the way our world worked,’ he observed. ‘It’s the way the legitimate works too, but that’s codified, and those codes are the accepted mores. Now,’ he continued, ‘are you going to tell me what took you from Hastie McGrew to Derek Drysalter?’
I did. ‘They’re brothers-in-law.’
I didn’t think I could ever surprise Lennie Plenderleith, but that did.
‘They’re what?’ he gasped. ‘Are you telling me that wife of his. . What was her name again? Alafair, that was it. . that Tony Manson was banging, was Hastie McGrew’s sister?’
‘I am indeed. Now, work this one out. Hastie and Alafair were illegitimate in the days before it was fashionable. They used their mother’s name rather than their father’s. Given that young Marlon Watson, who was Tony’s driver, remember, was killed by hired talent from Newcastle while Tony and the girl were off in Majorca or wherever, who do you think Daddy was?’