a new arrival. I opened it and saw a message from Sauce Haddock, headed simply, ‘For Info’.
There was no text, only an attachment. I clicked on it, and waited as the Word software booted up and a document appeared. The page was headed ‘Callum O Sullivan’, and the text below was a list of names, in alphabetical order; his party guests, for sure. I scrolled down from the top. Most of the names from A to G were unknown to me, apart from a European Tour golfer and a couple of football people, but one did stand out, even though it wasn’t news to me. ‘Francey, Dean’, there because of his connection to Sullivan’s nephew, Maxwell Harris.
It was when I got to ‘H’ that I sparked. I’d expected to see Anna Harmony, listed under her adopted name, but the entire Higgins family were there as well, Eden, Rachel and Rory. And so was Walter Hurrell.
Obsession edged towards paranoia: that name was coming up far too often. I was very keen to see him on video with Sammy Pye and Lottie Mann facing him across an interrogation room table. If I was a betting man, he would have been carrying my money in the ‘Who shot Dino?’ stakes, but the odds would have been miserably short.
I was still contemplating an imaginary call to Ladbrokes . . . other bookmakers are available . . . when the FaceTime icon started bouncing at the foot of my screen. I hit ‘Accept’ and waited for a few seconds, until my own onscreen face was replaced by that of Amanda Dennis. She had her back to her office window, and behind her I could see the grey pillars on the terrace outside.
‘Quick one, Bob,’ she said. ‘Your man gets back tomorrow, six a.m. What do you want done with him?’
‘I want him detained within the base,’ I replied. ‘They should say nothing about what’s happened to his family. That’ll be for the interrogating officers.’
‘No.’ Her face set in a frown. ‘It’ll be for you; only you can go in there.’
‘Christ, Amanda,’ I exclaimed, ‘that’ll cause a riot in ScotServe HQ. I’m breaking enough protocols as it is.’
‘I don’t give a stuff about ScotServe, or its increasingly unpopular chief constable. That base is the most secure place in the United Kingdom and they won’t have plods running all over it. You have standing within my service and it’s on that basis that they’ll let you in.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘if that’s the deal. In which case, I’ll be keeping my visit strictly to myself, in the short term. Thanks for this, Amanda. Please tell them to expect me at midday.’
Sixty
‘When I was a laddie,’ Dan Provan said, ‘I used to go fishin’ with my grandpa, on the Clyde, where it runs through Cambuslang. There were hardly any fish there, and those that were wis only a few inches long, but every now and then we’d catch one . . . or he would. I can still remember them lying on the path, flappin’ and gaspin’ till he chucked them back in.’ He smiled. ‘That’s how I feel now, like one o’ them.’
‘A fish out of water?’
‘Exactly, Lottie. See where we were wi’ Skinner yesterday, Newhouse? As far as I’m concerned that’s the boundary of civilisation. Through here? Cannae get my breath.’
‘I’ll throw you back in the river when we’re done here,’ the DI promised, ‘but first we’ve got Mr Hurrell to deal with.’
‘Do Glasgow warrants count in Edinburgh?’
‘Don’t be daft. You know they do.’ She looked at him, as they stood on the pavement. ‘How do you think we should play this?’ she asked, her higher rank deferring to his greater experience.
The sergeant glanced at the four large uniformed officers who stood behind her. ‘Knock politely,’ he replied. ‘If that does nothin’, one of these lads can knock a bit harder. The search warrant gives us right of entry.’
Research had established that the main home of Eden Higgins and his family was an entire house in Moray Place, restored by the businessman to its original eighteenth-century splendour. Its garden flat, which would have been part of the original servants’ quarters, was occupied by Rory Higgins. Because access to the rear of the building was limited, all but one of the family cars were kept in a nearby lane. What had once been stables had become trendy mews conversions; Walter Hurrell lived in one, above a garage big enough to hold four vehicles.