'Ahh,' came a sigh. 'But that's the pity of it. The poor man had no one to see him on his way.'
'No one?'
'Not a soul, other than myself, and my staff.'
'But who instructed you?'
'A lady; a Miss Ella Frances. She phoned me and asked me to collect the deceased from the mortuary and bring him to our chapel of rest, here at our salon. I did so that very day, and next morning she came to see me.
She showed me al the necessary paperwork, by which I mean the cremation certificate and the death certificate itself. She told me that the late Mr Essary was her business partner, and that he had no relatives.
She asked me to book a cremation; I did it there and then; she chose a simple coffin and reserved a hearse. I asked her if she wished me to place an intimation in the press, but she declined.'
'Can you give me an address and telephone number for Miss Frances?'
Jaap sighed again. 'Alas no, superintendent. She gave me neither.'
'But what about payment?' Rose asked. 'How are you going to invoice her?'
'I don't have to. She asked me what the bill would be. I told her that her requirements would cost just under nine hundred pounds, and she paid me there and then, in cash; she gave me one thousand pounds, the balance being a gratuity for my staff.'
'And then she didn't turn up for the funeral? Is that what you're saying?'
'That's right. She told me to proceed as instructed; she said that the late Mr Essary had been a humanist, and had wished no formal ceremony.
She also told me at that time that she would be unable to attend herself, as she had to be in France, unavoidably, on business. She did lead me to expect that there would be mourners from Mr Essary's circle of friends, but on the day, there were none.'
'This stinks!' the detective exclaimed.
'I agree,' said the undertaker. 'I must admit I was concerned by the circumstances; I had it in mind to discuss it with my chief executive. I have an appointment to see him this evening, and I intended to tel him about it then; your call has anticipated that.'
'Give me a description of this El a Frances woman.'
'She was smal, in her twenties, I'd have said, but I'd hate to put an age to her. She was dressed in mourning black… nothing unusual in that, given the circumstances… with a wide-brimmed black hat and heavily tinted glasses which she never removed during our meeting.'
'Voice? Accent?'
'She was quietly spoken; I can't recall whether she had a particular accent of any sort. But people often sound strained when I meet them, so it can be hard to tell.'
'Okay.' Rose paused, thinking. 'Thank you for that, Mr Jaap. Listen, if by any chance Miss Frances should contact you again, get a number for her. I may have to speak to you again, but for now, that's al.'
She hung up and pulled the Essary folder across to her. Charlie Johnston's note was all right, as far as it went, but it stopped well short of being comprehensive. She snatched up her phone once more and dialled Haddock. 'Sauce, I want you to get someone for me. He's a doctor, DrAmritraj, and he practises up at the health centre in Oxgangs.
Find him, and make an appointment for me to cal on him.'
Maggie was aware of a long, awkward silence. 'This is not a personal matter,' she added, heavily. 'I want to talk to him about a death he certified… but do not tell him that.'
She sat back and waited, and as she did her eye fell upon an envelope on the top of the pile in her in-tray, with her name scrawled across it; Dan Pringle's package, she guessed. She picked it up and tore it open.
Inside there was a two-page Missing Person report, circulated by Strathclyde Police: the man Pringle had thought looked like her father.
She looked at the name on the heading, reading it aloud. 'Father Francis 200
Donovan Green. A turbulent priest, I wonder… probably done a runner with a married parishioner.'
She scanned the report. Father Green was a fifty-one-year-old parish priest, in the appropriately named district ofHolytown, in Lanarkshire.
Ten days earlier he had gone off on a weekend's leave, to visit his spinster sister in Crieff. Maggie was struck by the adjective. Spinster, eh.
I could have been one of those, she thought. She read on; the priest had been due back on the fol owing Monday, ready to take confession, but he had not reappeared. On the fol owing morning, his curate had telephoned his sister, who had told him that she had not seen her brother since Christmas, and certainly had not expected him that weekend.
The police had been informed; the curate and housekeeper had been interviewed, but Father Green had given no hint as to where he might really have been headed.
'Mid-life crisis, maybe,' the superintendent mused. And then she turned to the second sheet of the report.
The photograph seemed to become almost holographic as it jumped off the page at her. 'Jesus,' she shouted, involuntarily. She laid it on the desk, grabbed the Polaroid of Magnus Essary, and laid the two side by side. This time she had no doubt; what she needed was confirmation.
She snatched up her phone once more and dialled Haddock. 'Sauce,' she barked, 'have you got that doctor yet?'
'Sorry, ma'am,' he answered, fearful y. 'I'm having trouble finding the right number.'
'That's okay. Put a hold on that for now, anyway. I want you to get me someone else; PC Charlie Johnston. He's stationed up at Oxgangs, too. I don't care what shift he's on: suppose he's stil on nights, and in the Land of Nod. Find him and tell him to be in my office inside an hour.'
49
Bob handed the keys of her parents' house to his wife. 'You do it, love,' he said. She took them from him, and unlocked the big front door, then stepped, slightly hesitantly, into the hal. The heat of the day was building up in the morning sunshine, but inside it was stil cool.
Sarah looked around the familiar entrance; Bob had done as much as he could to clean up after the technicians, but she could see that the rest was a job for the professionals. Much of the panel ing on the walls, and the woodwork on the stairway, were stil streaked with their powder.
Once more it got to her: she knew that there would be many such moments over the next few days, but it was comforting to know that with her husband at hand, she enjoyed the luxury of being able to yield to them, from time to time.
'Excuse me,' she whispered, and walked upstairs into the bedroom that had been hers as a girl, and in which she guessed that Bob had slept the night before. The sound of her crying carried down to him in the hal way; for a moment he thought of going up to her, but instead, he left the suitcase at the foot of the stairs and walked back out to the drive. He found a cloth in the Jaguar's glove compartment and used it to wrap the pistol, which he retrieved from its hiding place, and carried into the Graces' spacious reception room. Indoors, he was able to give the weapon a thorough examination. He recognised it at once as the double of several owned by his own police force, not his own firearm of choice, but one which was popular with his colleagues, because of its reliability: a 9mm Glock 19, compact model. He slid the fifteen shot magazine from its housing in the butt, and saw that, indeed, it was fully loaded.
He laid pistol and ammunition on a side table, then reached into a pocket of the cotton jacket he had bought a few days before, and took out a small notebook, searching through it until he found the number he needed. He sat in his father-in-law's armchair, picked up the phone and dialled.
'Schultz,' a strong voice answered.
'Lieutenant, good morning, it's Bob Skinner here. I hope I'm not interrupting anything.'
'No, sir, I have this morning off. I've just been running and I'm about to step into the shower, but otherwise,
