The Crime Trade

by Simon Kernick

  One man might know. One man might be able to help him find Mark.

  It might save a life. He thought of Judy being choked to death by that vicious little policeman and the thought brought on an angry flush. But still he didn’t move. Instead, he debated what to do in his mind, then debated it again. And again.

  Finally, when he could stand the guilt and torture no more, he swallowed his principles, rose from the bed and went to phone Trevor Murk.

  34

  Stegs drove the Toyota back out on to the Marylebone Road, and turned west, driving through the still thin early-morning traffic on to the Westway and in the direction of the A40. The A40 became the M40, and from there he turned south at junction 1A on to the M25, officially the busiest stretch of road in Britain. It was quarter to seven, and the commuters of south-east England were waking up and heading out on to the roads like less-than-mobile wildebeeste in their daily ritual of slow torture. Occasionally, he picked up banging coming from the boot, but he knew Judy’d be all right in there. Pissed off, perhaps, possibly very frightened, but all right nevertheless. Such was the dilapidated state of Stegs’s vehicle that it had a large hole on the underside beneath where the spare wheel was kept which would provide adequate ventilation for Miss Flanagan. So there was no chance of opening up the boot and discovering a corpse in there, which would have been a little unfortunate.

  The traffic on the M25 grew heavier as Stegs approached Heathrow, and for a while he was slowed down to less than twenty miles per hour, but things picked up again after junction 13, the Staines turn-off.

  Stegs was heading away from the crowded, clogged-up roads of Greater London, making his way to quieter, more isolated pastures, where he could release Judy without her being immediately discovered and the alarm being raised. Timing was all-important at this juncture. If her old man was alerted to her freedom too early, then it would fuck up everything.

  The M3 takes traffic to Southampton and the towns of the south coast of England, and gives the driver glimpses of the countryside that used to cover that part of the world before it was completely overrun with people and business parks. Stegs had come this way on holiday as a kid. While other kids had headed to France, Spain, the Greek islands and beyond, his family had always favoured the New Forest as a holiday destination. A sizeable national park containing hundreds of acres of unspoilt ancient woodland between Southampton and Bournemouth, it was definitely a nice place, but probably not the best of laughs for a ten-year-old boy. After all, there wasn’t exactly a lot to do, other than stroll through trees, and what self-respecting kid wants to do that? Stegs had been an only child, his mum having miscarried twice after him before giving up the idea of a second one as a pointless exercise, and his happy childhood memories were limited where holidays were concerned. If they weren’t in the New Forest, they’d be visiting affordable Second World War sites of interest in honour of his old man’s obsessions, which basically meant Normandy, and once, for a special treat, Dresden.

  It was nine o’clock on a beautiful sunny morning, the sort that makes you feel glad to be alive, when Stegs pulled off the M27 at the turning to Bolderwood, in the heart of the New Forest. Driving through the thick walls of pine, he had to admit that the place did have a certain serenity about it; he even found himself contemplating bringing the missus and baby Luke down here for a long weekend at some point. He hadn’t treated the missus well of late, and it was about time to make a concerted effort to get into her good books. She’d be happy enough soon, when he let her know that they could afford that holiday in France. He might have to be a bit careful about telling her how he’d got hold of the money, but the point was that from now on they were at least not going to have to worry about the Jenner finances quite so much.

  He slowed down as he came to a turning off the road he remembered from years back. It was little more than a dirt track which he knew led deeper into the woods. He turned up it and drove for about four hundred yards before parking up and making a cursory check that there was nobody about. Then he opened up the glove compartment and removed a balaclava and a pair of handcuffs he’d bought in a joke shop for a fancy-dress party he and the missus had attended years earlier. The party had had a ‘Cowboys and Indians’ theme; he’d gone as Sheriff Wyatt Earp, while the missus had dressed up as a Wild West good-time girl, complete with frilly dress, black hold-up stockings and a lady’s six-shooter. Them were the days, thought Stegs ruefully. The handcuffs weren’t that sturdy, but he was confident they’d hold a girl in Judy’s state, and he knew they’d never be traced back to him, even if her old man did decide to risk his career and liberty by making an issue out of it.

  He put the balaclava on, then went round to the boot and opened it up. Judy was still in the same position she’d got into when he’d put her in there earlier, and it looked like she’d been asleep. As the wooded half-light seeped into the interior she groaned and turned her face in his direction, Tino’s Tweety Pie sock still in place.

  ‘God, where are we?’ she said, her voice croaking.

  ‘Your dad’ll be coming to collect you soon,’ growled Stegs, ‘but you’re going to have to come with me first.’

  ‘Where’s Tino?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Did you hurt him?’

  ‘Course I didn’t. He’s fine.’

  ‘Who are you? And what do you want with me?’

  ‘Enough questions.’

  ‘Tino said he loved me.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘He said he loved me. He—’

  ‘All right, all right, that’s enough.’

  Christ, this was all he needed. She was meant to have been unconscious for the past two days, not conducting some sort of Patti Hearst-style love affair with a small-time porn star. Stegs wondered what on earth else she’d been discussing with Tino. And also, more importantly, how he was going to limit the damage.

  He pulled her out of the boot and held her upright, pushing the gun against her chest so she’d know it wasn’t worth resisting, then led her slowly into the trees. He could hear her sobbing and he felt duty-bound to tell her it was all going to be OK. Once again, she asked what he wanted with her. He knew he should have just kept quiet, that it wasn’t worth getting involved in a dialogue, but he could hear her crying gently against him as they walked and he could tell that she thought this was it, she was going to die, which was too much to expect any person to bear, particularly a young girl whose only crimes were that she liked a shag and had an arsehole for a dad.

  ‘It’s not you we want,’ Stegs told her, making only a minimal effort at a growl. ‘It’s some information from your dad. He’s given it to us now, so you can go free. I’ve got to leave you here for a while, but I’m going to phone your dad and tell him where you are, and then he can come and collect you.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Yeah, honestly.’

  She seemed to believe him, and Stegs felt better as he stopped by an oak tree, sat her down and placed one of the handcuffs round a low branch, the other round her wrist, and locked them both. Her arm was stretched, so he put the gun in his pocket and pushed her back against the tree to make it more comfortable. Then he dropped a small bottle of Evian into her lap, stepped to one side, and removed the sock.

  Judy blinked rapidly and tried to focus, but Stegs was already turning away, keen to get out of her field of vision before she remembered too many things about him. After all, one thing her old man was going to be doing was trying to work out who’d done this to his daughter, even if he couldn’t do much about it, and Stegs didn’t want to provide him with any obvious clues, particularly as he was already under some suspicion.

  She called out after him, asking when her dad was going to be there, but he ignored her and kept walking the fifty yards or so back to the car, at the same time punching a number into his mobile phone.

  35

  As soon as the Panner interview was wound up, and Panner himself returned to the cells, I head
ed back to the incident room with Malik.

  ‘What do you think about his story, John?’ he asked as we walked along. ‘All this stuff about hiring a gun, firing it, then replacing the bullet. I’ve heard more likely tales from Jeffrey Archer. I’m actually wondering whether he had anything to do with the whole thing at all.’

  I could see his point, but tried not to think that this entire lead might be a waste of time. ‘Roy Catherwood said it was a ninety-nine per cent probability that it was one and the same gun. At the moment, that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘Well, then Panner’s lying to us.’

  ‘I’ll at least check what he’s saying,’ I said, thinking that his story was so bizarre I wasn’t sure he could have made it up. ‘See if there’s anything in it. I know it doesn’t sound likely, but you never know. Stranger things have happened.’

  Malik raised his eyebrows. ‘Not many.’

  And then, ten seconds later, as we stepped inside the incident room, our conversation suddenly became irrelevant. The whole place was a frenzy of activity and it seemed like everyone in there was in the midst of pulling on their jackets, their faces alive with excitement.

  ‘What the hell’s happening?’ I asked.

  From out of the mélée stepped DCI George Woodham, who was in temporary charge of the case in Flanagan’s absence. A big man with an immense walrus moustache, he was wearing a grin that spanned the moustache’s entire length as he put an arm through the sleeve of his raincoat. ‘We were just coming down to get you both,’ he said. ‘The bloke you’re talking to definitely isn’t our man. Your girl Tina’s done a good job. She’s located the one we’re after. He owns a Megane, was in possession of a credit card used to buy one of those suits, and apparently matches the description of the killer perfectly.’

  I felt a real surge of pride. Don’t ever doubt Tina Boyd. ‘It’s not the accountant she went to see, is it?’ I asked.

  ‘No, it’s the guy the accountant lent the card to while he was away. Someone called Trevor Murk. Tina’s on her way over to his place now. She’s going to wait for us there.’

  36

  Tina turned her car into Milford Avenue, a quiet road of reasonable-sized one- and two-storey semi-detached houses a few hundred yards west of Barnet High Street. It was here that Bernard Stanbury and Trevor Murk lived, four doors away from each other. According to Stanbury, Murk was a friendly young man who didn’t appear to work for a living but was never short of money, and could often be found drinking in the Red Lion public house, not far from where they both lived. Stanbury had told Tina that he occasionally popped into the Red Lion for a pint on the way home after work on a Thursday and Friday night, and that was how the two had got to know each other.

  One night the previous summer they’d got talking, and somehow Stanbury had opened up more than usual, and had let on that he was heavily in debt. Murk had told him not to worry. ‘It’s all about playing the system,’ he’d explained. ‘There’s always plenty of money to be had, it’s just knowing how to coax it out.’ He’d then told the accountant about a scam he had going whereby he would get an acquaintance to rent him one or more of his credit cards which he would then use up to the maximum before giving the nod to the acquaintance, who would then report it or them stolen. Nobody, except the big bad credit companies, lost out. Stanbury had told Murk about a long weekend he was taking with the family, and it was arranged that Murk would have use of one of his cards for the duration for a fee of £300.

  Murk, it seemed, had made merry with the card, spending more than three grand on it, and in the process making the mistake that would go a long way towards putting him in the frame for murder.

  Tina slowed up as she passed Stanbury’s house. At the same time, the front door four houses down opened and a good-looking guy in his late twenties with wavy black hair stepped out, carrying a Nike holdall in his hand.

  She carried on driving, keeping an eye on him in her rearview mirror as she looked for somewhere to pull up. There was a space to her left about thirty yards further up the road and she reversed into it, only just managing to get in. She looked in her mirror again but Murk had disappeared temporarily from sight.

  Then she saw him on the other side of the road, throwing the holdall into his Renault Megane before getting inside, and she experienced a burst of adrenalin. This was what it was all about. The hours, the days, of mundane statement-taking and hunting for the tiniest clues had finally been rewarded. Tina was proud of herself at that moment, and rightly so. It was her persistence that was going to nail a man who’d killed at least three times, and on each occasion in cold blood. John was going to have to buy her a magnum of champagne now. For the moment, though, it was important to make sure she didn’t let Murk out of her sight, or get rid of whatever it was that was in the bag.

  He started the engine and pulled into the road, and Tina bowed down in her seat, making out that she was looking for something in her handbag. As he passed, she counted to three, then pulled out after him, pressing redial on the mobile and telling the controller at the other end that the suspect was on the move.

  37

  Neil Vamen knew that many people considered him a violent, murderous criminal of the worst kind, but it wasn’t how he saw himself. He was a businessman, an entrepreneur; a man in pursuit of the type of financial rewards and peer respect that plenty of other people pursue every day. Yet he was the one being punished, simply for following a well-worn path. Yes, he’d used violent methods in his business dealings, and a good many people had had their lives cut short on his orders, but it was a hard world out there, and in his line of business – the supply of those goods and services the ruling powers had decreed the populace couldn’t have – violence was a necessary prerequisite for getting the job done. Neil Vamen didn’t believe that any of the people he’d had executed in the course of his long and colourful career had been wholly innocent. Some, of course, had been less guilty than others, but one way or another all had made their livings in the same nefarious underworld he operated in, and therefore had to be prepared to face the consequences.

  It wasn’t even as if, by putting him behind bars, the ruling powers – those faceless bastards who made and enforced the laws – actually achieved their goal. If anything, they made the situation worse. Did crime in his manor suddenly stop the day they arrested him and broke up his powerbase? Of course it didn’t. It just meant that a dozen other young bucks – more violent because they had something to prove, and less time to prove it in – came looking for the scraps. And none, it seemed, was more violent than Nicholas Tyndall. Vamen knew Tyndall – in passing, anyway. They’d met several times when there’d been talk of a business deal involving Vamen supplying Tyndall with coke, but nothing had ever come of it. Vamen hadn’t liked him, hadn’t trusted the bastard, although even he was impressed by the way he’d moved in so quickly after the break-up of the Holtzes and his own arrest, and how quickly he’d come to dominate the manor.

  In fact, Tyndall could have probably enjoyed a reasonably successful criminal career if it hadn’t been for one thing: he was up against the best. Neil Vamen might be in prison, cooped up in a cramped cell deep in the maximum security of Parkhurst, but he still knew how to pull the strings and influence events many thought beyond his control. Already Nicholas Tyndall was paying the price for trying to step into a bigger man’s shoes. Soon enough he was going to have the Colombians after him for fucking up their deal. And that was going to be the least of his worries.

  As Vamen sat there now, enjoying a Montecristo cigar and a cup of Nicaraguan coffee while peering through the cell window into the morning’s spring sunshine, he felt freedom beckoning. The case against him was weak. It rested on one man. One man who so far had avoided the long reach of Vamen’s revenge, who’d escaped the attempts on his life carried out in Belmarsh, but who was now about to pay the price for attempting to save his own skin at the expense of others.

  Jack Merriweather had hours to live, no more than that
. Vamen wouldn’t regret his passing. They’d known each other a long time, but disloyalty was a crime more heinous than any other. Grassing to the coppers, giving evidence on their behalf . . . there could only be one punishment. And with Merriweather gone, the case would collapse and he’d be released, his reputation cemented for ever as the man who could do anything.

  He’d have to be careful, of course; couldn’t get too cocky. The powers-that-be would want him now, and want him badly. He’d be public enemy number one. But it didn’t matter. He was too clever for them. Always had been. And he remembered perfectly the old adage: let them hate me, as long as they fear me.

  And fear him they would. All of them.

  Including Tyndall.

  38

  For twenty-five minutes Tina followed him, first on to the A1, then down the Edgware Road in the direction of the West End. She kept well back, and traffic was heavy enough to allay any suspicion Trevor Murk might have that he was being followed. She kept the mobile on throughout the journey, feeding details of Murk’s movements to the control room back at the station, which then relayed them to the armed response vehicles and the members of the O’Brien murder squad as they converged on the route being taken.

  As Murk came up to the top end of Baker Street, keeping to the left-hand lane, a message came through to Tina from control advising her that DCI Woodham had given strict orders that she was to remain at a safe distance from the suspect, and not to attempt to apprehend him. Armed officers were being deployed to do that. Tina acknowledged the message and swung into the middle lane, two cars back, only just getting through the Marylebone Road intersection lights as they changed from amber to red.

  She acknowledged the message, but she wasn’t sure she could obey it. This was her collar. Her perseverance. She wasn’t a glory hunter, but she felt she deserved this one, and if she could take him safely and without unnecessary risk to herself, then she would do. There was no way she was letting Trevor Murk go.