ideal arrangement all round.’
She paused and took a deep breath, drawing herself up in her chair. ‘Of course, I assumed that there would be supervision.’
It was Easterson’s turn to sit bolt upright. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked, his guests forgotten for that moment. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean, Vernon,’ she replied evenly, ‘that I understood that Whetstone really would be reporting to you, not doing his own thing.’
The little man’s face turned a colour that if not pure beetroot, certainly looked hazardous to his health. ‘I think we should continue this discussion in private, Aurelia,’ he hissed.
Rose intervened. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Easterson, if there’s a disagreement between you but if Ms Middlemass has something to say that might have a bearing on Mr Whetstone’s death, then we need to hear it.’ She looked at the woman. ‘Please, continue.’
The banker nodded. ‘When I said that I’ve been carrying out a review of Mr Whetstone’s business, I meant all of his business; not just the period when he was reporting to me, but the time since then. When I managed him, every lending transaction that he secured and every new business customer he brought to the bank was scrutinised by me and signed off by me, but only after I’d met the people involved and made my own risk assessment of each of them. It appears that hasn’t been happening since he left my orbit.’
‘Oh yes it has,’ Easterson protested. ‘Ivor brought every one of his deals to me for approval.’
Aurelia Middlemass turned towards him, her brown eyes seeming to drill into his head. ‘I hope not,’ she said icily. ‘If you’ve heard of the Bonspiel Partnership, the situation is even more unfortunate than I thought.’
‘What’s the Bonspiel Partnership?’ Steele asked. ‘Something to do with curling?’
‘Got it in one, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘Bonspiel’s application for a credit facility says that the partnership is involved in the manufacture of curling stones made from traditional Ailsa Craig granite. The business plan proposes a distribution network throughout Europe and North America. The application is fine as far as it goes . . . only it doesn’t go far enough. In a situation such as this, the bank would always ask for personal guarantees from the borrowers. That wasn’t done in this case.’
‘Okay,’ said Rose, ‘but there has to be more than that.’
‘There is. The joint applicants are a couple called Alexander and Victoria Murray. Their business location is an industrial site in Stewarton, Ayrshire, and their home is listed as Galston. I’ve checked out both of those addresses; yes, they exist, but neither one has anything to do with the bank’s alleged customers, or their alleged business. The industrial unit is vacant and unlet, and the house in question belongs to a couple whose surname just happens to be Murray. He’s a teacher, she’s a nurse.’
‘Are the applications signed?’
‘The signatures are a joke. They’re just squiggles, that’s all; one in black ink and the other in blue.’
‘What’s the borrowing facility?’
‘One million pounds, all of which has been drawn down already.’
‘And of course,’ Steele anticipated, ‘it’s already been transferred. ’
‘Correct. The money was moved last week to an account in the Isle of Man. As it happens, I have a contact in the receiving bank. The account holder is a Mrs Victoria Murray. Incidentally, those two names bear a remarkable similarity to the forenames of Whetstone’s wife and son.’
‘That’s true,’ Rose conceded, ‘but it’s pretty tenuous as evidence. Is the money still there?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Aurelia Middlemass laughed. ‘It was moved on the day after it was lodged, to a numbered account in a Swiss bank, and you may be sure it’s been transferred out of that too.’
Vernon Easterson’s face had gone from bright red to pale yellow. ‘I knew nothing of this,’ he whispered. ‘How long have you been aware of it, Aurelia?’
‘Since yesterday.’
‘Have you told anyone else about it?’ asked Rose.
‘Absolutely not. Our chief executive, Proctor Fraser, has to be told, though. I’ve asked him to meet with Vernon and me once this meeting is over.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ the GMCB gasped. ‘How could Ivor ever have hoped to get away with it?’
‘Without adequate supervision,’ Aurelia Middlemass said slowly, ‘he could have expected to, for a period at least. Sure, the auditors or someone would have discovered eventually that the application was fraudulent. Whetstone might even have worked a double bluff and blown the whistle himself; I’ve known that to happen. He could have claimed to have been shown the industrial unit, and that he had simply been duped. The worst that would have happened to him would have been an enforced early retirement. He’d have got away with it.’
‘Not if the money was traced,’ Steele suggested.
‘The money’s untraceable already. The Swiss are still holding on to their banking secrecy laws, in spite of pressure from the EU. They do co-operate in cases of money-laundering, but we’ll need to go to court to prove it. But as I said earlier, the money won’t be in Switzerland any more. There are still plenty of shelters around the world.’
Rose leaned back in her chair, and looked at her colleague. ‘It could be, Stevie,’ she said. ‘Whetstone defrauds the bank, then panics and kills himself.’
‘Or he really was conned, and once the money was transferred, he was killed by the fraudsters to cover their trail,’ Steele suggested.
‘No.’ Vernon Easterson shook his head. ‘He broke a strict banking rule in this transaction, by not obtaining personal guarantees.’
‘Then maybe he was a partner in the fraud?’
‘The problem I have with that, Inspector, is that Ivor has owned the Edinburgh house for years, since his first stint in the city, before he moved into the bank house in Kelso. His remaining mortgage on it is minimal. He and Virginia planned to sell it on retirement and move to Kelso; it’s worth a good deal more than the third of a million you’re suggesting he might have been in this for.’
‘Point taken.’ Steele turned to Rose. ‘So what do we tell the f iscal?’
The superintendent shrugged her shoulders. ‘On balance I think we suggest suicide and let him decide.’
‘He might want to know whether Mrs Whetstone was involved.’
‘There’s no indication of that on the file,’ Middlemass volunteered. ‘My contact in the Isle of Man said that the application form was downloaded from the Internet, and that he never met the applicant. But he did fax me the signature on the form. It’s a pretty good match for the scribbles on the loan application.’
‘You have been thorough,’ the superintendent murmured.
The woman shot a glance, full of meaning, at her colleague. ‘It’s as well someone was,’ she murmured.
Rose looked at him. ‘Did you have any luck with the equipment inventory I asked you about?’
Easterson shook his head dolefully. ‘We don’t possess an item like the one you describe. We use contract cleaners, and they might, but when I asked them they said they lose equipment all the time, and that they’ve more or less given up keeping track of it. So I’m afraid that I can’t help you trace a pair of aluminium steps.’
The detective sighed. ‘Don’t worry about it. We know that they exist and that they were used. But frankly, finding them has become less important. What we’ve been told here shifts the perspective of this investigation . . . indeed it may open a new one altogether. If you’re making a formal report of a theft, I’ll need to open a formal investigation. In any event the information you’ve given me will need to be put in front of the procurator fiscal, since it may be material to the circumstances of Whetstone’s death.’ Rose turned to Middlemass. ‘I’ll need copies of all the papers in that folder for our report to the fiscal.’
‘I anticipated that,’ she replied. ‘This file is for you.’ She slid it across the table, and the superintendent picked it up.
‘Come on, Inspector,’ she said to Steele. ‘That’s us done here for now. Looks as if we have another unpleasant call to pay on Mrs Whetstone.’
24
Skinner sat behind his desk, looking out of the window. He could have had another office, adjoining that of the chief, one that was slightly larger and which enjoyed year-round sunshine, but he had chosen to stay in his first
