Skinner's Rules bs-1

by Quintin Jardine

  Skinner grinned briefly, bringing a slight flush to Maggie’s face. ‘No: personally. I’ll ask Aileen to confirm that tomorrow, but I’m sure you’re right. Advocates’ clerks maintain business diaries for each person in their stable, and they never leave the office, as a rule.

  ‘Have you discussed this with what’s his name, Paddy Pavarotti?’

  ‘No, sir, he didn’t look at the diaries, and I didn’t mention it.’

  ‘Good. Don’t. There’s no need for him to know. The implications of this could be more serious than you can imagine, so don’t talk about it even to Brian.

  ‘At this stage, only Andy and I need to know.’

  53

  As Skinner and Martin left the neat little garden flat, the mid-afternoon sun hung low in the western sky. Martin carried Rachel Jameson’s address book. As they drove back towards Fettes Avenue, Skinner told him of Maggie Rose’s discovery.

  ‘Does she know that would confirm everything we suspect?’

  ‘ You can be sure of it. She has a fine mind, has our Maggie. She’s figured ut that it proves that Rachel didn’t kill herself, and that the person who did has been into that flat removing any leads. She’s been told in confidence, along with every one else involved in the Balerno search that Yobatu turned out to be as daft as a brush, and that he’s been shipped very quietly to a laughing academy in Japan. She knows that Kenny Duff has pinned the break-ins down to December the ninth at the earliest - after Yobatu was lifted. Her mind’s working away; so she can guess that Yobatu was set up. But what she can’t know is how far that could lead us, to the possibility of the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Advocate being parties to the frame.’

  Martin whistled. ‘You don’t really think that, do you, boss?’

  ‘No, that needn’t follow. As I told Shi-Bachi, there was a ring of unpleasant truth in what Allingham and Wilson said at that meeting. Diplomatic immunity is a valuable principle, and I can understand the Foreign Office not wanting that boat rocked.

  ‘But the theft of that diary, and the break-in at Mortimer’s place make it certain that we are on the track of something solid here.’

  Martin turned the car into Howe Street. ‘One thing, boss. Whoever our guy is, he’s a really clever bastard. So why didn’t he conceal the fact of the searches?’

  ‘Yes, I’m asking myself that one. Plain carelessness is one answer. Another is that with Yobatu firmly in the frame, he didn’t see the need. He couldn’t have known about the wills, or the joint executor. If it hadn’t been for Kenny Duff, these break-ins would probably have been reported separately, to different shifts at Gayfield. Or maybe they wouldn’t have been reported at all. We’ve had a slice of luck there, I think.’

  He paused for a moment, in reflection, and went on: ‘You’re right, Andy. This is an extremely clever sod, and we’re back in this game only by the skin of our teeth. He’s left one unavoidable lead, by stealing Rachel’s briefcase, and he’s made one major mistake, leaving his mark on Mortimer’s.

  ‘We’ve just got to hope that he’s made others and that the trail isn’t wiped completely clean from here on.

  ‘You take that address book of Rachel’s, and I’ll take Mortimer’s Filofax. Let’s disregard for now every listing of full name and addresses in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Start off by looking for entries that might be usual or cryptic in any way.’

  Martin turned into the Fettes Avenue car park and pulled up beside Skinner’s Granada.

  The tall man climbed out. Ducking his head back through the passenger door he said, ‘I’m off home. You should do the same, but don’t forget your evening reading.’

  On impulse, Skinner walked back to Stockbridge. At his brisk pace it took ten minutes. He and Sarah had marked their engagement by an exchange of keys. For the first time in his life, he let himself into the apartment.

  ‘I’m home!’ he called from the hall to the warm flat.

  Fresh food smells drifted from the kitchen. Sarah emerged, with her hair tied high and her shoulders bare. She wore a long wrap-round apron, a pair of sandals, and nothing else. She stood on tip-toe and kissed him.

  ‘God, I must get used to this new situation!’ she whispered. ‘You coul have had Andy with you, or anyone.’ Bob grinned and wound his arms around her, grasping a firm buttock in each hand.

  ‘Hungry?’ she asked softly. It was a loaded question.

  Later, Bob wearing a leisure suit and Sarah still in her apron, but worn over a tee-shirt and denims, they cooked the meal which Sarah had been preparing earlier. They ate at the rectangular pine kitchen table, following the stir-fry with fruit salad taken from the freezer, and opting for Swan low alcohol lager rather than wine.

  While they ate, nothing was said about the investigation. It was only after Bob had poured their coffee that Sarah asked him about it.

  ‘What did you achieve today, my darling?’

  ‘Today we’ve only built the machine and set it in motion. Now the hard part begins.’

  He paused for a moment, staring into his coffee mug, then looked up at Sarah as she leaned across the table, her chin resting in her cupped hand.

  ‘I made a heavy point about secrecy this morning. I told the team not to talk to anyone about what they’re doing; and I meant anyone, wives and or sweethearts included. Now I want to break my own rule. I feel I’ve got to tell you all about it.’

  Sarah dropped her hand from her chin and looked into his eyes, frown ing slightly. ‘Of course you do. And you should. Bob, you’re not like th team. Only you and Andy know the whole story. And you think that you might be involved in something tremendous, and awful. You know for sure it’s highly dangerous. You’re wrapped up in it. If you don’t have some sort of confessional, a safe, secure sounding board, you coulc become obsessive about it. This is your doctor speaking.

  ‘But there’s one other thing. I’m part of the team too. I saw what was done to those four people. I had to poke around in the mess. So I have a personal interest in seeing that this animal, whoever he is, is rounded up and put away.’

  Bob smiled at her intensity, taking her hand. ‘Thanks, love. I’d almost forgotten that you’ve been in since the dirty start of this business.’

  He crossed to the fridge, took out two more cans of Swan, popped the top of each and handed one to Sarah. Across the table, he told her of the beginning of the search, of the importance of Kenny Duff’s discovery of the break-ins, of Maggie Rose’s perceptive analysis of Rachel, anc finally, of her discovery of the theft of the current diary.

  By the time he had finished, Sarah had grown sombre. ‘So there was some kind of plot. And all those people were killed in cold blood, not by some crazy man. Horrible!’ She shuddered.

  ‘Let me help. You mentioned Mike Mortimer’s Filofax. Let’s look at it together.’

  They moved through to the living room and sat together on the comfort able yellow settee. Bob opened the brown leather binding and held the book so that Sarah could read it with him. Inside the front cover, ther was a card in a clear plastic holder. The words ‘Happy birthday, 4/6/94 All my love, Rachel’ were written in blue fountain ink in an elegan hand. The leather still smelled new. The pages, held by a ring-binder, wer arranged in four sections, diary, addresses, information and financial. Bob opened the financial section.

  Mortimer had been a careful man. Every financial transaction involv ing payment by cheque or credit card was recorded, along with cash withdrawals, and set against receipts. Several incoming payments were marked in the ledger with the letters ‘FS’. ‘What do you think that means?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘It’s probably Faculty Services, the company that manages advocates business and collects their fees. Nearly all work goes through it.’

  At the end of each month the amount was totalled. Any surplus over a minimum balance of E500 was marked ‘Transfer to SA’. Mortimer had been saving over £2000 per month out ofincome.

  ‘That’s quite a surplus,’ said Sarah.

  ‘The taxman
will want his share,’ said Bob. ‘All practising advocates are self-employed.

  ‘I wonder where his savings record is.’ He flicked through the rest of the financial section, but found nothing. ‘This is a current account. It’s his cash book, ready for his accountant to argue the case for some spend-. ing to be treated as business expenses. Somewhere there’s got to be a bank-book, or a building society account, where we can cross-check these transfers.’

  He left the financial section and opened Information. It began with personal details, and listed personal advisers.

  ‘Good lad,’ Bob muttered, ‘this’ll save us some digging.’ He read down the list. ‘Lawyers,Curle, Anthony and Jarvis. Accountants, Mohamed King and Co. Insurance adviser, W. D. Kidd. Doctor, dentist, tailor. Her we are, Stockbroker, Brown Aston, Glasgow. Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, St Andrew Square. Building Society, Abbey National, Hanover Street ... Couldn’t be better.’

  The rest of the information section was made up of street maps and rail timetables, showing city destinations in Scotland from Wick to Ayr, all places where the High Court of Justiciary sits on circuit. Inevitably there was also a map of the London Underground network.

  Thumb-flip initial index markers ran down the side of the address section Bob opened it at the first page. ‘Adams, John, LIB, Aitken, William... He flicked through the pages. The listings were in strict alphabetical order except where an entry had been made after the compilation of the directory.

  They read carefully through the pages. The methodical Mortimer ha noted professions beside each entry. Those without such designations were Bob guessed, purely social acquaintances. They would be the first to be followed up.

  ‘M’ and ‘N’ were together in the seventh section. The index made no allowance for Scotland’s proliferation of ‘Macs’ and so the section was fatter than any other in the book. ’MacAndrew, tailor.’ began the listing, which ran through to ’MacWilliam, Roger, Bank Manager‘, and on into ‘Mabon, Peter LIB.’ The last entry on the page was ‘Madigan & Co, Architects.’

  Bob’s eye tracked to the top of the next page. He read the first entry ‘Napley, Eleanor. Advocate.’ He frowned. ‘Wait a minute.’

  ‘What’s up?’ Sarah’s attention had wandered. She snapped back to wakefulness.

  ‘There’s something wrong here. There are no Mortimers in this directory.’

  ‘Maybe he knew them off by heart?’

  ‘Love, this guy has listed his girlfriend, his own office number, his building society, everyone. There’s even an entry for “Lewis, John. Department store”. This is more than an address book, it’s a record of a life. He’s not going to leave his family out.

  ‘And what about the Dean?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘David Murray, QC, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. He isn’t listed either, yet Peter Cowan is, not just as an advocate, but as Clerk of Faculty

  ‘Someone’s been here before us. There’s a page missing!’

  Sarah squeezed his arm. ‘Are you sure? The family couldn’t be listed somewhere else?’

  ‘They could, but they aren’t.’ He reached for Sarah’s Mickey Mouse telephone and dialled a seven digit number. ‘Andy? Bob here. Have you been into Rachel’s address book yet? Well get into your wee red motor and bring it round. I want to look at it, and to show you something.’

  Less than fifteen minutes later, the door buzzer sounded. Skinner picked up the entryphone receiver in the hall and pressed the button which unlocked the street door. He opened the front door just as Martin boundec on to the landing outside, Rachel Jameson’s address book in his hand.

  Skinner led him into the living room, where Sarah waited with three mugs of coffee and a box of After Eight mints. Skinner showed him Mortimer’s Filofax, and the ‘M’ entries which came to a sudden stop.

  ‘See what I mean Andy? Who’s the important “M”, who’s been removed? Is he our man, or is it another victim, one that we don’t know about; an accident, maybe, like Rachel was meant to be? Let’s see Rachel’s address book.’

  Martin handed him the long red directory, opening it at the ‘M’ section as he did so. Skinner looked at it closely. The entries were less detailed than those in the Filofax, and the ‘M’ and ‘Mac’ surnames were in random order. He tound Mortimer’s listing simply under ‘Mike’ and below it a listing for ‘J. Mortimer’, with no address, only the Clydebank telephone number which he had used earlier in the day. There too, was David Murray’s home address and telephone number. It was only when he turned the page that Skinner noticed something odd.

  A long straight cut appeared, close to the spine of the book. He pressed it as flat as he could on the coffee table, and ran his finger between the pages. Suddenly he pulled his finger back as he felt the sharp pain of a paper cut. He sucked the blood which welled from the fine slit at the tip of his index finger, then ran his middle finger over the page again, crosswise this time. He bent the book open until the front and back of the red cover were touching.

  ‘There you are. You can hardly see it, but a page has been cut out. You’ve got to be looking really hard to notice that it’s gone. If he hadn’t nicked the next page with his knife, and if I hadn’t been looking as closely as I did at the “M”s I wouldn’t have found it.

  ‘So there it is. Our mystery entry has been taken out of each one.’

  ‘Why didn’t he just take the books?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘That would have been spotted, especially with all the financial information in Mortimer’s Filofax. No, just take a page from each and no one will notice. That’s what our man reckoned. Anyway, he thinks we’ve bought Yobatu. All he’s doing here is housekeeping, tidying up. He doesn’t really expect that there’ll be a detailed search.’

  ‘Remember, he did pinch Rachel’s diary,’ said Martin. ‘Maybe there was too much in that for him to cut out. Have you checked the diary sectior of the Filofax?’

  ‘Not yet. Let’s have a look now.’

  He picked up the brown leather book and reopened it. The first five; months of the day-per-page had been discarded. Martin looked startled until Skinner showed him the date on the gift card set inside the front cover.

  The entries began on Tuesday 6 June, and continued daily from then on. Typically of Mortimer, they were concise, but full of detail: until Monday 20 June and Tuesday 21 June. Martin stated the obvious. ‘It’ not there.’

  A small piece of paper was caught in one of the six steel clips of the ring-binder, snagged as the page had been removed.

  Skinner stopped reading the detail of the entries. Instead, he flicke through the pages, searching for more gaps. ‘October the fifteenth and sixteenth; they’re gone.’ He shook his head. ‘A very thorough individ ual. We’ve been lucky to get this tar. Now it looks like we’re stuc again.’

  ‘Look at the cashbook.’ Sarah spoke softly from her armchair.

  ‘Clever lady,’ said Skinner. He opened the financial section, flippin over pages until he reached June.

  ‘Very clever lady! Look at this. June the twentieth, shuttle return Edinburgh - Heathrow. Paid by Mastercard.’ He turned over more pages ‘And again. October the fifteenth. But this time it’s two tickets. Did Rache go with him this time?

  ‘Andy, first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to use your Specia Branch clout to do two things. Call British Airways and have them check the passenger listings for all flights to Heathrow on October the fifteenth, looking for Mortimer and Jameson. If Rachel doesn’t show; then find out who was sat on either side of Mortimer on each half of the round trip.

  ‘Then call Telecom. I want a printout of all calls made from Mortimer’s and Rachel’s telephones from the last twelve months, with the subscribers at the other end listed. They’ll moan like buggery, but they can do it.’

  Martin nodded. ‘Anyone who’s going to moan, may as well start now.

  He picked up Mickey Mouse and looked towards Sarah. ‘May I?’

  ‘Be our guest.’

  Ten minutes
and two telephone calls later Martin was finished. ‘Airway is easy. I’ll have that by 9.00 a.m. The Telecom task involves more work but my woman there says she’ll try to have what we need by midday And she didn’t moan at all.’

  ‘Good fella. Get word to me as soon as you have anything on either one. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to break the good news to the Chief. This business has got to the point where he needs to be told.’

  54

  A police car took Skinner to the Abbey National Building Society for his 10.15 appointment with the manager, a small neat man, curious as to the reason for Skinner’s visit.

  Skinner accepted black tea in a thick, ugly cup. ‘Thank you for seein me at such short notice, Mr Needham,’ he began.

  ‘I believe that Mr Michael Mortimer, an advocate, was, until his recent death, one of your depositors.’

  Needham nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. And a mortgage holder.’

  ‘I’m looking into his financial affairs. I have some of his personal records and I want to cross-check these with his account information here. I know that you have no obligation to assist me, but the matter is urgent, and the man is dead, so I hope that it won’t be necessary to go through formal procedures. I’d rather keep this completely off-the-record.’

  Needham held up his hand in an affirmatory gesture. ‘That doesn’t caus me a problem, Mr Skinner. I take it that you want the details of both investment accounts.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘Yes. He had two. One was used for regular monthly transfers from the Royal Bank, as a sort of business account, I think. From memory, the balance stands at almost thirty thousand pounds at the moment. The other is joint, in the names of Mr Mortimer and Miss, or is it Ms, Rachel Jameson It was opened in June, with a cash deposit of five thousand pounds.’

  Successfully, Skinner concealed his excitement. ‘Any payment since then?’

  ‘Yes, in October a further fifteen thousand pounds was deposited again in cash.’