He picked out the two Americans at once, watching through the one-way glass, as the queue from the Newark flight began to form at the non-EU passport check-point. . big guys, hair cut too short and dressed too soberly to be anything but cops. So did the immigration officers, who had been briefed to speed them through.
‘Inspector Nolan Donegan.’ The older of the two, early forties as opposed to his companion’s thirty-something, moved to shake his hand as they were ushered into the small room. ‘This is my colleague, Lieutenant Eli Huggins, from our Internal Affairs Bureau.’
‘Chief Inspector David Mackenzie. I’m going to drive you through to Edinburgh. We’ll get moving as soon as your hold baggage is picked out from the rest.’
Donegan looked surprised. ‘Chief Inspector?’
‘Don’t be over-impressed.’ Bandit grinned. ‘I live a few miles from here, that’s all. It made more sense for me to collect you than for us to send a man and a car from Edinburgh.’
They were under way in a few minutes. Rather than join the Wednesday morning snarl-up on the Kingston Bridge, Mackenzie merged into the shorter queue through the Clyde Tunnel, the alternative crossing, and plotted a route through Broomhill and Hyndland that brought them on to the M8 at the point where the bottleneck began to thin out. ‘Local knowledge, ’ he said to the Americans, as he picked up speed and headed for Edinburgh.
‘What other knowledge have you guys been picking up?’ asked Huggins. The Scot glanced at him in his rear-view mirror. The lieutenant was unsmiling; in fact, he looked as if, at some point in his career, he had forgotten how to smile.
Just the sort of cop you’d want to set on other cops, Bandit thought. He made eye contact, frowning back. ‘Explain,’ he said.
‘Have you hit on anyone with a connection to Inspector Mawhinney?’
‘I’m not involved in the investigation, but as far as I know, we haven’t.’
‘We hold you responsible, you know. Our man was in your country, now he’s dead. We don’t take that lightly, sir.’
The Bandit was riled. ‘So what have you got?’ he shot back. ‘You’re Internal Affairs; you’re not here on escort duty. We need leads from you.’
‘I’m not at liberty to say.’
‘What makes you think you’re at liberty to ask, then? I gave you an answer as best I could. Now it’s your turn.’
‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ Huggins repeated.
‘So that means you have got something relevant to this inquiry. Or are guys like you just so used to questioning other police officers that you’ve forgotten how to answer them?’
‘Any information I have is exclusive to NYPD, only to be released at my discretion.’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Inspector Donegan. He turned in the front passenger seat and looked over his shoulder at his compatriot. ‘Let’s not get off on the wrong foot. Let’s maintain some decorum here.’
‘By all means,’ said Mackenzie, ‘but I’ll tell you something, Lieutenant. If you try to hold that line when you meet my colleague who’s in charge of this investigation, eventually you will be introduced to our boss. Then, I promise, you will come to believe that discretion is the better part of valour.’
68
Neil McIlhenney could have run the Mawhinney inquiry from his office at the Fettes building, but he had chosen to set up the murder room at the coastal-division headquarters in Queen Charlotte Street, to have immediate access to its manpower. He could also have excluded Mario McGuire from the investigation completely, but he had more sense than to try.
However, the superintendent knew that being seen to report to a junior officer only three days into his command would do nothing for his future authority, and so he had the sense in his turn to keep well clear. He was in his office when the door opened and McIlhenney came in.
‘I wanted to thank you,’ he said. ‘That was bloody good work, bringing that guy Hughie Geller in last night. His statement’s the only sniff of a lead we’ve got.’
‘Has word got out that I was involved in it?’
‘No. The statement’s countersigned by the duty sergeant who took it, and that’s all.’
‘That’s good. I told him I’d have his balls if my name was mentioned at all, or Malky Gladsmuir. That’s a spin-off benefit. Gladsmuir’s mine now, and I want to protect him.’
‘I thought he was Jay’s before.’
‘He had Jay in his fucking pocket: life’s changed for him.’ He looked up at his friend. ‘Where are we going with the Land Rover?’
‘We’ve got the biggest magnet we can find, but it’s still quite a task.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Needle in a haystack, but I’ve got George Grogan working on it. He’s been back to the witness and he’s showed him Land Rover vehicle types. The best he could do was narrow it down to either a Range Rover or a Discovery, but that helps a bit. Total annual production’s about a hundred thousand, and both models are big export sellers. We’ll get accurate figures from the DVLA but I reckon we’re looking at over fifty thousand new UK registrations every year. It’s a new-style registration so we’re going back three years maximum; that takes us up to a hundred and fifty thousand Range Rovers and Discos. We’re trying to find one out of that lot.’
‘You’ll start with local, though.’
‘Of course. That’s George’s priority.’
‘Good. It means we. . sorry, you’ll have something to show the Americans when they get here.’
‘Aye. And you never know; maybe they’ll have something to show me.’
69
‘Did you manage to do your homework last night?’ asked Mary Chambers.
Stevie Steele looked up from his desk. ‘No. I didn’t get either report in until this morning. The SFB data controller was very nervous and waited for their solicitors to give her the go-ahead, and the Heriot-Watt office couldn’t get a bike last night. They’re both here now, though. The Middlemass folder arrived two minutes ago.’
The superintendent pulled up a chair and sat alongside him. ‘What does it say, then? Let’s have a look.’
Steele opened the yellow folder; it contained only three documents. ‘Jesus, all that fuss over so little.’
‘That’s the Data Protection Act for you,’ Chambers muttered. ‘Another bloody barrier across the pathway to justice. What have you got there?’
The inspector picked up the top paper. ‘A letter of application,’ he announced, ‘for the position of senior director of Commercial Banking, written on personalised stationery from an address in Dubai.’ He laid it down. ‘Next, a formal application on the bank’s official form. Name, Aurelia Middlemass, age thirty-five, place of birth Cape Town, South Africa, educated St Mary’s School, Durban, and University of South Africa, graduated B.Comm. with honours in financial management, married earlier that year to Jose-Maria Alsina. For career see separate document.’ He took it from the folder and read quickly. ‘Vacation jobs in various law offices and banks, first full-time appointment as trainee in Federated National Bank of Zimbabwe, moved on to become a business account manager in the Commercial Bank of Namibia, then account manager with Friedman’s, a merchant bank in Johannesburg, and finally director of High-Tech Investments, with the Jazeer Independent Bank of Dubai. Attached there’s a letter of commendation from Nasser Alali, the bank’s general manager, with a contact number.’ He glanced at the superintendent. ‘I think I’ll call him.’
‘You should. I’ll let you get on with it. Give me a shout if you get a result.’
She walked back to her office, and set herself to working her way through her morning mail, and reading through the reports of officers on the lesser crime within her division, the day-today investigations that by their sheer volume were much more vital than the occasional high-profile incidents to the maintenance of an acceptable clear-up rate.
Mary Chambers possessed considerable powers of concentration, and a great ability to absorb information. The phone on her desk rang three times before she was aware of it, and again before she picked it up.