Thursday legends - Skinner 10

by Quintin Jardine

The banker frowned. 'Come to think of it,' he began. 'I do remember him saying, at one point, "You look like the cat that's got all the fucking cream: but just you wait. It'll go sour on you before long." '

  62

  Karen laughed. 'I don't know why I'm leaving the force,' she said. 'I might as well still be drawing the money, if you're going to bring the whole bloody office home with you every night.' She settled herself down beside Andy on the big living-room sofa, her legs tucked up under her. Before them, the coffee table was strewn with files, photographs and statements.

  'Don't worry,' he promised her, with a grin. 'This is a one-off. The Big Man heard me say something pompous on radio yesterday and he's called my bluff.'

  'I didn't think you were pompous!' she protested. 'I thought you sounded very sensible and completely committed. But what exactly have you been doing for the last hour or so, while I've been busying myself in the kitchen?'

  'I've been reading the papers in the Alec Smith investigation, going back to the very start. Bob can't shake off the notion that there's a link between it and the Shearer murder, and the hit-and-run on him as well. He's asked me to confirm it or kill it off.'

  'But I thought that Smith was a closed book, more or less.'

  'As far as I'm concerned, it is. I'm just rereading it.'

  'And what have you learned?'

  'I've learned that Alec Smith liked his nuts ...'

  'Before they were burned off.' Karen murmured.

  'Cashews, actually. I've learned that of all the people interviewed in North Berwick, not one had ever been inside Smith's house. I've learned that he was seen around walking his dog, but that at other times he let the animal run loose. I've learned that on the night he was killed, North Berwick was a ghost town; hardly anyone seems to have been out on the street. The pubs were full, though.'

  'No suspicious sightings? No furtive bloke spotted carrying a Safeway bag with a wrench, a knife and a blowtorch in it?'

  'No. One guy saw a figure in an anorak carrying a big parcel, but that was all.'

  'An anorak? It was a warm night.'

  Andy grinned. 'Makes no difference in North Berwick. Even on a mild night it can turn windy all of a sudden, and the haar can come in off the sea without warning.'

  'So, to sum up, you've been wasting your time for the last hour?'

  'Yeah,' he sighed. 'There's only one thing that struck me as slightly peculiar.' 'What was that?'

  'Something from the post-mortem report, actually.' He leaned forward and picked it up from the coffee table. 'Sarah remarks that Smith was very fit and that judging by the musculature of his legs he must have taken a lot of physical exercise; walking, running or cycling, she suggests. Yet ...' He paused.

  'Yes?' Karen asked, eagerly.

  'Yet Bob told me that Alec Smith gave up playing football with his Thursday night crowd because his right knee had packed up on him. Either he made a miracle recovery afterwards, or he was lying.

  'If he was, it makes me wonder. Why did he really chuck it?'

  'Maybe it occurred to him that a collection of middle-aged men kicking a ball around might look faintly silly.'

  Andy laughed out loud. 'Don't you ever say that to Bob Skinner, or to Neil. It's their religion.' He tossed the report back on the table and stood up.

  'You know what?' he began. 'I think I'll go to bed.'

  She gave him a long, enticing look. 'Can I come too?'

  He grinned down at her, on the sofa. 'That was the general idea,' he murmured.

  63

  'Don't be crazy, Bob. No way will I cut that plaster off for you; I have to work in the Royal Infirmary. Granted, your leg is not broken, granted, you probably will be kicking footballs around in two to three weeks; but it's still possible that you could have damaged ligaments which could cause long-term problems if you take liberties with them. The orthopaedic guys said you must wear that for a week, and a week it is.'

  'Sarah, come on. It's itching like...'

  'No!' She looked at the plaster. 'I'll tell you what; it's loosened off a bit; I'll pour just a little baby oil into it. That might ease it.'

  'Anything; I'll try anything.'

  She took a bottle of Johnson's oil from her dressing table and soaked a piece of cotton wool, then rubbed it around his leg, above the plaster, as he sat on the edge of the bed. 'Ahh!!' he sighed as the balm made its way down. 'That's my girl.'

  He lay back and settled down on the divan, leaving his plastered leg hanging over. 'I think I'll go into the office tomorrow,' he said. 'I'll get a car to pick me up.'

  'And hobble around, putting weight on that leg?' she exclaimed. 'No, you will not.'

  'God, you're a hard woman. I wonder if Alec Smith's wife was like you; maybe that's what made him such a morose bugger.'

  She snorted. 'People like the late DCI Smith are not made: they're born. This may not be very scientific, but I do believe in human nature.' She took off her dressing gown and slipped, naked, into bed beside him. 'Take our younger son, for example; he's you in miniature, already.'

  He smiled as she switched the light off. 'I wonder how the new one will turn out?'

  'Ahh,' said Sarah. 'She'll be like her mother; a more placid and co-operative baby I have never seen. Let's hope that the next two are like her.'

  'The next two?' he gasped. 'One, okay, but ... It's tough, paying university fees out of a pension, and I'll be retiring by the time Seonaid's at that stage.'

  'I'd sort of hoped you'd be retiring before then.'

  Suddenly she was aware that he was sitting bolt upright in the dark. 'What is it?' she asked, anxiously.

  'It's you. Something you said. Oh, you little cracker.'

  He switched on the light once more and scrambled for his address book in the drawer of the bedside table. She watched as he flicked through the pages until he reached the 'Mc' section, then picked up the telephone and dialled.

  'Mario,' he said at last. 'DCC here. Sorry if I woke you, but it'll be worth it. I've just remembered something Alec Smith said to me a long time back. I was quizzing him one day about SB security.

  'I remember it now, as clear as day. He gave me a long look and he said, "The only way anyone'll ever crack my safe, sir, is if they know my mother's Co-op number". Alec's mother lived in Lochgelly, in Fife. She died four years ago. I wonder how long the Co-operative Society holds on to the records of departed members?'

  64

  'What have you got for me, Jack?' Dan Pringle's heavy moustache bristled as he looked across at his sergeant.

  McGurk laid a folder on the Superintendent's desk. 'Mr Luke Heard, sir. Age forty-four, senior partner of the firm of Paris Simons; married, wife's name Gwendoline, nee MacDonald, one daughter aged seventeen and two sons, aged fourteen and twelve. Educated at George Watson's and Edinburgh University; the kids are all at Watson's too. He's a member of the New Club, Drumsheugh Baths Club, Edinburgh Sports Club, and the Merchant Company of Edinburgh.

  'His salary at Paris Simons is one hundred and seventy thousand pounds per annum; in addition, as an equity partner he shares in profits. As well as his involvement with the firm, he holds non-executive directorships in a few firms in which he's invested. One's a software development house in Livingston, another's a design consultancy, and a third specialises in the disposal of clinical waste.

  'He's also chairman of a company called Linton Heritable Trust; it's an investment vehicle based in Liechtenstein owned by a man called Dominic Jackson.

  'Heard's last tax return declared total income of four hundred and ninety-one thousand pounds.'

  'Fuckin' hell,' Pringle growled.

  'Well put, sir. Yet he's not as wealthy as he should be. His pension's healthy but his house is still mortgaged, and looking at his bank accounts he isn't as cash rich as you'd expect. Our Mr Heard's a bit of a gambler; he goes to the casino out at Maybury quite a bit. He isn't a big loser, but he's consistently in the red.

  'He told the manager there that his ambition was to be very r
ich and retired by the time he was fifty. If the Golden Crescent deal had gone through, that would have realised it for him.'

  The Superintendent nodded. 'Aye, he must really have been pissed off with Shearer.' He frowned. 'This man Dominic Jackson; what do we know about him?'

  A slow, slightly smug, grin spread over the Sergeant's face. 'That's where it gets really interesting, sir. I asked the police national computer that very same question, and it came up with only one answer. Dominic Jackson is an alias of one Leonard Plenderleith, currently resident in HM Prison, Shotts, serving three consecutive life sentences.

  Pringle seemed to sit bolt upright. 'Big Lennie Plenderleith! Tony Manson's minder!'

  'Manson's heir, sir. When Terrible Tony was murdered, he left Plenderleith all his offshore cash; it's still there, untouchable, and it's growing. Heard visits him in Shotts every three months with investment reports.'

  'For his sake, I hope they're good.'

  'They are, sir. Big Lennie directs the investments himself; he's very conservative and he gets a good growth rate.'

  'How did you find that out?'

  'The Governor of Shotts told me; he and Plenderleith are on friendly terms.'

  'What else did he tell you about him?'

  'Quite a lot,' said McGurk. 'For a start, he said that he's bought a hell of a lot of equipment for the inmates. Not just

  pool tables and tellys but PCs with educational programmes. He's also set up a hardship fund, for inmates with family problems. He provides the money and the Governor deals with applications for assistance.

  'In the nick, big Lennie is a god. After what he did for Tony Manson, he's held in a sort of awe, and even the hardest guys in there are terrified of him. Yet he rarely speaks to the other inmates, and when he does, it's usually to put a stop to potential trouble. If anyone has a grievance they can go to him and he'll raise it with the Governor, but he will not allow any nonsense. He's working towards the day, in ten years or so, maybe less, when the Parole Board comes to review his sentence, and he wants to be sure that when it does, no-one has a bad word to say about him.

  'So he studies ... he's on the verge of a PhD in criminology ... he writes ... his first novel's due out in two months ... and he works out in the gym. The only people who ever visit him are Heard, his lawyer and his accountant ... oh, and occasionally, DCC Skinner.'

  '... who locked him up in the first place,' Pringle muttered. He looked at McGurk. 'Jack, are you trying to tell me that big Lennie could have had Howard Shearer killed as a favour to Heard?'

  The tall Sergeant shook his head. 'From what I've been told, that's unlikely; Plenderleith's still a relatively young man, and he's far too clever to jeopardise his future by doing something like that. But maybe, maybe inadvertently, he mentioned a name to Heard during one of their meetings, a name from his past, who might be up to something like that.'

  'Maybe,' Pringle conceded. 'Do Heard's bank accounts show any unexplained cash payments to anyone?'

  'They show cash withdrawals, sir, but he's a gambler, remember. If he did hire someone, he could have paid him out of winnings and we'd have a hell of a job proving it.'

  'That's true. Tell me something Jack. Do you fancy Heard for this?'

  'Who else have we got, sir?'

  'True, but... If there's one thing I've learned in my thirty-something years in this job it's never to trust it if it's too fucking easy.

  'So, son, you're going to have to do this the hard way for a

  while. Have you got that tail on Heard?'

  McGurk nodded. 'Ray Wilding's watching him now' 'Good. You get out there and join him. Follow the bugger

  to the toilet, even. Meantime I'd better speak to the Boss

  about his pal, big Lennie.'

  65

  'Big Bob,' muttered McGuire, fervently, to the empty room, 'you may be constitutionally incapable of keeping your hands off your officers' investigations, but every so often you do come up with a beauty.'

  He cradled the phone, stood, and walked out of his office into the Special Branch room outside. Alec Smith's squat, grey, ugly safe stood in the middle of the floor. Maggie sat on the edge of a desk, making conversation with a middle-aged man in a brown suit, who had not been there when McGuire had left to make his telephone call.

  'Mario,' she said. 'This is Mr Evans from Guardian Security; he's their top locksmith, so the company told me.'

  The little man smiled in what was meant to be a self-deprecating way, but the Inspector knew that he was not about to disagree with the description. 'I do my best,' he said, lamely.

  'Nothing else will do, Mr Evans,' McGuire boomed. 'Nothing else.' He looked at his wife and smiled. 'The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society came up trumps; the late Mrs Mary Eglinton Smith, of Morocco Lane, Lochgelly, was indeed a member, to the day she died ... you might even say to the day the Co-op undertaker put her in the ground. Her membership number was five ... three ... six ... four.' Maggie noted the four digits down as he spoke.

  'There's nothing else for it, sir,' he said to the locksmith.

  'We'll have to go with that as the combination. Can you open it for us?'

  Mr Evans frowned. 'It's not just the numbers,' he said. 'This is a classic circular combination lock, not one of these shoddy keyboard jobs - you have to know the direction as well. Four digits, possibly in random order, either right or left, not necessarily alternately. Yes, that cuts the odds against guessing right down to around one hundred thousand to one.

  'Forget all that stuff you've seen in films, too, where the safecracker uses a stethoscope to listen for clicks as the mechanism works. This lock is silent; when you key the first digit you have to hold it in position for five seconds before it engages, with the next it's six seconds, then seven, and finally eight.

  'Yes,' Mr Evans said, proudly. 'It's a clever little bugger.' McGuire's face fell. 'So we're no further forward,' he muttered.

  'In theory.' The little man beamed. 'But in practice ... I built this thing and although I didn't tell my colleagues, I did include one little fail-safe, against the outside possibility of a situation such as this arising.'

  'Like what?'

  'I programme my own signature into the locking mechanism of every safe I build. It over-rides the owner's combination. Naturally, I have never breathed a word of this to a soul, not even within the group. If my small secret leaked out, I'd be a prime target for kidnap, wouldn't I?

  'So as far as anyone outside this room is concerned, when you gave me Mr Smith's combination, we just got lucky.'

  He turned, bent over the safe and twirled the dial of the lock for a little over a minute, then straightened up. With a soft hiss, sounding almost like a sigh, the door swung open.

  'There.' His voice rang with pride. 'Behold! A ton and a half of useless metal; using the override knackers the lock completely.'

  Maggie looked at him, eyes narrowed just a shade. 'Thank you, Mr Evans. You do realise that if anyone ever does succeed in cracking a Guardian safe, you're going to need a hell of a strong alibi?'

  'No-one ever will, Chief Inspector. I believe I can promise you that.'

  'We'll hold you to that,' said McGuire, with a grin, as he escorted the little locksmith to the door. DC Cowan was waiting outside. 'Show Mr Evans out, Alice, if you would, then come back and man, or woman, the phones. The DCI and I have some reading to do in my office, and we're not to be disturbed.'

  As the general office door closed on the Constable and the visitor, he turned back to the safe; Maggie had already swung the door open fully. It was massive, but moved easily and noiselessly on well-lubricated hinges.

  'Bingo!' she whispered. Given its bulk, it was surprisingly small on the inside; all that it contained was an Apple lap-top computer, complete with manuals, transformer, cable and plug, and a green metal strongbox. 'That spare key,' she said. 'Betcha that's what it's for.'

  'Let's take these into my room and find out.'

  He picked up the computer and the box,
one in each hand and carried them into his office, laying them on his table. Maggie plugged in the transformer and attached it to the laptop, then pulled up a chair and sat down. She released the catch and swung the screen into position, then pushed the start-up button.

  As they waited for the Apple to boot up, Mario took out Alec Smith's key ring and slid the third key into the lock of the strongbox. It clicked open and he lifted the lid. 'Envelopes,' he muttered, as he stared at the contents. 'It's full of numbered envelopes.' He picked one up and looked inside. 'Photographs,' he told her, 'and negative strips. There are some computer disks here too.'

  'Software, maybe; or copies of files.' Maggie smiled as the computer desktop appeared; the background pattern was an array of blue cats. 'Animal lover, eh,' she said. 'Let's see what's in here.' She double-clicked the hard-disk icon to reveal the machine's contents. 'Three folders; System, Applications and one that's called "John". John?' she wondered.

  'Alec's son,' Mario whispered. 'The boy who died of AIDS.'

  She opened the folder, to find a list of twenty-eight documents, twenty-seven of them titled with a number and one word. She looked at the first: 'Barnfather,' she read.

  Her husband looked over her shoulder. 'I've only ever heard of one person of that name,' he said.

  'Yes,' she agreed, 'and I've made his acquaintance. Not that he was aware of it at the time. He'd been dead for a couple of days.' She paused.

  'Mario, I've got a feeling about this.' She opened the 'document and began to read.

  'The subject is a senior Supreme Court judge whose proclivities have been rumoured around Edinburgh for many years.

  'Barnfather was observed on several occasions cruising in Leith, striking up conversations with young men. (See photographic evidence) On more than one occasion the contacts accompanied him to his flat in Tevendale Street and remained there for several hours. 'Barnfather was also observed (See photographic evidence) frequenting an address in Cockburn Street, immediately above retail premises which operated as a homosexual gathering place. I attempted to have Drugs and Vice raid the premises, but was told that there were no grounds, since the premises were private and there was no evidence of soliciting nor of prostitution.'