14 - Stay of Execution

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘He had Jay in his fucking pocket: life’s changed for him.’ He looked up at his friend. ‘Where are we going with the Land Rover?’

  ‘We’ve got the biggest magnet we can find, but it’s still quite a task.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Needle in a haystack, but I’ve got George Grogan working on it. He’s been back to the witness and he’s showed him Land Rover vehicle types. The best he could do was narrow it down to either a Range Rover or a Discovery, but that helps a bit. Total annual production’s about a hundred thousand, and both models are big export sellers. We’ll get accurate figures from the DVLA but I reckon we’re looking at over fifty thousand new UK registrations every year. It’s a new-style registration so we’re going back three years maximum; that takes us up to a hundred and fifty thousand Range Rovers and Discos. We’re trying to find one out of that lot.’

  ‘You’ll start with local, though.’

  ‘Of course. That’s George’s priority.’

  ‘Good. It means we . . . sorry, you’ll have something to show the Americans when they get here.’

  ‘Aye. And you never know; maybe they’ll have something to show me.’

  69

  ‘Did you manage to do your homework last night?’ asked Mary Chambers.

  Stevie Steele looked up from his desk. ‘No. I didn’t get either report in until this morning. The SFB data controller was very nervous and waited for their solicitors to give her the go-ahead, and the Heriot-Watt office couldn’t get a bike last night. They’re both here now, though. The Middlemass folder arrived two minutes ago.’

  The superintendent pulled up a chair and sat alongside him. ‘What does it say, then? Let’s have a look.’

  Steele opened the yellow folder; it contained only three documents. ‘Jesus, all that fuss over so little.’

  ‘That’s the Data Protection Act for you,’ Chambers muttered. ‘Another bloody barrier across the pathway to justice. What have you got there?’

  The inspector picked up the top paper. ‘A letter of application,’ he announced, ‘for the position of senior director of Commercial Banking, written on personalised stationery from an address in Dubai.’ He laid it down. ‘Next, a formal application on the bank’s official form. Name, Aurelia Middlemass, age thirty-five, place of birth Cape Town, South Africa, educated St Mary’s School, Durban, and University of South Africa, graduated B.Comm. with honours in financial management, married earlier that year to Jose-Maria Alsina. For career see separate document.’ He took it from the folder and read quickly. ‘Vacation jobs in various law offices and banks, first full-time appointment as trainee in Federated National Bank of Zimbabwe, moved on to become a business account manager in the Commercial Bank of Namibia, then account manager with Friedman’s, a merchant bank in Johannesburg, and finally director of High-Tech Investments, with the Jazeer Independent Bank of Dubai. Attached there’s a letter of commendation from Nasser Alali, the bank’s general manager, with a contact number.’ He glanced at the superintendent. ‘I think I’ll call him.’

  ‘You should. I’ll let you get on with it. Give me a shout if you get a result.’

  She walked back to her office, and set herself to working her way through her morning mail, and reading through the reports of officers on the lesser crime within her division, the day-today investigations that by their sheer volume were much more vital than the occasional high-profile incidents to the maintenance of an acceptable clear-up rate.

  Mary Chambers possessed considerable powers of concentration, and a great ability to absorb information. The phone on her desk rang three times before she was aware of it, and again before she picked it up.

  ‘Dan Pringle here, Mary,’ said a gruff, familiar voice. ‘I thought I should call at least, to see how you’re doing. Normally I’d have been down to see you long before now, but I’ve been up to my oxters in dead Belgians. On top of that there’s the American. Think yourself lucky you’re not involved.’

  ‘I do, Dan, I do.’ She laughed. ‘How are those inquiries running?’

  ‘The Belgians are running nowhere; they’re just marching up and down, like always. So am I in terms of progress. The DCC’s out of town; he hasn’t told me where, but I think it’s connected. As for the Mawhinney thing, McIlhenney’s running that, and he wouldna’ tell me if my shirt-tail was on fire. What about you? Have you had a quiet start?’

  ‘If you call a million-pound bank fraud quiet, yes.’

  ‘A million! Bloody hell. Have you got a suspect?’

  ‘There is a suspect, but we don’t have her. It was an inside job and it looks like she’s got away with it. Stevie’s on her trail, but it’s pretty cold.’

  ‘Keep me in touch, through Ray Wilding if you have to. Cheers.’

  As he said his farewell, the superintendent’s door opened. Stevie Steele wore the expression of a hunter; one who has just seen his quarry escape. ‘What do you do with a bank,’ he asked, ‘that gives people access to millions without running proper checks on them?’

  ‘Don’t give them your money, or move it out if it’s there. What’s the story?’

  ‘The contact number for Nasser Alali rang unobtainable. It was disconnected a year ago. Before that it wasn’t in an office but in a private apartment, rented to a Spanish gentleman named Alsina.’

  ‘And the Jazeer Independent Bank of Dubai? They’ve never heard of Aurelia Middlemass?’

  ‘Oh, yes, they’ve heard of her. They flew her body back to South Africa, about eighteen months ago. She was out in the desert, off-roading big-time with her boyfriend, when their jeep exploded. They were both killed. The investigators decided that an electrical fault had ignited the fuel load.’

  ‘Mammy!’ Mary Chambers exclaimed. ‘There’s devious for you. So this woman, whoever she was, decided that it would be a good idea to steal her identity and use it to set up a scam in a bank well away from the Middle East. This was really well planned. She’s out of here all right.’

  ‘I know. George found the airline. They caught the first easyJet flight to Gatwick on Monday morning. One-way tickets, bought on the Internet the day before. Checked in four suitcases and paid the excess charge in cash. There’s no record anywhere of any onward booking.’

  ‘But there will be under another name.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Shit.’ She looked at Steele. ‘You know, every so often in my career, I’ve run up against someone who’s done something so clever and so audacious that part of me wants to take its hat off to them. This is one of those times.’

  70

  The same black Citroën picked up Skinner and Arrow from the Royal Windsor Hotel at ten thirty. Both men had wakened with slightly thick heads, but an hour in the gym had set them up for breakfast.

  Their driver took them through the city and towards the outskirts. The sky was cloudy and Skinner had no idea whether he was heading north, south, east or west, but eventually they broke out into clear, flat countryside. Not much more than ten minutes later, they turned off the dual carriageway on which they were travelling and into a two-way road, which led eventually to a gateway, barred by a hinged red and white pole. An armed guard appeared, spoke briefly to the driver, and the way was cleared for them.

  Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Winters’s office was on the ground floor of a grey concrete two-storey building. He came to greet them at the door, looking stiffer than ever in uniform, and even more solemn. He showed them to his sparsely furnished room, offering each of them a hard wooden chair.

  ‘Monsieur Skinner,’ he began, ‘I am afraid that I will not detain you long. I have examined the files of all three men in question, and I have made inquiries of the civilian authorities. I can tell you nothing that will help in your investigation. Your trip has been wasted.’

  The Scot looked at him. ‘Nothing? You’ve looked at their entire thirty-year army career and it doesn’t offer a single potential line of inquiry?’

  Winters sniffed. ‘These were ver
y boring men, sir. Exemplary soldiers.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘If they were that bloody exemplary, how come they spent twenty-five bloody years as labourers to an orchestra?’

  ‘We all have to do our part, sir, in whatever way. If you were a military man, perhaps you would understand that.’

  Condescension always lit Skinner’s fuse; his eyes caught Winters’s and locked on, as if they were boring into his head. ‘Listen, my friend.’ He ground the words out. ‘I am a member of a disciplined service, just as you are. To extend the point, I am a damned sight higher ranking in my force than you are in yours. I know how to handle the people under my command, and how to slot round pegs into round holes. When I see three men like Malou, Hanno and Lebeau doing the jobs that they did, I know that they’re not there because they’re exemplary. But if they were put there because they were no fucking good at anything else, they wouldn’t have been kept on in the service till they were fifty. There was another reason; I know it, and it’s written in your eyes . . .’ Winters blinked, and his face reddened as if he had been slapped. ‘. . . that you do too. Will you let me see their service files?’

  ‘Certainly not. They are private; available only to the Belgian military.’

  ‘What? A colonel, a sergeant and a corporal who were, according to you, clerks and scene-shifters for the bulk of their careers? They’re state secrets?’ His expression as he looked at the Belgian was pure derision. ‘I’ll tell you, chum, you’re another square peg in a round hole. For a spook you’re not very good at it. You’ve had orders to pat me on the head and send me away with a smile on my face. You’ve failed, big-time. I came here with suspicions, and you’ve turned them into certainties.’

  He turned to Arrow. ‘Can we get out of here, or is he going to try to detain me until I promise to stop making waves?’

  ‘Come, come,’ said Winters, trying to recover some dignity and a degree of control. ‘Of course you can leave. Your car is still at your disposal. It will take you to the airport.’

  ‘For the first time in my life,’ said Skinner bitterly, ‘I find myself looking forward to seeing that place.’

  71

  Normally, visits by the chief constable to the outposts of his empire were announced in advance. Sir James Proud did not believe in dropping in casually to divisional headquarters, or to any of the outstations. To some that would imply that he was trying to catch them off guard, and might damage their trust in him. Trust, given and received, was the foundation of his office, and it had seen him through a successful career that was now approaching its conclusion.

  Thus, when he swept through the entrance of the Queen Charlotte Street police office, it came as no surprise to the young constable behind the public counter, or to Chief Superintendent Stockton Day waiting in front of it in his pristine uniform, or to Detective Superintendent Mario McGuire, standing beside him, jacketless, a pen clipped into the pocket of his white shirt. They had been alerted in a phone call from his secretary, as he had left Fettes.

  Two men followed him into the building; one was in NYPD uniform, while the other, slightly younger, wore a grey tailored suit and a grim expression.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ the chief exclaimed. ‘We didn’t need the welcoming committee but thank you anyway.’

  As he spoke McGuire and Nolan Donegan nodded to each other, reached across and shook hands. ‘You know each other?’ Sir James asked.

  The superintendent nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Colin Mawhinney introduced us when he took me on a tour of some of the precinct offices. Sorry it’s like this, Nolan.’

  ‘Me too, Mario, me too.’

  The chief constable introduced the two Americans to Chief Superintendent Day. ‘I thought it right,’ he said, ‘that they should come straight to the heart of the investigation. Is DI McIlhenney in?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ McGuire replied. ‘He’s in the office he’s using. I told him I’d bring you through when you arrived.’

  ‘Shall I organise refreshments, Chief?’ asked Day.

  ‘I’d appreciate that.’ He turned to the Americans. ‘How about you, gentlemen?’

  Donegan nodded. ‘To be truthful, I’m flagging after that flight. I’d welcome some coffee.’ He turned to his colleague. ‘Eli?’

  The crew-cut lieutenant seemed to stand even more stiffly than before. ‘No, thank you. I should check in on the investigation right away.’

  As Donegan and the chief were led away by the divisional commander, McGuire showed Huggins through to the CID suite. ‘Good trip?’ he asked casually.

  ‘No,’ the American replied curtly.

  McIlhenney saw them coming through the glass panel in the door of the cubicle that McGuire had described as his office; he rose from behind his desk and opened it for them, then introduced himself to the visitor. ‘Eli Huggins, Lieutenant, Internal Affairs Bureau, NYPD,’ the man replied shortly.

  Name, rank and serial number, thought McGuire. He sees us as the fucking enemy.

  ‘Who’s the senior investigating officer?’ asked Huggins.

  ‘I am.’ McIlhenney was always amiable; but on occasion it was a little forced.

  ‘You are? Maybe I misunderstand your ranking structure here, but isn’t a superintendent superior to an inspector in your force?’ He turned to McGuire. ‘And are you, sir, not the divisional detective commander here?’

  ‘Well done, you’re right both times.’

  ‘In that case, sir, I have to tell you that I do not believe that my chief of detectives would approve of command of this investigation being delegated to a junior officer.’

  ‘Nor would he approve of me walking into his office and telling him how to do his job. You’re not going to be a fucking seagull, are you, Eli?’

  ‘What’s a seagull?’

  ‘It’s a name the managers of American-owned companies in Scotland sometimes give to the guys from head office. It means that they fly in from far away, make a lot of noise, shit all over you and then fly away again. The story is that the man at the top of our chain of command has decided that it would not be appropriate for me to command this one. Colin and I became good friends in the time we knew each other . . .’

  ‘You mean your objectivity is in doubt?’

  ‘I mean I’m a potential witness to his state of mind.’

  ‘There is another reason,’ said McIlhenney quietly. ‘When these people are apprehended, we do not want to have them carried into court by paramedics.’

  ‘It’s my Italian blood,’ McGuire added. ‘Makes me excitable; that and my Irish blood.’

  Huggins showed his first sign of loosening up. ‘Don’t you have Scots blood to calm you down?’

  ‘Nope. Fifty per cent Wop, fifty per cent Mick, that’s me.’

  ‘With breeding like that you’d be Commissioner of Police in New York.’

  ‘I doubt that, very much. I’d probably be at war with myself over control of a labour union.’ He reached out to open the door. ‘I’m going to leave you guys alone, now. By the way, Lieutenant, Neil isn’t on my staff, so I haven’t delegated anything to him. He’s Special Branch.’

  ‘Is that something like me?’

  ‘If you mean that you’re both secret policemen, I suppose he is. But that’s as far as it goes.’ He left the room with a smile.

  ‘Take the weight off your feet,’ said McIlhenney, as the door closed, ‘and tell me why you came in here like a man with a thistle up his arse.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Huggins, as he accepted the first invitation. ‘Before I left I had an interview with my boss and his boss. They both explained to me what the personal consequences would be if any of the information I’m carrying got into the public domain.’

  ‘That’s good man management.’ The big inspector chuckled.

  ‘Maybe, but I can understand why.’

  ‘Are you telling me that your man Mawhinney was bent?’

  ‘Absolutely not. There was no straighter officer on our force.’

/>   ‘What’s the story, then?’

  ‘I’ll get to that,’ said the New Yorker, ‘but maybe you could bring me up to speed on your investigation.’

  ‘Sure.’ McIlhenney ran him through everything they had, detailing all of Mawhinney’s movements since he and McGuire had arrived for the second leg of the exchange visit, and ending with Spoons’s statement, and the search for a single Land Rover among over a hundred thousand vehicles.

  ‘He wasn’t forced into the automobile?’

  ‘Not according to the witness statement,’ the inspector repeated. ‘He stopped, there was a period of communication with the people inside, then Colin got in himself, and the vehicle drove off. Next morning he was found in the dock.’

  ‘Do you think he was meant to be found?’

  ‘It is only an opinion, you understand, but I don’t. If he was, why bother taking him there? Why not just dump him in the river, or in one of the lochs in Holyrood Park? He was weighted down and dropped in deep water. It was a pure accident that the chain snagged and he didn’t go to the bottom. He wouldn’t have stayed there for ever, but I reckon the thinking was that he’d be down there long enough to fuck up the forensics.’ He looked up. ‘So what have you got?’

  ‘Before I begin,’ said Huggins, ‘I need to know who will have access to this information.’

  ‘If it’s that sensitive, only two people: me and Bob Skinner, our deputy chief, my boss.’

  ‘It will remain secure?’

  ‘Bet on it.’

  ‘I’m betting my career. That’s why I was so awkward earlier. Okay, here goes. As you know, I am a member of our IAB. Before he was transferred to patrol division, Colin Mawhinney was also an IAB officer.’ Huggins hesitated. ‘You probably think of us in the way that most people do, that we’re real bottom-feeders, cops who persecute other cops. But everything we do, and every investigation we undertake, is in response to a complaint from the public of corruption or serious misconduct, with the emphasis on serious. We don’t go looking for work; we don’t have to. It comes to us, by telephone, by letter and these days even by e-mail.’