‘And get you brownie points with the chief?’ Haddock murmured, laughing.
‘Us,’ Pye countered grimly. ‘If this thing winds up in the unsolved column nobody’s going to come out with pass marks at the next review . . . apart from Jackie, ’cos I’ll make sure she does. Now, where is this place?’
‘There it is.’ The DS nodded towards a doorway on the other side of the road, where Sergeant Tweedie stood, waiting. ‘Did you get the keys?’ he asked her as they crossed.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘The landlord wanted to come with us, but I told him that wouldn’t be appropriate in a criminal investigation. He liked that.’ She grinned. ‘It’ll give him something to tell his pals in the Nether Abbey at the weekend.’
She led them through a door that opened directly from the street into a dimly lit corridor. The detectives counted three flights of stairs, until there were no more to climb.
‘You two won’t remember DCS Pringle, who used to be head of CID in the old force,’ Pye told the sergeants as they reached the top. ‘By the end of his career he used to insist on being given a detailed description of a call-out. If there were stairs involved he wouldn’t go. Stevie Steele, God rest him, told a story about the last time he did, a visit to a fourth-storey flat. When they got to it, they found the door painted purple. Stevie said Pringle’s face was about the same colour.’
He stood back, as Sergeant Tweedie produced the keys. Only the Yale was needed. ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, moving to one side, then following them into the attic apartment. It was small, but freshly decorated, with a dormer window that allowed a view across the putting green and towards Fife.
‘What are we looking for?’ she asked, as the trio put on rubber gloves.
‘Anything that links to associates of Francey,’ the DCI replied. ‘Did you get anything out of Chic when you gave him the death message?’
‘Nothing useful,’ Tweedie told him. ‘Like you told me to, I asked him to make a list of his son’s associates. The only names he gave me were people he drank with in the County and the Ship. I know them all, just like I knew Francey. There are a couple of rowdies in there, but nobody who I’d consider for a minute for this sort of thing.’
‘Did he mention Callum Sullivan?’
‘No; nor his nephew either. I’ve been asking around and my impression is that he and the boy Maxwell Harris were no more than acquaintances. The kid was struggling for friends when he moved here, and that’s why he latched on to Francey.’
‘Friendly enough for him to have been in Mr Sullivan’s garage and seen the car, though,’ Haddock pointed out.
‘True,’ Tweedie conceded, ‘but you know what I think? I think Dino smelled money, so he cultivated the kid, just to see what might come out of it. And at the end of the day, something did.’
‘The red BMW.’
‘Exactly. I was suspicious as soon as I heard that he helped Maxwell polish the cars. That was far too much like work for Dean Francey. There had to be something in it for him.’
‘As there was,’ the DS murmured. ‘Far more than he could handle.’
‘Hey!’ Pye’s call came from the other side of the room, by the window. He had lifted the television set down from the cabinet on which it stood, then opened the rectangular unit and looked inside. ‘I might have something here.’
He reached into the box and took out a passport, and then a brown envelope with an elastic band securing it from the outside. He carried both to a gateleg table that stood against the wall.
He removed the fastening from the envelope then slid out its contents: a wad of cash, secured tightly by another elastic band. Holding the bundle carefully, he rippled through the notes with his thumb.
‘Used notes,’ he murmured. ‘Clydesdale Bank issue, on the outside at least.’
‘How much is there?’ Haddock asked, as the DCI returned them to the envelope.
‘I’m not a bank teller, and I don’t want to handle them any more than I have to, not until the scientists have had a chance to print and swab them. But, if they’re all tenners, as they seem to be, I’d take an uneducated guess at five grand.’
‘Do you think that’s payment in full, or a first instalment?’
‘The latter surely,’ the DCI suggested. ‘Didn’t Jagger say Dino was going to meet a guy who owed him money?’
‘Hold on,’ the DS exclaimed. ‘If it was half in advance and he was going to collect another five K, why did he need Jagger’s thirty quid and his bank card?’
‘We know that. He and Singer were going away for good; and maybe also because after the utter bollocks he’d made of the job he was sent out to do, he might have had doubts about whether he would actually get paid the rest.’
‘Are you sure the money relates to the abduction?’
Both men turned and stared at Lucy Tweedie as she asked her question.
‘This much I am sure of,’ Pye said, quietly. ‘He didn’t make it selling frozen fish as fresh to Chinese restaurants.’
Thirty-Two
I have never been the best sleeper; all through my life there’s been plenty to keep me awake, whenever I close my eyes and try not to think of it. Scenes from my childhood, scenes from my early adult past, and scenes from more recent times; they’re all there waiting to be replayed. The most recent, and because of that the most vivid, is set in a mountainside lodge in the Pyrenees, but we won’t go there.
It’s worst when I’m on my own. Mostly my nights are uninterrupted when Sarah’s beside me. It marks her out as special to me; none of the others, not even Myra, and certainly not Aileen, ever came close to banishing my nocturnal horrors.
I tried that night, after I’d left my Seonaid to the peace that I hope will last her a lifetime, but as I’d known, it was a no-hoper. What kept me awake? What else but the newest clip in my library, the vision of sad-eyed little asthmatic Zena Gates, revealed, reproachful, after spending her last moments in terrifying darkness, struggling for one last breath that didn’t come.
I left her to it, because I didn’t have the courage to face her. Instead, at around four thirty, I rose, showered, had what would be, given the time, my first shave of the day and went downstairs. I made myself coffee, a good strong filter brew of which Sarah would have disapproved. It was a minor act of cheating on her, I suppose, and I did feel guilty, but I needed it.
In the office, I picked up the McGarry file again, and had another look at it. I was no more impressed than I’d been the first time. I’d covered up for the guy when I’d spoken to Eden, but I was still enough cop not to have criticised him to a civilian. I made a mental note to call stolenboats.org, on the crazy off chance that it might have some intelligence on the fate of the Princess, then put it aside, turned on the computer and read my online morning newspapers. The dead child case was covered wall-to-wall as I’d expected, with many more questions than answers, but nothing about Dean Francey and his girlfriend had been picked up at that stage. I guessed that even the virtual media must sleep sometimes.
Sounds from the kitchen at seven thirty told me that Trish had come in from her apartment to start getting the kids up and ready for school. She’s a godsend, that girl. She’s been with the family for years, since not long after she arrived from Barbados, and shows no sign of wanting to leave us. It occurred to me as I listened to her rattling dishes that if Sarah did turn out to be pregnant again it would be good news for her.
I went through to tell her that Sarah was in Edinburgh and that she was in full charge of the brood. Then I went upstairs and dug out my running gear. At least twice a week, all year round, I run in the morning. In the summer I can go where I want, but when the nights are long, and the sun comes up with the eight o’clock news, I have to keep to the village, where there’s enough light.