Fear the Past

by J M Dalgliesh

  “Bradley was a detective chief inspector assigned to the securities raid investigation,” Holt said with obvious excitement. “MacEwan was a known associate of Fuller’s and was therefore interviewed at the time.”

  “How was he involved?” Caslin asked.

  “Nothing stuck to him, sir. It looks like he was part of the scramble to find someone responsible for such a high-profile crime. MacEwan wasn’t interviewed again nor did his name appear anywhere else in the inquiry.”

  “Do we know who interviewed him?”

  “No, sir,” Holt explained. “I don’t have the transcript, only a reference to the interview with the date it took place. Some of the files haven’t materialised from the archive but I’m chasing them up.”

  “We need to know. If the DCI was in on the interview, it’d be hard to believe they wouldn’t recognise each other when they met the other day,” Caslin said.

  “If not, there is the possibility they didn’t know each other. At least, not at the time,” Holt said. “But you’re going to love the next bit.”

  “Go on.”

  “Who do you think we know that is currently doing time for the raid on the customs clearing house?”

  “Don’t tell me,” Caslin said, locking eyes with the man sitting opposite him, “am I sitting in front of him?”

  “Only if it’s Pete Fuller,” Holt said, “and there’s one more thing you should be aware of. We knew Jody Wyer’s father, Keith, was a serving police officer. What we didn’t know was that Bradley was once Keith Wyer’s DCI.”

  “They served together,” Caslin repeated.

  “At the time of the raid, yes,” Holt confirmed.

  Caslin hung up the phone, slowly placing the handset on the table. He looked across his shoulder behind him towards Hunter. She remained expressionless but he knew she was curious as to what information he had just received, assuming it was significant.

  “Now that was very interesting,” Caslin said, his lips parting and forming a smile. “You remember Detective Chief Inspector Philip Bradley?”

  “Old friends,” Fuller replied with a nod of the head.

  “Instrumental in your incarceration, I understand?” Caslin said.

  “With friends like that who needs enemies, right?”

  “He’s dead,” Caslin said, watching intently for a similar flicker of recognition as Fuller had offered previously. On this occasion the inmate was unreadable with the only reaction being a controlled release of his breath.

  “That’s a shame. The good often go too early,” Fuller said quietly. “My condolences to the family.”

  “I’m sure they are heartfelt,” Caslin said. “And your old friend, David. Heard from him recently?”

  “David is a common name, Inspector. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific than that.”

  “MacEwan,” Caslin said, his gaze narrowing. “Or have you not seen him since you were sent down?”

  “Lucky Davie,” Fuller said with a smile. “Last I heard, he’d emigrated.”

  “No, he’s very much back in the game,” Caslin countered, inspecting his fingernails casually. “I do wonder what he’s up to though. Making friends. Influencing others. Quite the character. Nice tan.”

  “I’m pleased for him,” Fuller said but his tone belied some buried resentment. Caslin however, was unable to interpret how deep those feelings ran. The ice cool exterior had thawed a little. They were onto something. Caslin could sense it.

  ***

  Their departure coincided with the end of visiting times and they found themselves navigating the exit of Full Sutton along with around thirty relatives. Some of those rubbing shoulders with them were downcast, seeing loved ones under such circumstances was emotionally draining. Others, perhaps with more experience, appeared to take it in their stride. A couple even joked with the officer escorting them to the reception. Once clear of the main entrance, Caslin and Hunter picked up the pace to get clear of the pack.

  “That puts a different slant on events, doesn’t it?” Hunter said once Caslin had filled her in on the details of Holt’s phone call. “I wasn’t expecting that. Do you think both events are linked? Wyer’s murder as well as the bombing?” They reached the car and Caslin leaned on the roof looking across at Hunter and fiddling with the key fob in his hands, mulling over his response.

  “Possibly. The characters are interconnected to a point beyond coincidence, so to dismiss the link would be foolish but as for how, I don’t know?” he said, pursing his lips. “Are they directly related or is one symptomatic of the other?”

  “How do you mean?” Hunter asked. “Is the bombing a response to Wyer’s murder?”

  Caslin shook his head indicating he didn’t know, “I’m thinking aloud. Wyer is watching MacEwan, perhaps even Bradley for some reason. These two figured in a massive case that Wyer’s father worked on. The very case that saw Pete Fuller sent down for a thirty-year stretch.”

  “And somewhere along the line someone within Fuller’s organisation sets a bomb off. Why?” Hunter asked.

  “Let’s not forget either that the Fullers were not targeted directly,” Caslin said. “If you were trying to take them out there are any number of opportunities where you could get to Ashton or Carl but they didn’t. They hit the minicab office. Are they sending a message or maybe a warning?” Caslin asked rhetorically.

  “If they are then who is it aimed at, Pete… the boys?” Hunter asked. “They could have hit Pete himself in prison,” she suggested. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “You’re right. No one is untouchable,” he said, glancing back towards the prison. “As hard as it is to get in or out, behind those walls anyone is fair game for the right price.”

  “Lots of questions but not many answers.”

  “That’s what makes this job so interesting,” Caslin said with a broad grin, unlocking the car.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Where are we with the raid on the clearing house, Terry?” Caslin asked, pulling out a chair and briefly scanning the noticeboard for updates he may have missed while sitting down.

  “The raid took place in 1986,” Holt said, referring to his notes as he spoke. “The clearing house was outsourced and run by a private contractor. The subsequent investigation was ongoing for nearly four years and resulted in twenty-six convictions. Pete Fuller was identified as one of the lieutenants on the ground largely because of his links to those with the skill set and muscle to pull off such an operation. However, it took several years to bring him in.”

  “How was he identified?”

  “The case was quite an embarrassment for the police and the government of the day who were at that time preaching a tougher attitude towards crime. The rewards being offered for information dragged many a low-life out of their pits to throw names at us,” Holt explained. “Although Fuller wasn’t considered to be big-time in the 80s, he was on the rise and intel had him working on and off with several of the players in and around York. Arguably, both North Yorkshire and Greater Manchester Police underestimated just how advanced some of these guys were. Fuller’s organisation was in reality already a large cog in a far greater machine.”

  “Who was he working with?” Caslin asked, looking at Fuller’s mugshot taken upon his arrest in 1990. His features were different now. The eyes sunken, the skin tauter. Prison life - prison food - certainly took its toll after several decades.

  “The leaders of the operation were named as Harry Bates and Thomas Maguire. Both were old hands at armed robberies starting out in their youth knocking off post offices and progressing to armoured cars and the like. This was seen as their last shot at the big prize. A chance to cement their name in history… as well as a pension of sorts,” Holt said, passing images of the two men across the table to both Caslin and Hunter.

  “What do we know about them?” Hunter asked, checking out the photos.

  “Maguire died in Pentonville Prison fifteen years ago from a heart attack. The guy was alr
eady in his seventies when he was sent down.”

  “And Bates?” Caslin asked.

  “Still serving time. He’s currently in Belmarsh,” Holt said, naming one of London’s toughest prisons. “But interestingly, neither of them was considered to be the orchestrator of the raid.”

  “Who was?” Caslin asked.

  Holt shook his head, “Never identified. The file has the architect listed as a man called Alfred but that’s only a codename used in reference to him. Despite the team’s best efforts no one was either willing or able to name him. Even the offer of a reduced sentence to the convicted tempted them to reveal who he was.”

  “Perhaps they didn’t know?” Hunter suggested.

  “Or perhaps thirty years inside was preferable to grassing,” Caslin said. “We all know this honour among thieves’ line that gets bandied about is absolute rubbish. These guys would sell their own mother if they thought it worth their while. Either they were scared of him or you’re right, they genuinely didn’t know his name. I recall you saying not everything stolen was recovered. Is that right?”

  “Correct, sir,” Holt confirmed. “As I said on the phone, the estimated haul they escaped with was £22 million in a mixture of cash, gold and gems and we’re talking in excess of £120 million in today’s values and that’s a conservative estimate. Only around £13 million has been recovered and much of that took over a decade of investigation to locate. That was achieved through tracing the flow of money between the known figures and using legislation for seizing monies derived from illegal sources rather than actually finding what was taken. That’s why we can say with confidence that this Alfred character remains at large. The organisation of the raid was so meticulous that the fencing of what was stolen was so sophisticated as to render it almost invisible.”

  “It went somewhere,” Caslin said, casting his gaze across Bradley’s photograph. “What about Chief Superintendent Ford? I’ll bet he slots in somewhere to all of this.”

  “You’d be right, sir. He was Bradley’s supervising officer on the investigation. He did quite well off the back of that case,” Holt said, handing over a brief listing Ford’s career history. Both Caslin and Hunter began reading as he continued, “Despite not getting everyone involved, the number of those eluding arrest and the true value that went unrecovered was largely kept out of the media. The case was far from a failure but perhaps not the success it was painted as at the time.”

  “Which all brings us back to Bradley and his untimely demise,” Caslin said, putting the document on the table before him. “Tony Mason, Wyer’s business partner, was he in on this investigation?”

  “No, sir,” Holt said. “I checked but he did work with Bradley for a number of years. They certainly knew each other.”

  “Fair to assume Bradley would know of Mason’s habits?”

  “I would say so, sir,” Holt said, as did Hunter, making her agreement visible with a nod of the head. “It still leaves us without a definite thread to bring all of this together.”

  “MacEwan,” Caslin began, wracking his brain to try and put the pieces together, “what is he known for?”

  “In the early 80s, he was considered a low-level member of the criminal fraternity,” Holt said, leafing back through his notes. “A few convictions for receiving stolen goods but nothing prolific. After his death in 1985, MacEwan took over his father’s scrap metal business and it was suspected he ran an outfit ringing stolen cars using the scrap yard as the legitimate front. A few months after being interviewed about the raid on the customs house, he relocated to Spain. Although he kept his business going, he doesn’t resurface in the UK until the late 1990s. By which time he’s a millionaire, a pretty flamboyant one by all accounts having made a fortune in time share investments and other property ventures.”

  “The same area of Spain as Bradley?” Hunter asked, seeking the connection.

  “That, I can’t say at the moment,” Holt said. “I have a call into Europol and I’m waiting to hear back.”

  “Okay, keep digging,” Caslin said, standing and crossing the room to come before the board. Raising his hand, he pointed at the picture of Jody Wyer. “Wyer’s father worked this case and now, thirty years on, his son is investigating the very same group of people only it now encompasses some of his father’s former colleagues. What brought Jody into this? Was it something his father told him or that he stumbled onto? The fact his business partner is somehow linked leads me to think it was the latter for no other reason than he agreed to go into business with him in the first place. If you couldn’t trust your partner, you wouldn’t leave yourself open, would you? Or am I missing something?”

  “Keith Wyer, Jody’s father,” Hunter said. “What was his career like?”

  “Nondescript,” Holt said. “I’d register him as a journeyman officer. There are no marks against his file. He was adequate.”

  “I would hope my career highlights read better when the time comes,” Caslin replied.

  “Seeing as MacEwan’s place is the only centre point we have for these faces, I downloaded a couple of data dumps from the cell towers around the scrap yard,” Holt said. “Wyer’s wallet litter – the receipts and scraps of stuff inside it – had him in a nearby petrol station a few days before he died, so I ran the mobile we have registered to him against the data from the cell towers. He was in and around the area on numerous occasions recently. Sometimes for hours on end.”

  “Sounds like he was staking the place out,” Hunter offered.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Holt agreed.

  “Have you got anywhere with the photographs that you took the other day?” Caslin asked Hunter, referencing their time spent at the vantage point in the business opposite MacEwan’s yard. She nodded opening her own file on the desk before her.

  “This is the only figure we have outstanding,” she said, taking out copies of the frames she had taken. Spreading them out before her on the table so everyone could see, she pointed to the young man who had retrieved Bradley’s car for him that day at the yard.

  “Now he looks familiar,” Caslin said, tapping one of the images with his forefinger. “Where do I know him from?”

  “I thought so too,” Hunter said. “While we were there the other day, I took shots of as many of the cars as I could see and then ran the indexes through the system just to see who pops up. I figured we could get a list going of MacEwan’s people. From that list I cross-referenced the owner’s data with the DVLA as well as our own files.”

  “Anyone interesting?” Caslin asked.

  “Your standard who’s who in the thug’s database…” she said with sarcasm, “and then there’s this guy.” Hunter took out an arrest record of the man Caslin had pointed to. Turning it ninety degrees, both Holt and Caslin leaned over to see. It was the same man, although his hair was cut shorter with none of the wavy, surfer-style locks as he carried now. The record listed arrests for drug possession, affray and common assault to name but a few. Most of the crimes were low-level, habitual lifestyle arrests rather than for organised criminality.

  “Oliver Bridger,” Caslin read the name aloud. “It doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “Ollie Bridger,” Hunter confirmed. “Evidently working for MacEwan and well settled into his inner circle judging from what we saw. I think the reason he looks familiar is this,” she said, taking out another arrest record. Placing it on the table alongside the first, Caslin frowned. “Similar, aren’t they?” Caslin eyed the new sheet. He could have been looking at the same person. Again, the hair was shorter but a darker colour and the expression of resentment in the mugshot was almost identical.

  “Twins?” Caslin asked, flicking his eyes to Hunter.

  “No, but they were born only ten months apart,” she stated. “They were in the same school year and could easily be mistaken for twins.”

  “I don’t know them,” Holt said.

  “We came across Mark,” Hunter said, pointing to the second sheet, “on our visit to Clinton
Dade’s office which is probably why Ollie caught your eye, sir. Both have popped up on our radar on and off throughout their juvenile and adult lives but not in a senior capacity. They are bottom of the food chain, really. But their presence here is interesting.”

  “How so?” Caslin asked, comparing their respective records.

  “Well, first off, Ollie Bridger was picked up for his participation in an assault last year along with two others. They trashed a business and put the owner in hospital.”

  “Why is that significant?”

  “Intel has it recorded as being related to the Fullers’ business interests. They were believed to be acting on Ashton’s instructions.”

  “Pressuring a client?”

  “Suspicion of debt collection or racketeering is listed on the file but nothing stuck. The victim chose not to press charges and refused to identify them. That puts Ollie as an associate of the Fullers or at least he was at the time.”

  “And now he’s working for MacEwan.”

  “Where it gets really interesting is that their father was Neville Bridger,” Hunter continued. “He came through the ranks as an enforcer for a local money lender and had a criminal record as long as your arm.”

  “You said, had?” Caslin queried.

  “Neville Bridger died in prison in 2004 during a riot,” Hunter said. “I looked it up. His wing erupted and the inmates barricaded themselves inside taking three prison officers hostage. The standoff lasted four days until the authorities retook the wing and restored order. They found his body in the shower block. He’d been stabbed to death with a makeshift shank.”

  “Did they catch who did it?” Caslin asked.

  “No. There wasn’t any indication of who carried out the attack nor a motive for it. Most likely it was someone using the disturbance to settle a score. Let’s face it, it could have been anyone.”

  “Sorry to ask the stupid question but is this relevant?” Holt asked. Caslin met his eye, inclining his head.

  Looking to Hunter, he asked, “Is it relevant?”