Quintin Jardine - Stay of Execution

He passed by Newhaven harbour but paid a quick visit to the flour mill, where someone had been kind enough to leave a very fancy vacuum flask, a CD Walkman and a heavy-duty torch in the saddlebag of a bike that was chained outside. The saddlebag was secured only by two small buckles, so he stole that also.

He was so pleased with his take that he almost decided to go home at that point, but he decided that the day was too full of promise to cut so short, especially since the weather was grey and drab, the kind that he knew from experience kept folks’ heads down, rather than looking out of their office windows.

There were too many windows in the Scottish Executive building, though, too many to take a chance on a quick trip through the car park, so he kept on walking down Commercial Street, until he crossed the bridge and reached the shore.

Moash was sometimes tempted by the Malmaison Hotel; it attracted a lot of moneyed folk, and in theory healthy pickings. But he had the sense to know that the rich were increasingly cashless, and that to make anything from them he would need access to their unguarded valuables. That would not be easily gained, though, as posh hotels usually had security systems, with concealed video cameras and other stuff that could get you banged up in no time.

So he sniffed at the Malmaison and passed it by; there were other places behind it, industrial units where people were sometimes careless, and the goods yard which on the right day was Aladdin’s bloody cave. He wandered along casually, with the practised slouch of someone who was inherently skilled at drawing no attention to himself. When he nipped into an open office doorway and won himself a fat wallet from the pocket of a so-called security guard who had left his jacket hanging over his seat while he went for a slash, his day was complete.

Moash never retraced his steps. That was the second stupidest thing that a professional thief could do, a sure way of landing yourself in the treacle. The stupidest was to run once you had made a score. If the loss was discovered quickly, there was no better way of identifying yourself. So he kept on walking, until he was almost past the Albert Dock, where the road took a turn that would ultimately lead him out on to Salamander Street.

He stopped at the corner of the dock and glanced around, not to see if he was being pursued, but to see if anyone was looking in his direction. Happy that he was unobserved, he unzipped the fly of his jeans and urinated contentedly into the dull green water.

As he followed his yellow arc, his eye was caught by a strange movement. As is the case with all commercial harbours, it was impossible to see anything clearly that was more than a few inches below the surface, but he could just make out a shape down there. Moash knew that curiosity killed cats, but he also knew that they had nine lives. Beside him on the ground there was a long docker’s pole; when he had zipped his fly, he picked it up and thrust it into the water.

Something moved at its touch, something solid. Moash frowned. And then the object turned and rose, until it was just below the surface, close enough for him to see the dead face of a man staring up at him.

Had there not been a helicopter close overhead, drifting in to land on the nearby pad, someone would have heard his scream.

As well as being totally amoral, and a parasite sucking sustenance from the community in which he lived, Moash Glazier had a third great weakness. He believed in omens and in the signs that they drew for him. And so when he saw the thing beneath him, tethered somehow to the wall of the dockside, its heavy jacket ballooning out around it, he read its meaning loud and clear. Finding one stiff was a major misfortune, but coming upon another less than a week later, that was an unmistakable message. All things came in threes, and if he hung around this place, he knew all too well who the next would be.

He dropped the pole into the water, and he broke his number-one rule. He turned and ran, taking the shortest route out of the docks, not caring who saw him, and not stopping until he was half-way up Constitution Street, when he saw a taxi and hailed it.

Gasping, he instructed the driver to take him to Waverley Station, where he used the stolen credit card of G. Gebbie, offering an acceptable facsimile of the smudged scrawl on the back, to buy a one-way ticket to London King’s Cross. His train was past Dunbar before his heartbeat returned to something approaching its normal rate.

Moash realised that a whole new chapter of his life was unfolding, but that was infinitely preferable to the closure of the whole bloody book. As the train sped south, he counted the cash in Mr Gebbie’s wallet. . three hundred and thirty-five pounds, the remains, if he had known it, of a very successful Saturday in the bookie’s. . then took the fancy vacuum from the expensive-looking saddlebag.

He unscrewed the cup on top, then the inner plug, and sniffed. ‘Bastard,’ he growled. ‘Fuckin’ oxtail. Ah hate fuckin’ oxtail.’

Bob Skinner’s day was looking up. His worst waking nightmares about a wave of cyanide deaths across the country had not come true, and negative test results were being reported from all over the country by the toothpaste manufacturers.

More and more the investigation was being focused on Newcastle; the DCC had spent some of the morning in telephone conference with his opposite number on the Northumbria force. He had been told that the sale of Bartholemy Lebeau’s fatal toothpaste had been identified, thanks to bar coding and a computerised till system. It had been a cash transaction, at four thirty-five in the afternoon; one item only, five-pound note tendered, three pounds thirty-seven pence change.

Further enquiries were being pursued and when Ruth Pye called to tell him that DCC Les Cairns was on the line once more, he had been expecting him.

‘Have your people spoken to the assistant?’ he asked at once.

‘Yes, but she’s a kid,’ Cairns replied, ‘a sixteen-year-old part-timer; there’s no way she remembers the sale, let alone anything about the buyer. We’ve taken her prints, though; I guess you’ll need them for elimination.’

‘Yes, thanks. Have they got video surveillance in this store?’

‘I’m afraid not. I wish to hell they had, because in the absence of any other contaminated product, there’s a growing possibility that the victim’s tube was stolen, spiked, then put back on the shelf. It would have been nice to catch the perpetrator on tape.’

‘Sure it would, but since when did real life get that nice? You’re right, though, Les. We’ve got an integrated investigation here; I’ve got a murder on my patch and you’ve got product sabotage on yours. It needs high-level handling; I’ve put my head of CID in charge up here.’

‘And mine is in Newcastle,’ Cairns interjected, ‘so do we exchange information through them?’

‘For efficiency yes, but let’s you and I talk on a daily basis. Meanwhile, I’d be grateful if you’d e-mail that girl’s prints to DI Arthur Dorward, at our forensic lab.’

‘Will do. Cheers.’

Skinner hung up and walked across the corridor to brief the chief on developments, catching him just before he left for an ACPOS meeting in Glasgow. He was smiling as he came back to his room, having put the poisoning investigation to one side for the moment as he contemplated his meeting with Aileen de Marco. He wondered what they would have to talk about, and how much insight she would give him into her own thinking on policy.

‘She’s still a politician, though, Bob,’ he whispered to himself. ‘She’ll be out to pick your brains and that’ll be it.’

The phone on his desk cut into his thoughts. It was his direct line, and that meant urgent. He snatched it up. ‘Yes.’