‘Roy! Good to meet you! I’m DI Kate Tate from the City of London Financial Crimes Unit, and I’ll be acting as the Cover Officer on this operation.’
He shook her hand warmly.
‘And this is UC 2431, Roy,’ Tate continued. ‘Julius Cornel — better known as J. Paul Cornel!’
‘Good to meet you!’ Grace leaned forward and shook his hand.
‘Well, you know, it’s very good to meet you too, Detective Superintendent!’
The man’s accent was deep BBC English, tinged with a mid-Atlantic drawl. Perfect for an Englishman who had spent the past forty years in California. But not quite perfect enough. Grace stared hard at him in disbelief. Stared at the elegant suit, the tailored white shirt, the silk tie, the shiny black Gucci loafers, the shaven head, the designer stubble. Oh yes, he looked the part all right. And no doubt he could fool a lot of people.
But he wasn’t fooling him.
Did he blow his cover now or go along with it? He decided, to test him, to go along with it for the moment. ‘Congratulations, Mr Cornel. Great to see a Brit do so well overseas! I’ve read of your success on the internet, with great admiration.’
‘Well, that’s pretty generous of you, Detective Superintendent. Guess I’ve been lucky, you know. Someone up there likes me! Well, until recently, anyhows.’
‘I was sorry to read about the death of your wife.’
Cornel shrugged. Then, keeping up the accent perfectly, he replied, ‘Jackie and I had thirty-two happy years together. How many couples can say that?’
‘Not many,’ Grace said. He shook his head and grinned and Cornel grinned, too. Both men knew it was game over.
‘Bloody hell!’ Grace said. ‘You’re good, Norman!’
Potting removed his dark glasses, beaming. ‘You think so?’
‘I never knew you were a trained UC.’
‘Have been for years, chief. It’s part of our brief that no one else in the force must ever know. We’re sort of like those sleeper spies in the John le Carré stories. Never knowing if or when we might be called into service. Tell you the truth, I thought I was past it, entering the sad old gits’ club, and I’d never be called on. Then this opportunity came along — had to volunteer for it!’
‘Norman’s perfect, you see, Roy,’ Tate said. Then, with exquisite lack of tact, she continued, ‘And of course we can’t allow any UC to have sex with their target, so Norman will be able to tell her, with only a little white lie, that he has prostate cancer, leaving him impotent.’
‘How does DS Potting feel about that?’ Grace quizzed her. ‘Have you asked?’
‘Let’s hold it here for a moment, Roy, and let Norman speak,’ Tate said, holding up her hand.
‘I’m good, Roy,’ Norman Potting assured him. ‘I’m OK playing along with that. I was the one who actually raised it with Kate.’
‘Norman, I don’t know how well you’ve been briefed, but there’s a couple of things I need to warn you about,’ Grace said. ‘The first is that Jodie Carmichael is an extremely cunning and manipulative lady. If the information we have so far is correct, she has been responsible for the death of at least three men — and possibly more. The second is that I have good evidence there may be a contract on her life from a New York-based Russian organized-crime gang. They’ve sent the man we previously knew only as Tooth, who is currently travelling under different names including John Daniels and Mike Hinton. As you’re well aware, this man is very clever and dangerous. What you are doing may put your life in extreme jeopardy.’
Potting — and it was hard to accept it was Norman Potting and not the billionaire persona he now had — peered up at him. ‘Roy, you need to understand that the day Bella died, some part of me died too. I’ve got cancer. If I can do some good things with the rest of my life, then I’ll go out with a smile on my face, whenever that might be. OK?’
Grace smiled at him. Potting was ever the rugged old bugger. ‘OK, Norman. But take care. We’re putting every possible protection in place to look after you.’
‘Won’t need ’em, Roy. I can take care of myself. I’m a survivor!’
‘You’d bloody better be! I want you surviving this bitch and your cancer, OK?’
Potting grinned and then, in the accent he had pitch-perfect, replied, ‘You got it, buddy!’
94
Thursday 12 March
As Roy Grace sat back down in his office, he was in a quandary. Was he exposing Norman to too much danger?
But if he pulled him from the operation, without doubt someone else would be in danger. The black widow’s next victim. If they got it right, Potting would lead them to this woman, and they could keep a visual on him and protect him. But he needed that protection.
Grace phoned his ACC and updated him on the latest information, and his concerns.
‘Roy,’ Pewe replied after some moments, ‘you’re the SIO on this case, and you have to make the decisions here, including the cost implications — so long as you continue to be the SIO.’
As he ended the call, Grace was fuming again. So long as you continue to be the SIO. Great, he thought. Yeah, right. If it all worked out well, ACC Pewe would take the credit. And if it all went tits up, Pewe would be dumping the blame squarely at his feet and using it as the excuse he dearly sought to ease him out.
And he knew exactly what Pewe would be thinking at this moment.
Please, God, have Roy Grace screw up.
What was crucial now was connecting Norman Potting with Jodie. That needed very careful handling of the local media. Any inkling that J. Paul Cornel was a set-up and it was game over for that plan.
But he had to admit to himself, with a wry smile, good old Norman, with a makeover including teeth whitening, made a very convincing elderly billionaire.
Would she take the bait? That was something he would be discussing in detail with Detective Superintendent Nick Sloan, the Force Authorizing Officer, who was managing the operation.
But, more importantly, how did he protect Potting?
95
Thursday 12 March
The mildly eccentric-looking lady, her face heavily made-up, dressed in a calf-length coat, woollen hat and old-fashioned glasses, looked every inch the elderly bohemian artist. She hobbled slowly through the door in the white facade of the corner store premises of Lawrence Art Supplies in Hove’s Portland Road, supported by her silver-topped walking stick.
She made her way to the counter and politely requested a large tub of aluminium powder and a hot-glue gun. She paid for them with an American Express card in the name of Mrs Thelma Darby. Five minutes later she emerged with her purchases in a carrier bag and approached the waiting taxi. The driver helped her in, passing her the stick and carrier bag after she was seated.
Then, as instructed, he took her to a nearby aquarium store. Thelma again asked him to wait, then entered the store. She came out a short while later with two carrier bags, containing four boxes of oxygenating tablets and a frozen white mouse.
Climbing back into the taxi, she asked the driver to take her to the plumbing supplies store on a nearby industrial estate, where she bought an eighteen-inch length of malleable steel pipe with screw-ends. Then, as a precaution, she changed taxis and ordered the next one to take her to an electrical store on London Road.
There she bought a mini Arduino relay that was just half an inch across, a mercury tilt switch and an assortment of USB memory sticks. The assistant behind the counter gave her an odd look, as if wondering how on earth a batty-looking old lady like this even knew what these things were, let alone what to do with them.