Skinner's Trail (4 page)

Seven

‘W
hat are you implying, Mr Skinner?'

Richard Cocozza, Tony Manson's lawyer, and now executor, leaned forward aggressively. Skinner disliked the man intensely. He had always believed that he must be completely aware of all the details of Manson's business activities, legitimate and covert. Though he was not by nature vindictive, he had long harboured a secret dream of catching Cocozza in some situation that was either criminally or professionally compromising. With Manson dead, that dream had dwindled to the faintest of hopes. Now the little man's reaction fanned that antipathy once more.

`Implying, Richard? What should I be implying? In the two days since your client was murdered, we have learned nothing from our inquiries that suggests any motive. Now, I am asking you and Mr John to allow my officers access to his personal and business bank accounts to see if they throw up any line of inquiry.'

The two men, lawyer and detective, sat facing each other on either side of a grey-surfaced designer desk in the office of the senior manager of the Greenside branch of Bank of Scotland. The banker, Andrew John, a burly, bearded figure, leaned back in his swivel chair, sensing the animosity, but remaining silent as the exchange developed.

`You expect me to believe that's all you're after?'

Skinner shook his head. 'I don't give a toss what you believe. I've explained to you what we want. Tell you what, though, the way you're going on, I'm beginning to think there might be something in there that you don't want me to find. We've always taken the view that Tony Manson was far too careful ever to have tried laundering any drug money through the legitimate businesses. Don't tell me we were wrong about that. Because if it turns out that we were, if we can trace large unaccounted movements of cash in and out of any of those accounts, we'd have to take a very close look at you and at what you might have known. Is that what your problem is, Richard? Is that why you're being obstructive?'

The fat little lawyer sat bolt upright, trembling with indignation. Whether this was real or pretence, Skinner did not know, but he was pleased that the man's customary arrogance had been rattled.

`I'm not being obstructive!'

`Then why the questions? Why aren't you falling over yourself to help us find out who killed Manson? You can't want me to go to Court. We both know what the Law Society would think of that.'

He stood up and walked over to the first-floor bay window, his back turned to Cocozza as he looked across Picardy Place, past the life-size bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes — his fictional colleague — and beyond to the Paolozzi sculptures, vastly different in concept and execution, which dominated the pedestrian way in front of the Roman Catholic Cathedral. Skinner watched the traffic, as it circled the Picardy Place roundabout and exited in three directions: towards Princes Street, towards Leith, towards the west. In mid-morning May
the traffic was relatively light in comparison with the peak summer months, when tourist cars and camper vans would abound.

For almost a minute only the traffic noise could be heard in the panelled office. Finally, Andrew John broke the silence. `Look, Mr Cocozza, we're all busy people. You've no good reason not to agree to this, and you know it. So can you stop wasting our time!'

Skinner turned around. 'It's all right, Richard. There'll be no comeback. Tony's dead, remember.' He paused. 'Or is it the guy who killed him that you're scared of?'

Cocozza flushed, and suddenly Skinner knew that he had hit the mark.

`Very well.
If i
t's in the interests of justice, I'll agree. With the proviso that the files do not leave this office, and that I am present whenever your people have access to them.'

Skinner nodded. 'Suits me. I'm sure points will come up that we'll have to ask you about.' He looked towards the manager. Do you have a spare office for my people?'

`Sure. When?'

`Now. They're waiting outside.

Eight

At times like this, sir, d'you never wish you were back in the clean air of Special Branch?'

Detective Sergeant Neil Mcllhenney leaned his broad back against the drab grey wall of the windowless room. It still smelled of its last occupant, and perhaps, of two or three earlier ones.

Andy Martin smiled. 'Come on, Neil. We're doing a worthwhile job here too!

`Maybe so, sir, but these low-lifers . . . It's the constant procession of the miserable bastards that wears me down. Shifty-eyed, lying so-and-sos, and every one o' them in need of a good scrub. At least the agitators and general nutters we used to keep tabs on in the SB had nothing, against underarm deodorant.

`Christ, that last tart we had in here — she was fuckin' honkin'.'

Martin laughed out loud. 'Aye, it must be working in a sauna that does it! All that sweat! Still, I wasn't kidding when I asked you to come to Drugs and Vice with me. I said it'd be a challenge.'

`Fine, but what you didn't say was that the challenge would be in keepin' down your lunch!'

Martin and Mcllhenney had been interviewing non-stop
for six hours in the Torphichen Place office, near Haymarket Station. Since nine a.m. they had seen and questioned a constant stream of managers and staff from Tony Manson's four saunas. The managers had all been picked up early that morning and ordered to provide complete lists of their staff —present and recent past. The responses of the four managers to Martin's questions about Tony Manson were so similar that it was clear the men had been well schooled.

`Mr Manson? A gent.'

`Mr Manson? Used to drop by every now and again to check on the takings. No, no, he never handled cash himself.'

`What d'ye mean, did he use any particular girls? Ah don't run that sort of place.'

The women had been a different story. Although none would say, it was clear that they regarded Manson's death as liberation from a form of bondage. Most were ready to talk .. within reason. But one went way beyond that.

Martin had recognised Big Joanne at once. When he had first encountered her on a street corner off Leith Walk — he in his uniform, she in hers — she had been more than something of a looker. Ten years on, he had been impressed to note that, even with her thirtieth milestone a year or two behind her, and hauled out of bed early after a hard night's work, she was still holding it together.

`Ah remember you! PC Martin it wis then. My, youse has fairly come up in the world.' Her transplanted Glaswegian tones were a contrast to the clipped Edinburgh accents with which Martin and Mcllhenney were used to dealing.

`Tony Manson? Good riddance. Every workin' girl in Edinburgh should chip in a pony for the guy that did it. A fuckin' brute, he was. Once a lassie went tae work in one of his
places, she wis dogmeat. There were only three ways out: get knocked up, get the clap, or get marked by a punter. Tony, he wid use the places like a harem, any time he felt like gettin' his end away . . .

Away games? Sometimes. Every now and again, he'd pick up a lassie and take her out tae his place. A Tony takeaway, he used tae call it. Ah've been there a couple of times myself ..

Did he have any specials? If you got out tae Barnton more than once, ah suppose ye might have thought ye were special ... until the next time he came in and took someone else! There was supposed tae be one lassie, though, that he did fancy. She didnae work in the same place as me. She was in that one down near Powderhall. Her name wis Linda somethin' or other. Apparently she was out at Tony's place a lot. Eventually she only did turns at the sauna fur Tony's pals. Too good fur the ordinary punters, so they said. Ah did hear that Tony kept her frae somewhere else. She's no there ony mair though. She must have got knocked up, or got the clap, or got cut, 'cos she stopped workin' awfy quick . . .

`Drugs? Know nothin' about that, Mr Martin. Nothin' .. .

`How much did he pay us? Where did ye get this guy, Mr Martin? We paid Tony, son. The workin' girls paid him!'

And that had been that. The sum total of six hours' work. They had checked the staff lists of the Powderhall sauna, but there was no mention of any girl named Linda. They had brought the manager back in, but he had been as tight-lipped as before. 'Linda? Linda who? Linda bloody Ronstadt for all I know. Never had anyone by that name working at my place.'

Mcllhenney pushed himself off the wall against which he
had been leaning. The heat of his body left a sheen on the dirty paint. 'That's us finished wi' the low-life, sir. What do we do next?'

`Just 'keep on looking for Linda, Neil,' said Martin. 'That's all we've got.'

Nine

‘Y
ou didn't expect it to be easy, did you?' sneered Richard Cocozza.

Alison Higgins' jaw dropped when she saw the folders stacked on the table in the small office.

`There are thirty-two files in total, Superintendent,' said Andrew John. 'Each separate business has its own account. Take each laundrette, takeaway, pub, sauna, and the curling club, and you have a total of thirty-one accounts. Then there's a central Premier deposit account into which cash surpluses from each are transferred annually. That's kept at around a hundred thousand pounds. Cash surpluses beyond that go to longer-term investments. Any questions?'

`Who did the banking?'

`Managers in each business.'

`How were payments made?'

`The total payroll was processed by a firm of accountants, and debits were made from each account. Each business rendered its own tax and NI and its VAT. The same accountants handled all that. Very expensive in accounting terms, but
it kept each of the businesses free-standing. That's the way Mr Manson wanted it. All other payments were made on his signature. He controlled every penny going out.'

`Good luck, then. I imagine that you could be here for some time.' John closed the door softly behind him.

Higgins and her assistant, Inspector David Ogilvie, a young officer with an accountancy degree, pulled chairs up to the table and sat down. Cocozza took his place alongside Higgins, watching her every move.

They began with the Premier deposit account file. Soon they saw that it offered no help at all. As the manager had described, they showed a series of inward transfers from named accounts, and occasional withdrawals by transfer of funds to an Edinburgh stockbroker.

`Okay, David,' said Higgins, closing the folder. 'Let's get into this lot. You take the laundrettes. I'll take the pubs and the takeaways. Shout if you find anything that looks odd.' They selected the files according to the superintendent's allocation, and set to work.

Two hours later they broke for coffee. Cocozza, who had sat silent through all that time, could contain his mounting impatience no longer. 'Are you going any further with this farce, Superintendent?' he demanded.

Alison Higgins smiled across the table. 'Just as far as I have to, Mr Cocozza.'

It was Ogilvie who spotted the only anomaly in the meticulous records. 'Look here, ma'am.'

Higgins leaned across to follow his pointing finger. The file which was open before him was that of the Powderhall sauna.

`So far, the payment pattern in these statements is just the same as the rest, Payroll out. Tax and NI out. Supplier bills out. In these sauna accounts, the main suppliers are the Council, for business rates, the Evening News for small ads, one of
Manson's own laundrettes, and Scottish Power. They're all paid by direct debit. The odd petty cash cheque, thirty quid or so, and that's it. An established pattern. Then all of a sudden, look at this.' He pointed out an entry on the page, showing a debit of four thousand pounds through a cheque drawn on the account. 'Drawn six days ago, last Wednesday. I wonder who copped for that one.

Higgins looked at the fat little lawyer. 'Well?' Cocozza said nothing. He sat there, grim-faced, and shook his head. She could not tell whether the gesture was one of refusal or ignorance.

`Let's find out, then.'

She left the room and returned just over a minute later, followed by Andrew John. The manager looked at the entry, then switched on a computer terminal which sat at a side
table. He keyed in several numbers before he found the detail he sought. 'Cheque number 001237, drawn on the Powderhall sauna account. Presented to the Clydesdale Bank in Comiston on Monday last week, and cleared by us two days later. Payee is one L. Plenderleith. There's no other information I can tap into through this.'

`Can you call the manager of the Clydesdale and get more from him?'

`I can try. Let me go back to my office. I can check from there who he is. I suppose there's a chance I might know him personally.'

Higgins nodded, and the burly banker bustled from the room. As the door closed, the detective looked across once more at Cocozza. 'Well? L. Plenderleith. Does that name mean anything to you?'

Again the lawyer shook his head.

`You sure?'

`Quite sure.' His voice was quiet, his head still down.

`And you know nothing at all about any exceptional payment that your client might have made?'

`No.'

`I'll have to ask you to make a formal statement to that effect. You may wish to have another lawyer present when you do.'

Cocozza flashed her a sudden glance with suspicion bordering on alarm showing in his eyes. 'What do you mean by that?'

Alison Higgins smiled coolly back. 'Mr Cocozza, this is a murder inquiry, and we are under no illusions about your late client. I am suggesting that you might wish to take objective advice about everything you say to us. If you find that threatening, we have to ask ourselves why.'

Silence fell across the room, and hung there heavily until Andrew John returned two or three minutes later. He wore a satisfied smile.

`That was a stroke of luck. The manager wasn't a he but a she, Wendy Black, and she and I sat our bank exams at the same time. She'd have been within her rights to tell me to get stuffed, and to make you go through all the hoops to get what you're after. But the old pals act worked its charm.'

He sat down and continued.
L
stands for Linda. Mrs Linda Plenderleith, no kids, lives alone in a flat at 492 Morningside Road. She lives alone because Mr Plenderleith is doing time for something or other. Wendy didn't know anything else about her. She did say that this was the first cheque the woman had ever paid into her account, other than giros. All the previous deposits were cash. She was well in credit, though, even
without the four-grand cheque from Manson. No mortgage or rent payments for her flat.'

Higgins' surprise showed on her face. 'How long has she lived there?'

`She was already at that address when she opened the account in 1990, and deposited ten thousand pounds cash.'

The detective whistled softly. 'Wonder where that came from. Did you ask whether there's been any further action since the cheque was cashed?'

For a second, John's enthusiasm was tempered by an offended look. 'Of course. And there has been. She drew out five hundred cash on Thursday, and asked for four grand in traveller's cheques. She had them picked up by courier on Friday. Banks don't like that, normally, but she made a special arrangement and the courier carried her letter of authority.'

Higgins' teeth sparkled as she smiled. 'Good work, Mr John! You can join my team any time.' She looked round at Ogilvie. 'David, you stay here and finish going through these files. Just in case there are any more Linda Plenderleiths. I'm going back to Torphichen Place to report this. Manson seems to have been keen to help this woman leave the country. Let's see if we can find out why.'