Skinner's Mission

6

Martin Charles was with his son when the two policemen arrived. Skinner had asked Ruth to telephone the Ravelston villa to warn of their arrival, and the old man had opened the front door before they had even made it far enough up the brick driveway to trigger the security light.

He led them not into the main reception room, but to a smaller apartment to the left off the hall. It was small, and furnished only with two expensive leather recliner chairs, a cocktail cabinet, a nest of occasional tables and a huge television set with cinema-style speakers set around it.

As they entered, Jackie Charles was seated with his back to the door, watching a repeat showing on a satellite channel of the previous evening’s football match at Ibrox, the one which he had been watching in person as his showroom had exploded into flames. Martin had already confirmed with his hosts that Charles had been in their party, and that he had been collected from and delivered to his home by a hired limousine.

Mr Charles tapped his son on the shoulder. ‘John. The police are here.’

Charles used a remote control to snap off the television picture, in the same movement which brought him to his feet. He was freshly shaved, and neatly dressed in pale grey slacks, a blazer with gold-crested buttons, a white shirt, and a silk tie that was almost luminous in its blueness.

‘That’s it, is it?’ he said in a calm, measured tone. ‘You’ve identified her.’ Not a question: a statement.

Skinner nodded. ‘I’m afraid so, Jackie.’ Beside him, the old man buried his face in his hands. ‘We didn’t really expect anything else, did we?’

The man’s square shoulders slumped for the merest instant, then straightened once again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘When she didn’t show up at home by nine I knew for sure. When she did stay at her pal’s, Carole was always back by then, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, without a hint that she’d been rat-arsed just a few hours before. Yes, she had great recuperative powers, did my wife.’ He smiled, grimly.

‘This morning I sat through in the kitchen, waiting for her. I made coffee for two. I got the cereal bowls out and fetched the milk off the step. I put the eggs on to boil at twenty to nine, and defrosted some rolls from the freezer. I sat there hanging on to whatever doubts I had left, counting down the minutes, and finally the seconds to nine o’clock.’

Jackie Charles patted his father on the shoulder. ‘As soon as nine struck, I knew that there was no possibility that it could have been anyone else in the showroom last night. I phoned my father and told him what had happened.’

He looked up at the two policemen. ‘Would you like some coffee? Don’t worry, it hasn’t been stewing since half past eight. I made some fresh stuff.’

Skinner and Martin nodded.

‘Okay, let’s go through to the kitchen.’ Martin Charles made to lead the way. ‘No, Dad,’ said his son. ‘I need to talk to the officers alone. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have to pay a call on Carole’s mother. You can come with me then.’

Skinner and Martin followed Charles out of the television room, across the hallway and into a spacious Smallbone-fitted kitchen, with a lime-washed table and four chairs in an alcove at the far end. The policemen sat down, side by side, as the bereaved husband poured coffee into white Wedgwood cups.

Skinner looked around. ‘Real Edinburgh upper-class,’ he whispered to Martin with irony in his tone. ‘You’d never guess he’s a bloody gangster.’

The man laid cups before them, and took a seat opposite. He was pale, and grim-faced, but undoubtedly he was in control of himself - the cold, hard Jackie Charles they both knew. Clearly he had come quickly to terms with his loss.

‘Right, gentlemen,’ he said, briskly. ‘What do you want to ask me?’

‘There’s something we have to tell you first of all,’ said Martin, quietly, ‘though maybe, just maybe, you’ve worked it out for yourself given the circles in which we all know you move. We believe that your wife’s death may have been more than a tragic accident in consequence of a wilful fire-raising.

‘We believe that the fire may have been, in fact, an attempt to kill you.’

Jackie Charles looked at the policeman, his face dark with sudden rage. The smooth, civilised shell within which he normally lived had vanished in an instant. ‘What makes you say that?’ The sound was a hiss.

‘The door to the office, where your wife died, was locked. From the outside. Your car, with its very distinctive and very well-known registration number was parked right at the entrance to the showroom. Someone walked into the premises, set the fire, quietly, though maybe not so quietly since the radio in the office was on quite loud, but very efficiently. Then he turned the key in the office door and lit the fuses, leaving you, as he thought, to burn to a crisp among your rare and exotic motors.’

Charles’ lips were drawn back, his mouth set as if in a snarl.

‘Tell us,’ asked Martin, ‘how was the office constructed? Did it have solid walls? It was a shell when we got there.’

The man shook his head. ‘The door was solid wood, but the upper half of the walls were glazed, to let in light during the day.’

‘Clear glass or opaque?’

‘You couldn’t see through it, not to recognise someone. ’

‘But you could make out a figure inside?’

Charles nodded. ‘Yes, and obviously in the evening the office light would be on.’

‘But the showroom lights would be switched off?’

‘That’s right.’ The man’s face was impassive, set in a cold, hard stare.

‘You’re not surprised, Jackie, are you,’ said Skinner. ‘For twenty years you’ve been telling us you’re a respectable business figure, and most of Edinburgh has believed you. Yet when we tell you that someone has tried to murder you but killed your wife by mistake, you accept it as fact, without the slightest twitch of an eyebrow.’

Charles glared at him, playing unconsciously with his wedding ring, but said nothing.

‘You might think that we wouldn’t care,’ he went on. ‘That we’d have a “Live by the sword, let them die by it” sort of attitude. Well, we don’t. Never have. This is our city and we’ll have no fucking swordsmen running around in it.

‘We might think that you’re an evil, pernicious, murderous little shite, and that your late wife was probably your partner in crime as well as life, yet still we’re going to investigate her death as vigorously as if it was the Lady Provost who had died in that fire, and you were sitting opposite us wearing your gold chain of office.

‘So with that in mind, we have a number of questions to put to you. The rest of this conversation is formal, and will be taped.’ He produced a small recorder from his pocket, switched it on and laid it on the table.

‘First of all,’ said Martin, ‘tell us something about the car business. What were the showroom hours?’

With a visible effort, Charles seemed to master his anger. ‘Variable describes it best,’ he said. ‘But midweek, we’re always closed by seven, at this time of year at least. The mechanics work nine to five though, with occasional overtime on Saturday mornings.’

‘How many salesmen do you have?’

‘Two fulltime. Mike Whitehead and Geoff Bailey. They’ve both been with us for a while; Mike seven years, Geoff five. They’re good guys.’

‘You get on well with them both?’

‘Of course I do, or they wouldn’t be there. They specialise in selling quality cars. Any clown can sell a used Fiesta to someone who can only afford a used Fiesta, but discerning people, people with cash, need to be given confidence in their buy, and to be persuaded that they’re investing in a good set of wheels.’

‘You don’t owe either of them commission money, or anything like that?’

Charles shook his head vigorously. ‘No, they’re paid as soon as the customers’ cheques clear and the HP money comes in. No, you can forget Mike and Geoff; they are trusted friends.’

‘What about your book-keeper?’

‘The girl we have now, Amy Innes, is fine. Carole chose her. We had difficulty a couple of years back, though, with her predecessor, Carl Medina.’

‘What sort of difficulties?’

‘Not to put too fine a point on it, he was at it.

‘There were sundry purchases unaccounted for. Carole reckoned that he was topping up his salary. I couldn’t be bothered setting traps for him or anything like that, so I just sacked him.’

Skinner looked sharply across the table. ‘How’d he take it?’

‘Badly, at first. He threatened me with an industrial tribunal.’

‘What did you threaten him with, Jackie?’

Charles looked at him coldly, with a flicker of a smile. ‘I never threaten people, Bob.’

‘No,’ said Martin, ‘but you know a man who does. So I guess Medina didn’t go to tribunal.’

‘No. He could see what the outcome would have been.’

‘I’ll bet! Have you seen or heard from him since?’

Charles shook his head. ‘Not directly. But I had a letter a couple of months ago from another dealer, the Renault chap in Gorgie, asking for a reference.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I declined to provide it, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Martin, dryly. ‘Did you have any other employment problems at the showroom? With mechanics, for example?’

‘None at all. All our people are paid above the union rate, they all have overtime opportunities and they’ve all been with us long-term.’

‘Customers? Any disgruntled punters come to mind?’

Charles looked offended. ‘Mr Martin, I don’t have any disgruntled clients. I deal in quality motor cars, and they tend to be reliable. I give good warranty terms, and I never quibble about putting any problems right.’

‘I’ll know where to come for my next Ferrari then,’ said the Chief Superintendent, with a smile. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

‘You said that you had two full-time salesmen. Who else is there?’

‘There’s me for a start.’ His expression changed, betraying more than a touch of smugness. ‘I can still out-sell anyone on the lot, as the Americans say, and I like to prove it. I go down to Seafield for a few hours on most days. Very occasionally, my father will spend some time on the forecourt, just to keep his hand in, as it were.

‘But that’s all. No-one else on the selling side.’

‘When you go in to the showroom, is it at any set time of the day?’

‘In the afternoon normally.’

‘And you stay until . . . ?’

‘Until we close. If I’m there, and I am on most days, then I’m the chap who locks up.’

‘When would you leave, normally?’

‘Once I’ve checked over the day’s documentation, addressed and stamped the finance applications, locked away late cheques and new tax disks, seen that everything was in order in the workshop, and maybe made a couple of phone calls about interesting cars advertised for private sale; once I’ve done all that it’s usually about nine o’clock.’

‘So the murderer could have expected you to be on the premises at the time last night’s fire was started.’

Charles nodded. ‘If he knew anything about me, yes,’ he said quietly.

Andy Martin leaned back from the table. ‘Right, Mr Charles. So much for the dealership. Now let’s talk about your other interests?’

‘Which ones?’

‘Let’s start with loansharking, shall we? Could your heavies maybe have leaned on someone, or someone’s family, just a wee bit too hard? Can you think of anyone on your books who’s facing a doing, or worse, and might have decided to head it off?’

As Skinner and Martin looked across the table, they saw the professional mask with which they were so familiar descend across Jackie Charles’ face. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said quietly, looking Martin, but not Skinner, in the eye.

‘Okay,’ said the Chief Superintendent. ‘Let’s have a go at the taxi business. You own, through front companies, forty-two per cent of the minicab licences in Edinburgh and around, and you extort protection money from the holders of the other fifty-eight per cent, or at least from those who don’t want to wake up to find their vehicles with no tyres or windscreen.

‘Have you had any threats arising from those activities? ’

‘Send a copy of that tape to my solicitor, please, Mr Martin, so that I can sue you.’

The Chief Superintendent ignored him. ‘How about your betting shops? You own five. You must have a few big losers.’

Charles shook his head. ‘I don’t allow credit to those who can’t afford it and my staff have orders to bar people if they think they might be losing too much.’

Martin laughed. ‘Okay, Jackie. So far you’re Simon Pure, without an enemy in the world. Only it seems bloody obvious that you do have an enemy. Could it be an associate from outside this city? Do you have information which might have made you dangerous to someone?’

‘What associates, Chief Superintendent? What information? ’

Suddenly Skinner leaned forward and picked up the tape recorder. He switched it off and put it back in his pocket. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Enough of the ritual dancing. Let’s get on with our job, Andy.’

He stood up, Martin rising with him, and looked down at Charles, fixing him with his gaze. ‘This may be a waste of time, but I’ll warn you anyway, Jackie. Don’t get in our way here.

‘If I’m given the slightest evidence that you know who might have done this, and are keeping it back from us so that you can take your own revenge, then I’ll charge you with withholding information. I might not get a conviction, but imagine what it would do to your social reputation around town.’

‘I should fucking care!’ Charles’ face was set rock-hard as he spat out each word. He stood up. ‘When can I plan my wife’s funeral?’ he asked coldly.

‘When the Crown Office says that you can. I don’t know yet when that might be; but in the meantime just don’t be planning to bury anyone else!’