by LJ Ross
Ryan glanced at Lowerson, who was noticeably quiet.
“Seems sensible,” he agreed. “But when you question Singh, you don’t go alone. You go as a pair and keep us fully appraised of your movements, at all times. Understood?”
Yates nodded and, after a moment, Lowerson did the same.
“What about Singh’s properties, vehicles and so on? Has there been any progress on that score?”
“The Fraud Squad came through for us,” Lowerson said. “DS Harry Tomlinson has been trying to unravel Singh’s business ventures since we first came across him a while ago—back when you were staying at that cottage in Cragside.”
Ryan nodded.
“I remember. There was some suspicion that Singh was seeking to launder money through the purchase of a large plot of land on the Cragside Estate.”
“That’s right. Unfortunately, the Fraud Squad haven’t been able to mount a prosecution because there’s no solid evidence, but they have a substantial file on Singh that we can use. DS Tomlinson’s sent over a list of all the properties he believes are owned by Singh or one of his companies,” Lowerson continued, tapping a printed spreadsheet lying on the desk in front of him. “He has well over a hundred residential properties that he runs more or less as a slum landlord.”
“All in the city?” MacKenzie asked. “Or are they scattered around?”
“All over Northumberland and County Durham, predominantly,” Lowerson replied.
“They would be ideal properties for somebody wanting to set up drugs dens over county lines,” MacKenzie said.
Ryan nodded his agreement.
“Cross-check against any previous drugs busts,” he said, and Lowerson made a note. “Drugs Squad should be able to help you with that.”
“Right,” Lowerson said, thinking pessimistically of the conversation that would entail with DS Gallagher and DCI Coates.
“If we can prove some of these properties have been, or are being, used as a base for drugs pushing, it would give us grounds for a warrant to dig deeper into Singh’s affairs,” Ryan said.
“Aye, but what if they’re registered to his off-shore companies?” Phillips put in. “Hard to connect him, if it’s the trust that owns those properties, not him as a private person.”
“Tomlinson says they’ve traced the properties to Singh through a combination of tip-offs and forensic accounting, but they can’t prove that he owns them,” Lowerson agreed.
“How come?” Phillips asked, out of interest.
“The properties are all part of what’s called a Nevada Trust.”
When Phillips still looked none the wiser, Ryan helped him out.
“It used to be that people would set up off-shore companies in Saint Kitts and Nevis, maybe Guernsey or the Isle of Man,” he said. “But the US and the UK systems are actually more corrupt, because we make it so easy to set up a company like that; even easier than on the islands, despite what people may think. Anyway, a Nevada Trust is the latest thing, because although the US requires all countries to provide them with their data, Nevada State Law doesn’t allow the disclosure of trust beneficiaries to overseas investigators.”
“In other words, they get to have their cake, and eat it too?”
“It’s an ideal loophole,” Ryan agreed. “And will make it almost impossible for us to find out whether Singh is the true beneficial owner of those off-shore trusts. Without that information, we’ll need to rely on the witness statements and our own forensic accounting, like Jack says.”
“Well, that’s a bugger,” Phillips declared, and then thought of something else. “If we’re still pretty sure that Singh’s behind some or all of these, it’s a fair bet that Ludo will be holed up in one of them.
“It would have to be one of the more remote addresses,” MacKenzie said. “Ludo’s got a memorable face, and there’d be less chance of him being recognised there than in the city.”
The others nodded their agreement.
“Let’s prioritise the rural addresses,” Ryan said to Lowerson. “Send a couple of PCs out to each area to do a recce, but tell them under no circumstances to approach the address itself without our express authorisation. Paul Evershed is most likely armed, and is to be considered extremely dangerous.”
Lowerson fell into a sudden coughing fit, and Phillips gave him a friendly thump on the back.
“Tea go down the wrong way, son? Here, have a slurp of water.”
He handed Jack a bottle of water he found on the desk, and Lowerson didn’t stop to worry about how long it might have been there before chugging down a few mouthfuls.
“Sorry,” he wheezed.
Ryan gave him a long, considering look.
“Jack, are you sure you’re ready to be back at work? You seem out of sorts.”
Lowerson held back another nervous cough.
“I’m fine, sir.”
Ryan sighed at the excessively formal tone.
“If you need more time off—”
“Thank you, but I said I’m fine.”
There was an awkward lull in conversation, and then Ryan gave a curt nod and checked his watch.
Eleven-fifteen.
“Alright, what about the surveillance on Singh? Has it turned up anything of interest?”
MacKenzie shook her head.
“I spoke to the surveillance team last night, and again first thing this morning. Nothing out of the ordinary reported yet, but they’ll keep on him for another couple of days.”
“On whose order?” Ryan wondered.
“They’ve been reporting through Gallagher and Coates,” MacKenzie replied, and Ryan frowned.
“Tell them they report to the head of Operation Watchman, in future. I want that man kept under surveillance for as long as I deem necessary.”
MacKenzie smiled slowly.
“Funnily enough, I told them the same thing. I’ll pass on the message again.”
“What about leads on vulnerable persons?” he asked. “Have we had any data through from the outreach centres, schools—how about Social Services? I want to know if Singh’s companies have a contract with the local councils to provide sheltered accommodation for vulnerable adults.”
“They want to help, but they’re run off their feet,” Yates said. “I can chase them, sir, but I think it’ll take a while before the data starts to come through.”
Ryan had expected as much.
“Keep pressing them, Mel. If we can connect Singh to sheltered housing, which we know is often used by dealers as a base for their operations, it allows us to stay one step ahead of them. Let’s keep the lines of communication open with the other units under the Watchman remit, too.”
Even as he said the words, Blackett’s warning about the other units in CID circled around Ryan’s mind, and it was on the tip of his tongue to tell the rest of his team to be careful with the information they gave out.
But Ryan could not, and his hands were tied.
Besides, as he’d discovered long ago, the very best way to catch a liar in the act was to give him enough rope to hang himself.
CHAPTER 14
“Joan? Wake up, Joan.”
Her eyes were heavy with the pain medication, but she forced them open and groped around the bedside table for her glasses.
“Here, let me help you with those.”
Mike Emerson hooked the glasses carefully around his mother-in-law’s ears, and she patted his hand with her bandaged paw.
“Thanks, pet. Must’ve dozed off again, for a minute.”
“You need your rest,” he said. “But it’s time for your next dose, and for something to eat.”
She noticed the tea tray, laden with little sandwiches and biscuits for her to pick at.
“Ah, love. You didn’t need to go to all this trouble. I know how busy you are—how busy you all are.”
“It’s no trouble for my favourite lady,” Mike said, and she almost sighed. He couldn’t seem to turn off the charm, which wasn’t quite as charming as it had
been when he was thirty years younger, and thirty pounds lighter. “I took a few days off work, to help out.”
Joan was surprised. She’d known Mike ever since he was a boy, and—Lord forgive her—she’d never have accused him of putting others before himself, as a rule.
“That’s very kind of you, love. Honestly, give me a few more days and I’ll be as fit as a fiddle.”
Mike knew that, beneath the bandages, her skin was still raw. The effort of trying to save Alan had physically exhausted her, and she’d suffered a very mild stroke on her way to the hospital. Not so bad as to affect her speech, but her right arm wasn’t as strong as it used to be and would need physiotherapy once the burns had healed.
“You’ll be right as rain in no time,” was all he said, settling himself on the chair next to her bed. “How are you feeling, now?”
She looked up at the ceiling, trying to work out the answer.
“I think I feel a bit…numb. There were times when life was so hard with Alan—”
“I know,” he muttered, looking down at his hands. He found himself thinking about whether, perhaps, he could’ve done more to help.
“I miss him so badly…” A fat tear worked its way down her cheek, and guilt lodged heavily in his chest.
“I should’ve come around more often,” he said, and cast his memory back to when Alan had helped him get his first job down the mine. Those early years, when he and Sally were newly married, had been hard. Money had been tight, and tempers had run high.
And, of course, he’d slowly begun to realise that Sally didn’t love him.
Or, perhaps, she’d fallen out of love with him, somewhere along the way?
It was hard to tell.
“You lead busy lives,” Joan said, but it would have been nice to have had a little more support. “It wouldn’t have changed things, anyway.”
“I don’t know,” Mike said, running a hand over his chin. “I tried to speak to Alan a few times about all those rumours. You know, one time, he accused me of starting them?”
Joan tutted.
“He didn’t know what he was saying…”
“I forgave him for that a long time ago,” he said, magnanimously. “It was Sally who got the brunt of it.”
Joan felt her chest contract as the years rolled back, and she remembered a particularly nasty episode in their front room; the one where Alan had died. After the mine closed and the men were put out to pasture, the younger ones went out and started to re-train, or get their GCE’s so they could apply for the Civil Service. Plenty of the other women were happy to stay at home and bring up the children, clean and cook the meals.
But that had never been enough for Sally.
Being a part of the activism and helping to organise the cafes and the meetings, had given her a taste for something bigger. She wanted to do something useful with her life, and Joan had been proud to see her go back to school and get an education. Sally had always been bright, and so had Simon.
Alan hadn’t understood.
If he had a failing, it had been that he was a traditional sort of man. He’d believed a woman’s work was in the home, and that the strike belonged to the men, not the women. They could help out on the sidelines, but they hadn’t been the ones to go down the pit every day and, so, what did they know about it?
Sally had understood. She’d grown up in a mining family and knew the challenges that faced them long after that industry had faded away. She was proud that her daughter managed to make something of herself and that she used her influence to try to make the world a better place for everyone, not just the wealthy.
Alan hadn’t seen it that way.
Strutting about on stage, that’s what he’d called it.
Just like you, Sally had thrown back, and that was true enough. There’d been plenty of times Alan Watson had given a speech down at the Club.
It had been a terrible row but, underneath it all, she’d known Alan wasn’t angry with Sally; he was angry with all those who believed he had betrayed them, and had played judge, jury and executioner.
“Did you know, Alan kept all her cuttings?” Joan said, and Mike shook his head. “Oh, yes. He said a lot of things that he didn’t mean, but he was proud of her. Deep down, he was proud.”
Mike leaned his arms on his knees, looking down at the floor.
For a while, she thought he was about to say something else, but then they heard the doorbell ring.
“That’ll be the nurse,” he muttered, and the moment was lost.
* * *
“I want to know who’s on your list.”
As the rest of his team worked towards finding the whereabouts of Paul Evershed, Ryan drove a short distance across town to meet DCI Blackett. The café was small and packed with lunchtime customers looking for a baguette or a bowl of soup, hardly noticing the two serious-looking men occupying a small table in the corner.
“I’ve already told you, Ryan. I’m not able to share that with you.”
“Bollocks,” came the succinct reply. “You came to me because you think it’s one of mine. I want to know who.”
Blackett considered the man sitting across the table before answering. Maxwell Finlay-Ryan was one of the most high-profile detectives on the Force. He’d earned a reputation for being able to keep a cool head, even in times of chaos. He had a string of commendations and, he happened to know, the brass had earmarked him for much greater things than being a lowly DCI.
But it seemed the man himself had other ideas.
He respected that.
Ryan was known to be a straight arrow; a man who kept to a code of conduct, not only by reference to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act but to his own standards of behaviour, which were probably higher. He was known to be high-handed, sometimes, but never without justification. On paper, his CV read like one of those privileged knobs Blackett had come across in Whitehall and at Scotland Yard; chinless wonders who wouldn’t know how to police if their life depended upon it. Having now met the man, and taken the trouble to learn about the times when Ryan had indeed fought for his life and the lives of others, Blackett understood that appearances could be deceptive.
There might be privilege, but there was backbone, too.
“The truth is, Ryan, you already know who I’m looking at,” he said, at length. “You know because, at some stage or another since our last discussion, you’ll have thought about it and come to the same conclusions.”
Ryan wasn’t ready to talk about that.
Not yet.
“I don’t know the Drugs Squad or Vice. We work together, on and off, but not daily. I wouldn’t know about the internal dynamics, there.”
Blackett took a sip of his tea, and thought about how much to share. It wasn’t protocol, but, if it brought results…
“To be as successful as it has been in scuppering previous operations, and to have maintained such an extraordinary level of secrecy, we believe there has to be more than one senior officer who’s turned.”
“One in each unit, you mean?”
“At least. Most likely, several in each unit. Back in Gregson’s day, when he worked in Vice, he had a fail-safe method of ensuring compliance from new members of a team. He’d arrange for some young idiot to go out on a ‘date’ with a girl who, it would later transpire, was a trafficked sex worker, probably underage. Once he had something on an officer, he held it over their heads to ensure ongoing loyalty.”
Blackett gave a negligent shrug.
“It’s the same story in Drugs. A senior officer would hand over something taken from a bust, usually drugs or money, and once the newbie had taken it, they were an accessory and a beneficiary of the proceeds of crime.”
“And you think the same thing is happening now?”
“Undoubtedly,” Blackett said. “Whether by that method, or something similar. You’re no fool, Ryan. You’re an idealist, but you’re no fool.”
“Thanks,” Ryan muttered, with a generous measure of sarcasm.
> “Look, none of us like what’s happening. I know how hard you fought to get Gregson and his lot out, root and branch. You’re like us, Ryan. You want law enforcement officers to do what they signed up to do—enforce the law, not exploit it.”
Ryan nodded, and came back around to his original question.
“Who are you looking at, in the other units?”
Blackett decided to throw it all in. Sometimes, you had to take a punt and, if it turned out to be wrong, that would fall on Ryan’s shoulders.
Win-win.
“Usually, to get a copper to turn, they have to start by finding their weakness; whether that be drugs, money, women, kids…” He took another gulp of tea, to wash the nasty taste of it from his mouth. “Whatever their weakness, there’s an organisation who’ll know about it, and want to use it.”
“So, you do the same,” Ryan realised. “You look for the weaknesses, to find out who are the most likely targets?”
Blackett raised his teacup in a toast.
“It’s amazing, the things you find out. For instance, I wonder how many of your colleagues know that you’re sitting on a personal fortune somewhere in the tens of millions, or that you set up a charitable foundation in your sister’s name so you can give most of it away, every week?”
Ryan said nothing, but felt a wave of anger at the breach of privacy. He supposed it was the man’s job but, in that moment, he felt just as exposed as Alan Watson laid out on Pinter’s table.
“Nobody knows,” he said, in a very controlled voice. Nobody but Anna. “I’d like to keep it that way.”
Blackett held up his hands.
“You can count on my discretion,” he said. “I’m only bringing it up to illustrate that, nobody really knows anybody else, Ryan. Not deep down. We all have our little secrets.”
He took a quick glance around the café and leaned forward, hands linked on the table.
“As for the others,” he said, very softly. “There’s a potential whistle-blower on the Vice Squad, but he’s scared. He’s not whiter than white, himself, and he doesn’t want his wife and kids to find out. We’re working out a deal, but it all depends on what he can bring to the table.”
