The Mephisto Threat

by E. V. Seymour

  ‘Pissing on someone else’s patch?’

  Crow was shamelessly fishing, Tallis thought. Even she couldn’t make that one stack up. Tallis remained noncommittal.

  ‘Don’t have any better ideas?’ Crow grinned.

  ‘None.’ He smiled, pushing his empty glass towards her. ‘Your round.’

  Tallis reluctantly disentangled himself from Crow an hour later. In spite of her somewhat blokey image, something he suspected she’d cultivated to maintain her own position in what was still a male-dominated environment, she was a decent woman and he secretly enjoyed winding her up and sparring with her. His parting shot was to ask her to keep him posted with regard to hard evidence establishing Reid and Brass as the same two men who’d pulled the trigger on Garry Morello, although he guessed Gayle would also let him know.

  ‘It will cost you more than a few drinks,’ she said with a louche smile.

  ‘Dinner, then.’

  He spent the train journey back considering the implications of his most recently acquired information. Who’d paid for the contract to kill Garry? Who’d paid for the murder of Reid and Brass? Crow seemed to think the Turkish Mafia were involved in the death of the two young killers, or was that a red herring? And what about Kennedy? Simply a loose connection, or something heavier? Either way, he reckoned he needed to go with his original thinking: Kennedy had not gone straight. No matter what Oxslade believed, no matter that Tallis had never met Kennedy, experience told him that Kennedy was back in the game, smarter, more devious, but definitely back.

  As soon as he got home, he showered, changed, found a pad and pen and, powering up his Apple Mac, negotiated his way to Google and punched in ‘Johnny Kennedy’. He had fifteen useful hits. Three items focused on the trial resulting in Kennedy’s ten-year sentence, two on his links to several sites of redevelopment, with an additional four references to what had once been Kennedy Holdings and its connection to a well-known business consortium, two on his alleged involvement in dodgy dealing in the Balkans, three on a road accident in which Kennedy’s only son had been seriously injured and—Tallis’s eyes widened—one minor piece on Kennedy’s early release from prison. Why? he wanted to know. Not keen on staring into a screen, Tallis printed off everything he could find and read it as it shunted out of his printer.

  Kennedy was variously described as charming and charismatic. Certainly, if the picture was anything to go by, he seemed to fit the depiction. Square-shouldered, firmjawed, he looked capable rather than cunning. His grey hair was close cut. He had good bone structure. Tanned and muscular, dressed in a sober well-cut suit, he looked like a man at the pinnacle of his career. He had been forty-eight when he’d gone inside, which made him fifty-two now, Tallis estimated. It was reported that he was worth upwards of thirty million, something Oxslade had failed to put a figure on, Kennedy’s occupation allegedly entrepreneur, a catch-all phrase much beloved by those who have champagne lifestyles and only a passing acquaintance with Inland Revenue.

  Kennedy’s business acumen seemed truly astounding for a poor lad who’d left school at fourteen and fallen through the system. As Oxslade had already confirmed, Kennedy had, at one time, owned his own construction company and made heavy inroads into a number of flagship building projects. You didn’t normally reach those kinds of dizzy heights without either great connections or some nefarious dealing along the way, something strongly suggested by the prosecution, Tallis noticed. If the QC was to be believed, Kennedy’s currency was terror. He was feared and worshipped in equal measure. Tallis felt a flash, cold as ice, ripple along his spine. His father had had the same effect on those around him, he remembered, particularly Dan. Thoughts of his father’s forthcoming funeral chased through his head. He caught hold of them, pinned them in the outer reaches of his consciousness and read on.

  True to criminal form, Kennedy owned various properties abroad, including a villa in southern Spain. Interestingly, Tallis thought, he also owned a place in Hvar, a fashionable town on the Dalmatian coast, famous for its commercially grown lavender. While all this was interesting and gave Tallis a context, one piece of information fired out of the page and shot him between the eyes. Immediately, he was transported to Turkey, to the street where Garry Morello’s blood was running into the gutter, his dying words echoing in Tallis’s ears. ‘Report,’ Garry had gasped. Report.Was it simple coincidence that Kennedy’s soubriquet as an up-and-coming thug had been The Reporter?

  12

  * * *

  TALLIS reread his notes—Johnny Kennedy, abandoned as a baby outside West Bromwich hospital, West Midlands, mother never found. He owed his name, apparently, to two West Bromwich Albion football players popular in the 1950s: Joe Kennedy, who played centre half; and Johnny Nicholls, inside forward. Brought up in a combination of care and foster homes in the Midlands, a fertile breeding ground for a future life of crime, Kennedy quickly got involved in all the lower echelons of criminality—minor theft, car nicking, drug running. He’d also spent time inside for firearms offences and gained a suspended sentence for receiving and handling stolen goods. His nickname, however, had been earned from a particularly despicable form of aberrant behaviour: robbing the recently bereaved. Tallis glanced away, teeth grating at the man’s callousness. In a stroke, his connection with Kennedy felt entirely personal.

  Tallis returned to his notes. Kennedy was no illiterate. Wherever Kennedy was, a stack of newspapers followed. Had become a bit of a standing joke, although his reasons for such interest were far from amusing. While later on in his career he could honestly say that he was checking out the business sections, keeping his eye on the markets, in the early days the obituary columns had been the focus of his concentration. Not the pages of the great and good, but the tiny personal sections, those that announced no flowers and the date of the forthcoming funeral. While the grieving family had been out paying their last respects, Kennedy had been in helping himself to anything on offer.

  Climbing the ladder through the well-tried and trodden route of enforcing, Kennedy had developed a fearsome reputation. It was alleged that he’d once buried a recalcitrant debtor’s pet dog alive. Horrible enough, but he’d carried out the deed in front of the man’s wife and children. By the time Kennedy had been in his middle twenties, he’d already graduated to serious dealing, wiping out any opposition along the way. His idea of debt consolidation was loan sharking with all its concomitant violent sidelines.

  Ten years later, he had been living well. He’d had his fingers in all sorts of pies, mainly the construction industry. And this was what struck Tallis as Kennedy’s greatest achievement for, during those later years, he’d managed to rid himself of his crazy-guy image and cultivate an aura of kindness and respectability. He was no longer a foul-mouthed thug but a softly spoken man who looked after people, those outside the law admittedly, but people none the less. He was like a current-day Godfather. This was the secret of Kennedy’s success and explained his ability to engender a devout and loyal following. Either they didn’t know…Tallis shuddered with distaste…or didn’t care about Kennedy making a mint shifting heroin by exploiting UN convoys in former Yugoslavia. Something else Kennedy was brilliant at cultivating: contacts. In spite of Kennedy apparently going straight, Tallis had a real feel in his gut that Kennedy could be useful in his current quest. Thing was, would Kennedy talk to him?

  The next morning Tallis did some more phoning around, starting with Finn Cronin, a journalist and mate he often turned to when needing information. He started off with the usual preamble, enquiring about Finn’s eldest child and Tallis’s godson.

  ‘Just made it into the under-sixteen cricket team.’

  ‘Send Tom my congratulations.’

  ‘Will do. Now, what do you really want?’ Finn said, shrewd as ever.

  Am I that easy to read? Tallis thought, worried. Maybe only to his closest friends, he hoped. ‘Heard of a bloke called Johnny Kennedy?’

  ‘Part of the American Kennedy clan?’

  �
��Closer to home.’

  ‘Singer?’ Finn said hopefully.

  ‘Former Midlands crime baron.’

  ‘Can’t say I have, but that doesn’t mean much.’

  Not Finn’s patch, Tallis thought. ‘I want to do some digging into his background.’

  ‘Last time you said that I ended up moving me and my family to a safe house,’ Finn groaned. Tallis pulled a face. How could he forget? Caught up in a deadly conspiracy where everyone with whom he’d come into contact had wound up dead, Tallis had done the only thing he could to protect his friend: told him to go to ground.

  ‘This is different. The man’s gone straight.’

  ‘What did he do—find God?’

  Actually, Finn could be right, Tallis thought. Kennedy’s son’s accident might have had a profound effect. He wouldn’t be the first man to turn to religion after suffering personal trauma. Shit, he thought, sensing a hole in his theory. Perhaps Kennedy really had become an upright, law-abiding citizen. He pressed on regardless. ‘I need basic background information about his family. His son was injured a couple of years ago in a hit-and-run. I want to find out more about it. Also want to know if Kennedy’s married, any other kids, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Human interest,’ Finn said.

  ‘You got it.’

  Finn promised to see what he could turn up. Cutting the call, Tallis phoned Max, another friend and City financier. Most unusually, Max’s mobile was switched off. Tallis resorted to calling him at work. Mistake. His secretary was in stonewalling mode.

  ‘Mr Elliott isn’t taking calls this afternoon from anyone.’

  ‘I’m not anyone,’ Tallis said, humour in his voice.

  ‘I’m sure you’re not,’ the secretary said crisply, ‘but the answer’s still the same.’

  ‘Can I talk to you, then?’ Tallis said.

  ‘Me?’ Outrage mixed with shock.

  ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘My name is irrelevant.’

  Oh great, one of these I don’t have to give my name therefore I’m not accountable merchants. ‘Surely not…Monica, isn’t it?’ he said, plucking it from a deeply recessed part of his memory bank.

  ‘Miss Morton.’

  ‘With an o or an e?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Max has told me so much about you,’ he rushed on. ‘All good, of course. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to pass on my very best wishes and tell him I’ll try to catch him at home this evening.’

  Three minutes later, Max returned his call. ‘Paul, good to hear from you.’

  Tallis smiled a Thanks, Monica and stuck to the same theme he’d followed in his conversation with Finn, the emphasis this time on Kennedy’s financial acumen.

  ‘He was quite a respected figure before his spectacular fall from grace,’ Max said. ‘Most of us didn’t have a clue about his extraneous activities.’ That was a good one, Tallis thought. He’d never heard the word ‘extraneous’ used to describe some of the more vile things Kennedy had sanctioned. As with countless bosses before him, Kennedy had learnt to distance himself from the dirty end of business, employing others to carry out his bidding. ‘He’s actually done Birmingham a power of good,’ Max enthused. ‘Helped various youth initiatives, put money into charities and foundations…’

  ‘You make him sound saintly.’

  ‘Far from it.’ Max laughed, low and long. ‘But you had to admire his business sense. His philosophy was founded on simplicity.’

  Bashing people’s heads in, Tallis thought. Didn’t get much simpler than that.

  ‘He basically acquired property when values were low and got shot of them when they rose,’ Max said. ‘Moved eventually into the commercial sector, including retail and shopping developments.’

  Tallis asked Max if he could find out more about the source of Kennedy’s money now, how he operated his current business.

  ‘Give me twenty minutes,’ Max said.

  And Tallis knew that he would. It was one of the many things he loved about the man. Max always delivered. Tallis put on the kettle, took a leak, made himself a cup of tea and ate two digestive biscuits.

  ‘Right,’ Max began when he called back. ‘Current property on the outskirts of Solihull.’

  An image of golf courses, leafy suburbs and affluent householders floated in front of Tallis’s eyes. It was reputed that life expectancy in Solihull was several years more than in central Birmingham.

  Max was still speaking. ‘The property is in his wife’s name.’

  ‘Which is?’ Tallis said, picking up his pen.

  ‘Samantha Sheldon, a former model, I understand.’

  Weren’t they all, Tallis thought, cynical as hell. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Kennedy apparently salted a lot of cash away in offshore accounts, usual culprits: Caymans, Brazil, Cuba, Switzerland, Jersey.’

  ‘Jersey?’ Tallis expressed surprise. ‘Thought that was tightly controlled.’

  ‘Officially it is.’ Max lowered his voice. ‘Depends who you know. I could tell you a tale of a certain bank where one of their employees died in extremely mysterious circumstances. Rumour has it the bloke was laundering money for al-Qaeda.’

  Christ, Tallis thought, them again. What or where were the connections? Were there connections? ‘Getting back to Kennedy,’ Tallis said, ‘when he was involved in the construction industry, would he have had much contact with suppliers abroad?’

  ‘Turkey, maybe. The cheap price of their steel has seen many British suppliers go under.’

  ‘What about now?’

  ‘I was wondering when you’d come to that. You said he was running an online company distributing building supplies to trade.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘That’s not all he’s running.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ Tallis said, wits sharpening.

  ‘Incinerators are the name of the game, apparently designed for animal waste.’

  Oh, yeah? ‘Where’s he supplying to?’

  ‘In the UK?’

  ‘Further afield.’

  ‘Countries like Iraq, Iran and Saudi.’

  ‘He’s worth cultivating.’

  ‘You make him sound like a plant,’ Asim said.

  ‘He fits the profile,’ Tallis insisted hotly. ‘He ticks the right boxes.’

  ‘Not any more. He’s out of the game. Simply because Reid and Brass worked with him all those years ago means nothing.’

  ‘But the Turkish connection…’

  ‘Because the bloke bought some steel?’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something? He’s supplying incinerators to the Middle East.’

  ‘So are a lot of companies.’

  ‘All right,’ Tallis said, breathing deeply, ‘then what about Morello’s last words?’

  ‘Too much of a stretch.’

  Tallis closed his eyes. He really didn’t know what was expected of him. Using his brain was obviously not part of the job description.

  Asim seemed to sense his frustration. ‘Look, all I’m saying is that you’re too fixed on Kennedy. You need to get out and about and find out who’s doing what now.’

  Tallis threw his head back and laughed. ‘That’s rich. Wasn’t so long ago you were telling me how well the law enforcement agencies were working together, security service, police, SOCA, Counter-Terrorism, all chums in the fight against terror? One phone call should do it. You don’t need me,’ he said, deliberately cutting the call.

  Silence. The air seemed to sweat and throb. He felt suddenly heavy and lifeless, as though someone had taken out his batteries. Now what? Was he behaving like a prima donna? Had he pushed Asim too far? Would Asim relent? Would he play ball? His phone rang. He eyed it warily, picked up.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Asim said, smoothly continuing the call as if their minor spat had never taken place.

  Always is, Tallis thought. ‘The truth is you don’t want anyone to know what you’re up to, me included.’

  Asim didn’t deny it.
Instead he said that he’d see Tallis on Friday. ‘We can talk then.’

  ‘But it’s my father’s funeral.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ve sprung Dan?’ Tallis said, wary.

  ‘Yes,’ Asim said coolly.

  Tallis wondered how much it would cost.

  13

  * * *

  TALLIS felt as if there was a tsunami in waiting. It was very quiet, very still, an undertow of evil in the air. Eyes drifting towards borders of blue sky, he saw a speck on the horizon, moving closer, disturbing and redistributing the atmosphere. Then he heard the sound, muffled at first, growing more distinct until he could make out the unmistakable whop-whop of a helicopter circling overhead. Clearly, the police were taking no chances with Dan. Tallis looked across at him, met his brother’s stony stare, felt a crackle of hostility, wondered what he was thinking, mainly in a bid to avoid all the uncomfortable thoughts piling through his own mind. When he saw Dan, he was reminded of Belle. Reminded of Belle, he remembered all that he’d lost. He should have felt murderous. Now in a position of power over his older brother, he should have been triumphant—all his enemies vanquished.

  He felt hollow.

  They were standing outside the crematorium, his family and a couple of dozen or so mourners, local farmers, men who’d served in the police force with his father from way back. Tallis’s mother was talking to the vicar, a young man who looked out of his depth and who’d never known the deceased. Hannah and her husband, Geoff, were trying to keep their three kids under control. The two boys, dressed in long trousers, whined with impatience, the little girl, his niece, Orla, skipped about, chatting animatedly to her doll. Tallis, trying to distract himself from the proceedings, picked her up and swung her onto his shoulders, making her squeal. Several disapproving looks were thrust in his direction.

  At last, they were ushered in. Two police officers, each cuffed to Dan, one on either side, made a motion for their prisoner to move. Tallis automatically glanced over, wondering how Dan felt as a former detective chief inspector to be on the receiving end of British justice, and caught Dan’s eye. If Dan could have spat in his face, he would have done, but Tallis wasn’t close enough. Instead, Dan mouthed, ‘Loser.’