by Iain Cameron
Henderson returned to his office and without waking up his pc, pushed back the chair and put his feet on the desk. Where was Daniel Perry? Henderson was pleased to have Frankland in custody and, in time, Bennett and Brook would be added, but they were consolations, a couple of trout when what he really wanted was salmon. This case hinged on Perry and Henderson wouldn’t stop until the man was in custody.
Perry was a savvy, street smart operator and would know that the net was closing. It was probably he who had put together the break-out team at the hospital and chances are, he would also know about the death of Harvey Miller. It was therefore no surprise when they discovered no one at home in Perry’s large house in Barking when the boys from the Met called around that morning. It was a similar story when Spanish police turned up at his villa near Estepona. With all the CCTV, ANPR cameras and passport controls at their disposal, how could he just disappear?
Walters walked into his office shaking her head. ‘We’ve checked out all the business addresses, it looks like Perry and Bennett have done a runner.’
THIRTY-FOUR
Fraser Brook woke early and was surprised to find that after consuming copious amounts of wine the previous night, he had a clear head. This was a trait, no doubt, of working in the wine business where the ability to drink every day and still function was inherent in the job description. In addition to the obvious drinking opportunities available in the shop, with breakages and free samples, he was often invited to wine tastings, product launches and innumerable social functions.
He cycled into town and breakfasted in the same café as he did the day before. Today, he didn’t linger over the food as he was keen to get started. He spent the rest of the morning in as many up-market agenzia immobiliare as he could, which in an expensive town like Lucca were not difficult to find.
He put the brochures and papers into a small carrier bag given to him by one of the estate agents, and after securing it on the rack on the back of the bike, he headed back to the villa. He crossed the River Serchio on Lucca’s north side on the Via Per Camaiore. Traffic was heavy and he knew from experience how inattentive Italian drivers could be, easily distracted by mobiles, music and mouthy girlfriends, and he made sure he kept to the cycle lane. A few kilometres later, he turned off the Camairore and joined the Via Della Maulina towards San Concordio di Moriano and, on his side of the road at least, the traffic was lighter than before, everyone heading the other way and into the market at Lucca.
He rolled past large fields of maize, bordered by tall cypress trees swaying gently in the breeze. Houses were dotted across the landscape, smallholdings, each with their own vineyard and olive grove, and in the distance, beautiful villas up on the hillside, hidden by trees, away from the prying eyes of tourists.
Turning up a driveway, one he missed the first time in the hire car, he reached Villa Arsina and propped the bike up against the wall. He removed the bag from the rack, unlocked the back door and walked into the house. He passed the lounge en route to the kitchen, and something there caught his eye. Someone was there, but it didn’t kook like Signori Belcapo, the man he rented the villa from.
‘Hello,’ Brook said.
‘Ah, there you are. Hello Fraser, nice to see you again. How are you?’
Brook stood in the doorway, his mouth agape and heart pounding. He recognised the voice but not the face or the clothes. What the hell was he doing here! He looked for the phone, he was going to call the Politzia and have him arrested.
‘You’re being very rude Fraser, not greeting your guest. Cat got your tongue?’
That voice, the sneering expression, the almost feline features. Oh My God! No! Not him! It is him!
‘I didn’t recognise you, Daniel.’
‘Amazing what a change of hair, clothes and not shaving for a week or two can do for a man. Well, don’t just stand there hovering like a bloody waiter, come into the room and join me.’
Brook moved into the room and as he got closer to Perry, he could see the pistol beside him. He was dressed in long khaki shorts, Nike trainers and a plain purple t-shirt. The baseball cap lying on the floor with the words ‘Lucca’ across the top completed the tourist uniform. It was an amazing transformation from the well-dressed businessman he purported to be.
‘What...what are you doing here?’
‘You make it sound like I shouldn’t be here,’ he said, his tone harsher. ‘You’re the one who stole our money. I am here to get it back.’ He paused. ‘Before we get down to the serious stuff, is there any chance of a cold beer? I’m parched?’
‘Yes. There’s some in the fridge,’ Brook said. Almost in a trance, he turned and walked into the kitchen.
‘Don’t try anything stupid like running away. You know I can always find you. I tracked you down here, don’t forget.’
Brook stood in the kitchen, his mind buzzing. Perry was here to kill him, he knew it. He opened the fridge and removed two bottles of Nastro Azzuro. When he turned to remove the bottle opener from the drawer, he looked around for a weapon, but all he could see was a rolling pin and pizza cutter. A tougher man than him would get close enough to Perry to use something like that, but he wasn’t so brave. He lifted the bottles and walked back into the lounge.
He handed a bottle to Perry and took a seat on the other side of the room on the small settee.
‘Cheers mate,’ Perry said, swigging the Nastro Azzurro. ‘Not bad, Italian beers, but not a patch on London Bitter. Although I suppose it’s all Greek to you as I imagine you stick to wine.’
‘Eh?’ he replied, thrown at the banality of the question. ‘Oh, yes I do prefer wine. How did you track me down?’
‘It’s not so difficult. I have a friend at a mobile phone company.’
Brook’s face reddened. He had considered throwing away his trusty iPhone and buying a new pre-paid, but all his friends in London, San Francisco and Los Angeles had his number and he was loath to lose contact with any of them. He instantly realised his vanity was about to cost him millions, if not something more.
‘I called in a little favour and asked him to monitor your phone. Hey presto, all the calls you’ve been making to the shop were logged and through a process they call triangulation, the readings from the three nearest mobile phone masts were used to tell me exactly where you were. How I got past all those border checks and controls, you’ve got to love the good old EC for the Schengen Agreement. I drove from France to Italy without seeing one customs official.’
‘What happens now?’
‘It’s a good question, mate, and depends on you.’ He paused to take a swig. ‘I want you to give me back all the money you stole. Then, depending on how cooperative you are, I may or may not let you live.’
Brook shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He could still come out of this in one piece, and rich, as he had only told Landseer about one Swiss account. As their haul mushroomed, he had moved money to other accounts in several other Swiss banks. If he could persuade Perry there was only one account, which as of last Wednesday was showing a balance of two and half million, it might be enough to send him away happy and still leave him enough funds to enjoy a good life.
‘The money’s in an account with UBS in Switzerland.’
‘Does it allow internet access?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, saves us a trip to Florence or bloody Milan or wherever the fuck UBS have a branch in Italy. Do you have a laptop and online access here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bring it in here and you can make the transfer.’
Brook walked into the bedroom where he’d been up late the previous night emailing some of his boyfriends around the world, and picked up the laptop. He returned to the lounge and placed the laptop on the coffee table and switched it on. While he waited for it to boot up, he looked over at Perry who was staring back with a wicked grin on his face.
‘It might not have occurred to you, Brook, but we could have had every gangster in London out looking for you if we wanted. I
bet you didn’t know you were so popular?’
‘What?’
‘Yes. If I’d put word out that a snivelling little creep called Fraser Brook ran off with three million smackers, every psycho would be bursting their balls to get you and grab a piece of the pie. Isn’t that a pleasant thought?’
Brook felt the colour drain from his face. He had never considered himself to be important, or the theft of the money to be serious. After all, it was earned by duping rich wine buyers in the first place. The thought of several fifteen stone, bald-headed, tattooed thugs combing the streets of Lucca searching for him filled him with dread.
What was a pleasant thought though, was Perry’s admission that he was only looking for three million. He would see two and a half in the UBS account and take the lot, and if pushed at the point of a gun, Brook would admit to another half million in Credit Suisse. The rest would be his. A half a million in BNP Paribas was enough, it would have to be enough. The computer was ready.
‘A lot of the money in this account is my own money, money not taken from you but built up through my own wine business.’
‘I don’t give a shit if I leave you penniless and begging on the street for your next meal, I want it all, every last penny. If some of it didn’t come from us, well bad luck, call it a bonus for all the trouble you’ve caused.’ Perry walked across the room and sat beside Brook on the settee. ‘I want no fancy stuff Brook, just transfer all the money to this account number.’ He handed Brook a piece of paper.
Perry watched as Brook logged onto the UBS website from his ‘favourites’ file, and gave him a playful nudge when he spotted Gay Times, Pink Paper News and Boys Toys on the same list. When the UBS website loaded, he clicked on ‘e-banking’. They waited while the UBS computers silently shifted his enquiry to a secure bank of servers using some of the world’s finest firewall software, encryption algorithms and anti-hacking detectors.
Brook keyed in his username and password and after a small delay, one account number was shown. Thank God he hadn’t opened another account with UBS. He highlighted the number and clicked on the left wheel of the laptop touch pad. A few seconds later a short statement appeared. At the top, opposite the words ‘Account Balance’ and written in large, coloured type, it stated ‘£2,624,879.98 sterling.’
‘Who’s been a greedy boy then,’ Perry said looking at the total, his eyes wide and a small smile playing on his lips. ‘It’s not three mill but what the hell, that was just a ballpark figure Bennett came up with.’
‘I told you before, some of that money is mine, earned by me in my business.’
‘I don’t give a toss, it’s all ours now. Do the transfer.’
Brook keyed in the details. He was about to press ‘go’, when Perry stopped him.
‘Let me check,’ he said, looking at the account number and comparing it to what was on the screen. ‘Yep, looks fine. Go ahead.’
Brook moved the curser over ‘Transfer Funds’ and pressed it. They waited twenty seconds or so before a flashing message popped up.
‘Funds Frozen On Orders of the District Judge.’
Perry pulled the laptop towards him. ‘What the fuck’s going on? What are you trying to pull, Brook?’
‘I don’t know anything about this, I swear. Look at the account,’ he pressed the ‘back’ button and again selected the statement of account, ‘I transferred money five days ago, see.’ He pointed at the last transaction where four thousand Euros had been moved to his Barclays current account. ‘Something must have happened since then.’
Perry stood and began pacing around the room. A few minutes later, he stood over Brook and said, ‘give me your phone.’ Brook handed it over and Perry dialled a number from memory. He waited but after receiving no reply, ended it and called another number.
‘Hi Sarah, it’s Daniel. Is Dave around?’
He listened for a few moments. ‘What?’ he said raising his voice. ‘When did this happen?’ He kept quiet for a few minutes more before uttering a loud expletive.
Perry brought the call to an end and slumped on the settee beside Brook. ‘David’s in jail awaiting trial on five charges including murder. That fucking lawyer told me the cops had nothing on him and he would be out in 24 hours. I’ve been out of the loop for so long I didn’t hear what had happened.’
‘The cops have found out,’ Brook said, ‘and put a stop on the account; the devious bastards.’
‘Shit!’ Perry said, chewing his nails. ‘I’ll bet that bastard Henderson is behind it. Hal should have done him in when he had the chance. Right,’ he said as if suddenly coming to a decision. ‘Move, Brook. Outside.’
‘What about the money?’
‘I’ll get my hands on it some other way. Hang on, write down how you got into that account, passwords and all that stuff.’
Brook did as he was told and handed the paper to him.
‘Good,’ he said, before stuffing it into his pocket. ‘Let’s go. Out to the pool.’
Brook put the laptop down and opened the French windows leading out to the pool. Perry walked behind him, the gun pointing into his back.
‘Don’t kill me Daniel. We’re colleagues.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Brook and keep walking.’
Brook walked down the side of the pool towards the deep end. As he edged nearer the side to avoid a chair, the gun fired and he felt a searing, fiery pain in his shoulder. He crumpled to the ground, screaming in agony. Seconds later, Perry’s foot pushed him into the pool.
‘I want to make you suffer, Brook. Shame I don’t have a phone with me otherwise I’d film it.’
Brook tried to swim but couldn’t as the shock had numbed his senses and frozen any movement in his shoulder. He bobbed up and down in three metres of water, desperately trying to keep his head from going under. The bullet had passed clean through his body, but the large exit wound leaked a continuous stream of blood, marking the deep blue water with long streaks of red.
‘This is slow even for my tastes.’ Perry raised the gun. Brook struggled to get away and only succeeded in turning his back. The gun fired again and hit him with the force of a hammer in his thigh.
The pain was indescribable and it took a huge effort to say, ‘you bastard Perry…I’ve left stuff...paperwork...they’ll hunt you down.’
‘Is that the best you can do? I’m a wanted man already.’
Brook bobbed up and tried to open his mouth and gulp some air, but each time he did so, he swallowed more water. He surfaced three more times, his body sinking lower and lower into the water until finally, he did not surface again.
Perry tucked the gun into the waistband of his shorts and turned to go. His gaze was met by the shocked face of Signora Belcapo, the wife of the villa owner, there to deliver her homemade zabaglione to the nice Englishman, Signori Brook.
Perry had no idea how long she had been watching but the look on her face said it all. He lifted the weapon and shot her twice in the head.
The zabaglione flew into the air and came down on the edge of the pool in a cascade of cream and egg yolk. It leached slowly into the pool where it drifted in the breeze, and soon became indistinguishable from the remnants of Fraser Brook’s blood.
THIRTY-FIVE
‘Why didn’t we sail to Scotland?’ Rachel said putting down her in-flight magazine. ‘It would be lovely on the water at this time of year.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘There’s an article in here about sailing holidays and it got me thinking.’
‘Firstly, I didn’t consider it at all as it would take too long.’
‘How long is too long?’
‘Maybe a week or more, depending on how strong the wind blows. Plus the same to get back.’
‘Ah, right. Bang goes all my holidays. There’s more?’
‘Yep. Once you clear the Lizard at the southern tip of Cornwall, you hit the North Atlantic and let me tell you, the water there’s not so forgiving as the English Channel.’
‘What,
even in summer?’
‘It’s often worse in summer as at least in winter you know that storms are coming, but at this time of year, they can happen so fast and when people are least expecting it. As much as I dislike flying and security procedures at airports, I think this is the fastest and safest way.’
The plane landed in Inverness on time and once they collected their bags, they picked up a hire car. Outside the sprawl of the city, the road soon followed the contours of the River Ness, intermittently visible through the trees, and at the aptly named village of Loch End, they reached the river’s source, Loch Ness.
‘Isn’t this the longest lake in Scotland?’ Rachel asked.
‘Loch, Rachel. We call them lochs in Scotland, but no, Loch Awe is longer.’
‘It must be the deepest then.’
‘It holds the most water, but the deepest accolade belongs to Loch Morar and before you ask, there’s a monster in there too.’
‘What’s that one called? Moggie?’
‘No, Morag.’
‘Ha. I take it by the tone of your voice that you’re a sceptic, so I imagine we’re not stopping at the Nessie Visitor Centre, a place I’ve seen advertised every mile along this road?’
‘Why, do you want to?’
‘No, not really.’
‘I will if you want to, but I warn you, it’s full of grainy old photos that don’t look like a dinosaur, more like lumps of wood. Don’t you think if there was a large animal living down there, someone in this modern day of digital cameras, Nessie hunters and smartphones, would have taken a decent picture of the thing?’
‘Yep. As a clear-headed journalist, I would be forced to agree with you, but wouldn’t it be such a great story if it was true?’
‘I don’t think it matters if it’s true or not. It’s a bit like the Queen and the royal palaces. Tourists often come to Britain and say they’re here to see the Queen but how many people actually see her? Very few, I suspect. Instead, they stand outside Buckingham Palace and take pictures or wander around Windsor Castle, but they go home happy all the same.’
