Quintin Jardine - Funeral Note

‘Yes.’

‘This place,’ Mr Skinner said. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘I built it for Jock, for free. The deal was that I got the use of this room.’

‘Did he know what it was for?’

Welsh stared at him. ‘Of course he bloody knew. Having built the fucking room, I had to rent it off him as well. The money went into a offshore bank account in Ella’s name.’

‘Did she know about it?’

He shrugged. ‘She must have known something went on here. How much Jock told her, I’ve no idea.’

‘That doesn’t matter now they’re both cinders,’ the chief constable said, roughly. ‘Go on, tell us about the operation.’

‘I was approached about five weeks ago,’ Welsh replied, ‘by an Israeli bloke called Beram Cohen. I knew him. I’d supplied him before with guaranteed clean handguns. Somebody was paying him to take out radicalised Muslims.’

I laughed. Welsh glared at me. ‘What’s so fucking funny?’ he snapped.

‘You are,’ I told him. ‘You supplied weapons to a guy like him, in his world, and yet until five minutes ago, you didn’t realise that makes you part of it yourself, as disposable as he was. If I was ordered to kill you, you’d go into a crematorium oven at night and nobody would be any the wiser.’

‘That’s what they should have done with Beram,’ he muttered.

‘Yes, what about that?’ the chief asked. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’d arranged for Beram to meet me in Edinburgh last Wednesday,’ he replied, ‘at my yard, not here. He was going to pay me for the weapons.’

‘What did they buy from you?’

‘One of the carbines that Bass brought from Spain,’ he explained. ‘The other two were handguns from my stock. Anyway, they turned up, the three of them. I wasn’t expecting Smit and Botha, but Beram said he’d brought them to drive because he had this bloody awful headache. He had the money in a backpack. He handed it over, and a minute later, he died. Just like that. He stiffened, then he fell over; he kicked a bit, then he was dead. His mates tried to resuscitate him, but it was no use.’

He frowned, as if he was seeing it all over again. ‘The three of us, we were all shocked, but those South Africans, they were,’ he struggled for words, ‘they were just beside themselves. Once we were all back in control, I offered them the money back, but they said no, that they had a commission and that they would go ahead. Beram wasn’t involved in the actual hit; he did the planning and took care of the escape.

‘I told them they’d need to get rid of the body. I suggested putting it in my truck, driving it out past North Berwick and tipping it into the sea. They went crazy at that; I thought they were going to kill me. They said that he was a fallen comrade and all that guff, and that he had to be treated with respect, not just stuck in a hole and forgotten about.

‘I said fair enough but I had nowhere to keep him. We could hardly take him to hospital, and they wouldn’t leave him somewhere and call the ambulance service. It was Botha who came up with the idea of doing what they did with him, burying him and then calling your lot. As it happened, I’d bought some bed linen for the house that day. I gave them a sheet to wrap him in; they stripped him and left me his clothes to burn, so they couldn’t be used to trace him. They said they didn’t want him identified for a couple of days. Smit asked me where they should take him. Given that he was dead, Mortonhall sounded like as good a place as any to me, so I suggested that.’

‘So it had nothing to do with setting a false trail for the police,’ Mr Skinner asked, ‘given that the operation’s in Glasgow?’

‘Is it?’ Welsh asked. ‘That’s news to me. I never want to know any detail about things like that. Anyway, no, it had nothing to do with that.’

‘So they went away,’ he continued, ‘and last night they came back here, to collect the gun. Is that what happened?’

He nodded. ‘Aye. And when I brought them round here, at one in the morning, who was standing upstairs, looking out the window but bloody Jock.’ He sighed.

‘You see, the arrangement was that every time I brought a client here to collect an order, Jock would always take Ella off somewhere for the night. He didn’t last night, though. There he was, as large as life, but not for much longer. He saw both the South Africans, and they saw him. They wanted to know who he was, and I had to tell them. I’d hoped they’d be okay about it, but when I gave them the weapon, the imported one, Botha took it. . he’s an animal, by the way. . and said he was going to test-fire it.’

Welsh looked away. ‘I knew what he was going to do,’ he muttered, ‘but all I could think about was that he was going to kill me as well. I heard three shots from upstairs, inside the house, then just after, three more. I’d brought my van with me, not the car. I guess you know by now what they made me help them do. When it was finished, they dropped me back at my yard. I stayed there all night, thinking, and most of today. Eventually it dawned on me that you’d be bound to identify Jock eventually, and that I had to clear this place out or I’d be in it up to my nuts. Enter you two,’ he took a deep breath, ‘and that’s the whole story.’

‘Not quite,’ the chief said. ‘What were the weapons?’

‘A Heckler and Koch MP3 carbine and two Glock pistols. There were six H and Ks in the box that Kenny Bass brought back from Valencia.’ He nodded towards the open box. ‘The other five are still there.’

Mr Skinner’s eyes widened. ‘Cohen ordered them specifically, by name?’

Welsh nodded.

‘Is that significant?’ I asked.

‘Too damn right,’ he retorted. ‘They’re police weapons.’ He glared at Welsh. ‘Lucky for you that I sent Maggie through there.’

‘What are you talking about?’ the man on the floor muttered.

‘I’ve sent my deputy to the concert hall with a warrant for the arrest of the target, on a made-up charge that only needs to hold for an hour or so. He’ll be halfway to Edinburgh by now.’

‘He?’ Welsh repeated. ‘When Smit picked up the carbine, he said, “This baby will take her out, no question.” I don’t know who you’ve picked up, but believe me. . the target’s a woman.’

‘I don’t know who you’ve picked up, but believe me. . the target’s a woman.’

When he said that, shock, panic, horror, maybe all three swept over me in waves; my heart went ice-cold and for a moment my knees buckled.

Clyde was still holding the Beowulf. I ripped it from his grasp and levelled it at Freddy Welsh’s head.

‘Are you telling the truth,’ I shouted, ‘or is that bullshit?’

‘It’s true, it’s true,’ Welsh screamed. ‘It’s a woman, honest; on my life, I swear.’

I jerked the barrel upwards and fired a round into the wall about a foot above his head. Then I turned on Houseman. ‘You people got it wrong!’ I bellowed. ‘You got it fucking wrong.’ I was ready to go for him, but he stayed calm.

‘Mr Skinner,’ he said, ‘I promise you, that’s the intelligence we have. We know the Israelis have a kill order on Fabrizzi; he’s the only possible target.’

A little of his coolness transferred itself to me. ‘Not necessarily,’ I said. I pointed the gun in Welsh’s direction once again. He was cowering away from me, trying to make himself as small as possible. He was terrified; he’d pissed his pants. ‘Go into the garden store,’ I ordered. ‘Find some rope, twine, wire, anything, and hog-tie this bastard.’ I wasn’t thinking clearly, my thoughts were jumbled up, my priorities shot to hell. ‘Wait,’ I snapped. ‘Where will your people be now?’