Hour Of Darkness

Eighteen

‘Is there any chance he had leave booked in and you’ve forgotten about it?’ Mario McGuire asked the woman seated behind what had been his desk until a few weeks before.

Detective Chief Superintendent Mary Chambers, the formidable head of CID, frowned at him; it was all the reply she felt to be necessary.

He raised a placatory right hand. ‘No, of course not; sorry. Then where the fu. .’ he grimaced. ‘I can’t have a bloody superintendent going AWOL. I’m sorry about this, Mary, I really am.’

‘What are you sorry for, boss?’ she said. ‘It’s hardly your fault.’

‘I feel as if it is. I installed him as your Edinburgh coordinator.’

Chief Constable Margaret Steele pushed herself off the wall against which she had been leaning. ‘We installed him, Mario, not just you. In fact it was more me than you. I didn’t want the guy in the Command Corridor any longer, he had a CID background and a hankering to go back there. Yes, there were misgivings but the fact is they were yours and I talked you out of them. But let’s not over-dramatise this; we can’t raise the man, but for all we know he might be stuck in a traffic jam at Hermiston Gait with a dead battery in his mobile.’

‘That’s about a hundred to one against, but he could be,’ McGuire conceded. ‘On the other hand, Mary’s contacted all the divisional CID offices and he hasn’t visited any of them.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Of course there is another scenario.’ He glanced at the chief. ‘I think we all know what that is.’

‘I don’t,’ Chambers said.

‘No? Then Bob Skinner must have done a really good job of covering it up. A few years back, David Mackenzie was involved in an armed situation with him and our former colleague, Neil McIlhenney. It got pretty dicey; indeed, it was too much for Mackenzie, for he froze in the middle of it.

‘Bob being Bob, he never blamed him, or spoke of it. I only know about it because Neil told me in confidence. Afterwards the man had a breakdown of sorts, and a drink problem went with it. He was touch and go for retirement on health grounds, but the big guy refused to let that happen and pulled him back in.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Because he had recruited him,’ McGuire replied, patiently, ‘from through the West; he thought he had potential and that he would freshen up our CID operation. He did for a while, until the crisis happened.’

‘So Mr Skinner felt he owed him. Is that what you’re saying?’ the DCS asked.

‘It could be,’ Steele said. ‘It could also be that Bob isn’t great at acknowledging his own mistakes.’ She winced slightly. ‘Forget I said that, both of you. Not because it isn’t true, but because it implies that Mackenzie was one, and that isn’t proven, not yet. Tell me, Mary,’ she went on, ‘have you tried to make contact with his wife?’

‘Not directly; I rang his home number, obviously, but there was no reply.’

‘That’s not too surprising,’ McGuire said. ‘Cheryl Mackenzie works; she’s a pharmacist at the Western General Hospital.’ He looked at his watch; it showed five twenty. ‘She ought to be home now, though.’

‘In that case,’ Chambers declared, ‘I’ll give her another call.’

She was about to pick up her phone when it rang. She snatched it from the cradle, impatiently. ‘Yes!’

‘Sorry to bother you,’ a gruff, and almost certainly insincere, voice barked into her ear. ‘This is the reception desk. I’ve got a lady here lookin’ for Detective Superintendent Mackenzie. She’s got two kids with her as well. I’ve tried his number, but he’s no’ in. I’ve told her that but she’ll no’ go. She says it’s urgent. She’s a bit frantic. Can you send somebody down to talk to her?’

‘Yes I can,’ the DCS replied, ‘but first, ask her who she is, what’s her relationship with Mr Mackenzie and why she’s so keen to see him.’

‘All right, give me a minute.’ She waited, listening to a mumbled conversation, until the civilian receptionist came back on line. ‘She says her name’s Mrs Austin, and that she’s Superintendent Mackenzie’s mother-in-law. She wants to see him because her daughter hasn’t been to pick up their children.’

‘Does she normally look after them during the day?’

‘No, no, it’s not today she’s talkin’ about. She was supposed to pick them up last night, but she never turned up. Mrs Austin tried callin’ them last night, she says, until it was too late for her to take the wee ones home. So she put them to bed, took them to the school this morning, then called Mrs Mackenzie at her work to find out where they’d been. But it seems that she hasn’t been there all day, and hasn’t called in sick either. Do you want me to keep her here, till somebody comes down?’

‘No,’ Chambers said. ‘I want you to have somebody bring her up to my office, right away.’ She replaced the phone and looked up at the chief and the ACC, both of whom were staring at her.

‘What’s up?’ McGuire asked.

‘I don’t know, but either the Mackenzies have gone off on a second honeymoon without telling anyone, or there is something very seriously wrong.’