‘Welcome,’ Eden Higgins said, moving to greet them as they approached. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking Mr Skinner to join us. I’m alone here; my wife and son have flown to Monaco for the weekend in the company jet. As soon as I heard what had happened, I was shocked, I felt the need of a friend, so I called him and asked him to come.’
Skinner glared at his back. ‘But you didn’t tell me why,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have no locus here. I’m not a lawyer, I’m nothing more than a private citizen.’ His eyes moved to the new arrivals. ‘I’ve only just arrived myself,’ he told them, ‘and heard about Hurrell.’ He moved away from the fireplace. ‘I’m out of here, Eden.’
‘Bob,’ Higgins protested, ‘I asked you here as a friend, nothing else. I was appalled when I heard about poor Walter. He was my right-hand man. Other than my family, I had nobody closer. I just can’t believe that he’d kill himself.’
To McGuire, the man’s distress seemed genuine. ‘It’s all right, Mr Higgins, we have no objection to the chief,’ he smiled as he realised that his tongue had slipped, ‘. . . to Mr Skinner being here. Bob, stay, please. This isn’t a formal interview; it’s not a problem.’
Skinner looked at Lottie Mann. ‘Is that okay with you too, Inspector? I take it that you found Mr Hurrell?’
‘It is, and I did,’ she agreed, as the quartet moved back towards the fire.
‘Where’s your evil twin?’ he asked.
She smiled, briefly. ‘Dan’s still at the scene,’ she replied, ‘supervising the search.’
‘You’re sure that it was suicide?’
Mann nodded. ‘It seems nailed on. He was sat up in bed, with an empty bottle of red and a glass on the table beside him. There was one shot just above the right eyebrow, with powder burns around the entry wound.’
‘Was there an exit wound?’
‘Yes. The bullet was embedded in the headboard. It’s been sent for comparison.’
‘Did they do a gunshot residue test on him?’
‘That was being done when I left,’ Mann said. ‘Given the proximity of the shot, there’ll be particles all over the bed, but if there’s a concentration on his hand and forearm, that’ll prove he shot himself.’
‘Weapon?’
‘The CSIs said it’s a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard automatic, point three eight calibre. A lethal little bastard.’
Skinner nodded. ‘Yes it is,’ he agreed. ‘I know ’cos I’ve been shot by one of them,’ he added, deadpan.
‘Why?’ Eden Higgins exclaimed. ‘Why would Walter shoot himself? And where would he get a gun, for God’s sake?’
‘He was ex-military,’ McGuire pointed out. ‘That wouldn’t be a problem to him. As for the why . . .’ He paused. ‘Sit down, please, Mr Higgins.’
The billionaire, still looking slightly dazed, nodded and sank into one of the armchairs. ‘I just don’t get it,’ he murmured.
‘When DI Mann found Mr Hurrell’s body,’ the DCC continued, ‘she and her colleagues were there to arrest him for questioning in connection with the murders of three people. One of them was Jock Hodgson, who helped Hurrell crew the Princess Alison, your missing boat.’
‘Why?’ Higgins vocabulary seemed to have been reduced to a single word.
‘Jock helped Hector Mackail steal the Princess,’ Skinner said, bluntly, ‘he and another man. It looks certain that Walter Hurrell killed the two of them, in retribution. What my friends are getting round to asking you, Eden, is quite simple. Did you know, and was he acting on your orders?’
The man stared up at him; for all his influence and all his wealth, he seemed very small and vulnerable.
‘No,’ he protested, weakly at first. ‘No!’ he repeated, more loudly. ‘No!’ he shouted, grasping the arms of his chair and pushing himself to his feet. ‘No, I did not!’ He glared at Skinner. ‘Bob, get your damn friends out of here. If they want to speak to me again, they can contact my solicitors. As for you and I,’ he added, with an icy edge to his tone, ‘our business is done too. Send me an invoice for your services.’
Sixty-Two
My words to God’s ear, I didn’t want to be there. I’d had enough, for that time, of Eden Higgins and the saga of his bloody boat. Plus I had other priorities; chief among them was a dinner reservation for two at La Potiniere in Gullane. Sarah and I have a few anniversaries and that night was one of them.
But she was busy too, performing a short-notice autopsy on the late Walter Hurrell, so, when Mario McGuire asked me if I’d sit in on a case conference he’d called in the old Fettes building for late afternoon, I had no legitimate grounds for refusal.
‘Okay,’ I told him, ‘but Andy’s going to shit himself when I send him a bill for my time.’
The big guy knows me well enough not to take me seriously. ‘Bugger off,’ he chuckled into the phone, ‘you offered your help, remember. Come on, Bob, you know you can’t step back now. ’
‘Maybe I should. I’m a witness in the Zena abduction . . .’
‘Which will never come to trial,’ Mario interrupted to point out.
‘Beyond that,’ I continued, ‘I’m a witness in the Hodgson killing, and to cap it all, I’m involved through my work for my former client. Seriously, when your chief constable finds out I attended your meeting, the stuff I mentioned earlier really will interface with the ventilator.’
‘He knows already. I told him; told him about you introducing west to east at the Newhouse as well.’
‘How did he react?’
My friend shrugged. ‘As we’ve come to expect. He threw a monumental hissy fit, and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. I said that I was using all available resources to trace and apprehend a multiple murderer and that he could moan about it if it doesn’t work, but not before. I didn’t bother to tell him that we’ve cracked it already. I think you could say,’ he added, ‘that he and I are not speaking.’
If his confrontation with his boss was preying on Mario’s mind, he didn’t let it show as we gathered round the table in the small conference room at the end of what had been the command corridor of the force in which I spent all but the last few months of my career.
I sat beside him, but deliberately I drew my chair back a little, as if to make it clear that I was only an observer.
Each of us had been given a folder. It had been compiled by Haddock and Provan, under my unofficial supervision, and contained a comprehensive review of the spider’s web that the case had become. Mario tapped his. ‘Take us through it, DCI Pye,’ he said.
The timeline began with the collapse of Mackail Extrusions, and Higgins Holdings’ purchase of the wreckage.
It started to move with Hector Mackail’s reported visit to Eden’s office and the assault which had left my client with a fractured ankle, treated, as young DC Wright had discovered, at a private hospital near Edinburgh Zoo.
A few weeks later, Jock Hodgson visited Dunbar, where, it was believed, he had lunched with Mackail, and another naval colleague, David Gates.
A further week elapsed and the Princess Alison was stolen, with a two-month abortive police investigation ensuing. A swift internal inquiry by DCI Sandra Bulloch had established that its shoddy incompetence had been covered up, by the outgoing Assistant Chief Constable Bridget ‘Bridie’ Gorman, but that was not part of the folder.
The day after the police search was declared closed, Jock Hodgson’s home was burgled. The crime was reported, but it fell into the ‘probably no chance’ category, and wasn’t prioritised by the local CID division.
The same weekend Eden and Rachel attended a business symposium in Mackiltee Lodge, where her jewels were stolen from the safe, having been put there under the supervision of Walter Hurrell.