Hour Of Darkness Read online

‘Chief Constable,’ I said, ‘I’m told that you rang me. First McGuire, now you. Can’t you people leave me alone?’

  ‘You’re a hard habit to break,’ she laughed, ‘but it’s necessary. Mario told me that he’d been in touch with you about the Bella Watson murder. This is a completely different matter.’

  ‘Formal or informal?’

  ‘Let’s begin with informal, and take it from there. Imagine the shit hitting a giant wind turbine.’

  ‘That would spread pretty far,’ I conceded. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘I’ve got a missing officer, and his wife is nowhere to be found either. A bloodstained hand towel was found at their home, and forensics have established that it’s hers . . . the blood, that is.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Have they been missing? Possibly as much as forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Is their car gone?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie replied, ‘and the duvet from their bed. The house was tidy, no signs of a disturbance, but their bedroom was in a mess, as if someone had packed and got out of there in a hurry.’

  ‘How do you know they used a duvet? They might have slept under a sheet in the summer.’

  ‘We found a cover in the tumble dryer. It’s a fair assumption.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ I admitted, ‘but all you’ve told me so far is that a couple have run off. How much blood was on the towel? Was it just a pinprick or was it a whole armful, to quote Tony Hancock?’

  ‘No, it was less than that. There was a little more in the kitchen.’

  ‘Come on now,’ I said. ‘She might have been chopping onions and cut a finger; we’ve all done something like that. She might have had a nosebleed. It might be completely unconnected with their disappearance, yet clearly you’re pressing the panic button. They could just have done a runner from a crisis situation; unmanageable debt, for example.’

  ‘They’ve abandoned two children, Bob,’ Steele told me. ‘They were left with her mother, like, just left with her. There was no contact, no nothing. The woman is frantic.’

  ‘Okay, I’m convinced,’ I conceded. ‘Something’s up. Now are you going to tell me who it is? I doubt that it’s a rank and file officer, or you wouldn’t have your knickers in such a twist.’

  ‘Would you like to take a guess?’ she asked.

  ‘Aw, come on, Maggie! No party games.’

  ‘I’m serious. You’ve got the best instincts in the force. I’d like to know which of my senior officers you think is capable of going off the rails.’

  ‘If you must,’ I sighed. ‘Well, leaving you out of it, and also big McGuire, and taking a broad view . . .’

  I paused, considering the possibilities. ‘George Regan’s a sound bloke, but his wife has never got over losing their son, and neither has George, completely. She’s borderline crazy, so is it possible that she’s talked him into a suicide pact? But what am I talking about? You mentioned children, plural. George junior was an only.

  ‘Of course,’ I exclaimed, as the answer hit me between the eyes, ‘there’s only one obvious candidate: a man with a history of depression, alcohol abuse, and as volatile as they come. It’s David Mackenzie, isn’t it? The guy I plucked from Strathclyde, without ever realising that his colleagues through here were lining up to wave him goodbye.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’

  ‘Has he been under stress lately?’

  ‘Self-inflicted, but yes. He’s had trouble settling into Neil’s old job, and he had to be more or less reprimanded at the weekend. Now Mario and I are blaming ourselves for putting him there.’

  ‘Then stop bloody blaming yourselves,’ I retorted. ‘Blame me for making him your problem in the first place; I could have got rid of him, but my sheer stubborn pride wouldn’t let me. What are you doing about the situation?’

  ‘We’re treating it as a suspicious incident,’ Maggie replied, ‘but keeping it confidential. We’re not making any public statements or appeals, not until Thursday at the earliest. Ray Wilding’s the investigating officer, working alone. Because of something that was found on Mackenzie’s computer, he’s looking at ferry terminals.’

  ‘All of them?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘We’ll have to. A computer check by all the major companies on bookings might lead us to him, but I’m not holding out any great hope. The security on outward Channel and North Sea crossings is a long way from perfect. In practice, you can book under an assumed name, without giving a vehicle registration. They, or he, if our worst fears are realised, could be out of the country already. They could be anywhere by now.’

  ‘If.’

  ‘Everything’s “if” just now, Bob. If we can’t find Mackenzie’s details or registration number on the ferry companies’ lists, Wilding’s plan is to ask forces at each terminal to look at CCTV, without knowing they’re searching for a cop. That’s where I’d like your help.’

  ‘You’re wondering if he might have gone north, to the islands, rather than south, to Europe?’

  ‘Either that or to Ireland,’ she said. ‘There’s a route from Troon to Larne on your patch as well as all the CalMac ferries and lots of smaller ones. There are as many ferry routes within Scotland as there are to foreign countries from the entire United Kingdom.’

  ‘I’ll put people on it.’ Two names came to me, a matched pair. ‘In fact, I’ll put my best on it. Tell Ray Wilding that somebody will be in touch. But there’s one thing to consider, Maggie: this is David’s old patch. I hear what you’re saying about confidentiality, but people here will have known him and it might help if I share the name. Don’t worry, I can trust the officers I plan on using to be discreet.’

  ‘Whatever you think best.’ I heard the worry in her voice, and sympathised. Every conscientious officer will fret about the job from time to time, but once you reach the chief constable’s office it goes to a whole different level.

  ‘Thanks, Bob,’ she continued. ‘Us cops, we’re just ordinary people with a warrant card, so I’m still hoping that the pair of them will turn up with their tails between their legs and full of apologies, but we have to picture the worst, then act as if it’s happened.’

  ‘I know. The bugger is, it usually has. Anyway,’ I told her, ‘this is my day for doing you good turns. I’d like you to pass something on to Mario for me. Tell him that I’ve spoken to Bella Watson’s landlord, and he’s put a quite unexpected name in the frame, one that he will know from the days when he was fresh out of uniform . . . if he can remember that far back.’

  I was frowning as I hung up, then walked the short distance to Sandra Bulloch’s office.

  ‘I want you to give someone a message from me,’ I told her, ‘but before you do, I’d like you to call Strathclyde University. Have them find Mr Jackson and ask him to call me back. They can tell him that I want to consult him professionally.’

  I smiled to myself. ‘Didn’t I just tell him that we’d work together some day?’

  Twenty-Five

  ‘Peter Hastings McGrew,’ Sammy Pye repeated, his eyes on the image on his computer screen, through its video call facility. ‘Should I know him?’

  ‘No,’ Mario McGuire replied, ‘that I wouldn’t expect. Does his father’s name, Perry Holmes, ring any bells with you?’

  ‘One or two wee ones. I’ve heard it mentioned, but only by old-timers reminiscing.’

  ‘Thanks, Inspector,’ the ACC growled. ‘He was still around when I joined CID. I’d suggest that you read up about him if you want to understand how his son might possibly relate to the Bella Watson inquiry. One of our former colleagues, a man called Tommy Partridge, wrote a book about him after he retired. That’s as good a source document as any. Tommy spent his career chasing Holmes but never came close to nailing him. The book was only published after Perry died and couldn’t sue anyone for defamation. Big Xavi Aislado, the owner of the Saltire newspaper, helped him write it.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can download it,’ the DI promised.

  ‘You can try, but you might
not find an e-book version. While you’re at it, there’s something else you should follow up, something that had completely slipped my mind. Bella Watson had a grandchild.’

  ‘What?’ Pye exclaimed. ‘How? Whose?’

  ‘When Bob Skinner and I attended Marlon Watson’s funeral,’ McGuire replied, ‘a girl turned up that we’d known nothing about. She was the dead man’s bird, and she was noticeably in the family way, at least seven months gone. I remember that she was really upset, and that Bella took her away in the funeral car, although the kid had come with her pals.

  ‘Bob got talking to her. He asked what her name was, and when she told him, it stuck in my mind, ’cos she was named after a pop singer, Lulu; that’s all though, I’m buggered if I can remember her second name. I never heard of her again, but the child must be eighteen by now, assuming he or she arrived safely. It shouldn’t be too difficult to trace.’

  ‘We’ll get on to it,’ the DI promised. ‘By the way, I’ve located its grandfather, Bella’s ex-husband, but only after a fashion.’

  ‘Clark Watson?’

  ‘Yeah. He died two years ago, in Worthing, England. I’ve spoken to his widow, but she wasn’t any help. She told me that Clark never spoke about his first family. The subject was off limits.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. I remember Bob Skinner talking to him as well at the son’s funeral, but being just a sprog DC then, I stood well back, being respectful and all, so I never heard what was said. Focus on the grandchild, Sammy. He or she, whatever, might be in Edinburgh, but he could be anywhere, in Australia even, for all we know.’

  ‘Okay, sir. I’ll keep Mr Mackenzie up to speed with anything we do turn up.’

  Pye saw the on-screen McGuire shake his head. ‘No. You’ll keep DCS Chambers in touch. Detective Superintendent Mackenzie is . . . non-operational, at the moment; he’s taking some leave. Okay, Sam, so long. Give Ruth my best.’

  ‘Non-operational?’ Sauce Haddock exclaimed. He had been sitting to the right of Pye’s desk, out of range of the built-in camera. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine, but from the look on the ACC’s face it doesn’t mean he’s just having an ordinary sickie. I’m sure he got his arse kicked for jumping into our media briefing last week, but I wouldn’t have thought it would have gone any further than that. If it has, fuck him; the guy was trying to use you and me as stepping stones. I don’t know about you, Sauce, but I’m not having anybody’s footprints on my shoulders.’

  ‘No, me neither,’ the DS agreed, ‘but . . . I don’t know, there’s something up. I called Ray Wilding, up in Gayfield, about a golf tie we have to play and got Mavis McDougall instead. She told me that Ray’s out of touch, working on an investigation. When I asked her what it was, she got very frosty, as our Mavis can, and told me I didn’t need to know. My take on that was that she doesn’t know either. Maybe it’s secret squirrel stuff and Mackenzie’s heading it up.’

  ‘If it is,’ Pye snorted, ‘he’ll be loving it. I hope it keeps him busy for a while. By the way, did you get anything more from Karen? Like who sent those cards?’

  ‘Yes, I did. She’s sent us a report; the intranet was down when she finished it last night, so she printed it out and had it delivered. I’ve just read it.’

  ‘What does it say?

  ‘Plenty,’ Haddock declared. ‘Karen’s established that Bella Watson’s mother had a sister, who was married to a man called Coulter. She had a daughter, a year or two older than Bella, and her name was Susan. Mr Coulter died late in the war, in Belgium, probably in the Battle of the Bulge, given the date.

  ‘She’s a class act, is Karen; I’d never have thought to do this, but she got on to the Registrar General’s office. The census records for nineteen fifty-one won’t go online for another forty years, but she was able to establish that Susan and her mother were living with the Watsons when it was taken, so the two girls were close, geographically and, it seems, personally.

  ‘This Susan Coulter had a daughter, also named Susan, in nineteen sixty, when she was sixteen. The birth certificate shows the father as Victor Hart, birthplace Calgary, Canada, but he doesn’t figure anywhere else in the story, nor does his name. Susan the second married a man named Eoin Riley in nineteen eighty-eight, in Edinburgh.

  ‘A year later she had a daughter, named Victoria, and a year after that she and her husband were killed in a car crash on the coast road from Musselburgh to Prestonpans. Two years ago, Victoria gave birth to a daughter, Susan the third. The father’s name is Patrick Booth, aged twenty-nine.’

  Pye leaned back in his chair, beaming. ‘Well done, Karen,’ he murmured.

  ‘Indeed. Her report says that Mrs McConnochie, her star witness, didn’t fancy the look of Mr Booth. I’ve just run his name through the Police National Computer; it backs up Mrs McC’s judgement. Booth has a record for housebreaking that goes back to when he was thirteen. He’s also got a string of assault convictions, one of them serious; that got him three years, when he was twenty-three. I would say that makes him a person of interest, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I would. Let’s lift him and squeeze him; we’ll see what pops out.’

  ‘What about the grandchild,’ the DS asked, ‘and what about this man McGrew, that the ACC was on about?’

  ‘I don’t know what either might mean, not yet. You put DC Wright on tracing this Lulu and her kid, then dig out an address for Patrick Booth. While you’re doing that, I’ll get Googling and see what I can find out about this bloke Perry Holmes. From the way the ACC looked when he talked about him, he must have been something else.’

  Haddock stepped back into the CID suite. There were two detective constables on shift, but one of them was engaged, interviewing the driver of a stolen car who had been arrested in Constitution Street the night before.

  ‘Jackie,’ he called out to the spare DC. She was the newest recruit to the squad, and had played no part in the hunt for Cramond Island woman’s identity, and her killer. ‘A word please.’

  She looked up, eagerness in her eyes, her hair sparkling in a shaft of sunlight that came through the office window and fell across her desk.

  ‘I need you to trace a couple of missing persons,’ he said, and saw her enthusiasm fade. ‘I only have a single forename,’ he added, ‘and no surname, but we need them found. It has to do with the Watson investigation.’

  She beamed, and her enthusiasm returned.

  Twenty-Six

  ‘Is that DI Ray Wilding?’ a woman asked, and even with only five contralto words in his ear, he knew that she was a Glaswegian.

  ‘The same,’ he replied, curious.

  ‘This is DI Charlotte Mann, Strathclyde CID. My big boss, as in the chief, told me to call you . . . or rather his exec just told me, and that’s as good as. Apparently you’ve got an all points out for somebody, only it’s secret. The way he put it, via Sandra Bulloch, was that it’s as sensitive as a haemophiliac wi’ haemorrhoids. My DS and I are to give you any help you need on our patch.’

  ‘Ah, thanks, Charlotte,’ Wilding said. ‘I’ve been expecting to hear from someone, but not this quick. Our head of CID’s only just off the phone to tell me you’d been brought in.’

  ‘Right. Now first things first; I answer to Lottie, not Charlotte. So, what do you need from us?’

  ‘I’d like you to find him for us,’ he responded, ‘if he’s in your part of the world. He, and his wife, have been missing for two days, and there are possible signs of violence in their house. We have reason to be looking at ferry terminals, but none of the carriers have a record of a booking by our man, or of his registration number. We also know that he hasn’t used his bank card or a credit card to book a crossing.’

  ‘None of that means he hasn’t been on one,’ Mann pointed out.

  ‘Granted; he could have turned up at any port and paid cash. We know that on Sunday evening he withdrew over two grand from his bank account and credit cards, at various terminals in Edinburgh, and that
he used one to fill his tank up at a wee garage on the south side of the city.’

  ‘But those are the only transactions?’

  ‘That’s right. There’s been no card activity since then. Also his car’s a Honda CRV hybrid; that means that one tankful could get him to just about any port in Britain. Obviously there’s a stop-on-sight order out on the vehicle nationwide. Maybe that’ll be enough, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky.’

  ‘Does he have any other cards?’ she asked.

  ‘The wife has, but it hasn’t been used.’

  ‘Are all his blocked?’

  ‘Of course they are,’ Wilding said, his tone a little peevish, ‘as of an hour ago.’

  ‘All right, all right, keep your hair on,’ she laughed, ‘that’s assuming you’re not a baldy. I’m only establishing known facts. So, what you’re telling me is that you suspect that this guy’s killed his wife, put her body in the car and fucked off into the wide blue yonder, maybe using a ferry crossing.’

  ‘That’s one scenario, yes.’

  ‘Right. Obvious question: what makes it so fucking sensitive, and why haven’t you got the guy’s name and face on every front page and TV screen in Scotland?’

  He told her. ‘My chief constable’s given me authority to disclose that name to you two, and only you. She says that Mr Skinner’s vouched for your discretion, personally.’

  Her silence lasted for almost half a minute, but Wilding left it uninterrupted.

  ‘Okay,’ Mann said when she had absorbed his news. ‘I’m with you; it’s a CCTV job down at Troon to check whether he’s off to Ireland. Fucking magic! Exactly how I like to spend my Tuesdays. But no worries, Ray, DS Provan and I will do that for you, and not a cheep to anyone, like you say. Give me the registration.’

  She noted it down and hung up, then looked across her desk at the shabby, grey-haired, fifty-something figure who sat facing her. ‘It’s a fuckin’ cop, innit?’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes, it is. And not any old fucking cop either. Did you ever work with Bandit Mackenzie?’