Last Resort (32 page)

‘Coyle knew about the flat?’ The question was rhetorical, but Ben didn’t realise that.

‘I had to give him a correspondence address. He’s looking after it for me while I’m here.’

‘So where do you actually live, Ben?’ Carrie demanded.

‘You know,’ he protested. ‘In my stepfather’s place in Queensferry Street; you’ve been there. You’ve even got a toothbrush there, remember? That really is my home.’

‘Leave your domestic till later, the pair of you,’ I said, ‘and get on with it. The McGarrity book was a success, yes?’

‘Sure was. It was a bestseller in the genre, and Donside, my publisher, wanted another. I thought about it and came up with a synopsis about people who’ve died mysterious deaths that could have been linked to the security services: the man behind the Profumo affair, a couple of MPs whose deaths have never been properly explained, and so on. It was all supposition really; I was asking questions that I knew would never be answered.’

‘Did it ever occur to you that winding up MI5 might not be a good move? Did you never imagine yourself becoming one of those questions?’

He frowned. ‘No, not at all. Look, it’s just a bit of fun.’

‘And me,’ I murmured, ‘am I just a bit of fun? Are my children there for the amusement of your readers? Is my career to be trivialised, and damned by innuendo?’

His eyes hardened, as he showed me, for the first time, the real Linton Baillie, and the real Ben McNeish, the one that Xavi doesn’t like. ‘You’re a commodity, Mr Skinner,’ he said. ‘That’s all, a public figure, as you said yourself, for public consumption.’

‘Not when you put my son in danger,’ I retorted, matching his stare with one of my own, letting my anger come to the surface. ‘Not when your agent calls his mother and threatens to out him to the media.’

Ben’s mouth dropped open. ‘Tommy did that?’

‘Yes he did.’

‘The stupid bastard!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the fuck did he think . . .’

‘He thought he could extort another few quid out of us, I guess. You should have given him his twenty per cent.’

‘Bloody hell!’ He was rattled. ‘I had no knowledge of this, Mr Skinner, I promise.’

‘I believe you. I don’t see you being so stupid. But it doesn’t matter. He did it, Carrie got unlucky and I clocked her, and soon after that Mr Coyle got unlucky too. Now I know the whole story, I have a copy of your book on me, and I’m here to tell you that it will never see the light of day.’

‘That’s what you think!’ Ben retorted, angrily. ‘That book’s worth a small fortune; you’re a national name, Mr Skinner.’

Carrie had been studying me, looking and listening; her anger towards her partner seemed to have dissipated. ‘Hold on a minute,’ she murmured. ‘How did this man Coyle get unlucky, like you said he did?’

‘He was sitting in Linton’s chair, in Linton’s apartment, on Thursday night, pretending to be your man here, in the hope of getting his leg over an aspiring young writer, when somebody slipped a ligature round his neck and throttled the life out of him.’

Ben’s expressive face sagged, and went white, his pallor in contrast with his black beard.

‘You’re blown,’ I told him. ‘Coyle was killed, but in your place. You know what that means.’

‘Who killed him?’ he croaked.

I spread my hands in a ‘search me’ gesture. ‘How the fuck would I know? Anyway, that’s the wrong question. You should be asking whether whoever it was meant to kill him, or did they mean to kill you?’

I let him think about that for a while, vindictively enjoying his pain, his fear, and his confusion.

‘Looks as if you’ve really wakened the wrong bear,’ I continued. ‘It’s not like the security service to make a mistake like that, but as your book suggests, it’s not perfect. That said, it never gets it wrong second time around.’

‘Mr Skinner,’ Carrie whispered. ‘They wouldn’t . . . would they?’

I pointed in the general direction of her boyfriend. ‘Ask him, he’s the fucking expert . . . or he thinks he is.’ I paused for a second. ‘But this is gospel,’ I went on. ‘I know these people. I’m practically one of them. Now I also know who Linton Baillie is, what he looks like, and where he really lives.’

‘No!’ Ben yelled.

‘No,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll keep you safe, if only for your mother’s sake. But here’s the deal. Whoever killed Coyle got Linton as well, effectively. He no longer exists. He’s closed for business.

‘Ben McNeish can go away from here and do something useful with his life; for example, he can grow up, develop a conscience and marry this nice lady, having promised never to lie to her again.

‘Your book would never have been published anyway,’ I added. ‘I’d have stopped it, without even having to go to court.’ I smiled. ‘But as added insurance, this is going in the sea.’

I took his computer from the table, walked to the edge of the terrace and tossed it.

The aerodynamic qualities of a lightweight laptop are quite remarkable. There was no outcrop of rock to break its fall as it floated outwards, then curved in a gentle arc before disappearing into the waters of the Mediterranean, with barely a splash.

‘The police recovered your back-up device from Portland Street,’ I told him. ‘They also found a copy of
The Secret Policeman
on Coyle’s computer. They’ve both been wiped, accidentally, of course. If you have another, I want it, now.’

He looked up at me and shook his head. ‘I haven’t, honest.’

‘In that case, we’re done. One way or another, Linton Baillie is dead. Long live Ben McNeish . . . for as long as he’s careful.’

‘Do you want me to thank you?’ he whispered, bitterly.

‘Not for a second,’ I answered. ‘You should thank your mother. It’s only for her sake that I haven’t shaken you right off that fucking tightrope. Think about that book of yours, then look at me. Do you really think I’d have taken that without coming back at you as hard as I could?’

I turned to leave. ‘If you’d like one last piece of advice,’ I said, ‘it’s this. Take this nice lady back home, and introduce her to your mother and Xavi. She’s gullible, but she’s okay.’

Thirty-Two

I
left them there and drove back to L’Escala, then went online, looking for the first flight available. I found one that left that same day out of Barcelona to Prestwick Airport, and booked it on the spot.

Alex picked me up, and drove me back to Edinburgh, to her place since I didn’t want to rouse my own household at one in the morning.

We didn’t talk much on the road, because I slept most of the way . . . and until almost noon the next morning. The only thing of import she did tell me was that Jack McGurk had no leads to Tommy Coyle’s killer; that didn’t surprise me.

She didn’t ask me why I’d gone rushing off to Madrid, nor has she since. That was fine by me, for it wasn’t something I was keen to discuss with anyone, especially not her. I couldn’t lie to her, and if she’d asked me the wrong question . . . well, it would have been tough to explain.

Next day, when the kids came home from school, I was there for them. By the time Sarah came in from work, they were all fed and I had our dinner under way.

I’d done several other things by then. For example, I’d spoken to Mitchell Laidlaw and asked him to expedite my redundancy package from the police service. I didn’t call Andy Martin. Instead, I allowed him to learn of my decision through formal channels. I knew it was for the best, and so would he.

If I’d phoned him, one of two things would have happened. Either he’d have tried to persuade me to change my mind and I’d have dented his ego by turning him down, or he wouldn’t have, and made a big hole in mine.

Worst case for both of us would have been if I had decided to stay on in a manufactured capacity . . . having an éminence gris in the background doesn’t work in football, and I’m sure it would be a disaster in the police service.

I’d also got in touch with Amanda Dennis, to thank her for her back channel help with Battaglia, and to decline her informal offer of a job in Scotland with the security service. However I did tell her that I was prepared to accept consultancy assignments, on an occasional basis, and that since I’d already been vetted from here to hell and back, she could consider me an available resource.

‘That sounds like an even better option than having you officially on the strength,’ she said. ‘We all need our secrets, even me, and you’ll be a good one to keep.’

I shared all this with Sarah, after dinner.

‘I’m glad,’ she confessed. ‘I know how tough it’s been to get to this decision, but it’s the right one. If you’d stayed you’d have been going against your own principles, and that’s not you. If your friend in Five keeps you busy, that’s good too, as long as she never gives you a gun.’

She leaned against me, on the sofa. ‘I’m not a psychiatrist,’ she murmured. ‘I’m even better than that; I’m your best friend. So I can tell you now what I should probably have told you a few years ago, before we broke up. The police service has been killing you, Bob, slowly and steadily over the years. Every case you’ve tackled, every burden you’ve borne, has eaten away a piece of you, body and soul. You’ve taken everything personally, your responsibility to victims and their families, and to the people you’ve had under your command.

‘When you went to Spain you were in a state of emotional and physical exhaustion. I don’t know what you did over there apart from think, but whatever it was, it’s cured you. You look more relaxed than you have in years, and happier.’

‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I feel it, too.’

‘What did you do over there?’ Finally, she did get round to asking.

‘I helped some people to find a way forward. There was a trade-off, but it’s all worked out for the best.’ I smiled. ‘Oh yes, and one other thing.’ I told her about Xavi’s offer of a seat on the board.

‘That’s great,’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve put your life on the line for a salary. It’s time you picked up some money for old rope. Accept,’ she insisted, ‘but hold out for five thousand a day. You’re worth it.’

PS

S
o there I was, plucked from the depths of depression and confusion by spending a few days away from the pressure cooker in which I’d confined myself. In that time I’d been able to practise my true vocation in a private capacity, with no paperwork, no reporting chain, no nothing; just me and an intellectual challenge . . . with a little of the physical thrown in.

I’d loved it, and as Sarah said, it has restored me and made me whole again.

I have a new perspective on life, and my priorities are clear and unfettered by the responsibility of public service. They are, in no particular order, my family, my family and my family.

My older daughter’s new career will take up my time, in an amount equal to that of my younger daughter’s growing interest in the works of A. A. Milne, the Reverend Wilbert Awdry, and Roald Dahl, and her eagerness to be able to read them for herself.

I can observe and assist my younger sons’ growth in age, size, and personality, and I will engage myself with their half-brother by visiting him, very privately, courtesy of Kemp, in the institution, and helping him plan what he’ll do when he’s released. On the day that happens, it’ll be me who’s waiting outside the gate.

I’ve already started work with InterMedia. (Xavi upped the day rate to four thousand without me having to ask.) The work is interesting, and I find that I’m contributing more than I thought I could, not only to the crime reportage of the group, but also to the training of young journalists in basic investigation techniques.

Amanda Dennis hasn’t called me yet, but she will, of that I’m certain.

But . . .

But what?

Who did kill Tommy Coyle?

I still don’t know, in that I can’t put a name or a face to the person who strangled him, but I’m pretty damn close.

I’d been prepared to let the whole thing lie. I hadn’t forgotten about Coyle, but far be it for me to butt into an official police investigation. The man had been killed, okay; so had Princess Diana, St Thomas à Becket, half a dozen prostitutes in Whitechapel, and JFK, but I couldn’t do a hell of a lot about them.

Whatever I’d allowed Ben McNeish and Carrie to believe, I’d never accepted the notion that the security service was behind Coyle’s death. Such things look good on telly, but they don’t actually happen.

Nor had I bought into an alternative theory, that an associate of the late James ‘Cobbler’ McGarrity might have done it. Nearly all of those guys are either as dead as he is, or they’re in care homes. Even if there is one still out there, he wouldn’t have the guile to pull off such a murder without being caught.

Just for the fun of it, I did some thinking in one of my newly idle moments. As always, unless I’d caught the killer standing over the body with the murder weapon still in hand, I started with one word. Why?

There are motiveless crimes, but Coyle’s wasn’t one of them. Just as Ana Kuzmina had done with Hector Sureda, he’d been tailed, or just as Carrie had done with me, twice. The flat in Portland Street had been kept under observation. When Coyle showed up there, he was followed inside, as Battaglia and Hector had been, with the same fatal outcome.

Having read
The Secret Policeman
, I knew that it was a sound piece of work, a little suggestive, a little titillating, but even if advance copies of the text had wound up trending on the Internet, it wouldn’t have triggered a series of death threats to the author.

No, the only thing that was dangerous about it lay at the very end. It was the part about Ignacio and his parentage, and over that, I could see only two people who might be moved to silence the author, taking out Coyle by mistake.

I had an alibi, so that left only one.

The mystery was one I wasn’t sure that I wanted to solve, but my curiosity has always been insatiable. I cleared a day in my diary, then drove to Edinburgh, to a big, posh art deco house at the foot of Blackford Hill.

I’d been there before, almost twenty years in the past. Back then, Alafair Drysalter wouldn’t have let me in without her lawyer being present, but my retirement from the police service had been pretty well publicised, so she was more amused than alarmed when I turned up at her gate. She let me in without a moment’s hesitation.

‘What a . . . surprise,’ she exclaimed as she met me at the door. ‘I was going to say “pleasant”,’ she added, as we walked into a living room the size of an airport VIP lounge, ‘but let’s wait to see if it is. I haven’t got long; I’m playing bridge with the girls at lunchtime, so, what can I do for you? Are you selling double glazing to supplement the pension?’

‘Not yet, Alafair,’ I chuckled, ‘not yet. No, I was wondering about Mia.’

‘What about her? She doesn’t live here any more.’ She frowned, as a memory reasserted itself. ‘Wait a minute. This doesn’t have to do with that questionnaire, does it?’

‘What questionnaire?’ I asked, all innocence.

‘A thing that came through the post. There was a covering letter from a guy called Baillie. He said he was an author, researching a book, and wondered if I could help him with some information. The questions were all about you and those murders you investigated, when my brother was arrested. They asked about you, and they asked about Mia and they asked if you ever saw each other, away from her radio station.’

‘How were you supposed to get the answers to him?’

‘Stamped addressed envelope.’

‘Did you answer the questions?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, with a trace of guilt showing. ‘Out of mischief, I confess. I hope it hasn’t caused any bother.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I told her.

‘There wasn’t a hell of a lot I could tell them anyway. I had no idea whether you and Mia were seeing each other back then. I was distant from all that.’

I winked at her. ‘So you were.’ I knew why; she’d been having an affair with a business rival of her father, and it had started a very unfortunate chain of events. ‘But let’s not go there.’

‘No, let’s not,’ she chuckled.

‘Did you tell Mia about this?’ I continued.

‘Eventually. I never had a chance until the middle of last month . . . the last time I saw her, in fact.’

‘Where was that?’

‘It was at a dinner she invited Derek and me to; a big charity fundraiser at a hotel up in Perthshire. Her radio station had a table. Very swish, the place was; real five star. The owner came across at one point; I got the impression that he and Mia knew each other quite well.

‘I told her that night; I took the questions and the covering letter and showed them to her. In fact I left them with her; she said she might write to the guy herself.’

‘Mmm,’ I murmured. There are a few swish hotels in Perthshire, but my antennae were picking up signs of an impending coincidence. ‘What was the place called?’

‘Black Shield Lodge.’

A palpable hit. ‘I’ve been there,’ I told her. ‘I’ve even met the owner.’

‘That’s a coincidence,’ she remarked, without guile.

‘Isn’t it just.’

I left her to her lunchtime bridge with the girls. Back in the car I called Trish, our children’s carer, to say that I’d be out for the rest of the day and into the evening. Then I drove to Dundee.

Black Shield Lodge is every bit as posh as Alafair had said. It’s in the heart of the Perthshire countryside, it has its own golf course, its own spa and it doesn’t advertise because it has no need. People gravitate to it, and through it, to its owner, for a range of reasons.

Some go because he’s a very successful businessman, a multimillionaire, and because, as a result, it’s necessary to be seen and known by him.

Some go because they’re summoned; when he calls, they always go, because he has the reputation of being a man who doesn’t take refusal kindly.

Some go because they’re groupies; not the run-of-the-mill sort who follow actors, talent show survivors, and footballers, but groupies nonetheless.

I go when I choose to. That’s only ever happened twice.

‘This is a very unexpected invitation,’ Mia said as she approached my table in the middle of the great baronial hall that is its main dining room.

‘Come on,’ I replied, ‘we have a common interest. You kept my son from me for eighteen years, but now that I know about him, I plan to be a proper dad. If that means a civilised relationship with his mother, so be it.’

‘If only you’d felt that way when he was made.’

‘Hey,’ I retorted. ‘You never gave me a chance; you left the bloody country. You could have come back when you knew you were pregnant, but you didn’t.’

‘To what kind of welcome? I was running for my life, remember . . . at your suggestion.’

‘With Ignacio inside you, you’d have been safe back in Edinburgh.’ I held up a hand. ‘Enough, though; it’s history, all of it. We look forward now, agreed?’

‘Agreed.’ She glanced around the room. ‘What made you choose the Lodge?’ she asked.

‘I’ve been here before,’ I said, ‘and I know the owner. In fact, he’s joining us for lunch.’ I glanced over her shoulder. ‘Here he comes now.’

Her eyes narrowed as they followed mine, and fell upon a tanned, silver-haired man, dressed in a blue suit with silk in the fabric.

‘Cameron,’ I called out as he reached us, stretching out a hand. ‘You know Mia Watson, I believe,’ I added as we shook.

‘We have met,’ Grandpa McCullough admitted. ‘This is a surprise, Mr Skinner. It’s unusual for me to be invited to lunch in my own restaurant.’

‘My pleasure, and let’s not be so formal.’

‘Whatever you say, Bob,’ he replied, cheerfully. ‘You’re a gentleman of leisure these days, I hear. Is fine dining going to be your pastime from now on?’

‘It might be,’ I conceded. ‘I’m a director of the InterMedia group now, the owner of the
Saltire
. I could make myself its food critic.’ I smiled. ‘The only problem with that could be that I upset a lot of people in my former career, and you never know who’s working in the kitchen.’

McCullough laughed. ‘In that case, can I suggest that we all choose the same things today. The chef’s Cullen Skink is superb, and he tells me that the venison casserole comes from a deer that was shot on the estate, and hung to the point of perfection.’

The head waiter was hovering, ready to be summoned. He took our orders, and then sent the sommelier across. I was driving, Mia was working later and McCullough said that he never drank alcohol before six in the evening, so he left disappointed, with ‘mineral water’ scribbled in his pad.

‘How’s my granddaughter?’ McCullough asked, out of the blue, halfway through the first course. Until then we’d been talking about the weather, radio and the parlous state of Scottish rugby.

‘The last I heard, she was fine,’ I answered. ‘She and young Haddock are very happy together. But why are you asking me?’

‘I don’t see her as much as I used to. As you know, I have a wildly exaggerated reputation, and she’s had to distance herself from me, because of the boy’s career. I’ve never met him, you know,’ he added, as if he was trying to assure me. ‘We’ve spoken on the phone a few times, but we’ve never been in the same room. Cheeky says he’s doing very well in the force.’

‘He is,’ I confirmed, ‘although we call it the service these days. Give him fifteen years and he’ll be an assistant chief constable, minimum.’

‘Do you still have that much influence?’ Mia’s quiet question cut in.

‘No, I don’t,’ I admitted, ‘but I know that once you’ve lit the blue touchpaper on a rocket, the rest is pretty much inevitable. That’s how it is with young Sauce Haddock.’

The chef hadn’t been kidding about Bambi’s mother. The casserole was perfect, as he’d promised; we paid it proper respect by enjoying it in silence. It wasn’t until the cheeseboard that Mia’s patience gave out.

‘How did you find out that we knew each other?’ she asked. ‘Have you been spying on me?’

I said nothing; instead I looked across the table, at McCullough. He caught on and leaned towards her. ‘The police could probably tell you what brand of toilet paper I use,’ he said, speaking quietly even though the next occupied table was almost ten feet away. ‘Let’s have coffee somewhere else.’

He rose from the table, nodded a signal to the maître d’ and led the way out of the dining room along a corridor and into a small lounge that overlooked one of the greens on the golf course. He dropped into a Chesterfield chair, and seemed to expand, to loosen off as if his real personality had been corseted until then.

‘You’re the mother of Bob’s son,’ he continued, as if he’d only paused for breath. ‘And you’ve been a very bad girl in your time. You haven’t exactly brought the kid up on the straight and narrow, otherwise he wouldn’t be in fucking Polmont right now. Of course he’s been checking up on you.’

She turned on me. ‘You’ve been following me?’

‘He didn’t have to,’ McCullough laughed, amused by her indignation. ‘He might not have influence any more, but he still has friends. All he has to do is reach out . . . that’s the buzz phrase these days isn’t it, “reach out” – and he can find things out.’ He looked at me, eyebrows raised. ‘Isn’t that true, Bob?’

I nodded, grateful to him for sparing me the need to admit that indeed I had followed her, a week before, from his house, where I’d seen her car parked in the driveway, to her radio studio for her evening show, and then back again when it was over.

‘How did you meet?’ I asked.

‘I own the station,’ McCullough explained. ‘Actually, my granddaughter does, although she doesn’t know it; with hindsight, naming her after me was a very smart thing to do, although I didn’t appreciate it at the time. But I’m the Cameron McCullough they pay attention to; I don’t appoint all the staff, but I like to know about the people who’re our public face. I interview all our potential presenters and if they’re not on my wavelength, they’re not on my airwaves.’

He smiled. ‘Mia was a natural. I could tell the moment I cast an eye on her. She got the job, and I got to know her. Now we’re a couple. We don’t flaunt it . . . especially not around the station . . . but it’s no secret.’

‘I see,’ I murmured; actually I’d seen for a while. I don’t like to go into a room with people like them without knowing the whole story in advance.