Morton sniggered. ‘I would advise against it, but if you think you know better than I do then feel free to try.’
‘Here goes nothing.’ Ayala sprinted at the door, shoulder out, and slammed into it with all the force he could muster.
He promptly fell to the floor in agony.
‘Easy, Ayala. Don’t move. Anything broken?’
Ayala poked at his shoulder gingerly and winced. ‘No. I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘What kind of bloody door is that?’
The door was made of solid steel. The wooden panel visible from the street was only a façade. Morton had made a note of it the last time he was here.
‘It’s a security door, Ayala. You really think Hatton Garden jewellers are going to nip down to B&Q for their doors? Looks like solid steel, by the state of your shoulder. You stay there. I’ve got an idea.’
Morton pulled out his mobile and began to scroll through his address book. He found the number he was looking for, and it was answered on the third ring.
A man’s voice blared from the speaker. ‘PC Buchanan.’
‘Buchanan, this is DCI Morton. Are you on the job today?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I need you to come to Hatton Garden Deposit Co. I have a search warrant to execute, and Mr Mehtani is being less than forthcoming with opening the door. Would you care to persuade him, or shall I call in backup and create a scene as we burst through the door?’
‘No need for that, sir.’ Buchanan’s voice dripped with disdain. ‘I’ll be there in five.’
True to his word, Buchanan appeared in five minutes flat, and a Mexican standoff was avoided. Ayala was helped up by the both of them and half-carried inside, where he propped himself up in a chair while Mehtani fetched the box. He slammed it down on the counter none too gracefully and turned as if to go.
‘Mr Mehtani?’ Morton called after him. ‘Open the box, please.’
With another grumble Mehtani sauntered off and returned with a keyring which jangled loudly as he walked. He fiddled with the keyring for a moment, seemingly looking for the right key. To Morton’s eyes all of the keys looked identical, and none of them were labelled.
Mehtani found the right key on the first try, and he reached to lift the lid once the lock had been opened.
‘Ahem. I’m afraid I’ll have to do that, Mr Mehtani. Police business, after all.’ Morton pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket, donned them, and lifted the lid.
At first it looked like the box was empty. Then Morton realized that the box was tightly packed with tiny black boxes which appeared to be made of plastic. There was a layer of packaging foam placed over the top. Morton carefully peeled back the packaging foam and lifted the nearest box out.
The plastic clipped shut on the front and a tiny piece of tape ran over the clip, sealing it shut. When he opened it, Morton’s jaw dropped.
Diamonds.
The plastic box had a tiny, very white, very sparkly, diamond inside. The stone was about six millimetres wide, about the same size as the stone in Sarah’s engagement ring, which made the stone just over a metric carat by Morton’s best guess.
Morton checked another, confirmed it was also a diamond, and did some quick mental arithmetic. The top layer was six boxes wide and twelve long, and there had to be nine or ten layers in the lockbox.
From his vantage point in the armchair, Ayala was craning to see inside the box. Morton watched Ayala for a moment as his face screwed up in consternation.
‘Seven hundred and twenty, Ayala,’ Morton said, pre-empting Ayala’s question. He turned to Suresh Mehtani. ‘Mr Mehtani, how much are these worth?’
Mehtani scowled. His sullenness had not subsided, and he did not seem the least bit surprised or impressed by the haul that now lay atop his counter.
‘I don’t believe your search warrant includes a free valuation, Mr Morton.’
Cocky bastard, Morton thought. ‘No, Mr Mehtani, it does not. But if I find out that these are illicit, and that you knew, then I suggest it might go in your favour if you have shown yourself to be cooperative.’
Mehtani picked up a stone using a pair of digital callipers, scrawled down a measurement (6.1mm, roughly as big as Morton had estimated), and then shone a light inside the stone. A small smile appeared on his face and then disappeared immediately.
‘These are both priceless and worthless,’ he announced cryptically.
‘Pounds and pence, Mr Mehtani.’
‘That, I cannot say.’
Morton watched the shifty jeweller saunter from the room, then began to put the haul into evidence bags as Ayala watched him from the other side of the room.
‘What do you think he meant by tha–’
‘Outside, Ayala.’ Morton pointed to the camera in the corner. The red light was still blinking, and Morton had no doubt they were being watched from the back room.
As Morton filled out the paperwork, Ayala lifted himself from the chair and came over to double-check the count.
‘You know, boss,’ Ayala said slyly, ‘they’d never miss a few of these.’
‘Don’t even think about it. I know exactly how many are there.’
‘OK, boss. But you know what’s missing, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘The records of who owns the box,’ Ayala said smugly, as if pleased to have figured something out before Morton for once.
Morton shouted for Mehtani, and the jeweller reappeared grudgingly.
‘Our search warrant does cover your records. Who owns this box?’
Mehtani smirked. ‘I do.’
‘Fine. Who rented it from you?’
‘Wait.’ Mehtani turned away again and headed into the back room. The sounds of a file cabinet being unlocked, opened and then slammed shut echoed in quick succession.
He returned carrying an envelope which he thrust at Morton. Morton carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the rental agreement. The owner of the box was listed as Precious Investments & Equities BVI BC.
‘Who owns it, boss?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. The box was leased to a company in the British Virgin Islands. It could take months to find out who really owns it.’
Chapter 27: Handoff
Friday April 10th 14:00
When they returned to Scotland Yard, Morton went with Ayala to check the diamonds into evidence. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him, but it only seemed proper to make it obvious that they were each kept honest by the other’s presence.
The paperwork took a while. As they were heading upstairs for their meeting with Alexander Thompson, head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Ayala paused in the stairwell.
‘Come on, Ayala!’ Morton said as he overtook him. ‘We’ve got a meeting in... five minutes ago.’
‘Sorry, boss. I was wondering if I could ask you something.’
Morton rolled his eyes, though Ayala did not see him do so. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Who’s in charge when you’re not around? Rafferty and I were in before you this morning, and she started barking orders at me.’
‘Did you follow them?’
‘Well, yeah, but–’
‘Then it sounds like she’s in charge.’
‘Boss, I’m being serious here.’
‘So am I. She’s been in law enforcement a lot longer than you have been,’ Morton said.
Ayala pouted. ‘She’s been a probation officer for the last three years!’
‘And she was with Sapphire for five before that. You can’t begrudge her a change of pace. It takes real balls to stick it out for that long, dealing with sex crimes all day.’
‘I was still here first,’ Ayala said grudgingly.
‘Let me ask you a question,’ Morton said. ‘Knowing what we know now, that Mayberry would get seriously injured as a result of the van crash, would you have still sent him in?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Then you’re not ready to be in charge,’ Morton said bluntly. ‘People g
et hurt when they do this job. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve suffered minor injuries. We’ve lost people. Mayberry is the latest in a long line of officers to be hurt serving the public.’
‘He’s angry with you about that, isn’t he?’
‘Mayberry has every right to be angry,’ Morton said. ‘It doesn’t change what happened. We had a hostage who no doubt would have been executed–’
‘But they didn’t execute her, did they? You were wrong.’
Morton stopped climbing the stairs and turned to face Ayala. ‘We don’t know how it would have panned out if Mayberry hadn’t gone in. They might have killed Vanessa Gogg and dumped the body. Sending Mayberry in was our best shot at getting her out alive. End of discussion. If you can’t deal with that risk, then ask for a transfer over to Traffic or Financial Fraud. We deal with homicidal maniacs, and that’s never going to be risk-free.’
Ayala fell silent and started to climb the stairs once more.
***
In their absence, Rafferty had begun the meeting without them. As Morton walked in, she nodded towards the empty seat she had left for him at the head of the table and then turned back towards her PowerPoint presentation, which was on its last slide.
Rafferty gestured to the newcomers. ‘And finally, DCI Morton and DI Ayala have just returned from Hatton Garden–’
‘Where we retrieved box 1779 from Hatton Garden Deposit Co,’ Morton finished for her. ‘Good to see you, Xander.’
Morton nodded towards Alexander Thompson, an old drinking buddy and the head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Xander never seemed to age, which annoyed Morton no end. They were the same age, but Xander, with hair so black it looked almost blue, and with only the slightest flecks of grey around his temples, always looked younger, more jovial.
‘Cheers, David.’ Xander reached towards the centre of the table, where a pile of cables ran into a series of ports, unplugged the HDMI cable that Rafferty was using to show her laptop screen on the projector, and replaced it with his own.
‘Xander, before we begin, you ought to know that the lockbox we retrieved was rented by Precious Investments & Equities BVI BC, a company operating out of the British Virgin Islands,’ Morton said. ‘Although at this time we don’t know who the beneficial owner is.’
‘Then you’re lucky that I do. Precious Investments & Equities BVI was set up by one of my undercover operatives. The sole director is Maksim Bakowski, a junior member of the family. His record is clean, which is how he escaped the sweep when we seized all of Tiny’s assets when he fled. Unfortunately, Maksim has been missing for over a year.’
‘Dead?’ Ayala asked.
‘We think so. The Bakowskis are vicious. Maksim was consolidating his assets after Tiny fled the UK, and we think he may have been attempting to take over where Tiny and his brothers left off.’
Morton cleared his throat, desperate to ask after Tiny, but Xander seemed to read his mind.
‘There have been no confirmed sightings of Tiny since he fled the country. We think he’s somewhere in South America. It’s where I’d go. He’s got plenty of cash, and there are places that will keep him in high luxury and don’t have an extradition treaty with us. Until and unless he returns to British soil, we have to concentrate our resources on investigations on our own turf. The Bakowskis are still operating here. They’re using a number of lieutenants to run gambling operations, run drugs and arms, and we believe they’re controlling a number of prostitution rings in the United Kingdom.’
‘How are we doing?’
‘Not well,’ Xander said. ‘They’re operating in cell structures. Each only knows about its own operations. Every time we take one down, another steps up. We’ve had a few significant wins. We were able to dismantle their human trafficking operation, and as far as we know nobody has yet risen to take their place in that market.’
‘Well, that’s one win.’
‘Unfortunately, it’s only the tip of the iceberg, and your seizure of the diamonds today goes to show why. The assets are split just as surely as the men are–’
‘Didn’t Tiny own property in Hyde Park?’ Ayala asked.
Xander grinned, showing off expensive porcelain caps. ‘We seized that, and it was sold for a cool fifty-eight million, which makes it one of the most expensive sales in the history of the London property market.’
Rafferty coughed loudly. ‘Not for long.’
Property prices in London seemed to be stuck in a perpetual bubble. Every year the average price rose, and every year it seemed that fewer and fewer normal people actually lived in London.
‘The Bakowskis have assets all over the place. They’ve got more money hidden down the back of the sofa than most stockbrokers have in their bonus accounts.’
‘So, you think whoever tried to steal the diamonds was stealing from Tiny?’ Rafferty said.
‘It’s possible,’ Xander conceded. ‘It could also be that Tiny was attempting to steal his own diamonds back. He’d given control of them to cousin Maksim, and if Maksim is dead at his hand, then Tiny has no way to access that resource.’
‘Where are the stones from?’ Ayala asked. ‘Surely a criminal can’t just buy a load of diamonds without somebody noticing?’
‘Antwerp,’ Morton muttered.
A few years before, someone had carried out an audacious heist and made off with several million in diamonds from the cutting houses of Antwerp. They’d never been found.
‘I expect so.’
The room fell silent just as Ayala’s stomach grumbled. He turned ashen-faced. ‘Sorry, all. The boss and I were out collecting evidence, and I sort of missed lunch. I don’t suppose we can have a quick coffee break?’
Ayala turned towards Morton, almost pleading. Morton would normally have said no, especially after Ayala’s insolence in the stairwell, but he was hungry too.
‘Ten minutes. And it’s your round. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
***
In the bowels of New Scotland Yard, where forensics tested and catalogued new evidence, Cynthia Lowe’s hands trembled. There had to have been a mistake.
Perhaps it was the machine. Three times she’d tested each stone. Not a single one had tested as diamond.
It was time to go old-school. Lowe held up one of the stones up to her lips and exhaled deeply. The stone began to fog up immediately.
‘One. Two. Three,’ Lowe counted aloud. Still foggy. Diamonds would have cleared up in no time, as they could not hold the heat necessary for condensation to form. Her hands trembled again.
One more test, she told herself, just to be sure. She fetched a glass from the staff kitchen and then picked up one of the loose stones and rubbed it against the glass.
No scratch. None of the diamonds were diamonds. They were probably cubic zirconia, totally worthless. So, why did the evidence log show them as having come from Hatton Garden? Surely a jeweller would have spotted the problem.
Unless Detectives Ayala and Morton were setting her up. Could they have switched the stones out for fakes?
***
True to his word, Ayala returned from the coffee shop across the street with coffees for the whole team. Just in time to drop them all over the floor.
Theresa West, head of the Professional Standards Department, more commonly referred to as Internal Affairs, was waiting for him in the conference room. She was alone, but Rafferty’s phone still lay on the table, so she wouldn’t be too far away. Theresa West must have asked them to vacate the room.
‘Detective Ayala, could you come with me, please?’
‘Where’s Morton?’
‘Downstairs,’ West said ominously.
‘What’s going on?’ Ayala demanded. ‘Do I need my rep?’
‘Only if you’ve got something to hide.’
‘You think I haven’t heard that one before? Please. I invented that lie. Tell me what you’re bringing me in for now, or I’m calling a lawyer.’
Theresa folded her arms
as if in disbelief. ‘The diamonds, Mr Ayala. The diamonds you stole from evidence this afternoon.’
‘They’re gone?’ Ayala’s jaw fell open. ‘But we logged those in with Evidence less than an hour ago!’
Chapter 28: Questions to Answer
Friday April 10th 14:25
‘I assume you know why you’re here, Mr Morton,’ Detective Ngichi said. Morton was in one of the interview suites belonging to the Professional Standards Department. He had been in here on another occasion, but never on this side of the one-way mirror through which Detective Ngichi’s boss, Theresa West, was undoubtedly watching him.
Morton leant forward, causing the cheap plastic chair that he was sat upon to creak loudly. ‘No. But I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Where are who?’
‘The diamonds, Mr Morton. What did you and Detective Ayala do with them?’
Morton looked over towards the one-way mirror, perplexed. They couldn’t be talking about the Hatton Garden diamonds, could they?
‘The diamonds from Hatton Garden Deposit Co?’
Ngichi smirked. ‘Unless you’ve stolen some other diamonds too.’
‘What on earth are you talking about? Detective Ayala and I collected the evidence, bagged it, and logged it in as soon as we got back to New Scotland Yard. I’ve got the sign-in receipt upstairs in my desk, if you’d like me to go and fetch it.’
‘You mean these diamonds?’ Ngichi produced the evidence bag Morton had signed in only hours earlier from underneath his side of the desk and placed it between them.
‘That’s them, but the evidence seal was unbroken when I handed them in.’
‘These are not diamonds.’
‘Come again?’
‘Don’t play daft with me, Morton. We know you substituted the diamonds for fakes before you logged them. Did you think we wouldn’t notice? Or did you think we’d blame the evidence technician you palmed off with this worthless bag of tat?’
Morton felt his jaw slacken. He recovered just in time to offer what sounded to his ears to be a lame defence. ‘If they’re not diamonds, then it’s nothing to do with me.’
The DCI Morton Box Set Page 35
