‘Almost certainly, but he’s a dead end. Karen Neville’s contact called her back this morning. They lifted the boy on the Ramblas yesterday afternoon. The wee bastard said it wasn’t him. They showed him the shop video with him on it, buying the SIM, but he still insisted it wasn’t him, just somebody who looked like him. He stuck to it too, until they had to let him go.’

  ‘If they pick him up again, I could talk to him,’ Skinner offered.

  ‘And cause an international incident? No thanks, Gaffer.’

  ‘Pity. But we don’t need his confirmation anyway. When were these two cards bought?’

  ‘At the beginning of November; about four months ago.’

  ‘Then it’s probably a given that the sender bought both. Perpignan’s around two hours north of Barcelona, using the motorway. This is definitely creepy, mate. The notion that Matthew Reid was lying at the bottom of the Whiteadder reservoir up behind Gifford, that’s very convenient all round. Convenient for you, for Lottie Mann with her open investigation into the Glasgow murder and convenient for the procurator fiscals both there and in Edinburgh. The idea that he might not be, that he’s alive and close to where I am now, that isn’t convenient at all. I think I might send June Crampsey home on the plane alone, and hang around here for a wee while longer.’

  Thirty-Four

  ‘Dundee’s never at its best in an east wind,’ Tiggy Benjamin observed as she and McClair stepped out of the detective inspector’s car, having found a parking space a few streets away from the handsomely refurbished offices of the city’s famous newspaper.

  ‘Tell me somewhere in Scotland that is,’ her senior colleague challenged. ‘You know the place? I thought you were from Broxburn.’

  ‘My aunt lives in Broughty Ferry. When I was a kid I used to get sent there on holiday while my mum went off to the Costa del Sol or some other hotspot with one of my uncles. I had a few uncles when I was growing up,’ she added.

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘My dad was an airline pilot. He flew off one day when I was five and never came back.’

  ‘You mean he was killed?’ McClair exclaimed.

  ‘No,’ Benjamin chuckled. ‘Like I said, he just flew off. He’s still flying, but it’s freight these days, not passengers. He lives in Holland now; I see him quite often.’

  ‘And your mum?’

  ‘Same old. It’s Uncle Roger at the moment, but he won’t last. There’s something iffy about that one. He’s been working from home for the last couple of years, since just after he moved in, in fact. At least that’s what he says. I’m not sure he actually has a job. When he heard I was in CID he made a joke about it, but I thought his laugh was a bit nervous. He knows I’m watching him; that’s why I reckon he’ll be on his way soon.’

  ‘And your mum? I’m sorry, Tiggy; we’ve been working together for a year now but I’ve never asked about your family.’

  ‘My mum’s a doctor. She’s a consultant in medicine for the elderly. She says she’d like to change before she catches up with her patients, but it’s not easy, not at that level.’

  They turned a corner and found themselves facing Dundee High School, with the red sandstone of the imposing newspaper offices on their left. They were waiting at a light-controlled crossing when the DI’s phone sounded. Frowning slightly, she took it from her pocket. The call came from another mobile, but the number was unfamiliar.

  ‘McClair,’ she said.

  ‘Ma’am,’ a deep voice boomed. ‘This is Sergeant King, from the cadaver team in the woods. Are you nearby?’

  ‘No, I’m in Dundee.’

  ‘Then maybe you should get back here. My dogs have made a discovery.’

  ‘Another badger? Or is it a fox this time?’

  ‘No ma’am. We haven’t uncovered much, but I would say that what we’re looking at is definitely human.’

  Thirty-Five

  ‘Is this a serious proposition, sir?’

  ‘It could be, if you’re seriously interested,’ Skinner said. ‘How do you feel about your present situation? Are you committed to it? Do you feel that you’re on a career path that’ll see you though to retirement?’

  ‘In a service that’s still dominated by Oxbridge graduates, and answerable to whatever capricious bastard the prime minister chooses to stick in the Home Office? I’m a mixed-race kid from the schemes. What do you think? Honestly?’

  ‘My view,’ Skinner replied immediately, ‘is that where you are, you might not go to the top but you’ve got the ability to get pretty close to it. Those Oxbridge folk aren’t all idiots, and those capricious bastards tend not to last very long. I reckon Home Secretary’s the worst job in government. Look, odd as this might seem, if you were asking me for career advice, I’d say stick with it. However, knowing what’s happened to you recently, if you are unsettled and looking for a move, then you’re the perfect candidate for the role that my friend needs.’

  ‘You haven’t told me who your friend is yet.’

  ‘He grew up in Edinburgh, and in his youth he played in goal for the Hearts.’

  ‘Xavi Aislado? The man who owns the Saltire?’

  ‘And a hell of a lot more. Yes, that’s who it is.’

  ‘If I was interested, what would need to happen?’

  ‘First, I would need to talk to your boss and put her in the picture. Given that she’s close to retirement, I don’t expect that she’d stand in your way. Then you would need to meet with Xavi, probably more than once, to make sure there was personal chemistry.’

  ‘All this could happen without prejudice, and without anyone knowing outside the loop?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then set up the first meeting. Where will it be?’

  ‘In Spain. Xavi’s pretty reclusive. You’ll need to go to him.’

  ‘No problem, that’s as it should be.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Skinner ended the call and walked from the garden into the Aislado masia’s massive reception room. ‘He’s up for a chat,’ he announced.

  ‘Are you ready to tell me who he is now?’

  He nodded. ‘His name is Clyde Houseman, he’s Scottish, in his mid-thirties. He’s a former Royal Marines captain, who served in Iraq and with Special Forces in Afghanistan. I encountered him briefly twenty-odd years ago, when he was a young gang-banger in one of the roughest parts of Edinburgh. I gave him some pretty pointed advice, which I’m glad to say he took. When he left the forces he joined the Security Service and was its man in Scotland for a while. A few months ago, his half-brother was murdered, in his flat in Glasgow. It’s still unsolved. The police believe it was mistaken identity, and their principal person of interest is Matthew Reid.’

  ‘What?’ Aislado exclaimed. ‘Why would he . . .’

  ‘When it happened, Clyde was having a fling with a cop, Karen Neville. Reid was a sort of unofficial uncle to her. I don’t know a lot about the investigation but I believe the scenario the CID are following is that Matthew was trying to frame her former husband, my old protégé, Andy Martin.’

  ‘Chief Constable Andrew Martin?’

  ‘That’s right. It might have worked too. Andy’s DNA was found at the scene and the dead man’s head was recovered close to his home. The thinking was that Matthew arrived at the flat, subdued the occupant with a taser and then beheaded him, thinking that he really was killing Clyde Houseman. If all that was the case, the flaw in Matthew’s plan was that Andy would have met Clyde when he was chief, so he wouldn’t have made that mistake.’

  ‘What do you think of that as a proposition?’ Xavi asked.

  ‘I don’t like it; I think it’s bollocks, in fact.’

  ‘Why wasn’t Houseman there?’

  ‘He and Karen were up north,’ Skinner said. ‘It wasn’t until the pair of them came back that they found out about the murder. Both of them had their mobiles switched off. Mostly, an officer’s private life is their own, so it was okay as far as Karen was concerned. In Clyde’s case, less so; there were political considerations. The Nationalists are paranoid about MI5 operating in Scotland, so his position there was sensitive. The director general was afraid that he was blown and so, in the aftermath of the killing, he was yanked out of Glasgow. I hadn’t spoken to Clyde until today, but I didn’t think he would like that. It seems that I was right. So, Xavi, before I blow his cover again by telling his boss about this, will you meet with him?’

  ‘If you recommend it, I will.’ He frowned. ‘My only thought is, if I hire Houseman and Matthew Reid is still active, might he have another go?’

  Skinner smiled, but his eyes were narrow. ‘Not if I find him first . . . and if he is still out there, I will.’

  Thirty-Six

  ‘How much more of the forest do your dogs have to cover, Sergeant King?’ Sarah Grace asked.

  ‘That’s us done, Professor; for now at any rate. If all the remaining trees are felled and the site’s cleared . . . and you’d think it’ll have to be . . . CID could ask us to go over it again. My pack are good but they’re not infallible . . . as they saw with that bloody badger. It’ll take me a while to live that down, that I know.’

  They stood in the centre of the woodland, approximately thirty yards from the site of the second discovery, where a forensic team was at work under a canvas canopy. As they looked on, the tall figure of Paul Dorward in a crime-scene tunic approached, picking his way carefully through the tangle of fallen branches.

  ‘Is Arthur not here?’ Grace called out.

  ‘No, he stayed at the Crime Campus. Too cold for him, he said; I’m in charge.’

  ‘Do you have anything for me to look at yet, beyond the fibula that the dog unearthed?’

  ‘Not yet,’ the young scientist replied, ‘but we shouldn’t be long. The remains are only a couple of feet down, and there’s no root entanglement this time. The skeleton’s more or less intact . . . apart from the canine intervention,’ he added with a sly glance at King. The sergeant mouthed the words, Fuck off.

  ‘What else can you see so far?’

  Looking for the source of the question, Grace glanced over her shoulder and saw Noele McClair approaching. ‘Is there any sign of clothing or other relic material that might help with an identification?’ the DI continued.

  ‘Not that we can see,’ Dorward told her, ‘but give us time. We’ve been working here for less than an hour. Two bodies in one small rural site, though. Are they connected or is this the Perthshire equivalent of the Kingston Bridge?’

  ‘Run that one past me?’ Grace asked, smiling.

  ‘My uncle Jack was a journalist in Glasgow. He told me that back in the seventies when they built the Kingston Bridge, the legend was that a good chunk of the city’s gangster population were part of the foundations.’

  ‘If that’s true,’ she replied, ‘the next big storm might be too much for it.’

  Thirty-Seven

  Her yawn took Karen Neville completely by surprise; she blinked hard and shook her head trying to recover her composure and hoping that none of her colleagues had noticed.

  She breathed a quick sigh of relief as Assistant Chief Constable Lowell Payne continued without a pause. ‘Summing up what you’ve told me,’ he said, ‘this is an opportunity to close off a supply line into Scotland, but we have to choose our moment to act if we’re going to achieve maximum effect, by which I mean get enough evidence against the people at the top end of the chain. It’s been over a year since we’ve had high-profile convictions of an organised-crime group. I don’t need to tell you, but I will, that our new chief constable is back from London with quite a few gangster scalps on his belt, and he’s looking to us to add a few more. Okay, that’s it. Thank you all.’ He closed his folder and stood.

  Neville blinked again, holding back to allow her four junior colleagues to leave before her.

  ‘You all right, Karen?’

  Payne’s question was no more than a whisper in passing, but it was enough to stiffen her spine. ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, ‘I’m good. I wasn’t nodding off, honest. It’s just that . . . I haven’t been sleeping too well lately, with one thing and another.’

  ‘Are you and Sir Andrew having second thoughts about getting back together?’ he asked her, with a bluntness that took her aback.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s still our intention. He’s in the process of selling his house . . . I told him from the beginning that I wasn’t moving in with him. My house is the kids’ home and I’m not having them disrupted.’

  The ACC smiled lightly. ‘What if he sells it and you change your mind?’

  ‘Then he can fuck off back to Edinburgh. That’s where his attention will be focused anyway if he wins the Scottish Parliament by-election in the spring. He has mentioned buying a flat there, but I’ve vetoed that, for at least a year.’

  ‘Tell me to mind my own business, Karen,’ Payne ventured, ‘but are you saying you don’t trust him?’

  ‘You mean have I heard the gossip? That his main motivation for us getting remarried is to present a solid family image to the constituents? Of course, I have. Lowell, if I believed that for one second it wouldn’t be happening. No, I trust Andy well enough. Some people are better off being single, others just can’t hack it. We both fall into the latter category. As for trust, I have to concede that cuts both ways. Andy and your niece Alex folded for good a while ago. I, on the other hand, got caught having an off-the-books away trip with my handsome ex-marine boyfriend.’

  ‘And Clyde Houseman is out of mind, is he? As well as out of sight?’

  She nodded. ‘Absolutely, that I can promise you. Clyde is very comfortable being single; that was part of the attraction for me, truth be told. Good, harmless, excellent sex with no consequences. We were like a couple of golfers playing a championship course, and both breaking par.’ She laughed. ‘How about that for an analogy?’

  ‘Far-fetched,’ the ACC replied, ‘for most of the golfers I know. So, if Andy isn’t one thing, and Houseman isn’t the other, so to speak, what’s been putting you off your sleep?’

  Neville frowned.

  ‘Please, Karen,’ Payne exclaimed, ‘if it’s private, forget it.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said, quietly. ‘It’s nothing new either. I haven’t mentioned this to anyone, not Clyde, not even Andy, but I’ve had this feeling for the last few months that someone’s been watching me. It’s as if I’ve had a stalker.’

  The ACC looked down at her. ‘What’s brought this on?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s the bugger of it,’ she sighed. ‘There’s nothing I can put my finger on, just odd feelings. For example, I can be in Sainsbury’s with the kids and feel that we’re not alone, that someone’s eyes are on me. Or I can be online at home and have the sensation that somebody’s alongside me, on the computer.’

  ‘Karen,’ he said, ‘given the nature of our work, isn’t this something you should have reported?’

  ‘If I thought it was work-related, I would have, but if it was, I’m sure I would know. No, this doesn’t have that feel.’

  ‘Did this start when Matthew Reid, your Uncle Matt, disappeared?’

  She shook her head, firmly. ‘No, it was way before that. Anyway, Uncle Matt would have no need to stalk me. He was always a part of my life until . . . until he wasn’t. He never kept secrets from me.’

  ‘That you know of.’

  ‘No, he never did. For example, he told me flat out that he didn’t like Andy, from day one. And he knew about Clyde. They never met, but when I told him he was good about it, encouraging even. That’s why I don’t buy him having killed Clyde’s brother by mistake and trying to frame Andy. He thought that Clyde would wean me off Andy for ever. Christ, boss, Uncle Matt would have paid for our trip up north if I’d asked him to.’

  ‘Do you think that Reid killed himself? Or do you believe he could have sent the text to McClair?’

  ‘If he did,’ she replied, tight-lipped, ‘then why didn’t he contact me too?’

  ‘Fair point,’ the ACC conceded. ‘But as far as this so-called stalker is concerned, I’ll tell you what I think. I believe it could be job-induced paranoia. We’re stalkers ourselves, Karen, we watch people round the clock without them ever being aware of it. We gather intelligence. It’s slow, tedious, often pointless work but sometimes we get a breakthrough, the kind that leads to the meeting we’ve just left. What you’re saying to me is that you may be starting to empathise with our subjects. I don’t find anything unnatural or culpable in that at all, but it does remind me that I have a duty of care to all my officers. Apart from Christmas, you’ve had no time off since your trip up north with Clyde Houseman. I’d like you to take at least a fortnight off, out of this environment.’

  ‘I can’t do that, sir!’ she protested.

  ‘You bloody can! And you will. Please don’t have me make it an order. When the schools break up for Easter, don’t tell a soul, just take Andy, take the kids, get on a plane and head off to somewhere warm where nobody knows you’re going. Wherever it is, if you still feel stalked while you’re there, you’ll know I’m right.’

  Thirty-Eight

  ‘Professor, DI McClair,’ Paul Dorward called out from the canvas-covered clearing, ‘we’re ready for you now.’

  The pathologist and the detective, who had spent the best part of an hour discussing their children’s education at the primary school in which they were classmates, moved towards him picking their way carefully through the fallen timber. As they reached the newly opened grave, the tall scientist stood at its end, close to the skull.

  ‘The deceased was buried in a sheet, I’d say,’ the young man told them. ‘Either that or a tablecloth, a makeshift shroud. It’s mostly rotted away. We’ve removed what was left of the upper layer, but we were careful. The remains are undisturbed. The skeleton is intact apart from that one bone dug up by the dog. The clothing is pretty much rotted as well, apart from a zip.’ He drew a breath. ‘However, from what I can see, there’s a connection between this and the other one. The fingertips seem to have been removed on this one as well. You’re the expert, Detective Inspector, but I’d say that unless extreme chiropody is part of the Tayside burial ritual, both bodies were put here by the same person or persons.’