Andy was taking notes because Aaronson didn't want to be recorded. He looked up from his notebook, reached for his pint of Peroni, and asked, 'How reliable are these rumours? Are you going to write about them?'
'I may mention them in my blog. I think they're pretty firm but I don't have enough convince an editor.'
'But why would Roskill be doing it? He's already loaded and his directors' fees and what he gets from investments like Burtonhall must produce a pretty sizeable income on top of his pension.'
'Greed. Simple as that. Some people can't get enough, even if they have nothing more to spend it on. I think that Roskill couldn't believe how easy it was to monetize his political career and so he just goes on doing it. Nothing wrong with that except the way he does it. He seems to see nothing immoral about avoiding and evading tax. He's a hypocrite and he deserves to be stopped.'
Andy Hanna was beginning to feel a little unsettled by Aaronson’s radical zeal, so he decided to turn the conversation to the practicalities of Roskill's activities.
'How would he go about acquiring these "going concerns"? And why would he want to do it offshore and, I assume, anonymously?'
'The world of private equity investment - buying and selling "entities", as they call them, that are not traded on public stock exchanges - is very dynamic, with firms investing and disinvesting all the time, for all sorts of reasons. One group of investors believes they can't turn a profit where another believes it can, so the "entity" leaves the portfolio of one fund and ends up in the portfolio of another.'
'So, to take a random example', Andy smiled wryly, 'if Burtonhall decided to sell Hedelco, or Ebright, or both, they could probably find a buyer.'
'Oh, yes!'
'Is it possible that Roskill is positioning himself to do that?'
'It's possible. The insider trading rules for publicly quoted companies don't apply to the Wild West world of private equity, so his directorship of Burtonhall wouldn't be a legal impediment. I don't think you need me to comment on the ethics.'
*
Fiske and MacNee knocked on the door of Martin Gilbertson’s cottage in Fetteresso at eight o’clock on Sunday morning. Neither Neil Derrick nor Janet MacNee had been best pleased when their partners informed them that they were going to be working on Sunday morning. Colin’s children were supposed to be his priority at the weekend and Vanessa and Neil usually had a long lie in. The detectives had used almost exactly the same phrases in explanation: the speed of the investigation was out of their hands; the politics meant that they needed to close the case quickly; even Esslemont was working today.
Neil and Janet may not have appreciated it, but the fact that the DCS was coming into HQ to be available to interview the accused men if information collected from Gilbertson and Mancuso made it necessary to do so, was the most compelling of the reasons given by their partners. It was a very long time since Esslemont had not been on the golf course on a sunny Sunday.
‘Good morning, Mr Gilbertson,’ Vanessa Fiske said, as a surprised and pyjama-clad Martin Gilbertson looked round the door. ‘I hope this isn’t a bad time. We need to talk to you.’
Gilbertson said nothing. He opened the door and stood back to let them in. It was a small, recently renovated farmworker’s cottage, with a living room and kitchen on the ground floor and a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom built into the roof. Dormer windows had been added back and front, and it looked to Colin as if no expense had been spared on the conversion and modernisation. Gilbertson’s salary would have been enough to secure a loan, but it might be useful to know exactly how the bills had been paid and whether there was a mortgage on the house.
‘The last time we spoke to you, at your office, you said that you knew who had planned the bombing at Last Cairngorm. You then refused to say any more. We need to talk to you about that again and we need you to tell us what, if anything, you know. I can’t promise you anything, but it’s unlikely to do you any harm when your case comes up if the court learns that you have co-operated with us in the investigation of a very serious crime.’
Gilbertson looked uncomfortable, even scared. He brought coffee for himself and Colin and a glass of water for Vanessa.
‘A couple of months before the bombing, Frank Mancuso told me that his security people had identified a couple of guys with Glasgow accents who were spending a lot of time at and near Last Cairngorm. The complex was partly open. People could view the facilities and see what would be available when it was fully operational; it was part of the marketing plan. These guys were taking more pictures than ordinary tourists and Mancuso’s people reciprocated by getting some pretty good shots of them.’
‘Did you see the photos?’
‘Frank brought them to the pub one evening and asked me if I could get my police contacts to see if they were known. I looked at them, but I told him that this was a step to far. Even for me.’ He smiled sardonically at that, and stretched out his arms, palms of his hands upwards, in a gesture of resignation and openness.
‘So you didn’t mention this to Richard Fleming?’
‘No.’
Colin MacNee set his coffee mug down on the table. ‘Did Mancuso tell you that these men had planned the bombing?’
‘Not in so many words, but when it happened he said something about wishing I had done what he asked.’
‘Very interesting.’ Colin looked unimpressed. ‘But if this is true, why didn’t Mancuso tell us this after the bombing?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You said Mancuso brought the pictures to the pub. Did you actually see them?’
‘A brief glance. No more.’
Vanessa reached into her bag for her smartphone and brought up pictures, first of Simon Mathieson and then of Andy MacIlwraith. Gilbertson looked at them in turn.
‘I can’t be sure, because I didn’t look very closely at the pictures Frank brought, but it’s possible.’
*
Frank Mancuso lived in a modern loft apartment in a converted mill near the centre of Aberdeen, rented for him by the Last Corporation. He answered the entry phone and buzzed Fiske and MacNee in. It was about 0915 hrs, and the detectives had driven straight to Mancuso's address after leaving Fetteresso.
'Good morning, Mr Mancuso. Thank you for inviting us in. We need to talk to you a bit more about the bombing.'
'Always a pleasure to see you, Detective Chief Inspector, but, as ever, I don't know how I can help you any further. I've been co-operating fully with the investigation at Last Cairngorm and...'
Vanessa interrupted him. 'This is a separate but related investigation. We'll share any information you provide with the Anti-Terriorism Squad and with Special Branch.'
Mancuso tried to look unconcerned, but didn't quite manage it. He invited the detectives to sit down, but offered no other hospitality.
'We have reason to believe that you have withheld evidence that would assist the police in their investigation of the Last Cairngorm bombing. Not only does that impede the enquiry, it may lay you open to a charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice, and that's very serious.'
Mancuso remained composed. 'I have no idea what you are talking about.'
Vanessa shook her head and tried look more disappointed than angry. 'We think that you have security photographs of two men whom you suspect of involvement in the bombing. It would be in your interests to let us have them.'
Mancuso now seemed rather less comfortable. 'We must have taken hundreds of pictures during the preview openings of the facility. How am I supposed to know which ones you're talking about?'
Colin MacNee quickly calculated that Mancuso had probably worked out where they had got their information. 'You could start with the two that you tried to have checked against police records. And don't even bother pleading ignorance again. It won't wash. And we really don't have time to be pissed about.'
'They're in my office.' He sighed, as if he accepted that it was futile to resist. 'In the filing cabinet. We could drive out
and get them.'
'We'll take your word that they're safe. Meanwhile, we'd like you to confirm that these are the men.'
Vanessa brought out her smartphone and Mancuso confirmed that the men in his pictures were Mathieson and MacIlwraith.
'Thank you. Now, tell us what you know about James Michael Roskill.'
*
Andy Hanna and Ben Aaronson continued their conversation as they looked across the Thames. Andy was finding it difficult to distinguish radical polemic from research and analysis.
'I think I understand the mechanics of one fund buying an "entity" from another. What I'm not clear about is how an "insider" could take advantage of his or position during the sale and transfer process, apart from knowing in advance that the "entity" was about to come on the market.'
Aaronson seemed to be examining something on the far bank of the river. 'That brings us back to the question of ethics. Almost everything does. Let's assume that the insider knows that an entity is marginal in terms of profitability, could go either way, into profit or loss. If he could find a way to nudge it towards loss, that would do two things. It would make a sale more likely. And it would depress the price. Any insider could do that, so, at base, it's a matter of personal morality. It's because personal morality is unreliable that insider trading in publicly quoted shares is subject to severe penalties.'
He sounded, Andy thought, like an instruction manual, or as though he were giving an elementary lecture in stockbroking, as though he was trying to keep himself in check. Time to move on.
'Thanks for your time, Ben. I've got to go.'
Aaronson looked puzzled. 'More than time, Andy. I've given you quite a lot of potentially sensitive information. I think there should be a quid pro quo. Maybe an early heads-up as your enquiries into Roskill proceed?'
'No such thing as a free lunch,' Andy thought, though he had paid at the bistro. As he turned towards the DLR station, he said. 'Not up to me, but if this goes anywhere, I'll talk to my boss.'
*
On their way back to HQ, Fiske and MacNee picked up the main Scottish Sunday newspapers. With the exception of Aaronson in the Sunday sister of the Financial Post, the English-based titles had lost interest in the murders as soon as the arrests were announced. Jason Sime in the G & T had followed up assiduously every detail of the murder investigations and related enquiries. Today, his front page story had an exclusive tag, and a joint byline with the business editor:
US Firms Pull Back on Investment in Scotland
The economic fall-out from the bombing at Last Cairngorm and the cyber attack at Mercury Fulfilment continues. The G & T has learned, from sources within the companies, that both companies are reassessing their financial commitment to Scotland.
The Last Corporation has decided to put the second phase of its Cairngorm development on hold until the economic situation in Scotland has stabilised. The decision was, apparently, taken personally by Ewan Last, whose commitment to Scotland is known to have been shaken by the level of opposition to the Cairngorm project.
Mercury is delaying indefinitely its planned expansion in Cumbernauld and, in a move that is likely to cause even more concern to the Scottish Government, they are known to be looking at development sites in Ireland, where generous tax breaks are on offer, easily comparable with the grant aid they have received in Scotland.
All of this, together with persistent rumours that Burtonhall is looking hard at the performance of Hedelco, who manage Grampian Royal Hospital, and Ebright, who operate the Vermont One oil platform in the North Sea off Aberdeen, will make grim reading for the First Minister and her colleagues.
Vanessa Fiske handed the G & T to Colin MacNee as they walked across the car park. 'To use the famous headline from Variety, it looks as though this one will run and run.'
DCS Esslemont was waiting for them. As soon as he heard what they had learned from Gilbertson and Mancuso, he made two calls. The first was to the Chief Constable to arrange to see him later in the morning. The second was to Aberdeen Prison to ask that MacIver, Mathieson and MacIlwraith be brought to NEC HQ at noon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
By late on Monday afternoon, DS Sara Hamilton and DC Aisha Gajani, working largely on information from DC Cam Ritchie, had found half a dozen people who had known Paul MacIver at university. They remembered him as being a member of the Scottish Freedom Club, but none thought he had been a leading member. His views on the future of Scotland had certainly been radical - one former associate described him as a Revolutionary Nationalist - but the club had been run by two others. One informant remembered that the organisers had been called Mathieson and MacIlwraith, at least until MacIlwraith dropped out of university.
'Useful corroboration', Sara said as they made their way up West Regent Street to a lawyers' office where one of their interviewees had told them they could find someone else who had known MacIver. 'But nothing we didn't know before.'
The offices of Campbell, Scrivener and McGlone were in a converted Victorian town house near Blythswood Square. It had once been elegant, as had most of the houses of Victorian Glasgow, but it was now functional, with a vestibule leading to a reception area indistinguishable in style from the many solicitors' offices, investment consultancies, architectural practices and public relations companies that now dominated the grid of streets that had once been home to the haute bourgeoisie of the city.
Sara and Aisha showed their warrant cards to the young man on reception and asked to see Kate Turnbull. They had phoned ahead, so she was expecting them. They were directed through an internal door. The young man led them up two flights of stairs to a small office. The woman sitting at the desk was in her early thirties with reddish hair and a complexion that marked her out as a native of the west of Scotland.
Sara stuck out her hand and said, 'DS Sara Hamilton. Thank you for seeing us.' She introduced Aisha, and Kate Turnbull motioned them to the two chairs facing her across the desk.
'How can I help?'
'I believe you knew Paul MacIver at university. What can you tell us about him?
'Is this about these murders up in Aberdeen?'
Sara nodded.
'Yes. I knew him. We were exact contemporaries and we took some of the same courses. We were an item for a while after Morven Trask dumped him. He was a good-looking bloke and I couldn't understand - I was just twenty - why Morven had let him go. He made a move on me and I was flattered enough to respond. I moved into his flat and we were together for a year or so.'
'So you got to know him pretty well?'
'As well as anyone ever did, I suppose. He wasn't easy to reach. Too focused on what he always referred to as "The Question of Scotland". I was a nationalist, too. Still am, I suppose. But I quite liked doing other things as well - drinking, dancing, clubbing. After a while, politics and sex weren't enough, so we split up.'
'Who dumped who?'
'I dumped him. I tried to make him lighten up a bit, have a bit of fun, think about something other than "the struggle". He became very intense and tried to make me feel it was my fault for not being committed enough. I remember the moment when I realised why Morven had dumped him'.
'Did you stay in touch after uni?', Aisha asked.
'I saw him around. You know what it's like. It takes a while to stop being a student, so I would see him occasionally in the bars we used to frequent when we were at uni.'
'Did his views change after he left university?'
Kate Turnbull laughed. 'Not so you'd notice! Always going on about direct action, the "respectability" of the SNP, the pointlessness of elections. I told him once that I thought he was trying to bore Scotland into independence.'
'Did you stay in touch for long?'
'Paul went abroad - Canada - a couple of years after he graduated. He wrote to me, which came as a surprise. I assumed he still fancied me. But even his letters were political rather than personal.'
'In what way?
'He was in Montreal and he was spendi
ng time with a faction of the separatists. Went on about how much more committed to Quebec nationalism they were than the Parti Québécois and how Scotland could learn a lot from them.'
Sara glanced at Aisha and then said, 'I don't suppose you kept the letters?'
Kate Turnbull smiled. 'I'm a lawyer. I keep everything. And yes, I'll let you see them. Nothing passionate in them except the politics.'
*
On the train to Glasgow, DCs Duncan Williamson and Stewart Todd had agreed that Sara and Aisha should concentrate on MacIver’s university contacts while they tried to find anyone who could place either Mathieson or MacIlwraith in the company of Paul McIver. They soon found that they had drawn the short straw. It was very difficult to investigate the backgrounds of two men who had hardly ever had jobs, and whose interests, as far as they knew, were solitary: surfing the Internet in MacIlwraith’s case, and playing with computers in Mathieson’s.
By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2) Page 27