by James Hazel
‘Hello, Ryan,’ Priest said.
Ryan was with friends. There was a bald guy with earrings, propped up against the bar facing him. He was a foot and half taller than Ryan. His thick lips were pursed threateningly and his eyes, unlike Ryan’s, were firmly locked on Priest. He looked like he might be a handful. There were at least two others with him. One of them kept glancing over and laughing. They were all Ryan’s age or thereabouts. In their late thirties – along with their IQs.
‘Nice jacket, Charlie,’ Ryan jibed.
This brought a howl of laughter from the third man, who was now leaning across the bald man to hear what was being said.
‘Sarah said she had to be home early. You here to check up on her?’
‘No. Didn’t know she was here at all. Pure coincidence,’ said Ryan, the grin widening.
‘You’re not looking after Tilly, then?’
‘No. Someone else is.’
The problem was that someone else always was. Priest hated men who were lucky enough to have kids but shirked their responsibilities. The fact that it was his brother-in-law, his niece’s father, made it much worse. Ryan was a joker, a fraud, undeserving of the gift of parenthood. Priest gritted his teeth. There was alcohol in his veins. Not a lot but, combined with his disassociation, enough to blur the edges of reality.
‘You should be looking after her,’ Priest told him.
‘Why? That’s what Sarah’s for, isn’t it? Lighten up, Charlie. Have a drink on me.’
‘No. I’m just leaving.’
Ryan still hadn’t looked at Priest, and he still hadn’t removed his stupid grin. He got up, and as he did he struck Priest on the back of the shoulder, just hard enough to be less than playful.
‘Mind how you go, brother,’ Ryan sang. ‘I’ve got some more drinking to do before I go back and nail your sister.’ The third guy gave a bark of drunken mirth.
Priest glanced across at the big, bald man. He was the complication but also the key. Take him out, the rest would crumble.
Priest saw it play out. Saw himself take Ryan by the collar, ram him into the bar and then plunge his elbow into the big, bald man’s abdomen, deep into the solar plexus. One well-judged strike destabilised the diaphragm, sending it into spasm, incapacitating him instantly. Next Priest slammed his palm into the back of Ryan’s head, broke his jaw, dislodged a row of teeth on the bar. There was blood, lots of blood. People were screaming, running towards the door. The third man, Laughing Boy, was falling backwards, Priest’s fist arching away from his limp body. The lights . . .
‘Hey!’
Ryan was staring at him, clicking his fingers in front of his face. Priest blinked. Ryan looked perplexed and a little amused, but undamaged. Relief washed over Priest.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you, Priest? You just pass out or something?’ Ryan laughed.
Priest rubbed his hand over his face. He turned and left and the cold air outside hit him like a club.
21
Priest leant back in his office chair and watched a Sky News anchor with dimples report that the body of the Attorney General, Sir Philip Wren, had been found at his home yesterday morning and that the death was being treated as suicide. The reporter was standing at the bottom of Wren’s driveway but it could have been anywhere.
It was morning, and raining. Priest had emailed Solly and asked him to prepare a detailed report on the Ellinder company structure and the financial strength of the group. Kenneth had said that money wasn’t a motivation for his son’s misadventures; it was time to test that theory. Moreover, if there was something unusual going on at Ellinder International then Solly would find it. Family businesses hid family secrets. After a moment he received a pithy response from Solly.
Yes.
The problem was getting into the Ellinder empire without Jessica interfering. And McEwen. He needed circumnavigating, too. He picked up the phone. Time to put the cat among the pigeons.
‘Switchboard,’ said a nasal voice.
Priest didn’t hesitate. ‘Dee Auckland, please.’
‘Assistant Commissioner Auckland?’
‘You have two Dee Aucklands?’
‘Putting you through to her PA.’
A pause, followed by clicks and other encouraging telecom noises.
‘Miranda Coleman,’ said a new voice, higher-pitched than the first.
‘I’d like to speak to Dee Auckland, please,’ said Priest.
‘Assistant Commissioner Auckland?’
‘You have t— Oh, it doesn’t matter. Can you please just put me through?’
‘She’s in an internal meeting at the minute.’
‘Tell her it’s Captain Kirk.’
Suddenly, the PA seemed less certain of herself. ‘Captain K—’
‘Kirk, yes. Captain Kirk,’ said Priest pleasantly.
Pause.
‘Wait one moment, please.’
Lengthy pause. Three minutes and sixteen seconds of pause, filled with some classical music. Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake. An odd choice. Even odder when interrupted with reminders of the Crimestoppers number.
Finally, ‘What do you want, Charlie?’ growled his ex-wife. She had an extraordinarily deep voice.
‘Hi, Dee.’ It’s so lovely to speak to you again after all these years. You sound as if you might not have given up smoking like we discussed in 2008.
‘What do you want?’
‘Call off McEwen. I’ve got some shit to clear up and he keeps stealing my shovel.’
His ex-wife actually laughed. There had been a time, a very long time ago, when Priest had liked that laugh. The huskiness had been sexy, the depth of it intriguing – a laugh that had promised a future and had offered him solace. Now it sounded like nails on a schoolroom blackboard.
‘Detective Inspector McEwen is performing his role admirably, Charlie,’ said Dee slowly, as if she had to spell out the words to enable him to understand her.
You’ve lost none of your old charm, Lieutenant Uhura.
She began to rant in his ear, presumably for old time’s sake. ‘And this phone call is out of order and your request will be denied, as you well know. If there’s nothing else . . .’
‘McEwen’s a prick, Dee. We both know that. He’s got Wren’s death all wrong. It wasn’t suicide.’
‘That’s enough, Charlie.’
‘Listen to me, Dee!’
‘No, you listen to me. You pulled me out of a meeting whose attendees are right now sitting around a transparent board featuring pictures of your ugly mug on it next to a whole host of other unsavoury characters. You’re a fucking person of interest, Charlie, in Miles Ellinder’s death, and bugger me if I’m going to stand in the way of McEwen and his team as they dismantle you piece by piece.’
‘Don’t you think you should perhaps mention our brief but unforgettable marriage to your new buddies, Dee?’
‘Fuck off, Charlie.’
‘Dee, listen. Just cut me some slack, that’s all I’m saying. You owe me that.’
‘I owe you nothing, Charlie.’
When she hung up, the room was eerily quiet.
*
Priest knocked and waited. He considered for a moment how many other principals knocked and waited patiently at the doors of those they employed. Very few, he supposed – but then there weren’t many people who would even consider employing an accountant with severe OCD, let alone accommodate his peculiar little rituals.
After a while the door opened and Priest was permitted to shuffle in. He walked straight to the desk – which was completely clear of any of the usual paraphernalia one might associate with an office – and sat down, making sure that the chair didn’t move from the grooves it had already cut into the carpet.
He glanced around quickly. The office wasn’t clean – it was immaculate. It radiated orderly perfection. There were seven filing cabinets squeezed around two walls of the room, with one drawer for each letter and two drawers marked ‘not used’. Priest knew that some of the
drawers – X and Z, for instance – would be empty but, importantly, all of the files were alphabetised and separated. Books were categorised according to genre and size, pens dependent on size and colour. Behind the clear desk was another workspace with a laptop and a tape measure to make sure that it was set dead square in the middle of the desk surface. Everything was completely symmetrical. The two desks took up the central floor space with two bookcases facing each other on opposite sides of the room. It was freezing cold, to the point where Priest’s breath was misting in front of his eyes. Solly had arranged for the radiator – which had been off-centre – to be removed. Priest knew that the blind was lowered by six hundred and fifteen millimetres because that meant the view from the desk was only of buildings, uncontaminated by patches of sky.
‘Hello, Charlie,’ said Solly.
The room might have been immaculate but, paradoxically, the occupant was not. Solly was in his early thirties but he had a blotchy skin complexion that made him look like a teenager. His hair was a receding, wiry mass of brown curls. He sat at the desk with his hands crossed over – the only breaches of the symmetry were the three identical red pens protruding from his blazer pocket.
‘Hi, Solly.’
‘I understand that Sir Philip Wren is dead,’ Solly remarked, without the slightest trace of emotion.
‘Yes. Very dead.’
‘You and he knew each other?’
‘He was my godfather.’
Solly nodded in what he presumably thought was an appropriate gesture. ‘I’ve always wondered what it would be like to know someone who dies. How do you feel?’
‘I have a headache.’
‘Yes. Of course. I understand.’
It was clear to Priest that Simon Solomon did not understand in the slightest, but the effort was touching.
‘The Ellinder Group?’ Priest prompted.
‘Ah, yes. The Ellinder Group. Most intriguing. There are three holding companies owned by various trusts that belong to the Ellinder family. Twenty-four subsidiaries in England, all registered to the same address. Accountants in Kensington. Associated companies in eight other countries including the UAE but it’s mainly a domestic operation. The foreign ventures are relatively new, last five years. Looks like they felt they had cracked the UK drug market and they were looking to expand internationally. The operation is very internalised. They do everything themselves – research, manufacture, packaging, branding, distribution – hardly anything is farmed out.’
‘Profitable?’
‘Last year the group made ninety-four million, eight hundred and sixty-two thousand, four hundred and nine pounds after tax.’
Priest whistled. ‘A hundred million pounds for chewable paracetamol.’
‘Sorry?’ Solly frowned and shook his head. ‘What did you say?’
Priest didn’t follow. ‘I said, a hundred million pounds for chewable paracetamol.’
‘No, that’s quite wrong.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not a hundred million. It’s ninety-four million, eight hundred and sixty-two thousand, four hundred and nine. Also, this is not a company that specialises in the production of chewable paracetamol. In fact, chewable paracetamol accounted for less than point two per cent of global sales in the second quarter of –’
‘OK, enough.’ Priest held up his hands.
Solly blinked twice, as if he had just had dust thrown in his eyes. ‘I have to finish my sentence,’ Solly pointed out.
‘Fine, but do so quickly.’
‘I have to start from the beginning.’
It was true to say that Solly would have struggled in most high-street practices. He was, essentially, dysfunctional. But his ability to disseminate information, analyse figures and remember unfathomably large wads of data and text outweighed his social awkwardness.
As it happened, Solly never got to restart his sentence because the door opened. Without a knock.
‘Please!’ Solly protested. ‘My door must not be opened more than forty-five degrees . . .’
His plea fell on deaf ears.
‘Priest,’ said Okoro. ‘You’d better come downstairs.’
*
Priest had never seen his waiting room so packed full of people. An untidy mixture of uniforms and suits were clustered around the low table that Maureen regularly adorned with copies of The Times and a few law periodicals to keep up appearances. McEwen had taken up a position at the back of the room, leaning arrogantly on the inside of the doorframe. His massive weight looked as though it might be enough to crack the wood and send him sprawling down the side of the building.
Maureen was getting on with some typing. When Priest arrived, she barely looked up.
‘I’ve asked the gentlemen nicely to at least shut the door,’ she told him, her old fingers not slowing even momentarily as they danced across the keyboard. ‘They’re letting the cold in.’
Okoro stood behind Priest, arms folded.
A small, wiry man with a light blue suit presented himself to Priest and held out a hand. Priest took it and shook firmly. The man announced that his name was Evans and he was a representative of the Crown Prosecution Service. He was in his early forties, maybe younger, with square glasses perched on a large, aquiline nose and prematurely grey hair that started halfway over the crown of his head and descended chaotically down the back of his neck. He looked as if he was experienced, but the little tremble in his voice betrayed his nervousness.
‘This is a search warrant,’ Evans explained before handing Priest a familiar-looking document. ‘It entitles these officers to conduct a thorough search of these premises as part of the ongoing investigation into the death of Miles Ellinder.’
Priest glanced at the paper. No need to read – he knew what it said. It would be useful to know which district judge had signed it off, though.
He addressed Evans pleasantly. ‘What are the grounds for suspecting that there is anything in these premises connected with the death of Miles Ellinder?’
‘It is understood that you are acting for Kenneth and Jessica Ellinder, the father and sister of the deceased. There is reason to believe that either or both of these individuals – your clients – are involved in Mr Ellinder’s death.’
Priest sniffed. The warrant had been signed off by District Judge Fearnly. Last year, Priest had taken one of Fearnly’s decisions to the Court of Appeal. He had been successful and the higher court had been particularly scathing of the judge’s handling of the case. Fearnly must have thought it was Christmas when Evans had come in front of him this morning and applied for a search warrant for Priest & Co’s offices.
Priest looked up. Apparently, Evans was talking.
‘Mr Priest? Are you hearing me?’
‘Yes.’ He caught McEwen’s eye and the Scot nodded curtly. Priest returned the gesture. ‘Where do you want to start?’
Evans raised an eyebrow. Priest guessed that most people put up more of a protest when presented with a document that entitled the police and anyone else they thought reasonably necessary to turn their places upside down.
‘You heard the man,’ McEwen barked gleefully from the back. ‘Now do try not to leave Mr Priest’s establishment in a complete mess, won’t you?’
There was a general hum of approval from the crowd of officers occupying Priest’s waiting room. They started to file forwards. Priest and Okoro didn’t move. Evans turned away, satisfied or relieved – it wasn’t clear which.
Priest said quietly to Okoro, ‘We’re not acting for the Ellinders. This is a fishing expedition. Get on to your friend in listing and get in front of a judge who doesn’t dislike us and get this bloody thing rescinded.’
‘I’ll do my best, Priest, but I don’t know how quickly I can do that.’
‘I’ll stall.’
Okoro looked sceptical. The police were conferring, obviously splitting up the task of dismantling the inside of the building. He made a quick phone call. When he finished, he whispered in Priest’s
ear, ‘In front of Burrows. Twenty minutes. Can you buy me that?’
Priest nodded. Okoro was already out of the door. McEwen noticed him leave but didn’t object.
Priest turned back to Evans. ‘Can I have a copy of the notice, please?’ he asked mildly.
Evans frowned, wrinkling his forehead. ‘I gave you a copy of the warrant.’
‘Yes. You did. But I’m also entitled to a copy of the Notice of Rights and Entitlements. It’s a document that sets out my rights as a person subject to a search . . .’
‘I know what it is,’ spluttered Evans. ‘You are a solicitor of the Supreme Court. You must surely know what your rights are?’
‘A brush up now and again would do no harm.’
Priest smiled. Evans rubbed his face. He turned away. McEwen was breathing down his neck. Priest had guessed right. He hadn’t brought a copy of the notice with him.
‘Well?’ growled McEwen.
‘He’s entitled to a copy of the notice,’ Priest heard Evans explain reluctantly. ‘I’ll have to go back to the office to get one.’
‘How long will that take?’ McEwen demanded.
‘In this traffic? Half an hour?’
McEwen grunted and nodded to the rest of the group to tell them to stand down and wait. He took up a seat opposite the reception desk while Evans scurried off. It was now a race to see who would come back first – and it would be tight. The court listing office had said twenty minutes, but that was assuming Burrows had finished whatever sorrowful case was in front of him.
‘Anything from Hayley Wren?’ Priest said to McEwen. The DI was slouched with Priest’s waiting room chair wrapped around his backside. He was sweating again.
‘What about her?’ said McEwen irritably.
‘Has she turned up?’
‘Give it a rest, Priest. Wren committed suicide. The daughter’s shacked up with some bastard somewhere and doesn’t even know yet. Nothing to do with you. I’d be more worried about what my boys will turf out of your filing cabinets when Evans gets back, if I were you.’
Priest had nothing to hide, but it would be rather inconvenient to have the police tear his office apart. It would also be bad for business. And time was ticking away. McEwen had confirmed Hayley hadn’t shown up, which meant she was still missing. It didn’t bode well.
