By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2)

by Alan Alexander

  They started in Glasgow’s West End on Sunday afternoon, showing Mathieson’s picture around the shops and pubs, mainly Byres Road, trying to find anyone who recognised him. At first nobody did. In the middle of the evening, just as they were about to call it a day, an Asian shopkeeper looked closely at the photograph and said that the man sometimes came in for a paper, or for milk, or bread.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Maybe two weeks ago. I remember because he asked me if I sold disposable mobile phones. I sent him to my cousin down the road in Church Street. He sells them, unblocks them, all that stuff. Too complicated for me. I stick to pies and such.’

  'Was he always alone when you saw him? Or was anyone with him?', Stewart Todd asked.

  'Always alone. No girlfriend.' He smiled to signal a joke. 'No boyfriend either.'

  The detectives walked about a quarter of a mile down Byres Road and into Church Street where they found the shop run by the shopkeeper's cousin. It was a tiny place of the sort that used to exist all over Glasgow, before they were wiped out by supermarkets and convenience stores: "wee dairies" selling milk, bread, rolls, and little else. Now it sold disposable phones, phone cards, phone accessories, earphones and the like, and offered services such as unlocking mobile phones and repairing broken screens.

  They saw the family resemblance as soon as they went in. The man was younger and more westernised than his cousin. He was also more guarded in his greeting, probably because he guessed they were police officers and because he was running a business that sometimes operated on the edge of the law. Williamson and Todd knew that this kind of enterprise worked on a no questions asked basis.

  'We've just been to see your cousin up the road,' Duncan Williamson said as he showed his warrant card. 'He says that he sent this man here to buy a disposable phone. Do you recognise him?'

  The shopkeeper took the photograph and looked at it closely. 'Yes. He came here about two weeks ago. He bought two disposables and a charger. Also, a couple of USB cables. I remember because it's not usual for a customer to buy two phones at the same time.'

  'Was he alone?'

  'No, He was with another man. The other man did not say anything and he stood just by the door and not at the counter, as if he didn't want me to see him. But I had to ask him to move so that I could get the cables, so I got a good look at him.'

  'Is this him?' Stewart Todd had taken a photograph of Paul MacIver out of his backpack and passed it over the counter.

  'That's him.'

  Duncan Williamson told the shopkeeper that they were investigating two murders and that they would have to ask him to make a formal statement. He looked apprehensive, but he nodded and said he would be happy to help.

  *

  After Sara Hamilton told him that Kate Turnbull had corroborated Morven Trask's information about MacIver's time in Canada, Detective Inspector Colin MacNee arranged to speak on the phone to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He emailed that he was investigating two murders and some other serious crimes and that a ‘person of interest’ – he did not mention that MacIver had been charged with conspiracy to murder, because he wanted to concentrate their minds on what he was coming to regard as the terrorism aspects of the case – had spent some time in Quebec. He needed to know whether he had come to their attention.

  After speaking with the International Liaison section at RCMP HQ in Ottawa, he had emailed Superintendent Pierre Vignault, head of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) in Quebec City. Now, at 1600hrs BST / 1100 hrs EDT he dialled his number.

  ‘Bonjour, Superintendent Vignault, je m’appelle Colin MacNee, et je suis en Ecosse …’

  Vignault interrupted ‘Detective MacNee, would you prefer if we spoke in English?’ Vignault had a strong accent, but his English was grammatically perfect. Colin had thought that courtesy demanded that he try to communicate in French, but he was relieved to change to English, courtesy satisfied.

  ‘Thank you, Superintendent. That would be helpful, if you don’t mind.'

  ‘Not a bit.’

  ‘We have a man in custody here in Aberdeen and we think he may have been involved in a bomb attack. He spent a couple of years in Montreal, and it would be helpful to know if he came to your attention.’

  ‘Is this the bomb at Last Cairngorm?’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘We get intelligence on all terrorist or apparently terrorist attacks. Mainly I just skim the headlines, but Ewan Last has a high profile here in Canada, so I took a bit more interest.’

  ‘The name of our suspect is Paul MacIver and we believe he lived in Montreal around 2004 to 2006. We don’t have exact dates. He has a history of radical separatist politics here in Scotland and it would be very helpful if you could tell me if he came to your notice.’

  ‘Do you have a date of birth for him, just to be sure.’

  Colin read out MacIver’s date of birth.

  ‘OK, let’s see. This may take some time. Do you want to hold or call me back?’

  Colin said he would hold. It took no more than a couple of minutes, during which he could hear the click of a keyboard as Vignault interrogated the RCMP database.

  'The non-parliamentary wing of Quebec separatism has been pretty disorganised since the collapse of the Front pour la Liberation du Quebec in 1970. Occasional attacks amounting to little more than vandalism, but we keep an eye on them. There's a group of ex-FLQ activists and student radicals who hang out in the bars around the Francophone universities and colleges in Montreal. It looks as though your man began to frequent these places in late 2004. We photographed him, ran the picture through the immigration database and identified him as Paul MacIver. He never applied for a work permit, but he did some freelance writing and broadcasting. Probably got paid in cash. Seems to have spent a lot of time with radical separatists.

  'When did he leave Canada?'

  'May 2006. He left Montreal on an Air Canada flight to Heathrow and hasn't been back. Or if he has, immigration doesn't know about it.'

  *

  'Right. We've also got some evidence of his activities in Quebec from the RCMP and from an ex-girlfriend found by Sara and Aisha. I'll have to speak to the spooks.'

  Vanessa Fiske had been reading an email from Andy Hanna when Colin came into her office after his conversation with Vignault.

  'I was going to go to see Esslemont about going after Roskill, but this takes priority.'

  She used some old contacts in the Met to get quickly to the right person in the security service. She assured him that she was using a secure line and he asked how he could help.

  'Paul MacIver. We have him in custody on a charge of conspiracy to murder, but it looks as though he may have been involved in the Last Cairngorm bombing. This is all pretty sensitive because until we arrested him he was a special adviser to the First Minister. Her closest adviser, in fact. He has a history of radical separatism, including associating with extreme nationalists in Quebec, where he came to the notice of the Mounties' anti-terrorist branch. It would be helpful to know if he has come to your attention.'

  There was a pause, then he said, 'I'll get back to you within the hour.'

  *

  DI Andy Hanna had met Neil Derrick's contact in the SFO for a coffee on Monday morning, and he was cross checking with him Aaronson's take on the behaviour of private equity conglomerates.

  'Generally speaking, he's right. Unless they're into leveraged buyouts - financing take-overs by borrowing and taking publicly quoted companies private - there's very little to prevent or deter insider dealing. The Securities and Exchange Commission in the States has been pursuing a couple of private equity funds for insider trading, but their interest has been in how advantage has been gained in either the negotiation of loans or the manipulation of share prices before a take-over. As I understand it, most of Burtonhall's acquisitions have been financed by sovereign wealth funds or high net worth investors, so they're unregulated.'

  'So there woul
d be nothing to prevent an insider from trying to influence the price that an "entity" would attract if it came on the market?'

  'That's about the size of it.'

  *

  'The RCMP brought MacIver to our attention when he left Canada in 2006 and we've kept his file open since then. It has to be said, however, that we've added very little to it. He's had no obvious connections with non-mainstream groups in Scotland, and the stuff he wrote for the Glasgow Banner was unexceptionable. Some eyebrows were raised when the First Minster took him on in 2007.'

  'Did you tell her what you knew?'

  'Not directly. We alerted the Permanent Secretary at the Scottish Executive, as it then was, and left it at that.'

  'What about when she became FM.'

  'We turned things up a notch. We talked to the PS again and suggested, quite strongly, that he advise the FM to request a full security check on MacIver and his known associates.'

  'Did she?'

  'Not to my knowledge. We weren't asked to do anything, certainly.'

  Vanessa tried to keep any sign of surprise out of her voice. 'You mentioned known associates. If I give you two names, can you tell me if they came up on your radar?'

  'Go on.'

  'Simon Mathieson and Andrew MacIlwraith.'

  There was a silence on the line. After about a minute, the voice came back.

  'We identified both men as associates of MacIver in 2006. We don't think he met them again, or contacted them electronically, until earlier this year. He met theme four times between May and July and has been in touch with them pretty continuously by email and text since then.'

  *

  Andy Hanna's final contact in London was a self-employed financial analyst, anonymous blogger and FRIG associate who had recently been to the British Virgin Islands. His name had come up in his discussion with Aaronson but his number had not been among those given to him by DCI Fiske. Aaronson had suggested that if anything was known about the beneficial owners of secret accounts, he would know it.

  'So why hasn't he told you? You're both part of FRIG, aren't you?'

  'We don't share unless we're working jointly. More secure. He'll blog about what he knows. Eventually.'

  They met in a coffee bar in Borough Market at lunchtime on Monday. Andy was hoping to get a flight to Aberdeen from London City in the middle of the afternoon, so he had phoned the number Aaronson had given him before he met the man from the SFO. The only name he had was Carl, and when they met - he had told Andy he would be carrying a copy of Forbes magazine - he volunteered no further identification. Andy mentally noted the irony that someone investigating financial secrecy should so carefully guard his anonymity, but if this led to the single most important piece of evidence that Fiske needed from him, he could live with it.

  'A number of us in FRIG have been digging around in the crown dependencies that act as tax havens and host offshore shell companies to see if we can identify any high profile public figures, especially those that have taken a hard line on tax avoidance or benefit fraud, who've been operating accounts through nominee directors. Mates of mine have been working in the Caymans, Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos. I've spent some time in BVI.'

  'Did you find anything?'

  'Nothing that the mainstream press would publish, and I'd need another source before I would even blog about it, but I'm pretty sure that I've identified two very big names behind a new private equity fund registered by nominees in BVI. But I'd need a very good reason to divulge them.'

  Andy decided to appeal to conscience and good citizenship.

  'Look, we're investigating two murders and two terrorist attacks, one involving a bomb. We think the perpetrators may have been bankrolled by a very big name who may also be into the kind of insider trading that the regulators can't touch. I can't, for very obvious reasons, give you the name. And I won't be able to tell you if any name you give me matches the names we're investigating. But I can talk to my boss about giving you a call before we go public.'

  Andy knew he was pushing his luck. He calculated that if he got the information Fiske wanted, the fact that he had pushed the boundaries of acceptable behaviour would have consequences that he could accept. But it was still a risk.

  Carl then used the same justification as Aaronson, saying that he was committed to exposing the activities of "liars, hypocrites and profiteers". He was showing exactly the same single-minded zeal as Aaronson. However, he also said that he had had a close friend who was killed in the 7 July terrorist bombings in London in 2005. Andy thought that this was what tipped the balance towards disclosure.

  'The two names I have are Roskill and Carey. Big enough for you?'

  Andy Hanna didn't react and he said nothing. He got up, paid for the coffees, and went to find a taxi to take him to the airport.

  *

  As soon as Fiske finished speaking to Andy Hanna, who had called her on his way to the Airport, she went to see DCS Esslemont to tell him that they should speak urgently to the Chief Constable. If he already thought this case was politically sensitive, he'd need a stiff drink after hearing what she now had to tell him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  'Sir, the frequency with which Roskill's name has come up in the course of my enquiries clearly makes him a person of interest. I need to interview him.'

  The Chief Constable shifted uneasily in his chair. DCS Esslemont nodded his agreement, but said nothing.

  'We spoke before about the need to be able to defend our actions, Vanessa, and to be able to deflect any suggestions that we are indulging in fishing trips. I still have that concern. We are talking about a former prime minister...'

  Vanessa interrupted. 'And the current head of the Foreign Office, though I'm not suggesting that I need to talk to him. Yet.'

  The Chief ignored the intervention and went on. 'A former prime minister whose reputation as an international statesman and philanthropist stands high? You are suggesting that he is complicit in two murders and two terrorist attacks.'

  'With respect, sir, at this point I am saying only that his name has come up in connection with MacIver and that I have intelligence that suggests that he is a beneficial owner of an account in the British Virgin Islands from which a substantial monthly sum has been paid to MacIver for the last six months. I need to ask him what he was buying with that money, a large part of which flowed straight through to the men we have charged with the murders of Peter Keller and Harvey Jamieson.'

  'I think Vanessa's right, sir. If any other name had come up in the contexts she describes, we would have had no hesitation about interviewing them, at least informally, possibly under caution. Roskill should have no special treatment.'

  'If you do talk to him, it will have to be informal at this stage. And we will have to observe the strictest confidentiality. Special Branch, the intelligence services and Counter-Terrorism will need to be informed.'

  Vanessa looked at Esslemont, who nodded.

  'Is that really necessary? I agree that I should ask for an informal interview, so I can't see that anyone outside this room, other than Colin MacNee as Deputy SIO, needs to know. The more people who know, the more likely it is to get out. I've been very careful to pass on to the teams investigating Last and Mercury any material evidence that's come up as we've investigated the murders, and if talking to Roskill produces anything they should have, they'll have it. But we just don't know, until we approach him, whether he'll agree to speak to us, and, if he does, what he'll have to say.'

  'In normal circumstances,' the Chief said, 'I'd have to brief the Justice Secretary on this, but I don't think that would be sensible. However, I'll need to talk to the Commissioner-Designate. It's unlikely that this will be concluded before he takes over.'

  *

  As soon as she had the Chief 's reluctant support, DCI Fiske contacted the Metropolitan Police Diplomatic Protection branch to request contact details that would enable her to make a direct approach to Roskill. The direct telephone number went to the chief
executive of The James M Roskill Public Affairs Trust, a former diplomat and senior adviser to Roskill during his time as Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. Vanessa vaguely remembered his name, and his reputation as a brutally efficient gatekeeper who decided who could see his boss and who could not.

  'I'm sorry, Chief Inspector, but Mr Roskill's diary is very full. He'll be in this country very little over the next month or two, so I think it unlikely that we can fit you in.'

  Vanessa took a deep breath and told herself not to react to the patronising tone. It's like dealing with the bloody royals, she thought.

  'Mr Griffiths,' she said, in as even a voice as she could manage, 'Mr Roskill's name has come up in the course of a double murder investigation and I would very much like to speak to him. I am happy to come to London, or to meet him anywhere else, within reason. At this stage' - she paused to let the implicit threat sink in - 'I am looking for an informal conversation and I am asking you to put my request to him.'