‘So he gives it another thump, and still it doesn’t budge. Finally on the third swing it does give, but the ram rebounds again and Jeff lets it slip. Thud! It lands on his foot. And did he scream? Did he ever! Like a Sunderland striker when he gets tackled. They think he’s broken a couple of bones. So there we are, this amateur FART team.. .’
‘What?’ Alex’s eyes bulged.
‘It’s a Tyneside nickname, pet, Fast Action Response Team, except they’re not really called that. Anyway, there we are, one of us hopping about on one leg and the other a stranger in town. Not an auspicious start.’
‘What happened after that?’
‘Ach, by the time I got to where I was supposed to be your dad had arrested the guy; show over.’
I reached across and touched my daughter’s hand. ‘And with that, love…’
She smiled. ‘I know, it’s over for me too. All right. Night, Pops. Good night, Ciaran. Good night, Alison, and please don’t let them keep me awake.’
‘I won’t,’ my occasional bidey-in promised. ‘See you in the morning.’ She waited until the door had closed and for a few seconds after that, before continuing. ‘Now tell me what really happened.’ Earlier while I was changing, I had given her a quick rundown on Hastie McGrew, and about the raid on his father’s house. I had left out most of the detail but as soon as Ciaran had mentioned helicopters and battering rams, her police officer’s brain had drawn conclusions.
McFaul’s expression changed; his head slumped a little and the humour left his face, as the last of the action juice wore off.
‘What happened,’ he repeated, ‘… was that after that bloody sergeant’s performance, when I got in there, where I was supposed to be, our man was waiting for me, and he was armed. He had the drop on me. Holmes was in his pool, being floated by his masseur or nurse, whatever he is. That caught my eye first and when I looked at his son he had a gun on me. I was looking right down the barrel, Alison, and I couldn’t move. He told me to drop mine, and I did. I saw his eyes narrow and I said the fastest Hail Mary! I’ve ever managed in my life, for I really did think he was going to fire. And that’s when Bob shot the gun clean right out of his hand from the patio door. Personally, I’d rather he’d hit him in the head.’
‘I could have,’ I told him, ‘but the hand was the safer target, for you, not for him. He could have pulled the trigger by reflex.’
‘You might have missed.’ He shuddered.
‘I don’t, from that far away.’
He chuckled, grimly. ‘I didn’t know that. All I could think was that I didn’t have any spare underpants.’
Alison was anxious. ‘He didn’t give you any more trouble, did he?’
‘No,’ I assured her. ‘He couldn’t. His left hand’s pretty much useless, as a result of a service injury. After a year of feeding his father, for a while he’s going to find out for himself how that feels.’
‘Where’s McGrew now?’ she asked.
‘I had him taken to the Royal A amp;E, under armed guard, to have his hand fixed. The bullet went through the base of his thumb and out the other side. As soon as they’re ready to discharge him, he’ll be moved to Fettes. He can have his sister’s old room; I released her as soon as we’d secured Hastie.’
‘And what about their father?’
‘Perry? He’s still at home. We’d no grounds to arrest him. Suppose we had, where would we have taken him? No, we left him with his nurse, and there are officers front and back of the house. It’s not that he’ll be going anywhere but I don’t want the press to get near him.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘Have you ever met Perry?’
‘No.’
‘Good. He was raging after it had all happened. It was almost frightening to see, all that anger contained in a body that’s quite unable to move. He was naked in the pool, and that made him even more furious. Vanburn took him out of the water on a trolley thing that he uses, but he had to sedate him before he even started to dry and dress him. As soon as he was back in his chair and able, I tried to question him, but by then he was back to the old Perry. Same old line that he’s been using for years: “I’m a legitimate businessman, and I’m not responsible for the actions of those around me. Now go and prove otherwise, but while you’re doing that I’ll be calling my lawyers.” Nailing Perry Holmes was never an option, love. We’ve done the best we could. We’ve got Hastie, plus we found his car round the back. I left a search team going through everything. They won’t turn up anything incriminating in the house, but they did find a knife in a scabbard, taped under the passenger seat of the car. It’s a Gurkha kukri; an army souvenir, I guess, since that’s who he served with. He’s bound to have burned the clothes that he wore the night he took care of the guys on Tyneside, but there’s a stain on the face of the squab of the driver’s seat. The SOCOs were afraid to put luminol on it in case they compromised it, but they’re sure it’s blood, and the hope has to be that it can be matched to Winston Church.’
Alison picked up the bottle, topped up our glasses and set it back down, empty. McFaul was well and truly down from his cloud. His eyes were starting to glaze over. I didn’t mind that; we were probably heading for an argument next morning over the custody of McGrew and it would do me no harm if he had a bad head.
‘Interesting stuff, blood,’ she murmured. ‘Would you like to hear my news now, while you still can?’
I hadn’t given it a thought since we’d spoken in the afternoon; I’d been focused on Holmes and son, the family firm. ‘Of course, sorry.’
‘Well,’ she began, pouring herself some white, then leaning back, ‘I took your advice. I did some cherchez ing. The last time I was in uniform I picked up a little inside knowledge. Do you know that we have a specialist rape unit in the force?’
I nodded. ‘Of course; staffed by women officers only, naturally.’
‘Almost, but there are specialists they can call in on cases of male rape. However, I went to the women, or rather to one in particular, the team leader, Inspector Martina Chivers, and I asked her about reports on a specific date. Everything they do is very confidential, so much so that if there is doubt, or if the potential victim declines to make a complaint, no report is made, to anyone.’
‘Not even to Alf?’
‘Not even him; even when there is a complaint, the name’s withheld from circulation and only goes to Crown Office. However, Martina was prepared to tell me, girl to girl, that on the day after Weir, McCann and Telfer met up for their boys’ night out, a woman was brought into the office in Wester Hailes, in the early afternoon. She was seen by a patrol car, in the street, in a dazed and distressed state, with her clothing dirty and dishevelled. The rape unit was called in, she was medically examined and the doctor determined that there had been multiple rape, and that she’d been sodomised. Semen samples were taken, and in due course these determined that at least three men were involved, each with a different blood type; one was A positive, as are half the population, a second was type O positive, that’s one in every three people, roughly. Neither of those is much good as an identifier,’ she smiled, ‘but guess what? Albie McCann was AB positive
… as are only three in every one hundred people.’
The message penetrated my befuddled mind. ‘Well done you. And the victim was…?’
‘The victim, once she got a hold of herself, refused to make a complaint.’