By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2) (11 page)

MacIver got up from his kitchen table and fetched his briefcase from the living room.  He took out his disposable mobile phone – he didn’t watch much television or read American detective stories, so he probably wasn’t familiar with the term “burner” – and brought up on the screen the text that he had received on Thursday night.  It was time to move things on.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘The General Register Office issued a certified copy of Thomas Nuttall’s birth certificate last May.  It was ordered by a Simon Mathieson and it was sent to an address in Glasgow.  Turns out that the address is one of these private mailbox services that will give you an address without a box number, because lots of organisations won’t send stuff to a box number.   I’ve asked Strathclyde to take the enhanced picture of Nuttall – the one from the Gateshead CCTV footage – to the shop and see if anyone recognises him as Simon Mathieson.   They should be co-operative. Their business depends on staying on the right side of the law.  I expect to hear something soon’.

DC Aisha Gajani was reporting to the Monday morning meeting of the enquiry team.

‘Anything on his NI number?’   DCI Vanessa Fiske sounded a little weary, partly because of how she was feeling, and partly because of her frustration that the investigation wasn’t moving as quickly as she would have liked.

‘We’ve been on to the usual suspects and leaned on them a bit.  It looks as though one of them – a private enquiry agent, also in Glasgow, as it happens – got Nuttall’s NI number from a contact in the DWP and supplied it, “for the usual consideration” (Everybody here was getting good at ironic quotation marks, Vanessa thought), by telephone to someone with a Glasgow accent.  Again, this was a few months ago, probably at about the same time as the birth certificate was obtained.’

‘Well, that narrows it down to the quarter of a million or so men with Glasgow accents. Progress at last.  Thanks, Aisha.  Duncan?’

‘We now have a pretty clear idea of the areas of hospital operations that Keller was investigating and what we learned from Donovan’s “top team” (There it was again. Vanessa smiled.) seems to be confirmed by the CCTV footage.  We put all the Keller sightings together and Donovan’s people identified where he was in most of them.  Now we need to know what significance to attach to what he was looking at.  It wouldn’t half help if we could see his emails.’

‘I’m working on that’, Vanessa said, ‘But it’s not easy.  Anything else?’

‘Far be it from me to praise uniform.  Nobody in CID had much time for me when I wore one. But one of the PCs who was looking at the footage was alert enough to notice that in several – not all – of the sightings the same so far unidentified male was also visible.   May be nothing, but I’m having the images enhanced and we’ll see if anyone, or any system, can recognise him.’

Vanessa grinned. ‘I shall ignore your descent into chippiness, Duncan, and simply say good work.  When do you expect to have the pictures?’

Williamson said he would have them later that morning and that his first port of call would be the HR department at GRH.

‘So we’ll have enhanced CCTV images of possible suspects for both murders?   That puts us in a better place than we were when I clocked off on Friday.   But we still need more on motive. The Jamieson emails help, but even there we’re dealing with inference rather than evidence.  I now need to take some advice on what we know about Keller’s activities at GRH’.

‘I mentioned his areas of interest to Janet at the weekend.’  Colin MacNee was speaking for the first time, and DCS Esslemont greeted his introduction with a sharply raised eyebrow.   Esslemont was old school in every possible way, and he would never have considered discussing details of his work with his wife.  But these were different times, so he let it go, and simply listened to what DI MacNee had to say.  After all, he hadn’t objected to Fiske’s taking advice from her partner on the financial issues.

‘She was struck by the fact that three of the four areas Keller seems to have been looking at - diagnostic procedures, usage of operating theatres, and laboratory procedures – are what she described as “manageable”, for which read capable of being rationed to control expenditure or, if you’re a cynical sod like me, to maximise profit.   You can’t do that so easily with, for example, A & E or intensive post-operative care.   But you also can’t do it without affecting quality of care and, probably, outcomes for patients.   So, any recommendation that affected the ability of the Hedelco people to manage expenditure in these areas would, I guess, hit the bottom line.’

‘What was the fourth area?’  Esslemont spoke for the first time.

‘Sub-contract management.  And again, that’s an area where management pressure can be applied to costs, sometimes in areas that directly affect patients, like transport though it's not something that a medic like Janet would know much about..  Hedelco’s operation at GRH includes a substantial contract management section, some managing their contract with the health board, but some engaged, as one of the “top team” put it to Duncan and Stewart, in holding subcontractors’ feet to the fire.’

Esslemont frowned.  ‘But if Keller was killed because of what he had turned up, who benefited?   As you often ask, Vanessa, “
Cui bono
”.’

‘The answer to that, sir, just might be Burtonhall and its investors.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, Keller was reporting directly to Hedelco’s head office in Boston, not to Burtonhall, whose interest is entirely on what Colin called the bottom line.  They promise investors that all of their companies will be in profit within three years.  If Hedelco wanted to avoid contract penalties, or the threat of government inspection, they might intervene in a way that delayed profitability.  Burtonhall is, apparently, famously hardnosed when it comes to returns to its investors.’

‘Or they might decide to disinvest, which might leave the health board, and the government, with a real problem.  We need to see these emails.  And we need to find out what Burtonhall knows.’

‘Boss.’ Stewart Todd held the same rank as Duncan Williamson, but when they worked together, as they often did, he usually deferred to Duncan’s seniority, so this was his first intervention.  ‘One of Donovan’s “top team” mentioned that Burtonhall had sent somebody senior over to find out what’s happening with Hedelco and Ebright.  Maybe you could talk to him.’

‘Thank you, Stewart.  Do we have a name?’

‘Sorry, no. That’s all I got.  But Donovan should know.’

‘Or Tammy Wootten at Ebright.  Let’s talk to them both.  Colin, get on to your friend Donovan.  I’ll tackle the lovely Tammy.’

*

As soon as she got in on Monday morning, Fiona Marchmont, NEC’s in-house lawyer, spoke to a senior civil servant in the Solicitor General’s office in Edinburgh.   She explained the problem of obtaining the emails that Peter Keller, who had been murdered at Grampian Royal Hospital ten days before, had sent back, in encrypted form, to his employers in the United Sates.

‘The Senior Investigating Officer believes that the emails may help to establish a motive for the murder, but Hedelco, the company that manages the hospital on behalf of the NHS, and who employed Keller and sent him to do some kind of technical audit of the hospital’s systems, are refusing to hand them over.  Going to court is really out of the question.  It would take forever.  So I need some help to find a political solution.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

Fiona Marchmont had dealt with Gavin Aikman before.  She had found him not exactly unhelpful, but reluctant to take any action until he was absolutely satisfied that it was right legally, administratively, and politically.  Being ultra-cautious had got him to his current level.  He wasn’t going any further, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to take more risks.  On the contrary, and rather like DCS Esslemont, he wanted to serve out his time until retirement, doing his job (‘entirely to his own satisfaction’, Fiona thought, remembering an apocryphal performance appraisal), making no waves, and causing no difficulty for his superiors.

‘We need to get the US authorities to put some pressure on the company to release the emails “voluntarily”.   That will need some help from the Foreign Office.  I can’t approach them directly. Cross-border sensitivities make it important that we do this absolutely by the book.  We’re investigating two murders, possibly related, both of American citizens, and both involving US companies working in Scotland.  I need the Advocate General’s office to talk to the FO and persuade them to get the Embassy in Washington – they still have a legal attaché, I hope, even after so many rounds of cuts – to intervene with the appropriate Federal and State officials.’

‘Is that all?’ Aikman asked drily.

‘I know it’s a tall order, Gavin, but can you help or not?’

‘I’ll have to talk to my masters, but I can’t see any reason not to approach the AG’s office.  Give me a couple of hours.  I’ll try to get back to you by lunchtime.  Early afternoon at the latest.’

‘Thank you.  You should know, by the way, that the First Minister is taking an interest, ostensibly because she’s a local MSP, but probably because of the importance of US investment in Scotland.’

‘I’m glad you told me that.  I shall need to tread carefully.’

*

‘I got the
au pair
job.’  

Shelley Mehring was a PhD student from Oklahoma, registered at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.  She had completed all of her course work and her three years of registration and was now writing her dissertation.  Her topic was the multiplier effect on the regional economy of foreign investment in the North east of Scotland and one of the companies she had studied was the Last Corporation.   Her contacts there had led to an expenses-only internship, but she needed to find a paying job until she could complete the thesis.

Frank Mancuso, head of security at Last Cairngorm, had taken her on as a personal assistant and general gopher, and when she told him about the advert in the postgrad newsletter – “Professional couple seeks
au pair
to provide reliable, stimulating childcare for two bright but demanding primary schoolgirls”  - he had encouraged her to apply.  It offered pay at just above the legal minimum wage, board and lodging.

‘That’s great, Shelley.  We’ll miss you here at Last, but it sounds like just what you need.  If the kids are in school, you should have plenty of time to work on your dissertation.  That, and board and lodgings, make it a no-brainer.  Go for it!  What do the parents do?’

‘She’s a family doctor and he’s a detective with North East Constabulary.  They seem very nice.  I said I’d let them know by the end of today.  I’ll stay here until the weekend, if that would help.’

Mancuso smiled. ‘No, it would probably be best if you started as soon as they want you.’

*

As they left the team meeting, Colin MacNee caught up with Vanessa Fiske.

‘Thanks for your advice last week, boss.  Turned out that Janet got a similar steer from the senior partner in her health centre.  Probably because she’s been taking more of the strain than I have, and because she can be very decisive when the situation demands it, she took action.   She approached both universities and asked them to put a note in the email they send out every week to their postgrads.  That went out on Thursday – before I had even told her about our chat – and by Saturday lunchtime, five c.v.'s had been emailed to us, all with photos and testimonials.’

‘Anyone promising?’

‘We showed the pictures to Emma and Cat and then we told them which three we had decided to talk to. They all came round yesterday, and we think we know who we want.’ 

They had just reached Vanessa’s office and Colin handed her a copy of Shelley Mehring’s c.v. – or “Resumé” as it was headed.

‘She looks OK.  Did the girls like her?’

‘They liked them all.  They can spot someone that will spoil them as twenty paces!  But when we talked to them afterwards it was pretty clear that she had their vote.  Just as well, really, since Janet and I had pretty well decided.’

‘So when can she start?’

‘She’s interning at the moment – at Last Cairngorm – so we hope she can start right away.  Things are pretty fraught, but Janet can take a couple of days off this week to show her the ropes.  It’s such a relief!’

*

Fiona Marchmont called just after one o’clock.   Vanessa was beginning, somewhat tentatively, to eat an egg and cress sandwich from the canteen.  She had stopped feeling sick a couple of hours before and she had chosen egg and cress because that was what she fancied.  But she hadn’t taken account of the smell produced by boiled egg, even when it’s mixed with mayo.  Still, perseverance was in her nature, and she was hungry.  She swallowed a mouthful and picked up the phone.