the hope, perhaps, that some of his fellow drinkers might dislike the police sufficiently to come to his aid. However, he saw nothing but backs turned towards him, and men lost in determined study of the bottom of their glass.
‘By the balls if I have to,’ Regan muttered, seizing him by an elbow and propelling him towards the door and out into the street, where their car was parked on a yellow line.
The little recidivist sat sullenly in the backseat as Tarvil Singh drove smoothly up through Muirhouse, and up towards Crewe Toll. As they navigated the busy roundabout, Regan heard him mutter, ‘Yis have nae right. Ah’ve got nothing on me; yis have nae right.’
The detective sergeant turned in the front passenger seat and stared at him. ‘You have the right to remain silent, and if you don’t exercise it till we get where we’re goin’, you’ll also have the right to a belt round the ear.’
His advice was followed for the rest of the journey. When they reached the Torphichen Place police office, Singh drove to the back, and parked close to the entrance; Glazier was hustled inside and deposited in an interview room. ‘Keep an eye on him, Tarvil,’ said Regan, ‘while I go and fetch Stevie. This wee bastard would nick the table given half a chance.’ He disappeared, ignoring the prisoner’s muttered protests, returning a few minutes later with DI Steele.
‘This is a fuckin’ liberty,’ wee Moash exclaimed as the inspector took a seat opposite him.
‘Shut up,’ Steele snapped. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to and give me straight answers to my questions, and you’ll walk out of here. Piss me about and you will be off the streets for quite a long time.’ He took a tape cassette from his pocket and inserted it in one of the decks of the recorder that sat between them on the table. ‘Listen.’ He pressed the ‘play’ button. There was a hiss, and then a female voice spoke. ‘Emergency services. Which service do you require?’
Moash blinked, as the reply sounded around the room. ‘Nane, but ye need the police in the Meadows. Fit o’ the walkway, ahent the old Royal.’
Steele stopped the tape and rewound it. ‘Again,’ he said, and pressed ‘play’ once more. When it was finished, he stared across the table. ‘This is the point, Mr Glazier, at which you tell me that you have no idea whose voice that is. Correct?’
The thief gave a tiny, cautious nod. ‘Nae idea.’
‘Okay. Predictable so far. Now here’s the next step. DS Regan’s already told you, I think, that we’re investigating a suspicious death, a man found in the Meadows, the subject of that phone call. That means this is far more serious than anything that’s ever brought you to our attention before. It means also that if I have to, I will bring in experts to listen to that recording, compare it with your speech pattern and determine whether or not it is you. Since DC Singh identified you at first hearing, I don’t think they’ll have any bother, but if I have to do that, you will be charged at the very least with withholding evidence in a murder inquiry. The fiscal might even go for accessory.’
He leaned forward. ‘I’ll ask you one more time, and I mean one more. Lie again and you’re in the crapper. Is that your voice?’
Moash Glazier did not scare easily, but this young polis, a stranger to him, had his number. ‘Aye,’ he croaked, ‘it’s me. But I just found the guy, like.’
‘I told you, straight answers only. This is one step at a time. Did you steal the late Mr Whetstone’s overcoat from off his body?’
The little man stared at the table silently.
‘Fuck it, George,’ said Steele. ‘I’m fed up being nice to this wee snotter. I’m making this a formal interview and he’s going down for everything we can nail on to him.’ He looked over his shoulder at the bulky, grey-suited DC. ‘Tarvil, go and get us a couple of fresh tapes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The junior detective had a hand on the doorknob when Glazier called out, stopping him in mid-stride. ‘Aye, okay, okay. Ah get the picture; it’s bash wee Moash day. A’right, Ah took the coat. It wisnae keeping him warm, that was for sure.’
‘You didn’t happen to nick a bike from Warrender Park Road as well, did you?’ asked the inspector. The little man glared at him, trying to summon up some defiance. Steele answered his own question. ‘Of course you did, but I’ll deal with that later. Did you take anything else from the area around the body?’
Glazier peered at him as if trying to work something out, until finally his eyes lit up. ‘Oh aye,’ he said cunningly, ‘Ah get it, one of you bastards lifted the guy’s wallet and now you’re going tae blame it on me. Well you just switch that tape on and I’ll tell you loud and clear that I didnae take anything else aff him.’
‘If I had time to take serious exception to that suggestion,’ Steele told him icily, ‘I would. But so far this is still your lucky day. I repeat,’ he leaned over and stared into the thief’s eyes, ‘did you take anything else?’
Moash flinched. ‘There was a wee step-ladder; an aluminium thing. It was dead light, so I jammed it between the seat and the saddlebag. It fell aff though. Ah dinna ken where. That’s the truth, honest.’
‘You’ve never been honest in your fucking life, pal. Where’s the coat?’
‘Ah havnae got it.’
‘Christ, I know that. You were in the pub, therefore you had drinking money, therefore you’d sold the coat and the bike straight off. I guess the stolen cell phone you called 999 on will be in the Water of Leith by now. Who bought the coat off you?’
‘Fuck, Ah cannae tell you that. You’ll do him for reset, and he’ll do me for grassing him up.’
‘I just want the coat, Moash. I won’t do anyone if I get it back. But unless you tell me I will do you big-time. You were the first man to see Ivor Whetstone dead; it won’t be all that difficult for me to prove to a jury that you were also the last man to see him alive.’
‘You’re as daft as Regan!’ the thief protested.
‘Nobody’s as daft as Regan, but I’ll let that one pass. You stole Whetstone’s coat. Whether you tell us who bought it or not, we’ll find him, and prove that. The rest’s easy to work out; you mugged the man in the dark. You hit him over the head; but you hit him too hard. You thought you’d killed him, you panicked and to cover your crime you made it look like he topped himself. Tell me who you sold the coat to, or that’s the way it’s going to be.’
Wee Moash was convinced. Breaking with a tradition handed down by the two generations of Glazier thieves before him, he muttered, ‘Big Malky Gladsmuir, the bar manager in the Wee Black Dug.’
‘Truth?’ Steele fired out the question.
‘On my kids’ lives.’
‘You don’t have any kids, Moash,’ Regan rumbled.
‘In that case,’ said Steele, ‘we’ll just keep you in custody till we actually have the coat. George, Tarvil, get back down to that pub fast and recover it, before Big Malky realises that it might be just a bit too warm for him to hang on to.’
12
He had been in St Andrews House on many occasions, and for many reasons, since the creation of the Scottish Parliament and its Executive and before that, when Scotland had been ruled from afar and governed on a day-to-day basis by the Secretary of State.
From the start of his career, he had always kept his political leanings to himself, but those who assumed that he was naturally inclined to the right would have been surprised had they known the truth. He had voted for devolution and had welcomed it, on patriotic grounds, but also because he believed in social justice, and knew from experience that the remoteness of the Westminster Parliament and the constant battle for legislative time had been a heavy chain slowing down its delivery.
More than anyone else at the table that morning he had been angered by the interference of Miles Stringfellow, as he always was when he sensed that London was attempting to impose its will on Scotland. He had sometimes suspected that if he had lived his life two and a half centuries earlier it might have been ended on Culloden Moor.
As he rode up to the fifth floor, he was seized again by the feeling that the big stone building was a happier place under its new management.
Lena McElhone was waiting for him as the lift opened. ‘Good evening, Mr Skinner,’ she said as he stepped out
