by David Carter
The Legal & the Illicit
David Carter
Published by TrackerDog Media, 2018.
The Legal & the Illicit
© Copyright David Carter & TrackerDog Media 2018
Updated August 2021
www.davidcarterbooks.co.uk
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information and storage retrieval systems (with the exception of those purchasing by download), without permission in writing from the publishers. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.
This is a work of fiction.
Any similarity to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
The Legal & the Illicit
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
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About the Author
This book is dedicated to
Veronica M
without whose testimony this
story could not have been told.
Chapter One
INSPECTOR WALTER DARRITEAU sat back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. He glanced across the Chester police incident room. Most of his colleagues had gone home, leaving just the skeleton night staff, and him.
His oppo, Sergeant Karen Greenwood, had long since clocked off, pleading a hot date with her latest beau, and for the life of him, he could not remember the guy’s name.
In truth, Walter had little to hurry home for. A cold and empty house and a hastily prepared ready meal were not exactly designed to thrill. He sniffed and thought about work. Sadly, he didn’t have a great deal on the go. Yes, there were the usual blistering sores on society that would never go away, shoplifting, drugs, drunkenness and violence, but nothing that would test his mind and reasoning to the max, nothing to send him to bed happy and content, or lift his spirit and remind him of why he was a detective.
He resorted to what he always did. He closed his eyes and thought of past cases, especially the ones where he imagined he might have done better. Maybe he could have apprehended the culprit or culprits sooner, perhaps he could have saved hours of expensive police time, and that was becoming a greater issue with each passing season, the cost factor, and maybe there were even cases where he could have saved lives, and when he thought about that his mind would inevitably drift way back to the eighties, when he was a new detective, recently uplifted from uniform, working in London, serving alongside DC Suzy Wheater, and Sergeant William Conlan.
He didn’t especially want to revisit that particular era and that case, but as it usually did, his brain would not allow him to move on to other things. Brains are strange things. Sometimes they do as commanded, and other times they insist on butting in and having their own way.
I’m the boss. You will think of this case. And they’ll be no rest until you do!
Pity you couldn’t have two brains, speculated Walter, one for current mundane work, and another altogether separate super-brain that could visit old cases and cold cases and sad cases and nutcases, and there were plenty of each of those in the vast filing cabinet of Walter’s mind.
She was real cute, was Suzy Wheater, and that brought a smile to Walter’s face, thinking about her big black permed hair, fashionable back then, where even Walter fitted right in with the hairdos of the time, and her tantalising full red lips that entranced everyone in the station, lips that appeared permanently moistened and glistening.
There was a bond between them, Walter and Suzy, and it wasn’t stoked by rose-tinted spectacles of a happy past. Maybe it had something to do with the fact they were born two days apart, same star sign, same horoscope, same outlook on life, same career path, same ambition, same sense of humour. Walter would unquestionably have made a move on her too, but for the fact she sported a husband, a man who rarely smiled, a biology teacher, a bloke Walter had met twice in pubs after work, a guy with little conversation, and less inclination to buy a round.
Their immediate superior was Sergeant William Conlan, and he hated being called Willy or Billy, and the fool didn’t rate either of them, especially the big black fella who he thought was only there as a box ticking exercise, nor the permed flighty girl, neither of whom should have been within a hundred yards of a police station, if William Conlan had his way. Though he wasn’t immune to her other attractions. If she hadn’t been married, he would have harassed her far more than he did. She was the only woman there, so what did she expect? But Suzy could look after herself, and the rating business worked both ways because Suzy and Walter both thought William Conlan a prize prick, and a liability.
Conlan had lost interest in the job. He was only forty-one, but his mind and body and outlook on life were much older. He was already looking forward to taking early retirement and getting out of there and onto the golf course, and switching off for good. Black fellas and broody women had no place in the detection business, but there was nothing he could do about that. He’d shake his head and hanker after the old times when he was younger, and life was much simpler.
There was one thing he could do. He could give them a dead end case, a real complicat
ed brute that the best brains had wrestled with unsuccessfully over a number of years. An assignment that would get them off the station and out from under his feet. Walter could remember it as if it were yesterday. That grey morning when Conlan tossed the vast files onto the pair of desks Walter and Suzy shared.
‘There you are, my pretties,’ he’d said smugly. ‘See what you can make of that, ya mugs,’ before adding under his breath, ‘not that I’m expecting much.’
‘Something good?’ said Suzy, glancing up at him.
‘Something vile and something evil,’ countered Conlan. ‘The Nesbitt brothers, best of luck, you’ll sure as hell need it.’
William Conlan had spent years trying to bring down the Nesbitts and had never come close, and it tickled his perverse sense of humour in knowing his weird rookie team didn’t have a hope in hell of doing any better. The black fella and the perm would be bamboozled for weeks, and that brought a smile to Conlan’s pasty face.
Files dropped, Conlan laughed and hurried away, for he’d heard there was a new intake of three uniformed WPC’s on the other side of the building, and he wanted to be there from the get go, just in case there was anyone worth spending a bit of money on, and before the other greasy oiks sized up the new arrivals. Black stockings were sure to be worn, and black stockings did things to William Conlan, or WC, as he was known behind his back.
WALTER OPENED THE FIRST file and began reading. Suzy grabbed the second and skimmed through the notes. The first thing of interest to pop out was that Johnny and Tony Nesbitt were not brothers at all. They’d met in borstal, prison for thuggy teens, and had hit it off from day one. Born within seven days of each other, brought up on the same estate less than a mile apart, both gambling and girl crazy. They’d bet on horses and football and tennis and golf, and if none of those attractions were available they had been known to step outside The Captain Carson pub, and bet on the colour of the next car that came round the corner.
Curiously, they looked similar too, and though they had never met before, or even knew of each other’s existence, everyone assumed they really were siblings.
They boasted long and similar criminal records, albeit minor misdemeanours, joyriding and stealing sandwiches and cakes from supermarkets when they were hungry, and because of those criminal stains they were unable in later life to land a bookmaker’s licence, something they had set their heart on. They figured if they couldn’t stop gambling, they might as well do it properly and take bets from others and hold the cash, for it was eminently preferable to being skint and handing money to bookies every day of the week.
No one knew whether it was Johnny or Tony who first came up with the idea, but they solved the problem of obtaining a licence by buying an old established London bookie that traded as CTA, City Turf Accountants. They’d acquired the business when the old proprietor became sick and tired, literally so, and didn’t need too much persuading to sell to the boys at a knock down price of £20,000. Where the young men found that kind of cash was a mystery, and one that Walter and Suzy recognised as something that did not add up.
There were rumours the boys had been harassing the old man. One of his betting shops was firebombed, and in three others the staff were persuaded to strike over something and nothing, and some regular gamblers were persuaded by the brothers not to enter any CTA premises. It didn’t take too much to persuade old codgers to take their business elsewhere, and 90% of CTA’s customers back then were over fifty. The old man took another funny turn, shook his head and accepted the money, even though he knew he was being robbed senseless. But what could he do? The police were useless. That Sergeant Conlan was a hopeless case, and probably on Nesbitt’s payroll.
A year after buying CTA they changed the company name to just that: “Nesbitts”, and added some not so catchy slogans, such as, “You can be certain you’ll always get paid with Nesbitts”, and, “A Nesbitt Bet is a Better Better Bet!” Which saw billboards posted across the area, parroting the same cretinous tongue twister.
Walter wasn’t averse to an occasional flutter. He remembered their flashy adverts in the Sporting Life and Sporting Chronicle, ads that were always topped with one slogan or another. He knew of the Nesbitts, though he had never met them, and the more he read, the more he was looking forward to that changing.
He remembered too the day some lucky punter had apparently won £38,000 on a Yankee bet on the gee-gees, and the massive publicity the Nesbitts gave to that, with Johnny Nesbitt trying hard to smile in the spotty black and white photographs through gritted teeth, as he handed over the cheque.
They were good at what they did. Their long apprenticeship had seen to that, and voraciously took hundreds of small legal bets from old men in smoky back street shops, the vast majority of which lost. The money flowed in, the cash pile grew, and the boys became ambitious and hellish greedy.
IN CHESTER, DC DARREN Gibbons came back to the office. He was surprised to see the Guv still there, but then again, he wasn’t. He was still sitting trancelike, his eyes closed, arms linked behind his head. Walter heard the door open, someone come in, and opened his eyes.
‘What are you doing back here?’
‘Left my phone in my desk. Why are you working late?’
‘Just catching up, you know how it is, thinking of old cases and cold cases.’
‘Let them go, Guv. Concentrate on the here and now, and the near future, that’s where the excitement and satisfaction lies.’
Walter smirked and muttered, ‘I hope you’re right.’
Gibbons opened the drawer and grabbed his phone and slipped it in the back pocket of his jeans. He always kept it there, and to Walter’s eye it looked vulnerable to thieves, but what did he know?
‘We’re down in The Royal Oak, Guv, having a few jars. Why don’t you come down?’
Walter thought about that for all of ten seconds and said, ‘Do you know, Darren, I think I might.’
Gibbons grinned and turned away to the door, mumbling back over his shoulder, ‘See you down there, I’ll get one in for you,’ and then he was gone.
Walter switched off his main brain that was still tuned to the eighties and the Nesbitts, and the lovely Suzy Wheater. He slipped his shoes on, tied the laces, eased himself into his jacket, bid the late team good night, and limped away towards the lift.
Chapter Two
NICOLIADES EMPERIKOS owned a bar on the quayside in Edris on the small island of Carsos. He’d worked there for years and insisted on serving Greek food. If the customers wanted Kentucky fried chicken, they could clear off to Kentucky.
He served Greek drink too, but there his weakness for Scotch whisky forced him to relax his rules. His collection of malts was the envy of the Mediterranean and knowledgeable travellers trekked to Carsos to visit Nicoliades, keeper of whiskies, teller of terrible jokes, and renowned ladies’ man.
He was thirty-nine and had put on a little weight, thickening around the chest and shoulders, but with fat, not muscle. He was still handsome, boasting thick, dark, almost black hair, and dark brown eyes that sparkled in tune with the dancing lights that bounced across the gently swaying water within the harbour.
The women adored Nicoliades, they couldn’t leave him alone, and he took his pick of the crop throughout the year, just as he had since he was fifteen, and just as he would for as long as he could produce the wood in the trousers.
Lisa Greystone discovered Carsos by accident. She’d intended to take the ferry to Iraklion on Crete, but in the hustle and bustle on the quayside of Piraeus, she’d been herded onto the wrong boat by an aging Lothario of a seaman, who’d taken a shine to the long bronzed legs that peeked from her neat white shorts.
She discovered her error when he came to her during the voyage and began speaking in weak English, as Greece’s largest port disappeared over the stern, below the fluttering and magical blue and white flag.
She was heading for the little known island of Carsos, but what the heck, she thought, for she was determined to enjoy
one final adventure prior to her marriage to commodity trader, Midge Ridge. Besides, she liked the idea of not knowing in which bed she would sleep, or with whom. Youthfulness lasts but once. She was twenty-two, it was her last stab at freedom, and she would go where fate commanded in the last week of the three she had planned for her great adventure. She intended to live it to the full.
She didn’t consider herself a tourist like the others who rushed from island to island, from bar to bar, desperate for tales to tell back home, desperate to get laid, for memories to warm and comfort them through the winter and into old age. She kept herself to herself, away from the English, too many of whom were loudmouthed and dreadful.
Occasionally she would pass herself off as an American, from Lanchester, Michigan, she would say, especially when a party of English arrived who had drunk too much and had become boorish, which they seemingly inevitably did. She practised her accent; and would deliberately sit close to Americans in restaurants and bars and listen to their every word. She’d sit with her back to them and repeat their conversations verbatim, whispering to herself.
‘Oh, really! Oh my gad, he did that?’
‘Honestly Dolores, I couldn’t believe ma ahs!’
‘So where we goin’ tomorrow, honey?’
‘I’m happy enough here with lover boy, behind the bar,’ and they’d both smile randily at the barman and laugh coarsely.
Lisa would mimic the laugh too, and that would make her laugh. Every night before she went to sleep she’d practise that accent in front of the mirror, and then laugh aloud again, like a diplomat on a crash course learning a foreign language. ‘Oh my gad, he did that?’ Repeat! ‘Oh my gad, he did that?’ Better. ‘I couldn’t believe ma ahs! I couldn’t believe ma ahs! You better believe it, honey. Hah!’
She became good at it; expert even, and she knew it. She could pass herself off as an American anywhere, anytime, even within a bunch of American tourists, and on more than one occasion she had attached herself to conducted tour parties, with never a hint she might be discovered.
