Hour Of Darkness (15 page)

Twenty-Nine

‘What’s going to happen to the wee girl?’ Cheeky’s expression was as serious as Sauce had ever known it. In fact he struggled to recall the last time he had seen her frown.

‘That’s a good question,’ he admitted, pausing his forkful of coiled spaghetti halfway to his mouth. ‘Daddy shot Mummy, so he’s not going to be around to bring her up.’

‘Didn’t you say she has a granny?’

‘No, I said great-granny. They traced her this afternoon. She’s seventy, and she has arthritis, so she’s not going to be any help.’

‘They?’ she repeated. ‘Who are they? Why not you and Sammy?’

‘The head of CID says that we shouldn’t investigate the shooting. We were witnesses to the crime, so she wants an objective SIO. Jack McGurk’s heading it up, with Karen Neville.’

‘Have they got anywhere?’

‘A traffic warden reported Booth’s car, parked on a yellow line, just outside Waverley Station.’ His face twisted into something that might have been a smile, had it been a little less vicious. ‘You might say that was a wee bit of a clue, the first, as it happens. The second was when he used his credit card to buy a rail ticket to London.’

‘Do you know which train he got?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘It wouldn’t even matter if he gets off at an earlier station. He’ll leave the platform in handcuffs . . . and that’s if he behaves himself. The transport cops are waiting for him at every stop, with armed support.’

‘You sound as if you’d like them to shoot him, Sauce. That’s not like you.’

‘It wouldn’t bother me one bit if they did,’ he confessed.

‘Why did he kill the girl? Was it just because she had let you two in?’

‘I don’t think he meant to kill her.’

‘Then . . .’ she stopped, and that rare frown returned. ‘Was he shooting at you?’

‘Nah,’ he said, ‘he was probably just firing wild, trying to scare us. That’s what his defence QC will say, I’m sure.’

She reached across the table and turned his face up towards hers, forcing eye contact. ‘I don’t believe that.’

‘Lucky for him you can’t be on the jury, then.’

‘Sauce, he tried to shoot you, didn’t he, but he killed the girl instead. That’s what happened, isn’t it?’

‘It all went off very fast,’ he murmured. ‘Although it didn’t seem that way at the time; the after-effects of a kick in the balls stay with you for a long time.’

‘And now you’re all twisted up because the woman got what was meant for you. I know it, love. I can tell.’

‘Not just that.’ He shook his head. ‘I hit him with my baton as he was trying to aim. I’m chewed up by the thought that if I hadn’t, Vicky might still be alive.’

‘And you might not.’ She squeezed his chin, hard. ‘Now you listen to me, Harold Haddock. That girl lived behind that steel door. She knew why it was there and she knew exactly what was going out through the letterbox. She lived with a dangerous man, she chose his lifestyle and she spent the money it brought in. You live by it, you die by it. Trust me, I’m an authority on the subject; look at my family background. My mother’s a fucking thief, my Aunt Goldie’s a monster, and my grandfather was Dundee’s answer to the Krays, with a wee bit more menace about him than them, so they say.

‘I could have been that girl Vicky, if Grandpa hadn’t kept me out of the life. If I sound hard it’s because it’s in my genes, but if it takes a dead slut to bring you home alive, that’s fine by me.’

‘There’s still a kid left with no parents,’ he whispered.

‘She’ll be better off without them,’ Cheeky retorted. She flashed a small smile his way. ‘Maybe we could adopt her.’

Sauce winced. ‘We may have to, if we want kids. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at my baw-bag yet.’

‘Oh, you poor love.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle with you.’

‘It’ll still be like juggling hand grenades.’ He stopped and his expression changed as a recollection came to him.

‘Your grandpa,’ he said. ‘Maybe next time you speak to him you might ask him whether, in that other former life of his, the one we don’t usually talk about, he ever had dealings with a man called Perry Holmes. If he did, it would be useful to know whether he ever met Holmes’s son. He uses his mother’s name; he’s known as Hastie McGrew.’

She rose from the table. ‘I’ll ask him now. You go and switch on the telly, and I’ll call him from the bedroom.’

‘There’s no rush,’ he insisted.

‘Rubbish. You’ve never asked me to get anything from Grandpa before. It must be important.’ She headed for the door.

Sauce polished off the last of his pasta, then cleared the table, loading the used crockery and forks into the dishwasher. He had just switched on
EastEnders
, when Cheeky came back into the room, phone in hand.

‘He wants to talk to you,’ she said, holding out the handset. ‘Grandpa never asks for anything either, so it must be important.’ She saw his hesitancy. ‘Please, love.’

Unsmiling, he took the phone from her, and muted the television sound. ‘Mr McCullough.’ He felt a shiver run through him. He had never spoken to his partner’s grandfather before, but he might have been regarded as an expert on him, since he had read almost every word that had ever been written about him, in the media and on police intelligence files.

He knew that the man on the other end of the line was seen by many as the most influential person in his home city of Dundee, and by most of those who had known him in his younger days, as its most dangerous.

‘Sauce, is it,’ he asked, ‘or do you prefer Harold? My name’s Cameron, by the way. Only people who work for me call me Mr McCullough, and I don’t expect you to be calling me Grandpa.’

‘Sauce will be fine. I rarely get anything else these days.’

‘First off,’ Cheeky’s grandfather began, ‘it’s good to be talking to you at last, although I understand why we haven’t. Given what people say about me, it’s a brave thing for someone in your job to have taken up with our lass, and I admire your for it.’

‘I love her, Cameron, simple as that.’

‘I know that, and I can see that you’re making her happy.’ Sauce heard the unspoken words,
Just as well for you
.

‘That works both ways,’ he replied.

‘Good, good. Now, you asked her to ask me about Perry Holmes and his boy.’ McCullough paused, as if words were being chosen carefully. ‘Without going into detail about how we came across each other, yes, I did know Perry. He was what you might call a man of respect. Hugely intelligent and successful in everything he did; his legitimate business empire is still there, run by trustees on behalf of his son and daughter. I’m sure the police file on him is about a foot thick and that it’s still stored in a Black Museum somewhere.’

‘It still exists,’ Sauce confirmed. ‘There’s a book about him too, written by one of our guys after he retired.’

‘I’ve read it,’ Grandpa said. ‘The author didn’t know all the story. Perry only ever made one mistake, and that was to be excessively loyal to his brother. He gave that head-banger Al far too much rope. The man was a liability, an animal, and the things he did got both of them killed eventually, although it took Perry a lot longer to die than it took the brother.

‘It was widely assumed, and maybe still is, that when Perry was crippled, his criminal side came to an end, but in fact that wasn’t the case.

‘He never married the mother of his two kids, so nobody knew about Hastie. When his father got shot he came out of the army, and simply replaced his Uncle Al. He’d be about twenty-five when he came to see me in Dundee about a business deal that Perry and I had.

‘He was a very formidable lad, although he didn’t act hard. He’d his dad’s brains, and as time proved, some of his uncle’s tendencies, but because he was bright he was far more dangerous than Al ever was. I’d tell nobody but you this, but only two men have ever put a chill into me, and Hastie McGrew is one of them.’

‘Who’s the other, as a matter of interest?’ Sauce asked.

‘Somebody you know,’ Cameron McCullough replied, ‘the man who’s right at the top of your game now, in fact.

‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘young Hastie ran the show for his old man, while the whole word thought he was just his nurse, until their luck ran out. Perry finally used up his extension, and Hastie was put away for killing two guys. His score was actually a lot higher than that, and I’m not talking about his army days.’

‘I see.’

‘So do I. The fact that you’re asking me about him tells me that he must be out. He’ll be due, given that it all happened almost twenty years ago. Let’s see, he must be pushing fifty by now. Has his name come up in this high-profile investigation you’re on?’

‘Possibly,’ Sauce conceded.

‘Then take him very seriously.’

‘We’ve got another name in the frame already, though.’

‘Yes, Cheeky tells me that you had a close call with an idiot today. It’s as well it wasn’t Hastie. He never made mistakes. What makes you so sure the other one might be the right guy?’ McCullough laughed, suddenly. ‘Listen to me, asking a cop about a case. Forget it, son.’

‘It’s okay. I can tell you we found some stuff of the dead woman’s in his flat, a box of jewellery. That, and traces of Class A drugs in the toilet bowl and around the place.’

‘Was he a user or a dealer?’

‘Oh, a dealer, definitely.’

‘And the stuff you found, the jewels, was it valuable?’

‘Mmm. Moderately so; four figures we reckoned, but well short of the five.’

‘In that case are you really sure you’re after the right man? Why would a drug dealer murder a woman just to steal a few baubles?’

Hell, that’s a good question
, Sauce thought, but he refrained from answering it.

‘I’ll tell you, lad,’ Cheeky’s grandfather said, ‘. . . and this is not me asking an indirect question, mind, because I really don’t want to know . . . if this dead woman had any quarrel with Perry Holmes in the past, then don’t rule out Hastie.’

Thirty

‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Dan,’ Max Allan told his visitor. ‘You’re the first of my old colleagues to look me up since I retired. But how did you know where to find me?’

Provan beamed up at the former assistant chief constable. ‘For fuck’s sake, Max,’ he laughed. ‘Everybody in the force knows you drink in a pub called the Hoolet’s Nest. Why should that change just because you’re no’ a polis any more?’

‘True enough. What are you for?’

‘I’ll have a bottle of Magner’s, and that’ll be me. I’ve upset too many uniforms in my time to take a chance.’

Allan nodded. ‘I know that for a fact. Christ, the number of complaints I had about that tongue you’ve got on you. I hear you’ve landed on your feet, though. I wondered how you and Skinner would get on. I knew he’d either take to you or you’d be out on your arse in thirty seconds. Your homespun charm seems to have worked, from what I’m told. You and Lottie are his star CID turn, so Bridie Gorman said last week.’

He ordered Provan’s cider, then glanced around the small saloon. ‘You know why I like it here?’ he asked. ‘It’s the most anonymous pub I know. The signs outside say “Barnhill Tavern”, but nobody calls it that, ever. So if anyone wants to come looking for me, searching for the Hoolet’s, they’re going to have a hell of a job finding me, unless they’re local . . . and if they are, I’ll see them before they see me. So, like I asked you earlier, how come you did? You’re from Cambuslang.’

‘I’m also a fuckin’ detective,’ the little sergeant retorted. ‘I phoned your house before I left home. Your wife told me where you were and how to find it.’

‘So much for security,’ the retired ACC sighed. ‘Now, what do you want?’

Provan feigned outrage. ‘Why should I want anything? You and I go back over thirty years. You were my first sergeant in uniform.’

Allan laughed. ‘And some impression I must have made on you. Look at you now. Do you practise being scruffy, Dan?’

‘I don’t have a wife to impress any more, Max. Not that I ever did impress her; she buggered off eight years ago, remember? Apart from that, though, yes I do. You were in uniform too long, or you wouldnae have to ask me. What’s scruffy in the office is standard dress code in some of the places I have to go. I adapt it too. Skinner thinks I’m a Celtic supporter because I was wearing a shamrock lapel badge the first time we met. What he doesnae know is that I’ve got a Rangers badge as well that I wear when it’s called for.’

He winked. ‘You’re right, by the way. Lottie and me, we do seem to be teacher’s pets right now. He sent us off on a secret mission this afternoon. To come clean, that’s why I’m here . . . not that it’s no’ nice to see you enjoying your happy retirement, mind.’

‘So what’s the secret?’

Provan glanced around the bar, checking that there was nobody within hearing distance. ‘It’s very secret,’ he said, ‘so anything I say’s between us, kapisch?’

Allan nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘One of our professional colleagues has done a runner,’ Provan continued.

‘I see. And what district would this officer belong to? He’s one of our own, I’m assuming, a Strathclyde officer . . . and a man.’

‘No, he’s Edinburgh . . . but it is a he.’

‘So why are you in on the act? And why’s Bob, for that matter?’

‘Because he used to be one of ours: Bandit Mackenzie.’

Allan stared at him and his eyebrows rose. ‘Indeed!’ he murmured. ‘No wonder the third floor’s in a panic. What do you need from me?’

‘Anything you can tell me about him that might give us a pointer to where he might run to. The investigation’s bein’ coordinated by a DI in Edinburgh, and he’s got every force in the country with a coastline checking ferry terminals. They’ve been playing their cards close, but I’m guessing they found a ferry website open on his computer.

‘If that’s right he didnae go out of Troon, that I know for certain, having spent the afternoon reviewing tapes down there. When I phoned the guy Wilding, he told me that there wis no advance booking, but there had been a possible sighting today in Hull, bound for Esbjerg in Denmark, right car, right colour, but a dirty number plate that couldn’t be read on the CCTV. They won’t know for sure till it gets there.’

‘He never worked directly under me,’ the veteran said, ‘but there’s one thing I remember about David Mackenzie, wherever he goes, he won’t be able to speak the local lingo. I remember he applied for a secondment to Interpol, when he was a detective sergeant, but got knocked back because he didn’t have a second language.’ He took a mouthful from his pint glass. ‘But you don’t think he is on a ferry, do you, Danny?’

‘I’m no’ sure,’ he confessed. ‘Skinner, though, he’s been talking to a psychobabbler; he didn’t tell us who, but he seemed to rate him. His “expert” view was that he’d be more likely to run to somewhere closer to home, somewhere in his own comfort zone. Personally, I think profiling’s all shite, but I’m just a common foot soldier.’

‘That’ll be right,’ Allan scoffed. ‘You’re an anti-authoritarian little sod but there’s nothing common about you, and there isn’t a single idea you’d dismiss out of hand.’

‘Maybe not,’ Provan sniggered. ‘I just don’t like these boys coming out of university and spouting wisdom straight from their degree course. Just suppose the guy’s right, can you think of anywhere that Mackenzie might head for?’

He frowned. ‘There is someone you might talk to. I know a man, a priest in East Kilbride, and I’ve heard it said that he took the young David Mackenzie under his wing. He did that sort of thing. But not in the way that makes the headlines these days.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Tom Donnelly: Father Thomas Donnelly. He’s quite a man; a pretty charismatic guy.’

‘And I’ll find him in East Kilbride, you say?’

‘No, not any more: priests retire at seventy now, and Tom’s a couple of years beyond that. The church owns some properties to house its own, and he lives in one of them, a nice wee cottage from the looks of the photo he sent me last year.’

‘Is he likely to know where Mackenzie might go in a personal crisis?’

‘It’s possible, that’s why I mentioned him. But the truth is, if he’s had some sort of a breakdown, if he’s not in his right mind, who knows where he’d go? I’m in your camp when it comes to psychology; I think it’s all crap too.’

‘We’ll probably check the priest out anyway. Where is this cottage?’

‘It’s in Tighnabruaich.’

‘Tighnabruaich! That’s away in the back of beyond. Do ye no’ have to get a plane to get there?’

‘That wouldn’t help; there isn’t an airfield for miles around. The only realistic way is by car. But don’t worry, you’ll do it in a day easily.’