DCI Helena Grant slammed down the phone and uttered a mild expletive. Alec McKay would no doubt have come up with a more imaginative profanity, but straightforward invective was good enough for her.
This was not how she wanted to spend Saturday morning. Any Saturday morning, but particularly not this one. She’d had plans for this one. Not major plans. Just the same low-key ritual she enacted every year at this time. It always felt mildly melancholy, and not only for the obvious reasons. It was as if she were marking the end of yet another summer, as well as commemorating a more significant loss.
Another summer. Another year passing. Another year in which nothing much had happened to her.
That wasn’t quite true, of course. Plenty had happened in the past twelve months. It was just that none of it was positive. She’d spent the first part of the year recovering from the impact of the last. Literally recovering, in that she’d been encouraged to take medical leave even though her physical injuries had been minor. She supposed the emotional and psychological damage was likely to be deeper and longer lasting, but it hadn’t felt that way and, in truth, it still didn’t. She just felt numb, bereft of any real feeling or emotion. That probably wasn’t a good thing.
Since then she’d thrown herself back into work, knowing it was the only way she could keep going. As matters had turned out, it had proved to be a wise move.
Everything had changed back in April. None of them had realised that at the time, of course. It was just another new appointment, and the first rumblings of rumour drifting up from the south. The appointment had been that of Chief Superintendent Michael Everly, late of police headquarters in Tulliallan, as divisional commander. There was nothing particularly surprising about the appointment itself. The previous incumbent had retired, and the expectation had been that the post would be filled from outside the division. Everly seemed both capable and personable, a combination which – at least in Alec McKay’s eyes – was all too rare at senior levels in the force.
But it was clear from the moment of Everly’s arrival that something had changed, or was in the process of changing. Since the establishment of the national force, there’d been an increasing drive towards conformity and centralisation. That was fair enough up to a point, Grant thought. The creation of the national force was supposedly to increase consistency of practice, improve communications, deliver economies of scale, all the stuff that they printed in their glossy annual reports. That inevitably involved breaking up some of the fiefdoms that had developed over the preceding decades. That, equally inevitably, resulted in growing resistance from those who, for good reasons or ill, remained wedded to the way they’d always worked.
For these and other reasons, the pace of change had been slower than many at the top had initially expected and wanted. Some centralisation initiatives had succeeded, but many others had failed. As far as Helena Grant was concerned, this was just organisational life – those with new brooms wanted to use them, the older hands were concerned about what might be swept away in the process. Like most officers at her level, she’d largely just kept her head down.
It had been clear from the start that, pleasant and easy-going as he might seem, Michael Everly was firmly grasping a brand-new broom and had every intention of using it. Within weeks of his arrival, he’d introduced a series of restructurings and changes, most of which had reduced divisional autonomy. An ill-informed observer might have wondered why Everly would want to reduce his own authority, but the obvious answer was that he already had an eye on the next rung on his career ladder.
The changes had worried Alec McKay more than Helena Grant. Her preference was simply to get on with the job, and she didn’t much mind whether authority lay here in divisional HQ or somewhere further south. McKay, on the other hand, preferred to operate without what he saw as undue constraints and pointless bureaucracy. When it suited him, he was all too happy to exploit any ambiguity in the major investigation team’s chain of command, even if that ambiguity existed mainly in McKay’s own head.
Michael Everly, by contrast, was a man with a low tolerance of ambiguity. He wanted matters to be clear-cut and unequivocal, and his preference was for specialist teams to be co-ordinated and managed from the centre. And that, increasingly, was what was happening, with more and more activities – from restructuring projects to criminal investigations – led by officers from the south, while local staff simply provided the supporting resource.
Grant had been sceptical as to how well this would work in practice. Her experience was that the major investigation team up here was largely left alone simply because ambitious officers couldn’t be bothered to drag their backsides up the A9 to deal with what they thought of as ‘trouble in sheep-shagger land’. In McKay’s acerbic phrase, ‘Most of them don’t believe in life after Perth.’
So far, her scepticism had been largely vindicated. Even when an officer from outside the division had been placed in notional charge of an inquiry, in practice she’d found herself operating as senior investigating officer, subject to little more than regular debriefs to her supposed boss and the receipt of unwanted and generally unhelpful advice on how to do her job. McKay had had an acerbic phrase for that too, but it was one Grant preferred not to articulate out loud.
‘Penny for them.’
Grant looked up in surprise, wondering if her not entirely positive thoughts on Michael Every had somehow managed to summon his presence. However he’d been invoked, he was now leaning on the doorway to her office. ‘You’d be getting a bargain.’
‘That right? Profound stuff then.’
‘Always. What can I do for you, Mike? You do know it’s Saturday?’
‘No peace for the wicked, especially at my level. Was just wondering what the latest was on this case up on the Black Isle? Sounds a nasty one.’
‘Very. I’m just trying to drum up resources for it.’
‘Having problems?’
‘No more than usual. But it’s going to be a big one. Especially over the next few days.’
‘I’m assuming it’ll be relatively straightforward, though? As an investigation, I mean.’
‘In theory. If it’s what it appears to be.’
‘Family annihilation?’
She raised an eyebrow. It was a piece of jargon she’d come across only relatively recently, and it seemed unnecessarily brutal. ‘Something like that. Most likely murder-suicide. And most likely the father as perpetrator. But obviously all that’s to be confirmed.’
‘Obviously. Media’s going to be all over it, though.’
‘I’d have thought so. At least for a day or two till they get bored.’
‘I’ve just been talking to comms. They’re getting a media statement ready. Do you think we need anything else?’
‘My inclination would be to keep it low-key for the moment. We don’t want to release names until we’ve identified and contacted the next of kin. And then we need to be conscious of their sensitivities.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Everly had remained in the doorway while they’d been talking. Now he entered the office and seated himself in the chair opposite Grant’s desk. ‘Speaking of sensitivities,’ he said, ‘I believe Alec McKay’s dealing with this?’
She looked up. ‘I was expecting to be SIO. But, yes, I was intending Alec to lead the work on the ground. Is that a problem?’
‘Not at all. I’ve heard good things about him. He seems a bit of a character?’
‘He’d like you to think so. A lot of it’s an act.’ Grant wasn’t remotely sure this was really true, but she wasn’t going to acknowledge anything else to Everly.
‘An act?’
‘Alec’s the best I’ve got. He’s an instinctive investigator who knows what stone to turn over, what hole to start poking his metaphorical stick into. His manner’s just one of his techniques. He likes to wrong-foot people sometimes, to stir things up. It works.’
Everly’s expression suggested he remained unconvinced. ‘But underneath he’s got a heart of gold?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far. But underneath is a real foundation of integrity, let’s put it that way. He’s not your clichéd maverick cop who doesn’t play by the rules. He just likes you to think he is.’ She’d resisted crossing her fingers under the desk while saying all this. After all, it was largely true. Largely.
‘I know the type. I was just wondering how he’d react if, on this occasion, the SIO was someone from outside the division?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’ve been talking to major investigations at HQ. They’re keen to improve co-ordination across the divisions. Get things more on a consistent footing.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea?’
‘I can see the logic.’
‘They want to encourage more cross-divisional working. We thought this might be a good one to start on.’
Grant noted the we. ‘Why this one?’
‘It’s likely to be high profile, but should be relatively straightforward in that we already know who the likely perpetrator is. As far as the Fiscal’s concerned, it’ll largely be a matter of confirming that and providing some insights into the likely motivation.’
‘We don’t know for sure who the perpetrator is.’
‘You think it’s likely to be anyone other than the father?’
‘I don’t imagine so.’
‘There you are then. So what do you think of the idea?’ It wasn’t clear whether he was seeking her approval or just asking her opinion. The latter, she assumed.
‘Who do they have in mind as SIO?’
‘Chap called Nightingale. Brian Nightingale.’
‘Name sounds familiar. Where’s he based?’
‘Glasgow.’ Everly paused. ‘I understand he started out up here.’
‘Think I remember him. He was a few years older than me. He moved on just about the time I joined CID, I think, so I never really knew him.’ Except by reputation, she added to herself. If her recollection was correct, Nightingale had been another one of DCI Jackie Galloway’s young acolytes. That didn’t necessarily mean much, of course. Both she and Alec McKay had both briefly been part of Galloway’s team and hadn’t been tainted by Galloway’s dubious example. Some of Galloway’s coterie had been closer to him than others, and the smarter ones had always maintained a cautious distance from his practices. That might explain why Nightingale had chosen to depart for the south.
Except she had a vague recollection that Nightingale’s departure had been clouded by some hint of scandal. Even at the time this hadn’t been much more than canteen gossip, with no coherent story emerging. She’d been a trainee at the time so no one had confided in her. All she’d had was the tail-end of others’ tittle-tattle.
‘Has a decent track record anyway. So if his presence isn’t going to put your nose out of joint…’
And what if it did? she thought. It was quite clear the decision had already been taken and nothing that she might say would make any difference. ‘Fine by me. It’s not as if I’m short of work.’
‘Well, that was another consideration. I know how hard pressed you all are.’
Grant couldn’t think of an immediate response that wouldn’t have sounded sarcastic. Not for the first time in her recent career, she found herself feeling grateful that Alec McKay wasn’t in the room. ‘So when’s he joining us?’
‘He’s driving up tomorrow to join us first thing Monday morning. Can I leave you to brief Alec? I’m assuming Brian will still want him on the team.’
That’s likely to depend, Grant thought, on whether Nightingale is more interested in a successful outcome or a quiet life. ‘I’ll let him know.’
‘Excellent.’ Everly began to rise from his seat then paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘There was one other thing while I’m here.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m not sure if this is appropriate or if I’m speaking out of turn, but I understand your late husband was Rory Grant?’
The question took her by surprise, especially given the timing. ‘You knew him?’
‘Way back. We both started in Strathclyde at roughly the same time. He was a good man. And a good cop, too, for what that’s worth.’
It had been worth a lot in Rory’s eyes, she thought. He’d always said he’d lived for two things – her and the job. Not necessarily in that order, he’d usually added with a laugh. He’d not been one of those who were wedded to the job rather than their spouse, but he’d taken the job very seriously. ‘In my eyes, he was both.’
‘I’m afraid I’d lost touch with him. It was only when I moved up here and someone mentioned your name that I made the connection. I was sorry to hear the news. It must have been a dreadful shock for you.’
‘It was bad at the time. Not least because it was so sudden and unexpected. Time passes, though.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry.’
‘It’s funny you should mention him today.’
‘Is it?’
‘It would have been his birthday. I used to rib him about it because he was a few years older than I was. If I’d known what was going to happen, I might have put more force into saying “many happy returns”.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise…’
‘Don’t worry. It’s really a time for positive thoughts.’
‘Not an ideal time to be in the office, though?’
‘I’ve been telling myself it’s what he would have wanted. Which is probably true. But it doesn’t really matter. It’s not as if I’d have been having a party at home. But I do like to commemorate it.’
‘In what way?’
She looked mildly embarrassed. ‘I usually drive over to Rosemarkie to be honest. Over on the Black Isle. I live over there now, but it used to be one of the places we went walking. Just on the beach there. If it’s a fine day, I usually follow the track we’d have taken. Come back and have a coffee at the beach café. I just sit and think about it. It doesn’t sound much. It’s just one of those rituals you get into.’
‘I understand. Pity you weren’t able to do it today.’
‘I’ll take a drive over there once I’ve finished here. Could use it as an excuse to visit the crime scene and break the news to Alec.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. That’s over that way, isn’t it? Sorry, I’m still getting used to the area. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’d known Rory. He was a decent man. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll bring Brian round to introduce him to everyone on Monday. Let me know if there’s anything you need in the meantime.’
‘I’ll get everything ready to hand over to him. Wouldn’t want him to think we were unprofessional.’
‘Exactly.’ Everly stood for a moment, as if wanting to say more, but finally turned to leave. ‘Right. See you Monday.’
After he’d disappeared down the corridor, Grant sat staring at the spot where he’d been sitting. What, she wondered, had that been all about? There’d been something mildly awkward about Everly’s tone throughout. Partly discomfort at the news he was bringing, no doubt. Partly discomfort at raising the personal topic of her late husband, perhaps. But it had felt a little more than that.
If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought he’d been very ineptly trying to chat her up.