‘First call I need to make is to the fiscal. It’s them that’ll need convincing.’
‘Them and you both by the sound of it,’ Laidlaw announced under his breath.
The Commander glowered at him. ‘There are procedures, Jack, and a reason for those procedures. Why didn’t you arrest them at the house if you’re so sure your theory holds water?’
‘Due respect, sir, my theory could float the Ark Royal.’
‘Nobody likes a smartarse.’
‘Nobody likes Milligan either, yet he keeps rising through the ranks, almost as if a few secret handshakes beats possession of a brain.’
Colour suffused the Commander’s cheeks.
‘What Jack means is—’
‘Bob, you’d do well to keep your gob shut,’ Frederick shot back. ‘A DS and a DC don’t get to barge into some-one’s house and accuse them of murder. With their kids sitting right there next to them? Defence would have a field day in court. Any suspicions should have gone to Ernie Milligan and from him to the fiscal. Mrs Carter has now been forewarned, which means if she’s got any sense she’ll be engaging a lawyer and maybe even conferring with her offspring so they get their version of events straight. What happens if we go back there and she denies everything?’
‘We check the car and the garage,’ Laidlaw intoned, ‘see if there’s maybe a knife missing from the kitchen drawer.’
‘When I want your advice, I’ll request it in writing.’
‘It’s Ernie Milligan you should be talking to. He’s the one who could have had this done and dusted if he possessed even half an ounce of savvy.’
‘Instead of which,’ Bob Lilley added, ‘we’ve had days of escalation, two gangs ready to lay waste to each other—’
‘I get that, Bob,’ the Commander broke in. ‘But does your pal here get that his methods might have jeopardised any prosecution?’
‘I did what needed doing,’ Laidlaw said, meeting the Commander’s gaze.
Robert Frederick leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slowly, looking suddenly weary. There was a knock at the door. Without waiting to be asked, a head appeared. It was Frederick’s secretary.
‘Sorry, sir,’ she said.
‘Can’t it wait, Sally?’
‘I’m not sure it can, sir. Woman at the front desk by the name of Carter. Says she’s here to make a confession. Thing is, it’s DC Laidlaw she’s asking to see. Says she’ll talk to him and him alone...’
38
At the Top Spot, drinks were on the Commander. There was no sign of the women shoppers or the self-important suits. A game of darts had been convened, two competing teams assembled, Laidlaw and Lilley content to prop up the bar while they watched. The room was wreathed in smoke. Lilley knew he would pay for it when he got home. Margaret would insist he put everything in the laundry and head to the shower, the shower itself a rubber hose pushed onto the two taps in the bath. The hose had never fitted properly and one side or the other would invariably become dislodged, so that you ended up with scalding or freezing water, usually timed to coincide with a head covered in soap suds.
‘Can we appear for the defence, do you think?’ Laidlaw was asking, not for the first time. His eyes were slightly glazed as he attempted to deal with the constant stream of drinks placed in front of him. ‘I mean, are there precedents?’
‘Will Colvin settle for the result, that’s what I’m wondering?’
‘He better, or else he’ll have me to deal with, and now that we’ve done away with hanging, I’m more sanguine about the consequences of doing him in.’
‘Would your philosophers say the same thing?’
‘I’d happily argue my case in front of them.’ Laidlaw stared at the bottom of his emptied glass. ‘She’s about to serve a second sentence, Bob, the first being her marriage. She played that role as best she could until she had to disrupt the performance. Or maybe she was a skater, the ice breaking under her, the depths below dark as sin. Didn’t matter how well she skated, how balletically and confidently she moved, the darkness was there waiting for her. Whatever else happens, the dark remains.’
‘Lucky for us that it does, or we’d be down the dole office.’
Laidlaw gave a twitch of the mouth and eased himself away from the bar, walking with the stiff uprightness of the lightly inebriated towards the toilets. The Commander approached Lilley, clapping him on the shoulder.
‘Your boy did all right in the end, almost despite himself,’ he said.
‘He defused your city, if that’s what you mean.’
‘If he doesn’t manage to detonate himself in the near future, he might be in line for a swift promotion.’
‘That’s bound to please DI Milligan.’ Lilley looked around the bar. ‘Where is he anyway?’
‘Licking his wounds elsewhere. Though if you ask him, he’ll say he’s swotting up on the case, preparatory to interviewing the family members.’
‘I hear the mother has engaged the services of Bryce Mundell.’
The Commander nodded. ‘Though with her confession, all he’s going to be doing is scratching around for mitigating circumstances.’
‘Plenty of those, I would think.’
‘So what do you reckon to Jack Laidlaw, Bob? Truthfully, I mean, just between the two of us.’
Lilley didn’t have to think about it. ‘He’s the business.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He’s a one-off in a world of mass production. He’s not a copper who happens to be a man. He’s a man who happens to be a copper, and he carries that weight with him everywhere he goes.’ His words were surprising him while he spoke them aloud. He hadn’t realised until this moment how strongly he agreed with them. ‘Mind you,’ he felt it necessary to qualify, ‘he can be a pain in the bahookie, too, but it’s a price worth paying.’
The words seemed to percolate, the Commander nodding slowly afterwards. ‘Noted,’ he said, pretending to watch the darts game. ‘Not exactly a team player, though.’
‘I wouldn’t say darts is his forte.’
There was a cheer and a victorious raising of arms as one team checked out. Lilley and his boss watched as the scores were immediately wiped from the chalkboard with a cloth. Laidlaw was checking his fly as he returned to the bar.
‘Good work, Jack,’ the Commander said, handing him a fresh tumbler of Antiquary.
‘It’s not difficult — doesn’t everyone check afterwards that they’ve zipped up?’
‘That’s not what I was talking about.’
‘I know,’ Laidlaw said, clinking his glass against the Commander’s before taking another large swallow.
39
The blood had dried to a crust on Malky Chisholm’s face. The damage was superficiaclass="underline" just a couple of blows to the nose. Those punches could hurt, though. They could crush cartilage and send tears streaming from your eyes. One of Chisholm’s teeth had been loosened, too. He both knew and didn’t know where he was. It was a lock-up garage. That much had been evident from the moment the hessian sack had been removed from his head. And the fact that John Rhodes was pacing the floor in front of him meant it was probably in the Calton somewhere. Could be any one of a dozen streets, anonymous as well as private. Chisholm had heard no traffic going past, no snatches of conversation between pedestrians from beyond the breeze-block walls. This was one of those places where Rhodes could conduct his business without fear of interruption or consequence.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out sooner,’ Rhodes was saying. He was dressed in a zipped jacket, roomy denims and cheap canvas shoes. Chisholm didn’t need to be told what the outfit meant. All of it was disposable, and it would be disposed of later that night. The man with the scarred face was standing guard by the door to the outside world. Fumes lingered in the air, hinting that a vehicle of some kind had been moved out just prior to Chisholm’s enforced arrival. He’d been grabbed on the street, a hood pulled over his head before he was thrown into the back of a van. It had all been very professional. Chisholm liked to think that his crew would be as slick a machine in the circumstances, though he doubted it. John Rhodes, he was beginning to realise, was the real deal, and, moreover, a man you crossed at your peril, that peril being imminent extinction.