Midnight and Blue, page 9
‘Does he have a job?’ Mulgrew asked.
Esson dug a little deeper into the file. ‘Don’t know if you’d call it a job or not, but he hangs out with Zak Campbell.’
‘The footballer?’
‘Ex-footballer,’ she corrected him. ‘Injury did for him.’
‘Hell of a player he was turning into, too,’ Mulgrew mused.
‘He was at the same school as Marcus. Few years above him, but they became pally.’
‘Didn’t Campbell go into acting or something?’
Shah had been busy on her phone. ‘Bit parts in a couple of TV dramas and films I’ve never heard of. Tried his hand at modelling and singing. Info dries up after that.’
‘Who was it that spoke to the son?’ Mulgrew asked.
‘Me and Allbright,’ Shah said, dumping her tea bag into a bin. ‘He’s still living at the family home – out Edinburgh Park way. Didn’t seem that shocked by his dad’s killing, but that could’ve been bravado. Shared precisely no useful information regarding the deceased. It was Allbright who noticed a few photos in the house showing Marcus with Zak Campbell – I had no idea who he was. From the way Marcus then spoke, we got the idea he maybe worked for Campbell in some capacity, or at least was taking money from him.’ Shah broke off, watching as Esson held up the report of the interview.
‘Allbright’s spelling is all over the place,’ Esson said.
‘Poor guy was mainlining ibuprofen for his toothache,’ Shah reminded her.
‘How about the deceased’s ex-wife?’ Mulgrew enquired.
‘Using her black-widow charms to persuade one of the other prisoners into doing her dirty work?’ Esson sifted the paperwork again. ‘Split was amicable. No cheating on either side. She got the cash for her half of the marital home and has hitched her wagon to a car mechanic in Nottingham.’
She closed the file and they sat in silence, drinking their drinks while the seconds passed.
‘Stands to reason it was Novak,’ Shah eventually offered.
‘It does,’ Mulgrew agreed.
‘We should bring him in here,’ Shah went on. ‘Proper grilling in an interview room. Then do the same for every colleague who’s covering for him. My guess is, they either knew he was going to do it, or they helped him carry it out – getting rid of the evidence, cleaning up, handing him a fresh uniform.’
‘That being the case, why would they help us?’ Esson asked. ‘They’d be putting themselves in the frame. Only way this works is if they all stick together.’
Shah held up a finger. ‘One link in the chain is always weaker than the rest. Some hard questioning will show us who that is.’
‘These people work in a prison, Zara. I doubt we’ve got anything that won’t just bounce off them.’ Esson broke off as her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
It’s Malcolm F. Can we meet?
She started tapping her response. Busy.
Seconds later, Fox replied. At Gayfield? I’m in my car outside. Need 5 mins max.
‘Anything interesting?’ Mulgrew enquired.
‘A huge break in the case.’ She watched him crack a smile. ‘I just need to pop out for five. Is that okay?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said, ‘but only if you make it ten rather than five.’ He saw the quizzical look on her face. ‘Nip into a shop and fetch us some milk,’ he explained.
Fox’s car was big and black. The interior smelled and looked brand new. Esson climbed in and closed the door, checking she couldn’t be seen from the CID windows across the street.
‘Interesting,’ she said.
‘How so?’
‘Well, for one thing, I’d no idea you had my mobile number. And for another, if it’s an official visit, why are we down here and not upstairs?’
The smile took a long time spreading across Fox’s face, and lacked a certain amount of sincerity. Esson noted that he kept his hands on the steering wheel, as though he might abduct her at any moment. It didn’t help that those hands were sheathed in black leather gloves.
‘I just thought maybe I could offer you something – trust me, it’s something you definitely want.’
‘Okay, I’m listening.’
‘There’s an inmate who’s in the same hall as the victim – in fact, their cells are pretty much across from one another. His name’s Everett Harrison. I don’t think you’ve got round to questioning him yet. When you do, it might help to have some background. Harrison’s an enforcer for a Liverpool crime boss called Shay Hanlon. Our colleagues south of the border got a bit too close to prosecuting Hanlon, and off he went to Brazil – no easy extradition. Hanlon’s specialisms are dope and people-trafficking. That was how we got lucky. There was a break-in at a nail bar. The culprit ran off when the alarm sounded, but that same alarm sent a patrol car looking. In the back office they found a chunky consignment of drugs with Harrison’s dabs all over it.’
‘I’m with you so far, for what it’s worth.’
‘The intruder cut himself during the break-in,’ Fox went on, keeping his voice level as he surveyed the roadway and pavement. ‘Took a while – you know what the labs are like with low-level stuff – but we finally got a match.’ He turned towards her. ‘Jackie Simpson.’
Esson was silent for a moment as she digested this. ‘So in a way, Simpson’s responsible for this guy Harrison being put inside?’
Fox nodded slowly, his eyes turning towards her as she gnawed her bottom lip, deep in thought.
‘Do we have any reason to believe Harrison knows who Jackie Simpson is?’ she eventually asked. Fox just shrugged. ‘And your interest isn’t so much in the victim as this guy Harrison – but Harrison’s already doing time, so what’s in it for you?’
It was Fox’s turn to think for a moment. He drew in a breath, a sign that he had made his mind up. ‘We think Hanlon might be on his way back to the UK.’
‘“Think”?’
‘He uses EncroChat – makes it impossible for us to intercept his phone calls – so as of now it’s just a strong suspicion. Doubtful he’d get in touch with Harrison, but not impossible. His gang is almost clannish, and money’s been making its way to Harrison’s family to tide them over. SO15 asked me to keep an ear to the ground…’
‘And of course, you’d want to suck up to London.’ Esson managed a wry smile. ‘Same old Malcom Fox.’ She gestured towards his hands. ‘Do those gloves help you climb the greasy pole?’
‘I didn’t need to come to you, Christine. I could have taken this to Mae McGovern.’
‘But you didn’t.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘And why is that, Malcolm? Siobhan escaped your clutches, so you’re on the hunt for a new pet project? Maybe you see yourself as Sir Galahad.’ She made show of checking her surroundings. ‘No damsels needing saving here, mister.’
Fox’s face had grown stony. ‘I’ve told you what I thought you should know. What you do with it is up to you. All I’m asking is to be kept in the loop.’ He pressed the ignition button and sat there, hands ready on the steering wheel, staring through the windscreen as Esson wrenched open the door.
She was about to walk back into the station, but changed her mind and headed off in the direction of Leith Walk. There was no point taking the information straight back to MIT when she could add something else of value to the basket.
Milk…
Fox watched her in his rear-view mirror. She was right, of course, but only partially. Becoming her ally, her confidant, would have annoyed Siobhan Clarke, and perhaps driven a wedge between the two women. Maybe he had miscalculated, but maybe not. She would take the information to her boss, of course she would, and would be praised for it. Which might cause her to reflect and come round to thinking of him as useful, maybe even eventually thanking him. There was more he could have told her, but some secrets had to remain locked away. No need for her to know about his relationship with the deceased or his role in the break-in that had led to Everett Harrison’s prosecution. And after all, a result had been secured – drugs taken off the street, a criminal put behind bars. Plus Jackie Simpson had kept quiet throughout, never mentioning Fox or the plan the two of them had conjured up. That in itself should have kept him safe during his incarceration. Well, relatively safe. Yes, it should have.
Oh well.
As he drove west out of the city, headed for his office at Gartcosh, he thought again of John Rebus, locked up and guilty, yet neither as troubled nor as changed as Fox had expected. He knew Rebus couldn’t ignore Jackie Simpson’s murder – it wasn’t in the man’s nature. Then there was Darryl Christie to consider. The consignment found in the nail bar pointed to one thing – Hanlon was barging into Christie’s territory. His first foray into Scotland, Glaze had said on the phone. Perhaps a taster of things to come.
‘See, Malcolm,’ Glaze had purred, ‘one strong reason for Hanlon to come back from Brazil would be to improve his chances of taking a grip on the Scottish market. With Christie inside, what’s to stop him?’
‘Christie might be inside, but his men aren’t,’ Fox had countered.
‘Maybe so, but I’ll bet they’ve never encountered someone like Shay Hanlon before. I’ll send you a few stories.’
And so he had, stories of violence meted out and territories gained. Photographs, too, including a couple of shots of Hanlon himself, ruddy-cheeked and curly-haired, freckles covering an almost boyish face – Fox would have taken him for a farmer, or maybe a builder. Six murders at the very least, SO15 reckoned he’d got away with. Old ties with Republican hitmen in Belfast, arms bought and sold, killers given safe passage and new identities. Fox had put feelers out, but had yet to find solid evidence that, Harrison apart, Hanlon had shifted any of his troops to Scotland. He’d also, after speaking to Rebus, done a search on Bobby Briggs, headcase for hire. Briggs had been in trouble all his days, but without straying too far from his Glaswegian orbit. He’d been transferred to Edinburgh because he was judged to have too many enemies with scores to settle in the local prison, Barlinnie. Had he known Everett Harrison on the outside? If so, how? And what was in it for either man?
Fox knew he had many more questions than answers, nor could he rely, it seemed, on Christine Esson to do his bidding, and that meant only one thing: he had to attach himself to the investigation. Using hands-free, he called his boss’s office. Then he sat up a little bit straighter at the steering wheel and took a deep breath.
Time to turn on the charm, Malcolm, he told himself, waiting for the call to be answered.
7
Siobhan Clarke opened a bottle of wine, promising herself she only needed the one glass to accompany the dinner she’d cooked. Gnocchi with fried onion, garlic and mushrooms added, then a heaped spoonful of pesto stirred in. She’d even grated some pecorino. Surely that merited a smallish helping of cold white wine. She had the central heating on, the lighting turned low and Chet Baker singing from her Bluetooth speaker. With the curtains closed, the rest of the world could perhaps be persuaded to melt away. Her flat had two bedrooms (one used for storage, since no one ever stayed) and was a couple of storeys above ground level in a traditional tenement. If she wanted nightlife, Broughton Street was around the corner. Plenty of bars where a single woman could sit for a while without being hassled; a decent spread of restaurants; and during the day there were cafés and local shops. There was even an auction house where she sometimes browsed on viewing days. She hadn’t bought anything yet, but she was on their mailing list.
Yes, the furnishings in her flat were tired, but she couldn’t quite muster the energy to spend her free time changing things. She liked her sofa and she liked her armchair. The mattress on her bed got turned every few months. The in-bath shower was haphazard, but she could do without the bother of plumbers who never turned up. At weekends she caught up with Samantha and Carrie, plus Brillo, of course. They might go check on John’s flat and pick up his mail. If Christine Esson didn’t have a new guy on the go, they sometimes walked the seafront at Portobello before hitting a wine bar. Fox… well, Fox had been around for a short time, but that was long past. It often struck her that she was nearer to retirement than to the day she’d joined the force. Much nearer, truth be told. Had CID robbed her of a personal life? No, that had been her choice. But she was beginning to feel that the job no longer wanted her around. Wasn’t it more fun a decade or two back, when a few rules could be bent or broken? Rebus and his contemporaries hadn’t had to worry about internet warriors, the brandishing of mobile phone cameras or being ‘cancelled’. Livelier times; or, as Rebus himself sometimes termed it, ‘the wild east’.
Mood dipping, Clarke stared at the speaker. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ she chided the crooning Chet Baker. Then she scrolled on her phone until she found some Talking Heads, a more upbeat soundtrack to her last few mouthfuls of food. She was just starting to consider a second glass of wine – a smaller helping than the first, naturally – when her phone rang. She saw that it was Laura Smith. Smith was a journalist, ex-crime correspondent of the Scotsman newspaper. She now ran a website, podcast and blog and was happier outside the mainstream – and better off financially, too. She had stopped inviting Siobhan to join her as co-presenter, or at least appear on an episode or two (anonymity preserved), but was a good companion, who phoned when she was at a loose end and thirsty.
‘Not tonight, Josephine,’ Clarke said, answering the call.
‘This is business rather than social. I’m parked downstairs – any chance I can come up?’
Five minutes later, Clarke was placing a clean glass in front of her guest. Smith was dressed casually – jeans and an oversized jumper, her hair unbrushed. Something had brought her here in a hurry, so Clarke poured, sat down and waited. After a couple of sips of wine, Smith put the glass down and pressed her fingers against the base of the stem.
‘I got a call tonight. Some bloke who wouldn’t give his name. He said it was about the missing girl.’
‘Meaning Jasmine Andrews?’
She gave a brisk nod and reached into her shoulder bag for her MacBook. She slid the wine glass to one side and opened the screen.
‘He said he saw her photo – the one you released to the media – and she looked familiar.’ Smith stopped tapping at the keys long enough to make eye contact with Clarke. ‘From a porn site.’
‘What?’ Clarke lifted her chair and carried it around the table, settling alongside Smith.
‘That was my first thought, too. Some weirdo trying to wind me up. The site is called Young Fresh East Coast. Sounds innocent enough, but after a couple of clicks you find yourself here…’ Smith sat back and angled the screen slightly towards Clarke. There were a couple of dozen posed photos there. Young people, male and female, semi-clad, their faces digitally distorted. They all seemed to be positioned on the same bed in the same room. Smith slid the cursor to the top right photo and enlarged it.
‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Jasmine Andrews?’
‘Hard to tell without seeing the face. Can we do anything about that?’
‘I can’t, but I’m guessing your lab techs might. I’ve tried getting further into the site, but it’s impossible. You have to apply online to join “the community”.’
Clarke enlarged the photo a little more. The girl was wearing thong and bra, plus white ankle socks. Her arms were stretched out behind her to support her as she sat, legs bent at the knees and open more than a few inches. The other girls were similarly positioned or else were up on all fours, sometimes photographed from behind, heads angled back towards the camera. The boys wore bulging underpants and sometimes flexed a bicep or knelt with a finger hooked into a waistband.
‘There’s no video,’ Smith said, ‘but there is sound.’ She clicked on one of the icons and listened alongside Clarke.
‘I’m horny as hell. Please choose me. I’ll do anything your heart desires.’ It was a girl speaking, breathy, trying to act older. There was almost a trace of a giggle at the end.
‘They all parrot the same line,’ Smith explained. ‘And they mostly sound Scottish.’
‘Different voices for each photo?’ Clarke watched as Smith nodded. She tried navigating further into the site without success. ‘The guy who phoned?’ she prompted.
‘Also Scottish. When he hung up, I checked, but he’d blocked his number. He wants money, though.’
Clarke looked at her. ‘Money?’
‘A hundred to start with. And if I cough up, he promises another phone call.’
‘So you’ve some way of contacting him?’
‘It’s a pub called the Mallaig Inn.’
‘In Mallaig?’
Smith shook her head. ‘The badlands of Restalrig. Five twenties in an envelope and the name Pedro on the front. Hand it to the barman and walk away.’ She paused. ‘Instead of which, here I am, because I know you’ll give me the exclusive – and you’ve done me plenty of favours in the past.’
‘Did he say when you were to hand the money over?’
‘Sooner the better or he might go elsewhere. You do think it’s her then? I mean, if it is, and somebody was getting ready to out her – maybe a boy in her year who put two and two together – that’s a pretty good reason for getting out of Dodge, wouldn’t you say?’
Clarke didn’t answer, too focused on the screen and her own thoughts. Smith, knowing that look of old, reached for her wine and waited. Clarke eventually got up without saying anything and left the room, returning with a multipack of envelopes. She placed it on the table and slid one out, fetching a pen from her bag.
‘Pedro, wasn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Pedro it was,’ Laura Smith confirmed.
The Mallaig Inn sat on a prominent corner site in the middle of a housing scheme. The area looked tired and so did the pub. Its pebble-dashed walls hadn’t seen paint in a while (other than graffiti tags) and the M had disappeared from its signage. But it was well lit, and a sandwich board by the door promised real ales and bar food.
