by Jeff Keithly
It was a dim, shabby cave of a place, insulated from the rock-blistering heat outside by a foot of adobe and a blissfully-efficient air conditioning system. Snakeskins and stuffed armadillos (one of which mysteriously disappeared during our visit, and reappeared, under equally-unexplained circumstances, in the Hastewicke Gentlemen clubhouse a month later) festooned the walls; the place was inhabited by a colorful and surprisingly friendly mix of sunburned locals and large, bearded, tattooed bikers. They were thoroughly bemused when 25 English rugby players in matching tour polos sauntered through the door.
We shoved some tables together and disposed ourselves near the back of the bar, beneath a large poster of a squinty-eyed George W. Bush in a Stetson hat, with the legend “My heroes have always been cowboys.” Jester Atkinson snorted in disgust. “Wasn’t he raised in Connecticut?”
One of the bikers – a huge walrus of a man with a bristling Fu Manchu moustache and a sparkling diamond stud in his ear, ambled over to join us. “So,” he said amiably – “you boys ain’t from around here, are ya?”
“We’re from London, actually,” Ian replied “– on rugby tour.”
“Rugby! I’ll be dipped! And what brings you to Rattlesnake Roy’s?”
“Thirst!” replied Weathersby, signaling impatiently to the waitress. “Oy! How about some service!”
“Shhh!” the biker winced. “That’s Large Marge, and today’s one of her grumpy days! Whatever ya do, don’t piss her off!”
Weathersby looked at him incredulously. “Piss her off? How?”
“Never mind! Yer from the land of good manners! Just be polite, or we’ll all suffer! And whatever ya do, don’t stare at her wart!”
The biker fairly sprinted back to the bar as our waitress approached. She was six feet tall and grossly obese; for an instant, we all gaped up at her, unable to keep our eyes from the hairy, gooseberry-sized wen between her eyes.
“Well?” she demanded in a voice that could cut steel. “You boys gonna order, or just sit there like turds in the bowl?”
“Beer, please my good lady,” said Ian, suddenly recovering his aplomb. “Six pitchers, I think, for starters.”
Large Marge grunted. “What about food?”
Ian snatched up a menu and perused it desperately. “Let’s keep it simple – we’ll have... the tortilla soup and some of your fine chips and salsa.”
She turned to go, then stopped abruptly to fix us with a fish-eyed glare. “Why the hell y’all dressed the same? Ya ain’t Mormons, are ya?”
“Good God, no,” Ian said with his most winning smile. “We’re a rugby club. From England.”
“English.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I met a Englishman once. Sat right over there at the bar and asked if he could buy me a brew.”
“Good man,” Ian said.
“Said I wuz the hottest-lookin’ fox he’d ever seen. Then he leaned over and whispered all the things he wuz gonna do to me when we got back to his hotel.”
She paused. We gaped in horrified fascination as the visual images her narrative provoked danced in our heads, and tried desperately not to let our gazes stray to her wart. “And then?” Ian said, encouragingly.
“And then?” Her voice rose to a bowel-liquifying shriek. “He barfed on his own lap and fell off his barstool! And I’ve hated you Limey bastards ever since!”
She spun on her heel and stalked toward the bar. A minute or two later, our biker friend scuttled over, eyes bulging in alarm. “Oh, Jesus! What’d ya say to her? I tole ya not ta piss her off!”
Weathersby mopped his face with a napkin. “I thought fat women were supposed to be jolly!”
Large Marge suddenly loomed behind him, three pitchers in each massive hand. “What was that you said?” she asked sweetly.
Weathersby thought desperately. “I said, ‘What a way with women you have, Ian.’” And he smiled hopefully. For a moment, she regarded us through slitted eyes. Then she thumped down the pitchers, turned without a word and stalked ponderously to the kitchen.
“Come on, Dex,” said Ian bravely, “-- time to turn on the old English charm.” We arose and made our stealthy way toward the swinging half-door to the kitchen. When we arrived, Ian peered cautiously through the aperture, then had to bend double to stifle his laughter.
Large Marge stood at the stove, humming. She had removed her voluminous underpants and was in the process of straining our soup through the ancient, yellowed crotch into a large tureen. Then she turned them upside down, allowing the chunks of meat and tortilla trapped inside to plop into the bowl. I looked at Ian, and we both broke into a helpless fit of choked laughter.
Marge whirled on us with astonishing and menacing grace. “You motherfucking Limeys, I’ll...”
But Ian waved his hands placatingly, still weak with laughter. “No, no, Marge, it’s quite all right,” he gasped. “I’ll even tell you whom to serve!”
An hour later, Large Marge was off shift and sitting at our table, drinking beer straight from the pitcher and cackling like a fishwife, as though we were her oldest mates in the world. She was genuinely sorry to see us go. And everyone who’d tried it, including Weathersby, a notoriously finicky eater, assured her the soup was the best they’d ever tasted.
When we returned to the bus, Ian threw himself down in the seat next to me. We looked at one another, then burst out laughing again. “You see, Dex?” he gasped. “That’s the secret to dealing with difficult personalities. Sometimes, to get what you want, you just have to give them what they want first.”
II
Ian’s wisdom was brought forcefully to mind when I entered my cube early the next morning. I’d hardly sat down when the phone rang, and I heard Oakhurst’s unwelcome voice. “DI Reed, can you join me in my office? We need to discuss your... report.”
Well, I had known this moment was coming. I made my way upstairs, paused at the door to gather my thoughts, then knocked. “Come,” Oakhurst growled.
He looked up from the slim document I had left on his desk as I entered. “Ah, DI Reed,” he said, eyes glinting. “I’ve just been reading your…report on the misbehavior you’ve witnessed during your tours with the Hastewicke Gentlemen.”
I nodded, poker-faced. “Yes, sir?”
Oakhurst’s face swelled like a sausage on the Barbie. “Well it isn’t good enough, is it, DI Reed? You feed me a few feeble anecdotes about indecent exposure, public drunkenness and armadillo theft, and expect me to believe that this is the extent of your insider knowledge, after more than 20 years of international touring? I know what goes on on those bloody tours of yours!”
“Then why don’t you write the report? Sir.”
“Because I wasn’t there, and you were! Now you will re-write this report, and by God you had better refresh your memory before you do, or I’ll have you up on a charge of insubordination!”
“Very well, sir, I’ll see if anything else springs to mind. I’ll have it on your desk by morning.” I didn’t mind; I had an inexhaustible store of marginally-scandalous anecdotes to pass along. I paused by the door. “And by the way, DCI Oakhurst, you asked for a daily report on the investigation. You’ll have the transcript of our Barlowe interview by this afternoon. We’re interviewing Lord Palmerston after lunch. Was there anything else, sir?”
“No. Just get out.”
After the door closed, Oakhurst sat for a few moments, staring into space. Reed was becoming a problem, one that clamored for a decisive solution.
He didn’t fear Reed’s ability to damage his career. Too much time had passed since Docklands for a formal complaint to have any chance of success, and in any event, Reed had no proof of what had really happened. Oakhurst had meticulously seen to that.
But the truth of the matter was that he, George Oakhurst, was badly in need of another spectacular success. It had been too long since Docklands had made him the golden boy of the Metropolitan Police Service. Since then, his record on major cases had bee
n mediocre at best. There had been procedural grumblings about several of them; for a fact he was not unwilling to test the boundaries of the rules of evidence when the pressure to clear a case grew intense. There had been a major embarrassment last year; an important case had been dismissed when the lab had failed to find a Yemeni terror suspect’s fingerprints on the mobile phone he had supposedly used to place calls to an informant in Leeds. That had been damned careless of him, but there had been no way to obtain the man’s prints until he had the suspect in custody.
But now the fates had conspired to place another sensational case in his hands. It had everything – bloody murder, blackmail and sexual scandal involving peers of the realm, the certainty of a hysterical national press response once the facts hit the street. There was even a sporting angle. To top it all off, it also presented the opportunity to rid himself of Dex Reed, finally and forever, if he played his cards right. And there might be other compensations as well.
DCI Oakhurst smiled then, but it was not a warm smile. Oh, yes. He still had cards to play.
III
At my insistence, we went to see Bob Leicester at his penthouse in Canary Wharf, rather than at his office. For a man of his celebrity, the arrival of two Metropolitan Police detectives at his place of work could not fail to provoke comment and speculation. It was one of the little things I could do to keep the investigation of my teammates under the radar for as long as possible.
The Copperfield Building, where Bob lived, was enormous – a 51-story behemoth on the north bank of the Thames, built to the highest standards of energy efficiency. A guard buzzed us through the triple-paned doors; Brian stopped for a word with the guard. “I’ll catch you up,” he said as I headed for the lift.
Bob’s flat occupied the entirety of the 51 floor, with panoramic views over the Tower of London, the city and the river. I was astounded at its size – at least 10,000 square feet, sparsely furnished with Stickley couches and chairs, exercise equipment and luminous Persian carpets, each a work of art. Bob was sweating profusely when he opened the door; he had been Stairmastering when I arrived. “Come in, come in,” he said. “Let’s sit by the fire. Drink?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
“Oh, you’ve not seen it before?”
“No. It’s magnificent.”
He waved a deprecatory hand. “It’s free. I own the building.” He went to the bar, poured himself a stiff one, then came and sat beside me and seemed to gather himself. “Right.” He sighed. “You’re here to ask me about Weathersby.”
I nodded. “He was blackmailing you.”
“Yes. I assume you’ve seen the same video he showed me?”
I nodded again, reluctantly. “Yes I have, Bob. And I must tell you that we’ve sent an inquiry to the Las Vegas police, due to the apparent ages of the girls involved.”
He paled. “You haven’t.”
“We’d no choice, Bob. If they’re under 18, it’s statutory rape. You’ll be prosecuted.”
“Dex – please. I’d be ruined!”
I felt my shoulders bowing beneath the familiar yoke of anguish. “I know, Bob, and I’m sorry. But there’s nothing I can do. I appreciate your position, but we’re well beyond the mates on tour stage now. Anyway, that’s a side issue. I must caution you that you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand these rights?”
Leicester was appalled. “You’re cautioning me? Dex – you can’t be serious. It’s me, Bob Leicester!”
“I know.” I struggled for self-control; he had been my mate for over 30 years. “But I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding: I’m investigating John’s murder. Do you understand your rights as I’ve explained them to you?”
“Yes.”
“And would you like your solicitor present?”
He looked away. “Not at this time.”
At this moment, there was a knock on the door. We answered it together, and I introduced Brian. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as we re-settled ourselves beside the fire. “Where were we?”
“I was just going to ask -- did you pay Weathersby the blackmail?”
Leicester shook his head. “No. I was still weighing my response when I learned John had been killed.”
“I assume £100,000 was well within your means?”
“A hundred thousand pounds?” He laughed incredulously. “Was that the going rate? He wanted £500,000 from me.”
“Still, I assume that the money was no problem?” Leicester nodded grudgingly. “So why hadn’t you paid?”
“I don’t like to lose – you know that about me. I was exploring... other options.”
I pondered that. “Involving your security staff?”
He shrugged. “I employ some very competent, very skilled, very loyal people. I was exploring the possibility of a covert raid to steal his hard drive. But once John was killed, there didn’t seem much point.”
“Ah. Because he had cautioned you what would happen if he died.”
Bob favored me with a ghastly smile. “Right as rain, Dex – you always were the clever one. I should have recruited you ages ago. But the truth of the matter is, there was no reason for me to kill him – I knew he had arranged for the release of the videos if he died. And now all I can do is wait for the other shoe to drop.”
I weighed my disapproval of what Leicester had done in Las Vegas against our decades of friendship, then grudgingly told him that Brian had intercepted Weathersby’s backup disks before they could be posted. “Thank God!” he cried. “That’s the first stroke of luck I’ve had since all this began! Look, Dex, I’m begging you – if not for me, then for all the kids in my foundation. I help a lot of people. It won’t help anyone if this Vegas thing becomes public knowledge.”
“I appreciate that. I’m facing the same problem with everyone else John was blackmailing. And I’m struggling to keep the lid on – I really am. But sooner or later it’s going to blow.”
“Lord Palmerston.” Brian quietly interjected his first question of the interview. “What did you do following Weathersby’s party?”
“Came straight back here and went to bed, naturally. I didn’t leave the party until nearly 1 a.m., and it was a work night.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
Bob shrugged. “The security guard in the lobby can tell you when I came in.”
“It’s all right, I’ve already had a word with him – said you got in at 1:32 on the night in question.” Brian leant forward, focusing those bloodhound’s eyes on Bob’s face. “But when I asked, he was also kind enough to show me the security records for the rest of that night. He was somewhat surprised, as was I, to see that someone using your security code left the building via the service entrance at 2:05 a.m., and re-entered at 4:17. We all know you’re not a fool. Assuming you don’t just leave your alarm code lying about, can you tell us why you went out again that night?”
Leicester sat as still as a wax figure in a stately house tableau, face betraying no emotion whatsoever. Then he spoke, without looking at me. “Do you remember the night of the party, Dex? You ran into me as I left John’s office.”
“He said, ‘Dex. Your turn next?’”
Leicester nodded. “He’d shown me the video a couple of weeks before, said that, as a favor to an old friend, he was giving me a special rate – half a million to keep it quiet. That night, the night of the party, he called me to his office. Said he’d been patient long enough, that I had until the Friday to pay him, in cash. If I refused, he assured me that a copy of the video would be delivered to every member of the Magwitch Trust’s board of directors by 5 o’clock that night.”
“And what did you tell him?”
Leicester shrugged again. “That he’d have his money. What else could I say? It wasn’t the money – it means nothing to me. It was the monstrousness of it
. When you belong to a rugby team, there’s a bond of trust – I don’t have to explain that to you, Dex. A rugby tour’s one of the few times in life you can truly let your hair down, and there isn’t one among us who hasn’t had a few too many beers and done something idiotic. John just thrust that aside as if it meant nothing. He crossed a line that should never be crossed.”
“So what did you do that night?” Brian asked.
“I couldn’t sleep. So I slipped out the back way and walked along the Thames for a couple of hours. I do my best thinking when I walk. The idea of just giving in, of paying Weathersby’s price – was intolerable. It just wasn’t on.”
“And did you?” I asked. “Think of an alternative?”
He nodded reluctantly. “I have 23 Magwitch Project centers, dealing with some of the most troubled youth in Britain. I may be an idealist, but I’m also a realist. My security staff’s top-notch – some of them ex-Special Branch, ex-SAS. I called my chief of security that night and explained what I had in mind.”
“Which was?”
Leicester grimaced, then continued doggedly. “A surgical break-in to steal John’s hard drive and to install listening devices, followed by ‘round-the-clock surveillance on John himself. Money was no object – I didn’t care if it cost twice what John was dunning me for. If he moved to send out his backup disks, we’d know ahead of time and take steps to secure them.”
“And did any of this actually occur?”
“No,” Leicester replied. “By then, John was already dead. There was no point.”
“Tell me,” said Brian. “Did you happen to meet anyone on this walk of yours? Anyone who could confirm that you were in fact on the Embankment between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m., rather than, say, in Notting Hill?”
My partner was sparing me from having to ask the hard questions of my teammates, and I silently blessed him for it. “No,” Leicester replied frostily. “I mean, there were a few... hello, wait a minute – there was one homeless bloke – sprang out of the gorse in Millwall Park and begged a quid from me. I was in such a state I gave him a tenner, I think.”
