By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2)

by Alan Alexander

  'Quite. Quite. It is, as you suggest, First Minister, a matter of balance rather than exclusiveness.'

  'Good. We may be in touch again on other matters in due course. Thank you for your time.'

  In Aberdeen, the Chief Constable thought the conversation would have done his prospects no harm. In Edinburgh, Paul MacIver was satisfied that subtle pressure had been applied, but that the transcript, if it became public, would seem innocuous.

  *

  Late that evening, text messages were received on two disposable, untraceable mobile telephones. One was on the bedside table in Jack Eisner's hotel room. The other was in the briefcase of Paul MacIver. They read, respectively: 07147 284183 and Back at base. What next?

  CHAPTER SIX

  On Friday morning, a week after the murders, DCs Williamson and Todd arrived at Bernard Donovan’s office at GRH. Sharon Archibald, Donovan’s nice but dim secretary, offered them coffee and asked them to wait. Colin MacNee had told them Donovan would make them wait, even if they arrived exactly at the agreed time, and he had advised them not to accept a delay of more than five minutes.

  ‘You know what he’s like, Duncan, so you know what I mean. Making you wait is an assertion of his status. Don’t put up with it.’

  In the event, within a couple of minutes Donovan came out to invite them into his office. They sat down and Sharon brought the coffee in.

  ‘As I understand it, gentlemen,’ Donovan said, ‘You need to speak to the members of my top team. I’m happy to facilitate that, and to that end, I have asked them to meet you in our board room in about ten minutes.’

  Williamson and Todd looked at each other and then at Donovan.

  ‘Together?’ Williamson asked. ‘You’ve set up a meeting for us to talk to your top people, together?’ His tone was an involuntary mixture of incredulity and contempt.

  ‘I thought that would be an efficient use of your time. And ours, if it comes to it.’ Williamson expected him to say that time was money.

  ‘Mr Donovan, we are grateful to you for providing us with a room where we can talk to your people, but Stewart and I will interview them individually. When they arrive, we will ask one of them to wait – we are happy to take your advice on who that should be – and tell the others that we will ask for them when we need them. Perhaps Miss Archibald could call them for us? That would mean that we would only need her extension number. I assume that there is a telephone in the room? Also, we will need about ten minutes on our own before your people arrive, so please ask Miss Archibald to let them know that they should meet us at nine-thirty.’

  Donovan did not look happy, but he was smart enough, given his possession of an MBA from Harvard, to know that any resistance would be met by a reply that reminded him that this was a murder investigation and that he should not obstruct the officers in their conduct of it.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, with pained resignation, ‘But I really don’t know what you expect to learn. None of my people had much to do with Keller, so I don’t see what you can get from them beyond what I’ve already told Detective MacNee.’

  Both detectives were aware, as they agreed later, of Donovan’s nervousness, but neither could decide whether it came from fear of what his people might tell them, or from his general apprehension about how his handling of the whole thing would be regarded at head office or by Burtonhall. They didn’t yet know about Donovan’s visit from Eisner. If they had, they would have put Donovan’s edginess down to that.

  ‘We still have to talk to them, individually. So who should we see first?’

  ‘Probably David Masur. He’s my Ops Director. Keller would have touched base with him after he met me. Let me take you to the board room.’

  When Donovan had left, Stewart Todd asked his colleague why they needed time on their own before they began the interviews.

  ‘Why do you think, Stewart? To search the room for bugs. We could hardly send the sweep squad in, but we can at least look in the most obvious places. Donovan is so concerned to watch his arse that I wouldn’t put it past him.’

  The board room was simply furnished: a table with eight chairs, a sideboard with a tray of glasses and bottled water, a data projector mounted on the ceiling and pointing at a screen on the end wall opposite the door, a flipchart stand and, beside the screen, a small whiteboard. The detectives reasoned that there had probably not been enough time for the installation of any sophisticated electronics, so they looked under the furniture, in the sideboard and behind it, and behind the screen and whiteboard to see if there was anything that might be a microphone. They found nothing.

  Duncan Williamson picked up the handset of the phone and thought he detected a tiny delay before he heard the dial tone. He took a Swiss army knife out of his pocket and unscrewed the base plate of the phone. He beckoned Todd and pointed to a small component attached magnetically to the inside of the casing.

  ‘Don’t like the look of that’, Todd said. ‘Will I go and get Donovan?’

  ‘No. We’ll deal with him later. I’ll disconnect it.’ Williamson pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his inside pocket. The device was wired into the phone simply enough for him to remove it and drop in into an evidence bag. ‘We’ll see if forensics can lift any prints.’

  *

  The interviews with Donovan’s top team took just under an hour. None of those interviewed had had much more than passing conversations with Keller: brief chats in the corridor or over a coffee in the canteen. None of them had been directly involved in any of his inspections or discussions with clinical and other staff in the hospital. Nothing they told the detectives was particularly sensitive, only information about what areas of the hospital’s operations Keller had been looking at. This left them wondering why anyone had thought it worthwhile to bug the room.

  At the end of the session, Williamson and Todd drew up a list of Keller’s areas of interest, as mentioned to the team members. There were four: diagnostic procedures, including radiography, CT scans and MRI scans; usage of operating theatres; laboratory procedures; and sub-contract management. They now needed to check whether these corresponded with what they knew, from CCTV footage, about Keller’s movements in the hospital.

  *

  While Williamson and Todd were at the hospital, a truck driver collecting a rubbish skip from outside a house under renovation in Garthdee, on the south side of Aberdeen, noticed a laptop half buried by kitchen cupboard panels and other rubble. He pulled it out and found a label on the bottom: Property of Hedelco Inc. If found, please return to Hedelco Inc., Boston Ma., USA, or to local police. The driver took it to the nearest police station. The duty sergeant recognised the name Hedelco from internal bulletins and from the press and immediately contacted CID. The laptop was in the possession of DCI Fiske’s team within an hour.

  Vanessa assumed that the laptop was Keller's so she asked Dongle Donaldson to have a look at it. While he was examining it, she sent the serial number and the asset register number from the laptop to Donovan, for onward transmission, if necessary, to the USA, with a request for confirmation that it had been issued to Keller.

  'Sorry, Boss,' Dongle said, 'This isn't going to help you. The hard disk's missing. Been removed quite carefully, by the look of it, by somebody who knew what they were doing.'

  'Probably at the bottom of the Dee by now. We're going to have to put pressure on Hedelco.'

  'But if you were just going to throw it in the river, why would you remove it? Why not just dump the whole laptop?'

  'So whoever disposed of the laptop wanted to keep the hard disk?'

  'It's possible.' Dongle smiled. 'So much for the bad news. Now the good stuff. I've decrypted some of Jamieson's emails.'

  'Put it in a file note, Dongle, and I'll see it later. I need to spend some time working out how to prise Keller's emails out of his bosses in America.'

  *

  'Thank you for coming up, Campbell.' The Chief Constable came out from behind his desk and indicated to the DCS that he should tak
e one of the low armchairs by the occasional table at the end of his office. 'We need to have a word about this double murder enquiry that Vanessa Fiske is running. Doesn't seem to be making much progress, if the reports that Richard has been getting are anything to go by.'

  Inspector Richard Fleming was the Chief's staff officer, to whom Esslemont had been sending daily reports prepared by Vanessa or by Colin MacNee. Esslemont regarded Fleming as a young man in a hurry and he thought it likely that he was putting his own spin on the reports before passing them on.

  'That's hardly fair, Sir. These American companies have been less than fully co-operative. Vanessa's putting on as much pressure as she can, and I've just had a call to tell me that she, or rather Donaldson the IT man, has cracked the encryption on Jamieson's laptop. That may give us a motive for his murder. Less success on Keller. We've found his laptop, but minus the hard disk. We're also pursuing the Nuttall connection...'

  The Chief held up a hand. 'Yes, yes, I know all that, but I've had a call from the First Minister, expressing concern as a local MSP that we may have a serial killer on the loose.'

  'Oh, come on, sir. I hope you told her that serial killers usually have the same MO for all their victims and...'

  Esslemont was relieved to be interrupted again, because he had realised that he was sounding unnecessarily defensive and, possibly, not supportive enough of his staff.

  'I did', the Chief said, 'but that was just an excuse for the call. She really wanted to talk about what she described as the "commercial" aspects and to suggest that we should concentrate on the purely criminal matters raised by the murders.'

  'But so far they're inseparable. We can't wish away the fact that the outfit that runs GRH and the company that operates Vermont One are owned by the same corporation. I'm sure that when you were in CID you were always very suspicious of anything that the outside world might describe as a coincidence.' The Chief might have regarded that as a cheap shot. It was well-known that he hadn't been particularly successful in CID and had made his career in uniform and in administration, supported by the occasional high profile secondment to the Home Office and the Police Colleges in both Scotland and England.

  'I'm not suggesting that you wish it away, only that you handle the commercial aspects sensitively. These companies bring a lot of investment and support a lot of jobs.'

  Esslemont was trying not to bridle. 'You know my views about political meddling in operational policing, Sir, and I would hope that you share them.'

  'Of course I do. But it won't do any of us any good to get on the wrong side of the First Minister.'

  Esslemont knew that this meant that it wouldn't do the Chief any good, but he let it go.

  'Just make sure you don't step on any unnecessary toes. Vanessa Fiske's a good officer - that's why we promoted her - but she can be abrasive. Keep an eye on her.'

  Esslemont decided not to respond. 'Thank you for keeping me informed, Sir. I'll make sure we handle the investigation properly.'

  *

  As soon as he left the Chief's office, Esslemont went to see DCI Fiske.

  'The Chief's had his ear bent by the First Minister. She thinks your investigation should concentrate on the purely criminal aspects of the case, rather than the "commercial" side. Somebody's pointed out to her that the murders are connected with two of her government's flagship areas, the NHS and the oil industry.'

  Vanessa snorted. 'And how does she propose we should separate them?'

  'She told the Chief she was concerned, as a local MSP, that we might have a serial killer on the loose, but even the Chief saw through that. I said that until we can establish motive, the criminal and commercial aspects are inseparable. I'm not suggesting that you should change your approach, which I think is right. But keep me informed.'

  'Do you think the Chief is covering his back, sir?'

  'You don't really expect me to answer that, do you, Chief Inspector?'

  *

  Vanessa Fiske had one more go at Donovan in an effort to get his bosses to release Keller's emails. It got her nowhere. Donovan had passed her request to Head Office and been told that the emails were commercially sensitive and could not be released to a third party. Her only recourse was to seek an order from a court in the United States. She knew that that would be a lengthy process, possibly involving appeal procedures if either side was unhappy, which seemed not unlikely, with the decision made at the first hearing. She needed to get some legal advice to determine whether there was any procedure that might get her the emails without going to court.

  North East Constabulary's legal adviser, Fiona Marchmont, was both a solicitor and a member of the Faculty of Advocates. She had been an academic lawyer, teaching at Aberdeen University, but after she had had her children, she had decided to take on something that used her talents, but on a basis that was a little closer to normal office hours than was possible at the Bar. Vanessa had taken her to a couple of meetings of the WPNS and she had developed a very high opinion of both her legal competence and her judgment.

  'Fiona, between you and me, I'm getting nowhere fast with this investigation, mainly because I'm being blocked at every stage by the Americans. Is there anything I can do, short of a court action in Massachusetts, to force Hedelco to tell me what was in Keller's emails?

  'If you go to court, you'll still be there when you draw your pension, so we need to find another way. I think there may be a political solution to this, but it's risky and, might raise issues between the UK and Scottish governments.'

  'Go on.'

  'We need to get the US authorities to intervene to put pressure on Hedelco, and/or their parent company, to release the emails voluntarily. I use the word loosely! That will need to involve the Foreign Office and, probably, the legal attaché in Washington. Our masters in Edinburgh won't necessarily like that, but under the current devolution settlement there's no other way. But we might finesse it by going through the Law Officers in Edinburgh - probably the Solicitor General - and getting them to persuade the Advocate General to talk to the FO.'

  Vanessa laughed. 'Who or what is the Advocate General. Sounds like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan.'

  'You should see him in full fig!' Fiona said. 'He handles cross border legal issues on behalf of the UK government and there's an ongoing working relationship between him and the Scottish Law Officers. Do you want me to sound him out?'

  'Probably. But I'll have to run it past my boss first. I'll get back to you.'

  *

  Late on Friday afternoon, just after the end of the working day, Jack Eisner dialled the mobile number that had been texted to him the previous day. Martin Gilbertson, a senior public relations officer at Mid-Aberdeen Council, answered with a simple 'Hello'.

  Eisner was equally cautious. 'I need some information on how the police are doing in their enquiries into last weekend's two murders. You don't need to know who I am and we don't have to meet, but we do need to trust each other. I need to know that anything you tell me will be kosher. And you need to know that you will benefit from passing it on. I'm sure you understand what I'm saying.'

  No names; no introductions. A simple act of collusion that, they hoped, would get each of them what they wanted.

  'Use only this mobile. Don't try to contact me any other way. I'll deliver to you by text. I suggest you get a disposable phone, what I think you call a burner. You'll deliver to me as I specify by text. Do we understand each other?'

  'Perfectly,' Eisner said. 'But I don't have a lot of time.'

  'You'll have something by tomorrow morning, possibly by midnight tonight. Don't turn in too early.'

  Eisner already had a burner. He texted the number to Gilbertson.

  *

  It had been a hard and frustrating week. Just after half past six on Friday Vanessa Fiske was in Neil Derrick's flat with her feet up, drinking a glass of mineral water and watching Reporting Scotland on the BBC. They had briefly reported on her press briefing the previous evening and, as she ha
d made little progress since then, there would have been nothing to tell them even if they had shown any continuing interest. The bulletin had just moved on to sport - Forres Mechanics had been drawn against Partick Thistle in the League Cup - when Neil came in, kissed Vanessa, poured himself a glass of wine, and slumped in a chair.

  'Tough day?'

  Vanessa tried to smile but soon abandoned the attempt. 'I'm getting nothing but nothing from both Ebright and Hedelco. I'm not so worried about Ebright, because we've got Jamieson's laptop and Dongle has recovered the emails and decrypted them. We've also got Keller's laptop, but its hard disk is missing and Hedelco say that they can't release the fucking emails because they're commercially sensitive. I could go to court, but we'd probably be grandparents before we had a decision. Fiona Marchmont's trying a political route via the Advocate General, but it's a mess, and I don't really know where to go next.'