She smiled up at Skinner, brightly. ‘That’s why I use cotton.
‘Look, here. And here. And here. And here.’
Skinner went to the door. ‘Neil,’ he called. ‘Through here, with those plastic envelopes for forensic samples.’
He turned back towards his assistant, as McIlhenney’s heavy tread sounded in the hallway. ‘Pam, call in for a car to pick you up and get out to the lab as quick as you can, with these strands of hair for matching and checking. The report’s for my eyes only, like before.
‘Meanwhile, Neil and I will check the other two flats. Let’s just hope that our friend didn’t know about them.’
74
It took three blows of McIlhenney’s siege hammer before, finally, the door of 5c Westmoreland Cliff yielded and burst open.
The Sergeant examined the wreckage of the two locks. ‘No-one’s been in this one before us, sir,’ he said. ‘Not without a key anyway.’ He led the way inside. The flat was more or less the same size as the one in Rankeillor Street, but far more spectacular in its outlook. Every room, except for the bathroom, looked down upon Dean Village and along the narrow, tree-lined valley which the Water of Leith had carved through the centre of the city.
There was no furniture in the house, nothing other than, in the living room, a cheap desk, an electric typewriter, a shabby chair, bought from a secondhand shop or from a downmarket warehouse, and a grey four-drawer filing cabinet, similar in shape to the blackened shells which had stood in the ruins of Jackie Charles’ showroom.
‘Keys,’ said Skinner absentmindedly. He took out his mobile and dialled a number. ‘Inspector Dorward, please,’ McIlhenney heard him say. ‘Arthur, amongst the mess last Thursday morning, did you find any keys close to the body, or anything that could have been a key?
‘You did? Good. Have them sent round to my office at once.’
He put the phone away. ‘Carole had three flats, Neil. One as an illicit nookie nest, old habits dying hard and all, one as an office, and the third, I’ll bet, just as a bolthole, in case this one was compromised.’
He tugged at the top drawer of the filing cabinet. To his surprise it slid open.
‘My God, she must have been confident, to leave this unlocked.’ He looked in the drawer, and saw, nothing. He frowned and slammed it shut. When he found the second drawer was empty also, a scowl began to gather on his face, but it vanished as he opened the third. It was lined with green sliding folders, each packed with documents. He took out a handful at random and flicked through them. They were carbon copies of typewritten letters, none of them carrying a destination address, but all of them dated.
He held one up and read it aloud:
November 11, 1993
This is to confirm the substance of our conversation by telephone this morning. The business which we discussed will be completed as scheduled next Saturday afternoon. I am assured that the agent involved knows his position, and that he will co-operate in securing the desired outcome. Therefore it is safe to make your investment.
Skinner frowned, and flicked through the papers in his hand, until one in particular caught his eye. He read it to McIlhenney:
November 17, 1993
I understand your concern at yesterday’s unexpected turn of events. Since the mishap occurred at this end, I will of course make full restitution of your lost investment, plus one hundred per cent as a sign of good faith. Be assured also that the agent involved will suffer the consequences of his failure to carry out his commission.
However I think you will agree that our experience this weekend has taught us all that this is not the most suitable country in which to attempt to arrange such transactions.
‘No salutations and no signatures,’ said the DCC, ‘but if you look at the dates, these could relate to the business that earned Jimmy Lee his broken knees. When we match these letters to Carole’s typewriter, we’ve got the start of a chain of circumstantial evidence. If Telecom can tell us whether Jackie Charles made any international calls on November 16 or 17, 1993, it’ll get that bit stronger.
‘We’re on to something, Neil. This lot’s going to Special Branch. Sure it’s all circumspect and circumstantial, but if they can compare references and dates with crimes around the country, you never know what picture we might be able to paint for a jury. Remember that serial killer whose conviction hung on the fact that he bought petrol with a credit card eight years before his arrest?
‘With hard work, nothing’s beyond us.’
He replaced the documents, then tried the fourth drawer. At first he thought it was empty, like the first two. The book was black-bound, and obscured by shadow. He was on the point of rising to kick the drawer shut when it caught his eye.
He picked it up, feeling it thick and heavy in his grasp, and opened it. It was a cash ledger, a record of payments received, and payments made, each one dated, kept meticulously in ink, each entry in the same firm hand. He flicked through it. On each page there was a third column showing a positive cash balance, running into tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds. He stopped at one point and traced the columns backwards, pausing then continuing.
‘Jesus, Neil,’ Skinner whispered. ‘This is it. The Charleses’ criminal treasury. A cash pile building up, then being reduced by regular transfers, out of the country I’ll bet. There’s millions in this book.’
He looked at the first page, and saw that entries began in 1984. Sitting down at the desk, he began to pore through it, describing it to McIlhenney as he went. ‘No names, Neil. Just initials. Most of the incoming payments are marked ‘DT’. That’ll be loanshark money, protection money from minicab drivers, all channelled through Dougie Terry.’
He paused and pointed. ‘That’s interesting. Here’s an outgoing payment, made on June 29, 1989, fifty grand to TH. I wonder if that was stake money advanced to Tommy Heenan. My, but this book’s going to make a lot of people very uncomfortable.’
He flicked through the pages until he found November 1993, then scanned its columns. ‘See here. An outgoing payment on November 18, of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, made to a destination shown as KL. Kuala Lumpur, I’ll bet.’ He whistled. ‘No wonder Jimmy Lee’s on crutches.’
Skinner would have closed the book then, and taken it back to his office, but the next entry caught his eye. An outgoing payment of five thousand pounds, made to someone with a single initial. Hazarding a guess, he turned to February 1994. Three months on, to the day, a further five thousand. He went back six months. Five thousand.
At last he closed the ledger. ‘Jackie himself didn’t know about this place, Neil. If he had, these things would not be here still. No-one knew about Westmoreland Cliff. Not even Donna.’
75
Pam was waiting at the door of Skinner’s office as he turned into the Command corridor. She had seen the BMW as he had parked it beside the Chief Constable’s modest Vauxhall Vectra.
‘Come in,’ he said grimly, holding tight to the ledger until he laid it on his desk.
‘Well,’ he said, as he poured them coffee from the filter machine. ‘Any news from the labs?’
She nodded, as she took her mug. ‘The samples match, boss. All of them.’
‘Ahh!’ he sighed, throwing his head back as if he had been hit, and slamming his palm down on the ledger on the desk in a sudden violent movement, which made her jump. ‘That tears it, then.
‘Pam, I want you to ask Mr Martin to call a meeting of the whole Charles investigation team, in half an hour, in his office. I want to brief them all, every one of them, on the arrest of Jackie Charles.