He reached into the box and took out a passport, and then a brown envelope with an elastic band securing it from the outside. He carried both to a gateleg table that stood against the wall.
He removed the fastening from the envelope then slid out its contents: a wad of cash, secured tightly by another elastic band. Holding the bundle carefully, he rippled through the notes with his thumb.
‘Used notes,’ he murmured. ‘Clydesdale Bank issue, on the outside at least.’
‘How much is there?’ Haddock asked, as the DCI returned them to the envelope.
‘I’m not a bank teller, and I don’t want to handle them any more than I have to, not until the scientists have had a chance to print and swab them. But, if they’re all tenners, as they seem to be, I’d take an uneducated guess at five grand.’
‘Do you think that’s payment in full, or a first instalment?’
‘The latter surely,’ the DCI suggested. ‘Didn’t Jagger say Dino was going to meet a guy who owed him money?’
‘Hold on,’ the DS exclaimed. ‘If it was half in advance and he was going to collect another five K, why did he need Jagger’s thirty quid and his bank card?’
‘We know that. He and Singer were going away for good; and maybe also because after the utter bollocks he’d made of the job he was sent out to do, he might have had doubts about whether he would actually get paid the rest.’
‘Are you sure the money relates to the abduction?’
Both men turned and stared at Lucy Tweedie as she asked her question.
‘This much I am sure of,’ Pye said, quietly. ‘He didn’t make it selling frozen fish as fresh to Chinese restaurants.’
Thirty-Two
I have never been the best sleeper; all through my life there’s been plenty to keep me awake, whenever I close my eyes and try not to think of it. Scenes from my childhood, scenes from my early adult past, and scenes from more recent times; they’re all there waiting to be replayed. The most recent, and because of that the most vivid, is set in a mountainside lodge in the Pyrenees, but we won’t go there.
It’s worst when I’m on my own. Mostly my nights are uninterrupted when Sarah’s beside me. It marks her out as special to me; none of the others, not even Myra, and certainly not Aileen, ever came close to banishing my nocturnal horrors.
I tried that night, after I’d left my Seonaid to the peace that I hope will last her a lifetime, but as I’d known, it was a no-hoper. What kept me awake? What else but the newest clip in my library, the vision of sad-eyed little asthmatic Zena Gates, revealed, reproachful, after spending her last moments in terrifying darkness, struggling for one last breath that didn’t come.
I left her to it, because I didn’t have the courage to face her. Instead, at around four thirty, I rose, showered, had what would be, given the time, my first shave of the day and went downstairs. I made myself coffee, a good strong filter brew of which Sarah would have disapproved. It was a minor act of cheating on her, I suppose, and I did feel guilty, but I needed it.
In the office, I picked up the McGarry file again, and had another look at it. I was no more impressed than I’d been the first time. I’d covered up for the guy when I’d spoken to Eden, but I was still enough cop not to have criticised him to a civilian. I made a mental note to call stolenboats.org, on the crazy off chance that it might have some intelligence on the fate of the Princess, then put it aside, turned on the computer and read my online morning newspapers. The dead child case was covered wall-to-wall as I’d expected, with many more questions than answers, but nothing about Dean Francey and his girlfriend had been picked up at that stage. I guessed that even the virtual media must sleep sometimes.
Sounds from the kitchen at seven thirty told me that Trish had come in from her apartment to start getting the kids up and ready for school. She’s a godsend, that girl. She’s been with the family for years, since not long after she arrived from Barbados, and shows no sign of wanting to leave us. It occurred to me as I listened to her rattling dishes that if Sarah did turn out to be pregnant again it would be