By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2) (5 page)

‘Well, if champagne was in order, so are congratulations!’

He leaned over and hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Emma and Cat are going to be almost as excited as you, if they can get over the fact that they can’t have you as a second mummy.  And I couldn’t be happier for you and Neil’.

‘Thank you, Colin. Just keep it to yourself for now.  I have to work out when to take my leave, and I certainly want to get this oil rig murder out of the way before I go.  I can’t keep it hidden, so to speak, for very long, anyway.  I think that Sara has guessed.  But she’ll be discreet.’

‘How’s that going?’

‘I wanted to talk to you about that.  When we spoke on the phone on Sunday night, you said something about being given the runaround by the American managers at GRH.’

‘I persuaded the local guy to stop pissing me about, but it was a tedious business. A lot of stuff about confidential inspections, encrypted emails that are automatically deleted…’

Vanessa banged her glass down on the table. ‘Christ almighty, I had a really difficult conversation this afternoon with a rather formidable woman who runs the Aberdeen office of the company that operates the platform, Ebright Offshore Drilling. She tried to tell me that I had to hand over the laptop that the rig manager didn’t want me to take as evidence.  But what’s really interesting, is that she confirmed the procedure that had been described to me on the rig.   The dead man’s protocols as an inspector required reporting by encrypted emails that are automatically deleted.’

‘So Esslemont’s instinct may be right.  Our two murders may be connected.  But I still don’t see how.’

Vanessa drained her glass.  ‘I think I should go home and start knitting bootees.   But we’ll have to talk to the DCS first thing tomorrow.’

*

When Neil got home, Vanessa was lying on the sofa watching Reporting Scotland on the BBC.  He leaned down to kiss her and then sat and massaged her feet.

‘What would this programme do without, crime, football and quirky highlanders?   And the Nats want a Scottish Six O’clock News!  God help us!  Good day?’

‘I had a really difficult contract to deal with but I think I sorted it.  At least until the other side’s lawyers crawl all over it.  But I also did some light digging into Ebright and Hedelco.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you mind if I have a drink, even when you can’t?’  She shook her head.

Neil poured himself a glass of South African Pinot Noir and sat down in an armchair facing Vanessa.

‘I wanted to find out who owned Ebright Offshore Drilling.  I’ve never had to deal with them – Vermont One is the only platform they operate in the North Sea, though they’re after a license to drill in the North Atlantic, west of Shetland - so I did some basic computer searches. The kind we do as a matter of course when drawing up contracts.  They used to be a independent company registered in Rhode Island, but about two years ago, after they posted a successful strike in Alaska and the one in the North Sea, they were bought by a private equity conglomerate registered in Delaware.’

‘The well-known corporate haven,’ Vanessa said.

‘So glad you’ve been paying attention, DCI Fiske.’ She threw a cushion at him in response to that.

This firm is called Burtonhall, and there’s almost nothing they’re not into. Oil, copper, wheat futures, armaments, private security, precious metals.  You name it, they make money from it. But they are pathologically secretive.  Took me some time – and I’m an expert – to find out who runs it.   They have some really big names on their board.  A former US Secretary of State, our last prime minister but three, a Russian oligarch, an allegedly corrupt politician-cum-businessman from Indonesia, and a guy who is, according to
Forbes
, the sixth richest man in America.  Incorporation in Delaware fits with their extremely low profile.’

‘A culture of secrecy isn’t, in itself, evidence of wrongdoing’, Vanessa said, a touch primly.

‘Keeping an open mind, I see.  Very commendable.’ Vanessa looked for another cushion, but couldn’t find one, so she said, ‘Watch it, sunshine!’

‘How about this, my sweet?  Burtonhall also owns Hedelco.  Acquired it last year at a knock-down price because it wasn’t doing awfully well.  They’ve stripped out most of the loss-making businesses – that’s what private equity companies do – and they’re now trying to make what remains profitable.  And that includes the contract at GRH.’

‘Neil, you’re wonderful, but you know that already.  I’m going to have to talk to Colin and then we’ll both have to have a session with Esslemont. I have a feeling that this is going to turn into a very big deal indeed.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Burtonhall’s corporate headquarters was a modern building of modest size, set in dense woodland just outside Wilmington, Delaware.  The architecture, as those who knew both buildings had often noted, was strongly reminiscent of the CIA Headquarters building at the George Bush Centre for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.  Burtonhall’s was on a smaller scale, but it had the same grandiose architectural signatures:  the main entrance with the glass arched roof, the paved approach, the grassy courtyard with rustic benches, even a Burtonhall logo that echoed the CIA crest set into the entrance floor of the old CIA HQ.   The similarities, which were not accidental and were intended to evoke a mixture of confidence, mystery and awe, were underscored by the array of antennae, aerials and microwave receivers on the roof, though these were rather less discreetly placed than those at Langley.

The strongest influence on the design of the building, completed in 2010, had been that of Cy Packard, the Chief Executive Officer of Burtonhall.  Packard, a CIA veteran, had come to Burtonhall after running private security and protection operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, under contract to the Pentagon, and security for oil companies in the former Soviet republics of central Asia.   He had commissioned the design of the building, supervised the architects, overseen the building contractors, and convinced the Board that an instantly memorable, but discreetly located, corporate HQ was the best way to give confidence to investors and the workforce.   Insofar as they ever allowed themselves a joke at the expense of the CEO, Burtonhall employees said that he had had to be restrained by the Chairman of the Board from naming the building, in huge letters engraved on a granite tablet, "Packard House".  As it was, its existence was announced by a small sign, easily missed by passers-by, saying simply, "Burtonhall".

On the Tuesday morning after the discovery of the bodies on Vermont One and at GRH, Packard was in his office, interrogating his director of security and head of human resources.   The office was minimalist – a huge glass-topped desk, white bookshelves and occasional furniture, two upright armchairs, also in white wood, facing the desk.  No ornaments or executive toys.  The walls were decorated with photographs, professionally taken and elegantly posed, of the members of the Board.  All but one of these was 12 inches by 10.  The exception was the 18 by 12 portrait of the Chairman, a former United States Secretary of State famous for his aggressively interventionist style in defence of the perceived interests of the USA.  Anyone moderately well-informed about current affairs, or even any casual reader of the major international news magazines, would have recognised other faces, too:  a former UK prime minister, a Midwestern billionaire backer of the Republican Party, the former vice-president of a South East Asian ‘republic’, a Russian oil oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin.   It was a display of corporate power intended to impress and to intimidate all those who entered here.

Packard’s management style was based on knowing everything about everything.  Burtonhall had a huge range of interests all over the world. Its main business was profit maximisation in order to increase the returns to the private equity investors who, collectively, had given it $40 billion to manage productively. The CEO insisted on seeing, daily, a one-page report from each of the businesses in which Burtonhall had a major interest.  These were known, in a conscious echo of his time in intelligence, as ‘sitreps’.  One of his frequent responses to the information they contained, was to descend, unannounced, on local management if he thought they were underperforming or bringing unwelcome publicity.   The company maintained a private jet, twenty miles away at Philadelphia International Airport, for the purpose.

‘Come on, guys!  How often do my sitreps bring me news of two murders?  We’ve only got two businesses in Scotland and I’m looking at a dead body in each of them on the same fucking weekend.   What’s going on?  What’s the connection?’

Jack Eisner, Burtonhall’s Director of Security, looked up from the sitreps.  ‘I just don’t know, Cy.  I’ve had no security concerns about either of these businesses.  But I can see that it looks like one hell of a coincidence.’

‘Yeah, you could say that!  And here’s another couple of things to add into the coincidence mix.  Both of these businesses are giving me some concerns.  Vermont One is way short of the production targets we promised.  And the profit margins from managing that goddam socialised hospital are so thin you can hardly see them.  None of that is known outside of this building, and I’d like to keep it that way.  I need to be sure that we’re managing this on the ground.  Who’s handling PR for these operations?’

Don Hamnett, the head of HR, looked uncomfortable. ‘Hedelco has no local PR function.  We took it out to reduce overheads and safeguard profits.   The press relations of the hospital are looked after by the Health Board.’  Packard looked pained.  ‘And PR for Vermont One is handled by local management.  Tammy Wootten.’

‘I really don’t want to wind this up by flying to Aberdeen unless it’s absolutely necessary.   Apart from the fact that you don’t know if they’re connected, Jack, what details have you got on these killings.’

‘Absolutely none.  Only what’s in the sitreps.’

‘Christ, I don’t pay you not to know about this kind of thing.  You need to get over there, find out what the fuck is going on, and get back here by the end of the week, if possible.  You can be in Aberdeen by tomorrow noon their time.  And I want progress reports at least every day. More often if you turn up anything I should know, which is everything.’

*

The local press in Aberdeen had got wind of the hospital murder by the Saturday afternoon and of the body on Vermont One by Sunday morning.  The North East Constabulary press office had confirmed that the two bodies had been found and that the deaths were being treated as suspicious.   The need to wait for the
post mortems
to be completed made it possible to fend off questions about how the victims had died.   None of he local crime reporters or the general reporters who worked as stringers for the nationals made any connection between Hedelco and Vermont One.  A couple of the brighter sparks had expressed some scepticism about two murders on the same weekend being a coincidence.  One of them had also mentioned the American connection to both of the crime scenes, but that was as far as it had gone, until early on Wednesday morning.

Harry Conival, the press officer assigned to both murder investigations, took a call from a financial reporter on one of the London-based broadsheets.

'Thanks for taking my call, Mr Conival.'  That was two more surprises, Harry thought, on top of a call from a finance hack: a polite journalist and one who called him "Mr".

'Pleasure.  What can an almost innumerate PR man do for you?'

'I was talking to one of my colleagues on the news desk about the two suspicious deaths over the weekend.  Wouldn't normally interest me, but when he showed me the reports from our stringer and from the agencies, I couldn't help noticing that one body was found in a hospital run by Hedelco and the other on a platform run by Ebright.'

'That's right.'   Harry had no idea where this was going.

'Do the investigating officers know that these companies are both owned by the same private equity company, Burtonhall?'

Harry had only the vaguest understanding of what a private equity company was, but he was experienced enough to know, first, that he should respond non-committally, and, second, that Fiske and MacNee had to be told.  It was for them to decide if this information, if it could be confirmed, was relevant to their enquiries.

'I'll need to check on that, and come back to you, Mr ... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, not used to dealing with new customers.'

'Aaronson.  Ben Aaronson'.  He gave his mobile phone number and Harry promised to get back to him quickly, possibly within the hour.

*

Fiske and MacNee were already in Esslemont's office discussing how best to respond to the information that Hedelco and Ebright were owned by the same company.  There was no reason to believe that this established a connection between the two murders, especially given the very different causes of death.  However, as the DCS immediately pointed out, they needed to be able to respond effectively if they were.  His first suggestion was that the two investigations should run in parallel, with two SIOs, reporting to him as Head of CID in overall charge. 

Vanessa, partly because of her past slightly abrasive relationship with Esslemont, but mainly because she didn't think it would work, had to find both a tactful way of arguing against it and a viable alternative.  Ideally, she would have liked to discuss it with Colin, but it was vital that they make a decision quickly.

'Sir, given your wider management responsibilities, wouldn't it be better, and more economical (‘Nice touch, that’, Colin thought.), if we simply brought the two murder investigations together, with me as SIO and Colin as Deputy SIO?  We would each continue to lead our own part of the enquiry, with our own team in the field, but with regular broader team meetings and combined administrative backup.  That would make it easier to record information and to identify and investigate any substantive connections.'

Vanessa was uneasily aware that she was employing a style of argument and vocabulary that the DCS sometimes called 'Met speak', in a disparaging reference to her training and experience in London.  Colin MacNee nodded his assent, but before the DCS could respond, Harry Conival appeared at the door.

'Sorry to interrupt, but I've got something that you should know, if you don't already.'  Vanessa had noticed before that Harry, who called her "Vanessa" or, if he wanted to be formal, "Chief Inspector", or, if he wanted to annoy her, "hen", never called Esslemont either "Sir" or "Chief Superintendent".   She assumed that this was to emphasise his position as a civilian outside the chain of command, but she had never asked him.  However, it was the kind of cussedness that would be wholly consistent with his general outlook:  he had his job to do and the police had theirs.  As long as his work supported theirs he could get away with quite a lot.

Harry told them about Aaronson's call.

'Thanks, Harry.  As it happens, we did already know, but we didn't think anybody else did.  What have you told the reporter?'

'Just that I'd get back to him within the hour.  What do you want me to say?'

'Give us ten minutes and we'll give you a line.   Vanessa or Colin will let you know and you can draft a release, if we think that's the way to go.'

Harry nodded almost imperceptibly and left, heading not for the press office but to the car park for a smoke.

Vanessa decided to get in first.  'That doesn't establish a connection, sir, but it does put the possibility in the public domain, or it will do when it goes up on the paper's website.  We should pre-empt that by saying that we've established a possible connection between the murders, that it will be one among several lines of enquiry, and that we are now engaged in a single joint investigation.  We'll still be reporting to you, and through you to the Chief, as you rightly suggested might be more necessary than in the case of an 'ordinary' murder.'

She was pushing her luck, or pressing the advantage that Harry's information had brought her.  She was also laying on a little flattery. Esslemont looked a little peeved, but he was a man for choosing carefully where to stand and fight.

'All right.  Get it done. We should get a press release out before Harry's deadline.  Up to him to finesse depriving the reporter of an exclusive.'

*

As they walked back to the detectives' room next to Vanessa's office, Fiske and MacNee discussed who they needed on their team.

'I've got Sara and Aisha and you've got Duncan and Stewart.  We probably need another DS and we need to be able to deploy uniform to do the legwork.  Could you come up with a plan, Colin, with some idea of who should be doing what?'  Colin nodded and Vanessa went on.  'Neil suggested that we might need some real financial experience on this, someone who can find their way quickly through company accounts, annual reports and the like.  We need to know pretty quickly if there's anything in Hedelco, Ebright or indeed Burtonhall that might go to motive for either or both of these murders.  And we need someone to analyse the content of these encrypted emails.'

They had reached Vanessa's office.  'One more thing.  We need to find out what happened to Keller's laptop.'

*