Chapter One

Monday, June 24, Edinburgh, Scotland

Detective Inspector Barney Mains held his usual first-of-the-day coffee and had his usual first-of-the-day thought: What the hell am I doing here?

The here was the same tidy desk in the same backwater of Police Scotland’s Edinburgh Division, which he had occupied ever since ascending, to the surprise of many (including himself), to his current rank.

But he wouldn’t go any further. His inner sense of being in the wrong place all the time had been sussed – now it was only when they were short-handed that he was brought into a live investigation.

Normally, he was desk-bound, tucked away in a recess of the open-plan room, collating evidence gathered by others, doing research, producing reports and occasionally coming up with an idea which was even less occasionally noticed.

The day wasn’t helped by the fact that it was Monday, or that the machine-spewed coffee tasted like gritty mud, its only saving grace the fact that it was at least reassuringly familiar.

He switched on his ageing computer. A constant panic over leaks to the press had spawned a steady stream of new, ever more complicated passwords. He had given up trying to remember them and ignored the nonsensical warnings never to write them down but instead kept a growing list in his desk drawer.

As the machine whirred grudgingly to life, he had time to finish his mud while it was still warm enough to be classed alongside primordial soup.

The welcome screen had a new message: Protect your password! Barney opened the drawer, copied the latest line of gibberish into the log-on field and hit return. ‘Job done,’ he said, closing the drawer.

His inbox had the usual gunk: admin circulars, circulars about circulars, updates from weekend colleagues too lazy to finish their reports before clocking off, but also one marked, unusually, High Priority.

It was from the Assistant Chief Constable’s office. This could be it, he thought: voluntary redundancy and a golden handshake to replace his lead handcuffs.

It wasn’t of course, but he delayed opening the message long enough to enjoy the fantasy.

He scanned the whole two paragraphs first, seeking out key phrases for some good news. Seeing none, he read it properly from the beginning.

Good morning, Inspector. You will be receiving a visit today from Detective Constable Ffiona McLuskey. She will brief you on a case which is now your top priority. Please complete any ongoing projects immediately or brief civilian staff to process them appropriately.

Ffiona is one of our brightest of the latest intake and this case is an important first challenge. See that you give her all possible help and guidance. From today, you are a team and your superior officers have been instructed to give you both as free a hand as possible. You will be reporting directly to myself. Good luck.

Then he read it again. F-F-Fiona, he thought. How f-f-fantastic. Some high-flying twit with a shiny new degree. No shitty drugs bust in Leith for her. Only the best, highest profile cases for a few years until a door on the top floor gets her name on it. Won’t know her arse from her elbow, but if she fucks up, it’s muggins who gets the blame.

Then he thought: What the hell, might get me out and about for a while.

He was re-reading the email for a third time when he felt someone loom. He closed the message and spun his chair around.

They say it’s all about first impressions, which is unfortunate, because she looked to him like an escapee from Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

‘DI Main?’ asked the skinny young girl.

‘Mains, like the power and the water. Yes, dear. Who are you with?’

‘With?’ Then she got the dear and wondered how to deal with her anger.

‘Oh, sorry,’ he effused. ‘You’re not… you know, DC, er, McLucky?’

‘McLuskey, sir – DC Ffiona McLuskey. Reporting as ordered.’

‘Ah, so sorry.’ He rose and offered his hand. She looked at it, at him, then decided to risk it. They shook and he noticed the corners of her mouth twitch, as if she had noticed his surprise at the strength of her grip and found it amusing.

He continued: ‘I only just read the ACC’s email so I was a bit surprised…’

‘No problem, sir. Pleased to meet you. And I am so looking forward to working with you.’

He doubted that. He was the prescribed fall guy. Beyond that, she didn’t need him and they both knew it.

Apart from looking hardly old enough to hold a driving licence, she was as thin as a parking ticket and had an offensive overabundance of self-confidence for one so painfully young. The cropped, untamed black hair and matching slashes of eyebrows seemed at odds with her pale, line-free complexion.

And the accent. What is that? Dundee by way of Cambridge? Odd, whatever.

‘Barney – call me Barney. And pull up a pew. No formalities here.’

‘Thank you, er, Barney,’ she said, sitting down then crossing her trousered legs and producing a notebook from a shiny new leather satchel.

‘So, Ffiona,’ he said, enjoying the ability afforded by his rank and his forty-two years to at least set the agenda, ‘what have we got?’

She gathered herself, chose a spot high on the wall behind him to stare at, then started as if she was reciting a piece of prose committed to memory during homework.

‘… website… billions of pounds… Shona Gladstone…’

Barney was picking up the gist but it was all too tedious. His eyes drifted around the main room they called the Egg Box because of its six partitioned cubicles, some architect’s bright idea during the conversion of the Victorian building decades earlier. It felt more like an incubator most days, which is why detectives stayed out – free range – as much as possible. Two DCs with nowhere to go were looking his way, giggling like schoolgirls.

‘OK, OK, Ffiona, no need for chapter and verse. Just cut to the chase,’ he said, fixing her with his best detective look.

‘Sir, I know all this internet stuff can be boring. But it’s background you need to know.’

‘But why? I don’t get it. Where’s the crime?’

‘Where’s the crime? Where’s the f—?’ she said, more Dundee than Cambridge, just stopping herself in time. ‘Sir, I don’t know where the crime is. I don’t even know if there is a crime. But, sir, you know this. You know what this is all about. You… you’re just taking the— Can I speak plainly, sir?’

‘I would have it no other way, dear Ffiona.’

‘Well you know why I’m here. The ACC has briefed you already?’ she asked, clearly beginning to wonder.

‘Look, the boss just said I should expect this brilliant young officer who would fill me in on a new case. I know only what you’ve told me. Really interesting. Thanks so much. But for God’s sake will you get to the point. Where the hell is the damn crime?’

‘The crime – the potential crime… The fact is that no one has heard from her for almost a week. She’s gone missing.’

‘Who’s gone sodding missing?’

‘Shona sodding Gladstone!’

The room went quiet. They were the centre of attention as they sat facing each other, angry eyes locked.

Barney, pleased with having flushed out Ffiona’s inner Dundonian and enjoying that all activity had stopped, softened his look and smiled. ‘Well why didn’t you say so in the first place? We’d better get to work then.’

He still thought it had been a terrible mistake, pairing up high-flying little Ffiona McLuskey with him, big Barney Mains, once described as so low-flying as to be coming in to land. But despite his misgivings, he had to admit that Ffiona’s initial briefing, now that she had his attention, was pretty impressive.

Internet entrepreneur Shona Gladstone had already been worth billions when she set up a new website business about five years ago. It basically invited contributions from writers and wannabes, running competitions and attracting hundreds of thousands of short stories, novellas, flash stories and poetry.

Ffiona had to explain that flash writing wasn’t flash in that sense, but complete short stories skilfully told in just a few hundred words.

‘Sounds pretty flash to me,’ he mumbled.

She pretended not to hear and carried on. The website quickly became the most successful site of its kind, apparently due to the fact that Shona had not only the technical and internet know-how, but more importantly the business nous to build her brand and eventually make it as synonymous with writing and books as Google was with searching.

Recently, it was announced that the site had been sold for $5 billion, adding to the status of the young woman – her age varied from twenty-nine to thirty-six in various magazine features – as one of the most desirable singletons in the world.

Barney was mystified as to how any website could be worth such an obscene sum. Even allowing for the fact that it was a major platform for book sales, with no doubt huge advertising revenues, he was left with the distinct impression that it was all a smoke-and-mirrors throwback to the years of the dot-com fiasco.

Shona’s money had made up for her plain looks, Ffiona continued, and her fortune was more than enough to make her a prime target. But there was more.

Perhaps not surprisingly for someone so successful at such a young age, she had made enemies. What was surprising, she told her new boss with a conspiratorial look which made him sit up and smile at her Bond-like raised eyebrow, was how many.

It seemed that while thousands of people were simply over the moon to see their scribblings published online – an ego boost worth infinitely more than mere money – many others, including established authors, were furious about the sale.

She ran a search on Barney’s computer and brought up pages of links to stories about Justice for Author Rights, the pressure group which took legal action in a bid to block it. Rightly or wrongly, the authors in JAR felt that it was their writing that had established the site and that they therefore deserved a cut. But the court ruled that the disclaimer box they had ticked as a requirement of their registration meant they had signed away any right to benefit, beyond any modest publication fee or prize they happened to have already earned.

‘Not likely that any of them would actually do anything criminal but I think we need to talk to them anyway,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t dismiss them just like that,’ said Barney wisely. ‘Some of these writer guys can be serious nutters, you know.’

He thought about adding that none other than their very own Assistant Chief Constable fancied himself as a wordsmith but decided against doing so on the grounds that it might be taken the right way.

Instead, he started scoping out the work. They would have to speak to JAR. But only after contacting Shona’s office and arranging to interview her top people.

Then they needed access to the woman’s bank and credit-card accounts. From past experience, a record of routine transactions might very well save a lot of bother – their quarry may simply have wanted to get away for a bit, or more likely, gone off and shacked up with some new love interest.

Meantime they should also prepare for the worst and start drawing up a list of the missing woman’s main contacts, friends, business associates, staff and, most importantly, the last people to have seen her.

‘That might be a bit more difficult,’ said Ffiona. ‘Seeing as how they’re in the South of France.’

Barney paused, remembering the email. He turned to the computer and printed off the High Priority briefing from the ACC. Lifting the single sheet of paper delicately between forefinger and thumb, he said: ‘I’m off to see the Wizard.’

  ***       

As he explained later on the flight to Nice, it turned out that he was pushing on an open door. Superintendent Walter Izzard had already been briefed on the interest being shown in the case by the top floor. ‘Remember, you’re only out there to fly the flag,’ he’d said. ‘Leave the rest to the French and get your butts back here asap.’

The ACC had then signed off on the flights and personally warned the French investigating team in Nice to expect them.

Barney appreciated that the man’s rare enthusiasm was explained partly by the obvious: that the absent Ms Gladstone was not only one of the richest people in the world but also happened to come from the city. What not everybody knew, however, was that she had also once published one of Top Cop’s short stories and was therefore deemed gifted with such insight as to be too valuable for the world of literature to lose.