‘Then why are you here?’ she demanded. ‘You two, you’re detectives, you’re not wearing uniforms like Rita and Molly. And you, Mr Payne, you’ve come all the way from Scotland. Would you do that if there was not something more to this?’
‘When he died, Mrs Millbank, he was unattended, not seen by a doctor,’ the DCI explained. ‘That makes it a police matter; nothing sinister, a formality really, but we have to complete a report.’
‘Very good, but such things must happen every day. For a senior officer to come down to London . . . please, Mr Payne, don’t take me for a fool.’
He glanced at the DCS, who nodded. ‘Very well, there is more to it,’ he admitted. ‘Can I ask you, Mrs Millbank, how much do you know of your husband’s background, of his life before you two met?’
‘I know that he was born in Eastbourne, that he never knew his father and that his mother is dead. He spent some time in Israel, was a lieutenant in the army, but left because of his opposition to the Iraq war, worked in mail order and finally for an investment bank, before he joined Rondar . . . that’s our family business.’
‘How about friends, family? Did you ever meet any of them?’
‘He has no family, and as for friends, when he left the army, he left them behind too. We have friends, as a couple, but that’s it.’
‘Has he ever mentioned a man called Brian Lightbody, from New Zealand, or Richie Mallett, an Australian? Or have you ever heard of either of them indirectly?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Those names mean nothing to me. Why do you ask?’
‘Because we know that your husband ate with them in a kosher restaurant in Glasgow, on the day he died, and that they were all registered in the same hotel, and that the other two told staff they were there for the jewellery fair.’
‘So?’ she retorted. ‘That’s your explanation surely. I don’t know everybody in the business, and if they were jewellery buyers also, they do tend to be in the same place at the same time.’
‘Sure, but . . . Mrs Millbank, Lightbody and Mallett weren’t jewellery buyers, and those weren’t their real names. I’m not free to tell you at this stage who they were, but we do know, and we do know their real business.’
‘Are you saying they killed Byron?’
‘No,’ Payne insisted, ‘I am not, but they were with him when he died. There is physical evidence that one or both of them tried to revive him after he collapsed. When they failed, they removed all the identification from his body, including his clothing, and concealed him. Then, after a day or so, they called the police and told them where he could be found.’
Golda Millbank opened her mouth but found that she could not speak. She looked towards Rita Caan, as if for help. ‘Is this . . .’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know any of it,’ the sergeant told her. ‘It’s not what I do. Molly and me, we’re only family support, honest.’
‘It’s true, Mrs Millbank,’ McIlhenney said. ‘We’re here to find out everything you knew about your husband and about what he did.’
‘I know all about him,’ she insisted. ‘He was a good husband and a faithful family man. Or are you trying to tell me that he had a piece on the side?’
‘Not for a second, but suppose he did, that wouldn’t be our business. Let me chuck another name at you. Beram Cohen; Israeli national. Mean anything?’
Both he and Payne gazed at her, concentrating on her expression, looking for any twitch, any hint of recognition, but neither saw any, only utter bewilderment.
‘No,’ she declared. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’ She rose from her chair. ‘I have to phone my mother. She needs to know what’s happening here.’
‘Where will she be at this moment?’ the DCS asked.
‘She’ll be at work.’
‘In that case, I’m sorry, but we’d rather you didn’t contact her.’ He paused. ‘Look, Mrs Millbank, I’m as satisfied as I can be that you know no more about your husband than you’re telling us. But let me ask you, how successful is the family business? I could find out through Companies House, but if you know, it would save time.’
She took a deep breath, frowning. ‘I can tell you that. I’m a director, so I know. Frankly, it’s been on its last legs since my father died three years ago. We’re being out-marketed by other companies and we don’t have the expertise in the company to reverse the trend. Mummy’s trying to sell it, but there are no takers.’
‘Byron wasn’t a director?’
‘No, Mummy wouldn’t allow that. She didn’t want a situation where she could be outvoted. There’s just the two of us on the board; I’m unpaid of course.’
‘How about Byron? Was he on a good salary?’
‘Thirty-five thousand. He had to take a pay cut at the beginning of last year, down from fifty.’
‘In that case, living in his house must be a stretch,’ McIlhenney suggested. ‘This isn’t the cheapest part of London, from what I’m told. How long have you lived here?’
‘We bought it when Leon was on the way, and moved in just after he was born. But it’s okay, we get by easily, because we don’t have a mortgage.’
‘Lucky you. Did your father leave you money?’
‘No. It was Byron. He made a pile in bonuses working with the bank, and never spent it. He wasn’t the type to buy a flashy sports car or anything like that. No, one way or another we’ve always been comfortably off.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you saying . . .’
‘I’m not saying anything,’ the DCS replied. ‘I’m asking. We’re trying to build up a complete picture of Byron. To do that we need to search, where he lived, where he worked, everywhere we can. Was he a member of a sports club, for example?’
‘He played squash, but otherwise he wasn’t the clubbable sort. He ran, on the streets, he cycled and he did things like chins and press-ups . . . he could do hundreds of those things . . . but always on his own.’
‘So all his private life was here in this house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he have a computer here?’ Payne asked.
‘We have one, yes, but it’s mine and he never used it. I’ve told you, he had his laptop, his MacBook, and he took that with him when he left.’
‘Can we look in your machine nonetheless? Just in case he was able to access it without you knowing about it.’
She let out a sigh, of sheer exasperation. ‘Yes, if you must, but honestly, Byron wouldn’t do that, any more than I would look in his. That’s assuming I could get into it. He used to laugh about it and say that breaking his password was as likely as winning the Lottery.’
‘If that’s so,’ McIlhenney said, ‘I wouldn’t like to try to access it, just in case it spoiled my luck for the jackpot.’
‘No worries of that happening,’ Payne pointed out.
‘You mean you didn’t find it,’ the widow asked, ‘among his effects?’
‘I told you, we didn’t find anything, Mrs Millbank. Not even his clothes.’
She shuddered and for a second her eyes moistened, her first sign of weakness. ‘How awful,’ she whispered. ‘Robbing a dead man. How could they have done that? Of course I’ll help you in any way I can. What do you need to see?’
‘That computer for a start,’ the DCS replied. ‘If you could take us through it, looking for any files you don’t recognise, and at its history, its usage pattern. Then if we could look though his belongings, and examine any area where he might have worked at home.’
‘There wasn’t one. He never did. But you can look. If it’ll help, you can look; anything that’ll help you find those so-called friends of his.’
‘Oh, we know where they are,’ Payne said.
‘Then what are you looking for?’
‘I’m afraid it’s one of those situations where we won’t know until we find it. And if we do,’ he added, ‘we might not be able to tell you, for your own protection.’
Her forehead wrinkled. ‘That sounds a little scary. You can’t tell me anything?’
‘No more than we have already.’
‘Nothing? What about that name you mentioned, the Israeli man, Beram Cohen. Where does he fit? Who is he?’
The DCI looked at his escort colleague, raising his eyebrows, asking a silent question. McIlhenney hesitated, then nodded.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Millbank,’ Payne replied, ‘but he was your husband.’
Forty
‘Thanks, Bridie,’ Skinner said, as the ACC rose from her chair at his meeting table, their morning briefing session having come to an end. ‘I’ll give you a shout when I’m ready to start interviewing Scott Mann. He can stew for a bit longer.’
‘His lawyer’s not going to like that,’ she pointed out.
‘Then tough shit on him. The Supreme Court says he has a right to be there, but we still set the timetable, up to a point, and we haven’t reached that yet. He can wait with his client.’
Gorman liked what she heard; her smile confirmed it.
‘Do something for me,’ he continued. ‘Ask Dan Provan to come up here, straight away. With Lottie being stood down, he’s carrying the ball, and I need to speak to him.’
The third person in the room was on his feet also, but the chief waved him back down. ‘Stay for a bit, Michael, please. I’d like a word.’
ACC Thomas frowned, but did as he was asked.
‘I want to apologise to you,’ Skinner began as soon as the door had closed behind Gorman.
‘For what, Chief?’ For which of the many ways I’ve been offended? he thought.
‘For asking you to attend Toni Field’s post-mortem. It’s been suggested to me since then that your relationship might have been more than professional. If I’d been aware of that at the time, no way would I have asked you to go.’
‘Even if the suggestion was untrue?’
‘Even then, because I wouldn’t have been quizzing you about it. If you and she had a fling away from the office, so what? When I was on my way up the ladder, and widowed, I had a long-standing relationship with a female colleague. Nobody ever questioned it and if anyone had they’d have been told very quickly to fuck off.’
‘Then I accept your apology, and I appreciate it, sir . . . although it wasn’t really necessary, since it was my duty as a senior officer to attend the autopsy.’
Skinner grinned. ‘Which means, by implication, that if it was yours, then it was mine even more, and I shirked it.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘No, but if you had I couldn’t have argued, ’cos you’d have been right. The truth is, I’ve seen more hacked-about bodies than you or I have had years in the force, combined, and I tend not to volunteer to see any more. I should have stood up for that one, though.’
Thomas shook his head. ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ he said.
‘How do you work that out?’ the chief asked.
‘Because the examination was performed by your ex-wife, who still speaks of you with a smile and a twinkle in her eye; in my book that disqualifies you as a witness. Suppose that she’d made a mistake, and her findings had been challenged by the defence in a future trial and you’d wound up in the witness box. You’d have been hopelessly compromised.’
Skinner stared at him. ‘Do you know, Michael,’ he murmured, ‘you are absolutely right. It’s years since I attended one of Sarah’s autopsies, but I have done, when we were married. I shouldn’t have, unarguably. I should have known that, so why didn’t it dawn on me?’
‘I’d guess because the possibility of her slipping up didn’t enter your head,’ Thomas suggested. ‘She does seem very efficient.’
‘She’s all that. She gave up pathology for a while, when we went our separate ways, but I’m glad she’s back. I confess that the very thought of what she does turns my stomach from time to time, but I can say the same about my own career.’
‘Is it public knowledge?’
The chief blinked. ‘What?’
‘Toni and me. Does everybody know?’
‘From what I gather, most of the force does.’
‘Jesus!’ The ACC stared at the ceiling. ‘It’s never got back to me, then. I’ve never heard a whisper, not once. And once is the number of times it happened so how the . . .’
‘You were unlucky. You were seen by the wrong people, the kind whose discretion gene was removed at birth. Max Allan did what damage limitation he could, but for what it’s worth, when Lowell Payne gets back from a wee job I’ve given him, I’m going to ask him to root out the people who started the story. Then I’m going to draw them a very clear picture of their futures in the force. What’s the shittiest part of our vast patch, Michael? Where does no PC want to be posted?’
‘I’ll give it some thought,’ Thomas growled.
Skinner nodded and pushed his chair back. ‘You do that,’ he declared. ‘Let’s you and I start again, with a clean sheet,’ he added, extending his hand.
As the two men shook, Skinner’s phone rang. ‘Need to take this,’ he said. ‘It might be Payne.’
It was.
‘We’ve just left Mrs Millbank, Chief,’ his exec told him. ‘We got nothing from it. Neither of us believe that she had a clue about her husband’s previous, or any idea about his sideline. It helped their lifestyle, though; the family business is pretty well fucked, but they live debt-free and drive a nice Lexus.’
‘But no clue to where he kept his Cohen money?’
‘Yes and no. The wife, widow now, told us that he had a computer, an Apple MacBook Air laptop that he was never parted from. His life was in it, was how she put it. Am I right in thinking that hasn’t shown up anywhere?’
‘You are,’ Skinner agreed. ‘Nothing of his has turned up. He was buried naked, wrapped in a sheet. Leave that with me, Lowell. I’ll check it out and get people moving if I have to. Where are you off to now?’
‘To check out his workplace, in the Elephant and Castle, wherever that is. It’ll be a shock for his mother-in-law, or maybe not, depending on how she felt about him. From what I gather, Byron, or Beram, wasn’t much bloody good as a buyer. That’s what the father did, and the business has been suffering since his death.’
‘Let me know how you get on. Then we can decide whether there’s anything else to be done in London.’
‘Will do, boss.’
The chief constable flicked a button on his console to end the call, another for an outside line, then dialled a number that was ingrained in his memory, yet which he had never called before.
A female voice answered. ‘Yes?’
‘Bet you got a shock when that rang,’ he said. ‘Theory being that it’s for your private calls, and not routed through the comms centre.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Maggie Steele replied. ‘This is the fourth call I’ve had on it. One was from Chief Constable Haggerty in Dumfries, another was from Archbishop Gainer, and the third was from old John Hunter, the freelance journalist, who’s got onset dementia and asked me for a prawn biryani with naan bread. He got me mixed up with the Asian takeaway. Are there any of your friends who don’t have this number, Bob?’
‘One or two. How are you getting on?’
‘Okay, but I still feel a wee bit overawed. It feels strange, sitting in this chair, and you on the other side of the country. Only for three months though, yes?’
‘That’s the duration of my appointment,’ he agreed, ‘or my loan if you’d rather put it that way.’
‘Can I have a straight answer to that question? You will be back, won’t you?’
‘That’s my intention.’
‘Bob! Don’t prevaricate. Have you been seduced by the bright lights and the glitter balls of Glasgow already?’
‘No, but . . .’
‘I knew it!’ she declared.
‘No, really. I still have three months in my head, for reasons that are more than just professional.’
‘The kids, I imagine.’
‘And Sarah,’ he added, ‘but keep that very much to yourself. I know that you and she didn’t always see eye to
eye, but much of that was my fault. It’s best for us as a family that she’s here, and that we get along.’
‘But? I can still hear it, hanging there.’
‘But, there are good people through here, Mags, and they need leadership. There is no successor here, from within, and frankly, nobody else in Scotland either, except possibly for Andy, and he wouldn’t want it.
‘The force has already been disrupted and demoralised by Toni Field, God rest her, by her blind ambition and her half-arsed ideas. I’ll hear about the likely runners when the job is advertised. If I don’t fancy any of them, I won’t rule out applying for the post myself.
‘As I say that, I’m thinking that it sounds incredibly conceited, but I am a good cop and I do believe that I’m capable of doing the job, in spite of the misgivings I’ve always held about the size of this effing force.’
‘That’s not conceited,’ she retorted, ‘it’s the plain truth. And beyond that,’ she asked, ‘will you go for the police commissioner post, if unification happens?’
‘I haven’t thought that far, but if I can overcome my doubts about policing half of Scotland, I suspect I’ll be able to do the same about the rest.’
Maggie laughed. ‘Now there’s a sea change, after what you were saying in the press last weekend. If it’s what you want, Bob, or what you feel you have to do, good luck, although I’ll worry about who we might get here as your permanent successor.’
‘I’m listening to her,’ he said.
‘Nice of you to say so, but I don’t have the seniority. The councillors on the Police Authority won’t have it.’
‘The councillors will have it, because I’ll bloody tell them. Their political parties all owe me favours and I will call them in, make no mistake.’
‘But maybe I don’t want it,’ she suggested.
‘Bollocks,’ he laughed. ‘You do, because your late husband would have insisted on it.’
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