Head Shot

'He died just over a week ago, in a doctor's surgery up in Oxgangs.

Death was certified by a Dr Amritraj, an officer from my division attended and took that photograph, and the body was removed by ambulance to the Royal Infirmary mortuary.'

Pringle beamed with pleasure. 'Magic,' he exclaimed, reaching for his phone. 'We'll just cal Strathclyde now, and tell them to come and pick him up.'

'Ah well, Clan,' said Rose slowly, 'it's not going to be quite that easy.

The man I'm certain is Father Green was identified, by Dr Amritraj, as Mr Magnus Essary, of 46 Leightonstone Grove, Hunter's Tryst. The body was claimed next day by a woman named El a Frances, who said she was his business partner; it was cremated at Seafield last Saturday morning.'

'Aw, shite,' Pringle cried out. 'Why the hell did I not stay in a division?

The Frances woman; what do we know about her?'

'Next to nothing. Dr Amritraj gave PC Johnston…'

'Charlie Johnston?'

'That's the man.'

'It'l be right then; big Charlie's a chancer, but he's a sound copper.

Sorry, Mags, on you go.'

'Okay; Amritraj named Ella Frances as the personal contact listed with the practice. He gave Johnston a mobile phone number. I've checked with the practice already; they had Magnus Essary listed al right, but he had a fictitious NHS number. The entry in their records was made by Dr Amritraj.'

'Lift him,' said Pringle, immediately.

'I wish I could,' Rose countered. 'But he doesn't work there any more.

He was a locum, hired on a two-month contract. He didn't appear for surgery on Tuesday and they haven't seen him since. He lodges with an Indian family out in Livingston; I've got officers going out to see them now. You know the chances of him being there.'

'Bloody hell! What about Frances?'

'The mobile number she gave was a pre-paid type. It was bought in the name of Ella Frances all right, but the address given was as phoney as Essary's NHS entry.'

Pringle tugged at his moustache, so violently that Maggie wondered that he had any left. 'What have we got here?' he muttered.

'Time wil tell,' she answered, 'but once my people confirm that Amritraj has gone from his digs as well, I'l put a trace out for him right across the NHS. Since nothing else is as it seems in this business, it's a pound to a pinch of shit that Father Francis Donovan Green didn't die of natural causes.'

'I agree with you, but how the hell did he come to wind up in a doctor's in Oxgangs in the middle of the bloody night?'

'Good question, Clan. We'll need to involve Strathclyde in that end of the investigation. Father Green came from North Lanarkshire. I've got a contact in CID there, so if you're happy, I'll call him quietly and start them to work building up a profile of the man.'

'Do that,' Pringle exclaimed. 'There's another thing you should do as well; unless Amritraj is stupid enough still to be in Livingston, you should get a warrant to search his digs, and the surgery in Oxgangs, just in case the landlord and the doctors don't co-operate. We're no' going to be able to do a post mortem on a pile of ashes, so we've got to look everywhere we can to see if we can find out how he was killed.

'I don't fancy the Crown Office's job in this one, Mags. Once we catch this fella, someone in there's got to decide what the bloody hell we can charge him with.'

55

'Mario, I'll search my memory banks al night if that's what you want, but I promise you, I never met either of those people. Stan reported to your uncle and me that he had been approached by a new importer wanting to rent space in the bonded warehouse; we agreed, and later he told us that a deal had been done. He needed the signature of one trustee.

Beppe said he would do it, and that was that.

'Later, I heard from Stan that there was some difficulty with them, but he said they were dealing with it, and that I shouldn't bother.'

He sighed, partly out of relief that his mother had taken no part in the family's business with the elusive importers. All afternoon, since Greg Jay's second call, he had felt a growing unease, a detective's sense that something was very wrong with the firm of Essary and Frances.

'Okay, Mum,' he said. 'I'm waiting for Stan to cal me when he gets in. I'l get chapter and verse from him, I'm sure.'

'Yes, I'm sure you wil; Stan's very efficient. What's the fuss about anyway?'

'Nothing, really. I'm just doing a favour for Greg Jay.'

'Why? Is he interested in these people? Does he think they might have been involved in your uncle's murder?'

'Nah. He just wants to eliminate them from his enquiries, that's al.'

Christina McGuire snorted down the phone. 'Mario! This is your mother you're talking to, not the crime reporter from the Evening News. Don't give me any of your official police language. Are these people suspects or not?'

He laughed, reproved. 'No, not exactly. Beppe had a dispute with them over the tenancy; that's al. Greg needs to check them out, but he can't find them.'

'I see. You might have said that in the first place. Your col eague must be scraping the barrel; that's al I can say. Who's going to resort to murder over a few feet of warehouse space?'

'You're absolutely right. It has to be done, though, Mum.'

'If you say so. Just make sure it doesn't distract your friend from 228 pursuing the real criminal; Sophia and Viola are at their wits' end.'

That's not very far, Mario thought, but he knew better than to say it.

'We'l catch him, don't you worry.'

'Hmm. Now you're talking like a policeman again. Good night, darling.'

'Night, Mum.' He cradled the phone and checked his watch; it was pushing nine, yet Maggie still was not home. She had called him to say that she would be delayed, and that she would bring in a takeaway. He was hungry enough to eat a bear, but there was stil no sign of his wife, or of the chicken Madras, or the naan bread.

The phone rang. 'Stan's late back too,' he muttered, thinking it would be his cousin's husband. But he was wrong.

'Is Detective Superintendent Rose in?' a man asked.

'No, but I'm a detective super as well. Will I do?'

'I suppose so, sir,' the voice was smooth, confident, with a hint of a laugh in there. 'This is DI David Mackenzie, N Division, Strathclyde Police. Ms Rose cal ed me this afternoon, and asked me to make some enquiries about a priest off my patch who's turned up dead on hers. She said I should cal her whenever I'd something to report.'

Mario had heard of Bandit Mackenzie, from Maggie. 'Flash' was how she had described him, but beneath that too-self-assured exterior, she had also said, there lurked one very good detective. And that was not her view alone; Bob Skinner seemed to rate the guy, too.

'Fine. Do you want to tell me, or leave a number for her to call you?'

'You'l do, sir. It's my wife's birthday today, and I'm in bother as it is.

Would you tel her that I've spoken to Father Green's curate. Father Tomkinson; I put him in the confessional, so to speak. I didn't tell him his boss was dead, but I did lean on him a bit, and he was a bit more forthcoming than in his first interview. He admitted to me that the late father wasn't exactly celibate. He liked the ladies, and he liked them youngish and attractive. Naturally, he was discreet about it; he never fished in his own river, so to speak. He used to go cast his line through in Edinburgh; whenever he went off to visit his sister, that's where he was real y going.'

'How did the curate know this?'

'Father Green told him. Whether it was in formal confession, or a casual conversation, I don't know; I didn't ask and the lad didn't say.

Green said that he used to go down the pubs in the Royal Mile in his dog collar. Never failed, he claimed; his experience was that there's any number of women out there who'll jump at the chance to shag a priest.