He looked around, feeling suddenly self-conscious, as if there was a
chance that someone might catch the DCC talking to himself in the night.
Suddenly a thought caught him, and he laughed quietly. 'Not so daft a
notion with Chase around.' He opened the deep drawer of his desk. 'Better just check to see if he's hiding in here.'
And then he noticed the small table beside his desk; the bank of telephones
on top, and on the second shelf beneath, the fax. His private, secure fax,
with a plastic tray suspended from it, a tray that was no longer empty.
Intrigued, glad to have something to do, he took the message from its
holder and scanned it. There was a cover sheet headed, 'Private, Eyes Only,'
above an impressive crest, bald eagle surrounded by the legend, 'National
Security Council of the United States of America', which was followed in
its turn by a second line, 'From the Office of the Deputy Chair.'
Skinner grinned as he pictured his old friend Joe Doherty, whom he had
known since his days as FBI resident in London, before a college buddy
had become President and set him on the road to greatness; he saw his thin,
lined, sallow face, the slimness of his build which made him seem smaller
than his five feet nine.
As he began to read, he heard his mid-western drawl.
",When he had finished the three-page message he put it down with a faint
tinge of excitement. He reached out for his outside line, then stopped,
considering. Finally he exclaimed, aloud once more, to the ghosts in the
room, 'Ah bugger it! Why should I be awake, and him asleep? The boy's
got to learn.'
He took a card from his wallet, where he had tucked it away, picked up
the phone and dialled David Mackenzie's mobile number.
As he had expected, the Strathclyde DI was too good a copper, too keen,
too inquisitive, too scared to miss out on anything, to switch off his hand
phone while he slept, or to divert calls to the night shift. After a few rings,
a sleepy voice came on the line, mumbling a 'Hello'.
'Bandit? It's DCC Skinner. Glad you're awake.'
'Sir, it's . . .' the voice slurred.
'That's right, it's quarter to six. Say sorry to your wife for me, then go
downstairs, get a great big notepad, and call me back on the number I gave
you.' He hung up the telephone and waited, looking at the second hand on
his watch.
One minute and twelve seconds later, the phone rang. He grabbed it,
grinning. 'Good man,' he exclaimed. 'It's going to be worth it, I promise.
'How are you getting on with old man McConnell?'
'Slowly. Someone in the ScotRail office is looking into his record for
me, but she's doing it grudgingly and bloody slowly. I doubt if she'll come
up with anything.'
'Fuck her.'
'Is that an order, sir, because if it's all the same to you
Skinner chuckled. 'Okay, just forget her for a while. I've got a new tack
for you, one that will awake your basest instincts. Remember I said a few
days back that I'd do some brainstorming of my own? Well, listen to me
and I'll tell you what I've been up to.' He raced on.
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'What do we know about the late John McConnell?
'One, he was a keen golfer. Irrelevant to your investigation.
'Two, he was a dirty old man. Possibly relevant to your investigation.
'Three, he was apparently into jellies. Highly relevant to your
investigation.
'Four, someone ripped him off for most of his liquid assets. Again, highly
relevant to your investigation.
'Five, he's dead. The reason for your investigation.
'Agreed?'
'Yes sir,' said Mackenzie, wide awake now.
'Good. So let's join the dots. Forget the golf; that's nothing. What we
have is a young woman who by some means or another, gets this old geezer
hooked on drugs.
'The means? Well, he's an old lecher with a penchant for the young
stuff, so join those dots up too.
'She feeds his addiction, but at a cost. Over a period of a few months, he
gives her all his money, she withdraws it, posing as his niece. Also she sells
his prize possessions and does a runner with that money too. We're talking
a total rip-off in excess of one hundred thousand.
'Finally she's got the lot. So one day she turns up, feeds him a final shot,
and while he's orbiting around Venus, immerses him in a scalding bath and
drowns him. Are you in any doubt, Inspector, that that's how it happened?'
'No, sir, none at all.'
'Which leaves us with that video camera. Why the hell did she take that
video camera with her on that last visit? One reason only: to make a movie.
And why the hell,' Skinner asked, 'would she do that?'
'Because she's a fruitcake!' Mackenzie exclaimed.
'Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. I've met a lot of fruitcakes in my career,
son, and all but a very few of them had a purpose behind the things they
did. So, I continue to ask, why did she film the old boy?'
'We'll need to find her to find that out, won't we?'
'Ah, but Bandit, maybe by finding out we'll find her. That brainstorming
I've been doing has focused on that. Listen,' he said, urgently. 'Young girl,
old man ... dirty old man ... home movies. It's porn; beyond a doubt. It's
a porno movie.
'But add in the drugs element and you take it up a notch. Not just sex but
sado-masochism. Finally add in the fact that the old man winds up dead. Is
your blood running cold yet, Bandit? Because it should.
'I have a friend in the States, who has access to just about everything,
including FBI investigations into the pornography industry. We're way
behind the column in Britain in that area. Sure, we're good at catching the
sort of dirty bastards who collect kiddie pics, but there's all sorts of stuff
going on that we don't have a clue about.
'The Americans do; the FBI wage a real war on it, but there are places
where even they can't go. The CIA have been involved as well; and even
they can't cap it. Pornography has moved on from the corner shop... way,
way on. It's a major Internet industry now, and it shows just what a dangerous
thing the Net can be.
'There are all sorts of sites that can be accessed easily; some of them
offer membership, some of them just one-off sales, but they all involve
money, collected through credit cards. You imagine it and you can find it,
and with the right kit and enough credit in your account, you can download
it. Guys like us might lock you up if you're caught, but you won't be.
The softer of these sites are tolerated; the hardest might not be but they
can't be stopped either, because they operate outside regulation, outside
the US, outside Europe, in South America, in the Far East, in Asia ... in
bandit country. Sometimes they move their administration around from
place to place; that includes the accounts, always hard to spot, through
which they collect their dough.
'Potentially the money in it is better than drugs, and easier.'
Skinner paused. 'Still with me?'
'All the way', said Mackenzie breathlessly.
'Okay; this is it. At the very end of the por
nography industry there exists
something so awful we don't even like to think about it... the snuff movie.
A film which is the ultimate in sexo-sadism, a film in which the torture and
death on screen are not simulated. They are real.
'They've been around for a while, of course, since back before the video
days, made mostly in South America. But with today's technology ...' He
paused, letting the suggestion strike home.
'So, Bandit, what if, just what if mind, the lady with the video camera
was making a snuff movie, with old John McConnell as the star?'
'Why, sir? Why?' the inspector exclaimed.
'Maybe you said it yourself. Fruitcake? But remember, on the Internet
you can upload to a site as well as download from it.'
He took a sup from his cold coffee. 'I can't answer any more whys but
here's another what if. What if this woman didn't make any mistakes? She
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couldn't have known that the old dear across the road would eyeball her
taking the camera into the house. So what if by taking the syringe with her,
and leaving the cassette box, she was leaving us a message?'
'Jesus,' Bandit Mackenzie whispered. 'What sort of a mind do you have?'
'I ask myself that sometimes. I suspect it's much like your own; it's been
around longer, that's all, so it's more experienced in contemplating evil.'
He went on quickly. 'So back to my friend in the States. He's come up
with a list of potential websites; the sort of Net location where one finds
extreme pornography. What I suggest you do, Inspector... suggest, mind,
I've got sod all to do with this investigation ... is get yourself a computer
with a modem and get looking.
'But be sure you use a mainstream connection. If you try to log on through
the Strathclyde Police computer address, you might just find yourself
blocked out.'
The DCC chuckled again. 'You got that pen handy?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good. Here you are then. I hope you have plenty of paper... it's a long
list.'
'So he's not talking?'
'Not a cheep, Andy. Not a dicky-bird. I talked to him right up to the
moment he went up before the Sheriff, and Geoff Lesser went as far as he
could to persuade the lad to turn Crown Evidence, but he was having none
of it. So he went into court, the charges, murder and theft, were read out, he
made no plea and he was remanded in custody.'
'He'll be in Saughton by now.'
'Honour among fish rustlers, d'you think?'
'Maybe, but more likely terror. I think that he's just plain scared of
someone, another member of the gang.'
Andy Martin heaved a sigh. 'Maybe after he's been locked away from
them for a week or two he'll start to feel braver. Tell Lesser that there's a
deal on the table; we'll drop the murder charge in exchange for names in
the witness box. We'll also ensure that he never spends a single day in the
same prison as another gang member.
'That will be open to him until we catch the rest of the gang ourselves,
with indictable evidence against them.'
Til tell him,' said Dan Pringle. He looked at the Head of CID. 'Christ,
Andy man, you look knackered.'
'I feel it,' the DCS confessed. 'I've been up most of the bloody night.'
'Karen no' sleeping, is she?'
'That was the night before last. No, we've got an operation going up in
Edinburgh, and it took a bad turn on us. I wound up rousting three unsavoury
citizens out of their bed ... and I mean bed ... at about half four.'
'Have you not been home since?'
Martin grinned. 'Sure, but by that time Karen was awake, and being
sick.'
'She no' over that yet?'
'Not quite. I'm told we go on to cravings next; spam and mango pizzas
at two in the morning, that sort of thing.'
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'Not necessarily. With my wife it was just baked beans; but they can
bring problems of their own . . . especially in the winter, when ye canna'
sleep with the windows open.'
'Anyway,' said the Head of CID, steering the discussion back on to
professional lines. 'With one thing and another, I decided to scrub the
Monday briefing altogether and come down to Gala to see you instead.
'Give me a state-of-play report on the fish farm investigations.'
Pringle nodded. 'Sure, but let me get McGurk in.' He stepped out of his
office for a few seconds, and returned with the bean-pole sergeant following
behind.
'Right sir,' he began. 'The story so far.
'We have Raymond Anders in custody and charged. He denies killing
the girl, but admits to driving one of the trucks at the Alvarez place.
'We have Mercy Alvarez spending the night on which her farm was
raided in bed with Glenn Lander, after having dinner with Assistant Chief
Constable Chase and Mrs Chase, who stayed long enough to clear them of
any possible involvement in the robbery.
'We have Glenn Lander spending the night on which his farm was raided
in bed with Mercy Alvarez, having entertained another cousin until just
after midnight.
'We have Raymond Anders making contact with Glenn Lander at
Raeburn Place on the afternoon after his farm was done, we believe to tell
him that the stock had been moved successfully.
'We have the robbery taking place the day before Anders was due to
meet Kath Adey to sell her a security system.
'We have the gang going along to Country Fresh prepared to restrain
and blindfold the girl, only for her to be killed when she fights back.'
Martin nodded. 'Yes to all those; we've got Anders and through Jack's
sighting at the Accies match, a strong link to Glenn Lander.
'Now, why was no apparent attempt made to lure Adey away from the
farm? I suggest that it was because they knew she wouldn't go, because I
had given her and Mercy Alvarez a very clear warning that she should not.
So they didn't even try; they cut her telephone line instead, so she couldn't
raise the alarm.'
'What if she had a mobile?' asked McGurk.
They don't work in that gully. Someone knew that too. I have no doubt
that it was the same person who knew that it was pointless trying to get her
to leave. Strong link number two: Mercy Alvarez, who told me that she
didn't know the other fish farms that had been robbed.'
'Two out of three,' said Pringle.
'Yes. Now what of the third? What about Mellerkirk? How does that
connect?'
'It doesn't, sir.' Martin looked at McGurk as he spoke. There's no
connection between Lander or Alvarez, and Sir Adrian Watson, not one
that I've been able to make, at any rate.'
'Oh there is a connection, Jack. A very clear one. We've all been thinking
in terms of maybe ten or twelve grand apiece as the proceeds of these
robberies. In other words, okay, but maybe not worth killing over. However,
the insured losses in each of the three farms are, Mellerkirk, thirty thousand,
Howdengate, forty thousand, and Country Fresh, forty thousand. Total, one
hundred and ten thousand pounds, spread over three different insurers so it
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