Private Investigations

Nineteen

‘Thanks, Sauce,’ Pye said. ‘Do you fancy a trip to Lacey’s this evening? You and me,’ he added. ‘Young Jackie would be a wee bit out of place there.’

‘What’s that?’ the DS retorted. ‘Denying her overtime on gender grounds? You’ll have the discrimination police after you, Sammy.’

‘Maybe so, but I wouldn’t take a rabbit to a greyhound track either. As for the overtime bit, that’s an issue these days. We’ve all got budgets, every CID area, and we can’t exceed them. I’ll meet you there at seven. My apologies to Cheeky if she had other plans for you.’

‘She hasn’t, but if I tell her where we’re going she might want to come. There’s a pole-dancing exercise class down in Leith; she’s been talking about signing up. It’s all the rage, apparently; you should tell Ruth about it.’

‘With the cost of child care these days,’ the DCI murmured, ‘that might come in handy. I hear these girls make a lot of money in tips.’

Haddock laughed. ‘It’s as well for you that you do my job appraisal, gaffer, or I might be tempted to tell her that.’

‘Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin. And as you say, it’s bad for your job prospects. What did you make of Jagger and Drizzle?’

‘They’re a contradiction. Levon Rattray told us that Harbison was a thicko, but it’s the other way around. Jagger’s the idiot, not him. The probation officer told us that Drizzle is a very good thief, but I didn’t understand that till I met him. He has the gift of invisibility. He could be standing on his own in a big room and nobody would notice him. The market stall was Jagger’s idea, apparently. Drizzle didn’t know about it; he only got drawn in when the investigating officers looked at the CCTV footage.’

‘Is he worth keeping an eye on,’ Pye asked, ‘given that we don’t see Dino as a mastermind?’

‘Let’s not ignore him, but he gave up his mate in a heartbeat when he realised why we wanted him.’

‘Fair enough. What about Donna Rattray? Have you spoken to her yet?’

‘We’re at the university now,’ Haddock replied. ‘We’re waiting for her to finish. Where are you?’

‘I’m at the Western General. Grete Regal was transferred there from the Royal because that’s where the neurosurgeons are. She’s just out of the theatre and I’m waiting to speak to the woman who operated on her. You speak to Dino’s sister, then go back to the mobile HQ unit at Fort Kinnaird. I’ll meet you there, and we can head for Lacey’s together.’

Pye ended the call, then switched off his phone to comply with a warning in the hallway of the building where the surgical wards were located. He followed a series of signs that led him towards the intensive care unit, to which he had been directed.

The entrance was secure, with a video camera and intercom. ‘DCI Pye,’ he announced to the microphone, ‘here to see Miss Sonia Iqbal.’

‘Come in when you hear the buzzer,’ a voice instructed. ‘Then it’s the first door on the right.’

He obeyed the instructions and found himself in a room with eight others, some smiling, others intense, but all clearly under stress; patients’ relatives, he assumed, wondering if any of them were connected to Grete Regal but not ready to ask.

Five minutes passed, each one observed impatiently on his watch, before the door opened and a soft voice said, ‘Mr Pye, please.’ He followed the summons and stepped out into the corridor.

Sonia Iqbal was a tall woman, with smooth brown skin and eyes to match. She was wrapped in a long colourful robe and her shiny black hair was pulled behind her head in a bun.

‘Can we talk here, Chief Inspector?’ she asked, in a thick accent that he found impossible to place, but a small Egyptian flag badge pinned to her dress gave a large clue to her nationality. ‘This is as private as I can manage.’

‘It’ll do,’ Pye replied. ‘What can you tell me about Ms Regal? How is she?’

‘She is very seriously ill, I am afraid, she was hit very hard, several times, by a large stone.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘I found fragments embedded in her cranium. Does that knowledge assist you?’

‘I have a forensic team at the scene of the attack. It’ll help them to have something specific to look for. What’s Ms Regal’s prognosis? Will I be able to speak to her soon?’

‘Mr Pye, you may never be able to speak to her. She has suffered bleeding in her brain, and it has swollen. To relieve the pressure this has caused I have had to remove a large section of her skull, and insert it in her abdomen. We do this to keep the bone nourished so that it can be replaced at a later date.’ She grimaced. ‘However, she will have to recover for that to happen, and I can give you no guarantee that she will. We will keep her chemically comatose for as long as is necessary, but beyond that she will only come round in her own time. She may die, and if she survives she may have a degree of neurological damage.’

‘I see,’ Pye murmured. ‘Poor lass. It may be she’s better off unconscious; that way she doesn’t have to deal with the fact that her child’s dead.’

‘Her child?’ the surgeon gasped. ‘She was attacked too?’

‘Abducted. She died from natural causes. You weren’t to know; you must have been operating on her for most of today. Do you know if any of her relatives have turned up?’ he asked. ‘Her partner’s away, and we’re making contact with him. I’ve been busy with the investigation, but I’ve had officers calling the contacts on her phone to locate other family members. I haven’t had time to check on their progress.’

Ms Iqbal nodded. ‘There is an aunt, Mrs Rainey. She wants to see Ms Regal as soon as she’s out of recovery and installed in the ICU. She is in the room; if you wait here I will fetch her.’

‘Sure.’ As the surgeon had said, the corridor seemed to be the most private place in the intensive care unit; beyond, green-clad staff seemed to be in one continuous bustle. The detective knew why they were so busy. A few years before, his mother had spent a couple of days in a similar unit in another hospital, after life-saving surgery; he understood from that time how intensive the unit’s care was.

‘Are you the policeman?’ The voice that spoke the question was authoritative, and although its foreign accent was not as strong as that of the surgeon, it was there nonetheless.

He turned to face its owner, to find that she was almost as tall as he. She had been seated on her own in the waiting room, by the window, as if she was trying to position herself as far from anyone else as possible. ‘That’s right, DCI Pye, ScotServe; Edinburgh Division CID. Mrs Rainey, yes?’

‘Indeed, Ingrid Rainey; Grete is my niece. What has happened to her? And what of our little Zena? Where is she?’

Suddenly, Pye felt exposed in the open corridor. He looked at the surgeon, who was standing behind the woman. ‘Ms Iqbal,’ he asked, ‘is there somewhere we can go?’

Understanding the situation, she frowned and nodded. ‘There is a staff room,’ she said. ‘I will take you there, and make sure you are not disturbed.’

She led them into the unit, turning right at the end of the corridor, into another, which ended in a green door with a keypad entry, marked ‘Staff only’. She punched in a code. ‘There you are; you can lock it from the inside. I’ll tell the senior nurse that you are here, and you can advise him when you go.’

‘What have you been told, Mrs Rainey?’ Pye asked, as soon as he and the aunt were alone and seated.

‘The person who called said that Grete had been involved in an incident, that was how she put it, and that she had been taken to the emergency unit in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. I went there at once, but they sent me here. The surgeon tells me Grete’s life is in great danger. What has happened, sir? And where is our Zena? Is she safe? For her daddy is away.’

The DCI took a deep breath. Slowly and carefully, he took her through the events of the day, stage by stage, pausing at times to allow the woman to absorb the story she was being told. Twice he asked her if she wanted him to pause, but she refused, her expression grim as she held herself together. He finished with a summary of the pathologist’s findings.

‘And the monster who did this?’ Ingrid Rainey asked icily when he had finished; her mouth quivered and her eyes were moist, but her voice was strong and controlled. ‘Have you caught him?’

‘No,’ Pye admitted, ‘but we believe we’ve identified at least one person involved. We’ve alerted ports and airports as a matter of course, and if we don’t arrest him by the end of this day we’ll issue a public appeal, name, photograph, everything.’

‘Be sure you do arrest him,’ she hissed. ‘My poor girls.’

He nodded. ‘Guys like me,’ he murmured, ‘we’re trained not to become emotionally involved in our investigations. But I’m a father, my boss is a father and the man who found Zena, he is as well, so trust me, none of us will rest until this man is convicted. We have to be painstaking in everything we do, and we have to be very cautious in our public statements so as not to infringe the suspect’s legal rights, but trust me, we are breathing down his neck.’

‘As far as I am concerned,’ the aunt snapped, ‘this person has no rights.’

‘But the law says he does. Mrs Rainey,’ he went on, ‘this is a terrible thing for you to have to cope with. Are you all right? Is there someone who can be with you?’

‘No,’ she replied, ‘there is not. My husband and I are no longer together; he is in London with another woman, and welcome to her as long as he keeps paying me what he promised in our settlement. My sister Tora, my twin, Grete’s mother, she died seven years ago.

‘We are Norwegian; Tora and I came to Edinburgh as engineering students, over thirty years ago. We never returned. I married Innes, my husband, and gave up my career. Tora, she worked for an Edinburgh company, until she had Grete. She took time out, but went back when the child was old enough to be left.’

‘And Grete’s father?’ Pye inquired.

Ingrid Rainey pursed her lips. ‘He was never a major part of her life. Tora married John Regal when she became pregnant, but soon came to regret it. She threw him out when Grete was five. The man was involved in criminality of some sort, but I never knew what.’

Pye leaned forward on his chair. ‘But he’s still alive, yes?’

‘I have not heard that he is dead.’

‘Then where is he? She’s still his daughter and Olivia . . . Zena . . . was his granddaughter.’

‘I do not know,’ she admitted. ‘Grete never mentions him; I do not believe he has ever seen Zena.’

‘What can you tell me about Lieutenant Gates?’

‘David is an engineer, as I was. He is a naval officer, as you know, but I have never been encouraged to ask about his work.’

‘He’s a specialist?’ the DCI murmured. ‘I didn’t know that. Does he have family? Apart from John Regal, does Zena have grandparents?’

Mrs Rainey nodded. ‘Yes, she does . . . or rather she did, the poor little darling. Their names are Richard and Julia, and they live in Dirleton.’

‘Are they retired, or do they still work?’

‘They are not so old, but they do not work any longer. They had a business, a company that made skylight windows, but they sold it a few years ago. They have another home in Portugal and they spend a lot of time there, so they do not see as much of Zena as I do.’

‘Thanks. They may have been contacted already, in the same way that you were. If they’re away we’ll try to get in touch with them in Portugal. I’ll check once we’re finished here. Where do you live, Mrs Rainey?’ he continued.

‘A little closer to Grete, in Haddington; in the Nungate, by the river.’ Her chin trembled, the first sign of loss of control. ‘Little Zena spent a lot of time with me and she loved to play there. We had to watch her, to stop her falling in. You know how adventurous little ones can be.’ Then her face froze again and her eyes hardened.

‘Grete looked after her so well,’ she said. ‘We both did. And now this terrible senseless thing has happened.’ She stared at Pye. ‘This man, this creature. Why would he want to hurt Grete so badly and to take our precious child?’

‘At this moment we can only form theories about that,’ he replied, ‘but the main line of our thinking is that he didn’t act alone, that he had an accomplice, and that he was paid to abduct Zena. When we find him, we’ll know more.’

‘Be sure you do.’

‘We will, however long it takes us.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘Is Grete a full-time mum,’ he asked, ‘or does she have a job?’

‘She is a graphic designer. She is self-employed and has a little studio beside the cottage. She is quite successful; also it gives her something to do, with David being away at sea for so long.’

‘Is she on good terms with all her customers, or has she had any business difficulties that you know of?’

Mrs Rainey frowned. ‘There is one client she is having trouble with,’ she replied. ‘It was a business in Edinburgh; she did a lot of corporate identity work for them. She redesigned their logo and all their stationery. They approved her proposal and she spent a lot of time on it. She produced a manual for them and commissioned the print work on their behalf. She paid for it herself, assuming that she would be reimbursed. But when she submitted her final account . . . it was a lot of money . . . they were slow to pay.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Grete is not a confrontational person, Chief Inspector; also she has no commercial sense. Effectively I manage her company. After a couple of months I called the people. They promised payment but nothing happened. After another few weeks I wrote to them, and had a letter back saying that the matter was in hand. Those very words.’

‘What happened next?’

‘Next it all got really nasty. Still there was no money, so I sent a second letter, this time from a solicitor. This time the reply came from someone else, accountants. It said that the client’s company had been bought by another business, after it had been closed, wound up, liquidated. There was no money to pay Grete.

‘Naturally I went back to the lawyer. He advised that I had to pursue her customer personally for the debt, and so I did. I went to court on Grete’s behalf and I won. The money was still not paid. Now, the lawyer has taken charge and is seeking another order to recover the debt, by selling the customer’s assets if necessary.’

‘How much are we talking about?’ Pye asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘I believe it is just over fifty thousand pounds,’ Mrs Rainey said. ‘Grete will not get it all, I was told, for there is not enough money there, but there will be some once the assets are realised. I am unhappy about it. And so is Grete, for another reason.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Ah, but I do not think you understand. It is not losing money that makes Grete sad. There will be enough to pay for the printing costs that she incurred on the client’s behalf. It will only be her own time that she loses. No, she is upset because the people involved will lose their home, their car, everything.’

‘It’s a hard old world,’ the DCI remarked. ‘I know because I work in it. If people have broken the criminal law they have to face the consequences, and it’s the same in civil matters. If a court finds that a company has behaved improperly, its directors can’t just fold it up and walk away. There is nothing that your niece should feel guilty about. If you’d come to me instead of going to the civil court I might have ended up charging the client with fraud.’

‘But Grete is kind. She never did a single thing in her life to deserve how that company treated her, nor to deserve what has happened to her today.’ Finally tears tracked down Ingrid Rainey’s stolid face. ‘You know I am not sure that I want her to live. That may be terrible, but it is true. I cannot bear for her to wake up to find that she has lost her baby.’

‘Yeah,’ Pye whispered. ‘I don’t know how I’d feel in those shoes.’

He paused as the woman dabbed at her eyes.

‘The client,’ he began when she was composed. ‘Can you recall the name, of the company or of the owner?’

‘They are the same. It is Mackail.’

It was Pye’s turn to frown. I know that name, he thought.