‘Glasgow’s a bigger city than Edinburgh by quite a way,’ the DCI reminded him, ‘even though the airport’s smaller.’
As they turned into the second aisle, they saw two uniformed officers at the far end, standing beside a blue car. Cotter drew up just short of them. ‘This is a big bastard,’ he said, surveying the Jaguar. ‘Do we know when it got here? The number plate should have been photographed on entry.’
‘We weren’t asked to find that out,’ the older of the two constables replied.
‘How was it found?’ Mann asked her. ‘Did the airport alert us?’
‘No chance, ma’am. We did it the hard way, just cruising round. It was more by luck than judgement, for they only gave us the number. If we’d been told to look for a big blue Jag it would have made life a hell of a lot easier.’
‘I’ll feed that back,’ the DCI promised. ‘Thanks for the ma’am, by the way. I could be a plain DC, for all you know.’
The PC smiled. ‘You’re kidding. The whole of the Govan police office knows who you are. You’re a legend.’
‘Less of that,’ Mann retorted. ‘I’m too young to be a legend.’
‘Now we’re here, boss,’ Cotter said, ‘what do we do about it?’
‘There’s nothing we can do, John.’ She peered through the front passenger window. ‘It hasn’t been reported stolen and we’ve got no reason to believe it’s been involved in a crime. I can’t see anything inside that would justify us breaking into it, and unless it’s parked here illegitimately, which is bloody near impossible, we’ve got no grounds for having it towed. McCullough’s wife may have her tights in a twist, but it’s Tremacoldi’s car and there is no Mrs Vito to report him missing.’
‘Do you want to ask DI Haddock?’
‘No, and I doubt very much that Sauce wants me to ask him either.’
‘Sir Robert?’
‘He’s got no locus, and even if he did, I know what he’d say. Establish the time of arrival with the car park management, and instruct them to advise DI Haddock when the owner turns up to collect it, unless it was pre-booked and they already know when he’s due back.’ She checked her watch. ‘PC . . .’
‘Wood, ma’am; Victoria Wood.’
‘Right, PC Wood, we’ve got to be somewhere soon, so I’d like you to do that for me. Find out whether the Jag is pre-booked. If it is, advise acting DCI Haddock of Serious Crimes in Edinburgh. If it isn’t, ask the car park operator to do the same, without delay, when the system shows that the car’s being collected.’
‘Very good, ma’am. What if they don’t come back?’
‘We’ll worry about that in a week . . . or rather, Sauce Haddock and Bob Skinner will.’
Fifty
‘It’s a terrible line,’ the detective constable said. ‘Let me call you back mobile to mobile.’ He hung up and copied the number displayed on the website of TCOC into his handphone.
‘That’s much better; I can ’ear you now,’ a male voice told him as his call was accepted. He had been expecting a thick accent, Turkish probably, and so the Cockney twang took him by surprise. ‘My name’s Ronnie Riley. Remind me, please sir, who you are. I didn’t quite catch it earlier.’
‘DC Marlon Honeyman, attached to Serious Crimes in Edinburgh. I’m involved in a major investigation . . .’
‘That’s in Scotland, is it?’
‘It still was when I got up this morning, yes.’
‘So how can I help the Scotch?’
The use of the term made Honeyman’s hackles rise, but he forced them back into place. ‘I’m trying to find out as much as I can,’ he replied calmly, ‘about a North Cyprus offshore company called Wister Air. It’s the holding company for an airline of that name.’
‘Yeah, that’s one of ours. We set it up ten years ago for our client Mr Rogozin. A routine run-of-the-mill offshore company, nothing exceptional or dodgy about it. He could have done it anywhere but . . .’ He stopped in mid-sentence and began another. ‘Why are you asking about it now?’
‘Because Mr Rogozin was murdered about a week and a half ago, here in Scotland.’
‘Bloody ’ell!’
‘We know who did it,’ the DC continued, ‘that’s not in doubt, but we don’t know why. My job is to find out as much as I can about him and his business dealings.’
‘I’m not sure how much help I can give you,’ Riley admitted. ‘We help set these companies up, but very often that’s the last we see of them. That’s how it was with Wister Air.’
‘What are the benefits?’
‘Of an International Business Company? Massive. An IBC’s only subject to one per cent income tax and corporation tax. It’s exempt from VAT. The shareholders are exempt from any inheritance or income tax if they sell their shareholding. Even dividends are exempt from tax. Instead of taxes, an IBC only pays a fixed annual licensing fee of five thousand euros directly to the government. Plus, there’s no restrictions on them taking money in and out of the country. And confidentiality’s guaranteed.’
‘I’m sold,’ Honeyman chuckled. ‘I understand there were two shareholders. Is that right?’
‘Yeah, it is. Rogozin Enterprises, and a trust the name of which I can’t bloody remember now.’
‘Lente.’
‘That’s it! Spelt wiff a final “e”. I remember asking what it meant and Rogozin telling me it means “slowly” in Latin. “Festina Lente”, means don’t be in a fuckin’ rush or something like that. I’ve no idea where it were based, or even what its legal standing was. They were using a nominee so I didn’t care as long as they paid the fee. Rogozin’s company was based in Monaco.’
‘Yes, I noticed that,’ Honeyman said. ‘It made me wonder why he bothered to go to Cyprus to set up Wister Air. Now you’ve explained the advantages, I understand it a hell of a lot better.’
‘Sure, there’s that, but also the company that Rogozin planned to buy was based there, so it made it easier all round.’
‘The airline?’
‘That’s right. It was a nice little business and probably cheap at the price. The South African guy who ran it, ’is father-in-law sold it out from under him. He was a Russian too, as I remember.’
‘Did that sale go through you?’
‘No, that sort of transaction,’ Riley explained, ‘would go through lawyers licensed to practise here in North Cyprus, and would be lodged with the register of companies. I did hear about it though, through a mate of mine who was involved. The purchase price was fifty million euros. Not bad for an airline that was in profit already. But the really odd thing was, it was paid in gold.’
Fifty-One
Looking through the glass wall of what had become Jackie Wright’s office, Tarvil Singh saw a smile spread across her normally impassive face as she gazed at her terminal. She looked across at him and started to rise, but he waved her back into her chair and headed for her instead. He stood in the doorway, unwilling to squeeze his bulk into the cramped little room. ‘What’s making your afternoon?’ he asked.
‘A result,’ she replied, emphatically. ‘You know I’ve been trying to identify which of the airport shops Terry Coats’s girlfriend was fencing her Krugerrands through, if we’re to believe the story he told Sir Robert.’
‘Sure. He said it was owned by the same group who own Wister Air, didn’t he?’
‘That’s right,’ the DC agreed, ‘and I’ve spent hours, days, trawling through every outlet at the airport, airside and groundside, trying to find it on that basis, with no success at all. Finally, I gave up on that and looked again, right across the board, with no preconceptions. Look what I found,’ she turned her monitor towards him. ‘It’s a leather-goods shop, airside, showing on the current layout as being tucked in next to Wetherspoons. It’s called MK Flight Accessories, an independent business, and the owner is a Mr Morris Karman.’
Her smile infected the DS. ‘There’s a coincidence,’ he chuckled. ‘Go on.’
She swung the screen to face her once more. ‘Okay,
we know that while Aisha was educated in South Africa, she actually had a British passport. Through that I got her place of birth which took me to her birth certificate. She was born in Portsmouth, father’s name Steveland Karman, mother Serena Dixon. From there I went to Steveland and found that he has a brother named Morris, who’s the same age as the one who shows up in Companies House as the owner of MK Flight Accessories. As well as the Edinburgh shop, the business has airport outlets in Manchester and Newcastle.’
‘Crackin’ good, Jackie,’ Singh boomed. ‘Did you find an address for Uncle Morris?’
‘Only the one that’s listed in Companies House; that needn’t be his principal residence, but in this case I think it is. It’s in Biggar, in South Lanarkshire, and conveniently in our territory. That means we can invite him to assist us with our enquiries without going through an English force.’
‘Yes, we can lift him if we want,’ the DS agreed, ‘but we’re only going on garbled hearsay from a dead man, so we should be gentler than that. Do you know where we can find him? Did you get that far?’
‘I called the manager of the Edinburgh shop. She told me he’s usually there on a Tuesday, but he called her this morning to say he has a heavy cold and he’s having a day at home.’
‘Captive audience,’ the DS murmured. ‘Get your coat, Jackie, I think you’ve earned a trip out of the office.’
Fifty-Two
‘Do you agree with me, Sauce?’ Lottie Mann asked. ‘Tremacoldi’s car should stay where it is?’
‘Absolutely. It’s there perfectly legally. My partner’s step-granny might argue that it’s relevant to a missing person investigation, but she’ll need to get a lawyer to tell us, and that ain’t going to happen. I’ll tell her about it, but only as a family courtesy. The car park people are sure it wasn’t pre-booked?’
‘Yes, and they would know. Do you think that’s significant?’
‘Not for a minute,’ Haddock said. ‘Cameron’s not the sort of guy who’d book a cheap deal. He’d just roll up and pay.’
‘It’s at the airport, so the assumption is they’ve flown somewhere. The ticket was issued at five fifty-eight; so they must have been on one of the first flights.’
‘Can you fly out of Glasgow on New Year’s Day?’
‘Of course,’ Mann said. ‘Do you think this is the backwoods? There’s Amsterdam, for a start. That’s a very popular destination with middle-aged men out on the razzle.’
‘Maybe so, but I don’t see Grandpa slipping off for a few days in the canal-side brothels.’
‘When he’s got better at home?’ she laughed. ‘Is that what you’re saying? I can tell you from bitter experience, that counts for eff all. Sauce, if you’re under personal pressure over this with Cheeky, I can have a couple of guys go over all the passenger manifests from that day.’
‘I’m not,’ Haddock replied, instantly. ‘And even if I was, I wouldn’t use police manpower on a personal matter.’
‘Bob Skinner would.’
‘If I have to, I’ll ask him, but I’m not there yet. Changing the subject, how about you? You happy to be home?’
‘I was until a couple of hours ago,’ the DCI said. ‘John and I are just back from a post-mortem. The deceased was found in a warehouse in Airdrie when it opened up yesterday morning. What a mess! He’d been fixed to a wall with a nail gun, had his eyes and his genitals incinerated with a flame-thrower, and left hanging there.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Who did he upset, I wonder? What was the cause of death after all that?’
‘Graham Scott decided that exsanguination was the likeliest, although he also said that it could have been shock. The femoral artery was cut after they had finished with him, so chances are he did bleed out. I only saw photos of the crime scene because I was with you on Monday, but it was a right bloody mess, literally.’
‘Rather you than me with that one,’ Haddock conceded. ‘Have you got a name for him?’
‘Walter Thomson, age thirty-seven, mixed race; he had a couple of convictions for violence, but he was suspected of a lot more, cases where the victims were too scared to speak. With the facial damage, he had to be identified by his fingerprints. He was muscle for hire in the East End of Glasgow, where we’ve never quite stamped out the old protection racket.’
‘A gang killing?’ Haddock suggested.
‘Could be,’ Mann agreed, ‘but we’ve got nothing to point us in a specific direction. We don’t even have an accurate time of death. A twelve-hour window stretching from about eight on old year’s night into Wednesday morning.’
‘The same time as Montell and Coats.’
‘Possibly, but a completely different methodology. They were executed, this guy was tortured to death.’ She sighed. ‘Best get on with it, Sauce, I’m told that ACC Payne’s coming in to see me tomorrow,’
‘Is that right? You’re getting more notice than I did. Let me know if there’s any news about Tremacoldi’s car.’
Fifty-Three
‘As far as I know, Detective Sergeant Singh,’ Morris Karman said, stiffly, ‘what I did was not against the law. My poor niece told me that she was being given gold coins by her lover, Anatoly, the Russian man who owns the airline she worked for. Practically, they were no use to her in that form. She couldn’t spend them and she lacked the knowledge to trade them on the gold market. She asked me to help and so I did. I was very fond of Aisha; I’m still in shock about what’s happened to her. That’s why I’m not at work today; I don’t have a cold, as you can see. Tomorrow I’m driving down to Manchester; the police have asked me to identify her body formally. That’s not something I’d ever imagine doing. I don’t know how I’ll handle it, I confess.’
‘It won’t take long,’ the DS told him. ‘DC Wright and I, we’ve both had to help people do that; I’m sure our English colleagues will make it as easy as they can for you.’
‘You know who killed her? Have they caught him yet?’
‘All I can say is that they’re not looking for anyone in connection with Aisha’s death. That might sound like police-speak, but it’s the literal truth.’ He paused as the little man nodded, pursing his lips. ‘We need to ask you about the way you helped Aisha dispose of her . . . gifts.’
For the first time, Karman seemed hesitant; he turned his eyes towards the bay window of his sitting room, looking out across ploughed fields. ‘I said I didn’t believe I was doing anything illegal, Mr Singh. But if you have a different view, maybe I should consult a lawyer before we have this discussion.’
‘You don’t need to, we assure you. Look, we’re Serious Crimes detectives; that means something. If you have sailed close to the wind, it’s going to be minor at worst, and not within our remit. We’re trying to build up a broad picture of what Aisha was doing and who she was doing it with. We’re interested in the circumstances of her death, as part of a broader investigation. Our English colleagues are investigating her murder.’
‘In that case, I’ll trust you,’ he said. ‘I agreed to handle the coins for Aisha, but I didn’t want to run the risk of being nailed for capital gains tax. To avoid that I came up with a formula that involved her tendering them at one of my shops as payment for an item, any item. A small amount of change would be given for the sake of appearances, then the staff would pass the coin to me. Effectively it became invisible, but legitimately, as a transaction had taken place and it had been accepted as payment. I would trade it in the normal way and give the money to Aisha.’
‘Did this happen exclusively in Edinburgh?’ Jackie Wright asked. ‘Aisha flew into other airports, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, she did, but it was only done in Edinburgh. I’m there most frequently.’
‘How many times was this done? How many coins did you trade for her?’
‘Good question.’ He frowned, searching his memory. ‘Ten or eleven, I think. I can dig out the paperwork if you need it.’
‘Not at this stage,’ Singh said. ‘Mr Karman, did the system stay confid
ential, or did anybody ever find out about it?’
‘Once, it was mentioned to me by someone on the airport staff. I took it up with the shop manager and she investigated. The checkout girl had been talking out of turn. She was fired, but not for that, for helping herself to stock.’
‘How close were your niece and the man Anatoly?’
Karman threw him a lazy smile. ‘Do you mean was marriage in the offing? Not a chance. Aisha didn’t even like the man all that much, but he was the boss, and he was generous with the K-rands.’
‘They were a genuine gift? Are you sure about that? She wasn’t giving him the money back?’
‘That was the very first question I asked her, Sergeant. Was this money-laundering? She promised me that it was not, that they were hers to keep. She told me once that when he was drunk, he called them his “slegte winste”; that’s Afrikaans for “ill-gotten gains” she explained.’ He stopped; as the detectives watched, his face went pale. ‘Are you going to tell me that she was stealing the coins from Anatoly and that’s why she was killed?’
‘No, we’re not,’ Singh assured him. ‘I can’t tell you too much, but he didn’t know she was dead. We’re satisfied that he had no part in it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Certain. Mr Karman, did Aisha ever mention to you a man named Terry Coats?’
‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, ‘the stockbroker. Yes, she talked about him. She and Anatoly weren’t . . . how can I put it? . . . exclusive. I’m not saying she was promiscuous, God bless her, but she had more than one attachment. She met the man Coats by chance in Edinburgh Airport and they had, a fling, I suppose you’d say. More often than not when she had a lay-over in Edinburgh, she’d come and stay with me, but when Coats came on the scene, she started to stop in hotels with him.’
‘Did she tell him about the coins?’ the DS asked.
The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner) Page 22