Hour Of Darkness (23 page)

‘Will do.’

‘Jack, Karen, I want you to have a word with young Mr Hicks, but without his employers finding out that they’ve got a Watson in their nest. They might not take too kindly to that.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ McGurk said. ‘We’ll come up with a spurious reason for interviewing him.’

‘We can be heir hunters,’ Neville suggested. ‘You know who I mean, those people you see on telly looking for relatives of folk who’ve died without leaving a will, then signing them up and taking a cut of the proceeds.’

‘That sounds like a plan,’ Chambers agreed, ‘as long as you identify yourself properly as soon as you’ve got the kid on his own.

‘Right,’ she continued. ‘In the meantime, I’ve been thinking. It’s time I contributed something positive given that I’m supposed to be leading this department. We know that Bella Watson was murdered in her own kitchen. We have the plausible assumption that she was removed from the flat in a trunk that Booth said was missing from her bedroom, and that he said it would take two people to move. Agreed?’

Pye and Haddock nodded, in tandem.

‘Good. So there they are, these two people, downstairs with a bled-out corpse in a makeshift coffin . . . in the middle of the night, I would guess, otherwise the woman downstairs with the built-in radar would be bound to have heard them. What do they do next?’

‘They have a vehicle,’ Sauce murmured. ‘And not a saloon car, maybe not even an estate, because the ottoman thing is going on for five feet wide and at least a couple of feet deep. Possibly a van.’

‘Possibly the same van that Patrick Booth saw?’ Chambers continued. ‘It’s a long shot, but we’ll never know unless we prove it or eliminate it. I’d suggest that you go looking for Spanish bank cards in Scotland and as far south as Newcastle around the time we believe Watson was murdered. And while you’re at it, if the traffic CCTV tapes are still available that far back . . .’

Forty-Four

Maggie was as good as her word. A parcel was waiting for me when I arrived home from Glasgow, dropped off, Trish, the children’s carer, told me, by a police motorcyclist. I imagined that the guy had been grateful for the run down to Gullane.

I left it unopened. In the aftermath of Aileen’s departure I had made an absolute rule. When I was at home, my time belonged to my three kids, and most of all to Seonaid, my youngest. It had been brought home to me earlier in the year that my second daughter didn’t know me nearly as well as she should, and since then I’ve been making up for lost time with her. She’s five and newly started primary school. Her day had thrown up lots to talk about, including a new app for her iPad Mini that one of her classmates had insisted she couldn’t live without.

I did supper, pasta with a fish sauce, followed by a fresh berry dessert, and we all ate together. Trish cooks for the brood when she has to, but not for me, or for Sarah when she’s at her place; our rule, not hers. She’s been with us for a while now and we value her.

Once that was done, and Seonaid couldn’t blag any further extension to her bedtime, I read her a story. We’d started
The Hobbit
the night before . . . a little advanced you might think, but she has mature tastes for her age . . . and she wouldn’t let me stop until Gandalf had seen off the trolls.

Almost as soon as they’d been turned to stone, her eyelids grew as heavy as theirs would have been and within a couple of minutes she was asleep. I sat by her bedside for a few minutes more, just looking at her, and holding on to the thought that nothing that happened during any of my working days came close to being as important as that which happened at home.

After that, I couldn’t bring myself to let David Mackenzie intrude into my evening in any shape or form. Instead I called Sarah and asked her if she fancied breakfast with me and the kids. Happily, she did.

Because of all that, Maggie’s package didn’t get opened until next morning in Glasgow, once my briefing with my assistants was over.

There was a covering note inside. ‘This is the file you wanted,’ Maggie had written. ‘I think you’ll find it lives up to your expectations.’ That puzzled me for a second or two, until I remembered that I’d told her what those expectations were. She hadn’t understood quite what I’d meant.

I opened the folder and flicked through the papers, looking for anything that was not on an official form, but seeing nothing, at first glance. I nodded in provisional satisfaction and began to go through it.

The file had been maintained meticulously, by personnel departments in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. Some of the documents I knew I would find, for I had sent them there myself. It was arranged in descending chronological order; the first item was a note of Mackenzie’s transfer from uniform back into CID, setting out his duties as coordinator of the Edinburgh divisions, and signed by Mario McGuire.

‘I wouldn’t have done that,’ I murmured to my empty room, although on reflection I might have, on a kill or cure basis, if the guy had pestered me enough. I don’t think so, though. I’d suspected the Bandit of being a closet homophobe, and I’d have thought three or four times before putting him in a direct reporting line with Mary Chambers, who is gay.

I turned the entry over and came to a performance review for the previous calendar year, compiled by Maggie Steele, then an ACC. She’d given him a good score, in every category, and yet her summary was slightly at odds with that, suggesting that his overall effectiveness was marred by what she described as ‘an inability to demonstrate anything resembling humility’. In other words, ‘He’s good, but he’s arrogant.’

The previous year’s appraisal had been completed by Brian Mackie, and ended in much the same way. ‘His outwardly respectful manner fails to hide the impression that sometimes he feels he is suffering fools, and not particularly gladly.’

The next document was a note of his promotion to superintendent, and after that, a report by Kevin O’Malley, the Edinburgh force’s favourite shrink. It had landed on my desk when I was deputy chief, and I confess that I’d skimmed it, focusing only on the conclusion, that David Mackenzie had recovered from an episode of post-traumatic stress exacerbated by alcohol abuse and was fit to return to duty, albeit in a less stressful role.

If I’d read it more carefully I might have given more weight to Kevin’s note that the subject had refused to discuss any aspects of his early life or his domestic situation and that he had ‘reacted with rude aggression when pressed’.

There it was. I’d been told and I’d ignored it: the Bandit was a man with a secret past and he did not want it revealed.

You’re a fool, Skinner
, I thought.
You’re more arrogant than Mackenzie
.

I swung round in my chair and looked out of the window, westward across the evolving skyline of a city that I’d never been able to like, and thought about what had brought me into my lofty office.

The more I considered it, the more I concluded that I was too like the man we were trying to find, far too like him for comfort. His faults were my faults and they had clouded my judgement.

If that old priest was wrong, and the man I’d brought into my team had killed his wife because of the pressure of a job he should never have been in, I knew that it would weigh heavily on me for the rest of my life.

I took a bottle of water from my fridge, then returned to the file, picking my way backwards through David Mackenzie’s career, through years of appraisals, by different officers, yet with remarkably similar observations, through several commendations, through successive and rapid promotions.

Finally, there was only one document left: his application to join the police service. It was free-standing, unsupported by any other papers. The memorandum that Father Donnelly had described was missing from the folder. I was fairly certain that it had never been there.

I looked at the form. It was neat, each entry printed in firm capital letters: date and place of birth, parents’ names, both deceased, schools attended, educational achievements, and work experience. It was supported by two referees: Father Thomas Donnelly, parish priest, and Magnus Austin, engineer. Each had signed beneath his name, and before David had signed and dated the form himself.

Every section had been completed, save one: that which requires applicants to list any court appearances, even those where an absolute discharge was granted, and any involvement with a police investigation. I had looked at hundreds of these forms during my police career. A minority had disclosed offences and charges, but in every other that I could remember the applicant had written ‘None’. On Mackenzie’s form that section was blank.

A long time ago, at a CID dinner that took place just after I’d made a particularly high-profile arrest, my colleagues presented me with a magnifying glass. The gift was a joke, but it actually worked, so I kept it. When I’d emptied my desk in Edinburgh, I’d brought it with me. I took it out and held it over the empty section, studying it for as long as it took for me to be certain.

There was no other sign of erasure, but the paper within the rectangular box was lighter than the rest of the sheet, than the rest of the document. A very effective chemical must have been used to dissolve the ink that had been there, for the surface was absolutely smooth, but it had been doctored, for sure.

I closed the folder; the prediction I’d offered Maggie and Mario had come to pass. I’d been confident that it would and so I’d known what I was going to do before I started. I reached for the notepad that I keep on my desk, scrawled out a note and ripped it off, then walked the few yards to my exec’s office.

I handed her the sheet of lined paper, and the folder. ‘Sandra,’ I said, ‘take this to Arthur Dorward in the Forensic Service, please, give him my compliments and ask him to do what I ask in that note. Beg the so-and-so if you have to, but get him to make it his top priority and tell him I need his findings on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.

‘If he wants to know what it’s about, give him my compliments again and tell him to mind his own bloody business.’

Forty-Five

‘This is fascinating,’ Marlon Hicks said, as he settled into a booth in the café in Nicolson Street, where he had agreed to meet the woman from the unclaimed inheritance agency who had called him at work that morning. If he was surprised that she had with her a very tall and very serious colleague, his expression gave no hint of it.

Karen Neville smiled. ‘That’s what they all say,’ she replied. ‘Descendant research is a very interesting occupation, looking into people’s family trees, and finding new branches that you never knew existed.’

‘Just like being a detective, eh?’

‘You’re spot on there, Mr Hicks. Sometimes I think I should take it up professionally. I’m trained for it and I could set my own working hours.’

The young man was taken aback. ‘You mean you don’t get paid for this?’ he exclaimed. He was an odd mix. Facially he could almost have passed for an older version of one of the boys she had seen in the faded photograph in Bella Watson’s flat. Vocally, a blind person might have taken him for a West Indian.

‘No, we get paid for something else. We are detectives, the orthodox kind. I’m DS Neville, Edinburgh CID, and this is my colleague, acting DI McGurk.’

Hicks stared at her. He sat bolt upright on his bench seat, then his eyes went to the café door, as if he was contemplating being on the other side of it as soon as possible.

‘It’s okay,’ she said, keeping her tone as calming as she could, and laying a hand on his, gently, but ready to hold on tight if he did decide to make a run for it.

‘You’re not in any trouble here,’ McGurk added. ‘We’re involved in a very complex investigation, and we need your help. We apologise for being a bit devious. That’s not how we work, usually, but we know you haven’t been in your job for all that long, and sometimes, if the police turn up in the workplace looking for a new employee, the bosses can get nervous.’ He produced his warrant card, and Neville followed suit. ‘Take a look, in case you doubt us. Proof that we are who we say we are.’

The youth leaned forward and peered at them. Then he nodded, seemingly reassured. ‘So,’ he responded, ‘what do you want from me?’

‘We’d like to talk to you about your father,’ Neville told him. Instinctively, both officers knew that Hicks would respond better to her, and McGurk was happy to lean back and let her lead.

‘My father? What’s he got to do with anything in Edinburgh?’

‘How much do you know about him?’

‘I know he’s a super bloke, and I love him. He’s the reason I’m here; he taught me my trade and then he got me a job in Scotland, ’cause like he says, there’s a limit to the experience you can gather in St Lucia. Like today; I’m working on a Rolls-Royce. Tomorrow it could be a Mercedes limo, or a Bentley; there aren’t too many cars like that on a little island. I’m going to go back, though; my dad has his own business, and I want to work with him, so he can retire when he’s ready.’

‘I’m not talking about Mr Hicks, Marlon,’ the DS said, gently. ‘I mean your natural father, Marlon Watson.’

He frowned, and in an instant his bright, open face was clouded by anger. ‘Him? I don’t think of him as my father. All he ever give me was his name and I’m changin’ that. My dad is Duane Hicks, nobody else, and you’re right, Hicks is my name too. That other man, he left Mama before I was born, left her alone. He hurt her so bad she won’t ever talk about him.’

‘But she named you after him,’ Neville pointed out.

‘I never knew that,’ he retorted fiercely, ‘not until I had to see my birth certificate so I could change my name all legal, for my British passport. I’m happy to be St Lucian, but Dad said no, I should have a British passport too.’

‘She never told you that you were named after him?’

‘Never. She told me she called me after a boxer, Marvellous Marvin Hagler, only she got his name wrong. Sure, I know now she was kidding, but I’m still happy with that. I don’t want to be called after him.’

‘Whatever, it’s your choice. What about your grandmother? Have you ever had anything to do with her, that you can recall?’

He stared at her, and a mile-wide smile spread across his face. ‘Grandma? Of course I have. She was the first person I went to see when I got here. Grandma’s cool. She’s kinda old, but she likes Beyoncé, and the Rolling Stones, and Bob Marley. She’s got Wailers albums that I never heard of, and she even knows who Pete Tosh was.’ He chuckled. ‘She likes the volume loud too; Grandpa Ford, he’s always tellin’ her to turn it down some, but she never listens.’

‘No, Marlon,’ Neville said, quietly. ‘Again, I wasn’t asking about your Grandma Ford; I meant your Grandma Watson.’

The sunshine vanished as quickly as it had arrived. ‘What you saying?’ he protested. ‘I ain’t got no Grandma Watson. I got Grandma Ford and Grandpa Ford and Grandma Hicks. I never heard of no other grandma.’

‘Are you sure? You knew that Mr Hicks wasn’t your natural father . . .’

‘Sure I knew that,’ he snapped scornfully. ‘Just by looking at him then looking in the mirror, I’m gonna know that. Duane’s black, lady, and I’m pale.’

‘Yes, but if Marlon Watson’s your natural father, then it stands to reason that . . .’

‘I don’t give a fuck about no reason,’ Marlon exclaimed, loudly enough for the lady behind the counter to throw a meaningful look in his direction. ‘I don’t know the man or anything about him and I don’t want to know.’ He gazed at McGurk. ‘Look, Mistah Acting Inspector, can I go now? You get me here thinking you were someone else and you ask me all these crazy questions, but you don’t tell me what it’s about. To be truthful wit’ you, I don’t care what it’s about, so I don’ see why I should sit here any longer. I got to get back to work.’

The big detective nodded. ‘Okay,’ he conceded, ‘you’re right. We should tell you what our inquiries are about, but I warn you, it may shock you. Yes, it’s true that your father left your mother before you were born, but he didn’t have any choice in the matter. He left her because he was murdered.

‘From what I’ve been told about him, he wasn’t a bad man, but if you don’t know anything about your Watson family you’re probably lucky, and I can understand why your mother and your dad have protected you from the truth.’

As McGurk spoke, Neville studied the young man’s expression as the words sank in, seeing shock, incomprehension and in equal measure.

‘This ain’t true,’ he whispered.

‘I’m sorry,’ she countered, ‘it is. Your father, his brother and their uncle were all murdered, by or on the orders of the same people. It was an underworld thing.’

‘Are you telling me my father and his kin were all gangsters?’ Marlon gasped.

‘The uncle thought he was, but he was out of his depth. Your father’s brother was a stupid little boy, fifteen years old, but he wanted to be one. As for your father, he was somebody who kept the wrong company, and it got him killed.’

‘Fifteen years old?’ Marlon repeated. ‘What happened to him?’

‘He dealt drugs for his uncle to kids at his school, and they were caught; to the people who supplied them, that was a capital offence.’

‘Who were these people? The ones who killed them?’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ McGurk told him. ‘It’s ancient history now.’

‘And what about this grandma you say I’ve got?’

‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Martin said. ‘I’m afraid that she’s followed the pattern. It’s her murder we’re investigating. Her remains were found in the river a couple of weeks ago.’

‘You mean the dead woman who’s been in the papers? The body on the island? That was her?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘God!’ he gasped.

‘That’s why I have to ask you again. Did you know of her, and have you ever visited her?’

‘No,’ he insisted, ‘never. Honest,’ he added. ‘Why? Has somebody said I did?’

‘No,’ McGurk replied, ‘but just in case our bosses ask us to prove that to their satisfaction, we’d like you to give us a sample of your DNA. Would you agree to that?’

‘What? You mean like blood?’

‘No,’ Neville reassured him, ‘just a saliva smear from your mouth. We can take it right here.’ She reached into her bag and took out a sealed spatula, and a plastic envelope.

The young man glanced around, checking that no one was watching.

‘I can take it from you in the toilet if you’d rather,’ McGurk offered.

‘No. Let’s do it here.’

Following the sergeant’s instructions, he opened his mouth and let her swab the inside of his cheek, then watched as she bagged the sample and put it away.

‘Do you tell me when you get a result?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s not like that,’ she replied. ‘You’re giving it to us for elimination only and you haven’t committed a crime, so it won’t be kept on the national database.’

Marlon shrugged. ‘It’s nothin’ to me. As long as it don’t mean I have to be a Watson, that’s okay.’