He appeared to think about it for a moment. ‘Aye, I think so, but it’s risky, no doubt about it.’
I grinned at him. ‘But think of the rewards. Think of how far a hundred grand’ll go up your way. You could probably buy a whole street in the north-east for that.’
‘Aye, maybe so, but you’ll have to move up there too, Max. You can’t even get a garden shed round here for that sort of price. Hardly worth risking your neck for.’
‘It’s only a short piece of work,’ I replied, stopping at a red light. It struck me then that Fowler had said pretty much the same thing on the day we’d first met.
But you know what they say. Once bitten, twice ready.
Monday, six days ago
Gallan
My weekend was blissfully quiet. Rachel and I did the tourist thing, stuff we’d never done together when we’d been living in the same house, because at that time I’d never really felt the need. We went to the Tower of London, the London Aquarium, Madame Tussaud’s, and even the Houses of Parliament. And when we weren’t treading the pavement, we were taking it easy and enjoying each other’s company. I cooked curry on the Saturday night and we ate it in front of a video of The Nutty Professor. The food was terrible, the film not a lot better, but it didn’t matter. It was just a nice way to spend the evening. I let her stay up until quarter to eleven but warned her not to tell her mother. ‘Otherwise she won’t let you stay with me again.’ She winked and gave her nose a conspirator’s tap, telling me not to worry, it would be our secret. Girls can be so manipulative.
Manipulative or not, I was a lot sadder than I thought I’d be when I had to take her back on Sunday evening. I promised I’d have her for the weekend again in two weeks’ time and she told me that she’d look forward to it. I think, then, I must have done something right, but it was still a lonely journey home.
When I walked into the station on the Monday morning, however, I was feeling more refreshed than I had for a long time. Crime in the area had continued to be fairly stable in the intervening time. A fifteen-year-old Somali refugee had been put in hospital with severe head injuries after being beaten with a baseball bat during a gang fight (three minors had been arrested at the scene and bailed pending further enquiries); a spate of seven muggings had occurred on one estate, one ending in a stabbing, but the two perpetrators, both fresh out of a young offenders’ institute, had already been arrested and charged; and a twenty-one-year-old woman had knifed and seriously wounded her common-law husband with a kitchen knife. She too had been arrested, and charged with GBH.
Although harrowing for the victims and their families, particularly the parents of the Somali boy who’d come to Britain seeking sanctuary and who now had to keep vigil at their son’s bedside in intensive care, in many ways these crimes were a CID officer’s dream because they were all pretty much self-solving. There’d be plenty of paperwork, as there always was when someone was arrested, but other than that the manpower effort would be minimal, and it would make our clear-up rate that much better. All of which meant less pressure from above.
In fact, so confident were the Brass that morning that the chief superintendent, in tandem with Knox, announced that the long-awaited ‘Back on the Beat’ initiative was going ahead that week. Members of CID, including the DCI, were to spend a night out patrolling with uniformed officers in an effort to regain an understanding of the pressures the uniforms had to endure, and to help, in the words of the chief super, ‘to foster a continued and ever deeper spirit of co-operation between these two essential and ultimately symbiotic arms of law enforcement’. These words were uttered with a completely straight face, which told you a lot about the sort of leadership we had. I was pissed off to learn that members of the Matthews murder squad were also being used on this exercise, and I was told later during the squad meeting by Knox that Berrin and I would be going out on Wednesday night. I made a brief complaint about this, but I knew that one way or another I was going to have to be in attendance. The chief super had sanctioned it, therefore Knox would enthusiastically go along with it, as would Capper. My problem, like that of so many other coppers, was that the chain of command above me was made up almost entirely of politicians.
In the meeting that morning, the first ten minutes were taken up with Knox’s prime suspect, the elusive Mr Iversson, and his possible victim, the even more elusive Mr Fowler. Of Iversson there remained no sign, although his photo and details had now been distributed to all the relevant security services, so progress was expected in this quarter; but more worryingly, at least for Knox’s theory, was the fact that there didn’t appear to be anything to link him with Matthews. Capper and Hunsdon had also been digging further into Fowler’s background, and had even searched his flat, but it soon became clear, as they detailed what they’d been doing and who they’d been speaking to, that they hadn’t found out anything that wasn’t known already. Effectively, things hadn’t moved on.
Knox then casually dropped a bombshell. Jean Tanner, he said, had turned up safe and well, and had told DI Burley that she and Craig McBride had been experimenting with heroin and that McBride had taken an accidental overdose. ‘Apparently she panicked, put him in a cupboard and fled her home, going up north for a few days. She thought everything would die down, which I know was a bit stupid of her, and she got nicked when she arrived back yesterday. She’s still in custody. We’re still going to need to talk to her, of course, and Burley’s given us permission to do that later on today.’ He turned to Capper. ‘I think it’s best if you and Paul do it, Phil,’ he said. I opened my mouth to protest but Knox put a hand up to stop me. ‘I know you originally turned up the lead, John, but I think you must have rubbed Burley up the wrong way.’
‘The Pope would have rubbed him up the wrong way,’ I said, thinking that I would have put money on the fact that Burley was somewhere on the Holtz payroll. ‘All I did was ask him a few civil questions.’
‘I know, I know, but he’s a touchy sort. Let’s leave it at that, eh?’
We moved on, and now it was my turn to explain the poisons lead. I went through what I’d discovered, trying to ignore the occasional quizzical looks from Capper and Hunsdon, and even Knox, as I detailed the background to the Bosnian conflict and its connections with Britain, and ultimately with organized crime in the form of the Holtzes. ‘I’ve emailed the photograph of Merriweather and this soldier down to Malik, along with the article, and I’ve asked him if he can find out the identity of the soldier and get someone who can translate it. The words Contracts International appear in the article so I think it’s fair to say there’s some link between them and the Holtzes. I haven’t been able to get anything on the company as yet, but I want to look into it a bit more closely.’ No one said anything for a moment; they all looked like they were thinking. Quite what was anyone’s guess. ‘Look, I know it’s a long shot, but I spent three hours hunting down information on this sort of poison, and the only place I could find where it was used before was in Bosnia. And there’s definitely a link between Bosnia and the Holtzes, and also a possible link between the Holtzes and Shaun Matthews.’
‘Well, go that route for the moment, John,’ said Knox, not sounding too confident that anything would come from it, ‘and keep me and Phil posted on what turns up.’
‘I’m not sure, guv,’ said Capper. ‘It looks like it could be another red herring. Maybe it’d be better if John and Dave went to see Jean Tanner, as it was their lead. We’ve got quite a lot of other things that need doing.’
But Knox wasn’t keen on that idea. ‘No, it’d be better if you and Paul did it, Phil. Much better.’
Capper nodded, but didn’t look too pleased. I wondered again if he really had been a customer at Heavenly Girls, and couldn’t help but think how amusing it would be if Jean Tanner had been one of the women whose services he’d used. It would make for an interesting meeting even if it didn’t help us too much. I was pretty certain Jean knew a lot more than she was letting on. The thing was, nothing about her story smelled right. No one had said anything about her being a smack addict, and there’d been absolutely nothing in McBride’s demeanour or appearance when we’d questioned him to suggest that he was one either. And if he’d OD’d, why hadn’t she? I could have done with questioning her, but instead I’d have to make do with getting hold of interview transcripts and pushing Knox to find out what he could from Burley.