By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2)

by Alan Alexander

  From the back of the room, without invitation from DCI Fiske, a voice said, ‘Thornhill, freelance. Was the DCC from Lothian and Borders Grant Ingram?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And isn’t he the ACPO lead on terrorism?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The media now had their story. There was a link between the murders and the Last and Mercury attacks. The possibility of terrorism was in play. And they believed that one of the suspects had been given confidential briefings on the course of enquiries that had led to his arrest. It was going to be very difficult, now, to separate the political and criminal aspects of the investigations.

  *

  'We've got means and opportunity, but we still don't have motive. The Hedelco emails are no more use than those Dongle extracted from Jamieson's laptop. I'm in no doubt that MacIlwraith and Mathieson committed the murders, but if we don't come up with a convincing motive, the case is weakened, possibly fatally. Its circumstantial, and that will be a gift to the defence, even with the forensic evidence, such as it is, from their homes.'

  Vanessa Fiske was opening the team meeting immediately after the press conference, and she wanted to use it as a brainstorming session to ensure that all possible leads and theories had been considered.

  'What forensic have we got?' This was Esslemont, who had decided, because of the political and media interest, to attend all the team meetings.

  'Not a lot. Colin?'

  MacNee got up and went to the whiteboard, where he would write the key points as he went along. He always did this, because he always had, even if, as with the preliminary sweep of MacIlwraith's house, there was very little to report.

  'The only potentially useful thing, so far as connecting the suspect to the murder is concerned, is the cardboard box with Cyrillic script that appears to have contained Pentothal, one of the drugs used to kill Keller. The SOCOs found it behind a chest of drawers. MacIlwraith says he knows nothing about it, which is a bit odd, given that it's got his fingerprints on it. We also found a couple of surgical syringes, but they'd been cleaned and wiped. No prints, no residues.'

  'Phones and computers?', DS Sara Hamilton asked.

  'We got three disposable phones from MacIlwraith's place and' -- he looked to Vanessa for confirmation -- two from Mathieson's. Three of them -- two of MacIlwraith's and one of Mathieson's -- had calls and texts to the same number. The boss thinks it's likely that we've found that burner in MacIver's flat.'

  Vanessa looked at Dongle Donaldson, who smiled and said, 'Right on the money, boss. We recovered two burners and a BlackBerry from MacIver's place. The Blackberry was issued to him by the Scottish Government, so is unlikely to incriminate him, but we're analysing it anyway. One of the burners is certainly the number that the texts and calls Colin mentioned went to. MacIver seems to have been more careful than the others: all texts had been deleted and the call logs erased.'

  'So that connects MacIver to the others, but not directly to the murders.' Vanessa said. 'We need more and, at the risk of being boringly repetitive, we still need motive.'

  'What else did you find at MacIver's place?' DC Duncan Williamson, like his colleague, DC Stewart Todd, was a bit pissed off not to have been more directly involved in the arrests, and was determined to contribute something to the investigation.

  Vanessa was sensitive to the need to be inclusive in the interests of staff morale. 'Sorry you and Stewart have been a bit deskbound on this one, Duncan, but one of the purposes of this meeting is to allow those of you who've not been directly involved to look at what we've got and, I hope, point to things we may have missed by being too close.'

  Esslemont looked impressed by the management style that lay behind Vanessa's response, but said nothing.

  'As well as his burners, three of them, we found two laptops, now in Dongle's custody for analysis, one Scottish government issue, one not. Also, some bank statements, showing unidentified substantial deposits to an account different from the one that his salary goes into.'

  'Didn't I see in the case logs something to the effect that neither of the other two suspects has, to use an old-fashioned phrase, any visible means of support? No job. No benefits.'

  'That's right. And we need to know who's been subsidising them.'

  'Maybe MacIver's been bankrolling them from the mystery deposits to his second account. How can we find out?'

  'Good thinking, Duncan', Vanessa said, deciding not to mention that her mind had been going in the same direction. 'Speculative, but interesting. I think we may have to call Andy Hanna in again. That kind of forensic financial investigation is laborious and time-consuming and needs real expertise. I've also got a residual concern about the position of Burtonhall in all this. I don't think they're entirely off the hook, so Andy might be able to help with that, too.'

  'What about all that sophisticated computer hardware you found in Mathieson's flat, boss? Do we know any more?' This was Colin MacNee. 'Weren't we supposed to have a full report from Strathclyde by the time you got back from Edinburgh?'

  'We were. But it's taking a bit longer than they thought. Apparently, they need to see the laptop that Dongle's been analysing. They think that Mathieson may have had it configured to control the other computers and hard disks he had and that might have given him the capacity to launch pretty damaging cyber attacks. As soon as we're done here, a car is going to Glasgow with the laptop. They hope to get a report to me by early tomorrow. With a bit of luck, not to mention the persuasive skills of the DCS, we can arrange for Andy Hanna to bring the laptop back when he comes to rejoin the team.'

  *

  As they walked towards the interview room to question Inspector Richard Fleming not long after she had got back from Edinburgh that morning, Vanessa shared with Esslemont her developing thinking about Fleming's motive for passing confidential information to Gilbertson.

  'I really don't think he was doing it for the money, sir. I think he may have been buying affection.'

  Vanessa had often wondered what the phrase "looking askance" meant. Esslemont's reaction told her. His face showed disbelief and horror.

  'Do you mean his relationship with Gilbertson was sexual? Is Fleming gay?'

  'Not openly. But there are rumours, and nobody here, or in Stonehaven, where he lives, remembers him having a girlfriend. He lives a pretty solitary life and, sadly, given what's about to happen, he was dedicated to the job, and ambitious with it.'

  'What about Gilbertson?'

  'Nothing known. My guess is that he was in it for the money, selling information first to Mancuso, then to Eisner and finally, when he got greedy, to Jason Sime at the G & T.'

  'Can you prove that?'

  'Not yet. Not ever, in Sime's case. He'll never reveal his source. But we might crack Mancuso and Eisner. If either of them gives up Gilbertson, we can probably get a confession out of Fleming.'

  *

  Although the emails posted on the Hedelco website revealed no motive for murder, they confirmed that Keller had serious concerns about how the management of various procedures and processes at GRH, including those that Janet MacNee had speculated about - diagnostic procedures, usage of operating theatres, and laboratory procedures - might affect patients. In his reports on all of these, as well as on contract management, Keller had urged Hedelco to ensure that the risk assessment process properly considered the possibility of adverse effects on patients and the outcomes of their care.

  In one of the decrypted emails, Keller had said:

  I have found no conclusive evidence that patient care has been compromised. However, there is a danger that the pressure on unit costs that characterises the management of the hospital, will affect the capacity of clinical staff to offer the standard of care that is implicit in the outcome targets set for GRH by NHS Scotland.

  That had been enough to produce “Patients at risk at privatised hospital?” headlines in two of the Scottish tabloids. There were also more thoughtful pieces in the broadsheets about the ability of the Scott
ish Government to guarantee the quality of care in hospitals that it had decided to have managed by private companies.

  Within twenty-four hours of the emails becoming public the Government, through its independent inspectorates, responded. As Bernard Donovan had forecast to Jack Eisner, Burtonhall's man in Aberdeen, both Health Improvement Scotland and the Health and Safety Executive announced snap inspections at GRH. Damage to the reputations of Hedelco and Burtonhall had been limited. The focus now shifted to senior politicians, principally the First Minister and the Health Secretary. Their ability to maintain the confidence of the public in their stewardship of the Health Service was on the line. They found themselves, quite suddenly, as a direct result of a criminal investigation that they were even less able to influence than was generally the case, at the centre of a political and media storm.

  *

  By the time the team meeting ended, late in the afternoon, Vanessa was exhausted and ready to go home. She had been up since 3.00 am, had been to Edinburgh and back, arrested the First Minister's special adviser, interviewed both Mathieson and MacIver about the murders, and joined the DCS in a brief and inconclusive interview of Inspector Richard Fleming. She had negotiated another two-week secondment of DI Andy Hanna from Strathclyde and discussed with the Procurator Fiscal the possibility of further charges against the three arrested men.

  She needed some time to think and she needed to talk to Neil about the financial aspects of the case: where MacIlwraith and Mathieson got the money to live on, where the substantial deposits to MacIver's account had come from, and the possible consequences for Hedelco, and Ebright, of the reports that Keller and Jamieson had sent back to the US. The trading position of these companies might turn out to be irrelevant to the murders, but with press, political and public interest in Last and Mercury showing no signs of diminishing, Vanessa wasn't yet ready to park it. Neil's insights into the financial world had been useful at the start of the investigation. They might be again.

  For now, she needed a good night's sleep, preceded, perhaps, by a light meal out with Neil, and some gentle, unhurried sex. As she got into the car beside Sara Hamilton, who had volunteered to drive her home, she smiled at the curious mixture she felt of fatigue and sexiness.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘It’s going to be really difficult to find out where the money was coming from. I did a case once down south that involved illicit deposits to an account in a British bank. We managed to trace it back to an account in the some overseas tax haven – the Cayman Islands, I think – but we never identified the account holder, just a shell company with nominee directors.’

  Neil and Vanessa were having breakfast on Thursday morning, a day after MacIver’s arrest. Vanessa was feeling refreshed after her first good night’s sleep of the week and, as she sipped her peppermint tea, she felt less queasy than she had for some time. She would have to brief Andy Hanna, who was arriving from Glasgow on an early train, so she was picking Neil’s brain on the various financial loose ends that she wanted to tie up.

  Neil poured himself a second cup of coffee. ‘Mind you, we were using private investigators and forensic accountants. You may have more luck, with the full might and majesty of the law behind you.’

  Vanessa snorted. ‘Much good the might and majesty did me when I was trying to get these emails out of Hedelco. It was the press wot done it, in the end. And I’m not sure our interest in Burtonhall, Hedelco and Ebright is over now that the emails are out. Talk me through the possibilities for Burtonhall of what the two victims found.’

  ‘Well, at the most strategic level, for a private equity company like Burtonhall, the two possibilities are investment or disinvestment, to hang in there or to sell up and invest the proceeds elsewhere. Because Hedelco holds a major contract with the government, selling the company on could be complicated. It might, depending on the terms of the contract, require the consent of the government. Ebright’s simpler. It’s wholly private sector and, because oil is a long term business, finding a speculative buyer, which is what Burtonhall was when they bought it, might be easier.’

  ‘I know its not your area of expertise, but can you see the politics of this? I know the government will take flak on the effects of privatisation on the NHS, but in the cut and thrust of Holyrood, that’s business as usual. Is there anything else? And is there anything that might link the politics of Burtonhall and its subsidiaries, to Last and Mercury?’

  ‘Christ, Vanessa, I’m glad you didn’t start on this last night. It would have put me right off!’

  She smiled a contented smile. ‘Glad I didn’t. But I’m asking you now.’

  ‘The common thread is inward investment and the effect that has on the Scottish economy. Ministers are likely to be very nervous about anything that puts that at risk. Worst case analysis? If Last, Mercury and Burtonhall all decided to pull out, or even to delay or curtail investment, it wouldn’t be good for business confidence, and it would turn the spotlight on the government’s management of the economy. And, in the run-up to the referendum, anything concerning the North Sea is really touchy. That, my darling, is the limit of my knowledge. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.’

  *

  DS Dongle Donaldson was waiting for DCI Fiske when she got to HQ just after eight o’clock.

  ‘Morning, Dongle,’ Vanessa said, with only the slightest hint of a smile. ‘You’re an early bird. I hope this means you’ve got something for me.’

  ‘Your admin people told me you were usually here by eight, and I have got something, but I’m not sure how important or significant it is. I haven’t finished analysing MacIver’s laptop – nothing of interest on the government one, by the way – but I’ve found some stuff that you should see.’

  He opened the laptop and booted it up as Vanessa pulled up a chair beside him.

  ‘He’s a got a number of email accounts, mainly freebies – live.com, Hotmail, Googlemail and others - and one of them, damascus@easymail.com, seems to have been used to exchange emails with only one address: mike@exflt.com.'

  ‘Fancies himself, doesn’t he?’ Vanessa said. Dongle looked puzzled. ‘Paul? Damascus? Didn’t you do RE at school?’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. I see. But what’s really interesting is that all the messages to and from mike@exflt.com are in code. Not encrypted like Jamieson and Keller, but not in clear either. I haven’t broken it yet, but it doesn’t look very difficult. It’s alphanumeric – with numbers or groups of numbers representing letters and words. It’s the kind of code that people who do really hard crosswords could break. And me, of course. I just wanted to ask if I should do it before I analyse the rest of the hard disk.’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘Couple of hours, maybe. Should have it done by lunchtime, probably earlier.’

  ‘Go for it. I’ll be here or hereabouts all day. If you can't get me on the phone, send me a text.’

  *

  At Grampian Royal Hospital, as the two sets of inspectors tried not to trip over each other and negotiated an agreement to share their findings wherever possible, Bernard Donovan and his 'top team' sat around the Board Room table discussing what Donovan should recommend to head office.

  'My instinct', Donovan said, 'is to get ahead of the inspectors. God knows how long it will take them to produce their reports and we are pretty clear from the emails where the problems are likely to be. I'd like to recommend to Caleb that we spend what's necessary to correct the faults. That way, we'll be able to respond to the inspections by saying, "Job Done". But I'll need to put some numbers on it.'

  'I'll have to check this with the accountants.' This was David Masur, the Operations Director. 'But my back of an envelope numbers suggest that it will be well into seven figures. Maybe not two mill, but certainly well over one. Pounds, not dollars.'

  Donovan whistled. The other members of the team studied their papers.

  'That much?' Donovan asked. 'That's enough to put us in the red, at least for this year. Unless w
e can find a way of booking some of it against future years.'

  'If we want to make an impact quickly, to be able to say we're already turning things around, the only way to do it, in all the areas Keller identified, is to take on more staff, or let existing staff do more hours, at overtime rates. That's where the cash goes, Bernard. That's why we've been managing these parts of the business so aggressively. That's why we are where we are.'

  Donovan was pretty sure that Caleb Adams, the Hedelco CEO, would see the force of his argument. If there was a problem, it would be with Cy Packard at Burtonhall.

  *

  DCI Fiske had decided that none of the suspects should be interviewed again until she, MacNee and Esslemont had seen the full analysis of the computer hard disks and a report from the SOCOs on the evidence collected from Paul MacIver's flat. That left her with some time that she could use to try to draw a line under the distraction of the Fleming affair. She left a message with Esslemont's office to let him know she was going to talk to Jack Eisner and Frank Mancuso, requested a car from the pool, and drove first to Ebright's offices just off the Inverness Road.