‘This friend of yours; do you think she could do the job?’
I took a deep breath. ‘I honestly don’t know, Miles. Maybe you should take a day or two to think about that. She’s just lost her partner; could be she’d struggle with that sort of responsibility.’
‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. Hey, you’ve changed, buddy. In the past you’d have said hire her just because she’s female. No harm in sounding her out though.’
‘I suppose not,’ I said, noncommittally. Then I thought of something else. ‘Do you have a contact number for Ewan Capperauld? I want to touch base with him on something.’
‘Sure. He and his wife are staying with his parents; I’ve got his number noted somewhere. I’ll send you an e-mail before we leave.’
‘Fine.’ I hung up the phone.
Ricky Ross had finished his sandwich. ‘Thanks for putting in the good word with the boss,’ he said.
‘Remember it.’
‘What do you want to talk to Ewan about?’
‘I told Sergeant Morrow about it; a business thing, the reason Alison wanted to see me.’ I sketched in the part of the story I had left out before, explaining the feud between the Capperauld cousins, and her predicament with James Torrent. When I was finished, Ross frowned. ‘I didn’t know about that,’ he muttered, as if the omission was a personal affront.
‘Thank Christ you don’t know everything,’ I snorted.
‘I try to, though, Oz; I do try.’
‘Why are you so interested in Ewan anyway?’
‘I’m handling his personal security while he’s in Edinburgh. It’s part of the contract; his, Mr and Mrs Grayson’s, Steele’s, Massey’s, the Japanese guy’s, the Waitrose girl’s and yours.’
‘Mine?’ I exclaimed.
‘Aye. You’re a VIP now, son. I’ve got a team looking after all the principal cast members. Ewan Capperauld’s round the clock, and so will the Graysons be when they arrive, and the Japanese guy. The rest of you will have people responsible for you when you’re filming on the streets, and you’ll be given a number you can call if you’re being pestered.
‘Everyone will be told about the arrangements at the briefing on Thursday; apart from Mr Capperauld, that is. He knows already.’
Something clicked in my brain. ‘Ricky, how did you get this gig?’
‘Through a guy I know from the old days; a bloke called Mark Kravitz. You’ll never have heard of him.’
He was wrong there; I know Mark all right. I’ve seen him in action too. He had worked for Miles on my first film project, when we’d had a bit of trouble. He’s a man of mystery, and he has contacts all over the place, both sides of the fence, top to bottom.
If Ricky Ross was involved with him, maybe he deserved a new degree of respect.
‘Do you want Mr Capperauld’s contact details?’ He took a diary from his pocket, flipped through it, then wrote an Edinburgh address and a phone number on the front page of my script, which was lying on the coffee table.
He drank the last of his beer and stood up. ‘Better be going,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire just now.’ He scratched his chin. ‘I wonder if young Ron’s making anything out of the argument between the two Capperaulds? I don’t know if it was wise to let that slip,’ he mused.
‘Don’t be daft. He’s not going to go after Ewan Capperauld.’
‘I fucking would,’ Ricky grunted.
He was just about to leave, when the phone rang again. ‘Yes,’ I said, as I picked it up. I never give my name these days when I answer a call.
‘Mr Blackstone?’ It was a woman’s voice, high and twittery, and full of panic.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Mrs Goodchild, Alison’s mother. She’s in terrible trouble.’ She started to cry, on the other end of the line.
‘Okay, okay, okay,’ I exclaimed. ‘Now please try to calm down, and tell me what this is about.’
I had met Alison’s mother a couple of times when we had been going out. She had been a widow for a couple of years then, and she hadn’t been handling it well. Alison had said that she had been flaky at the best of times. Listening to her burble on the phone, it was clear that she hadn’t improved.
‘Mrs Goodchild,’ I said. Ross’s eyebrows rose. ‘Please. Take a couple of deep breaths, and try to control yourself.’
Eventually she could speak again. ‘Alison called me,’ she said. ‘She’s with the police, and they’ve arrested her. She phoned me just a minute ago and asked me to call you and tell you. She said you’d help her.’
‘Oh shit,’ I murmured.
‘Pardon?’
‘Yes, Mrs Goodchild,’ I replied, quickly. ‘Of course I will. Now you just calm down; take a pill, or have a brandy or whatever, and try not to worry. I’ll sort everything out.’ I sounded like the Wizard of, rather than just Oz.
‘I’ll call you later.’
I hung up and looked at Ricky. ‘Do me a favour and come with me.’
‘Sure, but where are we going?’
‘Back to Gayfield; I might need you to use your influence with your protege.’
Chapter 20
The woman in the public office looked a little more hesitant this time when ex-Detective Superintendent Ross marched in and asked to see Detective Sergeant Morrow.
‘I’ll see if he’s available, sir,’ she said, reaching for a telephone.
‘He’s available,’ Ricky snapped. ‘Now go and get him.’ Her face flushed up; but she stood and did as she’d been told.
‘Did you really leave the force?’ I asked him. ‘They don’t act as if you did.’
‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘If you’d been a fly on the wall at the last discussion I had with the former chief constable, you wouldn’t ask that. The only choice the old bastard gave me was whether I resigned as a superintendent or was kicked out as a sergeant.’ He smiled, grimly. ‘I had my supporters, though; coppers who’ve actually been out on the trail of villains, rather than building their careers pushing paper.
‘When I left, they had a big dinner for me in the King James Hotel. It was organised by the Superintendents’ Association. They invited the boss man, but he declined, so we drank a toast to him in his absence, only none of us stood up for it.
‘There’s a new chief now, a bright, young guy; he was a detective sergeant under me before he went south for a spell, so my face fits again, even in the executive corridor.’
The constable reappeared, stone-faced, with Morrow following her. He beckoned us through, and led us into the CID office. ‘For fuck’s sake, sir,’ he began. ‘I’m in the middle of an interview.’
‘We know you are,’ Ricky replied, ‘and we know who you’ve got in there. You let her phone her mother, and she phoned Oz in hysterics. Now is the lassie getting home tonight, or what?’
Morrow took in a breath, then let it out. ‘I don’t know. It’s actually the second time we’ve interviewed her today. I had her in this morning before I saw you. She’s been formally arrested, and cautioned, but we haven’t charged her yet.’
‘What are your grounds?’ I asked.
It was as if the sergeant was answering Ross. ‘First she doesn’t have an alibi for last Wednesday, and she’s lying about it. She told me at her first interview that she was at home, but we’ve checked with the taxi firm that has a contract with her company, and they’ve got a record of her being picked up that evening and being taken back to her office. It’s in York Place, and you could spit from there to David Capperauld’s flat.
‘On the back of that, we got a warrant from the sheriff to search her house.’ He reached into a drawer in his desk, took out a clear plastic bag. ‘We found that.’
We leaned over and looked down; it was a carpenter’s awl, small and needle-pointed, with a red wooden handle.
‘So,’ I said. ‘I used to have one of those. My Dad still has. Why shouldn’t Alison, or are girlies not supposed to have DIY tools?’
‘That one was found in her house, but it has David Capperauld’s prints on it. . and one of hers.’