‘I think we’ve got as far as we’re going to get, sir. The payments. . twelve grand in total. . have come from a numbered account in a bank in Luxembourg.’
‘Damn it. You’re right, Sammy, we’re stuffed. It’s against their law to disclose account information, even to us, unless we can show clear evidence of money laundering, which in this case we can’t. It’s a pity; anything that would have reinforced the link between Coben and Collins would have been useful.’ He paused, looking at the microphone. ‘Hey,’ he exclaimed, ‘the pen that was dropped beside the body: have you touched it?’
‘No, sir, I couldn’t stand the grief that Dorward would give me if I did. It’s still on the floor; I’m looking at it now.’
‘Then look a bit closer, and see if it tells us anything. Touch it if necessary; I’ll clear you with Arthur.’
He waited, with McIlhenney, in silence for a few seconds.
‘Yes, sir, it does,’ said Pye at last. ‘I had to roll it over to see it, but there’s something on it. It’s a hotel pen, the kind you find in your room, with the stationery. It’s from the Novotel World Forum, The Hague.’
‘Good,’ the chief constable declared. ‘Your next step is to find out from Aislado and from Carol Glover whether Collins has ever been to The Hague, for a football game or on holiday. If not, then there’s a better than even chance that our Mr Coben has. Let Superintendent McIlhenney know as soon as you can. Meantime, he and I have an appointment with a judge.’
‘Before you go, sir,’ Pye said hurriedly. ‘We haven’t got to the bad news yet.’
Skinner frowned. ‘Then get to it,’ he said tersely.
‘Ray and I have done a quick search of Collins’ flat. Not touching, not moving, just looking. There’s only one bedroom, and in his wardrobe we found a blazer, with a Union Jack lapel badge. In a pocket we found a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, bought from Boots, light-reactive, minimum strength. And in the bathroom, in his cabinet, we found an aerosoclass="underline" hair styling foam for men. When we met Collins, his hair was loose, just like it is now. Then there’s a photo, of him and Carol at a dance, framed on the sideboard. There’s a date on it, in the corner; it was taken the Saturday before last, two days before the cigars were bought. The guy’s got a beard in it. Sir-’
‘Stop, Sammy,’ McIlhenney sighed. ‘We get the picture. It wasn’t Coben who bought the La Gloria cigars, or went to see Andy. It was his message boy, Ed Collins.’
‘OK,’ said Skinner briskly. ‘We know this man is smart. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. Now we really have to go.’
He ended the call and stepped out of the car with his colleague. As McIlhenney tossed him the keys, a perspiring traffic warden rushed towards them, ticket machine in hand. The superintendent whispered in his ear; he turned and shuffled off, with undisguised disappointment.
Lord Elmore was waiting in his open doorway as they walked up his drive. ‘I wish I could do that,’ he said smiling, extending his hand to Skinner.
‘Hello, Claus,’ said the chief constable. ‘We don’t normally pull that stunt; only when it’s necessary. It’s good to see you. How’s The Hague?’
The little judge reflected on the question as he ushered his visitors inside, and up the stairs to his study. ‘Not as varied as the Court of Session or the High Court of Justiciary,’ he confessed as he closed the door behind him, ‘and completely lacking the black humour that you find there, particularly on the criminal bench. But that wouldn’t be appropriate, would it? The cases that we have to try are usually brutal; very harrowing crimes, and atrocities. I don’t know what I did to upset the Lord President who recommended me for appointment to the Tribunal, but whatever it was, he got his own back.’
‘I know,’ Skinner told him. ‘You ruffled plenty of feathers in your time, Claus, both as counsel and on the bench; you were bound to cross the wrong bloke eventually. Don’t blame the Lord President; it had very little to do with him. Your views on the relationship between the judges and politics didn’t go down well with a certain ex-First Minister.’
‘Little Mr Murtagh, now fallen in disgrace? Yes, I was aware his dirty little hand was in it somewhere.’
‘All over it; he pulled all the strings.’
Lord Elmore smiled. ‘In that case, he’d be frustrated to know that although it’s grim, and I’ll be happy to retire when my stint is over, I feel privileged to be doing the job. Can I offer you a drink?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Something soft if you have it.’
‘Superintendent?’
‘The same for me, please.’
The officers took seats and watched as their host poured lime juice into two glasses, then topped them up with soda water from an old-fashioned siphon. ‘Now, chaps,’ he said as he handed them over, ‘what can I do for you? Have you got something on our friend Anderson after all?’
Skinner shook his head. ‘He’s off the pitch. Bruce is a fool, and the worst sort of politician, but in the rest of his life he’s well-intentioned, it seems. No, Claus, we’ve just come from a meeting with a man, someone you don’t know and never will, who says that you’re the man to ask about a certain General Bogdan Tadic; Serbian.’
Lord Elmore stared at him in astonishment. ‘Why in God’s name would you want to know about him?’ he exclaimed.
‘His name’s come up in connection with a suspect in the deaths of Ainsley Glover and Henry Mount.’
‘Then if I didn’t know that the swine is behind some very thick solid bars indeed, I’d tell you to look no further. Of all the sordid villains my colleagues and I have tried, he’s the one who made my blood run the coldest. Absolutely ruthless; a pure psychopath, surrounded by other pure psychopaths who did his bidding.’
‘We know Tadic isn’t in circulation. It’s one of those associates we’re concerned about, someone called Coben.’
‘Coben?’ The judge’s forehead wrinkled in concentration. ‘Coben? Yes, there was a person of that name in his circle, mentioned in the passing by a couple of witnesses. But the stories they told were second-hand, no more than legends. Frankie Coben was said to have carried out some of Tadic’s more sadistic orders, those that he delegated, for the general was very hands on. . hands, feet, teeth, prick, knives, you name it, he used it on his victims. The evidence put before us was that Coben was much less crude that Tadic. . indeed was his cultural antithesis. . but capable of equal, if more sophisticated, violence.’ He paused. ‘In fact, I recall a story that was told during the trial. It was second-hand, so ultimately useless as evidence, but interesting nonetheless. Tadic ordered Coben to get rid of one of his own people he suspected of disloyalty. So the unfortunate was sent out with a mine, with orders to plant it under some enemy fortifications. But just as the man was setting about his task, Coben detonated the thing, using a remote trigger. The witness at the trial said the tale was that when the explosion was heard, Coben laughed and said, “Hoist by his own petard.” So, not just a murderer, Coben was a Shakespearean scholar, with a black sense of humour.’ Lord Elmore gazed at Skinner. ‘But it’s all academic, so to speak, isn’t it? Coben’s dead, killed by the Americans when they missed Tadic.’
‘So they say,’ the chief constable replied, ‘but the name keeps cropping up in this inquiry.’
‘It can’t be the same person. And if it was, what possible interest would someone like Coben have in two crime writers?’
‘We can’t answer that yet; that’s why we’re here. Claus, what can you tell us about Tadic’s trial?’
‘We’re going to have to do it again,’ the judge glowered. ‘That’s the first thing I can tell you. His legal team have won a retrial, courtesy of an obscure blunder by the prosecution in preparing its case. We’re going to have to uproot the witnesses from wherever they’ve been resettled.’