By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2)

by Alan Alexander

  A press conference will take place today at 1700 hrs. It will be taken by videolink by DCI Vanessa Fiske, Senior Investigating Officer, and will be attended by DI Colin MacNee, Deputy SIO, and by DCS Campbell Esslemont, Head of NEC CID.

  *

  As she was preparing for the press conference, Vanessa took a call from Kenneth Bancroft.

  'Julia Roskill has just booked a flight, Business Class, from London to San Jose, Costa Rica, via Atlanta.'

  ‘And we don’t have an extradition treaty with Costa Rica?’

  'No, we don't, but in very special cases an ad hoc application for repatriation may be entertained.'

  'This press conference will be interesting.'

  EPILOGUE

  Seven months later, after MacIver, Mathieson and MacIlwraith had been tried at the High Court in Edinburgh and convicted on all charges, Ben Aaronson and Carl, his otherwise anonymous FRIG associate, interviewed James Michael Roskill at his villa near San Jose, Costa Rica. It had taken weeks of negotiation through intermediaries to set it up. Their first contact had been Edmund Cordingley who, after being interviewed by DCI Fiske and Kenneth Bancroft of Special Branch, but neither arrested nor charged, had given entirely unhelpful but not obviously dishonest evidence at the trial. With MacIver in prison, and his client apparently safe from any Scottish legal process that might try to bring him to trial, Cordingley had finally, but on condition of anonymity, returned Aaronson's call.

  Eventually, Aaronson had been told the specific flight on which he and his colleague should arrive in San Jose. When they had cleared immigration, they searched the line of drivers waiting for their clients until they saw a card reading "EXFLT", identified themselves and were taken, without a word spoken, to a black people carrier with dark windows. Forty minutes later they arrived at the villa, a substantial house overlooking the sea. They had an hour or so with Roskill, who was accompanied by Cordingley, and their "World Exclusive", supported by a picture of the former Prime Minister taken on Carl's smartphone, appeared under Aaronson's byline on the front page of the Financial Post.

  ROSKILL DENIES IT ALL

  In his first interview since leaving the United Kingdom, James Michael Roskill spoke exclusively to the Financial Post. The full interview appears on pages 4 and 5.

  The former Prime Minister spoke frankly about his business interests, his use of overseas tax havens - "all entirely legal" - and his decision to set up his own private equity company. He has resigned from the Board of Burtonhall and he accepts that his position as a non-executive director of Mercury Fulfilment had become untenable as soon as his name was linked, "completely erroneously", with the cyber attack on Mercury's Scottish warehouse. His contacts with Paul MacIver, former special adviser to the former First Minister of Scotland, had been '"intermittent and entirely political". Reports that he had funded extremist nationalism were "so fantastical as to be hardly worthy of comment".

  Roskill explained why he had decided to live permanently in Costa Rica, claiming that the absence of an extradition treaty with the UK was "irrelevant and unconnected" with his move from London. He said he had been impressed by the country's environmental policies, its commitment to world peace as demonstrated by the absence of an army, and its record on human rights. The headquarters of the various foundations and trusts that bear the Roskill name would be moved to San Jose...

  *

  The day after the trial, Commander Kenneth Bancroft met Sir Justin Carey, the Permanent Secretary, in his room at the Foreign Office. Later that week, Sir Justin, who had been informed by Bancroft of what Special Branch knew of his business activities, and their intention, "if the need arose", to pass the information to the financial regulatory authorities, announced that he would take early retirement, with immediate effect.

  *

  DCI Vanessa Fiske, in the second week of her maternity leave, was alerted by Harry Conival to Aaronson's interview with Roskill. As she read it on the FP website, she tried not to get angry. She laughed at Roskill's description of his relationship with MacIver and she was just about to phone Neil to talk about it when she felt the first twinge.

  Seventeen hours later, with Neil at her side, she gave birth, to a girl and a boy, combined weight 8 pounds and 11 ounces. Janet had called it right. She was in her thirty-second week.