Skinner's Mission

20

‘Big guy, with a Zapata moustache. I remember him all right. “The Vulture” was what we called him, in fact; on account of that bloody great tattoo.’

Calum Berwick smiled as he stood among the shining apparatus in the weight-training room at Meadowbank Stadium. It was less busy than the Royal Commonwealth Pool facility had been. Only four people were at work, but all were pressing heavy weights, concentrating so hard that none of them appeared to notice the group of three near the door.

Rose glanced down the room and saw, through the glass wall at the far end, a number of athletes pounding round the synthetic track upon which two Commonwealth Games had been celebrated.

‘You get the serious people in places like this, the hard trainers, and you get the posers,’ said Berwick. ‘The Vulture was a bit of both. He could do his stuff on the apparatus okay, but he liked to strut around too, flashing the pecs at the girls, and running off at the mouth.

‘I remember hearing him say once that he had the tattoo done when he was in the French Foreign Legion. He was a hard man, by his way of it, but I had him marked down as a bit of a wanker.’

‘What age was he?’ asked Maggie Rose.

‘In his thirties, for sure, but whether early or late, I wouldn’t like to say.’

‘Can you recall his real name?’

Berwick made a face. ‘I was afraid you were going to ask that. I’ve been trying to remember, but I don’t think I ever knew it. There was no membership requirement up there. You just paid and lifted, paid and lifted, every time.’

‘Have you ever seen him here?’

The manager shook his head. ‘No. Not once. And I’d have remembered that bloody tattoo for sure, if I’d seen it.’

‘Up at the Commonwealth,’ asked Pye, ‘did you ever hear him speak of anywhere else he might have trained?’

Berwick considered the question for a few moments. ‘No, I can’t say that I did. But the guy worked out a lot. Big circuits at least three times a week, daily at some times. I doubt if he’d be training anywhere else at that time.’

‘Yet he just stopped turning up,’ said Rose.

‘So it seems, if Simon doesn’t know him. He must have joined a club. A lot of the serious guys do. It can work out cheaper than here in the long run.’

‘That’s just great,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘We’ll have to start working our way round them.’

Berwick began to head for the door. ‘One thing more,’ Rose called out. ‘Do you remember a guy named Carl Medina from your days at the Commonwealth?’

‘Carl? Sure, he was one of my regulars up there. He comes here too on occasion, on the special unemployed concessionary rate. Nice guy, quiet. He’s not a body-builder; just trains to keep fit.’

‘Is he the sort of guy who’d have associated with the Vulture.’

Berwick shook his head, emphatically. ‘No. He’s the sort of guy the Vulture would have tried to impress.’

He escorted the two detectives to the stadium’s foyer, waving them goodbye, as he trotted back down the stairs to his office. Rose and Pye stood alone in the big entrance hallway.

‘Got that list of clubs, then, Sammy?’ asked Rose, slightly wearily.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Pye. ‘But before we start, there’s something I wondered if we might try.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Well . . .’ The Detective Constable hesitated. ‘This guy was a regular at the Commonwealth Pool until three years ago, then all of a sudden he just dropped out of sight.’

‘So,’ said the DCI, ‘d’you think he might have re-enlisted in the Foreign Legion?’

Sammy Pye smiled. ‘Maybe he did, ma’am. Or maybe he got lifted. Maybe he’s in the nick.’

Rose looked up at the young man. ‘That’s good thinking, Sammy. I’m seriously impressed. Let’s try the Prison Service. If we get lucky, we’ll have saved ourselves a lot of legwork.’