Private Investigations

Forty-Two

‘Thank you for joining us, Mr Sullivan,’ Sammy Pye began as the visitor took a seat in his small office, facing him across his desk. Haddock made up a threesome, looking on from a chair beside the window, through which the low morning sun shone into Sullivan’s face.

‘You’ll remember us, DCI Pye and DS Haddock.’

‘Of course, and thanks for the lift,’ the man replied, taking a pair of Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses from the top pocket of his sports jacket and slipping them on. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured. ‘Now I can see you guys properly.’

‘Sure,’ Pye said. ‘Would you like a coffee?’

‘No thanks, I’m fine. Anyway, I’m not here for coffee, am I?’

The DCI smiled. ‘Not exactly. We want to give you an update on your stolen car. And we have a couple of questions. We’re recording this for the purposes of our investigation. Although you’re here voluntarily, we’ll be happy if you feel you want to have legal representation.’

‘To hell with that,’ Sullivan retorted. ‘I have nothing to worry about, so I don’t need a lawyer. As for an update, I’ve had that from the papers. You’re dead certain it was the lad Francey who stole it?’

‘One hundred per cent,’ Haddock replied.

‘I see,’ he muttered. ‘The other guy I told you about, the man King who came to see the Bristol: did you get anywhere with him?’

‘No, but frankly we haven’t been looking. He stopped being of interest quite early on.’

‘Good, for he turned out not to be a time-waster after all. He phoned me on Monday evening and said he wanted to buy the Bristol, subject to a road test and independent inspection. We’ve done a deal.’

‘Then we’re happy for you.’

Sullivan frowned. ‘Okay, so you’re sure it was Dean Francey that took the Beamer, and used it to kidnap that poor wee girl. Are you working up to telling me you think our Maxwell might have been involved too?’

‘No, there’s no evidence of that at all,’ Pye said, ‘and it’s never been in our thinking. But that’s not to say that Francey acted alone. We believe that Anna Hojnowski was his accomplice.’

‘The girl that was in the car with him when he was found?’

‘The very same. You probably knew her as Anna Harmony.’

All the colour drained from Sullivan’s face, in an instant. ‘You what . . .’ he gasped.

‘Anna Harmony,’ Haddock repeated. ‘You did know her, didn’t you?’

‘Well, yes, but . . . I never knew that was her real name.’

‘You had a party at your house about a year ago, and she was there, wasn’t she?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, so what?’

‘It wasn’t a casual invitation, was it? You knew her before that.’

‘Yes,’ Sullivan admitted.

‘She worked for you?’ Pye asked.

‘In the factory, that’s right. But I never knew her real name; I didn’t hire her personally, or do the wages. She was always Anna Harmony to me . . . although I did hear people calling her Singer.’

‘And she babysat for you?

‘Once or twice.’

‘And you had a relationship?’

He nodded. ‘For a while.’

‘Was she the cause of your marriage break-up?’

‘Hell no. Janine never knew about her, and anyway there were others. What I told you before, it was true; Janine and I just weren’t suited. We both wanted out. It was amicable, and Anna had nothing to do with it. When the divorce went through she and I weren’t seeing each other.’

‘But you thought you might re-start it?’ the DCI suggested. ‘Was that why you invited her to your party in North Berwick?’

Sullivan’s smile was fleeting, and had a touch of shyness about it. ‘Maybe.’

‘So you must have been pissed off when she and Dean Francey hit it off.’

‘You could say that,’ he snorted. ‘I didn’t even invite him, Maxwell did. I barely knew the guy, and anything I’d heard didn’t impress me. As it’s turned out, I was right. There was an incident,’ he continued. ‘One of my Edinburgh guests had a bit too much and got fresh with Anna. She could have handled it herself, but Francey rode in to her rescue like the Lone fucking Ranger. Maxwell and I had to pull him off the bloke. Anna was impressed, of course; so impressed that she left with him. That was that . . . and it got her killed.’

‘Eventually,’ Haddock agreed. ‘But let’s get back to wee Zena. Does the name Grete Regal mean anything to you?’

‘No. Why? Should it?’

‘I don’t know, that’s why I asked. Thing is, she was Zena’s mother, and at the moment she’s lying in the Western General, unconscious, having had her skull fractured by Dean Francey.’

‘That’s very sad, but . . . so?’

‘So, Mr Sullivan,’ the DS said, ‘you knew Francey, and you knew Anna Harmony. He assaulted the mother and kidnapped the child. She was going to help look after her in a rented cottage up in the Pentlands.’

‘Does that mean they were going to hold her for ransom?’

‘They weren’t taking her on her holidays,’ Pye snapped. ‘She was going to be exchanged for money, or something, that’s for sure, but what’s equally certain is that those two young people, Dino and Singer, weren’t acting on their own initiative.

‘They were being paid to do it. We know that beyond doubt. And what we believe is that when Francey screwed up, the person who paid them shot them both, to silence them for good and all.’

‘Okay,’ Sullivan protested, ‘but why the hell are you talking to me?’

‘Because we have a problem,’ Haddock told him, his ‘good cop’ tone calming the situation. ‘You bank with the Clydesdale in Lothian Road, sir. We know that. It’s quite a way from North Berwick, isn’t it?’

‘Yes I do,’ he agreed. ‘You want to know why? When I sold my company, I had to stay in there for two years because the price was profit-related, over that period. It’s called an earn-out. One of the sale conditions was that its banking had to be integrated with that of the new parent company. So the business accounts moved from HSBC to the Clydesdale. When it happened I was offered sweeteners to shift my personal accounts there as well, so I did. That’s what’s behind it. However,’ he added, ‘my car business accounts are still with Bank of Scotland in North Berwick. Satisfied?’

‘Not quite,’ the DS said. ‘In the middle of last month, you withdrew twelve thousand, in untraceable used notes of the bank’s own issue, from your Clydesdale account. When we searched Dean Francey’s flat on North Berwick Mains Street, we found five thousand, also in untraceable used notes, many of them from the Clydesdale. Given that it’s a relatively small bank and there aren’t a hell of a lot of those around, you might understand our curiosity.’

Sullivan ran his hand over his chin, muttering a muffled, ‘Oh fuck.’

‘Does that mean, “Oh fuck, you’ve got me”, sir?’ Pye asked.

‘I think I want a lawyer,’ the other man replied.

‘If you feel you need one, we’ll suspend this informal discussion and resume it under caution, where everything you say will be on the record.’

Sullivan leaned forward. ‘Look, that money you found in Francey’s, it didn’t come from me. But . . .’

The DCI held up a hand. ‘Stop. If you’re going to admit to criminal activity, yes, probably you do need a lawyer.’

‘I don’t know. Tell me something first. How do you guys relate to the taxman?’

‘HMRC handles its own investigations,’ Pye replied. ‘We don’t report everything we hear to them.’

‘Then don’t report this, and switch off the recorder.’

‘Okay.’ He pressed the ‘stop’ switch.

‘Remember the car I told you about, the Bristol?’

‘Yes.’

‘The twelve grand was for that. I bought it from a classified ad in the local paper. It was only described as a classic car, no make specified, and it was price on application. The seller wanted fifteen K, but he would only do a deal off the books. He said he needed money but he didn’t want his wife to know how much the thing was worth. She’d always thought it was an old junker, so he was going to tell her he got two grand for it and pocket the difference.’

‘Husband of the year, but go on.’

‘Normally,’ Sullivan continued, ‘I wouldn’t do that sort of deal, but the car was worth twenty-five, with a minimum of touching up. So I beat him down to twelve and we shook on it.’

‘As a matter of interest,’ Haddock asked, ‘what’s Mr King paying for it?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘Jeez!’ the DS whistled. ‘Gaffer, are you sure that’s not criminal?’

‘Not unless there’s misrepresentation,’ Pye laughed. ‘If someone wants to pay that much for a forty-year-old car, good luck to all parties involved.’

‘That’s right,’ the dealer declared. ‘I’ve had people pay upwards of ten grand for a Mark One Escort, ten times the original costs.’

‘Not this fella,’ the DCI said, tapping his chest. He frowned at Sullivan. ‘You do realise we’ll need to confirm your story with the original seller of the car?’

The dealer shrugged. ‘Que sera, sera. His name’s Paul Cockburn and he lives in Longniddry. If you can do it when his wife’s out you’ll be doing him a favour.’

‘We’ll try. Meantime, if you put that sixteen grand profit through your company accounts you’ll be doing yourself a favour. I’m not saying we’d go running to HMRC, but it’s never a good idea to give guys like us a club to hit you with.’

Sullivan winced. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. Can I go now?’

‘Yes,’ Pye said, ‘we’re done. We’ll arrange a lift back for you.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll hang around town till lunchtime and visit Kayleigh and her mum.’ He sighed as he stood. ‘It’s too bad about Anna; I’m struggling to get my head round that. She was a really nice kid; friendly too. If only I hadn’t let Francey come to that party, they’d never have met. She might even have been with me today.’

‘My granny used to say,’ Haddock murmured, with a wistful smile, ‘“If wishes were horses, we’d all get a hurl.” Maybe she would have been, but I’m not sure how you’d have handled your girlfriend being a pole-dancer, Mr Sullivan.’

The man stared back at him. ‘Why would it bother me? I own Lacey’s. How do you think Anna got the job?’