‘Point taken, Midfielder. Now I’ve got another job for you. I’d like you to research the Later Era care home. Jackie says it felt a bit niffy. Let’s see if we can find out where the smell’s coming from.’

  Sixty-Nine

  Jenny Bramley liked Scotland, for several reasons. Having moved from the virtual horror show that London had become, her working environment had been transformed. As chief scientific officer of the Scottish national police service, she had reached the top of the ladder, one that it might have taken her another fifteen years to climb in the capital. In practice she was her own boss, providing specialist services to the police but not part of its command structure. In moving home from Muswell Hill to Glasgow, she and her husband had swapped their cramped and mortgaged terraced home for a wholly owned four bedroom villa in a cul-de-sac that was less than a mile from the motorway network, a short walk to a very good primary school for their seven year old daughter and a twenty-minute drive away from the crime campus where she was based. Alongside these plus points, she had discovered since her arrival that the fact that her mother had been born and spent the first two years of her life in Scotland made her eligible for a place in its Commonwealth Games rifle shooting team . . . if that gathering ever took place.

  Her happiness was elevated by her excitement as she looked at her computer screen, and the tanned features of Charlotte Mann, one of her favourite colleagues.

  ‘You look well chuffed, Jenny,’ the DCI observed.

  ‘Oh I am, Lottie, I am. Normally when I get to give you results it’s all technical stuff, of which, let’s be frank, you only understand the headlines and not the detail. This time, it’s different. This time I am smiling in anticipation of your reaction to the bloody great monkey wrench that I’m about to throw into your investigation.’

  When she put her mind to it, Mann’s deadpan reactions had been compared favourably by colleagues with those of Chic Murray, the late great Scottish comedian. The fact that her right eyebrow rose only increased Bramley’s pleasure.

  ‘Do your worst,’ she challenged. ‘This is about the phone I dropped off with you, I’m guessing.’

  ‘It is. First, the routine stuff. Fingerprints and DNA lifted from the device confirm that the only person to handle it, and therefore the person who deposited it with Paradigm Storage was the late Sandra Bulloch. That’s the routine part, what we all expected. This isn’t. My IT colleagues have been able to access the phone, using the facial recognition biometrics that were held on Bulloch’s file. Given the time that’s elapsed since she left the police service, I was doubtful they’d work, but they did; even more bonus points to my people. It was when we got in there that everything stood on its head. The profile of the user, it isn’t Sandra Bulloch. It’s someone called Alexandra Vernon, with a different date of birth, different registered email, different everything, other than Sandra Bulloch’s face. There are photos in there too. It’s for your people to go through them in detail, but mine took a look. One jumped out at them; an image of a driving licence, in the name of Alexandra Vernon, with her birth date and an address in Bath Street, Glasgow. We can’t say for sure that it isn’t a fake, but it looks genuine. As we speak, the device is on its way to your office, in the pocket of a cop on a motor cycle. It should be with you directly. Good luck with it Lottie, and thanks for making my day.’

  Mann gazed back at her from the screen; deadpan. ‘Thanks for making mine,’ she countered. ‘Until now, all traces of Bulloch vanished after she fuelled her vehicle at a filling station on the border. Now we know; she didn’t disappear. She became someone else. Thanks to you we should be able to trace what that person did. The question is, where the hell did she come from?’

  Seventy

  ‘I’ve booked it top priority overnight international,’ Sauce Haddock said. ‘For what it cost, it would have been a lot cheaper for us to bring it back as hold baggage and pay the excess charges. Although,’ he added, ‘there might not have been any. To use up our total allowance Cheeky and I would have needed to put lead weights in our suitcases.’

  ‘When’s it being picked up?’ Stirling asked.

  ‘Within the next half hour, the courier company promised. Guaranteed delivery to your office by nine tomorrow morning. I could have had it sent to Gartcosh, but Dr Bramley can send one of her specialists to you, to effect an entrance, so to speak.’

  ‘What do you think we’ll find on it?’

  ‘I do not have a Scooby, John,’ Haddock said. ‘Maybe nothing, maybe everything. This investigation’s been full of uncertainties from the off, a fistful of loose ends needing to be tied together. The latest being that list of cities that Ryan Pilgrim said Sandra visited. What we need you, or somebody, to do with that, is add it to the places she and Gordon Pollock visited on their Grand Tour, and see if you can find a linking factor, common ground in every one of them.’

  ‘Maybe she just liked cities, boss.’

  ‘Maybe she did,’ he conceded.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Stirling continued, ‘put the two lists together, but analysing them’ll have to wait. I’m doing some other research for the DCI and that has priority. I could put a DC on the cities,’ he suggested.

  ‘You’re there, I’m here. You make that decision. What’s Lottie’s priority job?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m looking into the ownership of a care home.’

  ‘Care home?’ the superintendent repeated. ‘What the fuck are we doing looking into a care home?’

  ‘Sandra Bulloch’s aunt lives there. Jackie Wright went to talk to her and got bad vibes off the place.’

  ‘Is it a new line of enquiry?’

  ‘That could be, boss; but the truth is we’ve barely got a first one yet. A list of places, that’s all. That, and Jackie Wright getting a dodgy smell off a residential home: neither’s anywhere close to telling us who killed our victim. Or am I missing something?’ he added.

  ‘From the sound of that, you’re not,’ Haddock admitted. ‘But don’t go asking the question aloud if there are any journalists around. You don’t want to be doing ten rounds with Lottie Mann. Where is she just now?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s just finished a video call. I can see her from my desk. I don’t know who was on the other end, but whoever it was, the DCI is not looking very excited.’

  ‘There’s a school of thought, John, that Lottie Mann would not look excited if she was on the Titanic and saw an iceberg approaching. Cheers.’

  Seventy-One

  ‘How’s it going, Sir Robert?’ Chief Constable Neil McIlhenney asked, smiling. ‘You look pretty healthy, or do you have a filter on your camera?’

  ‘Make-up,’ Skinner shot back. ‘InterMedia has TV stations, one of them in this building. All I have to do is make one call. You’re looking a bit pale yourself, Neil.’

  ‘That’s what happens when you have a fucking desk job. You of all people should know that.’

  ‘Why should I?’ he countered. ‘When I was a chief I delegated all the boring stuff to Brian Mackie, because he was better at it than me, and got out of the office, turning up at crime scenes and pissing you guys off. Brian’s still there, you should use him more.’

  Mario McGuire contradicted him. ‘No he’s not,’ he said. ‘Brian retired last week. He’s gone to be head of security with an energy company in Australia. He’s been replaced by Morven Guard; she was a chief super in Inverness.’

  ‘Nobody told me that,’ Skinner complained. ‘I’d have chipped into his leaving present.’

  ‘It all happened very quickly,’ McIlhenney explained. ‘The opportunity came up and he took it.’

  ‘Head of security?’ he laughed. ‘Brian couldn’t secure a freezer door. Administration was his strength. Unless he gets to patrol sites with a weapon,’ he conceded. ‘He was the best shot on the force.’

  ‘We have a better one now. Jenny Bramley, she’s international class. Unfortunately she’s a scientist, not a cop. You got any openings?’ he asked. ‘Mario and I are always on the look-out for offers we couldn’t refuse.’

  ‘How’s your Catalan?’

  ‘Wanting, I’m afraid,’ McGuire replied. ‘My Italian’s fluent, though, as you know. I speak it like a head waiter.’

  ‘So what?’ Skinner countered. ‘I never met an Italian waiter who didn’t speak English. Anyway, a call from the Glimmer Twins is always a hoot, but is there a reason for this one, beyond bullshit?’

  ‘There is actually,’ McIlhenney said. ‘There’s been an odd development in the Sandra Bulloch investigation. Since you were her direct boss for a while, we thought we’d pick your brains. I’m sorry,’ he added, ‘we should have made an appointment.’

  ‘Fuck you. What’s the development?’

  ‘This,’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘The one lead we got from the crime scene led us to a self-storage facility in Alloa. There, Lottie found a phone that Sandra had deposited. When Bramley’s people got into it, they discovered that she had a second identity. It was sophisticated; she had a driving licence in that name, even a National Insurance number. Why she used it we don’t know, but she seems to have switched to it when she got back to Scotland after touring with the Pollock boy.’

  ‘What did she call herself?’

  On screen the two officers saw a light, a flash of expectation creep into Skinner’s eyes. ‘Alexandra Vernon,’ McIlhenney said.

  The light became a laugh. ‘Ah Christ, I knew it was daft at the time.’ He sighed. ‘When I was appointed chief in the Strathclyde force, it was like becoming President, or Prime Minister. You’ll know, Neil. You’ll have had much the same. They give you the equivalent of the launch codes, secret files, stuff like that. One of the things they told me was that my late unlamented predecessor had the bright idea of designating two Special Branch officers, one male, one female, for undercover work, in certain situations. For this purpose, two false identities were created, although in fact they were never used. The ACC overseeing Special Branch at the time, Matt Allan, gave them names, and backed them up with apparently real but actually fake documentation: birth certificates, driving licences, national insurance numbers, the lot. I think he even fabricated degrees for them at a couple of universities, places with lots of students where two ghosts could be slipped on to the graduate roll without anyone noticing. The male entity was called Martin Littlewood, and the female was Alexandra Vernon. Get the picture?’ he asked.

  McIlhenney stared at him. McGuire shook his head.

  ‘Of course Matt was taking the piss,’ Skinner continued. ‘You two seem to have forgotten, but Littlewoods and Vernons were the names of the two big football pools, the coupons that your fathers and their fathers probably filled in every week of their lives. I can’t recall the name of the designated male officer, but the female was Sandra Bulloch, who was then a Special Branch sergeant. As soon as I heard about it, I told the head of SB to wrap up the silly project and burn the files. But he was a lazy bastard; a mate of old Jock Govan, the previous chief plus one, who’d been put there as a favour, or maybe just to keep him out of sight. My guess is, that bloke passed my order on to Sandra, and that for whatever reason, rainy day or whatever, she held on to her alter ego. If I were you guys, I’d be doing a check now to make sure that Michael Littlewood isn’t running about somewhere, getting up to God knows what!’ His laugh became a frown, as his phone’s ringtone sounded. ‘Got to go, guys,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have a call coming in, and I need to take it.’

  His friends froze on screen then vanished as he picked up his mobile and clicked ‘Accept’.

  ‘Señor?’ Jordi Poch exclaimed. ‘You can speak?’

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘I’m good, go ahead.’

  ‘The project you gave me. I have results, detailed results. I am still in Girona. Can I come to your office?’

  ‘Do that,’ Skinner said. ‘As fast as you can.’

  Seventy-Two

  Wright would not have sworn to it in court, but she was certain that Hardeep’s beard quivered when he looked up and saw who it was that he had buzzed into the building. ‘Hello again,’ she said, brandishing her warrant card. ‘We have new information. I need to check your visitors’ register for another name. Can I see it, please?’ Without waiting for a reply she took the book from the counter.

  ‘You cannot do that!’ he protested.

  ‘I can, and I will,’ she replied, calmly.

  ‘I will fetch Amina.’

  ‘You can fetch the Highland Light Infantry, but it’s not going to stop me looking through this book.’ She took it to a table by the entrance door and began to go through the pages for the period when Sandra Bulloch was believed to have visited.

  She had cleared two when a male voice, the accent broad Yorkshire, rang out behind her. ‘Detective Sergeant, please stop that.’

  She turned, to be confronted by a heavily built man wearing a tweed jacket and camel-coloured chinos and a trouser suit, similar to her own, with a head covering. ‘Who would you be, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘My name’s Gregor Rutherford. My wife and I own this place. All of that material, it’s confidential. Data protection.’

  Wright stared at him, then laughed. ‘Are you kidding me?’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s an open register, hand-written, plus, it’s one that you’re not obliged to keep at all.’

  Rutherford tried another line of attack. ‘Our residents have a right to privacy,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Their friends and families have rights.’

  Wright looked back at him. ‘One of those family members had a right to life,’ she murmured. ‘Somebody took it away from her.’

  ‘It wasn’t taken away here.’

  ‘We’re not suggesting that it was, but we are trying to piece together her movements in the days before her murder. Please don’t be obstructive, or this situation will escalate.’ She held the man’s gaze, until he turned and walked away.

  The sergeant returned to her search. It was on the seventh page that she found Alexandra Vernon, the name printed in capitals, rather than in autograph style. ‘March the first,’ she murmured. Taking her mobile from her pocket she found the photo of the bogus but authentic driving licence in the name of Sandra Bulloch’s alter ego. She took it back to the desk and showed it to Hardeep. ‘This woman,’ she said, ‘is showing as signed in about six months ago, registered as visiting Mrs Crawford. Does she ring any bells now?’

  He gazed at the image for several seconds. ‘Maybe yes,’ he conceded. ‘But then again, maybe no. If she was signed in then she was here, was she not?’

  Wright nodded. ‘Yes, and from that I need to speak to anyone who interacted with her. I need to know everything she said; there’s always a possibility that it might give us new information that might take our investigation forward.’

  ‘She would not have spoken to anyone here,’ Hardeep declared. ‘It is not allowed.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It is not allowed, that’s all I can tell you. If you were not police I would not be talking to you.’

  ‘Nonetheless, I would like to speak to other staff members.’

  He shook his head; the turban stayed firmly in place. ‘They cannot be made to speak to you, made by you, or by me, or by Amina. And they would not, because they all know it is not allowed.’

  The DS knew that he was correct. When it came to staff interviews, she had no powers of compulsion. Threats of an obstruction charge only worked at a certain level, and they had to be real and enforceable. ‘If you say so,’ she said. ‘But I will go up and see Mrs Crawford.’

  ‘You cannot. Mrs Crawford, dear lady, is ill.’

  Wright stared at him. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’ She was genuinely distressed; she had liked the old lady. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She is at the hospital in the town. The doctor said she had to be taken there.’

  ‘Has her stepdaughter been told?’

  ‘That would be the business of the hospital. She is their patient.’

  ‘F . . .’ Wright bit her tongue, almost literally. ‘Then I’ll go there,’ she snapped. She slammed the visitors’ register on to the counter. The first of the two doors was swinging open even before she reached it; triggered by Hardeep in his haste to get her out of there she imagined. It was only when she was in the street outside that she realised that she had no idea where the hospital was. Maps would have told her in a few seconds; instead she walked the few yards to the tea room that she had visited the day before. The owner, a portly middle-aged man, recognised her at once. She was going towards him, until her eye fell on another familiar face; Efe, the person who had admitted her, then bolted to summon help, at a table with another African, a woman, also in a Later Era uniform.

  She stepped over and flashed her warrant card again. ‘Remember me from yesterday?’ she asked.

  Efe nodded. His chair squeaked on the wooden floor as he moved in it.

  ‘Can you tell me where the hospital is?’

  ‘Sure, it’s down that road over there,’ he grunted, pointing towards a junction a short distance away. ‘It’s called Kello. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Thanks. What happened with Mrs Crawford?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘She just went ill, poor lady,’ the woman said. Anne: her name badge identified her. ‘It’s a shame, she was fine when she had dinner with the rest, then less than an hour later, she was distressed. It’s a shame,’ she repeated. ‘A lovely lady.’

  ‘Does that sort of thing happen often?’ Wright sighed. ‘I suppose it must, given the age of the residents, and their general condition.’

  ‘Not like that,’ Anne told her. ‘When an old person is ready to go, you can tell, at least I can. I can look at them and say, “This person will not be here in a week”, and you will usually be right. But not Mrs Crawford. You will say she will live to be a hundred.’