‘But don’t bet on it,’ Sarah told him.

  The discussion was ended by the pilot, who came on air to advise that they were ready for take-off. Fifteen minutes later, as they neared their cruising altitude, just over forty-thousand feet, Houseman was asleep. Looking at him, Skinner summoned a twenty-two-year-old memory: a witness call, in a murder inquiry, to an address in the roughest of the areas in the capital city that the tourist buses never went near. The young leader of a street gang had tried the standard: ‘Pay us and your car will still have wheels when you get back.’ He had explained the facts of life to the young man. Their meeting had been brief, no money had changed hands and the vehicle had remained intact, but he had seen enough in the young Clyde Houseman to give him a business card. It had been returned, sixteen years later, by a very different version of that teenage boy.

  Sarah slept too, for the first hour of the flight. Paloma watched Rocco Schiavone on her tablet, and Skinner thought. He thought of everything that had happened over the last seven days in his life, from the aftermath of a storm in Scotland to the shocking surprise of his discovery in Spain. His police service had posed a continuing series of unanswered questions. He had found answers to the great majority, but normally he had been faced with one mystery at a time.

  ‘Rather them than you this time, Bob,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Mmm? What?’

  He had spoken softly but had awakened his wife.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘Thinking out loud.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Everything. Mostly about Matthew Reid, but everything.’

  ‘Bob,’ she sighed, ‘let it go. You’re not a cop any more. You have a new life.’ She grinned. ‘Look around you if you’re in any doubt. You have a new priority, the business that you’re helping to run.’

  ‘That’s a kind way of putting it,’ he suggested. ‘What I’m doing is chairing an executive board and taking strategic decisions when I’m asked. Even then they’re based on recommendations by the specialists. All I have to do is say yes or no.’

  ‘You’re valued in ways you don’t realise, Bob,’ Sarah argued. ‘Xavi told me that; he says that you motivate people better than he ever could. You encourage them to be better than they ever thought they could be. That’s what he said, and I told him that’s what you’ve always done. It was your greatest strength as a cop, and it is as a parent too. Look at Alex, at the way her career’s developed. Look at Mark. That boy’s more than just a computer whiz. He’s an inventor.’

  ‘And Jazz?’

  ‘He’s you,’ she replied, ‘and that’s absolutely good enough for me.’ She paused. ‘That said, you need to give him some time when we get home. He isn’t quite as robust emotionally as you are, not yet. He’s still coming to terms with what he found last Sunday.’

  Skinner nodded. ‘I’ll talk to him,’ he promised. ‘Speaking of what he found, what progress have they made in identifying the remains? You haven’t mentioned it since you’ve been here.’

  ‘I know who the first one was,’ she said, ‘but that’s it.’

  ‘There are two?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, didn’t you know? The sniffer dogs found a second set of skeletal remains. I got DNA from that too, but I don’t know whether they’ve got a match with anyone in the database. They managed to do that with the first one. His name is, or was, Samuel Trott.’

  He stiffened slightly in his seat, pressing against the belt. ‘Say that again?’

  ‘Samuel Trott,’ she repeated. ‘Why are you so interested?’

  Her question seemed to go unanswered as he gazed upwards at the console above his head. Finally he replied, softly. ‘I have it on very good authority that Sammy Trott’s a flooring contractor, in Melbourne, Australia.’

  ‘Can you check that with your good authority?’ she asked.

  ‘That would be very difficult,’ he chuckled.

  Seventy-Three

  Detective Sergeant John Cotter had known better Monday mornings. He had spent most of the weekend, apart from an unhappy trip to Maryhill to watch Partick Thistle, closeted in his flat in Glasgow’s Merchant City. He had decided to do what he thought of as an audit of his life, and it had not gone well. He had left university full of hope for the future, determined to forge a career as a police officer, as far away from North Shields as he could get. His decision to join the British Transport Police had been unconventional, but it had achieved that objective.

  After a year in Durham, where his cousin David served in the county force, he had been posted to Aberdeen. At first, he had enjoyed life in Scotland, but it had not taken too long for boredom to set in. An early promotion to detective constable had given him some encouragement, that had been dissipated by the constraints and boredom of the role. He had been on the point of resignation when an opportunity had arisen: a transfer to the Scottish police service, same rank, same city. He had jumped at it, and for a few short years had looked only forward. He had done well, and had made detective sergeant ten years earlier than he would have in his old force. And yet . . . gradually the old discontent had returned. The root cause could only be one thing, he had decided. Aberdeen had become a Scottish version of North Shields. He was a big-city boy, and he had spent long enough in backwaters.

  The transfer to Glasgow, on his DI’s recommendation, could not have come at a better time: West of Scotland Serious Crimes, under the command of the newly promoted DCI Lottie Mann, a different level, a different life, a stairway to the stars, he had thought, fancifully, at his farewell do in Scott’s Bar. Even being dumped that evening by his latest girlfriend had not dimmed the prospect.

  Initially, Glasgow had been all that he had hoped for. There had been variety in the job, figuratively although definitely not literally, the fields had been fresher, and the pastures newer. He had been motivated by Lottie Mann and even mentored initially by her partner Dan, a retired DS whose name was still spoken in hushed tones by many of his colleagues. They had enjoyed some fulfilling, high-profile clear-ups. He had even acquired a nickname. Tyrion, after the dwarf in Game of Thrones, might have upset others of his stature, but he knew it flowed from affection; for the first time he allowed himself to believe that he had found a home.

  And then he had walked into that second-floor flat in Candleriggs, not far from his home, and everything had stood on its head. A body, dead and decapitated, the head nowhere to be found. A tentative identification based in assumption. Clear forensic evidence with circumstances that pointed directly at a prime suspect. A confrontation, an instant antipathy. The fact that the man in the frame was a former chief constable meant nothing to him. Cotter spoke his mind. And then the unshakeable alibi. No blame was attributed but to him it hung in the air. It seemed that even Lottie had distanced herself. The fast track that he had envisaged when he had left the Transport Police had become a siding. Last Wednesday, his latest girlfriend had dumped him. Last Thursday he had begged his cousin to find him an escape route. Last Friday, Dave had done just that. If only Lottie, out of the blue, hadn’t been so fucking kind!

  His audit complete, he saw two options. Step through the open door of Sunderland, potentially dangerous ground for a Geordie. Think more positively, stay in Glasgow, suck it up, get back on that fast track and find a new girlfriend. As he settled into his chair at the beginning of a new week, he had no idea which he would take.

  He was mulling over the further option of supporting a different football team when his phone rang. Forcing himself back to reality, he picked it up. ‘Cotter,’ he said, as enthusiastically as he could.

  ‘Sergeant, it’s Richard Bush here,’ an Irish voice advised. ‘I am sorry that I couldn’t get back to you on Friday, but the decision maker I needed wasn’t available. However, I did contact him yesterday, and I have the authority to give you a copy of the Almondside report. It exists only in printed form, but to get it to you as quickly as possible, I’m going to photograph it with my mobile, page by page and send it to you by email. It’ll be more than one message, but it should do the job.’

  For the first time in several days, DS John Cotter smiled.

  Seventy-Four

  The old man’s eyes widened as he looked at the visitor on his doorstep. ‘There’s a surprise to start the week,’ he laughed. ‘Sir Bob Skinner, as I live and breathe. Aye Bob,’ he added, ‘I am still doing both, just. Come on in’

  ‘You look pretty fit to me,’ Skinner lied as he stepped into the welcoming hall. The effects of progressive lung disease were apparent in his old friend’s voice. ‘How long have you been retired now?’ he asked.

  ‘More years than I care to remember,’ Tommy Partridge admitted. ‘I wonder how many cops there are that have drawn pension for more years than they drew salary?’ He grinned. ‘You’ll be pulling yours too, I imagine. Not that you’ll be needing it. I don’t suppose you’ll be running our June’s business for nothing. She told me you commute to Spain every week on the company jet.’

  ‘She was on it herself last week,’ Skinner said, following him through to his kitchen, where a kettle was coming to the boil.

  ‘She told me,’ he replied, taking a second mug from a cupboard and dropping in a tea bag. ‘She said she felt guilty, after writing an editorial a couple of weeks ago on global warming. How big’s your carbon footprint, do you reckon?’

  ‘As small as we can make it,’ Skinner assured him. ‘All our company cars and vans are electric now.’

  ‘June told me about the one that picked you up from the airport. She said it was quite something. Where’s hers?’ he challenged.

  ‘She doesn’t want one, Tommy, as you know full well. She enjoys taking the bus to work. She says it keeps her in touch with our readers.’

  ‘How did she and her half-brother get on?’ Partridge asked as he stirred the tea then removed the bags.

  Skinner waited until he was finished, accepting one of the mugs when it was ready. He rarely drank tea after breakfast. He took a sip then held it close to his chest. ‘They got on very well,’ he told the veteran. ‘They’ve always had an excellent professional relationship. Xavi appointed her managing editor of the Saltire,’ he reminded him, ‘when he moved to Girona to take the reins of Intermedia from Joe.’

  ‘Did you ever meet him, Bob? Joe Aislado?’

  ‘Once. I visited Xavi when I was on holiday in Spain. I liked him. You’d have thought he was just a kindly old man, but his mind was switched on. He founded Intermedia as a group; he bought GironaDía after Franco died, rooted out his adherents quietly but effectively, and made it a force once again. Then he diversified, into other media. Yes, it’s grown exponentially under Xavi, but Joe created the business. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I’m curious, that’s all. Mary hardly ever spoke about him, and when she did she never said anything kind.’

  ‘What did she say about Xavi?’

  ‘Nothing. Not even when she was dying. I asked June to let him know, but I don’t know if she ever did.’

  Skinner shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have come to see her, Tommy. She’d been dead for years as far as he was concerned. His book made that clear.’

  ‘The one that Matthew Reid ghosted for him?’ Partridge murmured. ‘The one that was never published? I wonder how Reid felt about that? He’d have been expecting a share of the royalties.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. I thought the same, but he told me he did it for a flat fee. Xavi never intended that The Loner should be published. He saw it as a personal testament, there as a fact-checker against anything that others might write about him in the future. That’s why I’m here, in a way,’ he sipped his tea, out of politeness, ‘as well as looking up an old friend. Xavi had a text last week, out of the blue. So did I. They were anonymous, but we were meant to think they were from Matthew Reid.’

  ‘Think again on that one, poor bugger,’ the old man wheezed. ‘Dead in a freezer. I never had one of those in my career. Pity the poor sod that opened it. Looking for the McCain’s oven chips and finding that instead.’

  Skinner grinned. ‘It was a surprise, I’ll grant you that.’

  ‘You?’ Partridge gasped.

  ‘I went looking for him after I had my text. Most people thought he was dead, that he’d drowned himself. When the texts started to arrive we thought he’d fooled us. It seems that somebody did, but not Matthew. So,’ he continued, ‘in the light of that, we’re asking, who sent the texts?’

  ‘We being?’

  ‘Me, Xavi and the police, here and in Spain.’

  ‘Why you?’ Partridge asked.

  ‘Because I’m taking it personally. Matthew was my friend and somebody killed him; on top of that, somebody’s having a laugh at his expense.’

  The old cop nodded. ‘And on top of that, you’re Bob Skinner. So what brings you here? Do you think it was me?’

  ‘No.’ He winked. ‘If only because you could never have moved the body. I’m here because the content of one of the messages meant that it had to have come from someone with knowledge of the book. Very few people were given a copy. You’re one of them. What I want it to know is, first, do you still have it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s in my bookcase.’

  ‘And second, have you ever lent it to anyone?’

  Partridge frowned. ‘I don’t think so, Bob,’ he replied. ‘I keep it pretty close. There’s stuff in it I would rather didn’t get out, for Mary’s sake. I can’t guarantee it though.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘The old memory’s not as good as it used to be. If anything comes back to me, I’ll come back to you. Now,’ he exclaimed, abruptly, ‘since it’s obvious that you don’t fancy my tea, can I make you a coffee?’

  Seventy-Five

  How did this man ever get to be First Minister of my country? Noele McClair asked herself as she shifted in the uncomfortable chair and gazed across the cheap, scratched desk. The thought was rhetorical; she knew her history well enough. Thomas Murtagh had been in the right place at the right time, in the days when Labour had been seen as the natural party of government, in a system that had been designed to prevent any from winning an outright majority. His popular predecessor had resigned, leaving no obvious successor. Murtagh had been on the fringes of the hierarchy with no track record of service in an important department. But when the age-old rivalry between Glasgow and Edinburgh had blocked either of their candidates, he had slipped through the gap as a grudging compromise. His term of office had been brief and undistinguished, ending in a scandal, an overwhelming Nationalist election victory and his own dismissal by the Tayside voters who had sent him to Holyrood. He had returned to Dundee and set himself up in business as a lobbyist and public affairs consultant. The first element had been a failure because nobody with any influence was prepared to talk to him, and the second had attracted mostly low-grade clients. The exception had been Cameron McCullough, who had employed him for a year. Ostensibly it was because of his remaining influence with Tayside Labour politicians, but in reality he had been someone to carry messages that Grandpa was not inclined to deliver in person. However, they did go back, that McClair knew. They were contemporaries, and one of Murtagh’s few positives lay in the fact that he had been around in the city for ever and knew everyone. He and McCullough had an indirect connection too; Murtagh and Goldie, Grandpa’s sister, had a relationship that might have put an end to Thomas had Henry Brown, her ferocious husband, found out about it, as he might have had a third party not put an end to him.

  Murtagh put his landline phone back in its cradle and swung round to face her. His chair squeaked as he moved, but he ignored it, adjusting his jacket instead. M&S, she decided, cheap end of the range. He was diminished, a long way from the superficially smooth figure she remembered from TV news interviews during his term of office. He had given up trying to dye his thinning hair and the pencil moustache was gone too. He had become a sad little man and to her surprise McClair found herself feeling sorry for him.

  ‘How can I help you, Detective Inspector?’ he asked, with a suggestive smile that eradicated her sympathy in an instant. ‘Are the police looking for PR advice?’

  ‘We have that in-house,’ she replied. ‘One of my retired colleagues, Rod Greatorix, suggested that I might pick your brains. He said there isn’t much about Dundee and most of its people that you don’t know.’

  He nodded, engaged by her flattery. ‘I remember him. Detective Superintendent, wasn’t he?’

  ‘DCS at retirement,’ McClair said. ‘I spoke to him last week. I have an interest in a man he arrested, more than once. Moses Trott, his name is. Ring any bells?’

  Murtagh nodded. ‘Some very loud ones. Trott was a proper low-life, a violent man. Fortunately, he was a very incompetent thief, so he spent half of his life where he could do no harm. Finally, he upset the wrong person; somebody carved a big target into his forehead and cut out the better part of his tongue.’

  ‘Somebody?’ she repeated. ‘Are you saying it was one person, not a gang thing?’

  ‘No, no,’ he replied, quickly. ‘It probably was a gang. Trott made a lot of enemies in his time; there was a queue of people ready to do him. I thought somebody would have by now, possibly the family of the woman he killed. Are you saying that he’s still alive?’

  ‘He is,’ the DI replied, ‘but he’s old and he has dementia. He’ll spend what time he has left in institutional care. But, Mr Murtagh, it’s his family I’m interested in rather than Moses himself. Do you know anything about them?’

  ‘Not very much, but I seem to recall them coming up as a case when I was a regional councillor, back in the early eighties.’ He smiled, showing an unexpected shyness. ‘I have a good memory for detail,’ he explained. ‘I was convener of the social-work committee and I signed off on an application by officials to take them into care. Two of them, girl and a boy, ages maybe twelve and ten, respectively. Moses had got himself four years for a failed bank robbery; the mother had abandoned the family years before that and moved south. The social workers tried to trace her but never could. There were no adult relatives, so the kids had to go into a home.’ He frowned. ‘Yes, I remember there was a follow-up to that. When Moses got out he wanted them back; he made a fuss about it and the social-work director caved in. I thought it was crazy but the director pleaded budget constraints. He said he’d rather that Social Security paid for their upkeep than we did. I didn’t have grounds to overrule him so the kids went back. I did make sure they had an acceptable home to go to. I had a word with the housing convener on the Dundee council, and he allocated them one of the few decent semis he had left, after the Tory council-house sell-off. Moses was still in it when he killed the neighbour, but Naomi and Sammy . . . that was it, they were called Naomi and Sammy . . . they were gone by then. Naomi worked for the city council for a while, then got a better job in a casino and left. That’s the last I heard of her. Sammy, I know nothing about. Does that help you, Inspector?’