Quintin Jardine - Stay of Execution

‘I can see that,’ the Belgian acknowledged. ‘Again, I will see what I can do. When you visit me tomorrow, I may be able to tell you more.’ He rose. ‘I must go. There is an excellent piano bar in this hotel, gentlemen; you may care to end the evening there. It’s called the Waterloo. The French hate it; I can’t imagine why.’

Detective Chief Inspector David ‘Bandit’ Mackenzie was glad that he was one of nature’s early birds. So was his wife; when the kids in their turn were very young and woke with the dawn, screaming to be changed or fed, in whatever order, David would always attend to them without complaint, leaving her to grab the extra hour or so of sleep that she needed to get her through the rest of the day.

The Bandit was proud of his nickname. He liked to claim that he had acquired it by locking up his own brother, but there was more to it than that. Throughout his CID career, his clear-up figures had spoken for themselves, but he had given the impression, through his relentlessly cocky demeanour, that they might have been achieved by cutting the odd corner, and sometimes the even one as well.

This was not true: in fact, he was guilty of nothing less orthodox than backing his own judgement and of relying on instinct first in pursuing a suspect, knowing that the necessary evidence would fall into place later. Almost invariably he had been right.

One of his few failures, however, had brought him briefly into conflict with Bob Skinner. He had been shown, forcefully, the error of his ways, but then, to his surprise, had found himself being taken under the wing of the Edinburgh DCC, whose legend as Scotland’s hardest copper was well enshrined in the west, from which he had sprung.

Still, he had been surprised when his former boss, Mary Chambers, had whispered word in his ear that her job would be falling vacant and that it might be worth his while applying for it. He had been pleased too, because he had guessed that the hint had come indirectly from Skinner, who had actually cut far more corners in his time than Bandit would ever have dared.

He had been interviewed privately for the job by a panel that had included Skinner himself, Dan Pringle, and the formidable iron-drawered Maggie Rose, the most intimidating woman officer he had ever met. All his answers must have been right, for he had found himself transferred, on promotion, from the delights of Cumbernauld into a new office in Edinburgh.

He picked out the two Americans at once, watching through the one-way glass, as the queue from the Newark flight began to form at the non-EU passport check-point. . big guys, hair cut too short and dressed too soberly to be anything but cops. So did the immigration officers, who had been briefed to speed them through.

‘Inspector Nolan Donegan.’ The older of the two, early forties as opposed to his companion’s thirty-something, moved to shake his hand as they were ushered into the small room. ‘This is my colleague, Lieutenant Eli Huggins, from our Internal Affairs Bureau.’

‘Chief Inspector David Mackenzie. I’m going to drive you through to Edinburgh. We’ll get moving as soon as your hold baggage is picked out from the rest.’

Donegan looked surprised. ‘Chief Inspector?’

‘Don’t be over-impressed.’ Bandit grinned. ‘I live a few miles from here, that’s all. It made more sense for me to collect you than for us to send a man and a car from Edinburgh.’

They were under way in a few minutes. Rather than join the Wednesday morning snarl-up on the Kingston Bridge, Mackenzie merged into the shorter queue through the Clyde Tunnel, the alternative crossing, and plotted a route through Broomhill and Hyndland that brought them on to the M8 at the point where the bottleneck began to thin out. ‘Local knowledge, ’ he said to the Americans, as he picked up speed and headed for Edinburgh.

‘What other knowledge have you guys been picking up?’ asked Huggins. The Scot glanced at him in his rear-view mirror. The lieutenant was unsmiling; in fact, he looked as if, at some point in his career, he had forgotten how to smile.

Just the sort of cop you’d want to set on other cops , Bandit thought. He made eye contact, frowning back. ‘Explain,’ he said.

‘Have you hit on anyone with a connection to Inspector Mawhinney?’

‘I’m not involved in the investigation, but as far as I know, we haven’t.’

‘We hold you responsible, you know. Our man was in your country, now he’s dead. We don’t take that lightly, sir.’

The Bandit was riled. ‘So what have you got?’ he shot back. ‘You’re Internal Affairs; you’re not here on escort duty. We need leads from you.’

‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

‘What makes you think you’re at liberty to ask, then? I gave you an answer as best I could. Now it’s your turn.’

‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ Huggins repeated.

‘So that means you have got something relevant to this inquiry. Or are guys like you just so used to questioning other police officers that you’ve forgotten how to answer them?’

‘Any information I have is exclusive to NYPD, only to be released at my discretion.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Inspector Donegan. He turned in the front passenger seat and looked over his shoulder at his compatriot. ‘Let’s not get off on the wrong foot. Let’s maintain some decorum here.’

‘By all means,’ said Mackenzie, ‘but I’ll tell you something, Lieutenant. If you try to hold that line when you meet my colleague who’s in charge of this investigation, eventually you will be introduced to our boss. Then, I promise, you will come to believe that discretion is the better part of valour.’

Neil McIlhenney could have run the Mawhinney inquiry from his office at the Fettes building, but he had chosen to set up the murder room at the coastal-division headquarters in Queen Charlotte Street, to have immediate access to its manpower. He could also have excluded Mario McGuire from the investigation completely, but he had more sense than to try.

However, the superintendent knew that being seen to report to a junior officer only three days into his command would do nothing for his future authority, and so he had the sense in his turn to keep well clear. He was in his office when the door opened and McIlhenney came in.

‘I wanted to thank you,’ he said. ‘That was bloody good work, bringing that guy Hughie Geller in last night. His statement’s the only sniff of a lead we’ve got.’

‘Has word got out that I was involved in it?’

‘No. The statement’s countersigned by the duty sergeant who took it, and that’s all.’

‘That’s good. I told him I’d have his balls if my name was mentioned at all, or Malky Gladsmuir. That’s a spin-off benefit. Gladsmuir’s mine now, and I want to protect him.’

‘I thought he was Jay’s before.’

‘He had Jay in his fucking pocket: life’s changed for him.’ He looked up at his friend. ‘Where are we going with the Land Rover?’

‘We’ve got the biggest magnet we can find, but it’s still quite a task.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Needle in a haystack, but I’ve got George Grogan working on it. He’s been back to the witness and he’s showed him Land Rover vehicle types. The best he could do was narrow it down to either a Range Rover or a Discovery, but that helps a bit. Total annual production’s about a hundred thousand, and both models are big export sellers. We’ll get accurate figures from the DVLA but I reckon we’re looking at over fifty thousand new UK registrations every year. It’s a new-style registration so we’re going back three years maximum; that takes us up to a hundred and fifty thousand Range Rovers and Discos. We’re trying to find one out of that lot.’