The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner) Page 7

  He felt the moment approaching. He was full of trepidation, unsure how to go on, until finally his expression betrayed him.

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there,’ she said. ‘Something I don’t know. Something that made you come here rather than phoning me.’

  Still he prevaricated. ‘Did Terry know about Griff?’ he asked her. ‘Did you tell him?’

  ‘Hell no!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why would I do that? He never told me when he was shagging that air hostess. He was out of my life. Look, Bob, between you and me, the first thing I did when the divorce went through was join an online dating site and get it all out of my system. Not for long though; having sex with strangers isn’t my thing. Griff’s different, though. He’s nice, he’s funny and I like him. So must you; after all he protected Alex from those intruders, and got himself cut in the process.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘I wish he was here now,’ she sighed, ‘but he’s gone to South Africa for a couple of weeks, to visit his sister, and his kids.’

  ‘No.’

  She stared at him, finally clear-eyed.

  ‘What do you mean, no? He left at the weekend.’

  Skinner stood abruptly. He walked out of the living room, and through to the kitchen. ‘Mrs McClair,’ he said, ‘I need you through here. But not Harry.’

  She followed him without a word. When they returned Noele was on her feet. ‘Bob, what’s up? Why are you really here? And why are you asking about Griff? Are you going to tell me he shot Terry?’

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘sit down again. Noele, I’m here because there were two bodies in the car you saw this morning.’ He faltered for a second or two, as his own emotions threatened to overcome him, but he carried on, albeit with a slight tremble in his voice. ‘The other one was that of Griff Montell.’

  For a second or two Noele McClair lost control of her bladder. She fell against her mother who eased her on to the sofa, with the good sense to remain silent. She stared up at Skinner, yet through him as if he was not there.

  ‘That’s not true,’ she protested, finally. ‘You’re mistaken. It was somebody else. Griff’s in South Africa, I tell you.’

  ‘Believe me,’ he told her with utter sincerity, ‘I wish that he was. I’ve known him for longer than you have, and I will never be able to describe to you or anyone else what it felt like to look into that car.’

  ‘No, but I think I can imagine. Bob . . .’ She fell silent, words beyond her.

  ‘I’m going to leave you now, Noele. Your mother will look after you, but if you want to talk to me later, I’m only a phone call away. In fact, if you need me to come back I’ll do that. For now, if you would like a sedative, or sleeping tablets, I can arrange for a police surgeon to issue a prescription and have them delivered to the door. Say the word.’

  ‘Why not, dear?’ her mother said. ‘It sounds like a good idea.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she replied, ‘but no. I need to keep a clear head for Harry. He’s got to be told before this becomes public knowledge, and that could be today.’ She looked up at Skinner. ‘You could do one thing for me, though; take him home with you, tell him he’s to have lunch with Seonaid; Mum or I will pick him up this afternoon. I need to get cleaned up and get my act together in general. When he comes back, I’ll be ready to tell him about his dad.’

  ‘I’ll do that with pleasure,’ he told her. ‘He can even have a hurl up the road in a police car. Wee boys love that.’

  She gave him a watery smile. ‘I don’t think I want to be in one, ever again. That’s me finished with the job. There’s one thing I know for certain; I will never be able again to walk into a violent crime scene without being taken back to this morning.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ he agreed. ‘But don’t be in a rush to hand your warrant card in. You’re best out of CID, sure, but I’m sure that the chief can arrange a transfer to a quiet posting in uniform. Let me talk to her, please. We both know she owes you one, and I won’t be slow to tell her.’

  ‘Okay, but don’t commit me to staying.’

  ‘Fine. Now, Mrs McClair, would you like to round up Harry and meet me outside.’

  He was waiting by the police car, on the point of calling Sarah to tell her that there would be one more for lunch, when his ringtone sounded. ‘Sauce,’ he barked as he took the call, ‘what is it now?’

  ‘Gaffer, can you come back into town? There’s something I need you to see.’

  ‘Eh? No fucking chance. If it’s urgent give me a WhatsApp video call and show me. Quick about it, though. I have a lunch guest to take home.’

  Nine

  ‘What did he say when he saw them on his phone?’ Mario McGuire asked. He was standing in the kitchen of Griff Montell’s home, while crime scene technicians worked in the other rooms.

  ‘It wasn’t repeatable, not with the SOCOs here,’ Sauce Haddock replied. ‘It was along the lines of him cursing himself long and loud for not taking Terry Coats’ story about the Krugerrand smuggling seriously, and not following it up with Montell after Coats mentioned his name as the pal who’d told him about the South African bullion robbery. He reckons that if he’d done that, or taken it to you, the whole thing would have been uncovered then and Coats and Griff would still be alive.’

  ‘Maybe so, maybe not,’ the DCC growled. ‘Has it occurred to him that if he had followed it up with Montell, he might have been the one dumped in the back of a car? No,’ he added quickly, ‘don’t answer that. It’s a stupid question; he thinks he’s bulletproof, even though he has a scar on his leg as evidence to the contrary.’

  ‘I’ve never heard about that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. Secret squirrel stuff; I got shot on the same operation myself, worse than him, but not at the same time.’

  ‘And they say this job isn’t dangerous.’

  ‘It isn’t, for nearly all of us,’ the DCC said. ‘There’s just the odd one that keeps on looking for it, or the unlucky ones like Stevie Steele. Did Bob say anything else, other than the self-recrimination?’

  Haddock nodded. ‘Yes, he said we should check with the National Lottery. He said it’s possible to buy Krugerrands on the bullion market, and he suggested that’s the sort of thing a rich South African might do. He told me that I should check all possible sources of Griff’s obvious wealth, before assuming he was bent.’ He grinned. ‘I said I didn’t need telling that.’

  ‘How many coins were in the box?’

  ‘I didn’t empty it out, but looking at the number in one stack, I reckon there are at least two hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Fuck me! That’s a quarter of a million in folding money. How much cash was in the envelope?’

  ‘Eighty-eight thousand and a few hundred; all in used notes.’

  ‘Lottery win, my arse. Go ahead and check it like Bob said, but I can tell you now that Inspector Montell did not win the jackpot. I’m equally certain that he didn’t have a rich uncle who snuffed it and left him loaded. We need to set you up with an interview with his twin sister. I’ll arrange that through Mary Chambers when I manage to speak to her. Her mobile’s going to voice mail. Alex Skinner needs to be interviewed as well,’ McGuire added. ‘Gently, mind, but we need to ask her to recall everything that he’s ever said to her. It might have a relevance that wasn’t apparent at the time.’

  ‘Agreed, sir,’ the DI acknowledged. ‘I’ll ask DCI Mann if she’ll take that on. They know each other. Alex acted for Lottie in a custody hearing a while back, when her husband tried to take her kid from her.’

  ‘I remember that one; he was another bent cop. Jesus, Sauce, I tell you I’m going to go through this force like an industrial strength laxative. We can’t keep having surprises like this.’

  I’m going to, Haddock thought, not the chief constable. He filed the remark in his memory bank as he continued. ‘There’s someone else who needs to be interviewed, boss; one that I am definitely going to do myself. Noele McClair.’ He explained Skinner’s discovery that she and
Montell had been in a relationship. ‘The clothing Tarvil and I found here, the personal effects: they’re hers.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘How many fucking worms are in this can? Sauce, sorry but you will not interview her, you’re too close. You take Alex, and have Mann and Cotter interview Noele. You know her, they don’t. They shouldn’t do it at her place either. They need to bring her into Fettes and do it in formal surroundings.’

  ‘If you say so sir, but why? This is Noele, we don’t need to play her by the book surely. She’s a victim by association.’

  ‘Maybe, but she’s also a person of interest, until I decide that she’s not. From what you’re saying, she’s been here, she shared Griff’s bed, she hung her dress in his wardrobe beside his designer gear. Has she ever been in his office? Did she know about the stash of gold and the cash? Most of all, did she know about that firearm you found? Take nothing for granted, Inspector, nothing at all.’ He stopped abruptly, then grinned, self-consciously. ‘Listen to me!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m sorry, Sauce. I know you don’t make assumptions as a rule, and I can’t really fault you for doing that with your DS. I’m as shocked by this thing as everybody else, but it’s no excuse for me to patronise one of my best detective officers.’

  The DI shrugged. ‘No worries, sir; you were right. I can’t be blinkered. I’ll do what you say.’

  ‘What about the pistol?’ the DCC asked.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Arthur Dorward about that,’ Haddock said. ‘They’ll test fire it and run a comparison through the database to see if it’s been used in any crimes. I suppose there’s a chance that Griff had a firearms certificate, and I’ll check that out, but something tells me I won’t get a result. That’ll raise another question. Where did he get it? All the weapons in the police armoury are checked in and out; I can’t believe it would be one of ours, although from what Tarvil said, I know that we do have that weapon in our stock.’

  ‘It could have been handed in during an amnesty. The last one was only a couple of years ago. It’s not impossible for an officer to have trousered a gun when nobody was looking and made the paperwork disappear.’

  ‘Not impossible, sir, but trousering a box of ammunition as well might have been more difficult. I found one in the safe; it wasn’t full. Neither was the magazine in the pistol. It holds fifteen rounds but there were only thirteen there. That worries me.’

  ‘Me too, but could it have been target practice?’ McGuire suggested.

  ‘I thought about that, but . . . if that’s what he was doing would he take only two shots?’

  ‘Good point. Let’s see what the database tells us. Meantime, is there anything else you can tell me? We’ve given the media the holding statement we agreed, but we need to go back to them before the day’s out. I’m thinking five o’clock. When I saw “we” I mean me. Assuming that I’ve contacted Spring Montell by then, I intend to announce the names.’

  Haddock nodded. ‘Do you want me there?’

  ‘The point of me doing it is to shield you; if you feel strongly you should be there that’s up to you, but if you are, you’ll have to field questions. It wouldn’t look good for the SIO to be hiding behind me. And if you don’t have any answers . . . well, that wouldn’t look good either.’

  ‘I don’t at this moment,’ the younger man admitted, ‘and unless somebody walks in and confesses, I won’t have any this evening either. As you know, I have Jackie Wright looking at all available traffic CCTV. She checked in just before you arrived. So far, she has Coats’ car first appearing at the Western Corner at twelve twenty-one, and she can track it all the way from there to the police station. The second car, the Renault Megane, was following close behind; it got caught by a red light at Palmerston Place. The driver actually stopped, believe it or not, and whoever was in Coats’ car waited up for him. It was safe enough, for there wasn’t a soul on the street, and not another vehicle to be seen. After the drop, the pick-up car went through Haymarket, turned into Coates Gardens and after that went completely off the radar. The driver was either lucky or they’d done a very thorough recce before doing it for real. It could be anywhere now.’ The DI sighed. ‘You know what? I have a wild theory that right now it’s parked in the place its owner left it, with its original plates back on, and he or she is none the wiser. It’s the perfect day of the year to do that. Steal a car after ten on Hogmanay in a quiet street, and there’s a better-than-even chance it’s not going to be noticed, far less reported, until the owner surfaces next lunchtime. I got Jackie to check for any Renault Megane reported stolen this morning in Edinburgh, the Lothians and Fife. So far there hasn’t been a single one and I’m betting there won’t be. We need to find that car, for the DNA that’ll be inside it; barring a lucky break, the only way we can do that is by finding every Megane in the city and beyond. And that’s going to be a fucking nightmare, because that’s one of the most popular models in Britain. There’ll be hundreds of them that are driven by locals, but are leased, with registration documents that show the name of the legal owner. It’s impossible, sir. Yes, it’s best if I’m not at the press conference. It’s a Ronan Keating situation: best say nothing at all.’

  McGuire nodded. ‘I agree with that. There’s one flaw in your thinking, though, Sauce. If you’re going to steal a car for a job, why bother to change the registration plates? I reckon that any time now we’ll have a sales rep calling the one-one-one number to complain that his have been nicked. And that means . . .’

  ‘That they used their own car for the job,’ Haddock moaned. ‘I really am knackered. I should have worked that out by myself.’

  ‘We’re all knackered,’ the DCC said. ‘Don’t worry about it. But it does mean that, unless by some miracle you find the theft or the disposal of the plates on a street camera somewhere, you are indeed going to be checking the ownership of every bloody Megane in the country.’

  Ten

  Sarah and Seonaid were waiting in the doorway when the police car dropped its passengers in the driveway. Skinner had made his warning call, without explaining the reason for Harry’s visit. As his daughter took her friend off to the play room, he led his wife into the kitchen and talked her through his stressful night and morning.

  ‘Oh my,’ she gasped. ‘Poor Noele. That’s the whammiest double I’ve ever heard of. Her ex and her boyfriend in the same hit. She has to be the link; she has to be.’

  ‘I don’t see that,’ her husband said. ‘As far as I can see, nobody knew about her new relationship, other than Alex, not even her mum. Terry didn’t, at least not from her. What passed between him and Griff Montell we may never know. How they came to die together, we may never know. Anyone ruthless enough to execute a serving police officer, and an ex-cop, is going to be thorough as well when it comes to covering their tracks.’

  ‘Emily bloody Badger,’ Sarah hissed. ‘She’s the rawest of the raw, only on call because I decided that nothing serious ever happens on Hogmanay in Edinburgh because everybody’s too busy having fun or having their pockets picked. She gets pulled in on the most significant double homicide in the city in living memory and it doesn’t occur to her to call her boss. I have to get in on this, Bob. I have to take over the autopsies. Emily’s fine technically, but she’s nowhere near ready to be an expert witness in a High Court trial. It’s your turn to look after the kids. I have to get into the city.’

  Bob nodded. ‘I get that, but are you fit? You had a few drinks last night and very little sleep afterwards. It’s more important that these post-mortems are done correctly than that they’re done today. Sauce is the SIO, you should talk to him and agree a timetable.’

  ‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll do that . . . once I’ve filleted Dr Badger for not putting me in the picture.’

  ‘Maybe you should pause on that one,’ Bob suggested. ‘Call the mortuary and instruct them that nothing should be done until you get there. That’s all you need to do for now. When you put Badger right it would be better in sorrow than in anger.’ He
surprised himself by yawning. ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘I need sleep even more than you do. Let’s feed the kids, and ourselves, then we can take turns for a siesta.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan, but first . . . you might want to speak with Ignacio . . . although he and Pilar have crashed as well, in his apartment.’

  ‘What’s his problem? He hasn’t got her pregnant, has he? I’m not ready to be a grandpa, not with two kids at primary school and one at playgroup.’

  ‘I hope not,’ she said, severely, ‘given the state she was in when they got back this morning! The problem does involve a grandpa, though. Ignacio’s mother called him in a panic while I was holding Pilar’s head over the toilet bowl. Her husband did a disappearing act in the middle of the night. But after the time you’ve had, you don’t need to be getting involved with that. I expect he’ll have sobered up and come home by now.’

  Bob frowned. ‘Two things wrong with that picture,’ he observed. ‘One, Cameron McCullough doesn’t drink much. I’ve seen him in his hotel; there’s always a glass in front of him but it’s rarely empty. Two, Mia doesn’t panic; she’s a Watson. It’s not in her genes. You look after the kids, get them fed. I’d better call her.’ He checked his watch; it showed twelve thirty-five. ‘Fuck, I’ve missed the Loony Dook too!’

  ‘Mark and James Andrew didn’t. Jazz insisted on going and shamed his brother into going with him. Don’t worry, I made them both wear their wet suits. You go do what you have to do. I’ll phone the mortuary, check with Haddock and then get lunch underway.’

  Skinner moved into the garden room, phone in hand. As he looked out across the Bents, he saw two black-clad figures running up the slope towards the house. Part of him was guilty about not being with them, but his sensible side admitted to relief. Sea swimming on the first of January was pure bravado, he acknowledged, and nothing else.