Funeral Note

Mario McGuire

I’d known my weekend wasn’t going to be one of leisure, so I’d been quite happy to give the nod to Paula going to the Glasgow concert with Aileen. She wasn’t so close to her due date that I was afraid to let her out of my sight, although I knew that would happen soon.

I rose early and caught up on the morning news headlines on Sky, then shaved and showered. Paula was stirring by the time I was ready, so I fixed her breakfast to order, muesli with cubed beetroot all mixed with pouring yoghurt. . don’t say it, I know. . and with a Berocca drink on the side. I had coffee and a couple of poached eggs on toast; conservative, that’s me.

These days I don’t like going into the office on a Saturday. I’m pretty much on call twenty-four seven, so I value my free time even more than I did when I was other ranks. Indeed I’d been grabbing as much as I could, well aware that when Junior arrived I wasn’t going to have any.

It had to be done, though. The chief was steamed up about Varley, and wanted the investigation wrapped up as quickly as possible, so I’d told Mackenzie that I wanted a progress report, ten thirty that morning, from him and Bob Skinner’s ex-brother-in-law or whatever the hell he is. There was also the consideration that Payne didn’t come for free. In the old days, the command at Pitt Street would have lent him to us for as long as we needed him, simple as that, but that type of inter-force courtesy had been swept away by its new broom, so we were hiring him by the day with expenses, invoiced by Strathclyde, plus VAT.

It was just short of ten when I got there; that gave me enough time to shift some paperwork, the kind I like the least, overtime analyses, division by division, and senior CID officers’ expenses claims. And it let me do something else. On a whim I took out my mobile and made a call.

‘How’s tricks?’ Neil McIlhenney asked, as he picked it up. I could hear road noise in the background, so I assumed he was on Bluetooth.

‘Tricky,’ I replied. ‘How’s London?’

‘Exciting. It’s like a language school. My people are chasing Russians, Mexicans; God, you name it we’re after them. I can understand most of them; it’s the cockneys that could be speaking Greek as far as I’m concerned. Lou’s had to interpret for me. But I’m loving it, and so are the kids. You know, Mario, I never dreamed for a moment that I’d ever leave Edinburgh. I was nervous as hell when I started here, but not any more.’

‘Different atmosphere?’

‘And then some,’ he laughed. ‘The organisation’s huge. I’m surrounded by Very Important People. Some of them actually are, the others act the part regardless. I’m a chief super, and I’m only halfway up the ladder. I’ll probably be a commander in a year’s time, but you aren’t really somebody here until you can call yourself Commissioner, even if it’s only Deputy Assistant.’ He paused. ‘The talk down here is that’s what they’re going to call the new super-chief in Scotland: Commissioner.’

‘Is it now?’ I murmured. ‘So they know more than we do.’

‘Oh yes. In New Scotland Yard it’s regarded as a given. Naturally, they reckon it’s going to be Bob that gets the job.’

‘Word to the wise, my friend. Don’t be calling to congratulate him; your VIPs may not have noticed that ACPOS voted against it the other day, with him leading the opposition.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me, but it won’t make any difference. Some people here would like the same thing to happen in England. They’re watching with interest.’

‘Indeed? Well, maybe once your feet are a bit further under the table you’ll tell them to mind their own fucking business.’

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you’re tetchy. Is Paula keeping you awake?’

‘No, Paulie is wonderful, blooming, radiant, everything you can imagine.’

‘And running to the bog a lot?’

‘And running to the bog a lot, but she does it very quietly. No, McIlhenney, I am pissed off because it is a lovely summer Saturday morning and I am in the office.’

‘Pity; I’m on my way to the Oval with Spence to watch some cricket. Say hello to Uncle Mario, Spence.’

‘Hello, Uncle Mario,’ Spencer shouted. His voice was starting to break. I felt old.

‘And to you, lad. Don’t let him take you to the cheap seats.’

‘Crisis?’ Neil asked.

‘The worst kind. One of our guys has gone rogue.’

‘Anybody I know?’

‘Jock Varley.’

Few conversations between my soul brother and I are punctuated by silence. That one was, for so long that I thought the connection had gone.

‘Indeed,’ he murmured, eventually.

‘You don’t sound astonished.’

‘I wish I was. I never trusted the man. There was a whisper years ago about him looking after a couple of pubs on his patch, and about withdrawn police objections to licensing extension applications that might have been paid for.’

‘Didn’t you report them?’

‘I had nothing to report. I only heard the stories second-hand. Besides, they probably started with the unsuccessful applicants, just like football fans always reckon the ref’s on the payroll when he gives the opposition a penalty.’

‘But you still remember them,’ I pointed out.

‘Yes, because while these stories do the rounds all the time, it’s not very often that a cop’s name’s mentioned. Varley’s was.’

‘Mmm,’ I mused. ‘Give it some more thought, Neil, if you would. If you can add any details, for example when this happened and the pubs involved, that might be useful next time I have a face-to-face with the man.’

‘Will do; there’s a chance of rain here so I may have time to do it today.’

‘Thanks. While you’re at it, maybe you’d think about a guy called Freddy Welsh.’

‘Now that’s a name I’ve heard. Let me think. Yes, when I was in the Branch, I had a look at him for an outside agency. The one I’m with now, in fact. They didn’t tell me why they were interested and I didn’t ask.’

I was puzzled. ‘Did you report it to the boss?’

‘No, he was on holiday at the time, and I found nothing to report, so it never came up when he got back. You won’t find a file on him for the same reason. However,’ he paused, ‘he is bent.’ He said it so firmly that I was surprised; Neil’s middle name would be circumspection, if only he could spell it. ‘I don’t know how, and I couldn’t get anywhere near proving it at the time, but he is. I turned his business inside out, and he never knew a thing about it. Couldn’t find a hair out of place.’

‘So why are you sure he’s twisted?’ I asked.

‘Precisely because I couldn’t find a hair out of place, man. Have you ever known a business that was absolutely spotless, where none of the staff had as much as slipped a sandwich or a Mars bar on to their petrol receipt?’

‘CID?’ I suggested. I’d just found twenty cigarettes and a Playboy magazine on one of those, in the expenses claim of a detective chief inspector.

‘Better get out of the office, bruv,’ he replied. ‘Clearly, your brain needs more oxygen. Okay, we’re here now,’ I heard him brake, and then a sigh, no, two of them, ‘and bugger it, the rain’s starting.’

After he’d gone I checked the London weather forecast on my computer; mainly fine with showers. Not too bad, but what did they know really?

I was looking up Sunday in Edinburgh. . warm, sunny, five per cent chance of light rain. . when there was a knock on my door. ‘Yes!’ I shouted; it opened and David McKenzie, in uniform on a bloody Saturday, stepped into the room, followed by a man who had to be the chief’s ex-brother-in-law, and by a woman. It took me a second or two to put a name to her, then it dawned: Lisa McDermid, detective sergeant, newly transferred to Special Branch with George Regan, over the moans of old Fred Leggat. I wasn’t expecting her.

‘Sit yourselves down,’ I said, moving across to my table. I was ready for another coffee, but Mackenzie doesn’t, Payne was a guest, albeit a hired one, and if I’d asked McDermid, as junior officer present, to go and fetch four from the canteen, there would probably have been a sexism complaint, for that’s the reputation she carries, so instead I looked in my fridge, found a six-pack of Pepsi with four left in it and handed them round.

I looked at David. ‘Fire away,’ I told him. ‘What have you got?’

‘Varley,’ he replied, with a vehemence that I hadn’t seen in him since the old days. ‘By the balls.’

Payne held up a cautionary hand. ‘Maybe,’ he murmured.

‘Come on, Lowell,’ Mackenzie exclaimed. ‘Of course we do.’

‘Yes, I know,’ the Strathclyde man said. ‘On the face of it we have, but on the basis of what we’ve discovered, what charge could be laid against him?’

‘Guys,’ I interrupted, ‘I’m not here to chair a debate between you. Enlighten me, and I’ll tell you what we can do and what we can’t.’

‘Sorry, sir.’ The superintendent’s tone was even but his eyes let me know that I must have barked at him just a little, and that if he ever overtakes me in rank he’d remember it.

‘The Varleys’ domestic accounts are unexceptional,’ he began. ‘They take us nowhere. However, there’s another that we weren’t meant to know about. It’s in First Caledonian’s offshore division, and there’s a hundred and thirty-seven grand sitting in it, paid in, over an eight-year period, by a company called Holyhead SA.’

‘Spanish?’ I asked.

‘Andorran. Lowell’s been in touch with the British consulate in Barcelona and they’ve checked for us. The titular is an Andorran lawyer, but the beneficial owner of the company is Freddy Welsh.’

I shrugged. ‘Bloody obvious, that; Anglesey Construction, Holyhead SA. . the Welsh connection, get it? The offshore account: whose name’s it in? Jock’s?’

‘No,’ Mackenzie admitted. ‘It’s in his wife’s.’

‘Then DCI Payne is right. What are you going to charge Jock with? We might be able to do her for money-laundering, but if the cash in Holyhead’s come from Anglesey Construction, tax paid, then we’re stuffed on that too.’

‘But it hasn’t.’ I turned to McDermid as she spoke. ‘There’s no connection between the two,’ she continued. ‘Welsh’s accountant swears he knows nothing about it. I’ve just spent some time interrogating him. He wasn’t pleased either; we had an extended session last night. All the money going in and out of Anglesey Construction is accounted for.’

‘So the Holyhead cash comes from another source, or sources,’ I muttered, to myself mainly. ‘How much is in it?’

‘About seven million,’ Payne said.

‘Jesus,’ I gasped.

‘It’s an investment vehicle and it’s done very well over the years; external deposits are about four and a half, over an eight-year period.’

‘Eight years,’ I repeated. ‘Same length of time as Ella Varley’s offshore account’s been open?’ I asked McDermid.

The sergeant nodded. ‘Exactly.’

‘How do we know all this detail?’

‘The Andorran lawyer coughed,’ Payne replied. ‘He didn’t fancy the Spanish police turning up on his doorstep.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘So where are we? We’ve got Welsh owning an offshore company holding funds that don’t relate to any legitimate taxed income that we know of.’

‘Or that the Revenue knows of,’ McDermid volunteered. ‘DI Regan’s checked that.’

‘Thanks. That gives us cause to pull Welsh in. Going on from that, Mrs Varley’s account gives us reason to lift her. However it still doesn’t let us lay a finger on Jock, and based on what he tried to do to Alice, he isn’t likely to lay down his life to save his wife’s.’

‘No,’ Lisa ventured. She doesn’t smile a lot does DS McDermid, so when she did I had a feeling a nice one was coming. ‘But there is the conservatory.’

I grinned back at her. ‘Tell me more,’ I invited.

‘About ten years ago,’ she began, ‘the Varleys added a big extension on to their house in Livingston. Alice says it’s enormous, and must have cost a packet, but that can’t be verified. It was built by Freddy Welsh, but there’s no record of the job in his firm’s records, and there’s no record of the Varleys ever having paid a penny for it.’

‘Whose name’s the house in?’

‘Joint.’

‘Lisa,’ I laughed. ‘You win the major prize. Time we paid another call on Inspector Varley.’