by Joel Goldman
She handed Jake her phone. The screen was open to the foundation’s home page.
He read out loud. “Creating a brighter future for children across the globe.”
“A charitable foundation is perfect for laundering money. Lots of small donations come in from lots of different sources and they can distribute it to whoever they want.” She took her phone back, scrolled to another page and showed Jake a photograph. “That’s Lord William Tresch, founder and chairman of the board.”
Tresch looked to be in his late fifties. He was tall with silver hair brushed back tight against his scalp. Crow’s feet crept from the corners of his eyes, his gaze flinty. His lips were pressed in a bloodless, hard smile.
“He looks like he’d rather foreclose your mortgage than kiss your baby. You think he’s Shaw?”
“Could be. From what I just read, he comes from a lot of old, old money. Enough to set up a job like this. When he was young, he made regular appearances in the tabloids. Drinking, gambling, fighting, unsuitable girlfriends… the usual ‘blue blooded bad boy’ stuff. Until ten years ago when he met Lilly Moore and she supposedly made him behave.” She pulled up a press photo of Tresch and his bride coming out of Royal Albert Hall on their wedding day.
Jake took in the sharp contrast between the scowling Lord and the vivacious beauty. “That’s a mismatched pair.”
“Except they both had money,” said Cassie. “She was a commoner and he had a title. The press treated it like a Cinderella story when she became Lady Liliane Tresch.”
Jake’s mouth fell open. “As in the Lady Liliane Tresch who’s one of the Magna Carta trustees? You think they’re in it together. She would have known how the security was set up.”
“Doubtful. Lord Tresch had Malcolm Bridges for that. And, they’ve been going through an ugly divorce for the last year. She put up with him gambling away his family fortune. But when she caught him cheating on her, she gave him the boot.”
“Stealing the Magna Cartas would embarrass the hell out of her.”
“And he’d collect her share of the ransom.”
“Where do we find this royal asshole?”
Cassie clicked back to the foundation’s home page. “Scotland. The foundation is having its annual fundraising gala tomorrow night at Culzean Castle, which is about four hundred miles from here.”
“Hate to break this to you, but I didn’t bring my tux.”
She patted his cheek. “Don’t worry. It’s a costume ball. Let’s go ask McNulty if his meter runs all the way to Scotland.”
They found him on a bench beneath one of the many wide-spreading oak trees canopied over the neatly manicured grounds, earbuds plugged into his phone. Sitting stock-still, he watched them approach, waiting until they were standing in front of him before removing them.
“Amazin’ thing,” he said, holding up his phone. “I’ve got a police scanner app. Gets all their chatter if you’ve a mind to listen. You two kicked up quite a ruckus back at that warehouse.”
Cassie said, “I don’t know what you’re…”
Jake held up his hand, keeping his eyes fixed on McNulty. “Forget it Cassie. He knows we were there.”
The cabbie’s face was implacable and he wouldn’t be fooled. “Aye. Saw you disappear into that thicket up by the warehouse and saw you come out from behind the tire shop. Easy enough to figure. Chatter says there’s two dead bodies. Both shot.”
“What else are they saying?” Jake asked.
“Might be they shot each other. Might be they didn’t.”
“Does it matter to you?”
“What matters to me is collectin’ my fare. Besides, you don’t look like the killin’ kind. Too soft. Now the lady,” he said with a nod to Cassie, “I’d hate to tangle with her.”
“You’d be right about that. Why didn’t you call the police?”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because, if you did, we’d have been arrested before we got out of your cab.”
McNulty allowed himself a small smile. “True, that.”
“So, why didn’t you?”
“Not my nature.” He sniffed. “I’m not in the habit of making other people’s troubles my own.” He stood, his hand out. “I’ll be takin’ my fare now.”
Jake handed him a hundred-pound note. “Good enough?”
McNulty pocketed the bill without a glance. “More than enough. Good luck with your troubles.”
“Ever been to Scotland?” Jake asked.
“Course I been to Scotland.”
“Want to go back? Now.”
McNulty crossed his arms. “Now why would I want to do that?”
“For a thousand pounds. Round trip.”
McNulty pushed the bill of his cap up. “What sort of trouble am I buyin’ with your money?”
Jake looked at Cassie. She clenched her jaw and shook her head. He took a breath and looked at McNulty.
“Those men at the warehouse were part of a gang that stole the last four original Magna Cartas from the British Library two days ago. We’re going to get them back. The man that hired them is in Scotland.”
“Bollocks,” McNulty said. “A thing like that’d be all over the news. I’ve taken a dozen fares to the library since that exhibit opened.”
“The library substituted fakes. The guy in Scotland wants a hundred million pounds by Friday or he’ll turn the Magna Cartas into confetti. He’s throwing a big party tomorrow night at a castle in Scotland and we need a ride. It could be dangerous. You heard what happened at the warehouse.”
McNulty bristled and handed Jake the hundred-pound note. “I’ve been in more scrapes than you’ve had birthdays. And, nobody fucks with England.”
THIRTY-SIX
“WE CAN’T TAKE YOUR CAB,” Cassie said. “The police will check video from the neighborhood. There’s a good chance they’ll see us with you and at the warehouse. They’ll come looking for you and when they can’t find you, they’ll start looking for the cab.”
“Over there,” McNulty said, looking at his watch and cocking his head toward a glass-enclosed structure on the edge of the grounds. It looked like a bus stop shelter. “There’s an elevator that takes you to the car park under the Gardens. It’s six-fifteen. I’ll meet you on the bottom level in the northwest corner in fifteen minutes and we’ll be on our way.”
Cassie waited until McNulty was out of earshot before lacing into Jake. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t believe you told him. He’s probably on his way to call the police and the newspapers while he posts it all on Facebook.”
“He’s not going to do any of that. He’ll be back with a car.”
She threw her arms up. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. When he said nobody fucks with England, he meant it. Besides, we had no choice. You’re right about the video. We can’t rent a car or buy a train, bus or plane ticket because the cops are going to be looking for us if they aren’t already.”
Cassie didn’t back down. “It wasn’t your call.”
“But I made it. I played the card. If it blows up, it’s on me.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “I can’t tell you what a comfort that is.” Her cellphone rang. She looked at the caller ID and sighed. “Prometheus. Perfect.”
She opened her phone and listened, then answered. “Yes, I know we’re running out of time but we’ve got a good lead.” She explained about Lord Tresch and listened again. “That makes no sense…let me talk to…understood.” She ended the call, jammed the phone in her pocket.
“That good, huh?”
“The trustees have caved. After Bridges’ murder, they don’t want to take any chances. We’re supposed to sit tight until we get instructions on where and when to pay the ransom and make sure everything goes okay with the exchange. They’ve all deposited their shares in an account controlled by Sir Robert.” She shook her head. “It makes no sense, especially after Prometheus told me that Tresch has been a regular buyer on the black market
– art, antiquities, rare documents – whatever he can get at a good price regardless of where it came from, so he doesn’t mind doing business with fences.”
“Which means he’s got the contacts to recruit a team of thieves. Why did the trustees fold?”
“All Prometheus said was that they decided it was too risky but I don’t buy that. Sarah might know something.” She called her and left a message when Sarah didn’t answer.
“Do you still trust Prometheus after what he did to you and Gabriel?”
“I trust him to do whatever he thinks he needs to do regardless of the consequences for someone else.”
“But you didn’t tell him about Gabriel or me.”
“And I’m not going to until this is over. I don’t need to give him a reason to pull me off the case.”
“Do you trust him when he says the Trustees wants us to back off?”
Cassie sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why would he make up something like that.”
“The guy has his own agenda and keeps it to himself. That’s why he told you Gabriel was dead. I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t have to,” Cassie said.
“Neither do you. If you did, you would have told him about me.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that if you don’t trust him enough to tell him about Gabriel and me, why should you trust him when he says the trustees have folded?”
She looked away, then back at Jake. “Maybe I don’t…Maybe I…I don’t know.”
“You’re in a tough spot but I’m sure you’ll do the right thing. See you around.” He turned and walked toward the elevator.
“Wait a minute. What are you doing?”
Jake kept walking, answering over his shoulder. “Prometheus doesn’t know about me and I don’t take orders from him so I’m going to catch a ride to Scotland. Care to come along?”
“Wait for me,” she said and ran after him.
THIRTY-SEVEN
MURDOCH FOUND INSPECTOR AMIT PATEL in a low-ceilinged, beige-on-beige conference room at the Metropolitan Police Limehouse station. Patel had circulated a request asking for help identifying two persons of interest in a double-homicide. The request included an enlarged frame from a surveillance video. The grainy image showed a man and woman standing on a sidewalk beside a black London cab. The man’s face was shadowed but Murdoch recognized the woman, which meant that the man was Jake Carter.
Patel was studying the murder board, a large, dry erase surface on wheels. Photographs of the crime scene and head shots of the victims were pinned along the perimeter. There was also another enlarged surveillance frame, this one clear enough to confirm that Jake Carter was the man accompanying Cassie Ireland. A diagram of the interior of the warehouse, complete with outlines showing the locations of the dead bodies, filled the center of the board. Two more detectives sat at a long, rectangular table drafting reports and sorting through witness statements.
Murdoch knocked on the open door. Patel turned around. He had a younger man’s smooth, boyish face and an abundance of wavy black hair that made Murdoch run a hand over his own balding pate. Patel’s flat expression told Murdoch he didn’t appreciate the interruption. Murdoch wasn’t surprised. Every detective jealously guarded their turf, especially young, ambitious ones, and that’s how Patel struck him.
Patel said, “Can I help you…?”
“I’m Inspector Murdoch. Serious Crimes.” He pointed to the photographs on the murder board. “Have you ID’d that pair?”
“We’re working on it. Why the interest?”
Murdoch ignored the question and walked to the murder board. He tapped his finger on the woman’s face. “Her name is Cassie Ireland. She’s an American security consultant. That much is for certain. And the bloke she’s with is Jake Carter, also American. He’s a card sharp, a professional poker player. Though I’d wager they’re both much more than what they claim.”
Murdoch knew that as much as Patel wanted to crack the case, like every cop, he didn’t want to do it riding someone else’s coattails.
“And what else might they be?” Patel said.
“Worst case - murderers and thieves, if I’m any judge.”
“And you came here to do what? Round them up and save the day?”
Murdoch pursed his lips as he studied the youthful detective. “That’s what I’d have wanted when I was your age.” He shrugged. “Now I’m content to let you save the day if that means we can round them up. I’ll tell you what I’ve got and then you can do the same.”
The other detectives stopped what they were doing and gathered around Murdoch. He told them about Bridges’ murder, described meeting Ireland and Carter at the British Library and his subsequent meeting with Ireland at Bridges’ apartment, then concluded, “I suspect that the three of them were working together.”
Patel furrowed his brow. “Working together on… what, exactly?”
Murdoch would have paid a month’s wages to have a definitive answer to that question. “Not certain, yet. But it cost Bridges his life.”
“And you think Ireland and Carter killed him?”
“They’re persons of interest at this point, but, yes. Your turn.”
Patel walked him through the crime scene. “At 1:18 p.m., we received reports of shots fired in an abandoned warehouse on Commercial Road. Units arrived on the scene six minutes later to find two white males, both DOA.”
“And the surveillance images, when were they taken?” Murdoch asked.
“The one attached to my request for assistance was at 12:53 this afternoon. The subjects were in front of a repair shop on Commercial Road fifty meters from the warehouse. The second was taken at 1:24 at the same location. We were lucky that the shop owner didn’t make us run to a magistrate for an order to have a look at his video.”
Murdoch examined the murder board, putting the photographs into context with the warehouse. “You’ve got them coming and going. Beating your boys by a few minutes.”
“That’s the way it looks to us.”
“I don’t suppose either of the victims had a connection to the British Library?”
“None that I know of. But we’ve only identified one of our victims so far.” He took down the crime scene photo of Rugger, lying on the grimy concrete, a bullet hole in his forehead. “This is Roger Higgins, otherwise known as Rugger. He’s quite well known to us. A regular leg-breaker. Hired himself out as muscle.” He considered the picture. “Not an intellectual, was our Rugger. I’d be rather surprised if he’d ever seen the inside of a library. What’s the British Library got to do with your case or mine, for that matter?”
Murdoch balked. Suggesting without proof that the four remaining original Magna Cartas had been stolen could ruin his career. Failing to come forward with his suspicions would also ruin him if he turned out to be right. Going public would ignite a scandal especially if no one saved the day. Confiding in a climber like Patel would add foolishness to his recklessness.
“All I know for certain is that Bridges’ employer handled the security for an exhibit at the British Library and now he’s been murdered. Our mutual persons of interest are connected to him and your two victims. That’s three dead in two days.” Murdoch pulled down the photo of the other dead man. He was pale and blond with wide open blue eyes. “No identification on this one?”
“No. His wallet was missing.”
He followed the implication. “Do you suppose our friends took it?”
“Possibly, but we know there was at least one other person in the warehouse. The red line on the diagram is the blood trail he left going out the back exit. And, we found shell casings from three different guns that were fired from several different locations. But we only found one gun. Someone made off with the other two. We also found a length of iron pipe. It was bloody and several hairs were caught in the blood. Forensics is studying it.”
“There must be other cameras pointed at the warehouse. What did they show?
”
“Not much, I’m afraid. The warehouse has been abandoned for years and it’s badly overgrown. Which, I imagine, is was why they used it.”
A young man joined them. “Excuse me, Inspector. We managed to enhance the registration number on the cab on the video. I’ll call the Public Carriage Office and find out who drives it.”
Patel added, “And when he last reported in.” Then he turned back to Murdoch. “The image quality on the video isn’t great but neither of the Americans appear to be injured and we can’t make out any evidence of blood splatter on their clothing.”
“Let me know when you collect the driver and the Americans. I’d like to be there for the questioning.”
