the fire services. They were barely there before there was a second
outbreak, in the empty office of Tubau Gordon pica fund manager up in
the Exchange district. By the time the firemen got up there, a whole
floor had been completely destroyed."
"And was this fire deliberately started?"
"There's no evidence of that, sir. But an entire division of the
company was wiped out; its records all the way back to January were
totally destroyed. When the chief executive of the company did a
financial reconciliation, he discovered a loss of thirty million
pounds."
"So it was deliberately started?"
Rose smiled. "As I said, there's no evidence of that. The fire
service, and independent people, conducted a complete investigation.
Everyone's agreed that it was an electrical fire caused by overheating
in a computer, which was routinely left switched on. The experts say
that as far as they can see it was an accident."
Skinner grinned. "But we're not as bloody stupid as them, are we? We
don't ignore the obvious."
Rose returned his smile. "No, boss, we do not." She turned to Steele.
"Stevie, would you like to take this up?"
The inspector nodded. "Yes, ma'am. The obvious, sir, is that these
two fires were both spontaneous outbreaks, but there was evidence of
detonation in one and not in the other. The experts' view is that if
there's no forensic evidence of fire-raising, there's no case. But
what if the computer where the fire started was the timer? What if it
was rigged to set it off itself at a specific time? There would be no
forensic evidence, would there? None you could see, that's for sure.
So we're down to circumstances. Let's consider the loss. Tubau Gordon
is an investment trust manager, and a good one; there's no way even a
bad investment manager could blow thirty mil within an IT without it
starting to showing up to his colleagues from the start. So as I see
it, the loss must have been generated in the company's secondary
business."
"Which is?"
"Currency speculation," Steele replied. "And guess what? The computer
where the blaze began was the one used for that activity."
"But why go to all the trouble of holding up the fire brigade? Even
with an automatic call out system, the computer would be gone by the
time the fire-fighters got there."
"Because the back-up computer and all the paper records had to be
destroyed as well. And it had to be done that weekend. Three days
later those records would have been archived off-site."
Skinner smiled, and punched the air in a mock gesture. "Clever boy,
Stevie. So who's the link?"
"David Candela. His family has a private investment trust which uses
the dealing services of Tubau Gordon. It's located on the Oriental
floor, where the currency division was also housed. Mr. Candela
manages his trust himself; all the instructions to the brokers come
from him. He enjoys round-the-clock access to the building and he's a
regular attender at weekends; the security log shows that.
"Further investigation over the weekend has revealed that Mr. Candela
was a regular client of the Maybury Casino. He's a heavy gambler, and
frequently complains about the house limit, even when he's losing.
"To sum up, sir, my belief is that Mr. Candela has extended his
gambling by dealing privately on the currency markets, but he hasn't
been using his own assets, he's been using those of Tubau Gordon. He's
been getting into the currency department and running a private
account, protected, no doubt by a code word known only to him, and one
that no one could enter by accident. A bank audit over the weekend
shows that the loss has been run up over the last couple of months. It
would have been spotted this week; that's why the lot had to go up in
flames last Saturday."
Skinner nodded; he glanced at the lugubrious Pringle, then back at
Steele. "So why aren't you turning cartwheels, Stevie? Why do I sense
that there's a big "but" coming?"
"Because we can't prove a bloody thing, boss," exclaimed the inspector,
tersely. "All the solid evidence there might have been is melted. Any
one of seventy people could have had access to that computer, and could
have run up the loss. The only thing we have to link in Candela is
that phoney fire in the Academy, which for sure he triggered himself at
the exact moment he planned ... and we have no way of proving either
that he planted the device or triggered it."
Skinner pushed himself up from the sofa, walked over to his window and
gazed out on to Fettes Avenue. After a minute he turned and looked
back at his colleagues. "So what you're telling me, boys and girl," he
said, 'is that we've got some clever fucking lawyer in Edinburgh who's
committed the perfect crime."
"That's about it, sir," said Rose, "We know it's him, but there's no
way we'll ever touch him for it. It looks as if he's done just
that."
The deputy chief constable stretched his arms above his head. A wave
of jet-lag caught up with him; he stifled a yawn. He grinned; a smile
that they were all used to and that some of them had thought they would
never see in that room again.
"No, Mags," he said. "He only thinks he has."
sixty-three.
The place was understated, if anything. It was a very plain house,
conservative in its design, without the ramparts and turrets found all
too often in folly dwellings of its age, built from locally quarried
stone, and smaller than might have been expected in such extensive
grounds. And yet, there was something about it that reeked of money,
and old money at that, maybe two hundred years old. Andy Martin's
staff had established that it had been in the same family's ownership
since they had built it in the late nineteenth century.
Bob Skinner stopped his BMW just where the driveway opened out into a
wide garden area in front of the mansion. He was blocking the narrow
road, but that did not worry him; in fact it suited his purpose. It
was well into the evening, but the day had been fine, and the summer
sun was still bright.
As he looked around the grounds, they reminded him of Fir Park Lodge,
but these were kept better. He could see the stripes on the close mown
lawn, and appreciate the neatness of the flower beds, and the careful
way in which the shrubs and bushes had been trimmed. Off to the back
and to the left, he saw outbuildings; stables once upon a time no
doubt, but now garaging for a russet-coloured Range Rover, which stood
gleaming outside. He stood for a moment and listened; from somewhere
not far away came the splashes of a river running. Even though the
spate was over, it still sounded full and fast.
A small sign on the lawn asked him to "Keep off the grass', but he
ignored it and marched straight across, towards the grey granite
house.
He was several yards short of the heavy brown front door when it
opened. A tall thin man appeared; he was wearing grey corduroy
trousers from an
age when fashion meant nothing, a green pullover with
suede patches on the shoulders and elbows, and he was glaring at his
visitor.
"Can't you read, man?" he barked, as Skinner approached. "And look
where you've parked your car."
"Sure I can read," the policeman answered, "English, Spanish and
French, in fact. But sometimes I like to ignore rules, if I think
they're stupid. There's a bit of a rebel in me, you see. As for my
car, I left it there because I didn't want it to disfigure your
charming house." He walked on, unbidden, through the wide doorway and
into a panelled hall; he stopped and looked around. "Very nice," he
said, amiably.
"Get to hell out of there!" the other man exploded. "Just who the
hell are you and what do you think you're doing here?"
Skinner beamed at him. "Just imagine that I'm Michael Aspel, that this
Jiffy bag I've got under my arm is a big red book, and I'm saying,
"David Candela, This is Your Life". Let's start off there."
Candela made a furious, exasperated sound. "You're a lunatic," he
exclaimed, 'a well-dressed lunatic, but a lunatic nonetheless. I'm
calling the police."
Suddenly, Skinner seemed a little less amiable. "I wouldn't do that. I
am the police."
"In that case I'll complain to your inspector."
"You'd be several ranks too low if you did that."
Candela blinked, then stepped into the hall himself, heading for a
small silver box on the wall, beside a grandfather clock. "Don't do
that either," his visitor advised. "I know what that is; it's a panic
button linked to your alarm system. It would only be an inconvenience
to your monitoring station if you activated it. There wouldn't be a
response."
The lawyer stopped. "Very well," he said. A little uncertainty had
crept into his voice, but he was still in control of himself and
showing no sign of alarm. "If this is an official visit, you'd better
come through to the drawing room. I've seen a few of you people over
the last ten days or so; I have to say they were all a damn sight more
polite than you."
Skinner smiled at him, cheerily. "This is me being polite, Mr.
Candela," he exclaimed. "I'm nowhere near being rude, not yet, and
rude's only a step along the way to nasty."
"Bloody lunatic," Candela muttered as he led the way into a long room,
oak-panelled like the hall. It was furnished with big soft armchairs
in flowery fabrics; a refectory table stood near the door, and three
portraits, each carefully lit from above, were suspended from a rail
along one wall. Windows looked out and down towards the river, and a
double patio door opened out on to the grounds.
"Nice place," the policeman commented; a sincere compliment. "I
suppose it's been in your family since the nineteenth century?"
"Yes, we built it," the lawyer snapped impatiently. "Look, do I know
you?"
"You should; if you were serious about your precious firm and not just
a fucking dilettante, you'd know me all right. You know my family,
though; Candela and Finch has represented it for about thirty years.
And of course you have a personal connection with us."
Candela frowned. "Would you like to explain that?"
"I'll explain it by asking you something. How did my brother Michael
die?"
The colour drained from the thin man's face in an instant. He looked
towards the patio door as if he was about to run for it; Skinner
forestalled any attempt by taking a step to his right, blocking the
way. "You're ..." he gasped.
"I'm Bob Skinner," said the policeman. "I'm pretty well known in
Edinburgh, but you're not really interested in the city, are you?
You're interested in the casino and in playing up here. For all you
pretend, your position as senior partner is written into your firm's
constitution. You don't actually manage it, one of the other guys does
that."
He took the padded envelope from under his arm. "It really is all in
here, you know, your whole exciting life."
Candela had gathered his thoughts. "I know nothing about your
brother!" he exclaimed. "I read about his death in the newspapers,
but that's all."
"Oh, don't be fucking silly," Skinner retorted. "I wouldn't have
brought it up if I didn't know for certain. Before I came here, I
spoke to a man called Angus dAbo, in Birnam. I showed him your
photograph ..." he tapped the envelope '.. . and he identified you
right away as the man who came into his local with Michael a few days
before he died. Mike got completely trousered and you carted him off.
Before I spoke to dAbo I faxed the same photo to Brother Aidan at Oak
Lodge. He clocked you too, old as he is. He identified you as the man
my brother called
Skipper, the man who took him away from his home and never brought him
back." The DCC grinned; he was taking a deadly enjoyment from the
account.
"Skipper was your nickname in the army, Mr. Candela," he said, then
saw the man's eyes narrow. "Yes, I've got your service file in here
too; I had it sent up to me by secure fax this morning. I've got
Michael's as well, of course. They tell me that the two of you served
together in Honduras; you were a company commander in the Scots Guards,
and he was a lieutenant in the Sappers. When you went out on patrol,
he and his guys would often go with you, in case something needed
blowing up."
The policeman paused; a corner of his mouth flicked upwards, a strange
gesture. When he spoke again there was a catch in his voice. "There
was so much I never knew about my brother, Candela, because I never
asked. I did as my father wanted and I left him to live out the rest
of his life away from me; at first because I couldn't trust myself near
him, then eventually because I didn't see the point of reminding him of
the old hatred between us. Rodney Windows ... in case you don't know
him either, he's one of your partners in Candela and Finch .. . sent me
reports on him every year, but that was all I ever knew about him.
"When I read his army file this morning, though, I found out a hell of
a lot. For example, he was some sort of a fucking genius at
demolition. You guys were on special ops down there, weren't you? He
wasn't there just to clear fallen palm trees in the jungle. You were
setting traps for the insurgents, booby-trapping their supply dumps,
setting remote devices in their villages, all sorts of brutal stuff
that never got reported anywhere. Mike was so good at it that for a
while your CO and his turned a blind eye to his drinking. Until the
fire-fight incident, that is."
Skinner held up the Jiffy bag and took a single step towards the other
man. "It really is all in here, Candela; everything, including the
answer to something that's always niggled me. When my father
eventually told me about Michael's discharge from the army; he said
that he was spared prosecution for manslaughter because of my dad's own
military record. If he told me that, then that's what he believed, but
&nb
sp; as a policeman I always doubted it. And I was right. The two guys who
were killed were shot by his weapon, all right, but there was no
evidence of him actually firing it. More than that, some of his guys,
the other Royal Engineer lads with the unit, testified that when you
ambushed those rebels and the fire-fight happened he was so cross-eyed
drunk that he couldn't have fired anything. They said that he wasn't
even there; he was flat on his back at your camp in the jungle."
The policeman took another step towards Candela. "Then there's this;
the two guys who were killed had duties with the quartermaster's unit.
There had been major stock discrepancies from that unit in the days
leading up to the incident. You had orders to arrest those two guys
and hold them for military police questioning as soon as you got back
from that mission. And those orders were confidential; only you knew
about them. No one could prove anything about you either, of course.
Thursday Legends Page 40