The Murder Exchange

by Simon Kernick

  At last I had something. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Malik had mentioned Bosnia as a supply route used by the Holtzes to bring both drugs and illegal immigrants into western Europe and, ultimately, Britain, although the connection was a tenuous one. There was a list of related articles on the left-hand side of the screen and I scrolled through them, skim-reading about the role the fundamentalists had played in what was described, quite accurately it seemed, as the bloodiest European conflict since 1945. Ruthless in battle, they were a formidable fighting force, their infamy far outweighing their actual numbers. So much so that, according to one of the articles written in January 1996, the United Nations demanded their removal as part of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement between the warring parties. The next article, written later that month, continued in the same vein, this time citing a claim made by the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic that mujahidin had attacked Serb positions north-west of Zenica, and that, in separate ceasefire violations, Iranian military advisers and British mercenaries were continuing to train Muslim forces in bases east and south of Sarajevo.

  The British connection again. Still tenuous, but there all the same. I made some notes, then left the website and typed in ‘mercenaries in Bosnia’ in the search-engine box. Plenty of hits came up, as expected, and once again I began the long trawl.

  As I looked, I began to wonder whether this man Karadzic was making things up. After all, all wars contain plenty of lies and propaganda. But then I found an article in the New York Times, dated October 1995, which covered the story of foreign involvement in the war, stretching back to its beginnings in early 1992, and contained information about who’d been involved. There’d been the usual suspects: the mujahidin; the occasional middleclass Western boys who’d been so sickened by the atrocities being visited on the Muslims that they’d gone out to try to help; the adventure seekers and nutters who for some reason are always attracted to the world’s troublespots; and there’d been a company called Contracts International, based in London, who’d been supplying former British soldiers to help train Muslim forces in a variety of military techniques, including guerrilla warfare. The spokesman for Contracts International was Martin Leppel, a former captain in the Parachute Regiment. In the article, he admitted that some of the firm’s employees were in Bosnia but declined to comment any further. The writers stated that no fewer than twenty-one of the company’s operatives were there, and that it was almost certain they were being bankrolled by senior members of the Saudi Arabian royal family.

  I noted the name of the company and its representative, then checked to see if they had a website. Not surprisingly they didn’t, so I did a search on Contracts International and discovered a number of newspaper articles about the company. Founded in 1991 by Leppel, and with a full-time staff estimated at two hundred, they’d been involved in conflicts all over the world, but I concentrated solely on Bosnia. From what I could gather, there was nothing untoward about their activities in the region. You could even say, depending on your point of view I suppose, that they were actually providing a service, since the Muslims were so hopelessly outgunned. But the other warring parties had demanded they leave after the Dayton Accord because their presence was seen as provocative, although there was evidence that some had stayed behind to continue their work in breach of the treaty.

  It was getting close to midnight when I opened an article from Der Spiegel, dated September 1997, in which the words Contracts International appeared. I was too tired to take in the fact that it was written in German, but something immediately caught my eye. It was a black and white photograph of two men walking towards a camera along what looked like a mountain road. One of the men, the younger of the two, was dressed in military fatigues, the other in a dark suit. They appeared to be talking to each other, and neither was looking at the camera. In fact, it looked as if they were unaware their picture was being taken.

  The one on the left, the soldier, looked familiar, but I couldn’t work out from where. It wasn’t a particularly good shot of him, but I knew I wasn’t mistaken. I’d definitely seen the man before.

  As for the one in the suit, he was even more familiar. But then he would have been. Not only had Malik supplied me with his photograph: I’d run into him only days earlier.

  It was Neil Vamen’s man, Jackie Slap Merriweather.

  Saturday, eight days ago

  Iversson

  The rain came down like a tropical monsoon. A month with none and then the whole lot arrives at once, just like London buses. It was difficult to see out of the car window, there was so much of it, but I suppose in a way that was useful. At least no one would be paying me too much attention as I sat parked across the road from the flash-looking four-storey townhouse where the Heavenly Girls brothel was based.

  For the hundredth time that night, I looked at my watch. 1.15 a.m. I’d been there close to two hours now, watching and waiting, seeing how much activity there was, wondering if that pervert Krys Holtz was going to turn up. A steady flow of cabs had been pulling up and spitting out their male passengers, mainly of the suited and booted variety, all looking like they had the cash to pay the sort of prices this place apparently asked. Elaine had told me she’d heard that thirty or so women worked for them but only about ten were there at any one time, in keeping with the intimate atmosphere. I reckoned that those ten were being kept pretty fucking busy if tonight was typical, and there’d probably be as many as twenty-five bodies in there when we hit the place. This meant we were going to have to move extremely fast. With that many people and that many rooms, it would be impossible to secure everyone, so you had to guess that one of them was going to be able to get a call in to the police. The Met were never the speediest bastards in the world, but if the person on the other end of the blower sounded desperate enough, they’d probably pull their finger out. That would mean a five-or six-minute initial response time, which didn’t give us a lot of leeway.

  But things were coming together, and that was the main thing. Johnny Hexham, a man always in pursuit of money, had already stolen the first car, the one I was in now, and was currently hunting down a van to use as transport for Holtz. Joe, acting as a businessman in pursuit of some much-needed recuperation, had made a verbal agreement to hire one of the farmhouses I’d seen on a one-month let, starting the following day, and was scheduled to go down there in a few hours’ time to put down the money and pick up the keys. Johnny was on driving standby every night the following week, and the rest of the team were together, although I still hadn’t met the jeweller’s brother, Kalinski. If all went according to plan, I’d get to give him the once-over the following night when the four of us, minus Johnny, met to discuss the final details.

  A black Toyota Land Cruiser pulled up outside Heavenly Girls and stopped, engine rumbling, by the side of the road. A couple of seconds later a big bloke, at least six four, probably more, stepped out. This was Fitz, if Elaine’s description was correct. Another bloke, only slightly shorter and with the same build, came out the other side. Big Mick. And then the man himself, Krys Holtz, emerged from the front passenger side and stepped onto the pavement. Krys was a lot shorter than the other two, probably no more than five ten, but again he had the big build. He was no fucking oil painting either, and you could understand why he had to pay for it a fair amount. He dressed well, in an expensive dark suit and leather coat, but his face was all fat and jowly, like someone had lived in it too long, and his haircut – a big black Elvis-style quiff that had gone out of fashion when the King was still below fifteen stone – was all over the shop. He was only meant to be thirty but he looked at least ten years older. I was surprised that the sight of him didn’t fill me with rage. Instead, I watched him calmly, knowing that I’d be getting even shortly.

  Krys hurried up the steps to the house, flanked by the other two, then the door opened and a very satisfied-looking Tugger Lewis stepped out. Tugger moved aside, avoiding the group, who walked through the space he’d just occupied as if he wasn�
��t there. He made his way over to the car and, after turning round to check that Krys and his men had entered the building, got in the passenger side. I started the engine and pulled away from the kerb. It was 1.25 a.m.

  ‘So, how did it go?’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Tugger in his thick Geordie accent. ‘The lasses are high quality, I have to say.’

  ‘They ought to be for that sort of price.’

  ‘Aye, I know. Two hundred quid for half an hour. That’s about two quid a thrust. It’s a shocking price. I was down at a place in Puerto Banus a couple of years back and it cost £38.70 for a girl once the exchange rate was taken into account. And you got forty minutes.’

  ‘See, that’s what I’d consider a fair deal. A quid a minute. Not much more expensive than a fairground waltzer.’

  ‘And considerably more exciting.’

  ‘Exactly. So, what’s the layout in there like?’

  ‘Reception’s on the second floor. There’s a lift goes up there. You come straight out into a foyer and you’re facing the lass on the desk.’

  ‘Security?’

  ‘Two bouncers in dickie bows. Big lads, mind, but not armed. As far as I saw, it’s only them, and they won’t be any trouble. There’s a bar that’s off the foyer and that’s where the lasses hang out when they’re not otherwise engaged. You can go in there and have a drink with them; if you like one, you go off with her to one of the rooms. I’m not sure how many rooms there are, definitely no more than a dozen. I went up to the next floor and there were six that I counted, all very spacious and comfortable. They use rooms on the fourth floor as well, and I reckon it’ll be the same layout. The second floor’s just the reception area, and the first and ground floor’s accommodation for the staff, I think. Basically, the whole building belongs to them.’

  ‘Well, you know the plan, Tugger. Will it work in that sort of place?’

  He appeared to think about it for a moment. ‘Aye, I think so, but it’s risky, no doubt about it.’

  I grinned at him. ‘But think of the rewards. Think of how far a hundred grand’ll go up your way. You could probably buy a whole street in the north-east for that.’

  ‘Aye, maybe so, but you’ll have to move up there too, Max. You can’t even get a garden shed round here for that sort of price. Hardly worth risking your neck for.’

  ‘It’s only a short piece of work,’ I replied, stopping at a red light. It struck me then that Fowler had said pretty much the same thing on the day we’d first met.

  But you know what they say. Once bitten, twice ready.

  Monday, six days ago

  Gallan

  My weekend was blissfully quiet. Rachel and I did the tourist thing, stuff we’d never done together when we’d been living in the same house, because at that time I’d never really felt the need. We went to the Tower of London, the London Aquarium, Madame Tussaud’s, and even the Houses of Parliament. And when we weren’t treading the pavement, we were taking it easy and enjoying each other’s company. I cooked curry on the Saturday night and we ate it in front of a video of The Nutty Professor. The food was terrible, the film not a lot better, but it didn’t matter. It was just a nice way to spend the evening. I let her stay up until quarter to eleven but warned her not to tell her mother. ‘Otherwise she won’t let you stay with me again.’ She winked and gave her nose a conspirator’s tap, telling me not to worry, it would be our secret. Girls can be so manipulative.

  Manipulative or not, I was a lot sadder than I thought I’d be when I had to take her back on Sunday evening. I promised I’d have her for the weekend again in two weeks’ time and she told me that she’d look forward to it. I think, then, I must have done something right, but it was still a lonely journey home.

  When I walked into the station on the Monday morning, however, I was feeling more refreshed than I had for a long time. Crime in the area had continued to be fairly stable in the intervening time. A fifteen-year-old Somali refugee had been put in hospital with severe head injuries after being beaten with a baseball bat during a gang fight (three minors had been arrested at the scene and bailed pending further enquiries); a spate of seven muggings had occurred on one estate, one ending in a stabbing, but the two perpetrators, both fresh out of a young offenders’ institute, had already been arrested and charged; and a twenty-one-year-old woman had knifed and seriously wounded her common-law husband with a kitchen knife. She too had been arrested, and charged with GBH.

  Although harrowing for the victims and their families, particularly the parents of the Somali boy who’d come to Britain seeking sanctuary and who now had to keep vigil at their son’s bedside in intensive care, in many ways these crimes were a CID officer’s dream because they were all pretty much self-solving. There’d be plenty of paperwork, as there always was when someone was arrested, but other than that the manpower effort would be minimal, and it would make our clear-up rate that much better. All of which meant less pressure from above.

  In fact, so confident were the Brass that morning that the chief superintendent, in tandem with Knox, announced that the long-awaited ‘Back on the Beat’ initiative was going ahead that week. Members of CID, including the DCI, were to spend a night out patrolling with uniformed officers in an effort to regain an understanding of the pressures the uniforms had to endure, and to help, in the words of the chief super, ‘to foster a continued and ever deeper spirit of co-operation between these two essential and ultimately symbiotic arms of law enforcement’. These words were uttered with a completely straight face, which told you a lot about the sort of leadership we had. I was pissed off to learn that members of the Matthews murder squad were also being used on this exercise, and I was told later during the squad meeting by Knox that Berrin and I would be going out on Wednesday night. I made a brief complaint about this, but I knew that one way or another I was going to have to be in attendance. The chief super had sanctioned it, therefore Knox would enthusiastically go along with it, as would Capper. My problem, like that of so many other coppers, was that the chain of command above me was made up almost entirely of politicians.

  In the meeting that morning, the first ten minutes were taken up with Knox’s prime suspect, the elusive Mr Iversson, and his possible victim, the even more elusive Mr Fowler. Of Iversson there remained no sign, although his photo and details had now been distributed to all the relevant security services, so progress was expected in this quarter; but more worryingly, at least for Knox’s theory, was the fact that there didn’t appear to be anything to link him with Matthews. Capper and Hunsdon had also been digging further into Fowler’s background, and had even searched his flat, but it soon became clear, as they detailed what they’d been doing and who they’d been speaking to, that they hadn’t found out anything that wasn’t known already. Effectively, things hadn’t moved on.

  Knox then casually dropped a bombshell. Jean Tanner, he said, had turned up safe and well, and had told DI Burley that she and Craig McBride had been experimenting with heroin and that McBride had taken an accidental overdose. ‘Apparently she panicked, put him in a cupboard and fled her home, going up north for a few days. She thought everything would die down, which I know was a bit stupid of her, and she got nicked when she arrived back yesterday. She’s still in custody. We’re still going to need to talk to her, of course, and Burley’s given us permission to do that later on today.’ He turned to Capper. ‘I think it’s best if you and Paul do it, Phil,’ he said. I opened my mouth to protest but Knox put a hand up to stop me. ‘I know you originally turned up the lead, John, but I think you must have rubbed Burley up the wrong way.’

  ‘The Pope would have rubbed him up the wrong way,’ I said, thinking that I would have put money on the fact that Burley was somewhere on the Holtz payroll. ‘All I did was ask him a few civil questions.’

  ‘I know, I know, but he’s a touchy sort. Let’s leave it at that, eh?’

  We moved on, and now it was my turn to explain the poisons lead. I went through what I’d discovered,
trying to ignore the occasional quizzical looks from Capper and Hunsdon, and even Knox, as I detailed the background to the Bosnian conflict and its connections with Britain, and ultimately with organized crime in the form of the Holtzes. ‘I’ve emailed the photograph of Merriweather and this soldier down to Malik, along with the article, and I’ve asked him if he can find out the identity of the soldier and get someone who can translate it. The words Contracts International appear in the article so I think it’s fair to say there’s some link between them and the Holtzes. I haven’t been able to get anything on the company as yet, but I want to look into it a bit more closely.’ No one said anything for a moment; they all looked like they were thinking. Quite what was anyone’s guess. ‘Look, I know it’s a long shot, but I spent three hours hunting down information on this sort of poison, and the only place I could find where it was used before was in Bosnia. And there’s definitely a link between Bosnia and the Holtzes, and also a possible link between the Holtzes and Shaun Matthews.’

  ‘Well, go that route for the moment, John,’ said Knox, not sounding too confident that anything would come from it, ‘and keep me and Phil posted on what turns up.’

  ‘I’m not sure, guv,’ said Capper. ‘It looks like it could be another red herring. Maybe it’d be better if John and Dave went to see Jean Tanner, as it was their lead. We’ve got quite a lot of other things that need doing.’

  But Knox wasn’t keen on that idea. ‘No, it’d be better if you and Paul did it, Phil. Much better.’

  Capper nodded, but didn’t look too pleased. I wondered again if he really had been a customer at Heavenly Girls, and couldn’t help but think how amusing it would be if Jean Tanner had been one of the women whose services he’d used. It would make for an interesting meeting even if it didn’t help us too much. I was pretty certain Jean knew a lot more than she was letting on. The thing was, nothing about her story smelled right. No one had said anything about her being a smack addict, and there’d been absolutely nothing in McBride’s demeanour or appearance when we’d questioned him to suggest that he was one either. And if he’d OD’d, why hadn’t she? I could have done with questioning her, but instead I’d have to make do with getting hold of interview transcripts and pushing Knox to find out what he could from Burley.