lived in a house up Wellhall Road, past the Philips factory, a nice big place; a detached villa. The mother’s name was Violet, but there was never any dad around from when they moved in, and that was, oh, about fifteen years ago, when Alafair was at primary school. I had a chat with the neighbours, a Mr and Mrs Shearer; they say that she was a widow, left comfortably off by her late husband. She told them he had been “in business”, that was all. Violet died four years ago, when Alafair was about twenty, from cancer. The house was sold a couple of years later. The son kept it on for a while, then he left.’
‘She’s got a brother?’
‘Yes. He’s seven years older than she is. The Shearers had a lot of time for him.’
‘Did they give you his name?’
‘Yes, Peter.’
‘Anything else about him?’ I asked. ‘Do they know what he did for a living?’
‘Mr Shearer said that he joined the army after he left school. He came back home when his mother fell ill, but they hadn’t a real clue what he did when he lived there after that. Mrs Shearer did ask him once. He told her he was a company director, but no more than that. Their impression was that whatever it was, he worked from home, because he didn’t keep regular hours.’
Just as he finished, my battery gave out, so I couldn’t thank him for his help. But had he helped me? My gut told me that he had, but I couldn’t work out how. Alafair McGrew, the battered Alafair McGrew, had an ex-soldier brother. So was it possible that I’d been wrong about big Lennie? Had she turned to brother Peter, not Manson? Could Tony’s mumble about sending a message have been bullshit, to make me think that he was in charge of the situation? Men like him hate to lose face.
In my mind’s eye, a couple of bricks had moved, and begun to arrange themselves into a pattern. They were a long way from building anything solid, but it was a start, a move in the only direction I cared about, forward.
I didn’t admit it to myself then, but that’s when I knew that I wouldn’t buy that schooner, that I was what I was for a reason, and that I couldn’t run, walk, or sail away from myself.
I turned and saw Alison in the doorway. ‘Who was that?’ she asked.
‘Alex’s future uncle, with the result of a check I asked him to do for me. At the moment, it’s raised no more than a question, but it could turn into an answer to one of my puzzles.’
‘Mine too?’ she asked.
‘Sorry, no.’
She smiled. ‘That’s a pity. I’m not looking forward to that helicopter trip on Tuesday any more than you are.’
We went back into the marina under engine power and tied up. We all helped to make the schooner secure; once it was, I thanked Eden for the experience. ‘We’ll go further next time,’ he promised, ‘and maybe in more normal weather conditions. You’re not a real sailor until you’ve done a whole cruise in waterproofs.’
I made it back to Gullane just inside two hours from Inverkip. I asked Alison if she wanted to stay, but she’d run out of clothes, and also, she didn’t fancy another early start, so she headed back to Edinburgh. Before she left, I asked her to call Shell the next morning, and postpone the oil platform visit by a couple of days. Telfer would keep, and I had some digging to do. I started that evening. At the same course at the police college that John Govan had addressed, I’d met a little man who’d been introduced as Lieutenant Adam Arrow. He was there to talk to us about counter-terrorism; he’d been frank and some of the stories that he’d told had given us all a different slant on Northern Ireland, as well as opening our eyes to coming threats. He and I had bonded, after a fashion, and he’d given me a couple of numbers, office and mobile. As soon as Alex, as bushed after her weekend as I was, had gone to bed, I called him on the latter.
He took a few seconds to answer, time I guessed he was spending identifying my landline number. ‘Bob,’ he exclaimed when he did pick up. ‘How the fook are you?’ His Derbyshire accent tended to come and go, but it was genuine. ‘Who have you killed and what do you want us to clean up?’
‘It’s nice to know my phone isn’t tapped,’ I said.
‘Not by us, it isn’t. I can’t speak for other services, mind you.’
‘I don’t mind them hearing this. I’m looking for some background on a former army man. His name’s Peter McGrew, he’s Scottish, home town Hamilton, and I’m told his service began in the first half of the eighties and ended early nineties. That’s all I know about him.’
‘That should be enough, unless there are two of them. What’s he done?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, I hope. But his sister suffered a bit of domestic violence on my patch and now someone’s reshaped her husband’s legs. You might have read about it, since the guy’s a Scotland international footballer.’
‘That hit and run? Lad wi’ funny name?’
‘That’s the one,’ I confirmed. ‘No vehicle involved.’
‘A punishment beating? I wonder if the guy’s ever served in Ireland,’ he mused. ‘It wouldn’t look good if it came out that one of ours was copying the Provos.’
‘Don’t get too excited. There’s another strong suspect. Anyway, it won’t come out. The victim’s not going to change his story. I want to know the truth, that’s all, out of old-fashioned curiosity. It’s an itch that needs scratching.’
‘Then I will assuage it.’
Adam Arrow was always as good as his word. That was one of the things that kept us close to the very end. I made it into the office by a quarter to nine the next morning, to find a message on my desk, ‘Call Adam’, and a London number.
‘Got him,’ he said, as soon as he took my call. ‘Peter Hastings McGrew, date of birth fifteenth of March nineteen sixty-five… the fookin’ Ides of March, mate; beware… entered Sandhurst in eighty-three, commissioned one year later, served with the Tenth Gurkha Rifles until nineteen ninety-one, when he left the service shortly after being promoted captain.’
‘Excellent. Do you know where he is now?’
‘Not a fookin’ clue,’ he replied. ‘He could be anywhere in the world.’
‘But don’t your guys remain on reserve after they leave the service?’
‘Not this one. He had an accident while he was on exercise in Brunei. He severed a tendon in his left arm. As a result he can barely grip a cup of tea wi’ that hand, let alone a baseball bat. I’ve seen the medical report, Bob. If this bloke worked his brother-in-law over, then he did it one-handed.’
I sighed. My alternative theory had just gone up in smoke. ‘Thanks, mate,’ I said. ‘I owe you one.’
‘Be sure I’ll call it in one day,’ Arrow promised, and hung up.
I was still itching. I called Martin and McGuire into my office. ‘A job for you both,’ I told them. ‘I want information on a man called Peter McGrew, middle name Hastings, age thirty-one. He’s ex-army, ex-Gurkha Rifles, lived formerly in Hamilton, and he is Alafair Drysalter’s brother. I want to be fair to the family. Having spoken to her, I want to talk to him now. Andy, get on to the DVLA in Swansea. Let’s assume he has a driving licence; it’ll have an address on it. While you’re at it, find out if he owns a car; if he does, get its registration details. Mario, he told his former neighbours he was a company director. Phone Companies House. Give them his name, find out if that’s true, and if it is, what’s the company? On your bikes, lads.’
Computer systems weren’t nearly as advanced in those days as they are now, but they existed, and they worked. Martin was back to me first inside fifteen minutes. ‘He’s got a licence, boss, and there’s a car registered in his name. The address on both is in Wellhall Road, Hamilton.’
‘Fuck it!’ I snapped. ‘He hasn’t changed it.’
‘That’s an offence; we can do him for that.’ Martin smiled.
I didn’t. ‘What about the car?’
‘VW Golf GTI, black… what else?… registration L712FTG. He’s had it from new.’
‘That’s progress, Andy,’ I said.
‘Do you want me to put it on a watch list and have it pulled over on sight?’
‘We’ve got no reason to do that. Sit on it for now.’ I looked through the glass. McGuire was still on the phone, in deep discussion from the looks of things, but as we watched, he nodded a couple of times and hung up, then swung his chair round and headed for us, beaming.
‘Peter Hastings McGrew, boss,’ he began, almost before he was through the door, ‘is a director of several companies, all tying into a single holding company called Rodatrop plc. Together the group owns pubs all over
