Fallen Gods

Fifty-Six

"So you've got bugger all," Detective Chief Superintendent Dan Pringle pronounced. "That's the sum total of what you're telling me, is it, Maggie? You're almost a week into this investigation, and you've got no suspects and no positive lines of enquiry."

"I wouldn't quite…" a voice from his left intervened.

It was still short often a.m." and the head of CID was not in one of his sunnier morning moods; he glowered at Stevie Steele. "You shut up, inspector. I was talking to your divisional commander, not you." He turned his hostile gaze back on Rose. "Well?"

"I wouldn't quite say that, sir," she snapped back. "We've been pursuing this investigation diligently since the incident happened. We identified a potential suspect almost immediately, someone who had access to the picture and who was a schizophrenic with a history of religious freakery."

"Aye, you said. So why isn't she still in the frame?"

"Because she was eliminated at an early stage; she was set up. Whoever booby-trapped the Trinity lured her along there so she could take the blame."

"How do you know that?"

"She told us she had a phone call, a voice telling her to go as God's witness. We established that she did have a call at the time she said, but from a mobile belonging to someone in Candela and Finch's office."

"So what about him? Why isn't he banged up?"

"He was," said Rose, impatiently, 'but we had to release him. He denied making the call, and said that someone must have borrowed his phone without his knowledge."

"Did you dust it?"

"Of course we did."

"And did you find any prints other than the suspect's?"

"No."

"Was the girl known to the suspect?"

"They were at university at the same time."

"Well?"

"It's not enough."

"Who else have you got?"

"No one." Rose sighed, exasperated, and glared at Pringle. "Dan, what's got up your shirt? We're doing our bloody best here."

"You're trying too bloody hard then! You've got clear evidence that this schizo girl was enticed along so she'd be there on a plate for you. You've got a suspect with knowledge of her condition…"

"No, there's no evidence that he knew her history."

"Or that he didn't."

"And what's his motive, Dan? Why should this trainee bloody lawyer whose interests don't seem to run beyond the local wine bar decide to fire-bomb a work of art?"

"Maybe he was paid."

"Oh, come on!"

"Maybe he was; but what does it matter? You've got a case against this guy… What's his name?"

"Sheringham."

'… Sheringham. That's all that need concern you for now. Send it to the fiscal."

"What?"

"You heard. Clear your tray. Send the papers on Mr. Sheringham to the procurator fiscal and let Crown Office take the decision on whether to prosecute. I don't see the difficulty in that." He seemed to soften a little. "Look Maggie, I know that you and Mario are on the rocks, and I'm sorry about it, but maybe your private life's been dulling your professional eye, so to speak." She gasped in outraged protest, but he held up a hand to cut her off. "To answer your slightly impudent question, ACC Haggerty has been getting up my shirt, not big-time yet, but it's heading that way. The big fella could be back at any minute and Willie's going to want him to find a clean desk.

So you clean it for him. Savvy? You send a report on Sheringham to the PF, pronto, so that I can tell him we've got a result. That's not a suggestion, it's an order, so get on with it."

"I'll look like an idiot!" Rose snapped.

"No, the fiscal will if he doesn't prosecute. Do it." The head of CID pushed himself up from his perch on the corner of Rose's desk and headed for the door. He was almost there when Stevie Steele stepped across and blocked his way.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said quietly, 'but I'm not wearing that."

"You're not wearing what, son?" Pringle boomed. "You'll be wearing a fucking uniform if you're insubordinate with me."

"Don't threaten me, sir." The inspector's voice was steady and icy calm. "And don't ever shout at me again, or tell me to shut up. I'll be on this force long after you've gone, and don't you forget it.

Maggie's my boss, and you're not going to come in here and walk on her like that. You owe her two apologies, one for doubting her judgement and the other for even thinking that it might be affected by what's happening at home. And you ain't leaving this room till she has them."

"Stevie," Rose interposed, 'let it drop."

"Aye, son," Pringle rumbled, 'you do that."

"No way," he answered, evenly. "I've been making the running on this investigation. It's mine more than Superintendent Rose's, and I am telling you that we cannot report Sheringham for prosecution."

The chief superintendent seemed to back off, fractionally. "Why not?"

"Because I've been into his background and his movements in the period; he doesn't have the ability to make the sort of device that destroyed the picture, and he hasn't been in contact with anyone who might have.

If the fiscal asked me whether I could give evidence under oath as to this lad's guilt, my answer would have to be a great big no. I'll grant you that there's a chance that he might be guilty of making a stupid call to a vulnerable girl that triggered a renewed episode of schizophrenia, but as far as I know, being a mean-minded little arse hole is not an offence punishable under Scots criminal law!"

For the first time since he had come into Rose's office, the belligerence started to fade from Dan Pringle's eyes. "If you're feeling Mr. Haggerty's hot breath on your neck, sir," Steele continued, 'send him along here and let him talk to us. But don't tell us to do something that's eminently fucking stupid, just to placate him. Instead, can we have a sensible discussion about the future of this investigation, rather than just a shouting match?"

The two men stood facing each other, Pringle's agitation contrasting with the inspector's calm. Finally, the head of CID turned and resumed his seat on Rose's desk. He glanced at her. "You've got two apologies, Maggie."

"Accepted," she replied.

He looked back at Steele. "And you, son, have probably earned a place in my bad books for the rest of my career… or for the rest of the week at least. Let's have this sensible discussion."

The inspector nodded, and sat back down on his hard wooden chair. "Very good, sir. I've been doing some private brainstorming, and I've reached a conclusion about this investigation. We're not going to get a result here, not until we clear up another enquiry."

"Which enquiry?" asked Rose, puzzled.

"One that we don't even know about yet. I was on my way to talk to you about this, Maggie," he explained, 'when Mr. Pringle arrived." He looked at the two senior officers. "Let's consider this for a minute.

Why would anybody really want to blow up a two-bit work of art?"

"For the reason we thought Andrea wanted to," the superintendent replied. "Misplaced religious zeal'

"And cover it up? You don't really believe that, do you? I don't, not any more. Look at the precedents; zealots don't mind being caught. The

September the Eleventh hijackers all thought they were going to paradise in a blaze of glory; there was no attempt at concealment after the event. I've done some research closer to home too; leaving aside the sectarian vandalism that happens occasionally in Scotland, the most famous incident here was back in the fifties, when a man attacked

Dali's Christ of St. John on the Cross in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. There was nothing subtle about that; he just walked up to it and started ripping it up with a blade."

"Aye, and look at the Venus de Milo," muttered Pringle, his normal humour returning. "Someone knocked the arms right off that."

"He was never caught," Steele shot back. "Let's stay serious, though; last Saturday's incident was carefully planned. To the extent that we were even provided with a dead cert suspect that we could grab without question, one who wouldn't even be prosecuted, but shipped back to the funny farm, case closed. All that just to burn a dodgy picture and get away with it? I don't think so."

"An insurance job, then," Pringle muttered.

"Who'd benefit? Only the owner, and that's the Guggenheim in Bilbao, so you can forget that. In this case there wouldn't be a benefit anyway, since I'm told that the painting would almost certainly have fetched more at auction than its insured value, which relates to the original purchase price. No, I've got another question. Instead of asking what the benefit of the crime might be, let's ask ourselves, what was its effect?"

He looked at Rose and saw a smile cross her face. "What was it, then?" asked the head of CID.

Steele looked up at him. "It tied up just about every fire appliance in Edinburgh, when the roads were at their busiest. So when there was a second outbreak in the city centre, very shortly after the Academy incident, the fire services were unable to turn out in sufficient strength to prevent major damage being done to the building."

"But that wasn't a suspicious fire," Maggie countered. "If it had been, the brigade would have alerted us right away."

"How many major fires are there in Edinburgh city centre in the course of the year? Half a dozen in a bad year, that's the answer. Yet last

Saturday, we had two, the one at the RSA, and a second, in an empty office building in the Exchange, no more than half an hour later. If that's not suspicious, I don't know what is."

"Have you spoken to Matt Grogan?" asked Pringle.

Steele nodded. "This morning. He told me that it was an electrical fire, probably starting in a piece of equipment that had been left on, and spreading rapidly through the wiring of the computer network. There were sprinklers but they were ineffective because of the type of fire it was. There was also an automatic alarm system that alerted the security staff right away. Normally the Fountainbridge Station would have responded inside three minutes, and the fire would have been contained, but all their appliances, and those from Macdonald Road, had been despatched to the relatively small fire at the Academy. It took them twenty minutes to turn out, given the traffic situation. By that time all they could do was stop it spreading up or down. The floor where it started was melted."

The head of CID tugged at his moustache. "But you said it was empty?"

"Not unoccupied, though; it's the head office of Tubau Gordon, a major investment manager. And here's something else that's interesting; normally there would have been people in on a Saturday, Far East traders following up on Hong Kong deals. Last weekend, though, there was a general holiday in China, so there was no one there." The inspector looked at Pringle. "What does that tell you, sir?"

The ageing, crumpled detective grunted. "That I was a fucking idiot for telling you to shut up. Apart from that, it tells me you'd better look into that firm right away, to see if you can find a connection between them and the exhibition fire."

"I have done, sir. Their chief executive was on the invitation list, signed in, too. When the picture went up in flames, he was right there."

"Better go and see him, then."

"I plan to, sir."

"Just be careful, then, Stevie. If there's anything in this, then, unlike me, he's a right clever bugger."