By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2)

by Alan Alexander

  ‘Indeed’. Vanessa looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘We’ll need to go to Esslemont with this. And he’ll want to brief the Chief, if he can drag him away from buffing up his c.v.’ Everybody knew that the Chief Constable was applying for the top job in the new combined Scottish police service that the Scottish government, against all professional advice, had decided to set up.

  ‘I’ll see if I can set something up for early this evening. Say, six o’clock. That OK for you? I just think that this is so out of the ordinary run of murders that people outside North East Constabulary may begin to take an interest. And we need to keep the details out of the public domain.’

  ‘The Press Office, which is to say Harry Conival, is working on a press release. Or two press releases. They can’t decide whether to issue a statement about both murders, or one on each. I doubt whether anybody there has had to deal with two suspicious deaths simultaneously, any more than we have. What do you think, Boss?’

  ‘My instinct is to treat them separately, just as we would have done if they had happened a couple of days apart. Some of the hacks might ask if we think there’s any connection. But we can play a very straight bat to that. And we don’t need to have a press briefing – yet – so they won’t be able to push us too hard.’

  Colin knew that Vanessa’s recent experience with the press hadn’t been entirely positive. They had put her under some pressure during the Balmoral murder case by digging into her private life. And she had come out of that case with a nagging doubt about whether she could trust Harry Conival. But he was the duty press officer and she had no credible reason to ask for him to be replaced. She had also decided, first appearances notwithstanding, that he was pretty good at his job.

  ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got an appointment’. She nearly said ‘with your wife’, but didn’t, just in case Janet hadn’t mentioned it. ‘Could you let the press office know we want two press releases? I’ll see you at six and we can approve them then.’

  *

  Vanessa looked up from an old copy of Hello! as Janet MacNee came into the waiting room.

  'Hi, Vanessa. Come through.'

  As Vanessa sat down in the consulting room, Janet closed the door and asked, 'So what can I do for you?

  'I think I may be pregnant.'

  'Oh! Why do you think that?'

  'I've missed a period for the first time since I was fourteen. I'm usually as regular as clockwork. And a certain amount of queasiness in the morning. I wasn't really all that scared about the bloody helicopter. I just didn't want to throw up over my colleagues!'

  'I assume you've done a test?'

  'Positive. Five weeks, it said.'

  Janet smiled. 'If you can give me a sample, I'll check and then I'll examine you. Especially important since you haven't seen a doctor for at least a year.' The tone of disapproval was unmistakeable. Vanessa tried to look sheepish.

  'But let's assume that you are, as my ever-sensitive husband would put it, up the duff. How do you feel about it?'

  'I couldn't be happier! It'll cause problems, of course, but we'll deal with them. And I'll have to think about when to take my maternity leave. But I've got a great role model in Chris Jenkinson, so I know it can be done.'

  Chris Jenkinson, Vanessa's informal mentor, had recently been promoted to Deputy Chief Constable. If the most senior female officer in Scotland could combine career and family, so could she.

  'You said "we". Does Neil know?'

  'I thought I'd wait for confirmation before talking to him But I remember you told me the first time I met him that he wanted children, so I think he'll be happy. We have discussed it, in principle.'

  Janet laughed. 'Just make sure he doesn't hug you too tight when you tell him.'

  Vanessa was six weeks pregnant. Janet booked her in for a scan at eight weeks and agreed to take her on as a patient.

  *

  DCS Esslemont looked appalled. ‘Is the pathologist absolutely sure?’

  ‘I asked the same question,’ Vanessa said. ‘But there seems to be no doubt.”

  ‘This is no run-of-the-mill murder, if there is such a thing.’ Colin MacNee said. ‘It looks like a hit. It was well-planned and expertly executed, if you’ll excuse the pun. Given what the pathologist has said in his report, and confirmed when I spoke to him, the killer could have been in and out of that toilet in about two minutes.’

  ‘But didn’t the report say that it could have taken up to ten minutes for the heart to stop?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it did. But remember that he was unconscious within ten seconds of the first injection, and the pathologist says that the pentothal would have kept him unconscious until cardiac arrest killed him. The cocktail was designed to ensure that condemned murderers don’t wake up before they’re dead. So as long as he was unconscious, and locked in the cubicle, the killer could be gone very quickly.’

  ‘But we now know who he was?’

  ‘Peter Keller, a Progress Monitor, whatever that is, employed by Hedelco, to inspect their systems, which could mean anything. I need to talk in detail with Donovan, Hedelco’s manager at GRH, to discover exactly what he was doing there. My working assumption has to be that he was killed for some reason connected with his job.’

  Esslemont assumed his thinking position, head thrown back, eyes to the ceiling, hands steepled on his chest. ‘I’ll have to brief the Chief in rather more detail on this than we usually do this early in a murder enquiry. Summaries to his staff officer are unlikely to be enough. We don’t need to say anything to the press about the cause of death, but we all know it will get out. And given that it involves an American company engaged in a very controversial enterprise it may turn political. Have we seen a draft press statement yet?’

  Vanessa looked at Colin and then said, ‘We’re expecting Harry Conival to bring them up any minute. They were beating themselves up in the press office about whether to put out one statement or two. I decided two murders, two statements, just as we would have done if the bodies hadn’t been found within twenty four hours of each other.’

  ‘Good. And what about the oil rig body. Definitely murder?’

  ‘Oh, yes, no doubt at all. On the face of it, it looks a bit more straightforward than Colin’s case. Blow to the head and a six metre fall on to a steel platform. Multiple injuries. Possible, but not likely, that he might have survived if he had been treated immediately. One of the people who left the platform after the murder appears to have laid a false trail and we can’t find him. That’s where we’re concentrating our efforts for now’.

  ‘Wasn’t – what was his name? – Jamieson some kind of systems auditor. Didn’t you tell me that this morning?’.

  Vanessa nodded, and then realised where the DCS was going. ‘Same kind of job as Keller was doing at the hospital. Both working for American companies. I’ll work on finding out if it’s anything other than coincidence. Like you, sir, I don’t really believe in coincidence, but from where I’m standing now, I can’t see a material connection.’

  As they walked down the corridor outside Esslemont’s office, Vanessa asked Colin if there was any significance in the fact that the killer had used only two of the three drugs that usually comprise the lethal injections used for executions.

  ‘I asked the pathologist that’, Colin said, ‘and the answer is horrible. The third drug, given after the pentothal and before the potassium chloride, is pancuronium bromide. It’s a paralytic. It ensures that the victims don’t twitch while they’re dying. Might upset the witnesses. I don’t suppose our killer gave a shit about that.’

  *

  Later that evening, while they were sipping champagne to celebrate Vanessa’s pregnancy, (‘The last drink I’ll have for God knows how long’, Vanessa said, happily), Neil and Vanessa turned, as they often did, to discussing their day.

  ‘Esslemont may be a man for the quiet life, but he’s not daft. He spotted the similarities in the jobs of the two victims right away. I need to look into that, but I’m not sure I kno
w where to start. Colin’s talking to Hedelco’s top man at GRH – the Chief Contract Management Officer – to find out exactly what the man murdered at the hospital was doing there. “Progress Monitor” tells us fuck all.’

  ‘When I’m doing contract negotiations,’ Neil said, ‘I have to ensure that we’ve done the “due diligence”, to use the jargon. It’s about trying to ensure that we don’t get any surprises further down the line. You know, the kind of thing that the government didn’t bother to do when deciding on the West Coast rail franchise. One of our first steps is to find out who owns the companies involved. I would start there.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘What exactly was Keller doing in the Hospital?’ MacNee asked.

  DI Colin MacNee and DC Duncan Williamson had been waiting for Bernard Donovan when he arrived at his office at eight o’clock on Tuesday morning. Colin had discovered, in a casual conversation with the smiley but not very bright receptionist, his habitual arrival time. Donovan had been surprised to see them there, which was exactly what Colin intended.

  ‘He was a Progress Monitor, as I told you. Hedelco manages this hospital on fairly tight profit margins and we need to know we are doing things right. If we do them wrong it costs us money’.

  ‘With respect, Mr Donovan, that tells me almost nothing. I have a murder victim who died in this hospital and I am working on the assumption that his death has something to do with his work, so I need to know exactly, and probably in some detail, what he had been doing in the days before his death.’

  ‘That’s one big assumption, Inspector. I’m guessing from the fact that you couldn’t immediately identify him that his billfold was missing, so why can’t it just be a shakedown gone wrong?’

  ‘I can assure you that it wasn’t. I can’t tell you why I’m sure because it might compromise the investigation if I did. So, I’m asking you again, what was Keller doing here?’

  Williamson had seldom seen his boss quite so aggressive and irritated, but after his rant in the office about privatising the NHS, he was impressed rather than surprised. He was taking detailed notes, and he was sorry he couldn’t get tone and tenor into them.

  ‘I should really get on to Head Office and maybe also the Health Board about this.’ Donovan was fiddling uncomfortably with his tie, disturbing the neat arrangement of the Windsor knot and the button-down collar. ‘Our contract with the Health Board has a number of very tight confidentiality clauses and I’m reluctant to breach them.’

  Colin got up from his chair and leaned across Donovan’s desk until he was closely enough in the American’s face to show how serious he was, but not close enough to be accused of intimidating behaviour. ‘We’ve been here before, sir, and I really don’t want to have to lean on you again. I will simply remind you that a murder enquiry almost certainly trumps any claims of confidentiality that you or your masters might make. I will speak directly with them if necessary, but I really don’t think I should have to.’

  The colour returned to Donovan’s face as MacNee resumed his seat. He stopped fiddling with his tie and began to pass a pen from hand to hand. The detectives waited. Donovan seemed to come to a decision, but not one with which he was entirely comfortable.

  ‘Keller was engaged on what is called a technical audit. He was examining, in detail, a selection of the hospital’s procedures and outcomes. We are…were… required to give him unrestricted access to wherever he wanted to go and to whoever he wanted to speak with.’

  ‘Who decided what he would examine?’

  ‘He did, possibly with guidance from Head Office.’

  ‘And how did he report and who to?’

  Donovan was looking more and more uncomfortable. His movements were coming close to squirming. He said nothing.

  ‘Mr Donovan?’ Colin MacNee’s prompt had a little touch of menace in it.

  ‘I don’t know exactly who he reported to. As I understand it, he filed his reports by encrypted emails back to Head Office and his laptop was programmed to immediately delete the emails after receiving confirmation of delivery.’

  ‘And where is his laptop? It wasn’t with his body and it wasn’t with his belongings at the hotel.’

  ‘I have no idea. I never saw him without it. I’d be surprised if the hospital CCTV hadn’t picked him up carrying it around. But I haven’t seen it since the last time I saw it over his shoulder on Thursday morning’.

  ‘Mr Donovan, you are Hedelco’s Chief Contract Management Officer here. I find it very difficult to believe that you have no idea what Keller had investigated and what he had found.’

  ‘He wasn’t allowed to talk to me in detail about his work but from the questions he asked me, he seemed to be concentrating on some processes that were close to failure and which might – I say might – have endangered patient safety.’

  *

  While MacNee and Williamson were talking to Donovan, DCI Vanessa Fiske was on a shore to ship radio call with Alex Randall, the Offshore Installation Manager on Vermont One.

  ‘When did Jamieson arrive on the platform?’

  ‘Late on Sunday afternoon. He was scheduled to do a full five days of audit and inspection and he would have left on the last helicopter on Friday’.

  ‘We’ve done a preliminary analysis of his laptop and we’ve found some draft reports, some of which detail serious safety and maintenance failures, but nothing dated earlier than Friday, the day he died. He must have prepared more reports than that. He would hardly wait to write them all up at the end of his visit.’

  Randall was silent, and Vanessa wondered, as did DS Sara Hamilton, who was listening in and taking notes, if he was considering carefully whether he should answer. The silence continued.

  ‘Mr Randall’, Vanessa prompted, suppressing a belch that she hoped wasn’t a sign that she was going to be sick, ‘I hate to sound like a cliché cop on a TV show, but this is a murder enquiry, and if you know anything that might help us, you really shouldn’t hold back.’

  ‘No. He would have filed his reports daily by encrypted email. His laptop would have automatically deleted the emails after confirmation of delivery’.

  Vanessa thanked Randall, and just as she was ending the call, he interrupted her.

  ‘His hard hat turned up in a refuse skip. It’s quite badly damaged. Will I send it to you?’

  Vanessa said that he should avoid handling it too much, place it in a plastic bag, and send it by the next helicopter. She signed off, and with as much nonchalance as she could muster, rushed off to the loo.

  *

  When she got back to her office, Vanessa found a yellow sticky on her screen asking her to return a call from Neil Derrick.

  ‘Hi! I’m feeling like shit, so make it quick.’

  ‘Just thought you’d like to know, somebody at the oil company that operates Vermont One has a sense of humour. I thought that Ebright sounded too like an oven cleaner to be a sensible name for an offshore drilling company, so I Googled it. “Ebright”, or to be totally accurate, “Ebright Azimuth” is the highest point in the state of Delaware: 447 feet. Only Florida has a lower highest point.’

  There was sometimes an endearing Boy Scout geekiness about Neil, but Vanessa wasn’t in the mood.

  ‘Fascinating. Maybe it will come up in a pub quiz and you’ll win a pint of lager.’

  ‘Funny name for a business that’s drilling thousands of metres under the sea. But I’m a commercial lawyer and I know that Delaware is a well-known corporate haven.’

  ‘Neil, what the fuck is a corporate haven’.

  ‘It’s a place where you register your business if you want to make it very difficult for anybody to find out much about it. Delaware set up as a corporate haven at the end of the nineteenth century to attract businesses from New York. And it’s worked for them.’

  Vanessa took a sip of fizzy water. ‘I’ll bear it in mind’.

  ‘You do that, darling. Meanwhile, I may do a little digging. In my lunch hour, of course. See you tonight.’r />
  *

  Vanessa was considering another loo run when Sara Hamilton came in carrying a printed pdf file.

  ‘This just came in from Northumbria. It’s a copy of Thomas Nuttall’s Ebright ID. It was with a bundle of clothes stuffed under the seats of a changing room in a menswear store in the Metro Centre in Gateshead. It was found early this morning, but Christ knows how long it’s been there. I’ve been on to Northumbria and they’ve sent somebody to the shop to see if anyone remembers him. Trouble is, if he bought new stuff on Saturday, he may have been seen only by Saturday staff. On the plus side, it must be quite unusual for someone to buy a complete new outfit and then say they’ll just wear it. So the shop’s computer should have details of what he bought.’