Quintin Jardine - A Rush of Blood

‘And what about Grandpa? What are you doing about him?’

‘Nothing tonight, for sure. Inez is declaring loud and long that her dad knew nothing about the robberies or the stuff that she and Dud were keeping there. She said it was all Dudley’s idea, and that Grandpa was never involved. I’m going to back off now and leave it to Rod, but my view is that the next time we lift Cameron, it’s got to be for good.’

‘So how’s it going to pan out?’ the chief constable asked.

Martin scratched his stubbled chin. ‘Good question, with more than one answer. I think Inez is fucked; we’ve got her for the robbery in Edinburgh, and as a minimum for possession of the stuff in the cellar. But we can’t lay a glove on Goldie for any of that, or for trafficking. The most we can do her for is harbouring illegal immigrants, and I would not dream of asking the fiscal to proceed with that charge. The state itself knowingly harbours illegal immigrants, for fuck’s sake. She’ll be released. I don’t know about Marius, though.’

‘He’s bailed on minor drugs charges that won’t even make court, so you’ll have to cut him loose too. But,’ Skinner frowned, ‘couldn’t you do Grandpa for possession? The gear was in his cellar, after all.’

Andy chuckled. ‘Ah, but that’s the beauty of it,’ he exclaimed. ‘I know I said earlier that he had a farm, but technically, he doesn’t. The name on the land register is Cameron McCullough, all right, but it’s not him. It’s his granddaughter. She’s his heir; everything he does is for her eventually.’

‘And is she worth it?’

‘She is to her grandad. She might be only a kid, but he’s closer to her than anyone else. As soon as she turned twenty-one she was appointed to the boards of CamMac plc and all its subsidiaries. She’s well smart; it’s as if all the female brains in the family by-passed her mother and her aunt and went straight to her. Put her and Alex in the same business, and they’d rule the fucking world in five years.’

‘Speaking of my daughter,’ Bob murmured, ‘I had a call from her, about an hour ago. She asked me if you were all right. Are you?’

‘I wasn’t then: I am now. Thanks to her.’

‘Good. Now, young Cameron,’ he continued, quickly. ‘What’s she saying?’

‘Apart from telling her mother that she and Dud make Fred and Wilma Flintstone look like intellectuals, she’s saying nothing at all. She’s cool. My suspicion is that she expects her grandfather to reach in and pull her out the fire.’

‘He’ll have a job. She took part in a robbery, and she was followed from there to here.’

‘Yes, and I’m having difficulty understanding why. She’s much brighter than that. How many of these robberies have there been?’

‘This was the tenth. The pattern was the same until tonight; patrol cars diverted by fake calls, so there was nobody to respond.’

‘What was the difference tonight?’

‘According to Maggie, the earlier calls were made by a man; these were by a woman. By the way,’ he added, ‘when can she have them?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Martin.

‘When can she have Inez and Cameron? They’re hers. This was her operation, they committed the robbery in Edinburgh and that’s where they should appear in court. Maggie deserves the credit, and so does Alice. . and Griff: he could use a gold star on his record right now.’

‘I can appreciate that, but we have to charge them here, in Tayside, with possession.’

Skinner looked at his friend. ‘We’re not getting into a turf war here, are we, Andy?’

‘Not at all; you know I’m right. I’ll tell you what; we’ll charge them with what we’ve got and stick them up in court tomorrow. We’ll have them remanded in custody, then hand them over to you.’

‘Fair enough. Cowan and Montell can interview and charge them after that.’ Skinner broke off as Rod Greatorix approached, looking haggard and exhausted. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked him.

‘They’re just getting to work. The door of Henry’s car’s peppered with heavy gauge shotgun pellets, so that’ll give them a starting point, but. . they’ve looked out round the back and found a bin. There’s a lot of stuff been burned in it, paper underneath, files and the like, and something else on top. They reckon it’s a suit like the ones they wear. Meticulous, eh?’

‘We’ve seen something similar,’ the chief constable remarked, ‘in an investigation we had long ago. A guy dressed himself up in protective clothing for his kills.’

Greatorix brightened up as he clutched at a straw. ‘Any chance of a link?’

‘Not unless he’s risen from the grave.’

The light was extinguished. ‘Damn it. For a minute there. .’ He sighed. ‘I’m inclined to believe these are contract killings. What do you two think?’

‘I’m not going to knock that on the head, Rod,’ Martin told him. ‘But I’ve never seen a professional murder that’s as messy as these, or one that involved torture, for that matter.’

‘It happened in Ireland often enough,’ Skinner pointed out.

‘But those were political.’

‘Are there any “buts” with murder?’ He looked at the chief superintendent. ‘Yes, Rod, logically you might be right. But if you are, there’s a follow-up question, isn’t there? Who ordered it?’

‘Someone with a grudge against Grandpa, I suppose; sending him a message.’

‘From what I’ve seen, it would have been easier to kill McCullough himself than to take out these two.’

Greatorix sighed. ‘So you’re as much in the dark as me?’ he blurted out, his voice full of frustration; ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

Skinner shook his head, and checked his watch. ‘The only thing I’m saying, Rod, is that unless we can help you in some other way, it’s time that Andy and I picked up Neil McIlhenney and headed back to Edinburgh. What I’m thinking is this: you guys have gone on for years knowing that Cameron McCullough has done, or ordered, things, but you’ve never been able to prove it. Right?’

The other men nodded, simultaneously.

‘Well, he didn’t do this one, but it’s going to fall into the same category. Get ready to list it as unsolved, or to keep the file open for a long time.’

‘Are you telling us you do know who did it right enough?’ the chief superintendent asked.

‘I knew who did it as soon as I walked into that barn.’ He beckoned to Martin. ‘When I’m ready, I’ll tell you. Come on, it’s the middle of the fucking night and I think I’m going to have a very early start.’

‘Why?’ his friend asked. ‘Where are you going?’

‘France.’

‘ If you don’t mind me saying so,’ said Jack McGurk, ‘you look a bit bleary-eyed.’

‘Yes I mind,’ Neil McIlhenney growled. ‘My wife minds. My kids mind. And everybody around me will mind about irritating me by the time this day is done. I got in at three thirty, wakening the wee one in the process, and thus the whole household, then I was back in my office by eight. And now the mountain has to come to Mohammad and his mate because you don’t have a DI. In fact, with Sammy off on his course and Becky on her travels, there’s hardly a fucking DI left in fucking Edinburgh. Have you done that thing I asked you?’

‘When you phoned me from the road at quarter to three?’

‘That’s right, and you’re not bleary-eyed at all.’

The DS grinned. ‘Yes I’ve done it. I called on Mrs McKean pretty much as soon as her office opened. She wasn’t going to tell me anything, at first; she even tried to hide behind legal privilege until I pointed out that she isn’t, in fact, a lawyer. Eventually I said that if it wasn’t her it must have been her boss and could I speak to her please, and that’s when she gave up. I let her off light; I took her out and bought her a coffee, and let her take her time. She admitted that Green called her out of the blue, on Tuesday of last week. He asked her to do him a simple favour, and confirm that Tomas Zaliukas had been in the office that afternoon to change his will.’