Aftershock

Fourteen

‘Do you want to make this call, ma’am?’ asked Detective Constable Haddock. ‘I’ve finally traced Davis Colledge’s family, through the office at the Merchant Company. I thought there was something familiar about the name. His father’s a Member of Parliament. . Westminster, not Holyrood.’

‘Michael Colledge?’ DI Stallings exclaimed. ‘The shadow Defence Secretary?’

‘That’s the man.’

‘In that case, Sauce, yes; you’d better leave that one to me. In fact, I’d better check further up the line myself.’

She picked up the phone and dialled Neil McIlhenney: as commander of all CID operations in Edinburgh, he was her operational boss. All day, she had been keeping him briefed on the progress of the inquiry. She heard him sigh as she gave him the latest update. ‘Do you want to take it on from here, sir?’ she asked. ‘Given that he’s a VIP?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘I’m not asking,’ she replied, ‘if that’s what you mean.’

‘In that case, go ahead. You’ve got the rank; you don’t need me. Anyway, the guy’s not a VIP; he’s a Tory.’

She laughed. ‘I won’t tell anyone you said that.’

‘It wouldn’t hurt my career if you did. This is Scotland: we’ve got more dinosaurs left than we have Tories.’

Stallings opened her bag and took out her Filofax. It was one of her most treasured possessions. It had been an eighteenth-birthday gift from her boyfriend of the moment, but its value was far more than sentimental. Within its brown-leather cover was every telephone number she had called since then, personal and professional, listed alphabetically on well-thumbed pages. She opened at ‘C’, and drew a blank, but switched to ‘H’ and found the main number for the House of Commons.

It took several minutes for the switchboard to locate the Member of Parliament for Newtown Mowbray through his researcher. When he came on line, he sounded distinctly out of breath. ‘My assistant says that you’re the police,’ he gasped.

‘Yes, Mr Colledge,’ the DI began, pushing thoughts of MPs and their researchers to the back of her mind. ‘Becky Stallings, detective inspector, Edinburgh, CID. I need to contact your son, Davis. I wonder if you can tell me how I can reach him.’

‘Dave? Why do you want Dave? What the hell’s he been up to? I’ve had no reports from his school of any incidents.’

‘He hasn’t been up to anything, sir. I need to speak to him in connection with an investigation we have going up here.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘The death of a woman. We haven’t confirmed her identity formally, but we believe she was your son’s art tutor.’

‘Jesus! Sugar? You are absolutely certain that it’s her?’

‘We’ll need to use DNA to confirm it, but I’m in no doubt.’

‘How did she die? Did she have a heart condition? Or was it some sort of an accident?’

‘She was shot in the head, at close range.’

‘And you’re looking for Dave?’ the MP exclaimed.

‘It’s okay,’ said Stallings, quickly. ‘I’m not saying he’s a suspect. We’re going to be speaking to everyone who knew Miss Dean.’

‘Jesus!’ Colledge murmured again. ‘It’s unbelievable. Such a vivacious girl. Who’d. .’

‘You’ve met her?’

‘Yes, a couple of weeks ago. My wife and I visited Edinburgh to attend the school prize-giving. Dave won the art prize. We arranged to take him to dinner the night before, and he asked if he could bring a friend. We were expecting another lad; we got quite a shock when she arrived. That was Thursday evening; and you’re saying that she was. . That’s just awful.’

‘You called her vivacious, sir.’

‘Yes, and I meant it literally: full of life, that’s how she struck my wife and me. We took to her, once we had got over the initial surprise.’

The MP was being more talkative than Stallings had expected. She decided to move the discussion on, further than she had intended when it began. ‘Did Davis. . did they. . discuss the nature of their relationship?’

‘He introduced her as his art tutor. He told us that they had met at an inter-school event and that she had been impressed by his work, enough to have offered to coach him in her spare time.’

‘So they were simply pupil and tutor.’

She heard Michael Colledge take a deep breath. ‘That was how he introduced her. However, it became clear during the evening that they were very good friends.’

‘Intimate?’

‘There was nothing said to confirm it, but from something my son let slip, I wouldn’t have been surprised.’

‘Would that have worried you?’

‘It might have worried Irma, Dave’s mother, but I wouldn’t have been too concerned. My son is a grown man: he’s approaching nineteen, a mature nineteen, I think you’d say. He’s had girlfriends since he was fifteen, at school and at home. Yes, I could see him being attracted to an older woman, and she to him.’ He paused. ‘Inspector, the fact is, he and Sugar were planning to go to France together.’

‘To Collioure?’

‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘I was told that Sugar was supposed to be going there.’

‘It’s true. Dave told me that they had rented a place for July, through an agency, and that they were going to spend the time painting. It’s a favourite spot for artists, apparently; Charles Rennie Mackintosh, among others. I asked him how much they were paying. The figure he gave me didn’t sound very much for that part of the world, so I surmised that it didn’t run to a bedroom each.’

‘Do you know where your son is now?’ Stallings asked.

‘I assume he’s in France. He travelled back to our home in Buxton with us after the school closed. We drove, as he had to move all his stuff out of the boarders’ residence. The arrangement was that Sugar would fly there on the Saturday, that’s. . what?. . ten days ago now, and that Dave would follow her a couple of days after that. He left for Collioure last Monday; he flew to Perpignan and planned to take the bus from there.’

‘Have you heard from him since then?’

‘No. Not a word. I’ve been assuming that the two of them were painting away, or whatever. The last thing he said when I dropped him at Stansted was that he’d send me a postcard. Those can take for ever to get here from Europe, so I haven’t been bothered.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘No, he didn’t give me one. I don’t think he knew it himself.’

‘Do you have a means of contacting him?’

‘He has a mobile. And as soon as we’re finished, Inspector, I’ll be calling him. Be sure of that.’

‘I think it might be better if I speak to him first,’ Stallings ventured.

‘You can think what you like,’ Colledge snapped, ‘but you’re not going to forbid me to call my son. I’ll be happy to give you the number, but I want a few minutes’ grace before you use it.’

‘If that’s how you want it, you’re right, I can’t stop you. But please, be careful what you say to him. Mature he may be, but it’s not the sort of news he’ll be expecting.’

‘I’m not without experience of such matters,’ the MP told her. ‘I’m a barrister by profession. I’ve handled Privy Council appeals for a couple of Caribbean clients in my time, in capital cases; unsuccessful appeals, I should add. It’s never easy to tell a chap they’re going to hang him in the morning. Here’s the number, if you’re ready. It’s a UK mobile, as I say. You won’t need to use the French code.’

She entered the eleven digits into her Filofax, under ‘C’, then followed it with Michael Colledge’s personal House of Commons and mobile numbers. ‘I expect to be kept informed,’ he told her.

‘I promise to do so,’ said Stallings. ‘Does your son have the means to get back to Britain?’

‘He has a return ticket; plus he’s not short of cash. He has a decent allowance, and a couple of pieces of plastic.’

‘Mr Colledge, one final question. Let’s assume that your son got to France to find that Sugar wasn’t there. How would he react?’

‘In any number of ways, Inspector. Because we’ve been apart for most of Dave’s growing up, I might not know him as well as I should. But I can tell you this. He will handle it; if he’s worried or hurt or anything else, he will not turn to anyone else for help. . not even me.’