‘Sheriff Cardonald? What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘It’s a simple enough question,’ Fox reasoned.
‘I’ve seen them together,’ Mangold conceded.
‘At the New Club?’
‘Yes.’
‘Friends, then?’
‘Colin Cardonald likes to dabble.’
‘Dabble?’
‘Stocks and shares.’
‘Handy to have someone like Pears to offer advice,’ Fox surmised.
‘I’d say so.’ Mangold paused. ‘Does this have something to do with Francis?’
‘Not at all,’ Fox lied. ‘Like I say, I was just curious.’
‘Curious enough to ambush me outside my office.’
Fox couldn’t deny it.
‘You’re close, aren’t you?’ Mangold’s voice had dropped, though there was no one nearby to overhear. He took a step towards Fox. ‘There’s a sort of fever in your eyes.’
‘She won’t like it, you know,’ Fox responded.
‘Who?’
‘The widow. If I’m right, and it becomes public knowledge, she’ll blame you. She might very well end up hating your guts.’
The lawyer reached out and gripped Fox’s forearm. ‘What is it?’ he hissed. ‘Tell me what it is you’ve found!’
But Fox shook his head slowly and got back into the car. Mangold stood by the driver’s-side window, peering in. When Fox turned the key in the ignition, the lawyer thumped on the Volvo’s roof with both hands. He was still standing in the road as Fox drove away, decreasing in size and importance in the rear-view mirror.
Thirteen
41
It took a few days to arrange, but that was fine. In the meantime, the terror suspects had been charged, remanded and moved into Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison. The Justice Minister had enjoyed giving interviews and had praised ‘my big sister’, much to the delight of the tabloids. The alert level at Fettes remained CRITICAL, but would soon be downgraded. Fife Constabulary had written a letter to Lothian and Borders congratulating the Complaints team on its ‘exemplary’ report. Whether the media were informed or not, Fox and his team didn’t know – nothing seemed to appear in the press. Reprimands would be issued to Scholes, Haldane and Michaelson, and that would be that.
Mitchell Fox had left hospital, not for Lauder Lodge but for his son’s living room. Fox had bought a single bed from IKEA, Tony Kaye helping him put it together. The only toilet in the house was upstairs, so Fox tracked down a commode. Jude was promising to act as nurse for a short while – ‘not for ever and a day, mind’. Mitch was slow and occasionally confused, and his speech was slurred, but he was able to eat and drink with just a little bit of help. Lauder Lodge warned Fox that they couldn’t keep his father’s room unoccupied for long, but he had paid them until the end of the month, which gave a bit of breathing space. At night, he sat and watched TV – him on the sofa, his dad propped up in bed. The old boy could get up during the day, though it was proving a challenge getting him dressed. More often, they left him in his pyjamas and a towelling robe.
Mitch’s old drinking buddy Sandy Cameron had visited and approved of the effort brother and sister were making: Your old man’s proud of you – I can see it in his eyes. They cooked dinner on alternate nights and pretended everything was quite normal. Afterwards, whatever the weather, Jude would disappear into the back garden for a cigarette – she was already up to ten a day – and Fox would settle down on the sofa with the TV remote and the evening paper. The room had become cramped, bed and commode taking up space. Mitch’s clothes had been relegated to a suitcase and bin liner in the hall. The coffee table was covered with his paraphernalia, and the dining table had been folded closed, meaning all Fox’s paperwork was now spread across his bedroom floor.
A physio was due to pay a visit once a week to work with Mitch. A speech therapist had even been mooted. They’d given him a rubber ball he was supposed to squeeze twenty times per hand three or four times a day. The shoebox of photographs sat untouched on the coffee table. Jude made a shopping list: furniture polish, fabric conditioner, vacuum-cleaner bags and dusters. Plus an iron and ironing board. She asked her brother how he’d coped all these years.
‘Dry-cleaning,’ was his unconvincing answer.
Stephen Pears was due to address shareholders at a meeting in Edinburgh on the Tuesday at ten in the morning. The venue was the ballroom of a venerable city-centre hotel. Fox’s contact on the Scotsman’s business desk had proffered the information, and had also asked if Pears was in any trouble.
‘Because whatever this is about, Inspector, it’s not a profile of his sister.’
Fox had asked if there were any rumours flying around. As far as the journalist was concerned, their apparent lack was no great comfort.
‘These days, seems anybody can go bust at an hour’s notice.’
‘If I get anything,’ Fox assured the man, ‘you’ll be the first to know.’
The shareholders piling into the ballroom looked quietly prosperous. They carried their copies of the annual report and muttered about the levels of remuneration the board seemed keen on divvying up. Most appeared to be well into their twilight years. They were the prudent, cautious types who hadn’t lost too much so far in the recession but would welcome good news from Stephen Pears and his team. There was to be a reception afterwards, drinks and canapes served. Names were ticked off and shiny brochures handed out. On the front of the brochure a smiling couple held hands across a restaurant table. Future-Proofing Your Dreams, the headline announced. Fox took a copy, then admitted that his name wasn’t on the acceptance list. He showed the staff behind the makeshift desk his warrant card, then pointed to the three men behind him.
‘They’re with me,’ he announced.
The attendants from Carstairs stood either side of Donald MacIver. Fox had picked them up at quarter past eight. Gretchen Hughes had repeated that MacIver shouldn’t get too much stimulus. Fox had signed his name to the paperwork, knowing that if his bosses at Fettes HQ ever got wind of this, he would be on a charge. He had lied and lied again in order to convince Hughes and her colleagues that he was fully authorised in his actions and that a murder inquiry might be stymied without Donald MacIver’s help. MacIver himself looked presentable, as though making an effort for the occasion. Fox asked him when he’d last set foot outside the compound.
‘A hospital visit,’ he eventually remembered. ‘Suspected appendicitis. That was probably four or five years back.’
They’d all decided that restraints would not be needed in the first instance. The attendants looked like they worked out in what spare time they had, and could probably handle their charge whatever happened. During the drive, they’d kept up a dialogue about various martial arts and dietary supplements, while MacIver stared at the passing scenery, answering Fox’s questions with a series of grunts, punctuated by the occasional yes and no.
‘Not too many changes,’ he’d muttered as they entered the city. ‘A few new roads and buildings.’
‘I could take a detour past the parliament,’ Fox had offered.
‘Why bother?’ had been MacIver’s response.
‘“Bought and sold for English gold”?’ Fox had quoted, receiving a slow, determined nod of the head in return.
So they’d headed for George Street instead, parking on a meter and entering the hotel.
The ballroom was larger than necessary. There were eighty or ninety chairs, laid out in rows of ten. Pears’s team seemed to comprise sharply dressed young men and women who scanned the room for possible dissenters and handed out notepads and pens to anyone who needed them. It didn’t take them long to spot Fox and his guests. They remained standing at the back of the room, and wouldn’t budge when offered seats. MacIver seemed slightly agitated, but the attendants didn’t look worried. His facial colouring was what Fox would call ‘prison grey’, but he didn’t suppose his own was much better. He hadn’t slept well the past few nights – and not just because of his father’s presence in the house.