‘Not so far. The two grand he paid Symons must have come out of the Jacobson account. The forty-five was on a promise. I’m guessing that the rest, the money he was paying Donovan, came out of the Jacobson account too. Donovan would have wanted cash. Kinsey must have had ATM drawing rights.’
‘But what’s he doing with his wife’s account?’
‘Ex-wife’s. So far I don’t know. But my guess is that it was some kind of private stash. Maybe he needed to hide money from the Revenue.’
‘Sure. Or his ex-wife.’
Suttle nodded. Either way, they needed to access the Jacobson account.
‘Donovan may still have the card, boss. And she’s obviously got the PIN number.’
‘The card wasn’t retrieved by Scenes of Crime?’
‘No. I checked just now.’
‘And you’re sure the Jacobson account doesn’t figure in his business records?’
‘Absolutely. And if he operated it through the Internet, there’s no way you’d ever know it even existed.’
‘His PC hard disk?’
‘That’s a possibility. I’ll feed the account number through. See if they can raise anything.’
‘Did he have a laptop?’
‘Not that we’ve found.’
‘Unusual.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Houghton pushed the performance review files to one side and reached for a pad. Suttle watched her making a neat list of bullet points. Then she looked up.
‘Saturday night,’ she said. ‘Walk me through it.’
Suttle left for Bournemouth at half four, phoning Lizzie as he headed for his car. After the dramas of the past week, it was good to hear the lift in her voice.
‘You’ll be back when?’
‘Tennish. I’ll phone.’
‘Be careful, yeah?’
‘Always.’
‘I love you. Remember that.’
Suttle grinned to himself. Traffic out of the city was already heavy but he edged into the outside lane as soon as he hit the Honiton road, maintaining a steady 70 mph as he headed east. Houghton had wanted him to hang on and talk to Nandy, but Suttle had pleaded a personal crisis at home. He’d be back first thing tomorrow. If she needed to make contact in the meantime she could always bell him.
As he left her office, she’d been on the phone to Nandy. The Det-Supt was driving the Bodmin job at breakneck speed but Suttle knew there was no way he’d ignore the weight of evidence he’d unearthed. Pausing at the door of Houghton’s office, he’d looked back at her. Still on the phone, she’d smiled at him and raised a thumb. Constantine was obviously back from the dead. Brilliant.
Lizzie was feeding Grace when she got the call from Pendrick. She glanced at it and put the phone to one side. When he tried again, she didn’t even pick it up. Then, moments later, came the beep that indicated a text waiting. With a tiny shiver of apprehension, she retrieved the phone. It was Pendrick again: ‘If you don’t pick up, I’ll drive out to yr place. Yr call. XXX’.
She looked at the row of kisses, angry now. He answered as soon as she keyed recall.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
‘I can’t.’
‘We have to.’
‘No way.’
‘Is your husband there?’
‘No. But he’s back any minute.’
‘We could meet in a pub. Invent an excuse. Bring the baby. Whatever.’
‘You’re out of your mind. There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘Wrong. There’s everything to talk about.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you and me.’ He paused. ‘And other stuff.’
‘What other stuff?’
‘Stuff about Tash. I’ve had the Old Bill round.’
‘When?’
‘This afternoon. These guys aren’t stupid. I’m in a bad place. I mean it. I need your help. Is that too much to ask?’
The phone went dead. Lizzie didn’t move for a moment or two. Then she stole into the hall, double-bolted the front door and returned to the kitchen.. She bolted the door from the kitchen out into the garden too, then looked at Grace. The biggest of the carving knives was in the drawer under the sink. She took it out, wrapped it in a tea towel and laid it carefully on the table. Then she reached for the cooling spoon of mashed potato.
‘Open wide,’ she said.
Suttle was on the outskirts of Bournemouth a couple of minutes before eight. With the help of his satnav he threaded his way through a tangle of streets and found a parking spot round the corner from the main parade of shops. He’d no idea what John Hamilton looked like but was alarmed to note the yellow no-parking line across the road from the Café Rouge. Traffic was still thick, clotted with buses. This guy’s supposed to be good, he told himself. One way or another he’d have the rendezvous plotted up.
Suttle stepped into the café. Dave Fallon had already arrived. He was sitting at a table towards the back, with another man beside him. Suttle hadn’t seen Fallon for a while, not face to face, and the intervening years had done nothing for his dress sense. The same tired leather jacket with the fraying cuffs. The same baggy jeans. The same curry flecks on his once-white shirt. Fallon had put on weight and it showed.
‘This is Carlos.’ He nodded at the other man. ‘We’re in business together. Right, Carlos?’
The other man said nothing. Younger than Fallon, he was tall and lean. He had steady eyes and the kind of tan you’d pay a lot of money to acquire. Beautiful suit, thought Suttle.
Fallon didn’t want to waste Suttle’s time. Carlos, he said, was in the delivery game. His mission in life was to please people who wanted wrong things put right. In this case they were dealing with a German art dealer who’d lost his daughter, a girl called Renata, to some scumbag thug in a botched contract killing near Malaga.
‘With me so far, mush?’ Fallon was looking at Suttle.
‘Go on.’
‘This German guy’s got money. Quite a lot of money. In fact he’s fucking minted. Losing his daughter like that has really upset him, and way down the line he wants to do something about it.’
‘He’s offering a reward?’
‘Yeah. And a big one. Hundred K.’
‘Euros?’
‘Pounds.’
‘Great. And Carlos?’
‘Carlos is on the case. He’s also fucking plugged in, believe me. Nothing moves along that bit of coast without Carlos being in the know. Good guys, bad guys, local Filth, even the fucking Russians — he’s across them all. Right, amigo?’
Fallon gave Carlos a dig in the arm. Carlos was doing his best to ignore him. Suttle felt a tiny prickle of sympathy.
Fallon hadn’t finished. All this had happened a while back. The contract killer was an animal from London called Tommy Peters. Bazza Mac had hired him to kill a lieutenant called Brett West who’d stepped out of line. Peters had done the job on Westie but had killed his new girlfriend as well for good measure. It was, said Fallon, a witness thing, just tidying up loose ends, and Peters had been good enough not to charge Baz for the extra body. The girlfriend’s name was Renata. Hence the £100K from her dad.
‘So this guy’s after Peters? Is that right?’
‘Yeah. But there’s a problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Peters is dead. Bowel cancer. Which leaves your mate Winter. He was there too. And as far as we can make out, he ain’t got bowel cancer. Not yet anyway.’
Suttle nodded. He knew this story by heart. It was the reason Winter had finally decided to turn police informant, grass Mackenzie up and buy himself a new life abroad. Better that than a guy with a European Arrest Warrant at his door.
‘So Carlos wants to find Winter? Is that it?’
‘Yeah. Me too. We’re in this together, me and Carlos. The minute we deliver Winter, you’re looking at one happy man.’
A waiter approached. Suttle ordered a coffee. He thought he knew what was coming next but Fallon surprised him. Never underestimate this man, he reminded himself. You don’t get to own half the cabs in Pompey by accident.
‘That nice Marie you’ve been talking to? She gave us a look-see at Bazza’s records. Turns out your Mr Winter made a couple of trips before all that election bollocks. Baz thought it was on business. From where I’m sitting, Baz was wrong.’