‘The son’s name is Ignacio, yes?’
‘So I’m told. The kid’s some sort of genius chemist, the Guardia people say. He must be if he can synthesise crystal meth at the age of eighteen without blowing his fucking head off.’
‘And that’s all you’ve got, is it?’ she asked.
‘So far, yes. Your tone tells me you think you have more.’
‘Indeed I have. A pound to a pinch of pig shit, leave out a couple of letters and translate her surname into English and you’ve got Bella Watson’s missing daughter, and with her, from the sound of it, the mystery grandson that we can place in her flat.’
‘Hey,’ he said warmly, ‘good for you guys. It’s amazing what you can do on a weekend. Are you going to break it to Sammy Pye?’
‘No, I’ll let the head of CID do that. She’s my very next call.’
Fifty-Six
‘Is there any slight chance that one day, your phone won’t ring on a Saturday?’ Paula Viareggio asked her husband.
‘That could happen,’ he told her, ‘if I’m made redundant after the start of Police Scotland.’
He was frowning when he said it: she took him seriously.
‘They wouldn’t do that, would they?’ she exclaimed. ‘Not with Bob Skinner in charge, surely not.’
‘Work it out, love,’ he suggested. ‘There are going to be four deputies and six ACCs. Andy Martin’s a cert to be one of the deputies, Maggie’s odds on to be another, and probably Brian Mackie. That’ll leave a lot more people at that rank than there are vacancies. Some will retire, sure, but I’m no cert to get a slot.’
‘You will, though.’
‘Let’s wait and see.’
‘It’ll be a disgrace if you don’t.’
He laughed and hugged her. ‘No, it’ll be fate. That’s what happens when you let politicians run the country.’
‘Don’t talk to me about them,’ Paula muttered. ‘Who was that on the phone?’ she asked.
‘Mary Chambers, dropping a bombshell. One I must ask Andy about.’
He left her to attend to baby Eamon’s latest demand and called his one-time colleague.
‘I know what you’re on about,’ Martin exclaimed, before McGuire had a chance to ask him. ‘Bella Watson’s daughter, right?’
‘Dead right. Mary’s just told me about her. She says they’re absolutely sure. Are you guys?’
‘It looks nailed on. It was her van, in her mother’s street and she’s using her old radio name, or nearly all of it.’
‘Andy,’ McGuire said, ‘I was on the Marlon Watson investigation, remember, and I had no idea that a daughter existed.’
‘Oh, she did, I promise you; short dark hair, drop-dead gorgeous, eyes you could drown in; she looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn. If you doubt me, ask Alex; she says she met her too, although she was vague on how. Understandable, since she was only a kid at the time.
‘But Mario,’ he added, ‘she was never a suspect, not for a moment, so after that first meeting, that I was in on, there was no need to talk to her again. It’s no surprise you never heard of her. After all, you were only the CID gopher at the time.’ He laughed. ‘I remember you turning up for your first day in plain clothes in an Armani suit and Bob having to tell you, not too quietly, to dress like a cop.’
‘Yes, I remember too. At least I can wear what I like now, unless uniform’s called for. I might wear it when I visit my CID team on Monday, to read the fucking riot act! I’m going to want to know,’ he said, ‘why we’re only finding out about Mia Watson now, and why it takes somebody’s granny and the head of an outside agency to tell us. I’ve already torn a strip off Mary. . unfairly maybe, with Mackenzie being missing. When that man turns up he’s fucking toast, I tell you.’
‘Hey, calm down, big fella,’ Martin urged him. ‘Don’t get too steamed up. As I understand it, your team might have done a more thorough family check on Bella at the start, but they did trace the daughter, the hard way, and they did find out that her son, the anomalous grandson, existed. That said, when I see Karen tomorrow night to deliver the kids I’ll tell her to wear her iron knickers on Monday morning.’
‘She’s exempt,’ McGuire said, quickly. ‘It’s Sammy and Sauce I’ll be after. . although again that’s probably unfair, since Mackenzie appointed himself SIO at the start of the investigation till I told him otherwise. That’ll be another can he’s carrying.’
‘He’ll be weighed down. What’s this about him being missing anyway?’
‘Slip of the tongue. I never said that; he’s on personal leave, okay?’
‘Noted. Now,’ Andy asked, ‘what’s the story?’
‘He and his wife have flown the coop. We don’t know why and we don’t know where they’ve gone. There were some forensics in the house that had us a ball-hair off launching a full-scale murder hunt, but Bob’s assured us that he hasn’t harmed her.’
‘Bob has? How’s he involved?’
‘We felt we had to tell him,’ McGuire explained, ‘because of Mackenzie’s Strathclyde background, plus we needed his force’s help in the early days.’
‘And because of their personal history?’
‘Partly.’
‘So Bob’s investigating the business himself?’
‘I haven’t a clue what Bob’s doing.’ McGuire paused. ‘You don’t, do you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Martin replied, ‘but I can tell you this. If he is on the trail, God help Mackenzie.’
Fifty-Seven
I’d known Max Allan for as long as I’d held chief officer rank. We’d met at the first ACPOS (Scottish chiefs’ association) meeting I’d attended as an ACC and had regular contact from then on. But in all that time I’d learned very little about his personal life. I knew vaguely that he and his wife were regular customers at one of Paula Viareggio’s delicatessens, but that was all.
I’d expected Sarah to blow a gasket when I told her that I had to go through to Lanarkshire to see him, but when I explained why, she understood.
As I’d told Maggie, having uncovered the potential scandal, I felt that I had to see it through, but it was more than that.
Yes, I could have walked into Bridie Gorman’s office on the following Monday, dumped everything on her and told her to get on with it, but it would have been awkward for her, as she and Max had been side-by-side colleagues in Strathclyde.
He and I hadn’t; he’d been gone, to all intents and purposes, when I had moved into Pitt Street, so our relationship had been at one remove.
The thought did occur to me that perhaps I should call in an outside force to investigate, but on reflection I decided that was inappropriate because Max was no longer a serving officer.
And so it was yours truly who rang his doorbell, at his house in High Blantyre, to find myself face to face with a woman I’d never met, but whose close family background I knew.
‘Mrs Allan,’ I began, ‘I’m Bob Skinner, the chief constable.’
She gasped, and smiled. ‘I know who you are, Mr Skinner,’ she said, ‘although I have no idea why you’re here. Is Max getting that knighthood at last? Have you come to break the news?’
‘Not exactly, Mrs Allan,’ I replied, ‘but I do have something I need to discuss with him.’
‘And you’ve come all this way? That’s a pity, because Max isn’t at home. . not at this one, anyway.’ She stood aside. ‘But please come in nonetheless. Let me offer you a cup of tea at least.’
‘That would be kind of you,’ I told her and let her usher me indoors.
Mrs Allan was of the generation who show guests automatically to the best room, and so she did. In their case it was a bay-windowed lounge looking out on to the front garden. There wasn’t a single crease on any of the chairs, nor was there a television in the room, so I guessed that Max and his Mrs spent very little time there.
When my hostess returned, she was pushing a trolley, with two cups in saucers, and a Picquot Ware teapot and water jug with a matching sugar and cream set, the like of which I’d seen auctioned on Bargain Hunt a few weeks earlier.