by Bill Kitson
Shock held the prisoners speechless for a moment, then Miller burst out, ‘It can’t be! You’re dead!’
‘Really? Why do you think that? Mr Perry needed specialist treatment. We also wanted to make sure he was clear of danger so we had him moved to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. There, he could be given the treatment to help him recover and be close to his mother; close enough for her to visit him as he was recuperating.’
Nash turned to the man in the wheelchair. ‘Do you recognize anyone in this room, Ray?’
‘I recognize Corinna’ – Ray nodded in her direction – ‘although I haven’t seen her for a long time. I don’t recognize him,’ he pointed to Miller. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before in my life. The odd thing is, though, when I was waiting next door I thought his voice sounded vaguely familiar.’
‘Funny, I thought that as well,’ Ray’s mother chipped in.
Both prisoners remained silent, their eyes averted from Ray Perry and his mother. Nash looked at Clara and nodded towards the door. She walked across and took hold of the handle.
‘I have someone else here I’d like you to meet,’ Nash told them. As he spoke, Clara opened the connecting door and gestured to Pearce.
‘For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her, allow me to introduce Frankie Da Silva—’
Corinna’s scream cut across Nash’s voice before he finished his sentence. Strangely, it was she who was more shocked than Phil by the apparent entrance of the woman they thought was dead.
‘As I was saying, this is Frankie Da Silva’s daughter, Christina.’
Corinna was white and shaking, her hand clasped to her mouth, her eyes fixed on Tina’s face. She didn’t seem to have taken in what Nash had said.
Although Nash had warned Ray and his mother what was going to happen, when he had introduced Tina to her father and grandmother a little earlier, Clara could see that they, too, were moved by the similarity to Frankie.
The sudden appearance of Raymond Perry, followed by the girl who so uncannily resembled Frankie seemed to knock the last semblance of fight from Phil. ‘All right,’ he said, his tone heavy with the weariness of defeat. ‘I’ll tell you.’
‘Yes, but will you tell us everything?’ Mironova interrupted. ‘Or will we have to prompt you?’
Corinna saw the glance that passed between Nash and his deputy and her heart sank. That glance told her the game was up. They didn’t need to be told. They already knew it all.
‘There was one unanswered question that had us puzzled,’ Nash continued. ‘Who would benefit from the death of Max Perry? Who stood to gain – apart from Corinna, that is? Certainly not the people whose diamonds had been stolen – they were hard-headed business men. Killing Max would have achieved nothing; it wouldn’t have got their diamonds back. Nor did Callaghan stand to gain. He was having more trouble with the triads than Max.’
‘Excuse me,’ Clara said. ‘Do you want to take their statements before or after we charge them?’
‘Good question. We’ve only charged them with the attempted robbery of the diamonds from the bank this morning. Will you read out the other possible charges please, Clara? It will help to refresh the memory.’
Clara took a sheet of paper from a file and began to read. ‘There’s the murder of Graham Nattrass, the attempted murder of Raymond Perry, the assault on Tina Silver, the murders of Frankie Da Silva, Trevor Thornton, one as yet unidentified male and Tony Callaghan.’ Clara paused and looked at Nash.
‘Thank you, Clara, I think that should do for starters.’
Ray Perry interrupted. ‘But what about Max’s murder? Why haven’t you mentioned that? Don’t you think they should be charged with that? Wasn’t Max their first victim?’
Corinna’s heart sank as she saw Nash look at his deputy once more and realized the full extent of their knowledge. As if in a dream, she heard him say, ‘I think it’s very touching of you to be concerned that the killers of Max are brought to justice,’ Nash told him. As he was speaking, he turned to look at Phil Miller. ‘However, I believe that would be very difficult to prove. Impossible, I reckon.’ His tone was almost conversational. ‘It would have its comical side though, don’t you agree? Being charged with your own murder, Max?’
There was stunned silence for a long moment. ‘What did you say?’ Evangeline asked.
‘I was suggesting to Max that it would be funny if he was charged with having murdered himself, that’s all.’
‘Max? You think this is Max? But he’s been dead over twenty-five years,’ Evangeline persisted.
‘Correction, everyone believed him to have been dead over twenty-five years,’ Nash told her.
‘That isn’t Max,’ Raymond chimed in. ‘Max was killed. You know he was. Besides, that man doesn’t look at all like Max.’
‘No, he doesn’t now, but he still sounds like Max.’ He turned to Evangeline. ‘Remember what you said about his voice sounding familiar? How could it, when you’ve never met Phil Miller? Unless of course, Phil Miller is actually Max Perry, your brother-in-law. Then you would think the voice familiar.’
‘But what about his appearance?’ Ray objected.
Nash was still looking at Sister Evangeline. ‘Remember when you told me where Corinna worked as a nurse?’
‘Yes; it was in Coventry.’
‘We checked it out. You were right when you said the name was somehow connected to Captain Cook. It was the Endeavour Clinic that burned down, killing three people. One of them was a plastic surgeon who operated there. We managed to trace the anaesthetist who assisted. He now lives in California. He remembered a patient by the name of Phil Miller. He confirmed the identity via a photo we emailed him of Max Perry. So, Clara, I suggest you charge our friend here under his real name. And if he still insists he isn’t Max Perry, a simple DNA test will confirm it. We’ve his nephew’s DNA already on file.’ Nash gestured to Ray.
Nash signalled to Clara to stop the tape. He looked at Max and Corinna. Both of them appeared to be stunned, defeated, deflated almost.
‘Sergeant Binns, take them back down to the cells. Get them a solicitor if they want one. They might need legal aid,’ he added wickedly, ‘as they’re up to their ears in debt.’
When the visitors had been supplied with refreshments, Nash turned to Ray. ‘Tell me about Callaghan, what happened when he was killed?’
‘I was framed. I got a call from him.’ Ray explained how he’d been summoned to the car showroom on some pretext of a meeting and had only just arrived when the police showed up.
‘Who set the meeting up?’ Nash asked.
‘Callaghan rang me.’
‘Are you sure it was him?’ Nash asked.
‘Of course I’m sure. Who else could it have been?’
‘Someone good at impersonations, perhaps? Someone with theatrical experience?’
‘You mean…?’
‘There seems to have been more than one conversation attributed to a person that couldn’t be verified.’ Nash said. ‘But tell me, why did you keep quiet all the time you were inside?’
‘I got a message,’ Ray explained. ‘It was when I was on remand. Another convict passed it.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought it was genuine, because that’s the way things happened inside. Still do’ – he smiled – ‘despite your lot trying to put a stop to it. The message was from Frankie, or so they reckoned. Now, I realize it was simply designed to shut me up. It said that she’d done what we planned, but in order to make sure she was safe, I had to keep quiet. I couldn’t risk anything happening to Frankie, what with the baby and all,’ he said with a deal of sadness in his voice, ‘so I complied. Much later, as the years passed with no contact whatsoever, I began to have my doubts, but what could I do? I had no one to contact, no money to launch an appeal, and as far as I could tell, no grounds for one.’
‘You knew about the baby?’ Nash asked.
Perry nodded. ‘We even discussed names – devised a password from it, either boy or g
irl, in case of emergency.’
‘What about your mother?’ Clara asked. ‘Didn’t you think of trying to contact her?’
‘I did, once I started to wonder if that message was true, but then I heard that she’d died. You may think I’m simple for believing these rumours, but I’d no means of checking them out. All the news I got was that a homeless alcoholic had been fished out of the river near Rotherhithe. What convinced me was I knew my mother used to go there a bit when she was … ill.’
‘What did you think about the rumour that Frankie was involved with Callaghan?’ Mironova asked.
‘I heard that, and told Frankie about it. We laughed so much I thought she was going to wet herself. We both knew that Callaghan was queer. He used to visit a boy who lived in the same apartment block and that’s how rumours start.’
‘Tell me about the diamonds. How did you get hold of them? They would have been somewhere secure, I’d have thought.’
‘Not from me,’ Ray smiled, and Nash realized with some surprise that it was almost the first time he’d seen him look cheerful. ‘I stole them,’ Ray confessed. ‘The lock-up had a safe in the corner, one that was cemented into the floor. I was good with safes, so I simply broke in and took the diamonds.’
‘What did you intend to do with them?’
‘First of all, we wanted to deny Max the use of them. We knew their history, the misery and bloodshed they had already caused to thousands, possibly millions of people. Frankie was passionate about it, and when I heard the rumour that Max had got hold of them, I was sure the men who had brought them to this country had been murdered. That, more than anything, convinced me she was right. After I got the stones, Frankie was going to come back to Yorkshire so that Margaret could look after her, as she was nearly ready for the baby to be born. She brought the diamonds with her. Our long-term aim was to contact one of the human rights organizations and explain how we’d come by them, in the hope that they could be sold and the money used to help some of the original victims. Whose was the body, by the way? The fake Max, I mean?’ Ray asked.
‘We believe the man was a South African private investigator who specialized in tracing stolen diamonds. There has always been a big trade in them in South Africa, so much so that there used to be a specific offence, called illicit diamond buying, for anyone caught in possession of them. The private detective’s name was Karl Reikert, and he was reported missing soon after Max’s “murder”, so that tallies. They only had to invite Reikert to Max’s place and his fingerprints would be easily matched. Who would question it?’
Nash looked at Ray. ‘You’ve had a long day. I think we should leave you to spend some time with your family.’
Perry’s eyes glistened with tears. ‘Family – that’s a word I thought I’d never use again, Inspector. Thank you.’
Tina asked, ‘How many people have they killed in order to get their hands on those diamonds?’
‘We can’t be certain, but we believe there were two couriers who brought the stones from Holland, the fake Max, Callaghan and his bodyguard, who your father was convicted of killing, and the three victims of the fire at the clinic where Max had his plastic surgery done. Then we believe your mother, Frankie, died in their company too, but whether that was murder, we can’t be sure. More recently, we know they killed Graham Nattrass, Trevor Thornton plus his minder and an underworld informant called Freddie Perkins.’
‘Dear Heaven, so much evil,’ Evangeline muttered.
‘What I don’t understand is why they waited all this time to get hold of the diamonds if they were so desperate?’ Tina asked.
‘That’s a good question, and there’s no simple answer to it. In fact, we believe there are a number of contributory reasons. One is that, with Ray out of circulation, Max had control all to himself. He entered the highly lucrative drugs trade, which Ray had always been dead against, and so he wasn’t short of money.
‘Added to that, they’d no idea how to get hold of the diamonds. The only people with any knowledge were Frankie, who was dead, and Ray, who was serving a life sentence. They’d been desperate to get Ray locked up because they feared that he was the one person who would be able to see through the “Phil Miller” fraud, and in doing that they’d put the stones out of reach until such time as he was released.’
Nash paused before continuing, ‘Above all, they needed the money desperately now. Although they’d made a huge fortune from their various illicit activities, they’d invested it all, and borrowed more to put into a scheme that at first seemed highly lucrative. It was run by an American investment counsellor, and when the financial meltdown happened recently, it was found to be what’s known as a “Ponzi scheme”. The man behind the scheme was in the news afterwards; he was the one who made off with billions of pounds of investors’ money. Phil and Corinna are broke, all their property has been re-mortgaged up to the hilt and with prices on the slide, they’re having trouble keeping up with the repayments. Added to all that, we understand there are what’s euphemistically known as “collectors” after them, regarding some of the money they owe to some disreputable lenders. Also, diamonds have appreciated in value enormously over the years. I think the collection we’ve taken possession of is worth somewhere around fifteen million today.’
‘I don’t know how you managed to work all that out,’ Evangeline told him.
Nash gestured to Mironova and Pearce. ‘They’re the ones who did most of the work. I’m very lucky. I’ve a brilliant team, and they contributed just as much, if not more. Unfortunately, whatever we do, we can’t put right all the evil things that were done, just get a little bit of justice for those who have suffered.’ Nash frowned. ‘I believe there are superstitions that say those blood diamonds are cursed. When you think of the number of people who have died because of them, that’s easy to believe. Any pleasure at solving this case vanishes when I think of the victims we know of – and the untold number of whom we’re unaware. All for the sake of some glittering bits of carbon.’
THE END
The D.I. Mike Nash Series
Book 1: WHAT LIES BENEATH
Book 2: VANISH WITHOUT TRACE
Book 3: PLAYING WITH FIRE
Book 4: KILLING CHRISTMAS
Book 5: SLASH KILLER
Book 6: ALONE WITH A KILLER
Book 7: BLOOD DIAMOND
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