Nothing else that McGarry had done showed a scrap of real initiative. He had taken a statement from Eden, and had interviewed the part-time crew of the Princess, Hurrell and Hodgson. At least he’d shown the nous to ask those two for their whereabouts at the time of the theft, 3 a.m. on 4 October. Hurrell had been driving Eden and Rachel home to Edinburgh after a dinner at Gleneagles Hotel, and Hodgson had been visiting his niece, in Rochdale.
Beyond that the file was bare. There were notes of visits to marinas in the Firth of Clyde, and of telephone calls to those in its islands, and more remote mainland areas. There had been a discussion with Eden’s insurer, but that amounted to nothing more than a lack of progress report.
The investigation had been founded on a very basic assumption, that the vessel had been stolen by persons unknown with the motive being simple profit. My problem was that it had never occurred to McGarry to look anywhere else. I’d told Eden and Rory, without even having seen the boathouse, that there had to have been inside knowledge in the planning of the operation, and yet that hadn’t dawned on an officer who’d reached detective inspector rank.
Unless . . .
I picked up my phone and called Mario McGuire, mobile to mobile. He must have been home, for in the background I could hear wee Eamon yelling for sustenance.
‘Hi, Bob,’ he said. ‘Got the report?’
‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘Have I ever.’
‘Is it okay?’
‘Hah,’ I chuckled. ‘Obviously you haven’t looked at it yourself.’
‘No, I wasn’t in Glasgow today. I had it sent straight to you once it had been pulled from the archive. Is it dodgy?’
I gave him a brief rundown of the contents. As I finished I could hear him gasp. ‘And that’s it?’
‘Yup. That’s as far as it goes. It says several things to me. But the most immediate concern is that McGarry is either stupid, bone idle, or corrupt. In your shoes, I’d be having him investigated, very quietly, to rule out the latter. More than that, I’d be doing what I’d have done in Strathclyde if I’d known about this. I’d be rooting out his entire reporting chain, and looking over every closed investigation that division ever undertook.’
‘Bloody right!’ he snorted. ‘First thing tomorrow, that gets done.’ He paused. ‘Listen, you know the people through in the west better than I do. Short of bringing somebody in from another area, which would be noticed, is there anyone you can suggest to do the job discreetly?’
‘What’s Sandra Bulloch doing now?’ I asked. ‘She was my exec, but I don’t suppose that Andy kept her on in that role.’
‘She’s been promoted DCI, on major crimes,’ he replied. ‘I interviewed her and I can see why you rated her. I’ll put her on it. Will you want to talk to McGarry yourself?’
‘That would be pointless,’ I told him. ‘All that would happen would be me losing my rag. There’s nothing he could tell me that isn’t in his file, unless Sandra comes up with a link between him and anyone connected to the Princess. If she does, it would be good to know, but that’s all.’
‘Will do,’ Mario said, ‘although my money’s very much on stupidity or laziness.’ Then he paused. ‘How are you feeling after what we both saw this morning?’ he murmured.
‘It won’t go away,’ I admitted, ‘and believe me, I’m trying to block it out.’
‘Have you heard from the Menu lately?’
‘Not since this afternoon,’ I replied, ‘when they asked me if I could ID their prime suspect as the driver of the BMW. I did the best I could. They seemed pretty certain, though; I had the feeling I was just being asked out of politeness.’
‘They know for sure now,’ he growled, grimly.
Something in his tone made a piece of the day’s jigsaw click into place.
‘Are you going to tell me,’ I ventured, ‘that the double fatality that Sarah’s just been called to attend is . . .’
‘That I am. I’ve just had Pye on the phone. They’ve been sure from early on that Francey didn’t plan this thing all on his own. It seems that they were right and that he’s picked up the tab for failure, and his girlfriend alongside him. They’ll need dental or DNA identification, though. They were both burned to cinders. Don’t expect Sarah home in a hurry. She’s going to do both autopsies tonight.’