‘But no clue to where he kept his Cohen money?’
‘Yes and no. The wife, widow now, told us that he had a computer, an Apple MacBook Air laptop that he was never parted from. His life was in it, was how she put it. Am I right in thinking that hasn’t shown up anywhere?’
‘You are,’ Skinner agreed. ‘Nothing of his has turned up. He was buried naked, wrapped in a sheet. Leave that with me, Lowell. I’ll check it out and get people moving if I have to. Where are you off to now?’
‘To check out his workplace, in the Elephant and Castle, wherever that is. It’ll be a shock for his mother-in-law, or maybe not, depending on how she felt about him. From what I gather, Byron, or Beram, wasn’t much bloody good as a buyer. That’s what the father did, and the business has been suffering since his death.’
‘Let me know how you get on. Then we can decide whether there’s anything else to be done in London.’
‘Will do, boss.’
The chief constable flicked a button on his console to end the call, another for an outside line, then dialled a number that was ingrained in his memory, yet which he had never called before.
A female voice answered. ‘Yes?’
‘Bet you got a shock when that rang,’ he said. ‘Theory being that it’s for your private calls, and not routed through the comms centre.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Maggie Steele replied. ‘This is the fourth call I’ve had on it. One was from Chief Constable Haggerty in Dumfries, another was from Archbishop Gainer, and the third was from old John Hunter, the freelance journalist, who’s got onset dementia and asked me for a prawn biryani with naan bread. He got me mixed up with the Asian takeaway. Are there any of your friends who don’t have this number, Bob?’
‘One or two. How are you getting on?’
‘Okay, but I still feel a wee bit overawed. It feels strange, sitting in this chair, and you on the other side of the country. Only for three months though, yes?’
‘That’s the duration of my appointment,’ he agreed, ‘or my loan if you’d rather put it that way.’
‘Can I have a straight answer to that question? You will be back, won’t you?’
‘That’s my intention.’
‘Bob! Don’t prevaricate. Have you been seduced by the bright lights and the glitter balls of Glasgow already?’
‘No, but. .’
‘I knew it!’ she declared.
‘No, really. I still have three months in my head, for reasons that are more than just professional.’
‘The kids, I imagine.’
‘And Sarah,’ he added, ‘but keep that very much to yourself. I know that you and she didn’t always see eye to eye, but much of that was my fault. It’s best for us as a family that she’s here, and that we get along.’
‘But? I can still hear it, hanging there.’
‘But, there are good people through here, Mags, and they need leadership. There is no successor here, from within, and frankly, nobody else in Scotland either, except possibly for Andy, and he wouldn’t want it.
‘The force has already been disrupted and demoralised by Toni Field, God rest her, by her blind ambition and her half-arsed ideas. I’ll hear about the likely runners when the job is advertised. If I don’t fancy any of them, I won’t rule out applying for the post myself.
‘As I say that, I’m thinking that it sounds incredibly conceited, but I am a good cop and I do believe that I’m capable of doing the job, in spite of the misgivings I’ve always held about the size of this effing force.’
‘That’s not conceited,’ she retorted, ‘it’s the plain truth. And beyond that,’ she asked, ‘will you go for the police commissioner post, if unification happens?’
‘I haven’t thought that far, but if I can overcome my doubts about policing half of Scotland, I suspect I’ll be able to do the same about the rest.’
Maggie laughed. ‘Now there’s a sea change, after what you were saying in the press last weekend. If it’s what you want, Bob, or what you feel you have to do, good luck, although I’ll worry about who we might get here as your permanent successor.’
‘I’m listening to her,’ he said.
‘Nice of you to say so, but I don’t have the seniority. The councillors on the Police Authority won’t have it.’
‘The councillors will have it, because I’ll bloody tell them. Their political parties all owe me favours and I will call them in, make no mistake.’
‘But maybe I don’t want it,’ she suggested.
‘Bollocks,’ he laughed. ‘You do, because your late husband would have insisted on it.’
He heard her sigh. ‘You’ve got me there. Stevie would. Hell, though, my in-tray’s stacked high here, and yours must be even bigger.’
‘True, but I didn’t just call you to shoot the breeze. I need your help in our top-priority investigation, Toni Field’s assassination. You weren’t really involved when it began, but are you up to speed now?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed, ‘fully.’
‘In that case, you’ll know it all began when we found the body of a man in Edinburgh, having been directed by the people who left him there, his ex-soldier buddies. They’re now dead, having been killed on the scene after the Field hit. We’ve found their car, and what was in it, including the body of a well-known Glasgow hoodlum. Although we haven’t linked his death to them, but there was nothing there that referred back to Cohen. Everything that he had is missing. That includes a MacBook Air laptop. . you know, the super-light kind. . and that’s what we would most like to find.
‘It may no longer exist. Freddy Welsh told me he burned his clothes but he didn’t mention the computer. Maybe that went into the fire as well, but maybe not. Either way, Freddy needs to be asked; use Special Branch. Have George Regan go to see him. He’s been well softened up, so he’ll talk with no persuasion.
‘If he can’t help us, I would like you to institute a search, city-wide, but looking initially at the area near Welsh’s yard, where Cohen died, and around Mortonhall, where he was found. Will you do that for me?’
‘Of course. What’s on the computer?’
‘I don’t know; his wife in London said his whole life was on it, but maybe that means nothing more than his iTunes collection and photographs of her and their kid. On the other hand, there may be the key that unlocks all the fucking boxes.
‘We know already all there is to know about Byron Millbank; that’s the alias he was given by somebody’s friends at MI5. If what the widow told Lowell Payne and Neil McIlhenney is literally true, the MacBook, if it still exists and we can find it, may tell us everything we need to know about Beram Cohen, including the name of the person who paid him to kill the chief constable of Strathclyde, and why.’
‘We’ll get on it right away,’ Steele promised.
‘Thanks,’ Skinner said. ‘It’s a long shot, I know, but if you don’t buy a ticket, you won’t win the raffle.’
Forty-One
‘Where have you been, Sarge?’ Banjo Paterson asked, as Provan came into the room. ‘The DI was on the phone looking for you.’
‘Did ye tell her I’ll call her back?’
‘No. I thought you might not want to. It’s awkward with her being suspended.’
‘She’s not fuckin’ suspended!’ Provan yelled, flaring up in sudden fury. ‘She’s on family leave. If I hear that word used once more Ah’ll have your nuts in a vice, son.’
The DC backed off, holding up his hands as if to keep the little man at bay. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’
‘Aye, well. . just mind your tongue from now on.’
‘Understood. So,’ he continued, ‘where have you been? You went out that door like a greyhound. I’ve never seen you move so fast.’
‘Doesnae do tae keep the chief constable waiting,’ the DS said, a smirk of bashful pride turning up one corner of his mouth.
Paterson whistled. ‘A summons from on high, eh? What did he want?’
‘He wants us to do a wee job for him. Ah need you to get intae your computer and find me a phone number for the equivalent of the General Register Office in the Republic of Mauritius. . wherever the fuck that is.’