Helena Grant had set an early alarm on her phone, and the room was still pitch-black when she was woken by the rhythmic buzzing. It took her a moment to recall where she was.
She turned on the bedside light and slowly eased herself out of bed. Beside her, Bill stirred. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just gone six.’ She’d warned him the previous evening she had to be up early. ‘You can go back to sleep. I’ll get showered and then dress in the bathroom.’
He rolled over onto his back, stretching out his arms. ‘It’ll do me good to get up early. I’ve got plenty to do today. Tell you what, you get dressed and I’ll make us some coffee.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘I’m more of a lark than an owl.’ He pulled his dressing gown around him. ‘Heating’s not on yet. I’ll put it on when I go down.’
She still hadn’t been quite sure she’d made the right decision in staying over. She hadn’t regretted it, but she’d been conscious it wasn’t what she’d intended. Even so, there was a particular pleasure in waking up beside someone. And an even greater pleasure in having that person take care of you at this time in the morning.
She finished showering and dressing, pulling on the set of clothes she’d brought in the overnight bag. At least that would stop Alec McKay making acerbic comments. By the time she emerged from the bathroom, the heating was on and the morning was beginning to feel less bleak and more welcoming.
Something was still nagging at her brain following her discussion with Bill the previous evening. Something to do with the Bruce Dennis case. She’d been hoping the elusive thought might have popped into her head, unbidden, while she was sleeping. It was often the way. But not this time. This time, the thought, whatever it might be, remained tantalisingly out of reach.
She entered the kitchen to the smell of coffee and frying bacon, Bill busy at the cooker. ‘Coffee on the table,’ he said. ‘Bacon roll in a minute or two. Assume you’ve got time?’
‘I’ll make time,’ she said. ‘You really are spoiling me. I assume you don’t do this every morning.’
‘Writer’s perks. But, no, it’s usually toast or granola. I thought you deserved something better if you were having to slog into work at this unholy hour.’
‘I don’t know about deserve,’ she said. ‘But I certainly welcome it. Thank you.’ She sat at the table and poured herself a cup of coffee. ‘Even the smell of it’s making me feel better.’
‘Quite right.’ He deposited two rashers of bacon onto a sliced and buttered morning roll and handed it to her. ‘There we go. Anyway, it gives me an excuse to have one myself. There’s ketchup and various relishes in the fridge if you want them.’
‘It’s fine like this. I’m really not used to this kind of treatment.’
He sat beside her. ‘I can do us the full Scottish on New Year’s Day, if you like. Haggis, Stornoway black pudding, tattie scones, the lot. See the new year in properly.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I’d better not delay too much. Otherwise it’ll defeat the purpose of getting up so early.’
‘Busy day ahead?’
‘They’re all busy. But especially at the moment. We need to take advantage of these few work days to get as much done as we can before everything closes down again for Hogmanay.’
‘You lot must really hate public holidays.’
‘They’re not exactly flavour of the month in the middle of a large enquiry.’
‘Hope it goes well today, then. Any chance of seeing you this evening?’
She felt herself yielding yet again. ‘I’d better not. I’m going to be working late again, and I’ve got loads I need to do at home. But I’ll come over for Hogmanay as we agreed. I don’t know if I’ll need to go in on New Year’s Day yet. Depends how things are going.’
‘I understand. Maybe you’ll have a bit more time when you finally get this investigation out of the way.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’ She pushed herself to her feet. ‘But, really, Bill, thanks for last night. And for the bacon roll. And, well, for everything else. Don’t think that I don’t appreciate it, or that it doesn’t mean a lot to me.’
‘You’ve a job to do. I realise that.’
‘If we do make something of this, Bill – I mean, if it really does become something permanent – it’s something you’re going to get used to. It’s the job. Not all the time, but a lot of the time.’
‘I realise that. My job’s largely the opposite. I have deadlines, but mostly I work as I please. That means I’ll be able to fit around your schedule and take proper care of you.’
‘That sounds like a very attractive idea. Right, out into the cold.’
He followed her to the front door. It was still dark outside, the clear sky thick with stars, with only a faint crimson blur out across the day to indicate morning was coming. ‘Looks like it’s going to be decent day,’ he said. ‘Even if it is bloody cold.’
‘It’s certainly that. You’d better get back inside.’ She pulled her coat more tightly around her and climbed into the car. She’d half-expected she might have to scrape frost from the windows, but the cold dry night had left them clear. She started the engine, waved to Bill as he stood watching her from the doorway, and pulled out into the road.
She had no regrets now about having stayed over. Every minute she spent with Bill felt like another test of their relationship, and so far he was passing with flying colours. She was experienced enough to realise this blissful period wouldn’t last. But that was fine. She wouldn’t want him getting up and making her bacon sandwiches at 6am every day, even though it had definitely brightened this dark morning. But there was enough there to make her feel this was likely to be all right.
The traffic was almost non-existent at that time of the morning. Many people would still be on holiday, enjoying an extended break over Christmas and the New Year, and those who were still in work wouldn’t be busting a gut to get in early. She had the car radio playing softly as she crossed the Kessock Bridge, some rock tune she half-recognised teasing gently at her ears.
She was still trying to come up with whatever had been troubling her about the Bruce Dennis case. She could barely remember anything beyond the main events. Dennis had been an accountant with a growing practice supporting small local businesses. His killing had initially been mystifying. He was in his forties, happily married with two small children, a supposedly respectable pillar of the local community. His shooting had been shocking and initially inexplicable, the subject of ‘shock horror’ headlines and coverage in the local and national press.
Gradually, the police investigation had uncovered some less comfortable truths about Dennis’s practice. He was much less squeaky clean than his public image had indicated. Alongside his more reputable clients, he had a number who were familiar to the police. Many of them weren’t exactly criminals, or at least had never been convicted as such, but had reputations for enhancing their legitimate incomes with more dubious practices. The suspicion was that it was Dennis who helped them to clean up the proceeds.
The police’s conclusion, enthusiastically endorsed by Jackie Galloway, was that Dennis’s killing had been intended as a warning. Some of his clients had been expanding rapidly, and were treading on the toes of some of the established interests in the area. Galloway himself had decided – at an early point in the investigation, as she recalled – that the primary suspect was a small-time businessman called Kenny Rogan. That seemed plausible enough. Rogan had a record for crimes ranging from fraud to GBH, and was widely perceived as a nasty piece of work.
At the time, Grant had felt that Rogan was unlikely to be the brains behind the killing. He had plenty of associates who were smarter and more successful than he was, and it was their interests that were really affected by Dennis’s clients. But, along with most of her colleagues, she hadn’t had much doubt he was guilty of the killing, and that the chances of bringing his associates to justice were relatively small. Galloway had prioritised building a case against Rogan, and that had been the focus of their efforts.
Later, when Galloway’s questionable track record became more evident, she’d wondered about Galloway’s motives for pursuing Rogan so determinedly. At the time, she’d seen Galloway as an unpleasant misogynist bully, but not necessarily as corrupt. But she suspected now that he’d been incentivised to focus on Rogan as payback for Dennis’s death.
She’d probably never know for sure whether that was true, but certainly Galloway had driven the case zealously. There’d been a suspicion that Rogan was being protected. Witnesses were reluctant to testify. Rogan had alibis that seemed questionable but which appeared to hold water. Galloway had become increasingly frustrated, and had been determined to bring Rogan to court. In the end, he’d managed to muster sufficient evidence to satisfy the Fiscal, but much of that evidence was subsequently thrown into doubt at the retrial, prompted at least in part by Bill’s book.
In short, it had been a mess. By the time it really hit the fan, Galloway had already been thrown out of the force in disgrace and without a pension. His close colleagues had mostly also been subject to disciplinary sanctions, reflecting their relative seniority and level of involvement in Galloway’s corruption. Grant had been concerned that she and other junior officers might end up carrying the can. But, although there’d been an enquiry, there’d been little scope to take action against the key individuals involved, and the case had been largely written off as history. Rogan had walked free and had his moment in the sun, threatening to sue the police for his wrongful arrest. In the event, he’d died only a few months later in a car crash on the A9 and, in the absence of any next of kin the case was quietly buried with him.
That was really as much as she could recall. Her own role had been largely routine, although she’d been thrilled at the chance to be involved in her first major enquiry. But something continued to bother her, some connection she was still failing to make.
The police car park was largely deserted and she pulled in beside Alec McKay’s car. This was going to be a long day for all of them, and Alec had clearly also decided to make an early start.
It was as she was climbing out of the car that the memory came to her. It was something McKay had said, just recently, about Simon Crawford. He’d called him, jokingly, the ‘accountant to the stars’.
They weren’t stars in any real sense. Just middle-ranking business types engaged in dodgy practices. But she’d known what McKay meant. Crawford’s clients were big fish in a very small pond. That was the way it was up here. It was too remote to interest the big players, and the business tended to be too fragmented for any one operator to gain dominance, although some were more influential than others.
But that was the world in which Crawford operated. Just as, at the time, it had been the world in which Bruce Dennis had operated.
And then she realised what had been nagging at her brain.