The Ardmore Inheritance, Rob Wyllie [best novels for students TXT] 📗

of the actual death. In fact, he was under the sea sir. On board a nuclear submarine. Thirty miles off the Scottish coast. They were just coming back to port after a seven-month training voyage.'

'Well well,' Frank said, laughing, 'that is a cast-iron alibi. And it was him that got done for the murders was it?'

'Yes sir, it was.'

'And so where's he being held? Doing life somewhere I guess?'

'He was in Low Moss sir, and you're right, he got a life sentence. But he took his own life four weeks ago. In his cell. He slashed his own wrists.'

'Christ, another one? So what's the Procurator Fiscal's office saying this time?'

'I don't know sir. I asked my sarge and he said they'd put it in the hands of these boys down in London. I assume he meant you sir.'

Yes, but why? What was so different about this one that it had to be shunted off to a department four hundred miles away, a department that nobody had heard of? And why had the prosecutor's office come direct to them rather that routing it through the Police Scotland hierarchy? Experience told him that this kind of thing only happened when there was the need for a massive super-sized cover-up. But the question was, who was it that both wanted and needed to keep this under wraps?

On a hunch he said, 'Lexy, does the file say who the senior investigating officer was on the case?'

'Yes sir,' she replied brightly, 'It was a DCI Pollock.'

'Fuck's sake,' he blurted out, immediately apologising for the profanity. 'Not Brian Pollock?'

'Yes it was sir,' she said, sounding perplexed. 'Do you know him sir?'

'Aye, I do,' he said. 'And so should you. I expect he did a wee speech at your passing-out parade.'

'Not Chief Constable Pollock sir?' He could hear the disbelief in her voice.

'The same. Chief Constable Sir Brian Pollock. The guy with more letters after his name than a box of Scrabble.'

And now he understood what Jill Smart had meant when she'd described the case as weapons-grade dynamite. And it was a stick of dynamite that was liable to blow up in the face of anyone who got too close to it.

'Are you still there sir?' PC McDonald asked.

'Aye sorry Lexy, I was just thinking.'

And when he thought about it, he knew exactly what he had to do. This was a matter that could destroy wee Lexy's career before it even got started, and he didn't want to be responsible for that, no way. And that nice friendly sergeant of hers, you could bet your arse he would be reporting everything that was going on back to the brass. So for now he'd need to tell her a wee white lie, but one that he would put right in the future. He adopted what he hoped was a disappointed-sounding tone.

'I'm really not sure there's much my department can do about this one Lexy. I'll obviously give it some more thought and I'll talk to my guvnor, but maybe you should ask your sarge to find you something else to look at in the meantime. Sorry. But let me have your mobile number just in case.' That was so if he needed anything from her, he wouldn't have to call her at the station.

So what a turn-up for the books this was. Brian Pollock, would you believe it? He knew the guy from way back, and he'd been a complete and utter shite then. Now Frank was going to take great pleasure in destroying the bastard's career. But first, their case needed a name. He pondered for a minute and then gave a half-smile.

The Ardmore Cover-Up. Not one of his best, but it would have to do for now.

Chapter 9

They'd agreed to meet once again at their local Starbucks, the establishment conveniently located just a stone's throw from Riverside House, the shared office suite housing the investigative powerhouse that was Bainbridge Associates. In truth it wasn't much of an office and it wasn't by the side of the river either, nowhere near it in fact, but 238A Fleet Street EC4 was the sort of address that gave Maggie's embryonic firm the aura of solidity and professionalism that it needed to prosper. Nine other start-up firms shared the accommodation, their administrative needs catered for by the feisty Miss Elsa Berger, a capable young Czech woman who also happened to be deeply in love with Jimmy Stewart. It was a love that as far as Maggie was aware was currently unrequited, and if she knew anything about her colleague, it was destined always to be so. Regardless of that, the coffee-house had become their go-to meeting place ever since they had discovered it as a result of one of Elsa's clandestine schemes to get up close and personal with Jimmy.

'The bloody coffee machine's run out of beans again,' Jimmy would say, making no attempt to hide his annoyance, and unaware that Elsa had deliberately engineered the shortage. 'I'll need to go to bloody Starbucks again, and the drinks cost a bloody fortune in there. I mean nearly four quid for a latte, it's ridiculous.'

'I come with you, bring petty cash,' Elsa would pipe up in her appealing Eastern European accent, and then twenty minutes or more later they would return with the drinks, invariably giggling over some private shared joke. Maggie always found that mildly irritating, but only in the same way as when you weren't invited to a social occasion that you'd never wanted to go to in the first place. But today Elsa had been excluded from the visit on account of the phone call Maggie had received earlier that morning from Frank.

'Got a bit of a business proposition for you guys,' he had said mysteriously. 'I've not properly run it past Jill yet so I've asked her to pop along to our meeting as well.'

Jill and Frank had got there before them, which surprised Maggie because Frank was generally only on time if they were