‘Will it? Suppose he’s . . .’ He stopped. ‘No, suppose he can’t give a good account of himself?’
‘Either way, I promise you, we will be discreet. If the kid has nothing to do with this, we don’t want to mess up his life . . . or yours, for that matter.’
Eight
Mario McGuire slid his car into an empty space. It was marked ‘Reserved’, but there was nobody within half a day’s drive who would outrank him, and so he took it without a moment’s hesitation. He knew Hawick, from a brief stint in Borders CID a few years before. He had been based in Galashiels back then, much closer to Edinburgh, but the wool town had kept him busy enough.
He switched off his engine and stepped out. There was a dampness in the air, although the clouds were high and rain did not seem imminent. He looked across the car park at the building to which he was headed, a squat, three-storey structure that stood in stark contrast in its ugliness with the elegant houses on the other side of the street, but which redeemed itself by making the area a burglar-free zone.
They would be waiting for him, around the conference table, the area commander and senior staff, and the CID team that he had come to visit, as part of a tour that would take him all around Scotland, in line with Andy Martin’s decree that his senior officers should fend off accusations of centralisation by showing their faces in each local policing area as often as possible. The sandwiches would be curling up at the corners; he had been delayed by a lorry accident that had given him too much time to dwell on the awful gut-wrenching sight in the Fort Kinnaird mall.
He had wanted to stay there, to take command and drive the investigation to a swift successful conclusion. He understood the frustration that Bob Skinner must have felt, the impotence of being just another bystander. But the days of action were gone for them both. He was part desk jockey, part tourist and his one-time mentor was a civilian.
‘For how long, I wonder,’ he murmured, thinking of a night a few years earlier, when he and Skinner were celebrating the arrest of a fugitive killer in a hotel in Monaco.
‘You know, Mario,’ the chief had said, after a few drinks. ‘The traffic has to flow safely, people must be protected against yobbery and anti-social behaviour in general, and our towns and cities must be peaceful places. Ensuring all of that is part of my job; I do it as best I can. But there’s one part that drives me on and always has done. We dress it up in fancy terms but when it comes down to it, mate, we are in the retribution business. We are the fucking equalisers, make no mistake. When we nail someone like the bastard we’ve just locked up, so help me God, I love it.’
Could the man exist without that purpose in his life? McGuire was far from certain.
He was halfway to the police station entrance when his phone sounded. He took it out and smiled as he looked at the caller ID. ‘Hello, Bob,’ he said as he answered. ‘Has Sammy not been back to you with an update?’
‘No, but I wouldn’t expect him to, not yet, not unless he’s got lucky and wrapped it up within an hour or two. This is something else.’
‘Oh yes?’ The DCC was intrigued by the urgency in Skinner’s voice.
‘I’ve just had lunch with Alison Higgins’ brother, Eden. I don’t think you ever met him, but you know who he is and what he does.’
‘I know very well, he’s a very successful man, the furniture king, turned business angel and general entrepreneur; a couple of years ago, he made an offer for a controlling interest in our family business. My lovely Paula turned him down politely, but he kept at it, wouldn’t take no for an answer, until finally she stopped being polite and he got the message.’
‘That’s the man. He’s got a problem, and he’s asked for my help. Just over four months ago, his boat was stolen from the Gareloch: five million quid’s worth of boat. My old force handled the inquiry and got nowhere. It was run out of Dumbarton by a DI called McGarry. I knew nothing about it or I’d have given it a hell of a lot more clout than that.
‘Now, after all that wasted time, Eden’s been told that the inquiry’s been wound down. He’s not happy, nor are his insurers. Together they’ve asked me to review the investigation, and I’ve agreed. I’d like a copy of the police report, so that I can see what’s been done and what should have been done but hasn’t.’
McGuire had stopped, outside the Hawick station entrance. ‘You want to review a police investigation, as a civilian?’ he asked.
‘That’s what I’ve been hired to do. I could start from scratch, but that might be pointless. The chances are that all I’ll be able to tell Eden is that McGarry did a competent job and that his boat’s history. If I give the security of his mooring a clean bill of health as well, the insurers will probably pay full value and that’ll be the end of the matter.’
‘Fine,’ McGuire murmured, ‘but if you’re not satisfied that the thing was handled properly, what will you do?’
‘I’ll go proactive. I’ll make my own inquiries, fill in the blanks in the report and see where it takes me.’
The DCC made a decision. ‘I’ll need to clear it with Andy, but in principle, yes. If you do find any holes in what’s been done, we might want to take the investigation back, but we’ll cross that bridge if we reach it. One thing,’ he added. ‘McGarry’s not a DI any longer. He’s back in uniform, in Glasgow. His clear-up rates were crap, so he got culled. Okay, Bob, if the chief approves, I’ll give you the file. Hell, I might even have a look at it myself.’
McGuire heard him chuckle. ‘Do you want me to cut you in on my fee, Mario?’ Skinner joked.
‘They’re paying you?’ he exclaimed.
‘Two hundred and fifty an hour, plus expenses, plus success bonus.’
‘Bloody hell! Is the private sector that lucrative?’
‘It’s the going rate for the job these people want done. I make a lot more than that working for InterMedia. And you know what? I don’t give a shit. It’s only money. If I could choose between getting a result for my new client and coming face to face with whoever put that little girl in that car, she’d win every time.’
Nine
‘Maxwell?’ the Seabird Centre manager repeated. ‘Yes, he’s here. He’s downstairs in the exhibition area. I can ask him to come up, but it’s only ten minutes to his lunch break. If you can wait that long, it would be easier all round.’
‘Yes, I can do that,’ Haddock said.
‘You can wait in the cafe if you like,’ the woman suggested. ‘The coffee’s good.’
The detective smiled. ‘Is there anywhere in North Berwick that doesn’t sell coffee?’ he asked.
‘Not too many places, that’s true. It used to be that this town had more charity shops than anything else, but now the baristas have taken over.’ She looked across the counter. ‘Why do you want to see Maxwell?’ There was the faintest hint of suspicion in her voice.
The DS plucked his reply out of thin air. ‘I’ve been talking to his uncle about a car.’ He and Pye had agreed that they would intercept the boy as quietly as possible; the DCI was waiting in the car, parked on the adjacent harbour, out of sight of the centre.
‘Oh yes,’ the manager said. ‘Mr Sullivan’s a dealer, isn’t he?’
‘That’s right. I had a question, and he told me that Maxwell would know more about it than he does. He said I’d find him here.’
Haddock moved across to a display of souvenirs. Cheeky, his partner, was a sucker for soft toys; his eye fell on a fluffy white seal cub, and he picked it up.
He had just finished paying for it when a door opened behind the counter and a young man stepped out. He was tall, slim and wore a grey hooded top.
‘Maxwell,’ the manager called out. ‘This chap wants a word, about one of your uncle’s cars.’
The boy turned towards him, with a small frown born of curiosity. ‘What would I know about . . .’ he began, as the sergeant closed the gap between them, displaying his warrant card with as much discretion as he could achieve.