The Real World- the Point of Death

by Laurence Todd

  He sat back in his chair. “You need something else, detective?”

  “Have a good lunch Monday, did you?” I asked, smiling, as I took a seat.

  “Pardon?”

  “I was just wondering whether you and Sir Paul enjoyed your lunch together Monday.”

  He didn’t respond for several seconds. This told me he wasn’t going to deny the meeting had taken place.

  “You’ve spoken to him,” he said with an air of resignation.

  “You were seen in Pret a Manger with him.”

  No reply.

  “So, why were you with Sir Paul? You asking for your old job back?”

  Again, no reply.

  “Hmm, let’s see if I can piece this together, then,” I said casually. “You lunch with Sir Paul Peterson, and soon afterwards a Labour MP, someone who’s a friend of yours, makes an inflammatory statement on the floor of the House about an issue he would know nothing about without being tipped off, and the only way he’d have known about this is if either you or Sir Paul told him what to ask. So, which one of you two was it?”

  He didn’t respond. I’d not expected him to. He wasn’t going to admit to who it was because this would help point the finger of who’d leaked the information at Sir Paul, and Graves wasn’t going to be a party to this. I waited a few more seconds.

  “Does anyone here know you met Sir Paul last Monday?”

  “No one. There was only me in the office Monday.”

  “Anyone else know?”

  “I’ve not told anyone.”

  “Okay, this’s how it’s going to stay,” I said firmly as I stood up. “You’re not going to tell a soul you met with Sir Paul, or that I’ve just spoken to you about it.”

  “Why not?” He looked puzzled.

  “Because he’s one of the Bartolome board members currently under investigation as being the source of the leaked documents you people received, and if it’s known he met with you . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Sir Paul? You’re kidding,” Graves exclaimed. He didn’t know I knew the truth about who had leaked the information.

  I shook my head and didn’t reply. There was silence for five seconds.

  “So, we clear on you not telling anyone about meeting Sir Paul?” I raised my eyebrows.

  He nodded his agreement. I left.

  T W E LV E

  Thursday

  Taylor had told me last evening her editor, Hugh Blackbourne, had had quite a long and impassioned phone conversation yesterday afternoon with James Blatchford.

  Blatchford had started by using a calm, reasonable tone, saying early the previous evening he’d been sent a copy of a lengthy article the Standard was planning to publish in its weekly magazine on Thursday, and he wasn’t happy with its tone or content, considering it to contain a fair degree of personal animus. Blackbourne had denied any personal attack was being made, simply stating his paper was reporting on an issue which, in his opinion as an editor, was a matter of considerable public interest.

  Blatchford had gone on to say he was still a friend and supporter of the Evening Standard, stressing the good relations between City Hall and the media. He had pointed out that, all through his campaign for the London mayoralty, he’d allowed that woman, your female reporter to have full access to his campaign team and had willingly answered all the questions she’d put to him. The editor had replied with, She’s got a name, you know, James, but Blatchford hadn’t responded to this.

  Blatchford had then gone into a diatribe about how he couldn’t understand why the paper was now mounting this campaign against him and his administration, believing it to be inspired by spite and politically motivated, especially after the paper’s revelations about his supposed insider share dealings just before the election. He’d concluded with an earnest request to Blackbourne not to run the piece in the magazine. Taylor said Blatchford had asked this because he and the editor were friends from their Oxbridge days, and he was appealing to Blackbourne for a personal favour. He’d also said something like, This isn’t just about me, you know, Hugh, there’re others involved as well, but he’d not expanded on this point when invited to do so.

  Blackbourne had listened carefully and had then replied by asking one very simple question, the basis of all good journalism: Is there anything in the article which isn’t fundamentally true, anything at all? Does the article contain anything which is grievously wrong, or are you claiming the entire story’s a stitch-up?

  When Blatchford hadn’t replied to this, Blackbourne had informed him the article had been closely scrutinised, not only by him as the editor but also by the paper’s lawyers, and, because of the sensitivity of the revelations about to be made, the scrutiny had included paying top dollar to obtain the opinion of a leading QC, an acknowledged expert in defamation law, who’d read the article closely and had declared himself satisfied. Everything stated in the article had been obtained from credible sources and verified. The lawyers had concluded the defence of fair comment on a matter of public interest would be appropriate if the matter ever came to be litigated. Blackbourne said they’d borne the expense involved because they wanted to be as certain as they could be, and on safe legal ground, before publication. He had offered to delay publication if Blatchford could point to just one thing the article contained which was in any way incorrect or malicious or defamatory, or motivated by personal animus.

  Blatchford had mumbled an unconvincing answer, and simply reiterated his request to halt publication, which in turn had led to Blackbourne reaffirming his backing for the work done by a valued member of his team, plus a reputable freelance journo he’d commissioned. He intended to stand by the journalistic integrity of both writers, unless any just cause could be shown why this should not be his position, and he’d concluded by restating that the article would be published tomorrow in the magazine; the paper had already trailed the story in the last two day’s editions. Friendship or not, his duty as an editor was to the news, and thus he wasn’t about to quash a story of significant public interest just because Blatchford didn’t like what it claimed.

  Blatchford had rung off, deeply unhappy, with a comment which sounded something like, Well, we’ll see what happens then, won’t we?

  “Your editor told you all this?” It’d been quite a story.

  “No, I was listening in.” She beamed. “When Blatchford phoned and started pleading with Hugh not to run the article, Hugh gestured me into his office and put the conversation on speakerphone, and I heard everything. You should have heard Blatchford’s voice; he was almost begging. God, he sounded as though he was in tears at one point; it was pitiful.” She grinned evilly. “It was all I could do not to laugh out loud.”

  This afternoon was going to be fascinating in more ways than one.

  *

  I saw him walking purposefully towards me, looking exactly like the last time we’d spoken, some months ago, at the rally held at Westminster Central Hall the week before the mayoral election. Smartly dressed in an expensive-looking dark business suit, white shirt and tie, and oozing stolid professionalism, he looked every inch the successful top City Hall apparatchik he now was. He still had his shock of jet black hair and a full beard, and he looked like a man on a mission as he came through the crowds swarming around the gardens.

  I was waiting by the south exit to Tower Hill tube station. The walls of the Tower of London could be clearly seen across the way, and the tourists, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to tour the Tower, were flocking around. Large numbers of excited foreign students passed by, clutching maps and pointing to Tower Bridge or the Tower of London. “Thanks for agreeing to talk,” Qais Jaser said. I nodded.

  Qais Jaser had been one of James Blatchford’s two main campaign organisers during his run for mayor, and it had been whilst I was talking to him that I’d first set eyes on Sally Taylor, as she’d been covering the campaign and had asked me why police were interested in it. She told me later she’d felt an instant attraction to me a
t our first meeting. It had also been through Qais Jaser I’d discovered exactly how and why Blatchford had been involved in a scam operation involving an Israeli business.

  Jaser was now Blatchford’s chief of staff at City Hall, and one of his most trusted confidantes.

  I was curious to know why he wanted to see me. This meeting was unexpected because I’d arrived at work intent on using today to focus on other cases I was involved in. No further progress investigating the death of Charles Garlinge seemed likely, so I’d thought it was time to catch up on other investigations. I’d been looking through case notes to refresh my memory about an ongoing investigation when I’d received a call from Jaser saying he’d like to talk to me as he had information I might well find useful. I asked what about, but he said he’d prefer to talk in person, so I agreed to meet him.

  We walked away from the crowds and took a seat on a bench in Tower Hill Gardens. The hideously ugly building which is now City Hall, all obtuse angles, glass and stainless steel tubing, looking like something straight out of Chaplin’s Modern Times, could be seen on the south bank of the Thames. It was the kind of building which almost made me wish the Luftwaffe would come back and bomb London again. I’d never been inside it and had no intention of doing so either.

  “So, why’d you wanna talk to me?” I asked.

  He began by asking who’d be told about anything he had to say. I said anything he told me would be kept in the strictest confidence, and even my senior officer would be told only if he absolutely had to know. He agreed to this caveat.

  “Did you know the mayor of our great city, James Blatchford, is gonna be the subject of a very unflattering article in today’s Evening Standard magazine?”

  I indicated the Branch was aware of it.

  “Yes, I guessed you would be.” He grinned smoothly. “I mean, you’re married to one of the journalists who wrote the article, aren’t you?”

  “How’d you know that?” I wondered.

  “When I saw Sally’s name as one of the co-writers of this piece—”

  “You’ve seen the article?” I interrupted him.

  “Of course.” He smiled knowingly. “But, as I was saying, I asked a journalist I know at the Standard how Sally was these days, because I’d not seen her for a few months, and she said Sally had recently married the detective who investigated the death of your friend Jamal Khoudri. I’ve asked to speak to you because what I have to say is pertinent to Sally as well.” He looked serious. “I’m telling you this because it’ll cover her if there’s any fallout from the article.”

  “Okay, fair enough.”

  He looked around for a few seconds. “James warned all his top staff yesterday to be prepared for the fallout from something being published today,” he said, appearing not exactly displeased at the prospect.

  “He showed you the article when he was sent a copy for his comments, didn’t he?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, he did, on Tuesday night. I’m his chief of staff, so of course he showed me. He allowed me to read through it.”

  “And what’s your take on it?”

  Jaser sat back against the bench and looked skywards for several seconds, biting his lower lip. Then he smiled.

  “Given what’s going to be alleged against him,” he said, half-laughing, “he’ll be lucky to survive to the end of today.”

  I immediately wondered what it was Jaser thought I should know. But, first, I wanted his position on the article itself.

  “From what you read, have they written anything which is untrue or potentially libellous or . . .?” I shrugged. He’d know what I meant. If Jaser was happy with the contents, given what he would have been privy to working for Blatchford, Taylor was safe.

  “Nope,” he replied straight away, shaking his head and smiling. “It’s pretty much factually true. There’re a couple of small points of conjecture, figures slightly larger or smaller than mentioned, but in the overall, the bigger picture?” He nodded. “What’s written is largely correct. But I want to add a few more points to what they’ve written, fill in a few gaps, if you like, so if they feel like writing a follow-up article . . .” He raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

  “Fill in gaps in what sense?”

  “In the sense James is as dishonest as the article’s making him out to be,” he asserted confidently. “I know this now. You probably know I’ve been with him since before the very start of his mayoral campaign, and I knew him for some while before that, which explains why Christian recommended me to him. Up to a little while ago, I’ve always assumed he at least meant well, even when he did something underhand, and I suppose I’ve always been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt when critical things were alleged about him in the press, but no longer.”

  Christian was Christian Perkins, a senior backbench Conservative MP with connections in the intelligence service, especially to Colonel Stimpson. He and I had met a few times to discuss various matters and I’d always found it easy to despise him.

  Jaser went on. “The claims the Evening Standard made a while ago about him making a lot of money from insider trading were wholly true, and, even though you know the story behind what was going on at the time,” – he looked at me inquiringly; I nodded my agreement – “the fact is, he did make a lot of money by being duplicitous.”

  He then laughed for about ten seconds. He was finding the whole thing amusing. “Did you know he went absolutely ballistic when the article was published just before the election? He even had me in his office; he was ranting and raving and banging the table, accusing me of being the source of the article and probably costing him the mayoralty. I wasn’t, of course, and we never did find out who it was either. Probably just as well, but I’d love to know.”

  I knew who it was. I saw him every time I looked in the mirror.

  Jaser sat back, looking serene. It was a mild, sunny day and the gardens looked spectacularly colourful. He glanced around for a moment, as though he was considering something important. He then took a deep breath. “Anyway, concerning the article, as I said, I know for a fact pretty much everything about to be published today is true.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because the other journalist who wrote it with Sally got his information from a completely reliable source.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t going to ask who, because experience had taught me people seldom reveal sources, but I was still surprised at his comment. How would he know this?

  His smile told me he knew what I’d been thinking. “Because the source was me.”

  I sat still, stunned at this unexpected revelation. “You spoke to Steve Jacobs? You gave him all that information?”

  I remembered, two days back, Jacobs telling me he’d had what he’d referred to as an unimpeachable source for much of his information, but wasn’t going to name names. Not in a million years would I have guessed his source was Qais Jaser, someone as close to Blatchford as it was possible to be. I’d assumed it had been some lower-level functionary at City Hall who’d somehow had access to Blatchford’s private files, but I would never have come even close to thinking of Qais Jaser. Two major surprises in two days.

  “Indeed I did.” He was still smiling broadly. “How else do you suppose Jacobs knew about all the Gibraltar losses? How do you think he was able to discover the full extent of the debt Blatchford was in, and his dealings with Yuri Krachnikhov? Because I told him, that’s how. I was able to point out where to look, because some of Blatchford’s dealings had been buried inside a pyramid of other companies.”

  This was a very serious admission he was making, fraught with potential danger. “Blatchford doesn’t suspect you’re the source for this article, does he?”

  “No,” he replied confidently. “He still tells me everything. I’m still his closest confidante. Whoever he’s suspecting of leaking info, it won’t be me.”

  I sat amazed for several seconds, then Jaser spoke again.

  “But I’ll bet you want to know why I’
ve helped Jacobs, don’t you?” he asked, looking pleased.

  I certainly did and said so.

  He shifted to his side, crossed his left leg over his right and leaned back on his right arm. “There’re several reasons, one of them being personal. You see, a number of people lost a lot of money, a lot of money, when one of his Gibraltar-based businesses went under, and it included my elderly parents.” He looked agitated and sounded annoyed. “I’d advised them the business was a safe bet. They’d just come into a sizeable lump sum, a nice tidy little nest egg after they’d sold their house for a much smaller one, and they wanted to invest their capital gain, which they’d intended to leave for their children. So they went along with my recommendations, and they lost the whole lump sum, which they’ll never get back, not at their ages. They don’t entirely blame me for their losses, but they’d be right to. It was me who recommended this to them.” He shrugged. “I trusted James to do the right thing, and he didn’t.”

  “What business was this?”

  “It was an investment trust, promising higher than market rate percentage returns on every investment over X number of thousands; I can’t remember exact figures. But James forgot one of the cardinal rules of all investment: if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is. He was so blinded by what he thought he could make, he didn’t act on the advice given by professionals in the market, and people like my parents lost out big time.”

  He sat quietly for a few seconds. “But what made it worse for me, what really sickened me, was the blasé letter the trust sent to investors after it went under, blaming adverse market conditions when it was largely due to Blatchford’s incompetence and negligence. My parents lost most of their life savings when this trust went under, and their children, meaning me and my brother and sister, lost most of our inheritance.”

  He paused for a moment, sighing and gathering his thoughts. “So, when I found out this journalist Steve Jacobs and the same woman from the Standard who’d written the earlier article – Sally?”