Hour Of Darkness

Forty-One

Sammy Pye was not a big fan of Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital. He had no complaints about its clinical standards, his mother having been treated there, successfully, for breast cancer, but its layout was confusing, and also he believed that its site was overdeveloped, with too many buildings on too small an acreage.

Fortunately, finding Vanburn Gayle was not going to be a problem. Jackie Wright had established that he worked in Ward One, the chemotherapy unit, which was on the southern entrance road.

As he had told the DC, his warrant card enabled him to park at the rear of the police headquarters building, which was destined to become a regional office after the impending unification, and walked the short distance to the hospital precinct.

His mother’s experience there made him realise it would be insensitive simply to walk into the ward. Instead he went to the Oncology Centre reception and showed his badge to the woman behind the counter. ‘I’d like a word with Staff Nurse Gayle,’ he said, ‘about an investigation that he might be able to help us with. I understand he’s on duty just now.’

‘He is,’ she replied, ‘and you’re in luck. He’s on a break just now.’ She pointed to her left. ‘He’s just round the corner there, past the kiosk.’ She smiled. ‘He’s West Indian, and he’s kind of hard to miss.’

He thanked her and walked towards the lounge area that opened out past the refreshment bar. One glance round the corner told him that the receptionist had understated things. The man was impossible to miss. He was dark-skinned, with frizzy grey hair, and even seated, reading a copy of the Metro, he looked massive, with weightlifter shoulders and huge forearms that protruded from his short-sleeved blue tunic.

‘Mr Gayle,’ he said.

The nurse looked up, blinking in his surprise.

‘Detective Inspector Pye, Leith CID.’ His warrant card was still in his hand, and he held it out for inspection. ‘Do you have a minute?’

‘Sure,’ he replied, in a deep mellow voice, ‘but for what?’

‘I’d like to talk to you about a current investigation.’

Suspicion crept into his brown eyes. ‘Current?’ he repeated.

‘Yes, it concerns the murder of a woman in Edinburgh. It took place a couple of weeks ago, but her identity was only confirmed at the weekend.’

Suspicion became alarm. ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’

‘Relax,’ Pye murmured, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘It’s peripheral to the main investigation, just something that’s come up. Be assured that you are not a suspect; if you were I wouldn’t be alone and we wouldn’t be talking here.’

The big man nodded. ‘Okay, if you say so. Let’s do it; I have ten minutes or so, but then I must be back on the ward.’

Pye lowered himself on to a seat facing Gayle. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you about two people. The first is a man named Duane Hicks. He lived in Edinburgh for a while in the nineteen nineties, but moved back to St Lucia, where he’s from.’

The nurse shrugged. ‘Duane? Sure, what’s he done?’

‘Nothing, as far as I know,’ the DI replied. ‘But you do know him, yes?’

‘Sure, he’s family of sorts: his mother and my mother are cousins. My mum’s from St Lucia, like him. She couldn’t get a job at home so she moved to Trinidad, and stayed there after she met my father. I only met Duane for the first time when he worked here, and I haven’t seen him since, not face to face. We speak from time to time.’

‘Did you know he married in Edinburgh?’

‘Yes, I think my mother told me at the time, but I’d moved to London when that happened. I’ve never met his wife; I know nothing about her, except Mum said she was a local girl, and she had a kid.’ He frowned. ‘You’re not going to tell me Duane’s dead, are you?’

‘No, I’m not. As far as I know he’s alive and well.’

‘Then what. .’

‘Bear with me,’ Pye said. ‘I want to ask you about someone else, a man named Peter Hastings McGrew, known commonly as Hastie. Mr McGrew was jailed for murder, around about the time you left Edinburgh. I’m advised that you were one of the very few people who visited him in prison.’

‘Hey, man,’ Gayle exclaimed, ‘you really been checking up on me. Yes, I visited Hastie. He and I looked after his father, Mr Holmes. . only I didn’t know at that time that Hastie was his son. They kept that secret, the pair of them. I still don’t know why they did that; I asked him, in prison, but all he would say was they had their reasons.’

‘But Mr Holmes’s daughter was no secret.’

‘Alafair? No, I knew about her.’

‘It never occurred to you that Hastie had the same surname?’

The big man stared back, surprised; genuinely so, the DI read. ‘I never knew that; I just assumed her family name was Holmes. She was married to that footballer guy with the funny name, Drysalter, and that’s how I knew her. . as Alafair Drysalter. Why’d they do that anyway, man; not use their dad’s name? Do you police know?’

‘Can’t you guess, Mr Gayle? Their parents were never married, and given Mr Holmes’s business, they thought it better that Hastie and Alafair use their mother’s name.’

‘What business? Mr Holmes was a property developer; plus he had a limo company, a funeral business, and he was in the leisure and security business. He also owned a big chain of care homes. It was that company paid me when I looked after him.’

‘Sure, he was all those things, but much more. He was also. .’ He stopped to consider his words. ‘Let me put it this way; if the Scottish police had a list of public enemies, in his time Perry Holmes would have been number one. He was a quadriplegic when you looked after him. Didn’t you know how he got that way?’

‘I know he was shot,’ Gayle replied. ‘His doctor told me the story, and of course I saw the scars. A former employee went crazy, and ambushed Mr Holmes and his brother.’

‘That’s only one-third true. Billy Spreckley never worked for the Holmeses, not formally anyway, and he wasn’t crazy. He shot them because they had his brother and his nephew killed.’

‘Mr Holmes? Are you serious?’

‘I never joke on the job,’ Pye assured him. ‘Mr Gayle, correct me if I’ve been misinformed, but you were there when Hastie was arrested, were you not?’

‘Too true,’ he admitted, ‘and I’ll never forget it. Hastie had a gun but that policeman, Skinner, he shot it out of his hand. I’ll never forget him either: he was a very scary man, in a quiet way. Those murders that Hastie went to jail for,’ Gayle continued, ‘they had nothing to do with his father. A girl he knew was attacked and the police were going to do nothing about it, so he went after the guys who did it. That was the story; that’s what he told me.’

‘And that’s what the court accepted, but there were other murders that he was never charged with and they definitely had to do with your patient. Tell me,’ the detective went on, ‘why did you leave him when you did?’

‘I went to do a nursing degree, in London,’ the man replied. ‘Didn’t you find that out when you checked up on me?’ he added, with a faint hint of sarcasm.

‘As a matter of fact we did, and this isn’t part of my investigation; I’m just curious, my cop’s nose is twitching. You can imagine why, since Mr Holmes was drowned in his treatment pool not long after you left. Why did you go? Were you scared by Hastie’s arrest?’

‘Yeah,’ he conceded, ‘sure I was. You woulda been too if you’d been there.’ His own recent experience with Patrick Booth made Pye admit privately that he was right. ‘But that wasn’t why I went then. I was given money, quite a lot of money, and I was able to afford to go.’

Pye felt a surge of excitement but hid it. ‘And who gave you the money? There’s a school of police thought says it was a man called Tony Manson.’

Gayle chuckled. ‘Then they ain’t thinking straight, Inspector. I never heard of that man. No, it was Alafair gave it to me.’

‘Alafair?’

‘Yes, she said it was compensation for the stress of Hastie’s arrest. And it was her who found me the course in London. It was all official, man. I paid tax on it, the money. I know this, ’cos it said on my form when I left.’

Bloody hell. This is not history as it was written. I need to report this.

When the nurse continued, Pye was so distracted that the words sailed over his head. He excused himself. ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’

‘I said, what does all that have to do with Duane Hicks?’

The DI replied, ‘I was getting there, and I will, but let’s stay with Hastie for now. Why did you visit him?’

‘Because he and I were friends when we worked together; it felt like the thing to do. Then there was the money, I suppose. Without it, I’d never have been able to take my degree, and I’d never have been here. I felt grateful to the family, and that was the only way I could show it.’

‘When you saw him, what did you talk about?’

Gayle smiled, revealing perfect tombstone teeth. ‘All sorts of things, man. Books, music, movies I’d seen. Sport, of course; we talked about cricket a lot. He’s a fan, and it’s part of my culture.’

‘Did you ever talk about the old days, about Edinburgh?’

‘Some, but not much.’

‘When you did, did Hastie ever mention a woman called Bella Watson?’

‘As a matter of fact, he did. One day, not long before he was released, I asked him about the other guys in the prison, whether any of them were famous. He said there was a guy called Lennie something, about his own age, from Edinburgh. He told me that he’d never met him on the outside because. . how did he put it. . they were from different parts of town, but he’d got to know him inside.

‘He said he was very much a reformed guy, that he’d spent all his sentence studying, but that in the old days, he’d had a ferocious reputation. I asked him if he was the most dangerous person he knew, and he said no, that he wasn’t dangerous any more, and that even when he was, he didn’t come close to a woman called Bella Watson.

‘He told me that inside Lennie there was always a kind heart, but that this Bella woman, she didn’t have no heart at all, just pure evil inside.’

‘Have you seen him since he was released from prison?’ the DI asked.

‘No. He said he would look me up when he felt like a free man again. He expected that would take time. I’ve promised to give him physio treatment. He has handicaps, you know.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that. Now,’ Pye said, briskly, ‘let’s get back to Duane Hicks. Have you heard from him recently?’

‘Recently? This year, certainly; he called me out of the blue, in early January, and asked if I could do him a favour. He said his boy Marlon. . now I think about it, that must have been his wife’s kid: they have two of their own, but they’re still at school. . Marlon, he had trained as a mechanic and was lookin’ to come back to Edinburgh to work. My mum had said to his mum that I knew people; last time I was home I told her about Hastie and Alafair and the businesses they own.

‘A week or so later, I saw Hastie in Kilmarnock, and I asked him if they had anything going. A couple of days on, Alafair called me and said they’d hire him. She even fixed him up with somewhere to live, as a favour to me. Once the kid was settled in he dropped by to thank me. I haven’t seen him since.’

The DI nodded. ‘Okay. Now, once again, you’re saying you don’t know anything about Duane’s wife.’

‘Her name’s Marie, but that’s it. Why, man? Why’s it so important?’

‘It may not be, but a bookie would give you rotten odds against. Bella Watson, the woman I asked you about: it’s her murder I’m investigating, and young Marlon Hicks is her grandson. You can bet that if Hastie McGrew thought Bella was pure evil, she felt much the same way about him.’