Murder on the Commons (A Davies & West Mystery Book 4)

by Will North

“They’re down-sizing?”

  “Not exactly. They are reported to be focusing on private banking and lending to small and medium sized businesses, which often have trouble qualifying for loans to fund their growth. They claim they want to be the bank of entrepreneurs. What kind, I don’t know. But they also have grown internationally, primarily through the acquisition of much smaller banks, principally in Central and Eastern Europe, especially since those countries began applying for and gaining membership in the European Union.”

  “Hang on, sir,” Adam interrupted. “My family’s from Slovakia. Those countries are also predominantly Catholic.”

  “And Ireland is, of course, predominantly Catholic,” Calum added. “I wonder, Mr. Nelson, do KVF have branches in Protestant Northern Ireland?”

  “No.”

  “Jesus,” Morgan blurted, “what are they, a branch of the Vatican?!”

  Nelson laughed. “I somehow doubt it, but then my lunchtime investigations did not penetrate the Vatican’s very secret banking relationships. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “Not much use, are you Roderick?” Morgan teased.

  “Ah, but I have one more little tidbit for you. It seems this selfsame bank got itself in a bit of a pickle a few months ago. Tried to evict a couple of old age pensioners for failing to make mortgage payments on their farm up in County Donegal. According to the press, and you can look this up yourself, the old folks turned out to be revered former leaders of the Provisional IRA back during the Troubles. The bean counters at the bank’s headquarters in Belgium had hired a local security firm to carry out the eviction but they apparently did not do what we bankers call ‘due diligence.’ The security firm turned out to have sent hired thugs from Northern Ireland’s former Ulster Volunteer Force, Protestants naturally, to conduct the eviction, rather messily and in full view of the news cameras. The next day, a band of roughly thirty so-called ‘Irish Patriots’ descended on the farm, beat up the thugs, sent them packing, and set fire to their vehicles. The bank branch in Cork issued an apology for the attempted eviction and ceased proceedings.”

  “Irish Patriots, Rod?”

  “Code for the IRA, according to press reports.”

  “Oh, wonderful. We had suspicions. But thank you, Rod. You’re a prince.”

  “It would be nice to see you again, Morgan…”

  “Arrange for a new murder in St. Ives and I’ll be there, promise.” She punched the red button on her phone and ended the call.

  Day Nine

  Eighteen

  EARLY TUESDAY MORNING, Penwarren sat in the small seating area next to the Starbucks café in the terminal at Manchester Airport while Bates fetched them coffees. It had now been just over a week since Lugg’s body had been discovered in Rough Tor Mire and they were no closer to discovering how it got there or to identifying a suspect. Crawley was coming unglued but, to be fair, Penwarren understood the DCS was simply passing along pressure he was getting from his own bosses at Exeter headquarters. Except for press conferences, Crawley seldom lowered himself to become involved in case investigations and Penwarren was fine with that. Plus, Crawley was still getting flak and mostly laying low for his “faceless body” gaff at the Rough Tor press conference. Penwarren almost felt sorry for him.

  Terry arrived with their drinks—his black, hers something frothy and smelling slightly of cinnamon.

  “What’s that?” he asked, looking at her cup.

  “Cappuccino.”

  “Oh.”

  “You must be the only customer this morning having something other than espresso. They couldn’t quite comprehend it.”

  Penwarren smiled. “Stuck in my ways, I guess. Thanks for fetching it. The flight’s delayed, but not for long. Weather,” he said gesturing at the downpour outside the terminal’s expansive windows. Planes were lined up on the tarmac, lights blinking, awaiting takeoff clearance. “I sent a text to the rest of the team to meet us in the incident room in Bodmin this afternoon at one.”

  “Not that we have much to report.”

  “No, but that was a good idea, Terry, trying to talk to Lugg’s former neighbors yesterday afternoon. Proper police work.”

  “What few came to the door seemed glad to have seen the back of Lugg. I guess he would have been pretty intimidating.”

  “But not to old Mrs. Thompson.”

  AFTER NEARLY AN hour of curt rebuffs, despite their warrant cards, Terry had noticed movement in a dingy lace curtain at a ground floor flat opposite Lugg’s mother’s former residence. They’d crossed Upper Pitt Street and were surprised to be ushered briskly into a cluttered front sitting room by a diminutive, slightly bent, elderly woman with wispy white hair. Despite the heat in the flat, which was tropical, she wore a buttoned up pink cardigan over a patterned housedress and had furry slippers that seemed too big, as if her tiny feet had shrunk with age like the rest of her.

  “Police, eh?” she said, studying their warrant cards. “But Cornwall? Goodness, you’re a long way from home!” She handed back the cards and tilted her head, scrutinizing them. “What are you doing here then? My late husband Stewart was with the Merseyside police, long ago. I thought you were supposed to tend to your own patch.” Her mind was obviously as sharp as her eyesight.

  “We’re just following up on an investigation,” Terry said, “involving Harold Lugg.”

  “Well if you’re looking for young Mr. Lugg, he’s long gone. His mum too, poor dear. When she died, a year or so ago I think it was—memory’s not what it used to be—he just fell apart. Cried like a baby, right here in my sitting room. Worshipped her, he did. Her only son. Did everything for her, until she had to be taken into that care home. I knew that would be the end of her, but he visited her every day and brought her treats. Wasn’t supposed to, mind, but who would argue with him? He was fearsome looking. Scared some of the neighbors, truth be told, but he was always kindly to me. Courtly, like. Always stopped in to ask if I needed anything when he went to the shops for his mum.”

  She looked out her front window to the house opposite. “Guess he couldn’t bear being in the flat without her, so he sold everything after she died and moved away. What trouble is he in this time?”

  “Was he often in trouble, Mrs. Thompson?” Terry asked, her voice casual.

  “Oh, nothing serious, I’m told. Bar fights is what I heard. He was a big brute—professional fighter, you know—and maybe had a temper, though I never saw it.” She covered her mouth with a thin, blue-veined hand to hide a girlish giggle. “Can’t imagine anyone wanting to take him on! But then, you’ve met him.”

  “Not in person, Mrs. Thompson,” Penwarren said. “I’m afraid Mr. Lugg is dead. Detective Bates and I are here in Liverpool to learn more about him.”

  The old woman dropped into an overstuffed chair that nearly engulfed her, but her eyes remained bright. She ran a hand through her fine white hair. “Your warrant cards say CID. He was murdered then?”

  “I’m afraid that is what seems to have happened,” Penwarren answered, as if apologizing.

  She looked at her slippered feet and shook her head. “Who would ever want to kill that poor sweet man?”

  THE MCIT INCIDENT room was full that afternoon, uniforms busying about and his own team at the conference table waiting. Penwarren was pacing back and forth among the desks and snakes of computer and phone wires. No one said anything, they let him pace. They’d seldom seen him like this before.

  He felt stymied, and he’d just got another text from Crawley demanding a progress report. Finally, as if suddenly remembering he had a meeting to chair, he stopped and took a seat.

  “Thank you all for being here,” he mumbled while gathering his unruly thoughts.

  Morgan was thinking, being here is our job, boss…

  “As you know, Terry and I have just been up to Liverpool to establish a CONFI agreement with the intel folks there,” he began. ‘They had suggested that doing so would make more details available about Lugg they could not otherwise reveal.
”

  He nodded to Terry.

  “It was basically a waste of time,” she responded, shaking her head. “They told us they believe he was throwing fights for the benefit of his backers, who would bet heavily against him. There is some suspicion—and little more than that, apparently—that his backers were somehow connected to the IRA. But Liverpool claim they can get no further details from the Irish Garda. The money from the thrown fights went through an intermediary company, a so-called e-wallet firm, which are apparently legal in Ireland. They take in bets, place them with regular betting organizations, pay off, and keep their bettors anonymous. All Liverpool know is that the money goes to a private account in some bank in Cork called KVF. Beyond that, they had nothing. Dead end.”

  “On the other hand,” Penwarren added, “Terry and I did some doorstepping in Lugg’s old neighborhood and at least one neighbor, an old dear who lives across the street from Lugg’s mum’s former council flat, made it clear that, however vicious he may have been as a cage fighter, he was a devoted son. He lived with and looked after his mum, and when she died, he sold up and disappeared. That was more than a year ago.”

  At the mention of the bank transactions, Morgan shot a “don’t say anything” look at Adam. He blinked in assent. This afternoon, the curly-haired young man with the prominent Eastern European cheekbones looked hopelessly handsome. He was wearing a suit, nicely fitted in gray worsted wool, a crisp tattersall shirt, and a navy blue tie. She reckoned he’d missed Terry. She almost envied the girl but shook away the thought; she could be Adam’s mother.

  “All my instincts tell me these people in Liverpool know something—or think they know something—that they won’t let on,” Penwarren continued. “Or maybe they have a secret they don’t want to share. It’s as if inviting us and having little to say had no other purpose but to secure that secret.”

  He looked at Morgan and saw she was grinning.

  “All right, Detective, you look like a cat that’s caught a bird. What is it?”

  “An Irish thrush. They seem to migrate from Belgium.”

  Novak smiled.

  Penwarren closed his eyes and slumped in his chair. The world’s chairs were always too low for his long body; he slumped to get back support. “What is this, I’ve Got a Secret? Do I get a crisp pound note if I guess the answer correctly?”

  “The what?” Novak asked, confused.

  “Forget it, Adam. Old telly game show you’re too young to remember.”

  He opened his eyes and leveled them at Morgan.

  “Does your Irish thrush sing, detective? I hope so, because I’m tired and short on patience.”

  Morgan nodded to Adam. She wanted him to shine.

  “Well, sir,” he began, “Detective Inspector Davies and I have been following up on that Range Rover leased from the dealer in Saltash and, well, we might have something that could help.”

  Penwarren nodded for Novak to continue.

  “So, the first thing we did—or rather Morgan did—was get on the horn and pressure the Rover dealer for information about who holds the lease. It took a bit of persuading.”

  Penwarren smiled but said nothing. He knew all about Morgan’s persuasive skills.

  “Turns out the lease is held by a company in Ireland called Celtic Property Development, Ltd.”

  “In Ireland?” Penwarren said, sitting up again.

  “The vehicle number plate belongs to them, too. I also ran the car through the Automated Number Plate Recognition system but found no violations. No record.”

  “Good work. What have you learned about this company?”

  Adam shook his head. “That they ceased to exist more than a decade ago, sir. Made a bundle in the Irish building boom and then vanished. There are no recent business records.”

  “And yet they lease a Range Rover here today.”

  Adam nodded.

  Morgan couldn’t contain herself anymore. “And the payments are wired from an Irish bank.”

  Penwarren leaned back in his chair and smiled when the penny suddenly dropped.

  “KVF?”

  Morgan stood up, stuck a hand into the right pocket of her navy blue pants suit, pulled out a newly minted one pound coin, and slid it across the table to Penwarren. “No crisp pound notes anymore, boss, but you are a winner!”

  Penwarren smiled and shook his head. He was finally enjoying this game.

  “All right, but who’s KVF?”

  “They’re based in Belgium,” Adam answered, “founded more than a century ago in Flanders as the Catholic Volksbank. Branches today in Ireland and other predominantly Catholic countries in Eastern Europe, but none in the rest of Britain or in Northern Ireland.”

  “There’s a Catholic connection?”

  “Haven’t a clue, boss,” Adam said.

  “And for my money, as it were,” Calum interrupted, “there isn’t one. So, they were founded in Flanders…”

  “Where ‘the poppies blow,’ ” Penwarren mumbled, recalling the poem from his childhood, “‘between the crosses, row on row…’”

  “Yes, Remembrance Day and all that,” Calum continued. “But so what? I think it’s a reach to make any link between this bank and Catholicism. Yes, Flanders was and is predominantly Catholic, like Ireland and, apparently the Eastern European countries Adam mentioned as well. But I‘d argue that’s irrelevant. Organizations, and people, tend to cluster in places where they feel most welcome. Think of ghettos in pre-war Europe. Think of ethnic clusters here like Muslims or Pakistanis in the Midlands and elsewhere. Or the way some industries cluster in one area to take advantage of and build upon their mutual strengths. My guess is that bank went where it knew it would be welcome, where there was some sense of affinity. People do that, businesses too. It’s about culture, not religion.”

  The DCI nodded. “I hear you, Calum.”

  “And there’s something else, boss, if I may change the subject slightly. Our victim makes no sense. None. A cage fighter from Liverpool who is found dead in a Cornish bog? Why did someone kill him? Why here? The guy spends his whole life up north, right? Then he gets thrown out of the wrestling game, his mother dies, and he vanishes. What’s an ex-cage wrestler do for an encore? Does he seek gainful employment elsewhere? As what? With what skills other than physical violence? A club bouncer, maybe? Sure, but why not stay in Liverpool, where he’s known, where he’s made his reputation? Or was he running? Let’s say Merseyside are right, that he was making money for the IRA. How much could his thrown fights really have generated for them? Enough for them to kill him when that revenue stream dried up? I don’t think so. They’re too big and he was too small. It doesn’t add up.”

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  “I thought you were ‘scene’,” Morgan said.

  He smiled. “Sorry. I’m bored.”

  Morgan looked at the colleague and man she’d known for so long and now knew, in her heart, that she’d not just respected, but loved him all along, and marveled again at the care with which he considered everything, from the details at a crime scene, to the loving way he was raising his daughters alone, to the way he’d just forced the rest of them to think beyond the body in the mortuary cooler.

  Penwarren’s mobile buzzed. It was Dr. Duncan. He rose and went to his windows to listen. After a few moments he thanked her, rang off, and turned to the team. “The tox report is in. Lugg had enough cocaine in his system to fell a horse.”

  “Except it took a bullet,” Morgan said.

  Penwarren was wrapping up the meeting. “So, today’s summary is that Liverpool and the Irish Garda are unlikely to be of much help to this inquiry, each for their own reasons, apparently, and that our victim—DCS Crawley’s obsession, and mine—may only be a minor piece in some larger puzzle. Right?”

  Nods all around, except for Novak.

  “If I may suggest, sir…”

  Penwarren turned. “I’m never going to break you of that ‘sir’ habit, am I Adam?”

  Nova
k grinned. “How I was brought up, sir.”

  “I capitulate. Now then, you had a suggestion?”

  “Let’s say the car Terry and I saw pulling out of Poldue was the same Rover. Might be, might not be. But it’s the only one of that model and color leased by a local dealer and, we now know, paid for by an Irish company. So let’s assume it is the same one for the sake of argument. Don’t you think it is time we questioned the young woman about who it was visited her the night she found the body, and why she lied about it?”

  Morgan looked at Penwarren. She knew this was dicey for her boss. It was family and all. “Adam’s met the girl,” she said. “I’ve met the mother and she seems to trust me. I think we could handle it, boss.”

  Terry was about to object, but Penwarren saw it in her face and held up a hand.

  “I agree, Morgan. And Terry, we have more work to do, you and I. Something’s rotten at Merseyside, and I think it may be related to its reticence and your apparent attack in the car park.”

  Terry’s objection vanished from her face and she nodded. She’d felt instinctively something was not right about the Liverpool interview, but couldn’t put her finger on it. Plus there was the “accident.” Her arm still throbbed.

  Day Ten

  Nineteen

  ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, after calling ahead first, Adam drove around the southern edge of Bodmin Moor toward Poldue Manor. A heavy mist lay over the landscape—not rain, but enough to keep the windshield wipers busy. It was as if the clouds hadn’t the energy to stay up in the sky and had just slumped onto the hills.

  “This bloody Corsa is useless, can’t even get out of its own way,” he grumbled as he tried to whip it down the narrow, hedge-lined lanes.

  Morgan sat next to him and smiled. “What do you drive yourself, Adam?”

  “A GTI.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Volkswagen. Hatchback. Nothing like this piece of crap. Do you read CAR magazine?”

  Morgan chuckled. “Sadly no, Adam. Whatever else you might think, I’m still a girl. The only thing I know about cars is being able to identify them in a traffic incident.”