Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (21 page)

He
picked up the keys and tossed them in his hand. 'I wonder what these are for?'
He looked at them closely. 'This one's for a Chubb mortise lock and this one's
a McLaren; both top quality. All the locks in this place are either Era or
Yale, so these are for somewhere else. I wonder where? And the third key; see
how thin it is? Odd-looking; not for a door, I'd say'

'For
a safe-deposit box, maybe?'

'Maybe.'
McGuire scowled suddenly. 'The fact that there's nothing else in the bloody
drawer makes me fear that we ain't going to find anything in the whole bloody
house. If there was a pointer to a stash of photos and records, this is where
we'd have found it, I'm sure. On the other hand, these keys might be a pointer
of a sort; maybe he did have an office somewhere and maybe Maggie's search will
turn it up.'

He
dropped the keys into his pocket beside the gun, then took off his jacket and
laid it across the desk-top. 'Let's get on with taking the place apart, anyway.
I've been wrong before, so you never know.'

Steele
nodded. Carefully, he replaced the empty drawers in the desk, then helped
McGuire to turn over the heavy sofa. They checked underneath it and under the
rest of the furniture in the room but found nothing.

They
continued the search through the rest of the upper floor of the house, turning
over mattresses, rifling through drawers, turning out the pockets of every garment
hanging in Alec Smith's wardrobe, even checking inside the pill and plaster
boxes in the bathroom cabinet. They moved downstairs through the dining room
and into the kitchen, finding nothing but a large supply of Baxter's soup, a
fridge well stocked with soft drinks and small bottles of Belgian beer,
breakfast cereal, tins of nuts and a large box of sunflower seeds.

'Liked
his nuts,' Steele commented.

'Had
them burned off,' McGuire countered, dryly.

Finally
they made their way down into the cellar; apart from a bulk supply of dog food,
stored on a high shelf, there was nothing there but tools, as Arthur Dorward
had reported earlier. There were no windows, only a door; McGuire opened it and
found half a dozen steps leading back up to the level of a small lawn. As he
stepped back inside, he found Steele examining a white line which ran round the
wall, about four feet above the level of the stone floor.

'What
do you think this is, Mario?'

'Looks
like a tide-mark.'

'Yes.
I reckon this place must be susceptible to flooding, maybe when there are high
tides and bad weather combined. No way he's going to store anything down here.'
The Sergeant looked up. 'That's us then. What's left to do?'

'We
go up into the attic. Then we go back to every room that doesn't have a fitted
carpet and lift the floorboards. I promised you a long hard day, Stevie, and I
meant it.'

26

The
elderly Probation Officer stared across her desk at the Detective Chief
Superintendent. 'I don't know if I like this, Mr Martin,' said Roberta Nelson.
'Ever since he's been under my supervision, Angus Morrison has been a model
parolee.'

'I'm
sure he has,' the policeman replied, evenly. 'Gus was pretty stupid as a
would-be terrorist, but even he would know that the first rule of the turf, if
the Parole Board gets soft with you, is that you're nice to your supervising
officer.'

'That's
a very cynical attitude.'

Martin
sighed wearily. 'No, it's a universal truth. You see people like him at their
best; all too often I see them at their worst.'

'I
know Angus,' the woman insisted. 'He has a good job -I arranged it for him
myself - as a van driver with Scottish Power.'

The
Head of CID laughed. 'That's ironic; he was nicked trying to blow up one of
their pylons.'

'He's
paid for that mistake. He's a model employee; never a day's sick leave, never
late for work. He never misses a meeting with me. No, no, no. I will not have
you treat him as "one of the usual suspects". I refuse to co-operate
with you, point-blank.'

'Ms
Nelson, it isn't a matter of you co-operating with me. I don't even want to
co-operate with you. I'm not asking you, I require you, to give me the present
address of Gus Morrison,
so that I can eliminate him
from police enquiries into the murder of the man who arrested him and who gave
evidence against him at his trial.'

She
snorted. 'Hmm! I know how the police work. You'll arrest him, you'll intimidate
him, and you'll leave him believing that there is no such thing as a reformed
offender in your eyes. And we know where that leads, don't we? Straight back to
prison.'

The
detective leaned forward in his chair. 'Lady, you know damn well that a
significant proportion of people convicted of crimes and offences in Scotland
are under probation orders at the time, or re-offend shortly after completing a
period on probation. I promise you I'm not going to railroad Morrison; I'm
simply going to find out whether or not he killed Alec Smith.' He stood. 'Now:
unless you'll swear under oath that he was with you all last Friday evening,
I'll have his home address, please, and that of the depot where he works.'

The
woman shot him a last look. She had said her piece, but they both knew that she
was not in a position to deny him what he wanted. She went to a filing cabinet,
took out some papers, and copied some details from them on to a note pad.

'There.'

Martin
took the note from her, with slightly exaggerated thanks - no point in rubbing
it in - and left her office.

Gus
Morrison's work address was a Scottish Power depot in Portobello. Andy drove
straight there from Roberta Nelson's Haymarket office, not in his MGF but in a
white Mondeo which he had taken from the police pool. Detective Constable Sammy
Pye was by his side, borrowed back from Dan Pringle's team for the occasion,
and grateful to be relieved of door-knocking duty.

They
found the Depot Manager's office without difficulty, just after midday. 'Angus
Morrison?' said Walter Gough. 'Oh aye, Gus. He's out with an emergency crew
just now. Due back in half-an-hour, though. He might be early, ye never know.

'What
d' yis want him for? He's no' in bother again is he?'

'No.
This is just part of the parole supervision process,' Martin lied. 'How's he
doing, anyway?'

'Gus?
He's fine. He's only been with us a few months, since he got out, but he's
never been a problem. Quiet bloke, like, and there's something a bit sad about
him. The probation woman said his girlfriend hanged herself in the jail. Is
that right?'

'Yes,
I'm afraid so. Some people just can't do the time; men as often as women for
all that the papers would have you think.'

'Aye
well, no wonder Gus is a bit odd then.' 'What do you mean?'

Gough
hesitated. 'Ach. It's just that the rest of the lads are a bit wary of him.
They catch him talking to himself every so often.'

'About
anything in particular?' 'Nan, nothing they can make out.'

They
heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, a noise of wheels on gravel. Gough
glanced out of the window of his small office. 'That's his van now. How long
will yis want him?' he asked as the two policemen stood.

Martin
shrugged. 'Give him the rest of the day off?'

'Aye,
that's no problem. One of the other lads can drive if we get another emergency
call-out.'

The
Head of CID glanced at his file photograph of Morrison and showed it to Pye as
they strode towards the big van. They flanked him as he stepped out of the
driver's door. He was big, over six feet and bulky. His nose had been badly
broken once, and blue stubble showed on his chin.
Real hard case,
thought Pye.

Martin
showed his warrant card, briefly, so that none of the other workmen could see.
'Gus,' he said in a friendly voice. 'We need to talk. Come on along with us.'

'What
for?' Morrison growled.

'We
want to buy you lunch, that's all.' One to each arm, gently but securely, they
walked him across to the Mondeo.

27

'I
think I should close down the headquarters van, Mario,' said Maggie Rose, 'and
base the investigation out of Haddington from now on.'

Her
husband nodded across the table at which he and Stevie Steele were sitting.
Their faces were streaked with dirt and their clothes were dusty. Each was in
the process of emptying a can of lager; four more lay in a bag at their feet.

'You
might as well, Chief Inspector. I've dug up as much of North Berwick as I'm
about to. What a wasted day!'

'Not
exactly,' the Sergeant ventured. 'That desk might have gone for auction with a
gun in it, and those keys too if you hadn't known about that drawer.'

'No,'
said McGuire. 'Absolutely not. The furniture specialist in any sale-room would
have looked for that drawer right away. I'd rather it was us found the gun than
him, though; that could have been embarrassing. We might have had a struggle
keeping it out of the papers.'

'Aye,'
laughed Steele. 'The
Evening
News
is getting everywhere
just now. Did you see their story yesterday on that other investigation. There
was some very specific stuff in that. The guy who wrote that story, Blacklock:
he's big Jack McGurk's brother-in-law. Did you know that?'

'I
did not. I do know that big Jack better not have been talking to him, though.
There are only three guys in this organisation allowed to speak to the press,
and he's not one of
them.' He considered his point
for a moment. 'No, make that four; I suppose the Chief Constable can, too.'

McGuire
drained his can, tore another open, then glanced at his wife once more. 'Did
you get anything on the serial number of the pistol?'

'Drew
a blank,' she said. 'Or should that be fired a blank? It isn't one of ours - it
would have been posted missing if it was anyway - and it isn't registered to
anyone in the UK. I suppose Alec must have acquired it on his travels and
neglected to hand it in.'

'One
more for us, then. We'll register it and keep it in our armoury.'

Maggie
frowned at him. 'Not necessarily. We'll have to test fire a bullet from it; who
knows, it might be a match for one in another open investigation somewhere, one
with an untraced firearm.'

'We'll
do no such bloody thing
...
Ma'am,'
he retorted.

'But
we have to! It's standard procedure.'

'It
is not standard procedure to find an illegal hand-gun in the possession of a
deceased former Special Branch commander. Suppose your test firing did come up
with a match, in another force's area? What a can of fucking worms that would
open!' He tapped the table. 'Tell you something, among the three of us. From what
I've learned about Alec Smith, finding a match is not one hundred per cent
impossible. No-one's testing that gun.'

Steele
looked from one to the other, not wishing to be caught in the middle of a
marital row between two senior officers.

'You
can't take that decision,' Maggie protested.

'I
just did. And if Brian Mackie was sitting in that chair,
instead
of sunning himself on the Costa de la bloody Luz, he'd agree with me all the
way. So will Big Bob, when I tell him.'

She
scowled at him. 'Secret bloody policemen,' she muttered; but she had been Bob
Skinner's exec, and she knew at once that her husband was right.

'Talking
about the Boss,' she said, changing the subject. 'I heard something on the
grapevine today. You know there's been a small round of promotions?'

'Aye,
Jack McGurk, for one.'

'Well,
Neil's come through too. He's been made up to DI.' Mario's face lit up. 'Hey,
that's great. Does that mean he's moving on?'

'No,
the Boss wants to keep him in his office for as long as he can, so he's
promoted him in post.'

'That's
smashin'.' He frowned for a second. 'No consolation, but smashin' nonetheless.
Olive would have been dead chuffed for him.'