‘Yes,’ the South African confirmed. ‘He set up the company in North Cyprus, and used it to buy a small budget airline whose founder was doing okay until he made the mistake of cheating on his wife. Her father was the company’s banker, and he didn’t take it well. The airline went on the block and Anatoly’s company bought it.’
‘Not just Anatoly’s company,’ Haddock pointed out. ‘There’s another shareholder, an entity called Lente.’
‘Mm, I didn’t know that, but whoever it is, they’re very much a sleeping partner. Anatoly ran Wister Air; Anatoly and nobody else.’
‘What about Aisha Karman? What have you got on her?’
‘She was Anatoly’s girlfriend.’
‘She was? But she was screwing Terry Coats whenever she landed in Edinburgh. It was Terry Coats she met on the day she disappeared.’
‘Are you shocked?’ Pollock chuckled. ‘Being cabin crew gives you these opportunities. Not just cabin crew either. My ex-brother-in-law had offices in Durban and Bloemfontein, and a family in each. He still has the offices and the job, but hardly a rand to his name with two sets of kid support to pay. Anyway, the thing about Aisha: we got access to Anatoly’s internet and his computer, and we found an email from her to him, sent two weeks ago, saying that she was in Edinburgh, and she needed to see him, urgently. He replied, saying he’d be there. He asked her to book them a suite in the Balmoral Hotel.’
‘That would have been fucking clever on her part,’ Haddock remarked, ‘considering that at that time she was in a fridge in Manchester.’
Forty-Six
‘Do you not find the air in Edinburgh too thin for your blood?’ Dorward asked.
‘Fuck off, Arthur,’ Lottie Mann replied cheerfully. ‘I’m a regular visitor to the capital city.’
‘You don’t strike me as the Festival type.’
‘I’m not, but I’m a regular prosecution witness in the High Court.’ From her position in the doorway she looked around the shambles that had been Terry Coats’ living room. ‘How are your people getting on here?’
‘A hell of a lot better now we know what we’re looking for. We’re picking up quite a few fibre samples in the sitting room, and even more in the kitchen. The garden dustbin’s interesting too. We didn’t look at it on our first visit, because I didn’t think it was relevant. I wish we had because it’s a right bloody mess. Somebody’s lit a fire in there.’
‘Burning what?’
‘I don’t know for sure, because a lot of it’s melted, but there’s been a towel among it. Part of it survived, maybe because it was wet, and it looks like there are blood traces on it.’
‘Rogozin’s?’
‘Lottie, please. Gimme time, okay?’
‘Sorry. But at least we know his blood type,’ she added, ‘so it won’t be a problem determining if it is.’
‘That’s if Sauce is right and he was here.’
‘We can’t be any more certain than we are. John Cotter went into the chippy round the corner. The guy behind the counter told him that Terry Coats was a regular. Good memory; he remembered that he was in on the evening Rogozin was killed, about five o’clock. He bought a fish supper, a haggis supper, and a single fish. Haggis supper; the Russian’s last meal.’
‘Single fish?’
‘You know how it is, Arthur. There’s always too many chips. The fish supper must have been Coats’s. He had vinegar on it.’
‘But no walnuts?’
The DCI frowned. ‘Why the fuck would he have walnuts on a fish supper?’
‘Who knows?’ he retorted. ‘To each her own, but I found a nutcracker on the kitchen table. Not that I really think it was used for cracking walnuts. I’m pretty sure I can see slivers of skin on it. Rogozin’s fingers were broken, weren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ Mann confirmed. ‘Three of them, on his left hand.’
‘Why that one rather than the right?’
‘Tell me,’ she challenged, patiently. ‘The bus footage shows him handing over his ticket, with his right hand. I’m guessing that Montell and Coats wanted it to be usable when they had finished persuading him to do whatever they wanted.’
‘For example, sign a document?’
‘Arthur, we’ll make a detective out of you yet.’ She glanced around the room once again. ‘When you’re done here, we’re going to need you to look again at Coats’ car. I know the perpetrators are dead, but Rogozin is a murder victim and Sauce and I need to make a report to the procurator fiscal, for the record. Even if he wasn’t killed here, and I’m certain he was, he was dumped from a car. I’m guessing it was that one, but I need to be able to prove it.’
Forty-Seven
Skinner smiled at the camera that he knew was part of the doorbell as he pressed the button. Within, he heard a chain being unfastened, and then a creak as the heavy oak door swung open. ‘You want to put a drop of oil on that hinge,’ he said. ‘I remember saying that last time I was here.’
‘Your memory’s better than mine, Bob,’ Maggie Rose Steele said as she stood aside to admit him. ‘I can’t recall the last time you were here.’ She sounded exhausted and her eyes lacked any sparkle.
‘Is the wee one about?’ Skinner asked, producing a parcel from a canvas bag. ‘I brought her a present.’
‘She’s napping. She has playgroup until four, and she’s usually tired when she gets back. What did you bring her?’
‘Lego. Seonaid was getting into that at her age.’
‘Lovely,’ she said, with a hint of a smile. ‘Dolls are out of fashion with Stephanie just now.’
He reached into the bag once again. ‘I brought something for you too. They wrapped it in Toppings; I’m not that neat.’
She tore off the paper. ‘What’s this? “The Invisible Spirit” by Kenneth Roy,’ she read. ‘It’s a tome,’ she said, weighing it in her hand. ‘Just what I need though, something that has nothing to do with the job. Thanks. Come into the kitchen. Intuition must have told me you were coming; I’ve just made a pot of coffee. Therapeutic,’ she explained. ‘I’m on medication and it’s knocking me out.’
He followed her, taking a seat at a breakfast booth which was set with child’s crockery. ‘Thomas the Tank Engine gets everywhere,’ he chuckled. ‘We have something similar.’
‘How are your brood?’ Steele asked. ‘We haven’t really talked about personal stuff for ages. Remind me, what’s your new one called?’
‘Dawn. She’ll be the sunset of our breeding programme, I promise. I never thought we’d have another, I admit, but she’s a wee beauty, the most like Sarah of any of her three.’ He took a sip from his coffee, then a mouthful, albeit with a wry expression. ‘That’s shit, Maggie.’
She sampled her own, wincing as it reached her taste buds. ‘God, you’re right. That packet’s been in the cupboard for ages. Why did I give it to you, of all people?’
‘Because you’re on meds; your brain’s switched off. Get yourself across the road to Sainsbury’s tomorrow and do a decent shop.’
‘I’d feel guilty, Bob,’ she said. ‘I’m on sick leave. It’s not right to go out.’
‘That’s old-school thinking. You’re not contagious, you’re suffering from stress and depression. You won’t cure that by sitting in the house. Get yourself back into the real world. Go shopping, go for walks in Holyrood park, take Stephanie to a matinee at the cinema. You need to get your life back.’
‘I don’t think I’ve had a life since Stevie died,’ she admitted. ‘We weren’t together for long, he and I, and before that . . . I really fucked it up with Mario, Bob. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been a happy person.’
‘If that’s true, it’s time you were.’
‘How do I make that happen?’ she asked him.
‘You go looking for it. Mags, you’ve never dealt with Stevie’s death. It’s time you did. First, you need to move house. This place is like a mausoleum. It’s dull, it’s depressing, it’s on a main road and it has hardly any garden. Stephanie needs a
change and so do you.’
‘I’m done with the job, Bob,’ she murmured. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘I think I do, and I blame myself.’
‘Why, in God’s name?’
‘For not preparing you better for one thing. For not taking it myself, for another. I went off in the huff because I lost the political argument against unification. If I had taken it, maybe I could have set it up right, and made the fucking thing manageable. But I didn’t, it isn’t, and it’s done this to you, for which, my dear, I am so, so, sorry.’
‘What am I going to do, Bob? I’m forty-three, I’m a single mum, and I’ve been in the police all my adult life.’
‘What would you like to do? You’ll get early retirement on health grounds, no problem. If you take my advice, you’ll finally take the damehood that goes with the job. That on its own will bring you lots of offers, and your CV will bring you even more. You might even find that one of them’s from InterMedia.’
‘Who’ll take over from me? It’s a poisoned chalice.’
He winked. ‘Do not mistake me for someone who gives a fuck about that. I know who it won’t be, but that’s all. Before you go, though, there’s one thing I would like you to do. The service is in danger of losing another very capable woman, and I don’t want that to happen. We both know that last week, when your head was messed up, you made an error of judgement that put someone in an awful position. I want you to reach out to Noele McClair. I want you to visit her and I want you to keep her in the game. Whatever job she wants, give it to her. Don’t ask her to step into Griff Montell’s shoes at Torphichen Place, otherwise do the best you can. I should have done that for you when Stevie died, I should have taken you right out of the firing line and given you a nice comfy desk to drive, a nine-to-five sinecure that would have given you the opportunity of seeing out your career in a stress-free place.’
She looked at him for what seemed like a long time; her eyes offered a hint of a smile. ‘Bob,’ she said, when she was ready to reply, ‘you wouldn’t know a stress-free place suppose you were reincarnated as the Dalai Lama. But I’ll find one, and I’ll persuade Noele McClair that she’s the only person in the service that could fill it. You’re right; I do owe her one.’
Forty-Eight
Instinctively, Haddock stood and assumed a stance that approximated to attention, although the man who had stepped into his office was wearing civilian clothes.
‘Detective Inspector,’ the grey-haired newcomer began, extending a hand, ‘or Sauce, as I hear they call you. Good morning, I’m ACC Lowell Payne. The DCC’s told you about me, I think. With the chief being off, and him standing in for her, he’s made me something akin to his vicar on Earth. I’m not trying to catch you out by turning up unannounced, I promise you. I was going to give you advance warning, but my phone was out of battery, and my car doesn’t seem to be recharging it.’
‘Welcome, sir,’ Sauce replied as they shook. ‘Can I see your warrant card, please?’
The assistant chief constable gasped, stared back at him, and then smiled as he drew his identification from within his shirt and displayed it. ‘You’re taking a chance,’ he said. ‘Bob Skinner told me you had balls, and that’s not a compliment he hands out too often. But you’re right, we’ve never met, so I should have worn uniform.’
‘Sorry sir, I was just covering my arse, with you being in charge of counter-terrorism and everything. Please, have a seat. What do you want to know?’
‘Tell me how close you are to an arrest,’ Payne responded.
‘My team? Nowhere near it, I have to admit. In mitigation, we’ve cleared up two open investigations in England and in South Africa. We’ve established that Griffin Montell was responsible for three killings, the first personally and the others possibly acting in concert with former Detective Inspector Terry Coats. We’ve established that while in the South African Police Service Montell was a principal actor in a massive gold robbery, and that later he smuggled into this country an unknown but significant quantity of Krugerrands and a firearm, the gun that was used in all three homicides.’
‘And he was my niece’s occasional boyfriend,’ the ACC murmured. ‘You found that gun in a safe in his flat, I believe. I have been briefed by the DCC, Sauce; I just wanted to hear it from you.’
‘We did,’ Haddock confirmed, ‘and we can prove that it was put back there after the murder of Anatoly Rogozin. We don’t know for sure who did that, but we believe it was Coats. Montell was booked on the last shuttle to Heathrow, to catch the Johannesburg flight on the Sunday morning. In theory, that allowed time to meet Rogozin in the afternoon, take him to Coats’ place, kill him, dispose of the body, and catch his plane. Tarvil Singh, my DS, has established that it was delayed by half an hour, but he still missed it. Tarvil spoke to a ground-crew employee who remembered him arriving at the gate as the flight was being pushed off the stand. He identified himself as a police officer, but there was nothing she could do.’
‘What made him late?’
‘Traffic. Apparently there was a pile-up on the city bypass, west-bound, at nine-forty on Saturday evening, just past the Lothianburn junction. Coming from Howgate, where the body was dumped, they’d have joined the by-pass at Straiton and been stuck there with no option but to wait for it to clear, which it did at five past ten. The operator of the drop-off zone at the airport has snooper cameras there to catch punters picking-up, contrary to the by-laws. We’re hoping to get some footage of Coats dropping Montell off there. That might, just might, let us track Coats to somewhere near Griff’s at the time the gun was dropped off. It’s all fucking academic, of course, but it would be good to prove it.’
‘Where did Montell go after he missed his flight?’ Payne asked.
‘This is only a guess, but I reckon that he laid low at Coats’ place. He was supposed to be in South Africa, and he needed to appear to be there.’
‘That makes sense,’ the ACC conceded. ‘So, the Rogozin killing. Can we consider that cleared up?’
‘It’s the fiscal’s decision sir, you know that, but that’s what my report will say. I’ve just had the latest feedback from Mr Dorward at Gartcosh. His forensics team can place the victim in Terry Coats’ house on the night he was killed, they can prove that he was tortured there and we have his blood on an undamaged section of a towel that they tried to burn in an old steel dustbin. Also, we have fibres from Rogozin’s Crombie coat in the boot of Terry Coats’ car.’
‘What about motive, Sauce? You’re telling me the guy was tortured before he was killed. Have you got any idea what that was about?’
‘Not much. I do know there was a link between him and Aisha Karman, the Manchester victim, and that her email was used to lure . . .’ He grinned. ‘. . . one of my favourite words that, and I’ve never got to use it before . . . to lure him to Scotland. Why they wanted him here, that I don’t know. However,’ he continued, ‘it’s irrelevant. We can prove who killed him, miles beyond a reasonable doubt. If this was going to a jury, there would be no need to show a motive.’
‘It won’t go to a jury,’ Payne accepted, ‘but the Lord Advocate might decide that there needs to be a formal Fatal Accident Inquiry before a sheriff. Indeed I’d be surprised if there isn’t, with a police officer involved. Does Rogozin have any family?’
‘He has a nephew in Russia, his late brother Dimitri’s son and heir, but he’s eleven years old: an eleven-year-old who now owns part of an airline, I guess. Yes, the kid has a right to a form of justice for his uncle, and the Russian Embassy will have an interest too. It doesn’t worry me though; I’ll be happy giving evidence before any kind of a court.’
‘But not about the murders of Montell and Coats?’
Haddock shook his head. ‘No, sir, not yet, and that’s a bugger. We’re still in the dark there.’
Forty-Nine
‘Is that us finished in Edinburgh?’ John Cotter asked his boss. The day was grey, as he gazed out of her office window across open ground, to
wards the cantilevers of the main stand at Ibrox Stadium.
‘Unless we’re needed, but it’s unlikely. ACC Payne called me half an hour ago. Marlon’s staying there as he’s in the middle of an internet search, but we’re stood down. Worse luck maybe. Did you see what we’ve had reported from Airdrie by the North Lanarkshire division CID? A man’s been found in a builder’s merchant’s warehouse there, crucified, dead as mutton.’
‘Crucified?’ Cotter repeated, aghast.
‘He was nailed to a wall; hands, arms and ankles. Professor Scott’s doing the post-mortem along the road at two and we are invited to attend. Very kind of him.’
The DS pointed to his computer screen. ‘Does that mean we’re no longer interested in this? I’ve had a message from Sauce Haddock; he’s been told by traffic central control that Vito Tremacoldi’s car’s been found, in the multi-storey at Glasgow Airport.’
The DCI scratched her chin. ‘At the airport? Rich man goes missing with his minder. It’s not exactly a serious crime, is it? It’s not even in our area since he disappeared from Perthshire. If it’s anyone’s it’s Sauce’s, but,’ she paused ‘the boy’s got enough on his plate, so, I’ll tell you what, we’ll take a run along there since it’s handy, check it out and then head for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Graham Scott’s autopsy.’
‘Unless the victim’s risen again by that time?’
‘Shut the fuck up, John,’ Mann said, but with a grin on her face.
With Cotter at the wheel, they joined the motorway; the traffic was light and no more than five minutes had elapsed when they reached the airport turn-off and saw their destination before them. The DS pushed the communication button at the car park entrance. ‘Police,’ he said, displaying his identification for the camera.
‘You’re looking for Level Four,’ a disembodied voice advised as the barrier rose.
The access road to the car park was wide but it tested their car’s turning circle as they rose from floor to floor. Mann breathed a sigh of relief as they turned off and into a long alley with cars parked tight on either side. ‘You wouldn’t expect this to be as busy,’ Cotter remarked.
The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner) Page 21