By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2)

by Alan Alexander

  ‘Thanks for that. It’s what? About 3.30 in the morning over there, so nothing’s likely to develop for a few hours. I’ll be in the office by about half-past ten. I’ll talk to you then.’

  Before she leaned back on the headrest and tried to sleep, Vanessa texted Colin MacNee. As the SIO on the Keller case, he needed to know.

  Boston paper having a go at Hedelco for blocking us. Maybe first time you’ve been grateful to the reptiles.

  *

  It was nearly 10.30 when they reached the outskirts of Aberdeen. Vanessa had dozed a little, but rather regretted it as she reached for her fizzy water to try to wash away the acrid taste of sleep. She thought about how she would use the rest of the day. Neil would collect her at 3.30 in the afternoon to go to the hospital. That left four and a half hours to work on the case. She didn’t want to interview Mathieson until MacIlwraith arrived from Glasgow, and she reckoned that that wouldn’t be until between 11.30 and noon. In any case, she couldn’t talk to him without his lawyer present. His solicitor, whom he had phoned before they left Govan, was unlikely to get to Aberdeen before the early afternoon.

  She wouldn’t be ready for a full session with him until Dongle had looked at his laptop, but the clock had started ticking on the time she could hold him without charge as soon as she had arrested him. She had no idea how long the hi-tech unit at Strathclyde would need before they gave her a preliminary analysis of the computer equipment. When his solicitor arrived, she could question Mathieson about his theft of the identity of Thomas Nuttall but she would have to play for time until she got the other evidence.

  She would also need to bring DCS Esslemont up to date and talk to Colin MacNee to co-ordinate their interviews with the suspects. And she would have to decide, by the end of the working day, whether they had enough evidence to arrest Paul MacIver. She would have to come back in after her scan. Neil wouldn’t be happy.

  *

  Harry Conival had been on the internet monitoring the morning news programmes on the Boston affiliates of the four major US television networks and the websites of the other major East Coast newspapers in New York, Philadelphia and Washington. The Hedelco story was growing legs.

  'I can't see how they can go on refusing comment for very long. One of the TV stations is reporting that Hedelco's chief executive is out of town, in Delaware for a meeting at Burtonhall, their parent company. Their legal adviser is in Boston, but she's unwilling to say anything until she gets a steer from her boss. It's not quite a feeding frenzy, but they'll want it to go away.'

  Vanessa sipped her peppermint tea and belched discreetly. 'The quickest way for them to make that happen is to let me have the emails.'

  Harry grinned and began searching in his pockets for his cigarettes. 'Fancy a small wager that you'll have them by tonight?'

  *

  At 11.15, Colin MacNee and Aisha Gajani led Andrew MacIlwraith through a back entrance to North East Constabulary HQ and down a flight of stairs to the cells. There were two groups of holding cells, one on each side of the stairwell, so the suspects could be isolated from each other. The custody officer had been told that each suspect should not know of the other's arrest and that the arresting officers were awaiting the arrival of their solicitors before interviews could begin.

  Aisha and Sara had supervised the transfer of the evidence taken from the suspects' homes to a secure conference room. A patrol car took two laptop computers and five disposable mobile phones to Dongle Donaldson's 'lab' with a request from DCI Fiske for a preliminary analysis of their contents to be delivered to her as soon as possible, and certainly before three o'clock. DCs Williamson and Todd were drafted in to help with a first examination of the notebooks and other documents collected from the addresses in Glasgow and Saltcoats.

  While her team looked for evidence to connect the suspects to the murders and to each other, Vanessa Fiske briefed the DCS.

  'Not a lot to say until we've talked to them, sir, and we're waiting for their briefs to get here. When do you need to update DCC Ingram?'

  'I've told him I'll phone before nine tonight. And, if we need to, we can talk to him again before he sees the Justice Secretary and MacIver at 8.30 tomorrow morning.'

  'Ah, MacIver. I hope we can finesse that before you speak to DCC Ingram today, but I won't know until we've had a first trawl through the stuff we picked up after the arrests and Dongle has done a preliminary analysis of the computers and phones.'

  'When will that be?'

  'Who knows? But I'll be back after my hospital appointment, hopefully by about five or five thirty.'

  Esslemont smiled and raised an eyebrow. 'Does your partner know that?'

  Vanessa was surprised. The DCS almost never showed any interest in the personal lives of his staff, but she looked a little guilty as she replied, 'Not yet.'

  Esslemont looked at his watch. 'Anything else? I've got to speak to the Chief.'

  'One thing. From our first search, we've got the bank details of both suspects. Just cheque books and cards. No statements, though we might get them from their laptops. If we don't, I'll need to get transaction details going back at least two or three years.'

  'Not until they're charged. Why do you need them?'

  'Because neither of them has any visible means of support. No paid employment for years, except for MacIlwraith’s short spell at GRH, and no benefits. Somebody's subsidising them. I want to know who.'

  'Let's see if we get enough to charge them. And, some time today, we need to talk about Richard Fleming. We can't just leave him dangling.'

  Vanessa didn't see why not, but she said nothing.

  'Well, boss, your boys definitely know each other.'

  Dongle Donaldson had phoned at 2.30 to say he was on his way to HQ. He arrived carrying a rucksack containing the two laptops and the five mobile phones, and as he spoke he was laying them out on the conference room table.

  'There have been calls back and forth between both of MacIlwraith's burners and two of Mathieson's. Easy enough to discover that once I had found the numbers. There are some pretty cryptic texts, too, though fewer than I'd expect. I'll put them all in my report and you can see if you can make anything of them. I can't identify who owns the phones that messages went to that aren't between the phones I've got, but you might want to see one that was sent by Mathieson in the week after the murders.'

  Fiske and MacNee stood on either side of Dongle and leaned in to see the display on the phone.

  Back at base. What next?

  'Sounds a bit military.' Colin MacNee said. 'Tells us bugger all until we know who it went to, though. Anything else, Dongle?

  'Nothing obvious, but I've got a lot still to do on the laptops. I can tell you that there's been quite a lot of email traffic between our two boys and some between both of them and two other email addresses. I'll get the IP addresses and then I'll start on requesting the internet search histories. Should have something for you by six o'clock or so.'

  'I've got a meeting at four,' Vanessa said, 'but I'll be back about five, five thirty at the latest. Mathieson's brief is here, but it's all very circumstantial so far. We need some physical evidence. When will the SOCOs be here?'

  Sara Hamilton took out her phone. 'They're on their way. I'll find out where they are.'

  The SOCOs had just passed Laurencekirk. 'They'll be here in about half a hour and it sounds as though we'll need some time to sift through what they've got.'

  'Right, you can do that while I'm at the...while I'm out. In the meantime, I'll have a session with Mathieson about Nuttall.'

  *

  Neil Derrick dropped Vanessa off at NEC HQ at 5.15. Before she got out of the car, she closed her eyes and took several very deep breaths. The time she had to question the suspects before she would have to charge or release them was ticking away. She knew she had the right men and she had to decide what, if anything, to do about MacIver. She had to put the results of the scan to the back of her mind. She leaned over and kissed Neil. She couldn't
say when she'd be home.

  DCI Fiske took the lift to the fourth floor and went to the conference room.

  ‘Anything?’, she asked, as she poured herself a coffee from the vacuum jug on the side table.

  ‘You bet!’, Colin MacNee said. ‘You might want to sit down while we go through it.’

  Colin started with the physical evidence from MacIlwraith's house. He passed to Vanessa a small evidence bag containing two syringes and another that held a small cardboard box with printing on it in Cyrillic script.

  'Do we know what the syringes were used for?'

  'One of the SOCOs is standing by to take it to the lab to see if there are any identifiable traces. Even if there's not, the box may be the physical evidence that makes some of the circumstantial stand up.'

  'How?'

  'One of the SOCOs did Russian at university. The writing on the box says "Sodium thiopental". And there are dosage instructions for rapid inducement of unconsciousness.'

  ‘Right. Well, you know where to start your questioning of MacIlwraith. Anything else?’

  ‘You know about the bank details. We’re waiting for Dongle to come up with the contents of the laptops. And there’s a message for you to call the hi-tech specialists at Strathclyde. Mathieson has been a lot more careful, possibly a lot brighter, than MacIlwraith. There are notebooks from both locations, but I can’t find anything immediately incriminating, or even interesting, in the stuff from Mathieson’s flat, except Nuttall’s birth certificate, and we knew about that already.’

  ‘Good to have it as evidence, though.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. And have a look at this.’

  Colin handed Vanessa a transparent evidence bag containing an open notebook. The page visible through the plastic was a list of letters and numbers. The numbers were obviously telephone numbers, some landline and some mobile. Each set of numbers had letters beside them.

  ‘That’s from MacIlwraith’s place. Look carefully, boss. One entry stands out. It’s different from the others.’

  Vanessa examined the list. Most of the numbers had two or three letters against them, apparently the initials of the contact. But one read:

  FMAD 07413 569150

  ‘That one?’ Vanessa pointed to the number

  MacNee nodded. ‘Two of MacIlwraith’s burners and one of Mathieson’s made calls or sent texts to that number. We need to know who owns it.’

  ‘I think I know. But proving it is going to take this investigation into very scary territory.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Early yesterday morning, as I have already reported to Parliament, officers from the North East Constabulary, assisted by officers from Strathclyde Police, arrested two men, one in Saltcoats in North Ayrshire and one in Glasgow. The arrests were in connection with the murders, at Grampian Royal Hospital and on the Vermont One Oil Platform, of Peter Keller and Harvey Jamieson, respectively. I was unable yesterday to give the names of the arrested men, but since they have now been charged, I can tell Parliament that Andrew MacIlwraith, aged 31, was arrested at his home in Saltcoats and subsequently charged with offences relating to the death of Mr Keller. Simon Mathieson, aged 32, was detained at his home in Glasgow and later charged with offences relating to the death of Mr Jamieson. Other charges are under consideration and a further report will be submitted by North East Constabulary to the Procurator Fiscal.

  The First Minister paused, looked closely at the paper from which she was reading her statement, and took a deep breath.

  Early this morning, acting on evidence and information arising from the arrests of MacIwraith and Mathieson, and other enquiries, officers from North East Constabulary, assisted by officers from Lothian and Borders Police and other specialist officers, arrested a third man, at his home in Edinburgh, also in connection with the murders of Mr Keller and Mr Jamieson. The man is currently detained at NEC headquarters in Aberdeen. Charges are expected, but because they have not yet been laid, I am not able to tell Parliament the name of the arrested man.

  I should also tell Parliament that NEC officers, assisted by specialist officers, are actively pursuing the possibility that the arrested men may be able to help with enquiries into the recent explosion at Last Cairngorm and the cyber attack on Mercury Fulfilment in Cumbernauld.

  I will, of course, keep, Parliament fully informed of any developments.

  The First Minister, her face drawn and pale, resumed her seat and waited, with some apprehension, for questions from her political opponents.

  *

  DCI Vanessa Fiske, DI Colin MacNee, and DCS Campbell Esslemont were with the Chief Constable in his office, watching the First Minister's statement. Harry Conival, the press officer attached to the investigations, was also there, as were the NEC legal adviser, Fiona Marchmont, and the Chief's Acting Staff Officer.

  The investigating officers were already aware, from the picture DC Gajani had found in the student newspaper and Esslemont’s identification, that the arrested men knew, or had known, Paul MacIver. The key pieces of evidence that had convinced Fiske, and persuaded the DCS and the Chief, that MacIver should be arrested, had come from Dongle Donaldson’s analysis of the laptops and mobile phones found in the homes of MacIlwraith and Mathieson and from Strathclyde's hi-tech unit's preliminary examination of the equipment found in the Ruthven Street flat.

  The email accounts of the two men showed frequent and numerous messages to and from a Hotmail account with an IP address in Edinburgh. The emails were not obviously incriminating, but the pattern of traffic suggested that the accounts had not been active during the time when MacIlwraith was believed, on the basis of the hospital CCTV, to have been in Aberdeen and when Mathieson alias Nuttall had been on Vermont One and then in Newcastle. Also, there was a spike in traffic to and from MacIlwraith's account in the days following the explosion at Last Cairngorm. Mathieson's account had shown increased activity after the cyber attack on Mercury Fulfilment. All of this was circumstantial, as was the notation against a mobile phone number in the notebook found in MacIlwraith’s house which might refer to the First Minister’s Special Adviser.

  In seeking support from the DCS and the Chief to arrest MacIver, Vanessa had conceded that all or most of the evidence gathered was circumstantial.

  ‘Taken together, though, it’s indicative and certainly enough for an arrest and a search warrant.’ She had looked first at Esslemont and then at the Chief and continued. ‘It’s what our American colleagues would call “probable cause”.’

  Esslemont had nodded. The Chief, much more concerned than the DCS about the politics, had probed a bit further.

  ‘I think I need to be able, if the question arises, to assure…’ He paused to rephrase. ‘To be able to give assurance that such an arrest and search was more than a fishing trip based on what you admit is wholly circumstantial evidence. Are you looking for anything specific or only for evidence which, in general, ties MacIver to the two other suspects?’

  ‘I understand the delicacy of your position in this, sir. But I believe that a mobile phone number in MacIlwraith’s notebook to which there have been calls and texts from two of MacIlwraith’s disposables and one of Mathieson’s, may be a disposable phone owned by MacIver. I need to find that phone. And now that there is the beginning of a link to Last and Mercury, I need access to his computer.’

  Vanessa's confidence that they had not only got the right men but had uncovered a criminal conspiracy had been bolstered by the discovery, among the hardware collected from Mathieson's flat, of the missing hard disk from Keller's laptop. This established a further likely link between MacIlwraith and Mathieson, and it made irrelevant whatever decision Hedelco and Burtonhall might make on the release of Keller's emails. Dongle Donaldson would recover them and decrypt them. As it turned out, the need to limit the damage to the companies' reputations from the media coverage of their refusal to hand over the emails, had convinced Packard, Seaton and their colleagues to announce that they would be complying with the request for th
e emails as soon as possible. The question remained why they had resisted for so long.

  'Here we go,' Harry Conival said, as the Leader of the Opposition rose to ask the first question. 'I'm offering odds on him blowing it and letting her off the hook.'

  But this time, Harry had got it wrong.

  *

  Will the First Minister comment on the rumours circulating here and in Edinburgh's New Town to the effect that the third man in this case is personally known to her?

  A camera focused immediately on the FM, who was clearly struggling to maintain her composure. She glanced at the Justice Secretary, who shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

  'Clever question', Vanessa said, 'Especially that reference to the New Town.'