eliminate any chance of us reaching the person who hired them.’ I sighed. ‘And then there’s the leak. How did our man find out that we had indentified the van, and the men in it?’
‘We’ve got a mole then,’ McGuire murmured.
‘I’d like to think that Newcastle has, not us. But don’t call him a mole; I hate that analogy. Moles are nice furry wee things. Our traitor’s a reptile, a serpent in our garden.’
‘Does Manson know who’s behind it all?’
I sighed. ‘If he does, then he isn’t worried any more. Bella’s no longer being protected… although he told me he never did think she was at risk… and his own security’s back to normal: Dougie Terry’s not exactly fucking Cerberus guarding the gates of Hell. My feeling is that Tony believes that it’s over with him having sent his message, as he calls it. It might be for him, but not for us. We’ve still got a triple murderer to catch.’
‘So what do we do now, sir?’ he asked, as we neared the office.
‘Us normal mortals, Mario, we just keep going, or we go back over what we’ve done so far and see if we’ve missed anything. You, I guess, just keep relying on flair, luck and brass neck.’
As soon as I was back behind my desk, I called Alison. ‘How did you get on with Alf’s assistant?’
‘I’m no further forward,’ she replied. ‘She did a trawl of all the reports from divisions of incidents from the Wednesday night right through to the Friday, but there was nothing there involving three unidentified suspects.’
‘Bugger. Nothing at all?’
‘There was an armed robbery by two guys from a video store in Leith Walk on the Thursday night. Doesn’t quite fit the time frame and we’re one suspect short.’
‘Nor does it sound like the sort of thing that people get killed over. Go back to Shannon, Ali, and ask her to trawl over two further days, just in case something happened that wasn’t reported until after the event. And this too: get your boys to ask around discreetly for things that might have happened off our radar. For example, any word of a robbery where the victim might have had an interest in not reporting it?’
‘I will do. Bob,’ she seemed to hesitate for a second, ‘do you think we should go back to Mia Watson on this?’
‘And ask her what? She’s already told Stevie that she doesn’t remember any of them.’
‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘I wondered whether, if it was woman to woman, she might push her memory a wee bit harder.’
I didn’t really want Alison interviewing Mia, but I couldn’t order her not to, or even come up with a convincing reason why she shouldn’t. ‘Try it, if that’s what you want, but she goes on air soon for most of the rest of the day, and we’re both off the pitch for four days from tonight, including Monday when we go to interview Telfer.’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘We can’t get to see him before Tuesday. By the time we got the train up to Aberdeen it would be too late to fly to the platform and back in one day, but as you said, he’s not going anywhere. I’ve made all the arrangements with Shell. We go up Monday afternoon and leave at seven o’clock on the helicopter. All I have to do now is book us into the airport hotel.’
‘You’d better make it one room,’ I told her. ‘Times are tight; we should save the taxpayer some money.’
She laughed. ‘After a weekend on a seagoing schooner, you might want a suite.’
Sixteen
‘What should I wear, Pops?’ Alex asked me, as she handed me a mug of tea. ‘I don’t have a black dress.’ She was a wee bit anxious; the truth about where she was going and what we were about to do had been settling upon her since breakfast.
‘They tend not to be fashion items for thirteen-year-olds, kid,’ I pointed out. ‘What did Grandpa like you to wear? It’s not about what other people expect, it’s about what he’d be thinking.’
She thought about it. ‘There’s the blue dress I bought with the money he gave me last Christmas. Would it do?’
‘That will be perfect, my love.’
‘Make-up?’ Under Daisy’s guidance and with my approval she had started to use cosmetics on the day she moved into her teens. She didn’t overdo it, for as Daisy had pointed out, she didn’t need to. ‘Would that be disrespectful?’
‘I’d tell you if it was.’
‘Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to upset Aunt Jean.’
‘You won’t.’ Jean was going to be sending her dad off to the good fire. I doubted if she’d even notice that her niece was wearing a bit of eyeliner and lipstick. ‘It’s not as if you’re going to be painted up like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.’ We’d watched the video a couple of months before.
‘You lookin’ at me?’ she drawled, and headed for the stairs.
‘Don’t come down with your hair in a Mohican,’ I called after her.
The ribbing had lightened things but I was probably more tense than my daughter. I didn’t like Daldowie; or rather I disliked it more than any other crematorium I knew. It was one of those places where you saw distant relations and acquaintances, promised to see them soon and then never did until the next time you were there.
I decided to match the dress code I’d recommended to Alex, so I put on the linen suit I’d worn a few days before, but with a black shirt and tie. Then I packed a bag for the weekend, full of what I imagined might be sailor stuff.
Alison had advised Alex about what she should take with her. She and I had arranged that we’d all set off from my place; if I’d picked her up, it would have taken at least forty-five minutes longer to reach Carluke. When she arrived, in a black suit, we were ready to go. She scored a real Brownie point by heading straight for the back seat of the Beamer, leaving Alex in her usual place, up front. It was thoughtful, and I loved her for it. Yes, you read me right; I loved her for it.
We got to Thornton’s house just before one. There were quite a few people there, in addition to Jean, a couple of her aunts, one from either side of the family, Thornie’s much older brother, Uncle Moffat, who wasn’t quite sure where he was, and his best pal from the golf club. The great-aunts made a small fuss of Alex, and were polite to Alison, but mostly concentrated on sipping their Harvey’s Bristol Cream, and munching their salmon sandwiches as best they could with their loose dentures.
Sergeant Lowell Payne was there too, clean-cut, about my own age, and formal in dark suit, white shirt, black tie. My Special Branch contact had called me back, giving him a clean bill of health. He wasn’t expected to rise any higher than inspector, but that would give him a decent pension one day, and he had no bad habits for me to worry about. We were introduced, ‘Bob, Lowell. Lowell, Bob,’ but didn’t say much to each other. At that stage everyone was focused on what was to come. Alex stuck close to me, tight-lipped; one of the great-aunts had insisted on pinching her cheek, and Uncle Moffat kept calling out, loudly, ‘Who’s that lassie? Is that our Myra?’
I was grateful when the undertaker announced that we should go. There were two limos for six passengers… Thornie had a vehicle all to himself… so there was plenty of space. Jean offered Alex a seat in hers, as a close blood relative, but she chose to stay with me. The pace was indeed funereal, but the drivers were experts and we arrived at exactly the right time.
The service took half the time that the drive had. Psalm twenty-three, prayer, hymn, prayer ending in Lord’s Prayer (the Scottish version where we forgive debtors and our debts are forgiven too; that’ll be right!), eulogy, committal, benediction. All crematoria seem to operate to the same tight timetable, but at least the place was full of Thornton’s enduring friends, the minister knew all about him and wasn’t reading from a script provided by the family, and oh, as I was reminded, those Lanarkshire Proddies sure can sing. I didn’t join them; I only do that when I’ve had a couple of drinks and I know that somebody’s listening. Alison did, though; I hadn’t realised that she had such a nice contralto voice.
When it was all over, and Jean and I had shaken hands with the departing mourners at the door… I couldn’t let her do that on her own, and Lowell was too new on the scene… we moved on to a hotel in Bothwell, a place
