06 - Skinner's Mission

by Quintin Jardine

  Tom Whatling’s envelope lay on Skinner’s desk. The DCC took out the print and handed it to Martin. The Chief Superintendent’s green eyes widened. ‘This is it?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s my Mini Cooper, or at least part of the wreckage. You can see for yourself . . .’

  ‘It’s been cut. By a hacksaw, I’d say, or maybe a Stanley knife.’ He looked up with a smile, green eyes shining. ‘You’ve done it, Bob. You’ve proved that you were right.’

  ‘Bully for me,’ said Skinner, glumly. ‘So the story goes on.’

  Martin shrugged. ‘It must. That’s evidence for a culpable homicide prosecution at the very least, and the Crown Office would probably go for murder. On the basis of that, stretched resources or not, I’ll open a full, formal investigation.’

  ‘No. Don’t do that. Leave it to me. I’ve already done some checking. My likeliest candidate seems to be Tony Manson, and we’d have a hell of a job bringing him to trial, on account of his being dead.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Well,’ said Skinner, ‘while Pamela is taking that negative out to the photo unit, to have the technicians give us the cleanest print they can, I’m going to take a drive out to Shotts nick, to see my old sparring partner, Big Lennie Plenderleith.’

  58

  ‘Quinn. My name is Willie Quinn.’

  ‘Thanks for coming to see us, Mr Quinn,’ said Andy Martin. The taxi driver nodded a quick, ‘No problem,’ glancing nervously around at the same time. The Chief Superintendent suspected that this man had years of experience of not looking policemen in the eye.

  ‘For the record, how old are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Forty-nine.’

  ‘And your address?’

  ‘Number ten, Glenfiddich Walk, Southhouse, Edinburgh.’ Martin nodded, imperceptibly, to Neil McIlhenney, standing at the door. Quietly, the big Sergeant slipped out of the room.

  ‘Who do you drive for, Mr Quinn?’ asked Dave Donaldson, seated beside Martin in the modern airy interview room, directly beneath his office in the St Leonard’s station.

  ‘Snap Cabs,’ said the small, grey, shifty man.

  ‘Who’s your boss?’

  ‘Hard tae say. Ma controller’s a woman called Marilyn Snell, but the guy that collects the money, that’s a Mr Terry.’

  ‘When you phoned this office, you told an officer that you had information for us about the Carole Charles murder, ’ said Martin. ‘So, what have you got to tell us?’

  Willie Quinn shifted uncomfortably in his chair once more, like a man experiencing a culture shock. ‘Last Wednesday, I made a pick-up in Seafield Road. About quarter to nine.’

  ‘Where, exactly?’

  ‘Just before the roundabout at the King’s Road. Outside the Balti House.’

  ‘Okay, go on.’

  ‘It was a man. Marilyn told me that he’d called because his car had broken down, and he needed a quick pick-up. He had tae be somewhere for nine o’clock.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  Quinn screwed up his face, as if the act was an aid to memory. ‘Youngish bloke, in his thirties. He was fairly tall, and light-haired, I think; but mind youse, it was dark, and pissing down.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He wore a big overcoat. Like I said it was raining, so he had the collar turned up.’

  ‘Where did he ask you to take him?’

  ‘Tae the Jewel, up across Milton Road, through the roundabout where the tyre place is.’

  ‘You don’t remember the address.’

  Quinn looked sheepish. ‘No. The guy was giving me directions once we got past the roundabout, but I missed a turn. He said that it was okay where we were, then he paid me, got out of the car, and legged it up one of the side streets.’

  ‘Do you remember what time it was by then?’

  ‘A couple of minutes before nine.’ Quinn looked over his shoulder as the door opened behind him, and Neil McIlhenney stepped back into the room. He was holding a sheet of paper which he handed to Martin.

  ‘One thing I don’t get, Willie,’ said the Chief Superintendent, amiably. ‘Why’s it taken you five days to come forward?’

  The shifty man shrugged, looking embarrassed. ‘Well, I don’t read the papers much, see. Someone telt me about the murder over the weekend, and I mentioned that pick-up to Marilyn, when I started my shift last night.

  ‘She came on the radio later on, and said that Mr Terry wanted me to speak tae youse.’

  Martin’s green eyes widened. ‘Mr Terry?’ He glanced at the sheet of paper on the desk.

  ‘D’you always do what Mr Terry asks?’

  ‘Too right. Not that he asks me for much, mind.’

  ‘Willie, we’ve done some checking on you since you got here. This says that you have eleven convictions, for theft, housebreaking and shoplifting.’ Quinn’s eyes dropped. ‘You’re not a very honest bloke, are you.’ The man said nothing.

  ‘So tell me, is your story exactly as it happened, or has Mr Terry embroidered it for you in any way?’

  ‘No!’ The voice rose. ‘What I told you, that’s just how it was, like. Honest.’

  Martin smiled at this final assurance. ‘Okay. When you were in Seafield Road, do you remember seeing anything else?’

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed again as if from the effort of racking his brain. ‘As I was pulling away a big fire engine came tearing round the corner, heading in the other direction. That was all.’

  Martin nodded. ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right, I want you to wait here with the two Constables and set down what you’ve told us as a formal written statement. Once it’s been typed up and you’ve signed it, you can go.’

  He stood up and strode out of the room, followed by Donaldson and McIlhenney. ‘Yours, Dave,’ he said, heading for the stairs.

  ‘What do you think of that?’ he asked, as the door of the Superintendent’s office closed behind them.

  ‘It’d be a first all right,’ drawled McIlhenney. ‘A murderer making his getaway in a minicab owned by the intended victim.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Donaldson, ‘but what if his car really did break down?’

  ‘Then he’d hardly have buggered off and left it at the scene, sir. Unless it was stolen.’

  Donaldson shook his head. ‘Every vehicle in the vicinity of the fire has been accounted for.’

  ‘After the event,’ said Martin. He looked at McIlhenney. ‘What would your Olive do if your car broke down on a rainy night in Seafield?’

  The Sergeant pondered the question. ‘Apart from giving me a severe tongue-lashing, she’d phone the RAC.’

  ‘And if she’d to be somewhere in a hurry?’

  ‘She’d tell them where it was, leave the keys in it and get a taxi.’

  ‘Right. So let’s follow this through. Neil, you and Sammy run a quick check with the motoring organisations, and with the garages around town who do emergency rescue services. See if any of them picked up a car from Seafield Road last Wednesday.

  ‘If they did, I want to know who owns it and where he lives.’

  ‘Unless it’s my Olive,’ said McIlhenney.

  Martin smiled and shook his head. ‘No, even if it is. I’m ruling no-one out of this investigation!

  ‘This might not be a hot lead, exactly, but it’s the only one we have and we’ll follow it to the finish.’

  59

  Like most modern prisons Shotts is not built in a suburban environment. It sits on the edge of a small town, on a plateau approximately halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but definitely not on any tourist route.

  A few relics of its mining past are scattered around the landscape, but in the modern era the Department of Social Security is its principal paymaster.

  Winter was unleashing the icy sting in its tail as Skinner drove through the double gates of the jail. Snowflakes were falling and beginning to lie on the ground as he parked and walked across towards the administration bui
lding.

  Charles Hall, the Governor, was waiting for him in his office, coffee at the ready.

  ‘Welcome, Bob,’ he said. ‘Long time no see. Good to see you looking so fit and well after what I read about you a few months back. Fully recovered, yes?’

  The policeman smiled. ‘Just about, thanks, Charles. My family had a hell of a fright at the time, but once I was through the first couple of days, the physical side of it was stabilised. It was just a matter of recuperating, then working at getting back into shape.’

  He smiled. ‘How’s things with the Prison? I haven’t heard anything of you recently, so I take that to mean that all’s well.’

  The bright-eyed young Governor shook his head. ‘Fingers crossed, but yes. The place seems to be under control these days, and as far as I can tell, it’s me who’s running it, not the prisoners.’

  Skinner laughed. ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘The man you’ve come to see may have a lot to do with that,’ said Hall. ‘He’s an awesome figure among the inmates. He keeps himself very much to himself, reading, studying - writing now I hear - but you sense that no-one would dare to do anything that they thought Lennie might not like. And so far he’s been a model prisoner.’ He paused.

  ‘He was intrigued to hear that you wanted to see him. He agreed to it at once. I’ve set up an interview room in this block, so that none of the other prisoners see you together. I’ll have two of my biggest lads sit in with you.’

  Skinner laughed again, even more heartily. ‘Two! Double it and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  ‘No, Charles. Big Lennie and I have had our go at each other. He won’t want a return match any more than I do. I’ll see him alone if you don’t mind. What I want to talk to him about has to be off the record.’

  Hall stared at him, doubtfully. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Well, in that case . . . he’s waiting for you now.’ He led the way out of his office and down a short corridor, stopping outside a brown varnished door. He rapped three times with his knuckles and stepped inside, Skinner following behind.

  Lennie Plenderleith was standing at the window, looking out at the snow, his back to the door. At least Skinner assumed that there was a window there. Big Lennie lived up to his nickname so well that he blocked it out. He was six feet seven and built like an elephant. The strapping guards who flanked him looked puny by comparison.

  He turned at the sound of the door opening, and smiled: the slow, contented smile of a man at peace with himself. ‘Hello, Mr Skinner,’ he said. ‘What brings you here on such a bloody awful day?’

  He offered out his right hand and Skinner shook it, awkwardly, since Lennie was handcuffed.

  ‘Take those off, please,’ the policeman asked the Governor. ‘There’s no need for them.’ Hall nodded, and one of the guards unlocked the cuffs. ‘That’s good. Now if you’ll leave us alone . . .

  ‘Sit down, big fella,’ said the DCC as the door closed, taking a seat himself, with his back to the window so that his companion could still see the day outside, putting himself deliberately at a disadvantage by leaving the prisoner between him and the door. He looked across at the giant and smiled. Lennie Plenderleith, multiple murderer, convicted the year before of three killings, including that of his wife. Lennie Plenderleith, millionaire, heir to the fortune of the late Tony Manson. Lennie Plenderleith, hooligan turned intellectual, Open University graduate and now doctorate candidate. Lennie Plenderleith, the only criminal Skinner had ever met for whom, against all his basic instincts, he had formed a genuine liking and respect, the only one in whom he had ever recognised a code of honour similar to his own.

  ‘The Governor tells me you’re writing now, Lennie.’

  ‘That’s right.’ The huge man’s voice was soft and gentle, in complete contrast to his physical appearance.

  ‘Am I going to be in it?’

  ‘Maybe. It’s a book about Tony’s murder, what led up to it, and what followed it. But I haven’t decided yet whether to write it as my memoirs or as a novel.’

  ‘It should be a best seller,’ said the detective, ‘whether you do it as fact or fiction. If I can help with anything, you only have to ask. I know the story too, from the other side of the road, so to speak.’

  Lennie smiled. ‘That’s kind of you, Mr Skinner. I’ll take you up on that.’

  ‘Done. Listen, the name’s Bob. Our professional dealings are behind us.’ He paused. ‘You all right, in here?’

  ‘Sure. I’ve been here before, remember. This time, I’m philosophical about it. Tony left me all his money. The things I did to get in here I see as having done to earn it. I regard it as a pension fund, and when I’m released from here, I’ll still, hopefully, be young enough to enjoy it.

  ‘I’ve never had a chance to say this, but I’m grateful to you for persuading the Crown not to ask the judge for a minimum sentence. That gave me a chance of seeing the outside again.’

  He looked across at Skinner. ‘Why did you do that?’

  The detective returned his frank stare. ‘Between you and me? Because I didn’t think that what you did was all that bad. Your wife committed a form of suicide in my book. As for the others, I’d have put them away for life. You put them away for good. Part of me wanted to let you go, you know, to let you walk away.’

  Lennie guffawed with sudden laughter. ‘Too bad about the other part,’ he chuckled at last.

  ‘Now, Bob. What’s brought you out here?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Skinner, ‘let’s get to it.’ He reached into the pocket of his jacket, produced Tom Whatling’s eight by six print and handed it across to Plenderleith. ‘Know what that is?’

  The giant peered at the picture. ‘It looks like a broken fluid pipe in a crashed car.’

  ‘Not broken, Lennie. Cut. Eighteen years ago. My Mini Cooper. My car, but my wife was driving at the time. They hadn’t even taken her body out of the car when that was taken. The photo’s been hidden since then, for all those years. Now I’ve found it, and I have to know who cut that pipe, who it was that killed her.’

  Plenderleith looked across at him, genuinely stricken. ‘Your wife? Instead of you? That’s awful, for both of you.’

  Skinner grimaced, as he nodded. ‘I’ve been checking the investigations that I was involved in around that time, and in the period leading up to it. From those files, the name that jumps out highest is Tony Manson. If it was him, he’s dead, and he can’t answer for it. But that doesn’t matter; I still have to know.’

  He paused. ‘This thing may have happened before you went to work for Tony, but I have to ask you this. Did he ever mention anything to you afterwards, about me, or about this? And if he did, will you tell me now?’

  Lennie Plenderleith closed his eyes and threw his head back, so that his thick brown hair fell on his shoulders. He sat like that for almost three minutes, as if he was searching his memory, or weighing up a decision.

  At last he looked at Skinner once more, full in the eye. ‘This is between us, Bob, yes? No hidden mikes or anything. Nothing leaves this room?’

  ‘On my honour.’

  The great head nodded. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘You got your timing wrong as far as I was concerned. In fact, eighteen years ago, I had just gone to work for Tony. Eighteen years ago you were indeed giving him grief. Everything was shut down, the girls, the drugs everything.

  ‘One day Tony called me in to see him. He said that he had had an ultimatum from his major drug supplier in London. Reopen the market or else, the guy had told him. Tony told him that he should sit tight, that the informant who was spilling his guts to you would be taken care of, and that you would run out of leads and patience. But the London man said no. He told Tony to have you killed, or else.’

  Lennie smiled. ‘Tony Manson had very definite views about things, you know. He wasn’t as powerful in those days as he became, but even then, no-one threatened him, or gave him “or else” orders. Also, he had very definite vi
ews about harming policemen in general, and you in particular. He knew that if you were hit then there would be nowhere for him to hide; no, not even him.’ He paused. The smile faded and he took a deep breath, as if he were about to dive into a very deep pool.

  ‘Tony gave me my instructions. He sent me to the man in London to make him see sense. So I went down there, I followed the man home one night, I broke his bodyguard’s neck, and I made him see sense, the fool who had threatened Tony Manson, by driving a big knife right through his brain.’ He reached across and tapped the left side of Skinner’s head. ‘Right here.

  ‘I felt like a million dollars. I was just a lad, and Tony had trusted me that much, to give me such an important job.’

  Skinner sat, motionless and silent, as Big Lennie in his soft voice, finished his story. ‘Tony Manson didn’t try to kill you, Bob. He saved your life. Between the two of us, you have my word upon it.’

  It was the policeman’s turn to throw his head back. He hissed out a long sorrowful sigh. ‘Sssshit!’ he whispered. ‘This doesn’t get easier.’

  Lennie frowned. ‘You believe me, don’t you.’

  ‘Hah!’ said Skinner. ‘That’s the trouble. I do. It’s just that for the second time in as many days, I haven’t had the answer I wanted. I was hoping that it was Tony, and that I could have closed the book on it.

  ‘Now, I have to go on, and I’m left with only one obvious alternative. My problem is, I can’t make myself believe that it was him either.’

  60

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but I can’t raise DS Donaldson, and I felt I should pass this on for further instructions.’

  ‘That’s all right, Maggie,’ said Andy Martin, into the telephone. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Two of my Detective Constables have just finished the check of Jackie Charles’ property company, the one that owns the flats. It looks as if we’ve got a problem with the theory that Charles might have used one of them to store any records relating to his illegal business.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because all the flats are occupied, sir. By legitimate, bona fide tenants with no obvious connection to Charles. They’re all managed by a reputable agent, all the tenants have rent books and tax is paid on the net income.’