‘I suppose,’ Mrs Ford conceded. She was silent for a while as she replayed the discussion in her mind. ‘What you said earlier,’ she went on, when she was ready, ‘about Marlon working for the folk that killed his dad. What did you mean by that? Who ordered it?’
‘His name was Perry Holmes,’ Pye told her. ‘He was the top man in organised crime in Edinburgh and probably in Scotland, at the peak of his career. He had a run-in with the man who employed Marlon Senior.’
‘The guy Manson?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And the laddie was killed in the crossfire?’
‘More or less. He was targeted, to send a message to Manson, because Manson was having an affair with Holmes’s daughter.’
‘They killed the boy for something his boss done?’ She was incredulous.
‘Yes.’
‘Animals, the lot of them. So how does our laddie come to be working for them?’
‘As far as we can see it’s purely accidental. Perry Holmes was in a wheelchair. He had a carer, who happens to be Duane Hicks’s cousin, and who still works in Edinburgh. Duane asked him if he could help young Marlon find a job.
‘Perry Holmes had a lot of legitimate businesses, as well as the criminal side, and when he died his son and daughter inherited them. Vanburn, the cousin, was on good terms with the son, and that’s how it came about. They even gave him a flat to rent, I believe.’
‘That’s true,’ she affirmed. ‘These people, do they know who Marlon’s father was?’
‘I don’t believe they have any idea, and it will stay that way as far as we’re concerned.’
‘How much does he know about them?’
‘Again, nothing. He was told the circumstances of his father’s death and his family history, but that’s all.’
‘And that’s enough. He must never know about these Holmes people.’
Pye nodded. ‘We couldn’t agree more.’
‘Thanks. We’ll get the boy out of there. Robert’ll find him a job in the bus garage, and he can come and live with us.’ She leaned back in her chair and looked at them. ‘But that’s not all that brought you here, is it?’ she observed.
Haddock smiled at her perspicacity. ‘Not quite,’ he admitted. ‘We wanted to ask if you know anything else about the Watson clan. To be specific, did Lulu ever mention Marlon having had a child, a son, by anyone else, before her?’
‘I doubt it would have been after her, son, given that she had a few weeks to go when they buried him. But no, she never did. If you’re really asking whether he had an earlier kid with Lulu, the answer’s no. She wasn’t off the rails much longer than it took her to get knocked up.’
Pye leaned forward, rejoining the discussion. ‘What about the rest of the family? You see, we know that Bella had another grandson, but we can’t work out how.’
‘I see.’ Gina Ford paused, pondering the question. ‘Well,’ she ventured, ‘as I recall, the last time I saw our Marlon’s dad, when he dropped Lulu off from a hospital appointment, he was all excited. I asked him why. He said that he was going to meet his sister, and he hadn’t seen her for twelve years.’
‘Sister?’ Haddock exclaimed as he stared at the DI. ‘What bloody sister?’
Fifty-One
I hadn’t expected Jim Glossop to get back to me before the following Monday afternoon, at the earliest, but I’ve always underestimated his skill and his tenacity. I was on the point of leaving the office for a weekend with my family, when Sandra buzzed me to say that he had called.
I was ever so slightly vexed. On the basis of Father Donnelly’s firm assurance, in my mind I had downgraded the search for the missing Mackenzies from a potential murder hunt to a domestic situation that had got way out of hand and for which there would be hell to pay when eventually they turned up.
Monday would have suited me fine; at that moment my mind was fixed on Gullane’s Number Three golf course and the evening round that I had promised James Andrew, my younger son, who shows significant promise for his age. (Mark, his older brother, is a whiz at the computer version of the game. He can find no serious console opposition in our house, but sadly he has no aptitude on grass.)
I took the call nonetheless; I could have asked Sandra to lie and say I’d just left, but that would have been churlish. She might also have refused, and that would have been awkward. On top of all that, Jim was a mate, doing me a good turn.
‘Jim,’ I said, making myself sound as enthusiastic as I could. ‘You need more information?’
‘Not at all. It was dead easy really. There’s no twists and turns in your subject’s recent history. He was born exactly when you said, in Houston, Renfrewshire. His parents were Alastair Gourlay Allan and Wilma Maxwell Allan, maiden name Adams, both schoolteachers, married in Glasgow University Chapel on the thirty-first of August, nineteen forty-three. One sibling, Jonathan Allan, born on the second of February nineteen forty-four, no comment.’ He paused for a chuckle.
‘Maxwell Allan married Julie Austin,’ he continued, ‘on the seventh of April, nineteen seventy-seven, in High Blantyre Parish Church. They listed their occupations as police officer, and physiotherapist. They had two children, a son called Gourlay and a daughter called Rosina, but she died in infancy. How’s that then?’
‘A sad ending, but bloody brilliant as always.’ I hadn’t known about Max’s lost child; but some things are too painful to mention, so that didn’t shock me.
I’d been scribbling as he spoke, and had all the salient details noted down. From the list of names, one was familiar. ‘Hold on, Jim,’ I said, as I delved back into Mackenzie’s file. I was looking for confirmation and I found it.
‘That’s great,’ I said, ‘but I need one more thing. . well, two more actually. Can you find out whether Julie Austin has, or had, a brother called Magnus, and whether he had any kids?’
Fifty-Two
‘No,’ Mary Chambers declared. ‘I have never heard any mention of Marlon Watson having a sister. After you called me I even checked with the ACC. He was involved in the murder investigation, albeit as he says he was brand new in CID, but he swears blind that nobody ever made any mention to him of any sister. Are you sure this woman’s memory is up to it? She is a grandmother, after all.’
‘My granny never looked like that,’ Pye countered, ‘or was half as sharp. It’s a line of inquiry and we’ll check it out.’
‘You do that,’ the head of CID said, ‘but it’s not your top priority. The council CCTV monitoring people have been on, looking for Sauce. When they were told you and he weren’t in, they came on to me. They want to see you, pronto. They’ve been bursting their braces for you and I got the impression they’re looking for a bit of public credit for it.’
‘We’re on our way back to Leith,’ the DI said, ‘but we’ll divert there. As you say, boss, the sister can wait.’
The Bluetooth call went dead just as they reached the traffic lights in Great Junction Street. Haddock, who was at the wheel, made a last-minute lane change and flashed a right turn signal, drawing a horn blast from the driver behind. The man followed him into Leith Walk, and sat on his rear bumper, big in his mirror, headlights flashing and horn still blaring.
‘Fuck this!’ the sergeant declared, slowing.
‘Ignore him, Sauce,’ Pye ordered. ‘If he follows us all the way to the council offices we’ll do him there.’
They never found out whether he would have gone that far, for they were stopped by a red light at the next junction. Immediately their pursuer leapt out of his vehicle and ran up to Haddock’s door. The DS rolled down his window, holding up his warrant card.
‘Can you read that, sir?’ he asked. ‘If not, it says, “Get back in your motor or we’ll do you for breach of the peace.” Understood?’
The red-faced man uttered not a word; instead he weighed up his options and chose correctly.
‘I was in Traffic in my second year in the force,’ Sauce said, as the lights changed and he drove away. ‘I hated having to be polite to people like him.’