Dead And Buried

Fifty-eight

‘You gentlemen seem to come in a rush,’ Sylvia Thorpe exclaimed.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Ray Wilding.

‘I mean it: you’re like buses and bills. You don’t see any for while then they arrive in twos and threes. My office has had no contact with the police for over a year, and now we hear from you and your colleague Sergeant McGurk at one and the same time.’

‘It’s pure coincidence,’ the sergeant replied, wondering as he spoke what the DCC’s office-bound assistant had been up to. ‘I’m involved in a complicated investigation and the name I gave you has cropped up in it.’

‘Not nearly as complicated as Sergeant McGurk’s, or as interesting: I’m sure you’ll hear about it in due course. As for your enquiry, it was much simpler. Soraya Goma, pharmacist, of Cairo, Egypt, and Edward Charnwood, clerk, of sixty-two Glenochil Terrace, were married in Edinburgh four years ago; their son, Edward Hosni Charnwood, was born in June the year before last. I’ll fax the certificates to the number you gave me.’

Wilding noted the information on a pad. ‘I’d like some family background on Eddie senior: parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins. Can you do that for me?’

‘No problem. Give me an hour or so.’

‘Thanks, Ms Thorpe,’ he said, hung up, and looked up to see McIlhenney approaching his desk. ‘Guess what? Soraya Charnwood’s a …’

The superintendent beat him to the punch. ‘Pharmacist; we got word from the DSS while you were speaking to the GRO. She’s employed in the dispensing department at the Western General. That means she’d have access to the drugs that were used to paralyse Starr. I’ve also been speaking to the SDEA, sharing our information with them; their operation with the Guardia Civil, the one that Bandit effed up, involved a butcher from Dundee called Joe Falconer. He made a trip to Pamplona as well: he was suspected of being involved in supply, so he was under round-the-clock surveillance. He dropped his car at the same garage, and picked it up a couple of days later. They went to lift him this morning and found him in his meat fridge, shot in the head. What does that sound like?’

‘It sounds like Eddie and Soraya have been closing the book on anyone who could give evidence against them and her brothers.’

‘Exactly. These are dangerous people: they’re armed and on the run, we assume, with their kid. I only hope they know when the game’s up, for his sake. Those photos we took from their place: you’ve had them distributed?’

‘Yes, but they still may be hard to catch. They left their passports behind them at their flat; that has to mean they’re travelling with forgeries. If they pick a really busy place to exit through, and change their appearance. .’

‘They can change theirs, but disguising the wee boy will be more difficult.’

‘It may be too late already. They could have been on their way out of the country by the time we found Big Ming’s body. His place isn’t that far from Edinburgh airport. DVLA told me that Charnwood drives a blue Escort: I’ve circulated the number with the photographs and I’m having the airport car park checked.’

‘Of course, but even if it’s there it could take the best part of a day to find it.’

‘True.’ Wilding sighed. ‘I’m sorry, boss,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘We should have been where we are now three days ago.’

‘That’s not your fault. I know you did your best to keep the inquiry on the right lines.’

‘I could have come to you when I saw how it was going.’ McIlhenney smiled and shook his head. ‘No, you couldn’t, Ray. Two or three days into a new job, with a new DCI, and you go behind his back to complain about him? I don’t think so. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s big Bob’s, for sticking him down here without thinking it through.’

It was Wilding’s turn to grin. ‘Are you going to tell him that?’

‘No, I am not, and neither is Mario. But he’d figure it out for himself if he knew what’s been happening. Actually I suspect he has already: it was him that suggested I move Stevie Steele down here. Strictly within these walls, Bandit wasn’t moved off the Drugs Squad as a reward for outstanding results. He was shifted because he took too high a profile in achieving them. He’s a very visible copper, is Mr Mackenzie; he can’t help it. Short-term, in the right situation, that can be valuable. But long-term, in a job that calls for a low profile, it’s not.’

‘So how’s the long-term going to be in this office?’

‘That, my friend, is going to be up to him.’