Lethal Intent

Seventy-four

Willie Haggerty liked to think that he had a bit of cunning about him. He picked up the telephone in his office, trying to stop himself wondering why Bob Skinner had greeted Greg Jay like a bosom buddy, and why he had even let him into the building in the first place, and dialled a Glasgow number from a list on his desk. 'Max,' he said, as his call was picked up, 'how are things in Strathclyde CID?'

'Is that you, Willie?' Detective Chief Superintendent Max Allan replied. 'I thought you'd forgotten about us.' Not so long ago, Haggerty had sat in Allan's chair, as the senior crime-fighter in Glasgow. He had enjoyed the job, and had achieved considerable success in it.

'How could I do that, Maxie, when you're all over the front pages every day?'

'You can talk. What the hell went on up at that ski centre on Saturday? Would I be wrong, or did I read between the lines that it was a policeman's kid the guy tried to snatch?'

'If you did, you shouldn't have been able to, but you're right. It was Neil McIlhenney's son; our head of Special Branch.'

'Good God! Was it political?'

'We don't think so, but it could be connected to his service. Bob Skinner's detached one of our best DIs to run the investigation; I hear he's got someone in his sights already.'

'Glad to hear it; I hope you nail the bastard good. Now, are you going to tell me what you want?'

'I'm on the scrounge, as usual. We've got a couple of openings coming up through here, at sergeant level, and we're always out to strengthen our team. I was wondering if any of your people had itchy feet.'

'There's always some, Willie,' Allan conceded. 'Are we talking CID?'

'Among other things, yes.'

'Specialist?'

'Not necessarily.'

'I'll look into it, see who's applied for transfer lately and let you know.' Haggerty heard Allan chuckle. 'Here, talking about transfers, how's Bandit Mackenzie getting on through there?'

'He's settling in fine, as far as I know. He reports to Bob, not me. You sound as if you might have been glad to get rid of him.'

'Well, I'll say this: we sleep easier in our beds knowing he's with you. He's some boy, the Bandit. He always sailed closer to the wind than any other officer we had. You must remember that, surely, from your time here.'

'I remember his clear-up figures… they were bloody impressive.'

'Maybe so, but there was always that terrible fear that he'd become a statistic himself one day. Here, that reminds me: his old sergeant, Gwen Dell, put her name in for a move last week. I'm not keen to let her go, though. She's a good operator, and a lot less reckless than Mackenzie.'

'That wouldn't be hard. If you do decide to go along with her request let me know and we'll see whether she fits what we've got. Now I'd better let you get back to work and catch those bombers of yours. We can't have the druggies blowing each other up: they could hurt too many innocent people.'

'How did you know they were druggies?' Allan asked. 'We didn't release that.'

'Do me a favour. Who do you think you're talking to?'

'Point taken. You're right, of course: three victims blown to bits. We've identified two of them as Frankie and Bobby Jakes, former asylum-seekers, and now former everything. We haven't a clue who the third guy was, although the barman in the Johnny Groat, where they'd been drinking, said he sounded foreign. Whoever he was, we found his arse in the car… a big flashy American thing, it was. The rest of him was all over the place and what was left was pretty well crisped, but the pockets of his jeans were crammed full with what had once been white powder.'

'Supply cut off at source, you might say. At least that's a bonus for you, if not for them.'

'Mmm,' DCS Allan muttered, 'but there's a downside. We're not telling anyone this either, but it wasn't a bomb that blew them up. My ballistics guys have been working all night on it, and they tell me they're pretty much certain that it was a missile, an American Javelin anti-tank weapon, they reckon.'

'Bloody hell!' exclaimed Haggerty. 'I've never heard of them in Partick before.'

'Me neither. But at least we've got somewhere to start looking. There were two guys in the pub. They'd been seen talking to the Jakes boys, and when they left, this pair went out just after them. They were seen making a very sharp exit from the scene just after the explosion. We reckon they might have fired the missile from their car.'

Haggerty felt his scalp tingle. 'How do you know they weren't just punters?' he asked.

'We know for sure they weren't. They were heard telling Jakes, and a woman, that they were porters at the Western. Only they're not. The hospital's never heard of them. We reckon that they were the hit team, and right now, finding them is our absolute top priority. We're putting E-fit pictures out on television tonight. Hopefully, they'll lead us to them.'