Skinner's trail bs-3

by Quintin Jardine

  'So he must have transferred Vaudan to Lucan's cruiser?' `Yes. D'you think they've twigged they were being watched?' `Shouldn't think so. They've got one and a half million dollars with them. They're just being extra careful.'

  Mackie looked at Skinner in surprise. He nodded, 'Yes, pulled from the bank at sparrow-fart this morning. That's what would have been in Monklands' bag. So what did the French do?'

  `They called in the coastguard. Or they tried to. The coastguard told them to go through channels. They wouldn't even put a single helicopter up without an order from Paris. But by that time..

  Skinner finished the sentence,`. . they'd have been long bloody gone.'

  `I asked the French what the range would be of a boat that size,' said Mackie. 'They said it could go anywhere in the Mediterranean with maybe just one refuelling stop.'

  `Yeah,' said Skinner. 'They're off with their cash pile to meet their supplier, and we can only guess where he might be. Sicily, Morocco, the Lebanon — any-bloody-where. Bang goes our chance of shutting down the whole supply chain.'

  He looked up and grinned. 'Still, the ball's not burst yet… That's only part of it. We've still got Vaudan and Ainscow by the nuts. As long as we don't lose sight of Monklands, we're still in play. We can assume that he brought down Ainscow's signed authority for the dollar withdrawal. But he's still there, with his empty trailer, so let's add the assumption that he's taking a delivery back with him. Brian, you're on your travels again. I want you to get out there now, or maybe sooner. Join up with the French watchers, and wait for Vaudan and Lucan to get back from wherever they've been with whatever they've bought. Then, once Monklands leaves, tail him every centimetre of the way. As soon as you see which channel. crossing he's going to take, call ahead so that I can fix it with the customs at his landing port.'

  Maggie Rose looked at her boss in surprise. 'I thought we'd follow him all the way home.'

  Skinner nodded. 'We will. I want to make sure that he doesn't get stopped by the customs.' He turned back towards Mackie. 'You all right with that, Brian?'

  A shaft of sunlight shone through the window and glistened on Mackie's bald head, as he smiled back at him. 'Sure, boss. But don't you want to go. I mean, Sarah could always use another T-shirt. You only brought her back three last night!'

  Skinner laughed. 'No, you just be a good boss, and bring back the duty-free for your squad! Right, Detective Inspector Rose. Let's go up and see how Mr Martin's getting on, keeping tabs on Ainscow and that wee shit Cocozza.'

  He led the way from the Special Branch suite up the single flight of stairs to Andy Martin's Drugs and Vice team. The outer office was empty save for a typist, hard at work. She was wearing transcription headphones.

  Andy Martin, seated at his desk signing correspondence, looked up as they entered. His blond hair was tousled, and his green eyes shone. The breadth of his shoulders stood out beneath his tight-fitting, short-sleeved shirt. His tie was loosened and the top button was open. Skinner noticed that he had a fresh red scratch on his neck, but before he could comment Martin greeted them, brightly. 'Hello, sir; Maggie. I thought you two would be up to your fetlocks in paper today.'

  `Aye, we were, but we found an excuse to drag ourselves away.' Quickly, Skinner explained the events of the previous twenty-four hours: the discovery of the cash-pile and the Monaco bank, Angie Dickson's electronic break-in, the withdrawal and, finally, the evasion of surveillance by Vaudan and Lucan.

  'Christ,' said Martin, 'that makes my poor life seem dull and humdrum. I've just spent the last few days supervising a team watching two guys do sweet eff-all out of the ordinary:

  'All quiet on the Ainscow front, then?'

  'Yes. Church-mouse. And Cocozza too. He's been doing the rounds of the former Manson Empire. He's spending a lot more time there than in his law practice.'

  'He never really had one,' said Skinner. 'Tony Manson was always his biggest client. I heard that Tony knew Cocozza's old man, and that he more or less set the son up in practice.'

  Martin leaned back in his chair. 'There is one thing on Ainscow, boss. I asked Alison Higgins' guy, Ogilvie, to pull the record of his old estate agency from the back files in Companies House — remember, the one he cashed back in the Eighties — and have a look at them. He gave me his report last night. He said that anyone who paid big money for that business must have been off his head. He said the last couple of years' accounts were bloody ropy. I've arranged to see the managing director of the current parent company first thing on Monday morning, through in Glasgow. Want to come?’

  Skinner thought for a moment. 'Yes, I think I will. l want to know as much as I can about Mr Ainscow, even if I have to go to Glasgow to find out. Will you pick me up from home?'

  Before Martin could reply, Ruth appeared in the doorway, clutching a fax. 'Excuse me, sir. I thought you'd want to see this right away. It's just come in, from Barcelona.'

  Skinner took the paper from her. As he read Pujol's account of his second meeting with Hansi Gruber, then the English translation of the German's statement, a broad smile spread over his face. 'Good news?' asked Martin.

  Skinner nodded. `Mmm. But very bad news for Nick Vaudan. A life sentence, I'd say, on top of what he gets for complicity in fraud and for drug dealing.' He chuckled. `That'll teach the bastard to proposition my wife!'

  Sixty-eight

  Bob Skinner never visited Glasgow without being struck by the differences, architectural, climatic, cultural, social and emotional, between the former Second City of the Empire and Edinburgh, Scotland's capital.

  There exists in many ordinary Glaswegians a bitter contempt for their compatriots forty-five miles to the east. Skinner, brought up on the city's outskirts, had managed to escape its influence, but could feel it hanging, almost palpable in the air as soon as he set foot in the city.

  `It's like another world, Andy, isn't it?' he said to Martin as the younger man locked his red sports hatch, parked in a bay found unexpectedly in Blythswood Square, where the solemn classic frontage of the staid and ultra-conservative Royal Scottish Automobile Club — 'Jurassic Park' as Skinner had Once christened it — looked out across a leafy garden which once upon a time had turned after dark into a red-light district of national renown.

  `Yes, I suppose it is. Nothing wrong with it, though,' said Martin defensively.

  `No, but the Glasgow folk think there is. They don't just have a chip on their shoulder, they've got a whole bagful — with salt and vinegar. They're jealous of Edinburgh, and they feel inferior to it, so instead of just being content to be different they go in for all these daft civic slogans that cost big money and don't mean a fucking thing. Glasgow's got some of the most distinctive architecture of any city in Europe. It's got its galleries, its concert hall, three universities, two of the biggest football clubs in Britain, all sorts of things going for it, yet it's still got this inferiority that makes it stick out its chest and shout challenges along the M8.

  People in Edinburgh don't understand Glaswegians, because they don't have that aggression in their blood, but they don't resent them either.' He paused. 'At least that's how I see it. What about you?'

  `I don't know,' said Martin. 'You're right about the differences, and about the aggressive streak through here. That's probably the effect of the Scots-Irish element in Glasgow. But this place, it's got far more life to it than Edinburgh. Some of the people I know through there — I don't mean in the job. Other people.

  'You mean women?'

  Martin smiled, 'Aye, okay, women. They're very shallow. They're only enjoying life up to a point. Whereas, through here, people are more, more. . I don't know how to say it really. Well, look, take Alex as a classic example. She's lived in Glasgow for the last four years, virtually all her adult life you could say. And she's the most alive person I know. I realise she was only a youngster when she went through, but she's blossomed and taken on a depth to her personality that I've never encountered in anyone else. Not even.

  The name died on
Andy's lips as the memory flooded back. A memory which, even close on a year after the event, still thrust a pain like a red-hot spear into the pit of his soul. As they turned the corner from Blythswood Square into West George Street, Skinner decided that it was time to change the subject.

  `To business, Andy,' he said gently. 'Remind me, this guy we're going to see. Who is he again?'

  `Bernard McGirk. He's the head of the estate-agency division of the General Alliance insurance company. He's the bloke who bought Paul Ainscow's business. I've told him that I want to ask him about it purely as background, but that our investigation doesn't touch him or the business in any way.'

  `As far as we know.'

  `True.' They crossed West George Street and headed down a steep hill into St Vincent Street. The General Alliance headquarters was a tall marble and glass edifice built during the property boom of the 1980s, a modern structure which blended well, for all that, with its refurbished sandstone neighbours. A uniformed commissionaire greeted them with impressive formality, snapping to attention even more rigidly at the mention of Skinner's rank. He directed them to a lift.

  `Mr McGirk's office is on the second floor, gentlemen.'

  Bernard McGirk was a small, friendly man, with an efficient secretary who brought in a tray laden with coffee and biscuits almost before Skinner and Martin had settled into their seats-at a low, round table. While the coffee was being poured and handed round, they made small talk about the depth of Skinner's tan and the unpredictability of the weather, leading inevitably to the weekend's golf.

  Eventually, McGirk looked across at Martin. 'Well Superintendent. You wanted to ask me about my purchase a few years back?'

  Martin glanced sideways at Skinner, who nodded, happy that his subordinate should ask the questions.

  `Before I do that, I ought to tell you why we're here. We are involved in another investigation, in which Mr Paul Ainscow may be caught up. We're building up as much information about him as we can and that includes his financial health. We've been led to believe that he did well out of the sale to you of his estate-agency chain.'

  McGirk smiled. 'I suppose you could say that.'

  `On the other hand,' Martin continued, 'we've pulled some back accounts which don't look too clever. We hope that you'll be prepared to tell us how much General Alliance paid for the business, and how much of that would go to Ainscow.'

  `Do either of you have a General Alliance policy?' McGirk asked, looking from Martin to Skinner and back again.

  `Yes,' said Skinner, 'I have an endowment policy, and I've just taken one out for my son.'

  `Fine. In that case, since we're a mutual, you're a member of the company, and as far as I'm concerned reasonably entitled to information on its business. So, where do I begin? At the end I suppose. Ainscow didn't pocket a hell of a lot from the sale. AREA, it was called. That stood for Ainscow Residential Estate Agency. It had high-street shop-front outlets in Stirling, Perth, Falkirk, Dundee and Edinburgh, opened in that order. Ainscow founded the business when he was in his mid-twenties. In those days any idiot could sell a house, and so he did well. Stirling prospered, he went to Perth. That did well — and so on. He lived a very full life, did the young Mr Ainscow. Bought himself his Porsche, obligatory in those days, a very nice house in Dunblane, and eventually a villa in Spain, and a couple of apartments for rental. He stuffed his pension fund too, for all he could'

  McGirk paused. 'Terrific while it lasted. The man was one of Thatcher's children, a youthful entrepreneur. Something of a business celebrity for a while, in a small way. The trouble was, like many of these boys, while he could sell in a boom market, when things turned down he didn't know what to do. Actually he was in trouble even before the slump. He could afford his various premises while things were rosy, but when the market began to edge south, his overhead caught up with him very quickly. He was tied to very long, very expensive leases, with no breakers, and he had ripped out so much of the profit in the boom years, without leaving anything for a rainy day.

  `He went from boom to potentially bust in two years, as you no doubt saw from those accounts. Eventually he approached us. We were diversifying into estate agency at the time, and we were his landlords in Dundee and Perth. The location of his premises fitted our expanding portfolio, so we did a deal. We bought AREA's goodwill, basically, and its debt, and that, believe me, more or less cancelled out the cash value of the goodwill'

  `So what did he walk away with?' asked Martin.

  `In cash terms? Virtually nothing. Maybe twenty thousand out of the net fifty we paid him for goodwill. His properties, and the Porsche, were all owned through a subsidiary of the main business. He separated that company out and kept it. There was about thirty thousand in borrowing there, which he flattened. He asked for a consultancy as part of the deal, but I didn't see that he had anything to offer, so I said no. However, I did tie him to a restrictive covenant which kept him out of business in the UK for three years. I heard that he had gone into the Spanish property market, and that didn't surprise me. Presumably he's an agent for a promoter-developer over there.'

  `No,' said Skinner. 'He's the principal shareholder of a solidly capitalised business. We were told that he had funded the start-up with some of the money he got from you.'

  McGirk shook his head. 'No way. His lifestyle wouldn't have left him with the cash to do that. I'm not saying he was broke after he sold out, but he wouldn't have any investment capital. Unless he borrowed on his house.'

  Martin shook his head. 'No, we've checked. There's nothing secured on it. What about his pension fund?'

  `Locked up tight, and can't be used against borrowing.'

  `And he didn't win the pools as far as we know. So, yet another mystery. Where the hell did he find the fifty grand it took to start InterCosta?'

  Sixty-nine

  At first the ringing of the telephone was part of Skinner's dream. He was in L'Escala on the terrace, with Sarah on the sun-bed beside him, and he was dreaming of home. In the living room, the phone was sounding. . except that its ring was different from the usual Spanish single tone.

  His mind was fuzzy with confusion as the dreamscape blurred. Then suddenly the sound from the bedside table snapped him into wakefulness. As he snatched the phone from its cradle, Sarah lay beside him, oblivious.

  `Skinner:

  `Boss, it's Brian. Sorry, did I wake you?'

  `Mmm. It was my turn on the early shift with Jazz. Never mind.'

  `Sorry to call so early, your time. I realise it's only seven forty with you, but I thought you'd want to know: they're back. Docked an hour ago. They sailed the big cruiser right into Vaudan's boathouse. Monklands just turned up, too.'

  Skinner sat upright in bed. 'Any guesses as to where they've been? That's how long? This is Tuesday, so just under three days for the trip. Where could they have reached in that time?'

  `The boys who know here say possibly halfway down the Italian coast, to one of the small islands offshore, maybe Elba. Definitely not Sicily. The best guess they're giving me is the

  north-west coast of Sardinia. There's some pretty wild stuff there, and no Coastguard cover, so it would have made a good meeting point.'

  `Right. Maybe we'll let the Italian police know later but, for now, are you ready for action?'

  `Yes, the French are being very helpful. Their national drugs agency has put two cars on the job. The drivers sound as if they know what they're doing. They have a lot of this type of surveillance over here. Wherever Monklands goes, and whenever he sets off, we'll be after him.'

  `Where are you now?'

  `In an apartment straight across the road, about two hundred yards away. I can see the yard. . Hey, there's some action right now. Norrie Monklands and another bloke-' He broke off for a second. The lads here say it's Lucan. They've unhitched the trailer from Monklands' Transit, and they're wheeling it into the boathouse, out of our sight.'

  `Okay, Brian, that's good work. You stick to it. Let me know once he leaves,
then check in whenever you can, on the road. Speak to you later.'

  Beside him, Sarah rubbed her bleary eyes. Whwsat?' she murmured.

  `Brian Clouseau calling in from France. I think our game's about to kick off!'

  She reached up and pulled him down beside her. 'Well, before it does,' she yawned, 'how about one final training session?'

  Seventy

  As Skinner's morning unfurled and moved towards midday, his mood grew more and more tetchy. He had given Ruth instructions that he would take no calls other than from Brian Mackie, but as time passed the silent telephone on his desk disrupted his concentration. He could barely read a single page without his attention wandering as he eyed the receiver, urging it to ring.

  The mountainous in-tray which he had faced on the Saturday morning of his return had been largely weeded out. He was reduced to reading routine reports from the various divisions on the containment of petty crime, when Ruth buzzed him through. He flicked the intercom switch.

  `Sir, if you've got a few minutes, the Chief wonders if you'd join him for coffee. He's just back from his conference in Birmingham.'

  `Aye, sure. I'd welcome it. Can't get used to having my backside stuck in a chair again.'

  Sir James Proud's office was on the opposite side of the Command Corridor from his own. Skinner preferred his perch over the main driveway, from which he could keep an eye on the traffic to and from the headquarters, to his boss's outlook over the force's modest playing fields.

  Mary, the Chief's new secretary, was arranging three cups and a jug on a tray. 'Morning, sir. Go right in, please.'

  The unspoken question prompted by the third cup was answered as soon as he stepped into the long, spacious office. Proud Jimmy was sitting in an armchair facing his coffee table. Beside him was Chris Whitlow, the force's Management Services Director. Whitlow was a professional administrator who had been recruited from local government to take responsibility for establishment tasks, and to manage the force's budgets. To make way for him, one of the authorised Assistant Chief Constable posts had been removed from the establishment. Before the appointment had been made, Skinner had expressed private reservations over the principle of appointing a civilian to such a senior post in a disciplined service. 'Theory's great, Chief, but what about the practice? How long will it be before a guy like this starts questioning command decisions and policy on grounds of cost? It could be the thin end of a wedge. Before you know it we could have a chief executive, with powers, slotted in between us and the police board.' Nevertheless he had welcomed Whitlow to the team on his appointment, and had co-operated with him in every way, even suppressing slight feelings of alarm when the new broom had taken over the office next to Proud's own, made vacant by the retirement of Eddie McGuinness, the former Deputy Chief.