Hour Of Darkness

Forty-Two

I didn’t blame Lottie for getting less out of the priest than I did. I could have told her to go harder with him, but there was no certainty that would have worked. Tom Donnelly had felt a personal connection with me, through my father, and that may well have persuaded him to open up as much as he had.

He’d given me enough food for thought to send me into a mental meltdown, and some of it, I decided, I was keeping to myself. As for the rest, I was prepared to share that, and even to swap it.

I thought through my options; when I was ready I picked up the phone and called Maggie Rose. . sorry, Maggie Steele; my old habits die harder than Bruce Willis. ‘Hi, Bob,’ she greeted me, sounding less than cheerful.

‘Who stole your scone?’ I asked.

‘And my birthday cake,’ she retorted. ‘I’ve got Mario with me; we’ve just had a visit from Mary Chambers, briefing us on the Bella Watson murder inquiry.’

‘How’s that one going?’ I don’t think I sounded too interested; Bella’s demise was poetic justice in my book, and so as an outside observer I couldn’t summon up too much enthusiasm.

‘She’s got more lines of inquiry than a spider’s web. The unfortunate thing is that they all lead in different directions. The DCS has called a case conference for tomorrow to try to pull them together. Just to add a fresh complication, she had a call from Sammy Pye in the middle of our visit. He’s just picked up a piece of information that might mean we have to reopen a very cold case: the death of Perry Holmes.’

That got my attention. ‘Indeed? I wouldn’t be spending too much money on it. Lennie Plenderleith reckons that Manson had him done. You’ll be struggling to convict him, since he’s as dead as Perry.’

‘No, not him.’

‘Still, think carefully,’ I advised. ‘It’s been a long time and there were no witnesses. It could even have been an accident. . although I admit that I have never bought the fiscal’s dodgy wheelchair theory.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Maggie said, ‘that’s not a top priority. Right now, the two of us are contemplating the prospect of holding a press briefing tomorrow, to go public on David Mackenzie’s disappearance, and to announce that he’s wanted on suspicion of murdering his wife. I’m going to get crucified.’

‘No,’ I heard McGuire say loudly in the background. ‘I am; you’re not taking the rap for this.’

‘It’s my rap to take,’ Maggie declared, for his benefit and mine; her voice echoed, telling me that she’d put me on speakerphone. ‘I’m the chief constable; I can’t get out from under. That forty-eight-hour silence isn’t going to look too clever under questioning.’

‘Just hold on,’ I told her, ‘before you get into a warm bath and open your veins. Have you set up this suicide mission yet?’

‘No, we’re leaving it until the morning. Why?’

‘Because you need a rethink; Mackenzie might have done a couple of things in his time that he didn’t want anyone to know about, but he has not murdered his wife.’

‘What?’ she shouted in my ear. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It comes from an unimpeachable source. When I was a boy in Motherwell,’ I added, in explanation, ‘there was a guy on the council who was the local bishop’s mouthpiece. That was what he used to say when he was quoting his master’s voice.’

‘Did you get that from the bishop, then?’ she asked, with a trace of sarcasm that I must have left in her office when I moved out.

‘Almost as good as; I got it from David’s priest.’

‘From his what?’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘I never knew Mackenzie was a Catholic.’

‘There are lots of things none of us knew about Mackenzie, chum. He wasn’t born into it, as far as I know; he signed up as a teenager.’

‘You trust this clerical informant, do you, Bob?’ he asked.

‘Yes I do.’

‘He told you Cheryl is still alive?’

‘Not directly, but that’s what he meant.’

‘Do you know this guy?’ I’d never been cross-examined by McGuire before. I wasn’t sure I cared for it.

‘My father knew him,’ I replied, well aware how lame that sounded.

‘That doesn’t fill me with confidence,’ he drawled. ‘I seem to remember you telling me once that you hardly knew your father yourself.’

‘Mario!’ I heard Maggie snap.

‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s a fair point. But Tom Donnelly told me categorically that Mackenzie is not a wife-murderer, and I will go with that. If you two don’t want to, then fine, let the media vultures pick your bones tomorrow. But be ready to look like a couple of Charlies when Cheryl shows up alive and well in the tabloid of her choice.’

‘If this goes pear-shaped, Bob. .’

I acknowledged her hesitancy. ‘I know. You’ve both got careers to protect, especially with the new unified force well over the horizon, whereas I don’t give a shit about mine. It’s your call, and it has to be based on your judgement.’

‘But yours is that we should hold fire?’

‘Mine is that you have no evidence other than a few bloodstains on a towel, and they don’t prove violence. There are any number of possible explanations for that; a sudden nosebleed, as I said before. Sarah had one when we were in Spain last week, but nobody thought about locking me up.’

‘What about the duvet, Mags?’ McGuire asked. ‘Does Bob know about that?’

‘Sorry, Mario,’ she replied, after a short pause, ‘I’m still processing the news that he and Sarah were in Spain last week. Yes, the missing duvet from off their bed.’

‘Again, that proves nothing,’ I pointed out. ‘You’ve got a couple who’ve disappeared at the same time, leaving their kids behind, safe with her mother. That’s all that you know for sure. I take it you’ve checked their financial situation. Do they have money problems, debt collectors knocking on the door, that sort of thing?’

‘Yes we have, and no they don’t. They’re as comfortable as you’d expect a couple to be with two good salaries coming in.’

‘Is there anything in Mackenzie’s past career that rings any alarm bells, villains with a grudge, and so on?’

‘No, we’ve eliminated that as a possibility.’ She sighed. ‘Okay, this is about judgement, as you said earlier. We’ve both followed yours from the start, and I’m going to follow it again. We’ll do nothing about a media conference, and reconsider on Monday. If there’s flak when it does come out. .’

‘If it comes out,’ I interrupted. ‘They could return tomorrow, penitent and unharmed.’

‘Okay then, if it leaks, and the media go on the attack, we can argue that there was no danger to the public, so we had no obligation to them. Agreed, Mario?’

‘Agreed.’

‘A deal, then; we come back from the brink. Thanks, Bob, for your input and your advice.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ I said. ‘I hope it works out for you; something’s happened between them, that’s for sure.’

I know what you’re thinking. Why isn’t he sharing everything he knows with them, two people he’s known and trusted for much of his career and most of theirs? I should have but I chose not to, for I had a scent in my nostrils. It wasn’t a very pleasant odour, and I wanted to get to its source on my own.

‘Mags,’ I said, ‘the way this is turning out it’s almost as much my investigation as yours. Could you do something for me?’

‘Name it, oh master,’ she chuckled. ‘Why is it all your requests still sound like orders?’

‘This is a request, honest. I’ve been looking for Mackenzie’s personnel file, but my people tell me that everything was sent to Edinburgh when he moved. Any chance I could see it?’

‘If you want to; but I warn you, Ray Wilding’s looked at it and found nothing.’

‘Nevertheless.’

‘Okay, I’ll have it sent to you tonight.’ She paused. ‘Where do I send it?’ she asked, provocatively. ‘Your place or Sarah’s?’

‘Mine, thanks,’ I replied, po-faced. ‘I’ll let you have it back when I’m done.’

‘What do you expect to find in it that Wilding didn’t?’

‘Nothing, Maggie, absolutely nothing,’ I told her, and I meant it.