Grievous Angel

Thirteen

I didn’t take grapes with me, or even a bunch of the petrol station flowers that were popular in those days (and may still be, for all I know) with guys who had wool to pull over their wives’ eyes. Perry Holmes might have been a basket case, but his past hadn’t been erased, not in my eyes, or in those of any cop who’d seen the aftermath of some of the things he’d ordered.

My former colleague Tommy Partridge was among them. He devoted a large chunk of his career to putting Perry away but he never came close, and because of it he was a bitter man when he retired. Holmes was much, much too clever, for all of us. He never got near to the things that were his, and he was never near anything that was done in his name. When I was in my last year at secondary school, an old policeman came to speak to my debating group. In an off-the-record moment, he told us, ‘You are all bright young people, with working lives ahead of you. I shouldn’t give you this employment advice, but the fact is that should any of you choose to go into crime, then with your intelligence and backgrounds, you probably have a ninety per cent chance of being successful.’ Holmes was living proof of the truth he spoke; he was a brilliant, ruthless man. Tony Manson had learned a lot from him, but he wasn’t his equal.

I’d only ever met him once, in the Western Infirmary, two years before, after Billy Spreckley had killed his brother and shot him four times. One of those bullets had lodged in his brain, and was still there. His consultant neurologists, all three of them, for Perry wasn’t a man to accept only a second opinion if he didn’t like it, said with unanimous certainty that he was going to die. He was conscious and responsive, though; I was sent by Alf Stein to interview him about the shooting, and about anything else he cared to discuss. .. to take a dying declaration, in effect.

He didn’t care to say a word, not a cheep. He didn’t care to die either. After a few months it became obvious that he wasn’t going to, not any time soon at any rate, and so he was transferred to a nursing home while a new house was built for him on an estate that he owned just outside the city, all on one level and fitted out to meet the needs of a quadriplegic.

He’d been kept under observation there, for a while, just in case his surviving old associates started to roll up to his door, but none of them had. No police time was spent on him any longer. Received wisdom, and the evidence of our own observation, was that his criminal enterprises died with his brother Al, and, shortly afterwards, with Johann Kraus. They had been his main conduits, the means by which his orders were delivered, and executed. Without them, and with no means of replacing them, the word was that he devoted himself from his wheelchair exclusively to the legitimate side of his business empire, the vast property portfolio that he had built up with very thoroughly laundered money, and a development wing which the banks and other institutions were always ready to fund, because he was very good at it, and always gave an excellent return on investment.

The underworld vacuum that he had left behind him seemed to have been filled not by one person, but by several, of whom Tony Manson was one. He was dominant in Edinburgh, but in other areas of the country there had been a couple of turf wars, with fatalities, before the new order had established itself.

I’d met Al Holmes often enough; he was pulled in quite regularly by the drugs squad, and given as hard a time for as long as the law would allow, but Perry’s system was foolproof. He swept his house and his office for bugs every day, and he never had discussions, only oneto-one meetings, with no third parties present. Al was a shit, and nowhere near as bright as Perry, but he was too scared of his brother ever to cross him.

Kraus and I had crossed paths too. He was almost as big as Lennie Plenderleith, but not in his league when it came to tough, or for that matter in the same league as me, as he found out one time when he took a swing at me in an interview room. I’d hoped he would; that’s why there was no one else there. He had a fearsome reputation, but only with a gun or a chainsaw in his hand. When one of our marksmen took him down, the squad had a whip-round for the shooter.

I was thinking of him as I pulled up outside Perry’s new house. Kraus had lived on a small farm that was part of the estate, and it was suspected that some of his victims, including most of Mia’s brother and uncle, had gone into an incinerator there. And that made me think of Mia for the first time in a few hours; it was just gone four o’clock and she was on air until half an hour before I was due at her place. Too late to cancel gracefully… if I’d really wanted to.

I stepped out of the Discovery and walked up a long white marble pathway that led to the front door. It was opened before I reached it by a man in a blue nurse’s tunic, a large black man, with short frizzy hair; he wasn’t smiling. I glanced around looking for the camera that must have picked me up, but I couldn’t see it.

‘Can I help you?’ the doorkeeper asked as I approached; his accent could have been from anywhere other than Scotland, and I’d never seen him before.

‘I’d like to speak with Mr Holmes,’ I replied.

‘Then you’ll be disappointed, sir. Mr Holmes does not receive visitors.’

‘I’m a hard man to disappoint,’ I countered. ‘I apologise for not calling ahead to make an appointment, but the matter is important, and it’s only just come up.’

‘You’d have been wasting your time trying to call. The number here is ex-directory.’

‘Those don’t exist for me.’ I pulled my warrant card and showed it: I’d no reason to hassle the guy, and he had every right to refuse me entrance. ‘That says I’m a police officer, Detective Superintendent Skinner. You’re doing your job, sir, but so am I, and mine overrides yours. So please go and ask Mr Holmes if he has five minutes to assist me in a murder investigation in which he is not, I repeat not, a suspect.’

He made his choice, and let me step into the hall. ‘Very well. Please wait here.’

I did. He left through a door in the far left corner. While he was gone I scanned the place carefully for the next camera, the one that I was sure was trained on the door, but I couldn’t spot that either. The guy was gone for five minutes, but I kept my patience. If he was going to ask me to leave he’d have been back sooner.

When he did return, he was brisk and to the point. I saw that he had a professional bearing, not that of hired muscle. ‘Mr Holmes will see you, Mr Skinner,’ he announced. ‘I’m sorry for the delay, but we’ve been moving him to his receiving room. If you’ll come with me. ..’

I followed him into a broad corridor, more of a second hall, in fact, with several doors off, all double width. The set that faced us were of dappled glass, and he led me towards them. They opened out into a conservatory big enough to accommodate a tennis court and a few spectators into the bargain. It looked into a walled garden, and was expensively but not heavily furnished, a circular table and a couple of armchairs, that was all. Its main feature was a pale blue tiled swimming pool, with a ramp rather than steps leading into it.

But no, the main feature was probably Perry Holmes himself. He was waiting for me, seated upright in a wheelchair with a high back, a head restraint, and padded arms. His right hand rested on a control pad. It moved very slightly, one finger, no more, but he started to roll towards me.

‘I won’t shake hands, Mr Skinner,’ he chuckled, hoarsely. ‘I probably wouldn’t even if I could. You can sit down, though. Would you like a wee refreshment, as they say?’

‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Are you sure? I can’t join you since Hastie here has to feed me, and we don’t do that in public.’ I glanced across at another blueuniformed man who was standing close by, pale-skinned, slimmer and smaller than the other. ‘But don’t let that put you off.’

‘No, really.’

‘As you wish. You can leave us now, lads.’ The two men withdrew, without a word. ‘They’re my carers,’ Holmes said as the door closed. ‘Hastie’s a nurse, highly trained and very experienced; Vanburn’s my masseur. I need a lot of that, to keep me going. They’re good lads; they allow me a certain lifestyle, and they’re with me pretty much full-time. As you can see, I have very little movement; facial muscles, fingers and toes, but that’s it… apart from erections. Ironically, I still have those, but they have nothing to do with muscle movement. The doctors say it may have something to do with the bullet in my brain, but those people say I should be dead, so what the hell do they know?’

‘Are those two your only staff?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he replied. I noticed for the first time that his chair had high supporting pads on either side of his head. ‘I have a housekeeper, a chef, both Chinese, and a personal assistant.’

‘Assisting you with what?’

‘My business activities, of course. My property holdings, and my other investments, take a lot of management, and I’m becoming more involved in development again, after my involuntary hiatus. Miss Young

… that’s my assistant, is a lawyer with an accountancy qualification. I recruited her from a merchant bank; I pay her a bloody fortune, but she earns it.’

I settled into one of the soft white armchairs and studied him. The Perry Holmes I’d interviewed had been wired up to half the devices in the Western Infirmary, but he’d been a solid, formidable man. Two years on, he’d lost some weight, but his eyes were keen and bright, and his life force was strong. He was past sixty, but take him out of the chair and you wouldn’t have guessed; you’d have called him ten years younger.

‘What do you see?’ he asked. ‘What are you thinking? Do I look like that poor wee professor chap? Or the Father of the Daleks? Come on, tell me; I don’t have many visitors, it’s useful to know what people really think of me.’

I told him exactly what I’d been thinking, and saw pleasure register on his face. ‘That’s good. You don’t feel sorry for me, then?’

‘Mr Holmes,’ I replied, ‘suppose you were sitting on hot coals with an imp of hell poking hot needles in your eyes, I wouldn’t feel sorry for you. That bullet in your brain doesn’t absolve you of all the crime you’ve committed, or rather that you had committed, through your brother. To tell you the truth, I had a wee bit of sympathy for him when I saw him lying dead in the mortuary, evil bastard that he was, since he was never really a man in his own right, just the instrument of your will, him and that big German pansy, Kraus. How do I feel about you? Like many people do: sorry that Billy Spreckley wasn’t a better shot, and didn’t put all four in your head.’

‘Fair enough,’ he conceded. ‘I like a man who speaks his mind. If you’re that repulsed by me, then how about giving me a good thump on the head? The slightest blow could kill me, so my consultants all agree. Christ, if you hit one of these support pads hard enough, and I know you could, that would probably do it. Nobody would ever be the wiser either, because there wouldn’t be a mark on me.’

I frowned; and then I smiled. ‘You’ve got a point there,’ I said. I started to rise from the armchair. Just for a moment, a tiny moment, I saw a flash of uncertainty in his eyes. It was enough. I sat back again.

‘Bastard,’ he murmured, and then he grinned too. ‘You didn’t do it, though. And do you know what that tells me? That you are what you say I am… or I was: someone who delegates to others the things that he’s too careful, or circumspect, to do himself. But that’s just what you do: you delegate the shitty end. You catch your thieves, your murderers, and although sometimes your instincts may be Old Testament, as they clearly were with the late Johann, judging by the contempt with which you spoke of him, you don’t act upon them. Instead you simply deliver the people up to justice; to the jailer, or half a century ago to the executioner.’

‘That’s my job,’ I pointed out. ‘If I let my own feelings get in the way, I wouldn’t be doing it properly. There’s this too: I work for society; you work against it.’

‘Me?’ he laughed. ‘I’m a property tycoon.’

‘Of course you are, Mr Holmes, of course you are. Now, can I ask you, as a property tycoon, or as anything else, does the name Winston Church mean anything to you?’

I had a big advantage over Perry, in his situation. He couldn’t look away from me. Sure he could have turned his chair around, but I could have turned it right back. He could have closed his eyes, I suppose, but he didn’t. He surprised me by holding my gaze and replying. ‘Would that be Mr Church of Newcastle?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Yes, it’s a name I recall. I’ve never met the gentleman, but I believe my late brother may have… on what business,’ he added, ‘I know not. Why do you ask?’

‘He’s connected to a couple of people we’re interested in eliminating from a murder investigation. I appreciate that you’re a respectable property developer, but I’m wondering, did your late brother ever mention any other people in Edinburgh who might have been acquaintances of Church’s?’

His face was expressionless. ‘I can’t think,’ he replied, slowly, ‘that any of my brother’s friends would have felt the need to move in his circles. Let me get this right,’ he continued. ‘Are you saying that Mr Church has business interests in Edinburgh, ambitions even?’

‘No, that’s not my view. He ran out of ambition a while back, from what I’ve been told. I’m trying to establish whether he might have provided services to someone who has.’

Holmes blinked. ‘If that’s the case,’ he said, ‘you might want to find that person before Mr Tony Manson does.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ I told him. I stood up, abruptly. A finger moved and the chair rolled backwards for a couple of feet, then stopped when it became clear that I wasn’t moving towards it. ‘I must be going,’ I said. Another finger moved, but on his left hand; a few seconds later the door reopened and the two carers came in.

‘Please show Mr Skinner out, Vanburn,’ Holmes instructed. ‘Do call again, Mr Skinner. You’re an interesting man.’

Takes one to know one, I thought as I left. Even in a wheelchair Perry Holmes ranked as one of the most imposing men I’d ever met. I found myself regretting that I’d never confronted him in his prime, before he’d been wrecked by Billy Spreckley’s bullet. I understood why Tommy Partridge had become obsessed by him. I’d probably have been the same in his shoes. But I’d have had a better chance of nailing him. Even crippled, he was supremely self-confident. When a guy has an ego that size, it’s a weakness. Fuck, I should know.

I headed back into town. The Discovery really was a pile of shit, but it was kept reliable by our mechanics… and the radio worked fine. I switched it on; Airburst was still tuned in and Mia was past the halfway mark in her three-hour stint. I felt myself throb at the sound of her voice, and I knew then that I would keep our date. ‘Shit!’ I said aloud, as I remembered something very important. Luckily I spotted a late-hours Boots as I drove through Tollcross. I pulled up, and bought a supply of condoms… for the first time in at least fifteen years. Why would anyone want them flavoured? I wondered as I surveyed the range on offer. The answer didn’t come to me until I was on my way out of the shop.

Is there a God?

I’m past fifty now, and no nearer to answering that one to my unshakeable satisfaction, but I do believe, against all logic, that there is a force that guides our daily lives and that it is one perverse son-of-a-bitch. I hadn’t even restarted the car when my mobile sounded. It was six o’clock and Airburst would have been in its news break, so I thought it might be Mia, but a glance at the screen told me different. It was Fred Leggat.

‘Boss,’ he began, ‘are you in the vicinity?’ There was an urgency about his voice.

‘Near enough. Whassup?’

‘Newcastle,’ he replied. ‘It’s blown up in our faces. Milburn and Shackleton have turned up. Dead.’

‘Eh?’ I gasped. ‘How?’

‘Well. It wasn’t an accident. They were found in a hotel in South Shields, on the seafront. They’d been there for a couple of days, sharing a twin room. They were seen last night in the bar, but not today. The “Don’t disturb” sign was left on their door, so housekeeping left them alone until about an hour ago. They knocked, got no reply and went in with a pass key. Both men were in there, dead.’

‘Bugger!’

‘I’ll second that. What do you want to do?’

I didn’t have to consider my answer. There was only one possible. ‘Go there. What else? They’re our prime suspects for Marlon. If we can’t put them in the dock at the High Court, there’ll have to be a public Sheriff Court hearing, and someone will have to give evidence of their death. I’m not bringing Newcastle cops across the border.’

‘Who do you want to send?’

‘Nobody.’ I didn’t realise it at the time, but Perry Holmes’s crack about me ‘delegating the shitty end’ had irked me. ‘I’m going myself. Is Martin still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then tell him he’s won some overtime. I’ll take him with me. What-’ I was interrupted by a rap on the passenger window. I turned to see a traffic warden glaring at me, book in hand. I was on a yellow line. ‘Hold on, Fred,’ I snapped. The Disco didn’t boast electric windows; I had to reach across to the handle. ‘What!’ I shouted.

‘You’re parked illegally,’ the man replied. It was May, but he had a dewdrop at the end of his nose; for some reason that wound me up even tighter. ‘And don’t use that tone of voice to me.’

I pulled out my warrant card and thrust it at him. ‘CID,’ I yelled. ‘And I’m dealing with an urgent call. Now fuck off before I book you, for loitering.’

‘Don’t you-’

‘Go!’ I roared. He did, shuffling away, grumbling to himself. God help his next victim. I should have regretted the incident, but like many of my colleagues, I had a sneaking dislike of our street-walking counterparts. ‘The custard cops,’ Alf Stein had labelled them, for the colour of their hatbands, and the name had stuck.

‘Okay, Fred,’ I said. ‘I’ll be ten minutes. Tell Martin to fire up his pussy wagon. He’s driving; I want to get there tonight, and my car won’t do that.’

I drove back to Fettes as quickly as I could. Mia was still on the radio. As I parked, she cued up a music track, and I called her mobile. I told her that I couldn’t make our date. ‘I’ve got to go and look at two stiffs in Tyneside. I’m sorry.’

‘Work happens,’ she said, sympathetically. ‘When will you be back?’

‘God knows. Probably midnight, earliest.’

‘I’ll wait up for you. Call me from the road.’

‘We’ll see,’ I told her. ‘If I haven’t rung by eleven, turn out the light and go to sleep.’

Martin’s Mazda probably wasn’t designed with guys our size in mind, but we squeezed in, and the engine was certainly juicy enough. The traffic was light, so we made good time, but there was so much road noise in the passenger compartment that I had given up trying to talk to him before we reached Dunbar. We were through the Tyne Tunnel by eight o’clock. The Northumbrian CID had faxed through detailed instructions on how to reach our destination. I navigated, along a route that kept us close to the river, until eventually we reached its mouth. We couldn’t have missed the hotel if we’d tried. There was a crime scene van right out front, and an ambulance. The entrance to its car park was partially blocked by a traffic car.

I badged the uniform who was on guard duty. He peered at my warrant card, and came to something approaching attention when he saw my rank. ‘Who’s in charge?’ I asked him.

‘That would be DI McFaul, sir. He’s probably in the van.’

Martin parked the Mazda as far away from the action as he could. Getting out was a damn sight harder than getting in had been; it struck me that maybe I needed to change my exercise routine and work on staying supple. We walked across the car park, to the mobile office. Steps led up to a door in the side. Martin stood back, to let me lead the way, but I told him to go first. ‘Don’t be shy. You’re a cop too. Recognise rank, but don’t defer to it all the time.’

I followed him inside. The unit was little different from ours in Edinburgh: untidy, smelly and badly lit. There were two people, seated at desks, a man in plain clothes, thirties, tubby, dark, greasy hair, plain clothes, and a woman, younger, neater, uniformed. ‘Excuse me,’ Martin said to the detective. ‘We’re looking for DI McFaul.’

He looked up; his stress was evident. ‘And who the fuck are you?’ he drawled, annoyed by our interruption.

I saw my young DC’s shoulders flex very slightly, inside the leather jacket. ‘We’re the pros from Dover,’ he replied, calmly. ‘I’m Trapper John and this is Hawkeye; in his case it’s Detective Superintendent Hawkeye. Now who the fuck are you, please?’

The man peered up at him, dumbstruck; behind him the woman smiled, discreetly.

I laughed. ‘Most people only know Mash from the TV series, Andy, not the movie. But you’re right, I’m definitely more Donald Sutherland than Alan Alda. My name’s Skinner,’ I told the bloke, ‘and this is DC Martin; he’s got a weird sense of humour, but he’s a nice lad really. I’m not; I’ve had a two-hour drive in a matchbox, I’m stiff as a chocolate frog, and I’m not nice to know. We’re from Edinburgh and we’ve got an interest in your two stiffs.’

Finally, the Geordie stood. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought you were press.’ In certain circumstances, there are standard cop excuses; that is one of them.

‘I take it you’re not the force PR officer, then.’

The uniformed woman snorted, and put a hand over her mouth.

‘As a matter of fact I am,’ he replied. ‘Detective Constable Ranson.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ I whispered. The guy made Inspector Hesitant look like Bernard Ingham.

‘DI McFaul’s inside,’ he continued. ‘Interviewing,’ he added.

‘What were you saying about not deferring to rank, sir?’ Martin chuckled, once we were back outside.

‘Don’t. I was taught to be careful with other kids’ toys, in case I broke them, but sometimes it’s hard when it’s so clear they need fixing.’

I took my first good look at the hotel. It was a two-storey building, probably not that old, but in need of refurbishment. It was called ‘The Seagull’, but the second ‘1’ was missing from the sign above the door; also the paintwork and a couple of windows were streaked by offerings from the birds whose name it bore. It was no better inside; a mix of smells that I’d rather not have been experiencing, cigarette and cigar smoke that had probably become part of the fabric of the building, the unpleasantness of stale beer in an empty bar, kitchen odours that made me forget how hungry I was, and lurking in the background, but evident, drains.

My distaste must have been showing. ‘It’s not our finest, I’m afraid,’ a man exclaimed as he walked towards us, mid-thirties, same as me, slim, grey-suited, hand outstretched. ‘Detective Superintendent Skinner?’

‘Correct,’ I said as we shook. ‘And this is DC Martin.’

‘Ciaran McFaul. You guys made good time. I saw you coming out of the van and guessed who you must be. Did Scoop send you in my direction?’

‘As in DC Ranson? Yes.’

The DI must have picked up something in my tone, for he smiled. ‘He’s best avoided when he has a press statement to prepare.’

‘You actually let him do that?’

‘After a fashion. He does the draft and I rewrite it. He has a brother-in-law on the police committee. Need I say more?’

‘No, I get the picture. Milburn and Shackleton,’ I went on. ‘Are the bodies still here?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. The SOCOs are done, but we kept them here till you arrived. Come on, I’ll show you.’

He led the way to the upper floor then headed right, along a corridor, towards a constable, on guard outside the last door but one. He saluted and stood aside as we approached. McFaul opened the door, carefully, then held it ajar for us. A short narrow passage led into the room; its curtains were drawn but every available light had been switched on. A man was lying on his back, bare feet towards us, eyes open, arms by his sides. He wore jeans and a black crew-necked jersey. In life he’d been large and probably menacing; in death he was just an ugly pile of meat. I looked for blood, but there was none. I looked for wounds, but saw none, only what could have been a tear in the middle of the sweater.

‘That’s Warren Shackleton,’ the DI told us. ‘A man without a single redeeming feature, until now, his first one being he’s dead.’

I felt something odd beneath my feet; I realised that I was standing in dampness. ‘The chambermaid,’ McFaul explained. ‘Poor woman wet herself. Go on inside.’

We stepped past the body, carefully, into an irregularly shaped area, furnished with twin beds, two small armchairs, and a dressing table. At first there was nothing to be seen. ‘Beyond the beds,’ our tour guide said, pointing. We followed his sign. The second body lay on its right side, head turned, face pressed into the dirty russet carpet, clad in black trousers and a red check lumberjack shirt.

‘And that was Glenn Milburn. You know his story. Small-time, muscle, cruel bastard, would have done anything to anyone for money. Anything he’s ever been involved in, Shackleton’s always been close by.’

I crouched beside him. Again, at first sight the body was unmarked, but when I looked more closely, I spotted a small pool of blood beneath it, flowing from a wound in the centre of his chest. I stood up and stepped back, allowing Martin to look.

‘You get the picture?’ McFaul asked.

‘It’s pretty plain. Shackleton opened the door and died where he stood. No blood, so he was killed instantly. Milburn might not even have known till the intruder reached him, for there are no signs of defensive wounds on him. What does your pathologist say about time of death?’

‘Nothing for the record,’ he told me, ‘but he guesses between eleven last night and one this morning. He won’t even go firm on the murder weapon until he’s got him on the table. Either a knife or a silenced gun with a small-calibre soft-nosed bullet; that’s all he’s giving us for now. I’ll go a bit further myself on time of death, though. The front door is always locked at midnight. If anyone wants to come in or go out, they have to call the night porter. So it stands to reason it had to be before twelve.’

‘There must be emergency exits,’ Martin pointed out. I noticed that he was paler than usual.

‘All secure.’

‘They must have been expecting him,’ I said.

‘You reckon?’ the Northumbrian mused, scratching his chin.

‘For sure. There’s a spyhole fitted. If you’re in a hotel room, and someone knocks on your door at that hour of the night, I don’t care who you are, you’re going to take a look to see who it is before you let them in. Shackleton did that and, bingo, he was dead. Look at his face. He didn’t even have time to be surprised. Milburn, he was round the corner, and didn’t see or hear anything. There’s no sign of him having reacted when the man appeared, no signs of him struggling either. These are two fucking bruisers, Inspector, who killed a man on my patch, killed him brutally, and yet they’ve been despatched like sleeping children.’

‘You’re speaking in the singular,’ he noted. ‘Could it have been only one man?’

‘The way I see it, yes. There isn’t room in that entrance area for more than one. Here’s my scenario, overall: these men were hired to extract information from a man in Edinburgh called Marlon Watson, probably about his boss, an organised crime figure. They may have been told to kill him, no, scratch that, they probably were. After the job was done, they were told to burn the van they’d used to destroy any forensic evidence, then get out of sight. When did they check in here?’ I asked.

‘Saturday evening. They paid cash for four nights. They used the names Hughes and O’Brien.’

‘Right. They planned to leave on Wednesday, latest. My belief is that they thought their visitor was coming to pay them off. He did, permanently.’

‘That late at night?’

‘Yes. That bar downstairs, is it public?’

‘Sure, it can be quite busy.’

‘And the visitor didn’t want to be seen. I don’t even need to ask if there’s closed-circuit TV in this place, because I know there isn’t. I bet you’ve got no witness sightings either.’

McFaul sighed. ‘No, Superintendent, we’ve interviewed all the staff, and nobody saw a damn thing. Clean as a whistle,’ he murmured. ‘We’re stalled already.’

‘Not quite. There’s one place we can go. The NCIS computer puts these two close to a man called Winston Church.’

‘The Prime Minister?’ I raised an eyebrow; he grinned. ‘This is Tyneside; we don’t do subtle nicknames. Yes, they run for him, but not exclusively, not any more. But I’ll grant you, they could have been hired out through him.’

‘Then let’s pay him a visit.’

‘Now?’

‘Right now,’ I said, ‘before he finds out about this.’

‘I’m game for that,’ the DI agreed. ‘I don’t see the old guy having had anything to do with these two being killed, but I’m going to have to talk to him anyway.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Morpeth. It’s the right side of the city for you; once we’ve heard what he’s got to say, you can head home.’

‘Depending on what he tells us.’ McFaul’s affability seemed to lessen, fractionally; I didn’t really blame him. A couple of guys from the Met had turned up on our patch a few years before, with attitudes so bad that it had almost come to pistols at dawn. ‘Not that I expect him to tell us a fucking thing,’ I added. ‘For the record, my interest in this is in finding the person who set Milburn and Shackleton on to Marlon Watson. I’ve got enough on my plate without getting involved in this mess.’

‘Fair enough. Look, I know the way to Church’s house. I’ve been there often enough. You come in my car, and my DS can go with DC Martin.’

His detective sergeant turned out to be a woman called Wilma Easton, a veteran of twenty years’ service, with short, salt and pepper hair and a sturdy build, but small enough to fit more comfortably into the Mazda than I had.

We headed back the way we had come, to the Tyne Tunnel. We were heading into it when my ringtone sounded, then stopped as the signal was lost. As soon as we were on the other side, I checked ‘missed calls’. Alison.

I rang her back, and explained where I was, and why. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘In that case this can wait till tomorrow.’

‘How are you getting along with linking Weir and McCann?’ I asked her.

‘I haven’t,’ she replied, ‘not yet at any rate. But something’s come up in the course of it, something curious. I’d like you to see it.’

‘What is it?’

‘Probably nothing, but it struck me as odd. I’d rather you saw it for yourself. If you call me tomorrow morning, or whenever you get back, I’ll come up to Fettes and show you.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I will do… whenever that is.’

I slipped the phone back into my pocket. ‘Business back home,’ I explained to McFaul. ‘I’ve been in my new job for five days and I’m running two major investigations.’

‘Getting anywhere with either of them?’

I glanced at him. ‘Are you familiar with the topography of Shit Creek?’

‘Been there many times, Superintendent. No paddle, I take it?’

‘Right now, your Prime Minister pal is my last hope. That’s why I’m keen to see him.’

‘Let’s hope he can help you,’ the DI said. ‘But he’s likely to be more of a clutched-at straw. He’s never incriminated himself before, and I don’t see him starting now. What do you hope to get out of him, supposing he is shocked into talking?’

‘A name. He’s got one old Edinburgh connection in his past that I know of, a man no longer with us. I’d like to know if there’s another, or if I’m dealing with someone from out of town.’

‘That’s if he had anything to do with Milburn and Shack being set on your murder victim.’

‘Indeed,’ I conceded, ‘but that past acquaintance of his… I don’t know why, but it’s making me twitch.’

‘One thing I can tell you,’ McFaul offered. ‘Those two didn’t go after the man on their own account. They weren’t self-starters.’

We skirted Newcastle from the tunnel and joined the A1, then headed north. The Morpeth turn-off came up fairly quickly. I glanced in the wing mirror and saw Martin and DS Easton right on our tail. My driver seemed to know exactly where he was headed; I wondered how many times he’d stood on Church’s doorstep, and whether they’d ever achieved anything. Very little, I guessed, for the sod was still at liberty, like Manson, Perry Holmes, Jackie Charles and a few others like them on my territory, men with the brains to know their way around and through the criminal law that they broke for a living.

Two or three tight turns later, McFaul turned into a street called the Crescent, and pulled up in front of a driveway with blue wooden gates, blocking it. The house beyond was detached, a mock-Tudor pile in the midst of a street of stone Victorian villas. If a dwelling can seem embarrassed by its surroundings, that one did. It was set back off the road. I looked for a CCTV camera, or any other obvious security; I saw none, but I hadn’t at Holmes’s place either, so what did that prove?

There was a door set in the blue gate to the right, with a recessed brass ring handle. The DI turned it, and it opened. Yes, he had been there before. We followed him inside, on to a red gravel road that approached the house. It crunched, loudly, under our feet as we walked, a pretty effective intruder alarm. There was a double garage on the left; its up-and-over door was open, revealing a blue, round-bodied Rover coupe that looked as clean as it had been in the showroom, thirty years before, if the number plate was a guide. My dad had owned several when I was a kid. Beside it sat a much newer red Rover Metro, a tatty little shit bucket. For me, it showed the depths to which the marque had sunk, but at least Church had brand loyalty. ‘Is that the wife’s car?’ I asked.

‘No,’ DS Easton replied. ‘That’s Winston’s; his wife died ten years ago. He’s lived alone ever since.’

‘Any family?’

‘Yes. One son. He’s a brain surgeon in Auckland, New Zealand. That’s as far away as he could get from his father.’

McFaul had reached the pergola that covered a paved entrance area. There was a brass plate in the middle of the front door, with a button at its centre. He pushed it… and the door swung open. ‘Hello,’ he whispered, frowning. ‘What’s up here? That’s always locked.’ He leaned into the entrance hall. ‘Mr Church!’ he shouted. ‘Winston! It’s the police, CID. We need to talk to you.’

I have a keen sense of smell in any circumstances, but for some things I’m as good as any sniffer dog. I put a hand on the DI’s shoulder. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ I told him. ‘You won’t get a response.’

‘But his cars are both here,’ he replied, ‘and the only taxi he ever uses is Milburn’s.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ I stepped past him, into the house. I didn’t have to follow my nose for long, no further than a big dining kitchen at the back of the house. Winston Church… I assumed that it had been him… was at home but he was in no condition to receive visitors. Outside, the daylight was fading, but I could still see what lay before me. He was sprawled, on his back, across a big farmhouse-style table, arms and legs hanging over the sides, bare feet clear of the floor. He’d been wearing a dressing gown and pyjamas when he died, no protection against a savage attack. He’d been gutted, ripped open, and his entrails had spilled out of a great diagonal tear that ran across his abdomen. As I stared at him I felt as if I was back in Joe Hutchinson’s workplace, after the pathologist had finished his examination. I inched forward, but not too far; I didn’t want to contaminate the place, nor did I want to get blood on my shoes. There was a slash across the dead man’s face, from his right cheek, across his nose and his left eye to his eyebrow. His right hand was missing the third and little fingers. I looked around, quickly. There was a half-glazed door opening on to the back garden. It lay ajar and I noticed that one of its astragal panels had been smashed.

I realised that I was holding my breath, and let it out in a great exhalation. As I did so, I became aware of Ciaran McFaul beside me, and heard him moan softly. I glanced behind me; Easton and Martin were still in the hall, their view blocked by our bodies.

‘Let’s all back out of here,’ I said quietly. I turned, drawing the DI with me, and heard a small squeal escape Easton as she saw what was in the kitchen. Not your everyday crime scene, even in Newcastle. ‘Come on,’ I ordered. ‘Everybody, all the way outside.’ I swept them before me, through the hall, back under the pergola.

By that time, McFaul had recovered himself, so I didn’t presume to tell him what he should do. It wouldn’t have been necessary anyway. He tossed his car keys to Easton, instructing her to call in an incident report, and ask for forensic, CID and uniform support, then he turned to me. ‘What did you see?’ he asked.

‘The attacker broke in through the back door, and went out through the front, leaving it open behind him. Your SOCOs will probably find a blood trail to the door. He couldn’t have done that without stepping in it and being splashed. Surmise: Church may have been in bed and heard the glass break or…’

‘He was watching a video,’ Martin interposed. ‘I took a quick look in the living room while you were heading for the kitchen. The telly’s on, and the player’s on pause. Porno,’ he added.

‘One of his remaining business interests,’ the DI said. ‘I’m thinking the same man as the Seagull. Are you?’

‘Absolutely,’ I replied. ‘Whoever hired them for the Edinburgh job isn’t leaving any traces behind. This was our only lead and it’s been well and truly closed off.’

‘Was he killed before or after the South Shields pair, d’you reckon?’

‘He wasn’t worried about being covered in blood, so I reckon it had to be after. He broke in here, so he wasn’t expected this time.’

‘But why, sir?’

Martin’s question took me by surprise. ‘What do you mean?’ I challenged.

‘Isn’t it a bit extreme?’ he asked. ‘They were hired hands, supplied by Church. Okay, but why kill them all?’

‘Somebody’s being super-cautious.’

‘Or… you’re looking at this from the wrong angle?’

‘You what?’ I snapped, then realised what he was getting at. ‘Shit!’ I exclaimed. ‘I told Tony Manson we were looking in Newcastle. I even mentioned Milburn by name. But no, Andy, no fucking chance. Manson’s more subtle than that. Mind you, if Bella was leaning on him

… Shit, shit, shit!’ Out of nowhere, I could see my fast-tracked career about to be derailed. I turned to McFaul. ‘Ciaran, DC Martin might be pushing his youthful luck here, or he may have a point. There’s an outside possibility at our end that I’ll need to look into, if only to eliminate him. I’ll get back to you when I’ve done it.’

‘Okay.’ He looked up at me. ‘This place is going to be overrun in a minute, and very soon after that my boss is going to arrive. If he finds you two here… well, he’s a bit of a stickler and he might want to know why two Scottish officers were active on his patch. If you’re not here, there’s no reason why I should tell him. Your choice.’

I thought about it. ‘The book says we should give your SOCOs our prints for elimination,’ I pointed out.

‘Did you touch anything in there?’

‘I don’t believe I did. DC Martin, how about you?’

‘I was careful not to, boss.’

I laughed. ‘Boy, if you don’t stop being perfect you’re going to make a lot of enemies. Come on, Ciaran’s right. We’re out of here.’ I shook McFaul’s hand. ‘Thanks, Inspector; I’ll be in touch. You keep me in your loop as well, okay?’

‘Will do.’

We cleared the exit from the Crescent just as the first of the Northumbria cars arrived. ‘By the way, Andy,’ I said as we headed for the A1, ‘you can be as clever as you like and you won’t ever make an enemy of me. But don’t ever put me on the spot again in front of another officer, or you will.’

He nodded. ‘Point taken, boss. I’m sorry.’

In truth I was far more angry with myself than him. I had told Manson far too much, in the hope that if he had any ideas, he would share them. I’d thought that I knew him; if I’d been wrong, I could have signed three death warrants. Either way, it was a big mistake, reckless. The saving grace was that Martin had been there as witness to the knowledge that I had given the gangster, and that of itself would have been a constraint on him. I might have let the business lie quiet, undisturbed, but by mentioning it in front of McFaul, my young DC pal had taken that option away from me, and that was his real transgression.

Suddenly, without warning, my mind was dragged back to that kitchen. I’d hit my ‘detachment’ button before I walked in there, for I knew it was going to be bad. That normally worked, but it wasn’t a hundred per cent effective.

The things you see: the mind has ways of managing them. If you’re properly professional, and experienced, it allows you to take the humanity out of the situation, and to accept the inanimate as what it is. In extreme cases, it will block out the memory altogether. But every so often, in my case at any rate, even back then when I was at my most battle-hardened, I’d see something that would return to me later, and sneak under my emotional guard. For example, something like Winston Church, his face cut almost in two, half-naked and eviscerated on his kitchen table, severed fingers in the pool of blood beneath him. I wondered how long it had taken him to die, and at the thought of it my stomach started to heave.

I looked ahead and saw in the headlights, for darkness had fallen completely by that time, that we were approaching a parking place. ‘Pull over, Andy,’ I said. He did, I jerked open the door and swung myself out of his awkward little bastard of a car, gulping in lungfuls of cool night air, retching violently, on an empty stomach with nothing to bring up but a little bile.

The spasms took a little while to subside, but they did. My face was covered in a cold sweat, and I was shaking slightly, but I was back in control. Martin had stayed in the car, discreetly. I wasn’t ready to get back in myself; instead, I took my phone from my pocket and pressed the ‘menu’ key. I found Mia’s number on the illuminated keyboard and called her. ‘Hi,’ she murmured, and at once I felt warmer. ‘Twenty to eleven. The light’s still on and I’m still awake. Are you close?’

‘I’m the best part of two hours away.’

‘But are you coming?’

I considered my options. Go home to an empty house. Crash out in the office. Call Alison and probably cry on her shoulder, since she would understand why. Go to Mira’s starving, exhausted and shell-shocked, and let her see me at my worst. Why the hell not? I decided. As good a way to start as any.

Martin made good time, but even at that, it was almost twelve thirty by the time I arrived, after I’d picked up the Discovery from Fettes. The gate in the garden wall creaked, a curtain twitched, and before I could ring the bell, the door opened and she pulled me inside by the lapels of my jacket. She closed it again, with her foot, put her arms around my neck and kissed me. Fortunately, I’d refuelled on Lucozade and sandwiches from a filling station just short of Belford, and swallowed an entire box of Tic Tacs afterwards, otherwise God knows how I’d have tasted.

She looked up at me as we broke off. ‘Poor man,’ she murmured. ‘Have you had a rough night?’

I hugged her again and let myself relax against her body, feeling hours of tension leave me, and realising that she was wearing a silk robe and nothing else. ‘The strangest of the strange,’ I murmured. ‘The queerest of the queer.’

‘Hey, I played that this afternoon,’ she whispered. I knew that; I’d heard her. ‘Remember how it ends? “You can touch me if you want.” Well, do you?’

I let her lead me into her bedroom. It was lit by at least a dozen candles. The silk whispered as it fell to the floor, and her bare skin seemed to shimmer in the flickering light as she slipped my jacket from my shoulders. When I was naked too, she stood back and appraised my body, running her fingers over my pectorals, my abdominals, and then down. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

‘Thirty-six, for a few weeks more.’

‘You’re in pretty good shape,’ she conceded, ‘for an old guy… although that shape is changing by the second.’

She had found the condoms in my jacket. I let her put one on me, and then I let her do everything else too, lying on my back, looking up at her as she straddled me and moved, very, very slowly, smiling, until she stopped smiling and began to moan, a sound that grew in intensity until it became a howl of pure pleasure, tailing off and ending in a long soft sigh.

‘Ooooh,’ she whispered in my ear as she stretched her body out along the length of mine. ‘It’s been a while, Bob, since I’ve been with someone properly; it’s been a while.’

I couldn’t say the same, so I said nothing. Instead, I rolled over, easing her on to her side.

‘Is that better?’ she murmured, as I disposed of the evidence. ‘I could see the pain in your eyes when you came in. Was it bad where you were?’

‘Mmm,’ I admitted. ‘I went down there to a double homicide; it turned into three, and the last one… fuck! You know, I’ve spent the last five days looking at dead people. Even in the job I do, that’s a hell of a lot.’ And then I recalled something that had gone out of my mind entirely, a highly relevant fact. ‘But if you want the good news,’ I continued, ‘the three tonight were the ones who killed your brother.’

As soon as I’d spoken, it was as if the good imp had jumped on to my shoulder and said, ‘What the hell did you tell her that for? You don’t mix personal and professional, Skinner.’ But the bad imp didn’t hang about; he was straight in there, shoving him off.

She sat up, her eyes wide. ‘Really?’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh yes, I’m certain. Two did it, the third was involved.’

She blinked, and shook her head as if she was trying to clear it. ‘That’s incredible,’ she gasped. ‘So… so… so who killed them?’

‘Don’t ask me that, love.’

‘But you must have an idea. Please, Bob.’

I sighed. The waters were lapping around my chin and rising. ‘Your mother’s fancy man has to be a possibility, although I don’t believe that. If not him, then unless they were involved in something else, something on Tyneside that the cops there know nothing about, then it has to be the person who hired them. But we do not have one clue who that is, and the trail is freezing cold.’

‘It was probably my mum,’ she whispered.

That was a possibility that had crossed my mind. I’d set it aside. Even if I was wrong and Bella Watson did have the stuff to take out two big thugs, alone and unaided, she’d been looked after by Lennie Plenderleith over the weekend, and as far as I knew she still was. Plus she wouldn’t have had the faintest idea of where to find them.. . any more than would Manson, I supposed.

‘Enough,’ I said. ‘Forget about that, Mia. It’s my other life and it doesn’t belong here. By the way, Alex says thanks for the CD. You’re right; those girls will do well for themselves, until the next craze comes along.’

She settled back down beside me, and kissed my forehead. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she murmured. ‘I haven’t had a man in my bed for a long time. I was beginning to think that there was some sort of curse hanging over me.’

I laughed. ‘You have to be kidding, don’t you? You’re one of the most… the most desirable… yes, that’s a more dignified word than shaggable… women that I’ve ever met.’

She grinned, wickedly. ‘Is that so?’

‘Absolutely,’ I murmured. ‘As a matter of fact…’

Some time later, I fell asleep.