‘Oh yes? Go on.’
‘One of your underlings left a tape with us to see if the quality could be enhanced. Well, we’ve excelled ourselves. I’ve got a partial number for you.’
‘How partial?’
‘All but one digit. It’s N two seven, D something N. We can’t quite get the middle letter of the suffix. It may be that the plate is damaged. We’ve done bloody well as it is.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ I told him. ‘I’ll take that, thanks.’
I cut him off and called Leggat’s number. ‘Fred,’ I began as he came online, ‘we’ve got something on the vehicle.’ I read out the number that the techies had retrieved. ‘I need you to dig out the licensing authority in Wales, and try to fill in the missing letter. It shouldn’t be too difficult; the odds are against there being more than one Transit van in the range of possibilities.’
‘Will do, Bob. Where’ll you be?’
‘Possibly at home by the time you get back to me, but use the mobile anyway.’
‘Sorry,’ I said to Mia. ‘I’m never completely off the radar.’
‘That’s almost comforting to know.’ She handed me the envelope. ‘Autographed picture, for your daughter.’
‘Why don’t you give it to her yourself?’ The invitation was completely spontaneous. It came out of the blue. There was something about Mia, and I didn’t want to say ‘So long’ and go on my way.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come with me and meet her. Or do you have other plans for the day? Boyfriend waiting somewhere, for example?’
‘I don’t have one of those,’ she replied. ‘I don’t have any other plans for the day either, and I’d love to meet your daughter, but are you sure?’
‘Absolutely. Think of it as audience research.’
She laughed. ‘Nice way of putting it. On that basis, yes, thanks. Let’s go. But I’m paying the bill for these.’
She wouldn’t have it any other way. By the time our waitress had brought the check and picked up the money, it was almost two. While Mia went to the ladies’ room, I called Alex’s mobile to let her know I was heading back home… I’d bought it for her thirteenth birthday, on security grounds. She also carried a personal howler alarm, a police-issue pepper spray that she wasn’t allowed to talk about, and she’d been going to martial arts training since she was eight.
‘This is exciting,’ Mia bubbled, as we passed out of the lobby area. ‘You wouldn’t think so, given my background, but I’ve never been picked up by the police before.’ My hands were in the pockets of the denim jacket that had been my Saturday choice; she took my arm. I’d been ignored by the Ladies Who Lunch on the way in but, with my new companion, heads turned as we passed.
There is this thing in my life… only my private life, I should stress. Whenever I try to plan a surprise for a near and dear one, be it a party or a present, it never quite works out. I say something by mistake, or somebody else does. But, if ever there is a rabbit that I want to stay in the hat, the furry little bastard is almost guaranteed to jump out and crap all over my day. I’m sure that Parkinson had a law that applies, or if not him, Murphy.
We were approaching the exit when the doors swung open and who walked through them but Alison, with Detective Superintendent Alastair Grant, her new boss.
She saw me, and her face froze.
‘Alison,’ I began. That was all she let me get out.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ she replied, evenly, then strode on. Grant offered a brief ‘Hello’ but was more or less pulled along in her wake.
Mia didn’t seem to notice the exchange. ‘You haven’t told me where you live,’ she said as we stepped outside into the square.
I pulled myself together. ‘East Lothian,’ I replied. ‘Gullane.’
‘Lucky you,’ she exclaimed, then winced. ‘God, I shouldn’t say that to you, of all people. What I meant was, it’s lovely out there.’
I slid an arm around her shoulders and squeezed, lightly. She was quite tall, even in heels that were no more than a couple of inches high. ‘Mia, you don’t have to treat me like I’m an emotional cripple. It is lovely out there, and choosing to live there is one of the smartest things I ever did.’ I let her go as we reached the pedestrian crossing in Lothian Road, and waited for the green man.
‘Sorry about the transport,’ I said, as I unlocked the Land Rover. I pointed to a sticker that Alex had put on the rear window; it read, ‘My other car is a BMW.’ ‘That’s true,’ I told her.
She peered at the radio as I drove off, heading up Johnston Terrace rather than for the Grassmarket, even though that would have been quicker. I didn’t want to take her past the mortuary, where her brother was still in a cooler. She wouldn’t have known, but I would. She played with the controls until she found Airburst FM. It wasn’t one of my presets. ‘They want me to do a Sunday morning show through the summer,’ she murmured. ‘Ten o’clock to one. We get thumped by Radio One on Sundays, and they want to change that.’
‘I know of at least one listener you’d have,’ I said. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘For the money I’m on, I feel that five days is plenty, thank you very much.’
‘Can they make you?’ I asked.
‘Under the terms of my contract, they can, but I don’t think they’ll push it. It can be terminated by a month’s notice on either side, and I’ve already been approached by Radio Forth. If they really want it, we’ll negotiate. I’ve got a pay review coming up in a month. If they double my salary, I’ll do the Sunday slot.’
‘Do you have an agent?’
‘I don’t need one, not at this stage of my career. Why pay someone twenty per cent when I know what I’m worth already?’
Beauty, body, brains, I thought. And I felt myself getting hard.
That made me wonder about Alison. I’d have to apologise to her, I knew, but for what? No commitment, she’d said, even more firmly than I had, so why the frost? To hell with it, let DI Higgins stew for a while. Good afternoon, sir, indeed!
We were on the A1, almost at the Tranent junction, when my phone sounded again. I pulled on to the verge to answer, activating my warning flashers. Fred Leggat was excited. ‘We’ve matched that plate,’ he announced. ‘The missing letter is a C; that makes it a Newcastle-on-Tyne number. The van’s red in colour and it’s registered to a man called James Pearson, of South Shields.’
‘Excellent! Fred, standard practice, get a stop-on-sight request out to all traffic cars. We want to be talking to this man as soon as we can, but first, let’s find out about him. Run an NCIS check, and have a word with our colleagues on Tyneside. Who is he and why would he be interested in our territory?’
‘I’ll get that under way,’ Leggat promised. ‘How do you want to play it afterwards?’
‘Ask our friends, very politely, to lift him, and impound his van. If they’re well disposed towards us, they’ll bring them both up to Edinburgh. If they’re not, or they’re tight for manpower, we’ll meet them at the border and take them off their hands.’
‘Very good. Do you want to be involved?’
‘Every step of the way, once we’ve got him in our hands.’
‘Even if it’s tomorrow?’
‘Even if.’ I pocketed the mobile and rejoined the traffic.
‘How do you manage?’ Mia asked.
‘Manage what?’
‘Life. Don’t you ever have any time to yourself?’
‘Not really,’ I admitted, ‘not in the job I do.’
‘Drugs Squad, it said on the card you gave me.’
‘Not any more. I’m Serious Crimes Unit, now.’
‘But you don’t work alone.’
‘No,’ I conceded. ‘I have a team, but I’m two days into the job and I’m still sizing people up.’
‘So our Marlon’s murder is a serious crime.’
‘All murders are, Mia. But his becomes of interest to my unit because of the job he did.’
