Die Alone

by Simon Kernick

  And that was the problem. Mason had planned his assassination well, and he’d had help. The two men who’d broken him free from the prison van still hadn’t been accounted for. Who the hell were they? And where had they been hiding Mason?

  It was just short of midday and Bolt was contemplating an early lunch when Mo knocked on the office door and walked in, carrying some papers in his hand. It was immediately obvious from the look in his eyes that there’d been a development.

  ‘Steve Brennan’s helping Mason,’ he said, sitting down opposite Bolt and putting the papers on the desk. ‘So’s Tina.’

  Bolt sighed. ‘So what have we got?’

  ‘That call from the unidentified number to the Brennans’ landline on Saturday morning belongs to an unregistered burner phone. But we triangulated its location, and the call was made from Tina Boyd’s house. As you know, there was a second call made from the burner phone to Brennan’s mobile number at 20.13, which was around the time Mrs West was shot dead and Tina fled the scene. That call was made from woods about half a mile east of Tina’s house.’

  ‘You can get to those woods from Tina’s back garden,’ said Bolt. He’d often walked there with Tina himself.

  ‘We also triangulated Brennan’s phone’s location when he took the call. It was two miles away from Tina’s place, and it’s definitely him because his car was picked up on ANPR cameras on the M25 four minutes earlier, and then again thirteen minutes later driving the other way. The phone and the car then travelled back to the Brennans’ home in Hampshire where they stopped overnight. And then yesterday morning, the phone and car were at the ferry port at Portsmouth. P&O Ferries have confirmed that Steve Brennan and his Audi travelled to St Malo on the ferry. We can’t track the car any further without help from the French police but, according to Brennan’s mobile provider, his phone was in a rural area about two hours inland, stayed there overnight, and is at this moment crossing the Channel from St Malo back to Portsmouth.’

  ‘So Steve Brennan goes to a rendezvous near Tina’s place, picks up Ray Mason, takes him back home, then smuggles him out of the country. And if he was driving in his own car, the only reason he’d stop to rent one from Hertz is if he’s doing it for Mason. Any idea where they stopped last night? I didn’t see any hotel payments on his credit cards.’

  ‘The Brennans own a property there. They’ve got a mortgage with HSBC for it. I’ve just pulled it up on Google Maps.’ Mo handed Bolt a sheet of paper with a satellite image of a group of three detached houses set amid fields, with a copse of trees running along their back. ‘As you can see, it’s a nice rural location.’

  Bolt examined the photo and thought how hard it was for anyone to evade the long arm of the law these days once they’d been identified as a suspect. The day was coming when it would be all but impossible to commit a crime undetected – and not a moment too soon as far as he was concerned.

  ‘This is good work, Mo.’

  ‘Mason could still be at the Brennans’ house in France.’

  ‘You’re right. If they stayed there last night it means it’s not currently being rented out. If I was Mason, I’d probably want to stay put for a couple of days and work out my next move. He’s had a couple of narrow escapes. But even if he keeps moving, we now know he’s in a rental car. We need to get onto our French counterparts and Interpol. Find out what car it is, and see if they’re prepared to put the Brennans’ place under surveillance for us. I’ll clear that with the boss.’

  ‘Is it worth leaning on Tina some more?’

  ‘Not yet. This is all conjecture. What we need is proof. Did P&O say whether Karen Brennan travelled with her husband to France?’

  ‘They said it was just him,’ said Mo.

  Bolt sighed. ‘Well, I think our best bet right now would be to pay Karen Brennan a visit.’

  42

  ‘I’m not looking forward to this,’ said Bolt as they turned into the Brennans’ driveway. ‘I remember when Dana Brennan disappeared. I can still picture her mum and dad on TV press conferences begging for whoever abducted her to bring her back. It was heartbreaking.’

  ‘I remember it too,’ said Mo. ‘I was only about fifteen but it was all over the news. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to lose one of my kids.’ He shook his head. ‘It would kill me.’

  Mo was one of the most doting dads Bolt knew, and he had three lovely children who were now all well into their teenage years. Bolt might not have had children himself, but he’d still been deeply affected by the sheer pain the Brennans were clearly going through. At the time he was twenty-three and a uniformed officer. It was one of the cases that made him think he’d made the right choice joining the police.

  Bolt pulled up directly behind a red Skoda that he knew belonged to Karen Brennan and they got out of the car.

  ‘I can’t believe the Brennans would help Mason,’ said Mo as they walked up to the front door. ‘I know he was trying to find their daughter’s killer, but this is going way beyond that.’

  Bolt hadn’t told Mo about Tina’s claims that Alastair Sheridan was involved in the Bone Field killings. ‘Well, let’s hope Mrs Brennan wants to talk to us.’ He rang the doorbell. As was always the case with policework, they hadn’t announced they were coming.

  Karen Brennan was a small woman in her sixties who looked worn by her experiences, and as soon as she answered the door and they introduced themselves, Bolt knew their suspicions about the Brennans’ involvement were correct. Her face went pale and she grabbed the door frame to steady herself.

  ‘Are you all right, Mrs Brennan?’ asked Mo.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ she said. But she didn’t look fine at all. She looked like she might burst into tears.

  ‘We’d like to talk to you about Ray Mason,’ said Bolt gently.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, but her jaw was quivering.

  ‘I think you do,’ continued Bolt, still talking gently, keen not to intimidate her. ‘I think it would be best if we talk inside.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she whispered, her tight features pinched into an expression that veered between resignation and outright panic. Then she nodded and turned away, leaving the door open for them.

  Bolt exchanged a glance with Mo and they followed her into a small living room, Bolt having to duck to avoid the overhead beams.

  They sat down opposite her, and Bolt leaned forward. ‘Mrs Brennan, we know that your husband’s been helping Ray Mason.’ She started to protest but stopped as Bolt raised a hand. ‘We’ve checked the movements of his car and his phone and we know that he picked up Mason on Saturday evening and brought him back here, then smuggled him by ferry to France yesterday. If we were to search your house and your husband’s car, I have no doubt we’d find DNA evidence of Mr Mason’s presence. So you need to tell us the truth. Where are they now?’

  Mrs Brennan sat bolt upright, kneading her hands in her lap. ‘I don’t want to say anything to get my husband in trouble.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s already in trouble, Mrs Brennan,’ said Mo. ‘Mr Mason is a fugitive from justice. Aiding and abetting him is a serious offence.’

  ‘But given your circumstances, there may be room for some leniency if you both cooperate with us,’ put in Bolt.

  She had a tissue up the sleeve of the cardigan she was wearing and she took it out now and dabbed her eyes. ‘I told Steve not to do it but he said he owed Ray for all he’d done for us.’

  ‘What exactly did Mr Mason do for you?’ asked Mo.

  ‘He promised he’d bring Dana’s killers to justice. He said the man he killed on the night he was arrested last year was one of them, and that the gangster, Kalaman, was another.’

  ‘Did he say he had killed Kalaman?’ asked Bolt.

  She nodded.

  This was a big breakthrough. It also condemned her husband and threatened to drag Tina Boyd deeper into the conspiracy.

  ‘And when Mason called your husband on Saturday, do you know where he w
as phoning from?’

  She looked at them both. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know much about it. I didn’t want to get involved. But I also feel bad because when Ray – Mr Mason – first came here, I gave him a picture of Dana, and I … I suppose I put pressure on him to find her killers.’

  ‘Giving him a picture is not putting pressure on him,’ Bolt told her.

  She nodded, dabbing her eyes again. There were tears running down her face and Bolt could see that she was having a hard time holding herself together.

  ‘I don’t want Steve to go to prison. He and Katie are all I’ve got. And he’s only got a few months left. He’s got cancer. It’s terminal.’

  The room was silent for a few seconds. Mo looked uncomfortable, and Bolt felt terrible.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Mrs Brennan,’ Bolt said. ‘We’ll see what we can do to help you and your husband. We know there are extenuating circumstances.’

  She stared at Bolt. ‘Please don’t send us to prison.’

  Bolt swallowed. ‘We’ll do what we can for your husband. You definitely won’t have to go to prison.’

  ‘But you said if you searched this house you’d find his DNA and then—’

  ‘We’re not going to search this house,’ said Bolt. ‘OK, Mo?’

  Mo nodded. ‘I’ve got no objection.’

  ‘Do you know where Mr Mason is now?’

  ‘Steve left him at our holiday home in France. I don’t know if he was intending to stay there or not. Steve’s on his way back now. He should be home by five.’

  ‘When he gets back, tell him to call me,’ said Bolt, handing her a card. ‘In the meantime, don’t call him. I don’t want your husband calling Mr Mason to warn him. If he does that, he really will go to prison.’

  She nodded nervously. ‘I won’t. I promise.’

  ‘Good. Your husband needs to get himself a lawyer and we’ll arrange for him to come in and be interviewed under caution. I can’t guarantee what’ll happen but we’ll do what we can to go easy on him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, the tears coming freely now.

  They left her there, and Bolt was pleased to get back outside in the fresh air.

  ‘It looks like we’ve got a result,’ said Mo.

  Bolt sighed. ‘It doesn’t feel like it though, does it? And I’m not sure how the boss is going to feel about us not arresting Mrs Brennan.’

  ‘She won’t care if it means we get hold of Mason.’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping.’

  Bolt took out his phone and dialled Sheryl Trinder’s number. She answered on the second ring and he gave her the good news: ‘Ma’am, we have a possible location for Ray Mason.’

  43

  The day was warm and sunny and I was sitting in the Brennans’ back garden, which effectively consisted of a small round swimming pool that you’d need to do a hell of a lot of lengths in to get fit, and a wooden deck that wasn’t a lot bigger. The garden was surrounded by a bland wooden fence that needed some plants to screen it, but which at least gave some privacy from the next-door cottage.

  I knew I couldn’t stay here long. I was too conspicuous, even in a place as quiet as this. The Brennans’ was the end house in a row of three, and I knew from the cars outside and the voices I’d heard that the other two were occupied by English holidaymakers who were probably getting their news from the British media, and right now I still looked a lot like my latest mugshot photo.

  But I had to admit, I liked it here. I’d found a bakery earlier on and bought a crusty baguette from a young man who hadn’t given me a second glance, then came back here, stuffed it with jambon and Roquefort cheese, and demolished the lot with a pot of good coffee, thinking I might not have made it yet, but I was getting close.

  The first part of my plan was complete. I’d got to France with fake ID and I had a car. The second part was to open a bank account into which I could transfer some of my bitcoin once I’d cashed it in. The problem was, with all the money-laundering legislation in force across the Western world, it wasn’t so easy to open a bank account any more, even in some of the traditional tax havens. At the very least I was going to need fake address documentation. I was also going to need a credit card with some money behind it in order to secure longer-term accommodation.

  Not surprisingly, I had no idea where to find anyone who could supply me with any of these. But one of the things I’d learned during my time in the police was that the criminal underworld, though vast and sprawling, was also full of connecting parts. And there were people out there – call them criminal networkers or facilitators if you like – who knew everyone who was anyone, and who specialized in bringing these different parts together.

  The cheerily named Archie Barker was one of those people. Back in the day, they’d called him the gentleman dope dealer. Public school educated, with a degree in politics and Spanish, he’d worked as a lecturer at various universities in Colombia, Mexico and Spain, and during that time had somehow managed to make some excellent contacts in the drug-trafficking world. The word was he’d even spent a weekend at Hacienda Nápoles, Pablo Escobar’s estate outside Medellín, back at the end of the eighties.

  Whether that particular story was true or not, one thing wasn’t in dispute: he definitely knew the right people. Using his lecturing as a front, he’d reached out to several London-based organized crime groups (including, allegedly, the Kalamans), made some introductions between the buyers in the UK and the sellers in South and Central America, and had helped to set up some very effective coke and heroin smuggling routes into Europe – and all this simply through some old-fashioned charm.

  It said something about Archie’s skill as a criminal operator that it had only been six years earlier, when he was already in his mid-fifties, that he finally came to our attention. I was working organized crime at the time and we’d got wind that he was the person brokering a huge coke deal between the Gulf Cartel in Mexico and a Chechen outfit who’d recently arrived in London and were looking to become significant players.

  And that, in essence, was Archie’s Achilles heel. Because he acted as a free agent, with no particular affiliation, he ran the risk of upsetting people, and unfortunately didn’t have the muscle backing him up for that not to matter. And it turned out that someone didn’t like the idea of him helping the Chechens because one night, while a surveillance team I was leading were watching his house, there was an attempt on his life.

  It all happened very quickly. Archie came out of the front door of his beautiful townhouse deep in the wealthy heart of Belgravia en route to one of the flashy London restaurants he liked to eat in and was on his way down the steps when the back doors of a van parked further down the road opened and two men in balaclavas jumped out and ran down the street towards him, holding pistols. Archie spotted them almost immediately, but by that point they were barely twenty yards away, and he knew there was nothing he could do. He’d never have made it to the front door, or his car for that matter, which was further down the street.

  Luckily for Archie, the cavalry were on the scene, and before the gunmen could open fire my team of twelve armed surveillance officers were out of their vehicles and drawing their weapons. Stunned, the gunmen had dropped their own weapons immediately and thrown their hands in the air and, while my team searched and cuffed them, I’d marched up to a simultaneously relieved and stricken-looking Archie and arrested him for conspiracy to supply a controlled substance. I remember him smiling then as he realized for the first time what had just happened, and thanking me profusely for saving his life. He’d even said those classic words: ‘I’m forever in your debt.’

  It wasn’t the usual reaction from an arrested suspect and, of course, once we got to the station he denied any wrongdoing whatsoever. However, he was courteous and jovial, a real character, and I have to admit, I liked the guy. We didn’t have enough to charge him but he was temporarily placed under police protection while an investigation started into who’d targeted him.
During those weeks I got to spend a bit of time with him, my objective being to get him to cooperate with us in return for a new identity and permanent witness protection. Archie was old school, though. He never gave us a thing we could use. We never did find out who’d targeted him either, but the experience had made him realize it was best to retire while the going was good and he’d headed off to Ibiza and bought a boutique hotel in one of the more picturesque parts of the island. I’d occasionally get an email from him saying that if I ever fancied coming out to Ibiza, I could stay at his hotel for free for as long as I liked.

  I’d never taken him up on his offer, although once, when I’d needed some help on a case, he’d given me some off-the-record information that had proved useful. But I’d never properly called in his debt to me, and now was my opportunity.

  I still had his mobile number. Like a lot of numbers I thought I might one day need again, I’d learned it off by heart. I doubted if he’d have changed it.

  But I was taking a risk calling him. Courteous, jovial and in my debt he might have been, but he was still a criminal, and there was still a big reward on my head, from the police and from the Kalamans, with whom I’m sure he still had contacts.

  I was drinking a cup of coffee and mulling over whether to call him when the landline phone started ringing inside the house. I wondered if it was Steve Brennan telling me he’d made it back home safely, although I’d told him before he left that it was safer for everyone concerned if we had no further contact.

  I let it ring until I heard the answerphone kick in, but the caller hung up without leaving a message.

  I put down my coffee and stood up. The call had made me nervous. Perhaps Brennan was trying to warn me about something. Either way, I decided it might be best if I made myself scarce.