by J M Gregson
He had chosen the meeting place himself. The van had been there for five days now, at the end of a street where the houses had already been felled and the bulldozer had levelled the site ready for the builders. It had probably been dumped there by joyriders, or an owner whom it had finally failed. The one wheel with a newish tyre had already disappeared from it, so that the van slumped crazily sideways. But Crook had already checked that the driver’s door opened.
His contact was waiting for him as he’d demanded. The man sat low in the passenger seat on the nearside, his face almost invisible beneath the cap pulled forward over his eyes. He was almost as unkempt as Crook, but his dirt was less ingrained. He was adopting a disguise, whereas the man who had come from the squat had been living his part for months.
The officer who sat in the passenger seat glanced at Crook as he slipped into place and shut the driver’s door. ‘You’ve done a good job on yourself. You look like a junkie.’
Jason didn’t reply, didn’t even smile. This man who had spoken didn’t feel like a colleague any more. Those wretched creatures in the squat weren’t colleagues, but he felt nearer to them than to this being from the real world. This was one of the hazards of working undercover. The people who volunteered for the work were almost by definition unbalanced. Some of them took on the lifestyle of the user so thoroughly that they became genuine addicts rather than undercover agents. They disappeared into the anonymous underclass which peopled the lower reaches of the drug world and were lost permanently to the police. The officer who was slumped anonymously in the driver seat of this stinking vehicle wondered if Crook was in danger of this.
As if he read that thought, Jason said while still gazing straight ahead at the filthy windscreen, ‘I got the name of one of the big men for you. This man’s taking control of the dealers round here. He’s taking over Strangeways.’
The big jail in Manchester was a hotbed of drug use, as are most of the major prisons in the brave new world of Britain. Controlling the supply of drugs and the network of dealers involved was lucrative in itself. It was also far more important among the barons of this sinister trade for its prestige value. The man who supplied Strangeways controlled much else as well. The men and women who worked for him as well as his rivals recognised that.
The inspector beside Crook said, ‘Give us the name. We’ll see if it tallies with the information we’re getting from other—’
‘O’Connor. James O’Connor.’ Jason wasn’t interested in the man’s garbage about other sources: he knew what he knew. ‘He’s taken over from Read. He’s planning to get bigger still.’
‘Right.’ The man in the passenger seat nodded. Jason Crook was out of the vehicle immediately, departing down the street with the same rapid shuffle with which he had arrived. The Drug Squad inspector watched him to the end of the road, waited another two minutes. That poor sod couldn’t know that O’Connor was dead, couldn’t know that the information he’d risked his life for was almost valueless now. Crook was sunk so deep into his role in the squat that he probably hadn’t read a newspaper or heard a radio for weeks.
James O’Connor wouldn’t be extending his empire any further. But the fact that he’d been spreading his wings in dangerous skies had brought some big criminal names into the possibilities for his murderer.
Dominic O’Connor was slimmer and shorter than his brother. More flying winger than flanker, a rugby man might have said. DCI Peach was not a rugby man. Soccer was his winter game; he’d supported Brunton Rovers through thick and thin – and there’d been plenty of thin lately.
He studied his man unhurriedly, after he’d introduced himself and Clyde Northcott. Nervous, he reckoned, trying to look as if he wasn’t on edge but not succeeding. He liked that: people who were nervous gave more of themselves away. But you couldn’t read too much into it. Bereavement affected people in all sorts of ways and it was possible that this man had never been questioned by police before. That would make him different from his dead brother; James had had many exchanges with the police, but had been always been too wily to end up in court. He had even been helpful to them at times, when it suited his own agenda.
‘You never worked with your brother, Mr O’Connor?’
‘No. I’m six years younger than him. That meant we were never particularly close. We had different talents and different interests. He was already the great rugby player back in Ireland when I was still a schoolboy.’
‘I see. But James made a successful business career. He was quickly in charge of his own business and it rapidly diversified.’ Peach paused for a second on the word, allowing it an ironic ring, studying the man’s reaction. ‘You didn’t feel inclined to join him and make it a family business? Or perhaps James didn’t want you working with him?’
‘I could have had work with Jim if I’d wanted it. I decided I didn’t.’
The younger man had almost no trace of an Irish accent, whereas the dead man had seemed almost to cultivate it, both in his rugby days and in his later business dealings. ‘And why did you decide that?’
O’Connor looked for a moment as if he would refuse to answer. Then he folded his arms and said deliberately, ‘I suppose I decided I wanted to make my own way in life. It was easy enough for me to do that. My Dad had made money by the time I was ten or eleven. I wasn’t educated in Ireland, like Jim. I was sent to Stonyhurst College in England as a boarder. I grew up with the Jesuits.’
He jutted his chin a little, as if challenging Peach now to follow this up. Instead the DCI said quietly, ‘You’ve made it clear that you hadn’t much in common with James. It sounds almost as if you didn’t like him.’
This time his man did react. O’Connor said irritably, ‘This isn’t relevant. You’re supposed to be finding out who killed Jim, not running a lonely hearts column. You appear pretty baffled, so far.’
Peach was not at all put out. He gave Dominic O’Connor one of the more enigmatic of his vast range of smiles. ‘When I was a young copper, my first inspector said to me, “If you can’t find a solution, always come back to the family”. You’d be surprised how often he’s been right over the years. I can assure you that the sort of relationship you enjoyed with your brother is extremely relevant to this enquiry.’
‘You mean that if I wasn’t close to Jim I become a suspect.’
‘I mean that your complete frankness would not only be appreciated but would be much the best policy for you. Any attempt at deception in a murder enquiry would be ill-advised; it would excite suspicion. That much will be obvious to an intelligent man with a Jesuit education.’ This time Peach’s smile had a hint of impish enjoyment.
Dominic O’Connor ran a hand swiftly through his rather untidy fair hair. His brown eyes glittered, but he spoke evenly enough. ‘Jim and I were never close. I could have worked with him – for him – but I had other options. He thought I was a Puritan, I thought he was too much of a Cavalier.’
‘You mean he took short cuts in his business affairs.’
‘I wouldn’t have put it like that. But yes, he was a little too free and easy for my tastes. He made rapid progress, but to my mind he was a chancer. We had different temperaments, I suppose. But he could laugh at me and what he called my caution. He expanded quickly. As you say, he diversified.’ This time it was Dominic O’Connor who gave the word a slight ironic emphasis.
‘You’re an accountant, I believe.’
‘I’m a financial manager in a smallish firm. But the basis of that is accountancy, yes.’
‘But you don’t believe in cutting corners.’
‘I believe in operating within the law. I may not have moved as far or as fast as Jim, but I’m successful in my own way.’
‘I imagine these different attitudes must have led to a lot of tension between the two of you.’
‘You shouldn’t imagine, DCI Peach. You should confine yourself to facts. And the fact of this matter is that Jim and I got on perfectly well with each other. We’d agreed to go our separate ways and
we didn’t spend much time in each other’s houses. But our wives got on perfectly well – probably better than Jim and I did. We’ve met up mainly on family occasions, over the last few years, but we got on quite adequately with each other.’
‘“Quite adequately”. That is a strange phrase for brothers.’
‘But well chosen, I think. It implies a lack of passion. You need passion to kill a man the way my brother was killed.’
‘Or a good reason.’
‘All right, or a good reason. As I had neither of these, you can conclude that I did not kill my brother.’
‘So who did, Mr O’Connor?’
‘Surely that’s for you to discover. With the vast range of resources available to the police service.’
‘And the full and intelligent cooperation of those civilians in a position to help us. That’s why I’m asking you who you think killed your brother.’
‘I’ve no idea. I’ve given it plenty of thought, but I’m no nearer to an answer than I was when it happened on Monday night. And before you say that I must have some ideas, I would remind you that we’ve spent some time establishing that I was no longer in close touch with either Jim or his associates.’
Peach gave the tiniest nod to Northcott. The detective sergeant cleared his throat and said formally, ‘Where were you at the time of this death, Mr O’Connor?’
Dominic looked at the dark, unrevealing features as if he suspected a trap. ‘As I understand it, no one knows the precise moment of death. When the interval was announced, I left my chair and moved across the room to speak with my niece, my sister’s daughter. Even you may well conclude that was an innocent mission, since Alison is thirteen.’
Clyde Northcott made a note and remained impassive. ‘And did you then return to your seat?’
Dominic O’Connor regarded him steadily for a moment, his brown eyes alert, assessing. Then he said sardonically, ‘Not immediately, no. I moved around, chatted to one or two people I knew. Then I went to the Gents’ and did the same thing in there. I also had a pee.’
‘How long were you missing from the main banqueting hall?’
‘You mean did I have the opportunity to creep outside and commit fratricide, don’t you? That’s the word for it, you know, in case coppers don’t have a Jesuit education.’ In his wish to score a meaningless point, he’d almost said ‘black coppers’. That showed how carefully you needed to watch your words, that did, he told himself.
Northcott said calmly, ‘It’s a question our team will be asking of everyone who was present on Monday night. Unless we make an arrest before the process is completed, of course. Do you own a firearm, Mr O’Connor?’
‘No. I don’t need one in the sort of work I do.’
‘But you imply that your brother did. Did he carry a pistol?’
‘I don’t know. I think he might have done. I think I would have done, if I’d moved among the people he associated with and the rivals he dealt with.’ For a moment, his distaste for the dead man flared about Dominic’s lips. It was instantly dismissed.
Peach stood up. ‘In the meantime, we’d like you to go on thinking, Mr O’Connor. You’re a shrewd and intelligent man. You also know a lot of the people who were at that function better than any detective. If you have any thoughts, please ring this number: whatever you say will of course be treated in the strictest confidence.’
They’d arranged to meet and this is where it had to be. Steve Tracey didn’t like it, but he wasn’t in a position to call the shots.
The big Toyota saloon drew up alongside the murdered man’s head of security on the top of the multi-storey car park. He’d specified the spot himself. The woman on the other end of the line had gone away to consult, then returned to the phone and agreed to it. They’d determined on the multi-storey, but he’d said it must be on the top floor. Somehow, he felt more public up here; with the open air around him and the sky above him, he must surely be safer. Now he wondered whether that was so.
The window beside the driver slid slowly down. ‘Hop into the back, Mr Tracey,’ the face said with false cheerfulness.
‘No way. You get out and we talk here.’
The big face beamed like that of a man with four aces in his hand. ‘You don’t have a choice, Steve.’ He grinned sideways at the invisible muscle beside him, then repeated, ‘Hop into the back, Mr Tracey.’
Steve opened the door, slid his bulk swiftly over the leather of the rear seat. One down already. But with his employer dead, he didn’t see how he could call the shots.
‘Boss wants to see you. You could be a fortunate man.’
They were the only words spoken in fourteen miles. They drove fast, over the moors on the A666 to Bolton, through the town and into the urban sprawl where it merged into greater Manchester. Tracey didn’t know this area and he was correspondingly more nervous. If they beat him up and pitched him out here, he wouldn’t know where to turn for help. If they shot him, there were plenty of places beneath water or concrete where they could dump his corpse so that it would never be seen again. Strange roads and strange buildings brought the sort of wild fears which you did not feel on your own patch.
He said nothing. They wouldn’t answer his questions and he wasn’t going to attempt any other sort of talk with men like this. They were alien, yet strangely like himself. They were acting under orders and they had no interest in him, unless he prevented those orders being carried out. He knew one of these men and that told him a lot. He thought he knew who they worked for. He wondered whether it was one of the two close-shaven, squat men he could see in front of him who had shot his boss. And then he wondered as he moved off his own patch and on to theirs whether they were going to shoot him.
It was a hut on a building site where they finally stopped. A strange, deserted, sinister place. Silent when it should have been noisy, quiet and motionless when it should have been busy with activity. The gorilla got out of the driving seat and looked at Tracey curiously. Strangely, his thickset shape and unintelligent features gave Steve reason to hope. This was low-level security, the kind of loyal, unquestioning thug he would have used himself for enforcement work, for scaring small people into a resentful obedience. If they’d been licensed to kill him or even rough him up, they’d have done it in a dark alley somewhere, not brought him here.
The man motioned towards the door of the hut, but he remained outside as Tracey entered and shut it carefully behind him. The man behind the desk inside the shed was as alert and watchful as he was, but he had affected the trappings of respectability. He was probably from Jamaica, in Steve’s view. He wore a three-piece suit, with a thin gold watch-chain stretched across his bulging chest. He clasped his well-manicured hands in front of him, as if anxious to show off his perfect nails to the man instructed to sit on the other side of the desk. Steve wondered if he would complete the parody by lighting a cigar, but he merely sat back and looked at the new arrival with a smile, relishing the situation.
He was a strange figure in a strange environment. Apart from his colour, he was a caricature of a nineteenth-century industrial baron in this dingy twenty-first-century setting. There was a chart on the wall with what seemed to be a plan of foundations for the buildings to be erected here. It had words scribbled across it which were illegible from where Steve Tracey sat. Lumps of drying mud from people’s boots littered the floor; a week-old tabloid newspaper lay in the corner of the shed. There was something ludicrous about the overdressed central figure which gave Tracey a sudden, unexpected spurt of confidence.
It wasn’t the big boss, as those idiots outside had said it would be. It was their boss, the man in charge of security for some organisation. A big concern, by the look of it. A well-organised business: this was a suitably anonymous place for a meet, whatever the dress affectations of the man conducting it. Tracey sat motionless and waited; he wasn’t going to let the man with the watch-chain know that he was nervous.
The man sat back, steepled his fingers, continued his impersonation of
a different kind of executive. ‘Well, Mr Tracey. So your boss is dead. And your job was to protect him. Didn’t do a very good job there, did you?’
‘I offered to stay with him on Monday night. He said it wasn’t necessary.’
‘You didn’t kill him yourself, did you, Steve?’
‘Of course I didn’t! He’d be alive now if he’d allowed me to stay with him when he went outside Claughton Towers on Monday night.’
Watch-chain smiled. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that. You might have been dead meat yourself, Steve, instead of enjoying this conversation. You don’t mind me calling you Steve, do you?’
‘You can call me what you like. You’re in the box seat. You and your gorillas outside.’
‘Box seat. Yes, I suppose that’s so.’ He smiled contentedly, his teeth looking very large and very white in this ill-lit place. ‘But I have good news for you, Steve. I have been empowered to offer you employment. Generous thinking, that, after you failed in your last assignment. But then I work for a generous man.’
‘Lennon.’ Steve had been thinking furiously, trying to work out who could be behind his virtual kidnap.
Watch-chain looked a little surprised, even for a moment discomfited. ‘Best not to speculate at this stage, Steve. But I suppose you have a right to know who’ll be paying your wages. So yes, Mr Lennon. He’s prepared to take you on. He’s taking over most of your organisation following the unfortunate demise of James O’Connor. And he wants as smooth a transition as possible. So he’s prepared to take on you and whichever two of your staff you recommend. You’d be deputy to me, of course.’ He ran his hand lightly over the front of his waistcoat, fingering the watch-chain as if it offered him reassurance. ‘But you’d be second in line in our security department. It’s a very generous offer, if you ask me.’
