“There is something else, something I’ve not told you yet,” Greco interrupted. “The laptop taken from Gibbs’s flat was used to send the emails warning about both the bomb scare in the shopping centre and the device on the coach.”
Now there was silence. He had all their attention now. He’d had to tell them; Greco needed their input. They’d find out sooner or later and Liam Donnelly had to be caught before he killed someone else. “Why would Gibbs get involved with something like that? What would he hope to gain?”
“Well, he wouldn’t.” Quickenden looked puzzled. “He doesn’t have the know-how for a start. And he wasn’t interested in anything like that. All that terrorist stuff is way over his head. All Geegee wanted was to make money as easily as possible, and in his world that meant dealing.”
“So are we to assume it was Liam who got him involved? But if Gibbs didn’t know who Liam was why would he go along with the plot? He must have thought it worth his while or he’d have left it alone.”
Greco heard Quickenden’s fingers click as the penny dropped.
“Drugs, sir, that’s what this is about. If you think about it, then it all fits. Incriminate the Hussains, drop them right in it and the coast is clear. Geegee would move in and take over hassle free. I’ll lay odds that having Tanweer Hussain involved was deliberate. Some clever bastard has really thought this one through and believe me that wasn’t Geegee. The stupid thug was set up with the promise of inheriting the lot.”
“The Hussains run the tobacco scam and the drugs?” Greco queried.
“That family are at the top of the chain. Geegee has always done okay but all he really gets is the crumbs from their table. Get rid of them and everything falls apart. When that happens the way is open for someone to move in and take control. Liam Donnelly aided by Geegee is my bet.”
“Kashif Hussain’s supply?”
“With his family in the frame for planting the device, they won’t be able to operate. They’ll be watched. Someone like Geegee could’ve cleaned up.”
“But he’s no longer with us. So — who else? The Hussains are out of the picture and so is Grady Gibbs. That leaves the path clear for a takeover.”
“Sir, someone has planned this carefully. If it is Liam Donnelly, then he’s got rid of his parents and he wants the drugs operation in this town for himself — all of it. That means getting rid of the Hussains as well. It looks to me as if he’s done that and very effectively too.”
“If the Hussains can’t operate, then where would the supply come from to enable a takeover?” Craig asked, confused.
“At this time we’ve no idea but the bastard will have that worked out, bound to have,” Quickenden answered.
“We’ll bring Kashif Hussain in again. From what I’ve read in the reports about him, his one weakness is his family. He’ll not be happy that Tanweer is part of this.”
“Shall I go, sir?” volunteered Quickenden. “Me and Craig will go and get him.”
“Yes, but don’t tell him anything. He’ll know Tanweer is involved but don’t mention Gibbs or anyone else.” He looked at Grace, and Georgina who’d just joined them. “Sixteen years ago, a woman in this town heard the radio broadcast about the missing child and claimed him. It seems reasonable to assume that she used a false name. Grace, see if the hospital still has records of women seeking fertility treatment. It’s a long shot, but you never know. I’ll get the legal stuff put in place.”
“Sir,” George interrupted. “Alex Reader has turned up.”
That was something at least. “Where is he?”
“In the soft interview room waiting for you, sir.”
* * *
Alex Reader sat staring at his feet. He didn’t look well. From the state of his clothing Greco got the impression that he’d been sleeping rough or in that car of his.
“I wasn’t arrested,” he began, on seeing Greco enter the room. “I came in voluntarily.”
“What I don’t understand, Mr Reader, is why you ran in the first place.”
“Because of the questions, the stuff you’d try to pin on me, if you knew the truth,” was his sullen reply.
“That’s not how we work, Mr Reader.” Greco watched the man shuffle nervously as he considered this. “So what is it you haven’t told me?”
“You know about Brenda and me.”
“You had no reason to run because of that.”
“There is more. I haven’t told you everything. The row we had that Saturday was worse than I made out. She screamed at me and I lost it.”
“Did you strike her?”
“No, nothing like that, but it was because of me that she got out of the car. I was shouting at her. She wouldn’t leave me alone. She wanted me to leave my wife and live somewhere with her. I said no, I didn’t want her. The baby was a mistake; I thought I’d made myself clear and that she understood.” He shook his head. “But she didn’t, she wouldn’t stop going on about how happy we could be. I got really riled.” He fell silent.
“Are you sure you didn’t harm her?”
“No, but I did follow her. She’d left her shopping in the boot so I ran after her with the two bags. Brenda was crying, she didn’t know where she was going. She screamed at me, told me to get lost. She wandered onto the canal bank; then another woman heard the shouting and approached us.”
“What woman? Did you know her?”
He hung his head. “Yes, because she’d been in my showroom looking at cars. She wanted me to look out for a particular model for her.”
“So who was she?”
“Rose Donnelly.”
That meant that Alex Reader had been on the canal bank that afternoon with both Brenda and Rose. Brenda wasn’t seen alive after that — but what about Rose?
“What happened next?”
“Rose Donnelly went to help Brenda. She gave me a right mouthful and told me to get lost. I tried to explain, but she was in no mood to listen.”
“What was she doing there, did she say?”
“No, but there was someone else, a young bloke in overalls. He was coming over the bridge from the other side of the canal. He shouted to Brenda and she waved back. I got the impression that she knew him.”
“Do you know who he was?”
Reader shook his head. “No, but he had fair hair, and like I said, he was wearing overalls. I thought perhaps he’d come from one of the workshops along there, you know, the ones near mine.”
“What did you do then?”
“I put the shopping at her feet and left them to it.”
“And you ran because you thought this information would somehow incriminate you?”
“Yes. You asked me about Rose Donnelly. You only had to realise that her and Brenda had been on the canal bank with me that day and that’d be it.”
Greco shook his head.
* * *
“Did he explain himself?” Grace asked, as Greco entered the office.
“A little. Rose was on the canal bank at the same time as Brenda and they may have been joined by a young man in overalls,” he said, as he wrote all this on the incident board.
“Are we keeping him, is he a suspect?”
“No, the killings have nothing to do with him.” He tapped the name on the board. “This is who we need to speak to.”
“Social services are couriering over the records about him, sir,” she told him.
Knowing more about Liam Donnelly was one thing, but that was obviously not the name he was living under or they would have found him. What they really needed to know was who he was now.
“Where’s Sergeant Quickenden gone?” He asked seeing the empty desk.
“Speedy said he wanted to follow up on something, sir. He left about half an hour ago.”
Chapter 22
Speedy was counting on Darren Hopper not being aware of the full extent of what he’d got mixed up in. The lad wasn’t that bright and he got by doing the dirty work of others, but this time he’d been dropped right in it. He h
ad nowhere to go, so the chances were that he’d be holed up at home until things quietened.
He parked outside the block and waited. Stace, Daz’s girlfriend, appeared with the kid in a pushchair and walked off in the direction of the shops. This was his chance.
He bounded up the stairs and rapped on the door. He could hear noise coming from inside the flat. Someone had the radio on and they were singing.
“What’s up, forget something?” came a male voice, opening the front door.
Daz Hopper had a grin on his face but that rapidly melted away when he saw Speedy.
“You’ve been a naughty boy,” the sergeant said, shaking his head. “Do you listen to anything else except that crap?” He nodded at the radio. “You heard the news lately?”
Daz shook his head as he pulled a T-shirt over his bare chest.
“Well, you should, because mostly it’s been all about you, you and that stupid mate of yours, Tanweer.”
“We ain’t done nowt,” he snapped back. “You can’t just come here and pin stuff on me.”
“You took a trip on one of Webb’s coaches. You scarpered leaving your bags in the hold.” He moved closer and stared into Daz’s face. “There was a bomb in one of those bags. Did you know that, Darren?”
The young man flinched and jumped back in surprise. “No way, man! That had absolutely nothing to do with us. We were just doing . . .” Then he shut up.
“Doing what, Darren? What you were told? And who was it issuing the orders?”
“I can’t tell you, he’ll kill me.”
“No, he won’t because he’s dead. Murdered.” That news really shook Daz. He staggered back and flopped onto a chair. He obviously had no idea.
“The police and God knows who have been looking for you. Where have you been?”
“Keeping out of the way,” he replied. “Stace’s mother’s mostly.”
“I want you to come down to the station with me and give a statement.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll arrest you.” Quickenden phoned for a police car to come and pick him up. “Where’s your mate?”
“Don’t know, I haven’t seen or heard from him since we got back. I reckon Kashif is hiding him somewhere.”
Speedy needed to tell Greco. That particular nut might be a bit more difficult to crack.
* * *
“Good work, Sergeant, but you don’t go off on your own without telling us or better still, taking someone with you. Got that?”
“Sorry, sir, I was acting on a hunch — and it paid off.” He smiled proudly at the others. “Darren Hopper isn’t the brightest; he was easily found and picked up.”
“He can rest up in the cells for a while and then we’ll speak to him. For the time being Mr Kashif Hussain is waiting to be interviewed.”
“Want me in on that one, sir?”
“Okay, but don’t say anything out of turn. He’s got his lawyer with him. A designer-suited so and so from Manchester.”
Kashif Hussain was sitting calmly beside his solicitor. He looked up as the two detectives entered the room and shook his head.
“You are wasting your time and mine. I have nothing else to say. You have got this wrong. What happened on that coach has nothing to do with me or my family.”
“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, Mr Hussain. There are dozens of witnesses to testify that your younger brother was on that coach. Once we catch him, I’m sure it’ll be his fingerprints we find all over one of those cases.”
Kashif fixed Greco with a stare. “Tanweer was not involved. He was fitted up to make it look that way. He was with me at the time, doing work for our uncle.”
“Whether you choose to believe me or not, Tanweer was on that coach and he was involved. He will be arrested and a jury will convict him. Anyone who is found to be harbouring him will suffer the same fault. So I’ll ask you again, do you know where he is?”
Kashif Hussain looked at Greco. “No, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. You have nothing. You have a bag with fingerprints on it but you have no proof that they are Tanweer’s.” He looked at his lawyer. “I want to leave.”
“Why would someone want to incriminate Tanweer in something like this?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, we’ve given it some thought and we think someone out there wants to ensure that your family can no longer operate . . . certain aspects of your business.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“I think you do. I think you know very well that this will put an end to the drug smuggling. Your family is now marked and you’ll be watched. Whatever scam you were running to get drugs into the country is out the window.”
Kashif said something to his lawyer in Urdu.
“The drug business is what this is all about. That and a little personal matter someone wanted settled. I think you and your family have been used, Mr Hussain. In the popular vernacular, you’ve been shafted.”
“No one does that to me,” he retorted with venom. “No one uses my family. People in this town know better.”
“Well, that’s what’s happened, isn’t it?” He gave the man a moment or two to think about it. “Tanweer was set up and now the shadow of suspicion has fallen on you and your entire business operation.” Greco leaned back and folded his arms. “That leaves the coast clear for a new face to step in.”
“Rubbish! This is pure guesswork. You have nothing, admit it!”
Greco shrugged — the man was right. “Okay, Mr Hussain, you can go.”
“You have him rattled, sir,” Quickenden said, once Kashif and his lawyer had left the room.
“That was the whole idea, Sergeant. Now I want him watched. One of the team and a uniformed officer at all times. He is hiding his brother. I’d lay odds on it and I’m not a betting man.”
They went back to the main office, Craig was on the phone. “Sir, Professor Batho has been on. He says he’ll have the sample from Webb’s analysed today.”
“Good work, Craig.”
“Speedy, work out a rota for keeping tabs on Kashif and get on with it straight away.” Greco sat at his desk. He had one thing on his mind. Who was Liam Donnelly? There was no guarantee that either Darren Hopper or Tanweer would know any more than he did. They needed a break. He’d go and speak to Darren Hopper.
* * *
“Look, I’m not being fitted up for any terrorist thing,” he said to Greco as he was brought into the interview room. “It was just a drop for Geegee. I thought drugs, guns, something like that. We weren’t told nothing.”
“Did you usually do Gibbs’s dirty work?”
“He could go crazy if you didn’t do as he said. Anyway he was paying us a ton each.”
“Did Gibbs tell you anything about what was going on, what he was into?”
“No, but then he wouldn’t. I was just another of his errand boys.”
“How did you get the luggage?”
“He told me to go round to his flat. He gave me the luggage and the disguises.”
“Was he alone there? Did he give any hint at any time that anyone else was involved?”
“Never saw no one, and that’s the truth.”
“Are you sure? No strangers, no face you didn’t recognise?”
He watched Darren think.
“He was into some dodgy stuff on that computer of his. He said he used the dark web to Skype his mates, only it wasn’t Skype. I saw one of them, a blonde lad with odd-coloured eyes. Weird-looking, he was.”
“Did he say who he was?”
“Geegee wouldn’t say, just that if the lad thought I could recognise him again, he’d kill me.”
“Did you get the impression that this lad was involved? Did Gibbs say anything?”
He watched Darren shrug. “He said nowt but I suppose he must have been. I never really gave it much thought. I just wanted the dosh to pay the rent.”
“Have you ever seen this person before?”
�
��No, I don’t think so.”
Greco could see the doubt on Darren’s face. He was holding back.
“But you’re not sure?”
“I think he might have been in the Spinners but I can’t be sure.”
“What did you mean by odd-coloured eyes?”
“They were different colours; one was blue and the other brown.”
That would certainly help in identifying someone.
“Okay, Darren, we’re going to keep you here for a while longer. I have colleagues from another department who will no doubt want a word.”
* * *
Back in the office, Greco wrote the words ‘odd eyes’ on the board. They might belong to Liam or they might not. It could have been anyone’s face on that laptop.
Chapter 23
“Anything on Tanweer Hussain yet?” Greco asked Grace.
“No, sir. That family is sitting tight. All their shops are closed except for Nazir’s and no one is dealing. With them out of action and Gibbs dead, the town will be wild later.”
“I’ll tell the super, we may need extra bodies on the street. Where is Quickenden?”
“He’s gone down to the canteen for something to eat.” Grace smiled. “He’s learned his lesson. He won’t be doing any more runners, sir.”
Craig was statement-shuffling again and George was sitting in front of her computer.
Julian Batho called on the office phone.
“Inspector, I have some information for you. The oil from Webb’s workshop matches that from under Brenda Hirst’s fingernails. They use thick grease for lubrication; so it’s different from the others.”
So their killer was someone from Webb’s. He looked at the board — Webb’s coaches were already up there. They were involved, but how? He needed to think. The Judith Calf thing was bothering him. The woman hadn’t appeared out of nowhere. Back then she’d heard the news on the local radio and for some reason decided to claim the child as her own. Greco sat at his desk. He had an idea. He accessed a site he’d used many times in his family history research. Within minutes he’d determined that a woman with that name hadn’t given birth to a child during the time frame they were looking at. Next he accessed marriage data. He checked back several years and there it was — bingo!
Complete Detective Stephen Greco Box Set Page 19
