Hour Of Darkness

Fifty-Six

‘Is there any slight chance that one day, your phone won’t ring on a Saturday?’ Paula Viareggio asked her husband.

‘That could happen,’ he told her, ‘if I’m made redundant after the start of Police Scotland.’

He was frowning when he said it: she took him seriously.

‘They wouldn’t do that, would they?’ she exclaimed. ‘Not with Bob Skinner in charge, surely not.’

‘Work it out, love,’ he suggested. ‘There are going to be four deputies and six ACCs. Andy Martin’s a cert to be one of the deputies, Maggie’s odds on to be another, and probably Brian Mackie. That’ll leave a lot more people at that rank than there are vacancies. Some will retire, sure, but I’m no cert to get a slot.’

‘You will, though.’

‘Let’s wait and see.’

‘It’ll be a disgrace if you don’t.’

He laughed and hugged her. ‘No, it’ll be fate. That’s what happens when you let politicians run the country.’

‘Don’t talk to me about them,’ Paula muttered. ‘Who was that on the phone?’ she asked.

‘Mary Chambers, dropping a bombshell. One I must ask Andy about.’

He left her to attend to baby Eamon’s latest demand and called his one-time colleague.

‘I know what you’re on about,’ Martin exclaimed, before McGuire had a chance to ask him. ‘Bella Watson’s daughter, right?’

‘Dead right. Mary’s just told me about her. She says they’re absolutely sure. Are you guys?’

‘It looks nailed on. It was her van, in her mother’s street and she’s using her old radio name, or nearly all of it.’

‘Andy,’ McGuire said, ‘I was on the Marlon Watson investigation, remember, and I had no idea that a daughter existed.’

‘Oh, she did, I promise you; short dark hair, drop-dead gorgeous, eyes you could drown in; she looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn. If you doubt me, ask Alex; she says she met her too, although she was vague on how. Understandable, since she was only a kid at the time.

‘But Mario,’ he added, ‘she was never a suspect, not for a moment, so after that first meeting, that I was in on, there was no need to talk to her again. It’s no surprise you never heard of her. After all, you were only the CID gopher at the time.’ He laughed. ‘I remember you turning up for your first day in plain clothes in an Armani suit and Bob having to tell you, not too quietly, to dress like a cop.’

‘Yes, I remember too. At least I can wear what I like now, unless uniform’s called for. I might wear it when I visit my CID team on Monday, to read the fucking riot act! I’m going to want to know,’ he said, ‘why we’re only finding out about Mia Watson now, and why it takes somebody’s granny and the head of an outside agency to tell us. I’ve already torn a strip off Mary. . unfairly maybe, with Mackenzie being missing. When that man turns up he’s fucking toast, I tell you.’

‘Hey, calm down, big fella,’ Martin urged him. ‘Don’t get too steamed up. As I understand it, your team might have done a more thorough family check on Bella at the start, but they did trace the daughter, the hard way, and they did find out that her son, the anomalous grandson, existed. That said, when I see Karen tomorrow night to deliver the kids I’ll tell her to wear her iron knickers on Monday morning.’

‘She’s exempt,’ McGuire said, quickly. ‘It’s Sammy and Sauce I’ll be after. . although again that’s probably unfair, since Mackenzie appointed himself SIO at the start of the investigation till I told him otherwise. That’ll be another can he’s carrying.’

‘He’ll be weighed down. What’s this about him being missing anyway?’

‘Slip of the tongue. I never said that; he’s on personal leave, okay?’

‘Noted. Now,’ Andy asked, ‘what’s the story?’

‘He and his wife have flown the coop. We don’t know why and we don’t know where they’ve gone. There were some forensics in the house that had us a ball-hair off launching a full-scale murder hunt, but Bob’s assured us that he hasn’t harmed her.’

‘Bob has? How’s he involved?’

‘We felt we had to tell him,’ McGuire explained, ‘because of Mackenzie’s Strathclyde background, plus we needed his force’s help in the early days.’

‘And because of their personal history?’

‘Partly.’

‘So Bob’s investigating the business himself?’

‘I haven’t a clue what Bob’s doing.’ McGuire paused. ‘You don’t, do you?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Martin replied, ‘but I can tell you this. If he is on the trail, God help Mackenzie.’