Dead And Buried

Sixty-seven

Assistant Chief Constable Max Allan looked across his desk at his distinguished visitor. ‘Jimmy, are you after a bar for your Queen’s Police Medal?’ he asked, with a grin. ‘I’m new to chief-officer rank, I know, but I’ve never heard of anything like this. When word of this spreads in ACPOS there will be hell to pay. What sort of a precedent have you set, running your own one-man investigation?’

‘Max,’ said Proud, ‘if word of this spreads in ACPOS there will indeed be hell to pay, but it’ll be coming in your direction, from me. I’m a private citizen laying information before you, as ACC Crime in Strathclyde, about serious offences which I believe have taken place. I expect confidentiality, and I’ll bloody well have it.’

‘Keep your hair on, Chief, I’m kidding, but you can imagine what the rest would say.’

‘Son, at my age I don’t give a monkey’s what they say. I set out to do a quiet favour for a lady: in the course of my enquiries on her behalf, I’ve come upon something that needs looking at officially by the appropriate forces, yours and mine.’

‘Bigamy.’

‘That’s for certain, but after forty years, and with all parties missing, I’d be inclined to shrug my shoulders at it. No, it’s this Bothwell man’s pattern of behaviour that concerns me. These women disappeared, Max, all four of them. It may be that Ethel Ward cashed up her fortune, chucked him out and went to live out her days in the sunshine. It may be that Montserrat Rivera Jiminez found out about his affair with Annabelle Gentle and went back to Spain, leaving them to elope to Australia on a ten-quid assisted package. But there’s the pregnant Primrose Jardine, who left Broomhill, and doesn’t appear to have shown up in Edinburgh. Nor was the birth of her child ever registered. She can’t be explained away that easily, and nor can Arnold and Rachel Solomons’ garden shed.’

‘Okay, I accept all that. So what do you want me to do about it?’

Proud leaned on Allan’s desk. ‘I’m not after glory; I’m after anonymity in this matter, but we’ve got a cross-border investigation on our hands here. Since it started on my patch, it’s appropriate that I take the lead. Agreed?’

‘Agreed, sir.’

‘In that case, Max, I’d be grateful if you’d obtain the appropriate warrant from the sheriff, and find out if there’s anything under that bloody shed.’