Free Last Resort by Quintin Jardine Page A

could be turned into mileage, they’d circumscribe the planet.
    As a failsafe, I phoned my daughter Alex, and asked her to call on the Governor of Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution and let him in on the secret, so that the lad could be protected immediately, should the truth be leaked.
    I tried to get away without telling her why I wanted it done, but she knows I’m not an impulse buyer, and that there’s a specific reason for everything I do. When I told her about Baillie, and Carrie McDaniels, and the call to Mia’s programme from a public phone, she went volcanic.
    ‘Who is this man?’ she shouted. ‘I’ll find him, I’ll go to court and I’ll tie him up in an interdict so tight his bloody eyes will pop out! He won’t be able to come within a mile of you or any member of our family.’
    ‘Thanks, love,’ I said, ‘but that won’t help. The interdict itself wouldn’t be secret; it would draw attention to the problem. When I’m ready, I’ll make his eyes pop myself. But there’s one thing you can do. D’you remember me telling you that I had a second DNA test done on Ignacio and me?’
    ‘Of course I do. You used a lab in Glasgow, didn’t you?’
    ‘That’s right. I went there in person, and dealt with the director of the clinic personally; I gave him the samples, but I didn’t say whose they were. He assumed that it was police business, and I didn’t correct him: but I did pay with my own debit card.
    ‘I’d like you to have a chat with him; not a threatening chat, mind, just a conversation. Without saying why, ask him to check whether there’s been any unauthorised access to the records of the tests.’
    She was still fizzing with anger. ‘Oh, I will, don’t you worry,’ she murmured. ‘I won’t threaten him with anything; I’ll let him make another assumption, that’s all.’ She paused for a couple of seconds. ‘Dad, can’t I do anything about this man Baillie? Knowing he’s out there, using Ignacio as a weapon against you . . .’
    I understood her frustration. At that moment, I’d have liked to be standing on the guy’s doorstep, with no witnesses.
    ‘There is one thing,’ I suggested. ‘Sauce says that he writes true crime books. See if you can find any, and read them. They might give you some insight into the man.’
    ‘I will do,’ she promised. I heard her draw a breath. ‘Pops,’ she continued, although she sounded hesitant, ‘is there any chance this could have leaked from within the police force?’
    ‘That’s a fair question, love,’ I conceded, ‘but I don’t believe so. Yes, a DNA link between me and Ignacio was established during the investigation into Bella Watson’s murder, when they ran his sample through the national database, but the only people who knew about it were Sammy Pye and Sauce Haddock, who investigated the murder, Arthur Dorward, the forensic team leader, and his technicians . . . and two others. When Arthur saw the findings he reported them directly to Maggie Steele and Mario McGuire, as chief constable and assistant chief. The knowledge went no further than that group and none of those would talk, none of them.’
    ‘Not even the technicians?’
    ‘No chance.’
    Her silence told me that she wasn’t one hundred per cent convinced.
    ‘Trust me on that,’ I insisted.
    ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘Certain. Now go on, do as I asked.’
    ‘Okay, I will, but you do one thing for me. Put this distraction right out of your head and focus on what you’re in Spain to do; leave Baillie to me, and get on with considering your future. By the way,’ she added, ‘Andy said he wants to talk to you about that when you get back.’
    I smiled as I pocketed my phone. Andy Martin, my daughter’s partner, and first chief constable of the new unified Scottish police service, had talked to me about nothing else in the weeks since he’d taken up his post.
    I hadn’t ruled out all of the suggestions he’d made, but I was clear that whatever I