There were certainly plenty of them. Cooper could see an example of a couple who bought a horse for? 1,500, which was described as being an Irish hunter, aged nine or ten, and in generally good condition. Vets who had examined the horse after purchase said he was nearer twenty years old and not fit to ride. He had a wound in his mouth that would have made the bit very painful.
‘It’s like a car dealer “clocking” his cars,’ explained Walsh. ‘People buy a horse thinking they’re going to get x number of years out of it, but if the animal is ten years older than they’ve been told, then they won’t get the same value out of it. It’s always been a case of caveat emptor in this trade – “buyer beware”. But buyers need to be very careful where they take their business. Very careful.’
‘Was the website closed down?’ asked Cooper.
‘Yes. We managed to get an order under the Enterprise Act, plus the sellers took a hit on legal costs. That means contempt of court and possible imprisonment, if they commit any further breaches of the act.’ Walsh looked around the table. ‘This was a very lengthy investigation by the time it came to court. I was personally involved in the enquiry for nearly two years. I’ve got a file of paperwork on this a mile high – you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘Oh, I think we would,’ said Fry, perhaps remembering the officers still processing the files from the E Division strike day.
Walsh smiled at her. Cooper noticed that he had a full set of teeth when he was off the rugby pitch. Presumably thanks to an NHS bridge or two, like many of the rugby players he knew.
‘But I don’t see Patrick Rawson’s name on any of these allegations,’ said Hitchens, who had been listening patiently.
‘No. Sadly, Mr Rawson was never named in any of the charges. Our enquiries with Companies House revealed from the beginning that Patrick Rawson was listed as a director in several of the businesses that complaints had been made against. He was also a known associate of all the other named dealers, even where he wasn’t a director. But so many of the arrangements were verbal that we were never able to build a strong enough case against him. Not enough to put him in court with the other defendants. The evidence just wouldn’t stick.’
‘He’s either a very lucky man, or very clever,’ said Hitchens.
Walsh nodded. ‘Both. Believe me, we tried very hard to tie in Mr Rawson with these offences. We were convinced that he was personally responsible for many of the frauds, but Rawson seems to have avoided putting almost anything in writing that could have been incriminating. This is a very slippery customer indeed. I interviewed him myself on several occasions, and he was always extremely plausible. Charming, even.’
‘What did Rawson have to say for himself?’
‘He dismissed the allegations against him as scare-mongering by rival dealers,’ said Walsh. ‘Mr Rawson’s solicitor said his client was disappointed that matters couldn’t have been sorted out privately. If he’d been contacted with complaints, he would have responded, he said. But, as far as I’m concerned, Rawson showed all the typical signs of a dodgy trader.’
‘It seems he was soon back in business,’ said Fry.
‘I’m not sure he ever went out of business completely. Just laid low for a while. The trade in misrepresented horses had probably become a bit too difficult for him. The horse passport legislation has helped a lot there, of course – most people know now that you don’t buy a horse without a passport, because it’s almost certainly stolen. Last I heard, Rawson was expanding into some new areas of enterprise. We’d got him on our radar by then, though. So when your officers started making enquiries about him, it raised a flag.’
‘Did you come across Michael Clay in the course of this investigation?’ asked Fry.
Walsh frowned. ‘Michael Clay? Is he an accountant?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘He’s a peripheral figure. Our forensic accountancy people had to deal with him when they were going through the books. He was never in the frame for any charges, though. Is he involved in your enquiry?’
‘We haven’t interviewed him yet, but he’s high on our list,’ said Fry. ‘He seems to have become Patrick Rawson’s business partner.’
‘Well, if that’s the case, my view is that Rawson was probably using Michael Clay as a front man, for the appearance of respectability. Clay is just the sort of person he would be looking for, to protect his own reputation.’
‘You mean someone to take the fall if things went wrong?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ Walsh began to gather his papers together. ‘You know, that was always my biggest regret in this enquiry: that we could never close Patrick Rawson down.’
‘And now -’ said Hitchens, about to voice what everyone else was thinking.
But it was Dermot Walsh who got it in first.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘someone has closed Rawson down for us.’
Sutton Coldfield had been in Warwickshire once. Now it was part of the huge West Midlands conurbation, centred on Birmingham.
Fry knew that Sutton people tended to see themselves as culturally very distinct from Birmingham, though they were only eight miles or so from the centre of the city. They hadn’t forgotten that Sutton had been a municipal borough in its own right for many years, boasting the title of ‘Royal Town’. Here and there, street signs still recorded the fact. Fry had passed one as she drove into the town from the A38.
If this had been a working-class area, no one would have cared very much about its administrative status. But Sutton Coldfield was regarded as one of the most prestigious locations in Central England. Just a couple of years ago, a national property survey had placed two Sutton streets among the twenty most expensive in the UK.
Fry remembered this north-east corner of Birmingham only vaguely. She had never been stationed in this area, and had no friends who lived here. She did recall a shopping precinct known as the Gracechurch Centre, but now it seemed to be called simply The Mall. Other than that, during her time in the West Midlands she had known it mostly as the home town of a few TV actors: Arthur Lowe and Dennis Waterman among them. It was a sort of celebrity, she supposed.
The Rawsons’ home was in the Mere Green district of Sutton. Fry drove around the northern edge of Sutton Park and found herself in pleasant, leafy streets typical of so many affluent outer suburbs.
‘Nice,’ said Gavin Murfin, who constituted the only assistance she’d found available for the trip. ‘There’s a bit of dosh tied up in these properties, I reckon.’
‘Yes, Gavin. Can you see Hill Wood Road?’
‘You should use a sat-nav like mine, Diane. Do you know, I’ve even got Sean Connery’s voice on it now to do the directions? Brilliant.’
‘Just check the A to Z: Hill Wood Road.’
‘OK, got it.’
This was the semi-rural part of Sutton. Large houses set back from the road and sheltered by trees, with plenty of space between them to provide privacy. Perhaps no actual farming still went on, but it was certainly a place for people who could find a use for stables and paddocks, and large agricultural sheds with concrete hard standings big enough for a few lorries.
‘Off to the right somewhere,’ said Murfin.
They saw the M6 toll road in the distance and turned down a narrow lane for five hundred yards before they came to the entrance to the Rawsons’ property.
‘He did well for himself,’ said Fry, drawing the Peugeot up in front of a triple garage, built in the same style and the same warm, brown brick of the house itself. They crunched across a gravel turning circle to the liveried police car standing near the front door. Fry introduced herself and Murfin to the two West Midlands officers.
‘Good morning, Sergeant. We’ve been expecting you. How was the trip?’