Quintin Jardine: Skinner's mission

‘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.