The Dark Fear (3 page)

              ‘My initial suggestion,’ she began, ‘is to come up with a list of witnesses. I want to build up a sense of Stuart’s character.’

              A secretary entered the room with a tray of coffees. The woman placed it down on the glossy surface and left.

              ‘I’ve worked with him a few times over the years,’ DI Dennis Robbins added. ‘Stuart can be a bit prickly, but I’ve always found him straight down the line when it comes to investigations. The irony of this situation is that Lamb is a stickler for playing it by the rules. It used to annoy some of his colleagues.’

              Dani nodded. ‘That’s the impression I’ve picked up from reading his service history. Has anyone else here worked with Stuart?’ The DCI glanced around the group. The other four shook their heads. Dani didn’t know whether this was a good thing or not.               ‘I think we should speak with the DCs who were undercover with DCI Lamb at Forth Logistics, Ma’am. You form a bond when on an operation like that one.’

              Dani eyed the officer who’d spoken. Her name was DS Sharon Moffett and she worked at City and Borders. Her blond hair was shoulder length and a mass of thick curls.

              ‘I’ll get my secretary to make the arrangements.’ Dani opened the file in front of her. ‘In the meantime, let’s paint a better picture of the man we’re talking about.’ She pressed a button on a remote control which activated the screen behind her. Stuart Lamb’s rugged face appeared. ‘Stuart joined the force straight after ‘A’ Levels. He isn’t a university graduate. He worked his way up through the ranks, serving for longest as a Detective Sergeant here in Edinburgh. Stuart plays rugby for his local club in Duns. His wife is a legal secretary. One of the children is at university, here in the city.’

              ‘Has his lifestyle changed any in the last few years?’ This question was posed by a DI seconded from the Central Division. ‘How long had he been receiving money from Alex Galloway?’

              Dani was a little annoyed at being rushed in this way with her biography. She felt it was important to draw a full picture of the man, without preconceptions.

              The DCI tried not to show her irritation. ‘The bank records indicate that deposits were being made as far back as 2005, but they were sporadic and often involved relatively small sums, as little as fifty or a hundred pounds.’

              ‘It could be payment for information. A tip-off that the police were getting too close to one of Galloway’s operations maybe,’ the DI persisted. 

              She looked at the man’s face closely. He was clean shaven and wore an expensive suit. A careerist, she immediately decided. ‘Yes, that’s certainly possible, although we have no proof yet. I’d like us to keep an open mind whilst we review the evidence.’ Dani noticed Dennis Robbins nodding in agreement with this. It seemed that Lamb had at least one ally on the panel.

              Dani proceeded to outline Stuart Lamb’s major cases to date. The DCI had led the team who caught a nasty serial rapist a couple of years before. They’d used the CCTV footage from the Lothian train system to identify the culprit, spending hundreds of man hours in surveillance before collaring their suspect. The forensic evidence had then tied him to the majority of the crimes. The perpetrator was now serving a twenty five year sentence at Sawton Jail.

              ‘I worked on that operation,’ DI Robbins added, once Dani had finished her presentation. ‘Lamb played it absolutely by the book. As you’re all aware, you get to know the victims and their families pretty well during these types of investigation. None of us wanted to let them down by botching the procedure and not being able to secure a conviction.’

              ‘Can we take into account Lamb’s previous conduct – when we make our final judgement?’ Sharon Moffett asked this question.

              Bevan thought about it. ‘Our job is to decide on the charges listed here.’ She tapped the sheet in front of her. ‘Background is always useful to have, but that’s all it is. If we find that Stuart Lamb is guilty of dereliction of duty and corruption in the Alex Galloway case, regardless of his record on the force, we throw the book at him.’

*

A couple of lever arch files were balanced precariously on the small dining table. There wasn’t much room on the cramped surface for anything else. Dani sighed and got up, walking towards the bay window which faced the quiet Marchmont street.

              James padded out of the kitchenette, slipping his arms around her waist. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a bit of a squeeze in here.’ He pulled her closer to him, as if to illustrate the point.

              ‘I suppose if we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, we
will
need a larger place.’

              James planted a gentle kiss on the nape of her neck. ‘I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking.’

              Dani twisted her head. ‘There’s a sensible middle ground between a miniscule city centre flat like this one and a huge, crumbling old pile like Oak Lodge.’ She allowed him to slide his hands upwards from her waist, so that they cupped her small, well- rounded breasts.              

              ‘It’s only got five bedrooms. The Hall possesses about fifteen, from what I’ve read in the purchasing documentation.’ James undid the buttons on her blouse and shuddered as his fingertips alighted on the delicate lacework of Dani’s bra.

              She turned around, leaning her body weight into his chest. ‘I never realised that you were harbouring a Lord of the Manor complex. You don’t want to prove all of Andy Calder’s prejudices about privately educated, middle class east coast Scots to be correct, do you?’

              James smiled thinly. ‘I
don’t
have a Lord of the Manor complex.’ He’d managed to remove the blouse. Dani let it slip to the carpeted floor. He edged her backwards towards the only other room in the flat. ‘And can we please not talk about Andy Calder, at this precise moment?’

Chapter 4

A
stiff breeze was rolling in off the North Sea. Clouds were thickening rapidly and then dispersing once again, just as soon as they’d deposited a thin smir of rain onto the beach where the group stood.

              ‘The concrete tank traps lie half hidden amongst the grasses that line the banks,’ Bill Hutchison explained, pointing back in the direction of the road. He was dressed in sturdy walking trousers, with a mac zipped up to his neck. His wife, Joy, was in an almost identical get-up.

              ‘I didn’t think that the Germans were ever planning to invade this far north. Wasn’t it along the south coast of England that operation Sealion was focussed on?’ James looked at the older man with interest.

             
‘We know that with hindsight, of course, but back in 1940, it wasn’t clear from which direction the enemy would strike. Norway had been occupied by the April of that year, remember.’

              Dani knew from a case she’d investigated a couple of years before, that ships still set sail from the Northumberland coast to the ports of Denmark and Norway. ‘It makes you wonder how on earth the wartime government managed to fortify the coastline. We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of miles of open beach and scrub.’

              The four of them strolled down towards the water’s edge, where the waves were impressive. Dani suddenly wished she had Gill, her father’s dog, there with them to let off the lead for a run.

              ‘Impossible task that it was, the war office took it extremely seriously,’ Bill continued. ‘A static system of defence was set up, running the length of the east coast. From the Thames, right up here to the Firth of Forth. There were anti-tank obstacles, gun emplacements and trench systems. The idea was to delay the invaders whilst the infantry mobilised. The Home Guard were to play a crucial part in this too.’

              ‘But the invasion never came,’ Joy put in.

              ‘No, but my mother always said it was the ‘dark fear’, especially in those early months of the war. It was the thing that haunted their thoughts in the dead of night; that the country would be over-run - just like poor France and Belgium. Women and children would be at the mercy of the enemy. That fear never really went away, not until the fighting was officially over.’

              James gazed into the distance, where he could just make out the grey Edinburgh skyline and the distinctive curve of the Forth Road Bridge. ‘I hadn’t ever considered it in that way,’ he said quietly. ‘Aiden Newton told me that Langford Hall was requisitioned by the government during the war.’

              ‘Many of the old country houses were,’ Bill explained. ‘I don’t know about the case of Langford Hall. Some estates were used as boarding schools, like Chatsworth, and others as hospitals. A few owners relinquished their properties voluntarily and a handful had to be removed kicking and screaming.’

              Joy smiled. ‘It was wartime and everyone had to ‘do their bit’, even the lords and ladies.’

              Dani shivered in her thin mac. ‘Come on folks. Let’s get a coffee in Port Seton. I need to warm up.’

*

The weather had closed in and although the tearoom had a view of the sea, the outlook was drab and grey.               ‘It’s a lovely area,’ Joy said brightly, her enthusiasm in stark contrast to their dreary surroundings.

              ‘I did think so,’ James replied cautiously. ‘I’m now wondering what it will be like in the old lodge when the winter comes. I’m not even sure if it can keep out the rain.’

              ‘Those old stone buildings will be standing firm till the end of time.’ Bill spooned some sugar into his mahogany coloured tea. ‘The house will actually be fairly sheltered out there in the woods. I’m quite envious, as it happens.’

              Bill and Joy lived in a modern detached house on an estate in Falkirk. Dani had met them on a previous case. They became unlikely friends.              

              The detective dragged a hand through her damp hair. ‘Well, I’m surprised everyone’s so positive about this venture. The lodge looks suspiciously like a money-pit to me. As a police officer, I take a slightly different view of living in an isolated cottage in the woods. Burglars love that kind of location.’

              ‘It is
inside
the grounds, though?’ Bill glanced at his friend. ‘I’m sure there’s a lovely little community thriving within the estate, people who have lived and worked on the property for decades.’

              Dani felt she was outnumbered. There wasn’t much point in airing any further scepticism.

              James suddenly leant forward and took her hand. ‘If you really aren’t comfortable with me buying Oak Lodge then I’ll put the brakes on the purchase right now. There isn’t any point in buying the house if you aren’t going to be happy about it.’

              She looked into his clear blue eyes and inwardly sighed. ‘I’d never ask you to do that. I’m simply reticent by nature, that’s all.’ Dani lifted her mug and put the warm china to her lips.

              Bill and Joy exchanged an almost imperceptible glance, the long married couple registering each other’s concern, without either having to utter a single word.

Chapter 5

T
he woman sitting before them was wiry and tall. Her face had the lined, pinched appearance of a long-serving police officer. Dani had noted many years back now, how her fellow female officers tended to develop a myriad of tiny lines around their mouths. This feature was the legacy of decades spent dragging on cigarettes; in the pub after work, or in one of the dingy side alleys that lay behind the old police stations.

              Compared to her contemporaries, Bevan had always been clean living. Her own mother’s sorry fate, at the mercy of an alcohol addiction fuelled by depression, had made her careful to remain so.

              DI Claire Collier had her hands resting in her lap. Her expression was steely. Bevan couldn’t tell if she was nervous or not.

              ‘DI Collier, you were working undercover with DCI Lamb at Forth Logistics for a total of two months, is that correct?’

              ‘Aye, Ma’am. But we didn’t come into contact much. I was a secretary in their office building and DCI Lamb had taken on the job of logistics supervisor. He spent most of his time in the warehouses, down at the dock.’

              ‘What was your brief?’ DI Robbins asked this question.

              ‘I was keeping an eye on the invoices that came in and out. It was my responsibility to see if shipments were coming in illegally.’

              ‘And were they?’

              Collier nodded. ‘I became aware that at least a couple of the transactions each month were being kept off the books. I got to know one of the finance directors quite well. It was easy enough to get the gist of phone conversations and meetings.’

              ‘Did you come into contact with the CEO, Alex Galloway?’ Dani eyed their witness closely.

              ‘He was the boss. Galloway was in the office a lot. To be honest, he’s a likeable sort of guy – comes across as a family man. I never got the sense at the time that he was aware of the police operation. He was always smooth, friendly.’

              ‘Did you ever see Alex Galloway and DCI Lamb together – in the pub or in private meetings, for example?’ This intervention came from Pete Salter, the DI from Central Division.

              Collier turned her cold blue eyes upon him, glaring at the officer as if he was an idiot. ‘The DCI had started his job a month before me. He had obviously settled into the operation well. DCI Lamb developed a good camaraderie with the blokes in the warehouse. When folk talked about him in my department, it was all good. Like I said, he never came over to the main building. He had an office down by the dock. If Lamb was in contact with Galloway outside of the operation parameters, I certainly didn’t know about it, nor did it cross my mind for a second that he would.’