Fatal Last Words

Sixty-eight

‘What do you think, Sarge?’ Sauce Haddock asked. ‘Will things be much different now that Mr Skinner’s chief constable?’

‘In theory, no,’ Ray Wilding replied, ‘not for us, at any rate. The word that’s filtered down from Neil McIlhenney is that he’s going to keep hands-on with CID, just like he did before. But there are bound to be changes. There’ll be somebody new in the command corridor, for openers.’

‘Someone from outside?’

‘You’d assume so, especially with the big man’s being promoted internally, but I wouldn’t put money on that. He’s loyal to his own, and it’ll take a good candidate to beat Brian Mackie for the deputy job. If that happens-’

‘Mr McGuire for ACC?’

‘Wait and see, lad; I don’t expect anyone will give us a vote.’

‘What about Andy Martin?’ Alice Cowan called out across the CID room.

Wilding stared at her. ‘Are you pulling my chain?’

‘No,’ she replied innocently. ‘Why not him?’

‘If you don’t know, I’m not going to be the one to tell you. Let’s just say that Judas bloody Iscariot’s got more chance.’

Cowan turned to Haddock. ‘Sauce, what have I missed?’ she demanded, but the young DC was saved by the ringing of his phone.

He snatched it up. ‘Yes?’

‘DC Haddock, Leith? Communications Centre. I have a call for you, foreign, from Belgrade.’

His heart jumped in his chest. ‘Put it through.’ He heard a click. ‘This is DC Harold Haddock,’ he said.

‘I received email,’ a woman replied, ‘from you, yes?’

‘Yes. Are you Vsna?’

‘That’s my name, Vsna Vukic. You tell me the man who email me before is dead?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘How?’

‘Murdered.’

‘Shit! Then I shouldn’t be speaking to you.’

‘I won’t take long.’

‘He ask me about some people, give me names, Andelić, Nikolić, asked me if I knew them.’

‘Why did he ask you?’

‘I am journalist in Sarajevo. Someone we both know sent him to me, a lady in America.’

‘Did he say anything else to you?’

‘When I reply to his mail I ask why he want to know anyway. He send me another. It said, “It’s about the cleaner.” That’s all I need to know. I delete his mails, just like I’m going to delete yours now. Don’t send me no more. I going to close that address.’

‘But. .’ There was a sound, louder than a click, the sound of a phone hitting its cradle, hard. And then the dialling tone.

‘That’s a load of help,’ he sighed. ‘Thank you very much.’