Relentless: A Novel

by Simon Kernick

  ‘Why didn’t you make the call yourself? And why did you want it done anonymously?’

  ‘I didn’t have time to make it myself, and I didn’t want people asking me how I got the information. You’re not meant to interrogate a wounded man.’

  There was a painful silence down the other end of the phone. Bolt could tell Mo was having difficulty believing him. Finally, he said: ‘The man you killed: fingerprint records confirm that his name was David Harrison. He was an ex-soldier who got involved in the Yugoslav conflict, and who was meant to have been killed in Bosnia more than ten years ago, but obviously wasn’t. He had an old record for sexual assault, and was named as a war crimes suspect by the UN in 1995. Apparently, he’d been involved in several massacres of civilians. Meron said that he was referred to by the men working for him as Lench, but we can’t find any record of anyone using that name or alias.’

  ‘Do we know who he was working for?’

  ‘From what we’re hearing, his boss was a London-based businessman called Paul Wise.’

  ‘I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know where from.’

  ‘Probably from the Sunday Times Rich List. He’s a seriously wealthy guy, with some very aggressive ways of doing business. Also, the body of another man was found in the burnt-out wreckage of the house, and he’s been ID’d through his DNA as a Peter Mantani, an ex-con with a whole raft of convictions for violence. Mantani’s name appears on the payroll of a company linked indirectly to Paul Wise. It’s not a lot to go on, and it wouldn’t do a scrap of good in court, but it’s something.’

  It made sense to Bolt. The reason Lench had been so confident when he’d thought he was going to be arrested was because the person he worked for had a lot of power. Bolt now remembered reading an article on Wise in one of the Sunday papers several years earlier. It had detailed his steady rise to becoming one of the UK’s top self-made businessmen. The reporter doing the story had dropped the odd vague hint that there was a dark side to Wise’s wealth, but Bolt had thought little of it. There’s no shortage of people out there whose money comes from nefarious business dealings.

  ‘Meron said something about being rescued by an undercover guy from the NCS with the codename Daniels,’ Bolt said. ‘The last he saw of Daniels was at their place in the New Forest. He was taking on Lench and his cohorts. Do we know anything about that?’

  ‘There’s been no undercover NCS operation against Paul Wise,’ said Mo. ‘Whoever Daniels was, he definitely wasn’t NCS.’

  ‘Strange.’

  ‘Also, you ought to know that Kathy Meron gave a full and detailed statement.’

  Bolt felt an icy chill go up his spine. What did that mean exactly? ‘Are you able to tell me the details?’

  ‘She confirmed that the man you shot had kidnapped their two children and was armed and threatening to kill both of them, as well as her and her husband, unless she revealed the whereabouts of a key to a safety deposit box.’ Bolt resisted sighing with relief. So, Kathy hadn’t put him in the shit either. ‘She also told us that the deposit box contained a tape and a laptop, both of which belonged to Calley.’

  ‘Really? So she did know what was in it?’

  ‘That’s right, but she kept quiet because if the people after her thought either she or her husband knew anything, she knew they’d kill them.’

  Bolt was intrigued. ‘So, are you going to tell me? What was on the laptop and tape that was so important?’

  ‘According to Kathy, the tape contained a partial confession from Tristram Parnham-Jones about his involvement in a child abuse ring. The same one Gallan had been investigating. It also named names, the majority of whom are dead, but including one man who isn’t.’

  ‘And what’s his name?’

  ‘Paul Wise.’

  ‘Jesus, so he’s one of them as well. No wonder he wanted to get his hands on that tape.’

  ‘That’s what it looks like,’ answered Mo. ‘But Kathy’s admitted she’s never actually heard the tape. She just knew about what it contained because Calley had told her. Apparently, all the details of the allegations were held on the laptop. They’d been compiled by Calley over a period of some months.’

  ‘But Calley was Parnham-Jones’s solicitor. What was he doing putting together a case against his biggest client?’

  Mo sighed. ‘It seems that Jack Calley was one of that rare breed: a lawyer with a conscience. When John Gallan first went to his superiors in January, they did start a formal investigation into Parnham-Jones, and obviously the Lord Chief Justice involved his solicitor. Although the investigation was dropped a few weeks later due to lack of evidence, Kathy Meron says that Calley became convinced of his client’s guilt and that the fact that he was helping to keep a dangerous paedophile out of jail worried him immensely. He even resorted to taping several of his private meetings with Parnham-Jones, and in one of them the Lord Chief Justice actually let slip comments that confirmed his role in some of the alleged crimes. Because of client confidentiality, the information Calley had couldn’t be used in an open court, but he was so concerned he told Kathy, who was having an affair with him at the time. She thought he should air the allegations somehow, but in the end he decided against it, and a few weeks later the affair fizzled out.

  ‘It was about this time that Kathy started another affair, this time with her work colleague Vanessa Blake. And it was now that things started to go wrong. Kathy told Vanessa what she’d heard about Parnham-Jones, and Vanessa, who was something of a political activist, was very keen that this information got out into the public domain. Apparently, she told a reporter she knew about the existence of this confessional tape, and although she didn’t name names herself, the reporter started digging around for details. Kathy says she stopped Vanessa from going any further but she thinks that word got out about the tape, and that possibly several of the people involved came to hear of its existence, including Wise.’

  ‘Do you think Wise had anything to do with Parnham-Jones’s death?’ Bolt asked him.

  ‘It looks likely, doesn’t it? It’s safe to assume that Wise’s people got rid of John Gallan, so maybe they decided it was too much of a risk keeping the Lord Chief Justice alive. What we do know is that Jack Calley phoned Kathy on hearing of Parnham-Jones’s death. This was yesterday morning. She said he was sounding very worried. He was sure that it wasn’t suicide, but murder, and he was worried that, as the owner of the tape, he might be a target. He was also concerned that Kathy might be too. She said she thought he was being overly paranoid, but she did agree with him that it was now a good time to make the contents of the tape and the allegations public. But, as Parnham-Jones’s lawyer, Jack obviously couldn’t do that. He wanted Kathy to do it. He’d placed the tape and laptop in a deposit box and he asked her to come over to his house so he could give her the key, telling her not to park outside. That was apparently how paranoid he was, but it was this paranoia that saved her life. While she was there collecting the key, this guy Lench and his friends turned up. Kathy hid, but as we know, they got Calley up in the woods, and it seems that he gave them Tom’s name, as well as the Merons’ address, before he died.’

  ‘I still don’t know why he gave them Tom’s name. The poor bastard had nothing to do with any of this.’

  Mo thought about that for a moment before replying. ‘Maybe Calley felt that if he was going to survive, he had to give them something. He didn’t want to name Kathy but he’d have been under so much pressure he wouldn’t have been able to think of anyone else fast enough, so maybe he just let slip Tom’s name. Now that he’s dead, I suppose we’ll never know for sure.’

  ‘What about Vanessa Blake? Did Wise’s men find out about her as well?’

  ‘Kathy says Lench told her that Vanessa’s murder was a case of mistaken identity. It looks like the killer turned up at the university looking for her and stumbled on Vanessa instead. Apparently, the filleting knife she was killed with was actually Vanessa’s own. Like Calley, she was also very paranoid
after Parnham-Jones’s death, especially as she was the source of the leak, so she’d taken to carrying the knife around with her as protection. That’s why Kathy’s prints were on it. She’d used it for cooking in Vanessa’s kitchen during their time together.’

  Now it was Bolt’s turn to sigh. ‘All those dead people. Someone’s going to have to pay for it. Has Wise been brought in for questioning yet?’

  ‘On what grounds? There’s no sign of the tape or the laptop anywhere. The deposit box has been checked and it’s empty.’

  ‘Fuck. So, he gets off?’

  ‘There’s no evidence against him. Just some bits and pieces of hearsay. Not enough to do anything with.’

  Bolt fell silent. He believed Kathy Meron’s story. It made sense. Not that it made any difference to him. He was still suspended. He wondered whether the man he’d killed – David Harrison, Lench, or whatever his name was – could have provided any of the answers that would have built up a case against Wise. It was doubtful. He didn’t seem like a man who would have crumbled under interrogation and tried to save his own skin. And anyway, there was no point thinking about it now. He was dead. It was irrelevant.

  ‘Can I ask you a question, boss?’

  Bolt knew what it was going to be. ‘Sure, go ahead.’

  ‘There was no other way, was there?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You had to shoot him, right? This man Lench. He would have killed you otherwise. That’s how it happened, isn’t it?’

  Bolt knew how hard it was for his friend to ask this. They trusted each other. But what had happened this morning had changed things.

  ‘I wouldn’t ask, you know, but . . .’ He paused. ‘I feel I’ve got to know.’

  ‘There was no other way, Mo. I promise you.’ The lie came easier than Bolt had expected. ‘He went for the gun, and I pulled the trigger. I guess he didn’t want to go to prison.’

  He heard Mo sigh with relief down the other end of the phone.

  ‘I didn’t doubt you, boss, but the circumstances were . . .’ He searched for the right words. ‘They were strange, weren’t they? And it’s all a bit of a shock.’

  ‘This whole weekend’s been a bit of a shock. Get back to your family, Mo. Take it easy.’

  ‘And you, boss.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be OK.’

  And he would be too, he knew that. He, Mike Bolt, was a survivor. He’d fought back from the brink before, from the physical and mental wreckage of the car crash that had killed his wife, and had emerged stronger. But the parameters that guided his life had changed again. He’d killed a man in cold blood – justifiably, to his own mind, but justification didn’t alter the trajectory of a bullet. His victim was still dead. And he’d still been unarmed. Like most people’s, Bolt’s hands had never been entirely clean. Until now, however, they’d not been too dirty either. It would take some getting used to.

  He put the phone down on the coffee table, picked up the wine and switched on the TV. He’d done enough thinking for one day.

  56

  Being reunited with Max and Chloe was, without doubt, one of the best moments of my life. As soon as I came in the door, they ran, laughing, into my arms, and the three of us held each other in an unbreakable clutch. For a while, nothing else mattered. The bloody events of the past twenty-four hours faded away; my broken, battered marriage suddenly didn’t matter. I was home.

  When Chloe finally pulled away from the embrace, she gently touched the bandage on my face and asked me how I’d hurt myself. I told her I’d fallen over and scraped my face on a nail.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘poor Daddy,’ and kissed me gently on the cheek. ‘Do you know what happened to us?’ she asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘No,’ I answered, feigning ignorance. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘A man in black came and kidnapped us from Grandma’s,’ she explained, excitedly.

  I flinched. I knew they hadn’t been told about their grandma yet. I was hoping not to have to do it now. ‘Yes, I heard all about it.’

  ‘I cried. But only a little.’

  ‘I didn’t cry,’ piped up Max. ‘I told him off.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to worry now,’ I said. ‘The naughty man’s in prison.’ But, as I said the words, I wondered if all four men at the cottage last night were now accounted for. Lench, Mantani and Caplin certainly. I still wondered if the fourth was DC Sullivan and, if so, what had happened to him.

  But, for the moment, it was time to forget all that.

  It was the opinion of the child psychologist at the hospital that Max and Chloe had been only very mildly traumatized by the ordeal they’d undergone, their age, the fact that they’d been together, and the relative shortness of their incarceration preventing the effects from being much worse. And certainly, as we played together back at the house that afternoon and they charged, shrieking, around the garden with me giving chase, they seemed just the same as they’d ever been. We’d been told to let them talk about it, but neither of them seemed that interested in doing so, so I didn’t mention anything, preferring – hoping, I suppose – that we could consign it to history.

  Kathy held back from the games, and I could see that she was finding it hard not to crack. Three people very close to her had been murdered in obscenely rapid succession. All she had left was her family, although I had to wonder if this still included me.

  After we’d put the two of them to bed, and I’d read them stories, I came back downstairs and joined Kathy in the kitchen. She’d opened a bottle of red wine and I saw that she’d poured a glass for me. Her eyes were dry, but the strain in them was obvious. I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful she looked, even after all this.

  ‘I think I owe you the truth,’ she said, handing me the wine.

  I took a big gulp, figuring that I deserved it. ‘Tell me when you’re ready,’ I said, looking at her over the top of the glass, trying to work out whether our relationship was retrievable. The expression in the smooth, olive contours of her face didn’t tell me one way or another.

  ‘I’m ready now. Are you hungry?’

  I shook my head. ‘I ought to be, but my appetite seems to have gone absent without leave.’

  ‘I’m the same. All I feel is empty. Come on.’

  She took my hand, her touch giving me a small crackle of excitement, and led me through to the lounge. We sat next to each other and, with her hand still in mine, she told me everything. How she’d been unhappy in the marriage for a long time, and had started affairs first with Jack, then with Vanessa. How, during her relationship with Jack, she’d found out about the allegations against one of his major clients, the Lord Chief Justice, Tristram Parnham-Jones no less (I’d never liked the look of that guy), and the existence of his taped confession; and how, finally, we’d all become targets as Lench, Mantani and whoever they were working for raced to find the tape before it could be made public.

  ‘I’m so sorry for involving you in all this,’ she said when she’d finished recounting the story.

  ‘You were at the university yesterday afternoon, weren’t you? When I was there?’

  She didn’t attempt to deny it. ‘I couldn’t get hold of Vanessa, and I knew I had to warn her about how much danger she was in. But when I arrived, I heard the sounds of a struggle coming from inside the library. I don’t know what made me do it, but I opened the door and caught a glimpse of two people fighting at the far end. One had a balaclava on and a knife; I couldn’t see the other one because he was holding a chair up in front of him. I was sure then that Vanessa was dead, and I was so terrified that I just turned and ran. It never occurred to me until afterwards when I saw the cuts on your face, that it was you in there. I promise.’

  I nodded to show I understood. ‘In the car this morning, Caplin told me that the police found a joint mortgage application in your name and Vanessa’s during the search of her house.’ I couldn’t bring myself to mention what he’d described as the ‘intimate’ p
hotos.

  Kathy let slip a small, melancholic smile. ‘No, it wasn’t a mortgage application. It was a mortgage enquiry.’ I couldn’t quite see the difference, but she explained it for me. ‘Vanessa was pushing to make the relationship more serious, move it to a higher level. I was infatuated with her, but I think she might actually have been in love with me, and, being single, she had a lot less to lose.’

  I began to experience some less than charitable thoughts about Vanessa, but remembered that she was dead, so had ended up with a pretty raw deal herself.

  ‘I knew I should have been trying to calm things down,’ continued Kathy, ‘but with everything else going on it was difficult, so I went along with things.’ She looked at me, her doe eyes suddenly very doe indeed. ‘I really wish you hadn’t had to find out about her, Tom. I tried to keep our affair a secret right up to the very end, especially after you’d found out about Jack.’ She gave my hand a squeeze. It felt good. Maybe I’m a bit naive where women are concerned, but at that moment I really thought there might still be something there.

  When Kathy finished speaking, I shook my head with what can only be described as weary sorrow. It was Jack I was thinking about now. Jack, my old friend. Jack the traitor.

  ‘Did he ever say anything about me?’ I asked.

  ‘He said that sometimes he felt guilty about what he was doing.’

  Somehow I doubted that. There was no room for guilt in someone like Jack Calley. He followed his instincts in everything he did, often without any real thought for the consequences for himself or those around him. Jack’s instincts told him he was all-powerful. That was why he could ride the near vertical slope at Sketty’s Gorge. It was why when the two of us were nine years old and three older kids had accosted us in the local park and demanded that we give them our money, Jack had charged them, fists flailing, rather than pay up. And so many times, his instincts had been right too. The three kids had given us a bit of a beating (Jack especially, since he’d offered the most resistance), but they hadn’t got our money.