‘You fuckin’ serious?’ Suddenly James Bonar’s accent had become even more Glasgwegian. An image of Detective Inspector Jim Taggart appeared in Stirling’s mind’s eye.

  ‘Never more so.’

  ‘Whose is the body?’ the solicitor croaked.

  ‘That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know, for Christ’s sake. Look I’ll need to get back to you on this.’

  A switch was thrown in Stirling as the last thread of his patience was severed ‘No,’ he barked, his thick shoulders hunching. ‘Mr Bonar, we’re now in territory where I believe you may be obstructing a homicide investigation. You give me an answer now, or I’ll have uniformed officers at your office within five minutes and we can continue this conversation in mine. You might not have met my boss, DCI Mann, but I’m pretty sure you’ll have heard of her.’

  ‘Okay, okay, okay!’ Bonar cried out. ‘The owner of Artisan de Boite isn’t a person, not as such. It’s the beneficiary of the estate of the late Mr Leo Speight.’

  Sixteen

  ‘How are you doing through there?’ Detective Inspector Tarvil Singh asked.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ Jackie Wright confessed to her surprise caller. ‘My feet haven’t really touched the ground yet. My new boss and I spent all morning contemplating the ultimate fate of humanity, and now I’m looking across an open plan office watching my new DS colleague . . . who may or may not be happy to see me here: I haven’t figured that out yet . . . tear lumps off someone on the phone.’

  ‘How do you know that, if he’s across the room?’

  ‘Body language, Tarvil. He’s a big lump of a boy . . . not as big as you but big enough . . . with a US marine haircut. He was having what appeared to be a polite conversation, then all of a sudden he turned into Brock Lesnar.’

  ‘Not Lottie Mann?’

  ‘No, Lottie has an even temperament. She’s intimidating all the time, without meaning to be.’

  ‘What are you doing through there, anyway?’ Wright’s former colleague asked. ‘All Sauce told me was that it’s a messy homicide.’

  ‘That’s an understatement,’ she said. ‘The crime scene’s a big mobile caravan . . . false plates, naturally . . . and the victim’s been dead for up to six months, so the pathologist said. I’ll leave you to imagine what the autopsy was like. A further mess is that we don’t know who she is, and whoever killed her’s gone out of their way to make it hard for us to find out. The crime scene’s absolutely clean. Even the steering wheel and information display were wiped.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Forty, give or take a few. Dark hair, dyed blonde. Fit, GSOH as they say on the dating sites.’

  ‘Did you recover DNA?’

  ‘Yes, there was no problem with that. I’ve been given a profile; now I’m waiting to see if the database throws up a match. Meanwhile I’m trying to trace her through her clothing. She was wearing Wrangler shirt and jeans. I’d hoped the distributor might have been able to narrow down the area where they were bought. Far from it; when I sent an image of the labels, they told me that it could have been in France. Hold on,’ she said. ‘That’s a text in from Gartcosh. Ah shit,’ she sighed as she read it. ‘Her DNA isn’t on our database, or any other.’

  ‘And yet . . .’ Singh murmured.

  Wright waited. And waited. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘And yet what?’

  ‘Nothing really,’ he admitted. ‘It was just . . . You said the vehicle had been wiped clean of prints.’

  ‘Yes. It’s back on the Crime Campus now; the socos are still working on it but so far they’ve found nothing.’

  ‘Okay. Thing is, you’re obviously dealing with a very careful perpetrator. I’d be assuming that they wore gloves in the crime scene, so, why did they bother to wipe everything down?’

  ‘Just in case they had left some.’

  ‘Possibly Jackie. But . . . could you recover fingerprints from the remains?’

  ‘No chance,’ Wright said. ‘They were too far gone.’

  ‘So, might the perpetrator have wiped the scene because they knew, or had reason to believe that the victim’s prints were on the system?’

  ‘That’s a thought,’ she conceded. ‘You’re no’ just a big dumb Sikh, are you?’

  ‘I never was, Jackie,’ Singh laughed. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment by the way.’

  ‘You know me well enough to realise I couldn’t have meant it any other way.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re the least Woke person I know.’

  ‘And I’ll take that as a compliment. Any other flashes of insight?’ she asked.

  ‘Just one. Having had some experience of caravan holidays, I will bet you there’s one place that wasn’t wiped down. Beneath the toilet there will be a removable cassette that holds . . . let’s say waste. If your victim used that vehicle herself, and travelled in it, she’ll have emptied it regularly. Unless she was super-hygienic and used gloves when she did, there could be prints on it.’

  ‘That’s a great thought, Tarvil, but how would we know they were hers, with no comparison?’

  ‘Because she’ll have left her DNA as well, Sunshine, along with the prints. You might want to pass that on to Jenny Bramley. I know she’s very good, but as Joe E Brown said to Jack Lemmon, nobody’s perfect.’

  Seventeen

  As Lottie Mann and John Stirling stepped into James Bonar’s twelfth storey glass-walled office, each had a momentary feeling that they were hovering over the centre of the Clyde. The block was positioned at a slight bend in the river, on its southern bank, offering a view of its bridges and beyond, of the city’s Victorian heart.

  As they entered, the solicitor gazed at them, two bulky figures whom he realised he would much rather be receiving on his turf than visiting on theirs.

  Mann caught his appraising look and returned it. The man was of medium height with a slim build and a haircut the cost of which, she guessed, might have fed her family for a fortnight. He wore a dark jacket and waistcoat over pinstripe trousers, complemented by a royal blue shirt with a white collar and tie. He had the appearance of a court practitioner, but the chief inspector had never seen him there, and surmised that he was dressed purely to impress.

  ‘Officers,’ he said, as they approached. ‘Let’s sit over here.’ He led them towards a quartet of chairs set around a low table. ‘Nobody has a worry about heights, do they?’

  In fact, Mann had a full blown phobia. It had been accentuated by a helicopter flight to the top of a nine thousand foot mountain a few weeks before, but there was no way she would admit it to the lawyer. She took the seat closest to the glass wall, but with her back to it. Stirling took the place facing her, so that they were flanking Bonar.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked. ‘Tea? Something stronger? Ahh,’ he chuckled with a forced smile, ‘but you’re on duty, aren’t you?’

  ‘That wouldn’t bother us,’ the DCI replied, ‘but John’s driving, so we’d better not. Enough of the pleasantries, Mr Bonar. We’re here to discuss Artisan de Boite, and the estate of Mr Leo Speight.’

  ‘You know who he was?’ Bonar asked.

  She glared at him. ‘Of course I do. A Scottish boxing champion, maybe the greatest, from Paisley. He died in a bizarre accident a few years ago. At first his death was flagged as suspicious; I was the SIO in the investigation so of course I bloody know about him. I remember everything about the case, all the circumstances, but what I don’t remember,’ she added, ‘was Leo ever having a company registered in Jersey. In fact I was told that he didn’t, by somebody involved.’

  ‘Whoever told you that didn’t know the whole picture. About a month before he died, Leo approached me personally. I’m from Paisley too; I knew him at school although we weren’t close. He told me that he had just rewritten his will, but he was afraid that in the unlikely event of his death, hell would be raised by the mother of two of his children. Against that possibility he wanted to hide some of his assets. He asked me to set up an offshore company that would hold the bulk of his liquid assets invested in various long term and fixed interest bonds, accessible by him or in the event of his death by the beneficiaries of his estate.’

  ‘Speight died a while back,’ Mann said. ‘Was this holding declared to HMRC for inheritance tax purposes?’

  ‘There’s no inheritance tax in Jersey.’

  ‘Who administers the company now?’ Stirling asked. ‘You, or Gialini, your nominee in Jersey?’

  ‘I don’t think I have to tell you that,’ the lawyer replied. ‘I’m not even sure we should be having this discussion without the permission of my client. I did try to locate her before you arrived, by WhatsApp and by a direct call, but I’ve had no response.’

  ‘Her,’ Mann repeated. She felt a cold fist grip her stomach. ‘When did you last hear from her?’

  ‘April, when we had a six monthly management review with the Jersey company’s financial adviser. There’s been no contact since, I’m afraid.’ He frowned, sitting upright. ‘Look, that’s as much as I can tell you. When I do contact her, and I have her permission, we can continue this discussion.’

  ‘Mmm,’ the DCI murmured. ‘That may be sooner than you imagine, Mr Bonar. It’s possible that we may have found her for you.’

  Eighteen

  ‘What do you think he wants?’ Sarah Grace Skinner asked her husband.

  On her screen, Bob smiled. ‘Dinner?’ he suggested.

  ‘Yes, but more than that, surely. They know we’re moving the family here at the weekend. That’ll make you much more available. Did he sound anxious in any way?’

  ‘He sounded like a busy bloke trying to fill his diary, love,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think Ignacio might have upset him in some way?’

  ‘How? Nacho’s in Dundee, filling in for one of the presenters on Mia’s radio station, and Pilar’s understudying the manager at Black Shield Lodge, the resort. My son is more likely to upset me, but he hasn’t. Anyway, Nacho and Pilar are grown-ups. If Raul had a problem, I’m sure he’d sort it out directly rather than come running to me.’

  ‘Come on, you’ve got daughters. What would you do?’

  ‘What did I do? you should ask. It wasn’t plain sailing when Alex was growing up. There was one time when she was fifteen, the mother of a lad at North Berwick High came to me complaining that she’d burst her son’s lip open. I apologised and said to her that next time her kid put his hand up my daughter’s skirt, I’d deal with it personally.’

  Sarah gasped. ‘You did? Alex told me about the incident, but she didn’t mention that.’

  ‘Alex never knew about it. She told me about the thing when it happened, as did the mother of one of her Gullane pals. I weighed it up and decided that justice had been done.’

  ‘What would you have done if you’d met the boy?’

  His eyebrows rose. ‘I don’t actually know. But I hope I’d have talked to him and pointed out that a fat lip was getting off lightly, compared to a listing on the sex offenders’ register.’

  ‘You’ll miss not being close to Alex when we’re gone, you know,’ Sarah said, ‘much more than you’re letting on.’

  ‘I’ve missed her since she left home for Glasgow University aged eighteen. The year before we met,’ he added. ‘But that’s life. I have this theory; so far it’s mostly based on observation, but with Mark off to Cambridge it’ll be proved soon. When daughters go, they go for good. Sons, they never go completely, not until they have a family of their own.’

  ‘What about Ignacio? He doesn’t come back here.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Bob countered. ‘He’s at his mother’s. Where’s Pilar? Not in Madrid, where she grew up; she’s with him.’

  ‘When they’re ready, they’ll set up home. Maybe that’s why her dad wants to meet you. He’s going to demand that your son make an honest woman of his daughter.’

  ‘Maybe. We’ll see. Meanwhile . . . are the kids ready to fly here on Saturday?’

  ‘Jazz is,’ Sarah said. ‘He can’t wait to get on the jet. Seonaid, she’s a little less so. She’s very close to Noele McClair’s Harry, and she’s just fallen in love with Matilda, the baby. But as I’ve told her, she used to be the same with Dawn, her little sister. Now, she says she’s a pain in the ass.’

  ‘She’s learning life. Nothing is forever.’ Suddenly he frowned. ‘Hey love, I’ve got to go. I have an incoming voice call from Mario McGuire. I wonder what the hell he wants?’

  Nineteen

  ‘There’s no doubt,’ Jenny Bramley declared, looking at the two detectives across her desk. ‘The name you suggested to me yesterday afternoon, Lottie, it’s her.’ She shook her head. ‘I have no idea how you came up with it. That’s why you’re the cops and I’m the scientist.’ She smiled at Jackie Wright. ‘Yours was a good shout too, Sergeant. I can’t put my hand on my heart and say for sure that my team would have looked there without you prompting them. When they did, they found clear fingerprints and DNA that matches the profile of the body. The fingerprints match those of an Alexandra Bulloch, as you said they would Lottie.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mann sighed. Her eyes were set and fixed on a point behind the scientist. As Wright glanced at her, she was disturbed to see that they were glazed.

  ‘What I don’t quite understand is why her fingerprints are on record but her DNA isn’t. It’s standard practice these days with people when they’re arrested.’

  ‘Sandra was never arrested, Jenny,’ the DCI murmured. ‘Her fingerprints were recorded for elimination purposes at crime scenes. She wasn’t a criminal, she was a police officer. As a matter of fact she was my boss, until she left the force a few years ago.’ As she stood, she turned to Wright. ‘We need to see DCC McGuire, Jackie. I told him, and Sauce, about my suspicion as soon as I left the guy Bonar’s office. The big man said if I was right I should take it straight to him. He told me that he’s on the Campus today, so hold on while I message him.’

  Wright and Bramley looked on as she took out her phone, keyed in a text then waited. Less than a minute later a click signalled a reply. She glanced at the DS. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Jenny, where do I find the conference rooms in this zoo? I don’t know my way around.’

  They followed the scientist’s directions through the complex building, taking several minutes to reach the corridor where the great dark figure that was Mario McGuire stood waiting, his expression as serious as that of Mann. ‘In here,’ he said quietly, opening a door behind him and ushering them into a small room with a view across open countryside from its single window.

  ‘Well,’ he growled. ‘This is a can of worms, no mistake.’

  ‘Too right,’ Mann agreed. ‘The media haven’t shown too much interest in the story up to now, but this will get everybody’s attention.’

  He nodded. ‘You bet.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Briefing in Glasgow at two?’

  ‘I’d rather it was later, sir. Say five?’

  ‘Why?’ the deputy chief constable asked.

  ‘Don’t we have to tell Faye Bulloch before we announce it? As far as I know she’s the next of kin.’

  ‘I’ve done that already,’ he told her. ‘I sourced her phone number and called her myself. We’ve got no valid reason to delay, Lottie. We don’t gain anything else by holding it back. I pulled Sandra’s file from HR: yes, Faye’s her next of kin. Apart from Faye’s children by Leo Speight . . . her niece and nephew . . . her only other living blood relative’s an elderly aunt of hers on her father’s side. The file hasn’t been updated since Sandra left the service, not that you’d expect that. When I had the aunt’s address checked out, I discovered that she’s now in a care home in Biggar, in South Lanarkshire. I’ve told the division to send a ranking female officer down there to break the news before we announce it. It’ll be done within the hour, so you brief the media this afternoon. Or if you feel it’s necessary I’ll front it myself. Do you?’

  ‘It’s your call, sir, but I’m okay to handle it.’

  ‘Then you do it, that’s fine. Let’s treat this like any other suspicious death. I’ll keep a low profile, but . . . when Faye Bulloch is interviewed, as she will have to be, I’d like to be there. I’m not saying for a moment I don’t think you’re up to it, but I remember the woman from last time. She’ll insist on having a lawyer present. I imagine that’ll be Moss Lee, same as before. If it is, frankly, I want to intimidate that little bastard.’

  ‘Sir?’ Jackie Wright ventured, her tone questioning.

  He looked at her. ‘Jackie,’ he murmured, ‘you don’t have a clue what we’re on about, or who, do you? You were on the other side of the country, maybe even in uniform, when the thing kicked off. This is what happened. A few years ago . . . don’t press me on the date . . . Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Bulloch was the head of the serious crimes team you’ve just joined; DCI Mann, then a DI, and DS Dan Provan reported to her. One day they had a call-out to a suspicious death in a big house in Ayr. The victim was Leo Speight, the recently retired undefeated world champion boxer.’

  The DS nodded. ‘I remember his death, sir, but I didn’t realise he was murdered.’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ McGuire said. ‘He wasn’t, but the medical examiner suggested that he might have been poisoned. Sandra was early on the scene, followed by me, followed by Lottie and Dan. Almost immediately, Sandra recused herself as SIO, by advising us that Leo Speight was her brother-in-law. But that was actually deceitful. There was a lot that she didn’t tell us. In fact she and Leo weren’t formally related at all; he had two children by Faye Bulloch, her sister, but Faye and Leo didn’t cohabit nor had they ever. Speight also had an older child, a son, from a teenage relationship, and a kid in Las Vegas with a woman that he regarded as a friend rather than a partner. When he was in the US he usually stayed with her and the wee one. When Sandra stood aside as an investigator, DI Mann took over and that’s the situation her team uncovered.’ He glanced at Mann. ‘Do you want to carry on, Lottie?’