Am I just a straw for a drowning woman to cling to? Or am I indispensable? Once the funeral’s over, will she still need me? Would she want to settle down—two kids and a nine-to-five routine? She had pressed Neil. Is that for me? Nine-to-five—that’s a non-starter. Kids? Love ’em to bits but giving them the time they deserve … now that would be a problem. And I’d be living a big secret, a huge guilty secret that it was me who sent Neil to Westbrook Drive. And if that ever came out, what then? Shitsville, baby! He killed the line of thought as the train slowed for Northfields.
Something else had been nagging away at him, like a sore tooth or a stone in his shoe. The previous evening, as he’d been scrambling eggs, he’d had a flash of inspiration. St Paul en route to Damascus had nothing on this—but writing the idea down had been impossible. As quickly as it had come, it was gone, that momentary flash of inspiration. He wished now he had let the eggs stick to the pan while he scribbled it down. Try as he did for the rest of the journey, he never retrieved the lost thought. He knew it had to involve Skela and as he made his way up to T5 Arrivals, he ran through everything from the past thirty-six hours, searching for a trigger. But the thought died when Tosh Watson appeared from a food outlet.
“Baggage in hall,” volunteered Tosh, devouring the remains of a McMuffin dripping with brown sauce. He gulped down a mouthful of coffee as both men confirmed they were wired up with covert body sets and tiny wireless earpieces.
“Tosh, you stay at the end of the walking-out area. I’ll watch as they come out of Customs. Is Varley in position? Wired up?”
“Up there. And Madden too. I checked. They’re both ready.” Tosh pointed to a middle-aged man in a dark gray coat, who held a miniscule camera trained to film every person coming through.
“Where’s Madden?”
“By the bookshop.”
“They know Bardici’s codename is Alfonso?”
“Correct. You ID Bardici and Madden and Varley will be ready.”
They moved into position about thirty meters apart. After ten, Ratso saw new labels on the luggage coming through, showing that travellers from BA’s Miami flight had arrived. But first would come the ones with EC passports. Non-EU citizens like Bardici were held up by the longer queue waiting for Immigration clearance.
From last night’s great report by young Nancy Petrie, Ratso was confident they had identified Bardici by elimination. Nobody had travelled using the name Bardici—no surprise there. Eight passengers had changed flights to Nassau from Miami but their return dates were not even close. Only three persons from the Miami flight had flown to Grand Bahamas. The honeymoon couple had been quickly eliminated. That left a Mr Mujo Zevi. The UK Border Agency had been most helpful, producing a photo taken of someone calling himself Mujo Zevi from Montenegro, who had passed through Immigration on his outward journey. The man had the same frame as Bardici.
It had been easy to persuade the AC that Bardici must be allowed to continue to use the false ID if he wished. Knowing his false ID could be a godsend on some future date. In turn, Wensley Hughes had persuaded top brass at the Border Agency that on arrival, Zevi should be waved through, nothing done to make him feel threatened or suspicious.
Ratso was on edge for the next toe-tapping twenty minutes. Every new face had to be checked and discarded but just as he was starting to wonder if he’d crapped out again, he saw his target. Zevi stood out because of his bulk and familiar swaying walk, like a gorilla looking for food. His large right hand gripped an overnight bag, just as he had gripped Neil before savaging him to death. For a moment Ratso was consumed with hatred and wanted to leap out at him—but now was not the time for an arrest.
Mujo Zevi looked somewhat different from his outgoing Immigration photo. Today, he wore a Miami Dolphins cap pulled low across his forehead and it looked as if he had not taken a razor on the trip. But that walk, swaying from side to side, was a dead giveaway. Ratso had watched hours of film of Bardici and he had no doubt Zevi was their man.
As the Albanian ambled past him, Ratso spoke softly. “Standby, standby. Contact. Alfonso entering walkway from Arrivals Hall. Subject wearing Miami Dolphins cap, unshaven, no beard, gorilla-like walk. Brown bag in right hand.” He gave his callsign and said over. Within a few seconds, he got confirmation of eyeball from Tosh, Madden and Varley. Satisfied, he imagined Varley filming the unsuspecting target’s every movement. He saw geek-like Madden half visible behind a revolving bookstand. The target showed no reaction to anybody or anything, as far as Ratso could judge from his disappearing back.
Just to be sure, Ratso wanted to be there when Zevi reached Westbrook Drive. DC Nancy Petrie was already by the corner shop in the white O.P. van—the abbreviation for an Observations Post vehicle. Normally it would be plain vanilla, no name on it but Ratso had used it before for watching Bardici, so today magnetic signs had been fixed for Wickers, Plumbers & Heating Engineers.
He and Tosh hastened to the car park, a relative term where Tosh was concerned as he panted to keep up. They grabbed the VW Golf that Tosh had brought out and headed for Hounslow. While Tosh drove as fast as he dared, Ratso warned Petrie that Zevi could appear by taxi or private car within twenty minutes.
Tosh dropped Ratso close to Ali’s corner shop. In seconds he was inside the Wickers van. “He should arrive from this end of the street, so drive past number 22, turn round and park beyond it so we can move toward him as he enters the house. Camera ready to roll?” Ratso heard the grunted yes, of course, though he had suffered five-star snafus when nothing had been recorded at all. Slowly they advanced to the apex of the bend, where he had lost sight of Klodian Skela and his missus last week. Now they had a perfect sightline to number 22 without being so close as to be obvious.
Within four minutes, a black cab appeared and slowed outside number 22. Ratso felt his pulse race. From ninety meters away, he watched Mujo Zevi emerge and pay the driver. As the cabbie moved slowly away, the Wickers van was cruising by number 22 and captured a great full-face view of Bardici as he picked up his bag and rolled his way to the front door.
“You got all that?” Ratso saw a satisfied nod. “Okay! Drop me off round the corner. I’ll go back with Tosh. And you, Nancy? Coming with us?”
“I’ll go back in the O.P. van. Leave you men to talk cricket or whatever.”
“That’s our loss, then.” Ratso almost smiled goodbye as he climbed out and joined Tosh in the Golf.
They had barely travelled for ten minutes when Ratso sensed his companion needed a leak. But Tosh didn’t like admitting to it. “Mattrafact, boss, I was just thinking I could murder a steak and kidney pud. I missed out on that yesterday. There’s the Waggoners in about a mile. You up for it?”
Ratso was not up for it. He’d been fighting to retrieve that flash of inspiration, running through every step taken since they had arrived at Skela’s squalid flat. “What! At this time? No, we’re not stopping to eat. Get me back. I’m onto something even bigger than your steak and kidney pud—if I can only remember what the hell it is.”
“Take my advice, boss. You can never, will never, forget a good steak and kidney pud and that’s a fact.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Ratso laughed. “Stop for a piss if you must. But I want to get straight back.”
After watching his sergeant scurry across the tarmac and through the side door of the dreary-looking pub, Ratso returned to his mental filing cabinet, opening and closing each drawer and each file in turn. But still that nanosecond of inspiration eluded him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Kirsty-Ann Webber kissed beaming Leon goodbye and gave her mom a loving hug, promising to be back as soon as she could this evening. She had suffered a sleepless night, not because of Leon but because of the events of the previous day. After a last lingering look at Leon’s chubby face and laughing eyes, she was gone, leaving behind t
he cosiness of her private life for the harsh reality of being a detective in the FLPD.
Every day was different. The day before, she had gotten involved in what the radio shock-jocks and local media were calling a chase, when in fact it had been nothing of the kind. She had followed a Buick sedan through the toughest part of town after stumbling on a gang confrontation. The Buick left the road and crashed into a wall, leaving the driver dead. Webber said she had played it by the book. She reminded herself for the umpteenth time that from her unmarked car, she had seen the guy, known locally as Muscles Mitch, shoot dead a father and son, both known drug dealers. By chance, she had witnessed every moment of the slaying—cold, brutal, clinical murders. Muscles had been well known to FLPD and had a short life expectancy anyway, being an unemployed drug user and dealer. After killing two guys from a rival gang, it would have been even shorter.
She doubted Muscles even knew he was being followed, let alone chased. High off the buzz of the murders and cocaine, he had driven as if he were invincible and had paid the price. But after any incident like this, there was always a full investigation—looking for lessons to be learned and verifying the officer hadn’t behaved inappropriately. Left-wing activists had packed the airwaves, calling for her head on the block. Right-wingers applauded her courage, when she knew she had done nothing brave at all.
Short of letting the guy disappear without getting his car registration number, Kirsty-Ann was sure she had played it proper. She’d radioed for support but for a vital seventy-five seconds she was alone—just her, the killer, his Buick and a concrete wall at a sharp bend. Good riddance had been her reaction on seeing his very dead body slumped across the front seat. He looked similar to the young thug who had shot her beloved Andy. But being a professional, she’d still checked the body to see if she could do anything.
It was a twenty-minute drive to HQ through the morning traffic. She was nearly there when the radio squawked and the chief’s voice came on the line. “Morning, K-A. How ya doing?”
Kirsty-Ann tried to sound positive. “Hi, Chief! As you would expect.”
“Rough night, I’ll bet. But relax. Yesterday we got rid of three guys who were going to give us grief for the rest of their lives.”
“Thank you. Listening to the radio phone-ins …”
“Ignore them. The investigation will be brief and conclusive. Got it? Anyway, I’m not calling about that. I’ve heard from DC.” He cleared his throat noisily. “Your report was well received. You can continue enquiries with the cruise ships, the casino trips to nowhere and the airlines.”
“Still playing it cool?”
“If you can but the story has broken in Washington. The media know nothing except that Ruthven flew down here and stayed at the Hilton. I’ve already called the hotel and they’re going to release a brief statement that he was there but did not check out. Period.”
“Understood. But Ruthven—who is he? It’s been odd, investigating the disappearance of someone I know nothing about.”
“Well, I was never told either. But if you believe the Washington Post, he worked in Iraq and more recently Afghanistan.”
“So he could be a political target?”
“In theory. But based on your report, I’m not convinced. You want to capture, kill, interrogate a guy like Ruthven, hell, it’s not that hard. The guy’s got no twenty-four-seven protection. He’s a government servant. Could be picked off any time in Washington.”
“Reckon he worked for the CIA?”
“We’ll never be told if he had another role working undercover.” Bucky Buchanan laughed. “A spokesman for the State Department put out a statement expressing mild concern but emphasising that there were no security implications.”
“Which means there were?”
The chief laughed. “Keep an open mind. Ain’t nobody has a better ear to the ground here than you. What they know in DC and ain’t telling us, hell, we can’t work on that.” He paused. “You coming in?”
“Sure, I’m nearly there. I’ll grab the file and eliminate the possibilities one by one.”
“Good! It’ll keep your mind off yesterday.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Clapham, South London
Ratso opened the pack of M&S sandwiches. Today he had prawn salad on brown with a mango smoothie. He enjoyed a quiet lunch at his desk. It gave him time to think, or, if Test Match Special was on, to get lost in that for half an hour—as lost as you could get with a constant flow of texts, calls and emails coming through. Anything was better lunchtimes than swilling down a pint or two in the Nags Head while watching Tosh and the rest devour soggy chips and burger baps as if they might never eat again.
In front of him was everything on Klodian Skela—his signed statement and notes about the interview, things Ratso had not wanted to include in the statement. Ratso had always believed in mental thumbscrews. See a soft spot, go for it. On his second visit to Skela, he demanded regular updates on everything Bardici on the condition that Ratso would not say a word to Rosafa and he might not be charged. No promises, he had emphasised.
Though his tiny office was well heated, Ratso shivered. He wondered if he was sickening for a cold, or worse still, for flu. The Underground in December was a damned sneezezone, with germs flying everywhere. He sniffed as he dumped the sandwich packet in the bin and returned to his notes. Then, impulsively, he got up, deciding to visit the team.
The Cauldron was quiet. Jock Strang was still in Glasgow. Most of the detectives were out on assignments or over at the Nags Head scoffing cholesterol. After cursory exchanges with DC Venables about Chelsea’s bad away form, he went over the scribbles and pictures on the whiteboard. It was all too familiar. No roads led to Boris Zandro. His name and a photo of Wisteria Lodge were at the bottom right corner of the board but nothing pointed his way at all.
He was about to turn away when a single scribble, just two words—Land Registry—triggered a flash of light. And then he knew. Not that it was on the board—it wasn’t even mentioned. To the astonishment of Venables and Nancy Petrie, he thumped his fist into his left hand and then furiously scribbled solicitors on the board beneath Land Registry. “Yes! Got it! I’ve got it!”
Petrie muttered what’s that, charm or looks but Ratso ignored her, already heading back to his office and the remains of his sandwich. Compared to his thoughtful journey down the stairs, his return was supercharged, energy at full bore. Suddenly a whole new line of enquiry lay ahead.
One small step for man but one giant leap for truth and justice.
He munched on a prawn, anxious to get his desk clear. Arkwright, Fenwick,& Stubbs, solicitors. He had never heard of them till he discovered the firm had acted for the Gibraltar company that bought the block where Skela lived—a block full of Albanian tenants.
London had thousands of lawyers, most of them law-abiding but beneath the surface were others Ratso had learned to despise. Besides those who simply stole client money by teeming and ladling, dishonest lawyers fell into two camps. One type used every dirty trick in the book to get acquittals for villains who were guilty as hell. The other camp comprised low-profile firms who quietly got on with business, uncaring about the laws against money laundering. Only the previous week, an investigatory report had confirmed that more money was laundered through London daily than passed through the offshore islands in months, perhaps years. If the transactions were big enough, the report concluded, the City’s banks balanced risk against reward, turning a blind eye to massive dodgy transfers that would never be permitted through the tight regulatory corset in well-run financial centres like the Isle of Man or Jersey.
Was Arkwright, Fenwick, & Stubbs in that camp? He would check out the partners, check out their business. Everything. For a moment Ratso gazed out of the window at the endless gray of a wintry afternoon. He watched a bus splashing through the December rain and a woman wrestling wi
th a broken umbrella. His hands were sweaty and his heart was racing—good signs that he was onto something. That, or he had man-flu coming on.
Boris Zandro, I’m coming to get you.
It was a rare moment of euphoria to be savored, like winning the lottery and momentarily living the dream. But just like that daydream, harsh reality was swift to return as Ratso studied his notes and pored over the research done during the Wensley Hughes investigation. Nobody had checked out these solicitors or the purchase of Wisteria Lodge. Just a few keystrokes revealed Terry Fenwick was the senior partner and that Boris Zandro’s London home was owned by an Isle of Man company called Menora Holdings Limited with a registered office in Athol Street, Douglas. Zandro must be a tenant.
Damn it! He had hoped for another Gibraltar link. But was Menora just a front for Zandro?
Ratso kept on digging, trawling through the data from the Manx Companies Registry, hoping that Terry Fenwick’s name would leap off the screen as a director of Menora. It did not. Another bloody wall. The directors were Manx chartered accountants from a reputable firm. The real owner was hidden by nominee shareholders. Ratso’s thoughts flashed back to a visit to the island on a sunny day, when Douglas Bay was a Mediterranean blue. Over a plate of delicious local Queenies on the promenade, an advocate from the attorney general’s department had explained that a nominee shareholder typically held the shares under a trust deed for the true owner. That owner’s name was not publicly recorded.
Boris Zandro, I’m coming to get you. But it’s bloody difficult!
He surfed the web for anything more about the firm, about Terry Fenwick. These days, most law firms used websites and press releases to cram Google with enough puff and stuff to raise profile. But not this lot. All roads led to nowhere. The solicitor had no profile; he never appeared in Law Reports, never wrote articles; his website did not boast of deals done or victories achieved. The Internet revealed only a simple web page offering the firm’s services for corporate and commercial law. One of his partners had the same name and was probably Terry’s brother or son; another was a woman. None of them had a photo beside their profile. None of them had a profile at all.
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