‘I know; I’m on the edge of it, remember?’

  Skinner focused a steady gaze on his visitor. ‘Just so we’re clear,’ he murmured. ‘You married a woman with whom I had a one-night stand twenty-odd years ago. That does not make us kin, or even close to it. My former colleagues still have a file on you that would bend my desk in the middle.’

  ‘Incidents and accidents, hints and allegations,’ McCullough chuckled, ‘as someone once said. Let them show me that file and I’ll dismiss or disprove everything in it.’

  ‘You know what,’ Skinner sighed, ‘I don’t care about the past any more. I’ve been offered serious money for my autobiography. I turned it down flat, but if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be in it. You may have been a fucking bogeyman up in Dundee, but that was never my territory, so I don’t give a shit. I’m only interested in the present now.’

  ‘So what’s this about, this meeting?’

  ‘It’s a favour for a friend, who’s hoping it can stay informal. I’m glad you could come here, by the way; it saved me a trip up to Perthshire.’

  ‘No worries; I was going to the football club anyway, and this isn’t far out of my way. Dimitri can cool his heels for an hour or so. What’s the alternative to informal, by the way?’

  ‘A big lady polis from Glasgow; impervious to charm. As for Rogozin, he’s cooling more than his fucking heels right now.’ He waited, looking for puzzlement to show in McCullough’s eyes and finding himself surprisingly relieved when it did. ‘He was found in the Clyde this morning, just under the Squinty Bridge. From what I’ve been told, those big heavy overcoats are surprisingly buoyant.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ McCullough exclaimed. Skinner was even more satisfied; he had never seen the man rattled before.

  ‘I don’t do funny,’ he replied. ‘My alibi’s good, I’m happy to say, but I’m not so sure about yours.’

  ‘Fuck!’ the Dundonian whispered. ‘I. . .’ He stopped, staring through the glass.

  ‘Why are you going to Merrytown?’ Skinner asked, sharply.

  ‘Eh?’ McCullough shook his head as if trying to clear it. ‘I’m going to meet . . . I was going to meet Rogozin,’ he said, ‘to have him sign some documents, first and foremost being his resignation. I wasn’t kidding on Saturday, Bob. I’ve had it with the bloke.’

  ‘Is that why you met him in Glasgow last night, to give him that message?’

  ‘Ah,’ he murmured, ‘that’s what this is about. Your big lady polis has been tracing Dimitri’s movements.’

  ‘Yes,’ Skinner conceded, ‘and they have you with him in the Grand Central Hotel, then leaving together.’

  ‘If she’s been doing her job properly, she’ll have more than that.’

  ‘Take me through it.’

  ‘I went to the hotel initially for a quiet chat. I spent about half an hour in his suite, just talking business mostly. At that point I was still thinking about keeping him onside. We talked about Baker and about how long we could carry on without him: the Motherwell defeat didn’t go down well with anyone, I should tell you. Eventually he said we should go out, so we did. Like you said, we left the hotel. Glasgow’s like one big film set; there are cameras everywhere, so I’m sure the police will be able to follow us, although not all the way.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘We walked down to the Garrick Casino. That was Rogozin’s idea; he was a member there, and he signed me in.’

  Skinner grinned. ‘Surely that was unnecessary,’ he remarked.

  ‘What do you mean?’ McCullough retorted.

  ‘You own the place, Cameron. Garrick Casinos Limited is part of your leisure division.’

  ‘You have been doing your homework. I thought you said you had no interest in me ’cos I wasn’t on your patch.’

  ‘When you became my son’s stepfather, that changed,’ Skinner admitted. ‘I made it my business to find out about you, so I read that big thick intelligence file they have on you.’

  ‘Yes, okay, I do own the group, but I’m not the licence holder. I’m not even on the board of the parent company.’

  ‘No, but the shareholder register tells the story; one hundred per cent ownership. So, go on, Rogozin signed you in. Then what?’

  ‘We spent some time at the tables; he played and I watched him making himself poorer and me richer. He was crap at blackjack, and like most of the punters, he had a roulette system that he thought was foolproof but wasn’t. After he’d dropped a couple of grand he started to mutter about there being a footbrake on the wheel. I wasn’t having that, so I steered him out of there, with difficulty, and up to the restaurant. That was when it started to get nasty.’

  ‘What triggered it off?’

  ‘Drink, I suppose. We had a steak, and he had a St Émilion decanted. Bloody philistine,’ McCullough muttered, ‘drinking that after whisky. Once we’d eaten,’ he continued, ‘I got down to business. I told him that his behaviour in the boardroom on Saturday had been unacceptable, and that he had to apologise to you.’

  Skinner smiled, grimly. ‘How did he take that?’

  ‘He went berserk, got all Russian on me, started yelling at me. I told him to speak English, and he did. He shouted “I’m not fucking doing that!” or something similar, loud enough to attract the attention of a guy called Ronnie Argyle, who was there with his wife.’

  ‘I’ve read his file too,’ the former chief constable remarked, ‘when I was at Strathclyde.’

  ‘Then you’ll know why I had to pacify him, then tell Dimitri to shut up. In fact I told him more than that. I said that I had reached the end of the road with him as chairman of Merrytown, and that I’d accept his written resignation next day. I told him that I didn’t want him setting foot in Scotland again, ever.’

  ‘And he took that without protest?’

  ‘It wasn’t a negotiation.’

  ‘Did you threaten to freeze him out of Rogotron as well?’

  McCullough stared at him, then he whistled. ‘You are good, very good. How did you . . . ?’

  ‘I understand French and I used to read the Dandy ,’ Skinner replied tersely. ‘Did you? Threaten him?’

  ‘No, because I need him in Russia. His death could create a problem for me.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ he told him. ‘It gives you a motive for keeping him alive, rather than killing him. So, you fired him as chair of Merrytown, you told him to be there to sign off on it this afternoon and then what?’

  ‘Then I walked out. I told him he could pay the bill, said good night to Ronnie Argyle and his wife, tipped Mario, the head waiter, and left.’

  He paused, for a second or two. ‘It wasn’t the last I saw of him though. He came after me, and caught up with me in the foyer. All the bluster was gone by then; he pleaded with me. He said that he’d been planning to leave Moscow because he had big trouble there. Something to do with shagging the wife of a friend of the president; that’s why he had Grigor, apparently. I told him to find another one, an ex-Spetsnaz mercenary, someone like that, and put him on the Rogotron payroll. I said we could afford it because I’d be selling the fucking plane. Then I left.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About quarter past twelve.’

  ‘And you didn’t go back? You didn’t hang around outside, waiting for him?’

  ‘Of course not. I walked straight up to the Oswald Street car park. My exit will be timed and it’ll show up, if your big lady friend wants to check.’ He smiled. ‘Is that me off the hook, Bob?’ he asked.

  ‘You were never on it as far as I was concerned,’ Skinner admitted.

  ‘How about you?’ McCullough joked. ‘Are you off it? You had a motive after Saturday.’

  ‘My alibi is aged five and her name is Seonaid. She woke up to go to the bathroom at half past midnight, just as I was coming up the stairs. I had to read her a story to get her back to sleep.’ He frowned. ‘I’m trying to get them to lose interest in Baker, though.’

  ‘Why should they want Chaz for this?’

  ‘Because Rogozin was screwing his half-sister.’

  ‘You’re fucking joking!’

  ‘No, I’m not, and he took photos to prove it. I’ve seen them; not nice.’

  ‘In that case I’ll regard my problems in Russia as a price worth paying for him being dead. I can put your friends in blue off Baker too. He and his wife had dinner with Mia last night, in my absence, in the hotel restaurant. It went on quite late.’

  Skinner beamed. ‘That will make my daughter’s day,’ he said. Then his pleasure evaporated. ‘Unfortunately, it’ll make them look all the harder at Paco Fonter. I hope he didn’t go out for a drive late last night.’

  Fifty-Four

  ‘Tell me you’re joking,’ Dan Provan exclaimed. ‘Sammy Pye had Skinner go and interview our suspect?’

  ‘No,’ Lottie Mann replied. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Pye asked him to have an informal word with Mr McCullough. It did the trick, because he says that the man is no longer a person of interest, and neither is Chaz Baker.’

  ‘I’m confused. Ah never had any interest in Baker.’

  ‘Then you didn’t read the Sunday papers yesterday. Annette Bordeaux, the woman whose smutty pictures you found on Rogozin’s iPad, was Baker’s half-sister.’

  The DS frowned at her. ‘No, Ah never read the Sundays,’ he confessed. ‘But there’s no evidence to suggest that he would have seen them. Rogozin’s sent emails were accessible through his tablet, and he never circulated those photos to anyone. Okay, Baker’s out, no’ that he was ever in, and we’ve tae forget McCullough on the say-so of a civilian.’

  ‘No,’ she said, patiently, ‘on the basis that he was in his car and driving north when Rogozin was killed. Pye verified from the public car park in Oswald Street that he checked out of there at twelve twenty-three.’

  ‘Maybe he parked it then went back down tae the casino and ambushed the guy.’

  ‘And maybe he called in an air strike.’

  ‘Ah still don’t like it, Lottie. It’s no’ proper procedure. It makes me wonder about Pye. I’ve been checkin’ out McCullough with a mate of mine in criminal intelligence. His record is absolutely clean, never had a speedin’ ticket, but he was acquitted of murder a few years back. And there was a heroin trafficking charge that disappeared, along with the smack in question, from a secure police store.’

  ‘I never knew that,’ Mann admitted.

  ‘I checked him out wi’ another source as well. Ah’ve just been to see Ronnie Argyle, in his yard, just to rule him out. The waiter said that Rogozin had upset him, and Ronnie can be a bit mental, as you know. He and his wife were picked up at twelve thirty in a black taxi, called by the casino staff, and went straight home. He admitted he was upset by Rogozin swearing in front of his wife, but he said that he was with Mr McCullough . . . sick, as they say in the papers, meaning that’s exactly what he called him . . . so he let it lie. That tells me plenty.’

  ‘Yes, it does, I’ll grant you, but Pye isn’t a guy who’d do something like that without a good reason. All he said to me was that things were sensitive with McCullough, and I didn’t press him on it.’

  ‘Sensitive as in he’s on the guy’s payroll?’ Provan barked.

  ‘Wash your mouth out, Danny. Are you suggesting that Skinner’s on his team as well?’

  The sergeant frowned. ‘In this brave new policing world of ours, Lottie, I don’t know what tae think any more.’

  Fifty-Five

  ‘The Amazon couriers must love this place,’ Sammy Pye gasped as they reached the third floor of the tenement block in Warrender Park Terrace.

  ‘When’s your next physical?’ Haddock asked, his breathing normal.

  ‘In a few months; I’d better get back in the gym. Bob Skinner’s at least fifteen years older than me, and he could probably run up those steps.’

  ‘Speaking of him, gaffer, shouldn’t you have asked me before you sent him off to talk to Grandpa?’

  ‘Probably,’ Pye conceded, ‘but I wanted to head off Lottie, or to be more accurate, her malevolent hobbit of a sidekick. And I didn’t want you involved; it could have gone pear shaped, and that would have been personally awkward for you.’

  ‘But it didn’t and now it looks awkward for both of us. Provan’s a contrary wee shite. If he goes to the chief . . .’ he allowed his warning to tail off.

  ‘If he does, I’ll deal with it . . . not that there’s anything to deal with. Bob got the job done in an hour and a half, on the quiet. If I had left it to the terrible twosome, they’d have formalised it and Christ knows how it would have gone. Grandpa’s clear . . . to your relief, I have no doubt . . . and as a bonus we can forget about Baker.’

  ‘That might bring us under pressure to review the charge against him,’ Haddock suggested.

  ‘How many times, Sauce? Rogozin’s death does not affect our case. Forget about it for now and let’s see what this woman has to say to us.’

  He pressed the button on the door on their right. The detectives waited, but not for long; it was opened by a small, plump woman, dressed in green denim jeans, and a baggy white sweatshirt with a bottle of Chanel Number Five depicted on its front. The dark curly perm that both had noticed on their first meeting with Sirena Burbujas was constrained by a wide headband and the brown eyes were hidden behind a large pair of round, frameless, spectacles. She looked up at them, and in those eyes they saw fear.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, quietly, then turned on her heel and led them along a corridor and into a large sitting room, with a high corniced ceiling and two large windows with a view of the Meadows, and beyond of the King Robert Village development. In the background, a radio was playing: Haddock recognised the fresh voice of Janice Forsyth.

  ‘Can I get you tea, coffee . . . beer?’ The faintly continental accent had disappeared; what was left was bland London. As she spoke, the woman’s agitation was apparent.

  ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Pye replied. ‘Are you okay?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. The news has just been on; they’re saying that Dimitri Rogozin’s dead, that he was drowned.’

  ‘That’s partly true.’ The DCI moved towards her. ‘Sit down, Ms Burbujas, please.’ He took her elbow, gently and steered her to an armchair. ‘Can we get you something?’

  She nodded. ‘There’s brandy in the sideboard. Thanks.’

  He followed her direction and found a bottle of Martell, with a pair of goblets beside it. He covered the base of one, and gave it to her. She drank, shuddered, then nodded appreciation. ‘It’s true then?’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes and no,’ Pye replied. ‘Rogozin is dead, but the officers on the scene don’t think he drowned. Subject to autopsy, the theory is that he was dead before he went into the river.’

  She flinched. ‘That’s horrible. What’s happening to the world? First Annette and now him.’ Her face hardened. ‘Not that he’ll be missed. He was a beast of a man.’

  ‘That’s the picture we’re getting,’ Haddock agreed. ‘Look, to get something out of the way, can you tell us where you went after you left Rogozin last night?’

  Burbujas looked up at him in surprise. ‘How did you know I was there?’

  ‘The Glasgow officers have a description of a woman who was with him in the Grand Central Hotel last night. It’s a good fit for you, and now you’ve confirmed it. So, where did you go?’

  ‘Straight back to Queen Street Station; I caught the first train to Edinburgh. I still have the cancelled ticket if you want me to prove it.’

  ‘Why did you visit him?’ Pye asked.

  ‘I wanted to confront him, to give him a message, to let him know he was going to pay. I did that, and I told him I was going to the police. As I am doing,’ she added.

  ‘Yes, we were intrigued by your call. You said it was time Rogozin was exposed.’

  ‘For what he did to Annette, that’s right. He was . . .’

  The DCI held up a hand to stop her. ‘Before you continue, Ms Burbujas, I should tell you that when a colleague in Glasgow searched his hotel room this morning he found a number of photographs of Ms Bordeaux on a tablet computer. We’ve seen them; they’re intimate, not pornographic, but they do indicate a relationship between the two of them.’

  ‘Relationship isn’t a word I’d use.’ She sipped her brandy and peered through her spectacles at Pye. ‘What I’m going to tell you, can it be confidential?’

  He frowned. ‘This is a murder inquiry, madam. You’re not a doctor, a lawyer or a priest: nothing you tell us can be privileged.’

  ‘Okay,’ she conceded, ‘but can you promise me that you’ll be sensitive in dealing with this information?’

  ‘We are when we need to be. Come on,’ he said, gently. ‘Out with it.’

  She drew a breath then blurted out, ‘He raped her! The son-of-a-bitch raped her.’

  The detectives stood, silent, as she composed herself. ‘It all started when Paco signed for FC Pugliese, the Italian club,’ she continued, more quietly. ‘I don’t know why he went there. Well, I do,’ she corrected herself. ‘He went because he trusted that shifty so-and-so Serra, and because he was frustrated. Paco always wanted to play for Real Madrid, but they never came for him. If you ask me, it wasn’t because he wasn’t good enough, but because he had the wrong agent. Serra’s contacts are mostly in central and eastern Europe, not in Spain or England where the money is.

  ‘Rogozin was one of those contacts. When he bought into Pugliese, he had enough money for one big signing, and Paco was it.’ She looked up at Pye. ‘Do you know Italy?’

  ‘Not really. I’ve been to Rome and Venice but that’s it.’

  ‘Pugliese’s a shitty little coastal town, just south of Naples. Paco and Annette lived in the city itself, but neither of them liked it much. She had the same frustrations she experienced here until they settled in Edinburgh. Paco was away a lot too, with the club or with the international side. And when he was away . . . somehow Rogozin was there.’

  She shuddered, calmed herself with another sip. ‘He was very friendly with them both in the early stages. Dinner in the best restaurants in Naples, that sort of stuff. But soon, whenever Paco was away and she was at home, he’d turn up unannounced. The first time, she thought nothing of it; they went out and it was fine. The second time, she began to feel he was imposing. The third time, she began to realise she was being stalked.’