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‘And that was a set-up by you.’
‘We just opened the door, he walked through it,’ said Janie.
‘Well, it strikes me that you’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to prove my client has a dubious relationship with a man, who has no previous convictions, and it seems that beyond my client sharing the location of Lochinver Police Station with Malone, you – and correct me if I’m wrong – have nothing?’ She paused, and smiled again. Not triumphant, not snidey, just mildly querulous.
Max and Janie just looked at each other, the tension in the room crackling like static electricity.
The solicitor sighed and sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers in front of her chin. ‘I see. Perhaps let me know if you have evidence that my client has done anything other than, perhaps unwisely, release information about the location of a debrief. Now, that’s not particularly desirable behaviour from a man in my client’s position, but it’s hardly evidence of the grave crimes for which he’s accused by yourselves, is it?’
‘Let’s take a short break, shall we?’ said Max.
75
‘SHE’S RIGHT, THEbastard. We have him bang to rights for corrupt practice, but not for the murders,’ said Max as they walked down the corridor at Edinburgh central police station.
‘Well, that’s better than nothing,’ said Janie, following in Max’s wake.
‘No chance, it’s nowhere near good enough. All this. All the murders, all the dead bodies, all the carnage is down to that bastard. The evidence is out there, we just need to find it. We find the kompromat, and we have him.’
‘Are we even sure it exists?’
‘It exists.’
‘Where do we start, though?’
‘Where’s Frankie?’ said Max, suddenly stopping in the corridor.
‘Glasgow city centre custody.’
‘Right, let’s go, we need to speak to him now. He knows where that fucking evidence is, even if he thinks he doesn’t. Let’s go now.’
Frankie was in a bullish mood as he sat in the interview room at Glasgow central station. It was too busy for anything covert, but the security at the station was tight, and with Droopy out of the picture, it all felt a little safer.
‘Come on, Frankie. You must have something. Anything on wherethe bloody disk is. We need it, or that corrupt bastard is looking at five years, rather than bloody life. He’ll essentially walk from this shit that cost your brother his life, as well as all the others. We can’t let that happen.’ Max sat back in the chair, feeling exhaustion creep up on him like a cloud crossing the sun.
‘I’ve told you. I wasn’t trusted, I never saw what was on it, other than I knew it was on some big bastard, even though I couldn’t have dreamed it was for the bloody Crown Agent. Shit, my dad was good at this, wasn’t he? … A top cop last time, and now the top dude at the Crown Office.’ He smiled in admiration at his father’s achievements.
‘Aye, and he’s gonna walk unless you can get us to that fucking kompromat. Now think. Where did he keep it?’ said Janie, banging her palm on the desk.
‘Okay, settle down, hen. Look, he always kept his computer on him, and anything else he locked in his safe.’
Max opened his mouth to retort, then stopped. ‘What safe?’
‘I don’t know. He’d refer to it, but I don’t know where it was, I didn’t live with him, he lived at Tam’s after Ma died. He’d been there a few years before he went missing.’
‘Was it at the house?’ said Max, referring to the sprawling Glasgow mansion he’d visited when Tam Hardie Senior had first gone missing.
‘Most likely.’
‘And you’ve no idea where it was in the house?’
‘None. We went to the house for dinner sometimes, and to see Pa and Tam, but I never lived there, and nor did Davie. I had my own flat in the West End, and Davie had his place in Kelvingrove. I do know one thing though.’
‘What?’ said Janie.
‘It’d have been a decent one. Pa never scrimped on shit like that, and he liked a gadget.’
‘Any safes at the clubs?’
