The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner)

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘You can prevent that, can’t you?’ she said. ‘You’re on good terms with the First Minister.’

  Bob grinned. ‘Yes,’ he conceded, ‘I could, but I’m not going to. The Saltire will run a piece tomorrow demanding that an FAI into Rogozin’s death takes place. We’ll run the piece and then we’ll report on the South African Pollock’s press briefing where he’s expected to out the Montells and Rogozin as the people behind the unsolved bullion heist. After that, the Lord Advocate will announce a formal inquiry before the Sheriff, of that I’m certain.’

  ‘What makes you that sure?’

  ‘She’ll do it because I’ll tell her that if she tries to hush it up, the paper will publish the text of Terry Coats’ confession in full and embarrass her right out of her brand-new office.’

  Sarah frowned. ‘But you said you gave the recording to Sauce.’

  He nodded. ‘And so I did, but I made a copy. It was addressed to me, not the police, and it isn’t sub judice since there won’t be a prosecution, the principals all being dead. I’ll be a witness to the authenticity of the tape and after the hearing, we will indeed publish it, both in text and audio form online.’

  ‘What will Mario say?’

  ‘He’s already said it, a resounding “Go for it”. He’ll say the same to the Lord Advocate.’

  ‘So, case closed?’

  ‘Hell, no,’ he laughed. ‘The purpose of Sauce’s investigation is to solve the murders of Griff Montell and Terry Coats. In that respect he hasn’t taken a single step forward. This whole business has been a diversion.’

  ‘What does he do now?’ she asked. ‘Bob, the poor lad’s been hung out there to dry.’

  ‘Not exactly. The question hasn’t changed that much. Apart from each of them having a vested interest in killing the other one, who else wanted them dead?’

  ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘One,’ he admitted, ‘but for now I’m keeping it to myself. I’m sure Sauce will get there without my help.’

  Sixty-Four

  ‘Sauce,’ Arthur Dorward sighed. ‘My team’s been there twice already. We’ve gone over the house centimetre by centimetre; we’ve found everything there is to find. What’s changed that you want me to do it all again?’

  ‘What’s different is,’ Haddock replied, ‘I know now that Griff Montell was effectively hiding out there after missing his flight to South Africa. He couldn’t take the chance of being seen in Edinburgh, and he certainly could not take the chance of hiding out in his own place, in a block of flats in the middle of Stockbridge. I don’t think he’d have gone out; in fact, I’m sure he wouldn’t. That tells me that he was probably killed there, and if not, abducted from there. But it wasn’t his home; it was Terry Coats’ place, and no bugger knew he was there. So, whoever killed them both went there looking for Terry.’

  ‘How would they know where Terry lived?’ Dorward asked.

  ‘Research document number one, Arthur. He had a landline phone, and he wasn’t ex-directory. The internet tells you all the T. Coats entries in Edinburgh and they can be cross-checked against the electoral register and the valuation roll. I’ve just done the first part myself. I need you to go back in now, and look for identifiable traces of anyone who shouldn’t have been there.’

  ‘The house had previous owners, Sauce. He hadn’t lived there very long.’

  ‘In that case, we’ll eliminate them.’

  Dorward sighed again. ‘Okay, I’ll do it; first thing tomorrow the team’ll go back in there. While we’re at that, what will you be doing, Clouseau?’

  ‘I’ll be talking to Noele,’ he replied. ‘I should have given her a call before now.’

  Sixty-Five

  Skinner was halfway up the Aberlady straight, behind the winking light of a lone cyclist, when his phone sounded and his screen told him that Lottie Mann was calling. He considered rejecting her call; unusually he found that he was tired of business that should no longer have been his, but he knew that the DCI was self-reliant and would not be calling on a whim.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked, trying to keep the tiredness from his voice.

  ‘Nothing,’ she replied cheerily. ‘I thought I should let you know that Cameron McCullough is back. Tremacoldi’s car checked out of the Glasgow Airport car park two hours ago, but the buggers only just got round to telling us.’

  ‘How many passengers?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose I could access video if it was necessary, but the ticket was paid with Cameron’s credit card so at least we can assume he was in it.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me know. Two hours, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case he should be home by now, and Mia will be attaching electrodes to his nuts.’

  ‘Unless she knew where he was all along and the whole thing was just a charade.’

  ‘Why would they do that, Lottie?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Maybe he was up to something they both wanted to keep from the rest of the family,’ she suggested. ‘Especially Sauce’s partner, given her connection to him.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t see that. If it was a charade, Mia would have called the police and made a noise. But she didn’t, she called Ignacio asking if he’d heard from him. She’s cunning and devious, but not that much. He’ll have a story, Lottie, and I’m sure I’ll hear it soon enough, but right now, I don’t give one.’

  ‘I could find out what flight they were on.’

  ‘So could I with one phone call to my friends in Thames House, but I really can’t be arsed. Let it lie. Thanks again.’

  He ended the call, overtook the cyclist, and drove carefully through Aberlady’s overcrowded main street. He had reached the nature reserve car park when curiosity crept up on him. ‘Call Cameron McCullough mobile,’ he commanded. He was unsure if the call would be connected, but after half a minute it was.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been, and do you need paramedics?’ he asked.

  ‘We were at Big Bozo’s stag, in the Ice Hotel, in Norway, up near the Russian border,’ McCullough replied. ‘We took a private jet out of Glasgow with a couple of other guys. It was the easiest way of getting there. I didn’t tell Mia I was going. I couldn’t have or she’d have wanted to come. The Ice Hotel’s on her bucket list.’ His voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘I’ll need to take her now for sure, and I’ll hate every fucking minute of it. It’s fucking freezing up there.’

  Skinner laughed, out of sheer surprise. ‘It would be, you stupid . . . That’s why they call it the Ice Hotel. I like Stacey Kent and I like the song, but it’s never made me want to go there. Who the fuck is Big Bozo anyway?’

  ‘A footballer Merrytown sold to Everton just after I joined the board. He retired at the end of last season, and now he works for us part-time, as a scout. It was quite a turn-out, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘And quite a fucking alibi too,’ Skinner chuckled.

  ‘What do you mean? Why would I need an alibi, man?’

  ‘You haven’t spoken to Mia yet?’

  ‘No, we’re only just back at the Lodge. We had trouble getting through Glasgow. The Kingston Bridge was choc-a-bloc.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave it to her to explain, once she’s cleaned up the blood. Good luck with that one, Cameron.’

  He was still grinning when he stepped indoors.

  Sixty-Six

  ‘Sauce,’ Noele McClair declared, ‘the fact that Terry died with me hating him isn’t relevant. It doesn’t affect my thinking in any way. I’m a serving police officer and it’s my job to assist you in every way I can. You’re asking me to name people who might have wanted to see him dead, but I can’t. Bob Skinner phoned me last night and told me what’s going to be in the press over the next few days and weeks, but even knowing that I can’t help you. I wish I could, because I’d like to put in a plea in mitigation for the guy that shot them. No,’ she said, correcting herself quickly, ‘I shouldn’t say that. I never wanted to see Terry dead. I said I hated
him, but to be honest I didn’t really. I was angry with him, and I’d never have taken him back, but really he was a victim of his own weaknesses, for slow horses and fast women. He was a walking cliché. You know, he was best man at another cop’s wedding, before we were together, when he was a plod, and he felt it his duty to shag the bridesmaid. So he did. I heard the story from the bridegroom, not him. She was the bride’s sister, their father was a superintendent in East Kilbride, where both lads worked, and he caught them at it, round the back of the Stuart Hotel, trousers round ankles, dress up round waist.’ In spite of herself, Noele smiled, glancing away from her phone’s camera. ‘The man didn’t know what to do. If he’d filled in a PC at his own daughter’s wedding the story would have come out. In the end, he turned and walked away, then made sure that he and Terry never worked within miles of each other again.’ She laughed, sadly. ‘That was the thing about him; he got away with all sorts of stuff because he had this natural charm about him, with other people. Not at home, though. There he was the opposite, depressed and depressing. Griff, on the other hand, he was completely different. Reserved around others, outgoing and sharing with me.’ In an instant her humour vanished. ‘Do you know what I’m wondering now, Sauce? Can you guess?’

  ‘I think so,’ Haddock replied. ‘You’re wondering whether he came on to you because you were Terry’s ex, to increase his hold over him.’

  ‘Exactly. Silly me, he had me believing I was a desirable woman, while he saw a sad sex-starved single mum with stretch marks and saggy tits.’ Haddock shuffled in his chair. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m embarrassing you.’ She grinned again, briefly. ‘Actually, they’re not bad . . . and I put cream on the stretch marks. I will survive, Sauce,’ she promised. ‘I’m still standing, and I have a future. Those two are history, and I’m over them.’

  Sixty-Seven

  ‘He said less than I’d expected,’ June Crampsey complained, as the streamed press briefing ended, six thousand miles away from Edinburgh. ‘He didn’t name Griff or Rogozin as participants in the robbery. Without that statement, I’m stuck with a story that says, “Edinburgh woman charged with gold robbery”. I want more than that. Fuck it, Bob, we’re in the exclusives business here.’

  ‘I guess,’ Skinner said, ‘that whatever the South African equivalent of the Crown Office is has told him not to say anything that could be prejudicial to a trial. Spring might have confessed yesterday, but this morning she’ll have every sharp defence brief in the country offering his services. We have our story, June, regardless of what Pollock did or didn’t say. Nobody is going to sue us if we run it, because it’s undeniably true. The only question is whether we could find ourselves in contempt of a South African court by using the story on our internet edition. We should take legal advice on that, but while we’re doing it, Lennox Webster can be writing her story, based on what Pollock said and what I’ve told her, identifying me only as a source outside the police service.’

  ‘What about ACC Payne?’ Crampsey asked. ‘What will he do in the light of the briefing?’

  ‘Nothing yet. There’s nothing for him to react to because neither Griff nor Rogozin were named. But as soon as Lennox’s story runs there will be. Our piece this morning calling for the FAI into Rogozin’s murder hasn’t attracted much attention, but with the story it becomes relevant. While she’s at work, tell Jack Darke to call Jane Balfour in the police’s Edinburgh press office and put two questions, one about progress in the Coats-Montell investigation, the other asking for a reaction to the Saltire’s call for an FAI into Rogozin. That’ll go to Lowell; let’s see what he volunteers.’

  ‘Which will be what you’ve told him to volunteer, let’s hope.’

  ‘I haven’t told him anything, June. I can’t be seen as his puppet-master, especially not because we have a family connection through Alex’s mother. I don’t even know if Sauce has let him hear the Coats’ tape yet.’

  ‘What if he stonewalls it?’ she countered. ‘Gives Jack a po-faced “no comment” on the FAI question and “no progress” on the Torphichen Place investigation?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Skinner said. ‘You’re the editor.’

  ‘We run the story anyway,’ she declared, ‘incriminating Montell in the murder of Rogozin and describing it as a quarrel among thieves, and tying them both to South Africa, and we say that they’re both suspects in the Aisha Karman murder. Then we say that police refused to back the FAI call.’

  ‘No,’ he replied firmly. ‘That pretty much nails me down as the source. Our rivals would go to town on that and Sauce would be caught up in it. We have to rely on Lowell, and be prepared for him to issue a general press statement if he does decide to give Darke a full and frank answer.’

  ‘Do you think he would do that?’

  ‘I think he will do that, because if I was Mario McGuire, it’s what I would tell him to do.’

  ‘Speaking of Mario McGuire,’ Crampsey said, holding up a printout. ‘What do you think of this? It’s a release from the police communications department saying that Chief Constable Steele is taking an extended leave of absence on health grounds. All media enquiries to Peregrine Allsop, Director of Communications.’

  ‘I think it’s a good time to be slipping out a three-day-old story. Allsop’s got something right, for once.’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Of course, I bloody knew! I chose not to tell you, that’s all.’

  ‘Will she be back?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Sixty-Eight

  ‘What did you tell him, sir?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘I gave him the story his editor was hoping for,’ ACC Lowell Payne replied. ‘I told him that diligent enquiries by our officers had uncovered evidence linking Griff Montell and Anatoly Rogozin to a twelve-year-old multi-million-pound robbery in South Africa, and also evidence incriminating Montell and Terry Coats in the murder of Rogozin and in another crime under investigation in Manchester. Of course, he asked me what that evidence was, but I said that he’d have to wait for that until the FAI takes place into Rogozin’s death. The Crown Office will announce that this afternoon. That last thing I said was that he had an hour to get the story out on the internet before Jane Balfour issues a general press release. Against that background, he’s not going to give a bugger that there’s been no progress in discovering who killed Montell and Coats themselves.’

  ‘That’s not quite true, sir,’ the DI corrected him, with a smile that was a mix of smugness and relief. ‘Just before you got here, I had a briefing from Arthur Dorward by video link from Gartcosh.’

  ‘Was he as pleased with himself as you seem to be?’ Payne asked.

  ‘For now, although he did tell me that if I send him back to Terry Coats’ flea-pit one more time, I’ll be a victim myself.’

  ‘I’ll defend you from him the best I can,’ the ACC promised. ‘Run me through each search and the circumstances.’

  ‘Yes sir, they were like this. The first search was focused on Coats himself and his activities in the house. Through that we established that Montell had been there, but nothing more than that. On the second visit we knew that Montell had taken Rogozin there from the airport, so we looked for evidence of his presence there and of his murder. We got results on both counts, and they closed that part of the investigation. It was only then that Sir Robert received the recording from Coats that told us Montell had been hiding out there after he missed his flight to Johannesburg. That’s why I asked Arthur to take his people in there for a third time.’

  ‘So,’ Payne said. ‘What did he find that’s made you both so happy?

  ‘With the brief they had the third time,’ the DI explained, ‘they went further and looked in the garage. They hadn’t gone in there before, and that’s where they scored. It was roomy: there was plenty of space for Coats’ estate car and more. In there they found traces of blood, from two men. In addition, they recovered brain tissue, and a bullet embedded in the wall with part of an eyeball. That’s where Montel
l and Coats were killed, sir, no question about it. I’ve got officers out there now, doing door-to-door interviews with the neighbours, to see if anyone saw or heard anything around midnight.’

  ‘Heard anything above the sound of fireworks and Jools Holland’s bloody Hootenanny?’ the ACC chuckled. ‘Good luck with that one. But well done the pair of you, we really needed progress.’

  Haddock’s grin widened. ‘And there’s more,’ he declared. ‘In the garage they recovered a single fingerprint that didn’t belong to either of the victims, or to Rogozin either. They ran a check, and it’s been identified as belonging to a man named Raymond Bright. We might actually have a suspect. All we need to do now is find him.’

  Sixty-Nine

  The owner of the crime scene was less than pleased. ‘When are you lot going to take your tape away and let me use my premises again?’ he asked. ‘You’re costing me money.’

  ‘If your warehouse had been a bit more secure, Mr Jessop,’ Mann shot back, ‘maybe none of it would have been necessary. My crime-scene investigators are still laughing at how easy it must have been to pick the padlock you had on it. One of them said that it would have held up a first-year student at burglary school for about a minute and a half.’