Dead And Buried

Twenty-nine

For all that there was a December chill in the air, and Princes Street was damp and grey, Detective Sergeant Jack McGurk was appreciating his day out. He would never have said that he found his job boring. . being executive assistant to Bob Skinner could never be dull. . and after a difficult beginning he and his boss had developed a good working relationship, but it did tie him to the office. McGurk had always been an outdoors copper: he had enjoyed his days on the beat, and the brief spell he had spent with Dan Pringle in the Borders on CID duty had been among the highlights of his career, despite the crisis it had caused in his marriage. That had all been sorted out when he had been offered the post with the DCC: he was grateful to Skinner for that, and yet it was good to be seeing the heart of Edinburgh again, rather than just the view from his window at Fettes.

He turned off the great thoroughfare, glancing to his right at Wellington’s equestrian statue, as he always did when he passed it, and walked up the slight incline that led to New Register House.

He identified himself to a receptionist at the desk in the entrance hall. ‘Ah, yes, Sergeant, I was told you’d be arriving. If you’d just go up one floor,’ the man pointed to a staircase behind him, ‘turn left and take the second door, someone will be along to see you.’

McGurk followed the directions, and found himself in a small meeting room, with a window that looked down on to the Café Royal, and the Guildford Bar next door. His dad had worked in the post office, when it had been in the big building across the road, and the Guildford had been his favourite hang-out.

He had been thinking of the past for five minutes when the door opened and a woman entered. She wore a high-necked sweater and black slacks, and she held a yellow folder in her right hand. ‘Good afternoon, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘I’m Sylvia Thorpe; we spoke on the phone earlier. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’

‘Not at all. I was enjoying the view.’

‘The view?’ Her eyebrows rose and then she laughed. ‘Ah, across the way, you mean: yes, there’s always plenty going on over there.’ She sat at the small round table in the centre of the room: McGurk joined her, settling his long body awkwardly into the standard civil-service-issue chair. ‘It’s been a while since we had a call from the police,’ she said. ‘In fact, I don’t think we’ve had one since my old boss Jim Glossop retired.’

The detective glanced at her ringless fingers. ‘I hope it isn’t an inconvenience, Ms Thorpe.’

‘Not a bit. “Miss” will do perfectly well, by the way: the political correctness of the eighties and nineties passed me by. But “Sylvia” will do even better.’

‘Okay, Sylvia: do you have something for me? I’m sorry I didn’t have anything more than the name and year of birth for you to go on.’

‘That was quite enough. There weren’t a hell of a lot of “Claude” registrations in Scotland, not even back at the end of the twenties, when the man you’re after was born. I have to say, I can see why you’re asking about him, even if it is a right few years too late.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He’s had a very interesting life, so far.’

‘So he’s still alive.’

‘Let me put it this way: we have no record of him being dead. He could be six feet under in some foreign land, but if he is, word hasn’t filtered back to us.’

‘And would it?’

‘That would depend on where and how he died.’

‘So what records do you have?’

‘I have his birth certificate: registration took place in Perth.’ She opened the folder, took it from the pile of documents it contained then placed it to one side. ‘And,’ she said, ‘I have his marriage certificates.’

‘Certificates?’ McGurk exclaimed.

‘Oh, yes, Mr Bothwell was a serial husband.’ She spread the rest of the documents out on the desk in a fan shape. ‘He married three times. The first marriage was to Ethel Margaret Ward, in Wishaw, when he was twenty-three. The second took place four years later, in Glasgow: the bride’s name was Primrose Jardine. And the third was four years after that, in Edinburgh, to Montserrat Rivera Jiminez of Torroella de Montgri, Spain.’

‘Regular as clockwork, eh? Our Mr Bothwell must be a meticulous man.’

‘In all but one respect.’

‘What would that be?’

‘Before his second and third marriages he neglected to get divorced. I’ve checked with the courts: he didn’t, and that’s certain.’

‘Maybe he was unlucky; maybe he was widowed twice.’

‘By the time he was thirty-two? No, Sergeant: according to our records, all three Mrs Bothwells are still alive, and the second and third have some bad news coming to them.’

So Bob Skinner’s tip to the chief had been spot-on. McGurk chuckled. ‘Not nearly as bad as the news that’s coming to him, once I catch up with the polygamous old sod, wherever he is.’