Hunter's Revenge Read online

  He took down her personal details and then they discussed how Linda’s morning had been going before her shocking discovery.

  “What were you delivering to Mr Reinbold?” Tim asked.

  “A book. The label just says a book.”

  “But it also says it’s insured for £25,000. That’s some book,” Tim said, looking at Linda’s delivery list.

  “I didn't notice that. It's an awful lot.”

  Tim looked around for help and caught sight of DS Jane Renwick, who had joined Hunter talking to the paramedics. Tim wondered how Jane always looked so elegant, as though she had just walked off a magazine cover.

  “Sarge? Sarge, can you help with this?” Tim called to Jane.

  “What’s up, Tim?”

  “Linda here has on her manifest that the parcel Mr Reinbold was expecting was a book, but I’ve noticed it’s insured for £25,000. That seems a great deal for a book.”

  “It certainly does. Do we know where the parcel is?”

  Linda pulled it out from underneath her. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to sit on the grass. It's wet,” she said by way of explanation.

  Jane looked at the girl and sighed. Then she held out her hand and, in the presence of Linda and Tim, opened the parcel.

  “It is indeed a book. A signed first edition of A.A.Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. My goodness. It’s amazing! Include this in the statement, Tim, and give Linda a note to say that we now hold the book. I’ll take it back to the station. We’ll need to get a proper valuation.”

  “Wow! All that for a kiddies’ book.” Linda finished her statement and agreed to come down to the station to sign a typed copy whenever Tim phoned her to tell her it was ready. He caught her allowing herself one more gaze into his eyes before they stood up. Tim was over a foot taller than her diminutive five foot two inches.

  “Thank you for all your help today, Linda,” Tim said.

  “It's all right, but I suppose I better get on with my deliveries. I’m ever so late. It would be me who found the bloody body.”

  “Only if you’re not in shock and are fit to drive. Do you want the paramedics to check you over?”

  She looked at the paramedics: a portly man in his fifties and a woman with badly-dyed red hair. “Nah, I’ll be alright thanks.”

  “You know you must not discuss this with anybody, Linda.”

  “Alright. I won’t go selling my life story to the papers.”

  Chapter Three

  “Good morning, folks. Attention please.” DCI Allan Mackay called the briefing in the incident room to order.

  Mackay’s pomposity always made Hunter want to prick him with a pin, just to see if he would deflate.

  “We have too much to get through this morning, and too little time to do it,” Hunter said.

  He looked around at his team and noticed the young woman standing nervously at the back of the room. Hunter decided to get her out of her misery. “First, I can confirm what most of you already suspect, DC John Hamilton has resigned from the force,” Hunter said.

  “You mean he jumped before he was pushed? Good riddance,” DC Colin Reid said. Colin had worked closely with John for years.

  Hunter grimaced, but did not seem surprised that Colin sounded bitter.

  “He was an idiot to use cocaine, especially supplied by Arjun Mansoor, but he has done the right thing now, DC Reid.” Mackay said. Colin was serious and reliable. Mackay valued those qualities.

  “At last,” Colin said.

  Hunter knew that Colin had found John’s drug abuse unforgivable.

  “As a result of that we had a vacancy, and I am delighted to introduce you all to DC Nadia Chan, who has joined us from Livingston. Welcome, Nadia. We will get to know you over the next few days, I’m sure. Can you take her under your wing, Mel?” Hunter said.

  DC Mel Grant’s dark curls nodded faster than her head. She smiled at Nadia and her dimples deepened.

  “Thank you, it’s great to be joining the team.” Nadia blushed furiously and moved towards Mel.

  “DI Hunter Wilson was the senior officer attending the shocking murder yesterday of George Reinbold at his home in Gilmerton,” Mackay said. “Can you kick off the information we have?”

  Hunter nodded and moved forward.

  “Now as you all know, our colleague from CSI, George Reinbold, was found dead behind the front door of his main door flat in Gilmerton yesterday morning. He was killed by one bullet, and shot at such close range that I have no doubt his blood hit his killer. A young delivery woman reported the body. Tim, you interviewed her?”

  “Yes, Boss. Nothing useful, really. Linda Maguire, recently started working for Daygo Deliveries. The company confirms she had good references, and had been reliable in the six weeks she’s been working for them.” Tim glanced at Jane, who nodded. “The only strange thing was that Linda’s delivery stated the item for George Reinbold was a book, but I noticed that it was insured for £25,000. It was sent from Paris, France. DS Renwick came to assist me and we opened the parcel in Linda’s presence. It was indeed a book, but it was a signed first edition of Winnie the Pooh.”

  “I took it up to Katz and Roundall auction house,” Jane said. “They have a dedicated team that deals with Rare Books, Manuscripts and Maps. Also, their specialists have established an international reputation for their auctions, selling through the auction houses in Edinburgh, London and also through their online auctions. The specialists are experts not only on books and manuscripts, but also on current market conditions. So I thought if anyone could help, they could.”

  “Of course,” said Hunter. “What did they say?”

  “The head of that department is a Ms June Dormer. She carried out the valuation personally, and confirmed that allowing for the condition of the book, and fact the book is a first edition signed by both the author A A Milne and the illustrator, E H Shepard, the value of that book is at least £23,000.”

  “Thank you. Jane, what have you discovered from the door-to-door enquiries of the neighbours?” Hunter asked.

  “Well, Sir, it is Edinburgh. You know what they’re like: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

  “I can’t believe nobody heard anything.”

  “No, neither do I, Sir,” Jane sighed. “But you know how it goes: the two households above George had left for work, school and so on. Some of the properties to one side were the same, except for the students, who had only come home, drunk, about three in the morning and were still out cold. They say none of them woke up before lunchtime, so they heard nothing.

  “Over to other side, the neighbour on the ground floor is as deaf as a post, one upstairs flat is empty. It’s up for sale, Sir.” Jane looked up at Hunter and went on. “In the other upstairs property the owner was making a cup of tea at the back of the house, and thought a car had backfired.”

  “For goodness sake!” Hunter exploded.

  “It’s much the same with the rest, Sir. The only person who noticed anything was an elderly lady who sits at her window, a Mrs Florence Roberts. She saw an unfamiliar blue car stop near George’s place, and saw a smart man in a grey suit come out of it. Then her carer arrived, so that’s all she saw. Nobody else seems to have noticed anything that they could bring to mind, so when we get the approximate time of death confirmed by Dr Sharma, I’ll have the CCTV checked from the main road and get back to you.”

  “Fine. Jane, just go round them all again and press harder when we have a more precise timing, and keep me in the loop. Have we managed to find George’s family, Mel?”

  “No, I don’t think he ever married. No evidence of any family who immigrated with him either, but I’ll keep looking.”

  “Thanks, Mel. Now, I'll need a careful search of George’s home. Tim, Bear and Rachael, you join me for that.”

  DC Rachael Anderson nodded and swept her long, dark-blonde hair back from her shoulders.

  “Jane, I want you to investigate all the cases George has been involved in where the perpe
trator may have borne a grudge.”

  “Fine, Sir, how far back do you want me to go?”

  “Start with yesterday and go back as far as you need to. Mel, Nadia and Colin are with you.”

  Jane nodded and the meeting drew to a close.

  Jane moved towards Mel and said, “Perhaps you should continue to search for George’s family, here?”

  “If he has any.”

  “If not, I suppose the Boss or DCI Mackay will have to do the formal identification.”

  “I wouldn’t fancy having to do that,” Mel screwed up her face and went to make a cup of tea before she went back to the computer records.

  “Colin, can you and Nadia make a list of the cases George Reinbold has been involved with?” Jane asked.

  “The most recent were the end of last year, right? Will we be looking outside Lothian and Borders, Sarge?” Colin asked.

  “Yes, if George’s expertise was called on. But I think most of what he did was in this area.”

  Colin nodded and gestured for Nadia to follow him. They had a lot of files to go through. Thank goodness for computers.

  Jane went to see what she could find out about George Reinbold the man. Google was as good a place as any to start.

  ***

  After the CSI team had finished their work, Hunter, Tim, Bear and Rachael got suited up in the white overalls and special shoe covers that would minimise their interference with the crime scene. As Hunter entered George’s small apartment, he immediately regretted assigning Tim and Bear to work with him. At six feet four inches and six feet two inches respectively, the two rugby-playing DCs made the place feel overcrowded just by standing there. At least the blood and mess had been cleared up, from the entrance, leaving only livid stains as reminders of the horror that had taken place.

  Hunter entered the flat first and walked down the hall towards the living room. The place was immaculately clean and obsessively tidy, just as he would expect George’s home to be.

  “CSIs told me there was no sign of forced entry,” Hunter said.

  “Well, he probably opened his door willingly, as he would think it was that book being delivered,” Tim said.

  When Bear entered, he whistled. “Boss, have you noticed this?”

  “Goodness! I had no idea George had such a large collection of books.”

  “These are not just any books, Boss. This one is a first edition. So is this, and this.” Bear turned round to face Hunter. “This collection must be worth a fortune!”

  “But they’re not all in English,” Rachael added. “These in this section are in German, but I don’t even recognise this language.”

  “Russian, I think,” Bear said. “Tim, have a look at this; is that Russian?”

  “It is, wow, and this is a children’s book in Yiddish! It is inscribed to Georg Reinbold, by the author, Leyb Kvitko. Look, Boss, this is incredible! Kvitko was a member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR in the late 1940s. If I remember rightly, he was shot and killed for his activities.

  “The George Reinbold we knew would have spelt his name Georg in his native language, but he wouldn’t have been born at the time Kvitko was executed. It must have belonged to a relative. Maybe a father, an uncle or even a grandfather. Was George Jewish, Boss?”

  “Not that I know. It doesn’t mean the author wasn’t a family friend, though.” Hunter said. “This is only illustrating how little we knew about George, the man, isn’t it? I know he was a private person, but we really seem to be on the back foot.” Hunter shook his head. “Right, let’s get started. I’ll search his desk for any paperwork I can find. Bear, you take the bedrooms. Rachael, kitchen and bathroom to see if there is anything odd or if he was on any medication. Tim, I think you should make a catalogue of those books. We better get them boxed up and securely stored if they are as valuable as we think.”

  Rachael rooted around in George's kitchen and bathroom cabinets. The bathroom was full of little packets and bottles. When she had finished the search, Rachael gathered them up. She walked back to the living room and looked again at the bookcase.

  “It’s interesting, they all seem to be children’s books,” Rachael said. “But I don’t remember George talking about having any children.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Tim said. “These have been bought as investments. Very valuable investments. Look how the bookcase has a glass front which encloses them and keeps them free from dust. George would never have let a child touch any of these. He would probably have chopped their fingers off if they’d tried.”

  “Nice,” Rachael replied sarcastically.

  “Anything of interest in the kitchen or bathroom, Rachael?” Hunter asked.

  “Not much. He was on a lot of medication. I’ve bagged that up so Doctor Sharma can tell us what they are for.”

  “Good. Well done.”

  “Boss, George had also changed his back door from his kitchen into his garden so that the original glass panel in the council's design when he bought the place was no longer there,” Rachael added. “He had put in a seriously thick, metal-lined, replacement door instead.”

  “That's certainly not original. It's not even normal,” Tim said.

  “That's not all,” Rachael went on. “There are three mortice locks evenly spaced on the back door, together with bolts top and bottom. He wasn’t taking many chances, was he Boss?”

  “He certainly was not,” Hunter said. He was sitting in George's armchair rummaging through the papers he found in the small chest of drawers next to it. He found instructions on how to work the washing machine, an old copy of the Yellow Pages, and the Home and Contents insurance policy.

  “I wonder if the additional security was a condition of his insurance because of his books?” Hunter said as he handed Rachael the home and contents policy he had found. “Call them and check it out, will you, Rachael?”

  Bear wandered back from the bedrooms. “Boss, George seems to have kept the spare room as a study or office. There’s another bookcase like that one,” he nodded at the shelves behind Tim. “But, I also found this in a box under the bed,” He held a pistol in his hand. It was unfamiliar to Hunter, but Bear said, “It’s a P1001.”

  “Really?” asked Hunter. “That’s a very old gun.” He weighed it in his hand. “And heavy.”

  “Yes,” Bear said. “It was issued to the Stasi. The East German equivalent of the Walther PPK that was made in West Germany during the Cold War.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “My A-level project was on the Cold War.”

  “You failed that, Bear!” Tim joked.

  “If a D is good enough for the royal family, it’s good enough for me! I suppose my memory must be better than I thought. But I am really surprised to find one of these here. It’s ancient, but in very good condition. There’s ammunition for it here, too. No idea how old that is, or how safe.”

  “Get the firearms guys to come and take this away, will you, Bear?” Hunter asked.

  “Of course,” Bear nodded.

  “Have you noticed the flat is triple-glazed, Boss?” Rachael said. “And these net curtains feel funny. They’re very heavy.”

  Bear moved towards her. He pulled a face and studied the curtains carefully.

  “Boss, I think these are Bomb Blast Net Curtains. Why would George need those? They are very unusual and would certainly not be dictated by any house insurance.”

  “True, Bear,” said Hunter.

  “And the security at the front door is as heavy as at the back. It must have cost him a fortune to put in all these security features,” Rachael said.

  “When a simple spy-hole might have done the trick,” Hunter said sadly.

  “Look what I've found, Boss. Another gun, and this weapon is much more modern, but it is an air rifle. My guess is it was bought after the last gun laws were passed in 1997 banning hand guns” Tim held out an air rifle hidden behind the second shelf of books. “George wouldn't have needed a lice
nce for this.”

  “Why didn't he hand in the old pistol during the amnesty?” Bear asked.

  “No idea. It would have made sense. I wonder what was he worried about?” Tim said.

  “I have no idea. I wish he had confided in me. But now that is what we have to find out,” Hunter sighed. “Because whatever it was, it killed him.”

  Chapter Four

  For Jamie Thomson, the good things about sharing a house with his cousin Frankie Hope were that Frankie was tidy and not a bad cook. The downside was that Frankie’s two baby daughters, Kylie-Ann and Dannii-Ann, who also lived there, sometimes cried in the night. And their nappies often smelt rank. Still, Frankie helped Jamie run his pop’s luxury car showroom, Thomson’s Top Cars. The least Jamie could do was support Frankie with the babies.

  Jamie was taking his new managerial position at Thomson’s Top Cars very seriously. With Pop still in jail, and his last manager, Arjun Mansoor, also locked up for dealing cocaine, that left Jamie and Frankie managing the family business.

  “I’m glad we’re doing this together,” Jamie said to his cousin. “I know having to leave us in charge is stressing Pop out!”

  “Aye, probably more stress than his time in prison could ever have done. But at least you’ve passed your driving test now.”

  Frankie could have been reading his uncle’s mind. Ian Thomson had just under two months to go before he was eligible for parole, and in the meantime could only hope that Jamie and Frankie didn’t do anything too stupid to ruin his business. At least the wee receptionist, Jenny Kozlowski, seemed to have a bit of common sense.

  “I’ll be a bit late in today, Frankie, can you hold the fort?”

  “Aye. What you up to, then?”

  “Nothing much. It’s just that it’s Jenny’s birthday, and I’m going to pick up cakes for all of us for coffee break.”

  “If it’s her birthday, she should buy the cakes. That’s what the rest of us all do,” Frankie protested. “You fancy her, don’t you?”

  “Don’t be stupid!”

  “Aye you do. Well, I won’t tell the guys in the workshop, if I can get a chocky doughnut.”