'Yes, sir,' Brand exclaimed. 'I'l leave as soon as this conference is over.'
'You do that,' Doherty agreed. 'That leaves us with the first-degree murder of Bartholomew Wilkins, formerly of Chicago, Illinois, now of Asshole, or rather, Helena, Montana.'
'Excuse me, sir.' Troy Kosinski raised a hand, his unlined, earnest face looking almost like that of a schoolboy. 'What about the political angle?'
'Leave that alone for now. It may be significant, it may not; let's just see what the co-ordinated investigation of the three locations has to throw up. Speaking of which…' Doherty's lean face creased in a mischievous grin.
'Like I said, I've been out of the field for years, andthis whole business intrigues me. So I thought I'd cover that end myself. The Helena Police Department has only seven detectives, so the Montana Department of Justice Criminal Bureau has been advising on the investigation; I'm meeting their chief tomorrow.'
He glanced at Skinner. 'Bob, it'll be a couple of days before the scene-of-crime teams are finished at the Grace residence. When does Sarah plan to arrive?'
'We're looking at next Monday. She wants to get the kids used to the idea of the nanny living in before she leaves them.'
'In that case, you'l have nothing to do but sit on your hands.. . unless you'd care to accompany me to the Queen City of the Rockies, as she likes to call herself.'
24
The address which McGuire's DSS friend had volunteered proved to be a tenement flat in a cul-de-sac off Newhaven Road, not far from its junction with Bonnington Road. The detective drove past the narrow entrance door, parked as close to it as he could, and walked back. He glanced at his watch; it was ten minutes to six; even if George Rosewell was a betting man, the last race was long past the post.
There had been no cal from Mrs Dewberry, but his instincts had told him not to expect one. His unwanted father-in-law was stil an absentee from a job which he would find was no longer there if he ever thought to return to it.
He came to the dirty green door that closed off the tenement stairway.
It was one of the few left in the city in which an entry-phone system had not been installed. It was stiff, but he shoved it firmly, wrenching it back on its dry hinges, hearing the squeal of wood on the concrete floor. A smell of urine and cabbage rol ed out to greet him, reminding him of visits to prisons he had made in his younger days in the force.
'Nice, Daddy, nice,' he murmured.
Rosewell's address was F2, second floor; he trudged up the stone staircase, noting that each step was worn in the centre with over a hundred years of use.
There were three doors on each landing; left, right and centre. The one for which he was looking faced him as he reached the top of the stair. It was grey; the gloss of its paint was long gone, and it was scuffed and scratched; the name was there, though, on a cheap white plastic plate below the letterbox. A narrow opaque glass panel was set at eye level; no light shone through it.
He pressed the bell button, but heard no sound from inside. He did it once more, for luck; stil silence. Bunching his right fist, he thumped the door hard, making enough noise to waken a deaf night-shift worker.
'Come on, you bastard,' he muttered. 'Make it easy; be in.' He listened in vain for sounds of stirring, before pounding once more, and waiting again, listening to the silence.
'Where are you, you old flicker!' He glanced to his right and left. 'Aye well,' he muttered. 'Family business after al.' The door was locked by a single Yale. He took out a bunch of skeleton keys and tried them, one by one, looking for a match; he had third time luck. The latch clicked and the door swung open.
It occurred to him afterwards that he had never considered the possibility that Rosewell might be lying dead in his flat; nor had Mrs Dewberry. As a young constable he had opened a few houses after neighbours had reported a pile-up of newspapers in the letterbox, or a line of milk bottles at the front door. He remembered the smell; too right he remembered it.
But there was no trace of it in Rosewell's two-apartment; only staleness, only sourness, the scent of a man on his own, one with no great regard for his surroundings. 'George,' McGuhtirked, as he stepped inside. 'Surprise, surprise; it's your son-in-law, Come to batter the crap out of you. Where the fuck are you, you old bastard?'
There were only three doors off the hall, and all of them were open.
He glanced into them, one by one. The bathroom was to his left, toilet seat up, towel on the floor beneath the electrically heated rail. The bedroom was straight ahead, discarded underwear stil on the floor, duvet thrown back to reveal a sheet which had once been white, but which now was grey and heavily stained. The living area was on his right; he stepped inside.
At once, the heat, which he had felt in the hallway, became almost overpowering. He looked round the door and saw an electric fire, set in the wall, its three radiant bars shining. He found the switch and turned it off. The room was furnished sparsely; one old fabric-covered sofa facing a television set, a small sideboard, a kitchen table, and two dining chairs.
There was a sink under the one window, a cooker to the left and a small work surface and fridge on the other side.
A dirty plate and cutlery lay on the table. He looked at it; scraps of pastry from a round Scotch mutton pie, unmistakable, a few beans in their tomato sauce and a sad, solitary, greasy chip. 'You'l have had your tea, then, George,' he murmured. 'But when?'
The answer came to him from the newspaper, which lay beside the empty, tea-stained mug. It was open at the sports section; his eye was caught by an action shot of two footbal ers, green shirt and blue, squaring up to each other like street corner punks. Without picking it up he looked at the top of the page. 'The Sunday Mail,' he exclaimed. 'And you've been off your work since Monday.'
He scratched his head. It had been unusual y cold on the previous Sunday evening, he recal ed. 'You had your tea and you went out, didn't you?' he asked the empty room. 'And you left the fire on. Was that by accident, or was it on purpose, to warm your old Portuguese bones when you came in?
'Only you never did.
'Where are you, you old bastard? What are you up to? I guess I'd better ask around.'
He left the small flat, leaving the door closed but unlocked; and stepped over to the door on the right, through which light shone. The nameplate on the door read, 'Brennan'. He pressed the bell and as he did so, heard a child's yell from inside. 'Daddy!'
Somehow, he had been expecting a woman, but it was a girl who answered, fifteen, maybe sixteen, he guessed, not yet grown to ful height, still no more than five feet tall. She held the door on a chain, and looked at him through the gap, suspiciously. I would be too, dear, he thought. Good for you.
'Miss Brennan?' he asked, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
'Ms,' she answered, her expression unchanged; there was something in her voice that struck him as strange. She was barefoot, he noticed, with blond hair that might just have been for real, and a waif-like look about her that would have pul ed him in about two seconds flat.. . when he was sixteen years old. There was a toddler clinging to her leg, a boy.
'Sorry to bother you,' he went on. 'I'm George Rosewell's son-in-law, and I'm looking for him, only he's not in. I wondered if you had seen him lately.'
'You're a policeman,' she said.
'Maybe so,' he agreed, widening his grin, 'but I'm also George's son in-law.'
'I don't believe you.' Her accent was unusual for the outskirts of Leith; he wondered if she might be English. 'George told me he doesn't have any family.'
'Sure, and he told you his name was Rosewell, but that's not true either. Listen, my name's Mario, and there's the proof. Can I come in?'