Pray for the Dying (26 page)

‘He was okay about it, more or less. He told me he’d still come to me for info, and that he’d expect me to get it through Lottie, but he never really did, no’ until this business. To tell you the truth, I half expected tae wind up in the Clyde, but nothin’ happened.’

‘No, you idiot,’ Skinner’s laugh was scornful, ‘because the debt was never real! The poker school, where you supposedly lost all that dough. Did it never occur to you that it wasn’t just the first few hands that were rigged in your favour, but that the whole bloody thing was rigged against you, to set you up? Who were the other guys in the school? Did you know them?’

‘A couple of them; they were Bazza’s drivers in the taxi business.’

‘Then they must have been on bloody good tips, to be able to sit in on such a high-roller card game. You got taken, chum, to the cleaners and back again, just like everyone else who was involved with your friend Mr Brown. Did you really never work any of this out?’

‘No. Now you say it, I can see how he done it, but honest, sir, he had me scared shitless most of the time and on a string. He was even the reason I got chucked off the force.’

‘What? Are you saying he fed you the booze?’

‘It had nothin’ tae do wi’ the booze. The station commander caught me liftin’ evidence against Cec, one time he got arrested for carvin’ up a dope dealer that had crossed the pair of them. I photocopied the witness list. He walked in on me while Ah was doing it, and saw right away what it was about. He gave me a straight choice: either Ah resigned on health grounds and blamed alcoholism, or I’d go down for pervertin’ the course of justice.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘For Lottie’s sake, he said.’

‘And who was this station commander, this saviour of yours?’

‘Michael Thomas,’ Mann replied. ‘ACC Thomas, he is now. He was a superintendent back then.’

‘Indeed?’ Skinner murmured. ‘And what happened to Cec? I don’t recall any serious assault convictions on his record.’

‘The charges were dropped anyway. The two key witnesses withdrew their evidence. They must have got to them some other way.’

‘Not through you?’

‘No. I never knew who they were. Ah never got that far. They must have had another source in the force.’

Forty-Three

‘Do you ever feel like you’re in a movie, or a TV series?’ Lowell Payne asked.

Neil McIlhenney laughed. ‘All the bloody time. My wife’s an actress, remember. As a matter of fact, she’s just been offered the lead in a new TV series, about a single mother who’s a detective, but it would have meant spending months at a time out in Spain, so she turned it down. Why d’you ask? Are you a frustrated thesp?’

‘Hell, no. No, it’s being down here, in this place, where all the names come straight off the telly. Highbury earlier on; now it’s the Elephant and bloody Castle, for God’s sake. Makes me feel like Phil Mitchell.’

‘Nah, you’ve got too much hair, mate.’

‘Where does the name come from anyway?’

‘I’m told by my cockney colleagues that it goes back to one of the worshipful companies that had an elephant with a castle on its back on its coat of arms. Somehow that became the name of a coaching inn on this site, about two hundred and fifty years ago.’

‘So it’s got fuck all to do with real elephants, or castles.’

‘Absolutely fuck all.’

The two detectives were standing on the busy thoroughfare they had been discussing, having been dropped off by their driver in the bus lane that ran past the Metropolitan Tabernacle Baptist Church, a great grey pillared building.

‘Where’s the office?’ the visitor asked.

‘On the other side of the road, on top of that shopping complex; that’s what I’m told.’

Payne looked at the dual carriageway, and at the density of the fast-moving traffic. ‘Crossing that’s going to be fun,’ he complained.

‘No. It’s going to be dead easy,’ his companion replied, heading towards a circular junction. At the end of the road was a subway, running under the highway and surfacing through the Elephant and Castle tube station. ‘The office should be just around the corner here,’ he said, as they stepped out into the sunlight once more.

They walked up a ramp that led into a shopping centre, and found the block without difficulty, and the board in the foyer that listed the tenants, floor by floor.

‘There we are,’ McIlhenney declared. ‘Rondar Mail Order Limited, level three, north. Just two floors up.’

They took the elevator, at Payne’s insistence. ‘I’d an early start, and I am knackered. Buggered if I’m walking when there’s an option.’

As they stepped out, they saw, to their left, the Rondar logo, emblazoned across double doors of obscured glass. There was no bell, no entrance videophone, so the two officers walked straight through them, into an open space furnished with half a dozen desks and a few tables. At the far end, there were two partitioned areas, affording privacy. They counted five members of staff, all female, all white, all dark-haired, all in their twenties.

‘Fuck me,’ Payne whispered, ‘it’s like a room full of Amy Winehouses. I’m sure you don’t have to be Jewish to work here, for that would be illegal, wouldn’t it, but I’m even surer it helps.’

The woman seated at the desk nearest to the entrance looked up at them. They judged that she was probably the oldest of the five. ‘Yes?’ she said.

‘Mrs Radnor, please,’ the DCS replied, showing her his warrant card. ‘Police. I’m Chief Superintendent McIlhenney, from the Met, and this is Chief Inspector Payne, from Strathclyde.’

‘Aunt Jocelyn’s busy, I’m afraid. She’s making a new product video, and can’t be disturbed.’

McIlhenney smiled. ‘I think you’ll find that she can. But we’d all prefer it if you did it, rather than us.’

For a moment or two, the niece looked as if she might put up an argument, but there was something in the big cop’s kind eyes that told her she would lose. And so, instead, she sighed and stood. ‘If you’ll follow me.’ They did. ‘Can you tell me what this is about?’ she asked as they reached the private room on the right.

‘Family matter,’ Payne told her.

‘But I’m . . .’ she began, swallowing the rest of her protest when he shook his head. ‘Wait here, please.’ She rapped on the door and stepped inside.

They waited. For a minute, then a second, and then a third. McIlhenney’s fist was clenched ready to knock, when it reopened and Jocelyn Radnor, glamorous, late fifties and unmistakably Golda’s mother, stepped out. She did not look best pleased, even under the heavy theatrical make-up that she wore.

‘Gentlemen,’ she exclaimed, ‘I haven’t a clue what this is about, but it had better be worth it. I’ve been trying to get that bloody promo right for an hour now, and I had finally cracked it when Bathsheba came in and ruined it.’

‘We’re sorry about that,’ McIlhenney said, lying, ‘but it is important, and better dealt with in your office.’

‘If you say so,’ she sighed. ‘Come on.’ She led them into the other room; they found themselves looking down the Elephant and Castle, back towards the tabernacle. The furniture had seen better days, but it was quality. She offered them each a well-worn leather chair and sat in her own. ‘What’s it all about, then? “A family matter,” my niece said.’

‘We want to talk to you about your son-in-law,’ Payne replied.

She tilted her head and looked at him. ‘You’re one too?’ She chuckled. ‘Scotland Yard is finally living up to its name. What about my son-in-law?’ she asked, serious in the next instant. ‘Why are you asking about Byron?’

‘We’ll get to that. Can you tell us, how did he come to work for you?’

‘We needed a buyer, simple as that. Jesse, my late husband, always handled that side of the business, from the time when he founded it. That was the way it worked; he bought, I sold. Eventually, there came a time when he decided to plan for what he called “our retirement”. What he really meant was his own death, for he was twenty years older than me and had heart trouble, more serious than I knew. So he recruited Byron.’

‘How?’

She frowned at the DCI. ‘I don’t know; he recruited him, that’s all. I can’t remember.’

‘Think back, please. Did he place an ad in the newspapers, or specialist magazines? Did he use headhunters?’

Her eyebrows rose, cracking the make-up on her forehead along the lines of the wrinkles that lay underneath. ‘That was it. I asked where he found him and he said he had used specialists.’

‘Do you know anything about his career before he joined you?’

‘Jesse said he had worked for other mail order firms, in his time, and for a bank, but he never specified any of them.’

‘Doesn’t he have a personnel file, Mrs Radnor?’ McIlhenney asked.

‘Please, officer,’ she sighed, with a show of exasperation. ‘This is a family business. We don’t need such things. I know he was born somewhere on the south coast, although I can’t remember where, I know that he never had a father and that his mother is dead, I know that he’s nowhere near as good a buyer as my husband was, I know that he’s a very good husband to my daughter, and I know that he spent some time in Israel, a lot of time.’

‘How do you know that last bit?’

‘The accent would have told me, if he hadn’t. He didn’t get all of that in Sussex. I asked him about it, not long after he joined us; he said that after his mother died he went to work in a kibbutz.’

‘Do they have mail order in kibbutzes?’ Payne murmured.

‘Of course not, but after that he stayed in Tel Aviv for another few years, or so he said.’

‘You didn’t believe him?’

‘Let’s say he was never very specific.’ She paused. ‘Look, to be absolutely frank, my guess has always been that when Jesse took him on he was doing a favour for a friend from the old days.’

‘The old days where?’ the DCI asked.

‘My late husband was a soldier in his earlier life, a major in the Israeli army. He fought in the Six Day War, back in sixty-seven. He didn’t come to Britain until nineteen seventy-two.’

‘But he kept his links with Israel? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes, through work with Jewish charities. He had a couple of friends at the embassy as well.’

‘So, Mrs Radnor,’ McIlhenney murmured, ‘if we told you that the man you’ve known all these years as Byron Millbank was known before that as Beram Cohen, am I right in thinking you wouldn’t be all that surprised?’

‘Not a little bit.’ She gazed at the DCS. ‘So what’s he done, that you’re here asking about him?’

‘He’s died, I’m afraid.’

Jocelyn’s hands flew to her mouth, but she regained her composure after a few seconds. ‘Oh my. That I did not expect. Golda, my daughter, does she know?’

‘Yes, we’ve just left her. You’ll probably want to go to her when we’re finished here.’

‘Of course. When did this happen? Where? And how?’

‘Last week, in Edinburgh, of natural causes.’ He carried on, explaining how it had happened and what his companions had done with his body.

She listened to his story without a single interruption. ‘What was he doing with these men?’ she asked, when he was finished.

‘Planning a murder,’ he replied. ‘You’ve probably heard of the shooting of a senior police officer in Glasgow on Saturday evening. Your son-in-law organised the whole thing. The two guys who buried him were his comrades, soldiers like he was in Israel, working these days for money, not for flags.’

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, ‘I read of it. His buddies, they’re dead too, yes?’

‘Killed at the scene.’

‘So Byron was a soldier. That’s what you’re saying?’ McIlhenney nodded. ‘Israeli army, I guess.’

‘That and more. Latterly he was Mossad, the Israeli secret service.’

‘So was my husband,’ she told them, ‘in the old days, and for a while after he came to Britain. It all fits. So why did they send him over here?’

‘From what I’m told, he’d become an embarrassment, so he was relocated. He kept in touch with his old community though. The concert hall killing wasn’t the only job he did, not by a long way. I guess it all helped pay for your daughter’s lifestyle.’

‘I have wondered about that,’ she admitted. ‘And Golda, does she know any of this?’

‘Only that her husband had another identity.’

‘Am I allowed to tell her the rest?’

‘If you want to, but do you? Isn’t being widowed enough for her to be going on with?’

‘True,’ she agreed. ‘So why did you tell me?’

‘Because you don’t strike me as the sort of person who’d fall for a phoney cover story when we say we need to take Byron’s computer and all the other records he kept in this office.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Jocelyn said.

‘So, can we have it?’

‘I imagine that’s a rhetorical question, and that you have a warrant.’

‘Call it a courteous request, but yes, we do.’

‘Warrant or not,’ she retorted, ‘I’d be happy to cooperate, and let you take everything you need. Unfortunately, someone’s beaten you to it.’

‘Eh?’ Payne exclaimed. ‘What do you mean? Nobody else knows about this branch of the investigation.’

‘That’s irrelevant. This is London, Chief Inspector, and there’s a depression. Two nights ago we had a burglary. The thieves took a few pieces of not very valuable jewellery, and they took Byron’s computer. Of course, I reported it to your people, as we have to for the insurance claim, but frankly, they didn’t seem too interested. That’s how it is these days.’

Forty-Four

‘
What do you think, Bridie?’ Skinner asked. They were in her office; she held a mug of coffee in a meaty hand, he held a can of diet Irn Bru.

‘I think,’ she began, ‘that I accept his story about the fancy dress. Okay, he knew he was being spun a line, and that he chose not to ask questions, but I don’t believe that Scott Mann would knowingly be a part of any conspiracy to murder, or that if we charged him with that, we’d get a conviction.

‘However, we can tie him to those uniforms beyond reasonable doubt, so he’s not walking away. I would propose that we charge him with theft, and his girlfriend, assuming we do get her DNA from the packaging. We’ll get guilty pleas for sure, I could read it in Viola Murphy’s dark Satanic eyes.’

The chief gave a small nod. ‘I agree with that. What about McGlashan? Do we let her resign quietly or do the full disciplinary thing?’

‘Formal,’ Gorman replied, without hesitation. ‘If I could I’d put her in the public stocks in George Square.’

Skinner laughed. ‘I once suggested to my soon to be ex-wife that her party should propose that as a way of dealing with Glasgow’s Ned hooligan problem. She took me seriously, started arguing that the rival gangs would turn out in force to throw rocks at them. So I started arguing back to wind her up. She got angrier and angrier, wound up calling me a fucking fascist. Looking back, it was maybe the beginning of the end. We won’t go that far with this lady, but yes, I agree, she has to be made an example of.’ The humour left his expression. ‘The consequences might be worse than an hour being pelted with rotten fruit. Imagine how Lottie’s going to react when she finds out.’

His deputy sighed. ‘Need she?’

‘She’s bound to. Her husband’s going to court and so’s his girlfriend. We’ll make sure there’s no mention of a relationship during the hearing, but she’ll figure it out, for sure. It might be best for the pair of them if the sheriff puts them out of her reach for a few months.’

‘Do you think he will?’

‘I’m bloody sure of it. They’ve got to go down.’

‘And what about the elephant?’ she asked.

‘Which one would that be?’ he murmured.

‘The great big one in this bloody room: Michael Thomas.’

‘I’ve been trying to pretend it isn’t there,’ the chief admitted.

‘But it is,’ Gorman insisted. ‘Scott Mann claims that Thomas caught him photocopying a witness list for the Brown brothers, and hushed it up. For Lottie’s sake, indeed. Do you buy that?’

‘No. Not for a second. If what Mann says is true, then he had an obligation to call in another officer to corroborate what had happened and then to charge him.’

‘So why didn’t he?’

‘I’ll let you speculate on that, Bridie,’ Skinner said. ‘I’m too new here.’

‘If you insist. The witnesses against Cec Brown were nobbled anyway, and as Scott said, that suggests Bazza had another source. According to his story, Michael Thomas saw the list, and we know that he kept quiet about Mann nicking it. That has to raise the possibility that he was that source. If he’d done what he should have, the investigation would have gone all the way to Brown, the witnesses would have been protected and both brothers would have been finished.’

‘I can’t argue against that. So what do you suggest we do about it? Get the brush out again and sweep it under the carpet? After all, Brown’s dead and it will only be Scott’s word against his.’

‘We couldn’t do that, not even if we wanted to, and I don’t believe that either of us do. Viola Murphy heard the accusation, and she has the copy of the recording that we were bound by law to give her. She’s riding the bloody elephant in the bloody room!’

‘Colourful but true. What’s your recommendation?’

‘We take a further statement from Mann, not as an accused person, but as a witness, and we give it to the fiscal. What do you say? New or not, you are where the buck stops.’

‘Yes and no,’ the chief said. ‘Action has to be taken, but not by us. I suggest that you call in Andy Martin, and the Serious Crimes Agency. I don’t want to do it myself, or to be involved, because Andy’s in a relationship with my daughter. That might not have mattered in the past, but we have to be spotless here. His people have to take the statement, and have to decide what happens after that. Almost certainly that will not involve the local fiscal. For all we know she could be a member of the Michael Thomas fan club. See to it.’

‘Will do, Bob. After the statement’s taken, what will we do with Scott?’

‘We charge him, and his girlfriend as soon as we have a DNA match. Murphy will probably apply for bail. Likely she’ll get it, since we have no strong grounds for opposing it, so we might as well let them go, until their first court appearance.’

‘What about Lottie?’ Gorman asked. ‘Are you going to tell her about this . . . new development?’

‘Hell no! Dan Provan can do that. I’m nowhere near brave enough.’