there; maybe he’s the guy who was going to take Hassett into the woods and put one in the back of his head, and maybe he was sensitive about it.’ He felt the inspector shudder beside him. ‘But maybe there’s a better reason. Go on, Amanda.’
Dennis hit the play icon and the recording resumed, showing Frame and the hooded stranger waiting in the hall, until Chalmers reappeared, with a second minder, escorting Miles Hassett. ‘Can you slow it here?’ Skinner asked. With another click, the playback went into slow motion. As they watched, the traitor seemed to draw back, startled, as he saw Frame and his companion.
‘No sound?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Dennis replied. ‘Not that it would have done any good. Winston told me that they didn’t say anything when they met. The other fellow didn’t speak at all.’
‘Bugger.’
‘Wait a minute, though. Let me roll on.’
She resumed playback at the normal speed. They watched as Hassett stepped forward and allowed himself to be escorted from the building. Once again, the hall was empty. And then the scene changed, to feed from another source, outside, overlooking the car park to the side of the building. The area was poorly lit, but the camera was light-enhancing, and the figures were still recognisable. As Frame opened the driver’s door of the waiting car, he turned to Hassett, and spoke; to their surprise, the newly released prisoner seemed to laugh. Then he stepped into the vehicle, not into the back as a prisoner would have done, but into the front.
It was the third man who opened one of the rear doors. As he bent to slide inside, his hood seemed to slip further forward, obscuring his vision. With an irritable gesture he threw it back, giving the camera a brief, but clear view of his face. Without being asked, Dennis reversed the recording and froze on his image. He looked much older than his MI6 companions, from another generation, but from the evidence of his furtive expression, of the same world.
‘Now who the hell is that?’ Skinner murmured. ‘He doesn’t look like SIS muscle, that’s for sure.’
‘He isn’t, Bob,’ Amanda Dennis told him. ‘Very far from it indeed. That’s Ormond Hassett MP, Miles’s daddy.’
‘Jeez! What the hell is all that about?’
‘That’s what I’ve been asking myself. The best I can come up with is that the DG of Six has decided that the best thing to do with Miles is to release him into his father’s care, with instructions that he disappears into the family business, to live out a long and boring life.’
‘But why would Ormond be taken to pick him up? He thinks his son’s a civil servant, remember.’
‘Clearly, he knows different now. Could it be that Frame decided that Miles wouldn’t go with him unless there was someone there that he could trust?’
‘How big a surprise did he get when he saw who it was? Take another look at the playback and you’ll see: about a second’s worth, that was all.’ He focused on Dennis. ‘Who knows about this, Amanda, apart from Winston and his team and the three of us?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Good. Keep it that way, while I’m thinking about what all this means. Don’t tell anybody, anybody at all. Can you live with that?’
She gazed back at him. ‘Remember what happened to Sean, Bob? He’s dead because of all this; I can live with it, no problem.’
‘Of course you can,’ he said quietly. He paused, then went on: ‘I’m going to need everything there is on Ormond Hassett. We’d better take a look at him. While you’re finding that, I need something else from you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A car. DI Shannon and I are going up to Derbyshire.’
Forty-nine
They were passing the Commonwealth Pool when Mackenzie’s mobile sounded. The chief inspector shifted in the passenger seat and reached inside his jacket. ‘Yes,’ he snapped testily. There had been little conversation, only a silent tension, between him and Wilding on the drive up from Leith. ‘Ah, it’s you, Dorward; about bloody time, too.’
As he drove, the sergeant glanced occasionally to his left, trying to read anything he could from his boss’s expression. ‘And that’s it?’ said Mackenzie at last. ‘Okay, leave it with me.’
‘The car, sir?’
‘Yes. It took all bloody night, but they reduced the thing to its component parts.’
‘Did they find drug traces?’
‘Not a fucking scrap.’
‘Bugger.’
‘They did find something, though: the Mercedes A Class has what they call a sandwich floor construction. The mechanic got them right in there and they were able to identify very small strips of waxed paper, thick, virtually waterproof stuff, like you’d use to wrap drugs for carriage.’
‘Did they match it to the packages we found in Starr’s safe?’
‘More or less; Dorward says it’s similar.’
‘Shit,’ Wilding grunted. ‘That’s not very helpful: “similar” is no bloody use in court.’
‘It’s a start.’ Mackenzie took a notebook from his pocket and flicked through it, then dialled a number. ‘English, please,’ he said, when he was answered. ‘Mr Marquez, Drugs Unit.’ Beside him, the sergeant frowned. ‘Antonio? It’s DCI Mackenzie here in Edinburgh, about the Pamplona thing. We’ve completed our examination of the man Starr’s car; we have found suspicious material. Do you understand? Suspicious material . . . Yes. You are clear to raid the garage and question the people there. Thanks. Please advise me when the operation is complete. You’ve got my number. Good luck.’
Wilding was still frowning as he cleared the complicated roundabout at the foot of Dalkeith Road and headed for Gilmerton. ‘They tell me that guy Steele lives around here,’ the Bandit said suddenly.
At once, the sergeant knew the reason for his strange mood. ‘Gordon Terrace,’ he replied, ‘on the other side of the Cameron Toll shopping precinct.’
‘Mmm. He’s going to be our new playmate, Ray.’ He tried to sound casual but failed. ‘McIlhenney called me this morning; I was barely in my seat when he rang. He’s moving him down from Torphichen Place. They’re putting a DI in over your head, son: don’t take it personally, though.’
‘I won’t: I’ve known Stevie Steele for years. He’s a sound guy.’
‘He must be. He lives with a chief superintendent, from what I hear.’
‘That’s right. I expect they’ve been looking for an opportunity to shift him into a different office from her.’
He drove past the Royal Infirmary, and took a right turn into Humphrey Street. He drew up outside number sixteen, switched off the engine and turned to Mackenzie. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘about this Pamplona thing: did you brief Mr McIlhenney when you spoke to him?’
‘What’s that to do with you? Are you covering your arse again?’
‘Actually, boss, I’m trying to cover yours. This isn’t Dan Pringle’s era any more: it’s a new regime.’
Mackenzie laughed. ‘My arse is made of asbestos, DS Wilding. Thanks for your concern, but I’ll do it my way. Now come on, let’s go and talk to Starr’s ex.’
Kitty Philips was a small woman, but her confident stance as she opened the door sent out the message that she punched above her weight; her hair was a shade of blonde that could not possibly have been natural, she displayed more makeup than was usual for that time of the day and she wore a pale-blue catsuit, the uniform of the gym generation. Wilding wondered how she would have looked had he not called to check that she would be in.
‘Yes?’ she challenged.
‘DCI Mackenzie and DS Wilding,’ the chief inspector began.
She looked at the sergeant. ‘You’re the boy that phoned.’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Can we come in?’
