Charles’ lips were drawn back, his mouth set as if in a snarl.
‘Tell us,’ asked Martin, ‘how was the office constructed? Did it have solid walls? It was a shell when we got there.’
The man shook his head. ‘The door was solid wood, but the upper half of the walls were glazed, to let in light during the day.’
‘Clear glass or opaque?’
‘You couldn’t see through it, not to recognise someone. ’
‘But you could make out a figure inside?’
Charles nodded. ‘Yes, and obviously in the evening the office light would be on.’
‘But the showroom lights would be switched off?’
‘That’s right.’ The man’s face was impassive, set in a cold, hard stare.
‘You’re not surprised, Jackie, are you,’ said Skinner. ‘For twenty years you’ve been telling us you’re a respectable business figure, and most of Edinburgh has believed you. Yet when we tell you that someone has tried to murder you but killed your wife by mistake, you accept it as fact, without the slightest twitch of an eyebrow.’
Charles glared at him, playing unconsciously with his wedding ring, but said nothing.
‘You might think that we wouldn’t care,’ he went on. ‘That we’d have a “Live by the sword, let them die by it” sort of attitude. Well, we don’t. Never have. This is our city and we’ll have no fucking swordsmen running around in it.
‘We might think that you’re an evil, pernicious, murderous little shite, and that your late wife was probably your partner in crime as well as life, yet still we’re going to investigate her death as vigorously as if it was the Lady Provost who had died in that fire, and you were sitting opposite us wearing your gold chain of office.
‘So with that in mind, we have a number of questions to put to you. The rest of this conversation is formal, and will be taped.’ He produced a small recorder from his pocket, switched it on and laid it on the table.
‘First of all,’ said Martin, ‘tell us something about the car business. What were the showroom hours?’
With a visible effort, Charles seemed to master his anger. ‘Variable describes it best,’ he said. ‘But midweek, we’re always closed by seven, at this time of year at least. The mechanics work nine to five though, with occasional overtime on Saturday mornings.’
‘How many salesmen do you have?’
‘Two fulltime. Mike Whitehead and Geoff Bailey. They’ve both been with us for a while; Mike seven years, Geoff five. They’re good guys.’
‘You get on well with them both?’
‘Of course I do, or they wouldn’t be there. They specialise in selling quality cars. Any clown can sell a used Fiesta to someone who can only afford a used Fiesta, but discerning people, people with cash, need to be given confidence in their buy, and to be persuaded that they’re investing in a good set of wheels.’
‘You don’t owe either of them commission money, or anything like that?’
Charles shook his head vigorously. ‘No, they’re paid as soon as the customers’ cheques clear and the HP money comes in. No, you can forget Mike and Geoff; they are trusted friends.’
‘What about your book-keeper?’
‘The girl we have now, Amy Innes, is fine. Carole chose her. We had difficulty a couple of years back, though, with her predecessor, Carl Medina.’
‘What sort of difficulties?’
‘Not to put too fine a point on it, he was at it.
‘There were sundry purchases unaccounted for. Carole reckoned that he was topping up his salary. I couldn’t be bothered setting traps for him or anything like that, so I just sacked him.’
Skinner looked sharply across the table. ‘How’d he take it?’
‘Badly, at first. He threatened me with an industrial tribunal.’
‘What did you threaten him with, Jackie?’
Charles looked at him coldly, with a flicker of a smile. ‘I never threaten people, Bob.’
‘No,’ said Martin, ‘but you know a man who does. So I guess Medina didn’t go to tribunal.’
‘No. He could see what the outcome would have been.’
‘I’ll bet! Have you seen or heard from him since?’
Charles shook his head. ‘Not directly. But I had a letter a couple of months ago from another dealer, the Renault chap in Gorgie, asking for a reference.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I declined to provide it, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Martin, dryly. ‘Did you have any other employment problems at the showroom? With mechanics, for example?’
‘None at all. All our people are paid above the union rate, they all have overtime opportunities and they’ve all been with us long-term.’
‘Customers? Any disgruntled punters come to mind?’
Charles looked offended. ‘Mr Martin, I don’t have any disgruntled clients. I deal in quality motor cars, and they tend to be reliable. I give good warranty terms, and I never quibble about putting any problems right.’
‘I’ll know where to come for my next Ferrari then,’ said the Chief Superintendent, with a smile. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
‘You said that you had two full-time salesmen. Who else is there?’
‘There’s me for a start.’ His expression changed, betraying more than a touch of smugness. ‘I can still out-sell anyone on the lot, as the Americans say, and I like to prove it. I go down to Seafield for a few hours on most days. Very occasionally, my father will spend some time on the forecourt, just to keep his hand in, as it were.
‘But that’s all. No-one else on the selling side.’
‘When you go in to the showroom, is it at any set time of the day?’
‘In the afternoon normally.’
‘And you stay until . . . ?’
‘Until we close. If I’m there, and I am on most days, then I’m the chap who locks up.’
‘When would you leave, normally?’
‘Once I’ve checked over the day’s documentation, addressed and stamped the finance applications, locked away late cheques and new tax disks, seen that everything was in order in the workshop, and maybe made a couple of phone calls about interesting cars advertised for private sale; once I’ve done all that it’s usually about nine o’clock.’
‘So the murderer could have expected you to be on the premises at the time last night’s fire was started.’
Charles nodded. ‘If he knew anything about me, yes,’ he said quietly.
Andy Martin leaned back from the table. ‘Right, Mr Charles. So much for the dealership. Now let’s talk about your other interests?’
‘Which ones?’
‘Let’s start with loansharking, shall we? Could your heavies maybe have leaned on someone, or someone’s family, just a wee bit too hard? Can you think of anyone on your books who’s facing a doing, or worse, and might have decided to head it off?’
As Skinner and Martin looked across the table, they saw the professional mask with which they were so familiar descend across Jackie Charles’ face. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said quietly, looking Martin, but not Skinner, in the eye.
‘Okay,’ said the Chief Superintendent. ‘Let’s have a go at the taxi business. You own, through front companies, forty-two per cent of the minicab licences in Edinburgh and around, and you extort protection money from the holders of the other fifty-eight per cent, or at least from those who don’t want to wake up to find their vehicles with no tyres or windscreen.
‘Have you had any threats arising from those activities? ’
‘Send a copy of that tape to my solicitor, please, Mr Martin, so that I can sue you.’
The Chief Superintendent ignored him. ‘How about your betting shops? You own five. You must have a few big losers.’
Charles shook his head. ‘I don’t allow credit to those who can’t afford it and my staff have orders to bar people if they think they might be losing too much.’
Martin laughed. ‘Okay, Jackie. So far
you’re Simon Pure, without an enemy in the world. Only it seems bloody obvious that you do have an enemy. Could it be an associate from outside this city? Do you have information which might have made you dangerous to someone?’
‘What associates, Chief Superintendent? What information? ’
Suddenly Skinner leaned forward and picked up the tape recorder. He switched it off and put it back in his pocket. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Enough of the ritual dancing. Let’s get on with our job, Andy.’
He stood up, Martin rising with him, and looked down at Charles, fixing him with his gaze. ‘This may be a waste of time, but I’ll warn you anyway, Jackie. Don’t get in our way here.
‘If I’m given the slightest evidence that you know who might have done this, and are keeping it back from us so that you can take your own revenge, then I’ll charge you with withholding information. I might not get a conviction, but imagine what it would do to your social reputation around town.’
‘I should fucking care!’ Charles’ face was set rock-hard as he spat out each word. He stood up. ‘When can I plan my wife’s funeral?’ he asked coldly.
‘When the Crown Office says that you can. I don’t know yet when that might be; but in the meantime just don’t be planning to bury anyone else!’
7
‘D’you think he knows who did it, Boss?’ asked Andy Martin as he turned off Comely Bank towards the headquarters building.
Skinner, in the passenger seat, shrugged his shoulders. ‘You can never be sure with Jackie, but I don’t think so. I’ll tell you one thing though: we’ll have started him thinking.
‘We’d better find that guy Medina before Jackie. Otherwise, guilty or innocent, he’s liable to find himself being cremated by a blowlamp from the toes up!
‘You’re in charge of this investigation,’ he said, ‘but you’ll need more than your own staff.’
‘That’s right,’ said Martin, holding his pass out of the window for inspection by the officer on the main car park gate. ‘The crime was committed on Dave Donaldson’s patch, so he’s up for it. I’ve called him and Maggie in to see me at midday.’ He glanced at the Mondeo’s digital clock. ‘They should be here by now.’
‘Mmm,’ muttered Skinner, thoughtfully. ‘That reminds me. Andy, when’s the next Senior Command Course at the College?’
‘Next September. Why?’
‘Because I want Maggie on it. She’s come up through the ranks nearly as fast as you have . . . it’s been faster than I intended for both of you, but you can never foresee the way things will work out. She’s got Command Corridor written all over her, and we should prepare her for it.’
‘What about Donaldson? Won’t he be huffed if we send her?’
Skinner shook his head slightly. ‘He’s got it in him too, but he’s more openly ambitious. He’ll see you lined up for the next ACC slot, when Jimmy finally hangs up his baton, or if Elder moves somewhere else . . . which he won’t, with only seven years left to retirement. He’ll have figured out that, by that time, Maggie’ll be ahead of him in the queue. We’ve got a woman High Court judge in Edinburgh now, and Maggie will be this force’s first woman ACC.
‘Believe me, in a couple of years, Dave’ll be looking for chief officer rank with another force. He’ll get it too. He’s a good tactician, is Donaldson.’
Martin steered his car into his allotted space, near the building’s basement rear entrance. ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he said. ‘Now I’d better talk tactics with him myself.’
‘Aye, and I’d better run our Chief Constable to ground. There’s something I have to sort out with him.’
But when Skinner returned to the Command Suite, he discovered that Proud Jimmy was locked in the safety of an Appropriations Committee meeting, a task which would have fallen to Skinner had he not been returned so recently to active duty.
‘He should be clear around four thirty, sir,’ said Gerry, the Chief’s secretary. Like Ruth McConnell, whom Skinner shared with ACC Elder, he was a civilian. The DCC thanked the young man and stepped across the corridor, looking in on Ruth to announce his return.
‘I got this for you, as you asked,’ she said, holding out an orange folder, the colour which denoted personnel files. She smiled what seemed her usual smile, but Skinner wondered for an instant whether, within it, he could see the faintest hint of disapproval.
He put the thought from his mind as he sat behind his desk and opened the file. He recalled the last occasion on which he had seen it, at a promotion board the year before, and remembered the very attractive, dark-haired woman with the huge, wide brown eyes.
He looked down at the file and saw those eyes smiling up at him, from the photograph clipped to the first page. He read sections of the report’s summary aloud, in a murmured tone.
‘Detective Sergeant Pamela, known as Polly, Masters, promoted and transferred to Haddington six months ago, after a short spell in the press office.
‘Late entrant to the force four years ago, then aged thirty. Born in Motherwell,’ Skinner grunted at the connection with his own home town, and that of his late first wife, ‘educated at the local schools. Religion Protestant. Degree in marketing from Strathclyde. Worked in-house for an insurance company in Glasgow, and latterly for a consultancy in Edinburgh.
‘Parents still alive, one older brother, one younger sister. When aged 24, married David Somerville, in Motherwell. Divorced four years later, and moved to Edinburgh.
‘Exemplary service record. Passed Sergeant and Inspector examinations at first opportunity. Good reports from senior officers in every posting.’
Skinner laid the folder down at the side of his desk. He smiled as he remembered his question to WPC Masters at her promotion interview.
‘What made you chuck a lucrative job, in which you were well qualified and experienced, and the Vauxhall Cavalier which undoubtedly went with it? What made you do that to put on one of these stiff, itchy uniforms and pound the streets in thick-soled flat shoes, carrying a damn great side-handled baton as your only protection against the real possibility that someone is going to come at you with a weapon?’
And her answer, in a clear, strong West of Scotland accent.
‘I did it because I wanted a career where what I did made a difference for the better in the way people live, rather than one in which I used my skills to persuade them to buy products which were no different from any other on the market, and which were probably bad for them in the long run.’
He tapped the folder. ‘Could be, Sergeant Masters, that you’re the one.’
8
Two potential chief officers sat opposite a third, across Andy Martin’s desk in the CID office suite.
Martin sat with his back to the window in the plain magnolia-painted room. Behind him Detective Superintendent Dave Donaldson and Detective Chief Inspector Maggie Rose could see the sharp, crenellated tower of Fettes College, many of its classroom windows lit, as the minds of its privileged students were illuminated through the dull day.
Donaldson, a year or two older than the Head of CID but still in his mid-thirties, was a tall slim man, with relaxed, friendly eyes, an easy smile, and a taste for suiting which had earned him the nickname ‘Flash’ among his junior officers. He gave off a powerful air of self-confidence which in many another job with less stringent promotion criteria would have been enough in itself to mark him out automatically as a high flyer; looking at him across the desk Martin had a sudden vision of his colleague selling Ferraris on Jackie Charles’ forecourt.
However, the achievement of high rank in the police force is based on more than self-belief, and the Chief Superintendent’s recommendation that he be promoted into the vacancy as Eastern Area CID commander had been based on an impressive service record which showed no hint of recklessness, and a clear-up rate on investigations under his charge which matched even Skinner’s, and his own.
Maggie Rose was impressive in a different way from Donaldson. Her red hair was a good indicator of the core of her
personality, but outwardly she was a calm, thoughtful woman. Her clothing tended to emphasise the quiet side of her nature, although Martin thought that it had become slightly more flamboyant since her marriage to Special Branch Inspector Mario McGuire.
One of the great strengths of Maggie Rose, the one which had drawn her first to DCC Skinner’s attention, was the fact that she never offered a view that had not been considered carefully, with all the risks analysed and all the consequences measured.
That was why Skinner had taken her on to his personal staff, and it was why he had concurred with her appointment as Donaldson’s deputy with a degree of reluctance.
And that may have been why Martin was looking at her, although he addressed his questions to them both.
‘Given the breadth of Jackie Charles’ known, or at least suspected activities,’ he said, ‘this investigation is going to be intricate, to say the very least. What would you two say our priorities should be? And do either of you see any short-cuts we might follow?’
‘Well,’ began Donaldson. ‘I’d say . . .’ He stopped in mid-sentence. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t jump in all the time. Mags, you’re the strategist on the team. What do you think?’
‘Good command skill,’ thought Martin, with a glance at the Superintendent. ‘Assess your subordinates’ strengths, recognise them publicly, and make use of them as much as you can.’
Rose sat silent for a few seconds, looking at Donaldson as if searching for anything patronising in his tone, but finding nothing.
‘Given what we’ve heard, sir,’ she began, ‘the first thing I’d say is that I agree with the Boss. We have to find this chap Carl Medina, on the basis of Charles’ statement.
‘But the second thing I’d say is that I wouldn’t hold out too many hopes that he’s our man.’ She nodded towards Skinner’s tape recorder which lay on the desk, which Martin had just replayed. ‘His was the only name that Charles actually volunteered during that interview. It occurs to me that if he thought for one second that Medina was his wife’s murderer, he’d have kept it to himself, and done something about it himself.’
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