Head Shot

45

'The Boss couldn't move him anywhere else; that would have been a disaster. He couldn't stick him back in uniform, because he wouldn't have been any better there. So effectively, he, and later Roy Old and Andy Martin, commanded this division from Fettes. When John took early retirement, the sigh of relief was heard all over headquarters.

'Dan Pringle started to get this place up to the same standard as the other divisions, but he'd tell you himself, as he's told me, that there's still work to be done, especial y on pushing crime prevention down here. We haven't been sent down here for a rest, Sam, I promise you that.'

They walked back into the grey stone building, past the front desk and through to the CID suite; the outer office was manned by a lone detective constable. 'Message for you, sir,' he said to McGuire as Pye resumed his seat behind his new desk. 'Would you cal Mr Jay in Leith, as soon as you can.'

'Aye, okay, Bert. Thanks.'

He went back to his room without a view, and called the Leith divisional office. 'Mario, old son,' Greg Jay greeted him down the line, when, eventual y, his cal was put through. 'Sorry to keep you hanging on. How are things in the Borders?'

'Warm and sunny thanks, Greg. I'm just getting the feel of my new office.'

'You'l be having a visitor in it soon; Dan Pringle's doing the rounds and he'l be heading your way this afternoon. I just thought I'd call to warn you.'

'Thanks, but I know that already. Maggie was second on his list; she phoned me after she had her official visit. Good for Clan; if that's how he wants to play it, that's fine by me. I couldn't see him chairing a formal meeting anyway: not his style.'

'You might find a flea in your ear after he's gone. When he was here, he asked me if I was happy with everything. He caught me at the wrong moment, 'cos I told him that as it happened, I was a bit pissed off with you. I saw the report you faxed in about your meeting with the Brennan woman. I know you've got a personal interest in the Viareggio investigation, Mario, but if you thought she had information, you should have passed it on to the investigating officers. I wouldn't even have minded if you'd cal ed me at home. Seeing her yourself was a bit out of order, son, and I'm afraid I told Dan Pringle as much.'

McGuire felt the fuse of his temper burning away fast. As he fought to control it, he held the phone away from his ear for a second or two, and stared at it, noticing that he was gripping it so hard that his knuckles were white. Finally, he put it back to his ear.

'There's a couple of things I should tell you, Greg,' he said evenly. 'To begin with, please don't call me "son", ever; I don't like it. Also, next time you try to score points off me with Dan Pringle or Bob Skinner or anyone else, then, whether we're senior officers or not, I'll take you somewhere quiet and do something serious to your head.

'For the record, Ivy Brennan's on the fringe of something else I'm involved in, something personal. When she cal ed me last night, I didn't real y think she knew anything about Beppe or his murder. I'm still not sure she didn't make up that story about the argument in the sauna, but she volunteered it, so I passed it on to you, informal y.

'She's a funny one, is Ivy, but she does know my cousin Paula. I've checked that out. If you're running your investigation properly, you'll send a couple of officers along to re-interview her, for the record. Or are you going to surprise me? Have you made an arrest already?'

'If I had, you'd have been the first to know,' Jay replied, stiffly.

'Have you got any new leads, then?'

'We might have. We found a taxi-driver who said he dropped a couple off on the corner of the street that leads to your uncle's place, just before nine.'

'Descriptions?'

'She was late twenties, he was older; that was the best he could do.

You know how many fares these guys have on a Friday night.'

'Anything else?'

'We've been looking at the property side with your other cousin's husband, Stan Coia; to see whether your family might have had any tenants with a grievance against the landlord.'

'I doubt it. Stan's a good bloke; he keeps the portfolio in first-class shape. Maintenance can be a good investment, in terms of lower insurance premiums. I can't see anyone having grounds for complaint, not to the extent of wanting to put a bul et in Beppe.'

'Maybe not.' Jay paused. 'Did you know that the Viareggio Trust owns a bonded warehouse?' he asked.

'Yes, I do know that, as a matter of fact. We use it to bond wines from Italy for the deli chain, and we rent out space there to other importers.'

'Yes, that's right. There was one funny thing that Mr Coia mentioned.

A firm rented space, but never used it; they didn't pass a single case of wine through there. A few months back, your uncle wrote to them… well, Coia wrote the letter, but Mr Viareggio signed it… and said that he intended to terminate their lease so that it could be made available to someone who actual y needed it. There's a clause in the agreement that lets him do that.

'The tenant's response was very angry and aggressive. It was so threatening, in fact, that Mr Coia was going to back off, but your uncle Beppe insisted that they go ahead. So legal papers were served a couple of weeks ago.'

'What was the name of the firm?'

'Essary and Frances Limited; it's registered at the office of its solicitor, and the directors are named as Mr Magnus Essary and Ms El a Frances.'

'You fol owing it up?'

'I've got people on it as we speak. Oh, and by the way, Mario; this time I'd be grateful if you left it to them.'

McGuire slammed the phone back into its cradle. He was still scowling when Dan Pringle walked into his office.

'You set it up right here in the heart of the city,' said Detective Chief Inspector Mary Chambers; as she gazed at the young man, her plain square face was lit with a mix of incredulity and amusement. 'Excuse my use of industrial language, but did you clever boys real y think we're as lucking stupid as that?'

'Well yes, actually,' he replied.

'They think that in Malaysia too; I was there last week at a conference.

There's a queue of guys like you in prisons out in south east Asia, all waiting to be hanged.'

She sighed. 'Not just in the heart of the city, mind you. Oh no, you two have to set up your Ecstasy lab less than half a mile from a divisional police office.' She paused as the midday train rattled by outside, and looked around the windowless space of the small industrial unit which had been turned into a chemical factory.

'Where better to hide than the heart of a city?' the tal youth asked.

'Just about anywhere,' Maggie Rose told him. 'We've got a concentration of manpower here that you won't find anywhere else.'

He looked at her scornful y. 'You didn't catch us. We were grassed up.'

'You know al the slang, too,' said Chambers, shaking her head. 'You poor lads. Al those brains and no common sense; you made the tabs local y, you sold them local y, and you used stupid bloody students like yourselves to peddle them for you. Of course you were grassed up! Did you real y think those two kids were going to do time for you, once they were offered the chance of being Crown witnesses?'

'It's their word against ours.'

The chief inspector looked at the second young man; there was raw fear in his voice and his chin was trembling. 'No, son,' she said, wearily.

'It's your word against ours, mine and Detective Superintendent Rose and DS McConochie and DC Guthrie, who's taking photographs of your equipment in situ, just as he's been taking shots of you two and the others, coming in and out of this place for the last week.

'There's that, and then there's the name on the lease for this place. I have got that right, haven't I? I'm not mixed up between the two of you, am I? You are Brian Litster and he's Raymond Weston.' The boy nodded.

'Right, that's enough. Beano,' snapped the other. 'No more talk. Arrest us and caution us, if that's what you're going to do. Inspector.'

'Too right that's what I'm going to do, Mr Weston.'

'Good.' He took a phone from his pocket. 'Then I'l be entitled to cal my father.'

Chambers shrugged her broad shoulders. 'You can cal him right now, if you want. Tell him you're being arrested and taken to the Torphichen Place police office.'

Raymond Weston looked at her in surprise for a moment, then dialled a number. 'Dad,' he said, and as he spoke his voice took on an urgent, frightened tone that had not been there before. 'I've been picked up by the police. They've set me up. I told you that guy Martin would have it in for me, and I was right.' He paused for a few seconds. 'Torphichen Place, they said. No, I won't say anything til you and he get there.'