‘You have my word on it, Bob,’ said Grey. ‘Nobody’s laid a finger on either of them . . . or plugged them into the national grid.’
‘Good. When can we see them?’
‘As soon as you’re ready: Amanda will drive you there.’
‘Tell me one thing, Mr Skinner,’ asked Frame. ‘Since you’re dead against physical persuasion, what makes you think you’ll be able to get anything out of Sewell or Hassett?’
‘I’ll ask them, simple as that. They may not break down and tell me everything, but if this thing does go further than them, I’ll know. Save me some time here, both of you. I know that both your departments will have been going through both these men’s contacts and movements as carefully as you can. Do you suspect any more of your colleagues of involvement, and if so, who are they? If I can throw specific names at them, it’ll help.’
‘None on my side, Bob,’ Grey told him. ‘We’ve unearthed Sewell’s contacts with the dead military intelligence officer, and with Hassett, but there are no other threads.’
‘Are the three of them linked in any way? One of the things I have to establish is what brought them together to discuss and plan this conspiracy in the first place. Someone triggered it: someone voiced it, someone started the ball rolling.’
‘Northern Ireland: that’s all I can tell you. The military intelligence man and Sewell were together over there. Rudy was in charge of Five activity and he was SAS.’
‘And Hassett?’
‘He and Sewell are old Harrovians.’
‘Pardon?’ said Shannon.
‘They were both at Harrow School. Hassett is three years younger, but he had an older brother in Sewell’s year. They didn’t have any official contact, so we’re assuming that’s how they met.’
‘What do we know about the brother?’ asked Skinner.
‘He died of MS five years ago.’
‘Other family members of both men: what do we know of them?
‘Rudy is single: he has an older sister; she lives in Perth, Western Australia. His mother’s still alive, but she has Alzheimer’s.’ He glanced at Frame. ‘Piers?’
‘Hassett has no other siblings. He is homosexual, but currently unattached. His parents are both still alive. The mother’s a pharmacist, and the father . . . there’s a slight awkwardness there. He’s a Conservative MP.’
‘First name?’
‘Ormond.’
‘I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he on the Tory front bench?’
‘Yes, he’s an agriculture spokesman: the family business is grain merchanting. Ormond is the chairman, his brother Harold is managing director.’
‘And does Ormond MP have any idea of his son’s profession?’
‘To the best of my knowledge he does not. He believes that he is a Foreign Office civil servant currently on secondment to the Commonwealth secretariat in Pall Mall.’
‘Is he currently wondering why he hasn’t heard from his son for a week?’
‘The two are not close.’
‘Ormond doesn’t like having a gay son?’
‘Correct.’
‘Doesn’t his sexuality make him a risk?’ asked Shannon.
‘On the contrary, Inspector. In certain operational situations it can make him an asset.’
‘So Hassett’s a field officer,’ said Skinner.
‘Oh, yes. That’s why the Commonwealth cover story is such a good one. It deals handily with extended absences.’
‘I’d like a list of his most recent assignments.’
Frame’s mouth seemed to tighten. ‘There are some things, Mr Skinner,’ he murmured, ‘that must be off limits to you.’
The Scot turned to the director general. ‘Evelyn,’ he said, ‘my wife is getting ready to leave me and go back to America. My daughter has a stalker. We can still make the four o’clock flight back to Edinburgh, and I’ll be happy to do that, unless the ground rules are spelled out again for your colleague.’
‘No, that can’t be,’ Frame protested.
‘It must be, Piers,’ said Grey. ‘Number Ten has decreed it. I appreciate your concern and so, I am sure, does Mr Skinner, so let’s look for a way of keeping you as happy as possible. Would it be acceptable to you if Bob alone had access to that information, and that you showed it to him in Vauxhall Cross, without copies being made or handed over?’
The spy frowned. ‘I suppose so,’ he conceded.
‘Bob?’
‘I’ll live with that.’
‘Very good. That’s settled.’
Skinner looked at Frame once more. ‘I guess that Hassett’s absence is being explained away as an operation.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Sewell’s?’ he asked Grey.
‘He’s in Brussels, officially.’
‘Okay.’ The big Scot reached out and took an apple from the fruit bowl. ‘There will be other things I need to ask, but that’s fine for now. We should go down to Surrey.’
The director general rose from the table. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but first, a word in private. Excuse us, please, ladies, Piers.’
He led Skinner from the room and along the corridor until they reached another panelled door, with a key-pad. He hit four buttons in quick succession and turned the handle, then led the way into his office.
‘I sensed that there are things that you didn’t want to talk about in there,’ he said.
‘Yes. There’s something I want Frame to do for me while we’re heading down to Surrey. It may have been covered already, but if not it needs to be.’ He explained his requirement.
‘No problem,’ Grey assured him. ‘Let’s get back . . . unless there’s something else you want to discuss in private.’
‘Actually,’ said Skinner, ‘there is one thing. Sewell and Hassett: what does the future hold for them? They’re traitors, but you can’t put them on trial: imagine the public reaction if the truth ever came out. Your service would be taken apart: God, the government could fall. For the same reason, you can hardly turn them loose either. It’s not like the old days, when you could quietly swap them for a couple of our people in Soviet hands. So what happens to them?’
‘You don’t really want a straight answer, do you?’ Grey replied.
‘Not if it’s too distasteful for you, Evelyn. What I was getting round to asking is what incentive these men have to co-operate with me? Why should they tell me a single bloody thing when they know that their futures are strictly limited?’
‘There’s no good reason I can see, I admit. Are you saying that there’s no point in your interviewing them?’
‘No, I’m saying I’d like to be able to incentivise them.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’d like to let them see a glimmer of hope: nothing glamorous, you understand, but an alternative, at least, to a faked kidnapping in the Middle East and footage on a website of them having their heads sliced off with a knife.’
Grey’s laugh was like a rattle in his throat. ‘A posting as a librarian to the consulate in Uzbekistan, for example?’
‘Something like that. A shitty existence but at least a continuing existence.’
‘Offer it by all means, but whether they’ll believe you, that’s another matter. You realise, too, that I can’t guarantee that anything you may promise will happen.’
‘Yes, but they will believe it. What else do they have to hold on to?’ Skinner headed for the door.
Twenty-eight
‘Mr Charnwood,’ Bandit Mackenzie asked, ‘how long had you worked for Gareth Starr?’
The wiry clerk looked at him across the café table. ‘Seven years,’ he said. ‘Seven years and six months.’
‘Were you friendly, or was it just a boss-employer relationship?’
‘We didn’t visit each other’s houses, if that’s what you mean, but we’d have a pint together after work now and again.’
‘Did anyone else ever join you? Did he have any other associates that you were aware of?’
‘No; as fa
r as I know, after his wife left him his circle took in me, Big Ming, and occasionally Oliver Poole, the lawyer. In the pub, it was often just the two of us.’
‘So you got on.’
‘Sure. Gary valued me, and he let me know it. I’m good at what I do, better than most.’
‘What was your job?’
‘I took the bets, and I kept an eye on how things were going on each race, looking out for fluctuations.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Heavy betting on a particular horse or dog: outsiders usually. In the business you get a lot of rumours, alleged whispers out of stables and the like, about specific runners. Tips that they’ve been run down the park in their last couple of races . . .’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The jockey doesn’t try too hard. As a result, the horse doesn’t get a lot of weight lumped on it by the handicapper; when they reckon it’s peaked in training and it’s nicely off on the weights, they turn it loose.’
‘That’s illegal, isn’t it?’
‘It’s well against the rules, that’s for sure,’ Eddie Charnwood conceded.
‘Does it happen a lot?’
‘I doubt whether it actually does, but the whispers are enough. When they start in your shop and you see money being piled on an outsider, you can’t afford to ignore it, especially if you’re a small operator like Gary. It’s not just punters that get taken to the cleaners.’
‘If you see it happening, is there anything you can do about it?’
‘Sure. We can lay it off: spread the action out to bigger bookies to limit our risk.’
‘I see.’ Mackenzie smiled awkwardly. ‘I’m an innocent when it comes to gambling, I’m afraid. My grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a big punter, bigger than he could afford, and not very good at it. It caused a lot of problems: my mum never forgot it, and she made bloody sure I didn’t inherit the habit.’
‘Good for her.’
‘How are you for coffee?’ the detective asked. ‘Want another?’
Charnwood glanced at his mug. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ He had suggested the meeting place, just off Bonnington Road, as it was close to his home at Powderhall and to the late Gary Starr’s shop.
‘Have you had any whispers recently, any runs on outsiders?’
‘No. There’s been a lot of publicity about race-fixing in the last couple of years and a lot of people have been done, so the rumour mill’s been quiet lately.’
‘Any big losers?’
‘Not as far as I know. Where we are we tend not to get big bets. To tell you the truth we don’t encourage them either. We’re a local bookie’s, Mr Mackenzie: our customers are people of modest means.’
‘So you have plenty of them?’
‘Enough.’
‘You must have. Gary Starr made a good living, enough for a nice house up in Trinity.’
‘I suppose. Gary did the totals at the end of the day: I can’t tell you for sure how much he was clearing.’
‘What happens now?’
‘What?’ The detective’s question seemed to take Charnwood by surprise.
‘Well, you’re out of a job as far as I can see. There’s nobody to carry on the shop, unless you and Smith can take it over yourselves.’
Charnwood laughed softly. ‘Big Ming may be a closet philosopher, but there’s no way I’d go into business with him. I won’t deny that since Saturday the thought’s gone through my mind of getting in touch with Mr Poole and asking him if he’d consider renting the shop to me for six months, to see how I managed on my own, but I don’t think I’m going to do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’d be a gamble, that’s why not. I’m like you, Mr Mackenzie: I see the other side of betting. Sure there are the bright eyes of the winners, but there are far more of the others, the ones with hurt and disappointment written all over their faces. That’s why I don’t bet myself, not any more at any rate. If I took on the shop, it would be the biggest punt I ever had, and if I was laying odds, they’d have to be against my succeeding. Five years ago, I might have thought differently, but today . . . there’s competition that we never had before, with Internet bookies and now super-casinos on the horizon. Gary managed to hold on because the shop’s well sited, and because around here there are still people who like to come out for the afternoon and put their bets on over the counter. But they’re dying out. I don’t think he could have held on here for ever, and I don’t think I’d last either. I could be wrong, but I have a wife and a wee boy, and I can’t put them at risk by trying it. So I’ll get a job somewhere else, with one of the bigger bookies, probably.’
‘Are you fairly sure of that?’
‘Yes. I made a few phone calls this morning: I’ve got an interview already. Gary was known about town, and so am I.’
‘Good luck to you, then.’ Mackenzie stood. ‘Come on, let’s walk round to the shop and you can open that safe for me.’
Charnwood nodded. The two left the café and turned into Bonnington Road, then round the gentle curve until the Evesham Street junction came into sight. ‘I know that Starr’s marriage was behind him,’ said the detective, as they walked, ‘but did he have a girlfriend? There were no signs of a female presence in the house.’
‘Nor would there be; there was a girlfriend, somebody he met in the shop, but he kept her at arm’s length. Her name’s Mina Clarkson and she lives in Saughtonhall. Gary was pretty bitter about marriage. Truth be told, Gary was pretty bitter about most things. He wasn’t the sort to take much pleasure out of life.’
‘From what my colleagues tell me he took pleasure out of whacking that boy’s finger off last Friday.’
‘Yes, that was well out of character; he could be abrupt, but never aggressive. I can only think that he panicked.’
‘Panicked? He hacked him with a fucking bayonet!’
‘He must have felt really threatened, in that case.’
‘He saw the threat off, then. Did you know that he had the bayonet?’
‘Yes, but I thought nothing of it. That and the toy gun, they were just for show.’
Mackenzie stopped dead. ‘What toy gun?’
‘He had a replica Luger: looked real, but it was plastic. He used to keep it and the bayonet under the counter.’
‘You’re not kidding me, are you?’
Charnwood looked astonished. ‘Why would I do that? What’s the fuss about anyway?’
‘Starr told my colleagues, at the shop and in his interview, that the robber had brought the gun into the shop and threatened him with it. Eddie, I’m going to need a formal statement from you after all.’
‘No problem: I’m doing nothing else today.’
They walked on until they reached the shop. Padlocked steel shutters covered the windows and door, but Charnwood produced a bunch of keys from his pocket, and within a minute they were standing inside. It was gloomy, but the clerk found a switch, flooding the room with white neon light. ‘The safe’s in the back office,’ he said.
It faced them as they opened the door, built into the wall: there was no lock, only a dial mechanism. Charnwood moved round behind Starr’s desk and spun the wheel four times. After the fourth, it opened with a click and he eased it open.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he gasped.
The detective stepped alongside him, and took an involuntary breath himself. The strongbox was packed with money, wads of used notes held together with broad elastic bands, and with packs of white powder, wrapped in plastic. He took a pair of clear plastic gloves from his pocket, slipped them on and eased one of the packages out.
‘What is it?’ Charnwood asked.
‘It’s not fucking talcum,’ said Mackenzie, ‘that’s for sure. Eddie, I’m afraid we’re going to need to have a much longer talk than I’d reckoned with you and with Big Ming. You say that Starr didn’t have any associates other than you two and Poole. In that case, who put this lot there?’
Twenty-nine
For all that
there was a December chill in the air, and Princes Street was damp and grey, Detective Sergeant Jack McGurk was appreciating his day out. He would never have said that he found his job boring . . . being executive assistant to Bob Skinner could never be dull . . . and after a difficult beginning he and his boss had developed a good working relationship, but it did tie him to the office. McGurk had always been an outdoors copper: he had enjoyed his days on the beat, and the brief spell he had spent with Dan Pringle in the Borders on CID duty had been among the highlights of his career, despite the crisis it had caused in his marriage. That had all been sorted out when he had been offered the post with the DCC: he was grateful to Skinner for that, and yet it was good to be seeing the heart of Edinburgh again, rather than just the view from his window at Fettes.
He turned off the great thoroughfare, glancing to his right at Wellington’s equestrian statue, as he always did when he passed it, and walked up the slight incline that led to New Register House.
He identified himself to a receptionist at the desk in the entrance hall. ‘Ah, yes, Sergeant, I was told you’d be arriving. If you’d just go up one floor,’ the man pointed to a staircase behind him, ‘turn left and take the second door, someone will be along to see you.’
McGurk followed the directions, and found himself in a small meeting room, with a window that looked down on to the Café Royal, and the Guildford Bar next door. His dad had worked in the post office, when it had been in the big building across the road, and the Guildford had been his favourite hang-out.
He had been thinking of the past for five minutes when the door opened and a woman entered. She wore a high-necked sweater and black slacks, and she held a yellow folder in her right hand. ‘Good afternoon, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘I’m Sylvia Thorpe; we spoke on the phone earlier. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’
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