Capital Offence

Chapter 17

Tuesday 4th June

22 days left

Jamieson Maclean stood with his back to his office window as the two uniformed constables struggled in with a succession of steel handled plastic boxes - the type commonly used for office removals. Each was filled to overflowing with bundles of files and documents. Maclean’s face grew darker by the minute as the heavy duty boxes filled half the available floor space. He picked up the phone and told his PA to get him the Chief Constable. It took several minutes to get through to the man’s office, by which time the Prime Minister was at boiling point. At last his PA called him back to say that Hector Sutherland was out of town, but she had Inspector Pat Gellatly, his assistant, on the line.

“Well?” demanded the PM. “What the hell is this?”

Gellatly was taken aback. “I was instructed to get all the material relating to the Cassidy case to you a.s.a.p. and to give you every assistance.

“Well dumping a lorry load of undigested crap in my office isn’t the way to go about it. I know what’s going on, and I don’t appreciate it! Get over here immediately and sort out what is pertinent and relevant and what isn’t.”

“But Prime Minister, this isn’t a case I’ve been involved in. I have no more idea than you do what’s important.”

“So who the hell does?”

“Well the individual case officers, presumably, but I thought you’d instructed the Chief Constable to keep them out of it.”

Maclean stood seething for a moment, while he tried to avoid saying anything he might later regret.

“What did you say your name was?”

“Gellatly sir, Pat Gellatly.”

“Well tell Mr Sutherland that I note his thoroughness in sticking precisely to my instructions. You may also tell him that I note the extent of his cooperation.”

Gellatly started to reply, but the PM had hung up.

“Gordon Bennett,” muttered Gellatly to the dead receiver.

*      *      *

Forbes Macferry pushed open the panelled glass door of Deacon Brodie’s Pub in Edinburgh’s High Street and blinked as he stepped out into the sunlight. It had been a most worthwhile lunch, and well worth the four pints it had taken to prise the relevant information out of the shifty wee sod. A hundred quid he’d wanted for his information, and he hesitated as he named his price. Macferry had immediately sucked in his breath as if he’d never heard anything so outrageous in his life, and the wee toalie fell for it. Fifty quid he’d knocked him down to! God, Forbes Macferry would even have paid that out of his own pocket for information like that. Well almost. So fifty quid, and he got a receipt for it too. Now the stupid wee shite would be worried in case the newspaper shopped him to the Inland Revenue. Unbelievable!

The man was just a thick wee housebreaker, the type that would probably have a hard job getting in to his own home if he lost his keys. He seemed to have spent more time inside than out over the past thirty years. But Davie Maclean - oh yes he could mind Davie Maclean - inside! Macferry would have settled for that alone - the rest he could now check up in official records - now he knew where to look, and what questions to ask. But it had been worth the four pints alright, for the kind of colour he’d supplied - for the anecdotes and details that would make the story come to life on the page. They’d sat under the nicotine coloured blown up engravings of Deacon Brodie and the High Street in days gone by, and the man had yacked and yacked. Christ, wait till he broke this one.