‘Initially, through me,’ Randall Mosley told him. ‘I met Lady Elmore in Brussels, just as her term as an MEP was ending. She was on a literature committee. To tell you the truth, she’s the reason I’m in my job. She’s on the Book Festival board, and she supported my application.’
‘Why did you think of applying in the first place?’
‘I can’t recall for sure. We both felt it was time we moved on, Leona mentioned the job . . . I suppose it was a joint decision that I go for it.’
‘I see. One more question, Denzel . . . I’m sorry if this is beginning to sound like an interrogation . . . do you believe that Frankie Coben is dead?’
‘What?’ Chandler gasped.
‘Come on,’ Skinner persisted, ‘you know about Tadic, you must know about Coben, the general’s associate, almost his alter ego. The Cleanser was an animal, practically a fucking cannibal. Coben was very different, Serbian mother, North American father, had a university education then put it to use killing Muslims and gypsies.’
‘No,’ Chandler exclaimed, ‘I don’t. This really is an interrogation. What are you suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting nothing,’ said Skinner easily. ‘I’m telling you what we know: Frankie Coben was reported killed in a missile strike seven years ago. Only that report was wrong. I’ve been into your background, Denzel; I can’t find anything about you that’s more than six years old, before the time you showed up in Brussels.’ He turned to Mosley. ‘Randy, care to fill in the blanks?’ She stared at him, eyes wide open, but said nothing. ‘Denzel, where were you before that?’ he persisted.
‘I was drunk,’ he said, his voice a whisper. ‘I was alcoholic from the age of twenty-five to thirty-three. I bummed my way around Europe then I straightened out.’
‘That’s funny; those were the years when Coben was killing people in the Balkans. And now he’s killing them again. We know that he’s in Edinburgh. We know that he killed Glover, personally. We know that he used an associate to buy a box of cigars, that he altered one, very cleverly, and then had that box sent to Henry Mount, as a gift from the Edinburgh Book Festival. We know that before he came to this city he killed two of the three witnesses in General Tadic’s first trial, and that he came here to find out the whereabouts of the third, through the person most likely to know, Lord Elmore. Coben’s arrogant, unbelievably so; he devised provocative, boastful ways to kill, ways that said, “Look how clever I am.” He even had his associate use his name, as if to proclaim his presence. Interesting, isn’t it, Denzel?’
Chandler’s eyes were crazed as he backed away from him; he glanced at the door, only to see McIlhenney’s massive frame leaning against it.
‘But then there was a twist,’ Skinner continued. ‘Out of the blue, just as it became known that you were doing the Elmore book, Coben learned from Ainsley Glover that he was also interested in the Tadic case, and that he and Henry Mount were as keen as he was to find the witnesses. So what did Coben do? He became the third person in their project, probably feeding them scraps to encourage them to cooperate with him, and he waited until they came up with the information he was after: the whereabouts of the last and vital witness, right on our own doorstep. When he had that,’ the chief constable said, slowly, ‘Henry and Ainsley had become witnesses too, along with his associate, Ed Collins, Ainsley’s daughter’s greedy grasping creep of a boyfriend. So they went, in a way designed to make us simple plods think that we had a serial killer preying on crime writers, even down to the clue left beside Collins’ body, after he’d killed him.’ He snatched a pen from his pocket and tossed it to Chandler; he caught it, in a reflex action. ‘Is that yours?’ he asked.
The cornered man stared at it. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.
‘Sure it is; I knew that already. You stayed in that hotel two months ago, on a trip to The Hague with Lord Elmore, and like everyone does, you brought the pen from your room home as a souvenir.’ He fell silent, staring coldly at Chandler as he stood, dumbly helpless. ‘You brought it home,’ he repeated, ‘and stuck it in a mug on your desk with all the others.’ And then he glanced to his side, at Mosley, herself seemingly transfixed. ‘Esam li dobro shvatio, Frankie?’ he said.
‘Jesi,’ she replied. And then her mouth dropped open. And then she gasped. And then she launched herself at the door.
She kicked out at McIlhenney, expertly, but he was faster, much faster, than she had expected. He blocked her strike, swept her feet from under her, then followed her down, pinning her to the floor. ‘Help me secure her, boss,’ he said. ‘This lady’s dangerous and we don’t want to wind up missing any vital parts.’
‘Absolutely.’ Skinner seized her by both arms, lifted her into the air, then lowered her into a chair. The superintendent fastened her wrists, tightly, to its legs with white plastic restraints. ‘I used that language trick on a guy a few months ago,’ he told her. ‘It worked just as well this time.’
‘What did you say to her?’ McIlhenney asked.
‘Do I understand it properly? Did I get it right? And she forgot herself and said, “Yes.” Or maybe she knew by then that I had.’
‘What, wha . . .’ Denzel Chandler gasped, behind them.
As he straightened, the chief constable took three sheets of paper from within his jacket and handed them to him. ‘Your client got these for me: Lord Elmore. Faxed copies of the personal file of Francesca Coben, showing next of kin, and her Serbian military identity card, complete with photograph. She’s changed a lot, but her skin tone’s still the same; and so is her DNA, which we can compare with that of her father, Garland Mosley, a black American soldier who knocked up her Serbian mother, Mira Coben, on a leave in Germany back in the sixties, and who’s still alive, in a retirement home in Dayton, Ohio.’
‘I never knew,’ the man protested. ‘I never knew any of this.’
‘You will have to convince us,’ Skinner told him. ‘We need to question you further, to be sure. But you’re part of the way there, because it’s pretty clear that she was prepared to let you take the hit, to let us go on believing you were Coben, until you were on your way to the nick, and she was out of here, on her way to being long gone. That’s why I gave you that going-over, when I knew it was her. But I confess that I didn’t until I saw those papers. I really did think it was you.’ He glanced at her. ‘Sure, her background is like yours; she goes back seven years, and then there’s no trace of Randall Mosley, but the blockers for me were, one, that she found Ainsley’s body and, two, that message he sent, that last email.’ He took the wireless device from his pocket. ‘It said, “randy yurt dying”, just those three words, and he sent it to her. So, I had to tell myself, she couldn’t have done it, because Glover saw his killer, and he sent her his plea for help. Understand?’
‘I understand nothing any more,’ Chandler sighed.
‘Well, now I do.’ He waved the device in the air. ‘I had a look at the email directory stored in here. The next entry after “Mosley, Randall” is “Mount, Henry”. It wasn’t a plea for help, it was a warning to his pal, only the poor sod pressed the wrong button, and he sent it to Randy by mistake. She must have crapped herself when she found it in her mailbox next morning. Her first instinct must have been to delete it, but no, she really is clever. She realised that the original, and its destination, would still be on Glover’s machine. If she’d made that one, tiny, understandable mistake, she’d have been blown there and then, but she didn’t. Instead, she left it there, she went along to the yurt, with a witness, Richards, and they discovered the body. Ainsley would have appreciated that, professionally, and so would Henry. When was the last time you read a murder mystery, Denzel, where the perpetrator actually discovers the body, right at the start? No wonder it’s taken us this long to get to her.’ He nodded to McIlhenney, then watched as the superintendent twisted Coben’s antique chair around to face him. ‘Mr Chandler, you’ll need to come with us for further questioning. Francesca Coben, also known as Randall Mosley, I am arresting you for the mu
rders of Ainsley Glover, Henry Mount, Edward Collins, and Mirko Andelič, also known as Asmir Musta—’
‘What?’ Her half-scream, half-laugh, interrupted him. ‘Are you telling me that Mirko is dead?’
‘You know I am,’ he told her. ‘You killed him on Sunday evening, at around about eleven.’
‘Oh no, I didn’t,’ she declared. ‘I was in Lord and Lady Elmore’s house with Denzel until ten forty-five on Sunday. We went there for drinks after our last event. Ask my poor dupe, he’ll confirm it.’
The police officers looked at Chandler; he nodded confirmation.
‘See,’ she said. ‘I didn’t kill him, but I bless the man who did. The last witness is dead, Tadic is free, my general is free, my lover is free. Now it’s his turn to get me out of jail.’
Eighty-four
Aileen sat upstairs in the study, reading a brief on the escalating costs of the Forth River crossing, wishing that her colleagues had followed her instincts and chosen a tunnel rather than a second bridge. Normally she had a mind like blotting paper, but she found that after only a few minutes her concentration lapsed, as she wondered what was happening downstairs. Eventually, she gave up, put the folder back in her blue box and switched on the radio, listening to the folk music programme on Radio Scotland, but with the volume moderate, to guard against any chance of the sound escaping.
She was almost asleep when her mobile buzzed and vibrated on the table beside her. She shook herself back to full wakefulness and picked it up.
‘It’s done,’ he told her quietly.
‘Was there any difficulty?’
‘None we couldn’t handle.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Still in the building, waiting for a van. We’re taking them out the back way, and up to Fettes. Neil and I are going with them, and the new fiscal’s meeting us up there. I can’t let this lie overnight. I must have charges laid formally before this breaks in the media. There’ll be a court appearance tomorrow morning, ten o’clock as normal. I’ll instruct Alan Royston to set up a media briefing half an hour before.’
‘Will you take it yourself?’
‘No. Sammy Pye will be front and centre; he’s senior investigator and that’s how it works.’
‘Did it play out the way you thought?’ she asked, wondering why he was not more elated.
‘Not quite, but three out of four ain’t bad. It looks like she didn’t kill the gypsy after all.’
‘What about Denzel? Will he be charged too?’
‘I don’t anticipate that, although the fiscal might have a different view. Coben says that she’s actually married to Tadic, that she was with him when the attempt was made on his life. He made her fake her death, to protect her, when he realised that sooner or later someone was going to get him. Chandler was used, all the way along, the poor dupe.’
‘I’m a dupe too; she took me in.’
‘Me too. We all were, until this evening, when I saw that fax. Christ, she’s clever. She had Collins use her name when he saw Andy and when he bought the cigars, knowing that we’d go looking for a man. Nobody outside their circle in Serbia twigged to the fact that Coben was female. Nobody actually studied those documents in the Tadic file, took a close look at them.’ She heard him sigh. ‘That’s what happens when you do things in secret.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ she told him. ‘I’ve decided to follow your suggestion. I’m not doing any more deals with my coalition partners. I’m going to blow them out, and form a minority government. If it doesn’t survive the by-election for Ainsley’s vacant seat, then so be it. I’m putting my political integrity first, from now on.’
He chuckled. ‘We’d better enjoy this place while we can, then. You stay put, and I’ll come back here when we’re done up the road. If I’m in time, maybe we’ll go across the road and have a drink in the Book Festival bar. I suppose I should find the deputy director, if I can, and tell him he’s been promoted.’
Eighty-five
‘And that’s it,’ said Skinner, as Brian Mackie and David Mackenzie looked back at him across his meeting table, ‘that’s how it went. In about ten minutes Sammy Pye’s going to tell the media that a woman’s been charged with three murders, but he’s not going to name her: standard practice, as we all know. About a minute later they’re going to be tear-arsing up to the Sheriff Court to find out who she is, so make sure you don’t get knocked over in the rush. I wish I could be there, to see the looks on their faces . . . and the expression on hers, even more so.’
‘How do you think she’ll react?’ asked the ACC.
‘I think it’ll break her,’ the chief replied. ‘I sensed last night that she was starting to unravel. She couldn’t stop talking, once she started. Until now, she’s had a total belief in her own supremacy, her own ability to out-think everybody else. Young Collins, for example, ex-army, not an idiot, gets involved for money, and he thought he was dealing with a man. We’ve been through her place like a dose of salts. We found Glover’s hard disk and Mount’s computer, and her own records, some of which she hadn’t bothered to delete. She contacted Collins by email; there’s no indication that they ever met face to face until the morning he died.’
‘If she hadn’t been caught?’ Mackenzie murmured.
‘She’d have gone looking for Mirko Andelić, and found out very quickly that he was dead. It was a pure accident that she didn’t see Hugo Playfair’s picture in the press, or read his name, because yes, Henry Mount had spilled it to her and Glover, after he’d been to see Boras.’
‘And Boras, sir, what about him?’
‘Forget it.’ Skinner stood, ending the meeting. He signalled to McIlhenney to stay behind as the others left.
‘Do you want me in court, boss?’ the detective superintendent asked.
‘No, give young Sammy all the glory.’ He paused. ‘Once he’s had his moment, you’d better have him send the Andelić material back to Regan, and tell him it’s his again. That’s the bugger, Neil. I’ve still got a killer in my own village.’
‘No chance of Playfair being it?’ The detective shook his head almost before he was finished speaking. ‘Nah, of course there isn’t. He was the guy’s minder; once he’d lost him, he had to disappear, before we started asking him awkward questions.’
‘Yes, like who the fuck was he,’ the chief constable exclaimed as his colleague headed for the door, ‘and where had he come from. No, it’s a local; I’m sure of that. One of my near neighbours followed a man and killed him out of prejudice, battered his head in with a hammer, or similar blunt metal object.’ He froze, and suddenly his eyes were somewhere else. ‘Or similar object,’ he murmured. ‘Neil,’ he called out.
In the doorway, McIlhenney turned. ‘Sir?’
‘When you tell Sammy to send that file back to Regan, have him send two items up to me, assuming that we’re efficient enough to have the second of them. I want the post-mortem report on Andelić, complete with pictures, and I want George’s list of everyone who was in the Golf Inn on Sunday night, before he died.’
Eighty-six
As the old man turned over the soil in his rose garden, his wife’s two pet nuisances, as he insisted on calling them, played around at his feet. The bloody animals have been walked twice today already, he thought. Where do they draw their energy from? His strong wrists twisted, flicking some earth at Jarvis with his hoe, then a second damp clod at Joe, smiling as they dodged out of the way. But he was always careful to miss them.
‘Must oil that bloody gate,’ he muttered as he heard it creak, twice, once on opening, then on closing. He turned to face his visitor, and saw Bob Skinner walk towards him.
And he knew.
‘I need to see your stick, Donald,’ he said, then bent to pick it up from where it lay on the path. He tossed it in the air, then caught it, spinning the rough, hickory in his fingers, admiring the steel circlet at its neck and then the heavy steel cap at the end of the hand grip. Peering at it intently.
‘It was
shame, Bob, rather than prejudice, I promise,’ Colonel Rendell said.
‘Shame?’
‘They made me feel unmanned. When those people, that tribe, parked in front of our houses, I was angry; I admit that. Indeed I expressed it forcefully to you at the time. I blustered to Margot, said something about going out there myself and moving them on. And she told me to do just that. And so I set out, I got halfway there and then I saw them, how rough they looked, and those dogs of theirs, and I discovered to my horror and shame that I was afraid to go through with it.’
He looked at Skinner, as if he was pleading for understanding. ‘Bob, I’ve seen service in some very rough places. I was in the Falklands, I was in Northern Ireland, and I never once felt fear, but suddenly, on Sunday, there I was an old man, too bloody scared to tell some ruffians to be on their way, or even to walk his wife’s dogs. When you offered to do it, and I accepted, that was the most shameful moment of my life. Later, as I had my usual evening whisky in the Golf, when I saw that man, half-drunk, loud, being objectionable with his friend, I just lost it. I felt myself exploding inside; it was all I could do not to confront him there and then.’
‘Donald,’ said Skinner, ‘don’t tell me this now. Wait till you have a lawyer with you.’
‘That won’t make my story any different; you’re going to hear it. I didn’t follow him, you know, not at first. He left before me, maybe a minute or so. I walked up Hopetoun Terrace, for an extra breath of air on my way home. Then I saw him again, in Erskine Road. I made for him then, but he cut down the pathway. I caught him up, and I told him that he and his crowd should clear off, and leave us decent people to live in peace and quiet. He called me a stupid old man in his broken English, and then he pushed me away, and turned his back on me as if I was an irrelevance.’ The colonel sighed. ‘That’s when I hit him; once, then again, and although he put his hand up the second time, he still fell. On the ground I hit him again, once or twice more, that’s all. I heard him moan, but I turned and walked away.’
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