The Mephisto Threat

by E. V. Seymour

  He arrived in West Charleton as the sun began to shed its last light. Still warm enough, Tallis thought, to sit outside.

  A typical Devon village, West Charleton had a Church of England primary school, a post office and village shop, a church and pub, The Ashburton Arms. He parked in the tiny car park, and walked up into the beer garden, which was empty, the fine vantage point yielding an amazing view of the estuary and, more importantly, the rest of the village. Walking back down the steps, he went inside and ordered half a pint of lager. It wasn’t especially busy for a Saturday night. From the flow of conversation, he judged that the four men and two women sitting and standing around the bar were local. Good.

  Without preamble, Tallis asked the bartender where he could find Wendy Carroll. He might as well have asked for Rip Van Winkle. Seven pairs of suspicious eyes looked him up and down. ‘No idea who or what you’re talking about,’ came back the stony reply. Tallis shrugged and took his drink to a table. Nobody moved a muscle. Nobody said a word. It was as if by mentioning the name he’d brought disease into the community. Fifteen minutes later, he finished his drink, and returned to the TT, moving it twenty-five metres away into the neighbouring road and parking it behind a large, ugly American-style Jeep, all balls no substance. Swiftly walking back to the pub, he shot up the steps to the rear of the building and waited in the shadows. A minute later, one of the men who’d been standing at the bar left the pub, turned left, crossed the road, walked three doors along, then with a shifty shake of his head recrossed to a row of tiny dwellings on the same side Tallis was standing. There followed the hollow sound of a door being rapped then opened. A rapid exchange took place. Tallis discerned a woman’s voice though he couldn’t see her face. Report of a door slamming shut. Tallis imagined the sound of a deadbolt and chain being slotted into place. It wouldn’t be easy to get her attention, but at least he knew where Wendy Carroll lived.

  That night, he found a small, comfortable bed and breakfast further along the road and paid up front. He also enquired about the time of church services the following morning. After checking into his room, he drove to the next village of Frogmore and ate locally caught sea bass at a pub called The Globe, returning to the guesthouse shortly after ten. He slept badly, tossing and turning, facing yet resisting the prospect that Kennedy had not only ordered the murder of his friend Garry but had also got away with it. More ugly still, he wondered who had cut Nathan Brass such slack. The blacked-out section in Kennedy’s file intimated that someone had shopped Kennedy, that someone might even have confessed to being involved in Carroll’s murder, and yet whoever it was had not been brought to account but had been released and gone on to kill again. Re-examining SOCA’s involvement, Tallis wondered whether Napier had taken an earlier interest in Johnny Kennedy, whether he’d believed that Kennedy was his route to recognition and glory. No wonder he’d been less than impressed with having the golden goose stolen from underneath his nose by Asim.

  Around six-thirty, Tallis got up, shivered in the cool grey light and dressed. By seven-fifteen he was waiting outside Wendy Carroll’s house. At seven-twenty, the tealcoloured door swung open and a woman, dressed in black, hurried out, shutting the door behind her. She was small, slim and hollow-eyed, looked as though she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in years. She took off at a nervous pace, heels clicking against the road. Tallis followed silently. As he suspected, she was heading for the church for early communion. He wondered whether she’d always believed in God, or felt driven to it as many were by life and the loss of it. She was descending the hill towards a complex of flats when he caught her up and put his hand on her elbow. She whipped round, eyes wide, mouth sagging then dropping, the scream inside trapped by terror, sheer and bright.

  ‘Wendy,’ he said quickly, ‘I’m not here to hurt you.’

  ‘N-no?’ she stammered, bewilderment in her eyes.

  ‘I want to talk to you about what happened to your husband.’

  ‘You’re a police officer?’ She sounded dejected as if she had no trust in them.

  ‘Used to be.’ He looked over her head, spotted a bus shelter on the corner on the opposite side of the road. ‘All right if we talk in there?’ he said.

  ‘Well, I don’t…’

  She looked back at the church as though some invisible voice was calling her. For a brief moment in time he wished he had her faith. ‘If you like, we could do this afterwards.’ Who was he to stand in the way of her weekly fix?

  She continued to look back over her shoulder, hovering, confused about what to do, then suddenly and, with great clarity of purpose, turned back towards him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’

  Together they crossed the road and sat down. Tallis told her what he knew about her husband, what he knew, with edited highlights, about Johnny Kennedy. He also told her that a friend of his had been shot while investigating Kennedy.

  Wendy Carroll shook her head sadly. ‘They never proved he gave the order. He was questioned but never charged. But I knew. I knew he was responsible. I knew it in my bones.’

  ‘Did the police ever tell you how they got wind of the information?’

  She shook her head again. ‘Some bloke, top man, apparently, Napier he was called, he came to talk to me, said they’d had a tip-off putting Kennedy in the frame, but without the evidence to prove it. Don’t have to be a brain surgeon to work it out,’ she said ruefully.

  So, Tallis thought, he was right about what Napier had on Kennedy. ‘But did he say who was responsible for Simon’s abduction?’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t think they ever found out.’ Oh, yes, they did. Brass was the sprat to catch the mackerel, Tallis thought, stealing one of Napier’s expressions.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said stoutly, ‘Kennedy was the man who ordered the killing. He never forgave Simon for what happened.’

  ‘What about you?’ His voice was neutral.

  ‘Me?’

  He nodded slowly, didn’t say another word, let it sink in. He watched her face change from shock to indignation.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Tallis leant back, spread his legs out in front of him, suggesting that he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.

  ‘Because of Simon you must have known that life, as you knew it, was over.’

  She looked down, twisted her small hands in her lap. ‘It’s been wrecked,’ she agreed sadly, her voice losing its sharp edge. ‘Sometimes I feel as if I’m in a witness protection programme without the protection.’

  A hook-beaked gull swooped down in the middle of the tarmac and walked along as if it owned the road.

  ‘That’s quite some house you had in town,’ Tallis said, abruptly changing the direction of the conversation. ‘Must have cost a bit.’

  ‘We’d saved up.’ The defensive note crept back.

  ‘Right,’ he said without conviction. The small hands twisted some more. ‘The night of the accident,’ he said, rolling the conversation again. ‘How many people were in the car?’

  Wendy Carroll swallowed hard. ‘Four, I think.’

  ‘You think?’ he said, sharp.

  ‘Four,’ she murmured softly. ‘Three were members of the same development team.’

  ‘And the party was held for the great and good of Birmingham City Council, that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘And your husband was driving his car?’

  She didn’t reply. She was looking far away and into the distance.

  ‘Wendy?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly.

  ‘No,’ Tallis repeated.

  A blade of sunshine popped out from behind a cloud illuminating the landscape.

  ‘Not only wasn’t he driving his car,’ Tallis said softly.

  ‘He wasn’t driving the car at all.’ Sure, he’d read the reports, seen the evidence, read the witness statements, all of them claiming Carroll to be the driver, but the grand house in Kingsbridge didn’t compute with the lowly dwe
lling the Carrolls left behind in Birmingham. There had to be a different story. Carroll, as the junior member of the party, conscientious and eager to better himself, was an obvious fall guy.

  ‘I didn’t want him to do it,’ she blurted out, turning to him with big, frightened eyes.

  ‘To take the blame?’

  She nodded, biting her lip.

  ‘Who was really driving?’

  Her small body shrank further into the bench. She reminded him of Orla, his niece, the way she hid and shut her eyes, believing that if she couldn’t see, she couldn’t be seen. ‘The head of the team, bloke by the name of Finch, Cain Finch. He’d been drinking and when he hit that man, Billy Kennedy, he panicked and drove away. I’m not sure when or whether they realised how serious it was, and I don’t know who exactly came up with the idea, but it was decided that they’d report to the nearest police station and say that Simon was driving. He hadn’t been drinking because he was on a course of strong antibiotics for a bad tooth infection.’

  ‘And he was happy to go along?’ Tallis was incredulous.

  She let out another weary sigh. ‘Simon was a good man. Everything he had he’d worked hard for. He worked in an environment where you have to go along to get along.’

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘There was money.’

  ‘He was bribed?’

  ‘By Finch.’

  ‘So that’s how you could afford your house.’

  ‘What nobody knew at the time was the identity of the victim. Had Simon known that it was Billy Kennedy, Johnny Kennedy’s son, he’d never have agreed to go through with it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the police this?’

  She looked down at her hands once more. ‘After what happened to Simon…’ Her voice petered out.

  ‘They bought you off, too.’ Tallis could feel heat under his skin, a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. It was really, really important that he receive a truthful answer to his next question. ‘Wendy, does anyone else know?’

  ‘About Finch? Only Simon, and he took that secret with him to his grave.’

  Except, Tallis thought, he didn’t.

  36

  * * *

  ALL the way up the motorway Tallis was haunted by the chilling image of Simon Carroll pleading for his life. In the mistaken belief they’d spare him, he surely confessed the truth. Not that it had done the poor sod any good. What surprised Tallis was that no reprisals had been taken against Finch. Carroll’s killers must have reported back to the boss. He found it inconceivable that Kennedy remained in the dark, even more inconceivable that he hadn’t taken revenge. Unless, of course, he felt too hamstrung by his new police connections. But not too constrained to order a hit on Garry? Tallis shook his head. Something was off.

  Checking in the mirror, Tallis clocked a Lexus bearing down on him. He pulled over into the middle lane, letting it pass. Returning to Kennedy, Tallis examined the man’s motivation for removing Garry Morello. Garry must have witnessed Kennedy’s conversation with Tardarti, but was that a reason for murder? What couldn’t be denied was that Brass and Reid, both men who’d worked for Kennedy, had killed Garry. It wasn’t a coincidence and because of that fact alone he felt rage and shame, rage for being out-smarted by Kennedy, shame for putting Gayle Morello under the spotlight, and drawing the wrong conclusions. Stephen was probably a lover, an old flame, perhaps. The most she could be charged with was indecent haste.

  For the rest of the journey he ran over everything he knew, re-examining the evidence, finding Kennedy innocent of certain things, guilty of others then changing his mind, but sure he was missing something. He was pulling into his drive when his mobile went off. He picked it up. It was Asim.

  ‘Thought you’d like to know we swooped on Ahmed at four yesterday morning and took him to Paddington Green. He’s protesting his innocence like crazy but so far we’ve found an incriminating CD-ROM in one of his garages on the sourcing and manufacture of explosives, a document in his cab office with information likely to be useful to a person preparing to commit an act of terrorism, and a load of books and audio cassettes with radical and jihadi themes.’

  ‘Careless of them,’ Tallis said. Surely, all incriminating evidence would be painstakingly removed? Somehow he’d imagined lots of sterile-looking, empty rooms.

  But Asim was in full flow. ‘We’ve only started to take his premises apart but we’re hopeful we’ll find more information. In the meantime, we’re picking up targets already under surveillance at a number of addresses in Birmingham, and Manchester and Leeds, and various premises have been secured and sealed off, currently being searched. Don’t be surprised if there’s a heavy police presence in the city tomorrow.’

  Tallis reckoned most of his old firearms colleagues would be deployed. ‘And Kennedy?’

  ‘Our conquering hero is currently under close protection.’

  ‘Your conquering hero,’ Tallis said bitterly, ‘was responsible for Garry Morello’s death.’

  ‘Is that so?’ No shock, no outrage.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘We suspected. There’s a difference.’

  ‘No, there isn’t.’

  Asim let out a sigh. ‘Paul, we’ve got a great result. Dozens of lives have been saved.’

  ‘What about Garry Morello? What about his widow?’

  What about Simon Carroll and the poisoned chalice he’d been handed? What about the fat bastard with his dog who Kennedy had arranged to have killed? And what was the point of discussing such matters?

  ‘I understand your feelings.’

  Tallis felt his voice stoop to a low growl. ‘You have no idea about my feelings.’

  ‘Look, we couldn’t have achieved any of this without you.’

  ‘Spare me the congratulations,’ Tallis said, icy, cutting the call.

  He sat for a full five minutes, drumming his fingers in vexation on the steering-wheel, feeling the anger expand and lift inside him. Didn’t matter a damn that he was under no illusions about the fucking horrible game he was caught up in, a game to be endured and lived with, to be sure, but not something he had to like. The only thing he’d been right about was that there were no good or bad guys, different degrees, different levels of, maybe, but basically they were all the same.

  He went indoors, took a shower and tried to wash some of the bitterness out of his soul. He would go to his mother’s home, share lunch with her and try and be a good son. After that, he would come back and reconsider his immediate future, work out what he wanted to do. Perhaps he’d go abroad, do some travelling, try and gain some life experiences.

  Running insanely early, a novelty for him, he decided to leave and drive to his mother’s anyway. He planned to pick up a bunch of flowers from one of the garden cum farm shops en route. He was about to make for the door when the doorbell rang. He peeked out of the spy-hole, saw his next-door neighbour’s son slouching on the doorstep, bottle of milk in hand. Tallis opened the door.

  ‘I’ve locked myself out,’ Jimmy said, staring at his trainers. What was it about young people? Tallis thought. They only ever seemed to make statements, hoping someone would catch on and spot the problem then, with a bit of luck, solve it for them.

  ‘That it?’

  The trainers started scuffing the ground. ‘Well, erm…thing is…’ He tailed off.

  ‘Yeah?’ Tallis grinned.

  ‘My parents are away, like.’

  That was the other thing about them. Every sentence got punctuated by like.

  ‘And I can’t get in.’

  ‘Yeah, you said.’ It was cruel of him, he knew, but he found the lad’s discomfiture mildly amusing.

  Deep ridges started to appear in the gravel outside his front door. ‘I was wondering, like.’

  Progress, he supposed. ‘Wondering what?’ Tallis said with an encouraging smile.

  ‘Whether you could help me get back inside.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Tallis laughed. ‘Wasn’t so hard, was it, crafti
ng an entire sentence all by yourself?’

  Jimmy’s stare from underneath the cover of his fringe was a mixture of embarrassment and belligerence.

  ‘Let’s have a look, then,’ Tallis said, putting his own keys in his pocket, shutting the front door after him.

  He did a quick circuit of the property, checking to see if doors were locked, windows secured, noting the sturdy Yale lock on the front door, deadlocks on the back and conservatory doors. The utility door, however, was warped with the recent rain.

  ‘I’m fucked, aren’t I?’ Jimmy said, sullen with it.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Tallis said, thinking it had been some time since he’d picked a lock.

  ‘You’re not going to break in, are you?’ Jimmy said, sudden worry in his eyes. ‘If there’s any damage, my mom will kill me.’

  Interesting balance of power, Tallis thought. Mother obviously wore the trousers. From what he’d observed, she wore the boots as well. ‘Don’t worry. If the worst comes to the worst there’s a trick I learnt when I was in the army.’ It wasn’t. It was something he’d learnt when he’d been with the police. ‘Tell you what, while I think about it, come over to mine for bit.’

  ‘Nah, s’all right. I’ll stay here.’ The morose expression didn’t shift.

  ‘How long have you been hanging around?’

  ‘Couple of hours. Went out for some milk, didn’t I?’

  ‘Stay out much longer and it will go sour.’ Bit like you, Tallis said. ‘Had any breakfast yet?’

  The lad shook his head.

  ‘Bacon sarnie do you?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ He glanced away. He didn’t look very comfortable, Tallis thought, remembering himself as a gawky fifteen-year-old, all raging hormones and a body doing weird things.

  ‘Well, I’m going to have one.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jimmy said, perking up a bit. ‘If it’s no bother, like…’

  ‘Come on,’ Tallis said, walking back towards the bungalow, Jimmy shambling along behind. He’d had an idea. He didn’t know where the hell it had come from, whether Jimmy had inspired it, but he knew he had to give it a shot.