Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'Chances are you never will, Neil. Good night.'

Skinner replaced his bedside phone in its cradle, and picked up his book. He looked at the page, but the letters were blurred. The day was coming, he knew, when he was going to need help for night-time reading. But it was not his late-forties vision alone that made him unable to focus. At the back of his mind, a disconcerting scenario was taking shape.

He thought about it for a few minutes, then reached a decision. He climbed out of bed, picked up his personal directory from the dressing-table and, holding it directly under the light so that he could see clearly, looked through it until he found Amanda Dennis's mobile number.

She was fuzzy with sleep when she answered. 'Yes?' The word was slow and heavy.

'Amanda,' he snapped, urgently. 'It's Bob. I want you to pull Sean Green out of his waiter job, right away. I'm probably being alarmist, but he could be in danger.'

Andy Martin worked assiduously in his Dundee office for two hours. When he was finished he had read through all the papers in his in-tray, scribbling notes on those that required action on his part, and he had dictated six letters. Satisfied, he took the tray and his electronic notepad through to his secretary and left her to do her part.

Back in his office, he switched on the 'engaged' light above his door, hung his jacket over the back of his chair, settled down and switched on his laptop computer. He could have used the terminal on his desk, but that would have left a record of his activity, and that was something he did not want.

He waited for the machine to power up, then went on line, using his private account with AOL. Opening the powerful search engine, he entered three words, 'Herbert Groves Construction', then sat back, gazing at the screen, until a range of options appeared.

The firm's website was top of the list: he chose it and watched as the home page appeared, as fast as his computer would allow. It was a professional job, one befitting a major business, and it offered an extensive menu, offering history, services, projects completed, current projects, financial performance, employment opportunities and, finally, the element he had hoped to find, biographies. He selected it, and images of the company's senior executives appeared before him, with that of Brindsley Groves at the top. He clicked on the smiling face and waited.

A page of text assembled itself on his screen: the life story that he had hoped to find. He began to read, silently.

Brindsley Groves, BA, MBA, is chairman and managing director of Herbert Groves Construction. He is fifty-eight years old, and has been chief executive of the company for thirty-one years, since succeeding his father Herbert Groves II. He was elected chairman of the company on his father's death.

He was educated at Strathallan School, and at Aberdeen University, from which he graduated with honours in accountancy and economics at the age of twenty-one. Before taking up a position with the company, he studied for a further year at the University of York, obtaining a Master's degree in Business Administration. Under his guidance the company has risen to become Scotland's second largest construction group, with annual turnover in excess of?300 million. Mr Groves is a member of CBI Scotland, and of the Caledonian Home-builders Association. He is also a non-executive director of four other Scottish companies.

He is a keen sportsman, and represented Scotland at cycling. His other major interests are equestrianism, golf and horology. He is a member of the Antiquarian Horological Society.

Brindsley Groves has been married to the former Celia Greatorix for thirty-seven years. They have two children, Herbert Groves III, and Rowena Groves.

'He's been a busy guy,' Martin murmured to himself, then focused on the period of his life that interested him most.

In Edinburgh, Stevie Steele had one thing on his mind: the whereabouts of Chris Aikenhead. He had completed all but one of his list of informal interviews; the last, with Dan Pringle, he feared would be the most difficult. He had served under the outgoing head of CID at divisional level, and for all his acknowledged weaknesses, he had admired him as the type of detective that he hoped to be himself.

He knew that, like most detectives, Pringle hated offences against children more than anything else, and so he was not surprised that he had gone for Patsy Aikenhead in the interview room, given the evidence that he had had before him at the time.

He told him as much, as they sat in his drawing room.

Pringle exploded in his face. 'Are you digging that thing up again?' he shouted, his bushy moustache quivering. 'I'll tell you this once, Stevie, and once only. That bloody shambles had nothing to do with me. It was all that arrogant bastard McIlhenney's fault. He sent a uniformed officer to bring the Yasmin Khan woman to the office for her interview, rather than getting off his fat arse and going to talk to her on-site.'

Steele had experienced his former boss's temper before: he knew that the one thing he could not do was bend before it. 'That's not George Regan's recollection, sir. He told me, without even being directly asked, that the order to bring her in came from you.'

Pringle's eyes blazed. 'If George said that McIlhenney must have put him up to it.'

'If McIlhenney had done that, sir, then surely he'd have told me that story himself, but he didn't. The only thing he said to me that was critical of you in any way was that he thought you went too hard against the girl.'

'Maybe I did, son.' Steele was surprised by the concession. 'But there's one thing you and everybody else seems to have forgotten about her. That balls-up over the time didna' prove she was innocent, it just meant that the Spanish girl, Magda what's-her-name, could have done it too. Only she didn't, Stevie: Patsy Aikenhead was guilty. She did what she confessed to doing: she threw the kid into the cot in a temper, and the poor wee thing banged her head on the bars and died from it. I know that, I heard her say it, and for all her hysterics I bloody know she was telling me the truth!' He was breathing hard. 'Did you ask McIlhenney if he thought she was innocent?' he barked.

The inspector felt his own temper rise. 'It doesn't matter what McIlhenney thinks!' he barked back. 'It doesn't matter what you think. I haven't been asked to investigate the conduct of the Aikenhead case. I've been asked to find links between you, Neil and George because of what's happened to all your children. I've been asked to protect any other coppers' kids who might be at risk. So will you please drop the outrage and the protests and co-operate with me?'

It was as if Steele's sudden anger had blown out Pringle's fire. The older man seemed to sink into himself. 'She did it, Stevie, that's all,' he said, quietly, as he slumped into his armchair.

'Okay,' his colleague murmured as he sat opposite him. 'Okay. Now, can I get down to the things I need to ask you?'

'Aye, go on.'

'First, do you agree that there are no other possible links between the three of you? This is most important.'

'Yes, I agree. McIlhenney was on temporary secondment to my division. Maybe our paths crossed once or twice after that, I'm not sure, but certainly never with George involved.'

'Good. That's a weight off my mind. The other questions I want to ask you are about Chris Aikenhead. At any point in the investigation did you interview him?'

'No. He was away; it was only after we'd charged the girl that her solicitor got in touch with him and he came back. He came to see me then, but it was all wrapped up and the girl was on remand by that time. With hindsight, I shouldn't have let him anywhere near me, but he made such a fuss in the station, it was either that or have him arrested for breach of the peace.'