Skinner's Mission

2

Skinner had been brought to the scene by a patrol car, and so they set off for the Charles home in Martin’s Mondeo, with the Head of CID at the wheel.

‘I never knew you were on that Serious Crimes team, boss,’ said Martin.

‘What? The one that turned up the Carole Huish connection? I thought I’d told you that.’ He smiled in the dark.

‘I was a young DC, twenty-three, younger even than Sammy Pye. Myra and I were just married, and living in a police flat in Clermiston. We were there for about a year and a half before we bought the cottage in Gullane, through a guy my dad knew. Myra was well pregnant when we moved in, and Alex was born just a couple of weeks later.

‘Salad days those were, but they didn’t last long.’ The big man shook his steel grey head, as if to clear away a memory.

He looked round at Martin and he grinned again. ‘Christ, Andy, were we full of ourselves on that squad, when we linked Charles to Indico.’

‘How did you follow it up?’

‘Roy Old and I . . . he was a Sergeant then, poor Roy . . . were told to go and talk to her. Archie Gillespie, our gaffer, decided that he would send out a couple of junior guys rather than fire off the big guns too early.

‘We interviewed her at the showroom, the very one we’ve just left. She handled all the paperwork for the business in those days. That was the first time I had ever met her or Jackie. We were told not to put the wind up her, just to tell her that we were interviewing everyone connected with Indico, and it had taken us that long to get around to former staff.’

He laughed out loud. ‘That’s what we were told, and that’s what we told her. By God, but she was a cool one, was Carole, even then. Jackie wanted to sit in on the interview, but she just fluttered her eyelashes and shooed him away. Roy Old did the talking at first, just like we’d been ordered. “Nothing to worry about, routine enquiry,” all that stuff.

‘When he asked her if she had knowledge of the payroll delivery route and timing, those eyelashes stayed rock solid. She didn’t bat either of them, not one bit. She just looked at Roy and said, “Yes”. That was all. And I knew right then that she had come up with the information for the robbery and that Jackie had set it up.’

He tapped his strong, straight nose. ‘It came off her in waves, her self-assurance. You know how people react, Andy. Everyone who’s asked a question like the one Roy asked her - especially, in my experience, those with nothing to hide - will show some sign of discomfort, or alarm, or downright panic. Not Carole. When she looked Roy dead in the eye and said, “Yes”, she was as good as saying, “So fucking what, you’re never going to prove anything, and all three of us in here know it.”

‘Then she gave me the look as well; and she got to me. The red mist came down. I could have blown my CID career right there. I forgot Gillespie’s orders. I gave her the Evil Eye, as hard as I could, and she didn’t flinch. I’ve met maybe half a dozen people in my life that I couldn’t stare down. Carole Charles is one of them.’

He paused in thought. ‘Her husband now, he isn’t. He knows I’ve never been able to nail him for anything, but he reckons that one day I probably will, and for all that he’s a ruthless, clever wee bastard, he can’t look me in the eye for long.

‘Yet that morning, twenty-three years ago, she did. And you know what, Andy, she was gorgeous with it. As I looked at her I realised that she was giving me the eye, and that I fancied her. There I was, with a new wife, starting to get a hard-on over some bird who was simply taking the piss out of me. That made me feel guilty and angry all at once, and all of a sudden. I stood up, and I looked around the showroom. With my John Henry bulging my Y-fronts, I pointed a finger at her and I said, none too quietly, “A few other people knew about the payroll too, but you’re the only one with a husband who’s just spent a hundred fucking grand on his business.”

‘That brought Jackie over, and it scared the shit out of Roy, who knew Archie Gillespie better than I did. He hustled me out of there, and told me to write up a report that showed we had followed the Gaffer’s orders. So I did, but I finished it with my personal opinion that we need look no further.’

Martin looked sideways at Skinner, as they sat at a red traffic light. ‘What was the outcome?’

‘I got my arse kicked by Gillespie, in front of the whole team. Not because of the report, but because of Jackie Charles. He was so confident that he made a joke of it to his father. He told him that because he had borrowed to invest in his business and because his wife had worked at Indico, they were being accused of being Bonnie and Clyde.

‘Charles Senior was in the same Masonic Lodge as Archie Gillespie, and over their next handshake he complained to him about me. So my Superintendent told me out loud - very loud - that if I ever wanted his job, I’d better learn fast about the limits of delegated authority . . . in other words about obeying fucking orders!

‘Archie took over the enquiry, of course, and because Martin Senior had tried to use the Masonic thing, he went for Jackie with everything he could. Gillespie knew from the off that I was right, but the Charleses were too cool, and too well covered.

‘We firmed up on a theory eventually, although theory it remains to this day. We discovered that Jackie had sold a couple of cars to Tony Manson. Our hypothesis was that he, and Carole, had dreamed up the Indico job, and that Jackie had taken it to Manson. Terrible Tony had supplied the men and the shooters, and he and Jackie had split the proceeds.

‘You know the story from then on. There have been fifty-seven armed robberies from regional and sub-Post Offices around Central Scotland in the last twenty years, and thirty-four raids on small town banks. All that improved criminal intelligence that I was talking about earlier has led us to believe that Jackie Charles has been involved in funding most of them, in the same way that Tony Manson backed him in the Indico job.

‘We know also that he is the money man behind just about every loanshark in Edinburgh and Midlothian, that through nominees he owns half the minicab licences in the area and that by a process of straightforward extortion he has a financial interest in the rest.

‘We know all that,’ said Skinner grimly, in the dark. ‘But we’ve never been able to prove it, because people are too frightened, or too well rewarded, or just hate us too much to co-operate with us.

‘On top of that,’ he growled, ‘national police intelligence sources tell us that Jackie Charles has been responsible for supplying out of town wet contractors, or hit-men as Joe Punter would say, to take care of local difficulties around Britain. They say that he’s a member of a Magic Circle of organised criminals, connecting London, Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland.’

The DCC glanced across at Martin. ‘I’ve had two failures in my career, Andy. There have been just two guys I couldn’t nail: Tony Manson and Jackie Charles. Tony’s dead; now maybe Jackie’s gone the same way.

‘Maybe, finally, through all that he’s upset someone enough to have a wet contractor brought in on him.’ Skinner looked out of the window of the Mondeo as it drew up at the foot of a long driveway which wound up towards an impressive villa just off Ravelston Dykes Road. ‘Let’s go and find out.’

The two detectives climbed out of the car. Skinner checked his watch in the glow of a sodium street lamp. It was 3.25 a.m. He turned up the collar of his trademark black leather overcoat to protect himself as best he could against the rain, which had grown heavier since they left Seafield, and followed Martin up the herringbone-patterned red-brick driveway.

No lights showed in the house, but the door of the double garage was raised. Inside, dimly they could make out the shape of a car. They had almost reached the house when they were blinded, their approach triggering a 500-watt halogen security light mounted over the garage door.

Cursing softly and shielding his eyes from the glare, the Chief Superintendent took a torch from his pocket and shone the beam towards the blackness of the garage doorway. It illuminated the rear of a gleaming new Jaguar XK sports car, registration number ‘CHC 1’.

‘It’s as if Carole left the garage open for Jackie coming in, and went to bed,’ said Skinner, quietly.

‘Let’s find out,’ said his colleague. He stepped up to the front door, under its stone vestibule, and pressed the bell, leaning on it for several seconds. The policemen took a few steps back, out into the rain, and waited, looking at the upper windows. They were out of the arc of the movement detector attached to the halogen light; after a few seconds it winked out.

‘Cocky bastard,’ growled Skinner. ‘So confident that his security’s minimal.’

Martin was almost ready to ring the doorbell once again, when a light went on in one of the upper windows, to their right. Behind the damask shade they saw the silhouette of a figure peering out into the pitch-black garden, looking around but failing to spot them. Eventually the windowframe swung open slightly, and a disgruntled, sleepy voice called out . . . a male voice.

‘Christ, Carole, have you lost your bloody keys?! And what the hell are you doing coming in at this time anyway?’ At once, both detectives recognised Jackie Charles’ clipped voice, and his well-groomed accent. They had heard it often enough, yet it carried a frustrated, peevish tone that was new to them.

Martin took a full, deliberate step sideways back into the arc of the security light, triggering it once more. ‘It isn’t Carole, Jackie. It’s Chief Superintendent Martin and DCC Skinner. We need to talk to you, now. Come down and let us in, please.’

Jackie Charles’ tone changed at once. ‘God, Bob Skinner, you always were a tenacious bastard. Now you’ve got this one at it. Have I got to write to my MP to stop you lot harassing me?’

‘Your new MP’s a friend of ours, Jackie,’ said Skinner. ‘I don’t think she’d listen to you. Anyway, this isn’t harassment. Like Andy said, we need to talk to you.’ He laid heavy stress on the word, and his tone was an unquestionable command. The window closed.

Less than a minute later, the front door opened, and Jackie Charles held it wide for them to enter. He was wearing a blue silk dressing-gown, over matching pyjamas, with Morland leather sheepskin-lined slippers on his feet. He was a dapper man, around five feet eight, but with a stocky build which made him appear shorter. His dark hair, heavily flecked with grey, was expensively but traditionally cut, and looked neat even in the middle of the night, as it swept back from his temples and from his forehead.

He pointed them towards the living room. ‘You know the way,’ he said, dryly. ‘You’ve been here before.’

The policemen stepped into a room to the right of the hall. They took off their overcoats and threw them on an occasional chair beside the door, then crossed the room and stood with their backs to the fireplace. Charles followed them and bent to ignite a living-flame gas fire.

‘Where is your wife, Mr Charles?’ asked Martin, formally, as the dapper man sat in an armchair.

He frowned up at him. ‘She’ll be staying over at her pal’s place, I suppose.’

‘What’s this pal’s name?’

Charles shrugged. ‘Donna something or other. They go to a yoga class two nights a week. Other nights they go out on the town together. When that happens and Carole has a few too many she’ll crash out there.’

‘Often?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Fairly often, but it doesn’t bother me. Carole and I have our silver wedding coming up soon. We’ve got no secrets.’

Skinner turned a laugh into a snort at the words. Charles looked up at him sharply. ‘What’s all this about anyway?’ he snapped.

‘Why isn’t your car in the garage?’ Martin went on.

‘Carole will have taken it. She preferred it to the new Jag I bought her. Less hairy around town, she said.’

‘Are you certain of that? Were you here when she left?’

Charles shook his head. ‘No. I was at Ibrox last night, as the guest of one of the finance companies that I use to provide hire purchase for customers. I was picked up from here at five, and I wasn’t dropped off again until around one. Listen . . .’

Martin cut him off. ‘Was your wife doing anything else last night, other than seeing her pal?’

He nodded, quickly. ‘Yes, but why . . . ?’ He frowned.

‘We’ll get to that,’ said Skinner. ‘Answer, please.’

‘Okay,’ said Charles, testily. ‘She was going to the showroom yesterday evening. Carole’s been a working director of our car business from the earliest days. She’s familiar with every aspect of it. We have a book-keeper there, but Carole’s the finance director of the company, and she goes over the management accounts, regularly and often at short notice. She told me that she would be going there at seven, after the salesmen had finished, and that she’d be meeting Donna after she had finished her check.’

‘Would she have driven on to meet Donna?’

‘Possibly, but she could have called a taxi; I don’t like our cars being parked in town overnight.’

‘We can check that,’ said Martin quickly. Too quickly. For the first time genuine alarm showed in Charles’ face.

‘Come on,’ he said, insistently. ‘What the hell is this about?

Skinner sat down in an armchair opposite him. Old, but often-remembered horrors come back to him, and for the first time in his life he felt sympathy for the man who had been his target for so long.

‘Jackie,’ he said, gently, ‘someone torched your showroom tonight. They totalled the place. When the firemen had it controlled, and went in to clear up, they found a body.

‘From what you’ve said, it could be Carole.’

Charles’ jaw dropped open. His eyes widened. The colour left his face. His mouth worked trying to form words, but nothing came out.

‘Jackie, we need to trace this Donna woman. Where does she live?’

The man shook his head. He turned his head away, so that neither policeman could see his eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly.

‘What’s her second name?’

‘I don’t even know that.’

Skinner paused. ‘Well, where’s Carole’s yoga class?’

‘Marco’s, in Grove Street. Two nights a week.’

‘Okay, we’ll start there. But first, I want you to look at this.’

Standing up, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced the wedding ring found by the body. He stepped towards Charles and held it out for him to see. ‘Could this have been Carole’s?’

The man turned back towards him to look at the buckled band. After a few seconds he held up his left hand towards Skinner and Martin. The two policemen looked and saw that he wore a wedding ring, a close match, for all its distortion by the fire, in width and shade of the one which lay on Skinner’s palm.

‘We bought our rings together,’ he whispered at last. ‘I have fairly slim fingers, so they were interchangeable. ’

Skinner closed his fist on the gold band and touched the man on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, Jackie,’ he said quietly.

‘Appreciated.’ The reply was almost lost in a cough, as Charles struggled to regain self-control.

Andy Martin hesitated for a moment, before speaking, formally once again. ‘Mr Charles, can you give us the name of your wife’s dentist.’

The man stared up at him for a few seconds, with an expression of growing horror as he realised the purpose of the question, and as his imagination went to work.

‘His name,’ Martin asked again

Finally, Charles nodded. ‘John Lockie.’

‘Where does he practise?’

‘Eh? Oh, in Inverleith Row.’

‘Have you been his patients for long?’

Charles shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders, as if he was trying to focus. ‘Carole and I have been his patients for twenty years,’ he said, at last.

‘Thank you. We’ll contact him as soon as his surgery opens this morning.’

The man pushed himself to his feet. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

Martin shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, there isn’t; you just have to leave us to our work. We’ll do our best to trace this woman Donna, but at the same time, if the body is that of your wife, we’ll work to confirm it as quickly as possible.’

‘You’re alone here, Jackie, yes?’ asked Skinner.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you have any live-in help?’

‘No. We don’t go in for them.’

‘In case they see or hear too much,’ the hard-nosed policeman in Martin almost muttered, but he recognised that Skinner had declared a truce in the battle to nail his number one criminal enemy. Instead, he said as sincerely as he could, ‘Would you like us to send someone to be with you?’

From the midst of his grief, the real Jackie Charles shot him a piercing, proud look. ‘You must be fucking joking!’ he said.

Bob Skinner, in spite of himself, smiled. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but remember, until you hear from us again, do nothing.’ He looked the man hard in the eye, and as he did he saw that the shock was fading, to be replaced by a burning anger. ‘You understand me,’ he repeated, with emphasis, ‘nothing at all.

‘We’ll be back to see you as soon as we can, with good news or bad. And when we come back, we’ll want to have a much longer talk.’