‘It’s my job to give you a hard time.’
Wilding grinned. ‘I know. That’s why I don’t hold it against you. Mr Poole, this is my new boss, DCI Mackenzie.’
‘Ah,’ the solicitor exclaimed. ‘You’re the man, are you? From what I hear, you’ve been causing a lot of fear and despondency among the under-classes since you came here from Strathclyde. So, you’ve moved on from drugs, have you?’
The two men shook hands. ‘As of last week,’ said Mackenzie. ‘I’m back in the mainstream now.’
‘You’ll be relieved, I’m sure. Dirty business: if I’m allowed to class my clients in order of preference, the dealers are absolutely my least favourite.’
‘So why do you represent them?’
‘I don’t believe I have the right to turn them away: our constitution, such as it is, says that they’re entitled to the best defence available. My profession requires me to provide it. Yours requires you to prepare a case so formidable that I can’t find any holes through which my client can wriggle. You might see us as adversaries, Mr Mackenzie, but I don’t. We’re both in the public service, the twin pillars of the justice system. Enough of the philosophy, though. Come through to my office.’ He led the way across an open area big enough for five desks: two were occupied by young women, and the others were empty. ‘I have three assistant solicitors,’ he explained. ‘They’re all in court just now. You know what Monday mornings are like.’
‘We do our best to keep you busy,’ said Mackenzie, as they took seats in the small private room. ‘All our mornings can be like that, and the middle of some of our nights too.’
‘I’m sure. So, gentlemen, what can I do for you? Which of my clients is in such deep shit that you come to me, rather than the other way round?’
‘We believe that you represent Gareth Starr,’ the chief inspector began.
Poole held up a hand. ‘Wrong.’
‘You accompanied him when he was interviewed in the Queen Charlotte Street police office last week.’
‘Yes, but I’m being legally exact: I now represent his estate. I’m named as executor in his will. To be honest, I’ve been expecting your visit.’
‘How long have you known Mr Starr?’
Poole ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Gary? Let’s see: I’ve been in independent practice for eighteen years, and he came to me not long after . . . Yes, I acted for him for sixteen years.’
‘How did your relationship begin?’
‘I was recommended by a partner in the firm where I had been an assistant.’
‘What was the nature of the service you provided?’
‘General. I handled all his legal requirements: my practice is mainly criminal but not exclusively so. I made sure his licence was always up to date, I handled his conveyancing, when he bought his house and his shop, and I acted for him in his divorce.’
‘What were the grounds?’
‘Irretrievable breakdown; Kitty left him, simple as that. Her main complaint was that he was a skinflint.’
‘Was she right?’
‘I don’t believe so. The truth was that his business made him a living and that was all. Kitty thought that all bookies own Rollers, not Ford Sierras and the like. If she had the idea that she’d walk away from the marriage with a lot of money, she was wrong, way off beam.’
‘Do you know where she is now?’
‘Yes. She’s remarried and living in Gilmerton. She rang me first thing this morning: she wanted to know whether Gary’s original will was still valid, or if he’d changed it.’
‘And had he?’
‘Happily, yes. His mother is still alive; she’s in a nursing home in Joppa, and the new will leaves everything to her.’
‘How did she sound when you told her?’ asked Wilding.
‘As you’d expect: a little disappointed.’ Poole chuckled. ‘I imagine you’ll want to speak to her. I’ll let you have her address. Her name is Philips now.’
‘What do you know about Mr Philips?’
‘Nothing. I’ve never met him.’
‘Mr Starr’s business associates,’ said Mackenzie. ‘What do you know about them?’
‘What business associates? There was the clerk, Eddie Charnwood, and the board man-cum-gofer, the smelly bloke, but that was it. Gary was a small independent bookmaker, Chief Inspector. The only other people in his life you could call associates were his punters.’
‘Are you a punter yourself?’
‘Very occasionally; but I’m what Gary would have called a big-event player. I’ll have a bet on the Grand National and the Derby, and sometimes on the Open Championship. Naturally, when I did that I’d bet with him. He used to smile every time I came into the shop.’
‘Did he have any awkward customers that you knew of? For example, were there any disputes over pay-outs? Have there been any threats of legal action, since the new legislation was floated allowing people to sue over gambling matters?’
‘None. A bookmaker of Gary Starr’s size can’t afford to alienate customers. Word would get out and he’d find his shop empty.’
‘Was he a violent man, Mr Poole? Was that incident last week typical of him?’
‘If he was, he never showed it to me. We weren’t close friends, Mr Mackenzie; we had a normal business relationship, but it had become established to the point of cordiality. I found him quiet, occasionally short-tempered, but nothing more than that. I know what you’re leading up to. He contacted me on Friday afternoon and told me what had happened. He asked if I thought there was any chance of him being prosecuted.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him that I’d bet against it, but that I’d accompany him to the interview for safety’s sake. He asked me what odds he should give me, and I repeated what he’d often said to me, that the odds don’t matter when you’re going to lose, as he would have if he’d taken my bet.’
‘There’s no chance of him being prosecuted now, that’s for sure.’
‘There never was. You know that as well as I do.’
‘Probably not,’ Mackenzie conceded. ‘Mr Poole, since you are the executor, you’re in a position to help our investigation. We have an open mind on Mr Starr’s murder.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I am a criminal lawyer, Chief Inspector. I have seen things.’
‘You haven’t seen this, I promise you. Take it from us that it was brutal and leave it at that. The only thing we do know for sure is that there was nothing random about it; it wasn’t a housebreaking gone wrong, or anything like that. We’re going to need access to everything about his life, business and personal. It’ll save us a hell of a lot of time if you can give us a written authority to access his papers, bank accounts, shop records, all that stuff.’
‘You need it in writing?’ asked Poole. ‘Yes, I suppose you do: bankers can be very stuffy if they put their minds to it. Okay, that’s easily done.’ He opened a drawer of his desk, took out a sheet of headed notepaper, picked up a pen and began to write. When he was finished, he folded it, placed it in an envelope and slid it across to Mackenzie. ‘There you are: that’s all you require. If anyone questions it, put them on to me.’
‘There are safes in his office and house. There’ll be no comeback if we have to force them, will there?’
‘None: that note lets you go everywhere and do anything in pursuit of your investigation. Good luck, gentlemen. When you find the bastard who did this, I can promise you I won’t be defending him. I don’t have all that many straight clients, so I don’t like losing any of them.’
Twenty-six
‘That was quick, Jack,’ said Proud. ‘I wasn’t expecting to hear anything from you today.’
‘I’m afraid it’s nothing positive, sir,’ the towering McGurk replied, filling the door-frame as he looked into the chief’s office. ‘I thought I should tell you straight away, though. The DSS check shows no social-security payments by either Both
well or Gentle since the time of their disappearance. It’s the same with the NHS: they were each registered to different Edinburgh practices, but nothing’s been added to their records since then.’
‘Mmm. It was too much to hope for, I suppose. In truth, I’m surprised that the health records are still accessible after all this time.’
‘There is one thing that might interest you, though. Gentle’s records show that on her last visit to her GP, she was prescribed the contraceptive pill.’
‘Was she, by God? It was only just becoming available back then. When did they put her on it?’
‘The February before she vanished.’
‘That was the first time she took it?’
‘Yes, sir; her only other visit to the surgery was for laryngitis, a year before that.’
‘That ties in, Jack. Annabelle told her sister at Easter that she’d met Bothwell and she was going to marry him. Going on the pill indicates that she became sexually active again, or at least she made plans to, just before that. I assume that having got herself pregnant once before, she’d learned her lesson.’
‘There’s something else, sir. I ran a check on Montserrat Bothwell too.’
‘Would she be an NHS patient, if she was a foreign national?’
‘She would as the wife of a UK subject, sir, and she was. She only used the service once, in the middle of June in that same year, when she had treatment for a broken nose. There was a note on the record that said she’d fallen at home.’
‘And you think?’
‘I wonder, sir, that’s all, whether she might have found out about Bothwell and Gentle, confronted him, and got a thumping for her trouble.’
‘You’re making me wonder the same thing, Jack. Well done, Sergeant. Off you go to the General Register Office and see what you can dig up there.’
Twenty-seven
At one point in her career, Dottie Shannon had been a Police Federation representative: in that role she had been a member of a delegation that had gathered in London to lobby Members of Parliament, canvassing their support for improvements in police working conditions.
She had been impressed, but not overawed: thus, when Skinner had told her at the airport where they were going, after the initial shock had worn off, she had been sure she would take it in her stride.
Dottie had seen government offices before. She was a police officer and so she was used to crowd screening, and to being a part of it. But when a uniformed officer held the door of Thames House open for her, and she could see inside, she felt her legs turn to jelly. There was nothing special about it, nothing of the television version: the foyer could have been any one of dozens along Whitehall, but it had an aura, something that said, ‘Be careful here.’
Skinner walked straight to the reception desk. ‘We’re from Scotland,’ he announced. ‘The DG’s expecting us. Let his office know that we’ve arrived, please.’
The clerk picked up a telephone: there was a brief, quiet conversation. ‘Very good, sir,’ he said. ‘If you go through the barrier you’ll be met on the other side.’
‘Show Security your warrant card,’ the DCC told Shannon. ‘It’s like a boarding pass.’
Indeed the screening was almost identical to that which they had gone through earlier that morning. Just as their jackets were returned and as they were putting them on, a lift door opened and a figure emerged. Shannon could see the surprise in Skinner’s eyes as the slightly built, sober-suited man approached.
‘Bob,’ the man exclaimed, extending his hand. ‘Welcome to Thames House. It’s good to see you again, and to meet you, Inspector Shannon.’ He looked as dry as his voice; the skin was drawn so tightly across his lean features that it seemed about to crack. ‘Come with me. There are a couple of people waiting to meet you, and in view of the hour I’ve laid on a working lunch.’ He led the way into the lift, then, rather than press a button, entered a code into a pad in the instrument panel.
‘This is something of an honour, Evelyn,’ said Skinner, as the doors closed. ‘I didn’t expect to be welcomed by the director general himself.’ He turned to Shannon. ‘Inspector, this is Sir Evelyn Grey. He runs this place.’
‘It wasn’t just my usual excessive courtesy, Bob,’ the DG replied. ‘I was making a point to everyone on my floor, and to everyone who happened to be downstairs when you arrived.’
‘Your point being?’
‘That you are to be treated as a very important person while you are with us, and that your authority here comes directly from me.’
Skinner grinned. ‘Shucks, you’re embarrassing me,’ he joked.
‘I’ve never seen you embarrassed, Bob. I don’t think it’s possible.’
The lift came to a halt; the doors opened out on to a marble reception area, with a desk staffed by a dark-skinned woman. ‘We’ll be in conference room one, Jamelia,’ Grey told her. ‘Advise the other parties that we’re ready.’ He led the way along a corridor to the left until he reached a heavy panelled door: he opened it and led the way inside.
The working lunch lay on the conference table; it comprised croissants, filled with ham and cheese, on a large salver, and fruit, in a crystal bowl. Beside them sat a Thermos jug, on a tray, and five cups and saucers.
They had been in the room for less than a minute before the door opened again, and a man and a woman entered. He was lean, in his mid-thirties, and looked very fit, while she might have been ten years older. She was dressed in black, her face was pale and there were puffy bags under her eyes. ‘Hello, Amanda,’ said Skinner. ‘How are you?’
‘I’ve been better,’ she answered sharply. ‘I’ve just been to a cremation.’
The DCC knew without asking whose funeral it had been. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I wish it had turned out differently.’
‘Do you?’ she asked. ‘The information that was found on Sean’s body was crucial. If it hadn’t been, and the plot had succeeded, would you still be wishing that? There are casualties in our business, Bob. We all have to live with that.’
‘You two know each other, obviously,’ said Sir Evelyn, ‘but let me get the formalities over with. Inspector, you won’t have met Amanda Dennis, who is the head of our Serious Crime section, and neither of you will have met Piers Frame, the deputy DG of the Secret Intelligence Service.’
‘MI6?’ Shannon exclaimed. It was the first time she had spoken since she set foot in the building: Skinner’s sudden glare made her wish that she had kept her silence.
Frame gave her an urbane, indulgent smile. ‘That’s not our official title any longer, and this lot aren’t officially called MI5 either. But the media and the public ignore statute and continue to call us by our old names, so we go along with it . . . now that we’re out of the closet, so to speak.’
‘Perhaps we should not pursue that analogy, Piers,’ Grey murmured. ‘It has more than one connotation.’ He looked at Shannon, as if he was taking pity on her and trying to welcome her into the fold. ‘The fact is, Inspector, the existence of the security and intelligence services is now publicly acknowledged, and even the locations of our headquarters are generally known, but much of the work we do remains covert for very obvious reasons.’
‘As does some of ours,’ Skinner pointed out. ‘But it’s better that people know where you are.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Frame’s tone made his disagreement plain.
The DCC stared back at him. ‘I don’t say things I don’t mean. Let’s say that a terrorist organisation had the resources to strike against your HQ building, but maybe not the wit to plan it too well. Would you rather that they went to the wrong place, one that wasn’t prepared for such an event, as Vauxhall Cross and Thames House are, and blew up hundreds of innocents?’
‘I don’t like our people being in the front line,’ said the man from across the river, frostily.
‘Or you don’t like being in the front line yourself? Actually, you’re not. Sir Evelyn’s identity might be known, and that of your boss, but t
he rest of you are still as anonymous as you ever were. You can go home at night to Bromley, or Wimbledon, or wherever the hell you live, to a street where not one of your neighbours, not even the bloke next door, the chap you share the odd amontillado with, has the faintest idea what your day job is. Not very long ago I shot a man, one of a bunch of very nasty people. In the country where he comes from, they live by vendetta. The media didn’t say that I pulled the trigger, but I was identified, thanks to a well-meaning idiot of a police colleague, as the leader of the operation. I’m not anonymous, mate: I’m a public figure and everybody knows where I live and where my kids live. My house has got geophones round it, put there to let me know as soon as an intruder sets foot in my garden. It has movement-activated floodlights and shatterproof film on all the windows. Right now, up in Edinburgh, my daughter is having malicious telephone calls and I cannot be one hundred per cent certain that they are not related to the operation I’ve just mentioned. I can’t dismiss that idea from my mind. What if that cell had a member we didn’t know about and didn’t catch? Try stepping into the real world, Mr Frame. Go public and share the paranoia with the rest of us.’
‘Bob, I didn’t know that,’ Grey exclaimed. ‘Can we do anything to help?’
‘I didn’t know myself until Alex told me on Saturday. It’s long odds against the two events being connected, but I have the matter in hand just in case.’ He smiled, then nodded towards the salver on the table. ‘Are those things just for show?’ he asked.
‘Far from it. Help yourself, sit down and let’s get started.’
The five each chose from the croissants and fruit, poured coffee, and took seats round the table, the police officers on Grey’s right, and his colleagues on his left. When they were all ready he looked at Skinner and Shannon. ‘Let me begin by summarising why we are here. A week ago, a group of what at first we thought were terrorists attempted an outrage in Scotland. It may have been dressed up as a kidnap for ransom, but within this room we are aware that it was an assassination attempt. Happily it was prevented, thanks to some very good work by your force, Bob, and by Amanda’s section, one of whom was killed, while working undercover during the operation.’
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