that’s different. That will have taken them by surprise, and that’s why - you’re right Neil, I’m sure that’s what he did - Terry would have been on the phone to Jackie.
‘We don’t need a tap to work that out. Charles certainly didn’t bat an eyelid when the Boss and I asked for access. He didn’t think it over for a second: just said yes.’
Skinner rose from the uncomfortable seat in Dave Donaldson’s office in the St Leonard’s Police Office. The building was new but much of the furniture had come from the old High Street station. Months after his stabbing and the major surgery which had saved his life, the DCC still found it painful to sit on hard chairs for too long. ‘Anyway, Neil,’ he said, ‘it should never be made too easy for us to listen in on someone’s telephone. We’ve never established reasonable cause or evidence sufficient for us to ask for wire-tap authorisation on Charles.
‘If you could plug into his line, just like that, how would you know that I couldn’t plug into yours?’
The big Sergeant grinned back at him. ‘I wouldn’t know that, sir. I don’t know that you can’t. But if you did, your ears would be sore in no time from listening to my Olive blethering on to her mates.’
None of the three others in the room had actually met Mrs McIlhenney, but the awe in which her husband professed to hold her had made her a figure of formidable legend among his colleagues.
‘Seriously, though, sir,’ said McIlhenney. ‘It’d be worth hearing what the Comedian was saying to anyone right now. He didn’t see the funny side when Mr Donaldson suggested that he might be a consolation prize for whoever failed to kill Jackie.’
Skinner’s eyebrows rose and he looked across at Donaldson. ‘Why did you say that?’
‘To see if he runs, sir,’ said the Superintendent.
‘So far he’s stayed put.’
‘Then suppose that’s because he’s our fire-raiser?’
Skinner shook his head. ‘He isn’t. I don’t believe that for one second.’
‘What makes you so sure, boss?’ asked Donaldson. ‘Does Charles have some sort of hold over him that the rest of us don’t know about?’
‘Yes,’ said the DCC, with the faintest trace of impatience. ‘I’ve known this pair for twenty years, and I think he does. Three holds, in fact. They’re called loyalty, friendship and gratitude. Terry’s done a good job for Jackie over the years and he’s been well rewarded for it. Look at the Jag, the big house in Torphichen, the expensive suits. He actually likes Charles, and Charles likes him. The guy’s too loyal to have been bought.’
The Superintendent looked at him. ‘Maybe that loyalty will go if we can find something solid to nail Terry with. Maybe he’ll give Jackie up then.’
‘Maybe he will. So let’s hope that Maggie can find this guy with the vulture on his shoulder, or that we get something from these notes the man Medina is bringing in.
‘Speaking of whom . . .’ He glanced at his watch: it was twenty-three minutes past four. ‘He should be here by now.’
‘Can’t be, boss,’ said Donaldson. ‘I gave specific instructions that I was to be advised the second he arrived.’
Andy Martin looked at him, then across to McIlhenney. ‘In that case, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘why are you sitting here? Let’s not await Mr Medina’s pleasure. Go and bring him in.’
22
‘Let me get this straight,’ said Sonia Cunningham. ‘You’re looking for someone and all you know about him is that he may have a moustache and he still has a tattoo.’
‘That just about sums it up,’ said Maggie Rose, cheerfully.
Behind her desk in the airy office, which looked across towards the Gyle Shopping Centre, its car parks teeming with Friday evening shoppers, the Grade Four officer in the Scottish Prison Service Agency shook her neatly-coiffured head. She was in her early fifties, but her complexion was younger, her age hinted at only by the deep laugh lines around her eyes. They creased as she spoke. ‘You’ve just described more or less the entire male prison population . . . and a few of the women as well!’
‘But this is a very distinctive tattoo, we’re told, on his right shoulder. We’re hoping that you have a description of it among your records.’
‘That’s possible,’ said Miss Cunningham, ‘but it’s a long shot. We list distinguishing marks, but we don’t necessarily describe them. And we don’t draw diagrams of their positions on prisoners’ bodies.
‘Still, you’re welcome to look through our files. How urgent is this? Can it keep till Monday?’
The Chief Inspector shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. This relates to a murder investigation.’
‘In that case,’ said the woman, ‘I’ll give you each a desk and a terminal, and I’ll have someone show you how to access the files.
‘But be warned. You could be in for a long, boring and maybe, at the end of it, a fruitless weekend. Scotland’s prisons have never been more full!’
23
McIlhenney pressed the Muirhead/Medina button and waited. After a minute, he pressed again. The speaker remained silent.
‘Maybe he’s turned up at St Leonard’s,’ said the Sergeant at last, more in hope than expectation.
‘No,’ said Donaldson. ‘We’d have had a call on the mobile if he had arrived.’
‘Then let’s get in and have a look.’ Simultaneously, McIlhenney pressed three other buzzers. A few seconds later an elderly lady’s voice quavered from the tinny speaker.
‘Yes?’
‘Gas Board emergency,’ said the Sergeant, quickly. ‘Let us in, please.’
‘Oh! Oh. Yes.’
There was a hum from the lock and he pushed the entrance door open. ‘Where is it?’ he asked Donaldson.
‘Two floors up. Level three, flat C. This way.’ He led the bulky McIlhenney towards the stairway, up the steps at a trot, two at a time.
When they reached flat 3c, the door was closed. The Sergeant, slightly out of breath, rapped the letterbox knocker, hard, shouting as he did. ‘Mr Medina, are you in?’
The door swung open with the force of the knock. To his astonishment McIlhenney saw that its frame was splintered and that the keeper of the Yale lock was hanging awkwardly and loosely. He stepped into the gloomy hallway.
Carl Medina was in.
He lay on his back, a few feet from the doorway, slack-jawed, his dull glazed eyes staring at the ceiling with an expression of pure astonishment. At first McIlhenney thought that the man was wearing a particularly garish red tee-shirt, until Donaldson, behind him, switched on the hall light and he saw that the once-grey garment was saturated with blood, and until the stink of violent death attacked his nostrils.
‘Ahhh, you bastard!’ the Sergeant hissed. ‘What’s this about, then?’
Hardened to such scenes, he took a deep breath, leaned over the body and looked, professionally and dispassionately. He counted four large stab wounds in Medina’s chest and abdomen. One of them had ripped open his belly, and several feet of twisted intestine had spilled out from the gash, like glistening, gory intertwined snakes.
He stood up and, as he did, he felt the bloody carpet squelch under his feet. ‘Want to take a quick look round, sir?’ he asked.
Donaldson shook his head. ‘No. Let’s play it by the book. I’ll call the DCS, then the scene of crime team and the ME. We don’t want to contaminate the site. Let’s just wait outside until everyone else gets here.’ He backed out through the front door.
As McIlhenney turned to follow, his eye was caught by a number of rusty brown marks on the beige carpet of the entrance hallway, and by a black plastic object lying in a corner.
