Hour Of Darkness Read online

  ‘Dominic Jackson,’ Skinner repeated.

  ‘That’s right. The name was news to me at first, but it’s familiar to you, yes?’

  ‘Of course it is. Dominic Jackson doesn’t exist; the name’s an alias, set up a long time ago by Tony Manson as an alternative identity for his informally adopted heir, someone you and I both met in extreme circumstances: Lennie Plenderleith.’

  ‘That’s right; the team found that out this morning. Are you surprised that Lennie’s been looking after the old bat?’

  ‘Now you tell me, I’m not a bit surprised. You know as well as I do that Bella didn’t just work for Tony Manson. With that history, I can see that Lennie should have looked after her.’

  ‘Do you think he might have got fed up with it?’ the ACC asked, quietly.

  ‘And had her bumped off?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘Not a fucking chance. You’re not serious about that, are you? Or do I detect David Mackenzie’s steely mind behind the theory?’

  ‘Hell no! Anyway, Mackenzie’s warned off; he tried to grab the glory when the body was found, and I had to point out to him a bit forcefully that’s not his role. I think he’s in the huff. He missed his Monday meeting with Mary Chambers, and I haven’t seen him since. But no, I’m not really serious about Lennie being involved, just bouncing the thought off you, that’s all.’

  ‘Who are you sending to interview him? Luke Skywalker?’

  McGuire chuckled, softly. ‘You know his nickname too? Sammy’s the obvious choice, only . . .’ He paused in mid-sentence. ‘He doesn’t know Lennie at all; he was just a plod out in East Lothian when he was put away. The truth is, Bob, I was wondering whether you could find some time to brief him on Plenderleith’s background, how best to approach him and so on. I know that you’ve kept in touch with him since he’s been inside, so I’m sure Sammy would appreciate any guidance you could give him.’

  ‘I’m sure he would,’ Skinner agreed, ‘given the level of young Pye’s ambition, but even if he walked in there with a necklace made out of my pearls of wisdom, in his mind he’d still be a cop interviewing a lifer looking for info on a victim’s background. He might also be less ready than us to dismiss him as a suspect.

  ‘Lennie’s a very clever guy. He’s been studying since he was put away and now he’s got degrees and a doctorate in criminal psychology. I’m sure he’d give Pye all the facts he knows, but he might give me more than that.

  ‘You’re right, Mario. I have visited him on the inside, more often than you’d suppose. I’ve always done it on the quiet, to ensure that no other cons ever knew of our meetings. Last thing I wanted was to get him a reputation as a grass.’

  ‘Yes,’ McGuire mused. ‘I can see how that might put him at risk.’

  His former chief smiled. ‘I was more concerned about the safety of anyone daft enough to have a go at him. He’s been a model prisoner and I’d hate to see a blemish on his record, even if he didn’t go looking for it.’

  ‘Are you saying that you’ll talk to him yourself if we want?’

  ‘I’m probably insisting on it. It’s my call anyway. The service isn’t unified yet, Mario. Lennie’s in HMP Kilmarnock, and you’re required to inform me if you want to send a man into my patch. You’ve done that and I’m saying no, that I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘You’ll go and see him? Have you got time for that, Bob? I know how busy you are now.’

  ‘It won’t be a problem. I don’t need to go all the way to Kilmarnock. He can come and visit me.’

  Seventeen

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ Sammy Pye said as he took the mug offered to him by his sergeant. ‘I need caffeine at the arse end of the day, especially a day like this one.’

  ‘Come on, boss,’ Sauce Haddock cajoled him. ‘We’ve made progress.’

  ‘Tell me how, please.’

  ‘For a start, we know who owns Bella Watson’s flat, and pays the bills and everything.’

  ‘Sure, but it turns out that he’s a lifer. Not only that, I’ve just been told by the ACC not even to think about interviewing him.’

  ‘Mmm,’ the young DS murmured. ‘I wonder why that was, and I wonder why it was him that gave us the message. Detective Superintendent Mackenzie’s our line manager.’

  ‘Two good questions, but all they do is add to my confusion about this whole fucking business. I’ve been trying to raise Mackenzie all afternoon, to update him, but he isn’t answering either of his phones, landline or mobile.’

  ‘How did Mr McGuire sound when he spoke to you? Was he in “or else” mode, or just his normal self.’

  ‘No, he was reasonably relaxed,’ the DI told him. ‘He didn’t bite me once! When I said we should go and see Plenderleith, he said that the guy isn’t detained within our force area, and that he doesn’t want to piss off Strathclyde, so he’s made separate arrangements for a statement to be taken from him.’

  ‘Would it really piss off Strathclyde if we went into a prison on their patch?’ Haddock wondered.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so, but I wasn’t about to argue the point. Also, when he told me that the guy shouldn’t be regarded as a suspect without direct evidence that he might be, I didn’t get the impression that was open for debate either.’

  ‘Who is he anyway, this man? Did he tell you that much?’

  ‘No, but I Googled him.’ Pye grinned. ‘It works a lot quicker than the national computer database. “Leonard Plenderleith, aged forty-five, former associate of the late Anthony Manson, allegedly a major figure in the Edinburgh criminal underworld …” I’m quoting here, mind. Tony Manson was more than an alleged villain, just never convicted.’ He winked at the DS. ‘Just like your bidey-in’s grandpa.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continued, heading off a riposte, ‘Plenderleith was Manson’s enforcer. He did time for serious assault and wasn’t out long before he was arrested for two murders. The victims were his wife, and a lawyer called Richard Cocozza. There was a third murder charge originally, but the Crown Office dropped that because of lack of evidence. Plus he was convicted of another, in Spain, in his absence. The Spanish agreed that he’d serve his sentence here, concurrently.’

  ‘He sounds like a real psycho,’ Haddock said.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Then why is he off limits to our inquiry?’

  ‘His alibi’s pretty good, if a prison governor can vouch for his whereabouts,’ the DI observed.

  ‘I suppose. But even if he isn’t a suspect, if he knew the dead woman, he might be able to help us identify this so-called sister and her family.’

  ‘I made that point to the ACC,’ Pye said. ‘All he said was that he’d note it. I didn’t push that any further either. I know I said earlier that he was relaxed, but I sensed an edge to him.’

  ‘That leaves us sitting on our hands,’ the DS complained. ‘We have no leads to those people, and asking through the media for them to come forward would make us look daft. We don’t have a single line of inquiry.’

  ‘I know.’ He took a swig from his mug. ‘Now you understand why I need caffeine!’

  Eighteen

  ‘Is there any chance he had leave booked in and you’ve forgotten about it?’ Mario McGuire asked the woman seated behind what had been his desk until a few weeks before.

  Detective Chief Superintendent Mary Chambers, the formidable head of CID, frowned at him; it was all the reply she felt to be necessary.

  He raised a placatory right hand. ‘No, of course not; sorry. Then where the fu . . .’ he grimaced. ‘I can’t have a bloody superintendent going AWOL. I’m sorry about this, Mary, I really am.’

  ‘What are you sorry for, boss?’ she said. ‘It’s hardly your fault.’

  ‘I feel as if it is. I installed him as your Edinburgh coordinator.’

  Chief Constable Margaret Steele pushed herself off the wall against which she had been leaning. ‘We installed him, Mario, not just you. In fact it was more me than you. I didn’t want the guy in the Command Corridor any longer, he h
ad a CID background and a hankering to go back there. Yes, there were misgivings but the fact is they were yours and I talked you out of them. But let’s not over-dramatise this; we can’t raise the man, but for all we know he might be stuck in a traffic jam at Hermiston Gait with a dead battery in his mobile.’

  ‘That’s about a hundred to one against, but he could be,’ McGuire conceded. ‘On the other hand, Mary’s contacted all the divisional CID offices and he hasn’t visited any of them.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Of course there is another scenario.’ He glanced at the chief. ‘I think we all know what that is.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Chambers said.

  ‘No? Then Bob Skinner must have done a really good job of covering it up. A few years back, David Mackenzie was involved in an armed situation with him and our former colleague, Neil McIlhenney. It got pretty dicey; indeed, it was too much for Mackenzie, for he froze in the middle of it.

  ‘Bob being Bob, he never blamed him, or spoke of it. I only know about it because Neil told me in confidence. Afterwards the man had a breakdown of sorts, and a drink problem went with it. He was touch and go for retirement on health grounds, but the big guy refused to let that happen and pulled him back in.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because he had recruited him,’ McGuire replied, patiently, ‘from through the West; he thought he had potential and that he would freshen up our CID operation. He did for a while, until the crisis happened.’

  ‘So Mr Skinner felt he owed him. Is that what you’re saying?’ the DCS asked.

  ‘It could be,’ Steele said. ‘It could also be that Bob isn’t great at acknowledging his own mistakes.’ She winced slightly. ‘Forget I said that, both of you. Not because it isn’t true, but because it implies that Mackenzie was one, and that isn’t proven, not yet. Tell me, Mary,’ she went on, ‘have you tried to make contact with his wife?’

  ‘Not directly; I rang his home number, obviously, but there was no reply.’

  ‘That’s not too surprising,’ McGuire said. ‘Cheryl Mackenzie works; she’s a pharmacist at the Western General Hospital.’ He looked at his watch; it showed five twenty. ‘She ought to be home now, though.’

  ‘In that case,’ Chambers declared, ‘I’ll give her another call.’

  She was about to pick up her phone when it rang. She snatched it from the cradle, impatiently. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ a gruff, and almost certainly insincere, voice barked into her ear. ‘This is the reception desk. I’ve got a lady here lookin’ for Detective Superintendent Mackenzie. She’s got two kids with her as well. I’ve tried his number, but he’s no’ in. I’ve told her that but she’ll no’ go. She says it’s urgent. She’s a bit frantic. Can you send somebody down to talk to her?’

  ‘Yes I can,’ the DCS replied, ‘but first, ask her who she is, what’s her relationship with Mr Mackenzie and why she’s so keen to see him.’

  ‘All right, give me a minute.’ She waited, listening to a mumbled conversation, until the civilian receptionist came back on line. ‘She says her name’s Mrs Austin, and that she’s Superintendent Mackenzie’s mother-in-law. She wants to see him because her daughter hasn’t been to pick up their children.’

  ‘Does she normally look after them during the day?’

  ‘No, no, it’s not today she’s talkin’ about. She was supposed to pick them up last night, but she never turned up. Mrs Austin tried callin’ them last night, she says, until it was too late for her to take the wee ones home. So she put them to bed, took them to the school this morning, then called Mrs Mackenzie at her work to find out where they’d been. But it seems that she hasn’t been there all day, and hasn’t called in sick either. Do you want me to keep her here, till somebody comes down?’

  ‘No,’ Chambers said. ‘I want you to have somebody bring her up to my office, right away.’ She replaced the phone and looked up at the chief and the ACC, both of whom were staring at her.

  ‘What’s up?’ McGuire asked.

  ‘I don’t know, but either the Mackenzies have gone off on a second honeymoon without telling anyone, or there is something very seriously wrong.’

  Nineteen

  ‘You know, Ray, sometimes I feel as if my life’s been stood on its head,’ Becky Stallings declared. ‘Not that long ago, I was a DI in the Met, with a good record and high up the promotion list; then you turned up in bloody London and look at me now. Still a detective inspector, in bloody Scotland, and up the duff into the bargain.’

  Her partner beamed at her. ‘Aye, isn’t it great? And you look fantastic on it.’ He reached out and ruffled her short, dark, grey-flecked hair. ‘Quite astonishing.’

  ‘I’m enormous,’ she grumbled. ‘I never thought I’d get this big this quick. I’ve got half a dozen dark business suits up in the wardrobe, and they’re all about seven sizes too small.’

  ‘You could always go back into uniform,’ he ventured, ‘then it wouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘You what?’ she retorted, loudly. ‘I only came up here ’cos I got to stay in CID, remember.’

  Ray Wilding nodded. The deal they had made when they realised that they were serious about each other was that if Becky could only transfer to uniform in Edinburgh, he would move south into whatever sergeant job was offered to him.

  ‘I remember,’ he conceded. ‘But I knew that I was on a winner,’ he added, lightly. ‘Our CID would never have turned down someone like you, just as there was no chance of the Met putting Neil McIlhenney in a chief super’s uniform when he moved down there, not with his record.’

  ‘I will be able to go back, won’t I?’ Becky asked. ‘The new all-Scottish force will be shedding some jobs. Otherwise, why do it?’

  ‘It’ll lose civilian jobs, I’m sure. But not even our fucking Justice Secretary would be daft enough to start laying off experienced detective officers. As for why do it, the majority of cops outside the Strathclyde high command couldn’t give you a single valid reason.’

  ‘Are you saying that Skinner’s for it?’

  ‘The grapevine says he isn’t, but he’s a pragmatist. He can’t stop it, he can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, so he has no choice but to accept it and carry on.’

  Becky eased herself laboriously to her feet. ‘Quite a few Germans took the same position back in the thirties,’ she muttered, as she wandered off in the general direction of the downstairs toilet.

  His eyes were following her, and he was smiling, ever grateful for his good fortune, when the phone rang. He reached across the table by his side and picked it up. ‘Stallings Wilding residence,’ he announced. ‘Ray speaking, I know my place.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Detective Chief Superintendent Mary Chambers said. ‘I won’t have to remind you of it.’

  He shifted on the couch. ‘Gaffer,’ he exclaimed. ‘This is a surprise. What have I done?’

  ‘Nothing, Raymond, but there’s something I want you to do, and it’s delicate.’

  ‘When you say “do”, d’ you mean right now? I’ve only just got in.’

  ‘I know,’ the head of CID conceded, ‘and I wouldn’t ask, but you’re best suited for the job in question.’

  Wilding scratched his head, wondering what special skills she imagined that he possessed.

  ‘There’s a situation,’ she continued. ‘One of our people, our senior people, has gone off the radar. That happens, I know, but the complication is that his wife appears to be missing as well.’

  He straightened in his seat. ‘Who are we talking about?’

  ‘Detective Superintendent Mackenzie.’

  If she had been able to see him she might have been irked by the depth of his sceptical frown. ‘Are you sure, ma’am? With respect to Mr Mackenzie, he used to be a bit on the . . . let’s say the flamboyant side. A wee bit impulsive.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, but we’ve no reason to believe that Mrs Mackenzie is.’

  ‘And they’ve both disappeared?’

  ‘Yes.’

/>   ‘Since when?’

  ‘Neither of them showed up for work today. Mrs Mackenzie was supposed to collect her kids from her mother’s last night but she didn’t. She was supposed to pick them up this evening, but she didn’t turn up for that either. Her mother, Mrs Austin . . . she’s with the chief constable as I speak . . . she’s going quietly off her head with worry.’

  ‘Has anyone checked the National Lottery? Maybe their numbers came up and they’ve buggered off. An impromptu second honeymoon up in Gleneagles, something like that.’

  ‘Don’t be flippant, Ray. This is serious.’

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ Wilding said, reproved.

  ‘It’s also very delicate. Tact might not be your strong suit, but of all the people who report to David, you’re the one who knows him best, because the two of you worked together before.’

  ‘Exactly, and that’s why I know he’s an unpredictable bastard.’

  ‘But Cheryl isn’t. Her mother’s quite adamant that she wouldn’t abandon her children. Have you ever met her?’

  ‘Yes I have; twice, at social dos. I must admit she was a bit of a contrast to him; a sensible woman, very nice, not flash at all.’

  ‘What was his attitude to her?’ Chambers asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was he tender towards her, or did he seem to dominate her? Did she seem under his thumb, or did she hold her own?’

  ‘I cannot say, boss. I’m talking about a couple of squad nights out, with drink taken.’

  ‘By Cheryl as well?’

  ‘Now you mention it, no. She was one of the few sober people in the room, both times.’ He felt himself becoming impatient. ‘Look, ma’am,’ he said, ‘will you please get to the point. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Not just me; this is from the chief herself. You’re to go to their house and check it out, before any alarm bells get rung. Mackenzie has a history of alcohol abuse. It’s possible that he’s had a relapse, and that he’s on a bender.’