Hour Of Darkness

Twenty-Five

‘Peter Hastings McGrew,’ Sammy Pye repeated, his eyes on the image on his computer screen, through its video call facility. ‘Should I know him?’

‘No,’ Mario McGuire replied, ‘that I wouldn’t expect. Does his father’s name, Perry Holmes, ring any bells with you?’

‘One or two wee ones. I’ve heard it mentioned, but only by old-timers reminiscing.’

‘Thanks, Inspector,’ the ACC growled. ‘He was still around when I joined CID. I’d suggest that you read up about him if you want to understand how his son might possibly relate to the Bella Watson inquiry. One of our former colleagues, a man called Tommy Partridge, wrote a book about him after he retired. That’s as good a source document as any. Tommy spent his career chasing Holmes but never came close to nailing him. The book was only published after Perry died and couldn’t sue anyone for defamation. Big Xavi Aislado, the owner of the Saltire newspaper, helped him write it.’

‘I’ll see if I can download it,’ the DI promised.

‘You can try, but you might not find an e-book version. While you’re at it, there’s something else you should follow up, something that had completely slipped my mind. Bella Watson had a grandchild.’

‘What?’ Pye exclaimed. ‘How? Whose?’

‘When Bob Skinner and I attended Marlon Watson’s funeral,’ McGuire replied, ‘a girl turned up that we’d known nothing about. She was the dead man’s bird, and she was noticeably in the family way, at least seven months gone. I remember that she was really upset, and that Bella took her away in the funeral car, although the kid had come with her pals.

‘Bob got talking to her. He asked what her name was, and when she told him, it stuck in my mind, ’cos she was named after a pop singer, Lulu; that’s all though, I’m buggered if I can remember her second name. I never heard of her again, but the child must be eighteen by now, assuming he or she arrived safely. It shouldn’t be too difficult to trace.’

‘We’ll get on to it,’ the DI promised. ‘By the way, I’ve located its grandfather, Bella’s ex-husband, but only after a fashion.’

‘Clark Watson?’

‘Yeah. He died two years ago, in Worthing, England. I’ve spoken to his widow, but she wasn’t any help. She told me that Clark never spoke about his first family. The subject was off limits.’

‘I’m not surprised. I remember Bob Skinner talking to him as well at the son’s funeral, but being just a sprog DC then, I stood well back, being respectful and all, so I never heard what was said. Focus on the grandchild, Sammy. He or she, whatever, might be in Edinburgh, but he could be anywhere, in Australia even, for all we know.’

‘Okay, sir. I’ll keep Mr Mackenzie up to speed with anything we do turn up.’

Pye saw the on-screen McGuire shake his head. ‘No. You’ll keep DCS Chambers in touch. Detective Superintendent Mackenzie is. . non-operational, at the moment; he’s taking some leave. Okay, Sam, so long. Give Ruth my best.’

‘Non-operational?’ Sauce Haddock exclaimed. He had been sitting to the right of Pye’s desk, out of range of the built-in camera. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine, but from the look on the ACC’s face it doesn’t mean he’s just having an ordinary sickie. I’m sure he got his arse kicked for jumping into our media briefing last week, but I wouldn’t have thought it would have gone any further than that. If it has, fuck him; the guy was trying to use you and me as stepping stones. I don’t know about you, Sauce, but I’m not having anybody’s footprints on my shoulders.’

‘No, me neither,’ the DS agreed, ‘but. . I don’t know, there’s something up. I called Ray Wilding, up in Gayfield, about a golf tie we have to play and got Mavis McDougall instead. She told me that Ray’s out of touch, working on an investigation. When I asked her what it was, she got very frosty, as our Mavis can, and told me I didn’t need to know. My take on that was that she doesn’t know either. Maybe it’s secret squirrel stuff and Mackenzie’s heading it up.’

‘If it is,’ Pye snorted, ‘he’ll be loving it. I hope it keeps him busy for a while. By the way, did you get anything more from Karen? Like who sent those cards?’

‘Yes, I did. She’s sent us a report; the intranet was down when she finished it last night, so she printed it out and had it delivered. I’ve just read it.’

‘What does it say?

‘Plenty,’ Haddock declared. ‘Karen’s established that Bella Watson’s mother had a sister, who was married to a man called Coulter. She had a daughter, a year or two older than Bella, and her name was Susan. Mr Coulter died late in the war, in Belgium, probably in the Battle of the Bulge, given the date.

‘She’s a class act, is Karen; I’d never have thought to do this, but she got on to the Registrar General’s office. The census records for nineteen fifty-one won’t go online for another forty years, but she was able to establish that Susan and her mother were living with the Watsons when it was taken, so the two girls were close, geographically and, it seems, personally.

‘This Susan Coulter had a daughter, also named Susan, in nineteen sixty, when she was sixteen. The birth certificate shows the father as Victor Hart, birthplace Calgary, Canada, but he doesn’t figure anywhere else in the story, nor does his name. Susan the second married a man named Eoin Riley in nineteen eighty-eight, in Edinburgh.

‘A year later she had a daughter, named Victoria, and a year after that she and her husband were killed in a car crash on the coast road from Musselburgh to Prestonpans. Two years ago, Victoria gave birth to a daughter, Susan the third. The father’s name is Patrick Booth, aged twenty-nine.’

Pye leaned back in his chair, beaming. ‘Well done, Karen,’ he murmured.

‘Indeed. Her report says that Mrs McConnochie, her star witness, didn’t fancy the look of Mr Booth. I’ve just run his name through the Police National Computer; it backs up Mrs McC’s judgement. Booth has a record for housebreaking that goes back to when he was thirteen. He’s also got a string of assault convictions, one of them serious; that got him three years, when he was twenty-three. I would say that makes him a person of interest, wouldn’t you?’

‘I would. Let’s lift him and squeeze him; we’ll see what pops out.’

‘What about the grandchild,’ the DS asked, ‘and what about this man McGrew, that the ACC was on about?’

‘I don’t know what either might mean, not yet. You put DC Wright on tracing this Lulu and her kid, then dig out an address for Patrick Booth. While you’re doing that, I’ll get Googling and see what I can find out about this bloke Perry Holmes. From the way the ACC looked when he talked about him, he must have been something else.’

Haddock stepped back into the CID suite. There were two detective constables on shift, but one of them was engaged, interviewing the driver of a stolen car who had been arrested in Constitution Street the night before.

‘Jackie,’ he called out to the spare DC. She was the newest recruit to the squad, and had played no part in the hunt for Cramond Island woman’s identity, and her killer. ‘A word please.’

She looked up, eagerness in her eyes, her hair sparkling in a shaft of sunlight that came through the office window and fell across her desk.

‘I need you to trace a couple of missing persons,’ he said, and saw her enthusiasm fade. ‘I only have a single forename,’ he added, ‘and no surname, but we need them found. It has to do with the Watson investigation.’

She beamed, and her enthusiasm returned.