Skinner's Trail

by Quintin Jardine

  Thirty-four

  It looked more like a business meeting over coffee by the beach, in true Costa style, than the culmination of a criminal investigation.

  The three men sat around a table on the pavement outside La Caravel, Skinner with a cortado — a Spanish version of espresso with a little milk — Pujol and Ainscow with café con leche. Just across the way, the pocket-sized town beach was thronged with its usual late-afternoon mixture of mothers, infants and shoppers gathered together in a summer ritual of sunbathing and gossip. Some, from the bags which they carried, had come straight from the Maxor supermarket, less than two hundred metres away in one of the old town's narrow streets.

  Pujol sampled his coffee, replaced the small white cup in its saucer, and picked up his briefcase. He opened it and withdrew a neatly typed document, which he placed in the centre of the table.

  He looked at Skinner then at Ainscow. Finally, he said, That is a report prepared by my agent, after going through the accounts of InterCosta with Senor Ainscow's accountant. It is of course in Spanish, and I have not had the opportunity to have it translated. However I will summarise it for you. It seems that, for some time, amounts of money have been disappearing

  from the company account. They have been between three hundred thousand and two million pesetas. Each, shall we say, withdrawal has related to a sales transaction. It has not come from the property management side. That has been going on for years. It will take much time to identify every one of the thefts, but my hombre and yours, Senor Ainscow, they are agreed that the total missing could be as much as two hundred million pesetas.'

  'A million sterling!' said Skinner in surprise. Ainscow said nothing, but looked grim.

  'Si. Over a number of years, but it is still a lot of money.' `So how was it done?'

  `Very simply. Senor Ainscow has told you of the way in which money was moved from Scotland to Espana. I know that you may think it irresponsible, Bob, but in fact it is quite a common practice in our property business. The banks have only themselves to blame. It is very expensive to move money from country to country by official transfer. Because of this, many people use blank cheques made out for cash, drawn on accounts in foreign countries. It is as effective as official transfer, it is often quicker, and it is not expensive.

  What has happened with InterCosta is that some of those cheques have been diverted. Senor Ainscow's records in Scotland show that they have been completed and honoured, but they have not all been paid into the InterCosta account in Banca Catalana. Some have been cashed somewhere else, with money-changers. Many of them here will accept ordinary cheques for a higher commission.

  `It is so simple. The theft was not from the client. It was from the company itself, from the profits of InterCosta.'

  `Yes,' said Skinner, 'I understand. I assume that, every time, the sum stolen was always within the level of commission due on that sale.'

  `Exactamente! The sellers of the properties concerned were always paid in full. The buyers, they pay their money, they get their apartment, everybody is happy. The only person who does not get his money is Senor Ainscow. It seems that Alberni's great mistake was to forget, until it was too late, that Senor Pitkeathly's apartment was to be sold without commission being charged.'

  Skinner looked across the table at Pujol. 'The InterCosta records confirm Alberni's guilt?'

  `Bob, the cheques are cashed in Espana. The theft is of the profits from the company. Senor Ainscow here is entitled to seventy-five per cent of these profits. Why would he steal from himself?'

  Skinner nodded in acceptance of the point. 'Yes, why indeed.' He looked at the other man. 'Seems like you've been stuffed all right, Mr Ainscow. What are you going to do about it all, Arturo?'

  The Cormandante shrugged his shoulders. `God, he knows. We have asked all the banks. Alberni has very little cash in his personal account. There is no trace of any other among his papers. He has simply made it disappear. There are many things he could have done here. For example, he could have set up dummy companies, with other people as administrators, and used them to buy property. That would be untraceable. Or he could have buried it in his garden. Or he could have given it all to the casinos. Many Spanish people, even more so if they are Catalan, are big gamblers.'

  `What action will you take?'

  `I have been giving that much thought, and I have spoken to Senor Ainscow about it. What I intend to do is . . . nothing. There will be no hearing. What would that achieve? Gloria Alberni knew nothing of this: of that we are both certain. She will have to live in L'Escala. It will be kinder if it is without disgrace. There is another reason too. What I have done so far is more or less unofficial. If I do any more, it will mean a full-scale investigation, by other people, of the company's business. If that happened, then our Ministerio de Hacienda — our taxman, you would say — might decide to look also at some of the declarations which have been made to the Notary of the prices paid for properties on which the tax is calculated. You know, Bob, that often the price which is declared is not the real price. It is much less. If our tax authorities took an interest, it could be catastrophic for many clients of InterCosta. And maybe not only InterCosta, too. They might then decide to investigate other companies in L'Escala.

  `If that were to happen, how would it be for relations between the town and the Guardia Civil? My people live here. I live in Albons, not far away. We would be outcasts .. . leprosos! It is unthinkable. So if you agree, and Senor Ainscow agrees, I will do no more. I will bury this business with Santiago Alberni.'

  Skinner shrugged his shoulders. 'It's your investigation, Arturo, I've got no problem with that outcome. Pitkeathly might, but then he's got to live here too.'

  Ainscow broke in. 'I'll take care of Pitkeathly, Mr Skinner, don't you worry. That twenty-five grand in Santi's safe belongs to the company, clearly. I'll have that back, and I'll pay the Pitkeathly’s this missing half million pesetas from it.'

  `That's fair,' said Skinner. 'What will you do about the business?'

  Now that I see how profitable it could be, I'll probably look for new people out here. Two probably: one Spanish, one British. I'll let them buy in for twenty per cent each, in profits. That way they'll be watching each other. And from now on my accountant will be looking out for me.' For the first time that afternoon, Ainscow smiled. 'How about it, Mr Skinner, fancy staying here as a partner in InterCosta?'

  Skinner, leaning back in his chair and finishing his cortado, smiled too. 'Bugger off!'

  Thirty-five

  ‘Oh, Bob. Poor Gloria, there are so few people.'

  `That's the way it is when they bury a suicide. Folk are embarrassed, they disapprove, they don't want to be involved. There's no church service either, no requiem mass for the sinner. I'm glad the priest's turned out, though. Sometimes they refuse.'

  Sarah spotted a familiar face wearing a look of unfamiliar grimness. 'What's Carlos doing here?'

  The UBET asked him to represent them. You know, the local business organisation. Santi was a member. Kath said he'd be here when she arrived to baby-sit.'

  They were about to join their friend when the cortege — the hearse and a single car — swung into the little walled cemetery on the road from L'Escala to Villadamat. Gloria's father was in the front seat of the black Mercedes. When the car came to a stop not far from the new grave, he jumped out first, opening the rear door and holding out his hand to assist his daughter as she emerged. Two other women, both middle-aged, rose with dignity from the other side. One bore a striking resemblance to Gloria. The other, Bob and Sarah each assumed correctly, was Santi's mother.

  The graveside service was mercifully brief. Although Bob could not follow much of it, he was aware that the priest had little to say, and suspected that he had never met the man he was burying. He offered a few words of comfort to Gloria, pronounced the rites, and the coffin was interred in a silence broken only by the sobbing of three women.

  The small congregation began to disperse at once. Carlo
s had not noticed the presence of Bob and Sarah, and when they turned to look for him again, they saw him hurrying off. They were about to follow when Gloria's father approached. `Senor, Senora, you will join us at the villa to toast Santi?' He spoke to Sarah in Spanish.

  `Thank you, Senor Gomez, but we must go back home to our baby.'

  Bob cut in. 'Why don't you go for a while? I'll drop you off and then I'll relieve Kath. I'm sure Senor Gomez will run you home.'

  `Okay. Maybe Gloria could use seeing someone her own age today. To cope with the aftermath of this, she'll need all the friends she can get.'

  Thirty—six

  ‘Do these really come from Scotland?'

  `Razor shells? Yup. There's every chance that these came from our west coast. We ignore them, and the Spanish treat them as a delicacy. But that's my fellow countrymen for you. If you can't serve it with chips, salt and vinegar, or roll it in breadcrumbs and call it scampi, they're not interested.'

  It was mid-evening, late enough for buenas tardes to have become buenas noches, but far too early for adios. Bob and Sarah were finishing a tapas supper in the marble-lined bar of El Golf Isabel, one of their favourite old-town restaurants. Jazz was asleep in his buggy behind them — two hours away, Sarah estimated, from his next feed. On the next day, she had determined, she would begin to supplement his diet with rusks.

  Apart from Navajos, the distinctive Spanish name of Scotland's secret export, the plates spread before them included small portions of mountain ham, meatballs, small green peppers fried in olive oil, and a delicious spicy chicken dish. Finally they were finished, and Romeo, the olive-skinned Italian waiter, appeared to clear their table. As they had noticed earlier, he seemed to take his name to heart, and his excessive attentions to Sarah, and her cleavage, pushed Bob's annoyance level close to breaking point. She, seeing the gathering frown, laughed as her admirer retreated to the kitchen to fetch two Creme Catalan desserts. 'Don't worry about him, Bob. It's good for a girl's morale, especially when she's just had a baby.'

  `I'm not worried about him. Not one bit, but he should be bloody worried about me!' He spoke just loudly enough for his words to carry across to the kitchen area.

  She laughed again at his annoyance, until eventually Bob's resolve cracked, and his grin returned.

  `That's better. I'm sure he's got the message. This was a really nice idea of yours, darling, after the gloom of this afternoon.'

  `How was it at the villa?'

  `Grim. Poor Gloria; that's a really bad scene, you know. Her father had to give her some bad news from Santi's insurance company. They're not paying out on his life policy.'

  Bob shook his head sadly. 'To be expected with a suicide. Some do, depending on the circumstances; some just point-blank refuse. Sounds like Santi was with one of the latter kind, for them to have reached that decision so quickly. There'll be no chance of them changing it either.'

  'I know. It'll mean that Gloria will have to sell the villa as fast as she can, and in a buyer's market too. She may not even get what they paid for it. She's got very little money, and she already has a spare-time job keeping books for a man who owns a few shops. She thinks that, until the villa's sold at least, she'll have to take a third job, at weekends. Bar work, cleaning, anything she can find. She'd like to go back to Tarragona, but she can't do that until the villa is sold.'

  `Yeah, it's a damn shame. Too bad the selfish bastard didn't think about that before he topped himself.'

  `Maybe he did, and it was still too much for him to face. A million pounds is a lot to have stolen. He'd have done twenty years.'

  `Then that's what he should have done.'

  Sarah changed the subject. Did you call Alex to ask about her last exam?'

  `Yeah. Answerphones were on at her place, and at ours, so I left a message on each. You know our kid — she'll be out on a shopping binge to celebrate.'

  Sarah smiled. 'Yes. Something like that.'

  As Romeo returned with their desserts, Bob looked up, raising an eyebrow as if to say 'Just try it, son.' But the Italian's ardour was stilled. They ate in silence for a minute or two. Eventually Sarah paused, putting down her spoon.

  `What makes it even tougher in a way is that apparently Santi's policy had one of those double-indemnity clauses in it. Suicide, zilch — but if he died by accident or some other violence, it would pay out twice the value. Forty million pesetas: two hundred thousand pounds' She wrinkled her nose. 'Are you sure you couldn't prove he was murdered, Bob?'

  He shook his head. 'Sarah, love, much as I'd like to help poor Gloria inherit some big bucks, if I could do that, then at the same time I could turn that agua minerale of yours into Gran Vina Sol. There is nothing, but nothing, for me to go on, and I am not here to waste our time.'

  Thirty-seven

  The weather held, as their holiday resumed its normal course.

  The weaning of Jazz took place successfully, and quickly he developed an appetite for rusks to equal that for the natural element of his diet. And as his input became more varied, so inevitably did his output, introducing Sarah — and Bob once more — to those joys of parenthood which call for a little dedication.

  With the Pitkeathly affair and Santi Alberni's suicide behind them, they began to do some of the things which had been on their original agenda. On the Thursday, as their first week at the villa drew to an end, Bob wrote productively in the morning. Later they visited Pals and its ceramic shops, and called for a late lunch at Mas Pou, a celebrated Catalan Tipique restaurant in the distinctive circular village of Palau Sator. Next morning, Bob did something which even a few months earlier would have seemed unthinkable. He telephoned Proud Jimmy and secured his chiefs agreement to the proposition that, since much of his first week had been spent effectively on police work, he would write it off as holiday, and so would delay his return to Fettes by a further seven days.

  `Of course, man,' his grizzled boss had said. 'Get to know your new son. Mackie tells me you got a good result in that business.'

  `Good for whom, Jimmy? Pitkeathly's got his few quid back, Ainscow's down a million, Alberni's done himself in, and his widow's penniless. Apart from that, everyone's laughing.'

  `Aye, well, that's the job sometimes, Bob. You know that. Now enjoy yourself!'

  Thirty-eight

  ‘You know Bob, my friend, in the work I do with the Spanish tourist industry I have been all over the world. America, Sri Lanka, Roma, South Africa, I have seen them all. But, of all the places I have seen, this here, in L'Escala, on the terrace outside our restaurant, looking across the marina to the town and to the mountains, this is my favourite place of all.'

  Bob leaned back in his seat and took a deep mouthful of his beer. 'I can see why you say that, Carlos. It's beautiful all right. But, you know, you're really saying something else. Nowadays I have three homes. One here that I bought with — and for —my daughter. One in Gullane that I bought with, and for, my first wife. And one in Edinburgh that I bought with, and for, Sarah. And I'll tell you what's my favourite place. It's the terrace in Puig Pedro, looking out at the same mountains as you do. Or it's Gullane beach frozen solid on a bright cold January morning. Or it's the tree in our back garden in Edinburgh, where Jazz's swing is going to be. It's wherever they are,' he pointed behind him, over his shoulder with his left forefinger, to where Sarah stood in the shade of the awning, holding Jazz to her brown shoulder, and speaking with Kathleen, 'those two; here, there or anywhere, that's my favourite place. And when you sit here in the sun and look out, you're really looking over your shoulder, too, at Kathleen and the boys. That's your favourite place: the one you have with them. And for all you'd admit it, suppose it wasn't here, but in some back street in Girona — that's still how it'd be.'

  The two men sat in silence for a while. Then Carlos turned and smiled, a sly smile filled with fun. 'Yes, and I suppose I can see a day when I will be here, but only in an urn behind the bar, and the place will still go on without me!'

  `That's right, b
ut it won't be just any old urn. It'll be shaped like the European Cup, and draped in Barcelona ribbons!'

  The howls of their laughter startled Jazz, and drew an insistent `Sshh' from Sarah.

  `Ah, we mus' keep down the noise,' said Carlos. 'Tell me, that Alberni business. Is all finished now, si?'

  Skinner nodded. 'Yes, it's a suicide, and that's how it's been put away in the box.' He offered no detail on the investigation, nor even hinted that one had taken place.

  `Suicide. That is very bad, very, how you say, un-Catalan. Even from Tarragona, Alberni was still Catalan. We are not suicidal people. We are excitable, yes. We are happy and sad, like others. But suicide, that is not the way with us. Your Scandinavians, they are so cold they kill themselves all the time! Your French, they are so miserable and always in love. You British, not you but you know what I mean, you are so discontented. But we Catalans, we are happy people, not suicidal. We support the greatest football team in the world, we have a beautiful warm country, we love our wives, we spoil our children. And, when we are not eating them, we are even kind to animals'

  Skinner took another mouthful of beer as he considered the point . . . and choked. Wide-eyed, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and slammed his glass back on the table. As Sarah,

  Kathleen and Carlos stared at him in alarm, he jumped from his chair and clasped his hands together as if in triumph.

  `Carlos, that's it! That's what was wrong. Alberni — he didn't feed the dog! Sarah,' he called out, 'he didn't feed the bloody dog!'

  She looked across at him, bewildered. 'Yes, but—'

  `Look, he was thoughtful enough to make his wife breakfast. He cared enough for the grass to switch on the lawn sprinkler. But he died and left his dog — Romario the footballer, his dog, not Gloria's; she told me how much he cared for it — left it howling, with licked-clean, bone-dry food and water dishes. That doesn't fit. That's what's wrong with Alberni's death. Now I've got a reason to look into it some more! That guy was done in, and I will prove it. Gloria's insurance company had better get its chequebook out.