Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel (20 page)

‘That would depend on the sense in which you’re using the word “pull”. The Discovery was built with comfort in mind, and in my albeit limited experience, some ladies don’t like to flash their minge climbing in and out of one of those things.’ I tapped the Mazda’s ragtop. ‘Plus, I prefer a car that you can’t unlock with a Stanley knife.’

I led the way out of the car park, and headed west, towards Queensferry Road, driving slowly to wind Martin up. I continued our stately progress all the way out to the Maybury junction, where I took a right turn, past the doomed Barnton Hotel. Eventually I turned into a cul-de-sac off Essex Road, and pulled up.

I stayed in my car as the young DC left his, and reached across to open the passenger door. ‘Game over,’ I said. ‘Do you see that big house up there?’ He couldn’t have missed it, a big stone pile with a grey slate roof, set in an acre of ground. ‘It’s called “Trinity” and it’s the home of Tony Manson, of whom you’ve heard much said over the last few days. Tony would call himself a businessman. We would, and do, call him a criminal. The thing we like least about him is his dealing in Class A drugs. I can’t think of anything that would put a bigger smile on my face, professionally, than locking him up for twenty years or so, but I’ve never been able to do that.’

‘Why not?’ Martin asked, a little too directly, but I let him off with it.

‘Mainly because of the requirements of our criminal justice system,’ I told him, ‘and that long and meaningful word, corroboration. A lone witness isn’t enough to convict. If you and I took a sledgehammer to his door and found half a ton of smack in his cellar, we’d be most of the way there. But if I did it on my own, it would be my word against his that I didn’t plant it; any case that was taken to court on that basis would be chucked out by the judge at the first time of asking.’

‘Have you ever done that?’ He gulped and added hastily, ‘Searched his place, that is.’

I laughed. ‘It’s “no” to the other, by the way. Searched Tony’s place? Of course we have; twice in my time, but purely for show, with no expectation of success. He’s much too clever and too careful ever to go near any of his merchandise, or to let it be brought anywhere near him. He also follows the basic rule of large-scale criminality, and that is . . .’ I made it a question.

‘Never give an order to one person,’ he answered, ‘that a second person can hear. Corroboration again.’

‘Exactly, Andy; or even overhear. That’s what keeps him out of our hands. Remember the man I told you about, Perry Holmes?’

‘The guy who was shot?’

‘That’s him. Perry was the master of discretion. In much of his life he was legit. He was a big property developer, and he still has a large portfolio. He conducted that business in the normal way, but for one thing, something he brought from the other side. He would rarely be in the same room with more than one person, unless they were architects showing him plans, or lawyers and the like, who were safe because they were covered by client privilege. Latterly he never even went to restaurants, other than with his brother, Al.’

‘It didn’t do him much good, though.’

‘No,’ I conceded. ‘It didn’t make him bullet-proof. And neither’s Tony; so he’ll be taking Marlon’s murder very seriously. Let’s go and talk to him.’

I started the Discovery, and drove up to the double wrought-iron gate that secured the entrance to Manson’s property. There was a closed-circuit camera set on a stone pillar to the right. I opened my window, leaned out, and waved up at it. A few seconds later, the gates swung open, seemingly of their own accord. I cruised through, up the approach road, and pulled up alongside a black Bentley.

The front door opened as we approached. Two men stood just inside; they were dressed in black, and there was a crisp look to them that suggested a military background. One of them stepped forward, raising his hands as if to frisk me. I raised a hand and glared at him. ‘Don’t make the mistake,’ I warned.

He paused, but didn’t back off. ‘Easy way or hard way?’ he asked.

I don’t react well to threats. I feinted with my left shoulder; and the minder reacted by moving to his own left, a wrong move, as it added to the force of the fist that I whipped up from my side and into his gut. ‘Told you,’ I murmured, as he dropped to his knees, and as Martin stepped forward to intercept his mate.

‘Hey!’ The shout came from a doorway to the left of a wide central staircase. ‘Leave it off, you guys. These are the polis. I wouldn’t have let them in otherwise.’

Tony Manson stepped into the hallway and came towards us; he was wearing a shell suit, and his broad, lived-in, pushing fifty face sported a Mediterranean tan. He wasn’t tall, but squat and powerful; nobody had ever got the better of him in his younger days. There are hard men, and then there are those who really know how to fight. He was one of the latter. ‘Sorry, Skinner,’ he said. ‘My new help. They’re not trained to be subtle.’

‘You hired them in?’ I asked, as one helped the other to his feet.

He nodded. ‘From a security consultancy,’ he said as he led us towards the room from which he had appeared. ‘They came highly recommended.’

‘I’d send them back for retraining, if I were you. They’d better not be armed, incidentally.’ Barely two months had passed since the Dunblane massacre, and every cop in Scotland was paranoid about firearms.

‘They weren’t supposed to need shooters,’ Manson growled. He had that air about him, that rare aura of power and potential for the extraordinary that marks some men out from the rest. He and I had met a few times before, and had sized each other up. I didn’t respect him, not in any way, any more than he did me; but I couldn’t say, not honestly, that I disliked him either. It’s hard to define, even now, but I probably regarded him in the same way that someone else might see a business rival. Make it personal, and your objectivity’s at risk. That’s a maxim I’ve always preached to my people, but sometimes it’s been difficult to hold to it myself. One thing I will say for him. When he controlled the drugs trade in Edinburgh, there was no lethal shit on the street; Tony was hot on quality control, if only because he recognised that killing his customers wasn’t profitable.

He led us into his study. I’d been there before, with warrants; he’d let my team search with no attempt at hindrance, in the certain knowledge that we’d find bugger all. It was a nice, spacious room, oakpanelled, although Manson’s taste in art was too modern to hang there comfortably. The Vettriano . . . original . . . was okay, but the Howson looked out of place.

I told him as much. ‘I like it,’ he replied, simply. ‘What do you want me to do? Loan it to the National Gallery? Go on, take a seat. I’ve been expecting you, after Lennie told me you’d paid him a visit.’ He looked at my companion, studying him. ‘New boy?’ he asked.

‘This is DC Martin, Tony. Remember the face, for you’ll be seeing a lot of it from now on.’

‘Oh aye? I thought you were in a different outfit now.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, but I’ve still got an interest in you, don’t you worry about that.’

‘I won’t. I’ve never worried about you, Skinner, and I’m not going to start now.’

‘You’re watching your back, though. The military two-step out there’s evidence of that. Marlon’s murder’s got you rattled.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘For a start,’ I told him, ‘your gates are closed. That’s unusual. Also, those two out there are minders. You’ve never needed their sort before. Marlon, poor lad, couldn’t mind his fucking manners, but you were happy with him. They’re signs of a lack of confidence, I’d say. What are you worried about? What could Marlon have told our friends from Tyneside to make them stop bouncing him off the swimming pool floor? Not that it did him any good, even if he did spill the beans.’

Manson growled, deep down in his chest. ‘Marlon didnae have any beans to spill, the poor little bastard. I don’t know what gave anybody the idea that he had.’

‘Somebody seems to have thought so,’ Martin said.

He glared at the DC. ‘It speaks!’ He turned back to me. ‘Why did you mention Tyneside, Skinner?’

‘Because that’s where Newcastle is, and that’s where we’re in the process of lifting a suspect, and possibly two if we’re lucky. Does the name Glenn Milburn register with you?’

‘No,’ he said, looking me dead in the eye. I believed him. ‘Should it?’

‘You might want to remember it.’

‘Newcastle?’ he repeated.

‘Yes. We traced the van that was used to snatch and transport Marlon. It’s now a pile of burned-out and tangled metal. Milburn bought it at auction about ten days ago; for that job, it looks like.’

He frowned. ‘Skinner, I don’t even know anyone in Newcastle, apart from a bolshie Customs bastard at the airport that gave me a hard time last night.’

‘If you did, would you tell me?’

He grinned. ‘No, but I don’t, so I’ll tell you that, no worries.’ The smile was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. ‘How did they get hold of the boy, Skinner? It wouldnae have been that easy. He wasn’t exactly Frank Bruno, ken, but he was hefty enough and he usually had his wits about him.’

‘We’ve got no idea, Tony. Neither has his mother.’ I caught his eye again. ‘What’s with you and her anyway?’

‘Bella and I are . . . friendly, like. As far as anybody can be friendly wi’ Bella, that is. I took an interest in her after her brother shot the Holmeses. I know as well as you do that she told him to do it, and I wanted to make sure she wasnae angry with me as well. And,’ as he paused, an angry gleam showed in his eyes, ‘I was sorry for her as well. Gavin Spreckley was a nasty shite and deserved all he got, but it was out of order what they did tae her boy; only a kid, for fuck’s sake. Bella has her uses; she’s got a good brain and when she drops into any of the saunas she’s fierce enough to keep everybody on their toes.’

‘You let her live in that shithole, though.’

‘I’m no’ going to move her in here, man,’ he protested. ‘She’s no’ exclusive, ken.’

I chuckled. ‘That’s pretty well known. Who were you with in Ibiza, by the way?’

‘You mind your own fuckin’ business, Skinner. She’s got nothing to do wi’ this so keep her out of it.’

I could live with that; I couldn’t see that it was relevant either. I changed tack. ‘What was Marlon’s working day, Tony? You don’t have an office other than this. Where was he based?’

‘Here. He came here every morning, drove me anywhere I wanted to go, in the Bentley, minded the door for me, just like those two out there, checked the mail for me . . . put it through the scanner, ken . . .’

‘Scanner?’ Martin repeated.

‘Metal detector. You never heard of letter bombs, son?’

‘While you were in Ibiza,’ I resumed, ‘what was he supposed to do?’

‘The usual: come here, sit by the phone, watch the telly. If something was really important and he or Lennie couldnae handle it, get in touch with me. But he never did.’

‘So when he left home on Tuesday morning, this is where he’d have been coming?’

‘Aye, but before you ask, he couldnae have been snatched from here. He wouldnae have let anyone through the gates, and the whole place is alarmed, and monitored remotely. State o’ the art. Ah’ve had foxes set it off before now.’

I’d known that; it was on his drugs squad file. ‘Did Bella ask you to take Marlon under your wing?’ I asked him.

He winced. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘That was my idea. I gave the boy a job to keep him close to me. He had bad habits. He was always lookin’ for a fight, as if he’d tae prove something . . . like we all do when we’re kids, I suppose . . . and I heard he was carrying a blade. I didn’t want him going the same way as his brother and his uncles, so I brought him in close, where he’d be safe.’ He snorted. ‘Safe! Fuckin’ safe. Glenn Milburn, you said.’

‘I did, and he’s mine, Tony, understand that.’

‘You’d better keep a close eye on him then,’ he rumbled.

‘Why do you think I told you his name?’ I asked. ‘To put you in the loop, and to protect him; because you know that if he should choke on his cornflakes in the remand wing, you will now be the very first person I’ll be looking for.’

He nodded. ‘Revenge is bad for business, you’re sayin’?’

‘Exactly. Not as bad as me, but bad enough. Listen, could Marlon have been mixed up in something that you didn’t know about?’

He stared at me derisively. ‘Nah, no chance of that.’

‘Are you sure? Remember, he’s from a lawless family. I had to rattle his mother’s cage the other day. I found out that she’s been extorting money from her own daughter.’

‘She’s got a daughter?’ I stared at him; for the first time in my life I’d surprised Tony Manson. ‘Christ, she’s a close one. Where’s she been hiding her?’

‘She escaped a long time ago,’ I told him. ‘Tony,’ I continued, ‘I’m going to give you one more chance. We’ve got this Newcastle link, but we don’t know what’s behind it, not yet. Before this day’s out, I hope to be interviewing this man Milburn, and I will not be holding back on him. This is a murder investigation; if you do have any information that might help us, or even any suspicions, then it’s in your interests that you tell me now. If you don’t, and I find out later that you’ve been holding out on me, then I will throw the biggest book I can find at you, as hard as I can.’

I stood; Martin followed. Manson looked up at us. ‘We’ve been here before, Skinner, a few times, and you must ken by now that there’s no way I’ll ever set foot in the High Court, no’ even as a witness. I’ll tell you again, I know nothing about Newcastle, and I’ve got no idea why anyone would want to do that to Marlon. But, I’ve got no reason not to help you find out why the boy was killed, so anything I hear, you will, one way or another. As for this guy Milburn, give him a good one for me, and tell him no’ to be stupid enough to ask for bail.’

The hired bodyguards were in the hall as we walked to the door. The one I’d banjoed gave me what I think was meant to be a meaningful look, but he couldn’t hold on to it when I eyeballed him back. I made a mental note that if I ever retired and went into the security business, I’d never employ people who thought they were tough, only those who knew they were and didn’t need to show it.