Shadow Man, page 14
Mahler pulls into his parking space and kills the engine. He sits there watching the light change over the river, until he realises his forehead is threatening to hit the steering wheel as he loses the battle to keep his eyes open.
He makes himself get out of the car and walk towards the entrance to his block of flats. He’s almost there when the prickling on the back of his neck makes him stop and start to turn. A huge dark shape appears from the side of the building, and something explodes out of the shape, something he barely has time to register as a fist the size of a small ham before it crashes onto his jaw.
When he opens his eyes, he’s lying on a brown leather couch in a room he’s never seen before. The sunlight is streaming in through a vast picture window and hitting the crystal pendants on an oversized table lamp directly in his eyeline. Wincing, Mahler reaches up to cover his eyes. And finds he’s been swathed in what he suspects is a dog blanket, judging from the smell.
As he’s trying to work out which particular level of hell he’s been sentenced to, a round, solicitous-looking face bends over him, making sympathetic noises. ‘Sugar in your tea, son? Looks like you could do with it.’
Mahler peels his face from the couch and discards the dog blanket. He sits up groggily. ‘Assaulting a police officer – not your usual style, Carl. What’s going on?’
Cazza shakes his head. ‘Ach, it was just a wee tap. Wullie didn’t mean anything by it. Did you, Wullie?’
The man-mountain on the beanbag in the corner gives Mahler a mock-penitent grin. ‘Got a terrible twitch, me. Didn’t even know I’d done it until I saw you hit the deck.’ He glances at Cazza, gets to his feet. ‘You need anything else, boss?’
‘Just see we’re not disturbed, son. Mr Mahler and I need to have a wee chat.’
The door closes behind Wullie, and Mahler lets himself relax a fraction. From the bruise rising on his jaw, he’s guessing Wullie’s contribution to any discussion would be strictly non-verbal, so it’s safe to assume Cazza doesn’t plan to damage him physically. For the moment.
He shakes his head to clear it. And decides not to try that again for a little while. ‘So are you going to explain what I’m doing here? Before I add abduction to the assault charge, that is.’
Cazza spreads his hands. ‘No need for that, surely? I just wanted a wee word, confidential, like.’
‘My door at Burnett Road is always open. And I’d be very happy to see you there—’
‘Aye, I’d get a warm welcome from all the cop-shop boys, all right. But seeing as I wasn’t born yesterday, we’ll do things my way. On neutral ground, so to speak.’ Cazza puts a mug of tea on the table in front of him. ‘Look, one visit from those two lassies – fair enough. Got to show your faces, haven’t you? But since then, your big hairy polis have been making a right nuisance of themselves at my wee club. Turning up at all hours, harassing the girls and putting off the punters. The fuck do you think you’re up to, son?’
‘I’m running a murder enquiry into Kevin Ramsay’s death. And I need to talk to one of your ex-members of staff about it. Perhaps you know the man I’m looking for? Manchester accent, not into small talk, but lets his fists do the talking. Ring any bells?’
Cazza shrugs. ‘I’ve a manager there deals with staffing. I’ll ask him the next time I’m down.’
‘We’ve already spoken to him – but curiously your staff records seem to be incomplete. Which is why you’ll continue to get little visits from HMRC and various related bodies. And if this missing Mancunian turns out to have been acting on your orders—’
‘You want to be careful, son.’ Ice displacing the veneer of affability in Cazza’s voice. He leans forward in his chair, bringing his face level with Mahler’s. ‘You want to be really careful making accusations like that. Wee Kevin was a bit of an eejit, but there was no harm in him. And more than that, he was family.’
‘He was what?’
‘You didn’t know? Gemma’s my cousin Mandy’s girl. I used to give her a lift to school, sometimes, when Mandy wasn’t up to it. I’d no’ harm a hair on the girl’s head, son . . . and that goes for her daft boyfriend too.’
Gemma Fraser’s related to Cazza? It’s just about possible, Mahler supposes. The MacKays’ network of familial relationships is complex enough to make a genealogist break down and cry. And if he’s telling the truth, it might put a different complexion on things. Though if family got in the way of business, Mahler’s not sure how far Cazza’s loyalties would stretch.
‘And you’ve got no idea who might have done it? Doesn’t sound like you, Carl, not knowing what’s going on in your own backyard.’
Cazza’s face darkens. ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll get there. And when I do—’
‘You’ll pass the information on to me, of course.’
‘Goes without saying.’ Cazza gives him a look that tells him it does nothing of the sort. ‘But seeing as we’re getting things off our chests, I’ll tell you this much. The wee jakey was mixed up in something – God knows how he managed it, but I think his big lugs were flapping when they shouldn’t have been.’
‘Like what?’
Cazza shakes his head. ‘If I knew that, do you not think I’d have done something about it? But maybe you and me could . . . what would you call it in the job, now, pool our resources?’
It takes Mahler a minute to work out what Cazza’s suggesting. ‘You want us to work together?’
‘Why not? You lot aren’t going great guns on your own, are you? Listen, I’m taking a risk here – how do you think it would look if word got out I was helping the cops?’
‘Not good, I imagine. So I’m supposed to believe you’re doing it out of a sense of public duty, is that it?’
‘Believe what you fucking like, son.’ Cazza’s smile turns feral, long enough for Mahler to glimpse the man behind some of the stories he’s heard. ‘My reasons are my own business. Now, are we going to find out what happened to wee Kevin, or what?’
Mahler lets himself imagine, just for a moment, the look on June’s face if he introduced Cazza as a CHIS. ‘You think he heard something he shouldn’t have, you must know whose nose he put out of joint.’
‘Guy further up the food chain, of course. He’s the one you need to go after.’
‘Who is he?’
Cazza shrugs. ‘Goes by the name of Hollander, that’s all I know. All anyone knows.’
‘And he’s into . . .?’
‘You name it, he’s got a finger in it. Drugs, mainly, though he has a nice line in people transport too.’
‘How do I track him down?’
Cazza gives him a look. ‘Man alive, son, what do I pay my taxes for? You’re the fucking cop here! But you need to watch your back, because they’re not all as squeaky clean as you are down at Burnett Road. And if this guy gets wind of what you’re up to . . .’ he shakes his head. ‘You do not want to get on his radar, believe me. Not you, not your friends or your family.’ Cazza puts down his mug, leans over and waves a pudgy hand in front of Mahler’s face. ‘How many fingers?’
‘Three.’
‘No concussion.’ Cazza gives a satisfied nod. ‘Fine, then. I’ll get Wullie to drop you back at your place.’
Getting dropped off by Cazza’s neanderthal henchman. He can just imagine how that would go down at Burnett Road if anyone got to hear about it. ‘Thanks, but I’ll walk.’
Cazza gives him a pitying look. ‘Not with that lump on your napper, son. You’d keel over into the fucking river and you’d be useless to me then. Hold on there and I’ll get you a taxi.’
25
MONDAY, 23 JUNE
London in late June had been everything Fergie expected – hot, smelly and full of too many people, packed into the tube’s sweaty, airless hell. After he’d spoken to Morven’s agent and a couple of her colleagues who had supposedly known her best, he’d headed back to Inverness on the first available flight, his shirt sticking to him and his sensible shoes all but melting to his feet. God, it had been good to be home. And even with the boss in his current mood, it still is. Sort of.
‘Satnav thinks we’re here now.’ Fergie pulls over to the side of the road as a tractor rumbles down the single-track road towards them. ‘Though I reckon it’s just having us on. Who the hell would want to live up here? Arse end of bloody nowhere, if you ask me.’
Mahler looks up from his mobile, indicates the rutted side-track they’ve just passed. ‘Owen Taylor, apparently. That looks like the turn-off on Google Earth, unless you were planning on finding another scenic route?’
‘Sorry, boss.’ Once the tractor’s manoeuvred itself past them, Fergie gives the gear lever a thump and swings the car round. They’d both managed to miss the first turning, but he isn’t planning to point that out, not this morning. Mahler had come in half an hour later than normal in a filthy mood and sporting a lump on his jaw the size of a hen’s egg. Fergie isn’t planning to ask him about that either.
Mostly, Mahler’s a decent guy to work for. Mostly. But since Fergie got back from London, Mahler’s been haunting Burnett Road like a vampire in search of a blood bank, wanting everything done yesterday and looking like he hasn’t slept in a week . . . Braveheart on his case, most likely. Two murders in the last month – in Inverness, for God’s sake, how mad is that? – and sod all in the way of leads in either case. Christ, who’d be a DI?
‘Owen Taylor’s been living like a hermit for years, boss,’ he points out as the Audi rattles down the track. ‘We don’t even know if he is the guy Hadley said they argued about, the one Morven was planning to talk to.’
Mahler gives him the sort of look Zofia uses when she’s trying hard not to call him an idiot. And runs through all the reasons Owen Taylor had jumped straight to the top of their interview list when Fergie had got back from talking to Morven’s agent.
Hadley had insisted Morven had abandoned her idea of a series looking into famous ‘cold cases’, but he admitted she’d mentioned a local unsolved disappearance she knew about, that of a missing teenage girl, to get him interested. According to Hadley, they’d had a ‘robust’ discussion about it, which Fergie’s guessing is agent-speak for they ended up screaming at each other. But no, he was sure Morven hadn’t pursued it any further. Why would she, when he’d talked it through with her and offered a couple of much more interesting alternatives to think about? Hadley had planned to email her about them, but hadn’t got round to it. But by sheer dumb luck, he had remembered the name of the missing girl.
‘Casey Taylor disappeared while on a family holiday up here,’ Mahler finishes. ‘Almost ten years ago this month. It broke her family apart, and her brother bought a house less than twenty miles from where she was last seen. If Morven was looking to move on to something harder-hitting than her usual brain-dead fluff, Casey’s disappearance ticks all the right boxes.’
‘Bit harsh, boss. She— man alive, what’s that?’
The track comes to an abrupt end in front of a five-barred wooden gate. Fergie can just about make out the outline of a single-storey house, with a long gravel driveway guarded by what looks like a procession of garden gnomes in camouflage gear. But his view of both keeps disappearing as the gate shudders under the weight of the largest, least friendly-looking dog he’s ever seen in his life. The beast is flinging itself against the posts in a frenzy of non-stop barking. As Fergie pulls up, the thing pauses to look their way, and he catches the gleam of amber-yellow eyes in a massive, furry head.
‘I take it Hadley didn’t mention the hellhound?’ Mahler pushes his door open a cautious six inches and steps out.
Fergie’s edging his way towards the gate when a huge man in a Black Watch body-warmer, his long, greying hair in a ponytail, comes out of the house. He walks down the drive towards them. And Fergie’s stomach does a sudden backflip.
‘Boss, he’s got a—’
‘I see it.’ Mahler keeps his eyes on the man holding the shotgun. And takes out his warrant card. Slowly. ‘Mr Taylor?’ He holds it up and nudges Fergie to do the same. ‘DI Mahler and DS Ferguson from Burnett Road. We’re here to talk to you—’
‘I know why you’re here.’ Taylor lowers the shotgun and puts a hand out to the snarling fur-mountain. ‘Bella, down. You’d better come in.’
Inside, the house looks like a show home. According to the electoral roll, Taylor’s been here for over a decade, but apart from the garden gnomes on guard duty up the drive, there’s none of the normal clutter of day-to-day living to suggest the place is inhabited. And it’s almost completely monochrome – ice-white walls, pale carpets, and sleek black couches arranged with mathematical precision on either side of a polished granite hearth.
No sign of a dog basket, so Fergie lets himself relax a fraction, hoping the beast’s confined to the garden. And then he spots the only personal touch in the entire room. Dividing the room into two parts is a tall canvas and wood screen, over three metres wide, its entire surface covered with glossy black and white prints.
Mahler walks over to the screen, turns to Taylor. ‘Yours?’
‘Gets me out of the house. Why?’
‘They’re excellent. You should think about going professional.’
Taylor shrugs, mutters something about getting them coffee and disappears into the kitchen.
Fergie glances at the images, trying to see what’s got the boss so fascinated he’s snapping them with his smartphone. No colour anywhere, just endless shades of black and white – they might be arty, but they’re the most depressing set of photos he’s ever seen. And that includes the ones from his first wedding.
Stark, misshapen trees and derelict buildings glower under grim dark skies, with the occasional dead bird or burst bin-bag in the foreground to draw the eye. Clever, maybe, but he sees plenty nightmarish visions in the course of his work without having those things in his living room.
‘You really rate them, boss?’
Mahler’s mobile beeps before he can answer. He glances at the text and starts to say something, but Taylor reappears with coffee mugs on a tray. He passes them one each and puts a plate of shortbread in front of Fergie.
‘Maybe you’ll like these better, fatty. But don’t drop crumbs on the floor, mate. I don’t like mess.’
‘Watching my figure, thanks.’ Fergie glances at Mahler, gets the nod to go first. ‘You said you knew we’d want to talk to you, Mr Taylor. Why was that?’
‘You’ve got a high-profile murder on your patch, and you’ve got no bloody leads to speak of. So you’re going through the dead bint’s contacts, and guess who turns up? An ex-army weirdo, living on his own up a dirt track in the bleedin’ Highlands.’ Taylor gives him a grim smile. ‘Be a funny sort of copper if you didn’t want to talk to me, wouldn’t you?’
Mahler leans forward. ‘So Morven Murray was in contact with you. And as you say, this is a high-profile case – but you didn’t think that might be useful information to share with the police?’
Taylor’s smile dies. He puts down his mug, centring it carefully on his coaster. And a faint warning bell starts chiming, somewhere in the back of Fergie’s head. Careful, boss. Go easy here.
‘We appreciate you talking to us now,’ Fergie assures him. ‘So Morven did come to see you?’
‘Twenty-fifth of May, yes – I don’t exactly get many visitors, so I remember the date. Wouldn’t get out of the car until I’d locked Bella in the shed, mind, and then she sat on the edge of her chair, like she thought she’d catch something. She liked my shortbread, though.’
Fergie nods. ‘And you talked about your sister?’
Taylor looks down at his hands. ‘After a bit. Still chokes me up, and . . . it’s tough, mate. Brings it all back, you know? And that messes with me bloody head. She asked me some family stuff, asked to see a couple of pictures of Casey. Then she asked if I’d take part in this series she was planning.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
Taylor shrugs. ‘Said no at first. Had my fill of journalists the first time round, when Casey went missing, didn’t I? But that Morven . . . she had a way with her. Bit of a smooth-talker, you know? Made you think you were something special.’
‘Good-looking woman, wasn’t she?’
Taylor grins at Fergie. ‘Easy on the eye all right, mate. Wouldn’t have chucked her out on a cold night, know what I mean? And in the end I thought, what harm can it do – our Ma’s gone now, and nothing can hurt her any more. Might even turn up something, who knows? And if there was even that small chance, and I didn’t take it . . .’ he shakes his head. ‘Couldn’t do it, could I? Couldn’t close the door on the possibility, even after all these years, that someone might remember something about the night Casey went missing.’
Mahler leans forward. ‘So you told Morven you’d do it?’
‘Said I’d think about it. Wasn’t going to say yes there and then, was I? Didn’t go down well, either – counting on me being a pushover, I reckon.’ He gives a grim smile. ‘Wiped the smirk off her face and no mistake.’
‘What happened then?’
Taylor shrugs. ‘She had another go at getting me to sign up right away. But when I wouldn’t play ball, she made a couple of notes on her iPad, finished her tea and left.’
‘How was her mood? Would you say she seemed angry or upset?’
‘More surprised, I’d say. Don’t think she was used to people saying no to her, know what I mean? Left me her card and asked me to give her a ring if I changed my mind. Next thing I know, her face is all over the bleeding news. And there’s no chance of getting her programme made now. Is there?’
Mahler shakes his head. ‘So you argued about your decision? And this was the last time you saw or spoke to Morven Murray?’
‘I never said we argued.’
