Private Investigations

Sixty-Two

My words to God’s ear, I didn’t want to be there. I’d had enough, for that time, of Eden Higgins and the saga of his bloody boat. Plus I had other priorities; chief among them was a dinner reservation for two at La Potiniere in Gullane. Sarah and I have a few anniversaries and that night was one of them.

But she was busy too, performing a short-notice autopsy on the late Walter Hurrell, so, when Mario McGuire asked me if I’d sit in on a case conference he’d called in the old Fettes building for late afternoon, I had no legitimate grounds for refusal.

‘Okay,’ I told him, ‘but Andy’s going to shit himself when I send him a bill for my time.’

The big guy knows me well enough not to take me seriously. ‘Bugger off,’ he chuckled into the phone, ‘you offered your help, remember. Come on, Bob, you know you can’t step back now. ’

‘Maybe I should. I’m a witness in the Zena abduction . . .’

‘Which will never come to trial,’ Mario interrupted to point out.

‘Beyond that,’ I continued, ‘I’m a witness in the Hodgson killing, and to cap it all, I’m involved through my work for my former client. Seriously, when your chief constable finds out I attended your meeting, the stuff I mentioned earlier really will interface with the ventilator.’

‘He knows already. I told him; told him about you introducing west to east at the Newhouse as well.’

‘How did he react?’

My friend shrugged. ‘As we’ve come to expect. He threw a monumental hissy fit, and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. I said that I was using all available resources to trace and apprehend a multiple murderer and that he could moan about it if it doesn’t work, but not before. I didn’t bother to tell him that we’ve cracked it already. I think you could say,’ he added, ‘that he and I are not speaking.’

If his confrontation with his boss was preying on Mario’s mind, he didn’t let it show as we gathered round the table in the small conference room at the end of what had been the command corridor of the force in which I spent all but the last few months of my career.

I sat beside him, but deliberately I drew my chair back a little, as if to make it clear that I was only an observer.

Each of us had been given a folder. It had been compiled by Haddock and Provan, under my unofficial supervision, and contained a comprehensive review of the spider’s web that the case had become. Mario tapped his. ‘Take us through it, DCI Pye,’ he said.

The timeline began with the collapse of Mackail Extrusions, and Higgins Holdings’ purchase of the wreckage.

It started to move with Hector Mackail’s reported visit to Eden’s office and the assault which had left my client with a fractured ankle, treated, as young DC Wright had discovered, at a private hospital near Edinburgh Zoo.

A few weeks later, Jock Hodgson visited Dunbar, where, it was believed, he had lunched with Mackail, and another naval colleague, David Gates.

A further week elapsed and the Princess Alison was stolen, with a two-month abortive police investigation ensuing. A swift internal inquiry by DCI Sandra Bulloch had established that its shoddy incompetence had been covered up, by the outgoing Assistant Chief Constable Bridget ‘Bridie’ Gorman, but that was not part of the folder.

The day after the police search was declared closed, Jock Hodgson’s home was burgled. The crime was reported, but it fell into the ‘probably no chance’ category, and wasn’t prioritised by the local CID division.

The same weekend Eden and Rachel attended a business symposium in Mackiltee Lodge, where her jewels were stolen from the safe, having been put there under the supervision of Walter Hurrell.

A few days later, the Higgins family and Hurrell attended Callum Sullivan’s celebration in North Berwick, where they crossed paths with Dean Francey.

Five days after that, Jock Hodgson was tortured and murdered in his home.

Two weeks and three days later, Hector Mackail was knocked down and killed by Dean Francey, driving his father’s van.

Six weeks on, Grete Regal was attacked and her daughter Zena abducted, by Dean Francey, only for the idiot to screw up by colliding with me in the Fort Kinnaird car park.

Hours later he was silenced, along with the unfortunate Anna Harmony, who should have stuck to pole-dancing.

Two days later, Hodgson’s body was discovered.

Finally the trail led to Walter Hurrell; but not before he shot himself. The gunshot residue test had proved conclusively that he had fired the pistol found on the bed.

‘Let’s not kid ourselves here,’ I said, after Sammy had finished. ‘Despite Eden Higgins’ protests, we’re all asking ourselves, me included, whether Hurrell was acting alone, or on his orders.’

I paused; five people were looking at me. ‘The answer?’ I continued. ‘Truthfully, I don’t know. He might have; he did start the ball rolling by bankrupting Mackail, because he refused to be bought out.

‘But it doesn’t matter a damn, as all of you must realise. Suppose Eden was behind it all, you will never prove it. This gathering is about finalising a report to the Crown Office, end of story.’

‘What’s this jewel theft doing in the timeline, Bob?’ Mario asked.

‘Maybe nothing,’ I replied. ‘But . . . Francey was paid five grand, probably to kill Mackail, and he’d have been getting more for snatching the child. That wasn’t going to be done by bank transfer. It’s possible that Hurrell opened that hotel safe during the night and took the jewels . . . pretty easy since he’d seen the combination . . . then flogged them to raise some black cash, knowing that the loss to Rachel would actually be a hit on the Edinburgh Co-operative insurance company.’

‘Makes sense,’ he admitted. ‘But here’s another question. Why would Higgins hire you to find his boat if he knew that Hurrell was in the process of killing off the people who stole it?’

‘He didn’t hire me to do that, not really,’ I told him. ‘He hired me to review the police investigation and to cover any bases that Inspector McGarry hadn’t, so that he could compel his marine insurer to settle for the full amount of the loss. And suppose he did know, when he and I met he had no idea that Zena Gates had been found dead or that you were on to Dean Francey and his girlfriend.’

I looked beyond Mario, at Provan. ‘What do you think, Dan?’ I asked.

The sage frowned. ‘Ask me again when they’ve compared that bullet wi’ the others.’

I nodded. ‘It’ll match,’ I said.

Lottie Mann spoke up. ‘Come on, Mr Skinner, what do you really believe? I can’t take “It doesn’t matter”, not from you. Did Higgins order everything, or was Hurrell acting on his own, without any instruction?’

‘How often do I have to say it?’ I retorted. ‘There’s no evidence to implicate anyone but Hurrell. That’s what I believe: it’s what I know.’

‘Then it’s done,’ she murmured, ‘because we can tie him to everything, but nobody else. In his flat, we found Hodgson’s laptop, and a couple of silver cups that were on the stolen property list from the Wemyss Bay break-in. We also found seventy grand in cash, old notes. DCI Pye says they’re similar to the money he found in Francey’s place.’

Haddock leaned forward. ‘Now that we know what we’re looking for,’ he volunteered, ‘we’ve been able to match a couple of partial prints on Dino’s stash to Hurrell.’

‘There’s something else,’ I confessed. ‘It’s not in the folder because my source can’t be named, but it’s a fact, nonetheless. Hurrell was kicked out of the Special Boat Service for being trigger-happy.’

‘That cracks it,’ Mario declared. ‘He planned it, he funded it and he paid for it. I’m calling it a result.’ He turned in his chair and looked me in the eye. ‘Are we agreed on that?’

I sighed as I picked up my folder and opened it. In fact that outcome was deeply unsatisfactory to me: Walter Hurrell had been other ranks, not an officer. He obeyed orders; he didn’t give them.

I flipped through the pages, letting each one fall on the one before, until notes gave way to photographs and they began to turn over less smoothly. Finally, they stopped, at a print I hadn’t seen before, and yet one that was strangely familiar.

‘Fuck!’ I whispered.

Then I slammed the folder back on the conference table.

‘No, Mario,’ I said, ‘we’re not.’ I pointed at the four detectives. ‘You lot,’ I ordered forgetting my civilian status, ‘get back to Hurrell’s place, get down on your hands and knees and start looking.’

‘Looking for what?’ Haddock exclaimed.

‘Another bullet hole,’ I told him. ‘I’d join you,’ I added, ‘but I’m taking my other half to dinner.’