Sullivan’s smile was fleeting, and had a touch of shyness about it. ‘Maybe.’
‘So you must have been pissed off when she and Dean Francey hit it off.’
‘You could say that,’ he snorted. ‘I didn’t even invite him, Maxwell did. I barely knew the guy, and anything I’d heard didn’t impress me. As it’s turned out, I was right. There was an incident,’ he continued. ‘One of my Edinburgh guests had a bit too much and got fresh with Anna. She could have handled it herself, but Francey rode in to her rescue like the Lone fucking Ranger. Maxwell and I had to pull him off the bloke. Anna was impressed, of course; so impressed that she left with him. That was that . . . and it got her killed.’
‘Eventually,’ Haddock agreed. ‘But let’s get back to wee Zena. Does the name Grete Regal mean anything to you?’
‘No. Why? Should it?’
‘I don’t know, that’s why I asked. Thing is, she was Zena’s mother, and at the moment she’s lying in the Western General, unconscious, having had her skull fractured by Dean Francey.’
‘That’s very sad, but . . . so?’
‘So, Mr Sullivan,’ the DS said, ‘you knew Francey, and you knew Anna Harmony. He assaulted the mother and kidnapped the child. She was going to help look after her in a rented cottage up in the Pentlands.’
‘Does that mean they were going to hold her for ransom?’
‘They weren’t taking her on her holidays,’ Pye snapped. ‘She was going to be exchanged for money, or something, that’s for sure, but what’s equally certain is that those two young people, Dino and Singer, weren’t acting on their own initiative.
‘They were being paid to do it. We know that beyond doubt. And what we believe is that when Francey screwed up, the person who paid them shot them both, to silence them for good and all.’
‘Okay,’ Sullivan protested, ‘but why the hell are you talking to me?’
‘Because we have a problem,’ Haddock told him, his ‘good cop’ tone calming the situation. ‘You bank with the Clydesdale in Lothian Road, sir. We know that. It’s quite a way from North Berwick, isn’t it?’
‘Yes I do,’ he agreed. ‘You want to know why? When I sold my company, I had to stay in there for two years because the price was profit-related, over that period. It’s called an earn-out. One of the sale conditions was that its banking had to be integrated with that of the new parent company. So the business accounts moved from HSBC to the Clydesdale. When it happened I was offered sweeteners to shift my personal accounts there as well, so I did. That’s what’s behind it. However,’ he added, ‘my car business accounts are still with Bank of Scotland in North Berwick. Satisfied?’
‘Not quite,’ the DS said. ‘In the middle of last month, you withdrew twelve thousand, in untraceable used notes of the bank’s own issue, from your Clydesdale account. When we searched Dean Francey’s flat on North Berwick Mains Street, we found five thousand, also in untraceable used notes, many of them from the Clydesdale. Given that it’s a relatively small bank and there aren’t a hell of a lot of those around, you might understand our curiosity.’
Sullivan ran his hand over his chin, muttering a muffled, ‘Oh fuck.’
‘Does that mean, “Oh fuck, you’ve got me”, sir?’ Pye asked.
‘I think I want a lawyer,’ the other man replied.
‘If you feel you need one, we’ll suspend this informal discussion and resume it under caution, where everything you say will be on the record.’
Sullivan leaned forward. ‘Look, that money you found in Francey’s, it didn’t come from me. But . . .’
The DCI held up a hand. ‘Stop. If you’re going to admit to criminal activity, yes, probably you do need a lawyer.’
‘I don’t know. Tell me something first. How do you guys relate to the taxman?’
‘HMRC handles its own investigations,’ Pye replied. ‘We don’t report everything we hear to them.’
‘Then don’t report this, and switch off the recorder.’
‘Okay.’ He pressed the ‘stop’ switch.
‘Remember the car I told you about, the Bristol?’
‘Yes.’
‘The twelve grand was for that. I bought it from a classified ad in the local paper. It was only described as a classic car, no make specified, and it was price on application. The seller wanted fifteen K, but he would only do a deal off the books. He said he needed money but he didn’t want his wife to know how much the thing was worth. She’d always thought it was an old junker, so he was going to tell her he got two grand for it and pocket the difference.’
‘Husband of the year, but go on.’
‘Normally,’ Sullivan continued, ‘I wouldn’t do that sort of deal, but the car was worth twenty-five, with a minimum of touching up. So I beat him down to twelve and we shook on it.’
‘As a matter of interest,’ Haddock asked, ‘what’s Mr King paying for it?’
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘Jeez!’ the DS whistled. ‘Gaffer, are you sure that’s not criminal?’
‘Not unless there’s misrepresentation,’ Pye laughed. ‘If someone wants to pay that much for a forty-year-old car, good luck to all parties involved.’
‘That’s right,’ the dealer declared. ‘I’ve had people pay upwards of ten grand for a Mark One Escort, ten times the original costs.’
‘Not this fella,’ the DCI said, tapping his chest. He frowned at Sullivan. ‘You do realise we’ll need to confirm your story with the original seller of the car?’
The dealer shrugged. ‘Que sera, sera. His name’s Paul Cockburn and he lives in Longniddry. If you can do it when his wife’s out you’ll be doing him a favour.’
‘We’ll try. Meantime, if you put that sixteen grand profit through your company accounts you’ll be doing yourself a favour. I’m not saying we’d go running to HMRC, but it’s never a good idea to give guys like us a club to hit you with.’
Sullivan winced. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. Can I go now?’
‘Yes,’ Pye said, ‘we’re done. We’ll arrange a lift back for you.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll hang around town till lunchtime and visit Kayleigh and her mum.’ He sighed as he stood. ‘It’s too bad about Anna; I’m struggling to get my head round that. She was a really nice kid; friendly too. If only I hadn’t let Francey come to that party, they’d never have met. She might even have been with me today.’
‘My granny used to say,’ Haddock murmured, with a wistful smile, ‘“If wishes were horses, we’d all get a hurl.” Maybe she would have been, but I’m not sure how you’d have handled your girlfriend being a pole-dancer, Mr Sullivan.’
The man stared back at him. ‘Why would it bother me? I own Lacey’s. How do you think Anna got the job?’
Forty-Three
‘That’s quite correct,’ DC William Dickson declared. ‘Callum Sullivan bought Lacey’s bar nine years ago; it was called the Peregrine then. His ex-wife’s owned fifty per cent of the place since the divorce, and she’s the licensee of record. It’s vested in a limited company called CJ Inns that owns a total of four pubs in the city.
‘The fact is,’ the DC continued, ‘he’s a very wealthy man; he sold his company, CS Compressors, for eight million. Since then all he’s done is play around with his classic cars, but that’s profitable too. His company accounts showed a taxable profit of a hundred and seventeen thousand pounds in his first year’s trading. He has no debt, he’s a member of the Renaissance and North Berwick golf clubs, and of the New Club in Princes Street.
‘He’s been single since his divorce, with no particular attachments. Everybody likes the guy, including his former brother-in-law, Sergeant Harris. I spoke to him and he’s full of praise for the way that Callum’s looking after his son.
‘Most important of all, I can find absolutely nothing to connect him with Grete Regal. Nothing, period. That’s it, sir, Sarge.’
‘Who bought the company?’ Haddock asked.
‘It’s now a subsidiary of Higgins Holdings,’ the DC replied. ‘That’s the holding company for Eden Higgins, the guy who used to be a furniture tycoon and now does even better as a venture capitalist.’