Aftershock

Nineteen

Becky Stallings picked up the phone and tried again, for the third time in ten minutes. Third time lucky.

‘Yes!’ Neil McIlhenney snapped. In his unofficial introduction to the Edinburgh force and its senior figures, her boyfriend, Detective Sergeant Ray Wilding, had described the city’s CID controller as ‘the soothing influence on Mario McGuire and Bob Skinner’. Both the head of CID and the deputy chief constable were famously volatile, he had told her, seriously hard men, never to be taken lightly. On the other hand McIlhenney, while no soft touch, was invariably calm and heavily relied on by his two senior officers, both of whom were close friends as well as colleagues. ‘McGuire and McIlhenney are blood brothers,’ Ray had said. ‘When they were younger, they used to call them the Glimmer Twins; you know, as in Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Some still do.’

And so, when the detective superintendent bit her head off, it came as a complete surprise.

‘Sorry, sir,’ she replied. ‘Bad time?’

It was as if she had pressed a reset button; immediately, normal service was restored. ‘No, excuse me, Inspector; I was expecting a call from my bank manager. How are things? Have you found the MP’s son yet?’

‘We know where he was last Saturday and, thanks to young Sauce, we’ve got an address for him in France.’

‘What does your instinct tell you about this lad? Is he our killer, and is he sitting out there pretending to wait for her?’

‘He has to be a suspect, sir. He’s her boyfriend, and one of the last people to see her alive.’

‘So was his father,’ McIlhenney pointed out. ‘You told me they all had dinner together the night before Sugar was murdered. Why would the boy kill her? They were just about to go off to France for some serious art and probably some serious horizontal jogging.’

‘If you want a reason, maybe he took cold feet.’

‘I doubt that; teenage boy, older woman? Now, can we go back to my question? What does your instinct say?’

‘That he didn’t do it,’ Stallings replied instantly.

‘Then we’re agreed. He has to be interviewed, for sure, as a priority, but we won’t expect that to close the case.’

‘No. He’s not the only person on the suspect list either. Have you ever heard of a PC named Weekes, Theo Weekes?’

The line went quiet. ‘The name’s familiar,’ said McIlhenney, eventually. ‘One of ours?’

‘So I’m told by Sugar’s father. He and Sugar were engaged, but he dumped her a couple of years ago. John Dean was pleased: he didn’t like him.’

‘Would he take to any of his daughter’s men? Fathers can be possessive.’

‘Do you speak from experience?’

The superintendent laughed. ‘Ask me in two or three years.’

‘John Dean isn’t. He likes Davis Colledge, for all that he’s nearly eight years younger than Sugar.’

‘How would Dean be as a judge of character?’

‘I hope he’d be good; he’s a head teacher.’

‘Let’s take a look at PC Weekes, in that case, formally.’

‘How hard do you want me to look at him?’ she asked.

‘As hard as you have to. But don’t do anything about him just yet. Let’s set him a test. I’m about to give a press briefing at which I’ll announce that we’ve identified the victim as Sugar Dean. There’s no last lingering doubt about that, is there?’

‘No. Jack’s just had a call from the mortuary: her dental records are a match, to back up the scar and the broken arm.’

‘Right. I’ll release her name, and confirm that this is a murder investigation, as the media are saying already. I’ll ask for people who knew Sugar to come forward with information. In these circumstances I’d expect a serving officer to come forward without being asked. If we haven’t heard from Weekes by midday tomorrow, we’ll pull him in.’

‘Where? Torphichen Place?’

‘No. We’ll rattle his cage harder than that. I’ll see him in my office, two o’clock. If DCS McGuire’s free, I might even ask him to sit in. Mario’s bad-cop act is something to see.’

Stallings heard a soft chuckle. ‘You’ve got me hoping that Weekes doesn’t volunteer information, sir,’ she said.

‘If Dean’s right about him, he probably won’t. Between now and then, I want you to contact as many of Sugar’s colleagues and friends as you can. Mention Weekes’s name to them and see what comes up.’

‘What about Dave Colledge? Should we ask about him?’

‘Of course. Okay, our gut says it’s not him, but I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll bet you have too.’

‘Maybe, but I’m a woman, so I’m not going to admit it.’

‘God, you sounded just like my late wife there. And her successor, for that matter.’

‘Thank you; I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘You should, Becky. Now, how do we get hold of the boy Davis?’

‘I was going to ask you for permission to have the French police locate him and hold him for questioning.’

‘That could be dangerous; they might bang him up in some dirty local police cell for a couple of days. I doubt if Daddy would fancy that much. No, we need somebody on the ground there when the contact is made. Remind me, where is Collioure, exactly?’

‘It’s on the French Mediterranean coast. According to the map, it’s practically on the Spanish border.’

‘In that case,’ said McIlhenney, ‘leave finding the boy to me. Mr McGuire and I are having a meeting soon that might provide a solution to the problem.’