‘Did you replace Sammy?’
‘Like hell I did! I told Andy that I wasn’t going to undermine one of my best detectives and that he could replace me if he had a problem with that. He backed down, but the boy Pye’s future in CID is hanging by a very thin thread if he doesn’t get a result.’
‘And you? How are you placed with him?’
‘Honestly? I have no idea. I don’t know the man any more.’
He was still brooding as he sat with the two Edinburgh detectives in the Fettes canteen, a mug of tea enveloped in his very large right hand. He was focused on one single objective, preserving his own authority as deputy in charge of all criminal policing, and protecting Pye’s position was inextricably linked to that.
If the Zena investigation collapsed, and Martin carried out his threat to transfer Pye out of CID, it would be a resignation issue for him . . . and he would not go quietly.
‘The man Mackail’s death,’ he murmured. ‘What’s your thinking on that?’
‘We reckoned . . .’ Haddock began, but went no further as he felt the weight of McGuire’s heavy black eyebrows.
‘Sergeant,’ he growled, ‘when I put a question, unless I’m actually looking at you, it’s for the senior officer at the table to answer me.’
The DS gazed at the tabletop. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he murmured, icily.
‘Sauce and I reckoned,’ Pye began, then paused.
McGuire glowered at him; then he grinned, breaking the tension. ‘Nice one, Sammy; I appreciate you standing up for your sidekick. So go on, give me the benefit of your combined wisdom.’
‘We don’t have any,’ the DCI confessed. ‘We are stuck; we have no positive lines of inquiry left open. Callum Sullivan’s bank withdrawal was a red herring, as DCs Wright and Dickson have confirmed, and the banknotes found in Francey’s flat are untraceable. The Mackail connection to Grete Regal was all we had, and now that’s blown.’
He paused as the DCC drank some of his tea.?‘You’re right,’ he continued when he had his full attention once more, ‘that the corporate skulduggery, as you call it, doesn’t relate to the main investigation in any way we can see, but the aftermath . . . what about that? Hector Mackail was involved in a physical confrontation with Eden Higgins and a few days later he died in a hit-and-run, on his way home from the pub in North Berwick.’
‘Shit happens,’ McGuire grunted.
Pye laughed. ‘Sir, that’s just about the worst piece of devil’s advocacy I’ve ever heard.’
‘Maybe, but are you saying that one of Scotland’s richest men ran over a guy just because he’d stuck one on him?’
‘No, because his foot was in plaster; but he could have paid someone to do it, someone who knew the lie of the land and might even have known that Hector Mackail drank in the Nether Abbey bar with his pals every Friday and then walked home.’
The DCC swirled the dregs of his tea around the bottom of the mug. ‘North Berwick’s not awash with hit men, is it?’ he said.
‘No, sir, it’s not,’ Pye agreed. ‘But there is one, or rather there was, that we know of, someone who actually knew Mackail, or knew of him, through his daughter. What if . . .’
McGuire beamed. ‘Some of the greatest results in the history of criminal investigation began with those two words,’ he observed. ‘Go on.’
‘What if the money we found in Francey’s flat wasn’t a down payment for the Zena abduction, but payment in full for knocking over Hector Mackail?’
‘What if . . .’ The deputy chief paused. ‘Okay, you’ve established that Francey took the child and injured her mother, but nothing in your investigation of the bloke has suggested that he had a reputation for that sort of work.’
‘No,’ Pye accepted. ‘Maybe Mackail was killed by a drunk who panicked and drove off. But if he wasn’t, then at the very least, Francey should be investigated as a suspect. And if he was involved, is it likely that two different people, entirely unconnected, would approach him and hire him to commit violent crimes?’
The DCC leaned back and looked at the ceiling. ‘But what possible connection is there between one of Scotland’s richest men and an obscure graphic designer from Garvald?’
‘That’s the question, sir,’ Sauce Haddock ventured.
‘Then don’t just sit there,’ McGuire boomed. ‘Go and fucking answer it!’
Forty-Eight
‘Did it not occur to you to advise CID of Mr Mackail’s death?’ Sammy Pye asked.
Inspector Carmel Laird gazed at him. ‘Why should it have?’ she replied. ‘It was a traffic fatality.’
‘It was a hit-and-run,’ Sauce Haddock pointed out. ‘A man was killed, and the driver left the scene; that’s a crime. FYI, the “C” in CID stands for Criminal.’
She kept her eyes on Pye. ‘Is your gopher always insubordinate?’ she murmured.
‘Detective Sergeant Haddock is a law unto himself,’ Pye replied quietly. ‘I kick his arse occasionally, but never when he’s right.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ Laird protested. ‘This is Haddington; we’re East Lothian, you’re Edinburgh. Suppose I had asked for CID assistance, it wouldn’t have been you I’d have gone to.’
‘We share information in the department.’
‘We share information too. We posted a report of the fatality on the ScotServe website . . . and we appealed for witnesses. Naturally, we also reported the fatality to the procurator fiscal. Those are the laid-down operating procedures, so don’t question me, question the senior command if you’ve got a problem.’
‘I question them all the time,’ Pye replied. ‘In fact I’ve just come from a meeting with my big boss where I asked him how a man’s violent death isn’t automatically the subject of a major criminal investigation. He’s just gone off to ask your immediate boss the same question, and I don’t think he was planning to ask politely. Time to circle your wagons, Inspector, and cooperate.’
‘So how can I help?’ she asked, stiffly.
‘You can begin by taking me through the story. So far the only information I have came from the victim’s wife.’
‘You could have looked at the website . . .’
‘But we didn’t,’ Haddock said, ‘because we’re technically inept, and old fashioned enough to believe that there’s still room for common sense in the service.’
‘See when you’re back in uniform,’ she hissed, ‘and posted out here . . .’
‘If that ever happens,’ the DCI snapped, ‘he’ll be an inspector at the very least. You, on the other hand, will be lucky to be a sergeant, if you annoy me any more. Let’s forget what you did, and focus on what you should have done. Take us through what happened.’
Laird picked up a folder from her desk and found a document; she began to read through it, commenting as she went.
‘Deceased was found in Station Road, just past the fire station.’
‘Who found him?’ Haddock asked.
‘A passing motorist saw him and called 999. Deceased was lying on the pavement, against a stone wall and a traffic sign. Paramedics arrived, followed by a medical examiner. Deceased was removed by ambulance but he was DOA at the hospital.’
‘What about the attending officers?’
‘Sergeant Chocolate . . . that’s Sergeant Brown, and PC Raymond.’
Pye frowned. ‘When did they get there?’
‘A couple of minutes after the paramedics, and just before the ME.’ Inspector Laird seemed to wince, slightly. ‘They’d been attending a reported disturbance at a rugby club dinner in Aberlady, and there was no other patrol car available.’
‘So they got there more or less as Mackail was being removed.’
‘That’s right. They followed the ambulance.’
‘And he was found lying on the pavement, you said.’
‘That’s right too. He was still in the position he was found in when my officers arrived.’
The two detectives looked at each other; Pye raised an eyebrow, Haddock nodded.
‘So when did they realise it was a hit-and-run?’ the DS asked.
The inspector’s face flushed. ‘Not until he was examined at the hospital,’ she replied. ‘The admitting doctor suspected crushing injuries, and that was confirmed by a post-mortem.’