‘In what way?’
‘I thought I was going to be warned off. But you’re… too young to have been part of it. And your warrant card says Professional Standards. That means police corruption, yes?’
‘It means complaints against the force.’
Mangold nodded slowly. ‘Francis Vernal should be a story, Inspector. So many holes in the original investigation…’
‘Was Carter making any progress?’
‘A little.’ Mangold thought for a moment. ‘Not much,’ he conceded. ‘A lot of the players are no longer with us. I doubt he would have taken the job if Gavin Willis were still alive.’
‘Gavin Willis being…?’
‘Alan’s mentor. He was a DI at the time Francis died. And he led the inquiry. Only ten years or so older than Alan, but Alan definitely looked up to him.’ Mangold leaned forward a little, as if readying himself to share a confidence. ‘Did Alan tell you about the cottage?’
‘No.’
‘It belonged to Gavin Willis. When he died, Alan bought it – that’s how close the two men were.’
‘In which case,’ Fox said, ‘Carter was hardly going to blacken Willis’s name.’
‘I’m not so sure. People like to get to the bottom of things, Inspector, don’t you find?’
‘So what will you do, now that you’ve lost your researcher?’
‘Find another one,’ Mangold stated, staring intently at Fox. There was a tap on the door, and the porter, Eddie, announced that the first of Mangold’s guests had arrived downstairs. Mangold got to his feet and walked around the table, shaking Fox’s hand and thanking him for coming: ‘Just a pity the circumstances couldn’t have been different…’
Fox gave the slightest of nods and allowed Eddie to show him back down the staircase.
Just inside the front door, a new arrival was handing his overcoat to a porter while discussing the weather. He glanced towards Fox as if to check whether he warranted some greeting. In the end, the curtest of nods was all Fox got.
‘Will you be in your usual spot, Sheriff Cardonald?’ the porter was asking. ‘I’ll bring you your drink.’
‘Usual spot,’ Cardonald agreed.
Fox paused to watch him head for the stairs. Sheriff Colin Cardonald, the man whose decision had put Paul Carter back on the streets…
He hadn’t felt like another takeaway or microwave meal, so had treated himself to a restaurant in Morningside – an Italian place with plenty of fresh fish on the menu. The evening paper kept him occupied for about ten minutes, after which he tried not to look as if he was interested in the other diners. Really, he was thinking. Trying not to, but thinking all the same.
About Ray Scholes and Paul Carter.
About Paul Carter and his uncle.
About Alan Carter and Charles Mangold.
Charles Mangold and Francis Vernal.
Vernal and Chris Fox.
Chris and Mitch.
Mitch and Fox himself.
Bringing him right back to Scholes and Carter again. No wonder his head was spinning; there was a dance going on in there, an eightsome reel with too many couples and not enough floor space. When his waiter came over, looking concerned and asking if everything was okay, Fox realised he’d hardly touched his main course.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, scooping up another forkful of monkfish.
You were never happy there…
You’ll be a bit rusty then…
Should he have offered a stronger argument? Defended himself against the charge? Two old men with a couple of drinks under their belts – what was the point? He thought back to his time on the force prior to the Complaints. He had been diligent and scrupulous, never a shirker. He had put in the hours, been commended for his error-free paperwork and ability to lead a team: no egos and no heroes. He hadn’t been unhappy. He had learned much and kept out of trouble. If a problem arose, he either dealt with it or ensured it was moved elsewhere.
Ideally suited to Complaints and Conduct, his reviews eventually started concluding. But was that altogether a good thing, or was it CID’s way of telling him he didn’t fit in there?
Too scrupulous.
Too willing to sidestep problems.
When he caught his waiter’s eye, he told him he was finished.
‘Not as hungry as I thought,’ he offered by way of apology.
Back at the house, he switched on the TV and found multiple channels of dross. The news was focusing on a royal engagement and not much else. Fox lasted ten minutes, then went in search of his computer. He knew he could wait until morning: Joe Naysmith would stick to his word. But all the same, he typed Francis Vernal’s name into the search engine and clicked on the first of 17,250 links.
Half an hour later, a text came in from Tony Kaye.
Copycat blast – Peebles this time. Bloody kids!
Fox couldn’t think how to reply, so turned his attention back to the computer screen instead.
Copycat… Bloody kids…
As usual, Tony Kaye was seeing what he wanted to see. Fox wasn’t so sure.
Five
15
There was a lay-by near the spot where Francis Vernal’s car had left the road. A small cairn had been erected, with a plaque on it commemorating ‘A Patriot’. Someone had even left a bouquet of flowers. The flowers were shrivelled – could be they dated back to the anniversary of the crash. Mangold’s work maybe, on behalf of himself and Vernal’s widow.
Fox had brought his own car over to Fife this morning, leaving the M90 and skirting Glenrothes, heading for what was known as the ‘East Neuk’: little fishing villages popular with landscape painters and caravanners. Lundin Links and Elie, St Monans and Pittenweem, then Anstruther – pronounced ‘Ainster’ by locals. Francis Vernal had died on a stretch of the B9131, north of Anstruther. He didn’t play golf, but had a weekend place on the outskirts of St Andrews. Nobody was sure why he hadn’t stuck to the A915 – a quicker route. The only theory was a picturesque detour. Once you headed away from the coast, it was all farmland and forestry. No way to tell which particular tree his car had collided with. Another theory: mud left on the roadway by tractors had caused the car to skid. Fine, Fox could accept that. But something had happened afterwards. Not everyone who smashed their car then felt compelled to reach for a handgun. Had Vernal’s lifestyle caught up with him? Stress, a rocky marriage, too much drink. The drink makes him swerve off the road – maybe he wants to end it all. But he’s still alive afterwards, so he reaches into the glove box for the revolver.
A revolver: same sort of gun used by Alan Carter.
By him – or on him.
Fox ran his fingers over the memorial. Kids down the years had scratched their names into it. A couple of souped-up cars had flown past him a few miles back, stereos blaring, maybe driven by ‘Cambo’ or ‘Ali’, ‘Desi’ or ‘Pug’. Straightening up, he breathed deeply. Not a bad spot: peaceful. The drone of distant farm machinery, the half-hearted cawing of a few crows. He could smell freshly turned earth. A trudge around the vicinity provided no further clues. No one had left a bouquet resting against any of the trees. None of the news reports had been able to provide a photo of the car in situ, and even the few monochrome pictures of the site were speculative, apparently. Mangold was right: the Volvo had been removed and taken to a local junkyard before any forensics could be done. The early newspaper reports didn’t even mention suicide. It was a ‘tragic accident’, robbing the country of ‘a bright political talent’. The obituaries had been plentiful, but sticking to the same anodyne script. A book had been published a few years later, and half a chapter had been dedicated to the ‘mystery death’ of ‘political activist Francis Vernal’. The book had been a short compendium of unsolved Scottish crimes, but it produced no new evidence. Instead, its author had posed questions, the same questions Fox had been asking himself throughout his online reading of the previous evening. He’d printed out quite a lot of it, finishing one ink cartridge and replacing it with a spare. Back at his car, he lifted the heavy folder from the passenger seat and considered opening it. But then his phone buzzed, meaning he had a text message. It was from Tony Kaye.