Lethal Intent Read online

  For the first time Cable allowed himself something that resembled a smile. 'That might be a fantasy worth having, but I'd never seen her until I was hauled off the floor by your colleague. Where is he, incidentally? I'd like another talk with him.'

  'He's not taking part in this interview. Plus, if you have any sense, you will not want to see him again. He's still very upset about his jacket.'

  'That old rag?'

  'It's one of his best friends, I believe.'

  'Too bad he cut it, then.'

  'And when did he do that?'

  'When he produced the knife that he planted on me.'

  Mackenzie sighed. 'Mr Cable, we have three witnesses who saw you produce the knife and thrust it at my colleague. You know the scenario: we have Bell on videotape telling me what will happen if he calls you, then he does. You said earlier that you answered the call, but the fact is you didn't. It rang, you checked the number showing, and then you headed for the ladies' toilet'

  'Nonsense. I went to answer but I pushed the red button by mistake. Then I was attacked by your colleague, who knocked me down and dropped the knife by my side. Are my prints on it?'

  'No, because the handle is covered in a special tape that doesn't take prints.'

  'It's not my knife, then. I don't carry knives to clubs. Do I look like that sort of guy? I have told you, and you've had time to check it out, I am a salesman with a BMW dealership in London. I had annual holidays to use up and I decided to come to Edinburgh.'

  'You were due back at work today.'

  Cable nodded. 'But I'm here, thanks to you.'

  'You mean you were going to the showroom straight from the nightclub?' MacDougall exclaimed. 'Sure it's only about four hundred miles; no time at all in a Beamer, I suppose.'

  'Where have you been living on your holiday?' Mackenzie asked.

  'The Travel Inn, at Haymarket: you found my room key-card among my effects.'

  'So you hadn't checked out?'

  'No, I kept my booking open for another week.'

  'So you weren't going back?'

  'I kept my options open. I told you, I have a girlfriend; I met her here, and I fancied spending another week with her.'

  'Ah, so if we go to the Travel Inn and wait for her she'll turn up there?'

  'I shouldn't think so, not if she saw what happened to me. It probably scared the poor kid off.'

  'But she was in the toilets. You were waiting for her.'

  'She must have come out when my back was turned; before you went in there.'

  The drugs squad commander sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. 'It's lucky for you I've got a sense of humour,' he said. 'Mr Cable, this is what happened. You and your associate Mr Bell were pushing drugs through that club; Bell sold me drugs on two occasions believing me to be a punter. When he tried it again last night the whole transaction was filmed and he was arrested. Your job was to guard the door, preventing people from interrupting the transaction, and if necessary, to provide the muscle. How do you respond to that?'

  'I deny it. I do not know this man Bell. Let me ask you something. When have you ever seen us exchange a single word, or show any recognition of each other?'

  'Last night, when he called you on his mobile.'

  'Have you checked the ownership of the phone he used?'

  'No. Why should we?'

  'Because if you do, I think you'll find it belongs to me. I have two cell-phones, one for business, the other personal. My private phone was stolen the other night, in the club. I guess Bell must have taken it. I suggest to you that the call you saw him make was a simple bluff. He picked a number at random from my phonebook and called it.'

  Bandit Mackenzie laughed. 'You're good, Mr Cable, really good. You could sell me a car any time. I think we've both earned a break, don't you? Interview suspended at,' he checked his watch, 'ten fourteen a.m., to be resumed later today.' He reached over and switched off the tape-recorder on the table, then looked up, over Cable's shoulder, to the uniformed constable who stood impassively with his back to the door of the small, windowless interview room. 'Take the prisoner back to the cells, please, Barton, and bring along Mr Bell. Let's see how funny he is.' He looked back at Cable. 'Just so you know, you'll be appearing in the Sheriff Court tomorrow morning; you'll be formally remanded then.'

  The car salesman smiled again, and winked; the gesture was made grotesque by the puffiness around his eye. 'I wouldn't lay any bets on that, Chief Inspector, if I was you,' he said.

  Ten

  'When was he reported missing, sir?' Detective Constable Tarvil Singh's voice was flat and toneless as he asked the question. He looked as if he had just seen something that he could not bring himself to believe; in fact, that was the case.

  'Ten o'clock last night,' Detective Inspector Stevie Steele replied. 'He and his mates came up town to the Christmas fun-fair in the gardens, and they were all going for burgers afterwards. He was due home at eight; when he hadn't showed by quarter to nine, George and Jen started calling round the other lads' parents. When they got no joy, George called St Leonards, the divisional HQ for where they live, and then he called me.' He looked at the big DC, who seemed bulkier than ever in his white scene-of-crime tunic. 'When I told the chief super, she phoned round the other divisional commanders; just about every copper on duty in Edinburgh's been looking for the lad ever since.'

  'Have you let Ms Rose know that he's been found?'

  Steele frowned. 'That's no job for me, Tarvil. The chief superintendent will be gutted by this, like we all are. I'm sure that Detective Superintendent Chambers will tell her, but only after she's brought George Regan here and he's formalised the identification.'

  Singh looked past him, over his shoulder. 'I've got news for you, boss,' he murmured. 'Somebody's beaten her to it.'

  Steele turned and saw a car that had not been there before, parked beside the ambulance on the roadway near the railway line. He knew it well; as he looked at it, the driver's door opened and Chief Superintendent Margaret Rose, commander of Edinburgh's western police division, stepped out. She wore a heavy coat over her uniform, and her close-cut red hair was tucked neatly inside her cap. She walked across to the two detectives.

  'You sure?' she asked the DI, quietly.

  He nodded. 'I'm sorry, there's no doubt' He turned and looked over at a large tent that had been erected on the slope that ran sharply down from the western ramparts of Edinburgh Castle; Tarvil Singh had left them and was moving towards it, as if to stand guard. 'I've known wee George since he was eight or nine.' He smiled, sadly. 'Whenever the Regans had a party they'd a hell of a job getting him off to bed.'

  'How old is he now?'

  'He'd have been fourteen in February, poor wee guy.'

  'What happened?'

  'The doctor's still in there, but his provisional view, and mine when I saw the body, is that his neck's broken.'

  Rose looked up at the towering grey castle. 'Does that mean that he climbed up there and fell?'

  'Trying to scale the heights, you mean? It looks like it; a daft boy's trick. He'd have been game for it, that's for sure.' Steele shivered: the December morning was grey and cold, and he found himself wishing that he had brought his own overcoat. 'The body's virtually unmarked. There's some facial bruising, that looks like it was sustained when he hit the ground, but nothing more than that.'

  'But it was night-time when it happened, wasn't it?'

  'It's Christmastime, Mags. With all the decorations and stuff, this whole area's lit up like a football field.'

  'I suppose so. Has George been here yet?'

  Steele winced. 'No, not yet; Mary's bringing him… and I wish I didn't have to be here when he arrives.'

  'Not his wife, though?'

  'God forbid.'

  'He may not have the authority to do that. If it was my son…' She broke off. 'Who found him?' she asked.

  'He was spotted by somebody in Saltire Court,' said Steele. He pointed at the elegant office block that dominat
ed the far side of Castle Terrace. 'The body can't be seen from the path at all, or from the roadway, but a sharp-eyed worker on the top floor spotted it, took a closer look through a pair of binoculars, and raised the alarm.'

  The sound of another approaching vehicle made them look towards the road. 'Oh dear,' Rose whispered. 'Jen is here after all.' The dead boy's mother sat in the back seat of Detective Superintendent Mary Chambers's car. As the two officers moved towards her, they saw on her face the same expression of disbelief that Singh had worn earlier.

  The inspector felt a fluttering in his stomach as Detective Sergeant George Regan stepped out on to the hard, rough road. The two friends met, and shook hands formally. 'Jen will stay in the car,' said the bereaved father. 'She wanted to come to the scene, and we didn't try to dissuade her.'

  'I'll sit with her,' said Rose, as Mary Chambers came round to join them, her plain square face ashen white.

  'Thank you, ma'am,' Regan replied. He drew himself up to his full height, gathering his dignity around him like a protective cloak. 'Let us suit up, Stevie, and then let me see him.'

  Steele waved to a crime-scene technician, who brought over two fresh white tunics. He waited in silence while Regan and Chambers put them on, then led the way up the steep slope.

  Eleven

  Like most people, Bob Skinner tolerated flying, regarding it as a twenty-first century necessity; he believed firmly that those who said they actually enjoyed being in a heavier-than-air machine thirty-five thousand feet above the ground were either liars or idiots.

  The part of the whole process that he disliked most was the pre-boarding wait in the departure lounge. The small airport that served Key West, where Sarah had dropped him fifteen minutes before, was reasonably comfortable, and the monitor screens told him that his aircraft was on the ground and was scheduled to leave on time, but still he fretted.

  He tried to read a book, a private-detective yarn called Alarm Call that he had brought with him from Scotland, but found that he could not give it the concentration it deserved. The small cafeteria was open: he bought himself coffee, and a bagel with cream cheese, but even as he chewed he found himself reaching unconsciously inside his jacket for the cell-phone which, on a whim, he had left at home, so that he could be truly out of contact to all except Neil McIlhenney, Trish, the children's nanny, and Aileen de Marco.

  He had given her his contact number because, he had told himself and her, he had promised to be there for her whenever she needed advice, but in truth, he wondered if his motive had been more personal. Whatever was in his head, and his heart, he felt an urgent need to speak to her, to make sure that she had kept the promise she had made to him the evening before.

  He gave in. He drained the coffee but left half of the bagel, then walked over to a payphone against the wall, and used a credit card to activate it. He punched in her number and waited. Lena McElhone answered. 'Justice Minister's office.'

  'Lena, it's Bob Skinner here. Can I speak to Aileen, or is she at lunch?'

  'She's in her office, Mr Skinner. Hold on.' He waited for a minute, watching the cost of the call tick higher and higher. 'I'm sorry,' said the private secretary, when finally she came back on line, 'Aileen's very busy and can't be disturbed.'

  He grunted in frustration. 'Okay. Tell her I'll call her from Miami once I get there.'

  'She expects to be busy all day, sir.'

  'She's not clearing her desk, is she?'

  'Pardon?'

  'Obviously not. Just give her a message, please: tell her I'm glad she's done the right thing, and that I'll be back in Scotland tomorrow morning. I'll call her then, and if her lunch-hour's free maybe she can keep it that way.'

  'I'll pass that on, sir. Goodbye.'

  Skinner pulled down the cradle, released it again, and dialled the secure Special Branch number. 'Neil,' he said, as his friend picked up the call. 'What's happening? How are the papers handling the terrorists?'

  'As you expected,' he replied. 'They're kicking the crap out of the PM and Murtagh. The Nats and the Tories are having a field day.'

  'It won't help the terrorists, though. They'll be touching down pretty soon not all that far from where I am right now. I don't fancy their chances of ever leaving.'

  'Are you bothered?'

  'About what happens to them? In truth, no, I'm not. But I assured Aileen de Marco that they'd be tried in Scotland. I was wrong, and she's been dropped in it. That's what annoys me.'

  'You'll both get over it.'

  'You sound harassed, Chief Inspector. What's been happening?'

  'Plenty, but I can't talk about much of it over the phone. I can tell you one thing, though. Bandit Mackenzie and Andy Martin were playing cowboys last night.'

  'Andy was involved?' Then, 'Tayside must be as boring as I told him it would be. Did they get a result?'

  'Big time. Bandit's been like a dog with two cocks all morning. He should enjoy it while he can, poor lad: he's about to be given a high-level vasectomy.' The DCC heard McIlhenney pause, as if someone had come into his office. 'Boss, I have to go. See you tomorrow morning.'

  Twelve

  The tent was still in place, although the body of George Regan junior, aged thirteen, had been removed to the mortuary in the High Street. The King's Stables Road entrance to Princes Street Gardens had been reopened, and a mobile investigation headquarters caravan, white and imposing, now stood where the cars and ambulances had been parked earlier.

  George Regan senior and his wife had gone, with the same composure and grace of bearing they had brought with them, to the unspoken relief of their colleagues. The sergeant had understood how difficult their task would be. The violent death of a stranger child always had a profound effect on those who had to investigate it; when the victim was known to them, inevitably it was even worse. George had realised also that he could not be a member of the team, and had made no such embarrassing request.

  'You never know what's in a person till you see them in a crisis,' Detective Superintendent Chambers said quietly, facing Stevie Steele across the small table in the mobile HQ. They had been joined there by Detective Chief Superintendent Dan Pringle, the ageing head of CID, and by Alan Royston, the force media-relations manager. There was a fifth person in the command van: Sir James Proud, the Chief Constable, had come to the scene; he sat next to Pringle, silent and solemn.

  'Or in yourself, till you experience one,' the DI added. 'Beneath all his normal banter and stuff, George is a bloke and a half

  'So let's find out how his son died,' the head of CID pronounced. 'But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll reach no conclusions until we have the post-mortem findings. That said, on the basis of what we've seen, provisionally it looks as if it was a straightforward mishap. Young boy out for adventure decides to climb the castle rock, slips and falls, breaks his neck.'

  'There were no other injuries on the body,' Steele pointed out. 'Nothing to indicate that he'd fallen.'

  'You could fall off a pavement and break your neck,' Pringle countered. 'You might not even have to fall. I heard of a case once where a man was waiting to cross a road and a bus drove past too close to the kerb. Its wing mirror hit the guy, killed him stone dead.'

  'It was after dark,' said Mary Chambers, 'and wee George was on an eight o'clock curfew. The other kids were all home on time. Yet he sneaked off on his own and tried to climb a cliff.'

  'That would be fairly typical George behaviour,' Steele told her. 'He was a lovely lad, but you'd have thought that mischief had been invented for him. And who says that he was on his own? Maybe they were all there. Maybe it was a dare that went wrong. Maybe the other kids panicked and legged it.'

  'That's a possibility,' she conceded.

  The Chief Constable leaned forward. 'I don't like to intervene in these situations,' he began, 'but we must interview these boys; quietly and discreetly, but we must do it. We need to eliminate… or confirm… the possibility that they were all part of this prank and have all been scared into sil
ence. If they haven't, then to complete the picture we need to find out if anyone else saw George junior, after they all went their separate ways.'

  'Very good sir,' said Chambers. 'DI Steele, DC Singh and I will get on to that straight away.'

  DCS Pringle grunted. 'Mary, big Tarvil on his own will scare the shite out of those kids just by looking at them. With George gone you'll be short-handed, so I've persuaded Maggie Rose to lend us her young protg, PC Haddock, for a while. He's inexperienced, but he's a smart kid, and he's maybe more user-friendly than DC Singh.'

  'Okay,' the superintendent conceded, 'but we'll need to get on with it. George Regan gave us the boys' names, and told us where to find them. Two of them are at Heriot's, and the other four are at Castlebrae, where George junior was. We'll try to interview them at school, but first we'll have to contact the parents, tell them what's happened and give them a chance to be present when we speak to their sons, or get their permission to do it with a teacher present. These are minors, so we'll have to ask the schools if they can lay on counselling for them afterwards.'

  She looked at Steele. 'You take young Haddock and handle the pair at Heriot's. I'll do the Castlebrae lot with Tarvil.'

  'What about the media?' asked Alan Royston. 'We'll have to make an announcement soon. I'd like you to take a press briefing. How about midday?'

  Chambers nodded. 'I'll do it, but not until two o'clock; give us a chance to speak to the boys first. Once we've done that I'll have a better idea of what I'm going to say.'

  Thirteen

  Bandit Mackenzie smiled. 'A good night's work, would you say, Mavis?'

  'And half the day as well,' the sergeant replied, drily. 'You might as well lock them up for the night and let us get home for some rest ourselves.'

  'You've got no stamina, MacDougall,' he taunted. 'I can go on for ever after I get a good result; there's no buzz like it.'