by Joe McNally
Ben said, ‘Why not confront him before he knows? I get the feeling they were going to leave me in that bloody place for days.’
I said, ‘That’s one of the things that isn’t sitting right with me. I mean, it sounds like they were looking after you pretty well before moving you there.’
Ben said, ‘Three meals a day and about ten cups of tea.’
I said, ‘Then, out of the blue, they dump you in an old, cold, unused building with no security…well, no obvious security. It’s almost as though they expected us to find you.’
Alice said, ‘If they expected it, why the move? Why hide him somewhere different?’
I said, ‘But they moved him to where we found him at the first attempt, which suggests they know quite a bit about me, but, more importantly, about Mave and her skills. Now, I’ve never met Hines. Anything he knows about me,’ I nodded toward Mave, ‘about us, well, the easiest way to have got it would have been through Prim. He knows her well, but Prim says they haven’t spoken for years.’
‘Maybe she’s lying,’ Alice said.
‘Maybe she is,’ I said.
Mave said to Alice, ‘You think Prim has stayed with you, promised to look after you, slept in your house, and all the time she’s known where your Dad was?’
Alice shrugged, and glanced at her father. Mave said, ‘If you had to bet whether Prim knew or not, what would you say?’
Alice considered, ‘I’d say she didn’t know.’
Mave said, ‘You think she was genuinely worried about you and your Dad?’
Alice nodded, ‘I don’t think it could have been an act.’
Ben said, ‘And Alice has seen plenty of acting in her life, haven’t you?’
Alice said quietly, ‘No more guilt trips, Dad, remember?’
Ben blushed, and he reached across the table to touch her hand briefly.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes, and said, ‘Well, it’s got me beat. My brain’s too tired to sort through it.’ I got up, ‘I’d better let Monty know you’re safe, Ben. It was him that put us onto the link with DJ and Hines.’
Ben said, ‘I think I’d need ten lifetimes to pay Monty back for what he’s done for me.’
I said, ‘Do you want to give him the good news, then?’
‘No…No, you do it, Eddie. Tell him I’ll buy him lunch soon.’
Alice stood up, ‘I’d better let Mum know you’re okay.’
Ben turned quickly to her, ‘You told your mother?’
A spark lit her grey eyes, ‘She still worries about you, you know.’
‘When did you speak to her?’
‘I didn’t. I sent her a message on Facebook.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘Dad! How long has what been going on?’
‘Your contact with your mother.’
‘Does it matter? Really?’
‘Did it matter to her when you had nowhere to live? When you were in home after home? When you were risking your life in Deadwood?’
Alice went to him, her eyes wide, cheeks flushed, and she leant forward and she raised her voice, ‘Did it matter to…’ her top teeth were bared and she drew in her lower jaw and bit into her lip…she stared at him and tears filled her eyes and blood trickled out as her teeth went deeper, then she ran from the room.
Ben watched the empty doorway, and his eyes welled and tears spilled and as he bowed his head they fell straight like raindrops, and splashed on the old table.
I stood outside watching the sun come up through its cleft in the eastern fells. Below the farm, a sheet of mist almost hid Ullswater. The sun would soon burn it off and begin warming the lake. Another month and I might risk a swim, I thought.
I was reluctant to call Monty so early, so I sent a text message. Within a minute, he called me, ‘You found him! Ben’s safe?’
‘He’s fine, Monty, safe and well.’
‘Thank god for that! Who had him? Where was he?’
‘A guy called Kelman Hines had him locked up in one of his properties on the north west coast, not that far from where we found his clothes on the beach.’
‘Who is Hines? The name rings a bell.’
’Started out as a vet, then went into different businesses and built up what’s beginning to look like a small empire.’
‘What’s his beef with Ben?’
‘We don’t know, yet. And we don’t know if Hines knows that Ben is out. We’re just trying to plan the next move.’
‘Anything I can do?’
I laughed, ‘Probably! You’ve been an absolute star.’
‘Not at all. A couple of phone calls, that was all. Delighted to help.’
‘No doubt you’ll let Bruno know that his good work paid off.’
‘I will, of course. And don’t hesitate to let me know if you need him again to help deal with this Hines character, though it sounds to me just a matter of a call to the police, if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘I think you’re right. I just want to make sure all the theories actually produce some evidence.’
‘Well, as I said, pick up the phone to me at any time.’
‘I will, Monty, thanks. And Ben sends his thanks as well. Says he’ll buy you lunch very soon.’
‘I’ll look forward to that. And tell Ben I’m so glad to hear he is all right.’
‘I will. And I’ll let you know how it goes.’
'Please do.’
I put my phone away and smiled at the sun as it cleared the felltops. Things were beginning to slot neatly into place. Unusual. And welcome.
As I turned to go back inside, the door opened. It was Mave. She said, ’Spoken to Sir Monty yet?’
‘Just finished. Why?’
‘Walk this way.’
64
I followed Mave to her desk. She said, ‘Pull up a chair.’ I got one from the kitchen. ‘What’s up?’ I said, as she settled and touched a key to light her laptop screen. She said, ‘I’ve just been looking again at those shell companies and one of my searches threw this up,’ she clicked a link to open a page. I sidled closer and read the article.
It was about shell companies: what they were, how they were formed, which countries offered least resistance in setting them up. I said, ‘I’d have bet that the Cayman Islands and places like that would have been favourite for hiding all this corporate ducking and diving. America’s a big surprise to me.’
‘Me too. Money talks, as ever.’
I turned to her…she wouldn’t have had me read this just for the education, ‘Good article. Your point is?’
Mave moved her mouse slowly and scrolled up to a tiny line of text below the article’s headline: “By Ben Searcey”
I looked at her, ‘When was that written?’
‘Five years ago. And it’s the first in a series by Ben, laying the foundations for the main subject, corruption in sport.’ Mave clicked again and opened a PDF. Ben’s name was more prominent on this. Mave said, ‘It’s three thousand words on match-fixing in various sports, Ben’s sixth article in the series. I’ve learned a lot from it, main thing being that this is not the work of an alcoholic, or at least a practising alcoholic if you know what I mean.’
She watched me for a reaction. My sleep-starved brain could come up with nothing. I just sat there blinking, Mave turned again to the screen and clicked, ‘The shell that owns the betting shops-‘
‘The shell that’s owned by Kelman Hines?’ I asked.
‘Maybe. When I looked last night, or this morning, or whenever the hell it was, I checked the dates, which say Hines has owned that company for three years. But I’ve just been digging a few layers deeper in the server activity logs. The name of the owner and the date of origin were altered forty-eight hours ago.’
‘Altered to Hines?’
‘Yes.’
‘From?’
‘From a company called Valentine Elements Limited.’
‘Who are?’
‘Who are very, very protective of their privacy. I
need to do more work on it.’
‘Valentine, not Valentino?’
‘Valentine.’
I rubbed my eyes, ‘I knew this was too easy.’
‘It was even easier for Bruno, or, more likely, whoever Sir Monty uses as his IT hit man, his tech equivalent of Bruno. You call asking for help. An hour later Bruno rings you with all you need to know about Wannabet. Or, at least enough to have us digging out our fine-toothed-comb for use on Kelman Hines.’
I looked at her, ‘You think Bruno’s involved in this?’
She stared at me…I knew that look and I tried again, ‘Monty?’
‘Since you asked for his help, we’ve been bumping into an awful lot of happy coincidences.’
The floorboards on the landing creaked, then the stairs…Ben came through the doorway, a hand raised, partly in greeting, partly in apology.
‘All well?’ I asked.
He nodded, ‘The old wounds get opened from time to time…my fault.’
Mave said, ‘Does Alice need some company?’
Ben smiled as he went toward Mave and put a hand on her shoulder, ‘She needs some sleep, Mave, thanks.’
I said, ‘Mave came across some of your old work when she was checking out those shell companies.’
‘Must have been very old work,’ Ben said.
Mave said, ‘Five years ago.’ Ben looked puzzled, then smiled again, ‘My dry period. Alice, my wife, Alice, had finally seen sense and walked out. I begged for one more chance, which was actually my hundredth one more chance, and she came back.’
I said, ‘I’ll get you a chair.’
He raised a hand, ‘I’m fine, Eddie, thanks.’
I said, ‘It’s too cramped here. Let’s move to the kitchen. I’ll make coffee.’
‘I’m caffeined to the eyeballs, thanks,’ Ben said, following me to the kitchen. I turned to Mave, ‘I’m fine, Eddie.’
We settled at the table. Ben remained in confessional mood, the rawness from his row with Alice still obvious in his eyes.
He said, ‘I got a great commission from The Times to do a series on corruption in sport, and I actually managed to stop drinking in July…’ he pondered, ‘yes, July of that year. Lasted all the way through, well past Christmas…got that behind us, and the New Year,’ he smiled sadly, using his fingers to mark off in the air those two key dates, ‘then, at nine months, as though I’d been pregnant with it, out it popped again at the National, in Monty’s box…an old tale.’
‘The wrong champagne day?’ I asked.
Ben nodded, ‘Monty was mortified. He was mortified, I was mortal.’
Mave said, ‘Are you sure it was a mistake?’
Ben said, ‘As in?’
‘Could you have been given the alcoholic champagne deliberately?’
‘Who’d have done that?’ Ben said.
’Sir Monty?’ Mave suggested.
Ben looked at her, ‘Why would he do that? He was horrified when he realized what had happened, he even kicked off on the catering manager in front of all his guests, the only time I ever saw him lose his cool. It was the only thing that stuck in my mind from that day, how angry Monty was. Somebody got sacked for it.’
I said, ‘It was Calum Crampsey. Remember him? Assuming you knew him. Big racing man. Loved a bet.’
Ben frowned and looked past me as though searching for the memory. I said, ‘You’d definitely know his face, maybe not his name. He’d worked for Selby and Sampson for years. Covered the press room some days if he wasn’t in the hospitality boxes. Used to pester the hell out of people for tips.’
It dawned on Ben and his look changed, ‘Ah, I know the fella you mean! Nice guy, helpful, had been an assistant trainer when he was young?’
‘That’s him.’
‘And they sacked him?’
‘For bringing the wrong champagne. He was working as a wine waiter in that restaurant we went to for lunch the day of the panel hearing in Liverpool.’
‘Was he? Jeez, I didn’t even notice.’
‘He stayed out of sight until Monty had gone and then when you and Alice left to catch the train he came and sat with Mave and me. Couldn’t have been sorrier about what happened, but swore he’d brought the right bottle to Monty’s box.’
Ben looked away, ‘Poor bastard…what a day that turned out to be.’
‘Calum said he wrote to Monty after it happened, apologizing. Then he told me he was sorry he did that, wrote that letter, because it was like admitting something he didn’t do.’
Ben said, ‘Did it sound like he was telling the truth?’
I shrugged, ‘It did to me, but we all try and find ways out of the wrong things we’ve done I suppose. But if he was telling the truth then, well, what Mave said begins to make some sense.’
Ben reached and put a hand on my forearm, ‘Eddie, listen, I don’t know what I’d have done without you, but you’re barking up the wrong tree here, I promise you. Monty’s never been anything but helpful to me, well beyond the call of duty. I’ll tell you just how straight he is. That day we’re talking about in his box when I got so drunk I passed out. He found me a hotel, had his guy take me there and put me to bed, and next afternoon Monty comes to see me and hands me fourteen grand in cash.’
‘Fourteen grand?’
Ben slid his chair closer to me, smiling, ‘Listen to this,’ he said, ‘all of us at Monty’s table had put money in a syndicate that day to try a perm on the Tote Jackpot. Monty brought me my share of the winnings. Fourteen grand, and, that Sunday, the state I was in, I had no recollection whatever of being in any syndicate. How straight was Monty doing that?’
I said, ‘Well, he’s not exactly wondering where his next meal’s coming from.’
’Seriously, Eddie. Think about it. You know him almost as well as I do. There’s no bad in the man. I forgot a lot of things, but I never forgot what he did with those winnings.’
‘And what did you do with those winnings?’ Mave asked.
The fire went from his eyes, and his head went down, ‘I wrecked the rest of that year with it. I went on the biggest bender you’ve ever seen…’
‘And what happened to your commission from The Times on corruption in sport?’ Mave said.
Ben had that faraway look again, through the window at first and then his head steadily went down until he was staring at the floor. He said quietly, ‘It was never finished.’
Mave said, ’Never finished, or you never finished it?’
‘What do you mean?’ Ben said.
‘They didn’t hire somebody else to complete it?’
‘No, I don’t believe they did.’
I said, ‘Can you recall what your next piece was going to be about? I found six articles in the series.’
‘I’d done some research on money laundering through betting, though it was very early days.’
Mave said, ’Like the money laundering DJ’s guys were doing with the slot machines in the betting shops?’
‘That was part of it. I’d been looking at on-track bookmakers mostly. Some had been paying astronomical prices for pitches, well above what appeared to be their value.’
I said, ‘When you mentioned research, can you recall what sort of research? Had you spoken to anyone? Were you nosing around?’
‘I had my routine. I wouldn’t have questioned anybody I didn’t know, or anybody I was suspicious of. Not at that stage, anyway.’
‘Did you question Monty?’ Mave asked.
Ben frowned and ran his fingers through his hair, ‘I can’t remember. I might have done…I probably did. He knew as much as anybody about racing gossip, and he liked a bet.’
Mave said, ‘Can you recall the names of the people who’d bought those high priced pitches?’
‘No, I can’t. I might have some notes buried away on my…’
‘On your PC,’ Mave said, ‘which you no longer have. Did you backup online?’
Ben shook his head, ‘Just on a hard drive.’
’Still got it
?’ Mave asked.
‘God knows,’ Ben said, ‘Haven’t seen it for years.’
I said, ‘How would you feel about talking to Calum Crampsey? I could book us a table for tonight.’
Ben shrugged, ‘Fine. What are you thinking?’
‘He’d have been working in Monty’s box plenty of times. He could have picked up something that would help us here.’
Ben straightened in his chair, ‘Eddie, you can’t let him know, let anybody know you’re suspicious of Monty. I’m not putting my name to that. You’re on the wrong track here with Monty. I’d bet on it. You’ve been more than helpful to me, so I don’t mind talking this through, but I’m going to have to pull out at some point. I might as well tell you that now. I owe Monty more than you could know. I probably owe him more than even I would know.’
‘I won’t say a word against him to Calum, I promise. I’ll stick to what happened that day at the National if that makes you feel any better?’
He took a deep breath, ‘Okay. Let’s do that. It’ll give me a chance to tell the fella to stop feeling bad about what happened. I’ll settle for that.’
65
I checked that Calum Crampsey would be working that evening and booked a table for two. Ben was nervous about being seen in Liverpool. He was uneasy from the minute we set out to drive south, ‘What if Hines’s people spot us?’ Ben asked.
‘Hines never gave you any clue it was his people that were holding you, so why should he be worried? Besides, if Mave’s right, he’s not involved with DJ’s lot anyway.’
‘But if Mave’s right, then Bruno lied to you and that puts us back on this same old roundabout with Monty. I know Mave’s suspicious, and I know she’s clever, but believe me, she’s putting two and two together and making five.’
‘Let’s see what else she finds out.’
Calum was waiting just inside the door, smiling nervously. He shook Ben’s hand and clasped his left shoulder with his free hand, ’It’s been a long time, Ben. Good to see you again.’
‘And you, Calum.’
He showed us to a table at the rear. The place was half-full. Calum brought us the soft drinks we’d asked for. I said, ‘Have you time to sit for five minutes?’
