'What's your name?'
'PC Haddock, ma'am.'
Poor lad, she thought. You 're going to have to be good.
'When they sent you up here, PC Haddock, did the lads tell you that I eat probationers for lunch?'
'More or less, ma'am.'
'They're right.' She paused. '… But not in their first few weeks. I prefer them a bit more seasoned. Now; what have you got for me?'
Pink-cheeked, the tal, gawky young man looked down at her. 'Chief Superintendent English cal ed in, ma'am.' She nodded; English was the senior officer in the division, the top uniform. 'He's been detained up at headquarters; the meeting with Mr Haggerty's going on into the afternoon. So he asked if you'd take a look at the night-shift reports.'
Inwardly, Maggie bristled. Manny English was pushing his luck; the night-shift reports were pure bloody trivia puffed up by the panda patrol ers to make it look as if they had been rushed off their feet. They could have been checked by a sergeant, but the Chief Super was a procedural paragon. In addition, he liked to keep in touch with everything that happened on his patch. Stil, palming off uniformed officers' reports to the CID commander, as the next senior officer, was taking it a bit far.
Outwardly, she smiled again at Haddock, and took the folder from him. 'Of course I wil,' she said. 'Anything for Mr English.' He stood there, uncertain of what to do. 'You can go,' she told him. 'I'l send them down to his office when I'm done.'
'Very good, miss… eh, sorry, ma'am.' The constable left the room much more quickly than he had entered.
Shaking her head as the door closed on him, Maggie opened the folder. By divisional standards, it looked like a light load. A false alarm at a chemist's shop in Fountainbridge, three assorted brawls, two domestic call-outs which turned out to be no more than loud arguments, and one in which a husband had been arrested and charged with assaulting his wife.
'Rubbish,' she muttered, and was on the point of closing the folder when her eye was caught by the last report; there was a photograph clipped to it. She slipped it out and looked at the Polaroid. It had been taken clumsily, and showed only the top half of a man's body, lying flat on a table. He was dressed in a heavy grey wool en jerkin, with a short zip, opened, at the neck. He looked to be in his fifties; he was bald, with a heavy, grizzled beard. Despite his weather-beaten complexion, from the blueness of his lips and cheeks, the Detective Superintendent could tell at once that he was dead.
She picked up PC Charlie Johnston's report and read carefully through his police-speak prose. The man had been identified by Dr Amritraj, who had certified his death, as Magnus Essary, of 46 Leightonstone Grove, Hunter's Tryst, Edinburgh, single, aged forty-nine. Using keys found on the body, Johnston had gained entry to the house and had searched thoroughly for any references to family, or next of kin; thoroughly, the constable insisted, but without success. There was nothing to be found, and the neighbours, delighted. Rose guessed, to have been wakened by a policeman at that hour of the morning, had al described him as a quiet, polite man who kept to himself. The report ended with the simple statement that its author had been unable to trace anyone who could be contacted and asked to take responsibility for the body.
'This is daft,' the Detective Superintendent muttered as she finished the report. 'This man cannot have been a complete loner. He lived at a fairly posh address; he must have had some sort of business life. Even if he didn't have any friends, there must be colleagues. We can't just let the guy lie in the mortuary.'
She picked up the telephone and called Oxgangs office; she was put through at once to the duty inspector, Laurence Gray, an ex-CID colleague. 'Laurie,' she began, 'I've got a report here on a sudden death on your patch in the middle of the night; man cal ed Essary. It was written up by Constable Johnston.'
'Oh aye, our Charlie,' Gray growled, with a faint chuckle. 'I've been half expecting the Chief Super to cal me about that one. Johnston's a book operator… the trouble with him is that he hasnae finished reading the bloody book yet.'
Rose relaxed. 'So you're following it up, not just giving up on it.'
'Come on, Maggie. I was in CID long enough not to be doing that.'
She accepted the reproof. 'Sorry. I should have known better.'
'Indeed, ma'am,' the inspector rumbled. 'As it happens, the thing's sorted. Mr Essary was in the wine importing business, in partnership with a woman called Ella Frances. She called Fettes this morning, and they put her in touch with me; I told her to go up to the Royal. She did; they called to let us know she's confirmed the identification and claimed the body. She's had it uplifted from the mortuary already. File closed.'
'That's good. No thanks to Johnston, though. It's just as well for both of you that the Chief Super was tied up.'
'Ach, don't blame Charlie. He didnae make any mistakes; he just focused a bit too hard on his finishing time, that's al. You know what the night shift's like. Short spells of action mixed in with long periods of near-terminal boredom.'
'You're right there. But you wait till you're in my job. There isn't a minute of your life you can cal your own completely, with no fear that the phone'l ring.'
'It'l be double for you from now on then, wi' your man's promotion.'
Maggie Rose was rarely surprised. 'How did you know about that so soon?'
'Hah! You think e-mail's fast? It's got nothing on the force grapevine.
Be sure to congratulate Mario for me, will you?'
'Of course. Thanks, Laurie.'
She hung up, slipped the report and photograph back into the folder, and leaned back in her chair, musing on the curse that Alexander Graham Bell had visited on mankind.
6
She was calm by the time she heard the big Dodge Caravan crunch its way up the gravel driveway. She opened the heavy front door to greet them; three of them, Andy Martin, Neil Mcl henney, and his wife, Louise, picked up on the way to Gul ane.
The two women embraced. 'Neil called to tell me what had happened,'
Lou murmured. 'He and Andy thought you might welcome a woman's company, and since Bob's daughter is working on secondment in London. ..' Her voice faltered for a second. 'Oh, I am so sorry,' she exclaimed, hugging her again.
Sarah felt herself begin to go again, but held on to her composure, steeling herself not to fold in front of the two men, however close to her and Bob they might be.
'Thanks, Lou,' she replied. 'Come on through to the conservatory.'
She led the way from the entrance hal of the modem bungalow, towards the big glass-walled room, which looked out over the Forth estuary, drab and grey in the dul spring day.
'Can I do something?' asked Louise, making a conscious effort not to sound as if she wished she was somewhere else. 'What about the children?'
Sarah gave her a weak smile. 'They're fine. Mark's at school, James Andrew's dismantling his toys in the play room, and Seonaid's having her afternoon sleep. Tell you what, though; you could pour the coffee.
I've made some in the filter.'
'Of course. What does everyone take in theirs?' She glanced at Martin.
'Nothing. Black, please.'
'Right now, I'll take brandy,' said Sarah. 'You'l find the cooking stuff in the cupboard above the coffee pot.'
'That's a done deal.' She turned and walked through to the kitchen; she had visited the Skinners on several occasions and knew her way around.
Left with Sarah, the two detectives looked from one to the other. It was she who broke the awkward silence. 'Sorry I was useless when I called you, Andy. But the phone cal came as such a shock; it just floored me, I
