Stay of Execution

18

Detective Chief Superintendent Dan Pringle knew that something unspoken was hanging in the air; his problems were that he was not entirely sure what it was, and that he did not know when Bob Skinner would give it voice.

It was in the DCC’s manner, and in his eyes. He had seen it before in recent weeks when something had been irritating the Big Man, and on each occasion it had been an advance warning of trouble.

And trouble was something that Pringle did not need; not any more, not at his time of professional life. He had come late to the job of head of CID, towards the end of a career which he thought had culminated in his appointment as a divisional head in Edinburgh, and after he had thought he was being parked in a siding when he was transferred to the Borders post.

He was honest enough to recognise that when he had been recalled from that out-station and named as Andy Martin’s successor, most of his colleagues had been surprised. In truth he had been astonished himself. But Bob Skinner had told him that what he wanted most in the job was a pair of safe hands, and that his were the most experienced and reliable around.

In his first months, he had fancied that there had been resentment at his appointment. Ultimately, though, he had put it down to over-sensitivity on his part, and had become more relaxed. He knew that the only person who had really coveted the job had been Greg Jay, whose command took in the Leith area. The rest were either nearer the door than him, or young in post, like Rose and McGuire, and if he was a stop-gap, well, that did not worry him one bit.

Bob Skinner’s demeanour did, though, as they worked their way through the agenda of targets achieved and investigations in progress. The goals that had been set for the year were stiff. Both men knew that and the head of CID had gone into the meeting pleased with his success rate. The war against illegal drugs was, in fact, a series of battles being fought across Scotland, under the general oversight of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency but with the local forces as the shock troops. No chief constable wanted to sit at the foot of the enforcement league table, and significant year-on-year increases in detection were always being sought. Pringle had been told to achieve an increase of twenty per cent on the previous year’s enforcement figure, in terms of dealer convictions. With almost half of the operational year left, he was already at sixteen per cent.

‘That’s good, Dan; very good,’ Skinner conceded. ‘Bringing Mary Chambers across from Strathclyde was a nice bit of poaching on Willie Haggerty’s part, and it’s paying off.’

‘Aye, but now I’m losing her to Division,’ Pringle felt compelled to point out, ‘and you still haven’t agreed to her replacement.’

The DCC nodded. ‘I’m aware of that, but I’ve been keeping it up my sleeve until I had it confirmed. We’re going back to Strathclyde to fill Mary’s job in the Drugs Squad. I’m bringing in DI David Mackenzie from North Lanarkshire CID, on promotion to chief inspector; “Bandit”, they call him over there. He is too, a cocky bastard, but he’s a bloody good copper.’

‘Why are they letting him go, then?’

Skinner looked at him severely. ‘Because I asked for him, Daniel.’ Then a half-smile crossed his face. ‘I did a bit of trading though. You know Ian Pitkeathley, the DI from Mary’s team? He’s marrying a girl who’s in a promoted teaching position in Glasgow. It’s easier for him to move job than her, so that’s what’ll happen. He goes to Cumbernauld as a straight replacement. I want you to keep an eye on the Bandit when he gets here. Take him round the divisions, make sure that everyone knows who he is, and that they know whose appointment he is too. His job’s too important for him to be hampered by any petty jealousy.’

Pringle nodded, then picked up the last biscuit from the plate on Skinner’s coffee table. ‘I’ll do that,’ he said, just before he crunched it.

‘That’s about it then,’ said the DCC, ‘now that they’re finished.’ He pushed himself up from the low leather couch.

A small wave of relief swept through the head of CID; his suspicions must have been wrong after all. Someone else must be for the high jump.

He was almost at the door when a big hand squeezed his shoulder. ‘By the way,’ Skinner drawled casually, ‘Sarah was telling me last night that she’s got one of ours on the slab this morning: a guy found topped in the Meadows yesterday morning. Imagine my surprise and delight, Dan, when the wife tells me across the fucking supper table that we’ve got a potential homicide investigation on our hands, and I haven’t heard about it from anyone else.’

An ice-ball dropped in Pringle’s stomach. ‘Ah, well,’ he began slowly, ‘the division felt that it would be a bit premature to go calling it a murder inquiry before the SOCOs and the autopsy confirmed it. There were some anomalies at the scene that made suicide look unlikely, but I heard from Maggie Rose last night that they’ve all been sorted out and that suicide’s now seen as a possibility.’

‘I see.’ The big man scratched his chin. ‘It’ll be an unusual one if it is, him stringing himself up from a tree in the middle of the city. Usually they go into the garage, lock the door and turn on the car, or they swallow a bottle of single malt and a bottle of Valium, or they get out the twelve bore and blow their fucking heads off.’

Pringle sighed. ‘Sorry, boss, I should have got word to you. But I didn’t hear about it myself until Maggie called me at half four, once the ID was complete.’

He looked up at Skinner and saw that he was smiling. ‘It’s all right, Dan. If I hadn’t heard about it from Sarah, there was always this morning’s Scotsman. No harm done, and anyway, I had other things on my mind yesterday.’

He reached out and opened the door for his colleague. ‘I made some resolutions on the way in in the car this morning. One of them is to stop giving the people around me such a hard time. If I made you run and tell me right away about every serious incident that goes down on our patch, then neither of us would be doing his job properly. But in this case, I gather that the victim’s a corporate banker. Just to be on the safe side, I want you to keep a close eye on the investigation, and keep me in the loop as well.’

The chief superintendent nodded. ‘I’ll do that, don’t worry. I won’t lean too hard on Maggie Rose, though. Stevie Steele gets upset when I try it, and there’s worse than that. She doesn’t like it herself, and sometimes her eyebrows can be as bloody heavy as yours!’

‘Mmm,’ said Skinner. ‘Mags can be frosty from time to time, I’ll grant you, but you won’t have to handle her for much longer. Put your kid gloves on for now, but keep me in touch.’ He patted Pringle on the shoulder. ‘I’ll talk to you later. As you leave, ask young Jack to come and see me. There’s some air I have to clear with him too.’