‘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.’
He heard her sigh. ‘You’ve got me there. Stevie would. Hell, though, my in-tray’s stacked high here, and yours must be even bigger.’
‘True, but I didn’t just call you to shoot the breeze. I need your help in our top-priority investigation, Toni Field’s assassination. You weren’t really involved when it began, but are you up to speed now?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed, ‘fully.’
‘In that case, you’ll know it all began when we found the body
of a man in Edinburgh, having been directed by the people who left him there, his ex-soldier buddies. They’re now dead, having been killed on the scene after the Field hit. We’ve found their car, and what was in it, including the body of a well-known Glasgow hoodlum. Although we haven’t linked his death to them, but there was nothing there that referred back to Cohen. Everything that he had is missing. That includes a MacBook Air laptop . . . you know, the super-light kind . . . and that’s what we would most like to find.
‘It may no longer exist. Freddy Welsh told me he burned his clothes but he didn’t mention the computer. Maybe that went into the fire as well, but maybe not. Either way, Freddy needs to be asked; use Special Branch. Have George Regan go to see him. He’s been well softened up, so he’ll talk with no persuasion.
‘If he can’t help us, I would like you to institute a search, city-wide, but looking initially at the area near Welsh’s yard, where Cohen died, and around Mortonhall, where he was found. Will you do that for me?’
‘Of course. What’s on the computer?’
‘I don’t know; his wife in London said his whole life was on it, but maybe that means nothing more than his iTunes collection and photographs of her and their kid. On the other hand, there may be the key that unlocks all the fucking boxes.
‘We know already all there is to know about Byron Millbank; that’s the alias he was given by somebody’s friends at MI5. If what the widow told Lowell Payne and Neil McIlhenney is literally true, the MacBook, if it still exists and we can find it, may tell us everything we need to know about Beram Cohen, including the name of the person who paid him to kill the chief constable of Strathclyde, and why.’
‘We’ll get on it right away,’ Steele promised.
‘Thanks,’ Skinner said. ‘It’s a long shot, I know, but if you don’t buy a ticket, you won’t win the raffle.’
Forty-One
‘Where have you been, Sarge?’ Banjo Paterson asked, as Provan came into the room. ‘The DI was on the phone looking for you.’
‘Did ye tell her I’ll call her back?’
‘No. I thought you might not want to. It’s awkward with her being suspended.’
‘She’s not fuckin’ suspended!’ Provan yelled, flaring up in sudden fury. ‘She’s on family leave. If I hear that word used once more Ah’ll have your nuts in a vice, son.’
The DC backed off, holding up his hands as if to keep the little man at bay. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’
‘Aye, well . . . just mind your tongue from now on.’
‘Understood. So,’ he continued, ‘where have you been? You went out that door like a greyhound. I’ve never seen you move so fast.’
‘Doesnae do tae keep the chief constable waiting,’ the DS said, a smirk of bashful pride turning up one corner of his mouth.
Paterson whistled. ‘A summons from on high, eh? What did he want?’
‘He wants us to do a wee job for him. Ah need you to get intae your computer and find me a phone number for the equivalent of the General Register Office in the Republic of Mauritius . . . wherever the fuck that is.’
‘It’s in the Indian Ocean. Give me a minute.’
Provan looked on as he bent over his keyboard, typed a few words, clicked once, twice, a third time, then scribbled on a notepad. ‘There you are,’ he announced, as he ripped off the top sheet and handed it over. ‘That’s the number of the head office of the Civil Status Division, in the Emmanuel Anquetil Building, Port Louis, Mauritius.’ He glanced at the wall clock. ‘I make that fifteen seconds short of the minute.’
‘Since you’re that fuckin’ clever, can you access birth records through that thing?’
‘I doubt it, but I’ll have a look.’ He turned back to the screen and to his search engine, but soon shook his head. ‘No, sorry; not that I can see. You’ll have to call them.’
‘Will Ah be able to speak the language?’
‘Possibly not; it’s English.’
‘Cheeky bastard,’ the DS growled, but with a grin. He dialled the number Paterson had given him. The voice that answered was female, with a musical quality.
He introduced himself, speaking slowly, as if to a child. ‘I am trying to find the record of a birth that may have taken place in your country two years ago.’
‘Hold on please, sir. I will direct you to the correct department.’
He waited for two minutes and more, becoming more and more annoyed by the sound of a woman crooning in a tongue he did not understand, but which he recognised as having Bollywood overtones. Finally, she stopped in mid-chorus and was replaced by a man.
‘Yes, sir,’ he began. ‘I understand you are a police officer and are seeking information. Is this an official inquiry?’ His voice was clipped and his accent offered a hint that he might have understood the lyrics of the compulsory music.
‘Of course it is,’ Provan replied, his limited patience close to being exhausted, ‘as official as ye can get. It’s a murder investigation.’
‘In that case, sir, how can I be of help?’
‘Ah’m lookin’ for a birth record. Ah don’t know for certain that it’ll be there, but ma boss has asked me to check it out. All we have is the name of the mother, Antonia Field.’
‘What is the date?’
‘We don’t know that either, just that it was two years ago, in the period between January and June. The lady took six months off work tae have the child, so our guess is that it was probably born round about May or early June.’
‘Field, you said?’
‘Aye, but when she lived in Mauritius she was known as Day Champs.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Day Champs.’
‘Are you trying to say Deschamps, officer?’ He spelled it out, letter by letter.
‘Aye, that’s it.’
‘Very good. I will search for you. If you tell me your number, I will call you back. That way I will know that you really are a policeman.’
‘Fair enough.’ Provan gave the official the switchboard number, and his own extension, then hung up.
With time to kill, he wandered into Lottie Mann’s empty office, sat at her desk, picked up the phone and dialled her number.
She answered on the first ring. ‘Dan?’
‘Aye. How’re ye doin’, kid?’
‘Terrible. Wee Jakey isn’t buying the story about his dad any more. I’ve had to tell him the truth, and it’s breaking his wee heart.’
‘Maybe he’ll be home soon,’ the sergeant suggested, knowing as he spoke how unlikely that was.
‘Get real, Dan,’ she sighed. ‘There’s more. On Sunday I gave Scott thirty quid to take the wee man out for the day. They went to that theme park out near Hamilton. It occurred to me, that’s a hell of a lot more than thirty quid’s worth, so I had a rummage in his half of the wardrobe. I found an envelope in a jacket pocket, with four hundred and twenty quid in it. The envelope had a crest on the back: Brown Brothers Private Hire.’
Provan felt his stomach flip. ‘Lottie,’ he murmured. ‘What are ye telling me this for? Ah’ll have tae report it now.’
‘No you won’t. I’ve done that already, I called ACC Gorman and told her.’ She paused. ‘Here, did you think I was going to cover it up? For fuck’s sake, Danny!’ she protested. ‘Don’t you know me better than that?’
‘Aye, right,’ he sighed. ‘Ah shouldae known better. Sorry, lass.’
‘Have they interviewed him yet?’ she asked. ‘The big bosses?’
‘They’ll just be startin’ about now. Ah’m no long back frae seein’ the chief. He was just gettin’ ready to go down there, him and Bridie.’
‘Then God help my idiot husband. There’s no prizes for guessing who’ll play “bad cop” out of that pair, and I would not like that bugger sitting across the table from me. Why were you seein’ him anyway?’ she asked. ‘Are you telling me there’s been a development?’
‘No, just something he asked me to handle for him.’ As he spoke he heard a phone ring outside, then saw Pat
erson pick up his own line. The DC spoke a few words, then beckoned to him. ‘I think that’s ma contact now,’ he said. ‘Ah’ll need tae go. Ah’ll call ye if I hear anything from the interview.’
Forty-Two
The chief constable paused outside the door of the interview room. ‘Who’s his solicitor?’ he asked his deputy.
‘Her name’s Viola Murphy,’ Bridie Gorman told him. ‘She’s a hotshot in Glasgow, a solicitor advocate . . . that means . . .’
‘I know what it means. She takes the case the whole way through, from first interview to appearing in the High Court. I know about her too. She was one of my daughter’s tutors when she did her law degree. Alex couldn’t stand her.’
‘Will she know you?’
‘Not personally. She might from the media, though.’
‘Of course, she’s bound to. How do you want to play this?’
‘Very simply. We’re going to walk in there and inside five minutes Mr Mann is going to be singing like a linty. He’ll tell us everything we want to know. And you know what? It might even be true.’
Gorman was sceptical. ‘Mmm. I know Scott. He used to be a cop, remember, a DC. He’s interviewed people in his time, so he’ll know what’s going on in here. He’ll know that he has a perfect right not to say a single word, and you can bet that’s how Viola bloody Murphy will have advised him to play it.’
‘We’ll see. You keep her in her box and let me have a go at him. Remember, the right to silence goes both ways.’ He opened the door and stepped into the interview room.
Scott Mann was seated at a rectangular table. His solicitor was by his side, but she shot to her feet. ‘I don’t appreciate being kept waiting like this,’ she protested.
Skinner ignored her. He and Gorman took their places and she reached across and switched on the twin-headed recorder, then glanced up and over her shoulder to check that the video camera was showing a red light.
‘I mean it,’ Viola Murphy insisted. ‘I am a busy woman, and you’ve kept me sitting here for an hour and a half. I promise you, as soon as this interview is over I’ll be complaining to your chief constable.’
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