Pray for the Dying (13 page)

Twenty

‘I think I preferred it when you were just another DI, and Max Allan kept you in the background.’ Scott Mann stared at the kitchen wall clock; it showed five minutes to midnight. ‘What the hell time’s this tae be comin’ in?’

His wife stared at him. ‘Don’t you bloody start,’ she warned. ‘The number of times I’ve asked you that question. That and “Where the hell have you been?” although it was always all too obvious.’

‘Ye’ll never let me forget, will ye?’

‘Bloody right I won’t; not when you start digging me up about my work. I’ve had the day from hell and I don’t need you narking at me. I didn’t ask to catch the shout to the concert hall last night, but I did and that’s the end of it. Okay?’ She barked out the last word.

He winced and glanced towards the ceiling. ‘Shh,’ he whispered. ‘Ye’ll wake the wee man. He’s no’ long asleep. He tried to stay awake for you. Ah made him put his light out at half nine, but he did his best tae hang on.’

She smiled, with a gentleness that none of her colleagues would have recognised. ‘Wee darlin’,’ she murmured. An instant later she glared at her husband. ‘As well for you though that it’s the holidays, and tomorrow’s not a school day.’

‘Well it’s no’,’ he shot back, ‘and that’s an end of it.’

‘Aye fine,’ Lottie sighed, deciding that further hostilities were pointless. ‘Where did you go, the pair of you?’ she asked.

‘We got the bus out tae Strathclyde Park. There’s a big funfair there; he had a great time. Ah got him a ticket . . . a wristband thing, it was . . . for all the rides.’

‘What about you? Did you go on any?’

‘Shite, no! Me?’

‘Come on, Scottie,’ she chuckled. ‘You’re just a big kid at heart. What was it? Too dear for both of you?’

‘No, Ah just didnae fancy it.’

‘Did I not give you enough money?’

He shook his head. ‘No, no,’ he insisted. ‘I had enough if Ah’d wanted.’ He paused. ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘I had a sandwich earlier. I just want a cup of something then I’m off.’

In truth, she would have considered committing murder for a brandy and dry ginger, but she refused to keep alcohol in the house, unless they were entertaining, when she bought wine for their guests. She had seen her husband drunk too often to do anything to undermine his constant, daily, effort to stay sober.

‘Ah’ll make you a cup o’ tea,’ Scott said. ‘Go and take the weight off your plates.’

She did as he told her, slipping off her shoes and her jacket, then slumping into her armchair. She was almost asleep when he came into the living room a few minutes later, carrying what she saw was a new mug, with the theme park logo, and a plate, loaded with cheese sandwiches and a round, individual, pork pie.

‘Eaten?’ he laughed. ‘My arse! Where are you going tae get a sandwich anywhere near Pitt Street on a Sunday night? Wee Danny Provan’s no’ going to run out and get you something, that’s for bloody sure.’

She squeezed his arm as he laid her supper on a side table. ‘You’re a good lad, Scott,’ she murmured.

‘Ah do my best,’ he replied. ‘Honest, Ah really do.’

‘I know.’

‘So,’ he continued, ‘how’s it goin’? Have you solved the case yet? No’ that there’s much to solve.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, but there bloody is. For a start, we’ve established who the two dead guys were.’

‘Ah thought you knew.’

‘We knew who they had been, through our “intelligence sources”,’ she held up both hands and made a ‘quotation mark’ gesture with her fingers, ‘so called. But now we know about them. That’s why I’m so late in. One of them went under the name of Bryan Lightbody. He lived in Hamilton, New Zealand, with a wife and a wee boy Jakey’s age, and he owned four taxis there.

‘The other one was known as Richie Mallett, single, well-off, low-handicap golfer. He lived in Sydney, in an apartment near somewhere called Circular Quay, and he had a bar there. Both of them seem to have been very respectable guys, apart from when they were moonlighting and killing people.’

Scott whistled. ‘They’ll no’ kill any more, though.’

‘No, but they did leave us a wee present.’ She broke off to demolish half of the pork pie. ‘Do you remember when you were in the job,’ she continued, when she was ready, ‘hearing of a guy called Bazza Brown?’

He frowned. ‘Remind me,’ he murmured.

‘Gangster. Fairly small time in your day, but come up in the world since then.’

‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Aye, but vaguely.’

‘Well, they’d heard of him,’ Lottie declared. ‘We traced their car this afternoon, and we found Bazza shut in the boot.’

‘Eh?’ her husband exclaimed. ‘So he must have been in it all night. Was he still alive?’

‘No.’

‘Did he suffocate?’

‘I don’t think so. I doubt if he’d time before they shot him in the chest.’

His eyes widened. ‘Fuck me!’ he gasped.

She chuckled. ‘Those may very well have been his last words.’ She ate the other half of the pie and washed it down with a mouthful of tea.

‘No’ much use to you dead, though, is he?’ Scott remarked, recovering his composure. ‘He’ll no’ be much of a witness.’

‘He’s not going to tell us a hell of a lot,’ she conceded. ‘But nevertheless, even dead, he’s a lead of sorts. We think we know why he was involved with them. I don’t believe for a minute that he was behind the whole thing, too small a player for that, but if we can find who he was in touch with before he died, that may lead us to whoever ordered Toni Field killed.’

‘My God,’ he whispered. He looked at her, frowning. ‘You’re sure she was the target, and no’ the de Marco woman?’

Lottie nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘There’s no doubt about that now, sunshine. The crime scene team found her photo, tucked away in Botha’s false passport.’

Twenty-One

‘Sod this!’ Skinner muttered. When he had plugged his landline into the wall ten minutes before six o’clock, it had told him that nineteen messages had been left for him. In theory his number was private and unlisted; he knew that some of the Scottish news outlets had acquired it by means he had chosen not to investigate, but he had no idea how many. The call counter gave him a clue. Making a mental note to have it changed, he held his finger on the ‘erase’ button until the box was empty. If any friends or family had called him, he guessed they would have rung his personal mobile as back-up.

He switched that on; there were no message waiting, but he had only just stepped out of the shower when it rang. He answered without checking the caller. No journalists had the number . . . no active journalists, but there was a retired one who did.

‘Bob,’ a deep familiar voice rumbled, the accent basically Scottish but overlaid with something else.

‘Xavi,’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘How are you doing, big fella? And those lovely girls of yours?’

Xavier Aislado, and his ancient half-brother, Joe, were the owners of the
Saltire
newspaper. Their father had escaped from Civil War Spain to Scotland, and eventually they had chosen to return, although in different circumstances and at different times.

Xavi, after a promising football career cut short by injury, had been the
Saltire
’s top journalist, and had been responsible for its acquisition by the media chain that Joe, thirty years his senior, had built in Catalunya.

Their family structure was complicated. Xavi’s mother had left him behind as a child, and had gone on to have twin daughters, by a police colleague of Skinner. One of the two had taken over from Xavi as the
Saltire
’s managing editor, although she had been completely unaware of their relationship until then.

‘We’re all fine,’ he said. ‘Sheila and Paloma are blooming and Joe’s hanging in there. He wasn’t too well during the winter, but he’s got his love to keep him warm too. But more to the point, what is happening in your life? June called me at some God-awful hour about a story that everybody’s chasing, about your wife. She and I want you to know that we owe you plenty, so if it’s all balls, you have open access to the
Saltire
to help knock it down. If it’s true . . . we’ll ignore it if that’s what you want.’

‘I appreciate that, Xavi,’ Bob assured his friend. ‘As it happens it is true, but we’re proposing to deal with it like two grown-ups. Tell June to be ready for a joint statement this morning; that should put a lid on it.’

‘How about this man Morocco? Look, I’ve been there; I know how you’re liable to be feeling about him.’

‘Liable to be,’ he agreed, ‘but I’m not. Morocco’s a relative innocent in this carry-on, so don’t go looking to give him an editorial hard time. Let him stay a Scottish celebrity hero. Between you and me, the guy’s done me a favour.’

‘If that’s what you want, I’ll pass it on to June.’ He chuckled, a deep sound that made Skinner think of one of his vices, a secret that he shared with Seonaid, his younger daughter: a spoonful of Nutella, scooped straight from the jar. ‘I don’t tell her anything, you understand. On the
Saltire
, she’s the boss.’

‘I’m sure.’ Bob frowned. ‘Has she brought you up to date with what happened on Saturday, in the Glasgow concert hall?’

‘Yes, she has. From what she told me, it rather complicates the Aileen situation. She had a narrow escape and went running to Morocco, not you.’

‘She didn’t. Have a narrow escape, that is. She wasn’t the target.’

‘You can say that for certain? I thought there was still some doubt about who they were after. A couple of our Spanish titles are running the proposition that the First Minister himself was the target, and they missed.’

‘Then you should kick someone’s arse. Clive Graham might not mind the publicity, but the truth is that the one thing we did know for sure was that the target was female, and we said so at the time. Now we know definitely that it was Toni Field. My team in Glasgow haven’t announced it yet, but they will this morning. Press conference at ten o’clock, the same time as my lawyer will issue our statement, Aileen’s and mine, about our decision, last week, to pull the plug on our marriage.’

‘Now there’s a coincidence. Sorry,’ the Spanish Scot murmured, ‘that was my cynicism showing through.’

‘Hey, Xavi,’ Skinner laughed, ‘I’ve learned many things from you. One of them is how to minimise a story, as well as how to maximise it. Tell June . . . sorry, suggest to her, that she forget about us and concentrate on Glasgow this morning. There were developments yesterday, significant developments, and they’re going to blow political marriages off the front page.’

‘Any hints?’

‘Just one. I don’t want anyone approached before the press conference, but your crime reporter might be well employed doing all the research he can on a man named Basil “Bazza” Brown.’

‘Thanks for that. Will you be at the media briefing?’

‘No, I have someone else to see before then. I’ll need to go, in fact; my driver’s due to pick me up in under fifteen minutes.’

‘Fine.’ Aislado paused, then added, ‘You and Strathclyde, Bob. I know how you’ve always felt about it, so how the hell did that happen?’

‘A chapter of accidents, mate. Aileen says that now I’m there it’ll be my Hotel California. You know, I can check in any time I like but I can never leave. I’m not so sure about that, though. I have many things to sort out in my head over the next few weeks.’

‘Well, if you’d like somewhere to sort them out undisturbed, you’re welcome to visit us. I know you have your own place in L’Escala, but we have a guest house here now, and it’s yours for as long as you need it, if you don’t want anyone to know where you are.’

‘Cheers, appreciated. I may take you up on that.’

‘Okay. Bob, one last thing. If we do go looking for this man Brown after ten o’clock, where are we likely to find him?’

‘In the fucking mortuary, mate.’

Twenty-Two

‘I’m too old for this shit, Lottie,’ Dan Provan moaned.

‘Agreed,’ DI Mann retorted. ‘But you’re here and you’re all I’ve fucking got as a second in charge, so get on with it, eh? Oh and by the way, you’re not too old to collect the overtime.’

‘There is that,’ the sallow sergeant conceded. He smiled. ‘Keeps us both out the house as well. How’s your Scottie gettin’ on?’

‘He’s fine. Moans a bit but he’s doing great in the battle against the bevvy; that makes me happy. He took the wee guy to the big shows in Strathclyde Park yesterday. A year ago, even, I’d never have trusted him to do that.’

‘Theme park,’ Provan corrected her. ‘The shows are what you and me went to when we were kids.’

‘Maybe you did. My dad never took me anywhere. All his spare money went on that bloody football team. “Follow, Follow”,’ she sang, off-key. ‘I remember my mum making me hide from him many a Saturday night . . . well, maybe not that many, for they didn’t lose all that often, but when they did and he got in with a couple of bottles of Melroso in him, nobody was safe.’

‘No’ even you?’ He looked her up and down, trying to tease her. In all the time they had worked together she had never before mentioned her childhood.

‘Not when I was eight or nine. If my mum gave me and my big brother money for the multiplex on a Saturday night, we knew there was going to be trouble.’

Provan frowned. ‘Did he . . .’

‘Batter my mum? Oh yes. Don’t get me wrong, he was a quiet man all the rest of the time.’ She shook her head. ‘Listen to me, defending him.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Stomach cancer happened to him, when I was twelve. Then I grew up, joined the police, got married, and found myself in the same situation as my mother had. She warned me, ye know, but I never listened.’

‘Scott was like him? Is that what you’re saying?’

She nodded.

‘Just as well you could handle him,’ the sergeant said, ‘like you proved at that daft boxing night.’

‘Not all the time. There were re-matches, Danny, without the gloves and the head guard. I didn’t always win. That was around the time when he was fuckin’ up his police career through the drink. When that finally happened I gave him an ultimatum. I gave him two of them, to be honest. The first was that if he ever raised a hand to me again, I would leave him. The second was that if he ever raised a hand to Jakey, I’d kill him. He believed both of them; he’s been off it, more or less, ever since. He still goes AWOL every now and then, but he comes back sober, and that’s the main thing.’

‘Then good for him. He’s gettin’ on fine at work too, is he? In that cash and carry place o’ his?’

‘Yes. He’s a supervisor now. The head of security’s due to retire in a couple of years, and Scottie’s in with a chance of getting the job.’

‘Mibbes he could find somethin’ for me if he does,’ Provan muttered. ‘Like Ah said . . .’

She sighed. ‘I know, I know, I know. You’re too old for this shit: but you’re here, and we’re both standing in it, so just you keep on shovellin’, Danny. I’ve got another press briefing at ten o’clock. By then I’d like an answer from that car rental company.’

The sergeant nodded; a small shower of dandruff settled on the shoulders of his crumpled, shiny jacket. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘They should have been back tae us by now. Time tae rattle their cage.’ He checked the number on the key-ring fob, then snatched his phone from its cradle and punched it in.

‘Drivall Car Hire,’ a young female voice chirped. It made him feel older than ever.

‘DS Provan, Strathclyde CID,’ he announced. ‘Ah spoke to somebody in your office last night. The lad said his name was Ajmal; Ah wanted some information about one of your cars that we found in Glasgow. He was going to get back to me, but I’m still waitin’. I need tae speak to him, now.’

‘I’m sorry, caller,’ the irrepressible youth replied, sounding anything but regretful. ‘Ajmal’s off duty today.’

‘Then go and get him,’ Provan barked, ‘or dig up your manager! This is a major inquiry Ah’m on.’

The girl sniffed. ‘There’s no need for that tone of voice, sir. If you hold on I’ll see if Mr Terry’s available; he’s our manager.’

‘You do that, hen.’ He sat and waited, but not for too long.

‘Sergeant err . . .’ a querulous male voice began. ‘I’m sorry, Chantelle didn’t catch your name.’

‘Provan,’ the Glaswegian growled. ‘Detective Sergeant Provan.’

‘Thank you, sorry about that; I’m John Terry, the general manager. This will be about our vehicle LX12 PMP, is that right?’

‘Indeed.’

‘We have been acting on this, I assure you,’ Terry declared. ‘My colleague Ajmal left me a note when he went off duty. The vehicle hirer has died and you’re trying to find out who he was through us, is that the case?’

‘I suppose it might be possible, sir,’ Provan said, ‘that a guy hired a vehicle, shot himself three times in the chest, shut himself in the boot and disposed o’ the gun, but we don’t really believe that.’

The manager gulped. ‘Pardon? I didn’t quite catch all of that.’

‘Okay, mate. Let me spell it out for ye’, in words of one syllabub.’

‘My God,’ Terry exclaimed, before he was finished. ‘Mr Provan, I think we’ve had a little language difficulty here. Ajmal’s English is not the best, and your accent is, let’s say, quite regional.’

No, let’s fuckin’ no’ say!
With difficulty, the detective managed to keep his thought to himself, as the manager continued. ‘Ajmal left me a note with the registration number of the vehicle and the information that a man had been found dead in the vehicle and that the Glasgow police wanted the name of the hirer. What you’ve just told me is news to me and shocking news at that.’

‘Well, now that we understand each other,’ Provan said, weighing each word to avoid further ‘language difficulties’, ‘maybe yis can get me the information Ah need.’

‘Oh, I have that already, Sergeant. The office where the vehicle was hired . . . it’s in Finsbury Park . . . was closed last night. I spoke to the person in charge five minutes ago. The vehicle was rented a week ago yesterday, for return by five p.m. yesterday evening. The hirer’s name was Byron Millbank, address number eight St Baldred’s Road, London. I happen to know where that is; it’s very close to what was Highbury Stadium, the old Arsenal football ground, before they moved to the Emirates.’

‘Did he have a UK driving licence?’

‘I don’t know, but I assume . . .’

‘We don’t deal in assumptions, Mr Terry. Will they have a record in your other office?’

‘Oh yes. And a photocopy. Not everyone does that but we always do; take a photocopy of the plastic licence and the paper counterpart.’

‘In that case,’ Provan told him, ‘I need you tae get back on to your other office and get those photocopies faxed up to me. Haud on.’ He found a number that he had scrawled on a pad on his desk for another inquiry, a week before, and read it out to Terry.

‘I’m afraid we don’t have fax machines in our regional offices any more,’ he said. ‘Old technology these days.’

‘Well, find one, please. Go to the Arsenal if ye have tae; they’re bound tae have one.’

‘Oh, we won’t have to do that. We can scan the copies and send them.’

‘Eh?’

‘Scan them, Mr Provan. Turn them into JPEGs.’

‘Eh?’

‘Photographic images. Then we can send them to you as email attachments.’ Terry giggled. ‘Or don’t you have email in Scotland?’

Nancy!
Provan, an old-school homophobe, kept another thought to himself. ‘Oh aye, sir, we have. It runs on gas, right enough, but we get by.’ He read his force e-address, then spelled it out, letter by letter. ‘Soon as ye can, please; Ah need it within the next half hour.’

‘You’ll have it in ten minutes.’ Terry paused. ‘Can I send somebody along from our Glasgow Airport depot to collect our car?’

‘Eventually,’ the DS told him. ‘Ah’m afraid your car’s a crime scene, sir. Ah’m no’ sure how long we’ll need to hold it for. When we’re done with it, we’ll bring it back to you. We’ll even clean aff the bloodstains fur ye.’

He hung up and turned to Mann. ‘A name for ye, Lottie. The car was hired by somebody called Byron Millbank.’

‘What do we know about him?’ she asked.

‘Eff all at the moment, but we should have a wee picture soon, off his driving licence. Meantime, his name’s enough tae go searchin’ for his birth certificate.’

‘Maybe,’ the DI cautioned. ‘That’s assuming it’s his real name. Let me see the image as soon as you get it, and blow it up as large as you can. I want to let the big boss see it.’