‘Is she on good terms with all her customers, or has she had any business difficulties that you know of?’
Mrs Rainey frowned. ‘There is one client she is having trouble with,’ she replied. ‘It was a business in Edinburgh; she did a lot of corporate identity work for them. She redesigned their logo and all their stationery. They approved her proposal and she spent a lot of time on it. She produced a manual for them and commissioned the print work on their behalf. She paid for it herself, assuming that she would be reimbursed. But when she submitted her final account . . . it was a lot of money . . . they were slow to pay.’
‘What did she do?’
‘Grete is not a confrontational person, Chief Inspector; also she has no commercial sense. Effectively I manage her company. After a couple of months I called the people. They promised payment but nothing happened. After another few weeks I wrote to them, and had a letter back saying that the matter was in hand. Those very words.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Next it all got really nasty. Still there was no money, so I sent a second letter, this time from a solicitor. This time the reply came from someone else, accountants. It said that the client’s company had been bought by another business, after it had been closed, wound up, liquidated. There was no money to pay Grete.
‘Naturally I went back to the lawyer. He advised that I had to pursue her customer personally for the debt, and so I did. I went to court on Grete’s behalf and I won. The money was still not paid. Now, the lawyer has taken charge and is seeking another order to recover the debt, by selling the customer’s assets if necessary.’
‘How much are we talking about?’ Pye asked. ‘Do you know?’
‘I believe it is just over fifty thousand pounds,’ Mrs Rainey said. ‘Grete will not get it all, I was told, for there is not enough money there, but there will be some once the assets are realised. I am unhappy about it. And so is Grete, for another reason.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘Ah, but I do not think you understand. It is not losing money that makes Grete sad. There will be enough to pay for the printing costs that she incurred on the client’s behalf. It will only be her own time that she loses. No, she is upset because the people involved will lose their home, their car, everything.’
‘It’s a hard old world,’ the DCI remarked. ‘I know because I work in it. If people have broken the criminal law they have to face the consequences, and it’s the same in civil matters. If a court finds that a company has behaved improperly, its directors can’t just fold it up and walk away. There is nothing that your niece should feel guilty about. If you’d come to me instead of going to the civil court I might have ended up charging the client with fraud.’
‘But Grete is kind. She never did a single thing in her life to deserve how that company treated her, nor to deserve what has happened to her today.’ Finally tears tracked down Ingrid Rainey’s stolid face. ‘You know I am not sure that I want her to live. That may be terrible, but it is true. I cannot bear for her to wake up to find that she has lost her baby.’
‘Yeah,’ Pye whispered. ‘I don’t know how I’d feel in those shoes.’
He paused as the woman dabbed at her eyes.
‘The client,’ he began when she was composed. ‘Can you recall the name, of the company or of the owner?’
‘They are the same. It is Mackail.’
It was Pye’s turn to frown. I know that name, he thought.
Twenty
‘I have as little to do with my father as I possibly can,’ Donna Rattray confessed. ‘He’s a . . .’ Exasperation showed clearly in her expression. ‘A chancer: that’s what he is. There’s never been any certainty with him, none at all. He’s driven my mother crazy over the years. She works, she’s a cleaner, but she only ever earned enough to clothe Dean and me when we were young, and herself. Dad’s never had a proper steady income as such; she’s never known where the next penny was coming from, never been able to plan anything, never had a holiday. Any time she suggests that, he always says the same thing. “What do we need a holiday for? We live in North Berwick.” That’s my dad. He’s interested in nobody but himself.’
She, Haddock and Wright were standing in the reception hall at Queen Margaret University, the meeting place they had chosen when she and the detective constable had spoken by telephone. Haddock had chosen to begin the discussion obliquely, not to reveal at once the real reason for their visit.
‘And yet,’ he said, ‘the pennies do keep coming in, don’t they?’
‘I’ll give him that,’ Donna conceded. ‘They do. Somehow or other Mum still has a roof over her head, and the fridge is never empty. He goes out in that silly boat of his with his silly pots and always seems to catch enough lobsters and crabs to keep the family afloat.’
‘Is that all he does?’ Wright asked. ‘Doesn’t he have any sidelines?’
The woman’s face flushed; it was only a slight change of shade, but enough to be noticed. ‘He buys and sells stuff,’ she admitted, ‘on the side, but I know very little about it.’
‘You mean the fish?’ Haddock murmured.
‘Yes, but . . . Look, he might be all the things I’ve just told you, but he’s my father, so don’t expect me to shop him.’
‘It’s all right,’ the DS told her. ‘We know all about the fish, but it’s not our concern.’
Her complexion went from pink to red. ‘I’ll bloody kill Levon!’ she exclaimed.
‘That’s not the sort of thing you should be saying to two police officers,’ Haddock chuckled. ‘But it wasn’t only him. We were told about it as well by a friend of your brother, Michael Smith.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘You might know him as Jagger.’
A look of disgust flashed across Donna’s attractive face. ‘Him! Dean knows what I think about him. Has he got my brother involved in that silly business again?’
‘We’re under the impression it was the other way around,’ the DS said. ‘Dean supplying the fish and Jagger storing it . . . or Jagger’s granny, to be completely accurate.’
She threw her head back, gazing at the ceiling. ‘I’m under no illusions about my brother,’ she admitted, ‘but I keep on trying to convince myself that it’s all Dad’s fault for the way he was brought up. It isn’t. Dad might be a chancer, and a bit of a con man, but he isn’t a thief.’ She looked at Haddock once again. ‘Is Dean in trouble?’
‘Yes. Have you heard from him today?’
‘There was a missed call on my mobile,’ she replied. ‘It was from Dean, timed just after ten. But that was all; just that one.’
‘Do you walk to work?’ Jackie Wright asked. ‘We saw a car in your driveway.’
‘We have one each. I’ve got a wee Toyota. Most days I drive here, even though it’s not far.’
‘And park here?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is your car still there?’
Donna Rattray stared at the DC. ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘Just wondering. Can you see it from here?’
‘Yes.’ Donna raised a hand, pointing across the car park in the open area outside. ‘There it . . .’ She stopped. ‘It’s not,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s gone! Are you bloody psychic?’
‘Sometimes,’ Wright said. ‘Does Dean ever drive it?’
‘Yes, quite often. He can’t insure one himself, with his record.’
‘Does he have a key?’
‘Yes. Are you saying that he . . .’
‘That’s exactly what we’re saying,’ Haddock replied. ‘Colour?’
‘White. It’s the Aygo model. The little . . .’ she hissed.
The DS handed her a card and a pen. ‘Write the number down there.’ She obeyed; he handed it to the DC. ‘Call it in, Jackie.’
‘This is more serious than fish, isn’t it?’ Donna said quietly.
‘Yes it is,’ the DS told her. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you, about your kid brother.’
Twenty-One
‘How did she take it?’ Sammy Pye asked, just before he bit into his burger.
‘Utter denial,’ Haddock told him. ‘What big Levon said was right. Dean is Donna’s weak spot.’