Through the glass he saw Mann rise to her feet. Through the speaker, he heard her say, ‘Ruby Goldstein, I am arresting you under Section One of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act on suspicion of the murder of . . .’

  ‘All right!’ Goldstein cried out. ‘Stop! I just want all of this to go away. You don’t have to extradite me, you don’t have to shackle me with you. I’ll come with you to Scotland for as long as it takes. But I don’t know why.’

  ‘Yes, you do!’ Mann barked. ‘From the moment Lita and I stopped you on that mountain, you haven’t asked the obvious question: what the hell am I, a Scottish detective, doing here? You haven’t asked, Ms Goldstein, because you bloody well know.’

  Eighty-Nine

  ‘How did it play after that?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘It’s still playing really,’ Bob told her, ‘but very soon Ruby Goldstein will be on her way to Scotland as a suspect in the murder of David Allen, formerly known as Gavin Ayre. Once everyone had cooled down, she accepted that and so did Mateu, the Catalan minister. The deal is, subject to it being signed off by our Lord Advocate, that the Scottish investigation will make no reference to events in Spain.’

  They were on the terrace of their Girona apartment; to the west the sun was heading for the horizon but there was still enough daylight for Sarah to survey the view. ‘Bob, what are those?’ Still holding the monocular to her eye, she pointed south. ‘Those jagged things on the skyline?’

  He took it from her, and looked for himself. ‘Those are the Mountains of Montserrat, a holy place. There’s a monastery up there that houses La Moreneta, the Black Madonna. I’ve heard that in Franco’s time, it was the only place where Catalan people could be married in their own language. We should visit, since we’re going to spend more time here.’

  ‘Yes, when you have a business-focused life and aren’t being pulled off the street by rogue agents. Speaking of whom, what about the Merle Gower person?’

  ‘She’s not happy, and from what she told me before she left neither is her boss.’

  ‘Which boss?’

  ‘Her big boss, the President himself. He was getting used to the idea of Silver as his running mate; now that’s gone and he’s trying to keep the lid on a scandal. He’s also got to keep the existing VP on-side. It’s not too late for her to run against him for the nomination.’

  ‘I hope she does,’ Sarah declared. ‘It’d serve him right for allying himself with a chancer. Is Gower’s job on the line?’

  ‘I doubt it; she knows too much. But there are three Secret Service agents who may find themselves chasing currency forgers for the rest of their careers.’

  ‘That’s unless they sue for compensation for workplace injuries!’

  ‘I’d counter-sue for assault.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a thought, you know. If I told Merle that I want a pay-off for the inconvenience, say five million dollars . . .’

  ‘Please don’t,’ his wife retorted. ‘It would be cheaper to have you shot!’

  Ninety

  ‘Are you good, Lottie?’ Haddock asked his colleague.

  Mann saw herself nod in the smaller of the two windows on her screen. ‘Yes, but I’m glad to be out of that uniform. Part of the deal that assured Goldstein’s cooperation is that she won’t appear to be under police escort on the flight back tomorrow. Have you made the arrangements at your end?’

  ‘Yes, I have. She won’t be detained as such; instead she’ll be given a room in a hotel with a plainclothes officer on guard, and she’ll be escorted to and from interviews by Jackie Wright. Before that, she has a job to do as soon as possible after she lands: the Crown Office needs a formal identification of David Allen’s body, and she’s qualified to do it. I’ve made contact with the Canadian High Commission, by the way. They have the right to know that one of their citizens has been murdered.’

  ‘Will they want to be involved in the investigation?’ she wondered.

  ‘Tough on them if they do, because that is not going to happen. There’s been no request, though. I’m more worried about the Americans. Should I be?’

  ‘They have a continuing interest,’ Mann said, ‘but I doubt that the Embassy’s been told about it.’

  ‘What do you think of Goldstein as a suspect?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘I’m trying to keep an open mind, Sauce. Bear in mind too that I haven’t been part of your investigation, only what’s been happening in Spain. What have you got that I don’t know about?’

  ‘We can prove she was in the area at the time, one hundred per cent. There’s other stuff too that doesn’t look good for her, but I’ll tell you about that before we interview her.’

  ‘We?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes, you and me.’

  She frowned. ‘Not Singh? Not Wright?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I don’t want her to see two strangers. One will be quite enough.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Mann declared, ‘because I’ve been thinking . . . we’ve got a massive duty of care towards this woman, Sauce. She’s lost her father, she’s lost the half-brother she didn’t know about and by whom she’s pregnant.’

  ‘Is she going to keep the baby?’

  She stared at Haddock’s on-screen image. ‘It’s not my place to ask her,’ she said firmly, ‘nor is it yours, but she is vulnerable and, as I say, we’ve got a responsibility to her and to her unborn child.’

  ‘How do we exercise that?’

  ‘It’ll be your choice, but my view is that before we sit her down and caution her, we establish that she’s emotionally fit to be interviewed.’

  ‘We should get her a psychological evaluation, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Okay, we will,’ Haddock said. ‘And as it happens I have someone in mind who could do it . . . provided that he and Alex Skinner are back from Spain.’

  Ninety-One

  Detective Sergeant Jackie Wright was entitled to time off for weekend work. Her partner Kate had insisted that she take a full day rather than a couple of hours, warning her that the relationship would be in danger if it took second place to her work.

  And yet there she was at her desk on Monday, just before midday. Her face was lined and craggy, but she was there, because the job was not yet finished. ‘They’re bringing her back today?’ she asked Tarvil Singh.

  ‘She’s here now; they’ve parked her in a hotel as part of the deal to avoid extradition,’ he confirmed. ‘Lottie Mann brought her back. She’s in with Sauce now, giving him a full briefing on what happened. That’s why his blinds are closed. Oh, he wants you to be Goldstein’s minder, by the way.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Always,’ the big DI said. ‘Between CID and back in uniform.’

  ‘Seriously?’ she gasped.

  ‘No, but has Sauce ever asked you to do anything you didn’t think was reasonable.’

  ‘No,’ Wright admitted. ‘It’s just that I’m under pressure at home, and . . .’

  ‘Jackie,’ Singh exclaimed, ‘you don’t have to sleep with her. I told you, she’s under guard in a hotel. All he wants you to do is take her to and from interviews that you won’t be involved in, while she’s still just a person of interest. The first one’s this afternoon. Sauce has arranged a psych eval session with Dominick Jackson at his place down in Leith. You’ll be home in time for dinner, don’t worry.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too arduous,’ she agreed. ‘Tarvil, the fact is I’m not worried about Kate. “Me or the job?” is a dangerous question to ask, especially if you’re taking the answer for granted.’

  ‘And is she? Your other half?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Ah,’ he sighed. ‘You know best. I hope it works out okay for you.’ He smiled. ‘Meanwhile, we’ve got a task.’ He held up a small device. ‘Sauce and I took this from the dead guy’s house. It needs checking for content, and this being a major investigation that means corroboration. Let’s have a look at it.’

  He turned his computer round to inspect the inputs: it was an older model, and as such he was pleased to see that it was compatible with the memory stick. He plugged it into the rear, then clicked on the file image that appeared on screen.

  The contents were a single document, an Excel spread sheet. The sergeant watched as the screen filled with line after line. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured, ‘but there’s lots of it. Jackie, go away; don’t get yourself involved in this. It’s going to take hours of analysis. I’ll probably end up doing overtime. I’ll get a uniform to sit with me. You’re deep enough in the shit as it is; I’m not going to pull you further in.’

  She took him at his word and went back to her desk.

  Ninety-Two

  The balcony of Alex Skinner’s penthouse apartment had been designed with two people in mind, but when one of them was Dominick Jackson, it was a tight fit. She squeezed past and into the chair next to his and handed him a beer.

  ‘I love this view,’ he said, gazing up at Arthur’s seat and the high slope known as the Radical Road. ‘It defines Edinburgh.’

  ‘Yeah, only don’t look left,’ she suggested. ‘The Parliament building’s controversial at the best of times, but the back end wins no fans. Plus, you never know who you might see sneaking out the back door.’

  He smiled. ‘Your ex, you mean? Sir Andrew?’

  ‘I was thinking of a former First Minister,’ she laughed, ‘but yes, him too.’

  ‘I see he’s making his mark already. Shadow Justice Secretary, no less.’

  ‘That was bound to happen. Andy didn’t stand without an assurance behind the scenes that he’d go straight on to the front bench.’

  ‘And his marriage? Heard anything about that?’

  ‘Karen’s taken him back; her boyfriend’s job took him back to London, so there was a vacancy.’

  Dominick shot her a sideways glance. ‘That sounds pretty cynical,’ he remarked.

  ‘It is,’ Alex conceded, ‘but it’s on the mark. They’ve always been well matched, him and Karen. He’s politically aware and so is she. She’ll be thinking that being Lady Martin won’t do her police career any harm. She may well be right,’

  ‘Why did you split up the first time? I know I asked you that before and you wouldn’t tell me, but now, now . . .’

  She grinned and squeezed his arm. ‘Now we’re shagging, you were going to say?’

  ‘Not in so many words, but essentially . . . yes.’

  ‘It was actually boring, being engaged to Andy,’ she confessed. ‘He made me feel diminished, as if I was part of the furnishings of his life. So, I had a casual fling with someone else and I got caught. By my dad, no less. Pops never really approved of Andy and me, you know. He went batshit when he found out about us. In the end he only tolerated it for my sake. Things were never quite the same between him and Andy afterwards.’

  ‘Bob would never have shopped you to Andy, though: for your affair,’ he said, with certainty.

  ‘No, but he did make me take a look at myself. I think it made me grow up.’

  ‘How does he really feel about you and me?’ Dominick wondered.

  ‘One hundred per cent good. If he didn’t, you’d know by now.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’d have no chance in a rematch. Three Secret Service agents, really?’

  ‘He didn’t say, but that’s what Sauce told me; hospital cases. He got it from Lottie Mann.’ She paused. ‘Want another?’

  ‘Not if I’m driving home.’

  She rose and left the balcony, returning less than a minute later with two more bottles of Estrella. ‘How did your afternoon go?’ she asked. ‘Your short notice appointment?’

  ‘Patient confidentiality, Alex,’ he reminded her. ‘I can’t talk about that.’

  ‘Ah but, Doctor Jackson,’ she countered, ‘if I go back to private practice I might wind up defending the woman. On the other hand, if I decide to sign up for another stint in the Crown Office as an Advocate Depute, I might wind up prosecuting her. That would make me privileged, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘If it did, you’ve got a problem either way,’ Dominick replied abruptly. ‘I was asked to determine whether the subject is vulnerable in any way, before they interview her tomorrow in connection with a homicide inquiry. I wasn’t told which one but it’s blindingly obvious. What I think I can tell you, privileged or not, is that I’ve rarely met anyone less vulnerable.’

  ‘If I could choose which side to be on . . .’

  ‘Are you really thinking about staying on as a prosecutor? Might be a good idea.’

  Ninety-Three

  ‘Have your feet touched the ground yet, Lottie?’

  Mann smiled faintly. ‘Just about,’ she replied. ‘I managed a decent night’s sleep for the first time in a week. At the end of the trip I did wind up sleeping in a police barracks, of a sort, although the overnight accommodation in the Mossos HQ is pretty comfortable. Better than Glasgow, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You don’t have overnight accommodation in Glasgow,’ Haddock said.

  ‘We do,’ she countered, ‘but the doors are heavy, the beds are hard and there’s a steel toilet in the corner. We’re ready to go then?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Jackie Wright is with her, waiting for us. She’s the only one who knows who the woman is, by the way. Not even Tarvil has the name. I’ve put her in what was the Gaffer’s office when he was DCC, back in Sir James Proud’s day.’

  ‘Kid glove treatment?’ Mann suggested.

  ‘Yes, but the steel gauntlets are under the table.’

  ‘How was the psych eval?’

  ‘According to Dominick Jackson we’re more at risk than she is,’ the superintendent replied. ‘A controlling personality, he reported, likely to be dominant in any relationship, and calm under pressure.’

  ‘In Spain she said that she panicked and ran for it when her father collapsed.’

  ‘I know,’ Haddock acknowledged, ‘and that claim was relayed to Dominick before the interview. He dismissed it out of hand. You were right to ask for an evaluation, Lottie, but not for the reasons that you thought. This is no victim of circumstances we’re about to interview. Come on, let’s get to it.’

  They left his office and were passing through the squad room when Tarvil Singh called out. ‘Boss, I’m finished with what’s on that memory stick. I need to go through it with you, and probably with DCI Mann as well.’

  ‘Laters, big man, laters.’

  They kept moving, out of the south block of the complex towards what had been the command suite in the days when Edinburgh had been the centre of its own policing world. Skinner’s former office had become a conference room, but it was one that was rarely used. They were in the anteroom and about to enter when Haddock paused. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘before you got here I had a call from the Gaffer’s friend, the American spook woman.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’s his friend any longer,’ Mann remarked. ‘If she ever was.’

  ‘Be that as it may, she asked me for regular updates on our interviews with Ms Goldstein.’ He smiled. ‘She said that the President has an interest in a speedy conclusion. I told her that if he presided over the Scottish Parliament I might start to give a shit, but until then I won’t.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate her, Sauce.’

  ‘I won’t. I called the DCC and reported the approach.’

  ‘What will he do?’

  ‘He could call the US Embassy and make a formal complaint. Or he could route it through the Lord Advocate. Or he could play really rough and call the Gaffer. One word from him and the story’s on the front page of the Saltire, and beyond. He was always influential as a cop, but now he has serious power of his own.’

  ‘I wonder how his psych eval would read?’ Mann mused, as Haddock opened the door and stepped into the conference room.

  ‘Thanks, Jackie,’ he told Wright, who had risen from her chair. ‘We don’t need you for this part. You might like to grab an early lunch, or whatever. I’ll text you when we’re done.’

  As the sergeant left, he turned to Ruby Goldstein. She was seated at an oval conference table that he was sure was a relic from the Skinner era. He and Mann took their places, not directly opposite, but slightly offset, deliberately so on his part, to make the setting appear less confrontational. He looked at her; she wore no makeup at all and her hair was slightly disarranged. ‘ “Manipulative”, Dominick Jackson’s report had read. “She will be aware of every situation and will adapt to it accordingly. She may appear anxious, even distressed. She will be neither; she will always have planned and she will always seek to control, offering only what she deems to be in her best interests.”

  He checked his watch; it showed five minutes before midday. ‘Good morning,’ he began, ‘just. DCI Mann you know already. I am Detective Superintendent Harold Haddock. Most people call me Sauce, but you can call me Detective Superintendent Haddock. This is an informal interview, to which you have agreed, but I have my limits. There’s no recording device on the table and I can assure you there are no hidden cameras. However,’ he reached into his pocket and produced a small device which he slid towards her, ‘if you wish, you can use this, keep it afterwards and I’ll use my phone. In fact, I’d like us to do that, for your protection more than ours.’ She nodded and switched on the recorder; he chose the voice memo facility on his phone.

  ‘Ms Goldstein, you’re here voluntarily, following a chain of events that began in Spain. I’ve only got peripheral interest in those. Primarily, I’m tasked with investigating the murder of a man who was known to us as Gavin Ayre. In that regard I do have an interest in you. If you were under caution, you’d have the right to a lawyer; you’re not, but if you want one regardless, that can be arranged.’

  Her right eyelid flickered; a nervous, seemingly involuntary action.

  Very impressive, Mann thought, being able to fake that.

  ‘No,’ Goldstein said, ‘I don’t need one.’ She hesitated for a moment before adding, quietly, ‘I am hungry though; and herbal tea would be nice.’