at Christmas. It's meant to fill us all with seasonal joy.'
'Bugger that for a game of soldiers,' he grunted. 'All I see is traffic chaos, and all I hear is my son moaning because his rugby's been cancelled.'
'Let me cheer you up, then.' Wrigley sipped her coffee, nodding approval. 'You can't have been here long. This is almost warm.'
'Try the cake,' he urged. 'That's real comfort food; should suit you a treat.'
She looked at him over the top of her spectacles. 'Good job we're old friends,' she muttered.
'So what have you got for me, friend?'
'Nothing on paper,' she replied at once. 'I couldn't take the chance of being seen photocopying. You'll have to make notes… that's assuming that policemen still carry notebooks and pencils.'
'This one does, although the pencil's a shade up-market.' He took a pad and a Mont Blanc ballpoint from his pocket. 'Birthday present from my wife,' he explained.
'Very nice.' Wrigley attacked her fudge cake. 'So was that,' she added. 'Now to business.' She checked that the booth behind her was still empty and that nobody else was within earshot.
'Your subject is comfortably off,' she began. 'His salary goes in every month, like anyone else, and it is his principal source of income. However, it is not the only one. There are small payments made to him every six months; I've checked them back and found that they are dividends paid through a blind trust, which looks after his private shareholdings and any other investments.'
'That's standard practice for… people in his position.'
'Yes, dear, I know. I administer several of them. There's nothing out of the ordinary in that at all. However, he has other income which is not quite so orthodox. He receives monthly payments of two and a half thousand pounds, transferred from an account held in the Dundee branch of my own bank. I traced that back also; what I found might interest you. It is the working account of a discretionary trust set up more than fifty years ago to benefit members of the Groves family.'
'Who the hell are the Groves family?'
'They own a large construction company in Dundee. The trust was established by Herbert Groves senior, and his heirs and successors have benefited from it ever since.'
'He's getting thirty grand a year from a builder?'
'No,' Wrigley exclaimed. 'The trust exists entirety separately from the company. It is not required to declare its beneficiaries, other than to the Inland Revenue, and before you ask, your subject is not evading any taxes.' She finished her cake, and then eyed McIlhenney's, which was untouched; he pushed it across to her.
'I've also checked the register of MSPs' interests,' she told him. 'Your subject declares among his assets a shareholding in Herbert Groves Construction, plc, and in a number of quoted companies. He doesn't declare the trust income, because he doesn't have to: it isn't remunerated employment.'
She ate the second piece of fudge cake, slowly and with relish. 'There,' she announced, when she was finished, with undisguised self-satisfaction all over her face. 'The people who set you on this errand will be happy. You can go back to them and report that while the man appears to have a background which is at odds with his,' she glanced over her shoulder again, 'political philosophy, he is, legally, squeaky clean.'
Forty-eight
Malky Gladsmuir did not have the sunniest of dispositions at the best of times, and his mood was never improved by a visit from the police. So when Mario McGuire shoved his way through the heavy swing doors and into the Wee Black Dug, he was greeted with the scowl that he had expected.
The detective superintendent glanced around as he shook the snow from his jacket. The looming weather had taken a drastic toll of the evening turn-out: only two drinkers leaned against the bar, while another sat at a table in the furthest corner of the saloon. The assistant barman, with little to do, fixed most of his attention on a snooker tournament on television.
'What can I do for you?' asked Gladsmuir, with a degree of belligerence that almost brought a smile to McGuire's face.
'Your office: now.' He stepped behind the bar, as the pub manager shrugged and opened a door behind him.
'You're not to bother me,' he protested. 'Did you not get told?'
'Sit down, Malky.'
'Ah'll stand if I want.' Gladsmuir backed towards his desk, reaching behind him with his right hand and picking up a heavy glass paperweight.
'Okay, if that's how you want it.' He took half a pace forward; the cornered man swung at his head, hard and fast, but the detective simply smashed aside his assault, sending the weapon flying into a corner of the room, then hit him, once, hard, in the middle of the forehead. The publican's eyes glazed, his legs turned to jelly and he slumped semi-conscious into the chair behind him.
McGuire grinned. 'I told you to sit down.'
He waited until Gladsmuir's eyes began to focus once more, then pulled up the small office's other chair and sat facing him. 'That's the second time we've done this dance in here, Malky,' he said. 'When's it going to dawn on you that it'll only ever get you hurt? Or did your talk with Greg Jay make you think you were safe from me? Tell me something, my friend, which of us really scares you the most? Me or Greg?'
'You don't scare me,' Gladsmuir retorted; but his tone branded him a liar. 'Mr Jay never threatened me; he never came in here looking for trouble.'
'Neither did I; all I wanted was a conversation. It was you who took a swing at me, remember? But, Malky, did you really think that you could just go whining to Greg and that he'd warn me off, tell me to let you carry on with whatever sleazy understanding you and he had? I've told you before and I'm telling you again: I know that in his time this place was a police-free zone, but those days are gone.'
'I don't know what you mean.'
McGuire laughed. 'Don't give me that! Of course you do. What I want now is for you to tell me how it operated, what sort of stuff you were feeding him to make it worth his while. It doesn't show from my divisional records, that's for sure. I've been talking to my guys as well. None of them could recall a single arrest that was made on the basis of a tip from you. All they said was that Greg let it be known that you were his. I'll say this for him, he kept your cover bloody well. Come on, what did you give him?'
'Stuff,' the publican mumbled.
'What you mean 'stuff'?'
'This and that, just wee things I heard in the pub.'
'Such as?'
'I can't remember.'
'You'd better start, pal. While you're thinking about it, tell me how you came to complain to Greg about me.'
'Ah didn't, honest. He came in here to see me. It was him that asked me how things were going wi' you. I told him the truth, that you wanted me to keep on feeding stuff to you, but that there were to be no more scams going on in here.'
'Is that you admitting that there were, and Greg knew about it?'
'I'm admitting nothing.'
McGuire leaned forward and stuck out his chin. 'Take another swing at me, Malky, go on.'
'Naw! Why? Are you daft?'
'No, I'd just like another excuse to get your attention, that's all. I'll ask you again. Was something happening here, and did Greg Jay know about it and turn a blind eye? I want the truth, or you and I are going to my office, and very publicly too, for as long as it takes. Now, give me a one-word answer within the next five seconds. One…'
He had reached 'three', when Malky Gladsmuir muttered, 'Yes.'
'That's good,' said the big detective. 'That's the first sensible thing you've said to me since I walked in here. Now we've made this breakthrough, let's have the rest, all of it.'
