Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'Don't be so tetchy, lass.'

'Don't call me lass.'

His false smile vanished. 'Very well, Miss Viareggio, if that's the way you want to play it. I'm concerned about your relationship with Detective Superintendent Mario McGuire.'

She started out of her chair, but with supreme self-control, settled back down, fixing the man with a glare that would have chilled the snow outside. 'And what Goddamned business is that of yours?'

'As I said, I'm concerned about it.'

'In what respect? Are you jealous?'

'If I was younger I might have been, but that's a side issue. What you and McGuire do under the duvet doesn't bother me; it's what you do in business that I'm worried about.'

'I'm sorry,' said Paula. 'I think I'm missing something here. Why should I care what you're worried about, and why should my business be any business of yours?'

'Your father didn't teach you much in the way of respect, did he? Whenever I called on him he welcomed me with a smile and a glass of Amaretto… I'm very fond of Amaretto.' Suddenly the muddy eyes seemed to grow hard. 'He certainly had more sense than to talk to me like that.'

She held his gaze, unflinching. 'And what of my grandfather? Think back twenty years, to when you were a sergeant or whatever, and ask yourself if you'd have traipsed in here then, when he was sat behind that big old desk of his.'

'You're right; I was a sergeant, and I can tell you this too. If I'd called on your grandfather I'd have been accompanied by at least one other officer and probably by people from the Inland Revenue, with a search warrant in my pocket to back me up. Your grandfather's connections don't bear close examination, any more than his tax returns did.'

Paula felt her control slip away. 'Right!' she shouted. 'Your fifteen minutes are up. Get the hell out of here, or I'll call a real policeman to remove you.'

Jay remained seated. 'I'll go when I'm good and ready, and I'll be back before too long. When I come, it'll be with specialist officers from another force, and we will go through the records of your businesses with the finest-toothed of combs. And I don't mean just the last couple of years. We'll go back all the way to the old man. When we're done, there will be no way your beloved can stay in the force. Who knows? We might even have the two of you in court before we're done. It won't stop there, though: Mario's been advanced pretty rapidly in the force. I doubt if someone who'd made such an error of judgement could survive either.'

He pushed himself slowly to his feet. 'It's been a pleasure to see you again… lass,' he said. 'But I'm going to enjoy my next visit even more. Goodbye for now.'

Paula stared at his back as he turned it to her; she stared at the door as he closed it behind him. And then she picked up the telephone and called Mario.

He could almost hear the rage build up within him as he listened to her story, without interrupting her once. Even after she had finished, he stayed silent for a while.

When he did speak, his voice was soft, the way she knew it could sound when someone was in the worst trouble of his life. 'That's it,' he murmured. 'I was asked to take it easy on Jay, and I agreed. But now all deals are off. Before I've done with him, I'm going to see that bastard shivering in his own piss.'

In the circumstances, there was no question of Neil McIlhenney visiting Debbie Wrigley in her office. Instead, he accepted her suggestion that they meet in the John Lewis cafeteria, where they were least likely to be spotted by anyone either of them knew.

This time, he was first to arrive: he found a space in the NCP car park beside the department store and took the lift up to the fourth-floor restaurant, where he bought a cappuccino, a bottle of sparkling water and two pieces of a thick fudge cake, took a table at the window and sat down to wait.

He looked out over the city, down Leith Walk and across to Calton Hill, cursing quietly to himself at the change in the weather, anticipating the drive through to Glasgow with Mackenzie with no pleasure at all. He had never liked stake-outs even in his younger days, and found the prospect of an evening's bogus conversation with the Bandit to be almost more than he could bear. He found himself praying that the Johnny Groat pub had a television, even if it was tuned to Coronation Street.

'Cheer up, Neil,' said his banker friend, as she slid into the seat facing him. 'You're supposed to like the snow at Christmas. It's meant to fill us all with seasonal joy.'

'Bugger that for a game of soldiers,' he grunted. 'All I see is traffic chaos, and all I hear is my son moaning because his rugby's been cancelled.'

'Let me cheer you up, then.' Wrigley sipped her coffee, nodding approval. 'You can't have been here long. This is almost warm.'

'Try the cake,' he urged. 'That's real comfort food; should suit you a treat.'

She looked at him over the top of her spectacles. 'Good job we're old friends,' she muttered.

'So what have you got for me, friend?'

'Nothing on paper,' she replied at once. 'I couldn't take the chance of being seen photocopying. You'll have to make notes… that's assuming that policemen still carry notebooks and pencils.'

'This one does, although the pencil's a shade up-market.' He took a pad and a Mont Blanc ballpoint from his pocket. 'Birthday present from my wife,' he explained.

'Very nice.' Wrigley attacked her fudge cake. 'So was that,' she added. 'Now to business.' She checked that the booth behind her was still empty and that nobody else was within earshot.

'Your subject is comfortably off,' she began. 'His salary goes in every month, like anyone else, and it is his principal source of income. However, it is not the only one. There are small payments made to him every six months; I've checked them back and found that they are dividends paid through a blind trust, which looks after his private shareholdings and any other investments.'

'That's standard practice for… people in his position.'

'Yes, dear, I know. I administer several of them. There's nothing out of the ordinary in that at all. However, he has other income which is not quite so orthodox. He receives monthly payments of two and a half thousand pounds, transferred from an account held in the Dundee branch of my own bank. I traced that back also; what I found might interest you. It is the working account of a discretionary trust set up more than fifty years ago to benefit members of the Groves family.'

'Who the hell are the Groves family?'

'They own a large construction company in Dundee. The trust was established by Herbert Groves senior, and his heirs and successors have benefited from it ever since.'

'He's getting thirty grand a year from a builder?'

'No,' Wrigley exclaimed. 'The trust exists entirety separately from the company. It is not required to declare its beneficiaries, other than to the Inland Revenue, and before you ask, your subject is not evading any taxes.' She finished her cake, and then eyed McIlhenney's, which was untouched; he pushed it across to her.

'I've also checked the register of MSPs' interests,' she told him. 'Your subject declares among his assets a shareholding in Herbert Groves Construction, plc, and in a number of quoted companies. He doesn't declare the trust income, because he doesn't have to: it isn't remunerated employment.'

She ate the second piece of fudge cake, slowly and with relish. 'There,' she announced, when she was finished, with undisguised self-satisfaction all over her face. 'The people who set you on this errand will be happy. You can go back to them and report that while the man appears to have a background which is at odds with his,' she glanced over her shoulder again, 'political philosophy, he is, legally, squeaky clean.'