Fallen Gods

Sixty-two

"I hope you're grateful," said Neil Mcllhenney, as he pushed a video cassette across Bob Skinner's rosewood desk. "I took Thursday night off the football to get that for you. I had to frighten Joanne Virtue to do it as well; I wasn't very happy about that."

"You must have been impressive if you could scare big Jo. What's on the tape?"

"A virtuoso performance, signifying the end of the career of Black

Agnes Maley. You can watch it if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it. I'd like it back afterwards if you do; it belongs in my safe."

"Just tell me then. What have we got on her?"

"Improper use of influence in return for sexual favours," Mcllhenney replied. "That sums it up as politely as I can."

"And Joanne Virtue helped? The Big Easy herself?"

"Yup."

"Good for her; as of now she's on the list of those to whom we owe favours. Can we prosecute Maley?"

"Not for what's on the video. What they're doing isn't against the law, no money's seen to change hands, and all three of them are of age.

In theory there's corruption, but we'd never make it stick. Anyway we don't need to."

Skinner tapped the cassette box. "I take it there's another copy."

"Yes. It's in the possession of the First Minister's security adviser."

"Jock Govan? He's laced up as tight as they come."

Mcllhenney nodded and laughed. "He was just about sick when he saw it. I don't know whether he showed it to his boss or not, but it's had its effect. Maley's off the list for Holyrood and her resignation as a councillor will be tendered formally to the Lord Provost this morning. She's gone for good, and we've got a criminal intelligence file on her as well."

"Big Jo is safe, is she?"

"Maley's been warned off, don't worry."

The DCC beamed. "Happy Mondays, then. Thanks a million, Neil; I never expected a result like this when I set you on the woman." The smile vanished, abruptly. "I never thought you'd have to get your hands so dirty either. I know it can't have been pleasant. I won't forget it."

"You do exactly that, boss; forget it. When it comes to favours exchanged between you and me you're still well in credit." He picked up the tape. "I'll take this, if you don't want to see it."

"Do that."

Mcllhenney nodded, then held out a big padded envelope, which had been tucked under his left arm. "This was delivered to me on Friday morning," he said, 'from your sinister pal Arrow'

Skinner took it from him. "There's nothing sinister about Adam," he chuckled. "What you see is what gets you. Thanks again."

"No problem." The big inspector looked down at his friend, back in his accustomed chair. "Good to see you there at last," he said. "You got a result in the States, then?"

"The man was in court while we were still on the runway at JFK on Friday. He'll plead to manslaughter; there'll be no trial… for which I am profoundly grateful."

"And you and Sarah? Did you get a result there too?"

"She came back with me; let that speak for itself. I've learned a lot, Neil, about her and about me. I'll change, or at least I'll do my best. You've helped in that too, mate; whatever you say, if there was ever an account between you and me it's tilted well back to you."

"You'll be at the football in North Berwick on Thursday, then?" asked Mcllhenney.

"Count on it."

"About bloody time too; we've been a man light for weeks now." He turned and walked out of the DCC's office. As soon as the door had closed, Skinner picked up the package on his desk, ripped it open, and tipped out the contents. Three documents fell on to the desk; one of them, he saw immediately, was a note from Adam Arrow.

He had just picked it up, when his internal telephone buzzed. He picked it up. "Jack," he said, knowing that his exec would be on the line.

"Sir," said Detective Sergeant McGurk, briskly. "The head of CID's been on; he's got Superintendent Rose and Inspector Steele in his office, and he'd like to bring them along. He wants to brief you on an investigation they've had running in your absence."

"Tell Dan to hold on for a bit, please, Jack. There's something I have to read up on first; I'll call them when I'm ready."

He hung up and turned back to the contents of Adam Arrow's package. He read through them slowly and carefully; once or twice he raised an eyebrow, but for most of the time his expression remained impassive.

Finally, he finished the last of the three documents, returned them to the Jiffy bag in which they had been delivered, and stored it in a deep drawer in his desk. When he was finished, he picked up the phone once more and called McGurk. "Okay, Jack," he announced, "I'm ready. Wheel them in; you come in too; most things I hear you can hear as well."

"Very good, sir. Will you need coffee?"

"If anyone's desperate I've got a filter machine here that's rarely empty; I'm not running a cafeteria, though."

Two minutes later, his door opened and Detective Superintendent Rose stepped in, followed by Steele, Pringle and McGurk. Maggie had been the DCC's exec, on her way up the ladder. He knew her well, and gave her an appraising look as she sat on one of the sofas that he used for informal meetings. He was pleased to see that the tension she had been showing the last time they had met seemed to have gone; she looked purposeful and relaxed. In contrast, Pringle looked gloomy and preoccupied. He wondered whether it was just another of Dan's famous Monday mornings, or if there was something more.

"Good to see you all," Skinner began, once everyone was settled comfortably, or in McGurk's case as comfortably as anyone of his height could on the low furniture. "It's bloody good to be back, I don't mind telling you. Now, what have you lot been up to while I've been away? You're going to need to start from scratch, I'm afraid. A few things have happened to me lately; I feel more out of touch than I've ever been in my life."

He saw Rose glance at Pringle; he caught the head of CID's brief nod for her to proceed. "This has all built up in the last week, sir," she said. "It began last Saturday, with a fire at an exhibition of religious art in the Royal Scottish Academy. A picture went up, in the middle of the opening speech by the chief sponsor, Mr. David Candela."

"Who?" asked Skinner.

"David Candela; he's senior partner of Candela and Finch, the lawyers."

"Mmm. Okay."

"It was clear from the start that an incendiary device had been planted. The building was cleared, the fire services turned out en masse, the fire was extinguished, the rest of the exhibition was checked out and cleared, and the guests were allowed back in."

"A storm in a champagne flute," the DCC murmured.

Rose smiled. "That's what we thought. We attended, we interviewed everyone present and we conducted a thorough investigation. This led us to a suspect, a young woman who was present at the opening, even though she hadn't been invited, and who'd had access to the picture before the event. This person was an obvious suspect; last year she was involved in an incident of attempted religious fire-raising and underwent psychiatric treatment as a result."

"The girl Strachan?" Skinner interrupted. "Yes, I remember hearing about the case. The treatment didn't work, then?"

"That's just the point, sir. It did. We were fed the girl; she was meant to take the blame. Someone made a malicious call to her, told her that God was calling her again, and that she should go to the exhibition. Given her recent history, she just flipped."

"You pulled her in, though?"

"Yes, of course. We might have bought her as the culprit, too, but for Stevie." She glanced at Steele and he saw a trace of a smile cross her face. "He thought to check her phone records, and he traced the mobile from which the call had been made."

"Good, but standard procedure nonetheless. So you had another suspect?"

"Yes, a trainee lawyer employed by Candela and Finch. But he denied making the call. He claimed that someone could have borrowed his phone and used it, during an office party. We had no way of disproving that, so we had to release him."

"Did he know the girl?"

"They were at university at the same time, but there's no evidence of an acquaintanceship. However, when she appeared in court last year she was represented by Dav Chapin, of Candela and Finch, so anyone in the firm could have known of her."

"Okay, so your investigation was rubbered. Or did you have a way forward?"

"No sir," said Rose, 'sideways. Stevie took a broader look at the whole situation, and came up with a completely different scenario. As a result we believe that the fire at the Academy had nothing to do with protests or religion. We believe it was staged deliberately, to engage the fire services. They were barely there before there was a second outbreak, in the empty office of Tubau Gordon pica fund manager up in the Exchange district. By the time the firemen got up there, a whole floor had been completely destroyed."

"And was this fire deliberately started?"

"There's no evidence of that, sir. But an entire division of the company was wiped out; its records all the way back to January were totally destroyed. When the chief executive of the company did a financial reconciliation, he discovered a loss of thirty million pounds."

"So it was deliberately started?"

Rose smiled. "As I said, there's no evidence of that. The fire service, and independent people, conducted a complete investigation. Everyone's agreed that it was an electrical fire caused by overheating in a computer, which was routinely left switched on. The experts say that as far as they can see it was an accident."

Skinner grinned. "But we're not as bloody stupid as them, are we? We don't ignore the obvious."

Rose returned his smile. "No, boss, we do not." She turned to Steele.

"Stevie, would you like to take this up?"

The inspector nodded. "Yes, ma'am. The obvious, sir, is that these two fires were both spontaneous outbreaks, but there was evidence of detonation in one and not in the other. The experts' view is that if there's no forensic evidence of fire-raising, there's no case. But what if the computer where the fire started was the timer? What if it was rigged to set it off itself at a specific time? There would be no forensic evidence, would there? None you could see, that's for sure.

So we're down to circumstances. Let's consider the loss. Tubau Gordon is an investment trust manager, and a good one; there's no way even a bad investment manager could blow thirty mil within an IT without it starting to showing up to his colleagues from the start. So as I see it, the loss must have been generated in the company's secondary business."

"Which is?"

"Currency speculation," Steele replied. "And guess what? The computer where the blaze began was the one used for that activity."

"But why go to all the trouble of holding up the fire brigade? Even with an automatic call out system, the computer would be gone by the time the fire-fighters got there."

"Because the back-up computer and all the paper records had to be destroyed as well. And it had to be done that weekend. Three days later those records would have been archived off-site."

Skinner smiled, and punched the air in a mock gesture. "Clever boy, Stevie. So who's the link?"

"David Candela. His family has a private investment trust which uses the dealing services of Tubau Gordon. It's located on the Oriental floor, where the currency division was also housed. Mr. Candela manages his trust himself; all the instructions to the brokers come from him. He enjoys round-the-clock access to the building and he's a regular attender at weekends; the security log shows that.

"Further investigation over the weekend has revealed that Mr. Candela was a regular client of the Maybury Casino. He's a heavy gambler, and frequently complains about the house limit, even when he's losing.

"To sum up, sir, my belief is that Mr. Candela has extended his gambling by dealing privately on the currency markets, but he hasn't been using his own assets, he's been using those of Tubau Gordon. He's been getting into the currency department and running a private account, protected, no doubt by a code word known only to him, and one that no one could enter by accident. A bank audit over the weekend shows that the loss has been run up over the last couple of months. It would have been spotted this week; that's why the lot had to go up in flames last Saturday."

Skinner nodded; he glanced at the lugubrious Pringle, then back at Steele. "So why aren't you turning cartwheels, Stevie? Why do I sense that there's a big "but" coming?"

"Because we can't prove a bloody thing, boss," exclaimed the inspector, tersely. "All the solid evidence there might have been is melted. Any one of seventy people could have had access to that computer, and could have run up the loss. The only thing we have to link in Candela is that phoney fire in the Academy, which for sure he triggered himself at the exact moment he planned… and we have no way of proving either that he planted the device or triggered it."

Skinner pushed himself up from the sofa, walked over to his window and gazed out on to Fettes Avenue. After a minute he turned and looked back at his colleagues. "So what you're telling me, boys and girl," he said, 'is that we've got some clever fucking lawyer in Edinburgh who's committed the perfect crime."

"That's about it, sir," said Rose, "We know it's him, but there's no way we'll ever touch him for it. It looks as if he's done just that."

The deputy chief constable stretched his arms above his head. A wave of jet-lag caught up with him; he stifled a yawn. He grinned; a smile that they were all used to and that some of them had thought they would never see in that room again.

"No, Mags," he said. "He only thinks he has."