‘Shouldn’t you get involved if it comes to that?’ she asked.

The ground under my feet grew very shaky all of a sudden. ‘What?’ I laughed; a little theatrically, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Lift my daughter’s heroine and alienate her affections forever?’ I said. ‘You’re not on.’

No way could I have been involved in arresting Mia, but not because of Alex; in fact, my blood ran cold at the thought of being cross-examined by her QC in a criminal trial. Tell the court, Detective Superintendent Skinner, didn’t you have an intimate relationship with the defendant? Didn’t it end badly? Isn’t this whole thing your attempt at revenge?

‘And if I do it,’ Alison challenged, ‘how’s Alex going to feel about me?’

And what would defence counsel feel if he knew about us? Detective Inspector Higgins, isn’t your attitude towards my client coloured by her affair with your partner, Detective Superintendent Skinner?

‘That, my dear, we will deal with if it happens.’

Eighteen

Beyond all the potential for career damage, I was worried about what Mia would say to Alison about me, if they did come face to face. For all that I was pretty sure I could talk my way out of it, even if she spilled the whole damn tin of beans, still I was unsettled, not by the potential embarrassment itself, but because I realised what a selfish bloody fool I’d been, and most of all because I cared about Ali more than I had realised, and about the comfort that I was finding in our relationship.

That concern was set firmly on one side by a call on my mobile as I waited in a queue of traffic near the office, with a recuperating Ciaran McFaul in the passenger seat of the tank. (And there was I, led to believe that Geordies could hold their drink. That was a joke, by the way; a near-death experience can do that to you.) It was from David Pettigrew, in the Edinburgh procurator fiscal’s office. They’re the prosecutors in Scotland, and technically we investigate crime on their behalf.

‘Bob,’ he said, ‘I need you to come and see me, in my office now. It’s about the Hastie McGrew arrest.’

‘Has his dad’s lawyer been leaning on you?’ I asked.

‘What do you expect? He’s been shouting about wrongful arrest, attempted murder even.’

‘Fuck him. If I’d wanted to kill the guy, he’d be dead.’

‘I know that and I’ve told him as much.’

‘Who is his lawyer anyway?’

‘Ken Green.’

‘Wanker.’

‘Agreed, but he’s not the problem.’

‘So what is?’ I snapped, losing my patience.

‘I’ll explain when you get here.’

‘Fuck it, Davie, I haven’t begun to question the guy yet.’ I was giving him a hard time, principally because invitations to the fiscal’s office were never to discuss the time of day; they always signalled a crisis of some sort or another.

‘Bob,’ he sighed, ‘would I ask if I didn’t have to?’

‘No,’ I conceded, ‘I suppose not. But I tell you now, if that fucker Green’s in the room when I get there, I’m walking straight out.’

‘He won’t be, I promise; but it’s not just you I need. I’d like your English colleague to join us. Can you pick him up and bring him?’

‘I don’t have to. He’s with me. I’ll see you in however long it takes.’

By the time I’d extricated myself from my traffic queue and found a parking space, it had taken twenty-five minutes. And I was annoyed. I strode into Pettigrew’s office, full of hell, with McFaul tagging along an my heels. ‘Okay, Davie,’ I began, when I was no more than halfway into the room, ‘what the fu-’ I stopped short. He wasn’t alone. He was sitting at his meeting table with a woman, around forty, slim, dark hair, dark suit, frowning and all business.

He rose, she didn’t. ‘Bob, Detective Inspector,’ he greeted us, ‘thanks for coming. This is…’

‘I know who she is,’ McFaul said. ‘Morning, Paula. Bob, this is Mrs Paula Cherry, from the Crown Prosecution Service, Newcastle office.’

She nodded, but still didn’t crack a smile.

‘Is this your back-up, Ciaran?’ I asked, not best pleased. ‘I thought we’d agreed that I’d question McGrew about the Watson murder then let you take him south.’

‘I didn’t send for her,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got no idea…’

‘Take a seat, gentlemen,’ the fiscal said, ‘and let me tell you why we’re here. We have a situation. Ken Green is demanding that we release Mr McGrew immediately. Apart from the usual bluster, he is also threatening a civil suit against the police. Bob, it would be helpful if you ran through the circumstances that led you to raid Perry Holmes’s house yesterday and to arrest his son.’

I did, in detail, step by step from the finding of Marlon Watson’s body in the disused public baths, through McGrew’s sister’s fling with Tony Manson, to our discovery of his existence and of his true identity, finally tying him to the murders in Newcastle.

‘Okay?’ I concluded, annoyed more than ever by the woman’s silent frowning presence. ‘Where’s the problem with any of that? Now, can Ciaran and I go and hit the guy with rolled-up Yellow Pages or whatever it is you imagine we do to suspects?’

‘The problem, Mr Skinner,’ she replied, ‘from a CPS standpoint, is that you haven’t given us enough evidence to proceed.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I bellowed, slipping into Taggart mode in spite of myself. She’d set me off. ‘We’ve put him at the hotel for you, we’re going to give you Winston Church’s blood in his car and we’ve recovered what I’m certain will prove to be the murder weapon, in his possession. Are your English juries so demanding that they want more than that?’

‘The CPS is,’ she shot back. ‘You’ve put his car at the Seagull Hotel, but you haven’t put him in it, not on that night. You’ve given us a person of similar build, in a hooded black tunic wearing black gloves, but you haven’t proved that it was Peter Hastings McGrew.’

I stared at her. ‘Fuck me,’ I gasped. ‘Where is the reasonable doubt?’

‘To my mind it exists. I require an overwhelming chance of conviction before I will commit the Crown to the expense of a trial. I don’t have it here.’

‘Then you go back to Newcastle, lady,’ I told her, ‘and send us someone higher up the tree.’

‘The decision is mine, and I’m telling you what it is. Until my scientific people can put McGrew in that hotel room, and in Church’s house, I won’t proceed against him. They say there’s no prospect of them doing that.’

I smiled. ‘If that’s how you feel, you’re welcome to take the flak. Because I’m damn certain that Ciaran’s force won’t let you shift the blame for three unsolved murders on to them, just because you’re protecting your conviction ratio against all comers. And don’t look to me to keep quiet about it to the Scottish media either.’ I started to rise. ‘Davie, if that’s all, I’ve got a telephone directory to roll up.’

He waved me back down. ‘I wish it was, Bob, but it’s not.’

I sighed. ‘Oh shit. Not you and all, Brutus. What’s your effing problem?’

‘It’s tied in with Mrs Cherry’s.’

‘How?’

‘Well,’ he ventured, cautiously, ‘legally, what happened in Tyneside has nothing to do with us, and she isn’t giving me grounds to hold McGrew on her behalf. But as far as the Watson murder’s concerned, with those guys out of the road, there’s nothing linking him to that either, and I doubt if there ever will be. So as things stand, you’re not going to get a conviction in Scotland either.’

‘In that case, Davie,’ I growled, ‘I will do him for the attempted murder of a police officer.’

He sucked his teeth. ‘He’ll have a defence for that too.’

I laughed, in lieu of a roar of rage. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Ken Green’s already floated it. He’ll argue that his father, in an interesting and varied business life, has

Вы читаете Grievous Angel
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату