'What do you mean move him? We'll take care of him. We're Joe's family.' It came to me that there was something wrong with the picture; Kennedy's attitude was wrong in some way. 'Look,' I demanded, 'what's happened here? Where is Joe, and how did he die? Was it a heart attack?'
The sergeant shook his head. 'No, it was not. Look, you were acquainted with the deceased and you're prepared to identify him, yes?'
'Yes, on both counts. Joe and I are colleagues; I've known him for years. Let's do it.' I turned and reached out to open the garden gate, but Kennedy put a hand on my arm.
'No, sir,' he said. 'Not that way; he's through here.' It seemed to dawn on him that being customer-friendly was in his remit. 'While we do this, maybe PC Money here can look after your wife, make her a cup of tea, like.'
'I want to come with you,' Susie protested.
I put my hands on her shoulders. 'It doesn't need us both,' I told her. 'Now please, humour me, and humour wee Mac in there. Do as he suggests and go with the constable. And ask her to make one for me while she's at it.'
For once in her life, Susie allowed herself to be persuaded.
As PC Money, whose first name, it emerged, was Cassandra, offering an extra reason to call her Cash for short, led her up the path to the front door, I followed the sergeant to the side of the house and up the driveway. At once I knew where Joe was. The garage had double doors; they were open and his Jaguar was inside. He was always a Jag man. It was like a badge of office to him. There was a rear door, leading to the back garden. It was open too, and the afternoon breeze was blowing through, but I could still smell the fumes.
'Mrs. Cameron rang the doorbell after your wife called her,' Kennedy said as we approached. 'She was waiting on the doorstep when she heard the motor. It was just ticking over, very quiet. You had to be that close to hear it. She had the good sense not to try to open the garage herself; she went rushing back to her own house and called the station.
Cash and I got here a couple of minutes after the shout, but it was too late, well too late. The doctor reckons he's been dead for several hours.' He stopped. 'It's quite a tight fit in there. Could you go in and take a look?'
From the doorway, I could see the figure in the driver's seat. I edged my way up the side of the Jag and looked through the open window. No surprises. It was Joe all right, and he was dead all right. His face was a funny pink colour. In fact he looked like a guy who's had a couple of bevvies and is sleeping it off. Except I knew that even if he had been a big drinker, which he wasn't, he would never have done anything so stupid as to go to sleep in his car, in a closed garage, with the engine running.
I backed out the way I had come. 'That's Joe all right,' I told the copper. 'Is the doctor still here?'
He nodded. 'She was in the back garden writing up some notes last I saw her.' At that moment a short, busty woman in a tweed suit, maybe aged in her mid-forties, came through the back door of the garage and made her way to us.
'Dr. Halliday,' she announced, briskly.
'Oz Blackstone,' I replied, shaking her hand. She blinked and looked closer at my face; this lady did go to the movies.
'Pleased to meet you. Identification complete?'
'Yeah, that's poor old Joe. The sergeant says he's been dead for some time. Is that right?'
'Yes, it is; probably since last night in fact, although the temperature in here with the engine running and everything makes it difficult to be precise. The pathologist should be able to confirm it, though. How did you come to know Mr. Donn, Mr. Blackstone?' she asked.
'Through business, but there's a family connection too. Joe was once married to my wife's late mother.' The whole truth wasn't relevant, so I kept that to myself. 'What do you think happened?' I continued instead.
'It's a bit obvious what happened, sir,' said Kennedy. 'Suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.'
'It's not bloody obvious to me. Joe Donn was no more suicidal than you are, Sergeant; maybe less so, for all I know. If you report that to the Fiscal, I'll challenge it. This has to have been an accident.'
'It's difficult to see how you could accidentally gas yourself like that,' Doctor Halliday murmured, sympathetically.
'Joe was always tinkering with his car. Look at the way it's gleaming in there; anything less than perfection was no good to him. He could have heard something wrong with the engine and been checking it. Maybe it was dark, maybe he forgot the doors were closed, or he was overcome far quicker than he could have realised.'
'And maybe life got too much for him,' the sergeant said, 'so he just got behind the wheel, turned on the engine and said goodbye.'
'Was there a note?'
'We haven't looked yet, sir.'
'When you find one I'll start to believe you, but not before. You know what Joe was supposed to be doing tomorrow night? He was in the final of the Lanark Golf Club match-play championship. Joe's been a member for forty years and he's been scratch or damn near it for most of that time, yet he's never won the championship.'
'Maybe he's got the yips since the semi,' Kennedy retorted.
'Not funny.'
The sergeant winced. 'Maybe no', sir. I'm sorry. Still, I don't see this as anything other than a suicide, and that's what I'll be reporting.'
'Don't bet on it.'
His eyes narrowed. 'What do you mean by that, sir?' he said, with the beginning of a threat in his voice.
'I mean that I've got friends.' I took out my mobile. 'I make one phone call and there will be CID here to start a proper investigation.
That will not look good for you, so do yourself a favour and call the cavalry yourself.'
Kennedy snorted. 'You think you can call out Strathclyde CID, do you, Mr. Blackstone? You're a policeman, are you?'
'As a matter of fact I was, about ten years ago. Not that I hung around long, mind; I didn't like being shouted at by people who thought that having three stripes on their arm made them better than me in some way. I still have contacts, though. As a further matter of fact I was at a Chamber of Commerce dinner a week ago where I was sat next to your chief constable: he asked me to autograph his menu for his wife.' I looked at the sergeant. 'No bullshit,' I said, quietly.
A glimmer of recognition came into his eyes; whether it was of me, or of the inevitable, I wasn't sure. 'If you insist, then,' he muttered, then turned his back on me, walked a few steps away and spoke softly into his radio.
Seven.
The CID came all right. They took photos of Joe in the car, and fingerprinted everything in sight, including the doctor and me, in case we had been careless. (They didn't take prints from Sergeant Kennedy and PC Cash Money; all police officers are fingerprinted for elimination purposes, although their records are kept separately from the Bad People.) They supervised the rolling of the Jag from the garage and the removal of Joe's body, then they searched the car.
I watched them from a distance as they did it, and Susie joined me after they had taken Joe off to the mortuary in Glasgow. Crawford Street isn't a place where crowds will gather naturally, but a few people had stopped to spec tate There would have been a lot more if the High School along the road had been in session, but it was closed for the Easter holidays.
The sudden, suspicious death of Joe Donn warranted two detective constables and two technicians. I thought they'd want to take statements from us, but they didn't. I began to wish that I had made that call… it would have been to Ricky Ross, whose Masonic arm reached everywhere. They searched the house too. I assumed that they were looking for a suicide note, and it gave me a degree of satisfaction when Kennedy came over to me and admitted that they hadn't found any trace of one.
'Did they check his computer?' I asked. I knew that he had one, since I'd sent him some photos of Janet
