Cut To Black

by Hurley, Graham

  “So how did Mark fit in? The brother?”

  “Bazza set him up in Gibraltar. He used cocaine money to stake him on a flat and paid for a year’s lease on an ocean-going yacht. The yacht was already berthed in the dockyard marina. Mark was in business within a couple of months. I’ve got the audit trail next door. Bazza didn’t put a foot wrong.”

  “And Mark would ship the cocaine over? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Absolutely not. Some of Mark’s contacts gave him a better deal at the Caribbean end but he’d developed delivery routes he trusted and saw no point changing any of that. Sailing the gear over in charter yachts is for the fairies. The Americans were using satellite surveillance, even then.”

  Bazza, he said, had always put his faith in couriers. Local guys from Pompey were bought a new suit and a plane ticket. Colombian cocaine was available wholesale on the island of Aruba, ten miles off the coast of Venezuela. The couriers flew the cocaine back to Amsterdam, on a through ticket to Heathrow, but left the flight at Schipol. Their suitcases, stuffed with cocaine, would be retrieved by paid baggage handlers at Terminal Two.

  “And it worked?” Faraday was looking at Imber. This was his territory.

  “Like a dream. The gear was skimmed from time to time but you’d expect that.”

  “What about Mark?” Faraday turned to Prebble.

  “He was still in Gibraltar. The first year he made the charter business pay. Bazza effectively controls it so that pleased him no end.”

  “It’s got a name? This business?”

  “Middle Passage. Mark specialised in rich dot. com kids with money to burn. He took them across to the West Indies and showed them the ropes. On the way back, they got to do it themselves. It was a neat idea.”

  “But there had to be more to it.”

  “Of course there was. Middle Passage, when you get down to the paperwork, is just another launderette. The company’s registered to a couple of local solicitors. Behind Middle Passage, there’s a front company, then another one, then a third. You have to wade through an army of nominees before you get anywhere near the name Mackenzie.”

  “And it works?”

  “Too right. Middle Passage is currently leasing five boats. That’s a flotilla. As a legit business, it’s paying the brother a fortune, but from Bazza’s point of view it’s even better than that. All these companies in Gibraltar enable him to recycle the money exactly as he chooses. It couldn’t be easier.”

  For most of the last seven years, he explained, Bazza’s boys the so-called ‘smurfs’ had been hand-carrying holdalls of cash on a near-monthly basis down to Gibraltar. Paid into various accounts in amounts of less than 10,000, they attracted no attention. As the offshore nest eggs grew and grew, Bazza also began to invest in a whole range of Portsmouth businesses, from a chain of tanning salons to a stake in a taxi firm, paying with nominee-authorised transfers drawn on the Gibraltar accounts. Cash that had left Pompey in a Nike holdall returned electronically months later, newly washed and ironed.

  “That simple?”

  “That simple. And it doesn’t stop there. I can show you a folio of properties abroad. Florida. Marbella. Dubai. Northern Cyprus. France. You name it. Plus, of course, Pompey Blau.”

  “That’s Mackenzie’s, too?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Faraday shook his head, amazed at the sheer reach of Mackenzie’s empire. Pompey Blau was a forecourt operation selling quality German cars from a site in North End. Over the past five years or so it had done amazing business, not least because Pompey Blau undercut every other outlet by at least 20 per cent. Faraday had lost count of the detectives in the city who were now driving around in near-new BMWs.

  “The business is in his name?”

  “No way. There’s a guy called Mike Valentine.”

  “I’ve heard of him.” Faraday was frowning. “Car dealer up in Waterlooville. Tied up with Misty Gallagher’s daughter. Right, Brian?”

  “Right. Man his age, should know better.”

  Prebble filled in the details. In the mid nineties, using money from Gibraltar, Bazza had staked Valentine’s plans for the hived-off sales operation that was to become Pompey Blau. Valentine picked up decent German vehicles at the big London auctions, mainly Mercedes and BMW. Heavily discounted, they sold in days to Pompey drivers looking for a bit of class. Seventy-five per cent of the profits went back to Bazza but Mike Valentine was still a happy man. Twenty-five per cent of that kind of turnover was a great deal of money.

  “It doesn’t end there, either.” It was Imber again. “Once we got into this properly, we realised that Mackenzie had built another clause into the agreement. We knew there had to be a route for shipping down the gear coming into Heathrow. Turned out it was Mike Valentine’s responsibility.”

  Once the cars had been bought at auction, substantial quantities of cocaine were stashed in the air-bag cavities. Protected from the possibility of routine stop searches, Valentine had been importing hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of Mackenzie drugs into the city.

  “We put all this together from the covert. We had a transmitter in his office and a Home Office warrant on his landline.”

  “He was talking to Mackenzie?”

  “Never. It was all done through lieutenants, people we can tie to Bazza.”

  “And?”

  “We let it run for a while. Like I say, none of it ever went anywhere near Mackenzie, give or take a bit of personal, so we hadn’t got a prayer there. Then Willard came under pressure for some kind of result so we plotted an interception. Just to keep them on their toes.”

  “When was this?”

  “Just before Christmas. Headquarters were final ising the budgets for the next financial year and Willard knew we had a case to make.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Nothing. It was a Mercedes, nice motor. We pulled it over just south of Petersfield. Three traffic cars plus the tail from London. Bloke at the wheel had been working for Valentine for a year. Claimed to know nothing.”

  “The air-bag cavities?”

  “Full of air bag. Complete mystery. The intelligence was good, we knew that. The covert was still live. We knew the dates of the incoming consignment, the pick-up point, the lot. We were looking at a couple of kilos, a serious seizure. That car was in bits once the vehicle boys had finished with it. Not a trace.”

  “So why did it go wrong?”

  “Good question.”

  “Was the covert still live afterwards?”

  “Briefly. The next day Valentine was on the landline to Bazza. Old mates. Told him the whole story, how a car of his got pulled over, towed away, the lot. Never mentioned drugs once.”

  “And Mackenzie?”

  “Laughed like a drain.”

  “Sending a message, then. For your benefit.”

  “Big time. Both the transmitter and the intercept went dead within minutes. You can imagine what a Christmas bash we had.”

  Faraday was gazing out of the window. Beyond the ferry port, a thin plume of dirty smoke was rising from the funnel of a moored frigate. A knock-back like that could slow an investigation to walking pace, he thought. No wonder Nick Hayder had kept the Spit Fort sting to himself.

  “So where are we now?” he asked quietly.

  “Bazza’s got to where he wants to be.” It was Prebble again. “Amanda Gregory runs the business side. She’s organised it like any medium-sized enterprise. Property-wise, she’s got a guy heading rental collections and another one in charge of scouting for new acquisitions. As far as cafe-bars, tanning salons, and the rest of it are concerned, that’s all down to Bazza’s wife. Let’s call these three people line managers. They report in to Gregory, and she runs all the major decisions past Bazza. Because Bazza’s not stupid, he pretty much agrees with everything she says, puts ticks in her boxes, sorts her out a profit-share at the end of the year. As a business structure, it’s textbook stuff. Bazza files his accounts and pays his taxes. Give him a
year or two, and he’ll probably be running the Rotary Club.”

  Faraday was watching an ensign unfurling on the stern of the frigate. Worse and worse, he thought.

  “So where’s the good news?”

  “There’s new legislation. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, we’ll be able to do him for money laundering. That has always been an option but until now we’ve had to tie him to a specific narcotics offence before the confiscation powers kick in. With the POCA, we can make a case, seize his assets, and then it’s down to him to show us where they all came from.”

  “And you think that’s possible?”

  “Definitely. And it goes way beyond Mackenzie. He’s stashed millions away by buying into properties and businesses and God knows what else, and he couldn’t have done any of that without the guys in the suits. You need conveyancing. You need binding contracts. You need the mortgages they never serviced. You need to get into all that legal crap. Believe me, there are solicitors in this city who should be packing their bags.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Absolutely. Screw Mackenzie under the Proceeds of Crime Act, nail him on a money-laundering offence, and the guys in the suits -solicitors, accountants have some tough questions to answer. They’re supposed to blow the whistle on dodgy transactions, and if they don’t then they’re in the shit as well. Believe me, there’s nowhere left to hide.” Prebble paused. “The way to hurt people like Bazza is to attack their money. If we can make a money-laundering charge stick and nick the money back off him, we’ve scored a result.”

  “What would he pull for money laundering?” Faraday glanced across at Imber.

  “That depends, Joe. He could be looking at fourteen years. But Martin’s right. It’s the money he cares about. For why? Because this bloody man’s spent his whole life stealing a march on the rest of us. That’s what’s put him where he is. That’s what’s given him the big house, and the cars, and the lifestyle, and the reputation. Take that away, and you’re left with a punchy little mush from the back streets of Copnor. You hear about his daughter’s wedding? The lovely Esme?”

  Faraday shook his head. He ought to get out more, he thought.

  Joyce was on her feet again. Another sheaf of photos. Faraday peered down at the first of the shots. An enormous group of men and women were standing in the sunshine. Mackenzie was in the middle, a short, squat figure bursting out of his suit and tails. Beside him, clamped to one arm, was the pretty blonde bride, her veil flung back, beaming at the camera. Faraday recognised the Cathedral in the background.

  Joyce was bending over Faraday, doing the introductions, one technicolour nail moving lightly from face to face. Relatives. Extended family. Mates from the old days. Mike Valentine. The owner of Gunwharf’s biggest nightclub. Two solicitors. Amanda Gregory. An architect. Two members of the Pompey first team. The general manager of the city’s biggest hotel. A research fellow from the university’s criminology department. A journalist from the sports pages of the News. The list went on and on, a tally of Portsmouth’s finest.

  There was a long silence. Prebble’s fingers had strayed to the purpled blotch on his forehead. Imber was still gazing at the photograph. The two men were waiting for Faraday’s reaction. Finally he glanced up at Joyce.

  “No coppers?” he enquired drily.

  Chapter 9

  THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2003, 10.00

  It was DC Suttle’s first visit to the city’s CCTV control room, a windowless, slightly claustrophobic bunker in the Civic Centre. He stood behind the duty shift leader, staring up at the banks of colour monitors racked side by side while Paul Winter negotiated two cups of coffee and a generous plateful of custard creams.

  “There. See what I mean?”

  The shift leader was demonstrating the reach of a new zoom lens on one of the CCTV cameras in the Commercial Road shopping precinct. A lifelong member of the Seventh Day Adventist church, he’d developed an obsession with the collapse of morality in the city. Portsmouth was awash with teenage mums and here was the living proof.

  Suttle found himself looking at a nubile young girl pushing a double buggy. Her skintight T-shirt stopped two inches above the waistband of her jeans and the piercings in the adolescent roundness of her belly gleamed in the chill March sunshine.

  “Nice,” he murmured. “What about her mate?”

  A left wards pan on the camera provoked another diatribe from the shift leader. If Suttle cared to come back on Friday night, any Friday night, he could watch infants like this screwing themselves stupid on the beach across from the clubs on South Parade. The pair of them couldn’t be a day over fourteen. It was his taxes paying for all these bloody handouts. What kind of society encouraged schoolgirls to fall pregnant?

  “Over here.”

  Winter dragged Suttle towards a smaller desk by the door. Beside the mugs of coffee were three video cassettes. Winter consulted a map showing the locations of each of the city’s CCTV cameras, then slipped the first of the cassettes into a replay machine. Toggling the pictures forward, he hooked a chair towards him with his foot and told Suttle to sit down. Finally, the stream of images slowed, then stopped.

  “See?”

  Suttle bent forward, peering at the screen. In the interests of keeping the tape budget under control, recorded video coverage was restricted to single frames grabbed every two seconds. At 02.31.47, the camera across from the town station had caught the arrival of a white Transit van. As Winter inched the sequence forward, the van did a U-turn on the approach road, and then backed towards the side entrance that led onto the station concourse. On the panel of the van, plainly visible, was the name of a local building firm.

  “Mates of Bazza’s,” Winter grunted. “Bloke that runs it still turns out for his football team. Not bad for forty-three.”

  “We’re talking Blue Army?”

  “More grey than blue but yeah.” He toggled forward again. “Same bunch of blokes.”

  A heavy-set man, jeans, leather jacket, had suddenly appeared from the passenger seat. Several frames later, with the aid of a slighter figure, he was hauling someone out of the back. Then, abruptly, they’d gone.

  “This one I got from the Transport Police.”

  The screen went blank as Winter loaded a second cassette. Spooling through, he kept his eye on the digital time code The picture showed the station concourse, grey and empty, a row of shops on the far side barred and shuttered. At 02.32.35, the same two men appeared, jumping forward frame by frame. Supported between them, his feet trailing behind, came the limp body of the youth in the back of the van. As he passed the camera, his face was plainly visible.

  “What’s that?” Suttle touched the screen. On the monochrome image, blotches of black masked the lower half of the youth’s face.

  “Blood. The big fella is Chris Talbot. Did a couple of stretches for GBH in his 6.57 days. The other one is new to me. Way too young for the 6.57.”

  “More mates of Bazza’s?”

  “Talbot definitely. Same school, same class probably. He’s been around Bazza forever. Famous scrapper. Bazza used to use him for muscle when he couldn’t be arsed to do the business himself. Nice bloke once you take the wrapping off. Bright, too. Never lost a pub quiz in his life.”

  Suttle was watching the sequence unfold. Once they’d got to the ticket barrier, both men let the youth slump to the concourse. While the younger of the two wiped his hands on his jeans and wandered across to a vending machine, Talbot dug in his pocket and produced a pillowslip. Bending low, he mopped the youth’s face, then hauled him into a sitting position. Semi-conscious, the youth began to struggle. Two seconds later, his head had flopped sideways, the rest of his body propped against the barrier. By the time the men turned to leave, the wreckage of his face had disappeared inside the pillowslip.

  “That’s just in case his mates don’t get it.” Winter had zoomed the picture until the ghostly white outlines of the youth’s head filled the screen. “Remember the way we found young Tracy?
Bazza’s returning the compliment.”

  “But the Scousers didn’t do it. Isn’t that the story? Tracy wasn’t down to them.”

  “Exactly. Which might make things tricky. These kids know no fear. Getting whacked for something they didn’t do won’t amuse them in the least.”

  Winter got to his feet, handing control of the toggle to Suttle. While Winter bent to the map again, scribbling camera designations in his notebook, Suttle played the rest of the sequence.

  “Look…” Suttle was laughing.

  Winter glanced up. On his way out of the station, Chris Talbot had paused beneath the camera, staring straight up at the lens. After a graceful bow came the raised middle finger. Then the big face split into a gap-toothed grin. Three frames later, both men had gone.

  “You want to go back to the van? See what happened?”

  “No.” Winter was already heading for the shift supervisor. “This is a bit of a punt but let’s see where it takes us.”

  The supervisor dug around in the cupboard where he stored the recorded tapes. Last night’s were on the bottom shelf, yet to be rewound. He sorted through them, checking against Winter’s list, then extracted four.

  “Edinburgh Road first.”

  Edinburgh Road was a stone’s throw from the station. Winter spooled back the tape until the time code read 02.31.00, then jabbed a finger at the screen. As the images hop scotched backwards, Suttle watched the same white van reverse towards a set of traffic lights.

  “Where next?”

  “My money’s on Portsea.” Winter was already loading the next tape. “The Scouse kid may have been there last night on business and gone on to Gunwharf afterwards with a wad of cash. Talbot drinks at Forty Below. Maybe they clocked him there, followed him back to a car. He’d have parked locally. No way would he pay Gunwharf prices.”

  Portsea was a couple of square miles of council flats and Victorian terraced housing that lapped against the walls of the new Gunwharf development. The area scored heavily on every major index of deprivation, and offered drug dealers rich pickings.