By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2) (25 page)

'Roskill.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘The deposits to MacIver’s account came from a bank in the British Virgin Islands.   Difficult to impossible to find the true identity of the account holder.  BVI is a tax haven, highly secretive and if you set up an account there you don’t want anyone to know it’s yours.’   DI Andy Hanna paused, just long enough to allow DCI Fiske to speak.

‘So you set up a shell company with nominee directors and work out a way to give them instructions and pay them fees.’

‘Very good, boss.  Been doing your homework?’

‘I have a live-in tutor.  But if I wanted to set up that kind of account, where would I get the nominee directors?  And how would I know I could trust them?’

'Law firms and accountancy practices in BVI, as in all the tax havens, offer nominee director services.  They charge the kind of fees that only the seriously rich and the seriously criminal will pay and their business depends on absolute discretion and trust.  The only industry in these places is looking after money for people who don’t want anybody, especially the tax authorities, to know they’ve got it or where they’ve stashed it.’

‘Can you try to find out who’s using the account?’

‘I can try, but I don’t hold out much hope.  I’ll talk to some people in London, but if you’ve any other way in, you should use it.’

‘What about the payments to MacIlwraith and Mathieson?’

‘Better news there. The money came from MacIver, all right, but he tried to disguise the fact that he was sending it.  A sum equivalent to the two payments went, from the same account that received the BVI money, by standing order each month, to an account in the name of the “SF Club”.  Apart from payments to MacIlwraith and Mathieson, and deposits to cover them, the account has been dormant for years.  The signatories are MacIver and somebody called Morven Trask, but there’s no evidence that she’s had anything to do with the account in the last five years.  I didn’t go back any further than that. It’s common practice for an account in the name of an organisation rather than an individual to have more than one signatory, with each signatory authorised to make transactions.  Payments to MacIlwraith and Mathieson were made, by monthly standing order, from that account.  It’s not very sophisticated as a way of covering his tracks, but  MacIver clearly didn’t want people to know where the money was coming from.’

‘Morven Trask?  That name rings a bell.’

She turned to her computer and put the name into a search engine.  ‘She was a Nationalist MSP until the last election.  Stood down to work full time for the Independence side in the referendum campaign.  Almost exactly the same age as MacIver.  He probably knew her at university.  We’ll have to talk to her’.

‘There’s one more thing, boss.  The deposits from the BVI account only started about six months ago.   MacIlwraith and Mathieson have been receiving deposits for a lot longer, at least three years, but for much smaller amounts.’

*

‘Duncan, how do you and Stewart fancy a trip to Edinburgh?’

DC Duncan Williamson looked up from his computer.  ‘I’m up for it, boss, even though I know that there’s only one answer to a question like that.’  He grinned at Vanessa.  ‘Stewart will feel the same.  What do you want us to do?’

‘Andy Hanna’s come up with a piece of information that may or may not be important.  I want you two to find out which it is.  Get a hold of Stewart and come and see me and I’ll give you a briefing.’

*

'Right, Dongle. Let’s hear what you've got from the laptops.  We'll do MacIlwraith first, then Mathieson, then MacIver.'

'Thanks, boss.  MacIlwraith's was the simplest.  He's not the brightest wire on the circuit board, so he hadn't done much, effectively nothing, to cover his tracks.  The search history brought up an impressive number of porn sites, a couple of dating sites...'

'Sad bastard!'  Colin MacNee could be quite Presbyterian and judgmental.  It didn't sit well with his generally liberal and relaxed attitude to other people's lives.  Vanessa put it down to his having daughters.

'Go on,' she said, with a sideways glance at Colin.

'He's done a lot of research on lethal drug cocktails and on where he might get the ingredients.  Visits to a number of sites in Eastern Europe enquiring about Pentothal and potassium chloride.  He eventually ordered enough to kill, from a company in Russia - Ekaterinburg - and paid in Bitcoins.  I guess he must have had help to set that up.'

'Probably from Mathieson', MacNee said. 'Was there anything on the box we found at MacIlwraith's to suggest where it came from in Russia?'

'I don't think so.' DC Aisha Gajani said. 'But it may have had the name of the manufacturer.  We could locate it from that.'

'That would firm up the circumstantial a bit.'  This was Esslemont.

Dongle looked to Fiske to see if he should continue.  She nodded.

'Also, our boy had been raking around for instructions in bomb making.  Mainly radical Islamic sites, but also some in the USA.  He had even downloaded and saved some recipes.  As I said, not very bright.'

'Let's get that to the Last investigation team.  We need to know if any of the "recipes"' - Vanessa shook her head at the word - 'matches what they know about the Cairngorm bomb. Mathieson?'

'Almost nothing.  He applied online for Nuttall's birth certificate, but we probably knew that already.  No porn, no evidence of suspicious interests.  Lots of traffic to legitimate sites - online magazines and blogs - dedicated to the Scottish nationalist cause.'

'The Strathclyde hi-tech squad have confirmed that his laptop was configured to control the various other computers and hard disks that we found in his flat.   He had the capacity to mount the kind of cyber attack that crippled Mercury, but there's no conclusive evidence that he did it.  They're still working on it.'

'Might take a while.' Dongle said.

'That's it?' Vanessa asked.

'Pretty much.  If I dig up anything else I'll let you know.’

'What about MacIver?'

'He's been very careful.  Nothing of interest on his government-issue laptop, but there's something, or possibly nothing, on his personal laptop.  Over a short period, about five, six months ago, he did a fair bit of research into a number of international organisations - I think they're called NGOs, Non-Governmental Organisations - and charitable foundations.  All working in the countries of the former Soviet Union, mainly in Central Asia.   Doing good works, education, medical aid, development.'

'Doesn't sound directly relevant to any of our investigations.'  Colin was itching to get back to some old-fashioned police work, like interviewing suspects, and he was showing some impatience with Dongle's laid back style.

'Maybe not, directly.  But then I had a closer look at the sites.  All of these organisations are connected to James Roskill. Most of them were set up by him or by the foundations and trusts that he’s set up.'

'The ex-prime minister?'   Aisha Gajani asked.  'I remember him from when I was a student. Went on a few demos against wars in Central Asia.  Before I had to police them...I remember placards that said "RosKILL", with "KILL" in capital letters.'

DCI Fiske suppressed her interest.  'Might be worth a closer look.   Let me have a list of the organisations with their URLs.  Next meeting tomorrow, same time.   Sir, can I have a few minutes?'  Esslemont nodded.  'Colin, would you join us, please?'

*

'I'm really not sure what to make of this, sir, if anything.'  Fiske was sitting beside Colin MacNee, facing Esslemont across his desk.  'I was a bit thrown, as you probably were, by that stuff about MacIver researching Roskill's good works, given what Fleming told us about Mancuso's drunken ramblings.'

She turned to MacNee. 'Sorry, Colin, I haven't had a chance to tell you about our latest interview of Richard Fleming.'   She gave him a brief account of what Fleming had said.  He nodded and took some notes.

'I'm going to spend some time this evening looking at the sites Dongle mentioned to see if anything leaps out at me.  But if Roskill turns out to be of interest to this investigation, we'll have another layer of politics to deal with.   I'd like to keep this between ourselves for now.  If we decide to go any further with it, we'll have to brief the Chief.'

*

Esslemont had decided that less damage would be done to the force if they announced the charges against Richard Fleming quickly.   The statement would also say that he had resigned from the police service with immediate effect.  Vanessa Fiske’s remark to Fleming that conspiracy was never a solitary crime made it inevitable that they would also announce the charges against Gilbertson.  They decided to withhold the news until the men had appeared in court and been formally charged and released.  That way, there was at least a chance that Fleming and Gilbertson could avoid the press and the photographers.  

Harry Conival cobbled together a pretty anodyne press release and sent it out just in time to miss the main evening news bulletins.  The release didn’t say specifically that the charges related to the same offences, but that was a tiny piece of obfuscation that no hack more senior than a copy boy, or whatever the equivalent was in the digital world, would have any trouble with.

As expected, Harry’s phone started to ring within minutes of the emailed press release going out.   The questions were all about how the arrests and charges related to the murders and to the investigations at Last and Mercury.

Harry had agreed a line with Fiske - ‘The offences came to light in the course of other enquiries’ – that said everything and nothing, but it might keep some of the hacks happy until the next press briefing.

Jason Sime of the
G & T
was the first to ask the direct question that joined the dots. 'What's the connection between Fleming and Gilbertson and the head of security at Last Cairngorm, Frank Mancuso?  They know each other, don't they?'

'No idea, mate.' Harry said, unconvincingly.  'I'll pass your enquiry on.'

'Who to?'

'DCI Fiske.'

'What about the anti-terrorism boys?

'I don't work for them,' Harry said, as he grabbed his cigarettes and headed towards Vanessa's office.

*

DCI Fiske spent an hour, late in the afternoon following the team meeting, looking at the Roskill websites that Dongle had identified from the recovered search history on MacIver’s laptop.  Most of them were promotional, describing the charitable foundations that Roskill had set up after he resigned as prime minister and left parliament.  There were many examples of the good work being undertaken by NGOs and charities that he supported, either through his foundations, or in a personal capacity, as a board member or trustee.   Almost all of them worked extensively, and some of them exclusively, in Central Asia.  Conscience money, Vanessa thought.

Some of the sites reproduced articles about Roskill and his work for the foundations and other bodies.  Their content was mainly related to the parts of the world where the work was being done, with only rare excursions into domestic political issues.   The exception was the website of
The James M Roskill Public Affairs
Trust
, an online archive of Roskill’s public statements and press articles. Most of these related to his overseas work.  A few were excursions into domestic politics. Only one was relevant to Vanessa’s enquiries.

Just about six months before the murders (Vanessa was, as usual, relating everything to the date of the crimes under investigation), Roskill had given an interview to an international business magazine.   The subject matter was wide-ranging, covering the domestic and foreign policies of his successors and trying, not altogether successfully, to avoid backseat driving.  There was one passage, however, that changed Vanessa’s approach from skimming to careful reading.

Roskill had been asked about the likelihood of Scotland voting to leave the United Kingdom and, after reviewing the state of public opinion on constitutional change, he turned to the economic effects of the uncertainty leading up to the referendum.