A Rush of Blood

One

‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ Detective Chief Superintendent Mario McGuire asked, as he looked at the crumpled form, lying on the frozen hilltop.

Neil McIlhenney sighed. ‘Always with the rhetoric, even at this time of the morning. I reckon he must be, unless his brains have wireless capability, seeing as how most of them are spread over that cairn.’ He nodded towards the pile of stones that marked the summit. ‘It’s a bizarre situation; I doubt if even the boss has seen one like it. Given that it’s minus five degrees at the moment, according to the readout in my car, and that today’s forecast is for minus two, at best, we’re going to have to figure out how to thaw the stuff, to get it off.’

‘Boiling water?’

‘Jesus,’ the detective superintendent chuckled, ‘how did you ever get to be head of CID? We’re at the top of Arthur’s Seat. Where are you going to plug the kettle in?’

‘Primus stove? Or maybe we could light a wee fire.’ McGuire stamped his feet. ‘Christ knows, we need one.’ He paused. ‘And now, are you going to tell me why our force’s two highest-ranking detectives are standing here, at seven thirty in the morning, freezing our nuts off over the body of one of the most obvious and effective suicides I have ever seen?’

‘I thought I’d leave that to Ian, give him his moment of glory.’ McIlhenney beckoned to a uniformed officer who was standing a few yards away, as if waiting to be called. ‘Sergeant McCall, explain.’

The middle-aged man stepped towards them. ‘Look at his hand, sir,’ he said. ‘Right hand.’

‘Forget the “sir”, Ian,’ the DCS growled. ‘We were all plods together, remember?’ He dropped to one knee beside the body, and took a small torch from the pocket of his heavy, fleece-lined leather jacket. Dawn was on its way, but the light was still poor and a mist hung around them like a screen.

The man was facedown, his legs twisted beneath him, as if he had been kneeling when he died. He was dressed in a dark suit; even covered with a layer of frost, it looked expensive, tailored rather than off the peg. ‘No coat,’ McGuire murmured. ‘Don’t suppose he was bothered about freezing to death.’ His right arm was thrown out in front of him, still holding a sawn-off shotgun by its pistol grip. Taking care to avoid the head, the top half of which was missing completely, the detective focused the beam of his flashlight on the hand. He leaned closer, peering at a tattoo, depicting a knight on horseback, brandishing a sword, in white against a red background.

‘How many of those do you know in Edinburgh?’ asked McCall.

‘Just the one,’ the head of CID conceded. ‘Tomas Zaliukas. . or Tommy Zale, as people used to call him when he was a young gang-banger. He was very proud of that tattoo. Still, it isn’t his copyright. .’ He paused.

‘There’s a Lexus four-by-four in the car park at the foot of the hill,’ said the sergeant. ‘The keys are still in the ignition, so the owner wasn’t bothered about it being nicked. I’ve checked; it’s registered to Lietuvos Leisure Limited, the holding company for Zale’s boozers.’

‘Did you search him?’

‘And have Arthur Dorward chew me out for compromising the scene?’

McIlhenney grinned. ‘No, best not to risk that.’

McGuire looked at him, as he stood up. ‘Have we got a forensic team on its way?’

‘Yes. And the duty doc.’

‘This does put a different complexion on it, I’ll grant you. “Known to the police” is an inadequate phrase for our Tomas, from the stories you and I know of his early career. . from our own experience of him, for that matter; and you know what I’m talking about. Who’d ever have thought he’d wind up like this, though. What do you reckon, Neil? Could he have had some help?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ the superintendent replied, ‘but it would have taken a lot of help to get the job done this way. Tomas was a pretty chunky guy. Then there’s the matter of his team; he always had plenty of people on call.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t paying them enough,’ the DCS suggested. ‘They could have been bunged not to answer the phone, or even to do the job themselves.’

‘I can’t see it, Mario. All his close associates, all the managers of his pubs, his clubs, and those massage parlours were Lithuanians, like him, a real clan.’ His gaze switched to McCall. ‘Can you remember, Ian, were there many tracks in the frost when you came up here?’

‘Only two sets that I could see, one human, the other canine, left by Mr Oxley, the insomniac dog-walker who found him, and his pal Muttley. . I wish I’d a pound for every dog with that name. But the frost’s been hard all night, and for the last couple of days. Zaliukas must have left some footprints himself coming up here, but they’ve been covered over since then.’

‘Arthur Dorward will find them, and any others that might be there,’ McIlhenney declared.

‘I heard that, and don’t be so bloody sure,’ said a voice behind them. ‘Crime scenes are not improved by having the Glimmer Twins stomp all over them in their size twelve wellies.’

The two detectives turned to see a man crest the hilltop, red hair escaping from his black woollen hat. ‘Ah, but we don’t think this is a crime scene, Arthur,’ McGuire countered, ‘not in the way you mean.’

‘Then what the fuck am I doing here, pray. . sir?’

‘Same as usual. We want you to confirm that we’re right, and to tell us all you can about what happened here.’

Detective Inspector Dorward, head of what had been the city’s forensic squad, before its absorption into a national scientific service, stepped towards them, carefully, making sure that he stepped on nothing but frosty grass. ‘And what is here then?’ He was carrying a lamp, much bigger than McGuire’s. He shone it on the remains. ‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ he exclaimed, with a small, involuntary jump. ‘This is not what you’d call a cry for help. Do you know who he is?’

‘From the tattoo on his hand,’ said McIlhenney, ‘the Lithuanian national crest, we reckon it’s Tomas Zaliukas.’

Dorward’s eyebrows rose. ‘Is it, indeed? In that case, you two might like to prepare yourself for the humbling experience of being wrong for once in your lives. He must still have a few enemies from the old days.’

The head of CID chuckled. ‘You reckon? Arthur, this man put a sawn-off in his mouth and pulled the trigger. You have your whole team crawl over this scene and see if you can tell us different. . but you won’t.’

‘Maybe so,’ said the inspector, stubbornly, ‘but. .’ He stopped and looked directly at the senior officers. ‘Listen, you two; global gangster culture’s a bit of a hobby of mine, as you must know.’

‘Only too well,’ McGuire agreed. ‘You’re always rattling on about it.’

‘So much so that I’ve signed up to do a PhD on the subject at Edinburgh University. Part of my thesis is going to focus on cause of death among criminals: those who die of natural causes, the majority, those who’re killed by rivals, the second largest group, and those who’re executed by the state, a small minority. We’re agreed that Zaliukas was a gangster, yes?’

‘He might have taken on a legitimate front later on, but in his younger days, sure, pure hoodlum.’

‘Suspected of a couple of killings, but never charged.’

‘Killings, serious assaults, extortion, the story went, but never any witnesses or trace evidence that we could tie to him. . apart from one incident that was nipped in the bud. He hasn’t had his hands dirty for years, though.’

‘Maybe not, but his personality hasn’t changed. Research shows that people like him have strong psychopathic tendencies. This includes a disregard for life, even their own. This is evident in the modern generation, in the street gang world. A lot of these kids regard death as an occupational hazard. It’s nothing new, really; look at gang culture in other eras and in other countries, and you’ll find the same thing. But my studies show that what gangsters do not do is top themselves. Go back over the years and you’ll find that the suicide rate among people like. . people like Tommy Zale, is way below the national average. Frank Nitti, Al Capone’s sidekick, is the only prominent figure who went out that way. There was another killed himself, supposedly, around that time, but there’s a good chance that he was actually done by the cops.’

‘Fair enough, Arthur,’ McIlhenney protested, ‘but if this is a gangland killing, like you’re suggesting, why would it be set out to look like a suicide? Chances are that when the post-mortem’s done they’ll find that Zaliukas had cancer and knew it.’ He smiled. ‘A brain tumour possibly, so you’ll need to figure out how to get that frozen grey matter off those rocks for examination.’

Dorward threw him a disdainful look. ‘And why the hell would I want to do that? I’ll just send the rocks down to the morgue with the rest of him and let it thaw out in the warm. Now go on, the pair of you, before you do any more damage with those bloody great feet of yours.’