A Rush of Blood

Seventy-three

‘You do know where we’re going, Andy, yes?’ Bob Skinner asked, as he drove up the Kingsway, the dual carriageway that skirted Dundee to the east.

‘Of course I do, Bob. I have all the McCullough family addresses committed to memory.’

‘I would doubt that of anyone else,’ Neil McIlhenney murmured, ‘but not you.’

‘Left at this roundabout,’ Martin instructed, ‘then right, about half a mile along.’ The three officers sat in silence as the chief constable followed his directions. ‘That’s fine,’ he declared, as they made the second turn. ‘The Browns’ place is the fourth on the left, the one on the double plot.’

‘Chunky pad,’ the superintendent commented, as they drew to a halt. ‘Has it got a name?’

‘Would you believe South Fork?’

‘It was either going to be that or the Ponderosa. That’s fucking gangsters for you.’

‘Not really; all the house names have TV themes. CamMac homes built this place, and the rest; it’s owned by CamMac Metals and Henry and the wife pay a market rent. But you’re right in a way. This street’s becoming a compound. Tommy Murtagh lives in the last house on the right.’

‘What about the Bentley Continental there in the driveway?’ Skinner asked. ‘Is that a company car?’

‘That’s Goldie’s; a birthday present from her big brother.’

‘You know a lot about these people, Andy.’

‘I know everything about these people, Bob. I looked at going the Al Capone route; you know, setting the Inland Revenue on them, but Grandpa’s accounting is always immaculate, and everyone always pays their taxes.’

‘Is there a Grandma McCullough?’

‘No. She died ten years ago; throat cancer.’

As Martin spoke, McIlhenney’s mobile sounded. He snatched it from his pocket, almost as if he was fearful that the sound would alert those in the house. ‘Yes? Jack, hi. Have you got him?’ Pause. ‘Fuck. Have you talked to the neighbours?’ Pause. ‘Not since then? Did you look for his passport? Of course, sorry. Them too? Ah Jesus. . Listen, Jack, check with DVLA, for a car registered in his name. If he’s got one, look for it parked locally. Then check with the other Lithuanians. Who knows, they’ve maybe got a regular Monday card school; the bugger might be there.’ Pause. ‘Sure, but do it.’ He ended the call and turned to his colleagues. ‘McGurk,’ he said. ‘He’s at Scotland Street; Marius Ramanauskas isn’t there. He hasn’t been seen since Friday night. Jack kicked the door in and went through the place. There are dishes in the sink, and a bottle of turned milk on the work surface beside the kettle. No sign of recent occupation, though.’

‘Surprise, surprise,’ Martin drawled. ‘The cleaners have been.’

‘Just because he could identify this Goldie woman?’ McIlhenney exclaimed.

‘Absolutely because, I’d say. These are very efficient people. The best we can hope for is that they’ve scared the shit out of your man Marius and told him to disappear for good. The worst is that they’ve made him disappear for good.’

‘Not in my back yard,’ Skinner growled. ‘Let’s go and see this man Brown and do some scaring ourselves.’ He took his key from the ignition and stepped out of his car into the street.

‘How are we going to play it?’ the superintendent asked.

‘With no subtlety at all. Come on. Andy, you with me. Neil, keep out of sight at the side of the house, in case our man thinks of slipping out the back.’ He led the way up the ungated driveway, towards the big floodlit villa. A few drops of rain were falling, with the temperature low enough to offer the threat that they might be followed by snowflakes, but the front door was set back in a covered porch which offered some shelter. He rang the bell. As they waited, he noticed a spyglass just above it. He held his thumb against it, cutting off the view from within.

‘Who’s the comedian?’ said a female voice, as the door opened.

‘Nobody’s joking, Goldie,’ Andy Martin replied, stepping into the light.

‘Jesus!’ the woman snapped. ‘Not you again. I heard we’d got rid of you.’ She was blonde and high-breasted, barefoot but dressed in a tight-fitting leotard. Her cheeks were pink, glistening with a light sheen of perspiration.

‘Technically not till the end of the month, but even then, you won’t be rid of me.’ He glanced at her, and sniffed. ‘You’re a bit sweaty.’

‘I was in the gym,’ she retorted, ‘and I want to get back there.’ She stared up at Skinner. ‘Who’s your pal?’

‘I’m a police officer from Edinburgh,’ he told her, unsmiling. ‘You’ll be Daphne Brown, I take it.’

‘Take what you fucking like, as long as it’s not liberties. What do you want?’

‘In due course I want to talk to you about eight missing Estonian girls, but right now, we want your husband.’

‘What for?’

‘We plan to charge him with at least one murder, maybe more. That’s for starters. Please tell him we’re here, or we’ll go in and get him.’

‘You’ll have a job. He’s no’ in. See for yourself; his car’s no’ there.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Why the fuck should I tell you that?’

Martin leaned against the door frame. ‘Why doesn’t come into it, Goldie. You’re going to talk to us, either here or along at Tayside police headquarters, after as much exhausting questioning as it takes. If you don’t tell us now, we’re going to arrest you in connection with harbouring illegal immigrants, maybe abduction, and also for the murder of a man called Marius Ramanauskas. You know him; you visited his flat in Scotland Street, in Edinburgh, last week, and relieved him of some guests; you and another woman that I believe was your niece Inez.’

‘What do you mean murder? He’s. .’ She stopped in mid-sentence. ‘I’m saying fuck all to you, here or in the polis station.’

‘That’s not how it’s going to be,’ said Skinner quietly. ‘You know my friend here, but you don’t know me. Your family seem to think that they can invade my city, cause however much mayhem they like, then walk away from it.’ Goldie Brown looked away from him, but he seized her jaw and twisted it, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘You focus on me when I’m talking to you, lady, because I’m here to tell you that however clever you think you are, however far above the law you believe you and your crowd are, you have got it fucking wrong. I have a team of very capable people who have built a cast-iron case against your husband. We are here for him, and every second that you refuse to tell us where he is makes it ever more likely that you’ll be charged as his accomplice. So. . where is Henry Brown?’

She stared at him even after he had released her from his grasp, realising just how serious he was. ‘He’s. .’

Whatever she was about to say was cut short by the noise from within, of a loudly creaking door. ‘Is he in there after all, Goldie?’ Martin barked. ‘Enough of this.’ He barged past her, just as a dishevelled figure in his shirtsleeves, his jacket held in his hand, dashed down a wide staircase, swung himself round the post at the foot and bolted through a door at the rear of the hall.

As Skinner held on to the woman, tight, not joining the pursuit, a strange smile spread across his face. ‘Is your gym upstairs, Goldie?’ he asked.

Before she had time to reply a shout came from outside, followed by the sound of a brief struggle. Skinner turned, pulling his captive with him, just as Neil McIlhenney and Andy Martin came into view with theirs. ‘Well, well,’ the chief constable laughed. ‘Christmas in February. If it isn’t my old friend Tommy Murtagh. What is it you do for the CamMac group, Tommy? Public Affairs Consultant, is it? Or should that be Private?’ He stepped into the house, still with a firm grip of the woman’s arm. ‘Come on, guys, let’s take this away from the neighbours.’ He looked at Murtagh, as the former politician gave up the futile, and painful, struggle to free himself from McIlhenney’s armlock. ‘Of course you are the neighbours, Tommy, aren’t you?’ He turned to Goldie Brown. ‘Let’s all behave now,’ he said, as he let her go. ‘The dynamic of this situation has changed just a bit.’

She said nothing; instead she led the way into a sitting room, switching on the light as she did so. The superintendent kept Murtagh restrained until Martin had closed the door behind them, then pushed him firmly down, on to a sofa. Grim-faced and chewing at her bottom lip, the woman took a seat beside him.

Skinner beamed. ‘How long has this been going on?’ he sang, doing a passable Paul Carrack imitation.

Murtagh glared up at him. ‘Just fuck off,’ he hissed. ‘Fuck off back to that bitch of a wife of yours.’

The smile vanished. With one hand, the chief constable picked the man up by his shirt front, raising him up on his toes until their eyes were level. ‘Mention Aileen once more, in any way, and what happens after will be very painful. That’s a promise.’ He threw him back on to the couch, like a doll. ‘OK,’ he continued. ‘This is going to work out in one of two ways. Either you’re going to tell us right now, Mrs Brown, where we can find Henry, or. . we are indeed going to fuck off, all three of us. Very soon after that, Henry’s going to get an anonymous phone call, advising him that you and Mr Murtagh have been doing the horizontal mambo whenever his back’s been turned. You might get off with a simple tanking, because of who your brother is, but Tommy. .’ he shook his head, ‘. . his tea will be out, as we used to say in the west of Scotland when I was a lad.’ She stared up at him, eyes working as if she was assessing the threat. ‘You think that’s a bluff, Goldie? Ask your boyfriend whether I’d baulk at throwing him to your old man.’

She looked to the side; the slight trembling of Murtagh’s pencil moustache, and the naked fear on his face, told her all she needed to know. ‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘He’s gone to the farm.’

‘Long gone?’

‘About three hours ago, maybe a bit more.’

‘When do you expect him back?’ Andy Martin asked.

‘He said he’d be a while. Probably not much before midnight.’

‘Why has he gone there?’

‘I don’t know. He got a call on his mobile, but I don’t know who it was from, or what was said. He had his back to me while he took it. All I heard him say was, “I’ll see to it”, just as he was finishing. Then he stuck it back in his pocket.’

‘Did he tell you what it was about?’

‘He said there was a wee bit of bother up at the farm, and that he’d need to sort it out. I asked him what it was; he just laughed and said there was a bull loose up at the byre, and it needed taking care of. But he wasn’t laughing on the phone.’

Curious, Martin frowned. ‘Does Henry often go to the farm?’

‘No, never. There’s a manager.’

‘Does he live there?’

‘The manager? No, nobody lives there. There’s a house, but it’s not occupied; our Cameron goes there for the weekend sometimes, but that’s all. That’s not where he’ll be, though. He’ll have gone to the sheds, like he said.’

‘Do you know how to find the place, Andy?’ Skinner asked.

‘Of course I do. We drove past it on the way here. It’s just past the Friarton Bridge, on the Perth road.’

The chief constable turned back to Goldie Brown. ‘Those Estonian girls; are they safe?’

‘Yes, as far as I know.’

‘What do you mean. . as far as you know?’

‘I just helped to pick them up. There was nobody else tae do it. When we got back, Inez dropped me at the foot of the road. I don’t know where she went after that.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll deny all this after, mind.’

‘As long as those girls are all right, and as long as we round up your old man, I don’t give a bugger. That phone call,’ he asked, ‘could it have come from your brother?’

‘If it was a problem, no chance of that. Cameron wouldn’t be that direct. Ask your pal there, he’ll tell you.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t,’ Skinner told her, ‘but I don’t want him making an exception this time.’ He turned to McIlhenney. ‘Neil, I want you to stay with these two while we sort this out. I don’t want them to get anywhere near a phone. Andy, can you arrange for a car to pass by Cameron McCullough’s house, quietly, and check that the lights are on?’

‘Sure, I can do that. I can have somebody pick up Inez as well.’

‘Fine. While that’s happening, you and I will go and see how Henry’s getting on rounding up his bull.’

He was at the door, in the act of opening it, when Goldie called out to him. ‘Mister, wait a minute. Henry’s in enough bother as it is, so there’s something else you’d better know. When he left, he took a gun with him.’

‘Fuck!’ Skinner snapped. ‘That changes everything. Andy. .’

Martin cut it off. ‘You don’t need to say it. It’s time for me to tell my colleagues that we’re here and what we’re up to. I’ll get an armed response team to meet us at the farm.’

‘Try not to hurt him,’ the woman called out, a trace of fear in her voice for the first time.

‘That’ll depend,’ the chief constable told her, ‘on whether he tries to hurt us.’