‘This money Mathieson used to buy you out, where did it come from again?’
‘There was a man called Derwood Charters. He got to know Robbie early on. I think he wanted to become company secretary, something like that. He had a lot of money-making schemes. Or should I say scams. Robbie told me about a couple of them. Charters would set up paper companies and then screw grants from all over the place — local authority, SDA, European Community. He had a genius for that sort of thing. I think he must have wangled development money for PanoTech somewhere down the line — the company grew so fast so quickly.’
‘And you’ve never said anything about any of this?’
‘Why should I? Good luck to them.’
‘But Mathieson practically robbed you!’
‘And now he keeps a lot of people in employment. I’m not such a high price to pay for an outcome like that.’
Rebus sat down on the cold earth, his back against the wall, and ran his hands over his head.
‘You know,’ Dalgety said. ‘I still take an interest in the industry. I don’t mean to, but I do. Thirty-five per cent of all the PCs manufactured in Europe are manufactured here, twenty-four per cent of all semi-conductors. Two million computers a year come out of IBM’s Greenock plant — that includes their world supply of screens and every IBM computer sold in Europe.’ He was laughing. ‘Fifty thousand people in the industry, and it’s growing. The Japanese come here because productivity’s so high — can you believe that?’ He stopped laughing abruptly. ‘But the root system’s shallow, Inspector. We’re big in hardware, but we need software, too, and we need to start sourcing — we source only fifteen per cent of all our components. We’re an assembly line. Maybe PanoTech can change that.’ He shrugged. ‘Good luck to them.’
‘So why did you talk to Gillespie?’
‘Maybe to get it off my chest.’ He examined the stone in his hand a final time, then threw it far into the distance. ‘Maybe because nothing I say can make any difference. No investigation of PanoTech is going to get very far.’
‘The councillor found that out.’ Aidan Dalgety looked at him, but said nothing. ‘You’re not scared?’
‘No,’ Dalgety used both hands to lift a larger rock on to the wall. ‘I’m not scared at all. This wall will be here after I’m gone, whether I live to be a hundred or drop dead tomorrow.’ He patted the wall with his hands. ‘I know what lasts.’
Rebus got to his feet. ‘Well, thanks for talking to me.’
‘No problem. I get bored sometimes just talking to the wall.’ He was laughing again as Rebus headed downhill. ‘You know that old saying about walls having ears …?’
It was a day for open spaces. In the late afternoon, Rebus walked in the Botanic Gardens with Sir lain Hunter.
‘I like this place,’ Sir lain said, striding gamely with his rolled umbrella across the grass towards Inverleith House. ‘Of course, it’s lost something since they moved the Gallery of Modern Art. What do you think?’
‘I think you’re stalling.’
Sir lain smiled. ‘I’ve conducted meetings here before, Inspector. It’s my open-air office. I choose the Botanies for some meetings precisely because they are so open. No chance of being overheard.’ He stopped, looking around. The city centre was a panorama before them. ‘Marvellous view,’ he said.
‘Nobody’s listening in on us, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘Well, the thought had crossed my mind. Nowhere is safe in this age of electronic eavesdropping.’
‘I don’t need to bug conversations,’ Rebus said. ‘I’ve got Gillespie’s files.’
‘Poor Councillor Gillespie.’
‘Yes, poor Councillor Gillespie, lured to an alley and then stabbed in the guts by an ex-con hired by Derwood Charters, just as Charters paid McAnally to put a scare into Gillespie. I don’t suppose he knew how far Wee Shug would go, what he’d do … He went too far.’
‘And brought you scurrying to the scene, Inspector. Yes, perhaps that was a mistake. Well, I’m going to trust you. I’m going to assume you’re not recording this little tete-a-tete.’ Sir lain tucked his cashmere scarf a little tighter around his neck. ‘Now, why did you want to meet?’
‘Because you’re at the centre of it all.’
‘Can you prove that?’
‘Like I say, I’ve got — ’
‘Yes, yes, you’ve got Gillespie’s files, but what do they prove?’
‘You should know. The Lord Provost told you everything Gillespie told him. They prove that Charters’ various companies existed only as shells for the most part. The front company was legit, but the others … well, if anyone decided to check, Charters would rent short-term office space, pay someone to take in mail addressed to Mensung House … that sort of thing. And I’m assuming he had someone at the Scottish Office tipping him off about any forthcoming investigations — he couldn’t have run his scams so well for so long without help. How am I doing so far?’
Sir lain was admiring the view. ‘Wild inaccuracies compounded by conjecture.’
‘Charters had sleeping partners. See, once the fake companies were running, he could apply for grants and other incentives, but to get the companies going in the first place required cash, working capital, and that’s where the sleeping partners came in. He could guarantee a huge return on investment, provided the grant money came through. He was a wizard at playing the system, running rings around it. He made quick money for a lot of people, including Robbie Mathieson. I’m sure Mathieson wouldn’t want anyone to know that the early money for PanoTech came from ripping off SDA and European Community schemes.
‘Then there’s Haldayne at the US Consulate. He’d met Charters socially, and was keen to make money. As an aside, I’d guess that once he was involved, you were able to pressure Haldayne into helping persuade American companies to move here. Same goes for Robbie Mathieson — he had US connections in the computer industry.’
‘That’s slanderous,’ Sir lain remarked, his smile unimpeachable.
‘Well, Haldayne’s been to your Royal Circus pied-a-terre plenty of times — we’ve got the parking tickets. You must have had something to talk about. Charters couldn’t have got away with it, not to the same extent, without a network of friends and people he bribed. Civil servants predominantly. I’ve been asking around, Sir lain. Eight years ago, you weren’t nearly so high up the pecking order. But then you started a string of successes bringing new business into Scotland, and you started your ascent. And Ruthie Estate must have cost a bit. I wonder, did you buy that in the past eight years?
‘The whole thing worked brilliantly for a long time. Companies came and went, and sometimes their registration documents disappeared with them. Then the SDA became Scottish Enterprise, accounting procedures changed, and nobody was going to be looking back at old projects financed by a dead organisation. But Charters couldn’t stop, and one time he got sloppy, and was caught early on. He pled guilty, protecting his friends and making sure nothing would come out at a trial, and then Gillespie caught a glimpse of something, and it got him wondering. He started digging, and word got back to Charters.’ Rebus paused. ‘You told me once that you liked a bit of intrigue: how am I doing?’
Sir lain just shrugged, looking bemused.
‘Well,’ said Rebus, ‘I’m just getting to the best bit. Now, who passed the word back to Charters? Because whoever did is partly to blame for Gillespie’s eventual murder. Gillespie had told his story to the Lord Provost — only natural that he’d tell somebody — but he never guessed the Lord Provost would go straight to Mathieson and tell him. But what else was he going to do? Mathieson is the biggest employer in his ward; the Lord Provost thought he’d warn him what was coming.’