‘How does this affect us?’ Weller sounded bullish, but Riley had a feeling he was already there, and was merely nudging the conversation along.
‘If Henzigger was arranging shipments, he needed someone to facilitate things down the line: documents, shipping papers, permits, letters of recommendation — it had to be someone with access to papers and people.’
‘Why couldn’t he do it himself?’ Riley asked.
‘Henzigger didn’t have local knowledge of the area where the shipments were going, or the contacts. He’d have had to recruit someone to convince his suppliers he could pull it off, otherwise they wouldn’t have touched him.’
‘So this contact would need knowledge of where he was shipping his drugs to, then?’
‘Yes. But this has been going on for a long time. We think he developed contacts in the trade sections of various embassies, spread across Europe to begin with. But the UK was the jackpot. Whoever the UK contact was, would have been expensive, but the end result would have been worth it. The returns are huge and the markets insatiable. All he had to do was stay clear of the opposition at this end, but I doubt he’d planned on being around too long to care, anyway.’
‘Do you know the name of this contact?’ Weller looked as tense as a gun dog and even Portius picked up on it. But now the tables were turned, and Riley felt the American’s relief at being able to point a finger of blame at someone on the other side.
‘We’re not sure,’ he replied cautiously. ‘The evidence points towards Sir Kenneth Myburghe.’
Weller looked ready to go ballistic. ‘Can I suggest, then, Henry,’ he grated, barely restraining himself, ‘that you get your team working on it? In the meantime, we’ll see if we can’t come up with the answer from this end.’ He threw Portius a look heated enough to have welded the American to his seat, then stood up and headed for the door, signalling for Riley to follow.
As she did so, a phone rang on a small table behind Portius. He reached over and snatched it up as if grabbing a lifeline to save him from further humiliation.
‘You knew all this, didn’t you?’ Riley hissed, as they neared the door. ‘All that claptrap about Palmer and Myburghe and what Henzigger was doing. You’ve known all the time. How long have you been working on this?’
‘Too bloody long,’ he replied sourly. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’
‘Wait.’ It was Portius, springing up as if jet-propelled.
They stopped and looked at him.
‘Something else I was going to tell you,’ he said quietly, the words coming out reluctantly.’ There’s another shipment.’ He replaced the phone gently on its cradle. ‘A big one. We think Henzigger’s behind it.’
Riley didn’t need to look at Weller — she could almost hear his teeth grinding in fury.
‘Another one?’ he yelped. ‘There’s a shipment coming in here and you didn’t think to bloody tell us?’ The words snapped across the room and Portius flinched as if he’d been struck across the face.
Riley felt almost sorry for him. If this didn’t create a new period of frosty relations between Washington and London, she wasn’t sure what would.
‘We had information,’ he muttered defensively. ‘But it was mostly rumour… nothing substantive.’ He looked at Riley for support and his voice grew harder in defiance. ‘You know how it is: it starts as a whisper, with bits here, pieces there. False stories, whispers… even misinformation, until in the end it gets so fragmented you don’t know what to believe.’
‘Is that what brought you over here?’ Riley asked. Then it hit her. ‘You knew what he was up to, didn’t you? You asked Immigration to let him go so you could follow him.’
‘And he bloody side-stepped you.’ Weller’s voice was loaded with accusation.
Portius looked like a man drowning. ‘It looks that way, yes.’ He tried not to catch Weller’s eye, and the senior policeman looked as if he wanted to turn the American into a stain on the carpet. ‘We suspected most of it but nobody would talk. What nobody could come up with was the name at this end.’
‘Sounds like Asner might have,’ said Weller sourly. ‘Doesn’t it?’
‘That was a mistake.’
Weller’s anger suddenly dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. He let out a deep sigh. ‘Okay. Now what?’
Portius cracked a knuckle and stared at the darkened window. ‘Henzigger’s a planner. He works out everything in advance, discounting risks, putting people in place, setting up escape routes and fallbacks. He uses people for information without them knowing it.’ He looked at Riley. ‘We think that’s why he approached you. He heard somehow that you and your friend, Palmer were close to Myburghe and figured you’d be a source of information.’ He paused. ‘There’s something else.’ He nodded at the phone. ‘I was just advised that they’ve brought the shipment date forward.’
‘When?’
‘We heard a whisper three days ago. By then it was too late to mount-’
Weller snarled like a terrier with a rat. ‘I don’t mean when did you hear, although God knows, I’m sure it wasn’t recent enough to be of any use. I meant when is the shipment due in, and where?’
Portius swallowed hard. ‘We think it was due today. My people are just checking the ETA.’ He looked like a small boy in front of a headmaster, and quickly leaned over to scribble on a piece of paper. He ripped off the sheet and handed it to Weller. ‘That’s the ship’s name.’
‘It’s tomorrow.’ Riley said, then looked at her watch. ‘No — it’s today.’
Weller’s head snapped round. ‘You what?’
She told him about her earlier meeting with Henzigger by the river. If Weller wanted her head on a plate, it was too bad. ‘I first suggested we meet up tomorrow, but he claimed he was tied up all day. Doing what? What could keep him more tied up than overseeing a shipment? It must have been somewhere close to London.’
Weller nodded. ‘Right. This has gone far enough.’ He turned to Portius. ‘How about you get Marching Boy back here to show us out. I’d hate to get shot by one of your goons for looking down the wrong corridor.’
Portius bridled at the implied criticism. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Me?’ Weller smiled and waved the piece of paper Portius had given him. ‘Now you’ve decided to cough up, I’ve got some shipping movements to look at.’
Portius looked like he’d rather have a full company of US marines come in and jump all over them in their boots. But he picked up the phone to summon an escort out of the building. Seconds later they were chasing the same marine guard back downstairs in double time.
‘You were rough on him,’ Riley said quietly, as they picked up their mobiles from the security desk.
Weller scowled. ‘Serves him right. If they’d shared their information years ago instead of playing silly buggers, we could have saved ourselves all this trouble.’ He gave a sly grin. ‘Did you see his face? Portius thought tonight was going to be all about me pleading mea bloody culpa over Myburghe. Now he’s had to admit one of their boys is a real stinker, he’s wriggling like a tart on a trapeze.’
Riley smiled at the imagery. ‘How about Myburghe — any sign of him yet?’
‘No. His car was found forty minutes ago under the Western Avenue flyover. It was empty.’
Riley mourned the fact that none of her time over the past few days was chargeable to the Home Office. They’d certainly had their money’s worth out of her. She almost felt admiration for Weller’s tactics. He’d played her all along just to stir the waters, and now he’d done the same with Portius. She was ready to bet that the mauling Portius had undergone at Weller’s hands was unprecedented. And now he was standing back to see what unfolded.
He handed her a card with his number on it. ‘Call me if you trip over him.’
As he disappeared into the night, Riley’s mobile rang.