‘That figures. Thanks, Ciaran.’
‘I should be thanking you,’ he said. ‘This is our investigation you’re working on. I want to be involved from now on, sir.’ He sounded serious. I sensed that I might be on the way to being sandwiched between two warring chief constables, but there was still the major problem of the earlier leak.
I stalled him. ‘Let me think about it.’
‘What’s to think about? You know who the man is, don’t you?’
‘I know who owns the car,’ I admitted, ‘but… Look, the same man is most probably responsible for ordering a murder here. I’m still staking a prior claim to him.’
‘I should be there, nonetheless,’ he insisted.
When I thought about it he was right, but not on procedural grounds. He had information and if he took it into his own inquiry, might word not get back to the other side, as quickly as it had before? But what if McFaul was the leak himself? Shit!
I made a decision; I had to trust somebody. ‘Okay,’ I agreed, ‘but this is how it’s going to work. Who’s viewed this recording with you?’
‘Nobody,’ he replied. ‘I’m at the hotel now, on my own.’
‘Then get in your car and drive straight up here. Come to my office in police headquarters. Come on your own, and don’t tell anyone. When you get here you can phone your boss and tell him that you’ve had a tip about something, anything, I don’t give a fuck what but not this investigation, and that you need to go undercover.’
‘Are you kidding?’ He laughed, incredulously. ‘He’ll skin me. Why the hell should I do that?’
‘Because I haven’t located this guy yet, and I don’t want him to be tipped off before I do, as he has been once before.’
‘Hey,’ he snapped, ‘are you saying-’
‘Shut up. I’m telling you what happened, but I’m not blaming anyone, not yet. That’s the deal. That’s what I want you to do. I’m trying to reach out here and grab the untouchable, and nobody is going to get in the way, or I’ll be grabbing them. If you’re coming, drive; if you’re not, keep your fucking mouth closed in your office. Which is it to be?’
I listened to the silence as he made up his mind. ‘Have you got a job for me in your CID,’ he asked, ‘if I get busted back to uniform?’
I chuckled softly. He was what I liked, detective first, cop second. ‘Ciaran, I’ll find a slot here for you regardless, if you want it.’
‘In that case, I’ll see you in three hours, maybe less if the tunnel’s flowing smoothly.’
It was the best solution I could devise. Cross-border wrangles are always a pain, but I knew that I’d have to involve my English colleagues sooner or later, leak or no leak. Inviting McFaul to join me was a step towards that, and the way I’d done it took him out of play for up to three hours, time enough, possibly, to run Peter McGrew to ground.
Holmes’s son might have proved elusive, but he existed and I had something to pin on him. There was no way he could know it either at that stage, and that worked to my advantage. But to arrest him, I had to find him. How to do that? Yes, I could have driven up to Perry Holmes’s place and demanded that he hand over his secret son. Sure, and that would have got me precisely nowhere. But maybe I wouldn’t need to.
My next stop was Blackford Hill, back to see Alafair. I suspected that it might be more confrontation than conversation, so I decided to take a female officer along. But which one? The closest was DC Shannon, Alf Stein’s gopher. I called him and asked if he could spare her.
‘Christ,’ he grumbled. ‘What is it with Serious Crimes just now? I’ve had your secondee Higgins on looking for her, not just once but twice, mind you… and Grant’s giving me grief about his DI being away from his team. Now you’re wanting Dottie as well?’
He was in ‘awkward old bastard’ mode, but I levered him out of it by telling him what had happened in my investigation and why I wanted her.
‘Holmes has kids?’ he exclaimed. ‘He’s a fucking dy-nasty?’ (He’d been a fan of the TV series and mangled the word as it had.) ‘Sure, you can have her. It sounds like a good cause.’
I had planned to go up to Blackford in the Discovery as usual, but I changed my mind, and commandeered a marked police vehicle instead, complete with blue light. That’s never been my favourite mode of transport but I felt that it suited the circumstances. I didn’t want to turn up quietly at Alafair Drysalter’s door, not for a second time. I let Martin drive, with DC Shannon in the back. I knew her well enough since I was a regular in her boss’s office, but she and Martin had never met before. Each seemed fairly impressed by the other.
Alafair had remembered to lock the gates. I had to press the entryphone button. ‘Yes?’ She sounded annoyed, impatient.
‘Police,’ I announced. ‘Detective Superintendent Skinner and colleagues.’
‘Oh, go away, will you!’ she shouted.
‘We’re coming in, one way or another,’ I told her evenly. ‘So choose the easy option.’
After a few seconds, she did. There was a buzz, Martin pushed the gate and it opened. The Afghans were in the garden. They came bounding up to us, barking, their long, high-maintenance coats flying. They’d lost whatever hunter instincts the breed was supposed to have. They were friendly, designer pooches that would have been as much use as guard dogs as the hamster I’d bought Alex when she was six. Shannon made a fuss of them and they fell in with us as we walked up to the door.
Alafair was waiting for us, on the threshold. Any traces of her bruising was covered by make-up, her hair was salon set, and she wore a gold lounge suit that made me think of Hello! magazine. ‘What the hell’s this?’ she snapped. ‘Three this time? Look, I don’t give autographs, okay. Where’s the other young guy? He was nice.’
‘This is his day for helping old ladies across the street,’ I replied. ‘Or for taking young ones off it. Invite us in. You need to talk to us.’
‘Like hell I do,’ she retorted, ‘but if you insist, come on. Sasha, Pasha, you stay.’ The dogs fell back, obediently.
The house was the type that estate agents were once fond of describing as ‘architect designed’, all flashy features, but not, at first sight, comfortable. The room into which she led us was enormous: one wall was all glass, a picture window, with doors set in it, that looked up towards the Royal Observatory, and there was an upper level that the sales brochure might have called the ‘Minstrel Gallery’. The furniture was there to be admired rather than for comfort.
‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘Why are you hassling me? Have you found the driver yet?’
‘There was no driver, Alafair, as you know very well. Now it’s my turn to ask you a question. Has Tony told you about Marlon?’
‘Who the hell is Marlon?’
‘His driver. A lad about your own age. Solidly built kid, not too smooth, very Edinburgh. I’m guessing he might have picked you up sometimes when you were going to meet Manson. I don’t imagine the Ibiza trip was your only encounter.’
He tossed her head back. ‘Ah,’ she said, airily, hamming it up like the failed actress she was. ‘That boy. Was that his name? What about him?’
‘He’s rather dead, I’m afraid.’
That wasn’t in the script. ‘What do you mean?’ she exclaimed.
‘I mean he’s not breathing any more,’ I snapped. ‘I mean he’s starting to go off. I mean he’s in a box, paid for by Tony for sure, waiting to be put in a hole in the ground. Is there anything about being dead that you don’t understand?’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dorothy Shannon flinch, but I was off and running. ‘Your question should have been “How did he die?” Answer, somebody killed him. Next question, “But why, the poor boy?” Answer, because of you!’
‘Me?’ she squealed; ex tempore she was lousy.
‘Yes, Alafair, you.’ I took my voice back down to normal. ‘This is how it happened. You’d been playing about with Manson for a while, and maybe others but I’m only concerned with him. He asked you to go with him for a week to Ibiza, while your husband was away with his international mates. You agreed, but then you did something fairly stupid… the norm for you, I imagine… and Derek found out. He didn’t have the nuts to face you about it, so he called your dad, the father-in-law that he thinks is a nice guy, Perry, Mr Holmes.’ The make-up changed shade as the skin beneath it paled.
