Private Investigations

Four

‘Somebody’s stolen my boat, Bob.’

Eden Higgins gazed from the window of his office on the Mound, surveying Princes Street, across the gardens. His head moved very slightly, as if he was following the progress of one of Edinburgh’s sleek new trams as it headed westwards on yet another expensive journey.

I was so badly shaken by the incident in the car park that I had come very close to calling off my lunch date. I was full of anger at what I had seen, and hugely frustrated also that I wouldn’t be involved in the search for the person who had killed that lovely, helpless child. No, never mind ‘involved’; I wanted to be in command of the whole damn show.

One of the jobs that I’d been offered by Clive Graham, Scotland’s First Minister, in an attempt to keep me in the service, was as head of a Major Incident Agency, a body that would operate not as part of but alongside the national police force. The idea was that I would form a team of elite detective officers that would provide an added investigative resource in the most serious crimes.

I’d turned it down, because it was a recipe for conflict with Andy Martin from day one, but right at that moment, I wished that I’d accepted.

More than anything else, as I left that shopping mall I wanted to drive back to Gullane, go into the primary school and give my daughter a hug, but that would have raised too many eyebrows, Seonaid’s among them.

Instead I went to my office in Fountainbridge, and turned on the journalistic instincts that I’d developed since I’d taken the InterMedia job. I went to see June Crampsey, and I told her what had happened and how the child’s body had come to be found, without saying that I was the one who’d done the finding.

The other details I omitted were the car’s registration number and its owner’s name and address. That was privileged information; plus I didn’t want her crime reporter getting in the way of the crucial early stages of a murder inquiry.

That done, I sat behind my desk for an hour, doing my best to pass the time usefully, until I was ready to take a taxi to my lunch date with Higgins, a blast from my past, to use his own words.

‘Your boat?’ I echoed, feeling an involuntary frown knot my eyebrows, and a sudden flash of anxiety grip my stomach.

He started to turn, as if to face me, then seemed to think better of it. Resuming his inspection of the grey February morning, he nodded. ‘Yes. It was taken from its mooring in the Gareloch.’

‘Run that past me again,’ I said. ‘We’ve just come through the worst spell of winter weather since God was a boy. Who in their right mind would steal a yacht in all that? Are you sure it didn’t just sink?’

‘No, no; it’s been missing for a while, since early last October. The police have been looking for it ever since, but now it seems they’ve given it up as a bad job. I had a visit from a senior bod a couple of weeks ago. She gave me the pro forma chat about priorities, budgets and all that crap,’ he snapped, his tone full of anger, ‘then she told me that they’ve closed the active investigation.’

‘That’s too bad,’ I responded. I understood his frustration and did my best to sound sympathetic, although it was a judgement call that I’d probably have backed, if it had been referred to me . . . as it might have been, for I was in my last few days as Strathclyde chief constable.

‘What about your insurers?’ I asked.

Finally he did step away from the window, limping over to a tub chair at the coffee table where I was seated, and slumping into it. ‘My bloody insurers?’ he moaned. ‘Given the value of the vessel, I’d have expected them to employ their own investigators, but no, they said that there is no recognised independent expert in pursuing this type of theft, so they elected to leave it in the hands of the police.

‘However, they did appoint a maritime lawyer to look into the circumstances of the theft. He looked at the boathouse, interviewed me and then reported back to the insurance company.

‘On the basis of what he said, they’ve now offered me a fraction of its value in settlement, only one million against the insured value of five million sterling. They’re claiming negligence on my part, saying that the alarm system wasn’t adequate. I could fight them, of course, and my legal advice is that I’d get some sort of a result, but that’s not the point! I want the damn thing back!’

‘Look,’ I began, then paused, trying to work out how best to explain to him that if the investigation had been thorough and the combined police and marine services, nationally and possibly internationally as well, hadn’t been able to find his missing vessel, then he’d better get ready to sue that insurance company.

I was about to tell him as much, when a memory broke in and overrode everything.

‘Hold on!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ve seen it. I know where it was taken!’