between them. Thelma Dow had to contend with the loss of Laura and the jailing of her own son. Siobhan hoped she would be able to cope, able to give Alexander what he needed. She’d even briefly considered contacting a pal in social work, someone who could check that both carer and grandson were going to manage. Staring at the office around her, she saw the case winding down. The telephones had stopped being busy. People were standing around, catching up on gossip. She’d seen Grant Hood on last night’s TV news, acknowledging that a man had been charged, a house searched, and certain contents taken away for examination. It all had to be very coy now, so as not to jeopardize the legal case. The murder of Laura Stafford hadn’t even made the front page of the tabloids. RED-LIGHT STAB HORROR was the headline Siobhan had seen, with a daytime photograph of the Paradiso’s exterior and a much smaller photo of Laura, looking younger and with longer, bubble-permed hair.
Bobby Hogan was taking a while to come to the phone. Eventually, another officer answered for him.
“He’s swamped right now, Siobhan. Is it anything I can help with?”
“Not really . . . They’re keeping you busy down there then?”
“We had a murder last night. Rogue called Dickie Diamond.”
They chatted for a couple more minutes, then Siobhan hung up. She walked across to where George Silvers and Phyllida Hawes were sharing a joke.
“Hear what happened to Dickie Diamond?” she asked.
“Who’s he when he’s at home?” Silvers responded. But Hawes was nodding.
“That lot from Tulliallan had him in here only yesterday,” she said. “Bobby Hogan was in first thing this morning, asking questions.”
“As long as he’s not after poaching a few extra bodies,” Silvers commented, folding his arms. “I think we all deserve a bit of a rest, don’t you?”
“Oh, aye, George,” Siobhan told him, “you’ve been breaking your neck on this one . . .”
His glare followed her back to her desk. WPC Toni Jackson entered the room, saw Siobhan and smiled.
“It’s Friday,” she said, leaning against the side of the desk. Silvers had spotted her and was giving a sycophantic wave, still believing her to be related to someone famous. She waved back. “Silly sod,” she muttered under her breath. Then, to Siobhan: “You still got that date lined up?”
Siobhan nodded. “Sorry, Toni.”
Jackson shrugged. “It’s your loss, not ours.” She gave a sly look. “Still keeping lover boy’s name under wraps?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, that’s your prerogative, I suppose.” Jackson eased herself off the desk. “Oh, nearly forgot.” She handed over the sheet of paper she’d been carrying. “Marked for your attention. Came through to our fax machine by mistake.” She wagged a finger. “I want to hear
“Right down to the forensic detail,” Siobhan promised, offering a smile as Jackson moved away. The smile melted as she studied the cover sheet of the lengthy fax. It was from Dundee CID, responding to her request for the lowdown on Ellen Dempsey. Just as she was starting to read, a voice interrupted her.
“No rest for the wicked, eh, Siobhan?”
It was Derek Linford. He seemed even better groomed than usual, with a pristine shirt, new-looking suit, and dapper tie.
“Going to a wedding, Derek?”
He looked down at himself. “Nothing wrong with being presentable, is there?”
Siobhan shrugged. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with the rumor that we’re in line for a visit from the chief constable?”
Linford raised an eyebrow. “Are we?”
She gave a wry smile. “You know damned well we are. Bit of a fillip for the troops, telling us how hard we’ve all been working.”
Linford sniffed. “Well, it happens to be true, doesn’t it?”
“Speaking of which, some of us still have work to be getting on with.”
Linford angled his head, trying to read the fax. Siobhan turned it facedown on her desk. “Hiding something from your colleagues, Siobhan?” he teased. “That’s hardly being a team player, is it?”
“So?”
“So maybe you’ve been learning all the wrong lessons from DI Rebus. Make sure you don’t end up like him, kicked into rehab . . .”
He turned to go, but she called him back. “When you’re having your hand shaken by the Chief, just remember . . .” She pointed a finger at him. “It was Davie Hynds who found the money Marber paid to Malcolm Neilson. You’d already been through Marber’s bank statements and hadn’t spotted it. Bear that in mind when you’re taking all the credit for solving the case, Derek.”
He gave her a cold smile, said nothing. When he was gone, she tried getting back to her reading but found it impossible to concentrate. Scooping up the fax, she decided she wanted to be elsewhere when the brass from the Big House came calling.
Settling for the Engine Shed, she bought herself some herbal tea and sat at a table by the window. A couple of mums were feeding jars of food to their infants. Otherwise, the place was quiet. Siobhan had turned off her mobile, pulled out a pen, and was preparing to mark any interesting snippets.
Having read the fax through once, she found that she’d underlined just about the whole damned thing. She realized that her hand was trembling slightly as she poured out more tea. Taking a deep breath, trying to clear her head, she started reading again.
The money to fund Ellen Dempsey’s cab company hadn’t come from shady businessmen; it had come from a few years’ work as a prostitute. She’d been employed in at least two saunas, undergoing a single arrest in each when they were visited by police. The busts had been eighteen months apart. There was an additional note to the effect that Dempsey had also worked for an escort agency and had been questioned after a foreign businessman “mislaid” his cash and credit cards after a visit by Dempsey to his hotel room in the city. She was never charged. Siobhan looked for evidence that one or both of the saunas had been owned by Cafferty, but couldn’t find any. Names were given, but they were the names of local entrepreneurs, one Greek in origin, one Italian. After the police raids, HM Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise had opened their own inquiries, looking into profits and VAT left undeclared. The owners had shut up shop and moved on.
By which time Ellen Dempsey was already running her small-time cab company. There were a couple of minor cases: a driver assaulted by a passenger who’d refused to pay the fare. The passenger — ready for an argument at the end of a long night’s drinking — had found in the driver a willing sparring partner. The result had made it as far as an overnight stay in the cells, but had fallen short of a court appearance. The second case was similar, only Ellen Dempsey had been the driver, and she’d sprayed the client with mace. As mace was banned in Scotland, it was Ellen who’d ended up being charged, the passenger claiming that he’d only wanted a good-night kiss and that the two of them “knew one another of old.”
Though this last phrase wasn’t explored, Siobhan got an inkling of what had really happened. One of Ellen’s old punters, probably not believing that she’d given up the sauna life, deciding that if he pressed, she’d be willing.
But she’d reached for the mace instead.
It might explain the move to Edinburgh. How could she operate a legitimate business from Dundee without the threat of more ghosts appearing? Impossible to escape her old life, her old self . . . So she’d set up in Edinburgh instead, and bought herself a house in Fife, somewhere she wouldn’t be recognized, somewhere she could hide from the world.
Siobhan poured more tea, though it was tepid now and too strong. But it gave her something to do while she collected her thoughts. She flicked back four or five sheets, found the page she was looking for. There was a name not only underlined there, but circled, too. It cropped up a couple of times, once in connection with the raid on the sauna, once to do with the mace case.
A detective sergeant called James McCullough.
Or Jazz, as everyone seemed to call him.
Siobhan wondered if Jazz might be able to shed more light on Ellen Dempsey, always supposing there was light to shed. She thought back to Cafferty’s words. There was no indication in the fax of any “friends” Dempsey might have. She’d never been married, had no children. She seemed always to have supported herself . . .
