Private Investigations

Thirty-Three

I picked up the phone and made two appointments then went back upstairs and changed my clothes, swapping my casual gear for a dark suit and a light blue tie, my new uniform. When I’m on business, I want people to know I’m serious.

Both of my visits were in Edinburgh; I took the train from Drem, since I can’t abide driving through the chaos that generations of bad traffic management has brought to the city centre.

The first was to a small office, just off the Royal Mile, not far from the station. The name on the door was ‘CMcD Investigations’. Its occupant had been surprised by my call, and I’d made a point of letting her stay curious.

‘I need to see you,’ I’d told her. ‘I have some work for you; it’s confidential and nobody should get to know that it’s being done. It’ll be boring and tedious but it’ll need to be done thoroughly. I’ll give you the details when I get there.’

Although her office suite had only one room and a toilet, Carrie McDaniels’ door had a secure entry system. It was opened with a buzzer, once I’d identified myself through a microphone. This was in obedience to a sign that said, ‘Say your name, then state your business.’ I glanced up as I spoke and saw a tiny camera focused on me; a sensible precaution, given that she was a female lone trader in a business that isn’t without its risks.

‘How are you doing, Carrie?’ I said as I stepped inside. ‘How’s the boyfriend?’

‘I’m okay, but I can’t vouch for him,’ she replied. ‘We’re spending some time apart, so I can work out how I feel about a man who took me for a fool and proved himself right.’

Carrie and I had met a few months before, when she was on a surveillance assignment in which, unfortunately for her, I was the subject. Her route to professional private investigation had been through an insurance company and a few years in the Territorial Army Military Police. It hadn’t taught her everything she needed to know, but she had impressed me once I’d sorted out a few things between us.

‘I must admit I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again,’ she confessed.

A reunion hadn’t been uppermost in my mind either, but I don’t hold grudges. I had a job that needed doing. Time being money, the task was well below my pay grade, and it made sense to contract it out. The only question was, to whom?

I know a couple of people who did brief stints in the police service, then left to set up as private investigators. If they’d impressed me they might still be in the force, but they hadn’t so they weren’t on my very short list of candidates. On the other hand, Carrie had been a Territorial military cop for several years, and she hadn’t backed off when she’d been posted to Afghanistan. That moved her right to the head of the queue.

‘I can walk away if you’d rather,’ I replied.

‘No, no,’ she laughed, ‘don’t do that. I need all the business I can get.’

‘Times are tough?’

‘They’re okay, but you know how it is in this trade. It takes a while to build up a solid customer base; at my stage you grab all the work that comes your way.’

‘Hopefully you’ve learned not to take on work without knowing exactly who your client is?’ Her basic naivety had been at the heart of the initial difficulty between us, and later it had come back to bite her.

‘Oh yes,’ Carrie replied. ‘I’m very careful who I work for now.’

‘Do you want to work for me?’

‘Is it legal?’ she asked, with a smile.

I grinned back at her. ‘Anything that isn’t I’ll be handling myself.’ I opened my briefcase and took out a folder. ‘I need you to run background checks for me on a list of people. I want to know if any of them have a grudge, overt or hidden, against this man.’ I took a photo, one that I’d printed myself, from the file. ‘Do you know who he is?’

She took it from me and studied it, carefully. ‘That’s Eden Higgins, isn’t it, the businessman?’

‘Got him in one. How much do you know about him?’

‘Personally, nothing. Although . . .’ she hesitated. ‘A few months ago, his wife made a claim against the insurance company I worked for, and I checked it out.’

‘Much involved?’

‘Quite a bit. A suite of her jewellery was nicked, a necklace, matching bracelet and a pair of earrings, Christ knows how many carats of diamonds in the lot. She and her husband were staying in a country house hotel in Argyllshire, attending some sort of international business summit. When she arrived she deposited the jewels in the hotel safe. The following evening, when she wanted them for the main event dinner, they were gone.’

‘Did the insurers pay out?’

‘They had to,’ she said. ‘There was some talk of arguing that the swag had been left at the owner’s personal risk, but that fell very quickly and they settled for the full insured amount.’

‘How much was that?’

‘Two hundred and fifty thou. The irony was that we insured both parties, but it’ll be the hotel’s policy renewal that’ll be hammered next time round, for its owners were held at fault.’

‘Have the jewels been recovered?’ I asked.

‘Not a chance. The local Inspector Clouseau was baffled, and the Pink Panther got away with it.’

‘Was anything else taken?’

‘Nothing. That was remarked on at the time. One of the other guests had a large quantity of bearer bonds on his possession, and they’d been signed into the safe too. They were left untouched, yet they were worth ten times what the jewellery was. The thief couldn’t have been as smart as he thought.’

‘Or a lot smarter than the police reckoned,’ I countered.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let’s say you’re the Pink Panther. You’re after jewellery. You find it, and alongside it there’s a few million quid in out-dated old-fashioned, but still entirely legal tender, and,’ I added, ‘entirely untraceable, bearer bonds. What are you going to do?’

‘Fill my pockets,’ Carrie chuckled.

‘Are you really?’ I asked.

‘Why not?’

‘Possibly self-preservation,’ I said. ‘Look, you’re a jewel thief, it’s what you do. Mainly, almost invariably, you’re actually stealing from insurance companies, not individuals. If you’re good enough to evade Clouseau, and you have a safe market for the gear, you’re free and clear.

‘But,’ I continued, ‘yield to greed or temptation . . . a hell of a lot of temptation, I’ll grant you . . . and trouser the bearer bonds, you are stepping into the unknown. Those things are a risky form of security and, historically, they’ve been used by some very risky people. Yes, they are untraceable and you could be set up for life, but the chances are you’d spend the rest of that potentially short life looking over your shoulder.’

‘I see what you mean,’ Carrie admitted. She looked up at me and winked. ‘I wouldn’t like to steal your bearer bonds.’

I smiled. ‘Best not to, I agree.’ I paused and then went back on subject. ‘I take it you didn’t meet Eden Higgins in the course of your work for your company.’

‘No. Only his wife and his son, who’s quite tasty as I recall.’

‘So you have no preconceptions of him?’

‘No. He’s just another very successful bloke. Why do you ask?’

‘Because ultimately,’ I told her, ‘he’s your client. You’re working for me, and I’ll pay you, but my assignment is from him. By the way, you never told me; which insurance company did you work for?’

‘Edinburgh Co-operative.’

That was okay; the Princess Alison was insured with another firm, marine specialists.

I handed her the folder. ‘Get to work. Remember; confidential and none of the subjects find out that it’s being done. I could have gone to the business staff at the Saltire with this, but they’d have asked why I needed to know, so don’t you take that route either. Don’t go asking journalists.’

‘Why do you need to know?’ she ventured.

I shook my head. ‘Just you concentrate on the task, and leave it at that.’

‘I’m thirty-five quid an hour,’ she said, bluntly. ‘Plus exes.’

‘That’s fine, but don’t take the piss. Any extra costs above a hundred, you clear with me first.’

I gave her my card with all my contact numbers on it and left her to get on with the job. I didn’t ask what else she had on her plate, but the lack of paper on her desk had made me think that it might not be much.

My second appointment didn’t require a taxi trip or even a long walk, only a stroll up a quarter of the Royal Mile to the Higgins Holdings headquarters on the Mound. But it wasn’t Eden that I’d arranged to see.

Luisa McCracken greeted me nonetheless; in the absence of her boss and his son, she seemed to be in charge of the small staff of analysts and accountants.

‘Was the list satisfactory?’ she asked, as soon as she met me in the foyer.

‘Entirely,’ I replied. ‘You’re a fast worker. I didn’t expect it until the afternoon.’

‘When Mr Higgins asks for something,’ she explained, ‘he never says “As soon as possible”, but that’s what he means. Have you known him long?’

Her question took me by surprise; I’ve always assumed that the term ‘confidential secretary’ is all-embracing, but apparently it wasn’t in her case.

‘Twenty years,’ I said. ‘I met him through Alison.’

‘Ah, of course,’ she murmured. ‘His sister was a police officer in Edinburgh, so you and she must have worked together. I should have realised.’

I could have enlightened her further, but I didn’t see the need. ‘I’d never met Mrs Higgins until yesterday, though,’ I volunteered. ‘Not properly at any rate.’

‘Rachel takes nothing to do with the management of Eden’s companies,’ the secretary retorted, with a little sharpness in her tone that started me wondering whether she had ever harboured ambitions beyond the workplace.

‘Wasn’t she involved at the time of the jewel theft?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t that take place at a business event?’

She frowned at me, over her long eyelashes. ‘How did you know about that? It was never reported in the press.’

‘You said it yourself. I used to be a police officer.’

‘But it happened in Argyllshire,’ she said. ‘You were based in Glasgow, were you not?’

I pinched Carrie’s analogy. ‘You don’t think Inspector Clouseau circulated details of the stolen items to every police force in the country?’

‘I suppose he would have,’ she conceded. ‘As for your question, yes, that was a business event, but sometimes it’s necessary, or at least desirable for him to be accompanied. That’s as much as Rachel ever has to do with the business . . . apart from owning half of it,’ she added.

‘She does?’

‘Of course. Higgins Holdings has no outside shareholders; Eden and Rachel own the company, fifty fifty.’ She looked at me as if she was considering how much she could tell me, then made a judgement. ‘It goes back a long way, to the start of Dene Furnishings, the original business. Rachel’s father loaned Eden the start-up cash; the deal was that everything that flowed from it would be jointly owned between husband and wife, on the record.’

Funny, I thought, that Eden would tell Luisa all that and yet say nothing about Alison and me. ‘You really do have his confidence,’ I remarked.

‘Oh I do,’ she replied, ‘but I didn’t get all of it from him. The share split’s on the record at Companies House; it’s public information. Rory told me the background.’

Did he, by God? From speculating about her having a thing with the boss, I moved on to wondering whether she might have moved down a generation.

Either she read my mind or she knew that she’d been too frank, for she gave a quick laugh. ‘That sounds awful,’ she exclaimed, ‘as if I pump him for information. That’s not how it was; he and I were going over the company annual report when it arrived from the auditors. The shareholder information’s set out there, and he just came out with it. “You know why that is?” he said, and then he volunteered the answer.’

‘That must have pleased you, in a way,’ I suggested. ‘After all, it shows that you have the complete trust of the son as well as the father.’

It occurred to me that it showed also that Rachel had Eden by the balls, suppose Luisa did harbour ambitions there. But I didn’t say that; I said nothing, and allowed her to carry on being frank.

‘I suppose,’ she admitted, ‘although Rory really is only learning the business. His father’s bringing him in gradually, with a view to retiring in five years or so. As it is, Rachel already lives in Monaco for quite a few months out of every year. It’s an easy commute,’ she added. ‘The company has its own plane. ’

All of that set me wondering once again about her and Eden, with the cat being away so much, but I let it lie. I hadn’t come to interrogate Luisa; that had been a bonus. She’d started talking; all my experience has taught me that when people do that, if it’s news to you, shut up and listen.

‘Mr Hurrell,’ I said abruptly.

‘Yes.’ She too snapped back to the reason for my visit. ‘He’s in his room, waiting for you. He has nothing to do until Eden’s return flight gets in from London this evening.’

She led me towards a door, next to her own and two away from Eden’s office, rapped quickly on it and opened it. ‘Walter,’ she called out, ‘Mr Skinner’s here to see you,’ then stood aside to let me past.

If I’d been expecting a little man in a chauffeur’s uniform, I couldn’t have been further from the reality of Walter Hurrell as he stood up to greet me. He was around the six foot mark, in the same age bracket as Luisa McCracken, late thirties, and was dressed in a grey suit so sharp that if you’d seen Eden and him side by side you’d have assumed that he was the billionaire.

He was lean, and I suspected that the expensive tailoring covered a powerful build; he was clean shaven with a perma-tan, and his thick dark hair was brushed back from his forehead. His only irregular feature was a conspicuously broken nose that reminded me of Inspector Drake in Ripper Street. There wasn’t a hint of a smile as he looked at me, and his eyes were cool and appraising. We shook hands; I was prepared for a crusher grip but it didn’t come. Instead those grey eyes stayed fixed on me. ‘Ex-Navy,’ Eden had told me, but this was no everyday sailor. The guy’s body language was yelling ‘Special Forces’.

‘SBS?’ I asked.

Hurrell relaxed a little and finally I saw a flicker of a smile. ‘That obvious?’ he answered.

‘It was the suit that gave you away,’ I joked.

The room was small, and so he didn’t have a desk, just a side table and three chairs. I took a seat that faced the window, with its view of Princes Street.

‘Were you a commando?’

‘No, I was Royal Navy, not Royal Marines.’ His accent was English; south of Birmingham, west of Southampton, I guessed. ‘I was a petty officer on a minesweeper. It bored the shit out of me, so I applied for Special Boat Service training. It’s a less common entry route, but it is possible.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘You’ve encountered Special Forces before?’

I nodded. ‘Several times. I had a friend who did the whole tour; SAS, Defence Intelligence, you name it.’

‘Is he still in the service?’

‘Note the past tense. He isn’t anywhere any more.’

‘Ahh, I’m sorry,’ Hurrell murmured. ‘Killed in action?’

‘Of a kind: I’m sorry to be mysterious,’ I added.

He whistled. ‘Spooky stuff? I never did any of that.’

I hadn’t gone there to talk about my past, and certainly not that chapter in the story.

‘Suppose you were going to steal the Princess Alison,’ I asked, abruptly. ‘How would you go about it?’

The grey eyes narrowed, grew colder again. ‘Are you hinting at something?’

‘Hell no,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t take you for an idiot. It was a straight question.’

‘Mmm.’ He didn’t look one hundred per cent convinced, nor should he have been. I knew nothing about ex-Petty Officer Hurrell, nor did I know how thorough Eden’s vetting had been. ‘In that case,’ he replied, ‘all I can say is that I’d have done it the same way they did. Cut the phone line, in fast, blind the sensor, and out of there as soon as the boat was powered up.’

‘You agree with the thinking that whoever did it had advance knowledge?’

‘Up to a point. They might not, depending on their hacking skills. The detailed plans of the boathouse will be on the local authority website. The schematic of the alarm system, that’ll be somewhere too.’

‘How would they know how to open the doors?’ I asked.

‘From the planning application; that detail would be there. Also, there’s a manual override of the remote opening system.’

‘But the door was closed again after the boat was taken.’

‘Maybe that was a bonus,’ Hurrell suggested. ‘Once you’re on the bridge and at the controls, the remote control device is bloody obvious; it’s right there beside the wheel, in a holder. But if not, if the operation was planned down to that last detail, the name of the door supplier is right there on the outside and its IT system will be accessible too. As for the layout of the Princess, she’s a piece of work, but she’s not unique. She doesn’t have many sisters but there are some.’

‘Are you telling me, Walter,’ I quizzed him, ‘that the police assumption that the theft involved insider knowledge is all wrong?’

‘No, I’m saying it’s not a safe assumption to make.’

‘I get it. Let’s move on. Do you have any thoughts on what’s happened to her?’

‘Thoughts maybe, clues no. I might imagine her cruising around the Black Sea, crowded with dodgy Russians quaffing champagne and Beluga caviar, but I’ve got no reason to believe that.’

‘Could she have been loaded on to a ship?’

‘No,’ he declared, emphatically. ‘First, it would need to be a bloody big ship, and second, it would have to be done in a dock, given the size of crane you’d need to lift the Princess.’

‘But it’s not impossible?’

‘It’s not,’ he admitted, ‘but are you going to steal a yacht then show her off in a public place, before loads of witnesses?’

‘Understood,’ I said. ‘Could she be sunk?’

‘She could, but why?’ Hurrell leaned back, looking at me. ‘I know, you’re suggesting that that somebody hates the boss, and stole his boat to piss him off, then scuttled her. The problem with your theory is that nobody does hate the man, or has any reason to. He makes people rich, and they love him for it. On top of that, he’s a genuinely nice bloke. You of all people must know that. From what I hear you were practically family at one point.’

‘I wouldn’t put it that strongly,’ I snapped.

‘Sorry, sir,’ Hurrell murmured, quickly. ‘But he is, isn’t he?’

‘Apology accepted, and I won’t deny it.’

‘She’s been sold,’ he declared abruptly. ‘That’s what I really think. The theft was carried out by professionals. and it was about money, pure and simple. The weather was fine that night and the sea conditions were calm. There was enough fuel in the tank for them to get her to the west coast of Ireland. Once they were there, they’d have no problem finding a nice quiet spot to change her appearance as far as they could, and give her a new name. Once that was done, they could take her anywhere they bloody liked, across the Atlantic even, if you chose the right route and carried some extra fuel on board.

‘There are many possibilities, but what I said earlier, about her cruising around in the Black Sea: that’s as likely a scenario as any.’

I nodded. ‘Received and understood,’ I said. ‘Thanks for that, Walter. I won’t take up any more of your time.’

‘Not at all, sir,’ he replied as we both rose to our feet. ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

I said my farewell to Luisa McCracken, and left the first-floor office. I was on the stair down to street level when my phone sounded.

‘Sorry to bother you, Chief.’ Wherever Sauce Haddock was, there was background noise. Unnecessarily, he raised his voice so that it boomed in my ear. ‘There’s something we need to run past you. One quick question.’

‘Shoot,’ I said. ‘And no need to shout,’ I asked.

‘Yesterday, at Fort Kinnaird; after the collision between you and the BMW, when Dean Francey got out and ran away, did you follow him, at all?’

‘Yes, I did. It was a natural reaction, Sauce; I began to chase him, but only for about twenty yards or so, till I realised I’d never catch him.’

‘So you were focused on him?’

‘At that moment, yes.’

‘Is it possible that while you were distracted, someone else got out of the passenger side and ran off?’

I took a couple of moments to think and replay the scene. ‘It might have been,’ I conceded. ‘But . . . there wouldn’t have been time for them to get clear before I turned round and spotted them. Why?’

‘We’re just trying to complete the picture, sir. We suspect that Anna Harmony was involved in the abduction, but we’re not sure how far.’

‘Does it matter, since she’s as dead as Francey?’

‘Probably not, but we’ve had word from on high there are to be no slip-ups on this one; or else.’

I was intrigued. ‘How high?’

‘As high as it gets.’

That surprised me. ‘Why the “or else”? The job’s tough enough without that sort of pressure.’

‘A difference of opinion with the Communications Directorate.’

‘What?’ I laughed. ‘That’s a service department. Since when did it have a fucking opinion?’

‘Don’t ask me, sir. I’m just a detective sergeant, dog-shite on the shoes of the high and mighty. And I’ve probably said too much as it is. Thanks, sir, so long.’

Before I put my phone away I made one more call. ‘One down, one to go,’ I murmured as I retrieved the number I’d been given for Jock Hodgson, the part-time engineer of the Princess Alison, and keyed it in.

My call rang out seven times before the BT answer woman cut in and invited me to leave a message. I did: my name, the fact that I was on Eden’s business, my number, and a request that Hodgson call me as soon as possible to arrange a time for us to meet. Before my discussion with Hurrell, I’d intended to speak to the engineer by phone, but I’d changed my mind on that.

My mind was still on new regimes as I left Eden’s building and headed along the King George IV Bridge. I had called Alex from the train and arranged to meet her for a sandwich lunch in the Balcony Cafe of the National Museum.

‘Who’s stolen your scone?’ she asked, as I joined her at the table she’d nabbed. She’d ordered too; a platter of sandwiches and a large bottle of sparkling water awaited my arrival.

‘Sorry,’ I chuckled, brightening up instantly. ‘Was I looking grumpy?’

‘Just a bit,’ she said. ‘Are you still dwelling on yesterday?’

‘Just a bit,’ I admitted, grinning.

‘From what I read into the police statement, the little girl died of natural causes. Is that right?’

‘Yes, it is. But the guy who took her, and his girlfriend, that was different.’

‘Yes. I caught a piece of the lunchtime TV news on my iPad a couple of minutes ago. Sammy Pye looked very tense, Pops.’

‘From what I’m told, he is. I’m beginning to think I’ve made a big mistake.’

‘How?’

‘In supporting your ex’s application for the chief constable post.’

‘What did I say yesterday?’

‘But would I, or anyone else, have done any better than he’s doing?’ I wondered.

‘It doesn’t matter, Pops,’ she declared. ‘The ashes of the bridge are long gone down the river and I won’t let you rebuild it. So, what have you been up to?’

‘I’ve been working on my commission for Eden Higgins. In fact I’ve just come from interviewing his personal assistant. His duties included captaining the missing boat.’

‘Eden has a personal assistant now, does he?’

‘Three of them, if you include Rory. He’ll be fronting The Apprentice before you know it. This assistant, though, he won’t be a contestant; he’s a minder, pure and simple.’

‘I suppose you need one,’ Alex said, ‘when you’ve got as much money as he has. He’s as rich as they say, you know. When I was a corporate partner at CAJ, I was involved in a couple of deals that touched on his interests.’

‘Even so,’ I murmured.

‘You have your doubts?’

‘About Eden, no, not for a moment. But about his factotum, Hurrell, that’s another matter.’

‘You weren’t impressed?’

‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘He’s an impressive bloke and well qualified for the job, but . . . As I asked him about the theft, I was left with a nagging suspicion that he was trying just too hard to steer me . . . nice choice of verb in the circumstances . . . in a specific direction.’

‘Do you think he’s a suspect?’ Alex asked.

‘No, he’s too close. He’d be crazy to be involved. All the same, he’s left me with a niggle.’

‘Another itch you have to scratch?’

‘Yes, and I will.’ I picked up a prawn sandwich. ‘Sarah says I should lay off these. High cholesterol.’ I bit off half of it nonetheless.

‘And what else?’

Her question cut in just as I was reaching for my second sandwich. I stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘There’s something else bothering you. I can tell. Since you walked in here there’s been an underlying tension in you, Pops. What’s up? Have you and Sarah had a row?’

‘No!’ I protested. ‘Absolutely not. Those days are over forever, I promise you. If there’s a tension in me it’s because lately I’ve been thinking just how much I regret every single day that she and I spent apart.’

That was true, and it seemed to satisfy her, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The rest was that I couldn’t wait to get home to see how the pregnancy test worked out.