A Rush of Blood

Eighty-two

‘I was out by one,’ he said. ‘It turned out that there were nine people in the house, the Estonian girls and the guy you told me about, Marius Ramanauskas. He couldn’t wait to talk; he told us that he’s entirely innocent, and that he was only there because Inez told him to come and look after them while she arranged transport home.’

‘Did Inez say anything to that?’ Skinner asked. They were at the murder scene. The whole area had been floodlit, but they stood to the side, in the darkness, as crime-suited technicians made their way across the ground.

‘As it happens, she backed him up, in a way. She said that since his crowd had got the two youngest ones on drugs, it was down to him to help them get clean.’

‘Have you searched the house yet?’

Martin nodded. ‘Your two did that. It has a bloody enormous cellar, mostly filled with golf clubs. . Callaways, Titleists, TaylorMade, Ping and a few other top-of-the-range makes. . and expensive clothing, Hugo Boss, Ashcroft and so on. We’ll have to consult the manufacturers to work out the total value. As for returning it to its owners, that’ll be a nightmare. How will we know whose is whose? It looks as if they’ve been stockpiling. My guess is they weren’t going to sell it in Britain; it was all going south in a container, to France, Spain. .’

‘Or east, to Scandinavia,’ Skinner suggested. ‘Russia even; they’ve got the golf bug. Where are the women now?’

‘I’ve had everybody taken to Perth. The Estonians will be kept in a youth hostel, under guard. Inez, Cameron and Marius are being locked up for the night, and Goldie will be taken there in the morning, to be interviewed. According to Neil, she’s in shock. He decided to tell her about Henry, after Murtagh had gone, and she cracked up. I’ve sent a woman DC to stay with her overnight.’

‘And what about Grandpa? What are you doing about him?’

‘Nothing tonight, for sure. Inez is declaring loud and long that her dad knew nothing about the robberies or the stuff that she and Dud were keeping there. She said it was all Dudley’s idea, and that Grandpa was never involved. I’m going to back off now and leave it to Rod, but my view is that the next time we lift Cameron, it’s got to be for good.’

‘So how’s it going to pan out?’ the chief constable asked.

Martin scratched his stubbled chin. ‘Good question, with more than one answer. I think Inez is fucked; we’ve got her for the robbery in Edinburgh, and as a minimum for possession of the stuff in the cellar. But we can’t lay a glove on Goldie for any of that, or for trafficking. The most we can do her for is harbouring illegal immigrants, and I would not dream of asking the fiscal to proceed with that charge. The state itself knowingly harbours illegal immigrants, for fuck’s sake. She’ll be released. I don’t know about Marius, though.’

‘He’s bailed on minor drugs charges that won’t even make court, so you’ll have to cut him loose too. But,’ Skinner frowned, ‘couldn’t you do Grandpa for possession? The gear was in his cellar, after all.’

Andy chuckled. ‘Ah, but that’s the beauty of it,’ he exclaimed. ‘I know I said earlier that he had a farm, but technically, he doesn’t. The name on the land register is Cameron McCullough, all right, but it’s not him. It’s his granddaughter. She’s his heir; everything he does is for her eventually.’

‘And is she worth it?’

‘She is to her grandad. She might be only a kid, but he’s closer to her than anyone else. As soon as she turned twenty-one she was appointed to the boards of CamMac plc and all its subsidiaries. She’s well smart; it’s as if all the female brains in the family by-passed her mother and her aunt and went straight to her. Put her and Alex in the same business, and they’d rule the fucking world in five years.’

‘Speaking of my daughter,’ Bob murmured, ‘I had a call from her, about an hour ago. She asked me if you were all right. Are you?’

‘I wasn’t then: I am now. Thanks to her.’

‘Good. Now, young Cameron,’ he continued, quickly. ‘What’s she saying?’

‘Apart from telling her mother that she and Dud make Fred and Wilma Flintstone look like intellectuals, she’s saying nothing at all. She’s cool. My suspicion is that she expects her grandfather to reach in and pull her out the fire.’

‘He’ll have a job. She took part in a robbery, and she was followed from there to here.’

‘Yes, and I’m having difficulty understanding why. She’s much brighter than that. How many of these robberies have there been?’

‘This was the tenth. The pattern was the same until tonight; patrol cars diverted by fake calls, so there was nobody to respond.’

‘What was the difference tonight?’

‘According to Maggie, the earlier calls were made by a man; these were by a woman. By the way,’ he added, ‘when can she have them?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Martin.

‘When can she have Inez and Cameron? They’re hers. This was her operation, they committed the robbery in Edinburgh and that’s where they should appear in court. Maggie deserves the credit, and so does Alice. . and Griff: he could use a gold star on his record right now.’

‘I can appreciate that, but we have to charge them here, in Tayside, with possession.’

Skinner looked at his friend. ‘We’re not getting into a turf war here, are we, Andy?’

‘Not at all; you know I’m right. I’ll tell you what; we’ll charge them with what we’ve got and stick them up in court tomorrow. We’ll have them remanded in custody, then hand them over to you.’

‘Fair enough. Cowan and Montell can interview and charge them after that.’ Skinner broke off as Rod Greatorix approached, looking haggard and exhausted. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked him.

‘They’re just getting to work. The door of Henry’s car’s peppered with heavy gauge shotgun pellets, so that’ll give them a starting point, but. . they’ve looked out round the back and found a bin. There’s a lot of stuff been burned in it, paper underneath, files and the like, and something else on top. They reckon it’s a suit like the ones they wear. Meticulous, eh?’

‘We’ve seen something similar,’ the chief constable remarked, ‘in an investigation we had long ago. A guy dressed himself up in protective clothing for his kills.’

Greatorix brightened up as he clutched at a straw. ‘Any chance of a link?’

‘Not unless he’s risen from the grave.’

The light was extinguished. ‘Damn it. For a minute there. .’ He sighed. ‘I’m inclined to believe these are contract killings. What do you two think?’

‘I’m not going to knock that on the head, Rod,’ Martin told him. ‘But I’ve never seen a professional murder that’s as messy as these, or one that involved torture, for that matter.’

‘It happened in Ireland often enough,’ Skinner pointed out.

‘But those were political.’

‘Are there any “buts” with murder?’ He looked at the chief superintendent. ‘Yes, Rod, logically you might be right. But if you are, there’s a follow-up question, isn’t there? Who ordered it?’

‘Someone with a grudge against Grandpa, I suppose; sending him a message.’

‘From what I’ve seen, it would have been easier to kill McCullough himself than to take out these two.’

Greatorix sighed. ‘So you’re as much in the dark as me?’ he blurted out, his voice full of frustration; ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

Skinner shook his head, and checked his watch. ‘The only thing I’m saying, Rod, is that unless we can help you in some other way, it’s time that Andy and I picked up Neil McIlhenney and headed back to Edinburgh. What I’m thinking is this: you guys have gone on for years knowing that Cameron McCullough has done, or ordered, things, but you’ve never been able to prove it. Right?’

The other men nodded, simultaneously.

‘Well, he didn’t do this one, but it’s going to fall into the same category. Get ready to list it as unsolved, or to keep the file open for a long time.’

‘Are you telling us you do know who did it right enough?’ the chief superintendent asked.

‘I knew who did it as soon as I walked into that barn.’ He beckoned to Martin. ‘When I’m ready, I’ll tell you. Come on, it’s the middle of the fucking night and I think I’m going to have a very early start.’

‘Why?’ his friend asked. ‘Where are you going?’

‘France.’