The Murder Exchange

by Simon Kernick

  ‘A long time.’ She appeared to think about it for a moment. ‘Three or four years at least, probably longer. Why? What is it you think he’s done?’ She sniffed loudly. ‘I’m dying to know.’ I told her politely that I couldn’t divulge that. ‘I hope it’s nothing to do with what happened to that poor paperboy. The one who got killed.’

  I smiled reassuringly. ‘No, it’s a separate matter entirely. Did Mr Franks live there alone?’

  ‘I saw people come and go occasionally, but as far as I know it was just him in there. He wasn’t always there either. He’d be away for a few weeks at a time sometimes.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you what he did for a living? I mean, it’s an expensive house.’

  ‘I know he rented it but I don’t know how much for. A lot, I suppose. But no, he never said what his job was. He tended to keep himself to himself. He’d talk if you talked to him, and he always said hello, but I don’t think I had more than half a dozen conversations with him in all the time he was here, and not one of them lasted more than two or three minutes. Usually they were about the weather or something mundane like that.’

  ‘Do you know who owns the house?’

  ‘Yes, his name’s Roddy Lee Potter. He’s owned it for years. I know because he’s come round here a couple of times, trying to buy our place. I think he owns a few houses in London. It’s how he makes his money.’

  I asked her if she had a phone number or an address for Mr Lee Potter and, after a bit more hunting around, it turned out she had both. She wrote them down on a sheet of paper and handed it to me. ‘I don’t know why we bothered keeping his details,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if we’d ever consider selling. We love it round here.’

  ‘I can see why,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘It’s a nice area.’ I put out my hand and she shook it vigorously. ‘Thank you very much for your help, Mrs Deerborne. It’s most appreciated. If Mr Franks does for some reason turn up, can you call me on this number straight away?’ I handed her my card.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, leading me back to the front door.

  ‘I hope your cold improves,’ I told her as I stepped outside.

  ‘I’m sure it will. They never did catch the man who killed the paperboy, did they?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We didn’t. But one day we will. We always get them in the end.’

  When I was back out on the street I phoned Berrin and brought him up to date. ‘I’ve got a couple more visits to make,’ I told him. ‘We’ll meet back at the station. Do me a favour, can you check on a car registration for me?’ I reeled out the number.

  ‘Do you think you might have something then, Sarge?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Possibly. Do me another favour as well, will you? Speak to Capper and Hunsdon. See how the interview went with Jean Tanner.’

  When I’d rung off, having given Berrin plenty of things to do for the morning, I suddenly felt guilty. There I was, supposedly teaching the poor kid the ropes of CID, and instead I was dumping all the routine stuff on him and going my own way. I made a conscious decision to be more inclusive in future. But for now, I needed to move fast.

  I’d turned my mobile off for the duration of the meeting with Judy Deerborne, a long-standing habit since interruptions always messed up my thought process, and I now saw that I had a message. It was Malik returning my call, and he’d only phoned ten minutes ago. I pressed 5 for callback and waited while the phone rang. Malik was a sod of an individual to get hold of so I had to make the best of the opportunities I had.

  He picked up on the fourth ring. ‘Hello, John, I’ve just tried to phone you.’

  ‘I know. You got my message, didn’t you, and the emails I sent you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The guy in fatigues in the photo with Jack Merriweather. We’ve identified him as a Tony Franks. He’s been living at 41F Runmayne Avenue in Highbury Fields for the past few years. Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘He was suspected of being involved in drug-running for the Holtzes out of eastern Europe, where he’d built up a lot of contacts. He was brought in for questioning and put under surveillance for a while in 1998, mainly because of that article in Der Spiegel, but nothing ever came of it. In the end, apart from that photo and two or three other snippets of information, there was no real hard evidence to speak of. Franks has also been seen with Merriweather at least twice in the past few months, but then so have a hundred other people. We’ve got nothing concrete on him.’

  ‘The address he’s been living at doesn’t ring a bell, then?’

  ‘Not off the top of my head. I’ll have a look for you, but I don’t think so.’

  I was undeterred. ‘It’s a decent place in a nice area. The rent must be two grand a month, absolute minimum, probably more. As far as I can tell, this guy Franks’s job was as a part-time bodyguard, so someone else must have been paying for it. The question is, why?’

  Malik sighed. ‘You’re right. It does seem an odd set-up, even if he is linked to organized crime.’

  ‘Listen, let me run something by you. It’s strange, it might even be outlandish, but it’s something that’s bugging me.’ I looked up and down the quiet street. A brand-new-looking BMW 7-Series drove slowly past in the direction of the Holloway Road. ‘And, you know, the more I think about it, the more I think there’s something in it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  So I told him, and when I’d finished Malik said that I was right, it was outlandish.

  ‘But if there is something in it, think of the possibilities. Think of what it could do to help you against the Holtzes.’

  ‘Talk to the landlord,’ said Malik. ‘Find out how he gets paid every month and where the money comes from.’

  Wednesday, four days ago

  Gallan

  Roddy Lee Potter lived in a swanky apartment situated on the ground floor of an attractive Georgian townhouse just off Kensington High Street. When I’d finally got him to answer the phone the previous day he’d been in a bar in Soho, sounding extremely drunk. We’d arranged to meet today at midday at Roddy’s place, but I’d phoned ahead to make sure he hadn’t forgotten our conversation, which he had. He’d wanted to postpone, the hangover in his voice obvious, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily and insisted we keep the time as arranged.

  I got there ten minutes early and was buzzed in straight away. The door to the apartment was opened by a large, red-faced gentleman with curly, greyish-black hair who looked like he hadn’t been out of bed that long. He was dressed in a crumpled pair of slacks and a short-sleeved shirt.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Gallan, please come in.’

  I followed him inside and through to a lavishly furnished but very messy lounge. It looked like the cleaner hadn’t been in for a few days. Lee Potter motioned me to a leather armchair and I sat down, wrinkling my nose at the three-quarters-full pub-sized ashtray on the table beside him, the smell reminding me why I’d chosen to give up all those years ago.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ he asked.

  I said I would, and waited while he went to get it. He seemed a genial enough chap, but then I guess you would be pretty genial if you lived an easy, relatively wealthy life from rental income, and had no responsibilities. Was I jealous? What do you think? Of course I was.

  When Lee Potter came back with the coffees, he asked how he could be of assistance. ‘I hope I’m not in trouble for anything,’ he added in a tone that was a little bit too ingratiating, and sat down opposite me.

  ‘No, but it’s something you might be able to help with. You’ve been renting a house out to a Mr Tony Franks?’

  He nodded his head. ‘That’s right. He moved out a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘How long’s he been renting from you?’

  ‘About four years now, something like that.’

  ‘Can I ask how much you charged him in rent?’

  Lee Potter looked taken aback. ‘Is it strictly ne
cessary to know that? What’s it got to do with anything?’

  ‘I’m trying to build up a picture,’ I said, ‘and this information’s an important part of it.’

  ‘Two thousand two hundred a month. I probably could have got more but he was an easy tenant, and they’re not all like that, I can tell you.’

  ‘How many properties do you rent out, Mr Lee Potter?’

  ‘Four altogether.’

  ‘I expect they make you a tidy little income, don’t they?’

  Lee Potter smiled nervously. ‘It’s not bad. Not bad at all.’

  ‘No, I bet it isn’t.’ My tone was deliberately suspicious. Lee Potter struck me as a weak character, someone you could push. ‘What does Mr Franks do for a living?’

  ‘I believe he owns his own company. I’m not sure what it does, though. As long as he paid the rent on time—’

  ‘… Then you didn’t ask too many questions. How many times have you met Mr Franks?’

  ‘Er, I don’t know. Not many. Two or three times at most.’

  ‘In four years?’ I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘There was never any need to see him more than that.’

  ‘He lived there alone, did he?’

  Lee Potter nodded, clearly flustered by my rapid-fire questions. ‘As far as I know, yes. That’s right.’

  ‘Where did the money come from?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did he pay you directly or did it come from someone else?’

  ‘His company paid. They used to send a cheque here every month, and they were always on time. That’s why I never bothered too much. Is there something wrong?’

  I ignored the question. ‘Did he leave a forwarding address when he moved out?’

  ‘No, no he didn’t. In fact he never actually came round at all. I got a phone call from his brother saying that he’d gone, and asking what was owed. I was concerned because obviously it was all a bit sudden, so he suggested I go round and check that everything was OK. I did, the house all looked very clean, and then he phoned back a couple of days later, we divvied everything up, and the company sent another cheque for the balance.’

  ‘Did his brother leave a phone number you could reach him on?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, he didn’t. He—’

  ‘So you couldn’t actually say for certain that it was his brother?’

  ‘Well, no, but there was no reason to believe otherwise. Why should there have been?’

  ‘The reason I’m asking is that we want to talk to Mr Franks about some very serious matters, and I’m particularly interested in details of any of his associates.’

  ‘As I said, Mr Gallan, I only ever met him a couple of times, and that was alone. He was a model tenant in pretty much every way. He never called me out, never complained, nothing. Just paid his rent and that was it.’

  I paused for a moment and took several sips from my coffee before speaking again. ‘Was there ever any suspicion on your part that the house was being used for anything other than simply being lived in?’

  Lee Potter tried to look like he was thinking hard about the question. It didn’t really work. ‘No, not really,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure? It’s very important we know about it if there was.’

  He sighed. ‘I once went round there, I don’t know, about a year or so ago, mainly because I hadn’t even seen the place for God knows how long, and I was in the area anyway.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was nothing really, but all the curtains were closed, which I thought was a bit odd as it was the middle of the day, and there were also a couple of cars there. Anyway, I rang on the doorbell a couple of times, but no one answered.’ He paused before continuing. ‘Only, I was sure there were people there, because there was a tiny gap in the sitting-room curtains and I was certain I saw the shadow of someone moving around in there. It was probably nothing, almost certainly nothing, but I phoned Mr Franks up a couple of days later and he made out that he’d been away, which was odd.’ He shrugged expansively. ‘But that’s about it. I can’t think of anything else. What do you think was happening there, then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, but I had my ideas.

  I finished the coffee, got the name of the company that paid Franks’s bills from Lee Potter, and then left.

  Outside, the sky was darkening and it was already raining, but I hardly noticed as I started off in the direction of the Tube station. I was too busy thinking.

  * * *

  Twelve hours later my thoughts had turned to very different matters. Like why wasn’t the chief super traipsing round the rain-drenched midnight streets of Islington if he was so bloody keen to ‘foster a continued and ever deeper spirit of co-operation’ between those pounding the beat and those who’d hoped it was all behind them? It was ten past twelve and we’d just been called to the ground-floor council maisonette currently occupied by Brian and Katrina Driscoll.

  The smell hit me in the face as soon as I followed Berrin and the two uniforms in through the open front door. Shit and BO and stale rubbish. Food that had gone off, trapped stagnant air; the standard, all-pervading odour of decay. A kid of about eight dressed in filthy pyjama bottoms, his ribs sticking out like they were going to burst through the skin, stood watching us impassively at the bottom of the stairs. It was dark in the hallway but there were lights on further in.

  A hysterical wailing came from one of the rooms down the hall. The voice was female. She sounded drunk. ‘I can’t believe you fucking did that to me, you fucking cunt!’

  ‘Fuck off you old slag or you’ll fucking get some more!’

  She screamed again. ‘Fuck off!’

  Then him. ‘Do you want some, then? Do you fucking want some?’

  There was a sound of glass or crockery breaking and the first uniform, PC Ramsay, called out that it was the police responding to a call. We walked down the hall in a long line to the kitchen, past the boy who continued to stare at us blankly.

  ‘I fucking called you! Look what he did to me!’ She came into view, a big, misshapen woman in jeans and a white vest that rode up over her ample belly. A thick trail of blood ran down her face and onto her neck. Its source was a large cut on her forehead where she’d clearly been struck by something. She grabbed hold of Ramsay and pulled him to her like a sexually aggressive bear. ‘Look what the cunt did to me! Look!’

  The WPC with Ramsay, Farnes, shepherded the victim into the lounge away from her partner, who now appeared, bare-footed, in the kitchen doorway. ‘I ain’t done fucking nothing,’ he said, shaking his head, the words oozing drink. He was tall with a thick head of messy brown hair and an out-of-proportion beer belly. Aged about thirty-five, and dressed in jeans and a checked shirt. We’d been warned he was violent, particularly when drunk. Apparently, the police had been called here plenty of times before.

  ‘Come on now, Brian,’ said Ramsay, who seemed to know him. ‘I think it’s best you come with us.’ The words were spoken calmly, almost soothingly. Ramsay was understandably eager to avoid a scene. I was too, since I’d have to get involved if he didn’t come quietly.

  His response, however, was predictable. ‘Fuck off. I’m all right. I didn’t touch her. She’s fucking lying again.’

  Brian came forward, trying to get into the room where his partner was. Ramsay stood in the way and put his hands up to stop him. ‘She’s made a complaint, Brian. Now we’ve got to follow up on it. You understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Fuck off. Get out my way.’

  ‘Look, don’t make this hard on everyone, Brian. Let’s just go nice and quiet now.’

  Brian lunged forward and I did my best to grab him in a bearhug from behind while Berrin managed to get him round the neck. Ramsay produced some handcuffs from out of nowhere and the three of us wrestled him towards the front door. Two more recently arrived uniforms came in and helped with what was no easy extraction. Brian cursed and screamed, then fell over, trying to lash out wit
h his arms. I grabbed one, one of the uniforms grabbed another, and Ramsay forced on the cuffs.

  ‘What are you fucking doing to me, you cunts! Leave me alone! Bastards!’

  I looked up and saw the kid on the stairs still watching the whole thing, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to see your dad wrestling with a load of police officers. The man reeked of sweat and his hair was greasy. I had my knee in his back and I felt this sudden urge to grab him by the back of his greasy mane and slam his head into the floor.

  ‘I’ll fucking kill you, you bastards! You’re dead! You know that? Dead!’

  We pulled him to his feet and he snorted loudly, filling his mouth with phlegm.

  ‘All right, get rid of that spit,’ demanded one of the uniforms in his line of fire. ‘Get rid of it now.’

  ‘Come on now, Brian, let’s be having you,’ continued Ramsay, persisting with his softly-softly approach.

  Brian gobbed something thick and horrible onto his carpet, deciding against sending it into one of the arresting officers’ faces and risking a charge of assault, and continued with his pointless invective. We got him outside on the pavement and, while one of the uniforms got the doors of the van open, he had a final angry struggle, just to show he wasn’t coming quietly, and tried to kick Berrin who dodged out of the way. I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back.

  ‘Fuck off, you fucking wanker!’ he shouted, and lashed out again with a bare foot, this time in my direction.

  I stepped aside, then stepped back and stamped hard on his other foot, grinding the heel of my shoe in. Brian howled in pain and I felt a momentary burst of satisfaction.

  ‘Did you see what he fucking did, the cunt? Did you fucking see?’

  I turned away as he was manhandled into the back of the van and cursed myself for losing control. I’d forgotten what these lowlife domestics were like, and how irritating drunks could be. Still, that was no excuse for rising to the bait. As much as anyone, I knew the possible long-term consequences of a two-second loss of control.

  ‘Nice one, Sarge,’ said Berrin, giving me a pat on the back.