The only unresolved question was, why had Inez killed herself? Skinner knew that it would never be answered, because it was not being asked. The procurator fiscal had looked at the police report and signed it off immediately as another female prison suicide.

  Skinner had a different theory: that Cameron McCullough had taken steps to ensure that in the event of his unexpected passing his older daughter would not stay around to make trouble for her younger sibling by revealing the truth, or by contesting his will. He had always regarded McCullough as a man who believed that if a job was worth doing, it was worth paying someone to do it well.

  He was still contemplating the events, and eating a slice of toast when his mobile sounded. ‘What does Tommy Partridge want?’ he wondered as he accepted the call.

  ‘Morning, Bob,’ his friend said, wheezily. ‘I’m not too early, am I?’

  ‘Not at all.’ He laughed. ‘Are you doing a paper round to top up the pension?’

  ‘Why not if I am?’ Partridge shot back at him. ‘You are yourself, after a fashion. Listen, something’s just occurred to me, about my stepson’s biography. I’d forgotten that I did lend my copy to somebody. There’s a lad I knew on the job before I retired, that’s always kept in touch with me since then. He called in to see me one day, and the book was on the coffee table. He said it looked interesting, so I told him he could borrow it. He did, and gave me it back a few weeks later. You likely know him.’

  When he dropped the name, a cold fist grasped Skinner’s stomach. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured impassively.

  ‘I’m just telling you out of interest, Bob, since you asked.’

  ‘Of course, Tommy,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten all about it, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘I thought you might have,’ Partridge admitted. ‘Still, it’s good to talk. I’ve got to go now. I just came home to fix a puncture and I’ve got another three streets to do.’

  Skinner’s smile merged with a frown as he ended the call. He turned his friend’s story over in his mind, then made a decision.

  He heard the background noise of morning traffic as Sauce Haddock took his call, in a building that had been his workplace for years. ‘Gaffer,’ he said. ‘Have you been talking to the DCC?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ he replied, ‘but that’s not why I’m phoning. You’re running half of the Mathew Reid investigation, and getting nowhere, I suspect. This is a long shot, Sauce, not even a hunch, but just out of interest would you like to run a full background check on someone, as if you were vetting them, and see what pops up?’

  ‘Okay. Who’re we talking about?’

  Skinner told him.

  ‘Are you fucking serious, Bob?’ Haddock exclaimed.

  Ninety-Three

  John Cotter was singing softly as he fired up his computer. ‘Cheer up, Peter Reid, oh what does it mean, to be a sad Mackem bastard with a shit football team?’

  The version of the Monkees’ classic had been created by Newcastle United fans during his schooldays to mock their hated Sunderland rivals. It had been in his head all morning as he contemplated his future. The previous twelve hours had not been among the best of his life. He had arrived home, alone, just after eleven, from a date with a blonde paramedic in the Auctioneers in St Vincent Street. Any hopes for the outcome that he might have entertained had been sunk by a multi-vehicle accident on an approach road to the Kingston Bridge, leading to an emergency call-out for all available personnel.

  ‘How the fuck can you have a multi-vehicle accident at ten o’clock at night?’ he had muttered as he climbed the stairs to his first-floor flat, to find that the door had been jemmied. The break-in had cost him his almost new laptop, a Breitling that had been in a drawer since he had acquired his Apple watch, a little over a hundred pounds in cash, a leather Hugo Boss jacket, a pair of Panama Jack boots and four bottles of a very decent Rioja that he had been keeping for a suitable occasion. His anger had been turned to incandescent rage when his nose told him that the burglar had signed off his visit by defecating in one of the carpet slippers that his grandmother had given him for Christmas on his last visit to Tyneside. He had called in the crime, for insurance purposes rather than with any expectation that the thief would be caught. One of the attending PCs who had thought it funny that a detective sergeant should suffer a home invasion would be going on report that very morning.

  He was about to phone the man’s inspector when he was interrupted by an incoming call. ‘Good morning, Sergeant,’ an Irish voice greeted him. ‘This is Brendan, with a bit of news for you. I’ve found a vehicle that matches the description of the one you’re after. It crossed from Rosslare to Bilbao . . . that’s in Spain . . . on our very last sailing of the season, at the beginning of November. It was booked by phone, a couple of days before. Whoever took the reservation didn’t take a registration number at the time, which would mean it was Irish, but the vehicle was described as an Edge, and the driver’s name as Murphy, no other passengers booked. I’m not saying this is your man, but it could be, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cotter replied, ‘it could. Is there no way you could recover that number?’

  ‘I’ve had a look,’ Brendan said, ‘but no. He’d have turned up with his reservation code and a passport and that would have been it. All I’ve got is David Murphy and that he had a four-berth inside cabin all to himself.’

  ‘Thanks so far, Brendan,’ Cotter replied. ‘If it was your last sailing, how would he get back?’

  ‘That would depend on how long he stayed. Plus, there’s no guarantee he came back with us. We don’t have a monopoly, Sergeant. He could have come back to Ireland in dozens of ways if indeed he did. There’s no guarantee he came back at all. For all I know, and you too I imagine, he could still be there. Look, if you ask our British sister company they might be able to help you, but without a registration, well, proceed to the nearest haystack and start looking for your needle.’

  Cotter sighed. ‘Okay, Brendan, thanks for that.’

  I’m not even sure why I’m looking for this fucker now, he thought, as the feeling of being sidelined swept over him once more. He leaned back in his chair, tired and utterly frustrated, lacking even the energy to pursue the PC who had annoyed him the night before. He tried to console himself by thinking of happier times, and better weather, only to realise that due to a combination of Covid lockdowns and work it had been almost three years since his last holiday.

  He was exploring Expedia on his phone, seven days in an adults-only resort in Lanzarote, when it went off in his hand; an incoming FaceTime call from a number that he had forgotten was stored in his contact list: DCI Haddock.

  ‘Sir,’ he exclaimed, forcing himself back to alertness as he looked at the camera.

  ‘John, it’s Sauce Haddock.’ The chief inspector looked older than his years. Cotter had never seen him in need of a shave, but there was a shadow, no doubt about it. ‘I want to talk to you about Matthew Reid,’ he continued. ‘A name’s come up, not even a person of interest, just someone it was suggested I should check. I’m doing that, and it’s the damnedest thing. I can’t find him: it’s as if he doesn’t exist. I’m not going to tell you who it is, because there’s probably an innocent explanation and I don’t want to compromise anyone. I’m calling you to cross-reference and share information, that’s all. I’m looking into Reid’s present. I gather from Lottie you’re looking into his past, for any links that might take us closer to the people who took him from his house in Gullane and put him in a freezer in Spain. How are you doing?’

  Cotter could not suppress a short bitter laugh. ‘How am I doing, sir? I’m looking for an Irishman called Murphy, but I have no idea where. It’s as if he doesn’t exist either.’

  Haddock frowned. ‘Okay,’ he murmured. ‘Everything you’ve got, dates, places, names, events, turn it into an email and send it to me. I’ll see what I can make of it. Then you should think about taking a break, mate. You look absolutely knackered.’

  ‘I will do, but before that, I’d like some help. All the DCs you and Lottie can find me, to check every ferry company there is.’

  ‘Okay, but what will they be looking for?’

  ‘A needle in a fucking haystack.’

  Ninety-Four

  As she held her smiling granddaughter, Mia McCullough realised that she had forgotten how to be maternal. She had been capable of it when Ignacio was an infant, but an existence as a single mum escaping a shady past had worn it away before he had reached school age. Cheeky’s phone call, an advance warning of her visit, had taken her by surprise. She had wondered about its purpose, but nothing in her imagination could have anticipated what she was about to be told.

  ‘This is certain?’ she asked.

  ‘Apparently the DNA proves that Inez was my half-sister, not my mother,’ Cheeky said. ‘She was Grandpa’s daughter beyond question, ergo so am I.’

  ‘It also explains why Bob Skinner asked me for one of Cameron’s old hairbrushes,’ Mia said. ‘He must have known, or suspected.’

  ‘I must stop calling him Grandpa,’ Cheeky continued. ‘It’ll take a while, probably but I’ll get there. “Dad”,’ she whispered, shaking her head. ‘It does mean,’ she added with a smile, ‘that I’ll never be able to call you “Granny” again. “Mum” it’ll be from now on.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m ready for that either. Let’s stick to Mia and Cheeky.’

  ‘Cameron, I think,’ her stepdaughter countered. ‘Sauce will always call me Cheeky, just as I’ll never call him Harold, but I’d like to be known by my given name from now on. My father’s gone, so there’s no need to differentiate between us.’

  ‘Where did your nickname come from anyway?’ Mia asked.

  ‘Granny Abby,’ Cameron said. ‘She came up with it when I was a toddler. She said I was a cheeky wee thing and Grandpa . . . Dad,’ she murmured, ‘adopted it. You know, I feel really sad that she wasn’t my real granny. It turns out that she was no blood relation at all. I really loved her though, and that won’t change.’

  ‘What about your real mother? What do you feel about her?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ she admitted. ‘There’s only so much I can process at once. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start to think about her. But this is for sure,’ she added, ‘she’s going to have a proper funeral, and so is her half-brother, my uncle. I still have another uncle, I’ve been told, in Australia. When I’m ready I’ll reach out to him. He’s the only person who can tell me what she was like: Naomi, my mother. I should invite him to her proper send-off, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘That’ll be your call,’ Mia said. ‘Have you been told anything about your grandparents?’ she asked.

  ‘Sauce said that my grandmother left when Naomi and Samuel were small, and didn’t keep in touch, so I have no interest in finding her. My grandfather, my real one, he’s still alive, but apparently he’s a crazy evil old man. Sauce made me promise never to go looking for him. If he feels strongly enough to do that, it’s enough for me.’ She paused. ‘The one thing he isn’t telling me, him or anyone else, is how the two of them came to be under those trees. Just now I have enough to cope with but one day, I will ask.’

  ‘No,’ Mia said, quietly. ‘If you want my advice, don’t do that. I don’t know any more than you do, but my gut is telling me that if you press that question, you probably won’t like the answer.’

  Ninety-Five

  ‘Can you get in touch with your vicar-witness Seamus?’ Sauce Haddock asked.

  ‘No problem,’ John Cotter assured him.

  ‘Does he live in the twenty-first century? Does he have email capability?’

  ‘I don’t know, but the phone number I have for him is a mobile.’

  ‘That should be enough,’ the DCI said. ‘I’m going to forward you an image and I want you to pass it on to him. It’s eyes only for now, yours, mine and his, so I’ll use personal email rather than our intranet system. I need to know whether the photo is the person he saw heading for the ferry in that mobile home. There won’t be a name on it so, if it isn’t, no harm done. I’ll do it now. Let me know soonest, John.’

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  Haddock pressed ‘send’ on the email; it had taken the chief constable’s intervention with Human Resources to furnish him with the image. When he was sure it had been sent, he took the call that he had on hold. ‘Mr Glossop, sorry to have kept you waiting.’

  ‘No problem, son,’ the researcher on the other end assured him. ‘While you were doing that, I were catching up with the IPL on the telly. Right, I’ve looked at the names and the date parameters you gave me, and I’ve come up with part of what you’re looking for. The adoption register, that’s a different matter. Those records are closed for a hundred years. You’d need to go to court for access. Do you want to do that?’

  ‘Let me see what you’ve got, Jim, and I’ll know. Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure. It’s good to be remembered.’

  Ninety-Six

  ‘You can send it by WhatsApp,’ Seamus Corbett said, then interpreted correctly the moment’s silence that followed. ‘You’re surprised that an old fella like me knows about WhatsApp? We have a church parishioners’ WhatsApp group, Sergeant. It’s how we communicate, so I don’t have any choice but to get on board.’ He paused. ‘You’ve got WhatsApp yourself, have you?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Cotter replied, still shaken by the image that Haddock had shared with him. ‘I suppose I can access you through your mobile number.’

  ‘That you can.’

  ‘Okay, Seamus. I’m sending the photo now. Will your phone have a big enough screen for it to be clear?’

  The old man laughed; hands-free mode gave it a metallic sound. ‘I won’t be looking at it on my phone. You can use WhatsApp on your computer these days, did you not know?’

  Cotter sighed yet again as he clicked on the arrowhead icon and sent the photograph. He waited, counting the seconds on his wall clock: ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.

  ‘Got it,’ Seamus called out. ‘Let me make it as big as I can.’

  ‘Take your time,’ Cotter cautioned. ‘We need to be absolutely sure.’

  ‘Sure, and I couldn’t be any more sure, son,’ the old priest replied. ‘That’s David Murphy. He still looks as serious as he did when he was fourteen, and he still has that shock of hair, or most of it. That’s your man.’

  Cotter was silent for a few seconds as he considered the implications of what he had been told. His thoughts were interrupted, by Seamus.

  ‘And there was something else,’ he exclaimed. ‘It slipped my mind completely . . . not unusual because my old mind is porous. I was so taken aback at seeing David that I didn’t take a photo until he was down the road and couldn’t see him again. I did get his camper van though.’

  The DS was instantly alert. ‘Does your photo show the registration number?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, it does,’ the old man laughed, ‘clear as a bell.’

  ‘Seamus,’ Cotter said, ‘do me one more favour. Send it to me; use WhatsApp again.’

  ‘Sure, and I’ll do that right now. Will it help?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’ll make a giant haystack a hell of a lot smaller.’

  Ninety-Seven

  ‘Can it really be true?’ Sarah Grace asked her husband. He looked around the hospital restaurant, where they had met for lunch after his annual cardiac pacemaker check-up.

  Bob Skinner glanced around to make sure they could not be overheard. ‘I’ve been asking myself the same question,’ he replied when he was certain. ‘I keep telling myself no, it can’t, then I look at my old friend the evidence, and I have to admit to myself that yes, it can.’

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘The inquiry team gather all the evidence they can until they’re ready to report. That will go to the top, to Neil himself. If he’s satisfied that we’re well beyond the reasonable doubt threshold, he’ll give it to the Crown Office. Knowing him as I do, I think he’ll bypass the fiscal and go straight to his boss, Jenny Sprake, the new Crown Agent. It’ll be her decision whether to prosecute or not.’

  ‘What if she decides not to?’

  ‘She won’t be able to. Neil won’t go to her until he’s certain.’

  ‘What if she just bottles it?’ Sarah suggested.

  ‘From what Alex tells me about her she isn’t a bottler. But if she did, Neil would probably go over her head.’

  ‘When will it be ready? The report.’

  ‘There are only two things holding it up, from what Mario’s shared with me. One is the Spanish; their lab still has to finish analysing all the stuff that was collected from the crime scene. I have Intermedia reporters following the story. They tell me it’s almost done, and that the supervising judge has said it must be shared with Scotland straight away.’ Bob grinned. ‘It’s a buck he’s very keen to pass, my people say.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘I’m not sure. “We only need to find that fucking needle, then we’re done.” That’s all Mario would say.’

  Ninety-Eight

  ‘We have it,’ Sauce Haddock declared. ‘The registration number on the old priest’s photograph was the key. It helped us pinpoint his return journey and close the circle. As soon as we gave it to the ferry companies, we got him. He crossed from St Malo to Portsmouth, then from Pembroke to Rosslare. The Irish police are cooperating with us. They’ve impounded the vehicle and their forensic scientists are going over it even as we speak. It’ll be some sort of a miracle if it doesn’t give us evidence of Matthew Reid having been transported in it.’