As Dan Provan looked up at his new boss, two thoughts entered his mind. The first of them was financial. He had over thirty years in the job, and his pension was secure as long as he didn’t punch the chief constable in the mouth, and since that struck him as being a seriously stupid overreaction, it wasn’t going to happen. So the ‘daft laddie’ option was open to him, without risk.
But the second was professional, and pride was involved. He had survived as long as he had because he was, in fact, a damn good detective, and as such he was expert in analysing every scenario and in identifying all the possible lines of inquiry that it offered.
A third consideration followed. Skinner hadn’t asked him the question to embarrass him, but because he expected him to know the answer.
He frowned and bent his mind to recalling as much as he could of what had been said in the previous half hour. He played the mental tape, piece by piece, then ran through it again.
‘It’s the flights,’ he said, when he was sure. ‘The two dead guys had plane tickets out of Heathrow. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Now if everything had gone to plan, the two hit men, Smit and Botha, or Lightbody and Mallett, or Randall and fuckin’ Hopkirk deceased, whoever they were, if it had all gone to plan, they’d have driven straight out of this car park, almost before the alarm had been raised, headed straight down to London, dumping our friend Bazza in some lay-by along the way, and got on a fuckin’ plane. Right, boss?’
Skinner nodded. ‘You’re on a roll, Sergeant, carry on.’
‘Thank you, gaffer. In that case, even as we’re stood here, they could have been sipping fuckin’ cocktails in business class. Except. . their flights were booked for Monday, for tomorrow. So what were they supposed to be doin’ in those spare twenty-four hours?’
The chief constable smiled. ‘Absolutely. Top question. You got an answer for that one?’
Provan shrugged, ‘No idea, sir.’ He nodded towards the boot of the Peugeot. ‘But if we find out what they were doing with poor old Bazza Brown there, maybe that’ll give us a clue.’
Seventeen
‘He’s a marginally insubordinate little joker, but I do like him,’ Bob chuckled. ‘He and that DI, Lottie, they’re some team.’
Sarah smiled across the table, on which the last of their dinner plates lay, empty save for the skeletons of two lemon sole. She raised her coffee cup. ‘Could it be that Glasgow isn’t the cultural wasteland you thought it was?’
‘Hey, come on,’ he protested. ‘I never said that, or even thought it. I’m from Motherwell, remember; I’m not quite a Weegie myself, but close. I have a Glasgow degree; I spent a good chunk of my teens in that fair city. West of Scotland culture is in my blood. Why do you think I like country music and bad stand-up comedians?’
‘So part of you is glad to be back there,’ she suggested.
‘Sure, the nostalgic part.’
‘Then why did you ever leave?’ she asked in her light American drawl. ‘Myra was from Motherwell as well and yet the two of you upped sticks and moved through to Gullane in your early twenties.’
‘You know why; I’ve told you often enough. I liked Edinburgh, and I liked the seaside. I wanted to work in one and live by the other. I’ve never regretted that decision either, not once.’
‘But what made you choose it over Glasgow? I can see you, man, and your pleasure now at being back there. There must have been an underlying reason.’
He leaned back in his chair and gazed at her. ‘Very well,’ he conceded. ‘There was. I didn’t like being asked what school I went to.’
‘Uh?’ she grunted. ‘Come again? What’s that got to do with anything?’
His laugh was gentle, amused. ‘You’ve lived in Scotland for how long? Twelve years on and off, and you don’t know that one? It’s code, and what it actually means is, “Are you Protestant or are you Catholic?” Where I grew up that was a key question, just as much as in Belfast, and for all Aileen and her kind might try to deny it, I’m sure it still is in some places and to some people. The answer could determine many things, not least your employment prospects.
‘Why the school question? Because through there, education was organised along religious lines; there were Roman Catholic schools and non-denominational, the latter being in name only. They were where the Protestants went. So, your school defined you, and it could mean that some doors were just slammed in your face.’
‘Wow,’ Sarah murmured. ‘I know about Rangers and Celtic football clubs, of course, but I didn’t think it went that deep.’
‘It did, and for some it still does. Both those clubs condemn sectarianism but they still struggle to eradicate it among their supporters. I decided very early on that I didn’t want any kids of mine growing up in that environment, and Myra agreed. That’s what was behind our move.’
‘But now you’re back you like it?’
‘Hey, love, it’s been one day. My reservations about the size of the Strathclyde force are as strong as ever. What I’m saying is that I like the people I’ve met so far. Mann and Provan, they’re good cops and pure Glaswegian, both of them.’
‘What school did they go to?’
‘As for Lottie, I have no idea.’ He winked. ‘But the Celtic supporter’s lapel badge that wee Provan was wearing still offers something of a clue. He may miss their next game,’ he added, ‘if they don’t get these killings wrapped up soon.’
‘Yeah,’ Sarah said. ‘The body in the boot must have been a bit of a shaker.’
‘It was for Lowell, that’s for sure. He jumped out of his skin. Me too, to be honest, but I’ve gotten good at hiding it.’
‘Why was he there, the dead guy?’
‘I guess they didn’t want to leave him wherever he was killed. The provisional time of death was Friday evening some time; with the hit being planned for Saturday, they may not have wanted to muddy the waters by having him found.’
‘Meaning the police might have made a connection to them?’
He nodded. ‘It would have been a long shot, but that would have been the thinking.’
‘Mmm.’ She frowned. ‘But I didn’t mean why was he in the boot; I mean why were they involved with him at all?’
‘We all asked ourselves that one. It seems that the late Mr Brown was a reasonably heavy-duty Glasgow criminal, but I doubt very much that Mr Smit and Mr Botha met him to do a drug deal on the side.’
‘Are you still sure those are their real names?’
‘Oh yes, we know that. We can trace them all the way back to the South African armed forces. Lightbody and Mallett were aliases. It remains to be seen whether they actually lived under those names, one in New Zealand, one in Australia. We’ll need to wait for the passport offices and the police in those countries to open before we can follow them up.’ He checked his watch; quarter to nine. ‘New Zealand should be wide awake now, Australia in an hour or two. Anyway, whatever their fucking names, what were they doing with a Weegie hood?’
‘Yes, any theories?’
‘Only one, the obvious. Mr Brown must have been involved in the supply of the police uniforms and equipment, and they must have decided not to leave him behind as a witness.’
‘So why did they leave the arms dealer alive?’ Sarah wondered.
‘Because he’s part of that world, I’d guess, and was in as deep as they were. A small-timer they’d have seen as a weakness.’
Sarah refilled her cup from a cafetière. Bob, who had given up coffee at her suggestion, almost at her insistence, topped up his glass with mineral water.
‘But the tough questions are, why was he in the chain at all, and who introduced him? There we do not have a Scooby, as wee Provan would probably say.’