Crash Course

by Derek Fee

  The remote clicked and another face appeared on the screen. Kane was beginning to wonder how much of de Vries’s briefing he would retain. He was not known as a good student.

  “Graham Barrett,” De Vries continued. “Classic English background. Middle son of Norfolk landed family. Eton and then Economics at Oxford. Two years working for a merchant bank in the City. Barrett decided to go for something more exciting. Three years ago, he convinced a couple of his college friends to finance the setting up of a powerboat racing team. He is a tough competitor, flamboyant and has managed to get a lot of sponsorship. He wants very badly to win the European Championship. He is being sponsored by Sheikh Mustapha Safardi. The sheikh is an interesting individual. He acts as a middleman for western companies who want to do business in the Gulf. Safardi’s brother runs a minor Emirate so the sheikh has good contacts among the Gulf Arabs. According to some reports, Safardi would sell his mother if there was a profit in it. He is a minor player in the horse racing business but he does not have the resources of the Maktoums so he has moved on to powerboats.”

  Barrett’s face was replaced by a that of another Southern European. “Enrico di Mena,” De Vries continued. “Known to his friends as Rico. He likes to be part of the powerboat circuit but is not considered a major player. The family made a fortune from a fashion empire. He uses the powerboat circuit to promote the company image. According to press reports, he could not drive his way out of a paper bag but also could not care less. Usually hobbles over the line in everyone else’s wake.”

  Di Mena’s features were replaced by those of a Japanese. “Yukio Tedeka. Japanese banker resident in London. It is his first year on the circuit so he has no form. He is personally quite wealthy but the bank is fronting the powerboat operation.”

  “And last but not least,” De Vries pressed the button. “Jose Castenas. Owns vineyards in Spain and land all over South America. He gave up polo to launch his powerboat team. A very ruthless operator if the business journals are to be believed. From all accounts, I would not want to be a peasant on one of his ranchos. And that, gentlemen, completes our rogue’s gallery. Your dossiers contain more complete information which you can read at your leisure.”

  “Very interesting,” Kane said stifling a yawn. He was a hands-on man himself. Collecting background information on possible villains was all good and well but nothing could beat a look into your opponent’s eyes. Kane was from the up close and personal school. “We have a lot of wealthy men who are not exactly squeaky-clean playing with expensive toys. What we don’t seem to have is an obvious drug-runner and possible murderer.”

  “We are all assuming that your contribution to our little venture will be the unmasking of such a person.” De Vries sat in a chair at the end of the room. “Our job has been done. We will, of course, continue to compile information on everyone connected with the powerboat racing circuit. And if anything of a criminal nature were to come to light, we would pass that information to you immediately.”

  Kane looked at Doc Watson. “Well, Doc, it looks like the ball is very firmly in our court.”

  “That’s what they pay us for, I suppose,” Watson said closing his file.

  “Any suggestions?” Kane asked de Vries.

  “I understand that you are very good at what you do,” de Vries stood and took his coat from the back of the chair. “Therefore, I would not dare to offer you advice on your part of the operation. However, I would advise you to proceed with extreme caution. Virtually every man whose picture was on the screen is capable of ruthless behaviour.” He draped his coat around his shoulders without slipping his arms into the sleeves. “I will follow your progress with interest.”

  Chapter Eight

  The London Orbital, or the M25 to give it its correct title, was clogged as the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud bearing Kane and Bell inched its way towards the M4 and the western edge of London. The rain which beat incessantly on the roof of the car only added to the chaos on the road. Kane sat back in the deep leather seats. If you had to travel, then this was the way to do it. His eyes were half closed. He always felt this way at the start of an operation. His mind would slowly give up the personality of Mark Kane policeman and absorb whatever role SO10 had cast for him. It was like acting, with the sole difference that a lousy performance usually ended up getting the actor killed. Whether the whole operation would stand up was another question. A couple of weeks sucking in the salt air in Cornwall was one thing but there were real villains out there that needed to be put away. Bell’s quest for vengeance might turn out to be nothing but a waste of police time. Mine is not to reason why, Kane thought as he looked out at the sea of cars.

  “We could have gone by plane, you know,” Bell said quietly.

  “Pardon.” Kane dragged his brain back into the here and now.

  “Bloody traffic.” Bell gestured at the scene outside the window. “Too many bloody cars. I remember when a man with money in his pocket owned a Ford Anglia. Now every Tom, Dick and Harry drives around in a flash motor. I was about to hire a small plane but I thought a trip by car would give us a chance to get to know one another.” He looked over at Kane.

  “That’s not my particular territory,” Kane said.

  Bell looked puzzled.

  “People don’t get to know me,” Kane continued. “And those that do are usually in a hurry to want to forget what they learned.”

  Bell turned his short body so that he was directly facing Kane. “I worked in a foundry when I was twelve. I worked like a slave. I was a skinny little lad that everybody thought would crack. But I ended up owning that company and becoming a rich man. And do you want to know how I did that? I had a sixth sense for people. Some folk can’t tell a dud from a hole in the wall but I can. I never took on a man who didn’t give me a full day’s work for a full day’s pay and I never did a deal with a man I didn’t trust. If there’s one thing that Tom Bell can do, it’s he can read folk. And in my book, you’re no dud.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “You’re a sarcastic wee tyke aren’t you,” Bell laughed.

  “Getting into character. The guys we’re looking for don’t recruit ‘father-of-the-year types’.”

  “Aye, getting into character,” Bell said softly. He reached his hand into his inside pocket, withdrew a leather wallet and passed it to Kane.

  Kane accepted the wallet reluctantly. He opened the leather edges and looked inside. It was a picture of Monica Bell. The blonde hair cascaded down the sides of her pretty rosy-cheeked face. Even in the photograph he could see the love of life shining in her blue eyes. He slowly closed the wallet and handed it back. Unconsciously, his right hand fell to his trouser pocket and brushed lightly against the wallet that held the two worn photographs that were his cross.

  “She was a bonnie lass,” Bell said, looking at the photograph before putting it back into his pocket. “And clever with it. All the way to her medical degree without failing. They loved her at the hospital. She was specialising in paediatrics. Some bloody fool me. I thought it was something to do with feet.” He gave a quiet chuckle at the memory. “She could have had anything that she wanted but she only wanted to help children. Do you have any children, Mark?”

  Kane felt the knife slowly cut into his heart. “No,” he said quickly. Why did he always have to deny it, he asked himself. Whenever he denied them, he remembered the words in the Bible; ‘Before the cock crows you will deny me thrice’. He wished that he had only denied them the thrice. It was already many more times than that.

  “Funny that,” Bell said. “I would have sworn that you were a family man.”

  “Doesn’t go with the job. Long hours. Plenty of time away from home in the company of people you wouldn’t want to bring home to dinner. The kind of people I mix with leave a smell on your skin that irritates the nostrils of decent people. Lots of the blokes I work with don’t make it to the pipe and slippers stage with their wives. The women who do hang in usually bear the sca
rs.”

  “You know, Mark, people like me generally envy people like you. I’ve built up a business worth twenty million pounds but I never risked my life on anything. Aye, I’ve risked my own and other people’s money. My stomach’s been in knots and I’ve not slept as much as I should have but my life was always intact. Yesterday or earlier today I might have envied the fact that you’ve seen action. In our minds, we all want to be Clint Eastwood or Bruce Willis. We all think that maybe having our lives on the line gives us a greater appreciation of life itself. Now I’m not so sure. Knowing my wife and daughter was my greatest life experience and I wouldn’t have all the high-speed chases in the world for missing one second of the time I spent with them.”

  “Keep the memories,” Mark said, realising what a hypocrite he was. “But let the vengeance go.”

  “It’s all I’ve got,” Bell said.

  “Your mistake.” Kane wanted to say, ‘Get a life’. But he knew that catching Monika Bell’s killer had become her father’s obsession and the man would not rest until that itch had been scratched. He wondered whether he would be able to bring closure. Great word ‘closure’. It was a new concept invented by Oprah Winfrey and the psychobabble gang. Few people managed to achieve closure. It meant being able to get on with your life and to put a traumatic event behind you. Didn’t those bouncing well-coiffed assholes with the microphones in their hands realise that every life event leaves a scar? And the more severe that event, the harder it is to excise that scar. So Bell was probably living a lie. Find the killer and find peace. He might find the killer but that would not necessarily bring peace. The photograph in his pocket was ample evidence of that. And nobody knew how hard it was to achieve closure than Mark Kane.

  The traffic had begun to ease off when they reached the outskirts of the city. The road towards the West Country opened before them and the Rolls purred smoothly along the M4.

  “Everybody says you’re the best at what you do,” Bell said after a pause. “Even that ponced up popinjay de Vries says so.”

  Kane didn’t answer.

  “At that first meeting at Europol,” Bell continued. “I got the distinct impression that you weren’t too keen on this little escapade.”

  “Very perceptive of you.”

  “I want Monica’s killer brought to justice and you appear to be my best chance of accomplishing that aim. I don’t particularly like the fact that you don’t seem to be committed. It’s been my experience in business that you get the best results from a committed workforce. I’ve been thinking of how I could increase your commitment and I’ve come up with the classic answer, money. I intend to pay you fifty thousand pounds if you succeed in nailing the bastard that killed my lass. Think about it. Fifty thousand pounds directly into your hand. Think what you could do with that kind of money.”

  I must be getting old, Kane thought. The leather seats appeared to suck him in as he contemplated the effect on his life that fifty thousand pounds in his pocket would have. New car, holidays, a bit of relief for his mother and father. Fifty thousand pounds would go a hell of a long way in a life like Kane’s. Maybe now was the time to stick his nose in the trough. There were plenty of his colleagues in the Met who had already gone that road. And they had taken money from villains. He could pick up fifty grand for doing his job.

  Bell watched Kane’s face. “I’ve been in thousands of negotiations where money was the prime object of discussion and that experience permits me to read your mind. The old Gilbert and Sullivan song said that a ‘policeman’s lot is not a happy one’. Neither is the salary. I was poor once and I know the effect of dangling fifty thousand pounds in front of you. I’ve been told that you’re the best. And I want you to give your best.”

  “Keep your money.” Kane could scarcely believe the words which came out of his mouth. What the hell was he thinking? He’d turned down a life-changing sum of money. “I’m a copper. When I signed on, I knew what the conditions were and I’m not about to climb into someone’s pocket because I took their money.”

  Bell tried to open his mouth but Kane cut him off.

  “And don’t tell me there won’t be any comeback. I take your money and I’ll always be yours. And don’t worry about my commitment. I’m in this job because I hate villains. I’ve seen at first hand the lives that have been destroyed by drugs, or murder, or sexual abuse, or even mugging. I don’t need an incentive to increase my commitment. You’ll get one hundred per cent whether I succeed or I fail.”

  “I’m proud to be your uncle.” Bell smiled broadly but the smile quickly vanished from his face. “That’s another thing that’s been worrying me, Mark. Say I screw up with this uncle-nephew bit. You’re bloody experienced in this business but I’ve never been involved in anything like this before.”

  “That’s what I was talking about back in The Hague,” Kane said. “I’m used to working alone. I screw up and I get sussed then that’s my problem. You screw up and I get sussed then you might end up getting me killed. Remember Lamont. These guys are playing for keeps so you’d better keep your mind on the cover story. No matter what happens you must keep thinking of me as your sister’s pride and joy. A somewhat wayward pride and joy but your flesh and blood nonetheless.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “You’ll do better than that.”

  Chapter Nine

  It was after two o’clock in the afternoon when the Rolls finally turned into the narrow streets of Falmouth, a parish town of some twenty-two thousand souls situated on a peninsula in Falmouth Bay in the Duchy of Cornwall. The rain had disappeared as they travelled west and the old town was basking in bright sunlight which glistened over the inner harbour of Carrick Roads. This was the heartland of the great English seafaring tradition. It was from the narrow, cobbled streets of towns like Falmouth that Sir Francis Drake and his successors press-ganged the cream of the British Navy. The old town overlooks the Carrick Roads with its many inlets leading into the broad reaches of Falmouth Bay. Bell’s chauffeur piloted their car through the new town and then through the narrow streets leading to the boatyards which cling to the shore of the bay.

  “You’re about to have the great pleasure of meeting my partner, David Penhalion.” Bell pressed the button which wound down his window and sniffed at the sea air. “Best bloody air in the world.”

  “I’m a city boy myself.” Kane’s nose twitched at the strong ozone smell.

  “David’s the owner and managing director of Penhalion Marine and the brains behind our powerboat. It’s a family business and David took it over after a career in the British Navy. I’m fond of that bloody man. He’s one of nature’s gentlemen. If I weren’t so dead set on exposing those drug-running bastards, I wouldn’t be so happy at using him like I am. Poor bugger thinks that I’m all enthusiastic about his bloody boat but I couldn’t give a damn. David’s got a load of problems. His business is in trouble and I’m enough of a businessman to know that he’d jump at an offer of financing his chance to try out his ideas on powerboats. You know, lad, I’ve done some low and dirty things during my time in business but I don’t think that any of them will rank with lying to David. It would go bloody sore with me if I ended up being the reason, he loses his business.” Bell looked towards the shore to where Penhalion Marine was located. “There’s nothing like seeing something you’ve worked hard to preserve going under. I’ve seen more than one clever man spending his last brass farthing trying to save a family business that should have gone to the wall years before. There’s no law that says because you feel strongly about a business that it must survive and David is putting all his cards into the offshore basket. It’ll make him or break him. If he does go bust, I hope to God that I’m not part of the reason.”

  “That’s what Davenport meant when he said that revenge is a cold dish,” Kane said. “You commit yourself to one outcome and whoever gets in the way has to be sacrificed. That’s the way revenge works. Did you ever think that putting me behind the wheel of David’s boat might
be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?”

  “That thought had crossed my mind.” Bell looked wistful. “But it’s a tough world out there and David’s no boy scout. As I’m sure you’ll find out. He’ll act as team manager himself so it’ll be his responsibility to get you ready for the races. Don’t forget that I’ve pushed you down the man’s throat so he’ll start off hating your guts. And you’ve got to be a right bastard yourself.” He chuckled deep in his throat. “Aye, it should make for some champion fun.”