‘His management,’ Pye repeated. ‘Is his style always as rough as it was with Mackail?’
‘No,’ Joan Stewart replied, firmly. ‘That was unusual; it wasn’t like Eden at all. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell me in person; maybe he found it difficult, maybe he felt guilty.’
‘Hold on,’ Haddock intervened. ‘Are you saying it wasn’t Eden Higgins who told you to hold back payment from Mackail?’
‘No, I’m not. Look,’ she exclaimed, ‘what he was telling me to do wasn’t something you put on paper, or in an email, or even in a phone call. The message came from him, word of mouth, via his vicar on earth.’
‘Who?’ both detectives asked, simultaneously, in a duet.
‘Sorry,’ she laughed. ‘That’s what we call his right-hand man, Walter Hurrell. He gave me the instruction.’
Fifty-Eight
The morning after I’d made my promise to Amanda Dennis, I awoke from a confused dream. It was set at the beginning of the Godfather movie; I was the undertaker Bonasera and a grotesque male version of Amanda took the role of Don Corleone.
I’d given my friend a commitment that I hoped I wouldn’t come to regret. When it became clear that I was heading for the exit door of the police service she had offered me, tentatively, a permanent role with the Security Service. I’d have been in charge of the Scottish outstation, installed as Clyde Houseman’s boss. I turned her down, firmly, citing two reasons, the first being that in his shoes, I’d have resented me, the second, and by far the more significant, being that most of the work would have bored me rigid and that any that didn’t might have involved an element of risk, the kind that I’d promised Sarah I’d avoid in my middle years.
She’d used the help that she was giving me with Gates to back me into a corner. I’d have done the same, but I’d been deadly serious in the proviso I’d attached to my acceptance.
Having put the daft dream out of my mind and having seen Sarah off to work, I had nothing to do. I had given my ‘advice’ to the four detectives; whether they took it or not, that it was up to them. With that time on my hands, I decided to devote the morning to administration.
Not that there was much of it to do. Along with her report, Carrie McDaniels had given me a detailed invoice; her terms specified ‘Payment within seven days’, but with the fate of the man Mackail and his company fresh in my mind, I decided to do better than that. I put the details of her bill into my purchase ledger, then set up a payment through my business bank account.
I had thought about playing a few holes of golf with anyone who might have been hanging around the club, but a note on the bank’s website told me that it would take an hour before I could complete my cash transfer. That, and the fact that it was freezing outside, put exercise on the back burner.
That frustration, and the fact that it had to do with Carrie, triggered something that I’d forgotten completely: the memory stick that she’d given me with her report on the insurance claim for Rachel Higgins’ stolen jewellery. Mentally, I’d filed it under ‘Irrelevant’, but with nothing else to do I retrieved it from the pocket where it had lain since it had been handed it to me, and plugged it into a USB port on my computer.
There wasn’t much to it; as Carrie had said, the swag consisted of three items, a necklace, matching bracelet and a pair of earrings, diamonds set in platinum. Each had been photographed, at the insistence of the insurers, no doubt, and it was equally certain that these had been circulated after the theft to every jeweller in the land, and to all the auction houses.
Waste of time, all of it. There was no chance of any of it being offered for sale through any legitimate outlet. The stuff would have been sold on for one third of its insured value, tops, on the ‘no questions asked’ market, and would never be recovered.
Carrie had done a thorough job for her client; she had interviewed Rachel Higgins, the investigating police officers, and the management of Mackiltee Lodge, the boutique hotel where the theft had occurred. The story was consistent; the jewels had been put in the hotel safe overnight, and in the morning they were gone. No alarms had been triggered and the safe did not appear to have been forced.
In my time I had seen dozens of theft reports that were virtually identical; I had even compiled a few. In Carrie’s, there was only one question I’d have asked that she hadn’t. Or so it appeared; she might have covered the base and thought the answer not worth recording. All the same . . .
The phone number of the hotel was on the file. Out of nothing more than curiosity I dialled it.
My call was answered by one of those accents that had evolved through many generations of poshness. ‘Mackiltee Lodge, Jane Mackiltee speaking. How can I help you?’
‘Good morning,’ I replied, in my finest Lanarkshire, ‘my name is Skinner. I’m reviewing the insurance company report into a theft from your hotel a few months ago, of jewellery belonging to Mrs Rachel Higgins. It’s nothing for you to worry about,’ I added quickly. ‘Just a belt and braces thing.’
‘Will it lead to a reduction of the outrageous renewal quote we’ve just been given?’
‘I can’t promise anything,’ I told her, truthfully. ‘But you never know,’ I added, vaguely.
‘Ah well. What is it?’
‘I just want to clarify one thing. Who put the valuables in the safe?’
‘I did,’ she said. ‘I hope there’s no implication . . .’
‘Absolutely none,’ I assured her, although there might have been. ‘While you were doing it, did anyone else see you?’
‘No.’
I was about to thank her and hang up, when I heard a slight hitch in her throat, an intake of hesitancy. ‘Well,’ she added, ‘apart from the client, that is.’
‘Mrs Higgins?’
‘No, no, not her. Their security person, Mr, Mr . . . I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, but it began with an H . . . not Higgins, he wasn’t family, something else. He brought the items down, he showed them to me, and then he insisted on observing as I secured them. That’s what happened.’
Was it indeed? I thought.
‘No problem there, in that case,’ I said. ‘Thanks for your help.’
Fifty-Nine
It’s all too easy for a cop engaged in a complex investigation to become obsessive; as soon as that happens his judgement is liable to be impaired.
I recognised the signs as I ended my call to Mackiltee Lodge. Walter Hurrell, not Rachel Higgins, took the stolen jewels to the safe and he watched the owner as she put them in there.
Yes, Bob, and that meant precisely what?
In all probably, it meant nothing. Hurrell was Eden’s driver; of course he’d have taken them to the hotel, and been put up there, since it was remote. He was his minder, responsible for his personal security. It was natural that he should have taken the family valuables to the safe, and if he’d watched the owner as she put them in, he was only doing his job properly.
‘Forget it,’ I told myself, just as my email inbox pinged to let me know that I had a new arrival. I opened it and saw a message from Sauce Haddock, headed simply, ‘For Info’.
There was no text, only an attachment. I clicked on it, and waited as the Word software booted up and a document appeared. The page was headed ‘Callum O Sullivan’, and the text below was a list of names, in alphabetical order; his party guests, for sure. I scrolled down from the top. Most of the names from A to G were unknown to me, apart from a European Tour golfer and a couple of football people, but one did stand out, even though it wasn’t news to me. ‘Francey, Dean’, there because of his connection to Sullivan’s nephew, Maxwell Harris.