It was possibly the most incongruous voice that he had ever heard. While its owner was huge and threatening, the voice was soft, slow and gentle, almost soothing in its tone. It struck Skinner that it might just have been that of a telephone Samaritan. 'You sound as if you were expecting me.'
‘I was. Officially we've been setting traps for a Frenchman, but I was pretty certain that it would be you who turned up. I did some private research on you, Lennie. You're not the big thick muscleman that you and Tony wanted us to see, are you? You were going to night-school classes even when you were working in that pub in Leith Walk. And while you were inside you were never out of the library. Correspondence courses in — what were they? — business admin, economics and Spanish. Who paid for them? Linda?'
Plenderleith shook his massive head. 'You're joking. No, Tony did.'
'He was grooming you, Lennie, wasn't he? You were going to be his right-hand man when you got out, weren't you? His adopted heir? What was that about a will in Cocozza's message? He had told us he couldn't find one. Was that just a way to get Ainscow here, or does it exist?'
There was a gleam in the dark as the big man smiled. 'Oh yes, Tony left a will all right. He gave it to me when he visited me in Shotts just before I got out. He thought it would be a long time before it was needed, though. He didn't think anyone could touch him.' Lennie gave a soft tinkling chuckle. `He reckoned even God would think twice about having a go at him. Tony took me under his wing years ago. I was giving some trouble to the manager of one of his launderettes. Back then, I thought I could make it big in the protection racket. I read The Godfather and thought that was for me. So I went into this launderette, and told the manager it was ten quid a week or his windows were in, and after that his face. And then the real Godfather came to the launderette to see me: Tony Manson. He was younger then, and not quite as smooth as he was later on. The hardest man I'd ever seen. It just radiated off him. He never said a word, just looked at me, and I knew that this man could kill me, and would if it came to it. So I said, "Sorry, I didn't understand. I won't bother this place again," and Tony said, "That's good. I like a quick learner. Sit down." And he talked to me. He asked me about myself, and I told him. We sat there for about three hours, cracking a few beers and talking, and at the end of it Tony offered me a job. He said he fancied making me his secret weapon.
`Most folk, aye even someone like you, look at a big guy like me, and all they see is size and muscle.' Lennie tapped the side of his head. 'They can't cope with the idea that there's anything going on in here. Tony wasn't like that. He realised that I could think as well as punch people's lights out, but he knew that I needed control. So he put me to work where he could keep an eye on me, and he began to teach me. Gradually he told me more and more, till I knew almost everything about his business. He even began to ask what I thought about things. It was a sort of test, I suppose, but once or twice I'd suggest ideas that he hadn't thought of, and he'd accept them. When you folk got lucky and I went to jail, he was gutted, but I said "What the hell. I'll put the time to good use." And I did.'
Did he tell you about Ainscow's operation?' Skinner queried. The great head nodded in the dark. 'Aye. He asked me what I thought.'
`What did you tell him?'
`I said "Do it. It sounds okay." I said that it was a clever way of generating a pile of black money from a clean source, and that if Ainscow wanted a few quid to get started, he should give it to him. But I told him that, if it was ever tumbled, he should cut his losses and get his dough back. Tony's great secret was in keeping the money separate. Too many guys like him pump money from legit business’, again, the giant laughed softly in the dark, taking Skinner by surprise, ‘or more or less legit, like knocking-shop saunas — straight into the other side. He never did that. He lived well from the pubs and the casinos and the rest, and he put the profits back into that side of the business, or into the stock market. If he'd used a penny of it on a drugs buy, you guys would have had a chance of tracking it down. All the drugs money was black, from armed robbery, extortion, stuff like that. When Ainscow came along with a long-term scheme for generating a million in funny money, it was a natural for him.'
Skinner shifted from one foot to the other. 'How did Ainscow know to come to Tony?'
'He was a casino punter. And he used to deal in a small way. Tony's organisation supplied him.
`Mmmm. Did Tony have anything to do with the Spanish business?'
`Absolutely not. He gave Ainscow the money and told him to get on with it. Dick Cocozza was the only link. He was supposed to check on it occasionally. But there was never anything on paper. No correspondence. The cash that Tony gave him came from the black side.'
`Where did he keep that sort of money?'
`Switzerland. Tony used to go there every year, with a party from the curling club. He'd run a bus, and every year he'd just take it out in a suitcase and stick it in a bank account. Then, after a couple of years, he'd move it into a private investment trust in Liechtenstein. Guess who owns that trust now?'
`So that's what was in the will,' said Skinner. 'That's your legacy, Lennie?'
`That was the will, Mr Skinner. A document transferring the trust to me in the event of Tony's death. It's worth millions. The pubs, and all the other stuff over here, they didn't matter. As far as we were concerned, they could pass to the Crown, like with any death where the estate's unclaimed. Wonder how the Queen'll take to living off the earnings of a string of dodgy saunas?' The big man chuckled again. 'My name's not Plenderleith any more, of course. I'm somebody else now, and now that I've tied off all the loose ends here, that's who I'll be from now on.
`There's one big obstacle to that, Lennie.
`Not too big, though, Mr Skinner. There's room in that pond for two.'
They stood there in silence in the silver moonlight, for several seconds. And then the giant took a pace forward. `Why did you kill Alberni?'
The question stopped Plenderleith in his tracks. He seemed to stand even taller in the dark. 'How did you know about that? I thought it was perfect.'
Skinner chuckled. 'You might be bright, Lennie, but nothing planned by the human mind is ever perfect. Remember Alberni's dog, in the garden?'
Lennie nodded. 'Yes, I was going to feed it, only I couldn't find anything to give it. Then I heard a car coming, so I got off my mark.
`Christ,' said Skinner, life's full of it. If you had fed that dog, I'd have bought the suicide. The investigation would have stopped right there and we wouldn't have linked Cocozza and Ainscow, at least not until far too late. You'd have been free and clear — if you'd just found a can of dog-food!'
He saw the big man smile and shrug his shoulders.
`But that's history. What happened? How did you wind up in L'Escala?'
`Tony came to see me in Shotts. We'd already set up the trip to Spain to look over that Rancho place. I was going out first — then Linda.' He paused. 'She was going to join me. But Tony said that there'd been a change of plan. He told me that he had found out, by accident, from a guy at the curling club, that the InterCosta thing was going to be rumbled. He said that he'd sent Cocozza to tell Ainscow to wind up the show and give him his dough back — plus profits, of course. He told me to pull my cash out of the bank as soon as I got to Spain, then go to L'Escala and tie off the loose end. Tony told Ainscow at the start that he should cut the guy in on the deal, but he wouldn't. He was greedy. So the wee Spaniard had to go. Shame, but there it was.'
`How did you do it?'
`It was easy. I'd already decided how I would do it. I just watched and waited. Then, when the guy's wife went to work, I nipped into the garage, set things up, and kicked over an oil shy;can to make a noise. When he came in to investigate, he was a goner. I didn't like killing him, but Tony was right. If he'd been left to talk to the police, the whole thing could have come back on Ainscow, and God knows where it would have gone from there. And, after Linda, it wasn't difficult at all.'