Ian Rankin - Rather Be the Devil

‘So what’s this all about?’ Chatham enquired.

‘It’s just a feeling I got, right back at the start of the original investigation. The feeling we were missing something, not seeing something.’

‘And it’s taken you until now to revisit that?’

‘I’ve been a bit busy. I’m not so busy these days.’

Chatham nodded his understanding. ‘When I retired, it took a while to change gears.’

‘How did you do it?’

‘The love of a good woman. Plus I got the doorman job, and I go to the gym.’ He gestured towards his plate. ‘That’s an occasional treat, and I can work it off this afternoon.’

‘I’ve got a dog I can walk.’ Rebus paused. ‘And a good woman.’

‘Spend more time with both of them then. Learn to let go.’

Rebus nodded his agreement. ‘This is going to take me a while to digest,’ he said.

‘Same here.’ Chatham thumped his chest with one hand.

‘I didn’t mean the bacon. Though now that I think of it, that too. Thanks for seeing me.’

The two men shook hands across the table.

‘Back so soon?’

Unsure of the protocol, Fox had been loitering in the doorway of the HMRC section, waiting to catch Sheila Graham’s eye. It had worked eventually and she was now standing in front of him.

‘So you’ve either brought news,’ she began, folding her arms, ‘or else decided it’s a waste of time.’

‘I just think I need a bit more of a briefing. In fact, ideally I’d like to see what you’ve already got on Christie.’

‘Why?’

‘So I don’t end up telling you what you already know.’

She studied him, her face impassive. Eventually she managed a smile. ‘Let me buy you a coffee,’ she said.

There was a stall in a corner of the ground-floor atrium, so they queued there, taking their drinks to one of the breakout areas — basically comfy seating separated by a small circular table.

‘So what have you learned so far?’ Graham asked.

‘Christie’s been targeted before — car and rubbish bin. There’s no CCTV of the attack and none of the neighbours could help. So we’re looking for possible enemies, without getting much help from the victim.’

‘Is he recovering?’

‘At home,’ Fox acknowledged. ‘I saw him last night.’

‘You saw him?’

‘DI Clarke went to question him and I tagged along.’

‘But he knows you, yes?’

‘I didn’t say I was working at Gartcosh these days.’

‘He couldn’t already know?’

‘I think he would have said something, just so I’d know he knew.’

‘We don’t want him to twig that we’re digging into his affairs,’ Graham cautioned.

‘He must have an inkling, though.’

Graham considered this. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded.

‘I also took a look at both his betting shops. Nothing struck me as out of the ordinary.’

‘Which two?’

‘They’re both called Diamond Joe’s.’ Fox paused. ‘Why?’

‘There’s a third, though you won’t find Christie’s name on any paperwork. And to be honest, I doubt you’d notice anything unusual, even if money was being laundered under your nose.’

‘How’s that then?’

‘Fixed-odds machines — usually roulette. Losses can be minimised to around four per cent. When you finish playing, you print out a ticket and exchange it for cash at the counter. They give you a receipt, so if you’re ever found with a suspiciously large pile of notes, you’ve got evidence it’s legit.’

‘So basically the bookie is charging a four per cent fee?’

‘A cheap way of cleaning up dirty money. You can send thousands an hour through each and every machine. They’re busy trying to change the law in Brussels — any winnings over two thousand euros will need to include the recipient’s details. The industry over here is fighting against it.’

‘If someone’s hogging a machine hour after hour, feeding in thousands, surely the cashier notices?’

‘Often they don’t, or aren’t particularly bothered. Then again, if the person who owns the shop is in on the scam...’

‘Like Darryl Christie, you mean?’

She nodded slowly. ‘But there’s a lot more to Mr Christie than that.’

‘Oh?’

Her face hardened. ‘This goes no further, Malcolm.’ She edged forward on her seat, and he did the same. There was no one within twenty feet of them, but Graham dropped her voice anyway.

‘The betting shop I’m talking about is called Klondyke Alley. There happens to be a one-bedroom flat above it that is probably also owned by Christie.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Do you know what SLPs are?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe I should show you, then.’ She seemed to have made her mind up. Springing to her feet, she grabbed her coffee and told him to do the same. He followed her back to the HMRC section, where they found a spare chair and pulled it over to her desk. There were a few questioning looks from Graham’s colleagues, so she introduced Fox.

‘Relax,’ she said. ‘He’s almost one of us.’

She got busy on her keyboard until a page-long list appeared onscreen.

‘Scottish limited partnerships. Guess how many of them are registered at the flat above Klondyke Alley?’

Fox’s eyes narrowed. ‘All of these?’

Graham had clicked her mouse several times, and the list kept growing. ‘Over five hundred,’ she stated. ‘Five hundred companies that give their business address as a one-bedroom flat in Leith.’

‘I’m hoping you’re going to tell me why.’

‘They’re shell companies, Malcolm. A way of hiding assets and moving them around the globe. Try tracking the actual owners and you usually end up in some offshore tax haven like the British Virgin Islands or the Caymans, jurisdictions that aren’t exactly forthcoming when the UK tax authorities start asking questions. There’s a new law coming in. UK owners will have to reveal who the real beneficiaries are, though whether we’ll be able to trust that information is a moot point. For now though, SLPs are a great way of hiding who you are and what the hell you’re doing.’

‘And Darryl Christie runs this whole thing?’

Graham shook her head. ‘The flat is rented from Christie by a corporate services provider called Brough Consulting.’

‘No relation to the private bank?’

‘Not quite. Brough Consulting is one man, Anthony Brough, grandson of Sir Magnus, who ran Brough’s until it was bought by one of the Big Five.’

‘How close is he to Darryl?’

‘ Quite close.’

‘So these shell companies... they’re like an extension of the money laundering?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. It’s a hideous paper trail that happens to be mostly electronic. So we sit here all day, working our way from one company to the next, one beneficial owner to the next, trying to find real flesh-and-blood people hiding in the margins of a hundred thousand transactions.’ She looked at him. ‘It is proper detective work, you see. Except we tend to call it forensic accounting.’

‘Have you made anything stick yet?’

‘Against Brough Consulting? We’d be popping the champagne if we had.’

‘Getting close, though?’

‘We thought maybe Darryl Christie would lead us somewhere.’

‘But that hasn’t happened.’ Fox thought for a moment. ‘Could any of these shell companies have some beef with Darryl?’

‘We’ve no way of knowing.’

‘You can’t intercept his emails and phone calls?’

‘Not without the say-so from upstairs. And probably a doubling of resources — has news reached you that we’re supposed to be tightening our belts? This is Austerity Britain we’re living in.’ She swivelled in her chair so her knees brushed his. ‘You need to keep this to yourself, Malcolm, remember that. Even if it starts to have some bearing on the assault case, you talk to me before you start sharing with your pals back in Edinburgh.’