He left the financial section and opened Information. It began with personal details, and listed personal advisers.
‘Good lad,’ Bob muttered, ‘this’ll save us some digging.’ He read down the list. ‘Lawyers,Curle, Anthony and Jarvis. Accountants, Mohamed King and Co. Insurance adviser, W. D. Kidd. Doctor, dentist, tailor. Her we are, Stockbroker, Brown Aston, Glasgow. Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, St Andrew Square. Building Society, Abbey National, Hanover Street ... Couldn’t be better.’
The rest of the information section was made up of street maps and rail timetables, showing city destinations in Scotland from Wick to Ayr, all places where the High Court of Justiciary sits on circuit. Inevitably there was also a map of the London Underground network.
Thumb-flip initial index markers ran down the side of the address section Bob opened it at the first page. ‘Adams, John, LIB, Aitken, William... He flicked through the pages. The listings were in strict alphabetical order except where an entry had been made after the compilation of the directory.
They read carefully through the pages. The methodical Mortimer ha noted professions beside each entry. Those without such designations were Bob guessed, purely social acquaintances. They would be the first to be followed up.
‘M’ and ‘N’ were together in the seventh section. The index made no allowance for Scotland’s proliferation of ‘Macs’ and so the section was fatter than any other in the book. ’MacAndrew, tailor.’ began the listing, which ran through to ’MacWilliam, Roger, Bank Manager‘, and on into ‘Mabon, Peter LIB.’ The last entry on the page was ‘Madigan & Co, Architects.’
Bob’s eye tracked to the top of the next page. He read the first entry ‘Napley, Eleanor. Advocate.’ He frowned. ‘Wait a minute.’
‘What’s up?’ Sarah’s attention had wandered. She snapped back to wakefulness.
‘There’s something wrong here. There are no Mortimers in this directory.’
‘Maybe he knew them off by heart?’
‘Love, this guy has listed his girlfriend, his own office number, his building society, everyone. There’s even an entry for “Lewis, John. Department store”. This is more than an address book, it’s a record of a life. He’s not going to leave his family out.
‘And what about the Dean?’
‘Who?’
‘David Murray, QC, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. He isn’t listed either, yet Peter Cowan is, not just as an advocate, but as Clerk of Faculty
‘Someone’s been here before us. There’s a page missing!’
Sarah squeezed his arm. ‘Are you sure? The family couldn’t be listed somewhere else?’
‘They could, but they aren’t.’ He reached for Sarah’s Mickey Mouse telephone and dialled a seven digit number. ‘Andy? Bob here. Have you been into Rachel’s address book yet? Well get into your wee red motor and bring it round. I want to look at it, and to show you something.’
Less than fifteen minutes later, the door buzzer sounded. Skinner picked up the entryphone receiver in the hall and pressed the button which unlocked the street door. He opened the front door just as Martin boundec on to the landing outside, Rachel Jameson’s address book in his hand.
Skinner led him into the living room, where Sarah waited with three mugs of coffee and a box of After Eight mints. Skinner showed him Mortimer’s Filofax, and the ‘M’ entries which came to a sudden stop.
‘See what I mean Andy? Who’s the important “M”, who’s been removed? Is he our man, or is it another victim, one that we don’t know about; an accident, maybe, like Rachel was meant to be? Let’s see Rachel’s address book.’
Martin handed him the long red directory, opening it at the ‘M’ section as he did so. Skinner looked at it closely. The entries were less detailed than those in the Filofax, and the ‘M’ and ‘Mac’ surnames were in random order. He tound Mortimer’s listing simply under ‘Mike’ and below it a listing for ‘J. Mortimer’, with no address, only the Clydebank telephone number which he had used earlier in the day. There too, was David Murray’s home address and telephone number. It was only when he turned the page that Skinner noticed something odd.
A long straight cut appeared, close to the spine of the book. He pressed it as flat as he could on the coffee table, and ran his finger between the pages. Suddenly he pulled his finger back as he felt the sharp pain of a paper cut. He sucked the blood which welled from the fine slit at the tip of his index finger, then ran his middle finger over the page again, crosswise this time. He bent the book open until the front and back of the red cover were touching.
‘There you are. You can hardly see it, but a page has been cut out. You’ve got to be looking really hard to notice that it’s gone. If he hadn’t nicked the next page with his knife, and if I hadn’t been looking as closely as I did at the “M”s I wouldn’t have found it.
‘So there it is. Our mystery entry has been taken out of each one.’
‘Why didn’t he just take the books?’ Sarah asked.
‘That would have been spotted, especially with all the financial information in Mortimer’s Filofax. No, just take a page from each and no one will notice. That’s what our man reckoned. Anyway, he thinks we’ve bought Yobatu. All he’s doing here is housekeeping, tidying up. He doesn’t really expect that there’ll be a detailed search.’
‘Remember, he did pinch Rachel’s diary,’ said Martin. ‘Maybe there was too much in that for him to cut out. Have you checked the diary sectior of the Filofax?’
‘Not yet. Let’s have a look now.’
He picked up the brown leather book and reopened it. The first five; months of the day-per-page had been discarded. Martin looked startled until Skinner showed him the date on the gift card set inside the front cover.
The entries began on Tuesday 6 June, and continued daily from then on. Typically of Mortimer, they were concise, but full of detaiclass="underline" until Monday 20 June and Tuesday 21 June. Martin stated the obvious. ‘It’ not there.’
A small piece of paper was caught in one of the six steel clips of the ring-binder, snagged as the page had been removed.
Skinner stopped reading the detail of the entries. Instead, he flicke through the pages, searching for more gaps. ‘October the fifteenth and sixteenth; they’re gone.’ He shook his head. ‘A very thorough individ ual. We’ve been lucky to get this tar. Now it looks like we’re stuc again.’
‘Look at the cashbook.’ Sarah spoke softly from her armchair.
‘Clever lady,’ said Skinner. He opened the financial section, flippin over pages until he reached June.
‘Very clever lady! Look at this. June the twentieth, shuttle return Edinburgh - Heathrow. Paid by Mastercard.’ He turned over more pages ‘And again. October the fifteenth. But this time it’s two tickets. Did Rache go with him this time?
‘Andy, first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to use your Specia Branch clout to do two things. Call British Airways and have them check the passenger listings for all flights to Heathrow on October the fifteenth, looking for Mortimer and Jameson. If Rachel doesn’t show; then find out who was sat on either side of Mortimer on each half of the round trip.
‘Then call Telecom. I want a printout of all calls made from Mortimer’s and Rachel’s telephones from the last twelve months, with the subscribers at the other end listed. They’ll moan like buggery, but they can do it.’
Martin nodded. ‘Anyone who’s going to moan, may as well start now.