Quintin Jardine: Skinner's trail

‘What 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 it'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.

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 some shy;one 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. .