‘I’ve heard he helped finance PanoTech at one time.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Is it true?’
‘I don’t think so. Did one of Charters’ investors tell you?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Probably a story he spun them. He could be very persuasive.’
‘But all this was eight, nine years ago.’
‘Yes, and since then he’s cleaned up his act, or had done until he burnt people’s fingers with Albavise.’
‘So why are you still chasing him over a piece of ancient history?’
‘A couple of reasons. One, I spent a lot of my time and effort in the Fraud Unit chasing him, without getting a result. It represents probably the only blot on my record. Two, our best guess when we investigated him was that he was fiddling millions.’ He had Rebus’s full attention. ‘Millions,’ he repeated. ‘And for me, that makes him worth the chase.’
‘Where did he fiddle these millions from?’
But Gunner just shrugged. Rebus was thoughtful for a moment. The bar was filling, and the TV had been switched over to show the football scores. Not that many games were being played: the pitches were dangerously hard.
‘I’ve read the case against him on Albavise. Any chance that I can see the other paperwork?’
Gunner studied him. ‘There’s a hell of a lot, and it’s in no particular order. You think you can spot something our financial gurus couldn’t?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘Just for my peace of mind. I’d like to talk to Charters, too.’
‘What?’
‘His cellmate’s committed suicide. It looks strange if nobody’s been near to ask him about McAnally’s state of mind prior to release. I mean, who’d know better than him?’
Gunner nodded. ‘Fair point.’
‘Speaking of McAnally, how much did you pay him?’
‘What?’
‘He was working for you, feeding you information, I’m assuming he was paid.’
‘He didn’t give us anything of relevance. We gave him a few pounds here and there, nothing more.’ Rebus was seeing Tresa McAnally’s flat in his mind: new door, new decor, new TV. ‘Does it matter?’
‘It did to Wee Shug,’ Rebus said quietly. Someone had given him the money, money he’d passed on to Tresa, almost like life insurance. Who did Wee Shug know with money apart from his cellmate?
Gunner finished his drink. ‘I wonder what Sir Iain will be up to tonight.’
‘The way he was tucking into the hooch, sleeping it off, I’d imagine. Does he drive to Edinburgh and back every day?’
‘He only uses Ruthie at weekends. When he’s at work, he has a flat in the New Town.’
‘Whereabouts exactly?’
‘Royal Circus, I think.’
Royal Circus, thought Rebus, where Haldayne collected some of his parking tickets. Life was just full of coincidences, if you happened to believe, as Rebus himself did not, in coincidence.
31
Early Sunday morning, a sleepy-eyed detective sergeant from Lothian & Borders Police Headquarters turned up at Rebus’s flat.
‘You’d better give me a hand,’ he said.
Rebus followed him down to where a patrol car idled kerbside. He peered in through the passenger side window.
‘Maybe we’d better hire a winch.’
It took them four trips to transfer the boxes from the car to Rebus’s living-room. Rebus put the binbags behind the sofa to make room on the floor.
‘Sign here,’ the DS said. He had a typed chitty: RECEIPT OF ALL CASE-NOTES (8 BOXES) CONCERNING DERWOOD CHAR TERS. Rebus signed.
‘Date and time, too,’ said the DS.
‘You’ll be wanting a tip next,’ Rebus muttered.
‘If you’re offering.’
‘Well, here’s one for you: when lifting, bend your knees, not your back.’
He phoned Siobhan Clarke.
‘Why me?’ she said.
‘Because Brian Holmes has a home life.’
‘That could be construed as discrimination. When do you want me there?’
‘Say an hour.’
He tidied the living room a bit, depositing the bin bags in the hall and setting the file boxes in a row on the floor. Then he collected up all the dirty mugs, glasses and dishes and took them through to the kitchen. He emptied the coffee-jar and put it back under the radiator, and opened the living-room window an inch to air the place. The sun was out, showing that the windows hadn’t been cleaned since the autumn. Rebus decided enough was enough.
‘She’s coming here to work,’ he told himself, ‘not for a candlelit supper.’
They got two breaks, both late in the afternoon.
The first was a client’s name: Quinlon.
‘I’ve come across that name before,’ Rebus said. It took him a while to place it. ‘The civil servant, Rory McAllister, he mentioned someone called Quinlon; a building contractor. There’d been some shady business between the SDA and him — it was one of the things held against the SDA when they were deciding its fate.’ Rebus flipped back a page in the notes. ‘And Charters’ client happened to be a building contractor.’
‘So?’
‘So, somehow the media got to hear about the SDA and Quinlon, and that story helped sink the SDA. Who was going to gain by the SDA’s demise?’
‘Charters?’
‘Yes, because the financial slate was going to be wiped clean, and there’d be no possibility of a future investigation into where the SDA millions had gone.’
‘You think Charters grassed on his client?’
‘I wouldn’t put anything past him.’
The second break came soon after.
It was clear from the case-notes that the Fraud Unit had been focusing on Charters. When his ‘associates’ were mentioned, they were dismissed as fronts or moneymen. Nobody thought the directors had anything to do with whatever swindles Charters was perpetrating.
Which was why they weren’t mentioned often, and in the case of Mensung, not at all. But then Rebus picked up the photocopy of a letter sent by Charters to the SDA. The Mensung logo was at the top, together with the non-existent Leith Walk address — referred to as ‘Mensung House’. At the foot of the letter was the company’s registration number.
‘You couldn’t find Mensung in Companies House, right? ’
‘Right,’ said Clarke. ‘I had their archivist take a good look.’
‘Well, either they were registered, or this is a phony number.’
‘The records could have been mislaid.’
‘Now wouldn’t that be a coincidence.’ The final line of the sheet was blurred. Rebus peered at the row of names, the names of Mensung’s directors.
Because he knew what he was looking for, he could pick out the name Charters quite easily; the others were more difficult. It took real effort to decipher J Joseph Simpson’s name.
‘Figures,’ Rebus said. He wanted another word with Simpson anyway, but this explained why he’d lied about Mensung’s address: the company had been dodgy, under investigation, and Simpson had been a director. It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to publicise when you were still in business.
As for the third and last name …
‘Can you make that out?’ Rebus asked, passing the sheet to Siobhan Clarke.
‘Starts with an M,’ she suggested. ‘Murchieson?’
‘Murchieson?’
‘I don’t know, maybe Matthews, something like that.’
Rebus took the sheet back from her. Matthews … Murchieson … ‘Mathieson,’ he said, staring at the slewed writing. ‘Could it be Mathieson?’
She shrugged. ‘As in …?’
‘I met a man yesterday called Robbie Mathieson. He runs PanoTech.’
‘Silicon Glen’s homegrown success story?’
Rebus nodded. ‘We’ve all just been supplied with PanoTech computers, haven’t we?’
‘Everybody from the chief constable down.’
Which meant that Allan Gunner would have one, too. ‘Who do you suppose would decide something like that?’