face the consequences, and it’s the same in civil matters. If a court finds that a company has behaved improperly, its directors can’t just fold it up and walk away. There is nothing that your niece should feel guilty about. If you’d come to me instead of going to the civil court I might have ended up charging the client with fraud.’
‘But Grete is kind. She never did a single thing in her life to deserve how that company treated her, nor to deserve what has happened to her today.’ Finally tears tracked down Ingrid Rainey’s stolid face. ‘You know I am not sure that I want her to live. That may be terrible, but it is true. I cannot bear for her to wake up to find that she has lost her baby.’
‘Yeah,’ Pye whispered. ‘I don’t know how I’d feel in those shoes.’
He paused as the woman dabbed at her eyes.
‘The client,’ he began when she was composed. ‘Can you recall the name, of the company or of the owner?’
‘They are the same. It is Mackail.’
It was Pye’s turn to frown. I know that name, he thought.
Twenty
‘I have as little to do with my father as I possibly can,’ Donna Rattray confessed. ‘He’s a . . .’ Exasperation showed clearly in her expression. ‘A chancer: that’s what he is. There’s never been any certainty with him, none at all. He’s driven my mother crazy over the years. She works, she’s a cleaner, but she only ever earned enough to clothe Dean and me when we were young, and herself. Dad’s never had a proper steady income as such; she’s never known where the next penny was coming from, never been able to plan anything, never had a holiday. Any time she suggests that, he always says the same thing. “What do we need a holiday for? We live in North Berwick.” That’s my dad. He’s interested in nobody but himself.’
She, Haddock and Wright were standing in the reception hall at Queen Margaret University, the meeting place they had chosen when she and the detective constable had spoken by telephone. Haddock had chosen to begin the discussion obliquely, not to reveal at once the real reason for their visit.
‘And yet,’ he said, ‘the pennies do keep coming in, don’t they?’
‘I’ll give him that,’ Donna conceded. ‘They do. Somehow or other Mum still has a roof over her head, and the fridge is never empty. He goes out in that silly boat of his with his silly pots and always seems to catch enough lobsters and crabs to keep the family afloat.’
‘Is that all he does?’ Wright asked. ‘Doesn’t he have any sidelines?’
The woman’s face flushed; it was only a slight change of shade, but enough to be noticed. ‘He buys and sells stuff,’ she admitted, ‘on the side, but I know very little about it.’
‘You mean the fish?’ Haddock murmured.
‘Yes, but . . . Look, he might be all the things I’ve just told you, but he’s my father, so don’t expect me to shop him.’
‘It’s all right,’ the DS told her. ‘We know all about the fish, but it’s not our concern.’
Her complexion went from pink to red. ‘I’ll bloody kill Levon!’ she exclaimed.
‘That’s not the sort of thing you should be saying to two police officers,’ Haddock chuckled. ‘But it wasn’t only him. We were told about it as well by a friend of your brother, Michael Smith.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘You might know him as Jagger.’
A look of disgust flashed across Donna’s attractive face. ‘Him! Dean knows what I think about him. Has he got my brother involved in that silly business again?’
‘We’re under the impression it was the other way around,’ the DS said. ‘Dean supplying the fish and Jagger storing it . . . or Jagger’s granny, to be completely accurate.’
She threw her head back, gazing at the ceiling. ‘I’m under no illusions about my brother,’ she admitted, ‘but I keep on trying to convince myself that it’s all Dad’s fault for the way he was brought up. It isn’t. Dad might be a chancer, and a bit of a con man, but he isn’t a thief.’ She looked at Haddock once again. ‘Is Dean in trouble?’
‘Yes. Have you heard from him today?’
‘There was a missed call on my mobile,’ she replied. ‘It was from Dean, timed just after ten. But that was all; just that one.’
‘Do you walk to work?’ Jackie Wright asked. ‘We saw a car in your driveway.’